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  Her heart hammered as she took in the sight of two, very large, cylindrical objects floating silently just above the floor. The objects, made of some sort of gold metallic material, looked like smooth giant logs, and seemed to be bobbing somewhat. Janai guessed them to be as large as some of the smaller caves she’d hidden in, yet they floated as though they weighed nothing. She looked to Blal’k and he gave her a questioning glance. She turned her attention back to the floating objects. The others were squeezing in around Janai and Blal’k to get a look. Long tubes hung down and connected to the tops of the golden objects. There were no visible openings or seams that she could detect.

  “What are they?” Lance whispered. Janai, Ash, and Blal’k motioned for silence from the Earth boy and he pinched his lips together.

  The tubes released the floating cylinders and retracted into the ceiling. Then the floating objects silently increased their height above the floor and moved with incredible speed toward one of the white walls. Janai braced herself for the impact, but they passed right through the wall and disappeared on the other side, leaving an empty room behind.

  The group entered, eyes darting around for soldiers as they made their way across the floor. When they finally reached the wall, Blal’k put his hand up and his arm disappeared up to his elbow. He jerked back. Janai, still favoring her injured leg, reached for the Ronarian’s arm, but he shook his head and showed her there was no damage. Then before anyone could stop him, Lance plunged his head through. Ash grabbed him and pulled him back.

  The Earth boy smiled. “It goes to the outside, like a secret castle door. And the rains have stopped.”

  The group exchanged glances. Janai was sure they were all thinking the same thing. They held hands and together they stepped through the wall. Janai had closed her eyes and, when she opened them, she found herself outside the rockdome with Krav’n’s webbed hand gripped in one of her own and Ash’s in the other. They ran to a clump of trees just ahead of where they stood. Janai limped as fast as she could to keep up with the others. The rain clouds were gone and the suns were low in the sky.

  Janai studied the rockdome, which was taller now. The dark, entrance slabs were a full two stories above the ground. The low rumbling grew louder and the trembling began again. The group grabbed at trees and each other to keep from losing their balance. The rockdome slowly descended into the earth, disappearing completely. Panels of what looked like dirt and shrubbery closed over the area, and there was no evidence the rockdome had ever existed above ground. The rumbling had stopped.

  13 ~ On the Run Again

  They huddled in the shade of the trees. Krav’n wrapped his arms around Janai’s waist, and she absently stroked his head ridges. Once again, she checked the positions of the two suns. “It’ll be dark in a couple of hours.”

  “What were those gold flying things?” Penny said. The girl was clinging to her brother and she swiped a tattered sleeve across her runny nose.

  “Yeah,” Lance said. “And what’s with all those invisible walls? Those are awesome.”

  “Ground ships-s,” Ash said in a slurred voice. “Illusion.”

  Janai gently took Krav’n’s arms from her waist and made her way, limping, to the Kritine boy. She studied his lavender eyes. They were dull, unfocused. He didn’t seem to notice her. He simply stared at where the rockdome had once been.

  “Ash?” Janai said, softly. “Can you hear me?” He nodded slowly. “You’re in contact with someone?” She started to place a hand on his shoulder but stopped herself, remembering the teachings of her parents. Touching a messenger during communication could break the link. She contented herself with simply watching the boy, at least for the moment.

  “I hear words-s.” His speech was still slurred. “Very faint. Words and pictures-s.”

  Lance pulled his sister close. “What’s wrong with him?”

  Janai, not taking her eyes from Ash, said, “It’s his mind gift.”

  Ash blinked several times and turned to Janai. “They’re gone.” He rubbed a hand through his white hair. He winced and closed his eyes.

  “Headache?”

  He opened one eye to look at her. “You could say that.”

  “I did.” She grinned and pulled a few pain herbs from her sinsabe. “Chew on these.”

  Ash took the yellow leaves and popped them into his mouth. “Thanks.” He grimaced at the bitterness.

  “You’re not a messenger yet, Ash,” she chided. “Don’t overdo it.”

  “Don’t worry.” He rubbed at his head.

  “What’d you hear?” Someone tapped her arm and she glanced down at Krav’n.

  “I’m hungry.” The little boy’s pale green face looked drawn and his head ridges were dull with sweat and dirt.

  “We should find shelter,” Blal’k said. Vala was leaning on him, her breath heavy.

  “Vala?” Janai limped in the other girl’s direction.

  “No.” The determination in Vala’s voice stopped her. “Shelter first.”

  Shelter was their main concern right now. Especially since the suns were still up and there was enough light to be in danger of the Morgee. Janai glanced back and wondered about Sarah. Perhaps there was a way to locate the girl. Sarah still had to be inside, somewhere. Unless she was on one of those ships. She pushed away thoughts of the skinny, nervous Earth girl digging for gemstones in another slave camp. Blal’k caught her attention. He looked pale as he stared at the vacant spot where the rockdome had once been. He and Sarah were very close.

  Hold on Sarah, Janai thought. She jumped when a hand landed on her shoulder.

  “There’s nothing we can do for her right now,” Ash said, turning her toward him. “Do you still have the map?”

  She gave him a long stare then fished her wet jumpsuit from her pack. She found the pocket and pulled out the skin map. Luckily, the berry stain hadn’t smudged. According to the map, they were now on the opposite side of the rockdome area and the fencing. There was a shelter a little distance in the direction they were headed. Janai guessed they would need to travel about half an hour to reach it. She studied Vala again and was about to tell the girl to chew on some pain herbs. But Vala had the same idea and she steadied herself on Blal’k, while she pulled leaves from her pack.

  Penny whimpered and Janai turned in the direction of the little red-haired girl. “What’s wrong?” she said. “Are you hurt?”

  Penny’s bottom lip quivered as she squatted on the ground, rummaging through her small pack. “I lost Katherine. She’s not here. I looked everywhere for her.” She began putting her things into her pack with her brother’s help. “She must be in the rockdome.” Her voice sounded panicked. “We have to find her. She doesn’t like that place.”

  Lance helped his sister tie on her pack. “We can’t go back in there, Penny. It’s gone underground.” Penny sat down and started to cry. “Look.” Lance sounded hopeful this time as he crouched beside his sister. “I promised to carve you a doll out of wood, right?” The little girl sniffed. “Well, when we make camp, I’ll get started on one.” Penny gave him a doubtful look. “I promise.” He crossed his chest with his finger. “You can even help me pick out the wood.” He stood, smiled, and offered her a hand. “Would a brave knight ever lie?”

  Penny hesitated a moment then finally smiled and allowed her brother to lift her to her feet. “But Katherine will be so lonely.”

  Lance shook his head. “No, she won’t. She stayed behind to take care of Sarah.” Janai stiffened with Lance’s words, but Penny seemed comforted by them.

  “So Sarah won’t be lonely?”

  “Yeah.” He took his sister by the hand and turned to follow Blal’k and Vala.

  Ash placed an arm around Janai’s waist as they started in the direction of the next sheltered area. Not wanting the distraction of him just now, she started to pull away.

  He tightened his grip. “Uh-uh.”

  “Your head—”

  “Is tolerable. I wish my parents had warn
ed me about the pain, though.” He looked thoughtful. “Probably didn’t want to scare me.” Then he smiled.

  Janai relaxed against him and put an arm on his shoulder to balance herself as they walked. His lean muscles moved in rhythm and suddenly her heart raced. They’d received their mind gifts only a few months apart. On Kritine, the pair would have chaperoned courting visits until they completed their training, usually at the age of eighteen or nineteen cycles. Normally, lifemates had the same talents. Janai’s parents were both healers. Ash’s parents were messengers. That wasn’t always the case, though. Offspring were usually born with the same talents as their parents, but sometimes a child showed talent in a different field and had to be fostered by a relative or close family friend with that same gift.

  Mind gift urges were distracting enough, but add lifemate urges to that mix and well…Janai fought a groan. She focused her thoughts on Vala until her heart returned to its normal pace. She wondered if Ash had noticed her uneasiness. She glanced at him, but he kept moving at a steady pace without looking at her.

  ****

  The shelter was little more than an indention in the hillside. Ash and Lance searched out branches and other bits of shrubbery to disguise the new hideout as best they could, while Blal’k prepared cold meals for everyone. He still looked pale to Janai but he insisted on doing his duties. Tish helped him with the food and, at the same time, kept track of where Vala was. The silent, Earth girl walked back and forth between Vala and Blal’k so often that she actually wore a path in the dirt.

  Janai couldn’t help notice Ash’s glances every now and then. She had to admit that she liked the attention but she couldn’t think about courting. She had checked Lance’s fingers. He’d allowed her to apply the sap this time. Then she re-bandaged Vala’s arm. The stitches in the girl’s wrist had held, but infection had started in on the burned area and she was in a lot of pain. The pain tea wasn’t strong enough and Janai had to put the Aknidean girl to sleep before she could clean the burns and apply fresh sap and bandages. Vala was cooperative, but Tish seemed nervous enough for all of them and she stayed by Vala’s side while Janai tended the wounds.

  The silent girl seemed genuinely interested in healer work, and since she wasn’t in the way, Janai allowed her to observe. She had assumed Tish to be about the same age as Krav’n and Penny, but after watching the girl with the others, she wondered if she were a little older, perhaps seven or even eight Earth years. Many of the children were under-grown because of the lack of food, and Tish’s responses to their situation could very well mean she was older. After all, she was probably responsible for their escape from the rockdome. And if she hadn’t been persistent, the others might not have paid attention to her silent messages. Her ability to write as well as she did, and in several languages, was a quality of an older child.

  But the girl didn’t know her own age. And there was no way to tell the Earth children’s exact ages. They didn’t have age rings like the Aknideans or mind gifts like Janai’s people. She could only guess. Tish was an observer. There wasn’t much that escaped the girl’s attention, especially small details. Perhaps someday she would find out how the girl got the scars on her face. She thought they probably came from the mines, but she wasn’t sure. Tish was becoming more animated, though, and Janai took that as a healthy sign.

  She finished with Vala then awakened her, and Blal’k gave her some pain tea. Janai stood to put her healer tools back in her sinsabe, but she got up too fast and put too much weight on her sprained ankle. In an instant, she found herself in the dirt clutching her own injury. Ash and Blal’k flew to her side and forced her to sit where she had landed. Tish sat beside her and clutched the sinsabe in her dark hands.

  “Looks like you’ve got yourself an assistant,” Ash teased. He ruffled Tish’s matted braids.

  Janai took the bag from the silent girl and smiled. “Thank you.”

  Before she could stop him, Ash removed the shoe skin and wrap on her foot. Her ankle was still quite swollen and discolored. Blal’k handed a bulb fruit bowl filled with water to Ash and a cup of pain tea to Janai. Ash took a firm grasp on her leg and forced her to keep her foot in the water. There was pain at first and she tried to pull away, but the Kritine boy held her leg and soon the pain subsided. Tish just kept grinning at her. A missing tooth left a gap in her bottom jaw. Now, when had she lost that? Would be a clue to her age, but not in exact years. At least, not that Janai could interpret.

  Ash used his hand to scoop water and dribble it onto Janai’s injury. Tingles raced up her leg and her heart picked up its beat. “What were the things you heard back at the rockdome?” she said, hoping to take the focus off the distracting lifemate urges. Besides, she wanted to know how strong the messages were, how close he was to taking control of his mind gift. And who would be sending messages to him? That could give them a great advantage over the Morgee.

  Ash thought a moment. “I was hearing faint words and seeing pictures of those gold ships and the wall that wasn’t really there.” He ran a hand through his white hair. “When I concentrated on the objects, I heard the words ground ships in my mind. The image of the wall brought the word illusion into my head. I tried concentrating on the source of the words but then everything faded, and all I was left with was that awful headache.”

  “They must’ve come from another messenger,” Janai said, thoughtfully. “There must be others who’re old enough to have the mind gift.”

  “I don’t know. But that would explain what I heard.”

  “You think they were from someone in the free-zone?” Lance said. He had scooted closer to Ash and was chewing on a bit of root. He was carefully whittling the outline of a body into a piece of wood.

  Janai started to say something to him about aggravating his still reddened fingers but stopped herself at the sight of Penny sitting next to her brother and gazing proudly at the doll he was carving. She didn’t really think the activity would harm Lance’s fingers, but her healer instinct was to worry.

  Ash scratched at the pattern spots on his neck. “The free-zone? Maybe. I don’t know.”

  Janai couldn’t help the jump her heart gave at talk of the free-zone. For the first time, she seemed to have real hope that it existed.

  14 ~ Attacked

  Blal’k was quietly nudging the others from slumber when Janai awoke. Night had fallen and the two, large moons were just beginning to wax into view.

  They’d traveled two nights’ distance from the rockdome and were now too far away from the stream to gather water each day. Caves were few and most of the hideouts were simply indentions along the mountains. The nights were beginning to warm slightly. The map showed the nearly invisible path winding around the mountains, and there hadn’t been any rain since the storm that had forced them into the rockdome. They rationed what water they’d gathered in the cylinders and animal bladders, hoping the precious liquid would last until they found a new source. There was no snow on the mountaintops that they could see, so they had no hopes of gathering water from the melt. Janai wasn’t even sure there was ever snow on this planet, even at high elevations. She had never seen any.

  Her ankle was still sore, but the pain was tolerable and she was able to keep up with the help of herbs. The previous day, Tish had surprised her with a bundle of fresh ones. The silent girl had bolted from the path into the brush before anyone could stop her and bounded back in a matter of seconds with the herbs cradled in her small, brown hands. Janai thanked her but chided her for running off, reminding her of the dangers. Tish had given the group a splendid rendition of a scolded child before grinning and cuddling up to Vala. Janai let the matter drop.

  Vala’s burns were beginning to heal. The cleanings and the sap had stopped the infection. Janai was confident the Aknidean girl would heal enough to get back use of her arm. She gave Vala painful exercises to do each day to keep the muscles active. The girl’s healing abilities were incredible.

  “Ow,” Vala complained. “Do I have to
keep doing these exercises? They hurt like a crawler bite.”

  Janai snickered. The girl had no idea what a crawler bite felt like. “Yes, you do. If you don’t move the muscles, you’ll lose the use of your hand and arm for good.” She narrowed eyes on her patient. “Is that what you want?”

  “No.” The color was coming back into her eyes, and they were almost their normal bright yellow again.

  “Lance, come here,” Janai called to the Earth boy. “Let me see your fingers.” She grabbed a sap-leaf from her sinsabe and squatted near a heat stone for light.

  He obediently came to her and held out his hands. “The blisters are gone, see? And they don’t hurt that much anymore.” He opened and closed his hands several times to demonstrate.

  “They look very good.” Janai snapped the leaf. “But I still want to put sap on them for another day or so to be safe.” He was lucky the fence didn’t cause more damage than blistered skin.

  The boy shrugged and a half smile distorted the freckles on his cheeks.

  After her patients had been attended to, Janai re-wrapped her ankle and chewed on a few pain herbs. When the group was packed, they set out in the dim light. Shadows danced across their path with each warm breeze that rustled through the tree branches. Traveling at night not only kept them safer from the Morgee, but also helped ration water. The less heat there was to endure, the less water they needed to sustain them. They moved at a slow but steady pace in the semi-darkness of the night. Janai found the sounds of the insects comforting.

  Ash and Krav’n stayed close by her side during their travels, and the trio was at the rear of the group this night. She hoped there would be no more injuries, other than the everyday bruises and scrapes. They couldn’t avoid those.