by Drew Seren
As he followed her across the wide hall that ran across the top of what appeared to be a communal space, Skylar laughed. “You know he’s always hungry.”
“I am not.” Filzbalm sounded indignant. “After I eat, I am not hungry for at least two hours.” His words were loud enough that Skylar knew Solaria had heard him.
Blizza drew in a quick breath, causing Skylar to turn toward her. The old woman’s eyes were large and she stared at Filzbalm.
“I think she can hear me,” he said. “I didn’t think most people could.”
“I’m not most people.” Blizza’s mental voice was a lot stronger than her physical one had been.
Solaria sighed. “Aunt Blizza, you know it’s not polite to listen in on other people’s conversations, even if Filzbalm is a bit loud occasionally.” She touched Skylar’s elbow and continued into the hallway that spiraled down, below ground level. “You’ll have to learn to ignore her most of the time. She’s not all there. Something happened to her way back when, before I was born. Nobody likes to talk about it, but it impacted her reader abilities. She frequently can’t control them, but luckily, she’s not very powerful anymore. If she was as strong as Professor Aduncus, we’d all have major problems.”
“Then how was she able to hear Filzbalm?” Skylar asked as the stairway came to a landing where there were two doors.
“I don’t know, other than he is rather loud.” Solaria didn’t pause on the landing, continuing down.
“He’s loud so you can hear him, but that shouldn’t carry very far, unless this is somehow tied to her gifts not working right anymore.” Skylar wasn’t sure if he wanted to talk to the old woman and find out what had happened to affect her mind so badly, or if he wanted to avoid her and her out-of-control reader powers.
“Hard to say.” Solaria kept going past another landing and another two doors. The stairs continued to spiral down, and things grew a touch warmer. “My folks have always been fairly quiet about her. She’s dad’s sister—that’s why they take care of her, and for the most part she’s harmless.”
“It must be nice to have extended family nearby,” Skylar said as Solaria finally stopped at a set of doors on the third landing. “It was always just me and my mom.” It suddenly hit him that he’d missed out on a lot. Sure, he’d had Teir, and Teir’s family had always treated him like one of their own, as it had been the Hummassan way to take everyone in and make them part of the clan, but he’d never had anyone more than his mother to be close with. It didn’t feel fair.
She opened the door on the left. “This one’s yours. Sometimes family can get to be a bit much, but neither Blizza nor Phil have kids of their own, and my folks were limited to just me after that order from the Galactic Council a few years ago to restrict family size on most developed worlds. So this is all the family I know, but with us all being psychic to one extreme or the other, it can get fairly crowded around here with just us.”
“I know a lot of people on Hummassa were happy they weren’t considered a completely developed world when that decree came down. The natives there like large families.” Skylar walked into the room and carried his duffle over to the mid-sized bed with the thick blue comforter on it. There was also a small desk made from some dark stone, and a matching chair of a similarly dark wood.
“Looks like Mom gave you three blankets. If you need more, let either one of us know and we’ll get you some.”
“Three blankets?” Skylar stared at the bed for a moment. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever slept under three blankets. There were times in Hummassa he’d never used a sheet because it was too hot to get comfortable with one over him.
Solaria nodded. “We’re not really set up for lots of heat, but if something happens to Filzbalm’s ring, we’ll make sure it’s warm enough in here for him, even if we have to bring in a wood stove or something.”
“Oh.” Skylar was suddenly at a loss for words. He’d known it was going to be cold, but he really hadn’t been prepared for the reality. He realized the cold he’d felt when he’d gotten out of Phil’s hover car could get a lot worse if he wasn’t properly equipped.
“Tell you what, why don’t you change into the thermal suit you generated?” Solaria slunk toward the doorway. “I’m going to stash my bag and go see if Mom needs some help. Just follow the stairs up when you’re ready. If you go down the stairs, you’ll just end up in storerooms.”
“Okay.” Skylar went to his duffle bag. “You think I should hang anything up?”
Solaria paused and shrugged. “Guess that’s up to you. I don’t normally. I just live out of the bag until I’m ready to go.” She pointed to the door near the bed. “There’s a closet and a bathroom through there.”
“Thanks.” He waited until she closed the door behind her to unzip his bag. As he dug out the thermal suit he’d generated for the trip, Skylar wondered why all the Pantherians he’d seen so far had been clothed. Both Solaria and Del had warned him that Pantherians preferred to go unclothed even in their frigid weather.
“Maybe they’re being polite,” Filzbalm suggested as he fluttered from Skylar’s shoulder to land on the bed next to the bag.
“Could be.” Skylar found the thermal suit and pulled it out. “I’m not sure how I’d feel about seeing Solaria or her mother naked.”
“I really do think most humanoids spend too much time worrying about their clothes.” Filzbalm stretched out on the bed and looked very content as Skylar started to change. “I’ve observed how a lot of the students at Stars’ End spend much time primping and making sure everything’s just perfect with their appearance.”
“I think that’s because the boys want to look good for the girls and the girls want to look nice for the boys.” Skylar wasn’t sure he wanted to have that kind of discussion with Filzbalm at that very moment. Years earlier, when his mother had spoken to him about sex, he’d simply nodded and did his best to figure out what she was talking about. Apparently she thought she should be explaining things, but he’d never really had any stirrings, as she called them, about any of the kids in school. Faced with the possibility of having to explain things to Filzbalm, Skylar found the prospect unsettling.
“But you, Del, and Solaria don’t’ seem to worry that much about your appearance. Melody worries more about it than you three do, as does Connor, but Fin doesn’t. Come to think of it, a fair number of the non-humans don’t worry as much, although I noticed that Felicianana kept trying to wave her hair at someone I couldn’t see through the door on the flight here. Since there were several people across the main compartment from her, I am unsure who it would’ve been.”
Skylar hadn’t been aware Filzbalm had been watching the others through the cabin door, although the Solar Drake often seemed fascinated by the actions of the people around them. “She was probably flirting with Mutanio. Solaria says that even though he’s a butthead, he’s one of the more desirable male Pantherians at school. And since she’s one of the more desirable females, he can’t understand why she puts him off the way she does.”
“Maybe I should ask her. Maybe if she knew Felicianana was interested in him, Solaria might also take an interest.”
“I doubt it.” Skylar slipped into the thermal suit. It was tighter than he had expected, fitting him like a second skin. But as he pressed the auto-close seam shut, he was instantly several degrees warmer. He wasn’t sure he wanted to take it off until he was off Pantheria.
“But I wouldn’t offend her if I asked, would I?”
One of the other things Filzbalm was constantly worried about was offending people. Skylar didn’t know where that came from, other than the need Solar Drakes had to please and revere The Mother of All Drakes. That might have made him more sensitive to offending others. “Probably not. But I’d keep your voice down around Aunt Blizza. If she can hear us talking, she might say things you don’t want her to say.”
“You might be right.”
Skylar dug out the brown heavy leather jacket he’d generated at S
olaria’s suggestion. He put it on and looked at himself in the mirror. He’d done that at school too. There was something about the way the leather felt that he liked. He couldn’t really explain it. It was just better than the synthesized fabrics he was always wearing at school. Maybe it was closer to organic, like he was used to on Hummassa. He wasn’t sure, but he didn’t want to recycle it when he got back to school. He wanted to keep it for occasions when he might need it.
“Okay, Filzbalm.” He sat to pull on his boots, also leather, and better suited for an unusual environment than the simple shoes he wore at school. “You ready to go get something to eat?”
“Always.” Filzbalm gave a final stretch, then flew up to Skylar’s shoulder. The leather was so thick Skylar didn’t need the quilted pad he normally wore for Filzbalm to land on.
He looked for a light switch as he opened the door, but didn’t see one. When he stepped into the hall, the lights went out. He closed the door and headed up the steps, retracing the path they’d taken to come down.
7
Dinner With Predators
WHEN SKYLAR reached the main floor again, there was another man there. He was larger than Phil, and his fur markings were the same as Solaria’s and Blizza’s.
“Ah, you must be Skylar.” He came over and offered Skylar his hand.
Skylar was glad he wasn’t the hugging type like Solaria’s mother. He would’ve felt awkward hugging the big man. “Yes, sir.”
He looked at Filzbalm. “And you’d be Filzbalm. Smaller than I figured, but then we don’t know much about Solar Drakes, do we?” He grinned. “I’m Solaria’s dad, but you can call me Aniu. I think that’s easier than Mr. Unica.”
“Thanks, Aniu.” Skylar felt odd addressing the father of a friend by his first name, but figured if that was what Aniu wanted, that’s what he’d do.
“Everything okay down there?” Felonia asked. “I tried to make sure you’d be warm. If you need more blankets, I can get them.”
“I should be fine,” Skylar said. “If I need more, I’ll let you know.”
“See, Felonia, the boy’s going to be fine.” Aniu went over and hugged his wife. “You’ve been worrying for days, but look at him. He’s a fine strapping boy for a baseline human. He’ll be okay. He’s also got good taste in clothes.”
Solaria laughed. “Dad, you hate clothes. The only reason you’re wearing them is to not embarrass Skylar. I do appreciate the effort, too.”
“We always try to make guests feel welcome,” he said with a wide grin that, if Skylar wasn’t used to Solaria’s facial expressions, would’ve unnerved him. Pantherians couldn’t help but show a lot of teeth when they grinned.
“Then let’s get this meal going.” Felonia carried a platter of meat in from the kitchen. “Skylar, Solaria said that you’re used to her eating habits, so I only grilled enough for you.”
“That’s fine, ma’am.”
“Felonia,” she corrected. “If you’re going to use Aniu’s name, you’ll use mine too. I’m sure by the time you go back to school, we’ll all be family.”
He gave her a short nod. “Thank you, Felonia.”
“Anyway. I figured Filzbalm could eat what we do, so I didn’t make anything special for him.” She looked at the little Solar Drake. “I hope that’s okay.”
“It looks delicious,” Filzbalm said.
Before Skylar could relay that, Aunt Blizza said. “He’s such a polite little guy.”
Neither of Solaria’s parents seemed to notice, so Skylar told Felonia what he’d said and she smiled at Filzbalm.
“So, Solaria was saying you’re both archeologists,” Skylar said as he reached for his first serving of meat, then put some of the raw meat on a plate for Filzbalm.
Aniu nodded as he stabbed some meat with a fork. “That’s right.” He glanced at Phil. “Did Felo tell you the current dig might be pre-settlement era? It’s got a lot of things in it that are way too big to be Pantherian, and some of the writing is stuff I’ve never seen.”
Skylar welcomed the conversation going back to what it had gone to when they were out in the front of the house. He wanted to know what they meant by pre-settlement.
“She did.” Phil took his own plate full of meat. “That must be very exciting for you both, but don’t you have to be careful? The Galactic Council is very touchy about revealing any proof that some of the worlds were settled and not native populations. They’ve spent hundreds of years covering up that fact.”
“Wait,” Skylar blurted out, nearly spitting a piece of meat across the table. He closed his mouth, quickly chewed, then swallowed. “What do you mean ‘settled and not native’? I thought Pantheria was your native planet.”
Felonia and Aniu shook their heads.
“If we were to all be honest, our home planet is Sol Three, just like the humans.” Aniu set his fork down and explained. “When an advanced DNA analysis is done of a majority of races, you’ll find that there’s a mingling of human DNA with various other species from that planet. We were all genetically engineered for the climates of our worlds. We made perfect early colonists, and have been able to make the most of the natural resources of the planets. It’s a growing belief that the Galactic Council had expunged the knowledge that some of the worlds had other sentient life on them when we all arrived, and that they removed the native life and all evidence of them. What we’ve run across in our dig is evidence of that life, and we might even find evidence of what the humans did to them to remove them from the planet.”
“But we have to make sure we’ve got all our evidence before we can publish anything,” Felonia said. “The odds are the Galactic Council won’t be happy if we expose this massive coverup. I would love to find hard evidence on other worlds too, but I don’t know if we can get other scientists across the galaxy to work on this with us. We might end up with just our evidence here to start things off. But we need you all to stay quiet about this until we’re ready to go public with what we find.”
The whole idea that there was a multi-thousand-year coverup that they were getting evidence of was interesting, and Skylar wanted to know as much as possible. “I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
“Me too,” Solaria agreed. “But you already knew that.”
Her mother grinned at her. “We did, but it’s nice to hear you say it.”
“If you get hard proof, I might be able to get some of my contacts working with you,” Phil offered. “With the universe in upheaval right now, something like this could cause a lot of trouble for the Galactic Council.”
Aniu shook his head. “I’m not sure we want to do that. But it would be nice for the truth to come out.”
“But Aniu, you know how the truth can have a way of causing problems, even when you don’t want it to,” Phil said.
“I know.” Aniu sounded grim as he picked up his fork. “That’s one of the reasons we’re taking this slow and making sure we’ve got everything in order before we start talking about it beyond the dig site.” He looked over at Solaria. “We probably shouldn’t be talking about it now, but we don’t get to see the two of you that often and we wanted to let you know what we’ve been doing.”
“We appreciate that,” Phil said, taking another bite.
“So much of the past is dark,” Aunt Blizza said, sounding far away.
Skylar glanced her direction and saw that her eyes had a glazed look.
“Light needs to be shined in the nooks and crannies,” she continued in her strange, far-away voice. “But the Light will chase out the truth that shadows our world. Beware the things that Light will bring to life. We might not be ready for everything that is exposed.”
Aniu and Felonia’s coms buzzed at the same time, interrupting the dinner.
8
Out Of The Darkness
AS ANIU and Felonia tapped their coms to answer, Phil grabbed his head. “Anger. Pain. Fear.” He closed his eye and let out a long breath.
Something stabbed through Skylar’s head. Someone was
screaming.
Filzbalm wrapped his tail around Skylar’s neck and everything backed off. “Someone very powerful is very angry.”
“Are you blocking for me?” Skylar stood so he could do the exercises Professor Aduncus had him doing for shielding. It felt off to do that in the Unica family dining room, but they were psychics too and probably had their own methods of shielding.
“I am trying to,” Filzbalm said as Aunt Blizza screamed and collapsed.
Skylar and Solaria moved together to Blizza’s crumpled form.
“Help me get her to the couch,” Solaria said as she positioned herself on Blizza’s right side. Solaria’s breath was tight and ragged. “I don’t know what’s going on, but it hurts.”
It felt like the attack was growing—more of the anger was getting through Filzbalm’s shields. As Skylar helped lift Blizza’s limp form, he wanted to scream at everyone. He wanted to pound the old woman as opposed to help her. He gritted his teeth and pushed back the feelings, knowing they weren’t his.
“I’m trying to block,” Filzbalm said, sounding very upset. “But it’s so powerful.”
“Too strong,” Blizza mumbled as they managed to get her onto a couch that appeared to be made from the pelts of several animals.
Once she was free of her aunt’s weight, Solaria straightened. Her expression was tight, and when she spoke, it sounded like she was spitting the words out. “This shouldn’t be happening.”
“What is it?” Skylar balled up his hands and shoved them into the pockets of his jacket. He hoped by putting them there, he wouldn’t have the urge to hit people. He had no doubt that if he got into a physical fight with Solaria, she’d knock him out quickly, particularly with the way she was flexing her hands, flashing her sharp, gray claws each time she extended her fingers.
“Psychic attack,” Aniu exclaimed through gritted teeth. “Strongest I’ve ever felt. It’s like a team of readers all hitting us at once.”