Page 76 of Enthraller

“Pontia said you were on a monster planet with him.”

Linao gave a bitter smile. “They did to my beautiful battleship exactly what they nearly did to your runner this afternoon. Shot it to bits from nearspace. While we were on-planet. Without any way of getting home.”

Wren blinked. That was not what she had been expecting. “Why?”

“My ship had been damaged. The inhabitants of Fjern, the planet we stumbled across, they had strange abilities. Such a mix of backward tech and almost . . . magic.” She shook her head. “They caused a runner to crash into the front end of my ship and it started to burn. There was no way we could take off, and more of the Fjerna warriors were coming. So, rather than leave our tech behind, they decided to destroy it, whether my crew and I were clear or not.”

“Fjern.” Wren said the word softly. “What do the Fjerna look like?” She imagined something like the other sentient beings the Verdant String had come into contact with; the Caruso or the Hathr.

Evette Linao shot her a look. “Just like us. Seems the ancestors didn’t just land on the Verdant String. One of the motherships crash-landed on the monster pit that is Fjern. And the people it was carrying survived.” She tilted her head to one side, looking at Ed. “But they’ve developed more than just blue hair and a tendency to secrets.”

“What’s different about them?” Ed asked, and while he sounded calm, Wren sensed he was insulted by Evette Linao’s comments on his almost extinct people.

“They say they were given something called gyra. Some kind of technological advantage by our original ancestors, becausethey were headed for less accommodating sectors of space. The gyra are strictly controlled, given to certain warriors, and when they need to protect their people, they bulk out to fight the monsters that are constantly trying to kill them.”

“Gyra.” Wren didn’t know why that word had such an effect on her, but she felt it soul-deep. Her nanos seemed to be vibrating with intense emotion.

“They have some ceremony to pass the gyra on, and the warriors who are chosen live in special compounds. It’s archaic and very structured. But then, it’s the only control they have on that wild place. Chaos is too mild a term for what Fjern is.”

Bulk out, her nanos thought.We could do that, but it might harm you.

Let’s leave things are they are. The silver shield is pretty effective,Wren answered.

Yes, they agreed. But they were intrigued. She could hear it in their tone.We would like to talk to these gyra.

“Pontia caught something nasty in this monster pit called Fjern?” Ed asked.

Evette Linao gave her first genuine laugh. “We were stealing ore from the Fjerna, and that necessitated actually landing on that cursed place. No one knows how he got sick, but no medicine seems capable of shaking it.”

“You’ve been very forthcoming,” Wren said, suddenly realizing she hadn’t touched the woman. Hadn’t needed to. “Why?”

“I’m done,” Evette said, and leaned back against the bulkhead, closing her eyes for a moment. “They tried to kill me. They expect my loyalty, but they would have erased me on a far-flung planet without a second thought. Since then, I’ve been given nothing but boring drone work. I made the mistake of making my anger at what they did to my ship—almost did to me—very obvious. I no longer have a ship, but there aren’t many ofus capable of flying Razors, and the plan is to build more. At the very least, until more come off the production line and I get a new one, they need me in reserve.” She shrugged.

“What are they planning to do?” Ed asked.

She opened her eyes a little, watching them through narrow slits. “I think I need to negotiate a deal,” she said. “I have valuable information, and I don’t fancy a long time in prison. So put me in front of someone in authority who can come up with something I’m willing to live with, and I’ll tell you.”

“Where is the other warehouse Pontia said is out there?” Wren asked.

She saw Linao reacted instantly, her face went suddenly blank, and she blinked rapidly. “Another warehouse?”

“Don’t give us that, he told us you waited for him to give you the address before you shot him.” Ed frowned at her.

“That is something tangible I have to negotiate with. Get me a deal, or you can ask Pontia.” Linao took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“Tell me how you found Fjern, at least,” Wren asked, changing the subject. It might be wise to keep the fact that Pontia had killed himself from Linao for now.

“From the ancestral ship’s signal,” Evette said. “The same way they found the battleship on Finian.”

“And on Ytla?” Wren asked softly.

Evette shot her a look, then eventually gave a nod. “The part of the ship that held the signal on the Ytla wreck was quite a way from the part you stumbled across. They’d been looking for the other part of it for a long time when they stumbled across the wreckage while they were chasing after you.”

“It was only after I heard their reactions to the wreckage while I was hiding from them that I realized they were using the cult as a cover for their explorations on Ytla.” It had explained so much about her captivity with them.

Linao studied her closely. “You know a lot.”

Wren shrugged. “They weren’t particularly careful in what they said when they had me as their prisoner.”

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