Heart Fortune

That had his stomach curling into a tiny ball. “You don’t think help is coming? You’re an important person.”

“Not that important.”

“You’re best friends with a FirstFamilies Lord and Lady.”

“I don’t think they can get to us,” she said in a small voice. “And I don’t know what our air and food and water supplies are.”

“Nothing much alive for Zem, that I know of. But you should stay out there. Out there, you can find food and water maybe. In here with us, you’re stuck.”

They were both stuck.

A few breaths of quiet passed, the only sound a low level whine by Lepid. He shivered in Jace’s arms, feeling skinnier than before, even though they’d only missed two meals, max.

“I think if I tried to blow this door open with all my might I would harm you,” Glyssa said.

A longer moment of silence, now. “I think you and Lepid should teleport to us,” she finally said. “Zem and I can give you a good visual.”

Yes! Lepid said. I’m ready.

Should Jace go with him or not? He decided not. “Lepid first. He’s smaller and has different vision than I do—we won’t have to merge our images. I can give him a Flair push, of course.”

I do not need a push. I SEE the corridor like FamWoman and Zem. Nice and light, thank you FamWoman!

“You’re welcome,” Glyssa said.

I am counting down! One, Lepid fox; Two Lepid fox; Three! the FoxFam said it so fast that Jace didn’t have a chance to send him energy.

Lepid vanished and excited barking came from outside the door. Good to see you, FamWoman! Good to see you, Zem! Jace couldn’t hear the slurps of love but sensed them down his bond with Glyssa, which had expanded. For a moment he basked in the emotions he felt from her, the small sensations he received through their bond, the busyness of her mind. Then he narrowed it a bit.

I’m concentrating. Please send me images, he requested telepathically. They poured into him and he had to lean against the closed closet door. Zem’s and Lepid’s shades of colors were not the same, and not human, perspectives skewed. From Glyssa he got a great idea of the hallway. Lepid was right, she’d lit it nicely and not too bright.

Lepid yipped. It is easy, FamMan!

Jace figured if the fox could do it, he could, too. He latched onto the images that reinforced his recollection of the hall in the direction of going deeper into the ship. Yes, that’s how those boxes were positioned, and the doors that were opened and closed.

Counting down, he projected. One, Glyssa dear; two Zem BirdFam; THREE!

A rush of Flair came from the trio outside the door, augmenting his as he fixed the image in his mind and ’ported.

This time he lit well, softly, and saw the tense face of Glyssa, the short flight of Zem heading toward him, before the bright light faded to dim when Glyssa extinguished several of her spellglobes.

She flung herself into his arms and he was glad to hold her, pulled her close, breathing in essence of Glyssa and the small, lingering smells of the world outside the alien ship that he took for granted.

Zem’s claws pricked Jace’s shoulders as he dug into the leather tunic, the familiar weight pleasing Jace. He felt the brush of Lepid’s body as the fox danced around them.

We are out, Out, OUT! the Fam crooned.

“Yes, out of the chamber.”

Glyssa looked up at him with a strained expression. “But not out of the ship. We are all still trapped down here.” She shivered and Jace rubbed up and down her back.

“We’ll work on that,” he said.

A few minutes later he stepped over to the door of the quarters where he and Lepid had spent long septhours and studied the mechanism to the side of the door. When he put his hand in the cavity and touched the lever to open the door, he felt the taint of Trago’s Flair. He turned the crank, grunted when it stopped and applied pressure. The metal broke off in his hands. Jace shook his head. “No way we could have gotten out by ourselves, or by this method.”

“No,” Glyssa said. “And I’m not sure we can get out of the ship by ourselves.” She hesitated and said in an even smaller voice, “I don’t even know if we can survive until someone comes and gets us.” She blinked rapidly, stiffened her spine and when she spoke again, her voice was coolly logical. “There were farms, a conservatory— something like the Great Greensward on Nuada’s Sword—here, wasn’t there?” Glyssa asked.

“I paid attention to the blueprints,” Jace teased gently. “Yes, about a quarter of the ship was given over to agriculture and growing.” He hesitated. “It failed in some way, or wasn’t enough to sustain the long voyage the way the colonists had imagined. The Lugh’s Spear people needed help.”

Glyssa nodded. “I remember that from the play, Heart and Sword. But maybe since then . . .”

“Four hundred years of darkness, of being underground, it couldn’t have survived. Whatever food we find might have lost all nutritional value like the subsistence bars. I’m not sure whether we can reach other levels. We are on the sixteenth level now and the green ag area was one whole side of the third level.”

“But those walls held during the landing, didn’t they?” she asked, trying to remember without resorting to the recordsphere in her pocket. That knowledge hadn’t been a priority of hers.

Lepid barked once. I have been down one level.

“Really?” Glyssa and Jace asked together.

Yes, there is a stairway. And down there I found an opening, a tube that smelled of once- growing things. His nose wrinkled and he sneezed. Very, very bad smells.

Jace’s lips twisted. “Who knows, something might have mutated.”

Images from horror vizes flickered through Glyssa’s mind. She shivered. “Maybe we shouldn’t find out.”

Not by ourselves, Zem said. He shifted from foot to foot on Jace’s shoulder. I do not like being here.

“It doesn’t look good,” Jace said.

I am cold, Zem said.

There is a big bag of clothing not too far down the hallway! Lepid said, sounding chipper now that she was here and they were all together. He trotted down the hall, into the darkness beyond Glyssa’s spellglobe.

She followed slowly with Jace. “We are trapped.”

“Sounds like.”

“You didn’t bring any food or water?” she asked.

“No.”

Her smile trembled. “I didn’t, either. No one told me I should and I didn’t consider it.”

“Without Trago’s actions, we would have been fine.” Jace’s tone was casual.

“Did you try the water in the ship?” she asked.

“No, but maybe we should.” Jace walked over to the nearest open door, checked the doorway, opened the panel for manual operation of the door, and touched the controls. No feel of any Flair.

A scraping sounded behind him, and he saw Glyssa moving a large box into the doorway.

“It’s not heavy, but it’s metal and constructed well,” she said and frowned down on it. “I think it held subsistence bars.”

Jace nodded and climbed over the box and into the room. Summoning a dim spell light, he went straight to the cleansing cubicle where a small sink was attached to the wall, and stared at the lever next to the spout.

That does not look like what is in the shower tent, Zem said.

“It doesn’t work with Flair. Nothing in this ship works with Flair,” Jace said.