Former people. Sivan wondered if she herself would have been brave enough to follow heart instead of identity. Though Maloh had been saved any decision by her people’s edict: working for aliens was one thing, a matter of expediency and survival. But taking one of them as lover?
Unforgivable. Maloh could not go back.
But then could anyone, ever?
“What is the boy like?” Jorda’s voice quavered with a faint thread: wonder, it sounded like.
Sivan shrugged. “I’ve told you several times.”
“I know. I wish I’d been with you.”
“I wish I’d never seen him. I wish you’d never seen his mother. So much trouble, from one foolish—”
“It wasn’t foolish. He would have died, had I not acted.”
“He well could die now. Or worse.”
“Lack of compassion bears no truth,” Maloh threw back over one shoulder.
“Compassion.” Jorda repeated. “What was I supposed to do? She was a friend, in need. She’d already miscarried four other kits.”
“The Accord says ‘no interference with the northern island’s natives’, and censure those who do so.”
“Yet now our superiors send us and pay no heed to—”
“They pay heed. They must.” Maloh stayed a stride ahead of them, her sandals fording the variables of sand and shale with only an occasional slip. “The little natives know when they don’t, eh?”
“And how do they know?”
“You’re the one with all the answers, Jorda.”
His eyes sought Maloh’s, tinted amber behind the lenses, pale nose and cheeks sunburnt from several sols of open-air travel. “You’re the one who first pointed out how this mission went against Accord.”
“And see how far that got us.” Maloh’s gesture took in the entire desert: mesas, draws, washes, and beyond, a backdrop of purplish mountains. “We’re here, aren’t we? We have our orders. Your Domina wants the boy and will break truce to have him. Only she doesn’t seem to understand how his People won’t take this lying down. They’re not animals to be caged.”
“Sometimes things must be contained for their own safety,” Sivan murmured. “And ours.”
“You don’t believe that.” The disappointment in Maloh’s brown eyes scored a stinging furrow in Sivan’s composure.
“What I believe is irrelevant at present,” Sivan retorted. “History has proven it, over and over. What if the Dominus hadn’t been confined?”
Jorda grimaced.
“If he had been left to go on as he was, both your people and mine would be no more than another extinct myth told around the fires of little Tokela’s people! If they even managed to survive!”
Jorda stumbled again, this time went to his knees. With a shudder, he rocked onto his palms.
Maloh turned, started to help Sivan haul him to his feet. Jorda backed from beneath their grip, yanked the goggles from his eyes and the gloves from his hands.
“There’s something. Something—”
“The vortex is but a sol’s walk away,” Maloh pointed out.
“Something else.”
“Jorda.” Sivan gritted out. “Are you sure it isn’t interference?”
“I don’t know! Let me find out!”
It took time. The sun advanced, slow and shimmering against the hot sand where Jorda’s pale fingers dug, searching.
This close to the vortex, what inklings of psi connexion her brother possessed with the boy might be more pliable, easier to splice and follow.
Or not. The island’s vortices were thankfully small, but also, one and all, violent. Unpredictable.
Jorda raised his head, eyes going pitch-black from corner to corner, lighting with the silvery star-trails of connexion. It was easier for those of their people who had been born on this world to link into the framework. Still, it wasn’t easy.
Finally Jorda looked up, gaze fading to pale grey and blinking beneath the strong sunlight. “They’re heading this way.”
SKY WAS boundless in dryLands, and beautiful for the travelling. Našobok had never thought to regret fine weather on any voyage.
But now he did. And kept whispering: “Here. I’m here.”
As invocations went, it made little impression.
Tokela propped hands to either side of Našobok’s ribcage. Neck cords bulged. Teeth gleamed, a snarl. Našobok tangled his fingers in thick chestnut and pulled. Hard. Tokela’s elbows wobbled then gave, and Našobok muscled him close, wrapping arms and legs tight.
No passionate embrace. Scarce time for that, now.
“Tokela!” It cracked like a quirt, a rough shake as punctuation. “You waste what strength you’ve left, fighting me as well as—”
“It won’t… stop. It… I… Bring me… keep me…”
“I’m here. You’re here.”
“Here.” A snarl. “I can… will do this.”
“I know you can. I have you. You’re with me.”
“N’da, not just… with!” From faint sough to grating desperation; but ai, better to give it voice than sink into a silence that had, finally, toppled Tokela from their mount’s back.
Našobok set his teeth, hung on. Wondered if he held one of serpentKin instead of a nigh-grown oških he outweighed nearly twice over. Kept murmuring reassurances as one whipcord arm snaked itself free, and braced himself for the ill-considered blow or three—ai, his Tokela could punch with the best.
Instead Tokela slammed his palm against his own head, fingers clawing, small furrows blooding their wake.
He’d already torn his lip in an earlier self-inflicted bout. Našobok had been too late to prevent that one. Granted, it had shattered the first Dreaming-hold, but…
Enough.
Našobok flung Tokela onto his back, hard, and Tokela huffed a choking gasp, ribs expanding like a bellows’ breath. Sure enough, the IceFire sparks behind Tokela’s eyes scattered, dimmed. But Našobok didn’t loosen his grip.
He was learning.
“Leave off!” he growled. “Pain might break whatever’s taking you from your body, but all blood will do is attract predators.”
“I must,” Tokela panted, “make it stop. Stars are theirs. What if they can… hear?”
Ai, that wasn’t something Našobok had considered. “We’ll be to River before they even know where we are.”
He hoped it wasn’t a lie. Their path hadn’t lain altogether easy, though so far dark’s basket had scooped up Rain clouds instead of Stars. They’d made progress—albeit slow, and that more from weather than any wandering of Tokela’s Spirit. Thunder had swooped down, chasing them across the dryLands with spear-shards of light and rain-torrent
