Year 618 PE
Space Yacht Ursula, Mars-Asteroids transit
Two days after lifting off from Marsopolis, the Assistant Personnel Manager for Asteria Corporation requested that Connor meet her in the ship lounge at 1630 that afternoon.
"I met with her this morning," the steward told Connor during the midday meal. "Just a routine performance review, while she's on her way to review the asteroid miners. How long have you been working with Asteria?"
"Four and a half years," Connor said. The work was satisfying and his credit balance was growing nicely, plus they offered free training, so he was hoping to stay with the company for another few years.
The interview, however, took an unexpected turn.
After the usual questions and mention of a stock bonus when he'd reached the five-year mark, the manager said, "I see you recently registered to take the pilot exam."
Connor nodded. Pilots were paid better than techs, and once he had enough money he could buy his own space yacht and go where he pleased.
"There will be an opening for a solo pilot ferrying a single passenger on an interstellar tour. Are you interested?"
"What's the pay?" Connor asked.
"About three times your current rate."
That was tempting. "Trip duration?"
"Indefinite."
That was unusual. "Who's the passenger?"
"Me."
Connor let his surprise show. The Assistant Personnel Manager projected a staid and conventional appearance (apparent age fifty, graying dark hair clipped short, modest business attire, medium height, medium weight, no visible scars), and hardly seemed the type to go gallivanting among the stars. "Why go on tour?"
"I'm looking for someone."
A former lover? A child? Connor was curious, but that could wait. "Why ask me?"
She met his eyes with steady composure. "Because, Connor MacLeod, you and Cassandra used your quickenings to scry."
Connor leaned back in his chair and took another look at this "assistant personnel manager." She had introduced herself as Lee Zuri, a name that could have a dozen different combinations of ethnic backgrounds, and her accent didn't sound like anywhere in particular. But that air of studied calm, the hands that did not fidget or twiddle, those watchful eyes … he had seen those before. This woman had been trained by the Sisterhood, probably from a very early age, or even before she was born. The Sisters had been breeding for psychic power for twenty generations. Connor asked abruptly: "What's your psi rating?"
"I'm a farseer and a human tel-empath." She held his gaze and added, "Level alpha ten."
Damn. Connor immediately checked his shields, while resisting the urge to shudder.
A rueful smile appeared on her face. "Your shields are tight, Per MacLeod, and I've sworn the oath of privacy every day since I was nine."
Good to know (if true), but there were other ways to pry. "I don't work with Watchers."
"I'm not a Watcher," she told him. "Though I was granted authorization to read excerpts about Cassandra from their 'special collection'."
"Where you found me."
"Yes. Also, when I was a student at the Sisterhood's Sunearth school on Terra sixty-five years ago, I saw you riding a horse along the river road, and I saw you with Sister Cassandra a few times."
That school had been full of chattering girls. "You don't look that old."
"I spent two decades in cryofreeze."
Her story kept getting more unbelievable. "What's your birth name?"
At that simple request, she finally looked uncomfortable. "Otsoaren Viyar. But please don't mention it to anyone."
"Why not?"
"Because the Sisterhood thinks I'm dead, and I'd like to keep it that way."
Connor had never met a renegade Sister before. "Are you in trouble with the law?"
"No, nothing like that."
"The Council won't let you go?"
"Yes, of course they would; I've paid my dues, and the Sisterhood isn't a cult." She laughed at the idea. "But they would send me invitations to reunions, old friends would stop by, and when I start traveling, they would know it, and they might wonder. They could even decide to follow, and since the person I'm seeking took great care to disappear completely, I want to protect their privacy."
Connor asked, because now he needed to know. "Who are you looking for?"
Viyar took a slow breath in before saying the name: "Cassandra."
"Cassandra's dead," Connor said flatly.
"She is calling to me in my dreams."
Cassandra was in Connor's dreams, too. That meant nothing. "She's dead. I looked for years. I used the quickening to scry, and I found nothing. She's gone."
"No," came the insistent reply. "She's alive. I see her. And sixty years ago, when I was sixteen, she prophesied that she and I would meet again."
Another damn prophecy. Connor got to his feet, needing to pace, but the tiny room allowed just two steps to the wall. Connor stood still and stared at its blank panel, clenching and unclenching his fists.
Cassandra had been wrong with prophecies before. But more often, Connor reminded himself, she had been right. And if the Cloudrise massacre had been a ruse—and it had never made sense, he had always found it unbelievable—then the children and their teachers might have survived… which meant Cassandra could still be alive…
Or he could be letting this sudden fountain of hope drown reason and fact.
"Well, Connor MacLeod?" Viyar's tunic whispered about her as she stood. "Will you join me in this quest?"
He turned to face her. "I'll let you know."
The next day, he invited Viyar to play chess in the lounge. A two-person game provided an easy excuse for private conservations, and he needed to know more. Unlike the students at ship school, none of this ship's crew liked to play, so there would be no audience taking bets or listening in. "Are you really Asteria's assistant personnel manager?" he asked during their first match.
"Yes, for the past two years." She pushed her queen's pawn two spaces. "I needed a job after I got out of cryo."
Connor brought out his queen's knight. "Coincidence that we work for the same company?"
"No. You're why I applied to Asteria, and why I volunteered for this trip." She moved her bishop just one square. "I've been waiting to meet you."
Like a spider in a web.
Connor took black the next day. Viyar's first move was to push a pawn. They played silently until the endgame, when Connor asked, "How long are you willing to spend on this quest?"
"I'm willing to search until I die. Then you'd inherit the ship and could take it where you please." She moved her king out of check then smiled at him. "How does that sound?"
Like a dream come true, though too long delayed. Connor had expected to spend another ten years working before he could afford a ship, but she probably had three active decades left.
Connor lost that game.
"When—and why—did you start looking for me?" he wanted to know.
She took a pawn and lost a knight before she answered. "Thirty-three years ago, I dreamed of you."
He didn't like being in people's dreams. Connor slid his queen across the board.
"I read Cassandra's chronicles hoping to find you, but you were listed as dead there, so I knew I had to wait."
"That's why you went into cryo."
"One reason. It's also a good way to hide after you 'die'."
"How did you fake that?"
"My ship blew up, but I had left in an escape pod ten minutes before." She moved her king to a safer position.
He nodded. "Classic." Connor put his knight into position for the trap.
"Coming awake was … odd, but I was on a different planet, and so I didn't have any memories there. They say that helps. And my children were all grown, and I had said goodbye before I left." She stared at the board then finally moved her rook, just where Connor wanted her to. "I'm glad I did that."
He placed a bishop at the edge of the board. "How many children do you have?"
"Six." She pushed a pawn, for no good reason that he could see. "Do you usually keep in touch with your children, as they grow old?"
Connor cleared his throat. "Usually."
"I see mine in dreams. Grandchildren, too, though I don't know their names."
"It's hard," he said. "Leaving a family behind."
"It was, yes, but this time I'm ready to go, and they think I'm already gone." Viyar stared at the board, shrugged with a rueful smile, and tipped over her king. "You win."
The next day she set up the pieces but started with a different kind of opening move. "My psi abilities make you uneasy," she noted.
"Not the far seeing, but telempathy…" His shrug was more of a shudder. "I don't want you in my head."
Viyar blinked, a subtle sign of her shock. "And I would never go there, unless you had given your consent. I swore an oath, and I'll give you my word."
"I appreciate that, but I don't know you."
"So you don't know if I'm trustworthy." She nodded. "Since my word isn't enough," she offered, "I'll lower my shields so we can link."
Connor preferred more focused—and controlled—communication. "Viyar, you're an alpha ten," he stressed. "I don't even know what 'alpha' entails, but I do know ten is the top. Linking usually builds trust, but with you? Maybe you could show me the emotions you want me to see, and hide everything you don't want to share." She started to protest, but he kept going. "Or maybe you can adjust my memories, plant emotions in my head, slide into my dreams, or mindfuck me some other way."
Now her eyes were wide with confusion. "But, we can't—" She shook her head. "Some memory work, yes, with drugs, but only to blur or remove, and even mundane healers can do that. Tel-empaths are receivers only. We can't project."
"Are you sure about that?" he challenged. "Or did they come up with something new in the last thirty years since you've been gone?"
"That would be a completely new paradigm. We'd have to send energy out instead of taking in it, find an entrance and then attachment points…" She was shaking her head again. "Stories of mind-control are ancient, but I've never heard of anyone who can actually do it." Then she looked at Connor through narrowed eyes. "But you have."
Six centuries ago, when the old Watcher system had crumbled and the chronicles had been temporarily in the custody of Phinyx Corporation, Connor had worked with Alex, Cassandra, Duncan, and Methos to remove all mention of the Voice from the chronicles. Cassandra had sworn to keep it secret from the Sisterhood and never teach it to anyone ever again. So Connor told Viyar of another tale. "An immortal sent my kinsman dreams, trying to drive him crazy."
"Shared dreams do happen, rarely, but they're subconscious, not deliberate or focused. I've never heard of forced dreaming. Perhaps it can happen only between immortals, using the quickening energy?"
"Perhaps." Had Yanlei had been sending him erotic dreams and lying about it, or had they shared dreams but both avoided mentioning it? Or had she really been oblivious as she had seemed?
"Did Cassandra and you ever share dreams?" Viyar asked.
"No." He was grateful for that.
"Memories?"
He shook his head. Cassandra could open memories for other people, but she couldn't see them herself. But maybe Viyar could; she seemed intent on this topic. "Have you seen Cassandra's memories?" he asked.
"Twice. She shared a memory of a dream she'd had about me; that was deliberate and controlled while we were linked. The other time…" Viyar precisely aligned all her pawns. "She was using the crystal orb to retrieve memories, and I was caught up in one. I'm told it was horrific and I became hysterical, so the healers blurred my memory of that day. For a few years after that, I also shared some of Cassandra's dreams."
"What were they like?"
"Unpleasant," Viyar admitted. "Mostly being hunted. Sometimes being raped or killed." Her lips tightened, as if she had tasted something disgusting. "Sometimes all three."
Cassandra used to wake in frozen, silent terror from those dreams. Sometimes she would ask Connor to hold her, though more often she would leave their bed. If they'd been really bad, she would avoid him the next day. But over time those episodes had decreased, and she'd been free of them for centuries. "Cassandra was having nightmares sixty years ago?"
Viyar nodded. "The report I read suggested they may have been triggered by the memory work they did with the orb."
Connor leaned forward. "And just who is 'they'?"
"Cassandra was working with Amanda, Karla, and Methos."
Connor had expected the first two—both Amanda and Karla had been Keepers, and they'd been trying to figure out the crystals and its orb for decades—but Methos? Why the hell would Cassandra have let him in?
And had that "memory work" triggered something in Methos, too? Logistically, about a third of the beheadings Connor had found in the news could have been Methos's work, and what better way to win the Game than to become a Horseman again? Those piles of dead women and children at the Cloudrise Massacre looked a hell of a lot like a Horsemen's raid, and Methos, as a "trusted friend," could have gotten through their security with not much more than a smile.
Maybe Methos had been the one to take Cassandra's head.
Connor left without playing, and the next day he told Viyar his answer was no. He wanted her ship, but he didn't know her, so he couldn't trust her. He also wanted to start hunting, not spend decades traveling from system to system in quest of a ghost.
She seemed disappointed, but not surprised, and three days later she transferred to a Belt-hopper transport. Connor kept studying. Only half a year until he earned five-year stock bonus, and three-quarters of a year until the pilot exam. He worked his way through navigational manuals and read the "Trade-a-Ship" notices as they came in.
When the Ursula's route went to Terra, Connor took some long-delayed leave. It was spring in the northern hemisphere, and he went to the Highlands, the place of his birth, the home of his family. On the hill where they'd been buried, he lit candles for them all. The buildings and the gravestones were long gone, but the daffodils were blooming once more. The lochs were bigger than he remembered and the weather warm instead of cool, but the hills were eternal, and it was still home. He watched every sunrise and sunset, he walked in the rain and breathed in the scent of growing plants, and he slept outside under the stars.
He also hunted, traveling south by train to Cambridge, which was now a waterfront town on the Great Wash Bay. He found his quarry at a shop that sold fishing gear. The fellow met his eyes through the window, nodded once, and after a few minutes came outside.
"Mayur Sturridge," the man announced. "And you are…?"
"Connor MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod."
"Truly? I'd heard you were dead."
"On occasion," Connor allowed.
Sturridge's laugh hissed out between his teeth. "As are we all. But we get better, don't we."
"Until we lose our heads." Connor kept his gaze steady on his prey.
Sturridge met and matched his look. "Not that it matters," he said, "but are you just playing the Game, or did I kill someone you knew?"
He hadn't, though Connor knew from the chronicles that Mayur Sturridge had done a lot of killing in his one hundred and seventy years. He had a habit of wounding animals and mortals and then watching them slowly die. He took his time with immortals, too. "More from curiosity than sadism, I think," one observer had noted, but Connor didn't care why, and since the Tribunal was now defunct, Connor had taken it upon himself to promote Sturridge's status from Capture to Kill.
"Just playing," Connor said.
Sturridge smiled by lowering his jaw, displaying a shark-like grin. "Delightful. So less tedious than vengeance, and so refreshing these days. Tonight at nine, under the long pier? It's ten clicks east of town, on the shore road. Private."
"Yes."
"Looking forward to it."
They met in the moonlight, near the water. Sturridge came by boat. Connor had walked out that afternoon. They were well-matched, and their duel was savage and challenging, a true test of skill and stamina. By the end, when both were bleeding and gasping, it became a contest of sheer bloody stubborn will to survive. Even though his knee felt on fire and his own blood was blinding him in one eye, Connor hadn't felt this alive in years, not since the duel with Phan Huy sixty-three years ago. He laughed, or tried to, for his chest was heaving as his lungs clawed for air, and Sturridge—that bastard—saw his exhaustion and grinned, then came circling in for the kill.
Connor waited, barely turning, letting his sword tip drop and his shoulders sag and his head nod, too tired to move. Until Sturridge rushed him, over confident, and Connor dropped one knee and pivoted, gutting his enemy with an upward ripping thrust, then all in an instant rising and turning to track the falling body and finding that sweet spot between head and shoulder, just perfect for a double-handed slice through soft neck, hot blood, and hard bone. The head hit the sand and rolled to one side. An incoming wave licked the crumpled body, and water slowly swirled dark red. On his lips, Connor tasted salt and blood.
God, it was great to be alive!
The quickening came at him through the water, lightning whips of blue green fire, carrying sprays of boiling water. When the first bolt struck him, a lance into his heart, Connor dropped to his knees, the sword hilt hot in his right hand. He clenched his teeth and refused to scream, even as the lightning tore through him, splinters in his eyeballs, red hot skewers through every bone, white blisters on charred skin. He could smell burning flesh, and the taste of ash and smoke lay dead and heavy on his tongue.
But he could also taste the water, that salty bath of life that enveloped the world, thick with minute algae and teeming with fish, and he caught the scents of spring flowers in bloom and fungal networks ready to sprout. In his ears, the air spoke of eagles aloft and the coming of rain. Against his hands, he could feel every grain of sand, down through the bedrock to the seething mantle far below. This was the full Quickening, raw power and elemental energy, a melding to life far greater than any he could hope to command. So Connor let it carry him; throughout the Earth and then beyond. Through pulsing pain he opened his eyes and tried to see. Within the vast darkness of space he went seeking Cassandra, some echo of her presence, the sound of her laughter, the touch of her hand.
Then the lightning ended, and he was on his hands and knees, head down and eyes closed, with every muscle trembling and lungs that didn't know how to breathe. He collapsed on the sand, lying flat, letting the earth hold him and the water wash over him. For the next few minutes, he concentrated on drawing air into and out of his lungs and slowing the frantic thrumming of his heart, while his injuries healed and his senses diminished enough to coil back within the confines of his own body once again.
Eventually, he managed to sit up, and after a few more minutes he stood. He left the body and head and boat as they were; quickenings destroyed evidence but cleaning up created clues. Sturridge's sword went into the waves off the pier. Then Connor walked inland until the moon set and the sun rose. Sunshine lifted the dampness from his clothes. In a market town he purchased a train ticket to London, and as it hissed down the tracks he stared out the window at the countryside flickering by.
He hadn't found Cassandra; he had no idea where she was. But he had sensed her. She was out there, somewhere, alive.
When he got to the city, he sent a single-word message to Viyar.
Yes.
Year 620 PE
Healer Guild Hall, Planet Sceilig
Sister Mzunthi, Tribune of the Seers and a level nine telempath, seldom bothered with small talk. "Has Sister Yanlei gotten pregnant yet?"
"No," Salmah answered, looking out from the cliff to the white waves on the dark sea below. "Though she reports she has found an immortal partner. She doesn't like him much, but she's confident he won't kill her, and they're sexually intimate almost every nine-day."
"Good." Mzunthi nodded with satisfaction. "That's better odds than through a single encounter." She prodded at a small rock with the tip of her walking stick. "Especially when the male doesn't even arrive."
Salmah parried that barb with calm words and soft tones. "We all knew Connor MacLeod was an unlikely prospect."
"Yes, so you pumped Yanlei's pheromones into his room. And even that didn't work." She sniffed. "I think your Sexuality teachers should update their curriculum on seduction techniques."
"The effectiveness rate is over ninety percent," Salmah replied. "But MacLeod is paranoid, and he has impressive control. Expose most men to a tenth that amount of pheromone, and they're eager to eat from your hand."
Mzunthi grinned at her merrily. "That's not how you get pregnant."
Salmah laughed in return. "Oh, I know. Remember our first Summer Solstice Celebration?"
"Oh, yes." Her smile slid from contented to wistful. "Fifty-three years ago."
They found a comfortable boulder to lean their backs against. The stone was warm from the long day of sunshine, a comforting contrast to the cool breeze from the sea.
"How old is Yanlei now?" Mzunthi asked.
How best to measure an immortal's age? Salmah gave all the numbers. "She was born three-hundred-twenty-seven years ago, her first death was at age thirty-one, and she's spent one hundred seventy years in cryo-sleep."
"So… twice our lived years, and yet she looks half our age." Mzunthi tapped her walking stick once on the ground. "And always will."
Salmah had only a smattering of telempathy, but Mzunthi never shielded during their private conversations, and they'd known each other all their lives. The bitterness was easy to read. "Immortality has always been unfair."
"They're born with it, I know. Just as some—including myself—are born with psychic power. Or beauty. Or musical or mathematical talent. Or bone disease or trisomy-18." Her hands opened in acceptance. "Life is inherently unfair."
Salmah had spent three years working in the cloning labs. "Genetic equality leads to stagnation. We need variety and adaptability."
"That means immortality is another type of genetic dead-end."
"Obviously. But the quickening also offers healing and psychic power, which is why the Tribunes of our two guilds started this project five hundred years ago." With more resources it might have made more progress, but they kept it small to keep it secret. Salmah had learned of it only after the former Tribune had named her as successor and given her access to the secrets of their guild. "Should we increase the priority and bring in more resources, now that all the other female immortals are gone?"
"Some, yes, but it must stay hidden. You heard the Steward at the last council meeting; she'd like to kill all immortals right now. Nor is she the only one on the Nine to feel that way. So we must continue to keep the secret," Mzunthi declared. "From everyone, including the rest of the Sisterhood and certainly from the remaining immortals out there."
Salmah had to agree. Another massacre like the one at Cloudrise truly would be the end, and so they couldn't afford to take chances. When Mother Cassandra and the other immortals had started searching with their crystal orb, the project had set strong wards and put all its immortals into cryo-sleep to hide. They sent their own Watchers with Sister Yanlei to stop any reports of a new female immortal getting to the Chronicles. That had become less of a concern since Giorgis the Watcher had died last year; Mzunthi had made sure a sister from their project was in charge. "Where is MacLeod now?" Salmah asked Mzunthi.
"On Sol-three-Luna. He's about to take the pilot exam. Once he has a license and a ship of his own, he'll be hard to track."
Salmah waved that aside. "A child from him would have been a welcome addition to the gene pool, but it's not necessary, and there are still a few other males out there our immortal sisters can use. We also have three here."
"And twelve females, plus whatever Yanlei may bring home. Let's hope that's enough." Mzunthi pushed off the rock and stretched her arms high then began bending forward to touch her toes. Salmah joined her in the impromptu Salute to the Sun, and then they started the walk back to the Chapter House.
That trek seemed to grow longer each year, and the hills steeper, and the winters colder. Salmah didn't want to live forever, but she certainly wished she didn't have to grow old.
"Our Keeper of the Chronicles sent a report," Mzunthi told her when they reached a sandy beach. "She's finished the cataloging, and her people found some mislaid-or possibly hidden-files."
"Anything interesting?" Salmah asked.
"Apparently, our revered Mother Cassandra, founder of the order and sister to all, had a power called 'The Voice'."
