Page 62 of The Space Between Stars

Trust…?

Preservation, what had he done? Trust was a fool’s errand.

And, being the fool that he was, he probably deserved to be this entirely done for.

It started as a gentle nudge at the periphery of Calver’s mind as he marched with the caravan that afternoon. It compounded into an overwhelming urge, thrumming through his veins.

Find me.

It was a summons—nearly identical to what he’d first felt from the Survivor, fourteen years ago, before the Survivor had become him. One mind-djinn was more than enough, thank you very much.

Void.

His seasoned mind smothered it. If only he’d been so well-trained back then.

He had plenty of other problems to deal with before following phantom compulsions in the direction of Cul’Mon. He worried briefly for Fankalo, so close to the source, before remembering that she did not share his sickness. She was fine.

By nightfall, the summons was gone.

FIFTEEN

ATTILATIA

Year: 732 Post Cataclysm: 16 Years Previously

Location: Chira’na

Attilatia worked in the dim light of Deshpian Thacklore’s stone basement, where he’d created a workspace for her.

Distortion engineering was like dancing the lethoso—a repetition of simple motions that built into something larger. And, like dancing, it was the only other thing she felt she truly understood. Using a syringe, she encapsulated a drop of synthetic ruxechorin in a bead of glass. With tweezers, she wrapped the bead in copper wire.

It was a dream come true: unlimited time to distort, every resource made available at her command, contemplative silence.

Except it was a nightmare.

She intertwined the wire tips of the encapsulated core with those lining the digging machine she’d built—a false replica of the one she’d used to incinerate her once-home back in Tentika just months before. Another carefully failed experiment. Thacklore would not be pleased.

The door behind her clacked closed, muted by thick carpeting. She bit into her lip, stomach roiling.

Moments later, hands found her waist. Her back. Her neck. She had covered every inch of bare skin she could, and yet he still found a place to press his mouth—where her tipiana met her hairline. Weeks ago, she’d had the brainless idea that willingly giving Thacklore the affections he would have taken regardless might change his reaction towards her for failing to produce a weapon.

She had thought wrong.

“You are very distracting,” she said in Azadonian. Thacklore had given her resources to learn Nelfinden, but she hadn’t bothered. She wouldn’t need it when they escaped this infernal place.

“Are you finished?” He gestured toward her work with his chin, unwilling to take his hands from her. “I have dinner guests tonight. Many among them oligarchs. I would love to have something to show them.”

“Do you wish me to be present as well?”

“Always.”

Let the torture begin. ‘Oligarch,’ she had decided, must be Nelfinden for ‘asshole.’ They came and went at regular intervals in Thacklore’s home: stopping for tea or dinner or brandy, always fussing in their hideous language about one thing or another while he toted her around like an exotic pet.

“Where is the baby?” she asked. Hardly a baby now; Thedexemore was nearing his second year.

“With a maid,” Thacklore grunted, mouth working circles around her neck. He had no idea.

The device in her hands needed several rounds of further testing, but if it took Thacklore’s mind anywhere else, providing a demonstration would be worth it.