FSE

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Chapter 8

"And that's the basics," Jason said.

Lunch was done, and the plate between the consoles was clear of everything. Meriah had tried some of it all, and she'd found that all of it was almost to the standards of the estate kitchen. She couldn't find any fault in any of it, and even the things that were new to her were delicious. After they'd finished, Jason started her lessons.

It was just the practical things, like how to turn the engines off and on and where the emergency indicators were, how to adjust simple things in the ship, things that were easy for her to understand without having to go into deeper detail.

"There's more to it than that," Meriah said with a smile as she sat back in the chair.

"Well, of course. But with what I showed you, you can take a watch on the bridge if you need to. If I need to go outside or something, you'll be perfectly able to make sure nothing goes wrong. And if something does, with our link, you'll be able to let me know even faster than Micah."

Meriah nodded. She didn't think too hard about the ramifications of the links aside from the obvious utility of being able to sense if someone was going to do her harm. The fact that she could use it for communication or warning was something that was only just occurring to her. She tried to tell herself that she wasn't an idiot, and that anyone might have not thought about it. For Jason's part, he at least wasn't rubbing in her obvious blindness to the advantages.

She looked at Jason in the seat next to her and something occurred to her. Her ears flattened on her head in embarrassment and she tried to figure out how to ask what she wanted to ask.

"You're trying to find a polite way of asking a complete stranger to tell you about himself, aren't you?" Jason asked, grinning across the console.

Meriah felt his amusement and his teasing poke in her mind, and she realized that as much as she could sense him, he could do the same with the link as strong as it was. She nodded.

"I know a lot, from the... from the joining. But I don't really know who you are. Why are you doing this? It has to be dangerous."

"Yes," Jason answered, frowning at the screen in front of him. "It is dangerous. Anyone caught hiding a Mother is usually killed right along with them."

"So why are you helping me?"

"Three reasons," Jason answered. "One, Marcus asked me to."

Meriah could feel the affection that Jason had for her father, it was a warm caress of emotion down the link, and it warmed her own mind with the intensity. It called forth an answering wave of her own.

"Two," Jason paused, and Meriah felt him trying to put his thoughts together. He took longer than she would have expected, but through it, there was a torrent of emotion. In turns she felt happiness, apprehension, fear, pride and others that she couldn't readily name.

"Two, I've dreamed since I was a little kit about being a part of something bigger than me, bigger than anyone. I always told my father that I'd be there to see the Mrr'tani back on our homeworld, our own people again."

He looked across the console at Meriah again. "To be honest, I was going to simply ferry you to Avalon as Marcus asked. I knew that there wasn't any way you could survive, and I was prepared to let you go on your way. But then I truly felt you, and for the first time ever, I think you're someone that might have a chance. But you're not going to get there on your own."

He beamed across at her and Meriah felt the swell of pride so strong that she blushed in its intensity. She'd never been the focus of something that intense before, and she fought the urge to merely brush it off. She knew that if she did that, she'd truly hurt his feelings.

"And what about the third?" she asked, trying to move the conversation along.

"Third," Jason said as his smile softened, and Meriah looked up sharply at the feeling across the link.

"Third, I like you."

Meriah frowned, tasting the emotions that came along with that statement. She could tell that he didn't mean it as a simple statement, that he was pleased with her company. There was something much more complicated beneath the words. It was something that she'd felt with her father and with James, and even with the brief time that she'd felt Rose. But it had a bite to it, something heated that she didn't feel with the others.

To her surprise, she felt an answering heat in herself. It was something that warmed her more than anything she'd ever felt, like a cup of cocoa at the end of a long, cold day on the trail of a near-elk, covered up in a warm blanket in front of a roaring fire. She turned her eyes away from Marcus' and stared at the screen in front of her, hoping that she hadn't just broadcast everything she was feeling across the link. When she turned back, she saw the look on Marcus' face and she knew that he'd felt at least some of it.

"Maybe I'm not the only one that feels that way," he said quietly.

Meriah took a steadying breath. "I don't know what's going on, Marcus," she said, shrugging. "I'm just a gamekeeper. I don't know anything about, well, anything! I can breed rabbits. I can keep chickens. I can hunt S'cree. But this," she waved her hand in front of her, taking in all the consoles, buttons and screens. "This isn't my life. I never wanted to leave the forest."

"Life doesn't seem to take into account our wants, kit. Though sometimes, if we're lucky, it throws us some good things to keep us interested in the journey."

"I just have never been happy being around anyone, and now, I just feel like I'm supposed to be here, like I belong here."

"Well, the Pride is an amazing ship," Jason said through a grin.

"That's not what I meant. I wasn't talking about the ship." Meriah flushed a deep crimson, turning the white highlights in her facial fur a bright pink.

"I know what you meant, kit," Jason said, the grin still on his face. Meriah felt the wave of amusement down the link and she shook her head.

"That doesn't make me feel any better about all this, you know."

Jason laughed and turned back to the console when a flashing light caught his eye.

"Forgive the interruption," Micah said quietly, "but the calculations have stabilized. A wave is forming almost directly astern of the ship."

"Ahh, seems luck is with us today," Jason said, tapping commands into the computer. Meriah looked down at her own screen and saw everything that he did mirrored on it. She didn't understand half of it, but she filed it away in the back of her brain. She was fairly certain that she'd be getting a lesson about it soon.

"Looks like I get to keep you with me, love. You're good for the travel time."

She could tell by his tone and the feeling in her mind that he wasn't expecting an answer, so she gave none, just sent an amused curiosity down the link.

"The wave Micah's talking about is pretty damn big. If we catch it right, we'll shave off a whole week. We'll be at Avalon in seven days or so."

Meriah gasped as one of his commands brought up the stern camera on her screen. She could see the colors that had been running across the void starting to solidify into something looking more like a worm than a wave. As she watched, it coalesced into a more tangible shape and started to gain on the ship.

"It's going to hit us?" she asked.

She felt a surge of excitement and pure joy emanating from Jason as he watched it. He didn't answer her, and among the intense feelings, she felt a great concentration as well. She wasn't used to sitting idly by while things went on around her, and she wanted to do something, she wanted to be useful, but she knew that she didn't understand enough to be any help at all, so she sat back in the chair and let her focus drift inward. If she couldn't help here, she could start to satisfy her own curiosity about the links.

She let the feelings from Jason's link to her float to the front of her mind. Instead of probing as she usually did with the links, she just let it grow however it liked. Little by little it took up residence in the front of her mind until she could feel everything that Jason felt. She felt his exhilaration and his happiness at the luck that brought them the wave, and also the pure joy of being free enough to ride the wave wherever it took them.

The intensity of it all nearly took her breath away, and it only became stronger as the wave neared the ship.

"Micah, rig sternsail, capture configuration," Jason said. His words were smooth and calm, belying the turbulent flow of his emotions.

"Sternsail configured, standing by for capture burst."

"Match dorsal and ventral stabilizers to wave output."

"Stabilizers ready."

Meriah felt the tiniest shudder in the ship and her eyes were drawn to a falling figure in the corner of her screen.

"We're slowing?" she asked.

"Only for a moment, just wait."

Jason's hand tightened on the throttle, and Meriah looked across at him. His face was tight in concentration and she found that she had a hard time pulling her gaze away from his face. With the light of the console in his eyes and the fire of anticipation flowing from him, he looked even more beautiful than when she first saw him.

"Wave contact in five seconds," Micah warned.

A red countdown appeared in the corner of the screen, though Meriah paid it no attention. She was too focused on the Mrr'tanou in the seat next to her.

The moment the counter reached zero, Jason slammed the throttle to the full position and Meriah felt the ship shudder around her. There was no sensation of acceleration, nor was there anything but the readout of their speed on the screen that told her they were moving at all. The readout, however, spun upwards at a dizzying rate.

"Deploy foresail," Jason called, his voice louder despite the fact that there was no other noise on the small bridge.

"Foresail deployed, wave energy capture climbing...climbing...optimal," Micah responded.

Jason smiled and sat back in his chair, dragging the throttle all the way to the lowest setting.

"That's that," he said. "We'll save some thorium this way, too. Won't have to spend as much on fuel. Means more profits."

Meriah couldn't help but smile with him, because she could feel how happy that concept made him.

"So the wave will take us all the way to Avalon?" she asked.

"Not quite, but close. It'll drop about twelve hours from our exit node."

"So now what?"

"Now you get the nickel tour. Come on."

He hopped out of the chair and stepped out the door, turning to hold out his hand for her. It was warm and soft in hers when she reached out to take it and when she touched him, she could feel something like a current flowing through her mind along the link, like being in physical contact made it stronger. She stood up and followed him out the door and down the corridor, still marveling at where events had landed her.

***

"So what do you think, Meriah?" Jason asked once they were back in her quarters. He sat in one of four chairs around the small table in the corner of her room. Situated in front of one of the rooms windows, it gave the perfect place to view the swirling colors of the hyper wave surrounding the ship.

Across from the table, Meriah was busy in the small kitchen, brewing a pot of tea. During the tour, they'd found a box labeled for her in the cargo hold. Rather, she suspected that Jason had packed it in such a way as to make sure that she found it when he took her on the tour. Inside was her tea set, complete with the chipped mug that she favored. There were other things from her cottage packed carefully inside, including a small package of quills and paper from James. It was almost like Winter Day, unwrapping her packages.

"It's lovely, James," she said as she poured the water over the leaves. The box had also contained almost a kilogram of her favorite tea. "I've never been on a ship before, but I think it's impressive."

"Well, it's not an Allied cruiser, but I like to make her more like home."

Meriah smiled and brought the tray to the table, her favorite mug for her and the one she always reserved for James now sat across from her in front of Jason. There was still time before the tea steeped, and though normally she enjoyed silence, she felt the need to fill this particular silence.

"Tell me about Avalon," she said as she sat down across from him. Her eyes were drawn to the shifting colors and swirls moving outside as she let his link drift to the fore again.

"It's a lovely planet. Most of the settlements are along the equator, but most of the planet is quite temperate. The humans maintain a large presence, there, but the Mrr'tani have a colony there as well."

"The humans don't own them?"

"No. Avalon is its own planet. It's not a part of the Allied Planets. Slavery is forbidden there. No sentient being owns another on Avalon."

"But you said there were trackers and that I wouldn't be safe there."

"And I meant it." A wave of anger and discontent came across with his words. "Avalon's not big enough to fight the Allied Planets, so they have to play nice. They signed a treaty a long time ago that requires them to hand over any runaways. Doesn't mean that they actually do."

"Then why isn't it safe, if they don't actually follow the treaty?" Meriah asked.

"Runaways might end up in the Mrr'tani colony, sure. And the humans really don't go in there to look for them all that often. That's stirring a nest that they don't want to stir up."

Meriah stirred the leaves in the pot and then poured the tea into Jason's mug and then her own, bowing slightly over the tea in the way she was taught. Jason matched her bow before he picked up the mug.

"Lyria used to give me that mug that you have there when we had tea together," Jason remarked.

"When I was old enough to have tea with her, she gave it to me." Meriah's fingers traced over the chip in the rim. "One year, I bred S'cree for father, and one of the chicks got loose in the cottage. It damaged nothing until I got it in the net, then it knocked this one off the shelf."

Meriah smiled at the memory and took a sip of the hot and herbed tea.

"Anyway," Jason said, turning to look into his own mug before taking a sip of his own, "Mothers are a different story. The Allied Planets will go to war to ensure no Mothers survive. If the Avalon government were caught harboring a Mother, they'd never survive the invasion."

"So there are trackers in the Mrr'tani colony, then." It wasn't a question, really. Meriah looked out the window at the colors outside, shifting and moving in some pattern that she was sure was there, but she couldn't see it. It was the first time since they'd left the estate that she'd really sat and thought about what this journey really meant for her.

"Yes. But like I said, between the two of us, you'll be able to hide from them if we're careful."

"How do we do it?" Meriah asked, still looking out the window. She felt a weight on her chest, something that felt like it was keeping her from taking a full breath. "How do we stay outside of the trackers? And what's the point of it all?"

Jason set his mug down and looked at her over the table and she felt his comforting caress of calm in her mind. "We take it as it comes. That's what I always do." He smiled and she watched him lean back in his chair, leaving the tea on the table. One leg crossed in front of him, he was the perfect image of someone that didn't have a care in the world. His posture was matched by the sense of supreme calm and confidence that she could taste in his mind.

"As far as the point? Well, that's an easy one, too. It's to keep you alive. Unless that's not something you want."

Meriah shook her head. "No, I don't want to die. Of course not." She remembered what James said about what happened to older Mothers, the ones that they caught after they'd come into their abilities, and about how it would be better for them to be dead. "I just don't see an end to all of this."

"Do you know why they're so scared of the Frr'a'narr'ahn, Meriah?" Jason asked.

"Because of our abilities," she answered, wondering if she'd missed something.

"Well, partly," he said. His gaze drifted to the reflection of the colors on the far wall of Meriah's quarters. "It's not that simple, though. One Frr'a'narr'ah can link so many of us. Humans operate on mistrust and conflict, and the Mrr'tani as we were didn't have all of that because of the Frr'a'narr'ahn. Everyone knew everyone else and everyone shared in everything."

Jason returned his gaze to her, capturing her eyes with his. She tasted his intensity and she didn't dare look away, though she almost felt that he was daring her to. His eyes sparkled in the subtly shifting light in the room, and she couldn't help but realize that even now small lines of red ringed his irises.

"You felt it when we jumped. Think about how many links you opened in that one moment. Now imagine being able to do that without it overwhelming you. Can you see now why the humans are afraid of you? With that many minds linked again, the Mrr'tani will be stronger than ever."

"But I don't control anyone, and no one that I've linked with have ever sensed anyone else."

"You're quite young, Meriah. I've been studying our kind for a long time, and you're not like any of the other Frr'a'narr'ahn that I've ever heard about. The humans have some pretty extensive records, too, including what they've found out about us. No one has ever shown your ability at your age."

"So you think I'm going to be some sort of savior? Some all powerful leader or something?"

Jason finally pulled his eyes away from hers and she felt that she could breathe a little easier. It was difficult for her to hold her attention on someone for that long, and it wasn't just with her eyes. She could feel everything that was going on in his mind, and right now, it was a turbulent storm of emotions. Part of her wanted to shut the link down and go back to her own private world, but even now, she knew that she'd never want to be back in her own head again. She realized that when she noticed that she wasn't feeling anyone in hyper. It was something that she didn't want to have happen again.

"There's legends," Jason said, eyes focused on his tea mug, "that say a long time ago, there were times a single Frr'a'narr'ah would be born who could speak to all the clans as she could her own. A Frr'a'tan'lassi'ah, Caretaker of All People. In fact, some of the stories say that there was one alive at the time of the Night of Blood. Catcher of Souls."

Meriah frowned. "I haven't heard any of those stories, and father let me have access to the Allied database."

"They're not in the database, kit. They're told from person to person. You wouldn't have heard them because most of the Mrr'tani on human worlds are too scared to say anything about them. Some humans have trouble distinguishing storytelling from plotting. I heard them from the Mrr'tani on Avalon. Maybe we'll get lucky and we'll get one of the storytellers during dinner when we're there."

"She was, what, a goddess? Some myth?" Meriah asked.

"No, no myth. She was as plain as anyone else. To hear the storytellers say it, she was almost more plain. No one would have picked her out from any other Mrr'tani. But she could bind Frr'a'narr'ahn and Frr'a'narr'oun both, as well as common Mrr'tani. She was the binding between the clans. She gave them a common purpose and she was the ultimate arbitrator of differences between them."

"So what happened to her? If she really was real, did she die in the Night of Blood?"

"We don't know. The stories never say." Jason reached down to pick up his mug again and he cradled it in his hands, looking deeply into the swirling leaves. Meriah just watched him, waiting for him to continue.

"Like all myths and legends, things get convoluted and distorted. Some say that she was killed, others say that a group of Mrr'tani smuggled her away. Those always end with a glorious battle between her faithful defenders and the humans. And then there are the ones that say she actually was some sort of god, that she ascended to another existence to watch over her children."

Jason laughed, and Meriah felt amusement tinged with something darker. "I don't believe in that one, myself. I always figured that if she did do that, then she wasn't worth paying any attention to, anyway, since she's not doing a really good job of looking out for the Mrr'tani."

Meriah was silent, and though she still gazed at Jason, her mind was somewhere else. She knew that there was a thought in Jason's mind that she was one of these Frr'a'tan'lassi'ahn. The crushing feeling was back, and she tried to breathe deeply to calm herself, the same way she would in the excitement just before a chase and a stalk. The weight didn't move from her chest no matter how much she wanted it to.

"One thing that all the stories agree on, though, is that Catcher of Souls was the only Frr'a'narr'ah to link with a human. That's why they called her 'Frr'a'tan'lassi'ah.' She truly was the caretaker of all people." Jason shrugged. "At least she was if she existed at all."

Meriah looked up sharply at that and her eyes widened. She must have broadcast more than she meant to down the link because Jason's eyes flew up to meet hers. This wasn't happening, she told herself. After everything that had happened the last week, now there was this, too.

"What is it, kit?" Jason asked, concern evident in his feelings and his voice.

"Father," she said. "I felt father when I killed Jacques."

"You linked with Marcus?" Jason asked, eyes widening even more.

Meriah only nodded. The enormity of what Jason told her was still fresh in her mind and she found herself trying to find any way to justify it, call it an anomaly, or a mistake. Maybe she hadn't actually felt him after all. It was just one of the other Mrr'tani. But she knew even as she thought it that it wasn't true.

"I think I understand now," Jason said.

Meriah could feel his mind working faster than she'd ever felt before. She could feel the connections being made, decisions coming to a head, plans being formulated. And through it all was his usual calm. His mind felt like a computer moving through calculations, but his emotions stayed even and placid.

"I can't say that I know what we're going to do after Avalon, Meriah, but I think it's even more important that we keep on the move. We'll spend a little bit of time on Avalon, and then we'll keep to the schedule that I've always had. You're not going to be anything more than my apprentice, okay?"

Meriah nodded, still trying to figure out how she was going to deal with all this new information and what it all meant for her life. "I trust you, Jason," she said. "I know you'll do what's needed."

Jason smiled at her and then stood up, setting his cup beside the small sink. "I think it's time we get some sleep. Not like we have anything important to do tomorrow, but if you're not careful, this whole space travel thing will screw up your rhythm. You can ask Micah for directions to my quarters if you need me."

He reached out to ruffle her fur again and she reached up and caught his wrist in her paw. She didn't even know that she felt the way she did until she heard the words coming out of her mouth.

"Stay," she asked. "Please."

She found herself looking up into his eyes and her ears flattened back against her head. "I don't want to be alone."

He turned his hand and took hold of her wrist as she gripped his. "Come on, then," he said, pulling her to her feet.

He was a perfect gentleman as she made herself ready for bed, and when she came out from the small bathroom, she found him laying beneath the blanket that she'd laid under every night that she could remember. She knew that in other circumstances, she might have felt very differently about him, but she wanted more than just his mind linked with hers. She wanted the touch of another, and not in a mating sense.

She climbed into bed and enfolded herself into is warm embrace, laying her head on the pillow. When she closed her eyes, she could smell the scent of home, and for the first time, the scent of another mixed with it didn't bring her any anxiety or concern. Jason's scent had become a part of her world, and she didn't know if she'd be able to be alone any time soon.

That was a question for another day, though. As she laid in his arms, she felt a deep rumbling from behind her and a wave of calm comfort washed over the link. The last thing she remembered before she fell to sleep was letting his mind wash over hers, taking comfort in his endless sea of calm while he held her and purred her to sleep.