The Price of Conquest

"Shaw actually lured Gaunis to Arecia so you could ambush the Kinsa?" Kressa asked, incredulous, and then shook her head.

She was sitting at a small table in Jonathan's quarters on board the Stingray. They had shuttled up to the ship from Marasyn several hours earlier and were awaiting the final tests on the ITD. Once the drive proved fully functional, they would return to Arecia. In the meantime, Kressa had tried to keep herself busy and avoid thinking about what happened on Marasyn. Talking to Jonathan to catch up on what she'd missed gave her something else to focus on.

"Shaw didn't lure Gaunis anywhere," Jonathan said from his seat across the table. "Gaunis was coming in to take over. Shaw simply neglected to mention that we were there."

"Damn," she breathed.

Jonathan smiled at her. "I guess your father's not so bad after all."

Kressa smirked. "He gets you to do his dirty work for him and that makes him 'not so bad'?"

"Emre seems to think he's okay," Jonathan pointed out. "Don't forget, her child will be your half brother or sister."

Kressa frowned and glanced away. Emre. Her child. She didn't want to think about them either.

"Good or bad," Jonathan continued, "what Shaw did allowed us to take Arecia back and destroy Gaunis's flagship."

"Too bad you didn't destroy Gaunis along with it. Are you sure he survived the attack?"

Jonathan nodded. "We monitored the comm traffic from the rescue ships, and it was pretty clear the admiral got out alive. Still, losing his flagship is bound to weaken Gaunis, and what we did should convince the rest of the admirals to leave the Free Worlds alone."

Kressa wished she could share his confidence. She had no reason to doubt him, but the issues between the Free Worlds and the United Galaxy seemed simultaneously trivial and far too complex to grasp at the moment. She wondered if that was a result of her bond with the Om-Mar.

She rubbed a hand across the back of her neck, banishing the thought before it could go any further.

"How's your head?" Jonathan asked.

"It's all right. Nothing a good long nap shouldn't take care of."

"You're welcome to use my bed if you want, or I can get you your own quarters."

She shook her head. Her encounter with the Om-Mar had left her mentally and physically exhausted, but she could not imagine trying to sleep. That would mean silence, darkness, and giving everything that had happened a chance to make its way into her awareness.

Jonathan leaned forward and caught her gaze. "Are you okay with Emre's decision to come back to Arecia with us?"

Kressa furrowed her brow, baffled by the seeming non sequitur. "Yeah. Why shouldn't I be?"

"Every time anyone's mentioned Emre or any other th'Maran since we got to the ship, you've either clammed up or changed the subject."

She glanced away, and then reluctantly met Jonathan's eyes. "It's just… I don't know. What happened on Marasyn. What we learned…" She took a deep breath. Maybe it would be good to talk about it.

"I was a little surprised when Emre asked if she could come with us," Kressa said, "but it makes sense she'd want to. She was pregnant once before, with a th'Maran child, but the Om-Mar deemed her 'unworthy' to bear children, and the L'Aron Om had the pregnancy terminated. Even with the Om-Mar's apparent approval of this pregnancy, she might not think it's safe to remain on Marasyn."

"I imagine she'd like to see Shaw again, too," Jonathan said. "Staying here would put her chances of that at about zero."

Kressa gave a distracted nod. "Jon, do you think what the Om-Mar said about Emre's child and any other human-th'Maran children is true? Do you think they'll be somehow… special?"

"We should have the answer to that in about nine months, maybe less," he said with a smile, and then sobered. "There will probably be something unique about them. After spending so much time manipulating things, you'd think some good would come of the Om-Mar's plan." He frowned and glanced away, and Kressa wondered if he had his own concerns about what had happened.

"Until we're sure about the children, do you think we should allow humans and th'Maran to have them?" she asked.

"It's a free galaxy, Kressa—at least I hope our little corner of it remains free. I certainly can't imagine making any laws against humans and th'Maran having children. And even if we did, it's a hard thing to control. As the Om-Mar pointed out, th'Maran are human, and when you put a boy-human and a girl-human together, nature tends to take its course.

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"For all we know, there could be other pregnant th'Maran out there right now," he went on, "or humans pregnant with a th'Maran's child. If one day we discover the children are a threat, we'll do something about it. But I know it won't come to that."

"You seem pretty sure."

"I am. When the Om-Mar was talking to us in the Fruelar, I… understood everything that had happened, everything it had done." He stood up suddenly and began to wander around the small room, distractedly picking up stray items and then setting them back down.

"The knowledge didn't come through the link that bound us all together," he said. "It came from somewhere else, someplace deep inside me. It wasn't anything I'd ever learned or been told. I just knew it. Like racial memory, if there were such a thing."

"The trapped Om-Mar," Kressa said.

He nodded and pursed his lips. "It all made perfect sense at the time. It's not quite so clear now, but I'm certain the children were never meant to replace us. Yes, they'll be different, but not dangerously so. At this point, I'm actually rather curious to find out what those differences will be."

He returned to his seat. "What about you? Aren't you at least a little excited about having a baby brother or sister? There aren't too many people who can claim to have a sibling that's the first member of a new race of humans."

She smiled at his playful tone. "I really haven't given it much thought, but… yeah, I guess I am a little excited." She relaxed back into her chair, surprised how cathartic talking out her concerns was turning out to be.

After all this time, she mused, you think I'd have learned not to hold so much in. But except for long, one-sided rants with Connie as her only audience, she'd seldom had anyone to talk to. Halav rarely had time to discuss anything unless it concerned the Guard; that was one of the reasons they were no longer together. Jonathan, on the other hand, seemed to sense when there was something she needed to talk about.

She met his eyes and smiled. "Thanks."

His brows arched. "For what?"

"For being you."

He chuckled. "Well, I can't be anyone else. I tried, but it just didn't work out." He frowned again.

"All right," she said. "Your turn. Spill it. What's bothering you?"

"What do you mean? There's noth—"

She held up a hand. "No fair. You wanted me to talk about Emre, and I did. Now it's your turn. Something happened on Marasyn that you don't want to talk about. Trust me, talking helps."

He breathed an exaggerated sigh and rolled his eyes. "Women. All they ever want to do is talk."

She sneered. "That's right, Westlex, all we want to do is talk. So, humor me. Tell me what's bothering you."

"It's nothing really. Nothing that happened anyway."

She studied him for a moment. "It's the Om-Mar that was inside you, isn't it? The trapped one?"

"That's part of it."

"What's the rest of it?"

He sighed. "I just can't help thinking that nothing I've done in my life, nothing I've thought or believed or felt or decided, wasn't at least partially influenced by it."

"I don't believe that," Kressa said. "The Om-Mar was able to give you knowledge because of the trapped one, but I don't think it was some all-encompassing force in your life. Do you think or feel or believe any differently now that it's gone?"

He stared past her for a moment, his expression thoughtful. "I don't think so, but would I even be able to tell?"

"I think you would," she said.

"Still, everything I've ever done of any significance, all the things I've given my world… It was all a lie."

"It wasn't a lie. Maybe you didn't come up with all of the ideas on your own, but you did say you'd been working on something similar, and the Om-Mar said you were the only one capable of understanding what it had to share. That's got to be worth something."

One side of his mouth curled in a hint of a smile. "So I should look at it as the 'gift' the Om-Mar made it out to be?"

"Why not? It was a gift, wasn't it? Maybe they gave you the knowledge to further their own plans, but look at what you did with it. You helped keep the Pattys from taking over the Free Worlds. Besides, you were able to overcome the Om-Mar's compulsion to go out exploring with your own decision to— How did you put it? 'Get the humans we know of back together.'"

"True. That certainly wasn't in keeping with the Om-Mar's grand plan," he said with a touch of sarcasm.

Kressa smiled. "There you have it, then. Your life is your own. If the Om-Mar affected a few things in your past, it's over now. You're free." She paused as something came to mind. "The Om-Mar said the trapped ones transferred from person to person over the generations. Do you have any idea who your Om-Mar came from?"

He hesitated only a moment before answering. "Grandma Teneia. It had to be. She was the explorer, the seeker, the visionary. A perfect repository for an Om-Mar."

Kressa nodded. "And because of that, you now have the chance to do what she wanted. Explore."

He gave a short laugh. "I think I need to get the Stingray repaired first, and make sure everything's going all right for Arecia and the rest of the Free Worlds. After that, though…"

He laid a hand on the wall beside him and gazed around the room. "Yeah, if everything works out with the United Galaxy, maybe I can take this girl out on a real shakedown cruise." He returned his eyes to Kressa. "What about you? Are you going to go back to trading or stay with the Guard?"

Kressa considered the question and smiled again. "I don't know. I thought I might try something new. I've been thinking about signing onto an explorer. Know anyone who's hiring?"

Children of the Om-Mar
continues in
Book Two: The Warriors