“Our words?” the Oud persisted, as if devices to hold voices were normal, as if his ability—an Om’ray’s ability—to somehow hear those voices had been expected.
Why else, Enris thought suddenly, bring the device to him? “You knew what it was. You knew—” He caught himself, unsure why he didn’t want to suggest the device was Om’ray. Maybe it was his growing suspicion that this Oud had tried, somehow, to use its own version of Power and failed, that its attempt had left that disorienting trace. “How did you know I could use it?” he asked instead.
“Probable. Possible. Maybe. Metalworker, start. Skills, some.” It tapped impatiently. “Answer! Our words? Other? Answer!”
Enris slowly bent down and began repacking his bag. The Oud leaned over, as if attracted by his movements. He tried not to shake. “Let me leave,” he said, standing again. “And I’ll tell you.”
“Yesyesyesyes!”
“I don’t know about other words,” he said, choosing his with care, “but what I ‘heard’ didn’t sound right. I couldn’t understand any of it.”
“Other words.” He could swear it sounded smug. “Other words.” Then, too quickly to avoid, the Oud lunged forward to tear the disk from his tunic. “Leave now.”
“How?” he protested. “Give that back!”
“Find, no.” Its many small limbs quickly ferried the small thing out of sight below its body. “Mine now.”
What was it talking about? The token?
Or him?
Chapter 23
THEY’D GIVEN HER MORE of their food, dry clothes, and a place to sleep. Aryl had wanted to refuse all of it, to keep arguing until she was understood. Instead, she’d accepted in silence, like a child helpless to prevent the well-meaning interference of a parent.
Why? Because it was clear something had happened. Something important. The strangers had put her aside, politely but firmly, while their voices rose in excited conversation. She ate while they ignored their own meals, watching how they smiled or twitched or clicked at one another. Some consulted plates of flowing symbols, none shown to her. She slept, or tried to, with the thud of footsteps and moving equipment coming through the walls of the small room they’d given her. The heavy tread of the Carasian, Janex, was easiest to identify.
So much for imagining the new flying machine had come to return her to her rightful place.
When the noises finally ceased, Aryl sat up, her eyes on the door. After another long moment of silence, she eased from the bed, a flat platform too soft for her taste.
She’d watched how the door worked; now to see if their technology would obey her. The stranger who’d brought her here had dimmed the light within her room, not turned it off. She went to the square on the wall. With a confidence she didn’t feel, she placed her palm against the square as she’d seen the strangers do.
The door slid aside without a sound.
Aryl slipped out, immediately breaking into a run. She kept on her toes, careful not to brush any wall. The hall was dim too, implying they all slept, or whatever such creatures did. Shadows emphasized the odd lines of the strangers’ building; they offered hiding places. Her skin crawled. It wasn’t right to move in near darkness. Every bit of Aryl’s training said she shouldn’t be here.
And everything she believed said she must, that this could be her only chance to determine her own fate.
Her too-brief ride in the strangers’ machine had proved there was no hope of taking it for herself. The stranger operating it, yet another new race with shimmering scales instead of skin, had pressed a number of round markings on the panel in front of it with bewildering speed, as well as used a small stick for some other purpose.
Aryl didn’t know how to open its door, let alone duplicate any of those mysterious moves.
But there was a device she had seen used.
No one stirred as Aryl ran up the ramp to the roof. Once at the door, she fumbled, trying to find its panel. She’d been preoccupied with the Carasian and hadn’t seen Marcus open it. Finally, she discovered a simple-enough latch and let herself out.
The rain had ended; the sky was a blue-black dome, pierced by white specks. She stepped outside and found herself bathed in the soft light of the—what had Thought Traveler called them? The Makers. He’d named her as well. Apart-from-All.
Aryl rubbed her eyes, tired of tears.
The moons hung in the sky, their reflections tripping over the deceptively peaceful lake. She went to the railing and looked out, hunting the shore. There, she thought. An irregular line without stars, as if the sky’s darkness folded at its edge. Better still, unless her eyes were playing tricks, there was a tiny patch of light that wasn’t a star. The Tikitik? Using glows against truenight? To read? Aryl could only guess, having spent her nights with them sealed inside a rastis.
She knew where they were, though she couldn’t get there.
With luck, she wouldn’t have to.
Aryl went to the round platform, staying as much as possible within the moons’ light. She went to the metal stalk the Trant had used and studied the reassuringly few bumps and sticks below its blank panel. She summoned her memories of Pilip’s hands moving over these controls. The operation of the strangers’ spy device appeared straightforward. She didn’t need images, anyway.
Feeling as though she stepped on an untrustworthy branch, Aryl put her fingertip on the raised square she believed summoned the device and pushed. Without a sound, one of the round spies lifted from the roof and took a position overhead, waiting for instructions exactly as it had this morning. Its surface glittered like water in the moons’ light.
She let out the breath she’d held.
Now, to send it. Keeping her finger on the square, Aryl used her other hand to slide a narrow bar forward and to one side. A quick glance showed the spy moving toward the Oud shore of the lake. She pulled the bar back and to the opposite side, relieved to see the device reverse its direction and pass overhead. It crawled through the air. Her fiches, she thought with disgust, flew faster.
Still, it was heading more or less where she wanted, toward what she guessed was the Tikitik camp. If she could land it there . . . Aryl looked at the controls and shook her head wistfully. Odds were she’d crash it into an osst or Tikitik. This was good enough. As long as it stayed within the moons’ light, they should see it. Once seen, Thought Traveler would have its answer. The fragment from the ruined Harvest came from the strangers. She was sending him the proof.
More than that, Aryl couldn’t explain without being there.
“What do?”
She remained in front of the control stalk as she turned, hoping Marcus hadn’t seen his device take flight. “The moons are up,” she said glibly, flinging her arm skyward.
The Human’s hair stood on end and, though dressed, he looked rumpled, as if he’d fallen asleep in his clothes. But there was nothing vague or sleepy in the way he checked the roof, nor mistaking his alarm when he spotted the gleam of the device heading toward shore. With a muffled cry, he rushed for the controls; defeated, Aryl stepped out of his way.
Only when the device was safely back on the roof did Marcus pay attention to her again. “Why?” She could make out his frown, if not his eyes.
“You won’t let me go,” Aryl said, nodding to the distant shore. She didn’t care how much he understood. “They want to know if it was your fault. It was.”
“They,” his hand waved in the same direction before running through his hair, “try kill Aryl.”
“No. They sent me—” Aryl shrugged, giving up. They’d been over this too many times. Either Marcus didn’t believe her, or the Tikitik had crossed some code of behavior. The result was the same. “It doesn’t matter.”
But he surprised her. “Tomorrow. Day. Go.”
“What?”
A glint of teeth. He was smiling. “Yes. Tomorrow.” An extravagant gesture toward shore. “Good.”