Out of sheer instinct, Thorn closed his mind off like an airlock in a breach drill. It happened without thinking, leaving him bathing Kira in a hard stare. There were some things a ’caster did not do. “You shitting me, Kira? Trying to read me?”
“Wasn’t just trying. You probably need to be a little more careful, Thorn. Another Joiner might not be quite so benign about it.”
Thorn felt his features soften, then lowered his mental barrier. “Kira, we’ve been friends for a long time. You know better. Second point, and this is critical, so please remember: Joiners are the least of my worries.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because Joining’s less a science and more an art, I guess. It doesn’t have the hard edges of a castle, or a hammer. A castle defends a specific thing, a hammer uses a specific force, but Joining is—” He struggled, searching for a word that didn’t exist.
“Soft?” Kira asked, a brow lifted. “Be careful, friend. I can peel away your secrets, if I’m given a chance.”
“If?” Thorn said, then laughed. “You don’t need to peel them away. They’re freely given.” He bunched his shoulders, uncomfortable with the gap in his logic. “I think I can perform some degree of Joining. Doesn’t mean I grasp it. Not entirely.”
“That’s fair. How about this—come to the gym,” Kira said.
“Gym? Why?”
Kira stood, then grinned down at Thorn, and there was conspiracy in her eyes. “Call it a hard lesson with soft edges. Tomorrow. Eleven-hundred. See you there.” She walked away, and Thorn fought the urge to peel her secrets away.
Some things were better found out in the fullness of time.
2
Thorn strode into the gym he’d booked, ready for a fight. Or a lesson.
Or both.
He stopped as the door slid closed behind him. He’d been preparing what he intended to say for a couple of hours now . . .
Kira, I respect you, he sent into the room, hoping she was listening. I hope you don’t intend to drop a beam on my head.
Thorn made it a half-dozen paces into the cavernous gym, then stopped short. There was no sign of Kira, and he had no sense that his words had been received. They echoed flatly around him, a psychic remnant of his lukewarm apology.
He checked his chrono. He was on time. In fact, he was a couple of minutes late, which was sloppy. It was a standard throughout the ON that if you were attending a meeting, you always showed up at least five minutes early to study any maps or other documents that had been prepared for it. Early was on time, and on time was late.
Something flickered against the edge of Thorn’s vision. Acting on instinct, he turned, at the same time conjuring a fierce point of blue-white light over his outstretched palm; with a thought, he flung it out into an implacable shield against whatever he’d glimpsed—
Kira slammed headlong into his barrier and rebounded with a bluish flash and a cry of pain—and landed firmly on her ass. In a blur, she sprang up, thanks to her superb conditioning.
Thorn let the residual energy drain away and stepped toward her, again putting out a hand, but this time it was free of any sorcerous energy.
“Kira?” He spoke out loud, and there was far more in the word than a simple question. “What’s the lesson?”
After catching her breath and straightening her fatigues, she put her hands on her hips and waved vaguely at the space. “You didn’t even know I was here, did you?”
“Well, not until you tried to throw yourself at me like some sort of mugger, no—”
“We’re in a war for our survival, as a species, and sometimes the most talented people have blind spots. Like yours.”
“If I’m blind, then—you mean after I felt you? Or before?” Thorn asked.
She sighed, a gentle sound of acceptance, not anger. “You—we—grew up hard. You understand threats, whether or not they’re in front of you, right?”
“I’m an expert in them. You are too,” Thorn said. The home had been brutal at times, cold at others, and never, ever truly safe. “Where are you going with this?”
“It’s the Nyctus. They’re alien.”
“I’m aware.”
“Are you though? They’re not in front of you, but they also aren’t like some kid at the children’s home, laying in wait to kick your ass for no reason. Different kind of threat,” Kira said.
Thorn rubbed his chin, then tilted his head in agreement. The memories she was dredging were sour, dead things—things he’d worked hard to bury. “If you’re comparing yourself to a lurking bully with designs on my food ration—”
“I’m not. I’m nothing like the Nyctus, and never will be. You can see me, and feel my presence. I don’t know if that’s true with the squid, at least, I don’t think we can say for certain. This,” and she waved at their setting, dismissing it, “is just an attempt to get you to open your horizons to the Nyctus and what they really are.”
“What do you—”
Kira’s hand flickered forward in a blur, the small knife flashing lethal in the wan light. Thorn turned, barely, and slapped the blade away, raising his other hand to Kira in vibrating menace. The knife clattered against a console and fell still. In the seconds of her attack, he never made a sound, and neither did she.
“Would you have really stabbed me?” Thorn asked, his voice flat.
“Damn right I would have. Three inch blade, wouldn’t be fatal but it would sure as hell get your attention. I couldn’t make an attempt on your life in public. Too open.”
“Why?” Thorn asked, his eyes slits.
Kira sighed again, and this time, she lifted her eyes upward, forming each word with care as she spoke, studiously avoiding eye contact with Thorn. “The Nyctus can turn that which we know against us, including our—our friends, and our own minds. Everything. Every person, object, even emotions, all turned against us by the squid because at their cold, double-heart, they’re the finest liars the universe has ever seen. We’re pretty good at bullshitting each other, us humans, but the squid are built to get inside and make the lies real. And when that happens, you have to be ready.” She paused, then let her eyes rest on his. He was smiling, slightly. “I take it you understand?”
“Some of it. I—some of it,” he admitted. “What am I missing?”
“That despite all your gifts, and the way you wield them, you can still be attacked. You’re not bulletproof, Thorn, and your natural ease is going to be pierced to the core one day if you don’t realize that inside that reservoir of magic is a body that can be killed, either by the Nyctus or by space itself. Likely, you’ll be in some distant shithole, so far out in the darkness that no one will ever know you’re dead. Unless one of us Joiners sends word, and your corpse is cooling in hard vacuum. Do you understand? There are threats you can feel—”
“And those I can’t. Like just then,” Thorn said as the tumblers clicked into place. “This is a function of being a Joiner?”
“It is. We sense and feel that which is beneath your psychic radar. Maybe it’s because we had to work so hard to get it—no, don’t give me that look, because I’m not judging you. I’m a little pissed that you’re so friggin’ gifted, but not angry at you. But I needed you to see this. To see me as Kira, and then see me as an enemy. The lie made real, and close enough to reach out and touch you.”