The Gate to Futures Past Read Online Free PDF Page B

than creators. Few could read his music, let alone play it. His Chosen, Luek, was tone deaf. Worse, she doted on small birds, claiming they required quiet surroundings, not that she and Nyso shared the same home. Or planet, for that matter.
    Infuriated by his own species, Nyso dared the unthinkable.
    He became Human.
    As best he could, anyway. A new name, a rented apartment, and Gersle Nape the composer burst upon the stage like a shooting star, with an unnamed benefactor (himself) luring the finest musicians of Camos with fabulous salaries and the promise they would be the first to play Nape’s work.
    Whoever he was.
    The mystery created quite the stir, as I recalled. Not only among Humans. The Council, notified by a justly alarmed Luek, sent First Scouts to make sure Nyso wasn’t exposed as Clan. They needn’t have worried.
    Nyso, blinded by the chance to hear his music played, took up his shiny new conductor’s wand and walked into the first rehearsal, completely unprepared to face professional musicians, let alone aliens.
    Within minutes they’d tossed him out, as the Human expression goes, on his ear.
    His music, they kept. They called it pure genius, and it was. Sold-out performances went on for years, proceeds sent to Nape’s account, and for years the public clamored for more. Nyso ignored it all. If the Clan had one trait in common, it was pride. His own kind considered him a dangerous fool; his beloved music had been taken by Humans; and he couldn’t even claim credit without resorting to a now-hateful disguise as one of them.
    When his studio and instruments went up in flames, no one was surprised.
    In hindsight, knowing Humans as I now did, the orchestra had treated “Gersle Nape” exactly as they would any Human amateur who’d presumed to lead them. If there was fault, it was in how little any of my kind understood normal Human interactions. We hadn’t cared or needed to, was the truth.
    My job, to make sure they understood Morgan.
    Putting me outside this closed door. I let out a tendril of Power, enough to confirm those on the other side without alerting them, then knocked.
    I counted to five, slowly.
    Knocked again, though they’d surely heard me the first time.
Sona
’s interior doors transmitted the rap of knuckle.
    But didn’t, I thought all at once, transmit voices. If Nyso and Luek were unaware, they could have bid me enter and be wondering why I hadn’t.
    Or, I glowered, have told me to go away and leave them be.
    Erring on the side of manners, I sent a calm, tactful
May I enter?
No need to name myself, as a Human might—the feel of my Power identified me to them beyond any doubt.
    Silence.
    Abruptly uneasy, I pressed the door control.
    The tall panel turned open. The space beyond was dark, and I paused to let my eyes adjust, waiting to be acknowledged.
    Like the others on this level, the room was rectangular, being deeper than wide. On Cersi, the Om’ray had used such rooms within a Clan’s Cloisters to house their Adepts.
    And the Lost,
Aryl supplied.
    Another difference between Om’ray and M’hiray. When one of our Chosen died, the other’s mind was
pulled
into the M’hir, dissolving to nothing, the body a dead and empty husk.
    That happens to some Om’ray,
she sent, following the thought.
And has to less powerful M’hiray.
She referred to Deni, whose death had left Cha living—if you called it that. The Om’ray had insisted on tending her walking corpse.
    We hadn’t known how to refuse, and the memory rankled.
I don’t forget,
I snapped back
.
In Om’ray, less connected to the M’hir, a remnant of a Chosen’s mind was left behind: enough tokeep the body alive, sometimes for years. They called such the Lost, for such individuals had no personality or will, and they became wards of the Adepts.
    And useful servants.
    Reminders of our vulnerability.
Aryl’s sending was