The Fall Read online

  “We have left Suralia and entered Camenar,” murmured the servant guiding the pod, scarcely stirring from her trance.

  Laura closed her eyes and pushed her senses out as far as they could go, which, a stray part of her awareness noted, was a good deal farther than even a week ago. What she sensed resembled a musical note, pure and distant. Laura was no musician—she had no idea what people meant when they said one note was higher or lower than another, and she couldn’t sing so much as a nursery rhyme to save her life. This, though—this was music made of emotion, and that she did understand.

  Azana’s voice interrupted her reverie. “Are you listening to the Song of the province?”

  Laura opened her eyes. “Is that what that is?”

  “I lack the sensitivity to hear it, but it is said that every province has a unique Song, sung by the hearts of its people and ruler together. I have read mentions of it, in travel accounts written by sensitives.”

  “I didn’t realize I heard anything at all until it changed. It’s like… background music.”

  Azana lifted one corner of her mouth. “An interesting way to express it.”

  “We—humans, I mean—play music everywhere. Shops, restaurants, city streets. You can’t escape the background music. It’s—” Something I will never hear again. Her throat closed. She took a deep breath and forced a smile. “Never mind that. What about you? Do you have a family?”

  Azana froze, and Laura recognized the sudden grief whirling through her heart like ash. After a few long seconds, the Tolari woman blinked and looked away.

  “I’m so sorry,” Laura said, doing her best to hide a wince, but her face twitched. How these people managed to remain so impassive so much of the time, she couldn’t fathom, though Paranians like Azana were far more expressive than the notoriously glacial Suralians.

  Azana recovered her composure and returned Laura’s gaze with an expression of polite interest. “I have a daughter, Denara. She has six years and two seasons—about thirteen of human years.”

  “That’s a difficult age.”

  A wan smile touched the Tolari mathematician’s lips. “In some ways, they are all difficult ages, but joyful ones, as well.”

  “True enough. My daughters were more difficult than my sons, but watching them all grow up, smart like their father, was one of the best parts of my life. And now—” She paused and took another breath to steady her voice as their faces filled her mind’s eye. Patrick. John Junior. Sarah. Elizabeth. Anthony. “I can never see them again.”

  “You gave up your children to spend time with our Paran?”

  “No!” Laura exclaimed. She raised an apologetic hand when the other woman startled at the vehemence. “I couldn’t ever see them again anyway, not as long as Central Command wants me dead. They’ll only be safe if I lose myself and stay lost. The Paran… what I have with him was an unexpected gift and a second chance at happiness. I did take the blessing for him, but not—I didn’t give up my family for him. I’d already lost that.”

  Azana’s voice tightened. “I… understand.” She turned her eyes away. The grief still welled and spiked through her, bright flashes to Laura’s empathic sense.

  “Who did you lose?” Laura asked, very softly.

  Azana uttered a word in Paranian. “Your language has no term for it. The man who would have been my bond-partner. He was a physicist. Only a season before we planned to bond, an explosion in the laboratory where he worked sent him and the son I mothered for him into the dark.”

  “I’m so sorry.” A dull ache throbbed in Laura’s chest.

  “You know this grief.”

  It wasn’t a question. Laura tightened her barriers and nodded. “The Sural executed my husband for violating the interdict and committing espionage.”

  Azana stared at her in astonishment. “And you do not declare enmity against him?”

  “How would that help? It wouldn’t bring John back, and if I refused to have anything to do with the Sural, I’d be cut off from Marianne as well. I don’t have to like him, but he took me in and protected me when I had literally nowhere else to turn.”

  “And when you and our Paran met, it was truly a second chance,” Azana murmured. “Even in your absence, his feelings for you are hard to deny.”

  Laura took yet another deep breath, and said, on impulse, “Tolari live a long time. Maybe you’ll find your own second chance.”

  “Perhaps.”

  The bright glow of another Tolari metropolis began to impinge on the edge of Laura’s awareness. “I’d better prepare myself for the next city.”

  * * *

  Deep below his stronghold, the Monral lowered himself to the floor of a large bowl carved in the bedrock, a man’s height deep and several times that across. Farric, his son and heir, seated himself cross-legged facing the entrance-way and began to chant. The young man might lack ambition, but he did seem to possess some genius. He had proven himself a gifted chanter, and one well able to keep information close to the robe.

  Smoke curled up from tiny fissures in the floor, responding to Farric’s voice, and began to fill the bowl. The Benefactors themselves had left this most ancient of ways to communicate. His people had used it for much of their history, until the alien concept of tablets eclipsed it. Now it had become a reliable way for the Monral to avoid scrutiny when communicating with other rulers in his coalition.

  The Smoke deepened until it covered his head and invaded his mind. One by one, other presences joined him in the Smoke, becoming palpable in the bowl around him.

  “My greetings,” he said aloud. The words shaped the Smoke and propagated outward to those few select rulers scattered across Tolar.

  Murmurs filled his mind.

  “Negotiations with the Paranian contingent are at an impasse,” he continued. “Parania’s heir is a formidable adversary. She stands fast, and will countenance no return to traditional rule of our world.”

  “Leaving us at the mercy of the decisions our grandparents and great-grandparents made when the last Circle was called,” snapped the Taras. Young and impetuous, he had joined Monralar’s coalition within days of taking power in Tarasia, breaking a traditional alliance with Suralia in the process. “While we sit in splendid isolation, the young races of the Trade Alliance mock us—us!—as children. Parania’s skill in the Game is a matter of long legend, and yet the heirs to that lineage support this imposture?”

  Draenar, older and wiser, spoke up. “Not Parania. It is the Sural who bids us play the primitives, while he alone speaks for Tolar. I have not your desire for the stars, Tarasia, but rule by one man for two entire generations does irritate me.”

  “As long as we remain a minority, we lack the influence to put an end to it,” the Taras shot back. “We should concentrate our efforts on weakening Parania. Suralia is too strong, but if we can take the Paran’s allies from him, we will have the numbers we need to call a Circle.”

  The Monral interrupted. “I cannot countenance deliberate harm to Parania. His province is one of Monralar’s oldest allies.” Only the smallest hitch in his son’s chant betrayed a reaction. Farric had been just old enough to share the humiliation when Suralia interrupted Monralar’s contact with the sense-blind odalli from Earth and informed the human ambassador that he was negotiating with the wrong ruler. It had taken nearly five years for the Monral to determine that the information the Sural followed had come from the stronghold of his own neighbor and ally, Parania.

  In a time of conventional rule, his fellow rulers would have praised his cleverness in obscuring his dealings with the humans, and his bloc would have grown enough to give him leadership of the ruling caste. Instead, the Sural had taken control of the negotiations, damaging the Monral’s standing within his own coalition. A genetic freak too fast and strong to defeat in combat, the Sural led the caste and represented Tolar by the Jorann’s decree, and while he lived, no one else could hope to win the position.

  Unless they could outmaneuver him cleverly e
nough to convince the Jorann to restore conventional rule.

  The attempt to negotiate with the humans might have succeeded in doing just that, had the Paran not interfered. Weaken Parania? Destroying it would be more just, and a fitting revenge for ruining his plans five years ago, but no legal target presented itself. Parania’s heir parented a first-bond child, which exempted her from any attempt on her life, and the Paran himself was an adept fighter and a difficult target—but he had taken a human lover, who rumor whispered had become a sensitive when she took the Jorann’s blessing. As an artisan, she was not a legal target of assassination. That dubious honor applied only to the ruling and guard castes—and their bond-partners. If the Paran bonded with Laura Howard and made her a legal target, her death would rid the planet of part of its growing odalli infestation, and, at the very least, cripple him. If he followed her into the dark, as so many bereft bond-partners did, all the better.

  Images of his own bond-partner’s face came to mind. Need for her filled him.

  “Are you growing your hair, Monralar?” Invenar’s voice dripped boredom.

  The Monral snapped out of his reverie. The discussion of interprovincial raids in the south swirling among the assembled rulers had come to a halt. “If you desire the Game in its fullness, then let us return to traditional rule, and the strongest of us will prosper. If you desire safety from your neighbors, then hold the Sural to his peace-keeping responsibilities as your planetary master.” Tension crackled through the Smoke at the sound of the final word.

  He paused to let the tension grow, then continued. “Unseating the Sural is a fantasy, and who should know better than I?” Murmurs greeted the frank admission of his humiliation. “But he wrongs us in barring trade with the other races inhabiting this part of the galaxy, while our scholars rehash old arguments and our artisans yearn for new techniques. The Sural allows us the Kekrax. The Kekrax! My artisans can do little that is original with trade goods that never change. Our civilization has become stagnant, sitting idle while younger races laugh at us. We must cease to deceive the Trade Alliance and welcome its ambassadors to Tolar. We need fresh materials and new ideas.”

  Presences in the Smoke nodded.

  “Meet with your allies, each of you, discreetly. The time has come to force the Sural’s hand and bring him to account.”

  * * *

  The meeting ended, and Father stood, his lower body still shrouded by the Smoke. Farric shifted from chant to song and kept an eye on the Monral, who took several deep breaths, exhaling strongly to clear the stuff from his lungs. As the bowl began to drain, Farric tilted his head back. He enjoyed this part of the process, when the song laid the Smoke to rest.

  “Come to my study when you are finished here,” Father said.

  Farric gestured his consent, an action which would normally be rude, were it not for the necessity of maintaining the rhythm of the song. Father nodded once and turned to make his way out of the room with his usual purposeful stride, ankle-length hair swinging across his back in elaborate knots. He disappeared through the small doorway.

  Peace returned.

  Down here, several levels below the stronghold, he could sense nothing but his own presence. Sharana claimed to be able to feel the small lives living in the soil and rock, but she was one of the most powerful sensitives alive. Only the Suralian scholar Storaas was stronger, and, of course, the Jorann. The mother of all. He looked forward to meeting her when his own turn came to rule Monralar. That time would not come soon, of course—he lacked the number of years required and had much to learn. But unlike Father, who ever burned with ambition, he was content to wait.

  That Father plotted something, however, he did not doubt, for when the Monral claimed he could not countenance harming Parania… he had lied. Since the Smoke did not broadcast emotion, he had deceived his coalition allies, but he could not conceal it from his own son.

  What is he scheming? To assassinate the Paran?

  Was that why he had ordered Farric and a handful of his finest guards to increase their physical training? Because he wanted to assassinate one of the best fighters on Tolar?

  The last of the Smoke slipped away through tiny cracks in the floor of the bowl, but he continued to sing, enjoying the way his voice echoed off the rock as he picked up the toweling he had brought with him and began to wipe away the moisture clinging to the polished stone.

  * * *

  CCS-51-1129

  TO: Adeline Pearson Russell, Office of Field Operations, Central Security Headquarters, Tau Ceti Station

  Have received word from the old friend so rudely interrupted the first time you were in the neighborhood. Wants to speak to someone with more authority. Please advise.

  (signed) GH

  Chapter Three

  Laura blinked out of a dream, an image of the Paran’s smiling face fading into turquoise sky spotted with fluffy clouds. She lay on a gently sloping bed of the fern-like groundcover that served as grass on Tolar, with trees resembling tall pines uphill and more ferny stuff below. Tiny blue flowers hid in the groundcover. A fresh transport pod hovered nearby, humming eagerness to itself. Azana and the servant sat engrossed in conversation within it; the pod had helpfully opened a portal to let in the breeze.

  Her thoughts cleared of their nappish fog, and she remembered where she was—Brialar, somewhere in the southern hemisphere about two-thirds of the way through the journey. Azana hadn’t planned this break at a valley north of the city in Brialar; her original itinerary included only provinces allied to both Suralia and Parania, and the Brial, though a personal friend of the Paran as well as an ally to Parania, hated the Sural for reasons everyone seemed to know and no one bothered to explain. But Laura had begun nodding as they approached Brialar, and the servant knew of this beautiful place from previous travels. After keeping herself awake long enough to get through the city, Laura had dropped onto the soft groundcover here and promptly fallen asleep.

  She stretched and yawned and sat up to scratch her itching feet. They don’t look different yet. She wiggled her toes. Eventually, those would grow together into a flap, and her attractive little feet would become peds, the only obvious physical difference between humans and Tolari. Would her skin darken like theirs? Would her hair turn black? No one seemed to know for sure, although Marianne, who was about a year farther along in the transformation, remained as fair and freckled and brown-haired as ever.

  Maybe she’d stop missing Thursday night pedicures once she no longer had toenails to polish.

  She scrambled to her feet and made her way the short distance back to the pod. The air here smelled crisp and clean, and a touch of winter chill tickled her nostrils. But the flowers… She remembered not to smack her forehead, and the delicate empathic nerves they now harbored, as the realization hit her. Right. Southern hemisphere. Spring bloomed here, not the early autumn she’d left in Suralia.

  The servant touched the side of the living vehicle when Laura approached, and the opening in the crystal enlarged to form an oval door.

  “You appear better-rested,” Azana said, as Laura clambered in and took a seat. The pod began to move toward the tunnel entrance at the end of the valley.

  “I feel much better.” She ran her fingers through her hair, and discovered it a mess. Bits of vegetation fluttered to the floor. “Oh dear. I’m going to look a fright for the Paran.”

  “Only a few more provinces to traverse, and we will be home.”

  Laura nodded, continuing to finger-comb her hair and concentrating on drawing her shields about her. They hadn’t gone far from the city to get here, and she could still feel its brightness prickling at her. The pod plunged into the tunnel with a silent, gleeful warble.

  When they had left the city behind, they spent more time traveling under Brialar than they had any other province so far. Laura took advantage of the time to get a little more rest, nibble on some of the fruit the servant had packed along, and think.

  She’d left Parania as the Paran’s huma
n lover, without the empathic abilities possessed by the Tolari, and most especially as far as she was concerned, without the ability to bond, to join hearts with another person. The emotional communion it would give to feel the Paran’s love for her from the inside, to give him the same experience of hers—oh, did she want it.

  Yet somehow, in the three or so months she’d spent with the Paran, she hadn’t discussed it with him. And now, what if he didn’t want to? Not everyone on Tolar desired the consuming intimacy of bonding. The Paran might be averse to it for reasons having nothing to do with her. If that was the case, she’d have to live with the disappointment and somehow not let it affect their relationship.

  If that were even possible.

  Either way, she wanted to fill her days with him. If she couldn’t have the intensity she wanted, maybe… maybe she’d fulfill the other craving that had bloomed in her since the Jorann’s blessing not only made her Tolari but gave her back her youth: to have a baby, here. A Tolari heir for herself, to which the Sural, the leader of the ruling caste, had said she was entitled.

  She needed the Paran’s cooperation, though. If he declined to father her Tolari heir, she simply wouldn’t have one, but she hoped, with all her heart, to build some shred of a new family to replace the one she’d lost. A little one who looked just like the Paran might fill some of the emptiness left by exile from her children and grandchildren and her brothers’ families.

  But she had no intention of asking anyone but the Paran to father her baby, not when the Tolari did that the old-fashioned way.

  Brialar’s haunting Song faded, and another Song took its place, confident and purposeful. She listened, marveling at the contrast, until the next city glowed at the edges of her awareness. Once more, she reached out to the… she didn’t have a word for it. As if all the hevalra swimming in the deep had one heart together, and it covered the entire world, like a glowing net. She pulled a thread of that net around herself as a shield, and held on tight.