"Emerald called you Catbrother when you first arrived."
Tebrey shrugged. He wasn't going to argue with the nickname. He rather liked it, actually.
You'd better not argue about it, Hunter growled into his mind.
"It might help if I knew more about you," said Leander. "What were your parents like?"
"My mother was a xenobiologist from Valhalla. She died when I young. My father was a mercenary; I'm not sure where he was from. I never saw him again after my mother died."
"Valhalla? You mean a planet, I assume – not the mythological home of the Norse gods. Or is this stranger than I thought?"
Tebrey laughed, hoping that had been a joke. "Sorry, yes. It's a nearly airless terrestrial-type planet around Wolf 359. We lived in domed cities bored deep into the planetary crust."
Lyra nodded. "Did your mother have other family?"
"Oh, yes. I understand that I have quite a few cousins there. I've never met any of them, though."
"So your mother was probably human," Leander said, and Tebrey didn't feel reassured by that probably. "What about your father?"
Tebrey shrugged. "Like I said, I haven't seen him in more than twenty years. I was very young when my mother died, and I was placed in a state orphanage. My father looked human enough, I think. I profess to not knowing a lot about genetics, but he would've had to be human for my mother to have me, right?"
"Not necessarily," said Leander. "We've encountered many species that have amazing adaptability. Mo'Ceri, for instance."
"They can breed with humans?"
"When they assume human form, they assume it fairly completely."
"Ah." Tebrey tried not to let that bother him. "What are the Mo'Ceri, exactly?"
"I'm afraid that for now, that is a question on the prohibited list," said Lyra. "I'm sorry that we can't answer everything. Please understand that it's for safety."
"Safety from what?"
"Yourself," said Leander.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
"Hmm. That's very interesting," Leander said absently. He'd been studying the results of Tebrey's DNA test for the last half an hour while Tebrey worked his way through a tray of food that Lyra had gotten from somewhere in the village. The food was good. It reminded him of the food he'd eaten on Cedeforthy – natural.
"What's interesting?" asked Tebrey. He was becoming a bit irritated by the whole mess. Now that the Federation would presume him dead, he just wanted to return home to his wife. He got up and began to pace while he waited for the results from the tests.
"Well," Leander said, "you're mostly human, if that makes you feel any better."
"I'm what?" Tebrey exclaimed.
"Mostly human," said Leander. "Don't worry. No one here will hold it against you."
Hunter chuckled into Tebrey's mind.
"Leander!" Lyra scolded.
"You're a hybrid," he said.
"How is that even possible?" Tebrey sat heavily on the bed.
"We've been over that," Leander answered. "I would suggest to you that your father wasn't all that he seemed to be. Although the DNA you received from you mother seems a little off standard, as well."
"I know my mother was human."
"Your father, then. It makes little difference. Would you care to look at the results?"
"What the hell good would that do me?" Tebrey shouted. "You know I wouldn't be able to understand them. I don't even read whatever language that is."
I don't know why you're upset, Hunter interjected. I've always thought I was half human, and it never bothered me.
"Shut up, you overgrown mousetrap!"
"Tebrey!" Lyra said forcefully. "Snap out of it. You're still the same person. What difference does it make that you're not entirely human?"
"I don't know," Tebrey said. "Little or none, I suppose. I just wish I had known! You're sure this isn't something that was done to me somehow? Something that exposure to the Thetas did?"
"I'm sure," Leander replied. "There are no indications of your DNA having been manipulated. Your base code is still essentially human; it just doesn't have any negative recessive traits. By that alone you would still be human, although genetically perfect. It's the additional DNA on your Y-chromosome that's odd."
"Is that the junk DNA?" Tebrey thought he'd heard someone call it that.
"Junk is something of a misnomer," said Leander. "Think of it more as spare parts. Your body stores excess DNA sequences, mostly outdated and useless for your species in its current stage of evolution. These sequences are useful as a way of looking back at the evolution of a species, and sometimes you may be able to glimpse something of its future."
"So what does mine say about my species, or whatever?"
"It doesn't say anything," Leander said. "That's the problem."
"I don't understand."
"Your spare DNA isn't junk. It isn't outdated; it's viable DNA. The normal activation markers are all triggered. It is a part of you and working within you. Normally the Y-chromosome is the smallest of the human chromosomes. Yours is larger than the others. It contains a lot of code beyond that needed to code for a human male. That extra code isn't human at all."
"What does it do?" Lyra asked softly.
"I'm not sure. I've never seen anything like it before; that alone frightens me. It's meshed so cleanly with the human that the two sets of code are both working together at the same time."
"You mean like a second set of genetic code?" Lyra said. "Like some shapeshifters carry?"
"No, more like additional code for things humans can't normally do, like rapid healing or traveling between Realms. The one thing I can tell about it is very interesting, though."
"What?" Tebrey demanded.
"The other code is just beginning to take effect. It seems to be pushing you past the limits of normal human evolution. It's unlocking all of your potential. And I would say that you have a lot of potential."
Tebrey looked between them at the screen of squiggles and gibberish. He didn't understand what it all meant, but he knew, deep down inside, that it was true. He'd always felt different from other people. He'd assumed that it was because he'd been raised in an orphanage, or because he was a psion. Now he knew better. He was different because he wasn't one of them.
"I don't suppose that you could talk Hunter into consenting to a genetic test, could you?" asked Leander.
Don't count on it, Hunter said.
Come on, brother, it isn't that bad, thought Tebrey.
I don't know why it would be necessary.
So we can see if the same traits are exhibited in you.
Hunter grumblingly obliged, and Leander began the test again with the new sample.
"So what did you mean, exactly, when you said I didn't have any negative recessives?"
"Your X-chromosome is perfect. You don't carry any code for the normal genetic diseases. I would expect that anyway, considering what you've said about your culture's medical technology. What's strange is that you don't seem to carry the genes for blond hair or blue eyes, either – or brown and brown. It's almost as if the code on your Y-chromosome has overwritten parts of the other, which shouldn't be possible."
"My mother had blond hair and blue eyes. I know I should carry genes for that. What about the non-human part?" Tebrey asked hesitantly. He had trouble even saying it.
"The second set of code has been integrated into your Y-chromosome. Thus, I can only assume it represents code you received from you father. Somehow, this has forced the more human part to become dormant, in favor of the additional code. Some of the sequences look familiar, but they shouldn't be in a human."
"Like what?" Tebrey asked warily.
Leander turned the display so Tebrey could see it. "This section here –" he highlighted a string of nucleic acids, "– is responsible for the dimensional shifting ability in Mo'Ceri. It’s the same code."
Lyra's sudden intake of breath was loud in the silence. Her thought was clear enough to Tebrey.
&n
bsp; "So you're saying my dad was a Mo'Ceri?"
"No," Leander said. "Both of you can stop worrying about that. He wasn’t Mo’Ceri, rogue or otherwise. That little bit, however, is the only recognizable part."
"Is that all?" asked Lyra.
Tebrey noticed an almost imperceptible shake of Leander's head. There was something Leander wasn't telling them. If Leander hadn't told Lyra via mindlink, then he was afraid Tebrey might intercept the message, and didn't want that. Or he didn't want the others in the Circle to know. That in itself was interesting information.
"Where is the DNA from, then?" Lyra asked.
"I don't know," said Leander. "That isn't the only oddity."
"What else?" Tebrey said with an air of resignation.
"Your DNA is perfect."
"You said that already."
"No, what I mean is that is doesn't have any of the glitches normally found in a genetic sample. Radiation from ultraviolet and cosmic rays damages a person's DNA. There are always little bits knocked off from random parts of any given sequence. Given the situation that Emerald found you in, yours should have significant damage. Your DNA seems to be healing itself at the molecular level. I can only assume that the second set of DNA is somehow responsible for that, as well."
"So what does that mean?" asked Tebrey.
"You'll never get cancer," Leander said. "Other than that, I have no idea."
"Great."
The portable lab beeped, and Leander studied the results for a few minutes.
"Well?" Tebrey asked, echoing Hunter's thought.
"Hunter has the same complementary set of DNA. Also, I must say that whoever did the splice of the panther DNA with the human did a very good job. Your people are very skilled at manipulating DNA."
"Thanks," Tebrey said sarcastically. "I'll be sure to tell whoever that was the next time I see them."
Leander's eyes twinkled with amusement. "Hunter carries genes both for black hair, from the panther splice, and for red hair. If he hadn't been engineered, he'd probably have red hair like you. He also gets his green eyes from your code. "
"What is it with you guys and green eyes?" asked Tebrey.
"The Mo'Ceri all have green eyes."
"You're not Mo'Ceri," Tebrey said, confident that that, at least, was true.
"No, you're correct," said Leander. "But when each of us in the Circle joined with a Mo'Ceri, something of them was grafted into us."
"You mean genetically?"
"For some of us, it expressed itself that way, yes," Leander replied.
"It was on a deeper level than just genetic, Tebrey," said Lyra.
"You need to stop thinking of yourself in terms of merely flesh and blood," Leander said. "Think of yourself in quantum terms. You exist as a complex probability wave, stretched through multiple dimensions. Everything that makes you you is expressed in that waveform. It's far more than genetics. Genetics is just the way in which that probability wave manifests in the reality of space-time."
Tebrey's head began throbbing again. "I'm completely lost, but I'll take your word for how it works. What does that have to do with the Mo'Ceri?"
"Each of us in the Circle gained a little part, an imprint, of the Mo'Ceri probability wave. It altered our probability waves so we have some of the same traits as the Mo'Ceri. That expressed itself as a genetic alteration in most of us."
"Most of you?'
"Not everyone in the Circle has physical form as you would understand it."
Tebrey sighed and shook his head. He was an intelligent man, and well-read, but some of what Leander was saying didn't sound possible.
You didn't think something like a Theta was possible just a few years ago, Hunter pointed out.
Tebrey had no reply for that.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
For reasons he didn't quite understand, Mandor felt compelled to return to his office after dinner. He found himself entering the building before he'd even thought of it. Entering his office, he was startled as the lights came up to see a man sitting at his desk. The man was pale and red-haired, dressed in dark archaic clothes, and his bright green eyes caught the light strangely. Mandor had never seen him before, and yet there was something familiar about him.
"What in the hell are you doing in my office?" Mandor demanded. He strode across the room to his desk.
"Waiting for you," the man said quietly. Mandor couldn't place his accent, and his baritone voice had an odd lyrical lilt to it.
Mandor stopped in his tracks. When the man spoke, he had gotten a strange feeling. It was like and unlike the feeling caused by a Theta, and it scared him. Some Thetas were capable of disguising themselves as human, but only the extremely powerful ones. He hadn't felt power like this in years.
"I don't know what you want, but you have to leave now." He triggered all of the Theta protocol alarms via his datalink. Security personnel would arrive soon. His security teams were trained for situations like this. All he had to do was survive until they arrived.
The man laughed at Mandor's discomfort. "Leave? I've traveled a long way to meet you, Admiral. I'll leave when I am satisfied. I need information, and I shall have it."
"What information could you possibly need from me?"
"I want to know the current whereabouts of the man you know as Hrothgar Tebrey. Surely a man in your profession can tell me something as simple as that."
"What?" Mandor asked, startled. He had expected the man to ask about what he knew concerning the Thetas. Surely he was here to scope out the opposition in the Concord.
"Tebrey! Where is he?"
"Tebrey is dead," Mandor answered flatly. He needed to keep the man talking. Based on the power that emanated from the stranger, he was at least a class five Theta. That was the Concord's highest classification, but Mandor wasn't sure this man fit the established scale.
"No," the man said. "He isn't."
"What do you mean, he isn't dead? He was on Prism when it was attacked from orbit! The entire population of the planet was lost."
"Your Concord was responsible for that?"
"No, your people were," Mandor said.
"My people? What do you know of my people?" The man's eyes suddenly blazed more brightly.
"I've devoted my entire life to hunting down Thetas," Mandor said through gritted teeth. "I know quite a lot."
"Oh, them," The man looked amused. "That is a quaint name for them. I'll revise my estimates of what they are capable of, in case they become a threat to me. Where did Tebrey go from there?"
"I told you," Mandor said desperately, "Tebrey is dead."
"No," the man repeated, "he isn't. I would know."
"That's news to me," said Mandor. Some part of him began to have hope that Tebrey might actually still be alive. If the enemy was looking for him, and he had lived through the destruction of Prism, he was even more important than Mandor had realized.
"He is."
"I can't help you." Mandor wondered where that security force was. They should have been here by now.
"Oh? I think you can help me." The man stood and stepped around the desk toward him. Mandor could feel tendrils of mental force picking at his mind. He knew without a doubt that if the man touched him, he would have full access to Mandor's mind. The man's power was exceptional.
Mandor was unarmed except for his mind, but that mind was well trained, and he had a few exceptional abilities of his own. He summoned all of his willpower to focus on the small armory in the basement below the building. He rarely used his apportation ability; it was dangerous and sometimes unpredictable, but he was desperate. He had the satisfaction of seeing the man look startled as he apported away.
The lights came on in the armory, and Mandor grabbed a quantum annihilation pistol and his Thyrna-Shae psi-conductor blade from the rack.
Then there was a sudden, sickening lurch. Badly disoriented, Mandor found himself back in his office, being held off the ground in one pale fist. Somehow, the man had been able to pull him bac
k from where he'd gone – he had no idea how. The pistol was slapped from his hand, but he was still gripping the psionic blade in his other. Before the man could move, Mandor thrust it forward, impaling him through the chest and willing him to die.
Mandor had slain a Theta with that blade. Laboratory experiments had shown that a psi-conductor blade would kill anything struck with it. Sometimes, even a touch from the blade could kill.
The man barely even seemed to notice it.
The man blinked and looked down at the blade imbedded twenty centimeters through his chest. He tossed Mandor into the chair behind the desk, pulled the blade from his body, and threw it into the floor; it stood quivering where it stuck into the plascrete under the carpet. Mandor could see the man's wound close before his startled eyes.
"That was inexcusably rude," the man said. "However, I'll allow you to live if you answer my question, since I perceive that you misunderstand my intent."
"Why?" Mandor asked despite his fear. "How?"
"Fighting spirit is always to be admired, and you may still be of value to me."
"What are you?" Mandor gasped. No Theta could have survived that strike. The man was something else, something Mandor had never even thought of, and certainly not human. No Theta would offer him his life. It would have delivered pain and then offered to end the pain. Mandor knew that only too well.
"I am a seeker of knowledge, remember?"
"What?" Mandor asked, confused. Being pulled back through the apport had hurt him, inside his head.
"Hrothgar Tebrey," the man demanded. "No more games. Tell me what I want to know, or I will rip it from your mind."
"He's dead, damn it!" Mandor cried out as the man gripped his head in one large hand. His mental barriers collapsed instantly with a sickening pain, and his entire mind lay open. Never before had he felt so violated.
It seemed that those strange eyes stared into him for hours, but it couldn't have been more than a few minutes, maybe only seconds.
"It may be that I owe you an apology," the man said quietly. He released Mandor, who fell out of the chair and collapsed on the floor, retching. "You don't know any more than I do."
The Fallen Page 31
