CHAPTER 5
The first rays of sunlight stabbed my tightly closed eyelids with knife-like precision, and with a groan I pulled my pillow over my head. Just ten more minutes would do me, or even five. But there was no getting around the fact that I was awake and suddenly conscious of a feeling of dread that blanketed me for no apparent reason.
Until I remembered where I was and the conversation I’d had with Marcus the night before.
With a sigh, I tossed the pillow aside and sat up, blinking at my surroundings. The room was smaller than my quarters on board Lillith, with just enough space for a single bed and a chest. The one window was wide open, panes of wood-framed glass pulled back against the plaster of aged yellow walls to allow perfume-laden air to circulate.
It kind of freaked me out, knowing there was no barrier between me and the wild bugs sneaking around outside. I’d lain awake for hours staring at the window, trying to make sure they weren’t about to jump me. And yes, I knew they were there during the day, too, but I was awake and ready for them then, not asleep and vulnerable.
Peri was nowhere in sight, but without even concentrating I could feel her satisfaction as she gathered nectar. For such a small creature she sure spent a lot of time eating. But then, I guess it took a lot of flowers to supply enough food to sustain her. On Madrea she’d hit the jackpot. There were flowers everywhere.
Rubbing my eyes, I swung my legs off the bed and then reached for my cloak. I needed a shower and I didn’t want to put on my last outfit until I’d had one. The cloak would keep me from shocking the neighbors witless when I traipsed across the yard to the privy. Clutching my bag in one hand and holding the cloak tightly closed with the other, I left my room.
There were snores coming from the other side of the house as I tiptoed through to the back door, and I envied Marcus the ability to sleep late. Of course, his room didn’t have the sun shining through a window at this Zin-awful hour, either.
I wasn’t the first person up, though. Already the scent of cooking wafted from the large stone building next door, and I could hear the chatter of voices mixed with the clatter of pots and pans.
Although I’d made a trip to the privy the night before, it had been dark and the small sunstone lamp I’d carried hadn’t illuminated much more than the crushed stone path. This morning I took a better look around.
Marcus’s home and business were separated by a white wooden fence lined with flowers. Both yards were neat and clean, but where his home yard contained only the privy, there was a building with three doors at the back of the business, and another, even longer, two-story building with numerous doors situated at the back of the lot.
The front one had to be privies for the customers’ use, but the back one looked like apartments of some kind. Even as I watched, a roughly dressed man carrying a hoe emerged from the end door, ran his gaze over me curiously, and then went to work in one of the dozen flower beds.
Okay, guess the building was living quarters for Marcus’s employees.
With that burning question answered, I continued to the privy, joined by an enthusiastic Peri, who’d figured out I was going to bathe. I made sure the door was latched and then shed my cloak. The building was divided into two parts. One side contained an old-fashioned gravity-flow toilet and a sink; the other was a walk-in shower with a drain in the floor. A large tank on the roof, heated only during the winter months, I’d been informed, supplied the water.
“Lillith, did you contact Dr. Daniels and tell him what was going on?” I stepped into the shower, pulled on the rope hanging down, and moved under the tepid sprinkle of water that resulted, scrubbing vigorously with the cake of soap I’d found on a shelf. It smelled like flowers.
Peri landed at my feet, flapping energetically in the water and suds that pooled around the drain, slinging droplets to all corners of the stall.
What was it with this place and flowers? I made a mental note to ask Marcus about it later.
“Yes,” Lillith responded to my question. “Plus, it’s all going into my archives. Dr. Daniels is going to check into any reports on missing girls, but he said the chances of finding out anything about the ones brought to Madrea are extremely slim. It’s a big universe and children go missing from all over, every day. However, he does find it interesting that King Politaus is allowing ships to land, given his attitude toward anything that smacks of the Federation.”
“Yeah, that occurred to me, too. Marcus thinks Braxus is behind the Sumantti being stolen and the girls being brought here, but at the least the king has to know about and condone the ships. He’s the one who gave the order to keep people inside so they wouldn’t see them land.”
“At least we can be relatively sure the Sumantti is somewhere nearby. Otherwise, there’d be no need to bring the girls to Bastion City.”
I rinsed quickly and shut the water off, grabbing a drying cloth from a shelf. “Is the ship still here?”
Peri tiptoed out of the stall, jumped to the sink edge, and began drying her feathers.
“No. The three men got back on board and it lifted off an hour before sunrise. As soon as it was away from Madrea’s gravitational field it went into hyper-drive. The girls weren’t with them.”
With a sigh, I toweled the excess moisture from my hair. “So, what now? If I get caught sneaking around the castle again, they’ll know something is up. I don’t think they’ll believe I could get lost there twice.”
“Now we bide our time and lie low until you learn to use the Imadei. Once you do, you should be able to pinpoint the exact location of the Daughter Stone. You’ll still have to go get it, but knowing where it is will minimize the risk. And, it would help if we knew what your psi ability is.”
“Regardless of what the tests say, I’ve never shown any indication of an ability. And what’s more, I don’t want one.”
“Sooner or later you must face the fact that you have psi talent and learn to use it. You won’t have a choice in the matter.”
“Yeah? Well, you just watch me. We always have a choice.”
Staring at my reflection it dawned on me that I had no way to fix my hair. No dryer, no styler, nothing. I was lucky I had the comb Marcus was loaning me. Maybe there was a reason Kiera Smith constantly wore her hair in a braid.
Well, if she could do a braid, I could at least do a ponytail. Using my knife, I stripped a piece of leather from the flap on my pouch and then pulled the comb through the heavy mass to smooth out the snags. It took me three tries to get the hair pulled back and the tie around it, and when I was done, what I had was an off-center, tangled mop of hair with drying tendrils escaping in every direction.
Okay, maybe I couldn’t do it.
I shook my head and watched my hair go crazy, one fat lock falling to hide my left eye while the rest fluffed up like each individual strand had its own force field that repelled all the other strands. Wonder what Reynard would think of my new wild-woman do?
Instantly, a mental image of the commander formed in my mind. He was sitting at a long table with other men, all in the uniforms of the king. The table groaned with the weight of food, and there was much laughter and talking.
My eyes drifted closed as I inspected him minutely. Damn, he was one fine-looking man. In spite of being hungry again, it sure wasn’t the food that had my mouth watering.
Suddenly Reynard went tense, his head lifting alertly as he scanned the room.
My eyes popped open. Wow, talk about an imagination. I shook my head again and the image vanished. I really needed to stop daydreaming. There simply wasn’t enough time. I had lots to do, like getting dressed, finding something to eat, and then lying low.
Yeah, I could do that. At least I was pretty sure I wouldn’t screw up the getting-dressed-and-eating part. How hard could it be, after all? I’d been doing it my whole life.
Lying low, however, might be a problem.
I pulled my last skirt and top from the pouch and put them on. The belt and halter were a silvery sage that made my eyes stand out. Not my first choice in color, because I preferred bright vivid shades, but I had to admit, the hue looked good on me.
After tidying the privy, I made my way back to the house, Peri abandoning me for the flowers again. Once inside, I returned my pouch to my room and straightened the bed. By the time I finished, Marcus was up and waiting for me. He blinked at my hair, but was too polite to comment.
“Ready for breakfast?” he inquired mildly.
“I passed ready an hour ago,” I replied, following him out the back door. “So, what exactly are my duties going to be while I’m working for you?”
He clasped his hands behind his back as we strolled across the yard, aiming at a gate set in the white fence. “You’ll take orders from customers and deliver those orders back to them. At least twice a night you’ll dance. And most important of all, you’ll keep your ears open. The soldiers let their guard down when they’re relaxed and drinking, and we need all the information we can get.”
“No problem.”
Peri fluttered by with a chirp of greeting for Marcus as we went through the gate, and then hovered over another batch of flowers before making her selection.
“You do know how to dance, don’t you?”
I gave him a satisfied smile. When you’re created for the Department of Protocol, knowing how to dance is incorporated in your DNA. “Yes.”
Truth was, one of the first things I’d been taught in the crèche was all the traditional dances of the Federation member planets, and I was a quick study. According to my instructors at Alien Affairs, my ability to dance was part of what made me so good at hand-to-hand combat.
My dance repertoire was vast and spanned several centuries of culture. Give me a beat and I could move to it. If pressed, I could even carry a passable tune, although I didn’t think it would be smart to try that here. At least, not until I learned some of their songs.
“Excellent,” Marcus said. “We’ll need to get you a costume before tonight, but you and Treya are about the same size, so that shouldn’t be a problem. You can borrow one of hers until we get something made.”
“How many people work for you?”
He tilted his head a moment to think. “I believe there are twelve now, but the numbers vary with the seasons, and most of my regulars do several different jobs.”
We reached the back of the Terpsichore just as the blonde woman from the vid I’d watched my first day on board Lillith stepped outside. Even taking into consideration the five cycles that had passed since the vid was shot, she was beautiful.
She stopped the second she saw us and her gaze swept over me, a frown marring the smooth skin between her emerald eyes. “What have you brought me now, Marcus?”
“Treya, this is my ward, Echo. She’s going to be working at the Terpsichore with us.”
“I see.” She circled me slowly, assessing my worth. “A bit on the slim side, but well toned.” When she stopped in front of me, we were eye to eye. “Smile, girl.”
I bared my teeth at her.
“Good, although when you’re working, try to put more feeling into it.” She glanced at Marcus. “Her hair is extraordinary. The men will all want to get their hands in it.”
Huh? My hair was a mess! Maybe the men on Madrea were all frustrated beauticians.
To my surprise Marcus was nodding agreement. “I’ll make sure Bim keeps an eye on her when she’s working the tables.”
I opened my mouth to tell him I could take care of myself, and then closed it again. On this world, I wasn’t supposed to take care of myself and I needed to remember that.
But Treya wasn’t finished yet. She motioned with one hand. “Walk to the door and back so I can see how you move.”
I did as she asked, putting an extra swing into my hips just because she got on my nerves.
“Excellent!” She clasped her hands together and smiled at me. “Fluid and natural, with just enough curves to be delicately feminine. I know just the costume for her.”
Maybe she wasn’t so bad after all. She was obviously a connoisseur when it came to the female form. If her taste in clothes was on a par with mine, we were all set to be best buds.
“Now go, eat.” She made a shooing motion. “When you are done, we will work on your dancing.”
“Treya is in charge of all the dancers,” Marcus said, ushering me into a huge bustling kitchen.
Heat rose from three large cast-iron stoves tended by a short, slim woman wielding a spatula. She glanced around long enough to beam at us, her brown eyes sparkling, red hair standing on end from the steam rising out of bubbling pots.
A long table capable of seating dozens was positioned to one side, away from the work area. It was currently populated by three women dressed like me, a giant of a man shoveling in food with a single-mindedness that was awe inspiring, and four normal-sized men ranging in age from early twenties to late fifties.
All of them but the giant stopped eating to stare at me while Marcus made the introductions. The women were my counterparts, both servers and dancers. The four men were musicians. The giant was the aforementioned Bim, Treya’s brother and chief head banger when the customers got a little too merry. The cook was named Leddy and she obviously had a letch on for Marcus, fussing over him until even I got embarrassed. But when I tasted the food she slid in front of me, I forgave her.
There were perfectly cooked eggs, thick slices of ham, gravy, and fluffy biscuits the size of my fist. I’d be willing to bet there wasn’t a synthesized protein on the plate. And best of all, there was real coffee—hot, black, and strong. I wondered if they realized how rare coffee was in the rest of the universe. Probably. No doubt they’d made a fortune on it before the king closed the planet.
Silence descended while everyone chowed down, and once again my thoughts strayed to Reynard. Only this time I pictured him outside the castle, frowning at the door I’d torn from its frame.
“We may have a problem,” Lillith told me.
I banished Reynard’s image and swallowed hurriedly. “What?”
“The commander is examining the door you tore out last night.”
If I’d still had food in my mouth, I would have choked on it. As it was, I must have made a sound, because several of my dining companions glanced in my direction. Marcus arched a questioning brow at me, and I gave my head a slight shake.
“What was that noise?” Lillith asked.
“Nothing. It was me.” I took a deep breath, more than a little freaked. As coincidences went, this one was way out there. And I refused to think about the ramifications right now. Do you think he suspects I did it?”
“Let me see.” Her voice was laced with sarcasm. “It was a perfectly solid door. The wood is now splintered around the lock and the hinges. The soldiers saw you go that way. So do I think he suspects you? No, of course not. He probably thinks it was a muscular termite.” She snorted, an artificial intelligence’s equivalent of scornful hilarity.
“Remind me to laugh at your brilliant wit next week,” I told her. “In the meantime, what am I supposed to do?”
“Deny everything. He might suspect you’re not what you seem, but he can’t prove it.”
“Right. Lie through my teeth. I’ve been around politicians all my life. Should be easy. I’ll tell him the door must have been like that when I happened across it and that’s why I was able to open it. After all, lying went so well for me the first time I tried it with him.” I was babbling. To stop myself, I gripped my cup and took another sip of coffee.
Before I could break down into total hysteria, the back door opened and I looked up as Treya came in. She surveyed my empty plate and then motioned with her head. “This way. We’ll see what you can do.”
Unwilling to waste a precious drop of coffee, I slugged back what was left and then followed her to a room off the kitchen. The four musicians trailed us and picked up instruments that were resting on a small table against the wall. They included a guitar anyone on Old Earth would have recognized, an oddly shaped percussion apparatus, and two strange-looking pipes. They moved to chairs positioned in a corner, and for a few minutes a horrible cacophony of sounds rose as they made sure their instruments were in tune.
When silence fell, Treya sent me to the middle of the floor and nodded at the men. Immediately, exotic music filled the air, lent a sensual quality by the pipes. Mentally I ran through my repertoire and settled on a mating dance from the bird people of Denbigh. Their ambassador had taught it to me right after I’d left the crèche.
I’d barely started when Treya grimaced and waved a hand. The music stopped and she marched over to me, hands on her hips.
“What is this? You look like a flea on hot sand! This is not dancing. If hopping around is the best you can do it will be cycles before you’re ready to dance in public.”
I mimicked her stance and matched her glare for glare. “Why don’t you show me what you want instead of criticizing? I promise, any dance you can do, I can do better.”
A slight smile lifted the corners of her lips. “Impertinence. I like that. Shows you have spirit. Now I will teach you how to dance.”
I moved back as the music began anew, and watched carefully as she undulated. It looked like a muted, stately version of a belly dance to me.
Before she’d danced through two bars of music, I joined her, only there was nothing muted or stately about my movements. I let the haunting melody take me, dancing for the sheer joy of putting my body through its paces. It had been so long since I’d had a chance to dance.
It wasn’t until the music faded away that I realized Treya had stopped and was watching me intently. And it wasn’t just her. The men were watching me too, a look of awe on their faces.
“Who taught you to dance this way?” Treya asked me, her voice carrying an odd note.
Oops.
Frantically, I scrambled to come up with a good lie, but my mind remained blank. “Um, no one, really. I just like dancing, and can usually pick new ones up quickly.”
“Who was your mother?”
“Lillith, do I have a mother?” I subvocalized.
“Rilyana,” she replied.
I repeated the name to Treya, but she only looked more suspicious.
“What tribe was she from?”
“I don’t know. My father kept us apart from others, and my mother died when I was very young. My father never spoke of her afterward.”
“Only an Apsaras, or the child of one, could dance this way.”
“What the frag is an Apsaras?” I asked Lillith.
“In their culture, it’s a supernatural being who takes the form of a beautiful young woman. They excel at dance and singing, but perform only for the Bashalde god Invet, and for fallen heroes.”
“No,” I shook my head vigorously at Treya, a knot in my stomach. Since a Natural who knew nothing of GEPs might consider one of us supernatural, that was getting a tiny bit too close for comfort. “There’s nothing supernatural about me. I just have a talent for dance.”
She went back to glaring. “If word spreads that Marcus has an Apsaras performing here, his business will increase tenfold. The more coin he makes, the more we are paid.”
Ah, the light dawned. She wanted to use the Apsaras as a marketing ploy. Smart woman.
“Fine. You can tell the customers whatever you want, as long as you understand I’m not really an Apsaras.”
This time her grin was full of smug satisfaction. “We will open soon for the midday meal. By this evening all will know, and will come to see the Apsaras dance. You are excused from serving for now. It will increase the mystery and curiosity if no one sees you except when you perform.”
“And what am I supposed to do until then?”
“Help Leddy in the kitchen.”
Right, I was going to help in the kitchen when my idea of cooking was pushing a button on the food prep unit and watching a tray slide out. On the other hand, that’s where the coffee was.
Preparations for the midday meal were in full swing by now, so I grabbed a cup, poured myself some coffee, and then found a spot out of the way to watch and sip. It didn’t take me long to realize that the kitchen was an organizational disaster. I was surprised poor Leddy had feet left. She had to run from one side of the room to the other to get seasoning, make another trip for a particular pan, and yet another for a spoon or platter to dish the food up.
Immediately, a blueprint of the kitchen formed in my mind, only in this one, everything was right where it needed to be for maximum efficiency. Quietly I set to work, making the reality match the picture I’d conjured. And since the musicians weren’t doing anything constructive, I put them to work, too.
By the time we were done, it was late afternoon, and only a few diehard customers remained from the lunch crowd. All the utensils Leddy used most were right next to her on a table I’d had the men carry in from the common room. Half the shelves over the stoves now contained the pots and pans I’d noticed were her favorites, and the other half contained spices and seasonings. A few steps behind her I’d positioned the food prep table that had been all the way on the other side of the room. One end of the table now held a neat stack of bowls and platters.
Peri had spent the time alternating between visits to the flowers and zooming into the kitchen to “help.” Her idea of assistance was to toss dishes and utensils from the table onto the floor while chuckling gleefully as she watched them hit. Luckily, they were stout and only one plate actually broke.
“It’s wonderful,” Leddy told me, eyes shinning with pleasure. “I barely have to move two steps in any direction to reach what I need. Don’t know why we didn’t think of this cycles ago. Marcus should let you work something out for the taproom. The girls have to come right through the kitchen to reach it.”
Yeah, I’d noticed that. I was on the verge of telling her I’d see what I could do when Lillith intruded.
“Don’t you dare volunteer. You’re not here to organize the planet. You’re here to retrieve the Sumantti and the first step to accomplishing that goal is to learn how to use the Imadei. Stop avoiding your mission.”
“I’m not avoiding,” I told her, turning to adjust some extra dishes. “I’m merely blending in, following orders, trying not to look like I’m working for the Federation.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Okay, so maybe there’s a tiny bit of avoidance there. Truth is, I don’t have any idea where to start with the Imadei. Suggestions, please?”
“Find a quiet spot and try. If you don’t try, how can you ever succeed?”
Great. Now she was a philosopher. Wasn’t that just wonderful? Not to mention really helpful. Before I could tell her just how I felt about her little pep talk, Marcus appeared in the doorway, glanced around, and then came straight for me.
“You’ve got about an hour before you have to dress for the act. Go rest. I’ll handle Treya.” He arched a brow and tipped his head toward the house next door.
With a sigh, I headed out the back door. “You tattled, didn’t you?” I asked Lillith as Peri joined me with a chirped greeting.
“Of course I did. A big part of my job is making sure you do yours. Marcus understands and says not to forget the motion detectors.”
“Sure. People might start thinking I’m Federation if they see me staring at a black rock.” I rolled my eyes as I went through the gate and crossed the backyard of Marcus’s house.
“No, but give even an idiot enough pieces, and eventually they’ll put them all together and solve the puzzle. Why help them out any more than we have to?”
Okay, maybe she had a point. I wasn’t going to admit it, though. No sense inflating her ego even more.
I entered the house through the back door with Peri following, and moved through the living room to the box on the mantel. As soon as the motion detector was set, I went to a chair, sat down, and pulled out the Imadei. “I’m ready,” I told the ship. “What now?”
“First, relax. Empty your mind of everything except the Sumantti. Then try looking ‘into’ the crystal as opposed to looking ‘at’ the stone.”
Relax. Easy for her to say. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and willed tense muscles to loosen. Letting an image of the Sumantti form in my mind, I raised the crystal and gazed into its depths.
It really was a pretty stone, I realized. The separate crystals were hexagonal in shape, giving the facets an odd glimmer instead of a sharp refraction of light. The effect was rather hypnotic, and the longer I stared into its depths, the more my eyelids began to droop.
A wave of vertigo swept over me, and I was only minimally aware of Peri perching on the chair arm, crooning so hard her body vibrated.
“Echo?” Lillith’s voice seemed to come from a long way off. I tried to answer her, but the words stayed stuck in my head. Wasn’t I supposed to be concentrating on something?
Wait. It had to do with children and the castle, didn’t it?
“Echo, what’s wrong? Answer me!” The ship sounded frantic now, but I couldn’t respond no matter how hard I tried. The dizziness was getting worse and darkness was edging in at the corners of my vision.
Abruptly, I wasn’t in Marcus’s house anymore. I was standing in a plain dark room that looked vaguely like a bedroom. There was something familiar about what was happening, something that set my heart hammering in fear. I turned already knowing what I’d see. A small bed with a fragile little blonde girl strapped down, her body riddled with tubes attached to beeping machines.
Except that wasn’t what I saw. There was a bed, yes, but no tiny blonde girl, no bright lights or tubes or beeping machines.
A feeling of disorientation swept over me, and I put out a hand to brace myself on a post at the foot of the bed. And then stared stupidly when my hand went right through it.
What in the name of Zin was going on?
“Please,” a small voice whispered. “We’re frightened. Are you here to help us?”
My head shot up, heart in my throat as I located the source of the question. There was a girl after all, although not the one I had expected. She uncurled from the blankets and stared at me beseechingly, tears glimmering in emerald-green eyes before streaking down one dirty cheek. Her dress was thin, ragged, and looked as if it had been designed for a warmer place than this room. Her long hair was a golden red and in dire need of a good washing, as were the thin legs protruding from beneath the tattered hem of her skirt.
Beside her, the blanket stirred and I saw another face emerge, this one a bit smaller and so white I wondered if there was actually blood flowing through her veins. Her hair was coal black and dull with mats. The palest blue eyes I’d ever seen stared at me blankly from purplish circles that lined their lower lids.
In spite of the difference in size, I got the feeling they were about the same age.
“I’m Gaia and this is my sister, Banca. She doesn’t feel good. If you can only help one of us, please help her.”
It was the red-haired girl who had spoken. Even though I tried to answer, my brain still couldn’t get around what was happening and no speech escaped my suddenly useless mouth.
I took a deep breath, prepared to try again, but abruptly, pain like I’d never known sliced through my head and the world went black.