Did she even really care at all?
“All right, here we go,” Saber said.
With a roar of engines the little ship shot up into the sky, leaving the pale grayish-purple planet behind. As he watched it get smaller and smaller in the viewscreen, Reddix reflected ruefully that he had been happier there on that featureless, barren place than he ever had been on his home world.
And he doubted such happiness would ever come again.
Chapter Twenty-five
The ride through the Fold was…interesting to say the least. But Lissa warned her it affected different people in different ways so at least Nina felt semi-prepared. When they flew through the red gash in space it felt like she was being pulled out long and thin, like a piece of spaghetti. It was a painless sensation but disconcerting—Nina refused to freak out. She just closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing. I’m okay, she told herself over and over. Everything is going to be all right. Luckily the weird feeling didn’t last long.
“It’s over now. We’re through.”
At the Kindred girl’s voice in her ear, Nina’s eyes flew open. She looked at her arms and legs to be sure and was relieved to see that the spaghettification really had been all in her mind—everything was normal. She flexed her fingers and toes cautiously, making sure everything was in working order. It was.
“So…can we get up now?” she asked, looking at Lissa.
“Of course. We should be right by the Mother Ship. We’ll land there briefly to drop you off, and another shuttle will take you back down to Earth.”
“Oh?” Nina asked. “And where are you and Saber going? And…and Reddix? What about him?” she couldn’t help adding. “I thought maybe…he might at least tell me goodbye.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to say your goodbyes before we drop you off on the Mother Ship. The three of us are all going straight on to Tarsia,” Lissa said. She had a grim look on her lovely face. “We have…unfinished business there.”
Nina thought about the swamp witch again and the mark on Reddix’s arm. She wanted to ask Lissa about it, but she had the feeling that the Kindred girl wasn’t on the very best of terms with Reddix. Also, though Lissa was extremely sweet and friendly, Nina simply hadn’t known her long enough to get into personal details with her.
“Well,” she said lamely. “I guess I should go ahead and say goodbye if we’ll be docking so soon.”
“It should only be a minute or two,” Lissa assured her. “I—” But just then worried voices from the cockpit of the ship interrupted her.
“…sorry to tell you this,” an unfamiliar male voice was saying. “But she might not make it. and she’s asking for you.”
Nina and Lissa exchanged uncertain glances and then hurried up to the front of the ship together.
A Kindred warrior with pale, spiky blond hair and ice blue eyes was on the viewscreen. The grave look on his face told Nina that he had very bad news. A second look at Reddix’s face confirmed it—the big Kindred looked absolutely stricken, as though someone had punched him in the stomach and he couldn’t get his wind back.
“What is it?” she asked urgently, putting a hand on his shoulder.
“My little sister, Minda…” He shook his head, his mouth working for a moment as though he didn’t know how to say the words. “She was pregnant, but the baby…came too early. The delivery was hard and now…they’re not sure…not sure…”
“She’s in critical condition, and she’s asking for her big brother,” the blond Kindred said. “The message came to us and we couldn’t relay it until you were within range.”
Reddix looked up at the man. “But Minda…will she…?”
“I’m sorry, Reddix—the physician I spoke to said she had lost a lot of blood. There’s still a chance, but you need to go now. In case…” The blond Kindred shook his head. “Just in case.”
“We’ll go at once, Sylvan. Can you calibrate the Fold to take us to Tarsia?” Saber was already setting the controls on the complicated looking main panel.
“I’ll have it done right now,” the blond Kindred assured him. “Just give us a minute to recalibrate.”
“But Nina…I’m sorry, but we promised her Mehoo she’d go back to Earth,” Lissa said, coming up behind her. “Do we have time to drop her off on the Mother Ship, Sylvan?”
The blond Kindred on the viewscreen frowned. “Possibly but the message was urgent. Every minute you spend—”
“Then don’t. Take me with you,” Nina said quickly.
Saber frowned. “Are you sure? We promised your kin—”
“Mehoo will understand,” Nina said firmly. She looked at the blond Kindred called Sylvan. “Could you or could someone possibly get a message back to my grandmother telling her I’m fine and I’ll be back soon?”
The blond warrior nodded. “You have my oath as a Kindred warrior, it will be done.”
“Are you sure?” Reddix looked up at her at last. He was still sitting slumped in the passenger seat, and the look on his face was one of shock and sorrow. “Sure you want to do this?” he asked Nina.
“Of course I’m sure,” she said firmly. “I can’t even think of letting you waste time dropping me off. And besides if something…happens, I want to be with you.” She squeezed his broad shoulder gently.
Reddix covered her hand with his much larger one and squeezed back. “Thank you, Nina,” he said hoarsely.
Sylvan had been talking to someone off-screen, but now he faced them again. “The Fold is calibrated for Tarsia,” he said. “May the Goddess be with you. Reddix, we will be praying earnestly for your kin.”
“Thank you, Sylvan.” Reddix nodded. Then he squeezed Nina’s hand once more. “Better go back and buckle up again, sweetheart. Tarsia is located near an asteroid field—it might be a bumpy ride.”
The second ride through the fold was a little bumpier, but Nina was so concerned about Reddix she barely even noticed it.
“Now, I warn you, Tarsia isn’t the most open and friendly place in the world,” Lissa told her as they unbuckled themselves from the deep bucket seats that folded out of the wall for the second time. “In fact, they can be downright hostile to outsiders or anyone they perceive as different.”
“I’m not worried.” Nina lifted her chin. “I’m not here for any of them—I’m here for Reddix.”
Lissa gave her a surprised look. “You really care for him don’t you—even after the way he treated you.”
“He didn’t really treat me badly after we got to know each other. And when he took me, he was desperate,” Nina said defensively. “You don’t know how he suffers with his RTS. It’s like hell on Earth for him.”
“Well, it’s liable to be worse as soon as we get back to our home planet.” Lissa sighed. “Poor Minda—I don’t really know her, but Saber thinks of her as a little sister because he and Reddix are so close.”
“I know he loves her more than just about anyone else in his family,” Nina said quietly. “She and your husband are the only ones who stood by him after he was diagnosed. He felt ostracized by everyone else.”
Lissa gave her another surprised look. “He told you all that?”
“I read between the lines a little but yes, in so many words.” Nina sighed. “Speaking of words, does everyone here on Tarsia speak English as well as you do?”
“Oh, I’m glad you said that!” Lissa hopped up and ran to a cabinet on the opposite wall. She rummaged around for a moment before coming back with a clear gel caplet filled with bluish-green liquid. “Here,” she said, holding it out to Nina. “Take it.”
“Uh…” Nina picked up the pill and eyed it doubtfully. “This thing is freaking horse pill—it’s huge. What’s inside it?”
“Translation bacteria,” Lissa said. “You’re lucky—you used to have to take a painful injection to get them. This is something new Commander Sylvan has worked up and they’re including them in all the shuttles now for non-Kindred passengers.”
“How exactly does i
t work?” Nina was still skeptical.
“Once you take the pill, the bacteria will migrate to the speech part of your brain and help you understand any spoken language you hear.”
“Wow…” Nina looked at the turquoise capsule with new respect.
“Take it,” Lissa urged. “Believe me, you need to know what people are saying on Tarsia. And if you’re able to speak the language they might be a little more friendly.” She sighed. “Or at least a little less cold.”
Nina shook her head. “Okay…why do I get the feeling that you don’t exactly get all warm and fuzzy when you think of home?”
“Because I don’t,” the Kindred girl said shortly. “The people here have never liked me very much, and after Saber and I make our announcement, they’re going to hate me.”
“Hate you?” Nina asked frowning. “Why?”
Lissa shook her head. “Never mind, the ship is settling so we must be landing now. Just take the pill.”
Nina wanted to know more, but clearly, this wasn’t the time to ask.
“I guess if I’m going to be a stranger in a strange land I should at least know the language,” she muttered. With some difficulty, she dry swallowed the huge capsule and followed Lissa up to the front of the ship.
Reddix and Saber were already unstrapped and ready to go.
“Minda’s home is just down at the end of the row,” Reddix was saying. “Let’s hurry.”
“Right behind you,” Saber said, but Reddix was already out the door of the small shuttle and walking briskly down a road which seemed to Nina to be made out of meticulously laid dark brown bricks. She and Lissa and Saber hurried after him, but she couldn’t help looking from side to side, trying to absorb as much of this new alien world as she could as they went.
The streets were very neat and orderly as far as she could see, and the houses were all surrounded by well-manicured, deep yellow lawns sprinkled with neatly trimmed greenish flowers. Each dwelling was built of shiny dark gray or black building blocks that looked to Nina like giant Lego bricks. They were uniformly round—giant blackish-gray spheres polished to a glossy hue—and each was perched on a single slender stalk. Long flights of moving steps like escalators ascended to each round house though some of them had ramps instead. Nina thought it all looked extremely neat and uniform—almost as though the neighborhood had a dress code that no one dared deviate from.
From inside the houses, which had large, round, porthole-type windows, she could see people staring out at them. None of them had very friendly expressions on their faces and almost all of them had dark brown hair, tan skin, and brown eyes with hardly any diversity at all. Nina tried waving at one of them—a child who looked to me about five or so. The child, who might have been a boy or a girl, waved back timidly, but the next moment its mother yanked it out of sight, giving Nina a nasty look before disappearing herself.
Wow, Lissa wasn’t kidding about them being unfriendly here, she thought. They must not like anyone who’s remotely different. It must have been awful for Reddix growing up here—especially after he got RTS.
Just as she was thinking that, they came to a smaller, shabbier sphere near the end of the dark brown street. The giant Lego-like bricks it was made of were faded to an almost pastel shade, and their corners were more rounded too, giving it a softer appearance. Personally, Nina thought it looked better than the bigger, more polished looking spheres, but she bet that wasn’t the prevailing opinion in this place.
“Here we are.” Reddix bounded up the moving steps, not waiting for them to take him up to the round red door which was faded to a soft rose shade. He clapped his hands loudly—maybe the Tarsian version of knocking?—and called something in his guttural native language.
To Nina’s surprise, she understood his words. He was calling for someone named Sterx to let them in.
The round door opened, and a young Kindred warrior with brown hair and eyes appeared. He had a haggard expression on his face which looked like it belonged on a much older man.
“Where is she, Sterx?” Reddix demanded. “Where’s my little sister?”
“Through here,” the other man said dully, giving a limp wave.
“What does the physician say?” Saber asked as they all went into the small spherical house. “Is she all right?”
“We hope she will be,” Sterx said hoarsely. “But the baby…she lost it.”
“I’m so sorry, Sterx,” Lissa said softly. Nina would have added her condolences too, but she didn’t know the man, who she assumed was Minda’s husband. She hung back, feeling awkward. Reddix was headed purposefully down a long round hallway, but Nina wasn’t sure if she should follow him or not—she didn’t want to get in the way of his reunion with his sister.
She felt a light touch on her elbow and turned to see Lissa standing behind her.
“Is it true what Saber tells me, that you can damp down or filter out the emotions around Reddix?” the Kindred girl asked.
Nina nodded, wondering when the two of them had had time to talk. “Yes, I don’t know how I do it, but that’s how it seems to work.”
“Then go to him,” Lissa said in a low voice. “The emotions his sister is feeling must be agonizingly sharp. Think how bad they’ll be for Reddix. He’ll feel all his own grief and hers as well.”
“You’re right,” Nina said. She’d gotten used to keeping close to the big Kindred on the planet of the Feeling People, making sure she was always within reach so none of their emotions could overwhelm him. Now it occurred to her that Reddix was about to face something more awful and overwhelming here on his home world than anything they had encountered on the alien planet. And when he did, she wanted to be there to help him.
She followed him down the hall.
Chapter Twenty-six
Minda’s grief hit him like a sharpened ax to his chest before he even saw her. Reddix staggered briefly, one hand going involuntarily to his heart and the other to the wall to hold himself up.
It’s all right—it’s just pain, he reminded himself. And if Minda has pain, I want to help her bear it.
Still, it was difficult to make himself open the door at the end of the hallway and go to her. Minda had always been the one person in his family he could stand to be around—mainly because she made a real effort to remain calm whenever she was with him. She alone had undertaken to learn about the RTS which afflicted him, she alone still treated him like a person instead of a dirty secret to be hidden away and never talked about. Their parents had tried to ignore his condition but not Minda—she faced it head on and talked about it with him, trying to find solutions and hope even though there was no hope to give.
As I have no hope to give her, Reddix thought. But maybe at least he could offer her comfort. He paused for a moment, his hand on the latch, and took a deep breath, bracing himself. Then he opened the door.
The grief that rushed out to greet him was like a tidal wave—it nearly knocked him, over, and for a moment he felt dizzy. He leaned forward, like a man walking into a stiff wind, and went to the bed where his little sister lay anyway.
“Reddix,” she whispered. “You came.”
“Of course, I came,” he said gruffly. “Didn’t I always promise you I’d come if you needed me?”
“Yes.” Minda tried to smile and failed.
Reddix wanted badly to hug her, but her grief stabbed at him, like a sword piercing his chest. It hurt like hell, but he was careful not to show it. He sat in the chair beside her bed and looked at her instead.
The Minda he remembered was always laughing and smiling with rosy cheeks and bright eyes. Now she was white and thin and pale, and her eyes were red-rimmed with weariness and sorrow.
“Reddix,” she whispered brokenly. “I…I lost it. Him. It was a he…a little boy.”
“Oh, Minda…” Tears stung his eyes, and he had to clear his throat. “I don’t know what to say. I’m so damn sorry.”
“So am I.” She began to cry too, tears leaking from her warm brow
n eyes. Reddix felt them like acid rain on his face—stinging, burning droplets that felt like they were etching rivulets down his own cheeks. Something else was running down his face too—something warm.
Minda wiped her eyes and looked at him in concern. “Your nose is bleeding.”
“It’s fine.” Reddix swiped at it with his sleeve. “I’ll be fine—you’re the one I’m worried about. Are you going to be all right?”
“The doctor says maybe, if I can stay strong. But Reddix, I’m not sure I want to. I feel so…empty now. We already decorated the nursery and we…we…” She shook her head, unable to go one.
Her despair washed over him like a drowning flood. Reddix took a deep breath, feeling like he was inhaling pure darkness. Spots were dancing in front of his eyes, but he couldn’t pass out—not now.
“You have to stay,” he told her urgently. “You have to live. I know it’s hard, but you have to be here for Sterx…and for me. Please, Minda. Please.”
Her white hand lay on the coverlet. He reached to take it, but she pulled it away.
“No. I know touching makes it worse.”
“Don’t care about that,” Reddix growled.
“Well, I do. I shouldn’t have called you—not now, when I can’t be calm.” She started crying again. “I…I know this is hard.”
“Not nearly as hard as it is for you,” he insisted. Standing up, he leaned over her bed. “Come here. I want to hold you.” It would feel like a thousand swords running him through at once, but he didn’t care—didn’t give a damn about anything but comforting his little sister.
“No, Reddix—you’ll hurt yourself!” Minda protested, shrinking away. “Your RTS is getting worse and—”
Someone cleared their throat behind him. Reddix turned in irritation. Who would dare to interrupt such a private, personal moment?
It was Nina, looking at him apologetically.