Something bothered him. She waited.
Sure enough, Marcus sighed and stopped, his eyes troubled. “If we prove we’ve found Hoveny ruins, Aryl, your world will matter to many others. There are rules, not to talk to indigenous remnants, not to interfere. But no promise it won’t happen.”
It had happened. She looked away, her fingers toying with a fold of her tunic. “If you don’t find them, will you leave?”
“Is that what you want?” Another, heavier sigh. “It’s not something I control, Aryl. I’m Triad First, but there are other Triads, other seekers. What we have found on Cersi looks already good. I can’t give a falsenegative. Do you understand? I can’t hide the truth. They won’t believe me. I can’t stop them.”
He’d thought to do that for her, for Om’ray?
Aryl’s heart pounded. Her fingers gripped the fold. Her right hand, she noticed, momentarily distracted. “What I want…” What did she want?
He was the only one to ask her. The only friend she had left. She didn’t want Marcus to leave, ever.
She hadn’t wanted Enris to leave.
Or Bern.
“What I want,” she said finally, “doesn’t matter.”
The Human had learned it was impolite to touch without invitation, but he lifted her chin gently, a contact Aryl could have avoided, but didn’t. His eyes searched her face. “Something’s wrong. Is it what happened at the Cloisters, when you and the other Om’ray—when you fell to the ground, when the other woman was sick? I couldn’t help, then, I knew that. Maybe I can help now.”
Was that how it looked to him? She laid her hand on his wrist, telling herself it was to move his arm, finding it impossible to do any more than leave it there, pressed to the warmth of his skin. “Yena don’t fall,” she said obliquely.
“My mistake.” A lopsided smile. When Marcus released her chin and drew back, she let go. He sat on the seat attached to the table, looked up at her. “I went over the place afterward. There’s nothing emanating from that building. No unique bioticsignatures or disease organisms. I’m not a scantech, but I’m sure.”
So no stranger device could detect what passed between Om’ray minds, or between those minds and whatever the Cloisters might be sending to Sona. Their astonishing technology had its limits.
Let Marcus capture her words from a distance, take images from the air; he remained safely deaf and blind to what made Om’ray real.
Aryl tore off a piece of the sweet loaf, finding herself in a much better mood. “The Grona,” she improvised, “brought a stomach illness with them. Impolite and a nuisance.” Which tidily described the two Adepts, in her opinion. “We’ve recovered.”
Marcus appeared doubtful. “I can help,” he repeated. “I have medicalsupplies—I can help make sick Om’ray better. Stop spread of illness. Your people are vulnerable.”
The Human excelled at being difficult. Offer to heal? She didn’t doubt he could, but this was a notion she had to end, here and now, or how could she keep Haxel—or any Om’ray—from tearing that knowledge from his mind? Hating herself, Aryl forced an edge to her voice. “Break your own rule? Interfere with the ‘indigenous remnants?’”
Instead of the offense she expected, he took one of the neglected cups, passed her the other, then took a sip, gazing at her consideringly over the rim. “No one would know. You take a bioscanner, put close to sick Om’ray. It sends me data, here. I would make a medicine or tell you what could help. Not perfect,” with a shrug and a bright-eyed look. “Better than no help.”
She was beginning to fear Marcus liked to run on thin branches, too, a daring that had led him to explore a world far from his family and kind, to befriend her.
It could get him killed here. Or worse.
She should never have accepted the geoscanner. She’d encouraged this.
Another sip. A shy smile. “Our secret?”
Secrets upon secrets. Her fingers explored the shape of the handle, the cool smooth exterior of the cup.
Without warning, touch became the most intense sensation. Distracting. Consuming.
Important.
The room was too warm. She was. But she wasn’t…
“Aryl?”
“Yes. No! Let me think about it.”
Think? How could she? She’d never felt everything like this before. The lines of shadow and light through the windows were knife sharp. The air—it was full of scents, some strange, some pleasant. Her own breathing…his…they blended like songs in the canopy at firstnight.
“What’s wrong?” Words that meant nothing. “Are you sick?”
There was nothing. She was nothing. She was utterly empty…Aryl bent over, hearing her cup drop, hearing the Human’s alarmed outcry, with all that mattered in the world to hold her hollow, empty self together with all her strength.
Abruptly, the world was normal again. She sat up, cheeks flaming with embarrassment. “I’m all right.” When Marcus would have waved his bioscanner over her, she held up her hand to keep him away. “No. I’m fine.”
But she wasn’t.
She was becoming a Chooser.
Secrets upon secrets…the Chosen had no secrets from one another. Someone else was going to know about Marcus, about his devices, about her, about…
“Aryl—”
“I’m not sick. Leave me be!”
Was there a worse time her body could have picked? She wasn’t sure if she wanted to cry or pull her hair.
What would it be like, to have a Chooser’s willful hair?
Trouble, she decided. It was all trouble. Starting with how soon the sensations overruled her self-control. Sarcs were not known for being quiet, polite Choosers. Seru Parth’s tantrums would be nothing compared to hers.
“You should reheat the soup,” Aryl said desperately. “It will taste better.”
The Human, perhaps because he was Chosen and a father, grasped when to allow himself to be distracted. He helped clean the floor, then settled them both at the table. Among the marvels of his kitchen—a kitchen she’d yet to see Marcus actually use for anything but storage—was a spoon that warmed what it stirred. While she pretended to enjoy the sweet loaf—and a fresh cup—he heated his soup, giving a startled look of pleasure at the first mouthful.
No wonder. Nothing could taste worse than those e-rations of his.
“Thank you,” he said, then pointed the spoon at her. “You are not sick—?” A pause while he waited for her to mimic his head shake of denial. “Good.” Another pause, then that innocent look. “You didn’t come to bring me swimmer soup and talk about dreams.”
He wasn’t slow. Aryl half smiled. “The Oud built a tunnel entrance near Sona, but we haven’t seen one since the day I visited you. Haxel’s impatient. She sent me looking.” Her smile faded. There was worse to tell him. Where to start? “The Tikitik have been around, too.”
“Tikitik?” Marcus’ forehead creased. “Where!? Here? Close?”
She wasn’t sure what qualified as “close” to the Human, so settled for, “It was with the Oud. I haven’t seen one at this end of the valley, but they’re hard to see against the stone. It was different from the Tikitik in the canopy. Gray, not black.”
“Chromatophores,” he replied, one of his words. “Their skin change—changes—color. What did it want?”
Interesting. Slow-moving and tasty, an aspird could hide against any part of a rastis, changing its patterned back to match fronds crossed with shadow or the feathered texture of the stalk. Making the Tikitik more dangerous than ever.
“I don’t know. It said the Oud were ‘precipitous.’ Accused it of ‘misjudgment and haste.’ And—” She hesitated. Marcus had learned to fear Tikitik. They’d attacked his aircar; his escape had left an uncounted number of them dead. And he’d seen what they’d done to Yena. The Oud, however? He had to work with them—was here alone with them. Maybe he needed the confidence of not-knowing.