Tarona Rusk
Langlast Departure
The pilot met her with weapon drawn, despite she had given the correct codes. This comforted her, even as she reached into his heart and made him love her.
He lowered the weapon.
“The others?” he asked.
“Dead or taken,” she replied. “We lift now.”
“Yes, Section Head,” he murmured, sealing the weapon into its holster. “Bound for?”
“Auxiliary Services.”
Dizziness assailed her, unexpected and shocking. She put a hand out to brace herself against the wall and drew a steadying breath. It would not do for the pilot to see her weak.
“I will be in my cabin,” she said. “Disturb me for nothing.”
“No, Section Head,” he agreed. He bowed and turned toward the piloting chamber.
She sighed shakily and went down the short corridor to her quarters.
With the door locked behind her, she allowed herself weakness, crumpling to the bunk and closing her eyes.
She was, she noted, shivering, faint, low of energy.
Instinctively, she reached inward, toward the web of lives bound to her—reached, even as she recalled her current estate, and heard Shan yos’Galan’s voice, chiding her gently.
Do not drain yourself. You have nothing but your own resources to draw upon now.
She sighed. Habit was a cruel mistress. In fact, she had nothing to sustain her now, save her own energies. Those whose lives had supported her were no longer hers to draw upon.
She was, as it had been said in the vernacular of her youth . . . on her own.
Healed.
Somewhat weakly, she laughed.
Healed. Behold! She was herself again!
Her laughter died.
No. Of all the things her Healing might have brought her, it had not brought her that. She would never again be the proud daughter of a wealthy artisan house, sought after and spoilt. They had been half-clan, of course, but what did that matter on a mostly Terran world?
Nor would she again be the bitter halfling, pride ground into surliness, having been sent to the Healers of Solcintra to be trained—and discovering what it meant to be half-clan on Liad.
Oh, she had been ripe for plucking, all thanks to the Healers and the High Houses. And the Department had not been slow to extend its hand in flattery, all admiration of her talents, which were so far superior to those who pretended to be her betters and worthy to teach her. She, said the Department, had been made for great things.
Which the Department would gladly help her achieve.
Fool, she thought at her younger self—and laughed again, in contempt.
Why, indeed, yes—her Healing was true; and she was a fool once more.
“We lift on three, Section Head,” the pilot said over the all-ship. “One . . . ”
She stretched, grasped the webbing, and pulled it tight.
“Two . . . ”
She closed her eyes, and deliberately relaxed into the bunk.
“Three.”
Acceleration. She put it from her mind, and for the first time since her Healing, she opened her Inner Eyes, and looked . . . within.
For a moment, she forgot to breathe, time and space suspended while she beheld herself, Healed.
She had become accustomed to the bloated state of her core: overfull with the multitude of links of those who nourished her and maintained her powers. The last time she had regarded herself, those sustaining links, through which she controlled dozens, had been bundled, twisted, and knotted together into a thick cable.
Stretched now before her eyes was a threadbare and ashy tapestry, loosely woven with a handful of irregular threads. Where the nourishing cable had melded with her very core . . . there was a clean cut, and a few frazzled threads blowing, as if in a breeze.
She remembered at last to breathe, and forced herself to focus.
Little Healer, she had called him, in her arrogance. In her pride.
She sighed, considering again the state of her self. Credit to craft, she thought, was certainly due.
It could not be denied: The Little Healer had done good work. He had been precise and methodical despite the fact that he had himself been wounded near to death. Focusing, she saw that he had extended himself still further, taking care to cushion the shock of separation for the . . . less robust of her connections. He had been careful, he had been gentle; he had used no more force than what had been required.
More, he had taken the time to be careful, when time had been desperately short; extended himself to ease the pain of others, when he had been suffering; wielding necessity like a surgeon’s knife, terrifying in his virtue.
Tarona Rusk sighed.
Shan yos’Galan was not a monster. In truth, she would rather have faced a monster, being one herself, and more likely would have prevailed in such an encounter of equals. However, that door had closed. The Little Healer had bested her.
He had Healed her.
Healed her.
She focused, brushing away ashy remnants with a careful thought, and searched through the uneven, childlike stitches until she found it: a new thread, pretty and silver-blue, as supple and as strong as spider silk. Unassuming, it wove closely through the pattern of her being, radiating a faint air of good will.
Tarona Rusk shivered.
There was nothing more true in the universe than that Healer and Healed were entangled. It was a simple matter of physics. She and Shan yos’Galan were linked, irrevocably—twice, for at the end of it, he would have died—and she, newly Healed and giddy with freedom . . . she had exerted herself to preserve him.
Her Inner Eyes found the second link, somewhat less substantial than the first. When she placed her regard upon it—it rang, a single pure note that stopped her breath in her throat.
Carefully, she withdrew her focus, and simply . . . rested in the blighted landscape.
Those links, she thought. They would require analysis.
But not . . . quite . . . yet. She had other business before.
Despite his gentleness and his care, she had taken wounds from her Healing. The most paltry of wounds, in comparison to those she had inflicted on him, and yet, any wound weakened.
She had plans; she could not afford weakness, and she would not fail.
Her first concern, therefore, must be to Heal herself. She had suffered multiple amputations—that was not trivial. She must accommodate herself to her new isolation, and ensure that she was stable in her mind.
After, she would analyze those links which bound them to each other—Healed and Healer.
And she would make her plans . . .
. . . for revenge.
It was not passion which ruled her, but a cold determination to destroy as much of the Department of the Interior as she was able, before she was stopped—for stopped, she would surely be. First, she would find and destroy those who had recruited, shattered, and re-formed her into their own particular monster. Worthy targets all, the loss of which would cause serious damage to the Department and to the Plan.
As yet, no one within the Department suspected this. She had lost her team—to violence and to Scouts—but to outward observation, she had escaped uncompromised. Thus, she would return to her office, to the section of which she was head, holding her keys, her codes, and her contacts. And the devastation she intended to sow would be . . . everything that was necessary.
In her, the Little Healer had loosed a potent weapon against the enemy of his clan. She wondered if he had known—and immediately realized that, of course, he had known. Shan yos’Galan was of Clan Korval, an enemy more than worthy of the Department of the Interior. Pity had not motivated his actions, no more than his own survival. He had forged a knife in the fires of their combined energies; and when it was fit for his hand, he had thrown it . . .
. . . Directly at the Department’s heart.