• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

As she scanned the other ships, Cesca's heart leapt when she recognized the Dogged Persistence. Denn emerged from his craft, saw her, and his face beamed. He ran forward, words jetting out of his mouth like engine exhaust. "Cesca! Cesca, what happened to you? Where have you been? Kotto came here and said Jonah 12 was destroyed! I was so--"

She scrambled back up the ramp, holding up her hands to fend off his attempted embrace. "Dad, no! Stop! Stay back." For the first time she realized how Jess had felt. "I'd love a hug, too . . . but it would kill you. Lots of things have changed. I've changed."

He blinked in confusion. "What do you mean a hug would kill me? And what's that glow about you? Your skin looks--" He caught his breath. "By the Guiding Star, I heard what happened to Jess Tamblyn! Is this the same thing? You're . . . possessed by some strange life force?"

Her dark hair swirled with static electricity as if alive. "Otherwise I'd be dead right now. Jess saved me. The wentals saved me. But they had to change me." Even his questions and the obvious strangeness of the circumstances could not diminish Denn's joy at seeing her. She wished she could wrap her arms around him, but she did not complain. "Oh, it's good to see you, Dad."

"People have been asking about you. We're doing the best we can--which is damned good, if I do say so myself--but the clans need their Speaker. What a mess!"

"And I need them, too, Dad. We've got a whole new mission now, our most important task ever. With Roamer help and Roamer ships, Jess and I have found allies that can help us trounce the drogues, once and for all. Across the Spiral Arm, clan ships are gathering to take part. Jess's water bearers are organizing distribution points at many wental worlds."

Colonists and Roamer trade intermediaries came toward her ship, eager to take an inventory of whatever she might have to sell. Cesca spotted curly-haired Kotto Okiah, whom she had last seen on Theroc before sending him to investigate the hydrogue derelict. "Kotto!"

The eccentric scientist was clearly happy to see her. "Speaker Peroni! Wait until you hear the new ideas I've been working on. We've pulled out all the stops, making resonance doorbells and getting ready--"

"Kotto, wait." His rush of words stopped, and he noticed her expression. She could see the point at which he understood exactly what she was going to tell him. Cesca turned to her father. "Dad, I need to see you and Kotto aboard my ship for a few minutes."

When the three of them had a moment of quiet, with Cesca standing on the far side of the small cargo chamber, she said, "Kotto, your mother died on Jonah 12. I'm so sorry. We went there after the Eddies blew up Rendezvous. It was just our temporary base of operations, but . . . everything went wrong."

The engineer nervously kept looking at her, then away. "I went there. I saw the crater, but no signs of life." He quickly lifted his chin. "But you escaped. Please tell me that some of the others got away."

Memories whipped past her, cutting like sharp ice chips in the wind. "No, Kotto. Only me. Nikko Chan Tylar came to rescue me, but our ship was shot down by the Klikiss robots. Then Jess saved us, and convinced the wentals to change me before I died."

And that opened up more and more questions. She explained about the Klikiss robots found frozen under Jonah 12 and how they had destroyed the base in a rampage. Kotto looked as if his whole body was sagging in a heavy gravity well. "So my mother died there, with all of them."

She shook her head. "Jhy Okiah died peacefully, Kotto. She passed away while resting in the base dome. Purcell Wan and I arranged a fitting Roamer funeral for her and launched her into space. It was afterward that all hell broke loose." Kotto seemed to take comfort from that.

"I remember when your mother died, Cesca," Denn said. "Roamers are supposed to adapt to drastic changes, to roll with disasters. But I thought I'd never recover from it."

"Even so, you did." Cesca smiled sadly. "She