Renegade Page 22

  She looked at her daughter’s beloved mate. “Yes. But has he not now been through a great deal?”

  Brander looked thoughtful, then said, “Contention valid.”

  She looked back at Drake. “This is dreadful news, of course. But I wonder . . .”

  “What?”

  “I wonder if perhaps this was Ca—Paledan holding back. Perhaps he asked for the cannon to forestall the order to destroy.”

  She saw the flicker in her son’s eyes when she caught herself on the name. But he said only, “Perhaps. I could believe it of him, if all else he said is true.”

  “Can you not simply read his mind for the truth of it?” Pryl asked. “You’ve gleaned other things.”

  “Yes,” she said, “but reading someone for something specific is different than what I get by mere contact. It is more direct, more intense, and requires a channel for just that purpose. It is, in a way . . . invasive.”

  “Some would say it’s exactly what a Coalition major deserves,” Pryl said.

  “Is your concern his . . . sensibilities?” Drake asked her, his tone neutral.

  “My concern is and shall ever be Ziem. However, that includes our laws and traditions, which I am bound by. The individual is sovereign.”

  “Does it matter?” Kye asked. “Whether it was his decision or not? What matters is what Drake has asked. Will he use them?”

  “Frall would have,” Pryl said, “just to show his power over us.”

  “We are dealing with a man who has the authority to order up four of the Coalition’s most valuable weapons to hold one remote planet,” Brander said rather dryly. “I doubt he needs to prove anything to anyone.”

  “Paledan and Frall are barely the same species,” Eirlys said, surprising her mother. On some level, it would seem Eirlys had sensed much of what Iolana had, although perhaps she had not understood it until now.

  “He may well be strong enough by tomorrow that a decision about what to do with him must be made,” Iolana said. “Give me that time, and I will divine what I can to aid in that decision.”

  Drake looked at the others, as if checking for any dissent. None came. Whether it was in support of her or the Spirit, Iolana could not tell. And when it came to it, she supposed it did not matter, although she would prefer their support for herself and not Grim’s half-mythical creation.

  Then Drake looked at her and nodded.

  “Have I your leave to use the twins?” she asked.

  Drake drew back slightly. “They are your children.”

  “But you are the Raider. All aspects of this fight are yours to approve. And there could be a price to pay.”

  “Such as?”

  “They already like him. If the end result is his execution . . .”

  Drake’s eyes darkened. “They will be hurt.”

  “Yes.” And so will I.

  The admission nearly took her breath away. She had been removed from all others save Grim for so long, and then her heart was so full from the re­union with her children and the expansion of their small family to include the Kalon cousins, she thought she had room for no more. And yet when she thought of the man she had healed, part of her that had been long asleep stirred. And the thought of him dying in a cold, planned execution, after all he’d been through, and she with him—

  She cut off her own thoughts before they destroyed her focus. Managed a level tone as she said, “I feel they may be key to determining his true inclination.”

  “They must know,” Drake said. “I would not have them risk more of their hearts than they already have.”

  “A reminder that he is still the enemy might not be amiss,” Pryl said dryly.

  “So they do not give away anything critical in their innocence,” Kye agreed.

  “In case the decision is to let him live?” Eirlys asked, looking at Drake. He nodded.

  Iolana felt a stab of relief at this indication Drake truly had not yet decided. And wondered if she was the one who truly needed to be reminded that Caze Paledan was still the enemy.

  Chapter 35

  HE WAS ASLEEP when she returned.

  Grim nodded to her as she entered. “He pushes himself hard.”

  “I would expect no less.”

  No less from the representative of the colossal, brutish machine that had consumed Ziem. He might not have been sent here as a warrior but as an administrator, but a mere reassignment did not change who he was at the core. Would a death experience? Was there truly a chance that this man, who had been taken and molded by the Coalition since infancy could fight his way free?

  “What do you suppose it would take,” she asked Grim softly, “for a man raised as he was, forced into the shape and purpose they required, to break free?”

  “From a lifetime of conditioning both physical and mental, reward for doing as demanded and punishment unto death for not?” the tall man said. “The most powerful of wills.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. And the desire.

  “I believe he—” Grim nodded at Caze’s still form “—he has that kind of will. He needs only the motivation. To be shown something better.”

  “Or more logical.”

  To her surprise, Grim chuckled. “My lady has learned him well.”

  Not well enough. Yet. She cut off her thoughts—as she was having to do more and more frequently—and focused on her old friend.

  “You are happy here, Grim?”

  “Yes,” he said simply. “It is good to be among people again.”

  “And they are good people, one and all.”

  “Yes.” A smile flickered around his lips. “People who do not care that I am too tall or too quiet.”

  “Not so quiet any longer.”

  “A relative term, perhaps?”

  This time she laughed lightly. Grim nodded respectfully once more, then left. When she turned around, she saw that Caze was awake and watching her.

  “He is . . .” he began, slowly sitting up on the edge of her seating ledge.

  “If you say he is odd, I shall have to freeze your tongue.”

  He blinked. “I was going to say changed.”

  “Oh. Yes, that is true.”

  “Although odd might apply. As it does to me.”

  She studied him for a moment before saying, “What you call odd, we would call normal.”

  “So I have learned.”

  She smiled widely. “And that is highly prized on Ziem. The ability to learn. And change when necessary.”

  “And what,” he asked slowly, “would necessitate the people of your world to change? To accept the inevitable?”

  And that quickly they were into the deep waters she’d foreseen when Drake had first mentioned the possibility Brander had suggested. Turning this man would be a dance more delicate than any she’d ever done.

  “Shall we begin while we talk?” she asked.

  He stood up, and she assessed the movement. Smooth. Even. No longer a sign of faltering or struggling for balance. If he was, as she suspected, hiding the extent of his regained strength, then he was well beyond where she would have thought he would be by now.

  “Walk, if you are up to it,” she said, knowing she could say nothing more likely to prod him to pushing his limits. But the glance he gave her told her he knew the tactic well. His next words proved it.

  “You asked the Raider to be here, during the worst of it.”

  That he used that appellation rather than “your son” told her he indeed understood the difference. “Yes,” she said simply.

  “Why?”

  “I knew it would keep you fighting. You would not wish to appear weak before the man you consider a worthy opponent.”

  He did not deny it. “And he was willing to be used in that way?”


  “He sees things in a larger context than many,” she said. “In his own way, his vision reaches as far as does mine.”

  His expression became assessing, as if he were calculating how she might respond to his next words. “I have said he would do well in the Coalition.”

  She let no reaction show. “And he has said that if you were able to break free of the shackles the Coalition has put upon you, would do well with the Sentinels.”

  “They are not shackles. No shackled people could accomplish what the Coalition has accomplished.”

  “There are all kinds of shackles, Major,” she said with a dismissive wave of one graceful hand, and his gaze narrowed. At first she thought it was at her gesture, but then was seized with the idea that it was more her return to using his rank. “I submit to you that no one but a shackled people would do what the Coalition has done. For only an unfree people would find glory in stealing the freedom of others. And you should be walking.”

  He let out a sharp breath, but he began the circling of the room as they had done before. And when she was certain he was steady enough on his feet, she recommenced the discussion they had begun before, which just now seemed even more important than rehabilitating his nerves and muscles.

  “As for accepting what you say is inevitable,” she said lightly, “your first task would be to convince my people it is inevitable. And since they have the heart and beliefs of Ziem at their very core, I would offer that that would be impossible.”

  “Your people. You say that with such . . .”

  “Affection? Certainty? Zeal?” she suggested when he stopped. She held his gaze. “What do you feel when you think of your home planet?”

  His brow furrowed. “That is not a phrase we use. It is my place of origin.”

  “How very Coalition,” she said, smiling. “Specific, logical, and utterly cold.”

  “Merely factual.”

  “Then what do you think of as your home?”

  “That is not—”

  “A word you use?”

  “No.”

  “And you have no idea how very sad that is, do you?” she asked softly.

  “Sadness is a useless emotion that solves nothing.”

  “Except to remind you to treasure what you have while you have it.” He said nothing to that, so she went on. “So there is no place that calls to you, no place that you feel . . . more comfortable than other places?”

  “No. Anyplace the Coalition rules is my place.”

  It was a bit like trying to speak a language she’d never learned, but she persevered. “I am speaking of you, personally. I know there were places of great beauty you have conquered. Did none of them call to you, make you wish to stay?”

  “My job is to assess conditions and locations for battle, calculate resistance and allot forces accordingly. Not wander about like a sightseer.”

  “And yet you wander Ziem.”

  He hesitated for an instant before saying, “To accomplish the job. Your mist makes physical reconnaissance necessary.”

  Conditions and locations for battle? That was all he had been doing? It made sense, and yet she didn’t quite believe it. Did not believe that was all of it, anyway. That slight hesitation only confirmed what she already thought; there was more to his exploration of Ziem than mere calculations and battle planning.

  “So there was nothing on any of those many worlds that felt . . . wel­coming?”

  He gave a harsh laugh at that. “They do not send me to the places that welcome the Coalition’s arrival.”

  “No, your job is to crush those who dare to have the audacity to prefer their own ways and beliefs, isn’t it? And when you have done so, you leave without a qualm, without another thought of the place or its people.”

  Something flashed in those green eyes then, but it was gone so quickly she could not even put a name to it. Still, she held his gaze until, to her sur­prise, he broke it and spun around to continue his walking.

  Spun around without the slightest wobble, she noted.

  After another circuit of the room he spoke. “This . . . sadness you say you feel. It happens often?”

  “Since the arrival of the Coalition, yes. It is a longing for what is lost, along with many other emotions.”

  “Such as?”

  “Anger, foremost. Resentment unto hatred. Emotions Ziemites have limited experience with.”

  That stopped him. She saw an almost astonished puzzlement in his expres­sion, and with a sudden certainty knew that these were the very emotions allowed by the Coalition.

  “You’re saying you do not feel these things?”

  “No,” she said, “Only that they are—or were—almost always out­weighed by the better emotions.”

  “Better?”

  “Hope, and its brother optimism. Happiness. Joy. And of course, love.”

  He looked wary now. And she chose her words carefully. “You know of hope. You felt it, when you first began to believe that I could heal you. It was as clear as the sky in sun season.”

  The wariness spiked into something fiercer, and there was accusation in his tone when he responded.

  “You have done something else to me. Made me . . . feel these odd things.”

  “I have done that once,” she admitted. “Although not as you think. I did not give you anything you did not already have; that is not within my power.”

  “Then what did you do?”

  “I let you feel what would naturally be there, had not the Coalition crushed it within you. But it was not here, not now.”

  He frowned. And then she saw him make the connection.

  “On the bridge.”

  “Yes.”

  He gave a slow shake of his head. “What I felt then, and after . . .”

  “Was what . . . normal people feel all the time.”

  “You mean you all feel the same thing?”

  “No, we all feel the same reaction but to different things. The joy that makes the heart soar comes, for some, from doing something they favor; for others, it is merely seeing the face of one they love. For some, happiness is a day’s work well done. For others,” she added with a smile, “it is a day’s work avoided. But the sensation is the same.”

  He was staring now. “You all feel . . . that sort of chaos, every day?”

  She smiled at him. “What I gave you that day on the bridge was a mere fraction. The slightest taste.”

  The stare became an astonished one. “How in hades do you even func­tion under that onslaught?”

  “Ah, Caze, you have so much to learn.”

  She guessed that was a phrase he rarely, if ever, heard, and she saw by his reaction that she was right. Or perhaps he was reacting to her return to using his given name. Although it was foolish of her to think it might make him feel, as it did her, a sudden, crackling awareness.

  “And you . . . will teach me?”

  “Only if you wish it.”

  Something flared in those vivid eyes, something hot and fierce, so fierce she felt for a moment as if it had reached out to sear her. For a moment she forgot how to breathe. All she could think was that if the Coalition’s goal was to turn their fighters to automatons, to think and act only as prescribed, to feel nothing, wonder about nothing, merely follow orders without question, then they had utterly failed with Caze Paledan.

  Chapter 36

  THERE WAS A sudden noise at the entrance to . . . whatever this actually was. Lana turned to look, although Paledan could see by her lack of surprise she had already guessed who it was.

  “And what have you brought our guest now?” she asked, smiling at the twins.

  “Eirlys had—”

  “Enish Eck’s—”

  “Pet.”

  “Are you sure it
’s his?” she asked, and he had the strange impression she was more curious about their thought process than the actual answer. Perhaps she was still learning about them herself.

  They looked at her consideringly. Nyx began it. “There could be—”

  “Another like him but—”

  “This one is his—”

  “Because it has the mark—”

  “Where a trooper almost—”

  “Sliced him.”

  “I see,” she said, looking proud. Because they had a reason, not just as­sumption?

  “The trooper—”

  “Was afraid—”

  “Of him because—”

  “He is—”

  They glanced as one to Paledan, who was watching them—and the cloth bag they held—with interest.

  “Different,” they finished. And he thought he heard a bit of scorn in both their voices.

  “I think you will find our guest of stronger mettle,” Lana said, and he was foolishly pleased at her words. The realization sparked concern yet again; was this some further offshoot or lingering effect of what she had admitted herself that she had done to him on that bridge?

  I did not give you anything you did not already have. . . .

  He shook off the thought as the two came toward him with their bag. He sat, to be at their level. The boy held the bag while the girl loosed a drawstring at the top and reached inside. Paledan went still at the first sight of bright-green scales on a ropy, twisting body. He had no particular fear of snakes, and from what he had read there were no venomous ones here on this misty world, but he’d never seen children quite so fearless about it.

  Of course, he’d seen little of children at all, before he’d come here where they seemed to run amok.

  And then the boy dropped the bag. He could see the snake was no longer than his arm, and was clearly used to being handled. At least, by these two. But it wasn’t until Nyx wrapped gentle hands around the front end of the beast and lifted him up that Paledan realized what they had been talking about. For there was no denying the creature was different.

  Four glittering eyes in two heads looked at him.

  The body of the snake divided a finger length before becoming a pair of sensitive noses and flicking tongues, the heads at each end of the division apparently fully formed and functional.