the light switch, and before them stood the man Kyllikki had seen through Ckam’s eyes. He was taller than she’d expected, with bright gold hair, and sharp features with a peculiar racial cast she’d never seen before. His body was reed-slender, with sculpted muscles showing through his light blue ship’s clothing. Masculine musculature.
He leaned casually against the bulkhead, posture and movement giving no clue to the riptide of emotion she could feel tearing him apart. There was a clumsy bandage tied around his head, with a spot of blood soaking through. Good thing Zuchmul isn’t here to smell that!
He smiled, more in the eyes than with the mouth. “Won’t you come in? I’ve been expecting you.” His baritone voice was rough, as if to disguise a tremor.
She fumbled her helmet off and when she finally met his naked gaze, she blurted, “Get dressed and come with us. Quickly.” It wasn’t what she’d planned to say. The order came spilling out as if she’d suddenly returned to her Family position and was dealing with an indolent retainer. She hadn’t used that tone since she’d left Zimor’s household.
But he cocked his head to one side, essayed a crooked grin and answered her banteringly. “Is it a formal affair, then? I must have something appropriate aboard.”
Idom had his helmet off now. “Space suit,” he said. “Hurry or we’ll have to recalculate our return.”
“I see.” But he remained unmoving, studying them, especially Kyllikki, warily.
His voice and tone held a familiar cadence. Or was it in his mind? She tried to tighten her mental barriers to listen only to his words. “I think we’ve done this badly,” she offered, and introduced them by name, explaining the situation. She was favored with all his attention.
When she’d finished, he breathed, “Kyllikki!” It seemed he hadn’t heard a word beyond her name. “Kyllikki.”
For one dizzy moment, she thought she heard Zimor spitting her name like a curse. She could almost see Zimor’s face superimposed over his features, but she blinked it away.
“Kyllikki must be a common name,” he said, and it was just the pleasant velvet voice of a gorgeous man asking an inane question at an inappropriate moment.
“Not very,” she answered, “but that’s a long story.”
“Space suit,” insisted Idom. “Hurry.”
“Gladly,” he answered, unmoving, but she sensed his balance shift as he watched Idom. “My name is Elias.”
He doesn’t know where it is and is waiting for a clue! Only then did she note the dimness down the open corridor behind him, emergency lighting. Either from injury or ignorance, he had done nothing to normalize the pod’s function. She started opening the larger storage lockers at random and found the suits on the third try.
Reminding herself that he was passenger and she crew, she followed the drill for stuffing a groundling into the sacklike, untailored vacuum suit. They had to try three helmets to find one that worked, explaining that they had little confidence in the caulked vacuum seal.
It took both of them to jockey Elias through free-fall and into their pod. Then she installed him in a bunk and treated his head wound. Zuchmul went to the other pod to see if they could salvage some fuel, and return on jets rather than playing with systems they really didn’t know how to use. But the fuel cells were incompatible.
As soon as Kyllikki had adjusted the healing lamps over Elias, he fell into a deep slumber, the strain of meeting them on his feet having drained his last reserves.
Staring at his unconscious form, everything in her wanted to believe he was a Dreamer. If so, and if he was Bonded to Zimor, the subliminal effect of his presence even at that distance would explain why Kyllikki had been so irrational for hours before they’d contacted Otroub. But that was the easy way out. Blame him, or Zimor, or call it one of her periodic spells of Bonding need, and she wouldn’t feel so guilty over the mental invasions she’d committed.
Gritting her teeth, she went to Idom at the pilot’s station and apologized as she should have the moment she’d seen him in Prosperity’s hold, finishing, “I should never have done that to you, Idom. Consider it undone.”
“Without further thought, Kyllikki.”
She felt better, the knot of guilt unraveling. Returning to check the settings on the healing lamp, she considered Elias again. She had of course heard rumors of secret enclaves where the Families bred Dreamers from those captured centuries ago, Dreamers who were given to those Bonders who were loyal. But she, like all reasonable people, discounted that. She couldn’t believe her relatives would sink to such depravity. Besides, even Zimor couldn’t get away with something like that.
As for Elias, no Dreamer raised as a slave could possibly exhibit such self-possession as Elias had after days alone, days of anxiety and terror. People didn’t develop such nerve from living a sheltered life.
So he couldn’t be Zimor’s Dreamer. But planting a Dreamspy in the Metaji was just what Zimor would do—if she could. No. The idea was absurd. Even if Zimor had gone totally insane, kidnapped a Dreamer from his home planet, and sent him to spy, what were the chances Kyllikki would meet up with him? I’ve got to get hold of my imagination.
“Kyllikki! We’re ready.” It was Zuchmul calling from the aft chamber, where he was sealing the lock and releasing the docking tube. The gravitic drive was also there.
Kyllikki secured restraints over the unconscious man in the bunk, then straightened. The cramped aisle of the pod was lined with bunks. To her left, beyond the facilities and the galley, Idom manned the pilot’s station. To her right was the aft chamber.
She joined Zuchmul, ducking under the cargo crane stored overhead on a swing-down arm, ready to serve the oversized rear lock. There was also a jigsaw puzzle of beams, tools, and raw material for use in surface survival, leaving just enough room for her and Zuchmul to stand side by side before the gravitic unit. It was barely as tall as they were and only a bit broader than the two of them. It wouldn’t develop much power, so their return would be slow, but still, going down into the gravity well, gravitics would be faster than tacking in against the solar wind. Or so the manual claimed.
She took her place and activated the com to the pilot’s station. “Ready, Idom?” If anything has to fail, let it be the com. I could shout that far.
“Here come the final figures now. All automated. I never realized how easy a helmsman’s job is. Perhaps this is what I’ll do when I retire.”
“Sure,” said Kyllikki, knowing him well enough to know he’d never retire. She read him the figures as they appeared on the screens before her, then they did the whole thing again just to make sure. Finally, Zuchmul engaged the drive.
For a moment, it seemed nothing would happen. Then everything went crazy. The lighted readouts before Kyllikki blinked, turned to pyrotechnic spirals and disappeared. The deck bucked and shook as if the pod were about to tear itself apart. The air beat at them with pure sound.
Clutching the gravitic housing for balance, Kyllikki danced on the unsteady floor and tried to help Zuchmul, who was down on his knees prying away a lower access plate. He shouted, “It’s bleeding into the interior gravity plates!”
She squatted down to lend her strength to his and together they popped the cover off the mechanism.
She
