“Yes, Domo’dahm. It will be done.”

  “Have Sor’ek dur Kan’ek brought before me. I require him to trace all of the un’hai who have been produced so that we can identify those who may have been tainted by Tuhrik.”

  “Domo'dahm?”

  “He changed them, druk’shur. He gave his loyalty to her over me.”

  “Who, Domo’dahm?”

  Rorn’el hissed loudly. “Juliet St. Martin, and by extension the humans. He was a traitor. A legri’shah laying in wait.”

  “Then, would it not be wise to exterminate all of the un’hai?” Orish’ek asked. “If they are working against you, then they should not be permitted to exist.”

  The Domo’dahm squeezed the rosary. For as angry as he was, there was still a part of him that hesitated to let go. To destroy all of the un’hai would mean losing her forever.

  “No. Only those with ties to Tuhrik. The others have shown no inclination toward deceit.”

  The doors at the end of the antechamber slid open. A drumhr hurried in, crossing the distance to the throne.

  “Domo’dahm,” he said, falling to his knees at the base of it.

  “You were not requested, drumhr,” Orish’ek said.

  “I have important news, Domo’dahm.”

  “Rise and present it,” Rorn’el said.

  The bek’hai stood, keeping his head bowed as he spoke. “We have received an encrypted message from the Ishur,” he said.

  “What kind of message? Who sent it?”

  “It is a data file, attached to the humans’ signal but transmitted separately. It was not signed, Domo’dahm, but it was decrypted using current keys.”

  “And the contents?”

  “It appears to be schematics pulled from the Ishur’s assemblers. A device of some kind that the humans call a Darkspace Phase Modulator. It was saved to the databanks by Zoelle dur Tuhrik.”

  “A Darkspace Phase Modulator? Do we know what it does?”

  “Not yet, Domo’dahm, as our science team has just started examining it. They believed it was important enough to tell you right away, as the human name suggests it may be a shield of some kind.”

  Rorn’el felt his anger begin to fade. A shield? That would explain how they had survived this long. But how had they taken the Ishur? At the moment, it didn’t matter. At least someone on the ship was still loyal to him and had managed to feed him valuable information, perhaps at risk of their own life. If he ever discovered who they were, he would be sure to honor them.

  “Orish’ek, send a message to Pit’ek, along with the schematics. Perhaps he can find a use for this device as well.”

  “It will be done, Domo’dahm.”

  “Drumhr, you are dismissed.”

  The bek’hai stood, still keeping his eyes on the floor. “Yes, Domo’dahm,” he said as he retreated from the room.

  Rorn’el leaned back in his seat, feeling his tension release a little. Perhaps there were a few traitors in their midst, but he was the Domo’dahm, and he was still in control. It would take more than a few un’hai to change that.

  He lifted the rosary, holding it up in front of his face. This was the betrayal that stung the most. He knew she wanted him to spare her people, but he had never believed she would turn to violence to achieve it. Was her God not a peaceful being?

  He closed his hand around the crucifix at the end of the beads and pulled forward, yanking it from his neck. The rope snapped, the wooden balls rolling from it, clattering to the ground and scattering on the floor. The other pur’dahm in the room were startled by the sudden noise and the appearance of the baubles, but they did not remark.

  He squeezed the crucifix harder, pressing down on it until it finally cracked and splintered, breaking in half and dropping it to the floor.

  “You cannot destroy me, Juliet St. Martin,” he said quietly to the remains of the rosary. “This is my Earth. Not your mate’s. Not your people’s. Mine.”

  32

  “Hey, Miranda, hold up.”

  Gabriel jogged up as she turned around, smiling when she saw him.

  “Gabriel. Is everything okay?”

  “To be honest, I’m not sure yet.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’ve been trying to catch up to you since we went back into slipspace yesterday. It’s been hard to find a few minutes to grab you in person.”

  “In person? What for?”

  Gabriel put his hand on her arm, guiding her down the corridor, positioning himself close to keep his voice low.

  “Yesterday, on the bridge. The symbol that came up that you couldn’t read. Do you remember what it looked like?”

  “Hmmm. I’m not sure. Why?” She paused to think, and then her expression changed. “Do you think Tea’va was lying about it?”

  “I don’t know. I hope not. I caught him looking over at my father before he said it was nothing. There was something in his eyes that I didn’t like. Also, when I went down to look for Reza and Zoelle a few days ago, I saw him heading into the cloning facility when he was supposed to be in his quarters.”

  “Maybe he had a good reason?”

  “Maybe. I don’t want to think he can’t be trusted. I like him. But I also can’t ignore what I see. He was willing to turn on his own kind, how can we know for sure he won’t turn on us? Anyway, I was going to take the symbol to Zoelle and get her opinion on it.”

  “How do you know you can trust her? She and Tea’va don’t like one another.”

  “I know. Maybe I can’t. I mean, I want to trust her, because like you said, whether she is really my mother or not she’s still a conduit to her, and I’m eager for a chance to talk to her about her, instead of about phase modulators and assemblers. That doesn’t mean that she might tell me it means something it doesn’t and I wouldn’t know the difference.” He laughed. “It’s hard to work all of this stuff out when the people you depend on the most are the ones you trust the least. Anyway, if we have enough time I can try to have Reza verify, but the clones are due to mature tomorrow, and if he did something to them-”

  “It would be too late.”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe I should come with you and try to describe it to Zoelle?”

  “Do you have time right now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. She should be down with the assemblers, working on the modulators. From what I hear, we’ve managed to produce three of them so far that can hold up to the power flow.”

  “How many do we need to cover the ship?”

  “Three hundred. This is a big ship.”

  She laughed. “You can say that again. It’s weird having so much space. It almost feels too big sometimes.”

  “You should have seen the legri’shah.”

  “Legri’shah?”

  Gabriel realized he had never had time to talk to her about his adventure in the belly of the Ishur. “Let’s walk. I’ll tell you the story on the way.”

  They headed down the corridor, heading for one of the transport beams. Gabriel started to tell her about how the mothers had ambushed him, and how he had wound up in the legri’shah’s den. They had nearly reached the edge of the hub leading to the beam when Tea’va emerged from it.

  “Ah, much honor, Heil’bek,” Tea’va said, seeing them. “And to you, Spaceman Locke.” He dipped his head slightly.

  ‘Tea’va,” Gabriel said, wondering where the bek’hai was coming from. He couldn’t think of a way to ask that didn’t seem suspicious. “Have you seen Wallace around?”

  “Wallace?”

  “My dog. He’s been sniffing his way around the ship lately, trying to find something edible, I guess.”

  It was a lie. A simple one. Wallace had been quarantined to quarters since he had panicked at the sight of the transport beam and led Daphne on an extended chase across the ship.

  “No. I haven’t seen your creature, Heil’bek. Would you like me to help you search for it?”

  “That’s okay. I’m sure you have better things to do. I was just asking.”

  “Of course. My regrets that I have not seen him.”

  “I’ll see you later, Tea’va,” Gabriel said.

  “As you say, Gabriel,” Tea’va replied, bowing again before continuing on his way.

  “I don’t know if it’s just the power of suggestion or what, but that interaction gave me the chills,” Miranda said.

  “All the more reason to keep going forward with this,” Gabriel said. “I trust your instincts.”

  “I wish you didn’t have to. I don’t like this at all.”

  “Me neither, but it is what it is.”

  They took the transport beam down to the lower decks and then made the long walk to the assemblers using the secondary passage that It’kek had shown him. Unlike the last time he had been there, the assemblers were all in use now, each of them humming and groaning as they collected the raw materials and recombined them into something else. A few of the Magellan’s crew were there to monitor the progress, including Sergeants Abdullah and Hafizi, along with a contingent of the clone soldiers they had captured in the initial attack.

  “Major St. Martin,” Abdullah said as Gabriel and Miranda approached him, coming to attention. “What brings you down this way, sir?”

  “Relax, Sergeant,” Gabriel replied. “I’m looking for Zoelle.”

  “Assembler number twelve, sir,” Abdullah replied.

  “Thank you.”

  They made their way down the line, to the same assembler Gabriel had found her in the last time he had come down. She was leaned over a terminal, an updated version of the phase modulator resting on the table behind her.

  “Zoelle,” Gabriel said, getting her attention.

  She smiled warmly. “Gabriel. It’s good to see you.” Gabriel returned the smile. He felt it from the way she said it. “What can I help you with?”

  “I need a bek’hai symbol translated,” he said.

  “You came all the way down here for that? Why didn’t you ask Tea’va to do it?” Her face changed as she made the connection. “What’s going on?”

  “Maybe nothing. Maybe I'm paranoid.”

  “It isn’t like a St. Martin to be paranoid,” she said. “If you think it’s something, it probably is.”

  “Miranda, can you describe the symbol for her?”

  “It came up on the bridge communications terminal,” Miranda said. “It didn’t have a translation, so I didn’t know what it meant. It was something like 2 parallel lines with a circle in the middle, and then two circles, a line, and two more circles.”

  “Interesting,” Zoelle said. “What did Tea’va say about it?”

  “He said it meant the transmission was complete.”

  “He was not lying.”

  Gabriel could feel his entire body relax at the statement. He hadn’t realized how tense he was about the whole thing. “I’m happy to hear it.”

  She lowered her voice, glancing around the small chamber as she did. “He was also not telling you the entire truth,” she added. “What color was the text?”

  “Orange,” Miranda said.

  “An encrypted message,” Zoelle said.

  “The message we sent wasn’t encrypted,” Gabriel said, feeling the tension begin rushing back.

  “Yes, I know.”

  “That son of a-”

  “Gabriel, wait,” Zoelle said, her voice remaining quiet. “Just because he didn’t tell you someone sent a second message doesn’t mean he is responsible for sending it.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Why would Tea’va send a message to the Domo’dahm?” Zoelle said. “The Domo’dahm wanted him dead before he helped you.”

  Gabriel considered it. There was no good reason for Tea’va to do something like that.

  But if he didn’t, then who did?

  33

  Tea’va hurried through the back passages of the Ishur, his mind racing as he worked to adjust his strategy.

  “Druk’shur, Shielle,” he muttered to himself, angry. Trust. Risk. Why did he always wind up on the wrong end of it?

  He had been trying to find an excuse to sneak back down to the cloning facility for hours, desperate to confront the un’hai clone and find out what exactly she had been thinking, sending an encrypted message to the Domo’dahm on the back of the humans’ message to their brethren.

  She had betrayed him; that much was clear. She had chosen the Domo’dahm over him. What he didn’t understand was why?

  He had offered her everything, just as he had offered it to Zoelle. Power. Control. A standing in the bek’hai ranks that was beyond what any lor’hai had achieved. There had to be some kind of malfunction with the un’hai. Bad programming that made them do things which defied logic. He couldn’t comprehend her reasons, and he didn’t care.

  He would find out what she had sent to the Domo’dahm, and then he would kill her.

  He had lied to the humans, telling them it was nothing. He thought he had gotten away with it until he ran into Gabriel and the female, Miranda, in the corridor. He saw the way she was looking at him. Suspicious. Uncomfortable. He had worked so hard to earn the Heil’bek’s trust, and Shielle had forced him to break it.

  It was discouraging, but not the end of the world. He could recover from that lie. He was sure of it. They would ask questions, and he would answer them. He had always been ready for Shielle to double-cross him, only not this soon, and not in this way. It was infuriating.

  He had to reach her before they did. If they questioned her first, she would have the opportunity to implicate him, to blame him for her actions. Perhaps they wouldn’t believe her, but it would further any doubt they already held in their minds. And with only one more day until the clones matured, he couldn’t afford for them to be watching him closely or limiting his movements out of their mistrust.

  He slipped across a corridor and into another back passage, nearly colliding with a drek’er on the way by. He shoved the small clone aside, knocking him into the wall with a grunt. He was practically running now, racing to reach her before they did.

  Gabriel would ask Zoelle what the symbols meant. She would tell them, and then they would suspect. Not him, at least. Zoelle was smart enough to know he wouldn’t go crawling back to the Domo’dahm. No, they would guess it was her. She was an un’hai, the highest ranking clone on board after Zoelle herself. When they did, they would confront her, as he aimed to do now.

  The race was on.

  He came out of the passage right beside the transport beam, stepping in and heading down, coming out and skipping back into the hidden maintenance corridors. He didn’t want her to see him coming. He didn’t want anyone else to see him either. The only reason he was rushing now was because the human, Reza Mokri, had cornered him and asked him for help with more of the translations, tying him up for hours. It was work for a regular drumhr, not a pur’dahm, but he had forced himself to remain patient to avoid question. What other choice did he have?

  He moved gracefully through the darkness, bypassing two more of the drek’er on his way. He reached the access hatch nearest to the front of the cloning facility, crouching as it slid open. He scanned the area, making sure it was clear, before sprinting across the distance and into the front.

  He didn’t slow as he went deeper inside, navigating the layout and heading for the sleeping quarters near the back. He was certain she was in hers. Where else would she go? She had no allies on the ship.

  He entered the corridor, slowing his pace as he did so that he could approach more quietly. He eased himself through the hall, bypassing the other empty rooms in a direct line to hers. He had been here before, when he first decided he would need her to get what he wanted.

  He reached her quarters, pressing himself against the entrance and trying to listen through to the other side. He didn’t hear anything. He put his hand on the control surface to see if it would open for him. He was surprised when it did.

  He leaned over, peering inside. The sparse room was vacant.

  Where was she?

  He paused, looking back over his shoulder, and then returning his attention to her room. He needed to know what she had sent. Could he retrieve it from her terminal? He stood there for a few seconds, considering, and then finally deciding against it. He had to catch up to her first, to ensure her silence. He could worry about the details later.

  He retreated from the area, rushing back to the main facility. He made his way through it in search of her, checking each of the functional spaces in turn and growing more frustrated by her disappearance. Was it possible Gabriel had caught up to her ahead of him? Was he too late? He felt a wave of panic at the thought but forced it aside. The humans weren’t that intelligent.

  He made his way into the maturation hall. The caretakers were there, moving from chamber to chamber, checking on the contents. The clones had grown substantially since the last time he had been there. They were fully adult, nearly ready to emerge. They no longer thrashed and writhed in the nutrient bath. Instead, they sat quietly, their eyes closed.

  Tea’va felt a new wave of panic. That was wrong. What was happening here?

  “You,” he said, grabbing the shoulder of one of the caretakers. “Why are they still?”

  The clone pulled himself away but didn’t speak.

  “What did you do, Shielle?” Tea’va said, moving to one of the capsules and peering in. He touched the transparency, bringing up the readings. They were normal. How? Nothing about this was normal.

  A caretaker approached him, weapon in hand. Tea’va almost laughed. They would always try to protect the clones. He backed away from the chamber, and the caretaker lowered the weapon.

  “They’re dead,” Tea’va said to him. “Can’t you see that? She faked the readings so that she could kill them.”

  The caretaker didn’t react. He went to the capsule and put his hand to it, checking the same data before moving away.

  Dead. Shielle had terminated them all to keep them out of the hands of the humans. No. Out of his hands. If he had any question she was sided with the Domo’dahm before; he was certain now.