It was pitch dark when Sabrina awoke with a start. Her dreams had been full of incomprehensible images again, disturbing and unrestful. She felt as though she'd hardly slept at all. She rolled over and was alarmed at the empty space beside her. "Ford!" she hissed.
She heard him turn before her eyes adjusted enough to make out his shadow at the window. "What is it?" he asked.
"I thought you were gone. Can't you sleep?"
"Someone...something...is dreaming very disturbing dreams nearby," he said.
"I know. I've been getting them too. What is it?"
"I wish I knew. Or rather, I wish we didn't have to find out."
Sabrina lay back and tried to feel out the consciousness she could dimly sense. Her mind slid away from it instinctively, but she gritted her teeth and tried to concentrate on it. There was a flash of contact, lasting barely an instant, but it was enough to make her gasp in horror.
"Stop that!" Ford hissed at her. "You'll draw its attention!"
"I...I didn't think I could," she tried to explain, her voice shaking just a bit. "I'm not very sensitive psychically."
"Well, it obviously is," he replied. He continued looking out the window, his face deathly pale and edged with harsh shadows in the sickly light of Stanos' one small moon.
Sabrina was shaking from the aftermath of her brush with the unknown force. She wanted human contact, a reassuring touch, but she didn't dare ask him for it. Instead she got out of bed, wrapped herself in one of the coverings for warmth, and went to stand beside him at the narrow window. Even though they weren't touching, she was keenly aware of his presence near her, and she felt less alone.
Am I taking too much for granted? I don't really know him very well, do I? I have to be careful. Of course I want to trust Mara and Tirqwin's son, but I shouldn't presume too much on heredity. He obviously thinks he's not a model Miahn. But Sabrina had a hard time reconciling his professed self-image with her own observations. Aside from his edged sense of humor, and what she suspected was a desire to shock, and the act he was putting on for Varla, his behavior didn't differ so drastically from what she'd come to expect of Miahns and Praxatillians. When he wasn't thinking about his conduct, he seemed naturally to fall into a pattern that reminded her of Haaron or Therenden—a sort of instinctive courtesy.
"What are you thinking?" he asked after a moment, sounding vaguely amused.
"You're not quite what you claim to be, are you?" she said.
"Much worse, in fact," he said, in a light tone that rang just slightly false.
"Much better, in fact," she corrected.
"You're seeing me in exceptional circumstances. Most of the time I'm a good-for-nothing wastrel, as Aunt Imari puts it."
She regarded him curiously for a moment more, then shrugged. "It's hard to believe you're nearly three times my age. I feel so much older than you." In fact, she realized, thirty was the age of accountability for Miahns, so his investiture must have taken place when he was her age. That meant he'd been a ruling prince for twice as long as she'd been alive. "I would like to see you at Bathir," she said wistfully.
"I hope you will, Cousin. Though I'm afraid you'll be disappointed."
"I doubt it. I loved Bathir on the very rare occasions I was able to go. And from what I remember, it must suit you. I bet you're pretty popular there, aren't you?"
He shrugged. "It's hard to tell what's sincere—and what's aimed more at my mother than at me."
Sabrina gave a little smile. "You inherited all her charm, I think—when you're not trying to come off as the prodigal son."
Ford frowned, trying to identify the reference. Then he said impatiently, "Khediva told you not to be trying to solve every problem you found down here. That includes mine. You'd do better to tell me what you remember about the feel of Varla's psychic creature."
Sabrina shivered. "It wasn't like this. At least...I don't know. It wasn't this powerful. I didn't feel it much. You think it survived, don't you?"
"Don't you?" he countered.
She was silent for a long time. "It's the logical answer, isn't it."
"Which means you didn't manage to kill it the first time. And it's more powerful now."
"It was a mass of tissue before. It's got to be susceptible to—"
"To what? It can levitate, from what you've told me. It can most likely generate a protective field as well. And it can survive a fall nearly from orbit."
"Well," Sabrina said desperately, "it must rely on something for sustenance. If we can cut off whatever that is, maybe we can weaken it." An idea hit her, and she added, "Ford, do you think the creature is what caused the phase shifts? Or would it need technology to do it?"
"It might be the force behind the phase shifts," Ford mused, "but it must have some kind of tachyon impulse generator besides. I can't believe, from what I've seen of Stanosian genetics, that this thing can manipulate time in the same way it can manipulate energy—thought waves and such."
"Varla draws on it sometimes," Sabrina said. "If we can locate it, and then set up a diversion so that she has to draw on it a lot, maybe we can do something about it. Maybe that would be enough for Mara to destroy it."
"Mother would almost certainly have to be the diversion. She's the only one who could stand up to Varla for very long," Ford said dryly. "And that's only if she's back in top form."
"If anyone can get her back, Tirqwin can."
There seemed nothing else to say. They stood there, silently gazing out the window at the starlight on the sand, until Sabrina had to stifle a yawn.
"Go back to bed and get some sleep," Ford told her.
"I don't want to dream those dreams anymore," she murmured.
"I'll watch over you."
A shock of memory hit Sabrina, and she put a hand to her mouth. Tassan had said that to her, long, long ago, when she refused to sleep to avoid the nightmares about Rayland's assassination. And Tassan had watched over her, faithfully, lovingly. Now this near-stranger with her father's eyes was saying Tassan's words, but without any of the feeling.
"What is it?" Ford asked, taken aback by her reaction.
"Nothing," she whispered. "Deja vu. A...a little flashback, that's all." She closed her eyes and ran her fingers through her hair. "Can you block those dreams?"
"I don't know. But I'll try." He paused. "I don't suppose you would allow—?" He held out his hand, as if to touch her temple.
"No," she gasped out, backing up a step involuntarily. Then she got a grip on herself. "I'm sorry. But no."
"I wouldn't try to read your thoughts. Just to get the feel of your mind, to familiarize myself with it."
"No," she repeated.
He let his hand drop with a shrug. "All right. I'll do the best I can without it. Go back to bed."
She knew he took her refusal as a rejection, and she was sorry for it, but she couldn't overcome her reluctance to let him into her mind, no matter how briefly or lightly. If Varla gets under his skin, I can't risk him having a way into my mind, she thought. It was a good reason, but not, perhaps, the real one, she had to admit. She hugged her private memories of Tassan and her father Rayland, along with all her feelings, closer to herself and went back to bed.
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Scotty woke to a sharp kick and confined his reaction to a snarl. It wasn't the way he was used to waking up, but his military trainers and, during his teen years, his sister had occasionally subjected him to rude awakenings. Guess bein' a slave isn't so different from bein' a grunt—or a little brother, he mused sourly as he rolled over and sat up, accepting the bowl of very thin gruel being handed to him. It was only lukewarm, so he swallowed it in one long gulp to avoid tasting it. He noticed that Toren did the same, but many of the other slaves were too weak to do more than sip.
"Don't they know they'd get more out of us if they'd feed us decent food?" Scotty muttered.
"I think they're in a hurry. I don't think this is meant to be a long-term operation," Toren replied. "Varla probably plans on most of us dying. We are utterly expendable to her."
They both looked up as three new Stanosians joined the group, prodded along by a pair of guards. "Where does she find them all?" Scotty wondered.
"Culling the herds," Toren said in disgust. "The ugly side of specialized breeding. Nearly every race that's ever developed any similar program has eventually followed this Way. You've got to give credit to the Wayfarers—and the Miahns—for avoiding it."
"They will, as long as they remember the Pharon," Scotty agreed.
Toren gave him a curious look, but the guards were already prodding at them and snarling orders as they passed out the digging equipment. Today Scotty found himself on the team shoring up the newly dug sections of the tunnel, while Toren was placed with the diggers. Scotty quickly took charge of the shoring operation, determined to do it right since his own life, and Toren's, depended on it. His two assistants were mute, pliant Stanosians who obeyed his pantomimed instructions without comment or even, he decided, conscious thought.
Another long day in the mine, he thought. I hope everybody else is okay. I gotta get outta here and find out. But how?