“You mean to tell me that my data is going to incriminate them, you’re going to arrest them, and their pals are going to remember me and hold a grudge?” Reese asked, aghast.
“That’s about the size of it,” the Tam-illee said. “Most of the time they get distracted easily, though. If you lay low for a while they tend not to bother with revenge.”
“It’s not like we’re going to be running cargo any time soon anyway,” Irine said. “We’ve got a lot of repair work to do.”
“I can’t believe this,” Reese said. “Can’t you do something about it?”
“If we had enough manpower to assign a convoy to every freighter working the shipping lanes we’d do it in a heartbeat’s pause,” NotAgain said. “Unfortunately we’re spread a bit thin for that. All I can advise you is to head further into the Core and stay out of sight for a while. Take a vacation, if you like.”
“A vacation!” Reese exclaimed. She closed her eyes. “How long a vacation?”
“Certainly no longer than a year—”
“A year!”
“But at least two months,” NotAgain continued. “Three or four to be safe. I’m sorry, ma’am. It’s just a recommendation.”
“Thanks,” Irine said. “We appreciate the advice. We’ll send the reel to you later today.”
The Tam-illee smiled. “Thanks, ma’am. If there’s any question we can answer we’ll be glad to help. I’m border patrol liaison for Frontier Three... just use the Fleet broadband and we’ll be glad to help.”
“Thanks, we will,” Irine said. Once the man had gone, the tigraine leaned over. “You okay, Reese?”
“Four months to a year!” Reese said.
“Two to four months,” Irine said. “We have to make repairs anyway. We can do them in the Core just as well as we could out here.”
“But the Core is more expensive,” Reese said. “Besides, I thought if we got rid of Hirianthial the pirates wouldn’t care about us anymore!”
“They probably wouldn’t have if our escape hadn’t seemed to lead to their arrest,” Irine said. “But would you rather them not get arrested?”
“Of course not,” Reese said. She sighed and covered her eyes with a hand.
“It’ll be okay, Reese. You’ll see.”
“I hope you’re right,” Reese said.
Most of the time Hirianthial did not envy his cousin’s talent for pattern-sensing for he’d never observed it to bring her happiness. Satisfaction, occasionally, but never joy. It had shaped her as inevitably a carver’s knife did wood, transforming her from a mercurial child into a planner of great effectiveness with an escape route in every muff pocket and a raft of cushions against contingency. She never worried, but she never rested either. Her power continually warned her of the changing currents in the world and the situations those currents might inspire. Most people accused her of manipulation. She didn’t deign to answer such accusations and had acquired the many enemies one might have expected of someone in power with power. No, he rarely wanted her talent.
Today he wanted it. He wanted to know where the pattern was moving him and where he should position himself to give it better access to his tired body, to sweep him away to a place where he no longer had to think or act. After six hundred years, a man grew tired of living with the thousands of consequences of his thoughts and actions.
A starbase was a busy place, no matter how far from civilization one traveled. Exiting the Medplex, Hirianthial merged into the stream of aliens heading further in from the docks. He didn’t question the direction the stream took him but contented himself with following it. He had no other place to go, no pressing business, no work to report to. He supposed at some point he would have to make arrangements for the release of his luggage; he’d had it placed in storage here before embarking on Liolesa’s little mission....
Liolesa’s mission. He’d survived it and been sprung from his prison with the information she wanted. He still had duties, then. A secure comm facility first, then he could find someplace to eat and try to decide what to do now. If he was lucky, Liolesa would have some other ridiculous task for him.
Perhaps she would ask him to come home. He wondered if he would acquiesce.
Hirianthial walked toward the residential areas, where shops and services would be interspersed with smaller gardens and restaurants. As he entered the more populated areas he spotted several of the stranger species among the first and second generation engineered races that composed most of the Alliance: here and there a Phoenix like Reese’s engineer, trailing metallic feathers on the ground, or one of the great horned Akubi, head ducked to talk to smaller companions. For the most part the crowd was Pelted: humanoid but with the marks of the animals from which they’d been designed, fox and feline, wolf and any number of other influences. He’d found occasional humor in the realization that humanity had spawned more than one prodigal child in the galaxy. The Pelted had run away and eventually invited their parents to join them.
The Eldritch hadn’t even told their parents they were related.
No doubt people wondered as they did about every species that looked suspiciously like humanity, but no Eldritch would ever confirm such a rumor. It was part of the Veil, the same Veil that drove Hirianthial to the high-security facilities closer to the short-term hotels for the well-heeled. He paid the solemn man at the silver gate enough to feed Reese’s crew for a week and passed into the intimately lit foyer that led to several dark chambers. His was number six. He walked in, closed the door and checked the seal; he didn’t have the tools for more a sophisticated check and would have to trust his coin had bought him privacy.
It hadn’t bought him a Riggins-encrypted stream, but he laid out the money for one on the outgoing call and waited as it went through its complex security routines on the way to the Queen. He wondered what time it was at home.
Delairenenard answered the call in formal midnight blue dinner coat sparkling with silver embroidery; as always he was the picture of poise, his face smooth of any emotion despite how long it had been since Hirianthial had been seen or heard from on the homeworld. “My lord Hirianthial! How good to see you.”
“Chancellor,” Hirianthial said. “I regret interrupting your supper. May I have the Queen’s ear?”
“A moment, if you would. I shall inform her of your call.”
Not just a formal dinner, but one with enemies, then. If she’d been dining with allies Delairenenard would have promised her presence. Hirianthial wondered how much more knotted the political situation had become in his absence. It had never much interested him despite the influence bequeathed by his inheritance, but it had been hard to avoid the consequences of the poor decisions made by successive generations of Eldritch. Halting the decline of their species was the Queen’s priority, but all the solutions she’d suggested had not been well received by a species deeply in love with its own cultural pride. He had not envied her the resulting mess.
Hirianthial waited a good fifteen minutes before the Chancellor returned. “The Queen, my lord.”
The man bowed away and Liolesa sat across from him. She had dressed for dinner with political opponents, and as always she looked her best when girded for battle. Something about it gave her back the flush of youth. He could practically smell her perfume, the aggressive bouquet of ambergris and thorn marten musk she wore only to disarm her enemies. Her pale, cool eyes, her aristocratic face with its lines sharp as swords, her throat and white breast with their deceptively feminine promises, all of it he remembered too well. He loved his Queen but the world she lived in exhausted him.
And it hurt to see again a noblewoman’s gown, embroidered in pearls, and to see the long braided coil of a woman’s hair, threaded through with opals and electrum chains.
“You have survived our task, cousin.”
“You sent an able rescue,” Hirianthial said. “I have what you want.”
Her gaze sharpened. “Who is it?”
He drew in a deep breath. For all her
ability to sense patterns, Liolesa could not pull names for unseen aggressors out of the air. She’d known a power moved behind the abduction of their people off-world despite the otherwise loosely-connected organizations in the slave trade, had nursed suspicions, but hadn’t known a name.
“The Empire,” Hirianthial said, and released her from the prison of uncertainty.
“The Chatcaava,” Liolesa breathed. They shared the silence together. He didn’t have to guess her thoughts; they were following the same line his had when he’d found out. Being abducted by petty villains was a bad enough fate. Knowing that the shapechangers were behind it... he’d spent not an inconsiderable time grieving the fate of those who’d gone into their taloned embrace... grieving, and fighting the anger that was no longer his to wield in the name of throne and deity.
She didn’t ask him if he was certain. She didn’t question how he’d done it. All she did was meet his eyes and say, “Thank you.”
And like that, she would have concluded their call had he not cleared his throat. “There’s no other task which requires my service, my liege?”
“You have already done enough,” Liolesa said. “What comes next is not for you.”
Just like that, she’d freed him. “This woman, my lady. The human.”
“Theresa?” Liolesa said, then chuckled. “Quite a treasure, is she not? Stay with her if you can. She’ll take care of you.”
“I don’t need a woman to take care of me,” Hirianthial said.
“Nonsense, cousin,” Liolesa said. “It’s just what you need and well you know it. Do you need a command? Very well. Go to her. She won’t lead you astray.”
“My lady—”
“We will talk to you soon enough. Give me some report of your doings when you have time. Until then, good evening, cousin.”
The stream terminated, leaving him with a blank screen. After a moment it flashed his final total and debited his account. He sighed and rubbed his forehead. When he’d hoped for Liolesa to tell him how to fit back into the pattern, he’d been anticipating a new task he could start with a glad heart, not the injunction to return to a woman who’d already sent him away. He sometimes suspected Liolesa believed all his problems would dissipate once he resolved his grief over his role in the death of the last woman in his life. Sometimes he remembered growing up with Liolesa the fierce and irreverent child, and that intimacy made him long, briefly, to shake her.
Standing outside the comm facility, Hirianthial decided he’d worry about whether or not to follow the Queen’s directive after lunch; Reese couldn’t leave the Medplex for another day anyway. That meant having his luggage delivered could also wait. Consulting the base directory brought up a list of well-reviewed restaurants. He chose the most likely one near him and headed that way.
While standing next to the fountain leading into the restaurant and waiting for a table, Hirianthial sensed a muted yellow aura gliding against his. A moment later, Sascha stepped up beside him.
“Mind if I join you?”
“Only if I’m buying,” Hirianthial said.
“Deal.”
“And if you tell me how long you’ve been following me.”
The tigraine folded his hands behind his back. “Since you left the Medplex.” He glanced up at Hirianthial. “I was sitting outside the comm station long enough to read half a magazine. Did that go well?”
“You are curious,” Hirianthial said. The maitre’d noted his party’s addition without so much as a change in expression and brought them to a table outside in the patio. The yellow stone tiles and the plain wooden beams had been shrouded with blooming tropical flowers. Hirianthial had passed through enough starbases not to be surprised by the simulation of nightfall, but the candles on the table were still a welcome touch.
“It’s not curiosity,” Sascha said, once they’d unfolded their napkins and requested something to drink. “I was hoping you weren’t about to get sent off somewhere else.”
“Why does this worry you?” Hirianthial asked. “Your mistress has made it clear that my business isn’t of any concern to her or her people any longer.”
“Well, that’s where she’s wrong and you’re wrong.” Sascha set his menu down with a wrinkled nose. “I hate menus without prices. You order for me.”
Hirianthial cocked a brow at him, but did as requested. With no more distractions, he folded his hands on the table and waited for the tigraine to elaborate.
“Look, we’re no challenge for Reese.”
“And she needs a challenge,” Hirianthial said.
Sascha nodded, cupping his hands around his cup of kerinne. Hirianthial had never developed a taste for the hot cinnamon drink, though he suspected it would be favorably received on his homeworld.
“Because...?” Hirianthial prompted.
“She’s not happy,” Sascha said simply.
“She’s not happy.”
“No,” the tigraine said. “She’s been doing this freighter thing for a while, and she’ll have you believe that she’s doing it for the money. And it’s true that she’s easier to be around when we’re not in debt... but then, who isn’t? But this thing with the Earthrise... it doesn’t make her happy. And we aren’t enough of a distraction from that.”
“And this role you want me to fill? Wouldn’t it be easier to suggest that she find another line of work?”
Sascha laughed. “You’ve known her long enough. You tell me if that would fly.”
Hirianthial considered it and smiled. “I suppose not. I’m still not certain where I come into this picture. My arrival wasn’t exactly auspicious.”
“Well, she was going to have that problem with her esophagus sooner or later, right?”
“Sooner, most probably,” Hirianthial said.
“So it’s not like you not being around could have prevented that. As it was you kept her alive. Not only that, but you kept her kicking.” The tigraine traced the rim of his cup. “This is kind of hard to explain. It’s more a feeling than anything I can point to directly. But it’s like having you around draws her out of herself. She’s more of everything on the outside, and less of it on the inside, where she can bottle it up.”
Which was the finest description of a common cause of physical ailment-inducing stress as Hirianthial had heard from a layman. “Granted that I make a good distraction, which I suppose I shan’t argue... there’s still the small matter of your captain not wanting me on her ship.”
“Oh, she didn’t mean that,” Sascha said with a wave of a hand. “She might have said it then but it was anger talking. If you come back she’ll still be angry but she’ll be more likely to keep you around. She’s fascinated by people who don’t go away. Besides, when you tell her that you don’t need her to pay you, she’ll have to relent.” The tigraine eyed him. “You don’t need to be paid, do you? You seem wealthy enough.”
“I can take care of my own needs,” Hirianthial said.
“So she won’t be able to object on those grounds,” Sascha said. “Plus we wouldn’t mind having a doctor around.”
“You’re certain you can convince your mistress to take me aboard?”
Sascha shook his head. “It’s not about me convincing her, me or anyone else. She didn’t really want to send you away. She never wants to do most of the things she forces herself to do by deciding them when she’s upset. It’s just that she feels trapped into following through on her promises. Even the stupid ones.”
The silent waiters arrived bearing a plate with a duck stuffed with rice, mushrooms and white broccoli in a blush wine sauce with cream and shallots. One of them carved the duck into pieces onto smaller dishes as the other poured Hirianthial his wine. They left after setting the plates before them, and though Hirianthial believed in Reese’s poverty he noted with interest that Sascha did not seem at all unaccustomed to being served.
“So you think she’ll change her mind,” Hirianthial said when they were alone. “You haven’t told me why I should do this.”
“I didn’t think I had to, Healer,” Sascha said. His yellow eyes flicked up to meet Hirianthial’s, and then demurely lowered again to his plate.
For a moment Hirianthial couldn’t move. Then he relented and laughed, low. “Why does she need me when she has you?”
“I may see clearly sometimes, but I’m still Harat-Shariin in my heart,” Sascha says. “I can’t see why she won’t do the things she should to make her happy because... well, I would in her place. I can’t help her. I can’t offer her solutions that she’d be willing to do.” He smiled without humor. “The humans wanted to create aliens when they made the Pelted and for the most part they failed... but I think the Harat-Shar actually are different enough from the rest of the Alliance to cause problems. We don’t love the way you love.”
“And you know something about how Eldritch love,” Hirianthial said.
“No, but I can guess,” Sascha said. “And I imagine a society that doesn’t even look fondly on doctors touching their patients isn’t all that conducive to the kind of love I would espouse.”
Hirianthial let that pass. “You’ve been with the Earthrise for some time now. Tell me how the days are spent there.”
Sascha spoke at length about the adventures of trading cargo and playing special courier to the occasional client; about the games Reese played with the thermostat to keep him and Irine from surprising her with their amorous interludes and their secret (if rather cramped) solution to that problem; how Kis’eh’t and Bryer’s arrival had changed the tenor of their workplace; and most of all about Reese, about Reese’s stubborn determination in the face of debt and disaster, her tendency to worry, her unexpected and clumsy displays of affection. It made a fine counterpoint to the meal. Hirianthial wasn’t certain when between stories Sascha found time to eat but the tigraine finished his meal around the same time Hirianthial set down his own fork.
As they waited for the server to return with the final bill, Sascha leaned forward. “So, did it work?”
Earthrise (Her Instruments Book 1) Page 11
