Osgood’s hold, apparently, had history with Akana Ris, which they shared around the briefing room table, where a misty projection of the world rotated in the center of the inevitable array of hot drinks. Nor were they the only ones: the Chatcaava also had history with Akana Ris. “Though I never went there,” the Liaison said, glancing out the window where the computer was projecting streaking stars to indicate their speed toward their newest destination. “But Akana Ris was a Chatcaavan holding before it was gifted to the Alliance during the treaty proceedings.”
“And knowing what we now know about you people and your motivations,” Na’er said. “I’m guessing you didn’t really want it. Or were planning to use it against us in some way.”
Osgood made a quiet warning noise… an unnecessary one, because as far as Qora could tell the Liaison was not offended. “There are not many worlds in this part of space and they are not close to one another or the Empire. It would have been too hard for the worldlord of Akana Ris to grow in power without nearby planets to conquer or through increased trade with more settled worlds.” He canted his head. “But it must have been intended as a useful gift—akana ris is the classification we use for resource-heavy worlds, particularly in metals and gases.”
“That’s a classification?” Laniis’s ears dipped. “I thought it was a name!”
“The worldlord would have had the right to title it,” the Liaison said. “If I looked it up in our skein, I might learn what it was eventually called.”
Laniis was laughing. “You literally gave us a present of a world and tried to tell us why it was valuable: ‘it’s a metal-rich world!’ and we said, ‘oh, what a lovely name, I suppose you name many of your planets straightforward things like ‘metal world’ and ‘farm world’.”
“Linguist humor,” Patrick observed, shaking his head.
“It is funny,” Osgood said. “But it’s the kind of funny you get used to in a multispecies galaxy. Returning to the topic—”
Mastering herself, Laniis said, “Yes, about that. I don’t understand. I was on Akana Ris for weeks just before the war broke out and I didn’t see any Faulfenza.”
“We’re looking for a single Faulfenzair,” Shanelle said. “Easy for one alien to get lost in a crowd.”
“And hard to find that one alien,” Patrick said. “I’m not seeing any mention of them on the local news nets, and nothing’s coming up for images either. I’d expect something to show. This place is like a leaky sieve, security-wise. I have access to all sorts of things a well-run system would make me work to crack.”
“So we’ve got to find a single individual on a world teeming with people, three quarters of whom are criminals,” Na’er said. “This should be fun.”
Qora thought of the accounts he’d read on the datawand Gella’s elderly human had delivered to him. Had this been what the original FIA hold had felt about finding the missing Faulfenza in this system hundreds of years ago? ‘Where do we even begin?’
“At least I can show you the coffee shop I liked in Sec,” Laniis said to Na’er.
“We’d have to go in our disguises.” The long-eared Other straightened, eyes flashing. “Finally, a little fun!”
“Tramping through the grass to the abbey again wasn’t enough fun?”
Na’er grinned. “Only when it’s annoying you.”
After the meeting ended and everyone had ambled out but Laniis and her dragon shadow, Qora observed to the former, “I wish to test my Other skills in observation!”
“This should be fun,” Laniis said. “Go ahead?”
“You and the long boy. You are courting?”
Laniis choked on her coffee.
“They copulate,” the Liaison said. “But not as frequently as I would expect. Granted, my expectations are based on Chatcaavan lords and their harems.”
This only compounded Laniis’s reaction, which Qora cheerfully ignored to ask the dragon, “Do Chatcaava without harems have similar habits?”
“It depends on the planet and the social class.” The Liaison cocked his head. “And the culture. But there are some basic patterns that repeat. Most of us can only afford one mate, so that is the most common one. How does it work among your people?”
“Oh,” Qora said, “We have only one lifemate. And no copulating without one.” He wrinkled his nose at Laniis. “But on the Eldritch world there are so many potential couples that I feel I must learn to predict the drama.”
“Well, there’s no drama between me and Na’er,” Laniis said.
Qora glanced at the Liaison, who was listening to the conversation with every evidence of interest, and none of revelation. But if neither of them was aware that Na’er was not glad of Laniis’s friendship with the dragon, Qora would not be the first to tell them. Fortunately, the ship was large enough for individuals to avoid one another if they chose… and in this case, in the yet-more-weeks that followed, Na’er and Laniis stayed sequestered.
“Very like a newly Entwined couple,” Qora said to the Liaison. “But is it permanent? One never knows with aliens.”
“So long as my nestsister is happy.”
There was a hint of sternness in that comment that made Qora revise his opinion. About the Liaison’s awareness of Na’er’s feelings, anyway.
* * *
The capital of Akana Ris, if it could be said to have one, was Sec, “for Secundus,” Laniis said, “because it was created after the first major settlement on the planet.”
“And this is your word for second?”
“Oh, no. It’s the human word for it. Well, one of the human words. From one of their dead languages. Except it’s not dead because it’s used for scientific and…” She trailed off. “This sounds bizarre, doesn’t it.”
“The Pelted named the capital of a world given to them by Chatcaava a human name,” Qora said.
“It made sense at the time. To someone.”
“It usually does,” Shanelle muttered.
Sec became the de facto capital because of its adjacent spaceport, and because unlike Prime, that first settlement, it had not been built on an awkward peninsula in the sky.
“A what?” he asked when Osgood mentioned it. She’d summoned everyone to the bridge to see the latest stop in what felt like his neverending quest.
She gestured toward the display’s inset map, many times zoomed in. “Have a look.”
Prime perched on an outcropping of rock shaped like a swooping dragon over a canyon that dove into a distant, mist-shrouded forest… and throughout that canyon were tall pillars of stone, reaching upward. “The Enemies,” the Liaison called them, tracing a path around their bulk. “I have looked up our records on Akana Ris, and it was considered fine sport to test one’s flying prowess against the complex winds created by these spires of stone.”
Secundus, sprawling on its plateau in the same mountainous region, was devoid of interesting features, and when Osgood suggested starting there for their search, Qora shook his head. “We should begin with Prime.” He grinned with his teeth, to make the expression legible to these Others with their constantly flapping mouths. “It’s smaller, yes?”
“But not near anything,” Patrick said. “Most of the activity’s in Sec. It’s easier to get lost there.”
“And easier to be found,” Na’er said. “There’s going to be talk in Sec.” He glanced at Laniis before addressing Osgood. “We could split up. One team in Sec, one in Prime.”
“Good plan,” Osgood said. “Laniis, you and the Liaison and Qora can go to Prime. Na’er, you and Dellen can take Sec. Patrick and I will support your searches from up here.”
“I thought Laniis could show her wrenchboy the shop,” Na’er said.
“That’s an unnecessary risk,” Osgood said. “Laniis built her cover in Sec and then fled the planet suddenly. I don’t want anyone in Sec recognizing her and wanting to know where she’s been.” The captain nodded toward Laniis. “Get your team moving.”
“Yes, sir.”
Na’er didn’t object, but he didn’t have to for Qora to notice the tautness of his shoulders, particularly since they grew tighter when Laniis stood without any visible sign of disappointment. The look on the taller male’s face after she kissed him cheerily and wished him luck almost made Qora wince.
“We go,” the Liaison said to him, and obediently Qora strolled after.
Dropping back to pace Qora, the Liaison said, “What do you suspect, strange alien?”
Amused, Qora said, “What makes you think I suspect anything?”
“I have eyes.”
Which was hilarious, given Qora’s title. Withstanding the urge to make a pun was painful. “My suspicions are not related to the mission. Except obliquely.”
“I expect nothing less.”
“The captain wants you and Na’er on separate teams because Na’er doesn’t like you.”
The Liaison’s gaze narrowed. Perhaps he hadn’t anticipated this particular answer to his question? “He does not like Chatcaava, no.”
Qora glanced at the ceiling as they walked, then said, “He thinks you want his female.”
A pause, and then the Liaison’s pupils dilated to the size of neliip pits. Since that made them the size of a Faulfenzair’s entire eyeball, Qora couldn’t help staring. “Laniis is my nestsister!” And then, with flaring nostrils, “It is ridiculous. But I will be careful.” He glanced at Qora. “I was asking about our destination. You wished to go to the original Chatcaavan settlement instead of the Pelted one. Do you have reasons?”
“Oh, I always have reasons,” Qora said. “Even when I don’t know what they are.”
The Liaison waited for more, then huffed. “I see. More riddles.”
“Life is like that. Full of things we’ll never understand.”
“You don’t fool me,” the Liaison said. “Your problem is that you understand too much, and don’t like the answers.”
That surprised a bark of a laugh from Qora, and the dragon grinned. Very spiky grins, the dragons had, but by now Qora felt it first as intended, and only after did he remember how strange it was that he understood the body-speech of aliens.
“Yes?”
“All right, winged alien. I’ll admit it, that was good.”
Laniis popped her head from her cabin. “What was good? By the way, let’s pack and meet by the Pad. Twenty minutes?”
“Ten,” the Liaison said. “I would like to see Prime.”
“You haven’t told me what was good! Annnnd you’re not going to, probably.” She blew a breath upward, ruffling her forelock. “By the way, Qora, why did you pick Prime? Is there something you know that we don’t?”
As the Liaison started laughing, Qora said, “How similar we all are, after all.”
* * *
Akana Ris was yet another of the Others’ lightweight worlds and being up in the mountains didn’t help matters… especially since they appeared to have arrived during the tail end of the winter season. But the lodestone rightness of setting foot in the city of Prime was so powerful Qora had to fight through it to notice how poorly the air nourished, and how strange and cool the light of the sun felt on his face. His party stepped onworld to a terminal that served both Pads and a slidewalk that zigzagged throughout the city on its way to major landmarks. “It seemed sensible to start with touristy places,” Laniis said. “Bigger crowds, and maybe the people working them will have seen a Faulfenzair.”
The Liaison was parsing a language issue, from the wrinkle on his brow. “‘Touristy’… you are speaking of places of interest to visitors? Is our target likely to have been a visitor of this kind?”
Laniis glanced at Qora. “What do you think? Would your missing person be visiting or living here?”
“I don’t know,” Qora said. “I know only that this planet would have been on his list of places to see.”
“All we can do at this point is ask. Patrick will be searching for evidence of the Slipstream in traffic records. If it’s been here, we can track it.” She paused, perhaps too aware of the Liaison’s skeptical look. “Possibly. Depending on how long ago it left and who saw it go.” Her smile had a charmingly lopsided quality. “Arii, let me have my bit of optimism, will you?”
The Liaison shook out his wings and folded them neatly against his back. “At very least it will be interesting to explore this city, which was created by my people centuries ago. It looks it.”
“Even the slidewalks to the touristy spots?”
“My people also like grand vistas and points of interest, huntsister. But no, we would not have built walkways to reach them.”
Qora said, “Aren’t only half your species winged?”
“Yes,” the Liaison said. “But that’s the half that matters.”
* * *
Such a cheerful beginning, more or less, to yet another interminable period of searching. If Qora had known how long he was destined to spend searching the galaxy for the missing Voice, he would have ripped his ruffs out from frustration. The worlds were on the cusp of convulsive change and he was trapped in another useless loop of investigating and questioning random Others. Had it not been for the persistent sensation beneath his breastbone that he was where he should be, he would have returned to the Other vessel for a night’s sleep in more familiar gravity. Maybe more than one. He resented the lack of progress; he disliked being beholden to aliens, particularly without a clear outline of his tasks and timeline; and most of all, he hated being away from the princess. When he’d set out on his adventure to the Chatcaavan Throneworld, he’d been unaware that he’d been traveling at imperial speeds. Both Chatcaava and Eldritch ran their ships faster… or at least, the ones carrying their important personages. His only other perspective had been shaped by ships racing for battle. Of course he’d anticipated being done far sooner.
It had been months since he’d seen Sediryl. He’d thought he’d be back by now. But then, he’d thought he’d be living in the galaxy he understood, too, and the galaxy no longer made sense. It contained an Other Voice, and no explanation for why.
He wanted to be home. That he wasn’t sure where home was anymore made him more irritable.
It took a call with Daize to restore his sense of proportion. She’d responded to his message asking how she and the others were doing on Qufiil with a realtime call, which he’d taken in the small set of rooms the FIA hold had rented in Prime. “We’re doing well,” she’d said. “Very well. We’re home, Qora, when we’d expected never to be again. Even knowing that Faulza holds us all in His hands, we know that sometimes our task is to die or to be lost to serve His design, and all of us believed that to be our lot. So yes. We’re doing well. And you?”
Eyes were circumspect by nature… mechanics who must answer to their shipmates, however, became accustomed to being more forthright. Qora told her everything he hated about his task, particularly the dead end they seemed to have tumbled into while following Gella Allen’s lead.
“And yet, I feel that the God wishes me to be here,” Qora said. “If He wishes me to be here, why have we found nothing?”
Daize snorted. “Now I know you are disordered. Eye of the God, when do the God’s plans unfold?”
“In His time,” Qora replied reflexively, and then dropped his head in resignation.
“Stop trying so hard to make things work out the way you design,” Daize said. “Be where you are, completely. See what happens.” Her nose rumpled in a slight smile. “You are on a historic world for both the major Other nations… one that might also have been pivotal for Faulfenza, or might become so. You should pay more attention to it as a thing worthy of attention, and less as a thing that isn’t performing to your expectations, like a faulty fuel intake.”
“My ShipMinder calls me to the lessons,” Qora said ruefully.
“Your ShipMinder recalls times when you have called her to those lessons. That’s what friends are for.” She tilted her head. “Which leads me to suggest that you talk to your Other companions. You’ve been with them for months now, haven’t you? You’re charming in your own inscrutable way, Qora. Haven’t you made friends of them yet?”
“There are things I can’t tell them, Daize.”
“Then don’t tell them those things. But tell them the rest. I know it’s not in your nature—” A better smile this time. “—but they’ve been put in your way for a reason, and perhaps not only to help you. Take them into your confidence.”
“A Chatcaavan and a Pelted Other.”
“All the more reason,” Daize said. “You have made a friend out of the Eldritch princess. You needed to collect the entire set.”
She left him laughing, and it was on that note that he returned to the suite and the sight of his two companions bickering over a map. His arrival focused both their gazes on him: the large, gemlike blue-gray of the Chatcaavan and the bright orange of the Seersa. “We can’t agree on whether we’ve canvassed this particular area of the city yet,” Laniis said. “The Liaison says we haven’t, and I think we have—”
“Let’s do something diverting,” Qora said.
“Diverting?” The Liaison looked bemused.
“Fun,” Qora qualified. “Entertaining. Distracting.”
“Unrelated to the search?” Laniis set the tablet down. “It might help. A change in perspective!”
“Exactly.”
They both looked at the dragon, who made a motion with his hands that Qora had come to associate with ambivalence, or resignation, or indifference. “What can it hurt?”