Crossing the Line Read Online Free Page B

human’s.
    But these were pure wess’har, looking for all the world like paramilitary seahorses. She gestured to Josh to leave, and focused on the female walking along the gallery opposite her, high above the main street of Constantine and almost level with the roof of the church of St. Francis. Shan ran up the winding stairway after her, two steps at a time.
    â€œYou looking for me?” she called.
    The female spun round and froze. It was never a good idea to startle someone who was armed, least of all a wess’har. But the creature cocked her pretty chess piece head to one side and stared.
    â€œAre you the gethes Shan Frankland?”
    â€œWho’s asking?”
    â€œI don’t understand.”
    â€œYeah, I’m Superintendent Frankland.” As if her rank might make a difference: it was simply habit. “And who the fuck are you?”
    â€œI am Nevyan.” The junior matriarch blinked rapidly and Shan was momentarily distracted by those unnerving four-lobed pupils set in gold irises. “You will come with us. The matriarchs know you are infected.”
    â€œWhere’s Aras?”
    â€œIn the Temporary City.”
    â€œI want to see him.”
    â€œAsk Mestin.”
    â€œI’m asking you.”
    â€œAsk Mestin.” Nevyan was frozen in that characteristic wess’har wait-and-see reaction. Her irises snapped open and shut again. She smelled intimidated but she was holding her ground pretty well. “She is senior matriarch here.”
    â€œOkay, then we’ll go to see Mestin.” They stood and looked at each other, and Shan took a guess that Nevyan had absolutely no idea about humans, and knew even less about her. “And this has nothing to do with any of the people here. You understand? You leave them out of this.”
    â€œI was told to find you and Aras Sar Iussan. I have no orders regarding the colony.”
    The two males had wandered up behind Nevyan now, watching. Weapons at their sides, they appeared satisfied there was going to be no violence. Shan kept her eyes fixed on Nevyan’s until the junior matriarch broke the gaze and began walking towards the ramp that led up and out of the subterranean settlement. Shan fell in behind her. How old was she in human terms? A teenager, a young woman? Shan couldn’t tell yet.
    One thing was for sure.
    She hadn’t been around long enough to know that prisoners—even compliant ones—needed searching.
    Â 
    Mestin decided she would hand over command of the Temporary City with not one pang of regret.
    The last year had been a hard one. She had not expected it to be so difficult; Bezer’ej was normally a quiet tour of duty, somewhere to contemplate and study while the business of maintaining the cordon around the planet went on unnoticed, carried out by her husbands and children. And four years of her service had been just that, until the new humans came, and the isenj tried to follow them, and the fighting had started.
    We will be home soon , she thought. Home, and maybe nothing more arduous to do than making decisions for the city of F’nar and educating her children. If the gethes stay away .
    She sat out in the garden, well-wrapped against the cold with her dhren pulled up over her head and shoulders. The opalescent fabric shaped itself obligingly around her jaw to shut out the wind. The first thing I shall do is walk around the whole perimeter of F’nar, right around the city . It was not that she disliked Bezer’ej. It was unspoiled and exotic and beautiful, but it was not home, and she needed home very badly right then.
    She couldn’t take her eyes off the moon, off Wess’ej. Somewhere—right on the limb of the illuminated part, right there —was home, F’nar, one of the thousand modest city states of Wess’ej, warm and peaceful and in balance with the world.
    Mestin stared at the imagined point until F’nar slipped into the darkness