Karine sat cross-legged, aching for the danger her child faced. As minutes dragged, she became increasingly certain Llyn would not recover from the seizure that laid her out, blank-eyed, in Jahn Emlin’s arms.
Karine glanced at the deadly doors where Gamal Casimir had entered, then over her shoulder at the Sunsisans. She would let those shabby farmers club her to death with their shovels and hoes rather than walk into that building.
Suddenly Salbari beckoned—to Rena. The redheaded girl scooted forward, grinding sand into her culottes’ knees. She and Salbari stared at each other for a moment before Rena crabwalked back to Karine. “He wants you to see this. He’s so proud of Llyn.”
Karine jumped into synch, desperate for information. Rena passed on a third-generation image of Llyn’s inner vision. The colors and shapes looked sickeningly familiar. Karine had struggled to train Llyn out of that environment, to make her forget it. Now, according to Rena, they must all hope Llyn remembered it well enough to survive inside.
Should she have nurtured Llyn’s unusual skills?
No! Years of habit and deep conviction throttled those thoughts. Llyn had disobeyed her. If the aliens devoured Llyn, only Llyn was to blame. Llyn and Filip.
How could she rescue Llyn now?
The multitude pushed Llyn toward a spot in the darkness that they alone illuminated. She thought it might be the place where she’d entered—and at that spot, Jahn’s presence seemed close. Warm.
Exhausted, she sang herself through.
The Chaethe must have helped her this time. Immediately, her outer senses focused. “Jahn,” she breathed. “Regent Salbari.”
They both turned to her. Beyond them sat a blur of other people. Past that group stood Osun Zavijavah. Alone. His dark mustache deepened his frown.
If only she could help him—
“What is it?” Regent Salbari whispered.
She whispered back. “They’re going to destroy their renegade. They promised me Gen Zavijavah won’t suffer—”
Abruptly, Zavijavah collapsed without a sound. His forehead seemed to be swelling. Darkening.
Llyn shut her eyes. Shouts surrounded her, but she curled forward and ignored them. Warm arms enfolded her.
It would feel so good to sleep.
Rena’s shout startled her. “Casimir—he’s back!”
Llyn straightened. Rena stood pointing at the huge building. Two Sunsisan farmers emerged. One carried a limp human in a Tdegan dress uniform. It had to be her father. He was bleeding at the back of his neck.
She shut her eyes again. She relaxed into Jahn’s embrace.
But shuffling noises roused her, and she opened them again. Two farmers stood beside Bellik, and her father had been laid in Bellik’s lap. He made no attempt to cooperate. Obviously, he had no body control below his shoulders. His wide, fear-red eyes flicked left and right.
Her heart went out to him.
“Regent Casimir.” Regent Salbari spoke as firmly as he’d addressed the Chaethe multitude. “The Concord will gladly receive Tdega, if you wish you rejoin us.”
“Yes.” Her father grunted the word. “That’s for myself. Not for it. Bellik, give him my hand.”
Bellik lifted her father’s hand off his leg and extended it to Regent Salbari. Palm up. Submissive.
Regent Salbari grasped it. He did not turn the handclasp. “There must be reparations.”
Bellik cleared his throat. Llyn thought his eyes looked frightened. “Nuris University. Rebuilt,” Bellik said.
“And food templates,” Regent Salbari prompted.
Llyn held her breath.
Bellik offered his own hand this time. She doubted Bellik would go on cooperating this willingly, but for now, he plainly saw the wisdom.
Llyn shut her eyes. Without even needing Jahn’s help this time, she escaped back to the inner world, where revulsion darkened the shapes she saw. {Must it be so terrible, so terrible?} she sang. {Did Gen Zavijavah have to die? Will the new Rider kill my father that same way? And …} A new thought struck her. {Did the renegade infest other humans on Tdega?}
The basses answered, their notes ponderous and slow. {We—do—not—know.}
But the rosy oval reappeared. {We could find them. Take some of us to Tdega Sphere. We will reimpress the poor renegade’s children. We will bring them back into the canta.}
{Have any of your people been to Tdega?} Llyn asked. {Those inside the canta?}
The multitude vibrated again, singing laughter like grace notes. {Our people have had a presence at Tdega Sphere for centuries, Llyn Human Singer. We set an automated space station in orbit around its red sun centuries ago.}
The so-called Devastator artifact was Chaethe? Llyn trembled. {You set it there?}
{We did, we did, we did.} She heard amusement and pride, but also an odd hesitancy. They felt embarrassed to tell her.
Another group sang. {We meant to defend Tdega, once we colonized it. We still could defend Tdega from other races. Tdega is safe, it is safe from Devastator beasts!}
{The war station was already programmed to destroy incoming weapons,} sang the basses. {So it survived the Devastators’ purge. As did Tdega Sphere. We saved it for you. For us. We saved Tdega for all humans, and for Chaethe.}
{Thank you,} she exclaimed, flabbergasted. {Excuse me, but this is important news, and I must tell my people.}
She found the entry point without help, but she emerged gasping this time, all temptation gone. If she had chosen to join the canta permanently, this body of hers would have become bedridden, as helpless as she’d been in a float tank.
Then she must live here, in the outer world. Besides, Jahn lived here. “Regent Salbari,” she exclaimed.
He turned toward her.
“They put the artifact into orbit at Tdega. It’s not a Devastator artifact at all!”
“They what?”
It would take too much effort to explain. “Synch with me, sir. I’ll show you.”
What had awed Llyn terrified Filip. Evidently, humankind had lived with a Chaethe-controlled robotic presence for two centuries. If it could destroy Devastator warships, it could be turned against humankind. All the Chaethe would need was time to arm it.
They must leave. Soon. There was more negotiating to do, as soon as Llyn regained her strength.
Abruptly, Karine waved both hands. “Llyn,” she cried. “Tell them I still have the AR unit.”
Llyn shook her head, looking as confused as Filip felt.
“The AR machine.” Karine’s eyes had gone wide. “It’s in crates. In the clinic basement.”
“Yes!” Llyn exclaimed, and she collapsed in Jahn’s lap again, looking paler than ever. She was slipping. Filip must not let her—or Jahn—continue much longer. The afternoon had gone on too long. Sunsis A’s solar day lasted fifty hours, or so he’d been told.
Burgin Hardette, Senator Igrim, and Dio Liion suggested demands they must make of the Chaethe. Gamal Casimir volunteered the fact that the Chaethe could be thwarted by electromagnets or ethanol.
Then the talk turned to hosts for the Chaethe. “Are there enough dedoes to go around?” Dio Liion asked.
“Of course not.” Captain Hardette stepped forward. “This is going to be a rough transition.”
“They need more bodies right now.” Gamal Casimir’s voice sounded weak. “Otherwise, these hosts will start to die. Humans can’t carry four spores. It will kill them.”
“He is right.” Jal Malukulu still sat with the central group. “Sunsis A North is sparsely populated. Those of us they’ve taken can stay here. The ones who take dedoes can move up north.” He held himself straighter than before, Filip noticed. With more dignity.
“Why not here?” Senator Igrim asked.
Malukulu spread his hands. “Our human children’s human children will be born free. We must protect them.”
Bellik cleared his throat. “We have range animals that are normally slaughtered at two years. If the Chaethe are desperate for temporary bodies, we can ship in several thousand within twenty days. Those will suffice while the dedoes breed, won’t they? Infest them young—when we brand them and dock their tails—and then simply don’t slaughter. Let the Chaethe do it for us, when they leave the creatures for your dedoes.”
Filip’s throat constricted. The little meat Antarans ate was tissue-cloned. Still, he would support almost any step that did not crack open the door for more human infestation.
And the talks went on, and eventually he forbade Llyn to go back inside. But to his surprise, she struggled to her feet, helped by Jahn. In an oddly modulated voice that sounded like Chaethe music, she asked, “How many empaths could learn, could learn the Chaethe language if they tried to teach us? The more translators they can find, the sooner they can leave our systems. The transducer helmet will help. We must build more of them.”
Joao raised a finger.
“Me,” Rena called.
Karine stared at her feet.
“Llyn,” Filip called, “we will commit ourselves to every empath available and willing. Llyn, are you here?”
She glanced at him. She looked up into the sky and sang something he did not understand.
Karine scrambled to her feet, and this time, he found himself empathizing with her.
“Llyn,” he said. “Llyn, listen to me.” He synched with Jahn. Llyn turned her head past him, cocking an ear to listen. “We can teach Chaethe language to other empaths,” he told her. “We can offer facilities on Sunsis and Antar. But you must teach us. You’re going too deep, for too long. Come back. Come out and rest, Llyn. Can you hear me? You’re in danger.”
His monotone rasped like dry sticks scraping compared to the canta’s sweet music. {There will be many of us to sing for you,} she told the multitude. {But I am tired. I must rest.} She thought of Jahn, waiting. Of Regent Salbari, and even Karine.
She was human, not Chaethe. {I’ll return when I can,} she sang wearily. She wafted toward the entry point … and through, with a wrench that nauseated her. Hot wind made her even dizzier. “I’m done,” she muttered to Jahn. He severed the connection, and grief stabbed her like long metal spores, like knives, like all the pain she ever had known.
But she belonged with Jahn. Surely the Creator wanted her here in this world, where she’d been born. Human.
Someone stepped in front of her. She looked up into Regent Salbari’s solemn eyes. “Thank you,” he said. “Rest. Lie down, both of you. We will have peace in the Concord, thanks to you.”
“There’s so much left to sing. I mean, to say.” Darkness unraveled the edges of her vision.
Strong arms lowered her onto the sand.
“I’m all right,” Jahn insisted.
Uncle Joao supported his shoulders. “You must be half dead. She certainly is.”
Jahn glanced down at Llyn, who was already asleep and going deeper by the moment—but it was only sleep. Sweet, normal sleep. Her drowsiness beat at him.
Then he remembered. “Where’s Mother?” he exclaimed, shaking free. He stumbled over to Lyova Waverly and the group she guarded, lying near the outer circle. Sunsisans turned to each other in clusters, dropping their farming tools. Some shook their heads.
His mother lay with her curls askew, breathing slowly. “Can you synch with her?” he asked Lyova. “Is she—”
“She seems stunned. I don’t think she hears when I try to wake her up.”
Jahn knelt and fingered the white stimulant patch on his mother’s throat.
“It should have worked by now,” Lyova said, caution in her voice.
He stretched into synch. The last time he’d seen his mother, he had been slower and weaker. His abilities had grown.
And she was the Order’s strongest listener. Imitating Llyn’s inner song, he tried to project. Maybe she would hear. Maybe she would recognize him, if he came close enough. {Mother,} he called. {Mother, it’s done. It’s over. We’ve won.} His weary eyes watered. {Mother, Llyn made peace with the Chaethe. Mother,} he repeated.
At the deepest level of synchrony, her inner frequency quivered. It accelerated. Her eyes twitched.
They opened.
“Vananda!” Uncle Joao cried.
The next time Llyn saw Karine, a long Sunsisan night and a day and another long night had passed. Gate-relay communiqués had returned from all eight Concord worlds. In a concrete house on the edge of Sunsis A South’s main settlement, treaty terms were being modified.
In a smaller house, Karine stood in front of a gray wall. Sunlight streamed in her eastern window. “You are not listening,” she insisted. “There is still hope you may recover from enmeshment. You must avoid Jahn Emlin. I have an extra bed. I need you here. I don’t feel well.”
“Let me try this again, Karine.” Llyn pitied her. She tucked her hands into the pockets of a billowy summer dress, Winnow’s gift. Llyn now knew that Winnow’s Chaethe symbiont portrayed itself as a rose-colored oval. They were becoming friends. All three of them. “I came to tell you this. I have forgiven you again, and you need to know why. You humiliated me in front of Regent Salbari and half the population of this town.”
“When did I—”
“With Regent Salbari’s helmet.” It was a relief to tell Karine so, but she doubted Karine would understand. “I also came to say good-bye. Karine, I love you. I want the best for you. That’s why I will support Regent Salbari’s criminal abuse charges.”
Karine clenched both fists. “I have offered to assist the diplomatic effort. That charge is ridiculous.”
“You are helping.” Llyn had to agree. “And everyone is grateful. But your heart and habits have not changed. You are a worthy, valuable person. And when you’re better, you can be—”
“I am not sick. Do you—” For one moment, Karine’s expression softened. Llyn heard pain and hope as she asked, “Do you think I am?”
Not long ago, Llyn would’ve rather lied than hurt Karine. She tried to answer gently. “When I have gone, you will only find someone else to control unless you let Herva Metyline treat you. They tell me her clinic isn’t as comfortable as yours, which is high praise to you. And I promise I’ll come see you often—”
“Get out!” Karine thrust a hand toward the door.
Although the words stung, Llyn smiled. She’d resisted manipulation—and it worked! It did not hurt to turn and walk out.
She emerged onto the front porch, where Rena and Jahn stood waiting with Karine’s Outwatch guard. “That’s over.” Llyn sighed.
Jahn touched her hand. She reached down into nexus and was comforted.
Across a rectangular table, Filip watched Gamal Casimir. Besides the six worlds that had not seceded, Tdega was represented by the Casimirs, and Sunsis by Jal Malukulu, who gave his symbiont access to these talks. Sunsis B had also sent a representative. An Ilzaran envoy would arrive within a week.
Gamal had been furnished with a small personal transport. Servomotors that he controlled with his chin operated a right-arm brace. He extended that hand, asking Senator Igrim for the right to speak. Bellik sat near the wall behind him. In the five days—Concord time—since they landed, Bellik had thwarted two more attempts on Gamal’s life. Gamal’s symbiont, an honorable canta member, had pledged its cooperation, but there could be little rehabilitation.
Urban Igrim acknowledged Gamal, who jerked his chin against the control surface. His arm sank onto the table. “I have heard from my constituents, too,” Gamal said. “My son, Siah, says that the Tdegan Board will refit Sunsis A North for Chaethe-dedo symbionts and a few human facilitators. We will build a satellite campus for Nuris University there.” He cleared his throat, took two rattling breaths, and went on. “I am asked to offer my services as Regent for that campus. Bellik will assist me.”
It would be a fitting exile. Filip kept his hands folded on the table, thankful to have use of them. Back on Tdega, Llyn’s brother Siah—who had exiled himself when Gamal attacked Nuris University—had taken up functional headship of Tdega, as well as the care of old Head Regent Donson.
Senator Urban Igrim addressed Filip. “Sir, you resigned the Head Regency, but I believe you have the authority to accept that application.”
“Yes,” Filip said. “Welcome to Nuris University, Regent Casimir.” It felt good to say that.
Gamal’s face twitched.
Humans stood to learn prodigious amounts from the Chaethe, who had parasitized three other spacefaring races. Nuris University soon would be the greatest information repository known to any species.
Except perhaps the Devastators.
The balance point of this new alliance was a chilling understanding. The Devastators were still out there, who asked no questions before boiling whole worlds’ oceans away. They might not return for ten human lifetimes, but someday, the Human-Chaethe alliance would face them. If the Chaethe could convince them that they no longer menaced the Devastator hive, a threat to all sentient races might end.
In peace, not war.
In the meantime, Nuris University’s surviving geneticists would go to work designing a new symbiont species. The Chaethe requested the ability to enunciate words, of course. Comfortable sporulation would be an equally high priority. In a best-case scenario, something like their original bodies might be developed.
Senator Igrim’s chair at the head of this table was padded and reclined for his comfort. “Forgive me for not standing to speak,” he said. “Even in this pleasant heat, my joints are no younger than they were yesterday.”
Representatives murmured assent.
Vananda sat beside Filip, still looking pale and moving slowly. The Chaethe still were insisting they had not deliberately attacked her, nor Qu—and so synching with Chaethe was left to Llyn and Jahn, until other empaths learned to master the hazardous modulated vibrato of that alien inner frequency.
“I spent several hours this morning with the canta,” Senator Igrim said, “assisted by young Gen’n Torfinn and Gen Emlin. Regent Salbari’s proposal that Nuris and Bkellan Universities fund research into limiting Chaethe reproduction is tentatively approved. They still need to dance through the idea ten or twenty times.”
Several representatives applauded. Some turned to smile at Filip. He bowed his head and exhaled thanks. He’d been afraid that the concept would offend the Chaethe. “According to Gen’n Torfinn,” Filip explained, “most of the canta already hails our proposal as a breakthrough.”
“I can’t believe they never thought of it,” Dio Liion said. As soon as the need for helmets had obviously ended, she’d reknotted her hair.
Senator Igrim shrugged. “It is an alien mindset, and this unbalance is evidently a side effect of turning themselves into parasites. They are unhappy in communities less than a thousand, and greater numbers add to their pleasure. They see now that this would help them live peaceably among other people, spending more time doing what they enjoy. And they even have offered, if we succeed in those aims, to seek out other cantas and proselytize them.”
“Other cantas?” Captain Hardette repeated. “There are more of them?”
Filip raised an eyebrow. What had Hardette expected?
“Of course there are,” Senator Igrim said. “And four other spacefaring races.”
A warm breeze blew back Llyn’s hair. She looked up into Jahn’s beardless face. His auburn hair had grown in, and to her amusement, his eyebrows were dark red. “Regent Salbari says this enmeshment is permanent, then?” she asked.
He nodded. “But acceptable. The question is, is it acceptable to you? Karine is right. You could probably learn to cope—alone—if you never saw me again.”
But they’d walked together to life’s very edge. “I don’t want to cope without you,” she said. “I love you. It’s just that I feel too immature to make a lifetime commitment. I’m free, but I’m awfully young.”
“Remember what I said about the learning curve.” He circled her waist with an arm.
“I do.” She nodded. “But—”
“Salbari is willing and qualified to perform the rite.”
“But he needs me. He’s doing better at synching, but I’m still involved in those treaty talks.”
“I know that. And they know about us. You admitted that the Chaethe are anxious to see us … didn’t they call it ‘finishing our song’? You also told them we tend to be happier as couples.”
She clasped her hands behind his neck and pressed her shoulders against his body. Never in any of her lives had anything felt better.
It was good to be human, and they loved each other. They worked well together. They shared their deepest beliefs. If they meant to build something totally new, those sounded like good foundations.
She tipped back her head and said, “Let’s talk to Regent Salbari.”