Free Crossing the Line by Karen Traviss Page A

it?”
    Vijissi kept looking towards Chayyas as if he were expecting some action from her. Shan had a feeling there was something else going on, something she didn’t quite understand, and Chayyas seemed subdued. Maybe she’d never seen anyone’s body parts splattered across the furnishings. It did tend to spoil your day.
    Chayyas went to the door. A brief blast of double-song at painful volume made Shan’s ears ring again. Then there was the sound of many rapid footsteps fading down the passage, and Chayyas stalked back into the chamber. She could understand get the fuck out of here in any language. She also knew she had Chayyas’s reluctant but undivided attention.
    â€œI hope you understand your side of the deal,” Chayyas said. “Because we’ll hold you to it. You are wess’har now. You’ll help us fight if need be. You’ll do your duty as a matriarch. We expect a great deal from you, Shan Frankland—possibly more than you are capable of giving.”
    Chayyas had suddenly become very still, not just at rest as a relaxed human might be, but utterly immobile. Shan had seen Aras do that a few times when he had been taken aback or alarmed. It was a strange thing to see. It was the small detail that made them more alien.
    I can do it , Shan thought. I can bloody well do anything right now . The relief of being in one piece was flooding her with elation and confidence, and she was ashamed of that. It was weakness. She shouldn’t have been afraid. “I’ll take Aras if I may.” Take him where? She had no idea, but it felt like time to stalk out having won the argument.
    Vijissi tugged on her sleeve. “I think the phrase is ‘ quit while you are ahead ,’ ” he whispered, and pulled her sleeve meaningfully in the direction of the door.
    She followed Vijissi deeper into the maze of rooms that made up Chayyas’s residence, feeling as if she were walking a heaving deck, and wondering how she would recount the events to Aras. And her jacket—shit, how was she going to get that repaired? There were suddenly a lot of wess’har about, mostly males, but also some females. They stared at her. She thought the novelty of seeing her alien face might have worn thin by now.
    Vijissi peered round doors and jerked his head back, chittering to himself, until he found a room that appeared to suit his needs and he beckoned Shan in.
    It was empty. Three connecting doors led off deeper into Chayyas’s maze, one of them covered with a vine-patterned damask-like fabric in peacock and royal blues. Vijissi sat her down on a ledge cut into the wall and made a semblance of a stop gesture with both paws.
    Hands , she reminded herself. Not paws . Shan sniffed hard, trying to get rid of the rasping smell and dappled shape of dust. Scents now felt like textures and looked like colors, and colors had flavors and texture and sound. She had noticed a growing synesthesia over the past months; it didn’t appear to be a wess’har characteristic.
    â€œYou wait here until I find Aras,” said Vijissi. “I would not be proud that you forced Chayyas to back down.” Shan couldn’t tell from his tone if he was being spiteful or simply helping her through the uncertain territory of wess’har politics. “You have made a very dangerous move.”
    â€œOh, because she’ll have my arse some day?” She was back on familiar ground for a few moments. So someone new had her on their bugger-about list. So what? “She can come and have a go if she thinks she’s hard enough.”
    â€œI thought you might have understood what you were doing.”
    â€œI did. I was bargaining for Aras.”
    â€œWe can smell it, you know. They can all smell it.” Vijissi sniffed in a rapid staccato like a little machine gun. Shan tried too, but the rasping dusty odor seemed to have temporarily numbed her newly acquired wess’har sense