Page 70 of Bride of the Enemy Alien

“What does it need?” she asks.

“Pattern strength. Direction. Confirmation. Repetition.”

“So we give it pattern weakness, false direction, no confirmation, and inconsistency.” I look at her and she lifts one eyebrow. “Try to look less surprised. I do occasionally listen while hating people.”

“You do it efficiently.”

“That was almost a compliment. Be careful.”

The hook pulses.

Once.

Pause.

Again.

Not the tracker’s dead rhythm. Not Krixian command measure. Hers.

Kessa hears it. I see the change move through her body, a small tightening at the jaw, fingers flexing once over the route slate. She does not step back.

That is a mistake and a mercy.

“The thing in me answers in your rhythm,” I say.

Her face loses what little color the desert had left her.

“Then we teach it a different song,” she says.

15

Kessa

The thing in him responds to me.

My mouth is drier than ever and my pulse thunders. I’d like to have a private collapse about this. Possibly dramatic. There’s a nice salt hollow available, good acoustics, very little foot traffic, and only six witnesses. They’re armed, but that’s fine. Sadly, the universe refuses to agree with my having a breakdown.

So I take a deep breath, shake my head, exhale all my regrets and get to work.

“Worse song,” Maro repeats from above the hollow. “I’m afraid to ask whether that was poetry or strategy.”

“Yeah,” I say.

Lio looks down at Rhazek. “That was not an answer.”

“It was the only one available,” Rhazek says.

The salt hollow dampens Rhazek’s blood relay but doesn’t silence it. That’s irritating, horrifying, and useful. If the receiver pings, the relay will twitch toward it. If I stand too close, it will twitch toward me. If I speak in command rhythm, it may record that too.

So I stop giving vocal commands and switch to runner signs. Two fingers down. Left spread. Hold shade. Watch dust.

Lio answers with a sign from above. Maro copies it half a heartbeat late but correctly. Good. Panic hasn’t overridden his training.

Syin crouches at the hollow mouth. “Explain.”

“I am making the signal less clean.”

He narrows his eyes. “By refusing to speak.”