Sword of Dreams (The Reforged Trilogy) (13 page)

Xia scoffed. "For a reminder that all wolves in the galaxy are related to the Lyrans? Everyone knows that. They must have been looking for a charity case that semester." She ruffled Xen's short white hair.

"I'm not a charity case," Xen said primly, but he was smirking. "I am a brilliant archeologist and geneticist. I'm head of my department at a prestigious Tynerion college. In any case, that's not what I wrote about."

"Vostra Nor isn't that prestigious. What
did
you write about?"

"If you hadn't gone off to go play pioneer on Koji, I would have asked you to go to the award dinner with me. The dean read the synopsis there. What I proposed was not that the Vanoran wolves were just related to Lyrans and other wolves, but are actually the primary ancestor."

Xia blinked and her eyes whirled dark blue in disbelief. "The primary ancestor? You mean that all other wolf species are
descended
from the Axial breed? How could that be?"

"Axis has a long and complex history. They've been through five dark ages, Xia. Those are just the ones we know about. It's entirely possible that this is Axis' second or third generation of space travel."

Xia stroked one of Xen's long, delicately arched antennae. "All right. I suppose you are a little brilliant."

He laughed. "A little." Xen glanced at a clock in the corner of the medbay. "We can pick this up after dinner tonight, my dear, but now I need to lend my brilliance to my students for a few hours. We'll be on Prianus in just four more days and I need them to be ready."

"You don't even know what they've found in those mountains," Xia reminded him.

"All the more reason I need my team ready to handle anything. God only knows what the Prian team has found and how they've treated it."

"It doesn't sound like you have much faith in the locals."

"With all my respect to Captain Myles, I doubt the Prians would have asked for help from Tynerion if they could handle the find. The colleges of Prianus are hardly the highest centers of learning in the galaxy."

Xia raised an eyebrow. "I wouldn't say that too loudly. Prians are a proud race."

"Pride is the enemy of good scholarship," Xen said philosophically.

Xia swatted the back of his head. "You're going to get yourself shot on Prianus talking like that."

"The Prian police are legendary in their stoic attention to duty. I expect to be well protected." Xen stood and stretched. He gave Xia a speculative look. "I know it's been a while since college. Medicine was always your love, but you used to have an interest in archeology."

"I catch up on the journals when I have a chance," said Xia. Archeology had been a hobby. She always meant to volunteer for a student dig, but medical studies ate up too much of her time. "I'm a little surprised that I missed your thesis, actually."

Xen's eyes darkened. "It was published while you were a pirate prisoner. I can get you a copy, if you like."

"I would enjoy that," Xia said with a nod. "Do you still want to see what that sector of Gripper's redprint looks like? I can sequence it, if you like."

"I'd like that very much, my dear."

"Right over here." Xia gestured Xen over to another counter, this one lined with a number of different imagers. She stopped, frowning. "Wait, what happened to my polytomograph?"

She stared at one of the machines. The side panel was gone and bare wires spilled out onto the countertop like intestines from an evisceration. With an effort, Xia turned the polytomograph up onto its side and peered inside. The case was a heavy box of heusion alloy, but little more. It was empty.

"Does this sort of thing happen often?" Xen asked curiously.

Xia sighed and replaced the polytomograph on the counter. It wobbled. There was something underneath, something that had been wedged behind that machine, but rolled free when she moved the polytomograph. It was a strangely disproportionate screwdriver, with a small, slender head and a huge, claw-scarred handle.

Xen looked over her shoulder. "Does that belong to your mechanic?"

Xia turned and strode out into the close fibersteel corridor. "Gripper!"

Her furious shout echoed through the Blue Phoenix.

________

"What's wrong with Xia?" Duaal asked later that evening. "Isn't she supposed to be doing dishes tonight?"

Gripper winced. He stood over the sink, scrubbing the dinner dishes. The green fur covering his forearms was dark and matted with water. "Um… I gave her a present."

"Must have been some present." Duaal laughed and left Gripper alone with the dishes.

________

The day before the Blue Phoenix was scheduled to land on Prianus, Tiberius called Maeve up to the cockpit again.

"Gripper intended only to–" she began, trying to stave off any argument.

"I need you to go talk to Panna," Tiberius said.

"Why is that?"

"Do you have to question every single order?" asked Duaal, sitting next to the captain.

"I'm not questioning the validity, simply the purpose," said Maeve. She hated the angry tightness in her own voice. She had come ready to avoid a fight, but she found herself drawn into one anyway. Why did Duaal have to attack her at every turn?

And why do I fight back?

"I just want you two – and anyone else Panna thinks necessary – to double-check their equipment," Tiberius said to Maeve. "It's been a long flight and they need to make sure nothing's shifted or settled. It's all got to be secure for the landing."

Maeve nodded. Professor Xen was still busy with Xia, much to Gripper's chagrin, and Panna seemed to handle most of the logistical details of the archeologist's mission.

"I will speak with her, if I can."

"If you can?" Tiberius furrowed his lined brow.

"Panna dislikes me. She avoids me as though I might somehow infect her," Maeve said bitterly.

"You're imagining things."

"No. Maeve's right on this one," Duaal said. "Panna hates being in the same room as her."

It stung no less coming from Duaal's mouth. Maeve thrust her hands into the pockets of her patched spacer's pants.

Tiberius frowned. "Do you want me to talk to her?" he asked.

"No!" Maeve said it far more sharply than she intended and flicked her wings in irritation. "I have few enough duties on this ship and I will do them."

After only a short search, Maeve found Panna on the stairs leading down into the cargo bay. Maeve stood at the top, blocking Panna's progress. The pretty human stopped mid-step, approaching Maeve no closer.

"Can I help you?" she asked in a flat, breathless voice.

"Tiberius sent me to help you ensure that all of your team's gear is secured. It has been in this hold for some time, unchecked. It would be a pity for your provisions to make most of the journey intact, only to break in tomorrow's landing."

"I… I'm sure it's just fine."

"It is better to check." Maeve tried to sound pleasant. "There is nothing else happening today. We can finish the task quickly."

Panna would not look the other woman in the eye. "Sure. There's a lot of heavy stuff and chemicals. I'll check it myself. You don't need to help. I can call Enu-Io."

Maeve's whole body went hot and prickly with sudden fury. She spread her wings and fanned her feathers in a white halo. She stomped down the stairs, boots ringing loudly on the fibersteel, and stood face-to-face with Panna. The human was only barely taller than Maeve.

"My wings make me no more foolish or clumsy than you," she shouted. Panna winced. "Dislike me and my kind all you wish, but you and I have jobs to do! Let us finish them and then I will leave you alone once more to loathe me in solitude."

Panna recoiled as though struck. Her face went pale and her mouth worked for a long moment without managing any words. At last, Panna nodded and climbed unsteadily back down into the Blue Phoenix cargo bay.

Over the next hour, they checked every one of the archeologists' crates. A few had shifted under their orange nets, but Maeve and Panna muscled each one back into position and tightened the straps.

Panna sheepishly pointed out a half-dozen cases of solvents, slides and chemicals of all types. All of the plastic containers were intact, but pressure fluctuations on the ship had cracked three of the glass ones. Maeve held them delicately while Panna wound the fractured glass in an epoxy-coated tape purchased for just such an occasion.

They worked in near silence. Panna spoke only when she had to. Maeve was content with her victory, such as it was. When they were done working, she left Panna alone in the cargo bay.

"The cost of keeping a secret never stops rising."

- Matthew Narsus, Narsus Shipyards CEO (183 PA)

Gavriel sat on the edge of the collapsed couch and squinted critically at the figure kneeling before him. The man wore a frayed black robe that fluttered like a funeral shroud in the frigid drafts sifting in through the cracked walls.

"Look at me, Arkan," Gavriel commanded.

Arkan raised his face to his master. He was only thirty-four, but looked considerably older. The death of his infant daughter – at his own hands – left lines at his brow and a dark, haunted look in his eyes.

Arkan was from the farm colony of Cyrus. He had broad shoulders and a muscular build, but without the profoundly powerful look of a high-gravity native like those from Hadra and Orin. The sun had darkened his skin and lightened his hair to a middling blond. Arkan could never pass for an actual Prian, not under scrutiny, but he would attract little attention among them.

"Do you understand what you're looking for?" Gavriel asked.

"Yes, Lord Gavriel," Arkan said. He bowed his head again.

"You will defer to Arcadians in this. I'm sending you to support them, not command them. Can you do that?"

A muscle twitched in the farmer's jaw, but he nodded. "I can, Lord Gavriel. If you say I must, then I will do whatever the bird-backs tell me to."

The man's bigotry was annoying, but his loyalty was stronger than his stupidity. Arkan would do his job. Gavriel dismissed him with a wave of his hand. "Go change clothes and then join them in the Arcadian quarter. Be careful and be discrete."

"Yes, Lord Gavriel." Arkan rose, bowed and left. A pair of hooded Emberguard flanked the splintered door, still and silent as statues.

"Your approach is too hesitant, Gavriel."

Xartasia stood primly a few yards away, holding her long wings delicately up off the dirty floor. In blatant defiance of Nihilist tradition, the Arcadian princess wore one of her pristine, expensive white dresses. This one was of pure white wool and trimmed in soft fur. Xartasia's black hair cascaded over her high collar in artfully arranged curls. Surrounded by filth and decay, her beauty was breathtaking.

"You are a man of power now," the princess said. "What need do you have to hunt from the shadows? The Prians are a fearful people. They fear their world and each other. You are a wolf among sheep. Strike from a position of strength!"

Gavriel scowled at her. "This is your first visit to Prianus, isn't it? I've been here before. You have no idea what we're facing. You're right, in part. They're afraid of each other, and with good reason. The Prians are a brutal people and will not take kindly to anyone encroaching on their territory. These are not simple Sisterhood thugs, Xartasia. And the criminals here aren't the worst of our problems."

"You still fear the Prian police?"

"I do," Gavriel said. "And if you knew anything about them, you would, too."

"I have little faith in the tenacity of humans," Xartasia answered airily.

"Is that so?"

The Arcadian princess recoiled slightly at his tone. "There are… strong ones among all species."

"Your racism is every inch as bad as Arkan's," Gavriel said with disgust. "We all deserve the same death, princess."

"And you believe that the Prian police will offer resistance to their destruction?"

"I've never known men as unyielding and dangerous as the cops of this world. With so much death and pain, this seemed a natural home for us. Prianus was the first world on which I tried to build my cathedrals. But the police hounded me night and day."

The three knelt at Gavriel's feet. Their red robes spilled around them like pools of blood. He touched each of their shoulders in turn.

"The police of Prianus hunt us," Gavriel said. The room rang with the deep, sonorous notes of his voice. "They are dedicated and devoted, men and women of honor and integrity on a world that tests them to their limits. They are fools. They don't understand the futility of their war, fighting against an impossible enemy. Fools, but fearsome fools. I need men equally strong and devoted. You are the best of my flock, the most deadly and the most loyal."

Duaal huddled for warmth beside the ashes of the dying fire. Gavriel kicked the embers, scattering sparks in every direction like tiny, short-lived red stars.