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Chapter 7

Meriah swam slowly back to the surface of consciousness, gradually feeling the world around her resolve into something solid, and she found herself laying on a comfortable bed with the scent of her forest all around her. For a moment, with her eyes closed, she could almost tell herself that she was back in her cottage, but she knew the other scent that was mingled with the scent of plants. It was a distinctive scent, one that brought to mind the picture of the lovely Mrr'tanou she was just sitting next to.

As much as she didn't want to, she let her eyes slide open. When her vision cleared, she found herself looking up into Jason's amethyst eyes, and though she still couldn't figure out why he wasn't in her head, she could tell from the expression on his face that he'd been worried about her. It was plain in the way that he relaxed when she opened her eyes.

"Marcus and I are going to be having a little bit of a talk when we get out of hyper," Jason muttered as he stood up from the side of her bed.

"What happened?" Meriah asked, wondering just what her father had to do with her blacking out.

"You really don't know, do you?" Jason asked.

Meriah shook her head and then closed her eyes when the motion caused her stomach to come unsettled.

"Don't move too much just yet, downy fur," Jason said with a soft smile. "You're still getting used to hyper. It'll take you a few minutes to get your equilibrium back."

He shook his head and came back to the edge of the bed, sitting gently next to her. She watched him carefully, fighting her first reaction to pull away from anyone that got too close. This time, for the first time in her memory, she wanted someone to be close, wanted to feel a comforting touch. She saw the fight behind his eyes as he restrained what she assumed was a natural tendency to touch. She broke the standoff by reaching out her own hand to his, tucking her small fingers under his palm. She felt a warmth wash through her when he rewarded her with a smile and he tightened his hand around hers.

"He told me you were Frr'a'narr'ah," he said after a moment. "He didn't tell me just how sensitive you were, though."

Meriah frowned. "Frr'a'narr'ah?" she asked. She tested the syllables on her lips and found that they were more comfortable to her than allied common.

"You have a lot to learn, kit," he chided her with a smile. "Frr'a'narr'ah means Mother. Well, it means much more than that. The humans say Mother, since that's the closest translation for them. It really means something like 'most honored caretaker.'"

Meriah felt her face heat and she tried to pull her hand back, her heart beating a little faster. This Mrr'tanou new what she was trying to keep secret. Something her father had told her not to tell a soul. Jason held her hand fast, though.

"Relax, Meriah. He had to tell me, and even if he didn't, I would have found out eventually. Every Frr'a'narr'ah has to jump with a Frr'a'narr'ou. Someone like me."

"But James said that males don't have the same gift, how can you be a Mother?" Meriah asked, letting him keep her hand as she relaxed.

"Not a Mother. Frr'a'narr'ou. Humans would say Father, but they didn't want to give us that title. They call us 'voids.'" He laughed and Meriah felt the sound of it through her whole body and for the first time, she felt something stirring in the back of her mind. It was like a long missed sensation coming back even though she knew it hadn't been that long since she'd felt it. It was very different, though, like feeling soft fur through cotton and thick leather gloves. "If they really want to be insulting, they call us 'nulls.'"

"I don't understand. I didn't even know about Mothers-" she stopped and blushed, "I mean Frr'a'narr'ah, until just a few weeks ago."

"Looks like I get to teach you the language, too, but there's time for that later." James relaxed on the side of the bed and then pulled his feet up and leaned his back against the wall, sitting right beside her with her hand still held in his.

"You know you're Frr'a'narr'ah. At least that's what Marcus said when he commed me. The Mrr'tani never traveled from our home world before the humans found us, you know. None of them ever saw the need to, and why would they? They had everything they needed there and they were happy. The humans found out, though, when they took us from our world, that Frr'a'narr'ahn can't survive a jump on their own. The experience is too traumatic. We still don't know why because anyone who experienced it died at the moment of the jump.

"The only way Frr'a'narr'ahn were able to travel safely was in the company of their Frr'a'narr'oun, their voids. We can deaden the link that they have with other Mrr'tani. I'm sure you felt me doing that when you came aboard."

Meriah nodded. "I felt the links going away, but I didn't know it was you."

Jason smiled and she felt her mind open again, like a pillow had been lifted off her face and she could hear and see again. There was only one link there, though, and that was the new one that she knew now was Jason.

"When we're in hyper, I can let up and let you feel again," he explained.

"Why is there only you?" she asked, searching her mind for the one link that she wanted more than anything - her link to her father.

"Because you're in hyper. The only other links you're going to feel are other Mrr'tani who are in hyper, too. And with as young as you are, you're not likely to have any links with other Mrr'tani who would be in hyper. Except me."

Meriah nodded and her fingers absent-mindedly stroked the soft fur on his hand as she drew his link to the front as she'd learned to do with James. Where James had a hard, steel center and was superbly confident, Jason was yielding to the point that Meriah didn't think anything would break him. He just bent with any pressure, accepting it and working with it. Every time she got close to him in the link, she could feel him drawing her in even more. The feeling made her balk and pull back, but it happened every time she prodded.

"You're teasing, you know," Jason said, drawing her attention back to the physical world.

Meriah's eyes widened and she flushed heavily when she saw his eyes half-shut and a wide grin on his face. "I didn't mean-"

"Hush, kit. It's all right. I enjoy the link."

Meriah quieted but the flush didn't fade. She refocused and in a burst of confidence that she didn't know she had, she pushed again. She felt him yielding and welcoming her mind into his. She balked again and started to pull away, but then she took a breath. If she didn't do this right now, she knew that she'd never find the courage to do it again. She focused one final time and pushed, not stopping even when she felt Jason's mind surrounding hers.

He welcomed her in and his mind closed the exit behind her. She felt the very edges of his mind, the surface emotions that she always felt with the other Mrr'tani, and then his mind closed in around her prodding and she felt his mind seep and then fully flow into hers, merging in a much more intimate way than she'd ever felt before. When she again focused on the physical, she could feel everything in the room through his body and hers at the same time. His eyes were her eyes, and both were locked on each other. She watched the deep red bleed into his amethyst irises at the same time it ringed her own blue eyes. There was no bleeding of black this time, though.

And then she felt him. But it was more than simply feeling him. She was him. She could feel the press of memories that weren't hers against her mind. She knew what he knew, she could fly this ship, she could program Micah, all of his abilities were hers.

And she realized exactly why he'd programmed Micah as he had. The feeling that he had for Marcus was almost identical to her own. As much as she was his daughter, he was Marcus' brother, his most trusted friend. When that feeling washed over her, she knew without a doubt that she could trust him beyond anyone else she'd ever met.

There was more, though. Behind the feelings that he had for Marcus, she found the feelings he had for her. She could feel his awe at her abilities, something that he'd never seen before, something that only increased with the strength of the bond they now shared. She knew how he saw her, as a beautiful and fragile female, and she knew that he would do anything to ensure that she was safe.

Once she'd felt that, she felt the bond separating. Slowly, her vision began to filter back to her one singular viewpoint and she felt him retreating from her mind and her from his. She didn't even know how she managed to separate herself from him, but she knew that it wasn't all him that was directing it.

Finally, she was back in her own body, her chest tight with the sudden isolation that she felt. The world seemed impossibly smaller than it did just moments ago, everything so much more contained and limited. The view from one set of eyes seemed so limited, and she heard a small growl escape her lips, a sound that was echoed by Jason.

"A long talk with Marcus," Jason said, panting. His hand still held hers on his lap and he smiled down at her. "I have never felt anyone as strong as you, Meriah. It's no wonder you had problems with the jump. Marcus should have warned me."

"I don't think he knew," Meriah admitted. "No one knew."

"If anyone even suspected, you'd be with the council right now. How have they not found you?"

"James said that he couldn't feel me unless I was trying to link with him."

"Even I didn't feel you for what you were. I thought Marcus was wrong."

Meriah had a sudden thought and she looked up at James with wide eyes. "What happens when we get to Avalon? When we have to go out of Hyper?"

"Then we get to do this again. If you're bonded when we drop, you'll be just fine. That's why Marcus sent you with me, so that I can buffer you." He laughed and shook his head, tightening his hand on hers. "Marcus, you sly dog."

Meriah frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I didn't think anyone knew about me. I was sure that Marcus thought I was a standard void. I guess he knew more than he let on. Something you probably know about now."

Meriah nodded, not sure what to say. Even the questions that were still in her head felt small and unimportant next to what she just shared with him.

Jason stood up and held her hand tight. With the other he reached out and stroked her fur gently between her ears. "Get some rest. When you feel better, come up to the bridge, and we'll get some lunch."

He smiled again and then turned to the door. It let him out into the passageway with a quiet hiss and Meriah was left alone in her room. The feeling of his hand on the top of her head lingered and she realized that more than anything, she didn't want to be alone any longer. The room was too quiet and there was nothing but her breathing to occupy her attention. Nothing except her new link to Jason.

She brought it to the fore again, simply observing, trying to figure this new Mrr'tanou out. She could still feel the astonishment that she felt earlier, the amazement at the discovery of who and what she was. Alongside was a feeling of concern. She couldn't tell the source of it, but she could tell that it involved her. She couldn't tell if she was the cause of it or simply the object, but it was there, concrete and real. Beneath it all was something that she knew wasn't a normal feeling for him. Indecision. He was no longer sure of something, and from the feel, it was something quite important.

She let the link drift back to its place in her mind and she stood at the side of the bed.

"Micah," she said quietly.

"Yes, Miss Meriah?" he replied in his pleasant, calming voice.

"Will you direct me to the bridge, please?"

"As you wish." Micah's voice sounded resigned and she grinned, realizing that Jason had told her to rest first. At least the computer wasn't making any issue out of it.

The door opened and a green light began to flash its way down the passageway, a route that was familiar to her even after only one trip. Still, she didn't want to get lost, and she was grateful for the AI's assistance. It didn't take long, even as large as the ship seemed to her, and she found the door to the bridge open. Micah's smile greeted her as she approached.

"I didn't think you'd stay in there for too long, kit," he said, his voice tinged with amusement. She could taste it on his emotions as well.

"I don't want to be alone," she admitted. Before she'd been inside his mind, she would never have revealed such a weakness to someone that she didn't know intimately, but she could no longer claim that with him. She knew him better than she had ever known anyone else, and she knew that he would never use her feelings against her.

"I've never been around a Frr'a'narr'ah before, but I don't doubt that you're lonely. It must be hard to not have all the chatter in your mind all the time."

Meriah nodded and stepped inside, flopping down on the right hand seat again. "I never liked being around other people. I've always preferred my own company, but now that the links have been there for a while, I was starting to get used to it. I feel empty."

"I'm willing to bet that Marcus put you where he did on the estate to keep you away from the other Mrr'tani as much as possible. He's one of the most observant humans I've ever met, so he probably knew what you were going to be from the start and gave you time to mature before you were really exposed to the other Mrr'tani minds."

"How do you know so much about it?" Meriah asked.

"Marcus gave me my freedom a few years ago, and I've been using it to learn what I can. I want to know who I am and where I came from, and the best way to do that is to learn about us. I've talked with Mrr'tani all over the galaxy. We're on every single planet that I've ever been to."

"Every one? I thought only wealthy humans like father could afford servants."

"Well, yes, privately," Jason said. His fangs tugged at his lip and she could feel him considering what to tell her.

"The council is going to be looking for me, right? I need to know things, Jason. I can't just hang around waiting for other people to save me just because someone is concerned that I can't handle what they want to tell me."

Jason laughed. "Marcus said you were headstrong, too. Alright. Most Mrr'tani are owned by the council. Rich humans like Marcus can purchase their own, but few choose to. The ones that do very rarely do it for the reason that Marcus does."

"What do you mean? Why does father buy Mrr'tani?"

"He buys the last-chancers. He takes the ones that are close to being sent to the camps or worse. If he likes what he sees inside them, then he buys them and gives them a safe place to live out their lives. Sure, his Mrr'tani work hard, but there's not a one of them that would even think about leaving. They all know what a stroke of luck brought them to him."

Meriah nodded, remembering the story that James told her, about how he was going to run only to be bought by Marcus.

"But the other true masters," Jason continued, "they aren't like Marcus. They buy their own Mrr'tani so they don't have to abide by the rules the council sets. Regular masters simply lease what they need from the council. They rent their Mrr'tani, and they have to abide by a code. If any of the Mrr'tani are not returned to the council as the code says, then the master is fined or punished, and usually barred from leasing."

Meriah couldn't help but shiver at the mention of someone renting an entire species of beings. While she knew that such was the way of life for the Mrr'tani, it never really hit her before. Marcus made sure that his Mrr'tani were protected and didn't need to be returned to the council.

"True masters though, they can do what they like with their servants, and the few that I've heard of have lots of reasons they don't want to answer to the council."

"But why? What happens?"

Jason shook his head, "You can pester me all you want on that question, kit, but I'm not going to tell you. Some things you just don't need to be hearing right now."

Meriah felt the determination as he spoke and she let the matter drop, turning instead to the window in front of her. Where there once were stars there was now only black, criss-crossed with lines of undulating color. She watched as a new one formed, working its way like a snake across the blackness.

"What are those?" she asked.

"Hyper waves," Jason answered, smiling. "Eddies in hyper. They come and go, and if you're lucky, you can find one that'll take you where you want to go. If we can pick up a wave, we can ride it to Avalon and shave a week off our time. Micah says that we might get lucky in a couple days, but he's waiting for the calculations to settle down."

"You know where they'll form?"

"Not really. Hyper is always in flux. It changes every minute of every day. But it changes in a particular way every time and Micah has the calculations. He downloads them any time we're near a jump gate. If they work out just right, then he can predict a wave about twelve hours in advance."

"It sounds like a strange way to travel."

"You get used to it," Jason said. "I promised you lunch, didn't I?"

Meriah tore her gaze away from the windows and saw Jason turning around in his chair. When he turned again, there was a tray fully laden with food, still steaming hot. Little legs beneath it kept it stationary on the console between them.

"I didn't know what you liked, so I made a bit of a lot of things."

Meriah gaped at the pile of food on the tray, more than she would eat in three days, and from the way Jason was looking at her and the way his mind felt, he was expecting her to make the first move. She scanned the tray, noticing that she didn't know what over half of it was. She finally shrugged and took something that looked familiar, a type of battered fowl that Rose used to make.

Her eyebrows furrowed in shock and she looked back at Jason as she tried the first bite.

"This is just like Rose... used to make."

Jason frowned and she felt him reaching out to her with his feelings. She tried to put Rose's death in the back of her mind and not think about it, but it always seemed to come back, sometimes when she was not expecting it.

"I'm sorry, Meriah," Jason said. "I didn't think about that at all. Marcus told me how much she meant to you, and I wanted to try to give you everything I could from home. I thought it would make you more comfortable."

"It's all right," Meriah said, swallowing the tears. "It's exactly like she used to make this. Where did you find S'cree?"

Jason smiled. "Marcus exports them sometimes. There are only three estates that keep those foul birds, and only one had a gamekeeper willing to keep enough of them around that her Master could export the very best."

"I wondered what he did with the ones that I didn't take," Meriah said with a smile.

"Now you know. S'cree and mead. A few other things, too, but those are the luxuries that he deals with. There's an estate on Avalon that loves his mead."

"It's a wonder that he can get any off the planet the way that James loves it," Meriah said with a chuckle.

"Ah, old James. Probably still a lush."

Meriah smiled. She could hear the affection Jason had for James and it set her mind even more at ease than it was. "He was the first that I could hold in my mind even when he was all the way across the estate."

Jason nodded. "That means he's one of your clan. Frr'a'narr'ahn can hold any Mrr'tani in a link, but they are constantly linked with their clan. You'll find his link is still there when we get to Avalon, and you'll be able to feel him again. They don't cross the hyper boundary."

Meriah shook her head. "This is all so different, Jason. I was hunting S'cree and keeping father's game and forest not seven days ago, and now I'm being thrown halfway across the galaxy. What are we doing, anyway?"

Jason looked thoughtfully at the computer and tapped in a command. An image appeared on the screen in front of Meriah showing an emerald green planet with large blue swaths.

"This is Avalon. It's one of the only places in the galaxy with a free Mrr'tani colony. Marcus always sends his goods there first, even though they can't pay even close to the market value for most of it. He's one of their sponsors, basically."

Meriah nodded. "So we're going there?"

"That was the original plan," Jason said, and from the sound of his voice, she could tell that it wasn't the whole story.

"And what is the plan now?"

"I was going to wait to ask you until you'd been around for a couple days at least, but with what happened during the jump, it's something that we have to know kind of quick."

Jason tapped a few more buttons into the computer and the image on the screen faded to one of a map of stars with lines snaking between them.

"I don't know what the jump did to you, Meriah. I've never heard of another Frr'a'narr'ah having the reaction you did except from the very first jumps. But the ones that had that reaction are dead, and you're not. Before we decide, tell me what happened to you."

Meriah took another strip of the breaded S'cree and chewed as she tried to remember the images and the feelings that happened even such a short while ago.

"It was like I was in a million different places at once. I couldn't keep anything straight in my head. There wasn't any me anymore." She shook her head and growled. "It's not making any sense."

"I felt the very edge of it when we bonded, so it makes more sense than you'd think. I think the jump stimulated your linking ability beyond what you're normally capable of. Holding that many minds in your own probably overwhelmed it."

Meriah nodded. "It felt like there were too many people in my skull."

"Remember what happened to Jacques?" he asked. "Marcus told me about it."

Meriah shuddered and drew her knees up to her chest before she nodded.

"I happen to know what actually happened to him. It's well documented in the human histories what Frr'a'narr'ahn can do with their minds. If just the minds that you were linked with then could do that to him, imagine what it would do to you to be linked to far more than you can handle."

The image of Jacques lying in a pool of blood on her father's floor, his foot still twitching with the interrupted impulses from what was left of his brain, came unbidden to her mind and she shook her head, as if shaking it would clear that picture from her mind.

Jason sighed. "After that, did the links fade?"

Meriah shook her head. "No, they were all still there, but they were back to normal, except for James and a few others. Clanmates."

"That's what I was afraid of. If that jump linked to you that many other Mrr'tani, then when we jump out, there's no telling if you're going to be able to stay hidden as you were. With that many minds hooked into yours, any tracker in a hundred thousand kilometers is going to be able to sniff you out."

"There are trackers on Avalon?" Meriah asked, shocked at the thought of them in a free Mrr'tani camp.

"They're everywhere, Meriah. Even among the free Mrr'tani, Frr'a'narr'ahn are never allowed to live."

"So I can't stay on Avalon." She tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice. She loved the look of the planet, and she was looking forward to seeing if the forests there were as interesting and home-like as the ones back on Marcus' estate.

"No. And it's a shame, too, because I was going to hide you there. But life in the space lanes has taught me that you always have a backup plan for when things go horribly wrong, which they always do."

Meriah raised an eyebrow and chuckles. "That's an interesting view to have on life. But in this case, since you're right, I can't find any fault in it."

"Good to have your vote of confidence," Jason said with a dramatic bow and a smile. "How about you stay here on the Pride? We fly together. Trackers can't get you if they can't sense you, and they can't sense you unless they get close."

"But what about when we land? Won't people be coming on the ship then?"

"Customs and the like, yes. But with me, I think you'll be safe. Between your hiding ability and me being a void, I think we'll be able to keep them from sensing you. What do you say? Be my copilot?"

Meriah looked back at the screen in front of her, watching the way the lines weaved their way through the stars. She remembered how she felt when she first learned that she was going to be leaving her planet and everything she knew behind. She'd done it once for Marcus, and now she had an anchor to cling to in this Mrr'tanou sitting next to her. Would she really let it go to be set adrift on a new world with no one she knew? She was sure that they would take care of her, and make sure that she was safe, but with the way the waiter and other Mrr'tani had acted in the spaceport, she knew she was going to be set up as some great powerful thing. A Frr'a'narr'ah with no idea how to do what they would expect her to do.

Here, though, was safe. She knew without a doubt that Jason would put himself between her and any danger without hesitation, and when she really looked inside herself, she realized that she liked him. She enjoyed his company in a way that she'd never enjoyed with anyone else. Her eyes found his again and she slowly nodded.

"Yes," she said, sounding much more sure and strong than she felt. "But only on one condition."

"What's that, kit?" he asked.

"You teach me how to fly."

"You've got a deal," Jason said, reaching across the console to give her a scratch atop the head.

"Micah, make a note. Meriah has been assigned to the post of first officer, effective now," Jason said, eyes beaming.

"Of course, master Jason," Micah intoned. Meriah almost thought she heard his voice warming through the speakers. "Welcome to the Mrr'tani Pride, miss Meriah."

"Thank you, Micah," she said.

Then she smiled and bowed her head slightly before looking right back into Jason's eyes. "And thank you, Jason. For everything."