Free The Gate to Futures Past by Julie E. Czerneda Page B

for help.
Aryl
—
    An instant response, patient yet firm.
Your friends are sad and you want to help, Andi. This won’t, trust me. You’ll hurt yourself and them.
    A lower lip quivered.
I don’t know what else to do. I promised.
    Ask Rasa and your other friends to share good memories of those who are gone. Write down the names they share. The most important help you can give them is to be happy. Play together. That most of all.
    Then, with a little
snap. And teach them some manners when they ’port before you startle your poor elders.
    Dimples returned.
Yes, Aryl.
Her head tilted. “Dre’s calling me, Sira. May I go now?”
    As if I’d a choice. “Have fun.”
    My hands dropped through empty air.
    We did what we could. Children must leap to learn to safely fall.
    In the canopy,
I countered as I stood, uneasy at having let Andi go without a sterner warning. Vines and giant fronds could be grabbed by small hands; only strength of will and personal Power mattered in the M’hir.
    I opened my sense to that other space, sought a particular mind. There.
Ruti.
    Sira.
Power in abundance here. Along with an air of
distraction
the young Clanswoman put aside at once to focus on me.
What is it?
    I shared the memory of our conversation with Andi, finishing with,
what do you think?
    That I should keep an eye on her,
came the prompt reply
, and will. What about her parents?
An afterthought, but Ruti was right. Nik and Josa should be made aware.
    Presenting its own difficulty. Like Holl and her Chosen, Leesems, the pair had been M’hir Denouncers, convinced its use would lead to the downfall of the Clan. Unlike them, Nik and Josa clung to my mother’s teachings. To have a daughter ready and eager to leap, as Aryl put it, into the M’hir couldn’t be easy on them.
    Did they even understand the risks? There’d been a time I’d had to relearn everything, from the existence of the M’hir to its dangers—
    To what I was.
    Pointless, to regret any of it. I couldn’t have stayed half of myself. Couldn’t have loved Morgan as I did—or helped my people. Still, the part of me that empathized with Nik and Josa and the rest of my mother’s people knew what I’d given up in return. Had I stayed that person—been, as I’d believed, Human—I felt the M’hir
churn
and slapped it down.
I’ll talk to Nik and Josa.
    Let me,
Ruti sent, adding matter-of-factly,
You’d scare them.
    Amused
agreement from Aryl.
    Go ahead,
I conceded.
Keep me informed.
    I will, Sira.
I could almost see Ruti’s grin.
Now go eat.
    The answering growl from my stomach prevented a more dignified response.

    Food packets were stored on a lower deck, dispensed twice daily through a wide opening from rotating racks, to be collected and brought to those waiting in the galley.
    Sona
’s helpful distraction had been to send those racks spinning out of control, littering the storeroom floor. A little too helpful, I decided, wincing at the growing stacks on the tables infront of me. Two Clan, arms full, appeared, left their burden, and disappeared. More to come, then.
    The galley had seating for our number and no more,
Sona
somehow aware how many it carried. Most of those seats were empty. During shipday, with warmth restored, the Clan spread out. There were tasks to be done: some essential, such as moving packets and refuse or caring for children; some, in my opinion, less so, but they helped pass time. Our lack of records inspired several. Those mapping out potential matches between unChosen were doing their best to create a genealogy, and a trio of Om’ray scholars had begun a history of the Clan. This group’s approach being to question at tedious length anyone who’d sit still, I made myself busy elsewhere.
    I’d no idea how the rest spent their days.
    They couldn’t all still be picking up in the storeroom.
    â€œSira!” Holl di Licor