The White Dove

Year 649 PE
Space YachtKuromatsu,Antares Sector 403A.12z

"How long was I under this time?" Viyar asked after she had thawed from her stay in the cryopod.

"Only three years," Connor told her.

"Did you find Cassandra?" Viyar asked immediately.

"I sensed her," he clarified. "I need you to help me connect. When you're ready," he added quickly, before she tried to get out of her bed.

"I am a little shaky still," she admitted and held up a hand vibrating with tremors. "Maybe tomorrow."

"When you're ready," he repeated, because last time it had taken her three days to recuperate. People didn't age during cryosleep, but each freezing and thawing took a toll. Viyar had spent nearly forty-two of her hundred and six years in frozen stasis, so though her wake-time was sixty-four years, her bio-age was well over seventy. And scrying across space took energy.

"When I'm ready," Viyar agreed with no argument, and soon she was asleep again. Five days later, when her appetite had fully returned and her sleep cycle had stabilized, she placed high-caloric food and drinks on the fold-down table then brought out the small tapestry that Cassandra and Connor had created more than two hundred years ago. "Ready?" she asked.

Connor made sure the ship controls were set to automatic and all was secure before joining her at the little table. He laid his left hand on top of the fabric, and the familiar soft scratch of wool against his skin unearthed deep memories of peat smoke, blue sky and gray stone, and the scent of heather in the rain. The colors on this cloth were brighter than the ones he'd worn as a boy. When Cassandra had been teaching a class on fiber art, he'd enjoyed the challenge of developing mordants and dyes with techniques of both modern chemistry and ancient lore. Together he and Cassandra had dyed the wool and spun the thread, though she'd done most of the weaving, using a small loom he'd built for her.

"We're lucky I found this piece in the archives, and lucky the Watchers put it there," Viyar had commented when they had first begun their quest. "A handcraft made by both you and Cassandra is a strong link for scrying."

Luck, or possibly foresight, Connor wasn't sure, but the tapestry had gotten them this far, and he was really hoping it would get them all the way, and soon. Viyar also had her left hand touching the fabric, and they reached out their right hands and interlaced their fingers. Their breathing slowed and synchronized, and gradually their connection became a dance, each steadying the other, lending balance and support, with Connor in the lead.

He still didn't like having people in his head or living with a telempath, but it was a risk he'd decided to accept, back when he'd told Viyar "yes" thirty years ago. She'd spent most of that time in the cryopod, and when she was awake, she'd never (as far as he could tell) broken her promise and invaded his privacy, and (as far as he knew) no one except Cassandra had mindfucking power, and he'd lived with her for years. After all, living itself was risky and people were dangerous, and sometimes, you had to take chances to get what you wanted.

Connor reached out, seeking Cassandra, sending tendrils of his quickening to quest in the vast darkness between the stars. During earlier scries he'd gotten a sense of direction, but no details. But this time a whisper had come while he wasn't looking, so she had to be nearby…

Farther… farther… and there, finally! another spark, another tendril, bright and beckoning, a filament from a wider braid. Connor turned and moved toward it, pulling energy from Viyar to reach that far. Finally! Yes, he'd found her. He aligned their two quickenings, recognizing old patterns as well as finding new, and with gossamer hands he spliced the tendrils of his quickening to Cassandra's to create a trail-line he could follow even after the scrying was done.

He had barely finished when the warm support of Viyar faltered and fell away, and he floated, suddenly adrift and disoriented, confused and blind, all directions the same. But the two braided quickenings formed a tether, and he quickly followed the line back to his own body, drawn by the touch of rough weaving under his fingers and the pungent scent of wet wool that would always take him home.

But instead of a slow and gentle awakening to the senses of his body, he slammed in like a diver off the high board hitting the water wrong. He could feel Viyar's fingers lying cold and motionless in his right hand, and the woolen tapestry was a crumpled mess clenched in his left. But he couldn't make his eyes or his fingers open, and when he gasped for air he got none. His heart thudded hard against his ribs, and he could feel panic rising all around him like a monstrous wave.

Take it slowly, he reminded himself. It was just like after a quickening, and he'd dealt with hundreds of those. He forced his chest to do the motions of breathing, and after a round or two, it caught on and the air came in and went out as it was supposed to, and his heart rate gradually slowed.

Then he forced his eyes open, though the lights were too bright and his vision was blurry, and he made out the shape of Viyar, still sitting on the seat but with her head down on the table. Connor put his own head down and closed his eyes, hoping to avoid vomiting, and felt for a pulse in her wrist. There it was, fast but steady, and Connor let out a sigh of relief.

He slowly reconnected with himself, wiggled each finger and toe, then groped blindly for the sweet drink Viyar had wisely set out, and drank it dry. Then he ate his food, but he was still starving, so he ate and drank her supplies, too.

That was better. They were always hungry and thirsty after a scry, but they'd never passed out before. Connor carefully rose to his feet, got more food and drink for Viyar, and then sat nearby while she slowly came to.

"Did you finish the binding?" she asked straightaway, before she even opened her eyes. Her voice sounded drugged.

"Yes."

"I'm glad."

"Me, too." Connor eased her from the seat to the floor then helped her eat and drink. "Back to bed?" he suggested.

"Just a pillow and a blanket right here," she said, her eyes still closed. "Unless you think you can carry me? Because I don't think I can walk just yet."

She didn't weigh much, but Connor still wasn't steady on his feet. He brought back two blankets and two pillows, and he and Viyar both stretched out on the floor.

They woke some fourteen hours later. "How are you feeling?" Connor asked.

"I'm good."

Connor nodded and didn't argue, though she still looked tired.

"I am hungry," she said next, so he prepared her favorite meal.

"What happened?" he asked after the food was gone. "During the scry?"

"You were pulling energy from me, and when I sensed you were close to Cassandra—so close!—I reset my safety limits. Just a little."

"A little too much," Connor observed grimly. He might have killed her.

"I know." She swallowed hard. "Since I passed out, I wasn't there to ease your return."

"I've gone out and come back on my own before."

"Yes, but not from that far." She raised one hand high. "You accumulate more energy the farther you go."

"Like something falling in a gravity well?"

"Exactly. Energy can come from both how high we're falling—"

"Potential energy," Connor supplied.

She nodded. "And also from kinetic energy of moving on our own." She slammed her palm down onto the table.

"I had both," Connor realized. When he'd lost his bearings, he'd been in a hurry to return. And that might have killed him.

"I'm sorry," Viyar said. "I was eager, and so I was foolish."

And reckless and irresponsible, Connor might have added, but didn't. He would have been tempted himself, and before they went scrying together again—if they ever did— he would install speed brakes of his own.

"But you did make contact, so can you find Cassandra?" Viyar asked, still eager.

Finally, Connor had a good answer to that. "Yes."

To be accurate, he should have said, "Yes, in a while." They spent six tedious weeks following the link that took them to a charted but unnamed star system with many planets and even more moons. He checked the link every few hours and plotted her trajectory, so they knew she was still on the move. They could follow her trail, but he would prefer to head her off.

"Where is she going?" Viyar asked.

"If she's gathering supplies or looking for something, it could be any planet or moon," Connor said. "But if she lives in this system, it'll either be a Class M body or have a biodome."

"Those can be underground. Or maybe she's rendezvousing with another ship, or living on a space station." Viyar sighed.

Connor understood her dismay. Once, back on Earth in the time of automobiles, Connor had acquired a set of car keys (marked with license plate number only) and a payment stub for a parking garage that covered a city block and was twelve levels high. He'd waited until midnight when nearly everyone was gone and still spent two hours looking for that car.

"We should go faster," Viyar asked. "Otherwise, we could be following her around for months."

"I want to try to contact her first. If she senses me, we can rendezvous."

"Only if she knows it's you," Viyar pointed out.

"We recognize each other's signatures."

"In person a century ago, yes, but at this distance? She probably doesn't have someone like me to boost the signal. If she senses an unknown immortal, didn't you say she would run? Should we take that chance?"

This whole quest was a chance, a taunting of Fate, a denial of all logic and reason, and yet here he was, plowing through the untamed deep with no maps and no backup and only a mystical quickening for a compass and a rapidly aging mortal who said she was a seer. Connor was eager and frustrated, too. "Didn't you say youknewyou would see her again?"

Viyar blinked at that, lips tight together and eyes uncertain and nervous with fear, suddenly looking old, and Connor switched to the reassuring tones he used with horses and young children. "We're close, Viyar. You know that. And even if Cassandra does spook and run, we can follow her, and we will see her soon. Cassandra foretold it, and you've foreseen it. Right?"

"Right," she admitted, but her smile was pensive. "I just hope 'soon' isn't that long away."

They spent another twelve days chasing Cassandra's trail between the planets and moons. She never responded to any of his hails, and her path was erratic, but finally she landed on a small moon dense enough to hold an atmosphere (though not breathable), and Connor and Viyar caught up to her there.

Viyar wanted to land immediately; Connor insisted they take time to gather intel. "The other ship is a freighter with a cargo bay," he explained. "It could be carrying one pilot and tons of goods or maybe twenty people. Maybe those people are colonists in cryosleep she's taking to a new home, or maybe they are armed troops, and Cassandra is a prisoner of theirs. We don't know."

"Get closer," Viyar said, "and I'll tell you how many are awake on board, and why they're on that moon."

"They'll see us landing," he said. "And we're safer up here than on the ground."

She looked supremely dissatisfied. "I didn't come all this way to stay silent."

"No, but—"

"What about EM waves?" she broke in. "We're close enough now."

Connor had been so deep in the mystical he'd forgotten about the mundane. "Radio," he mused. "Voice only. Right." He sat at the console and reconfigured the set up. "Hailing frequencies open," he murmured then sent a computer-voice message on the standard frequency saying simply "Greetings from the crew of theKuromatsu" and set it to repeat every five minutes. He put their ship in a high geo-stationary orbit above the freighter and wondered what Cassandra was doing down there. Viyar began to make tea.

Fifteen minutes later, another filtered voice of indeterminate age and gender replied. "Greetings, crew of theKuromatsu.This is the crew of theNew Frontier.Did you need assistance?"

"No emergency, just seeking an old comrade," he replied. Then he turned off the voice filter and gave his own name: "I'm Connor MacLeod."

"Of the clan MacLeod," came the immediate reply, though still filtered. "From Glenfinnan, on the shore of Loch Shiel."

Connor let out a slowly controlled breath, not ready to believe.

"They certainly know who you are," Viyar observed.

Connor had been lured in before. "Any Watcher would. Or anyone who's read the Chronicles." There was no physical threat to guard against, but he shifted to battle mode, setting his emotions aside for now. Then he pressed the button labeled XMIT. "Who are you?"

"Shariade."

Connor pushed his bitter disappointment away. He needed to focus on the conversation. The voice filtering had been turned off, and this voice was young and female, and the name somehow familiar.

"Sending video," she said next. "Requesting same."

He didn't like revealing any intel, but he could blur the background, and he'd already given his name. "Stay out of camera range," he told Viyar, and she flattened herself against a wall.

Then the video screen turned on, and he could see an attractive woman in her mid-twenties, brown of eyes, hair, and skin, sitting in the console chair. Her light-blue clothing showed no insignia or rank, and she was smiling, apparently utterly delighted to see him. She hadn't blurred her background, and behind her was the control room of a freighter.

Except instead of standard gray paint, the walls had been entirely decorated with hand-paintings of flowers and birds. Connor immediately recognized the style; Cassandra must have spent a lot of time in that room. So where was she now? And was this young (or just young-looking?) woman a friend or a foe?

"Shariade," he greeted her politely, with a simple bow of his head.

Her smile grew even wider. "Connor MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod." She returned the nod. "Who is this 'old comrade' you are seeking?"

Connor didn't want to be the first to use Cassandra's name. "I believe she's the artist who painted the room you're in right now. Is she the owner of the ship?"

"She was, but this isn't Cassandra's ship anymore, and she's not here."

Connor kept his faint smile steady while he considered exactly how—and how slowly—he was going to kill Shariade. He knew Cassandra had been on that planet; he'd connected with her quickening only five hours before. Unless the quickening he'd been following these past three months had been a mingling of Shariade and Cassandra? Could that have been why parts of it felt new?

It didn't matter, because either way, this smugly smiling bitch must have taken Cassandra's head—along with her memories of Connor—and now Shariade was laying claim to—

But Shariade was talking again. "—so wonderful! I know Cassandra will be ecstatic to have you come home."

Cassandra was alive? Why did Shariade's quickening feel like hers? And what the hell did Shariade mean by "home"?

"Connor!" another woman called, and now the video screen showed a different console chair.

He recognized this voice and face right away. "Amanda?"

"Oh, Connor," she said, smiling even as she wiped away tears. "I can't believe you're alive!"

"Same here," he managed to reply. "About you, too." He had to swallow hard before he could talk again. "Who else is still alive?"

"Oh, you mean the massacre at the Cloudrise school. That was just a show." Her nose wrinkled. "It was a mess to set up."

So he'd been right all along.

"The solo deaths were easier to fake," Amanda said next. "Methos handled most of those."

Connor realized he would have to revise his list of people to kill or avenge. "Elena Duran's not dead?"

"Oh, no. She's here. Well, not here. This is just a rock; we only come here for the crystals. But Elena's at home. So are Chelle and Karla and Urushan, and all the children from the school, who are grown up now."

"Including me," Shariade's voice said off screen.

That was where he'd seen the name: on the Cloudrise remembrance stone. "What's 'home'?" Connor asked.

"Oh my, it's…." Amanda fluttered her hands in graceful confusion. "Look, Connor, it's complicated, and Shariade and I need to finish gathering this last batch before it gets dark. How about we rendezvous in orbit, and we can have a nice long chat on the way?" Her smile was cheerful and charming, artfully designed to convince and persuade.

Connor had used the same kind of smile when he owned an antique store and was trying to sell exorbitantly priced eighteenth-century silver candlesticks to people whose entire house was wired with electric lights. "Sure," he agreed easily. "I'll wait for your hail." He cut off communications, leaned back in the chair with his hands locked behind his head, and blew out the recent cyclone of emotions in a long slow exhale. He had not been expecting that. And yet, it was what he wanted to be true: friends and companions, a life that held more than stalking and killing through ever lonelier years.

He got up and joined Viyar, who had taken a seat at the table and was thoughtfully sipping her tea. "Do you think they're real?" he asked her. "Not actors, not holograms or some other kind of AI?"

"Electrons on a screen can come from anywhere, so it could be a hoax, but why? And who would have programmed that scenario? You know Amanda; did she seem true to character?"

"She did. Especially since she's hiding something."

Viyar pushed her cup to the side. "It seems Cassandra didn't go into hiding alone."

"She took the whole school," Connor agreed. "The students and the teachers." Raven and Urushan were still alive. And all those children. And Chelle.

"So that's what you look like when you're happy," Viyar said quietly.

"Are you—"

"—in your head?" she finished for him. "I don't need to be, Connor. You have a very nice smile."

They docked theKuromatsuinside theNew Frontier's cargo bay (a tight fit through the hatch, but room enough inside). Only after Viyar had scanned the ship and found no one other than Amanda and Shariade did Connor open theKuromatsu's pressure doors.

Amanda greeted Connor with a kiss that erased any doubt of who she was or if she were happy to see him. She held onto both his hands as she looked at him, and her smile was as brilliant as sunlight on the sea. "Connor, darling, you are bringing such joy."

"As are you, Amanda." He pulled her closer for a hug, closed his eyes, and let his cheek rest against her hair. "I thought all of you…"

"I know." She patted him on the back in a comforting way. "I'm so sorry. We would never have left you behind, if we'd known." Her arms were tight about him, and she waited for him to be ready to let go.

Connor kissed her cheek before he turned to face Shariade.

She was a bit shorter and heavier than Amanda, though both women were in very good form. Shariade greeted him with a nod instead of a kiss or a hug, though her smile was equally brilliant. "I'm so glad to finally meet you! Cassandra has been telling me stories about you since I was a girl."

Connor could only hope Cassandra hadn't spoken ill of the presumed dead. "I look forward to hearing your tales of her." Shariade laughed, and Amanda and Connor joined in.

Finally, Connor introduced his companion. "This is Viyar, our navigator."

"I've been wondering!" Amanda exclaimed. "How ever did you find us all the way out here?"

"Magic," Connor replied.

Viyar rolled her eyes. "A combination of my psychic abilities and Connor's quickening, focused through a handcraft he and Cassandra had created together. Also, Cassandra had made a prophecy that she and I would meet again, and I dreamed that Connor would help me find her."

"As I said," Connor put in. "Magic."

Shariade laughed at that, but Amanda turned to study Viyar. "So you're the one she's been waiting for."

"Cassandra knows we're coming?" Connor asked.

"Oh, no," Amanda said with a smirk. "You will be a surprise. But not Viyar." She clapped her hands together once. "Come, let's eat."

As they followed Amanda and Shariade out of the hangar bay, Connor murmured to Viyar, "So that's what you look like when you're happy."

Her smile brightened into a grin. "Also relieved, vindicated, and reassured. It's been a long quest, and sometimes I've wondered…"

"Me, too."

Her smile shifted to show dimples. "I know."

In the lounge (a cube of a space decorated with more art by Cassandra and furnished with soft benches built along two walls and a flipdown table with eight popup chairs), dinner started with drinks, and Connor was pleased to see whiskey as an option.

"We set up a brewhouse soon after landing," Shariade was telling Viyar, who had chosen wine. "Methos says alcohol is a mark of civilization."

Methos knew his history. "What is this place?" Connor asked, as they took their seats at the dining table. "Where are we going?"

"A type-M planet, very Earth-like," Shariade answered. "Some of us call it Valinor, but mostly it's just 'home' or 'the town'. The coordinates are classified and encoded, so Amanda and I can't tell you where, because we don't know. We start the nav-program, and it takes us home."

Connor was uneasy trusting technology that much. "What if the nav-program doesn't work?"

"There's a distress beacon. If no one responds, we can head for a star we do recognize."

"A long trip," Connor observed.

Shariade shrugged. "This ship has cryopods. How long have you and Viyar been traveling?"

When Connor didn't respond, Viyar answered for them, "It's been a long trip."

"How many people in the settlement?" Connor asked Shariade next.

"More than two hundred."

"All immortal?" he asked in surprise. He turned to Amanda. "How do we get along?"

"Our settlement is built on holy ground. No dueling allowed."

He nodded, wondering why Cassandra hadn't consecrated the entire planet. She hated duels. "What about—"

Amanda placed cool fingertips atop his forearm then looked directly into his eyes. "Connor, I know you have a lot of questions, but as I said, it's complicated. When we arrive, there's an orientation to go through, and after that, Cassandra will answer your questions as best she can. You can talk to Methos and Chelle and Karla and anyone else, too. And me. But you should talk to Cassandra first."

And there it was. "What aren't you telling me, Amanda?"

Her smile was meant to calm and beguile. "Connor—"

"Amanda." He removed her hand from his arm. "What don't I know?"

"So many things," murmured Shariade, who then quickly shrank into her seat when both Amanda and Connor fixed her with irritated glares.

Connor then turned his gaze on Amanda. "What aren't you telling me?" he repeated.

Her lips tightened. "Information that is not mine to share. We'll be home in four days. Ask Cassandra then."

"Amanda." Her name came out in a growl.

"Connor." She snapped out his name with the icy authority of a Mother Superior. "I'm respecting her privacy the same way I have always respected yours. Please respect mine."

Damn it! He had traveled uncounted light years for decades, chasing a ghost, and he wanted answers now.

Amanda gave an exasperated sigh. "Viyar, please read my aura and tell Connor what you see."

"Mine, too," piped up Shariade.

Viyar closed her eyes before speaking. "No maliciousness, no danger, just a reluctance to speak of private matters. Excitement that you're here, anticipation of Cassandra's reaction, concern about you fitting in." She opened her eyes. "That last one seems justified."

Connor didn't need another scolding. "Viyar…"

"Please excuse me, I'm not used to company." She stood, her fingers massaging her temple. "Or reading auras. I'm going to bed."

"Viyar, I'm so sorry." Amanda stood, too. "I shouldn't have asked you."

"I should know my own limitations." She winced, looking tired, even frail. "I do know I need distance. Connor, please sleep in this ship, while I go back to my bunk on theKuromatsu.Shariade, can you show me the way?"

"Of course," she said, and she and Viyar left the room.

Amanda got up and left, too.

Connor poured himself another glass of whiskey and did some mental math. A century ago, there had been a hundred or so immortals, plus twenty-eight pre-immortals at Cloudrise. More than half the immortals did not "play nice with others", so they wouldn't have been invited to this refuge of Valinor. So, about forty adult settlers, max.

The logistics of finding, collecting, and then quietly disappearing an additional hundred and fifty children were daunting. More orphanages on other planets? A "field trip" or two that never returned? How many immortals had Methos spirited away, and how many had he actually killed? And how had they fooled all the Watchers?

Cassandra had "died" only five years after his own disappearance, so they wouldn't have had much time to organize that evacuation. There must have been a second or even third and fourth wave, and that "orientation" made it clear he wasn't the only one to straggle in.

Who else was in this home for immortals, and would he even want to stay?

So many things he didn't know.