A Forest of Stars - Kevin J. Anderson [57]
Nira could still travel back to the worldforest in her imagination, even though she knew the trees could not hear her. Her years as a curious green priest, her experience growing up as an eager acolyte reading stories to the trees, memories of her family who had always loved Nira even when they did not understand her passions—it all kept her strong. Sometimes, in the evenings, she told stories to the other human prisoners: King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, Beowulf, Romeo and Juliet. The captives here didn’t know the difference between truth and fiction.
She could still sing some of the old folk songs settlers had brought with them on the generation ship Caillié. In past years here, she had quietly sung nonsense verses to her babies, or recited ancient and humorous nursery rhymes, until the medical kithmen took the babies away from her. Someday, Nira hoped she might be able to see—or even rescue—her Princess, her daughter Osira’h.
Dobro’s main city, established many centuries before the Burton ‘s arrival, was a crowd of many-windowed buildings. Now, after sunset, the streets began to glow as blazers ignited to fend off the darkness of oncoming night. Since humans were far less sensitive to darkness, the breeder camp was on the outskirts, lit only by harsh globes at the corners of the fences.
Men and women shouted a meal call from the communal barracks; sometimes Nira joined them, but today she wanted to stay out here by the boundary. Her green skin had absorbed enough sunlight to nourish her.
She looked toward the horizon, where the hills were dotted with patches of black-leaved scrub trees. If she ever again connected to the worldforest through telink, she could call for help, send messages, and learn what had happened in the Spiral Arm since her capture.
Around her, the other human females looked drab and sturdy, born to a life of hard work and frequent childbearing. All viable offspring were inspected and tested at birth. Some of the experimental mixed-breed newborns were so horrendously malformed that they were killed outright. The healthy ones were left with their mothers for several months, then snatched away to be raised by professional monitors in the cities on Dobro. Only pure human babies were left with their parents inside the camp, raised to be like all the others here.
Nira turned her head to look at a beautifully lit residence in the Ildiran city, where she knew the Dobro Designate lived. Years ago, rather than locking himself in the uncomfortable breeder barracks with her, the Designate had ordered guards to bring her to his tower room. During the assigned mating sessions, Nira had tried to imagine it was Jora’h holding her in his arms, pretending that Udru’h—who looked so much like his brother—was her love. But his caresses were like broken glass, his touch like barbed wire, and she had felt like vomiting for days afterward.
Throughout that pregnancy, her first after Osira’h, she had prayed for a miscarriage, wanting to expel the hated fetus from her body. But the next child, a boy, was born healthy and strong. Despite her loathing for the father, Nira grew attached to the innocent infant. Now, though, the little boy—Rod’h—was gone as well. She prayed he did not grow up to be like his father.
When he’d taken the boy away, Nira had tried to get the Designate to tell her about her Princess, any small detail about her daughter’s life, but Udru’h had brushed her aside. “Never ask me that again. Osira’h is no longer your concern. She carries the weight of an empire on her shoulders.”
The words filled Nira with both dread and hope. What did he want to do with Osira’h? Now, trying to put her thoughts into words as the darkness gathered, Nira stared at the tall tower as if it were a bastion of dreams and possibilities. Her Princess was in there. She knew it. She felt it.
The Designate’s residence basked in warm illumination, as if pretending to be a pleasant place. She wondered how many of her