Cataract Tara K. Harper

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head.
It took ten minutes to reach the trailhead, and by the time they did, the meres understood her caution
about power set-tings. Even with the stabilizers, the three men carrying gear lurched like drunkards with
every gust.
Tsia kept to the trail with a long, loose stride, ignoring the meres behind her. She wanted only the cub in
her mind. He was like a brother, calling her to follow, to leave the trail and jump from rock to tree and
down again across the trail. Not to go straight, but to wind between the trees. Not to stare ahead along
the path, but to duck and flick her glance from side to side to catalogue each movement like a hunter
searching for prey. Somehow this cub had bonded to her through the biogate, and she could not shake
him free. Her jaw tightened slowly as she realized the strength of that link, and she cast a sideways look
back at Wren. She could not help but wonder, if she reached out long enough far enough through her
gate, if she could just focus enough, like an esper who could stretch to contact a loved one, if she could
force her biolink to reach her sister. If she could just stretch that bond so that she heard Shjams's
heartbeat as she did the cat's. "If I can just make Shjams feel my presence& "
She bit her lip until she tasted blood. "Blood should make up for distance," she muttered. "The blood I
sense through my biogate locks a cat to my mind, but there's not enough blood in my body to bring back
my sister to me."
A low snarling answered her voice, and she blinked and shook her head to clear her suddenly blurred
vision. Ahead, Ruka paused on a stone outcropping and eyed the line of meres until Tsia felt his attention
like an alien prickling on her shoulders. "Go east," she muttered. "You fill my mind like a fog in a valley,
but you belong with your mother, not me."
He growled in return.
"Go back," she snarled. "Or hunt to satiate your guts. Don't settle your hunger on me." She stretched her
legs until the meres behind her cursed.
At midmorning, she led the group around a stand of stinging cores closed tightly against the storm. By
noon, they crossed a stretch of flooded mud. They climbed and jumped on the arch-ing roots of a
massive stand of sinktrees. They circled a sleeping group of shapers, then a herd of bedded-down
brown-backs. Near noon, she stepped out from behind a horitree and was blasted to her knees by the
force of the wind. She threw her head back and laughed. The storm was a savagery she had come to
expect.
Behind her, Striker, who had seen her fall, called out. Slowly, Tsia looked back. Her eyes still glinted and
her teeth were bared to the wind. Ruka was too close. She could not feel the trees except as shadows
that moved and whipped around her. She could feel the watercat crouched in its den. She could sense
five tams on the ridge. But she could feel nothing else. Her gate was too strong. Too focused. She had to
shut it down to see the woman who approached.
Striker eyed her warily. "You okay?"
She nodded jerkily.
The other woman was silent for a moment. With her auburn hair hidden beneath the hood of her blunter,
and her black eyes and eyebrows the only edges of her expression, her flat-boned face looked like a
mask. "Anything we should know about?"
Tsia shook her head slowly.
Striker just looked at her. Tsia knew the woman had dark-eyes in, but they made her look no different
from normal. Her biofield, so shallow, struck Tsia suddenly. Shallow. No past. No history&
The node flickered, and Tsia stiffened. Automatically, she imaged a quick command to the webs through
that one thin ghost line she had found. The trace became, for the first time, tight. Like a jumble of
thoughts that suddenly tied together, the traces linked and flowed into a smooth story line. Webs old
webs, not just the one were active still and strong& Images of false people who went about their
unreal lives&
"You catch something through your gate?"
Tsia stared at the other woman. Had Striker not felt the flash in the node? "I felt a touch from a web," she
said slowly.
"Felt that myself," Striker returned noncommittally. "Not enough to figure anything, though." She glanced
back along the line. Bowdie was catching up, and his bent legs made it seem as if his blunter was
somehow heavier than all three of the packs the other men carried. "Not that I've the experience to
follow a trace like you."
Tsia turned slowly and studied Striker's face. "You're a wipe, aren't you?"
Striker's face went still.
"Are you?" Tsia repeated.
Striker stared at her. "How did you know? Through your gate?"
Tsia studied Striker carefully. "You say things," she said slowly, "and then there is the sense of you& It's
different from the others."
The other woman took a half step forward. "Different how? What do you feel in me?"
There was urgency in her voice, and Tsia hesitated. Was this part of the tension she had felt from the
group of meres? Did Striker's lack of past haunt the woman as much as Tsia's de-mons haunted her?
"I feel a thinness," she said after a pause. "A lack of depth. As if you were a child without history or
an adult without direction."
Striker's face flushed, and she stared out across the hills. Her narrow chin was sharp and taut. "I don't [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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