AELIN
Over the past weeks, Aelin had fallen into enough of a routine that he almost forgot about the distant slaughter of the bloaters. He found it gratifying just to be a green priest again, though he remained hungry for contact from the drifting, enigmatic nodules. He knew he was missing something.…
He still feared that someone from Iswander Industries would find him, though. By now they would know he had disappeared; maybe they would guess he had escaped, but more likely they would believe he had vanished in among the bloaters, never to return. Elisa Enturi still came to Ulio Station frequently, though, and if she suspected he had escaped, that woman would surely hunt him down. To protect himself, he monitored all incoming ships, so he could hide whenever she arrived. That was how he had noticed Orli Covitz.…
Aelin spent his days reconnecting with the worldforest through Dauntha’s treeling, remembering what he had been. This was what he had been born to do.
But the bloaters …
When he learned the shocking news that clan Duquesne was also harvesting ekti-X, he felt a great heaviness in his heart. More bloaters being murdered! He had fought so hard to convince Lee Iswander to stop spilling the blood of the cosmos, because no one could understand the harm he was doing. And now another clan was extracting stardrive fuel in the same fashion. Had he been the one to reveal the secret by his careless, stupid blurting out? It made him want to weep, and he was desperate to do something about it, but he knew that if the word got out, hundreds of such extraction operations would crop up. It could not be stopped.
Even if he were to prove that the bloaters were significant to the very survival of life in the Spiral Arm, as he suspected, many industrialists would still put immediate personal profit ahead of the general good of humanity. He didn’t dare reveal what he knew … but he couldn’t just ignore it either.
Aelin felt drawn to where he could see the satellite tank array, the strategic stockpile of stardrive fuel that Elisa Enturi had delivered. The ekti-X tanks hung in a large, organized cluster just outside of the station complex. He could feel the whispers in the back of his mind.
Looking through the side windowport, Aelin regarded the tethered array. He had traveled to Ulio hidden among those tanks. He knew the fuel had been drawn from the bloaters, and he thought he could still feel a connection there, though it was far fainter than what he had sensed from the majestic cluster.
He pressed his palms flat against the windowport, as if he could get closer to the array. Those tanks contained not just simple stardrive fuel. It was the essence of the bloaters. Ekti-X possessed its inherent energy because it contained a spark of life from the giant nodules. His heart ached to be so close.
Access to the stockpile array was well guarded by contract security forces. Two armed men looked askance at the green priest as he stood staring at the ekti tanks. Finally, the shorter of the two said, “Why is a green priest interested in stardrive fuel?”
Aelin pulled his attention from the array. “Do you know where ekti-X comes from?”
“Roamers have been distributing stardrive fuel for centuries.”
“Not ekti-X.”
“Don’t have a clue, don’t really care,” said the shorter guard.
“I do care.” Aelin moved off, even though the ache in his heart had not lessened.
Leaving them, he moved through Ulio Station wrapped in his own thoughts and concerns. His mind had been altered and now he could sense things even without being connected through a treeling. There were ripples in the universe, dark vibrations. Aelin felt frightened.
People crowded around him in the station corridors, but he felt all alone. The air was harder to breathe. The slaughter of so many bloaters was causing a shudder in the universe. He could feel the oppressive weight, but couldn’t identify the source.
As he stumbled along, he bumped into visitors to Ulio, paying little attention as he hurried to find a place where he could be safe. In an empty corridor he stopped, pressed his bare back against the bulkhead, breathing heavily. When he closed his eyes, the darkness seemed to come from all directions, so he opened his eyes out of desperation.
He couldn’t sound an alarm because he didn’t understand what he was sensing. He had shouted dire warnings to Lee Iswander before, but no one had believed him. Aelin staggered down the corridor until he made his way back to Dauntha’s quarters. She, at least, would listen.
When he entered her chamber, he found the old woman communing with her treeling. Oftentimes when he saw her do this, she would have a blissful expression on her face. Her eyes would be closed and her skin would twitch as she lost herself in contact with the worldforest mind.
Now, though, troubled lines furrowed her brow. When he burst into the room, she didn’t even look up, still desperately searching the verdani mind.
“I’m afraid, Dauntha,” he said. “I sense something I don’t understand.” He shook his head, then stumbled forward to grasp the treeling with her, his fingers touching Dauntha’s. They could communicate more closely this way. She opened her eyes and Aelin stared into them. “Something is coming—something terrible.”
Dauntha stared at him for a long moment, and her head twitched in a slight nod. She let go of the treeling and said, “I know.”