The Gate to Futures Past Read Online Free

was, we’d not enough Healers either, nor should their Talent be, as he put it, “wasted on minor injuries” when there were those who’d lost limbs or had internal injuries, crushed in the Oud attacks.
    While I’d no such gift, I sent him my strength whenever he was too preoccupied to notice, to speed things along.
    â€œWell, then,” I said, answering his smile with my own, and stepped on the blanket, arms open. Time to be preoccupied.
    My hair rose in a cloud of gold, fully in agreement.

    An uncounted while or so later, at the delicious point of no longer caring where we were and well on our way to somewhere else entirely, a voice intruded like a shower of cold, slimy eggs.
    â€œYour pardon.”
    Normally, I was happy to see my cousin and heart-kin, Barac di Bowart, as was Morgan.
    Normally, seeing what he was seeing in return, Barac would have made himself unseen as quickly as possible. That he didn’t?
    Meant a problem. I growled under my breath as Morgan’s arms tightened and then let go. He whispered “Later” in my ear, finishing with the press of his lips. Beneath,
heat.
    With laudable, if ominous, composure, I detached from my Chosen and stood. Locks of hair, still aroused, whipped my shoulders, then sulked down my back.
    No need to ask how Barac found us—he’d skills of his own, and was First Scout for good reason—only why. More exactly, why me? We had a Council. “What is it?” I grumbled, not hurrying to pull my clothing together.
    â€œWho. Luek and Nyso.”
    I knew the pair. The di Kessa’ats were from Camos, the Inner System world where the Clan had had such concentrated Power and wealth, they’d built our Council Chamber inside the Human capital building with no one the wiser. It hadn’t saved them from the Assemblers.
    Like many who’d survived, the di Kessa’ats struggled to comprehend the drastic change in their fortunes, let alone find their place in a shipful of strangers. Nyso’d been having a harder time than most.
    He’d the Power to be a problem, one well beyond my cousin. Tle di Parth had the strength to overrule him and would relish using it, but Barac, like others, prudently kept his distance from the unpredictable Chooser.
    Making this, I sighed inwardly, my job. “What have they done?”
    â€œThey’ve moved back to their room. I couldn’t stop them.” Gesturing apology, Barac kept his gaze pointedly over my shoulder.
    â€œWhy?” I paused, my arm half inside its sleeve. “It’s almost shipnight.” After liftoff, we’d been relieved to find
Sona
provided an alternating cycle of light and dark; the need for a diurnal rhythm being common to Human and Clan. We’d spread ourselves out to satisfy another need, for privacy,
Sona
having more than sufficient unused rooms.
    Only to discover that
Sona
stopped heating any area outside the Dream Chamber during shipnight.
    I may have lost my temper with it then, too.
    â€œThey can’t stay there.” Morgan tucked away our blanket, unconcerned by the alien circuitry blinking under his boots. “They’ll freeze.”
    â€œI told them.” Barac gave a small shrug. “They claim they can’t stay in the Core.” My Human’s term for the Dream Chamber; we all used it.
    Just as we accepted his reasoning, for Morgan viewed
Sona
’s bullying tactic as for our benefit, to ensure we stayed as much as possible in the center of the ship, which offered the greatest protection from radiation.
    The Om’ray were reasonably content, appeased by their sense of one another; the M’hiray, who’d lived worlds apart, were far less so. Morgan had silenced complaints, including mine, with a too-casual comment that the ship could as easily confine us to the Core for the duration of the journey and there was no telling what might trigger that decision.
    A reminder we dealt with a preexisting