A melodic shrill notified him of someone requesting access to his room. Eron strode naked back out into the main room. He brushed his fingers through the delicate fronds of one of the many plants dotting the living space before reaching the door’s video feed. The woman who waited outside his room was vaguely familiar: short-cropped black hair full of wiry tight curls, deep brown skin, and wearing a crumpled white jacket that marked her as a laboratory worker. He scanned her ID tag: Gwen Weylen. Biomechanic.
Clearly a lab worker with full security clearance if she was here, on this level. Talking to him.
‘Eron here.’ He released the communicator, careful not to allow reverse visual access.
‘Mr Eron, sir.’ Gwen’s gaze was a darting, wild thing moving from the camera lens to scan the hallway she stood in. ‘Mr Eron, sir, I was wondering if you could come with me.’
Eron glanced down at his naked self. ‘Why would I do that?’
‘I know we haven’t met directly before, but Blake has sent me.’
Blake Beckworth, or as he and his kind called her, the Technician. Kira’s sister. For an inopportune moment Eron’s voice failed him. He swallowed, tried again. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘Blake.’ Gwen leaned in towards the camera. ‘Blake asked me to come and get you. She needs your help.’
‘Help?’
‘Assistance.’ Gwen scratched at her temple with the corner of her ID. ‘She needs your assistance, just briefly. Seeing as the others are unavailable. The other –’
Aliens. Yes, he understood. Except he didn’t. Blake Beckworth had barely exchanged more than a handful of words with him over the years. Nothing personal – the girl spared little conversation for anyone. Including her own sister.
‘I will need to clarify this with –’
‘Your captain has given approval, Eron, sir.’ Gwen’s voice did an odd little jump. ‘You’re good to go. But we should leave now.’
The captain’s approval. Perhaps Lahar had listened to his prayers after all.
‘I’ll be with you in just a moment.’
Tamas - 3
Tamas Cressly eased his legs over the side of his king bed and stopped to catch his breath. Tinnitus hissed in his eardrums, and something in the room smelled foul. Gingerly sniffing his cupped hand, Tamas discovered the source of the odour. Vomit. His raw, burned throat confirmed it, and a glance down at his clothes revealed he no longer wore the white linen shirt he’d donned for the First Meld. It had been replaced with a black cotton T-shirt. Which meant someone had undressed him and cleaned him. Touched his skin. A river of goosebumps pierced their way through his warm body, and his empty stomach threatened to find something else to release. He glanced around the room, blinking against the morning light streaming through the windows, catching a blurry glimpse of the shoulder-high reeds in the garden outside. A replica of the marshlands of his homeland. War had destroyed most of the original beauty in Iraq, and it had taken his father’s life, too. But here, in the middle of a very different desert thousands of kilometres from the aggression, the natural beauty had thrived in the garden his mother had designed. It was six years since her death, and he still wasted copious amounts of water keeping the replica alive.
Not for her. For the garden. A place that always managed to soothe him. As did the realisation now that he was utterly alone. Whoever had played nursemaid was gone. Better still, the goddess was absent from her usual place in his head. Tamas sighed and touched his toes to the floor. The maroon tiles were refreshingly cool against skin that still burned from the night’s activity. His entire body ached with the remnants of the Meld’s force. The skin beneath his precisely shaven beard itched ferociously, and something caked his eyelashes like a layer of sand . Suffice to say, he probably looked as good as he felt, and that was not great at all. He pulled off the black shirt, grabbed a floral-print favourite that should have been laundered a few days ago, and tugged on a pair of jeans that lay in a faded blue lump beside the bed. He pressed his fingers to his lips and wondered if his ancestors, the ones who had received a Calling, had felt this rotten each time the gods moved through them. If breast cancer hadn’t taken his mother, she would have been the one bearing the burden. And she wouldn’t have been standing here feeling sorry for herself. She would have gloated and pranced and preened as if she were the goddess herself, looking down her nose, as she so often did, at Tamas. But she was a pile of ash sprinkled in the Tier, taking all her rage, knowledge, and self-importance with her. Did she see him? He often wondered. Did she feel any sense of pride that a son she’d branded useless
