Chapter 28
Raa waited, he could hear Beka and Caeilla walking down the decks. In a dash of inspiration, he called out to Rolf. "Rolf?"
"Yes, Raa?" Rolf replied appearing on the screen.
"I need help. If I give you permission can you access my files?"
"Of course."
"Please do so, quickly."
"Very well." Rolf’s ../images/Image froze. "I see, is Dylan aware of this?"
"No, but I must make Caeilla aware of it. Onnika moves too fast. She’s afraid. She knows that the people are willing and ready to listen to Dylan. As I walked through the station, I noticed it is falling apart. The Gryphon pride, the wondrous pride, descended from Dylan and Rhade is dying. They have become arrogant. They believe that they are somehow better than the rest. This insularity has started to kill them. You’ve seen the data on their birth and death rates, the amount of engineering that must be done to make them able to survive. Every generation more and more!
"What she is planning, what she is planning will make the Fall of the Commonwealth seem to be a mere tiny battle. Rolf, sometimes... I... just wish that Onnika never cloned me and if she hadn’t then I-"
"So you want me to betray Mother, Ancestor Rhade?" Caeilla asked quietly
* * *
Beka stopped and looked down at the small child that Raa was pinning his hopes on. Taking a chance on an impulse, Beka knelt down and hugged her for a moment. "Head on down and through that door. Raa wants to talk to you alone. I can’t go with you but... just listen to him. Whatever you decide be safe and survive ok, Caeilla?" Standing back up, Beka turned and walked away. She didn’t look back.
* * *
Caeilla stood at the door, listening. Whatever could Mother be doing to make Raa do this? Nothing says he’s doing it with Dylan’s permission and I cannot believe that Dylan is so unaware of his own mate’s doing. Yet he just said Dylan wasn’t aware of what he was doing. So he must be doing something on the sly. A word just heard pressed itself into her mind, clone. Clone! Then perhaps he does not just look like Rhade. He is Rhade. Ancestor. What in Nietzche’s name is mother doing?!
When we first met something seemed familiar about him. It’s not because of how he looks but I remember him... a room, where he slept in a tube. A tank rimmed with frost. A cloning tank? It was just a couple years ago. I remember going up to the tank and wiping the frost away. Mother almost caught me there. She opened it and looked at him. Then she left. I stared at his face; so young he looked there. Only a little older than me. Then I left, Mother was going to come back and I couldn’t be caught there.
Stepping into the room, she took a deep breath. "So you want to betray Mother, Ancestor Rhade?"
* * *
Ma’ctor stared at Radli puttering away in the med bay. The quiet beeping from his monitor was soothing. Carefully, he reached out to scratch an itch. Not carefully enough for Rev Bem started at the motion. Ma’ctor stared at him, his eyes pleading for Rev to be quiet. Flickering his eyes to the book reader in Rev’s hand and flickering them over to the door, he asked his friend to leave. Rev stared wide eyed then nodded and stood up smoothly.
"Dr. Radli, I wonder if you could tell me when he’s likely to wake up again?"
"Ahhh not for another hour or two at least. Why?" Radli replied softly.
"I was hoping to go borrow another book film from your excellent library on station." Rev lied smoothly and started walking towards the door. "Perhaps you can suggest a book?" His claws flashed under the lights and distracted the doctor from his patient.
Ma’ctor took advantage of the momentary distraction to slowly pull the IV from his arm. Pushing the needle into the bed, from a distance it still appeared to be in his arm. Closing his eyes once more, he listened to his death being prepared.
* * *
Trance wandered through the corridors, something down there didn’t belong. It wanted to go somewhere else. Moving silently, her tail wrapped around her waist, she frowned at the keypad. Looking at it, she cautiously punched in seven numbers and it opened. Inside the room was dark; a small amount of cold light came from an instrument panel set into the far wall. Slipping into the room, Trance stared. This place was familiar. She’d never been here but it looked like someplace she had been told of.
Walking across the room, letting her tail wave slowly. Now she remembered where she had heard about this place. This has to be where Onnika had cloned Raa. If that was so perhaps there was something here that does need to go back to Raa. It seemed most everything was taken. Frowning the purple woman sat on the floor, her tail thumping the instrument panel. A sheaf of papers fell. Smiling, she read the first page, "For Gaheris, we will have two uses."
Yep, those seem to be the papers that wanted to go to Raa. She got up and walked out the room.
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