The Spider and the Fly Read online

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  A flood of thousands of minds and millions of thoughts washed over New Keledon, and Selaris Gantrell had learned long ago that if she wasn’t careful, the tide would pull her under. It was especially dangerous out here on the central promenade with so many humans and aliens mixing together in close proximity. She’d grown quite adept at filtering out a single “frequency” of telepathic noise, such as when she was in the human district, but standing out here she felt rather like a satellite tower being bombarded by the disparate garble of a dozen alien languages and their equally alien lines of thought. Her mind couldn’t possibly filter it all out.

  Still, she had far more control than at any other point in her life. Just two years ago her nightmares had gotten so bad that she’d essentially been barricaded inside her room. Some of the city councilors had considered her a lost cause at best and a serious threat at worst. To the aliens who lived here, she’d been a symbol of everything they feared about untrained human psychics; to the humans, especially the few other psychic potentials, she’d been a constant reminder about what might happen to them if their own powers ever surged out of control.

  But then Markus had arrived, and everything in her life had changed.

  Selaris bit down on her lip as she passed over one of the many bridges connecting the central promenade to the rest of the city. Her father had been slow to trust Markus, and some of the other councilors still didn’t. They found the very notion of a Convectorate Spider defecting preposterous, and of course they were terrified of his potential. None of the Flies here had received anything close to his level of training, and they were still dangerous enough.

  Eventually most of them had come around, however, and her father had allowed Markus to start training her. Within weeks she’d gotten her life back. He’d taught her how to block out the worst of the noise with mental barriers, and soon she’d been able to sleep more or less normally. Since then her abilities had grown at a dizzying pace, and even though there were still times when she felt like she was one bad dream away from losing control, she owed Markus everything. He had saved her life.

  Selaris always felt guilty asking anything more of him, but she really wished he would spend more of his time here in the city teaching her and the other Flies rather than gallivanting across the galaxy and nearly getting himself killed. She’d worked herself into a nice frothy rage while waiting for him in his quarters earlier—she’d really wanted to yell at him for being so reckless—but of course the moment she’d seen his face all the anger had washed away. The bottom line was that she’d missed him, and no matter what stupid thing he did or how long he was gone she couldn’t ever stay mad at him.

  Unfortunately, he seemed less and less interested in spending time with her or the other potentials recently, and between the data crystals from the Damadus and this new woman he’d brought with him, that probably wasn’t going to change anytime soon. Maybe he just didn’t realize how much she still needed him…or maybe he couldn’t see her as anything more than Davin’s broken little girl.

  The rest of the Council certainly felt that way. Gantrell blood or not, Selaris had no business being in that seat and everyone knew it. Most of them were simply too polite to say anything.

  She sighed as she turned down the Garden Path, a narrow stretch of road that led past the arboretums on either side. She tried to distract herself by inspecting the impressive new thatch of Yotori vines, but a flicker of movement from off to the left drew her attention. She frowned and stopped in her tracks. It was late and traffic was especially light up here. She hadn’t seen anyone else coming from the other direction, either.

  Closing her eyes, she lowered her mental barriers and tried to see if she could sense anyone. She’d never been good at directional telepathy like this; the majority of her efforts were spent trying to rein in her powers, not unleash them. But if Markus wasn’t going to continue teaching her, then maybe it was time she started taking some risks...

  “Good evening, Councilor,” a gravelly, feline voice croaked from the shadows.

  Selaris hopped off the ground and almost bolted away in the opposite direction before her brain caught up with the familiar voice. “Councilor Revask?”

  “I apologize for the silent approach,” he said as he emerged from the shadows, “but you know how difficult it can be for any of us to move discreetly about the city.”

  “Yes, of course,” she replied, trying desperately to regain her composure. Not that it would really matter with a Rakashi—with his exceptional hearing, he’d be able to detect the slightest quiver in her voice or extra thump of her heart. It was one reason his people were such formidable politicians and traders. “Is there something I can help you with?”

  “There is, in fact. But first I wished to once again extend my concern about the Spider being given free access to the city. Despite Lord Foln’s claims to the contrary, I believe we have little to gain from her presence and much to lose.”

  Somehow, Selaris managed not to sigh in annoyance. She’d only rarely spoken to Revask outside of a business setting, but she knew how persistent he could be. He’d insisted on private meetings with her father numerous times over the years when he’d disagreed with one of the Council’s decisions—which was often—and she vividly remembered her dad coming home exhausted and annoyed. He’d always warned her that Rakashi argued more for the sake of future disagreements than the ones at hand—Revask wanted to make sure everyone was absolutely clear on how unhappy he was now so that he’d get what he wanted later.

  “You made your position quite clear during the Council meeting,” she said diplomatically.

  “Yes, and yet as always few chose to listen,” Revask murmured. “But am not here to argue about what has already been done. I simply wanted to warn you about trusting Lord Foln too closely. He sees you as a convenient puppet, nothing more, and he believes your youth makes you especially…impressionable.”

  Selaris forced a polite smile just as her father had taught her. “And you don’t?”

  “You may be young, but you carry your father’s legacy and teachings,” he replied with just the right mix of evasiveness and flattery. “It is something you should be proud of, and I don’t wish to see it go to waste.”

  “It won’t, but thank you for the warning.”

  His ears twitched. “There are those of us who suspect that your father’s death was not an accident.”

  Her smile vanished. “What?”

  “The disease that killed him was called Landai’s Syndrome. Tell me, what do you know about it?”

  “Enough that I’d rather not have this conversation right now,” she said, a sudden flash of anger surging through her. He could play politics all he wanted, but she wasn’t going to put up with him using her father as some type of game piece. “Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

  “Please,” Revask said, reaching out and grasping onto her arm with his deceptively strong fingers. “My intent is to inform, not to offend.”

  Selaris locked her eyes onto him. She wasn’t particularly good at reading alien thoughts yet, at least not without pushing so hard she hurt them, but she could sense the gravity of his words. He might have been playing politics, but if so his proverbial cards were held tightly against his chest.

  “I know a lot about the disease,” she told him, gently sliding out of his grip. “I’ve been studying with Doctor Varm and reading his medical database whenever I have the time. The psionic healers of the old days needed to understand the body and its functions before they could repair it. I hope to one day be able to use my powers to aid our people.”

  “A worthy goal,” Revask said, and it sounded like he meant it. “But if you have studied Landai’s, then you know that your father’s case was exceptional. Incredibly exceptional, in fact.”

  Selaris frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  “The progression of the disease in humans, especially with proper treatment, is very predictable,” he said. �
�Your father should have lived for another ten years at least, perhaps even fifteen. And yet his condition deteriorated so rapidly that he died well before the disease reached the final stages.”

  “I know,” she whispered. “Doctor Varm said that can happen sometimes.”

  “Not sometimes,” Revask corrected. “According to the Keledonian medical database your father brought with him, an acceleration of that magnitude is almost unheard of…unless there was an outside stimulus.”

  Selaris crossed her arms. So that was where he wanted to go with this. “Councilor, if you’re trying to say something, then please just say it.”

  His ears twitched again. “I warned you not to trust Lord Foln, and I was quite serious. He has gained a great deal of power and influence since your father’s death, and there are some of us on the Council who suspect this might not be unrelated.”

  “Are you seriously suggesting that he killed my father?” she growled, the surge of anger returning with a vengeance

  “I’m suggesting that you should be careful when choosing allies,” Revask said. “I cannot prove anything, only speculate. But the fact of the matter is that Foln’s position in the city right now is considerably better than it was a year ago. Your father would have never allowed him to breach protocol so severely and get away with it.”

  “This conversation is over,” Selaris snapped, turning away before he could see the red swelling in her eyes. “Have a good night, Councilor.”

  She was two blocks away before the tears finally burst through, and mercifully she made it into her house before anyone spotted her. When the door slid shut behind her, she buried her face in her hands and screamed. A barrage of old memories seared into the back of her eyelids: her father’s smiling face when she emerged from her coma, his warm and gentle hands wrapping themselves around her…but then they were abruptly replaced by a torrent of other, seemingly random images. She saw a lush, green planet she didn’t recognize just before a massive thermonuclear explosion racked its surface…and then a strange starship idling in deep space, its corridors filled with broken corpses. None of it made any sense…

  It was only then, when the torrent of images began to intensify, that Selaris realized what was happening—she was pulling stray thoughts from across the city into her mind. And she was about to lose control.

  “No,” she whispered, clenching her teeth and running through the calming techniques Markus had taught her. She raised her mental shields and strained to block everything out, but it wasn’t working. The barrage of disparate images continued, louder and faster than ever. She needed something else to focus on, and quickly.

  With the last of her conscious strength, Selaris reached out and telekinetically grabbed onto one of the dressers on the far side of the room. It was bolted down into the floor, but she strained against it anyway, praying that dividing her attention would do the trick. The metal supports groaned and a low rumble shook the room, and she continued to pull as hard as she could—

  The dresser ripped free from its hinges and launched up into the ceiling. The wood shattered on impact, and she gasped and relaxed her grip. The splintered remnants crashed to the floor, raining clothes and jewelry across the room…but the flood of images had stopped. She was in control once again.

  Selaris let out a deep breath and forced herself to stand. Markus had warned her that strong emotions, particularly sorrow, could easily drive her out of remission. She knew she had to be careful, but Revask had ambushed her and she hadn’t been prepared for what he’d had to say…

  She closed her eyes and balled her hands into fists. He was trying to manipulate her, that was all there was to it. He saw her as a child just like the others did, and he knew that if he could get her to support him even occasionally, he would have the three votes he needed to do almost anything. Yes, that was all there was to it. The thought that Foln or Doctor Varm had killed her father was absurd.

  And yet…

  She had studied the disease extensively, and as far as she knew Revask was correct in his assertions. Landai’s was a horrible congenital disease, but it was also fairly predictable. With medication, her father should have avoided the worst of its symptoms for many years. So what had changed? How had things devolved so quickly?

  Selaris opened her eyes and studied the bits of debris scattered across the floor. Medicine was rarely black-and-white, she knew, and even the best physicians in the Dominion era hadn’t been able to cure or predict everything. Biology was complicated, as Doctor Varm liked to say.

  What she did know for a fact, however, was that Revask was an opportunist, and there was no reason to let him manipulate her. Her father had trusted Foln and the Mire to drag New Keledon into a new era, and she had every intention of helping them. The ongoing war with the Convectorate was the only thing that mattered, and she wasn’t going to let random accusations stop her.

  Gritting her teeth and kicking off her shoes, Selaris set to cleaning up the mess. She had managed to stem the flood of stray thoughts and feelings, but as it turned out the most difficult thoughts to block out were her own…and one in particular.

  What if Revask was right?