Page 17 of Bride of the Enemy Alien

She looks older than the stories. Smaller too. Probably more dangerous because of both.

“The sphere also carries a message,” I say. “Coded to Arcan’s old contact markers. It woke because something outside the City touched its listening range.”

“Outside?” Kessa asks.

I look at her.

She is standing near the table’s far end, not seated. Of course she is not seated. Seated people have already chosen not to run.

“Yes.”

“The ship is gone,” Kessa says.

“Most of the ship is gone,” I correct.

She presses her lips together. She understands the difference before half the chamber does.

“There’s another piece,” she says. I do not answer quickly enough. She catches it. “There is.”

Rosalind’s attention cuts between us.

“Rhazek?”

“The crash broke the outer hull and the obvious beacon,” I say. “Not every fragment. If a tracker was planted…”

Syin’s tail strikes the stone.

“You knew this.”

“I suspected.”

“You hide behind that word.”

“No. It is an accurate one.”

He steps closer. The guards behind him shift with him. City movement. They have become skilled at shared restraint. How many years did that restraint take to learn? How many males died before they stopped calling the famous Zmaj primal rage strength?

Kessa moves too.

She shifts one step sideways, placing herself where she can see Syin, Rosalind, the door, and me.

The floor pulses in the same measure. This time the table vibrates. A thin crack runs along the edge of the old stone floor, not opening. Remembering.

Several of the humans make small sounds.

Adran has the look of men who see disaster and opportunity arrive wearing the same cloak.

“Evacuate the lower heat rooms,” Kessa says.

Everyone looks at her. She does not look at anyone. Her stylus moves across the slate.

“Not all at once. Quietly. Route them through the west ration chute and Third Bend. No running. No public alarm. If that pulse is being answered below, the lower rooms will feel it first.”

Syin’s eyes narrow. “You are not in command.”

“No,” she says, still writing. “I’m correct.”

A dangerous thing to say to a male like Syin, but a necessary thing to say in a room wasting seconds.