Джеффри Лорд - Return To Kaldak

«More wine, Voros?»

«Thank you, Moshra.» Blade held his cup out as she poured from a crystal jug. It was good wine, tart and strong.

Through the picture window he saw the distant glow of the research base on the horizon. This was the second time Moshra had invited him to dinner. It was the first time she'd brought him to her private villa several miles from the base. Blade wondered if he was facing a second attempt by one of his daughters to seduce him.

Conversation died as they drank. The glow on the horizon brightened momentarily. After a bit the house started vibrating and gently. The rumble of the launch swelled, then died away.

«They're sending one off almost every night,» said Moshra. Her voice was so toneless it was impossible to tell if she approved or not. Blade studied her as a woman, setting aside for the moment their blood relationship.

She was actually quite attractive, or would have been if she hadn't been wearing a shapeless gown and pulled her thick brown hair back into a tight knot. She also had the same remote, impersonal manner as when he'd first met her. He wondered if telepaths were required to be celibate?

Instead he said, «Your mind seems to be far away tonight. I might be in Kaldak for all the attention you're paying me.»

She blushed, then managed a smile. «My mind has to be some distance away from yours. Otherwise it might be in yours.»

«You don't have to touch me?»

«I can reach you more strongly when I am touching you. But even without that, I might read thoughts you did not want known.» She sighed. «Being able to speak mind to mind is a great gift-they say. I have not always been better off for having it, though. But I think a good time is coming.» She reached out and held Blade's hand.

Blade suppressed a start, then the urge to pull away. The gesture was so clumsy that he could hardly believe it had any sexual meaning. Or did Moshra want to get rid of her virginity, if she had it, but didn't quite know how to go about persuading him to help her?

That was as far as he let his guessing go before he clamped a barrier over his mind. Cheeky yeeeped in protest. Blade tossed him a piece of bread with his free hand but didn't relax his mental control. He couldn't jerk his hand away without causing a scene, and as long as Moshra was touching him she could far too easily detect the questions he was asking in his mind.

Moshra's free hand fluttered over the wine jug like a moth around a candle flame. Suddenly it jerked convulsively, and the jug toppled off the table. Wine and shards of crystal made a mess on the rug.

«Oh, curse the-«began Moshra, but Blade was no longer listening to her. He'd heard a sound where no sound should be, from the curtained alcove in the rear of the room. His chair went over with a thump as he jumped up, and he was drawing his pistol as he whirled around.

Then the curtains parted and revealed a heavy-set, white-haired woman in a powered wheelchair. She pressed a button and the wheelchair rolled out into the room. Then her face split in a familiar grin.

«Welcome back to Doimar, Richard Blade.»

It was Feragga, the woman who had ruled Doimar when Blade last visited.

Blade had heard of people's hearts stopping from sheer surprise. He came closer to having the experience than he liked this time. However, his mind kept working. He even kept some control over his mouth.

«I suppose there'd be no point in suggesting that you're imagining things in thinking I'm Richard Blade?» he asked drily.

«Of course not,» said Feragga with her old bluntness. «After Moshra's reading of your thoughts, I don't care a pile of munfan dung who you say you are. I know you're Blade.» She rolled her wheelchair close to the table. «Pour me a drink, Moshra.»

«Mother Feragga, do you think you should?»

«I don't think about what I should or shouldn't do, Moshra. I haven't the time left to waste on thinking about such things. I just go on the way I did, and that means wine when I want it. Or do, you want your father to pour it?»

Blade grinned. Feragga hadn't changed a bit. She was still accustomed to getting what she wanted, when she wanted it. Moshra sighed and poured the wine. Feragga drank thirstily, smacking her lips.

«Good. Thank whoever's done it that I can still taste. When that goes, I will be ready for laying out and burning.» She set the cup back on the table and stared at Blade. «You haven't aged hardly at all. I suppose time passes at a different rates where you spent the last thirty years?»

«It obviously does,» said Blade. If Feragga and Moshra had dug out his major secret, there wasn't much point arguing over the minor ones. There also wasn't much point in wasting time with polite conversation. Feragga couldn't have brought him here just to talk about old times.

«You're still a canny soul, aren't you?» said Feragga. «Well, I hardly expected anything else, and indeed it makes me glad. You'll understand what I want of you, and you'll do it better.»

«Mother Feragga-«began Moshra again, but a shake of the white head silenced her.

«Remember how much trouble it took to get me out here tonight without anyone knowing?» Feragga said. «And remember that every new trip means more danger of discovery. Then think-do we have that much time to spare?»

«No.»

«I knew you'd see it my way.» She turned back to Blade. «First, let me just tell you that I adopted your daughter, Moshra, after her natural mother died in childbirth. In this way, I was able to have one of your children for my own, even though my seed was dry when you visited here last. I had great plans for Moshra and Doimar, but then Detcharn began assuming more and more power. I was considered too feeble to be a threat, so I was left alone, but that's where Detcharn made his greatest mistake. Blade, I want you to escape from Doimar and warn Kaldak of what Detcharn plans.»

Blade wasn't an easy man to surprise, and he'd already had one surprise this evening big enough to make everything else look puny. So he merely shrugged. «Easier said than done. And what if I think it's a trap?»

Moshra winced, but Feragga only laughed. «If you hadn't asked that question, I might have doubted you were the same Blade. I'll speak plainly. You do what I tell you, or I tell Detcharn who you are.»

«If you want to attack him, should you give him that kind of knowledge?»

«I've give him the blood out of my heart if it would take his attention off his plans!» snarled Feragga. «Trying to find out how you came back from wherever you were will do that. Also, the Kaldakans will learn your secret sooner or later. Then they'll stop at nothing to get you back. Detcharn and the Seekers will be busy trying to prevent them. More attention gone elsewhere. It could go on like that for years. Meanwhile, sooner or later I can find someone else to get the secret to Kaldak. Not as good as you, maybe, but good enough for the job.»

So if he didn't cooperate, he would be thrown to the wolves, and the Dimension X secret would be up the bloody spout! «You haven't changed either, Feragga.»

«Thank you. I've tried not to, at least until there is peace between Doimar and Kaldak. There can't be until Detcharn's scheme is defeated.»

She lowered her voice. «I do not love Kaldak, Blade. I do not even love you that much. But I do not love at all the idea of Detcharn ruling over a land of corpses and ruins, which is what he will do if he is not stopped.»

Blade said nothing. If he and Feragga agreed that much, he didn't need to. It was still ironic, that this time he would be escaping from Doimar to warn Kaldak with her blessing instead of her curse. He made a business of pouring himself some more wine, while he considered her proposal for possible traps. He didn't entirely trust her, and he wasn't going to trust at all to luck if he could help it. Not with so much at stake.