[Black Fleet Crisis] - 02(65)

Akanah made her way to the third level unmolested, but there her way was blocked by a gray-furred Gotal wearing a black Imperial Navy officer’s tunic with a blaster hole scorched through it, and a vibroblade slung in a smuggler-style hip belt.

“Nice trophy,” Akanah said. “Vice admiral, isn’t it?

Did you take him yourself?”

The Gotal answered with a wordless growl.

“What’s your business?”

“Does Joreb Goss live here?”

“Who asks?”

“I am Akanah.”

“Who sends you here?”

“I am here on my own, on business of my own, in search of Joreb Goss.”

“Master Joreb owns all of this, and by his graciousness allows his friends and servants the comforts of his domain. Are you to be one of his girls?”

“Yes,” Akanah said. “I am.”

“You’re early,” the Gotal said. “Don’t be disturbing the Master. Wait in the playroom for the others.”

“I’m not part of the morning auditions,” Akanah said, growing impatient. She washed the Current gently across the Gotal’s sensitive

head-cone receptors, hoping to make him more pliant. “Take me to him, please.”

“When the Master rises, I will tell him that the woman Akanah comes, asking after him on business of her own,” said the guard. “He will decide what meaning that has to him.” The Gotal pointed at a door one level up on the Opposite side. “Wait there.”

Joreb Goss had the swagger of petty self-importance and the presence of someone who believed he was the power in the room. Tall and trim, with pale blue eyes in a lined but otherwise unmarked face, Joreb was handsome despite his age. His long, thick silver hair was swept back to a vertical comb and hung to the small of his back.

But his mock flight suit was gaudy and cheap, his black boots buffed to an unlikely shine. His smile had the same false cast, and those alert blue eyes appraised Akanah familiarly before meeting her gaze.

“So you are my visitor,” Joreb said.

“No,” Akanah said, holding herself erect. “I’m your daughter.”

Joreb’s eyes widened, but he said nothing at first.

Clasping one wrist behind his back, he circled her slowly. “My daughter,” he repeated. “Who is your mother?”

“My mother was Isela Talsava Norand,” Akanah said. “She’s dead now.”

Completing his circuit, Joreb stopped facing Akanah and leaned in toward her. “I don’t know this name,” he said. “What is it you want, daughter of Isela?”

“That you not lie to me,” Akanah said. “You knew my mother well—let me remind you when. You met her on Praidaw, came to live with her on Gavens, where she had a house in Torlas—the house in which I was born.

You moved with us to Lucazec. And within the year, you left us there.”

“You speak of things older than my memories,” Joreb said. “How am I to know the truth of them?”

“What do you mean?” Akanah said, a sudden flare of anger in her eyes and her tone. “I was the child, not you. I’m the one who had to learn about you in a story told by my mother.”

“I have not heard this story,” said Joreb. “Perhaps you will tell it to me.”

“I came so far to find you,” she said in a small voice.

“How can you be so cold to me—” “You are not unattractive, and perhaps there is something about your eyes I find familiar,” Joreb said.

“But, you see, I have developed a fondness for Rokna blae.” His tone was sorrowfully apologetic. “Do you know it?”

“It’s a deadly poison,” Akanah said. “From a tree fungus that grows on Endor.”

Joreb brought one hand forward and waggled a finger at her. “Yes, that’s right—Endor. I had forgotten.

But you see, Rokna blue is not so deadly as some think.

The smallest amount brings an exquisite state of bliss. It magnifies all other pleasures for hours—indescribable.

You must try it to know. I would be happy to stand you to your first—” “No, thank you,” Akanah said curtly. “What does this have to do with your memory?”

Joreb looked momentarily lost. “What- - Ah, yes. I was saying, in the proper doses—a microgram, no morerathe blue is not deadly. But it still does demand a price for its blessings.”

“A price?”

Joreb touched his temple with two fingers of his left hand. “My memories do not go back even as much as a year. Everything is new to me. No, do not pity me—I have chosen to live in a vivid present rather than hold on to what is now the forgotten past.”