SINCE SHE HATED being late, Grace took care to be on time the next morning. She was shown to the same seat as the previous day, and spent the few minutes she was kept waiting running through her arguments again in her head. Although Six and Diva had both offered to accompany her, she had told them to wait with their canths some way outside the building. She wanted to try out her new-found independence on for size, to see if she was up to convincing some skeptical listeners. And she thought that there were one or two things that maybe her friends should be discussing right now.
She grinned to herself. She loved both Six and Diva, and could see them together, but she rather thought it might take them some time before they came to the same conclusion! Fifty children together! With the joined characters of their mother and father the system was in for quite an upheaval in fifteen or twenty years!
“If you would like to come this way?” The polite man in front of her was not the same one she had spoken to the previous day, but he was clearly waiting for her, so she got to her feet and followed him obediently along the passageway. Their shoes squeaked on the magmite tiling, and she thought of the canth waiting outside in the fresh air. How would its hooves sound on this floor?
At last they reached a small door at the end of the corridor, and she was ushered into the room. To her surprise, the Xianthan nodded and then withdrew, closing the door behind him.
“Hello, Grace! Not expecting me, I suppose?”
Grace stared. Instead of a Xianthan she saw that she was facing her own brother, Xenon 49, and Atheron. She immediately put her hand out behind her to feel for the door handle, but soft footsteps told her that they had not come alone to Xiantha. Her hands were pulled roughly behind her back, and a pair of prison cuffs were slipped over them.
Atheron’s soft voice began to speak to her. “We really couldn’t allow you to ruin the Donor Program a second time, you know. I think it was very short-sighted of you to think that we would. You have underestimated us. When it came to my notice that you were interfering with Sellite business here on Xiantha . . . it seemed, well, an opportunity almost to good to miss.”
Grace was very, very scared. She was wearing no orthogel bracelet, and Six and Diva would have no idea she was gone for several more hours. She thought of her canth. If they took her away from here it wouldn’t be able to move away from the building! At least they would give it food, she thought. At least it would have water. She closed her eyes, and told herself that she was all kinds of a fool! Why had she had to go and stick her nose in Sell business for a second time! How naïve she had been to think that they would not be watching what she did! She struggled against the cuffs, but knew that her chances of escape were nil.
“Wh-what are you going to do to me?”
Atheron smiled in his cloyingly convincing but icy cold way. “You have been a repeated thorn in my side, Grace. I think it is time for the thorn to be . . . shall we say . . . pulled out?”
“The Xianthans will not let you take me away like this!”
“No. You are most probably right. Which is why they are not going to see you. It seems that your interlocutor of yesterday was told that you had been most unfortunately struck down by an illness, and had to cancel all appointments for today. And the Xianthan who so kindly escorted you here is one of our own men. He will already be erasing all traces of your presence here this morning. So all we have to do is get you to one of the sleds, and . . . the job will be done! In no time at all we will have you up in one of our space traders.” He gave her another sweet and rather sad smile. “Once you are there it is rather up to us what happens to you, I am sure you will agree. Open hatches are so very dangerous in deep space, I hear. One never knows who will be foolish enough to ignore safety protocols and take short cuts! Most regrettable. And always fatal, of course.”
YOU ARE READING
Xiantha (The Ammonite Galaxy Series, Book 3)
Science FictionA strange first contact on a distant planet might provide a vital clue to Arcan's past, but it can't quite cure Grace of her feelings of guilt after the battle for Kwaide. When they arrive on Xiantha, they find a stunning planet: hot, sunny and full...