Authors: Laura Jo Phillips
“Of course we know, Izzy,” Talus heard his voice say while his mouth stretched into a smile. “We’ll be quite busy for the next few days and we don’t know specifically when we’ll leave. We’ll feel better knowing you’re safe at your son’s home. We’ll contact you to let you know when to come back and open the house.”
“Yes, Sir,” Izzy said, her eyes on the floor in front of her feet. “I’ll be saying goodbye now.”
“Goodbye, Izzy,” Kar said.
Izzy nodded, her face pale as she turned and left, closing the door behind herself. The moment she was gone their bodies went still, their faces once again expressionless as they listened to Izzy murmuring to her son, Owen, as they left the house through the back door. Talus tensed, realizing that the Controllers were suspicious of Izzy’s nervousness, but relaxed when all they overheard was her asking Owen to double check the lock on the door, and to drive slowly down the mountain so she didn’t get sick. Izzy was nobody’s fool. She’d spent her entire life in their home and was fully aware of how sharp their hearing was. If she had anything worrisome to say, she wouldn’t say it until she was miles away, if then.
They heard footsteps on the gravel drive, and the slamming of doors before the ground transport took off down the mountain. When they could no longer hear the sound of the engine, the Controllers returned to the places they’d occupied before Izzy interrupted them, and went still again.
“I just realized that Izzy isn’t completely fooled,”
Jon said.
“Yes, so did I,”
Talus agreed.
“I thought of something else too.”
“What’s that?”
“The Controllers got rid of Izzy, but they haven’t done a thing about Spence.”
“That’s right, they haven’t,”
Kar said in surprise.
“I wonder why.”
“They rummaged around in our heads for information about the house and our routines, which included Izzy,”
Talus said.
“Everything they sought, they found, but they never specifically searched for information about an old man who used to work for us, but who is now retired and lives in a small house on the mountainside.”
“So, if they don’t seek out specific information they don’t get it,”
Jon said.
“Is that right?”
“I believe so, yes,”
Talus said. “
What’s more, they know it and recognize it as a weakness.”
“Why do you say that?”
Kar asked.
“Because they sent Izzy away, and have isolated us from everyone who knows us.”
“I thought that was because they can’t let us shift,”
Kar said.
“So did I, and I still do, but I don’t think it’s the only reason for the isolation.”
“There must be a way that we can use this to our advantage.”
“Something else occurred to me a few minutes ago,”
Talus said
. “The last clear memory I have before the
Armadura
is of the three of us and Salene having breakfast together in the cafeteria onboard the
Razor
.”
“I remember that,”
Jon said slowly
. “Vaguely. But I remember.”
“So do I,”
Kar said.
“Good,”
Talus said with relief. He’d been a little worried that the memory had been more imagination than reality.
“So here’s my question. If the
Razor
was destroyed with all hands, why is Salene still alive?”
His question was met with a long silence.
“I give up
,” Jon said finally.
“What’s the answer?”
“I don’t know the answer,”
Talus said.
“But I feel like it’s important that we find it.”
Salene left her bedroom the next morning dressed for a session in Aunt Ash’s training room. She wore her hair in a thick red gold braid that reached the small of her back, stretchy leggings, a tank top with a t-shirt over it, and rubber soled work out shoes. She also wore a narrow silver cuff bracelet on her left wrist, adjusted snugly so that it stayed in place when she moved. Even though she knew very well how grueling her time with Aunt Ash would be, she was looking forward to it.
She heard the sound of Uncle Rudy’s voice in the dining room as she went down the stairs while tying a light jacket around her waist. “Good morning everyone,” she said as she entered and went to kiss her mother on the cheek.
“Good morning, Sweetie,” Lariah said, surprised and pleased to see Salene acting a little more like herself. Not completely. Not even close. But better. “Did you eat anything this morning?”
“Yes, Mom, an hour ago. Thanks for coming to get me, Uncle Rudy.”
“You’re more than welcome, of course,” Rudy said, standing up as she went around the table to give each of her three fathers a kiss as well.
“Should one of us come fetch her later?” Garen asked.
“No, I’ll bring her back when Aisling is finished wearing her out,” Rudy replied.
“Thank you,” Garen said, then arched a brow at Salene. “Vox us if you need to escape early.”
“I will,
Ata
,” Salene said as she moved to stand beside her uncle. Unlike some people, Rudy didn’t pretend that the three inch long scar that cut diagonally across her left cheek just below her eye didn’t exist. Instead, he took his time studying it.
“That’s a beaut,” he said. He leaned his head back, eyed her for a moment, and then grinned.
“What?” Salene asked. She was not embarrassed by the scar, nor was she offended by his scrutiny. All things considered, her scars were the least of her troubles, and the easiest to ignore. She was, however, curious.
“There aren’t many young women who can get a scar like that and have it be an asset.”
“Asset?”
“Definitely,” Rudy said, perfectly serious. “It’s like an accent. Instead of marring your looks, it draws attention to how beautiful you are. It makes you look a little exotic too.”
“Gee, maybe I should get one on the other cheek,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“That would be greedy,” Rudy said, then winked at her.
“See you guys later,” Salene said to her parents.
“Have a good day, and give Aisling a hug for me,” Lariah said. Salene nodded just as Rudy placed one hand on her shoulder, and took a half step sideways. They vanished from the Dracons’ dining room and appeared a moment later in the foyer of the Gryphon Consul’s circular home on the opposite side of the planet. Rudy squeezed her shoulder gently, then stepped back. “Aisling is waiting for you in the training room.”
“Thank you, Uncle Rudy,” she said, then headed up the curving hall, her shoes squeaking against the floor tiles. When she pulled the training room door open and stepped inside, she wasn’t surprised to find her aunt at the target range in the back of the room. Salene untied the jacket from around her waist and hung it on a hook by the door. Then she waited until Aisling had thrown the last star shaped, razor sharp
shuriken
with her usual blurring speed and pinpoint accuracy before crossing the training room toward her. “Good morning Aunt Ash.”
“Good morning, Salene,” Aisling replied, turning to watch her approach. She frowned. “Where are your weapons?”
“In a carton somewhere in the deep dark depths of the
Ugaztun
, presumably.
Dede
promised he’d ask someone to find it and have it sent to the ranch, but until then I’m unarmed. Sorry.”
“I’ve got plenty of practice weapons so it’s not a problem,” Aisling said. “I’d like to talk with you for a minute before we begin, if you don’t mind.”
“All right,” Salene said, instantly wary. There were some things she wasn’t ready to talk about. Things she didn’t think she’d
ever
be ready to talk about.
“Don’t worry,” Aisling said as she led her to a counter in the corner of the room with stools around it. “If I ask something you don’t want to discuss, just say so.” She offered Salene a bottle of water from the chiller, then opened one for herself and sat on a stool opposite her.
“Wearing jewelry while training isn’t generally a good idea,” Aisling said, glancing at the bracelet on Salene’s wrist.
“It’s a transport disrupter,” Salene said shortly. Aisling nodded and said no more on the subject which was a relief to Salene since she had no intention of removing it.
Aisling took a long drink from her water bottle, then set it down. “Why did you want to come and train? I mean, why now, in particular?”
“Before I tell you, will you answer a question for me?”
“Sure.”
“Why did you agree?”
“For one thing, I love you, and I’ll always help you in any way that I can, no matter what,” Aisling said. “I love all nine of my big strapping sons with all that I am, never think otherwise. But I’ve always thought of you as the daughter of my heart.”
Salene blinked away the threat of tears. “Thanks, Aunt Ash,” she said. “That means a lot to me.”
“I’m glad, because it means a lot to me, too. Where were we?”
“You’re telling me why you agreed to work with me.”
“Ah yes,” Aisling said. “The second reason is that…,” Aisling trailed off, taking a moment to study Salene before she spoke. Whatever she was looking for she seemed to find because she placed her forearms on the counter and leaned forward intently. “You were taken away from a safe place without your knowledge or consent, by beings you’d never heard of and knew nothing about, for reasons they didn’t bother to explain to you. As a result your life was irrevocably changed, but more than that, it changed
you
, Salene. It changed you on a basic and fundamental level and I know very well that you’re still trying to come to grips with those changes.”
“How do you know this?” Salene asked in a shocked whisper.
“Because it happened to me once, long ago,” Aisling replied. “My circumstances and events were different, of course, but I understand how you feel. Sort of like the floor just suddenly disappeared from beneath your feet.” Salene swallowed hard and nodded. “Do you still feel like you’re falling?”
“Sometimes, when I wake up in the middle of the night and I’m….” Salene snapped her mouth shut, then changed what she’d nearly said. “Yes, sometimes,
most
times, I feel like I’m falling down a dark hole and there’s nothing to grab onto. It makes me feel helpless.”
“Is that why you want to start weapons training again?”
“No,” Salene replied, surprising Aisling. “There’s something I have to tell you, Aunt Ash. Something I haven’t spoken about with anyone else.”
Aisling’s head tilted as she studied Salene’s face and body language, then she reached across the counter to place one palm lightly on her arm. “You can trust me, Salene. You know that, right?”
“Yes, I know that,” Salene said, then took a long breath before glancing toward the door to be sure it was closed. “How much do you know about what happened? With the Doftles, I mean.”
“A lot, I think,” Aisling replied. “But nothing that would put that worried look on your face at the idea of being overheard.”
“When Rayne and I were still on the Doftle space station, after her Rami took Talus, Jon, and Kar back to the
Armadura
, a Doftle entered the lab we were in. Rayne was gathering stuff she thought might be of interest to the Council, which I thought was a good idea. So, while she did that, I decided to get some of the gel from the hibernation tanks the guys had been in.”
Aisling knew enough of what had happened to have an idea what Salene was talking about, but even though some clarification would have helped, she remained silent, keeping her questions to herself. She just nodded when Salene looked up to see if she was following, and waited for her to continue.
“When Weeble…the Doftle with Xanti legs…you’ve heard of him?” Aisling nodded again, but this time she knew exactly who Salene was talking about. “Weeble was the Doftle who entered the lab. He was looking down when he stepped inside, so I saw him before he saw me. I had time…not a lot, but a second or two, to react. To stand up, to throw something, I don’t know what but the point is, there was time to react, and I didn’t.”
“What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything,” Salene said, hanging her head so that Aisling couldn’t see her expression. “I was kneeling on the floor between two tanks with a small container of tank gel in my hand and I froze. Rayne was hidden behind her shield, and she could have stayed hidden. There’s no way Weeble would have ever known she was there. But, since I was just kneeling on the floor like a statue she had no choice but to drop her shield, shift into her bearenca alter-form, and attack Weeble to keep him off of me.”
“Why didn’t you move?” Aisling asked very softly.
“I don’t know,” Salene said, frowning as she lifted her head. “That’s the part I don’t get. I was scared, yes, and I’m not ashamed to admit that. I’d have to be stupid
not
to have been scared. But there was something else that held me in place and I don’t know what it was, and that bothers me a great deal.”
Aisling tilted her head. She knew Salene very well, and reading people had always been one of her strengths. She already had an idea or two about what had happened, but she needed to be sure. “If you had moved, what would you have done?”
Salene frowned. “I don’t know.”
“Tell me about it, Salene. Walk through it for me.”
“Weeble had a transport device strapped to his hand. I’d seen him use it before so I knew that’s what it was, and Rayne knew it, too. All he had to do was move his thumb to press the button in the palm of his hand and he’d be gone, along with whoever he was touching at the time.” Salene paused, thinking carefully. “Rayne’s bearenca had hold of his other arm, and even though she was much bigger than Weeble, I could see it was taking everything she had to keep him from getting close enough to stab me with one of his metal legs. He got me once, but it was a glancing blow thanks to Rayne.” She fell silent again and Aisling waited patiently. “I looked around for something to use as a weapon, but there wasn’t anything except the hibernation tanks, which I couldn’t lift, and the small container of gel that I’d collected, which was useless. I couldn’t join the fight because if I got close enough for him to touch me, he’d transport away with me. The worst part is that she kept Weeble from stabbing me, but he stabbed her bearenca right through the thigh. I didn’t realize it was a bad wound at the time, but it was.
“After a few moments he must have decided to settle for taking Rayne because he activated his transport device and vanished. Rayne, thank the Creators, was protected from being transported, so instead of taking her with him, she remained in the lab with his arm still in her bearenca’s mouth.”
Salene fell silent again, then shook her head and looked up, meeting Aisling’s gaze. “I know there has to have been something I could have done, Aunt Ash. But I just can’t see it.”
“You can’t see it because there
wasn’t
anything you could do, Salene,” Aisling said. “Attacking this Weeble creature without a weapon, or some way to escape serious injury, death or, in this case, kidnapping and torture, would have been an enormous mistake and on some level you know that. I don’t think you froze so much as you analyzed the situation, as you just explained, and came to the inescapable conclusion that there was nothing you could do.”
Salene shook her head again. “I left it to Rayne to save me, and it’s not supposed to be that way. I’m supposed to protect
her
, not the other way around.”
“Not in this case,” Aisling insisted. “Rayne could shift, you couldn’t. She could self-heal, you can’t. She had protection against being transported, you didn’t. If you’d had a weapon, things might have been different, but the fact of the matter is that you
didn’t
have a weapon. If you’d jumped in, all you’d have done was get yourself transported, which was the very thing Rayne was fighting to prevent.”
Salene understood what Aisling was saying, and was forced to admit there was truth and logic in it. But she still felt as though she should have done
something
. Anything. She raised her head, took a deep breath, and met Aisling’s eyes steadily. “If I’d had a weapon, if I’d known anything about fighting, I could have at least helped my sister,” she said. “This is why I want you to train me, Aunt Ash. Once you do, I will never again go unarmed, but I need more than weapons. I need to learn how to fight. Unfortunately, as you know, I have none of Tani’s agility, or Rayne’s grace. But there has to be a way for me to defend myself and protect others without having to fold myself into a pretzel or do a triple flip six feet into the air.”