Reclamation

12—Aboard the

“This is getting to be a habit.”

Her voice hurt him. Everything hurt him; the mattress against his back, the light against his eyelids, his pulse in his wrists.

I’ll die now, there’ll be no more pain. The thought drifted through his numb mind and he was too exhausted to either choke it off or pursue it. It just hung there.

There was a pressure against his neck and he screamed. After a moment, it subsided to the level of all the other pain. Lethargy seized hold of him slowly.

Thank you, he thought as his consciousness slid into darkness.

Eric came awake all at once with his heart in his mouth. When he saw his own cabin surrounding him, he collapsed back on the bed, weak with relief.

Not a dream. We made it out. The thought gave him the courage to try sitting up all the way. It wasn’t too difficult. The blinding pain had subsided to a dull headache, which he could cope with.

Eric stood carefully, finding his balance was a little tricky, but he managed it. He walked to the door without staggering and opened it.

Aria sat in the common room. Slices of real breads and meats lay on plates in front of her, along with a jug of something that steamed. Eric surveyed the feast. It looked like over half his luxury stock. He sank down onto the sofa and she slid a plate of meats toward him. His stomach rumbled. He folded a random selection of meat into a slice of unleavened bread and devoured it, stopping only to swig down some tea.

Aria watched him with her air of wry amusement. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Almost well, I think.” He looked toward the closed view wall and all around the common room. “Do you know how Adu managed to find us?”

“Us?” Aria said incredulously. “You were the only one who needed finding. I was along to help pull you free.”

Eric felt himself begin to stare. “I thought…I thought…”

“That because my Lord Teacher had been captured that this despised one must have been also?” She gave a sharp laugh. “Not so, my Teacher. You did a better job at hiding me than at hiding yourself.”

“Did I?” he asked the tabletop. “One more idiot action.”

He waited for an acid reply that did not come.

“What has happened?” she asked.

Eric ran both hands through his hair. “The Rhudolant Vitae are the ones the Words call the Aunorante Sangh. I have met the Aunorante Sangh, Stone in the Wall dena Aria Born of the Black Wall, and I, Teacher Hand kenu Lord Hand on the Seablade dena Enemy of the Aunorante Sangh was promptly captured and stuffed into a box for dissection.”

He waited for her to demand explanations, to invoke the Nameless Powers, or just to swear, but instead she sighed and dropped her hand onto the pouch that held her namestones.

“What I do not understand is why they call us Aunorante Sangh,” she said. “I wish I had the learning of my ancestresses and not just their stones.”

“You knew?” Eric gaped at her.

She rubbed the backs of her hands, tracing her scars with her fingertips. “I guessed, after I heard they claimed the Realm as their home. It wasn’t exactly a long leap in a high wind.” She gave him her twisted grin. “If you’ll permit…” She broke off. “You should, I think, be getting some more rest, Sar Born.”

“I don’t want to rest.” Eric heaved himself to his feet and paced to the comm station. “I want to think. I need to think.” He gripped the back of the chair with both hands and stared at the blank screen in front of him.

“Well, we’ve two days yet before we reach the Realm,” she leaned back. “That should be plenty of…”

Eric whirled around. “Who set us on course for the Realm!”

Aria sat up straighter. “Adu did,” she told him. “At my direction.”

“You idiot N…” He bit the word off. “The Vitae may already be there!”

“They are already there,” she replied calmly. “Adu checked. We will have to be careful how we proceed, I think.”

“Careful!” roared Eric. “They’ll pick us up as soon as we poke our noses into the system! They’ll…” The air caught in his throat and he coughed, sending a shudder through his entire body. He staggered and caught himself on the sofa’s corner. Aria grasped his shoulders. She eased him onto the seat and leaned him forward. When the coughing died, she let go and stepped away. Eric did not miss the hesitation in her eyes, or the fact that she hid her hands behind her back.

“The Realm is the last place in the Quarter Galaxy we want to go,” he croaked, reaching for the tea.

She sank back onto the sofa. “Those are not the words I expected from a Teacher who has just met the Aunorante Sangh in open battle.”

“Battle.” Eric filled his cup and swigged down a long draught. “Oh yes. Five minutes after I stood up against them, they had me tranqued out and in a life-support capsule. A great battle indeed for dena Enemy of the Aunorante Sangh.” He swirled the dregs of the tea. “Those poor ones in the Temples will go down twice as fast.”

She gaped at him. “What are you saying? You, you’re sitting there alive and recovering. You held them at bay, you signaled for help from the depths of their ship. You beat them.”

“I ran away from them,” he said. “I woke up and I panicked. I was so afraid, I couldn’t control myself. I just… I just…” He dropped the cup onto the tabletop. It wobbled and tipped over, letting amber liquid spill across the clear polymer. He watched the puddle ooze toward the plate of breads. He remembered the awful pulling in the capsule, as if something were trying to drag his soul out through his pores. A sick yielding sensation had come over him, and whatever dragged at him took him…took him…

“I don’t even really remember what I did,” he said. “All I know is that I was scared nearly into senselessness and if Adu…if you hadn’t been there to pull me out, I would be a set of molecules in a lab dish.”

Aria narrowed her eyes. “You did something, or your power gift did. I got that much from the little Vitae who released you from the capsule. He was babbling about you taking over the lab. I don’t think he knew very well what he was saying. There was blood on him.” She frowned. “Is the power gift always under your command or does it ever work on its own?”

“What kind of question is that?” Eric hunted around the table for a cloth to wipe up the spill and didn’t find anything.

“The question of a Notouch seeking wisdom from her Teacher,” she retorted. “It should be obvious even to you that what everyone, from the Unifiers to the Kethran to the Vitae, has sought is the understanding of how the gifts the Nameless laid upon us work. So, if we gain that understanding first, we will have something to bargain with, or fight with.”

“What is obvious to me is that you are wandering around in a night storm of your own thoughts.” He met her eyes. “Don’t you understand? There is nothing we can do. The Nameless alone can count how many Rhudolant Vitae there are. There are maybe three thousand Teachers in existence, counting the students. Even if we could all be united, which I doubt, we would be drowned in the flood of sheer numbers.” He turned up both his hands so he could see his blank, smooth, empty palms. “We can’t be blinded by our superstitions, not now. This is not some mythic battle we can win because we’re touched by the Nameless and they’re not. This is real. This is happening. This is a primitive and, probably, dying people, against the oldest and most coherent power in the Quarter Galaxy. All we can do is keep out of the way.”

“It was tried,” Aria folded her arms. “It only worked for 150 generations.”

“What?” Eric looked up.

“These now are the Words of the Servant Garismit, ‘I have moved the Realm. The Aunorante Sangh will search for a thousand years to find you again, but only the Nameless Powers know now where you live.’” She quickly touched the backs of her hands, first the right, then the left, to close the quote. “If that is not trying to keep out of the way, what is it?”

“You would have the gall to quote the Words to a Teacher,” Eric muttered. “I’m telling you…”

“You’re telling me not to be blinded by superstition and you refuse to look into the Words and see that there might be truth under there.” She stabbed a finger at him. “What is that if it isn’t blindness?”

“The Words are lies!” Eric shouted. “Lies! They told us if we obeyed, if we kept the bloodlines straight and true, that we would be ready when the Aunorante Sangh came back! Well we did, and they have, but we haven’t got a rat’s chance in the Dead Sea!” His head spun. Visions of Lady Fire, her curses as he carried their baby away, his father’s calm voice, his brother-in-law’s sneaking glances stabbed at his vision. He cradled his head in his hands. “We did everything we were told and they are still going to take us all.”

“That does not have to be true,” she said softly. “Our ancestors somehow bested theirs; we may be able to repeat what was done.”

He raised his head. “Who has been putting this salt water into your head?”

“I have had plenty of time for thinking while you were recovering,” she said. “Adu helped some, but mostly I…” She touched her pouch of stones. “Reviewed what I had learned on Kethran.” She moved her hand away from the pouch with a quick jerk. “Think on this. The Words say we were named individually by the Nameless. Zur-Iyal then tells me our ancestors must have been constructed individually by some great technology. The Vitae say they lost their home-world. The Words say the Realm was moved to rescue it from the Aunorante Sangh. The Vitae have been searching for their world for years. The Words warn they would be back. There’s also the story that the Servant was aided by a Notouch who ‘made the Realm hear his commands…’”

Eric started. “Where did you hear the apocrypha?”

She smiled her twisted smile. “From my mother, when she showed me my namestones for the first time.” She touched the pouch again. “That Notouch was my ancestress. The way she made the Realm ‘hear’ was with the stones I’m carrying. Or so the story goes, but our stories are turning out to be remarkably close to the truth, are they not?”

“What manner of Notouch are you?” Eric asked softly. “I’ve been over the World’s Wall for ten years and I never, ever thought like this.”

“You never wanted to,” she said simply. “You wanted to run away and you did. I, however, wanted to understand what the Skymen wanted of us. Now, I do.” She closed her jaw so firmly, Eric heard her teeth click together. “They want to get their flabby hands on my children. I will prevent this, Teacher Hand. If it costs my life and my name, I swear I will.”

For a moment all he could do was stare at her fierce, unwavering expression. “That’s why you left the Realm? Just to find out what the Skymen wanted?”

She laughed deprecatingly. “I admit, I didn’t think I’d find myself over the World’s Wall. I went to the Skymen because…” she shook her head. “I also thought the Words were lies. The Skymen were friends with the Heretics. The Heretics have been known to violate the caste laws. I thought if I helped the Skymen in their aims, I would be able to secure their favor and they might persuade King Silver to raise my family from the ranks of the Notouch.” She traced her scars again, slowly, meditatively. “I thought to keep my children from groveling in the mud all their lives. I did not know that to save my family, I would have to save the Realm.” She glanced up at him. “Or indeed, even save one Teacher. Nor did I expect to find that the Words of the Teachers were closer to the truth than the words of the Heretics.” She sighed. “But the Nameless did not ask my permission when they opened their eyes, did they?”

Eric realized he was staring. Of course she would have children. She would have been married shortly after she hit pubescence, and started having babies right away. He was an overindulged rarity and had only been allowed to stay unmarried because his older sister was already producing power-gifted heirs. He knew that. It was the way of the Realm.

So why was it hitting him so hard to hear that this woman, this Notouch woman, was married?

“You did all this for your children?” he rubbed his palms together. “That’s…very brave.”

She shrugged. “I grew up being told I had been chosen by the Nameless, and yet I was treated like a Notouch. It was… difficult. Infuriating. I wished to spare my children.” She looked at him curiously. “What drove you out here?”

Lady Fire’s curses, his son, red, wet, and bawling, in his power-gifted hands, his father’s voice, Heart’s wary eyes…

“The Words of the Nameless Powers,” he muttered.

“Strange,” Aria folded her arms. “The Words of the Nameless forbid climbing the World’s Wall. ‘There is no place for you but here.’” She touched her hands again.

“They also say a Teacher may bear or sire children without marriage, but only if the other is unwed, and they say that anyone who knowingly harbors one who does not hear the Words in the Temple must recant or be executed.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “The words of the Nameless say too much to be endured.”

Aria glanced away toward the view wall and didn’t ask any more.

“Listen, Aria.” Eric leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees. “I understand why you want to return, truly I do, but even if there was something we could do, there is still no way to reach the Realm. If we had an armed shuttle or an upgraded runner and an experienced crew, maybe, maybe, we could make it, but this is only a runner’s side ship and I’m little more than a glorified passenger. I never had the thirteen years it takes to learn to pilot one of these by oneself.”

A gleam sparked in the depths of Aria’s black eyes. “So my Lord Teacher does not really know if this ship could get past the Vitae, does he?”

Eric pulled back. “Yes, I do know.”

“You just said you did not.” Now she leaned forward, eagerness shining in her features. “Does the ship know?”

“What?”

“Does the ship know? Are there records? Histories, documents of what it has done in the past? Maybe…” She frowned. “Operational parameters?” She spoke the last two words in Standard.

“And if there were?” Her confidence nagged at him. It was ridiculous. He’d left her barely three weeks ago, but that was time enough for her to realize how complex life was out here.

What does she expect of me?

“Then I might be able to find us a way to dodge the Vitae’s prying eyes.”

Eric threw back his head and laughed. “You! Aria, they may have taught you to read and write at the labs, but you’ve got no idea the level of complexity we’re dealing with. It takes years to learn how to operate even a simple ship…”

“If my Lord Teacher will permit me to finish,” she said tartly, “this despised one might be able to tell him how she intends to manage it.”

She told him about her stones in short sentences and carefully chosen words, as if she had been rehearsing the speech so she wouldn’t make any mistakes. Eric realized that was probably exactly what she had done.

When she finished, he said, “That’s insane.”

“No more insane than what you can do.” She gestured toward his hands. “You should hear yourself talk. You are so convinced that these Skymen and their steel and silicon are so superior, you’ve never even stopped to ask why they care about us. You! A Teacher, a power-gifted, the first among the People along with the Royals. If we are so inferior, so…primitive and so close to death, why are the Skymen willing to make war over us? If the Realm is such a barren, useless piece of rock, what is their interest in it? You cannot tell me the all-powerful Vitae just want a place to warm their feet. You cannot tell me the Unifiers are acting for our poor benefit.” She leaned forward again. “Let me prove to you what I can do. Let me prove to you the worth of those named by the Nameless.”

It was too much. It was not enough. She could sit there and lecture him, she hadn’t seen…she didn’t know…she’d never slaved for them the way he had, never sold herself for their protection and their money.

“I am not a servant of the Nameless,” he said. “I have known too many other masters since then.”

To his surprise, she started to laugh. Her whole body shook with it, and she dropped her forehead into her hands.

“Oh, Nameless Powers preserve me!” she giggled. “Oh, Garismit’s Eyes!” She lifted her head again and there were tears streaming down her cheeks. “Do you think the Nameless care who else you serve? The Teachers serve the Temples, the Nobles and the Royals serve themselves, and the Nameless do not care.”

His hands opened wide at his side, the fingers straight and rigid as sticks of wood. “You don’t understand! The Aunorante Sangh found the Realm because of me! I led them straight to it! This is all happening because of my heresy!”

His breathing was ragged and his throat was raw and his ears rang.

Aria watched him silently for a moment, then she said, “All the more reason you should go back and make it right.”

He wanted to shout that it was not that simple, that there was no returning, not for him, not ever, that he would not give them satisfaction by recanting his actions. That he could not, he would not, be forced to regret what he had done in front of the Seablade House, however much he might do so when he was alone.

But he couldn’t. All he could do was stand there and shake like a terrified fool, watching her watch him with her impassive, unforgiving eyes.

At last those eyes widened and she said, “Nameless Powers preserve me, they really did get to you, didn’t they?”

“Yes,” he whispered. “Yes.”

He had no idea how long they stood like that. He was too caught up in the riot inside him and the memory of those long years when he thought he was free. Now that illusion was shattered at his feet and all that was left was a broken, terrified slave whose masters had proved disloyal.

At last, he ran his hands through his hair, a habit he had learned from Perivar. “If I gave you the operational parameters, do you really think you could find a way to get the ship back to the Realm?”

He expected a show of triumph, but again his expectations were wrong. She simply shrugged. “I think I might. If I get enough information.”

“I think I know what you need.”

The ghost box was already plugged into the comm board. “Perivar?” he asked.

She nodded. “He set it up and worked the transmission by remote from Kethran.”

Eric looked at the cube for a moment, tracing the length of cable with his eyes. “Why didn’t he come with you?”

Aria hesitated. “Because he felt he owed a greater debt to his partner’s children. Kiv was killed because he refused to hand me over to the Aun…the Vitae.”

Eric felt his shoulders stiffen. He left? After everything…he hung his head. What did I ever really bring him? I saved his life and he saved mine and we spent the last six years trying to forget about each other. Why should I be surprised he’s left me on my own? He felt an itch between his shoulder blades and remembered Aria was watching him.

He straightened up. “Then you know that this"—he laid his hand on the box—"is basically all the two contraband runners who took me off the Realm knew about their ship.”

He tapped the screen three times to bring up Kessa’s image by itself. “What history I’ve got of this ship is in here, and if anyone could get past the Vitae, it was her.” He pointed at Kessa’s image and shook himself to try to chase away the memory of her lying dead on the deck plates.

Aria sat in the terminal’s chair and drew one of her stones out of the pouch. “I can learn without the stone, but it makes rearranging things later much more difficult.” She hit the PLAY key on the console and cupped the stone in her hand.

“Whaddaya want?” demanded Kessa.

“I want to know about the U-Kenai,” answered Aria. Her voice was heavy, as if there were a weight pressing against it.

Kessa started talking.” U-Kenai, it means ‘Second Chance.’ Good little ship…”

Eric watched Aria. Her eyes fastened on the recording without blinking or flickering. She sat like a Vitae Ambassador, not moving, barely even breathing. She wasn’t watching what passed in front of her, she was absorbing it.

A strange awkwardness washed over him and he automatically retreated to the bridge. But it wasn’t Cam in the pilot’s chair, oblivious to his presence. Adu turned around and wrinkled the skin over his eye sockets in a jerky imitation of humans raising their eyebrows.

Eric turned away again and, trying not to see Aria, shut himself into his cabin.

“Garismit’s Eyes!” He sank onto the bed and stared at the blank surface of the door. “What is the matter with me?”

I don’t know. He rubbed his palms together. That’s really it. I’ve always known what I was leaving behind. I knew the Realm. I knew all its rules and I knew all its ranks and its choking, stupid laws and Words. Then, she turns up and it turns out I never knew a crashing thing, not about the People, or the world, or her. Especially not about her.

And I’ve just said I’ll go back, to this place I don’t know.

Eric leaned against the side of the bunk’s nook and rubbed his eyes wearily. What do I think I’ll do when I get there? Put on Garismit’s robe and lead this Notouch into the Earth to move the Realm again? Save the world? I can’t even save myself.

To his relief, exhaustion clouded his mind, wrapping his thoughts in thick velvet. Willingly, he relaxed into it and fell asleep.

Eric awoke several times to the uninterrupted sound of Kessa’s voice vibrating softly through the cabin wall. When he woke to nothing but silence, he swung himself out of the bed and opened the door to the common room.

Aria still sat in front of the comm board. She was gently massaging her eyelids with her fingertips. The stone lay in her lap, gleaming in the light.

“Garismit’s Eyes,” she muttered, “I think mine are about to fall out of their sockets.”

“Did you find it?” asked Eric.

“Eh?” Aria glanced Wearily at him. “I don’t know.” She sucked in a deep breath and picked the stone up. “Ask me again.”

Eric sat on the sofa so he was eye level with Aria. “How can the U-Kenai land in the Realm without being seen by the Rhudolant Vitae?”

Her whole face changed. Her pupils dilated until her irises were almost lost behind black pools. Her jaw slackened, leaving her cheeks hollow and her bones pressing sharply against the inside of her skin. It was not a look of intelligence, or revelation. It was as if the woman inside had fled to make room for…what?

But when she spoke, it was Aria’s confident voice. “A comet can be located in or near the MG49 system. The U-Kenai can intercept it and use the first level drive to drive the nose of the ship into the comet. The heating vents in the U-Kenai’s prow can be used to hollow out a cavity in which the majority of the ship can be embedded. Thrust applied from the second level drive can push the comet, and the U-Kenai with it, into the atmosphere. The particulate tail of the comet will hide the thruster output. The shell from the comet will provide resistance to the burn of entering the atmosphere and a cushion for a semicontrolled crash. Any satellites observing this occurrence will record a simulation of a natural phenomenon.”

Her hand jerked, dropping the stone back into her lap.

“That’s insane,” said Eric. “That’s absolutely insane.”

Aria let her head drop backward until she was staring up at the ceiling. It was only then Eric realized she was breathing like she’d just run a marathon.

Without even thinking, he jumped to his feet and laid his hands on her shoulders, reaching out with his power gift to loosen her chest and speed her recovery. The whole time he was far too aware of the tingling warmth of her skin and the depths of her eyes as she looked up at him.

Nor did he miss the fact that he had forgotten to flinch from touching her.

Eric drew his hands away, now winded himself, and poured some cold tea from the pitcher on the table.

“How do you know it’s insane?” Aria sat up straighten

Eric swigged the tea and made a face at its rancid taste. “Because it is. I’ve never heard of anything like it even being attempted.”

“I didn’t tell you all of it.” The amused tone crept back into her voice.

“What more is there?”

“That if it worked, it would only work once.” She leaned forward. “And that the ship would most certainly be unusable afterward.”

Eric stared into the cup. “Now it sounds a little less insane.”

“It is the only way your"—she waved toward the comm board—"ghost box knows that could work.” Her eyes narrowed. “This despised one is waiting for my Lord Teacher to inform her he refuses to do this.”

“You’ll wait the dark seasons through.” Eric dropped the cup onto the table. The puddle he had spilled yesterday had dried, leaving an uneven amber stain on the tabletop. “I only ask that Aria Born of the Black Wall does not ask me why I am doing this.” He spread his fingers out so that he could see the backs of his hands. “Because, and the Nameless hear my words, I do not know.”

“It’s all right.” She took his naked hand in her scarred one. “It’s enough that Eric Born is doing this.”

He looked up at her deep eyes. “I hope so, Aria Stone. I truly hope so.”

He felt her work-roughened palm against the soft skin on the back of his hand. He watched her breathing with a deep, sudden fascination and felt the warm pulse of his erection begin. She must have realized what was happening in him, but she didn’t release his hand.

He kissed her. Her mouth stiffened, startled, then puckered, as she thought to pull away, then softened to answer his gesture, his entreaty.

This is insane too, part of him said. He didn’t care. She was pressing her body against him so he could feel every centimeter of her, as full of desire as he was, as lost, as scared, as crazy as he was.

For now, there was nothing else in the universe.