The Price of Conquest

Jonathan again followed Saunorel through the baffling tangle of corridors in the Fruelar. Try as he might, he could not get the troubled look the th'Maran prisoner had given him out of his head.

What could so unsettle such a powerful being? Surely, nothing about Jonathan set him apart from any other human except, perhaps, his knowledge of the principles behind the Stingray's systems, principles similar to those behind th'Maran technology. Was that what had them worried? It made little sense, but he could think of no other explanation.

He shook his head and tucked away his newest questions with all of the others.

Right now, his concern was for Kressa and what might have happened to her. Saunorel's unwillingness—or inability—to talk about it doubled his anxiety, and the seemingly endless journey through the Fruelar was not helping to improve his mood.

"How much farther?" he asked in a harsh whisper.

"We are nearly there. The path to the Om-Mar temple is there, to the left." Saunorel gestured to an intersection ahead.

She paused at the corner when she reached it, peered both ways, and then retreated several steps. "Someone's coming."

Jonathan stayed close beside her. Soft footfalls approached the intersection from the right.

Saunorel reached a hand out to touch his.

Still your thoughts, her voice whispered in his mind. I will shield you. She glanced to the right, as if looking through the wall to whoever approached.

A moment later, a tall, silver-clad th'Maran woman appeared. She moved slowly along the cross corridor. Her face showed no expression, and her pewter eyes stared dully ahead of her.

Saunorel gasped. "Emre!" She dashed after the woman, and Jonathan followed. "Emre! It's Saunorel."

Emre continued toward the door at the end of the hallway, seemingly oblivious to Saunorel's calls.

"That's Admiral Shaw's friend, right?" Jonathan whispered.

Emre paused and turned to look at him. Her eyes brightened, and she started to speak, but then her gaze clouded again, her features went slack, and she turned back toward the door.

"Emre!" Saunorel called again.

She did not respond.

"What's wrong with her?" Jonathan asked.

Saunorel shook her head. "I cannot read her. Her mind is blocked, like something is controlling her. It is like the block I felt on Kressa, like…" She met Jonathan's eyes. "Like the touch the shorom felt on you."

Emre opened the door at the end of the corridor, and light filled the hallway. Jonathan blinked in the sudden brightness. Beyond the opening, sunlight glinted off the narrow, elevated walkway between the two halves of the Fruelar.

Emre stepped through the doorway.

Something urged Jonathan after her, and he rushed forward without taking the time to wonder why.

* * *

Bright light exploded in Kressa's fading consciousness. Her fluttering heart started to beat again, and she sucked in a huge lungful of air.

Live. The thought swirled through her awareness, gentle yet demanding.

She opened her eyes. The L'Aron Om stood before her, pale and staring, looking much as he had when he sensed the gate's destruction. He gasped and spun to face the main entrance.

The lobby door opened, and Emre stepped into the room.

The light and sound within the chamber flared, but Emre seemed not to notice. Entranced, she moved past Kressa, past the gaping L'Aron Om and the shocked looks of Nari and Shella, to stare, enraptured, at the towering double doors of the Om-Mar temple.

Two more figures rushed through the lobby door behind Emre.

"Jonathan! Saunorel!" Kressa lurched to her feet, stumbled toward Jonathan, and collapsed into his arms, relief flooding her.

Vaguely, she recalled touching his mind, as well as Saunorel's, during her battle with the Om-Mar, but it hadn't fully registered until now.

She gave Saunorel a warm smile, then looked up at Jonathan. "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to make sure you weren't giving the th'Maran a rough time," he said with a hint of a smile, then his expression turned serious, and he touched her face, his eyes filled with concern. "Are you all right?"

She nodded and looked across the lobby at the L'Aron Om.

The th'Maran leader shifted his gaze from her and Jonathan to where Emre stood before the temple's double doors.

"Jonathan," Kressa whispered, "we've got to get out of here."

"Listen . . ."

The whispered word came from everywhere in the room and from within Kressa. She gazed about uncertainly.

The mental lights that flickered throughout the room flowed toward the temple doors. They gathered in front of Emre and swirled into a globe of shining, pulsating light.

"This… must… stop." The voice spoke again, slow and weak.

A vast consciousness that was not Kressa Bryant formed within her and grew to encompass the room. It touched everyone within it, joining them in a loose communal mind, then it continued outward and downward through the building, much as Kressa had sent her awareness during the battle with the Om-Mar, drawing in each consciousness it encountered.

Kressa recognized Cody, B'Okhaim, and Tyler as they were pulled into the link, followed by several th'Maran minds. She sensed the emotions of those who shared the bond and knew they sensed hers.

She felt Jonathan's concern over what had occurred on the way here, experienced Saunorel's confusion and unease at what was happening now, and detected the bewildered thoughts of the L'Aron Om and Nari and Shella. Awed wonder poured from Emre.

Beyond the feelings of those in the room, less powerful but still present, astonishment, reverence, and fear flowed from those elsewhere in the building.

Suddenly, Kressa realized she had carried the Om-Mar's essence within her since she was taken from the temple. Its presence in her mind had allowed her to experience the L'Aron Om's thoughts and feelings, understand his language, and overcome his insistence that she let go of life.

Oddly, she felt no fear of this being that had tried to take everything from her and now shared her physical form.

"All… is wrong." The voice spoke again, and a wavering, ghostlike apparition coalesced from the globe of light before the temple doors. Slowly, it solidified into a humanoid shape. The being's features settled into the hazy form of something neither male nor female, not altogether human, yet not completely th'Maran.

A moment later, the Om-Mar's presence slipped completely from Kressa to possess the glowing shape.

She studied the strange apparition and realized it existed only within the link, a mental projection the Om-Mar created to relate to those in the room on a more familiar level.

After another brief moment, the shining figure looked up, and its gaze locked on the L'Aron Om.

"Why do you tell untruths?" the figure asked, its voice strong now.

The th'Maran leader gaped.

"Why do you speak falsehoods to your people," the figure continued, "those who trust you? Were we not clear in our instructions? The task we set for you was simple."

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The L'Aron Om took a stumbling step backward. "Who… who are you?"

"You know us, L'Aron Om. Do not deny what you feel."

"Om—Om-Mar? But…"

"But the woman banished us? Destroyed us? Is that what you ask?"

He nodded.

"That is not so, as our presence reveals. The woman gave us the strength to break from the temple. Answer our question, L'Aron Om. Why do you tell untruths?"

"Untruths? I do not understand."

"You claimed fear and anger at our disappearance, when you felt only annoyance at the delay of your plans. You deny what we are to yourself and tell your people only what you would have them hear. You have turned from your task."

The L'Aron Om straightened to face the glowing figure. His jaw clenched as he struggled to hide his feelings, but his fear and uncertainty surged through the link.

"Why are you here?" he demanded.

The Om-Mar started to answer, but a convulsion shook it. Its image shimmered. The conscious presence in the link waned, and the light faded. After a long moment, the figure reappeared, its eyes still on the L'Aron Om.

"You have done much harm, Sheszeran," it said.

The L'Aron Om swallowed hard, and the shame he experienced at the speaking of his name flowed through the link.

"You have misled your people," the Om-Mar continued. "We sent you to seek your brethren, to unite with them. Instead, you attempted to use their knowledge to further your own power. The th'Maran are not interested in power."

"But there was so much we were given without understanding!" The L'Aron Om's voice cracked. "I only wanted to understand what you gave us. The technology…" He drew a ragged breath. "I feared the humans, feared their violence would taint my people. As it has! The humans are—" he groped for a word, "—barbaric. They do not understand us."

"As you do not understand them," the Om-Mar said. "What are you?"

"I am th'Maran," the L'Aron Om said, his voice full of pride.

"Know that you are th'Maran as the man behind you, the one who is not from Marasyn, is Teneian, and the woman with him is Terran and Nepurhan. You are all human, and you need one another. That is why we sent you to unite. The th'Maran woman before you, the one I called here, bears the children of one you call human. Her children will be the first of a race of beings we have planned for eons, the next step in your peoples' evolution."

Emre closed her eyes and sank to her knees, head bowed.

Kressa slipped from Jonathan's arms and went to her. She knelt beside the th'Maran woman and put an arm around her shoulders. Emre gave her a grateful look and leaned her head against Kressa's.

"You need those you call human, Sheszeran," the Om-Mar said. "The th'Maran have paid dearly for their abilities. Think how long it has been since a child was born on Marasyn."

The distress brought about by the Om-Mar's words rippled through the link, and Kressa sensed the truth few th'Maran wanted to acknowledge. There hadn't been a live birth on Marasyn in nearly a decade.

"You need the humans for their strength," the Om-Mar said, "and they need you for your gentleness, the gifts of the mind, and… unity. There was a purpose behind that unity, a purpose from which we would have benefited, but that is behind us. We now know that it will never be."

Emre pulled out of Kressa's hold and swept to her feet. She faced the Om-Mar's shining image, defiant, her agitated emotions spilling through the link.

Kressa stood up beside her. She recalled the questions she had asked Emre about the th'Maran purpose, questions Emre was unable to answer. Now Kressa understood how much her inability to answer those questions had unsettled the th'Maran woman.

Head held high, Emre asked the questions now, "What is the purpose? Why must the th'Maran and hu— Why must we unite?"

A long moment of silence ensued.

"Those are difficult questions," the Om-Mar said finally. "Questions that require more than one answer, for the original purpose no longer exists. But others wonder, as do you."

Jonathan stepped forward to stand beside Kressa, an anxious tightness around his eyes. She started to question him, but the Om-Mar spoke again.

"Ours is an ancient race. For eons, we traveled the stars, learning and sharing our discoveries with our brethren. After much time, we grew weak and it became difficult to control our movement through the cosmos. Then we discovered a young world."

Through the link, Kressa experienced the wonder of traveling across the universe, unfettered by ships or other equipment, the cosmos spread around her, its marvels open to direct exploration. She found the sensation simultaneously enticing and terrifying, and felt similar reactions from the others in the link.

As the Om-Mar spoke, the image of a planet formed in the link. The world looked distorted, viewed through senses different from her own.

"On this world," the Om-Mar said, "we found physical life and saw a chance to save ourselves. With bodies, we could again control our movement, experience our surroundings through physical senses, and share the wonders we discovered. Intent on nurturing this life into a form we could use, we claimed the world and prepared many more."

The link filled with a deluge of images and information. The sensation reminded Kressa uncomfortably of when the Om-Mar opened its mind to her. She struggled to pull her awareness from the link; others tried to do the same.

The flood of fact and sensation halted as the Om-Mar sensed its audience's inability to process so much information.

Again it spoke, "We began the carefully controlled evolution of human life on many planets, thrilling in the diversity revealed and mourning the loss of those that did not survive. We continued to weaken. Claiming our physical bodies became a race against time.

"Finally, after many millennia, we thought the time for a joining had arrived," the Om-Mar went on. "We selected humans from dozens of worlds and tried to merge with them. We failed. Many of us became trapped in bodies we could not control. Those of us who escaped realized we needed bodies whose minds could support us. We chose carefully from our human stock, selecting those with the potential for advanced psi abilities, and prepared a new world: Marasyn."

A wave of shock, hope, and reverence surged from the th'Maran minds within the link.

The Om-Mar nodded, acknowledging the mixed reactions. "We knew the necessary inbreeding would weaken the th'Maran physically, so we planted a stronger desire to explore in the original humans, trusting they would reach the stars, find Marasyn, and unite with the th'Maran. Their children would be everything we hoped for, the perfect blend of physical and mental abilities."

The Om-Mar looked at Emre, and Kressa thought it would address the th'Maran woman directly, but then it looked back at the others.

"Twenty and more centuries passed," it said. "The breeding of the th'Maran cost us and the th'Maran much. Many of the original humans reached space, but their explorations ended abruptly."

"The Alliance War," Kressa whispered, realizing the war was the primary event that caused humans to stop exploring the galaxy.

Her thoughts echoed through the link, and the Om-Mar nodded.

"The willingness to fight for and claim territory is essential to nearly every living thing," it said. "We made certain the instinct was strong in humans, but our decision to increase it even more as a way to drive the humans toward the stars may very well have caused the war that stopped the expansion we sought. Perhaps this is part of the price we must pay for our meddling.

"Because of the war, we had to use nearly the last of our energy to push the th'Maran into space," the Om-Mar continued. "Later, when that process proved too slow, we tried to give the original humans the knowledge they needed to reach Marasyn. We lost much in those last few years, but finally we succeeded. The th'Maran reached their human forebears.

"We desired to meet a human, and one was brought." The Om-Mar gestured toward Kressa. "To our surprise, we found within her everything we thought we needed: control of the mind and strength of body. Vainly we sought to join with her…"

The Om-Mar consciousness grew faint, and its form shimmered weakly. Emre went to Nari and Shella. The Triad linked and offered the Om-Mar its combined power.

Strengthened, the being began to speak again. "In trying to join this time, we learned why the first joining failed and why our plan will never succeed. It is not the weakness of the human mind that keeps us from controlling human bodies, it is the strength of human individuality. To beings such as ourselves, beings who thrive on unity of mind and purpose, it is a foreign power, one we cannot overcome.

"However, we did not fail completely. We set out to create beings who could explore and learn and share. In that, we succeeded. It is true you have weaknesses, but so did we. We overcame some and learned to live with others, as will you." The Om-Mar's form flickered unsteadily.

Jonathan took a step closer to the fading figure, and an emotion bordering on anger filled the link.

"What about the rest of it?" Jonathan demanded. "What about those of you trapped in humans? What haven't you told us about them?"

Kressa wondered at Jonathan's questions. Did he know something the rest of them did not? She tried to focus on the feel of his mind within the link, to separate it from the others. For a moment, she felt something else there, an almost-consciousness on the fringe of his awareness, very much like the thing that reacted when she tried to shield his mind from the th'Maran priest in Cint-Istep.

The Om-Mar turned its shining gaze on Jonathan. "After we tried to join with humans, our trapped brethren discovered they could sometimes transfer between bodies. Subtly, they pushed their human hosts to develop rituals that would bring about the circumstances necessary for the transfer.

"These rituals appeared across human cultures as rites of passage, ceremonies of manhood or fertility, coming-of-age rituals, even birth and death rites. The rituals exposed the trapped ones to many potential hosts, letting them choose one with the abilities they needed to continue their existence. In this way, a few survived, transferring from elder to child or master to student.

"Some twenty of your years ago, barely an instant to us, we sought to bring the original humans to Marasyn by sharing our knowledge, giving them the desire to search for the world and the ability to reach it. In our weakness, we could touch only those who possessed a remnant of a trapped one. Of those, only one had the ability to understand and use the knowledge."

The Om-Mar gazed around the room, and then gestured toward Jonathan. "Now he has come to you. He has given you the knowledge to explore the vast distances of space, knowledge the th'Maran were given but could never hope to understand."

A confused swirl of emotions flooded through the link from Jonathan as he recognized the source of his theories and realized why the th'Maran who touched his mind feared him. To them, he carried a piece of their god.

The almost-consciousness within him solidified and merged with the Om-Mar's dimming figure.

"His knowledge is our gift to you," the Om-Mar's voice faded with its form, "as are the children who will be born to Emre and others. Use these gifts to overcome your differences, to seek the others we created, to explore, to learn…"

The voice died away and the figure disappeared.