The Wilding

Rho doesn’t meet her sister’s eyes, but that doesn’t stop her from absorbing her emotions. Confusion, frustration, anger . . . a tendril of thought that cries out, you have brought me here and now you abandon me! Rho winces and absorbs it all, refusing to erect those mental barriers which might protect her from the torrent of emotion, or even dull its edge. She deserves this.

“It’s an unprecedented opportunity,” she tells Zara. Knowing even as she does so that no one raised outside the Community can truly understand what this means to her, or to her people. Least of all Zara, who so clearly does not share their visceral hatred of the enemy. “Something we’ve waited centuries for. Not merely to dream of Braxi’s destruction, but to set it into motion—”

“Zara.” She says it softly, so softly, hoping that her sister will pick up on the false calm in her voice as opposed to the turmoil in her soul. “My death won’t forward the cause at all . . . but it’s the most likely aftermath, isn’t it? I can hope for circumstances that will allow me to get safely out of the Holding after my job is done, but reality is that’s not likely.” She pauses. “I’d rather go in facing that, prepared for it, than trying to deny it.”

Your Community, Rho notes. Never Our Community, or even The Community. Zara could live among the psychics for a hundred years and she would never feel like she belonged. Sometimes Rho even sensed an unspoken admonishment behind her sister’s words, as if being a part of the diasporic nation somehow made Rho responsible for its excesses.

We are soldiers in the greatest war that humankind has ever known, she thinks. That’s what the Founder intended us to be, it is what we were trained for, it is the core of our identity. Each of us part of a vast campaign that spans the generations, hungering to be the one person who will set in motion the final assault. Hungering to see this thing to its end.

I can be that person. That’s what they’ve offered me. How can I explain to you what that means? How could I refuse such an opportunity? My spirit would be black with despair for the rest of my life, knowing that I had failed the one thing I was made for. You can understand that, can’t you?

Zara squeezes her hands, so tightly the grip is painful. Rho can sense her trying not to cry, trying to be worthy of the strength she sees around her. Mad strength, terrible, insane strength, that would throw away a human life just when it had the most to live for. Rho can taste the words of condemnation forming inside her, but they aren’t voiced. It’s the same choice Rho would have made, had their positions been reversed.

It was a primitive cabin with a primitive bed and her back ached with primitive pain as she got up from it. Still that was nothing compared to the irritation of who she was travelling with. The ship the Lyu had given them was way too small for two personalities such as theirs, and the strain of it was beginning to become intolerable.

The Lyu had someone check on her every downshift, of course. This far out that was still possible. Rho didn’t know how she would deal with things when her contact with the homeworld was cut off and she was . . . well, not alone. Worse than alone. With one of them.

With a sigh she cleaned up, threw her old garments into the recycler and accepted new ones from the ship’s outlet. The question of what to wear was a thorny one. The first day she had dialed up a neck-to-ankle jumpsuit two sizes too large; she figured she was damned if she was going to offer any kind of sexual display to the man who had mentally raped her. Then she realized that by making such a choice she was only confirming his power, so she ordered up something that almost dared him to come at her. Try it, she thought, I can and will kill you. But his dry smile, utterly maddening, made it clear that her motives were totally transparent, and that for as long as she let his presence dictate her attire, the game was his.

The ship was small, an older model that had served as guest quarters when it was attached to the homeworld. From the way it vibrated at high speeds Rho would have guessed its hull was held together by adhesive tape, with pieces of its engines culled from junkfields throughout the galaxy. But Tathas had said that anything more substantial would have drawn suspicion when he returned to the Holding, and the Lyu had agreed. So here Rho was. Sleeping on a slice of solid matter that didn’t change its shape when she shifted position, and locked in this nightmare of a flying prison with . . . him.

Tathas was in the control room. Of course. You could tell when a man had spent most of his life on a planet, he didn’t trust the ship to fly itself. Or maybe he just worried about what would happen when the adhesive tape started to peel off.

He looked around to her as she entered. He had shaved much of his face, she noticed, and trimmed the narrow beard that remained to traditional Braxin specifications. He’d cut his hair too, though not well. Should have let me do it, she thought. Then she reconsidered: Me near him with a blade in my hand . . . bad idea.

“Morning,” he said. As usual, he insisted upon that planetbound phrase even in a place where there was no sun to mark the passage of time. It was one of the many annoying things about him. “I was just about to get you.”

“Far from it.” With one hand he waved toward the viewscreen, which displayed a sector of space not unlike every other sector of space they had passed through. Black sky, a sprinkling of stars, pretty much the usual display for augmented travel. The computer provided it to take the place of vistas which the human eye couldn’t interpret. “Welcome to the Holding.”

He shook his head. “Not yet. The Border’s right ahead, though, and I’ve just picked up the first customs beacon from K’solo. Should be dropping speed in less than a shift, barring complications.”

“Hard to say. I’ve only made this trip once, remember?” He checked a readout on the control panel. “Rumor has it security inspections are stiff for incoming vessels. That’s why I made sure we had a ship that would raise no questions. Something a lone exile like myself might conceivably have gotten hold of.” There was an edge to his voice, Rho noted, accompanied by a brief but razor-sharp emanation of resentment. He hated playing these games as much as she did.

“We need a starlane assignment to travel legitimately. Without it we’re just a rogue ship, and anyone who wants to can take us down with no interference from the law. We could possibly manage to scrape by without clearance in this region, but as you get in closer to the Central System the odds of slipping past all the authorities gets awfully small. And what the authorities don’t catch, independents will; any ship traveling as a rogue is fair game, and believe me there are those who hunt them, both for sport and for profit. Besides,” he added, “you forget, our purpose here is legitimate. My own safe return is guaranteed by Braxaná law. As for you. . . .”

“I’m afraid so, Shaka-Rho.” A faint hint of a smile flitted across his lips; if it had been any more overt she might have killed him for it. “From here on out you are my property, by Braxin law.”

“—And if you give me orders again I will strike you. Though not for the pleasure of doing so, I assure you. Merely to help you remember that such a mistake could be deadly once we’re out in public.”

He shrugged. “As you wish.” He turned back to the control panel. “I’d suggest you review the Social Codes before we arrive, then, so you know when and where you are required to submit to men. I’d also suggest you put that baggy jumpsuit back on; it’s less likely to draw attention than what you have on now. Although, to be honest, there are men who are drawn to clothing like that, as it signals a reluctant partner.” He shook his head. “Not my taste, but who am I to criticize?”

He rose from his seat and headed toward the door, but not before he stopped in front of her and tried to chuck a finger under her chin, a move that would have seemed affectionate had they not both known how much she wanted to kill him.

“You’re in my world now,” he told her. His eyes burned with a strange fire that she had not seen in them before. “I suggest you come to terms with that before we land. A mistake in the port could be fatal.”

Not that it shouldn’t have been easy, right? He’d followed the law to the letter when he left the Holding. He’d respected it when he was gone. He was coming back now with a woman in tow who would appear to be the price of his return from exile, and there should be no reason for trouble anywhere along the way, going home. Right?

Of course, between him and the killer psychic woman it was likely they could take down most enemies . . . but that meant new risks. Any hint in public that she was more than she seemed, and they could have the whole station coming down upon their heads.

He’d warned her, of course. Don’t use any psychic ability once we disembark. Don’t whisper to me even in secret about things you feel, because any corner might contain spies. Don’t underestimate how much my people hate psychics, or what kind of violent reaction you might get if you show them even a hint of your power. Strangers have been killed for less.

Bringing her home to the Central System was not unlike carrying a live bomb in one’s hands . . . a bomb so sensitive that it might go off if you breathed wrong. Much as he appreciated a challenging battle, that was not the kind of weapon he would have chosen.

The customs station at K’solo was surrounded by a swarm of ships. They were mostly commercial barges, Rho noted, giant shells that could act as stations in their own right, studded with portals that looked like glaring eyes. From a distance they looked like a giant herd of beetles fighting over a morsel of food. It was hard to see what was receiving their attention until Tathas got instructions for wending his way between them, to a berth that was outfitted for smaller ships.

She could feel her heart pounding in her throat as they started their descent through the field of giants. This close to the station she could pick up the sentience of the people on board it, and while truth be told it wasn’t much different in tenor from the mind-chatter of any other station, the knowledge that it was Braxins she was listening to made her heart clench in a mixture of dread and elation. All her life she had studied the enemy, so that she might set traps for them amidst the stars. Now she was about to walk among them unarmed—as much as a Shaka was ever unarmed—pretending to be part of their twisted society. Pretending to belong to one of them.

It was a great subterfuge, the only problem being . . . how much could she trust Tathas? She knew how much he would gain from betraying her. The Holding would welcome a psychic to dissect and a mind like hers to break for secrets, enough for that gift alone to win him passage home.

The bracelet chafed on her wrist, as much as the Braxin chafed on her mind. She could taste his own tension in the back of her mouth now and it wasn’t helping matters at all. Disciplines only worked so well when you were with a person who associated you with the quest that was causing him tension. His fears, finely honed, dug their way into her mind like molten barbs, and the best of her mental exercises could hardly dull their heat. For the hundredth time that shift she reached for the packet of pills tucked into her clothing, pressed white powder that could blissfully drive all his Braxi thoughts from her head. For the hundredth time, her hand stopped just short of taking them out. She had never wanted to shut down the part of her mind that was open to alien thoughts more than now, but something in her gut rather than her brain warned her this was not the right time. To go without her power was to be truly defenseless; one had to have a better cause than irritation to enter such a dangerous state.

There would be an inspection, of course; no private vessel would be granted clearance into the Holding without authorities first making sure it carried no contraband. Or at least making sure that they were paid properly to overlook the contraband. Since the tiny ship carried nothing illegal and Tathas was applying the proper bureaucratic lubrication, he had said they should be safe enough. He sounded confident, but that was because leaders were taught to sound confident to their people; but she could sense the strain of it on his psyche, the trigger-taut tension that infused every cell of his body and every synapse of his mind.

“We’ll need more fuel,” he said. That was a given. They’d known when they left the Community that the small ship couldn’t carry enough to sustain them all the way to Braxi. Better to fill up now, at the Border, than risk drawing attention closer in.

“Doubtless.” There was a strange look in his eyes for a moment, then; thoughts flashed through his mind too quickly for her to pick any of them up clearly. “Though I’ll be staying nearby. You can go explore if you feel like it.” He glanced toward her bracelet, and that maddening half-smile flickered across his lips once more. “No doubt you will find enough to amuse yourself if you wander off alone.”

With a sigh of resignation she sat in the other pilot’s seat and watched him bring the small ship in. They were offered an air lock that had clearly seen better days, but it functioned well enough to affix them to the weathered station. Rho reflected briefly upon the fact that an immersion dock would have been better; then she could have walked around the ship to see if any of the tape was peeling off. But. When you’re invading an enemy’s space to destroy its leadership, you make do with what you’ve got, right?

She looked up at Tathas. He was busy talking to one of the port authorities, who was entering information on a computerized tablet as they spoke. Biting her lip, she kept her silence. He had told her how important it was that she not even hint at her power, and he would not welcome a warning with so little information behind it. With a sigh she leaned back against the wall of the reception bay, feigning fatigue so that others wouldn’t guess why she wanted its support. Shutting her eyes, she let her mind wander out into the distance, seeking the source of that passing unease.

With a sigh of frustration, she gave up. The station was so rife with random hostilities that picking out one wisp of thought to focus on was nigh on impossible, even for one of her skill. At least the odd feeling, whatever it was, wasn’t focused on the two of them. She’d know it if it was; thoughts that were focused on you were like spotlights shining in your face, impossible to miss.

A few more port officers wandered into the dock, conferred with their superior, and headed toward the ship. Rho could sense a sudden crest of tension in Tathas as he waved them inside. Now that was interesting. Could it be he had contraband on board after all? She noted that he was carefully staying close to the outer wall of the dock. Did he want to be close to the ship, or just not want to leave enough room for anyone to slip behind him? If the latter it was probably reflex; a lifetime of breaking Braxaná law, he had told her, taught a man to always be prepared for trouble.

She moved closer to Tathas. He was busy in some kind of negotiations with the port authority; the snatches she caught sounded like some kind of bribery to rush through normal procedures. She saw him glance up at the workmen once or twice, and she could taste the tension in him like a tightly coiled spring, but thus far there was no overt sign of trouble.

As the realization hit, the wave of hostility focused upon her Braxin companion became clear to her. No, there was no one in the station planning to harm the two of them . . . their target was Tathas and Tathas alone. To them she was as inconsequential as the ship behind him, or the floor beneath his feet. Their focus had been so tight that she had all but missed it.

All of them were in on it. The officers, the inspectors who were inside their ship, the workers . . . every single one of them sent here to greet him, to surround him, and to see that he never left K’solo. There were guards waiting outside as well, in case something went wrong in the dock. They didn’t know why someone powerful wanted him dead or captured—she couldn’t tell which—but they’d do their job anyway.

A feeling of sickness welled up in her gut as she realized just how completely they had been surrounded. And she had no way of warning him. This close to their enemies she dared not even hint at the truth of the situation; they’d move in before Tathas had time to absorb any cryptic message. Yet he had to know. He was wary, but not wary enough. He knew there might be trouble, but he surely had not anticipated a targeted assassination attempt his first minutes within the Holding. Who had even known that he was headed here, to arrange such a thing?

Voices were coming from inside the lock now; the inspectors had done their job and were leaving the ship. They hesitated at the portal, going over some notes they had taken inside. They were near enough to be at Tathas’ side in a heartbeat, and if the port official stepped out of the way the workers at the far end of the dock would have a clear shot at him.

She could feel recognition of the gesture’s meaning shoot through him like an electrical current. Something is so wrong. Something is so very wrong that I’ll even pretend I like you. Sorry I can’t tell you more.

He squeezed her hand back momentarily, an equally silent acknowledgment. Then he turned his attention to the business at hand. But she wasn’t fooled. She could feel the warrior’s tension soar in him, and to be this close to it was intoxicating. Suddenly she found herself strangely elated at the thought of trouble. The two of them against whatever forces K’solo had mustered; wasn’t that a challenge worth meeting? His spirit cried out its defiance on levels only she could hear, and his confidence surged through her veins like a drug.

Tathas moved suddenly, She saw Tathas grab one of the inspectors and whirl him about until he was slammed to the Kesserit’s chest, pinned by Tathas’ arm, a human shield. The motion had been so fast, so utterly without warning, that none of the men in the bay had time to react to it. The port officer tried to duck out of the way so that others could fire at Tathas, but his mind broadcast his intent a nanosecond before his muscles responded and she short-circuited the message, inserting her own instead. Stumbling like a zombie, his face a mask of horror as he found himself yanked about by invisible puppet strings, he lurched toward Rho and Tathas just far enough to put himself in the line of fire as they moved.

Sure, Tathas had told her not to use her power, but he wasn’t the prince of her tribe, was he? Unlike Tathas, the officer was an easy conquest. His inner mind recognized the nature of the assault being launched and collapsed in terror, leaving her in near-total control of his flesh. Thank Hasha, finally, a Braxin who responded to psychic assault like he was supposed to!

She sent a last spearhead of thought into the officer’s brain, trying to freeze up his muscles long enough to keep him in position, blocking the line of fire. She hoped. The power was still new to her and she hadn’t had much practice using it in combat. The officer began staggering like a drunk whose left foot had been nailed on the floor; evidently one half of his brain was more resilient than the other. As it was he made a perfect shield for both of them, and she came about toward the air lock prepared to join Tathas in whatever combat was necessary there.

As she turned she saw the free inspector drawing a weapon, apparently willing to shoot his own comrade if that was what it took to bring Tathas down. What a price someone must have been offered for the Kesserit’s head! Her mind still dazed from the herculean effort of controlling the officer, she settled for a more primitive weapon this time . . . her knee. Driving it high, with all the power of her body behind it, she rammed it into that part of the man’s anatomy that Braxins were proudest of. Not just her strength, but all the weight of womankind was behind her, and she felt her knee hit hard enough to crack against the pelvic bone behind his softer flesh. The man doubled over and began to vomit so swiftly she barely had time to get out of the way, and she spared only a nanosecond to savor the sight before darting through the air lock and into the narrow confines of the ship.

She’d thought at first that Tathas would drag the captive inspector inside as a hostage, but when she saw him empty-handed realized at once there was no point in that; an underling who got in the way would simply have been sacrificed by his fellows. Braxin honor. The sweat of exertion began to stream from her brow as Tathas quickly closed the outer lock, then the inner, sealing them both so that no outside security codes would unlock them. The Community had prepared for at least that much trouble before they’d left the homeworld, she knew that, and the ship’s solid armor was infinitely stronger than it looked. Which would buy them all of . . . oh, maybe two minutes.

Startled, she fell back. He pushed her out of the way and made sure the controls hadn’t been touched. “They were in here. They’ll have entrapped the ship, somehow. Probably linked to the systems that would let us take flight.”

“Figure out what they did and undo it,” he muttered. “Very, very fast.” He sat down in the main pilot’s seat and began to feed instructions to the ship’s computer. She didn’t understand half the codes, but watched in silence as some kind of security array splayed itself across the status screen. “It has to be something simple, they couldn’t have had time for anything more . . .” The waves of tension rolling forth from him were like a riptide; it was hard in her current dazed state not to get lost in them.

A noise sounded from the vicinity of the air lock. Something mechanical. “They’ll try to break in,” he said. “And I can’t raise the protective field to stop them, until I know that system’s safe.” A bead of sweat broke out on his pale brow, matting the dark hair to his forehead as it began to trickle down to his neck. “Bless them! Where is it—”

A horrible shriek rent the air then: metal against metal. The whole ship shook. She didn’t need to read his mind to know that there wasn’t much time left. Even if he figured out what the inspectors had done to the ship, the force fields wouldn’t come on and the ship wouldn’t move once the air lock had been breached.

Heart pounding, she turned and was preparing herself to take control of whoever broke into the ship, when he reached out suddenly and pushed her into a corner. “There! Stay there! Out of sight!” he ordered.

He stood in the center of the chamber then, and ordered the communications system to attend him. How strong he looked in that moment, how confident! Not desperate at all, but like some wild, barbaric creature that drew its strength from battle-frenzy.

“Central Computer!” he said sharply. “Augmented signal, emergency priority. This is Tathas, son of Zheret. Returning from the Wilding with object of great value to the Braxaná, priceless to the Pri’tiera. Requesting communication access to the Pri’tiera, direct, immediate. I am currently under assault in the K’solo system, object will be destroyed if assault is successful.”

“The System will decide,” he said tightly. “Even now it’s collecting data on our current situation, the legal history of my Wilding, the Pri’tiera’s past priorities in such affairs . . . all the details that could possibly impact its analysis of my message . . . it will decide how quickly my message goes through to the Pri’tiera, and whether there’s an intermediary involved.” Something impacted against the hull; the whole ship shivered. “If it’s the latter, I don’t think we’re going to make it. Then of course there is the issue of whether the Pri’tiera will respect the message, or not want his day interrupted by a commoner .” She could briefly taste the wave of hatred that accompanied the word, but it was drowned out an instant later in the torrent of raw hostility coming at them from outside the ship.

The vibration on the hull continued. The screeching of metal against metal echoed through the narrow corridors. The small ship’s flooring shook beneath Rho’s feet. Briefly she wondered if the invaders would bother to try to take her captive, and if so, whether death was not a preferable alternative.

The display was not a full one, but tight-focused; some kind of portable communicator rather than a console. It showed a man’s head and little else. A man’s? No, a boy’s. The face was surreal, sculpted in planes of gleaming white, like polished stone rather than flesh. Its beauty was surreal as well, the kind of beauty possessed by great works of art rather than living creatures. Black hair curled about the whitened face in perfectly formed crescents, evenly spaced, that mirrored the obsidian blackness of his eyes. Every feature was perfect in its size and placement, the arch of the fine jet brows sweeping into an aquiline nose of perfect proportion, above lips that, if they had been a fraction thinner or fuller or wider or more pursed, would have detracted from the perfection of the whole. Yet despite all the paint and powder which had been applied to it, despite the surreal inhumanity of its visage, it was a boy’s face only, and not a man’s. No paint could disguise that truth.

“I would say that this had better be worth my time, or you will die for it.” The voice of the Pri’tiera, like his countenance, betrayed his youth, but the timbre of absolute authority was clear in it nonetheless. “However, the System assures me you are about to die anyway, so I will refrain from stating the obvious.”

“My Wilding is completed.” Tathas’ voice was strong, self-assured, but Rho could sense the tension inside him, like a wild animal’s hackles rising at the scent of a rival. “Braxaná law guarantees my right to return.”

“It guarantees your right to try, and that the Holding won’t officially hunt you down for it. Nothing more. If you’ve made personal enemies, they are not our business.” A black-gloved hand dismissed the subject with a short motion. “Is that all, Tathas? I didn’t interrupt my day for a philosophical debate.”

It was a stasis vial, of the type used to preserve small tissue samples. But not merely a vial from a lab, no. The remnants of a golden filigree frame still clung to its frosted surface, evoking memories of its regal owner. Rho had gazed upon that vial during many formal occasions, fixing it in her mind as the focus of her heritage, her history, her hopes. Now it had been set into an open container made of cruder stuff, with some kind of mechanism on the top. Tathas held it up where the Pri’tiera could see it clearly, depressed the button that was on top of the mechanism . . . and held it down.

“I assume from your dramatic posturing, a dead man’s switch. You are most theatrical, Kesserit, but I grow bored, which is dangerous for you. Why should I care if you live or die? You have—” he glanced off-screen to consult a chrono “—two hundredths to make your case strong enough to interest me.”

“DNA samples from a direct descendant of Harkur the Great,” Tathas continued. “Preserved with meticulous care from the moment of her death.” He turned the vial so that its frosted surface caught the light. “This is all there is, Great One. One precious sample, from which a new generation might be born. Your blood and his, commingled. Has that not been the dream of your line, since the time of Zatar the Magnificent? I can make it happen . . . assuming I live to get it to you. If I am killed before I can do that. . . .” He glanced meaningfully at the hand that held the button depressed. “Then it will be lost.”

It took every ounce of self-control Rho could muster for her not to throw herself at Tathas at that moment. Was it truly fitted with a dead man’s switch that would destroy the sample if he released it? Good, then her work would be easy. And if the damn thing blew up and killed them both, that was a price worth paying.

But his hand warned her back, almost as if he knew what she was thinking. Trembling with frustration, she remained crouched out of sight. I can kill you from here, she thought. I don’t need to touch you. Remember that.

“Safe passage to the Central System. As is my right.” He nodded toward the part of the ship where the noises of assault had been the loudest. “You can start by calling off your dogs on K’solo.”

“Their master answers to you. Or his master. This is your Holding, yes?” Rho could hear the scorn rising in his voice. “All men within it answer to you. At least . . . that’s what common Braxins are taught. Do correct me if it’s wrong.”

Despite the boy’s control over the impassive mask that was his face, she could see the shadow of anger come into his eyes. “K’solo will not harm you,” he said stiffly. “The rest I cannot guarantee.”

“Not good enough, Pri’tiera. Not if you want me home safely. Whoever tried to get me here will surely try again at our next stop . . . and like you said, it’s a long journey home.” He held the vial up to eye level. “An escort. Full protection. For the sake of your prize.”

There was a long silence then. Waves of authority and dominance battered at the gates of her mind, more powerful than anything she had imagined the Braxin capable of. If his emanations were this strong, what must the Pri’tiera’s be like? For the first time since she had agreed to undertake this mission, she wondered if she would be strong enough to defeat him.

Triumph resonated in Tathas’ brain. Triumph, and an almost sexual elation that the duel of words had ended in this victory. “Thank you, Pri’tiera. I am humbly grateful for your assistance.” His bow of humility contained only the faintest shadow of mockery . . . but the screen went dark so fast it was probable the Pri’tiera never saw it.

The console flashed a signal; incoming data. He read the brief message and a smile of dark satisfaction flickered across his face. “They altered the force field array. Good choice. No ship can launch without it. Good thing they got to the air lock before we could try to bring up the ’fields; we’d have blown the ship sky high if we’d tried.”

Sky high. What a strange, planetbound phrase that was. Strange as all the other things about this man, alien and incomprehensible. She watched him for a while to see if he needed help, but apparently he didn’t. After a few minutes the air lock released them, and he eased the tiny ship out into space once more. The Void, Braxins called it. As if nothing was out there. She remained awake for the half-tenth it took for the Pri’tiera’s escort vessels to rendezvous with them, and then, when she finally saw Tathas relax, when she knew from his mental emanations that the worst was over, she slid down to the floor where she’d been standing and . . . maybe slept, maybe just stared into space . . . drifted away, at any rate, into places where Braxin thoughts didn’t assault the mind and death-squads weren’t waiting around every corner.

~This is our last transmission to you, Shaka-Rho. (Regret) You’re inside his borders now, and we don’t know the limits of his power. If we call out to you when you are closer than this, he might sense it and be warned.

She remembered the vial. It still lay on the console. Hasha’s own essence manifest in the blood of the Founder, or simple Braxin deception? It didn’t matter. Odd though it was to discover the fact, she trusted Tathas. He didn’t want the Pri’tiera to get hold of that DNA any more than she did.