Page 28 of Hainn

“I calculate I have ninety six hours of functionality remaining,” MARL said in the whispery voice. His surface went completely black and the lights flickered.

Daegan slammed the table with his fist. “After ten thousand years you’re running out of powernow?” he snarled, predator very much in evidence. He turned to Aydarr with a grimace. “I told you we were relying too much on this alien device.”

“Simmer down, brother. We wouldn’t have accomplished nearly as much as we have, including rescuing you and your pack, without MARL.” Aydarr’s response was more measured than Jezari would have expected after the way Daegan spoke out.

“And what about my mate?” Daegan asked pointing a thick brown talon at MARL. “She still has that fucking piece of you in her head. Am I to lose my mate when you shut down?”

Flo stared straight ahead, lips set in a straight line, no emotion showing on her face.

Daegan addressed her with intensity, as if he and his mate were the only two people in the room. “If so, then I’ll die as well. There’s no life for me without you.”

His enforcers and Hainn protested immediately and there was a minor hubbub in the room, quelled by a full throated roar from Aydarr, which buffeted Jezari like a physical blow.

“We’re not talking about our own people dying,” the Supreme Alpha said in the stunned silence. “We’ll take any and all steps necessary to prevent that outcome.”

“I don’t know what will happen,” MARL said, drifting from side to side on the tray. “I know my manifestations will cease to function when I do but whether my demise will affect Flo?—”

“I’m linked to you,” the woman in question said in a flat tone. “Better to assume I will be affected.”

“Difficult as it is to do in this moment, we need to pull back from the personal to the bigger picture,” Aydarr saidapologetically. “We have less than a hundred hours to evacuate and get our people to safety?—”

“Dubious safety,” Jamokan said grimly. “Some of our number are bound to be recaptured or killed, even if we disperse the groups widely and travel different routes.”

“MARL, is there anything you can do or we can do to stop this?” Jill asked. “Or to supplement your own resources at least for a while, so we could do a more measured departure?”

“The core of the unit inside me is decaying faster than originally anticipated,” MARL said. “I’ve been unable to reconnect to my base station and regenerate for all these centuries, which was a challenge unforeseen by my creators. There was a module on Nindjak’s ship which would have allowed this cleansing and re-energizing but of course the ship broke up on hitting the atmosphere and shattered into a million pieces, now at the bottom of the lake here.”

“That’s not true,” Jezari said. She rose to her feet and became the instant center of astonished attention but she was focused on MARL. “Either you’re lying or you really don’t know better.”

“Why would he lie?” Jill asked.

“And what gives you any standing to make such a statement?” Aydarr’s demand followed on the heels of his mate’s astonished question.

“He’d lie because of what his precious authority was actually doing all those millennia ago,” Jezari said with disdain. “The revered Nindjak wasn’t some benevolent explorer collecting scientific date. Was he?” She directed her challenge at the AI which remained silent. Switching her gaze to Aydarr’s angry face, she let her own emotions empower her to stand up to the Supreme Alpha. “And I have the ability to state the truth because I’ve been there. More than once. The ship is in three large pieces at the bottom of the lake, at a two mile depth, with awide field of smaller scattered debris. The pressure and the cold have preserved everything—everything, do you hear me, MARL? I even saw a few panels still activated on the flight deck in the second largest piece of wreckage.”

Excited babel broke out in the room and there was buzzing in her head which she supposed meant the telepathic discussion was raging among the attendees as well.

Is that what you were doing the day I rescued you from the whirlpool?Hainn asked.

She glanced at him but didn’t comment. “The ship isn’t all that’s down there. I explored the hold, MARL. I’ve seen the specimens. I’ve seenher.Your Nindjak was no better than the fucking Khagrish, was he? Stealing a sentient being away from her life and making her into a twisted exhibit, like in a museum of horror.” Her voice broke.

MARL lifted off the tray a few inches and drifted unsteadily toward her. The room was silent, the attendees’ attention riveted on the AI and Jezari. Stopping in front of Keshara, who moved over so Jezari could stand at the table, MARL said, “He thought she was beautiful. The most astonishingly perfect being he’d ever seen. He was a collector of beauty and the rare. He bought and sold but he kept her.”

“She didn’t belong to him!” Jezari screamed.

Hainn was there, putting his arms around her but she pushed him away.

“She’s dead and entombed down there.” Jezari forced herself to modulate her tone and pull her fangs into their sheaths. ”All alone and forgotten under two miles of water, on a planet that isn’t even her own.”

“Yes, she’s dead. He…preserved her. She was his prized possession.”

“You make me sick.” Now she did turn into Hainn’s embrace, grateful for the shelter of his arms.

“We’ll take a ten minute break,” Aydarr said at full volume. “Medic, get her a cup of tea.”

“Yes, sir.”

“When we reconvene I’m going to want to hear the entire story of this dive you made, Daughter, and what you found.” Aydarr’s voice was soft but Jezari heard him with her ears and in her mind. “Clear the room, now.”

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