Crossing the Line Read Online Free PDF

particular. His hands were folded in his lap. Mestin wondered if there was anything that could really frighten him any more. Perhaps he was looking forward to the end, having lived alone far too long, because that was surely what would happen to him: Chayyas would have him killed—somehow.
    Nevyan was right. He was the last of the c’naatat troops, and—war hero or not—the unending problem of isolating the symbiont would die with him. It was for the best. She thought it would be the kindest solution for the gethes female too.
    Aras looked up at Mestin and said nothing, and carried on saying nothing until she turned and left. What would she have asked him, anyway? Why he had committed such an act of madness? It was irrelevant. Wess’har cared only about what was done, not what was intended. Motivation was a human excuse, a sophistry, a lie. But she could think of no reason why a wess’har who had spent his whole life ensuring that c’naatat didn’t spread would suddenly give it willingly to an alien.
    Outside the room that held Shan Frankland, Mestin hesitated before stepping over the threshold. There was a scent, but she was too unfamiliar with gethes to identify a state of mind from it.
    This gethes had changed. Mestin had seen her when she had been brought in for brief sanctuary, and at the time she had struck her as much taller and more aggressive than the colonists, but a human nonetheless—fidgeting, soft and confused. She didn’t match the self-assured picture that conversations with Aras had created. But now she seemed still and purposeful. She was leaning casually against the wall of the room, but she straightened up slowly when Mestin came in and thrust her hands into her garments. Her long black hair was pulled back and tied with a length of rough brown fabric. She didn’t seem afraid either.
    â€œThis is the only cell I’ve ever been in that hasn’t got a door,” Shan said.
    â€œDo you remember me, Shan Chail ?”
    â€œMestin. Yes. And that’s your daughter? The youngster who brought us in?”
    â€œNevyan. Yes.”
    â€œWhere’s Aras? Is he all right?”
    â€œHe’s unharmed.”
    â€œWhat’s going to happen to him?”
    â€œShouldn’t you be concerned about what will happen to you ?”
    Shan appeared unmoved and made that quick hunching action with her shoulders. Mestin had seen Aras do the same. “If you have me, then you don’t need him, do you?”
    â€œHe has committed a foolish act. You’re a different matter.”
    â€œMeaning?”
    â€œYou have uses. You know that. That’s why you were allowed to remain.”
    â€œHow did you find out about me?”
    â€œWe can monitor gethes voice transmissions between the Actaeon and your homeworld. There’s been much talk of your condition. Is it true it would give you great status and wealth in your society?”
    â€œYou know perfectly well that Actaeon ’s skipper was ordered to detain me as a biohazard. Does that sound like status to you?”
    Mestin still couldn’t work out if Shan was afraid. She tried to stare into her gray alien eyes: apparently you could judge a human’s condition that way, but she looked and saw only single, empty, black pupils that told her nothing. “You made no attempt to evade us.”
    â€œWhere would I run? And what would you have done to the colonists if I had? Back home we’d say you had me bang to rights.”
    Mestin gave up trying to understand and turned towards the door. Chayyas would have to sort it out in the next few days.
    â€œHey, what happens now?” Shan called after her.
    Mestin turned round. “I have no idea,” she said. “And I imagine nobody else has either. We have no deviance so we don’t know how to punish. And we’ve never found an alien infected with c’naatat —not in our lifetimes.”
    There was a pause.