Grudge (pt 2)
"Mmmm......."
Cool fingers were stroking across his forehead, rubbing gently at his temple. He tightened his arms around the comforting weight of his beloved, still curled up in his lap, and slowly opened his eyes.
Zha'haabron had twisted sideways, awkwardly, his other hand stretched out to hold Ti'aasaan's. Radittsu nuzzled his neck and gazed at the little zn'hre - was he imagining it, or did their sleeping bondmate look a little less pale than yesterday?
*I'm sorry - I didn't mean to fall asleep...*
Zha'haabron sighed and kissed his cheek, then rose to his feet.
**You were tired. And no need for guilt: I awoke seconds later. How do you feel?**
The big Saiyan stretched, trying to work kinks out of his back and legs from slumping so long without moving. He grimaced as various body parts started complaining.
*I need a shower and a decent sleep. And something to eat. But I should report in, see if Kyuri's turned up anything.* He reached out, stroking Ti'aasaan's face. *Any change?*
The king shook his head, then kneaded at his neck with one hand. He still looked exhausted, and Radittsu stood, hugging him close, his own aches and pains ignored for the moment. Zha'haabron sighed and rested against him.
**I need to return to the suite - Vejiita has called for a Council meeting before the Hassinan delegation arrives and my presence is required: I must bathe and change, and I want to ask Zh'leet to sit with the little one until I can return. Will you stay until she arrives?**
Radittsu kissed his forehead.
*Of course.*
He frowned slightly as he felt his bondmate trembling, held him close and stroked his back.
*It will be all right. All of it.*
Zha'haabron gazed at him, then smiled slightly. It had been what he'd needed to hear: his beloved's faith in the future. Comforted, he pulled away gently, reluctantly leaving the solid safety of Radittsu's arms.
**Thank you...**
The family had swamped him on his arrival at the suite, and by the time he'd greeted everyone, answered anxious questions about the little zn'hre, hurriedly showered and dragged on a deep black fur suit he was late for the Council meeting...
"You will do as I say."
"He's a damned alien! He's not even really a he!!"
Zha'haabron frowned, pausing outside the office for a moment. He didn't recognise the second voice at all, but he guessed the 'damned alien' was himself. Was he about to meet the infamous Nappa? Surely the king would have warned him. And speaking of Vejiita...
"What he is has no bearing on the matter - only who he is. And he is the High King of R'ren'nkh'ia, our partner in the Alliance, and allied to my House. You will treat him with the same respect you treated my father and are about to start treating me, or you will leave this Council. And you'd be wise to remember he is far stronger than both of us put together!"
Oh well - at least he wasn't about to be thrown to the gich'klis... He pulled himself upright and prowled into the office. The Council rose, bowing their heads, all except for one - a tall, grim-faced Saiyan warrior with a wild dark mane whom he'd never seen before.
Vejiita scowled.
"You're late."
Zha'haabron inclined his head, his smile frosty.
"My apologies. Pressing family matters required my attention."
There was a quiet snort from the unfamiliar Saiyan: Vejiita glared at him warningly, then swung his attention back to the R'ren'nkh'ian High King.
"Since you are now here, let's get started, shall we?"
Zha'haabron had difficulty concentrating on the meeting, his thoughts with his bondmates and the hostlings. It wasn't until Limau mentioned the ore sample that he took real notice.
"In itself it's nothing more than a gemstone, a pretty bauble of no particular worth, although the Hassinans like it enough to go to the considerable trouble of mining and working it. However, when we handed it over to our Ablinian physicists, they discovered it has a very unusual property."
He glanced around the table, the focus of everyone's attention, and smirked.
"It concentrates and intensifies ki. To an almost unimaginable level."
Pisang frowned.
"Explain."
Limau glanced at Anzu, who rose to his feet.
"It acts somewhat like the red stone the R'ren'nkh'ia-jin use in their surgical instruments - the one that focuses and amplifies light so that it can be used as a cutting tool." He glanced at Zha'haabron, who nodded.
"The ruby in a laser."
"Yes, the ruby in a laser. This stone has a similar effect. A ki blast focussed through it is amplified several thousandfold."
There was a startled silence, then Pisang snorted.
"No Saiyan could contain that much energy!"
Anzu shook his head.
"No, you misunderstand. You don't contain the ki, you focus your own ki through the crystal, and it comes out of the other side in a vastly more powerful form."
Nenas grunted.
"Bit inconvenient to use, then. Not that easy to whip out a crystal in the middle of a fight."
"It wouldn't be used in a fight."
"Then what's the point?"
Anzu sighed exasperatedly.
"How many Saiya-jin would it take to destroy an entire planet?"
"Just using ki?"
"Yes."
"I don't know. A couple of thousand?"
Anzu shrugged.
"At least that, I'd estimate. We don't know for certain - it's never been tried. However, the computer models indicate that with these crystals to focus ki, ten elite warriors could reduce a world the size of Vejiitasei to dust. In about half an hour."
There was a stunned silence, and Anzu smirked.
"They're planetkillers."
"Well," said Vejiita, pressing his gloved hands to the desk before him, "I don't think there's any need to discuss this, do you? Without making it too obvious, we 'welcome' Hassina into the Empire as soon as possible and get a military force onworld as quickly as we can. And a mining crew."
There were, of course, no objections.
"It's a defensive measure as much as anything." Vejiita said to Zha'haabron, half an hour later when the rest of the Council had left the office - with the exception of the unfamiliar Saiyan, who had glowered at the R'ren'nkh'ian the whole time. "This is not something we want anyone else to get their hands on. We're not the only two species with the ability to use ki to attack."
Zha'haabron inclined his head. "We share the ore equally?"
Vejiita didn't look exactly happy about it, but he nodded.
"We share it equally. And add a rider to the treaty, about not using it against each other!"
Zha'haabron smiled. The Saiyan warrior growled, and Vejiita rounded on him.
"Zorun, your feelings are of no importance to anyone anymore. You either get rid of those outdated notions or you get offworld. Go back to Nappa, go find yourself an empty world to live on, go fuck yourself in a vacuum for all I care but you will not - I repeat, not - dispute my judgement. If you do I will kill you. This is the Saiyan Empire. It is comprised of a growing number of worlds whose natives are alien. Deal with it!"
Zorun stood abruptly, then dropped to one knee, his head bowed.
"Sire, I apologise."
"Very well. You are dismissed."
As the big male strode from the room, Vejiita shook his head.
"So bloody short-sighted."
"Why keep him, then?"
Vejiita regarded the R'ren'nkh'ian for a moment, then grinned.
"Underneath that xenophobic crap there's a good, strong, loyal warrior. He was my father's personal guard, and could have been mine, but he didn't like what I was doing with the planet." He snorted. "Probably spent too much time with Nappa, even before he joined the offworld military! Still, he seems genuine about wanting to return to his old duties..."
"Then he should be allowed the chance."
Vejiita glanced at Zha'haabron, blinking in surprise, then smirked.
"Want him to help guard the family?"
The High King smiled.
"I would prefer not..."
"Well, he can spend some time with the Guard, catching up on what he's missed. We'll see how it goes."
"Indeed..." Zha'haabron inclined his head, his thoughts now back with his family. "Do you need me to meet the delegation with you?"
Vejiita frowned - then really looked at his ally for the first time since he'd entered the office, realising how exhausted the High King was.
"How is he?" His voice was almost gentle, and Zha'haabron closed his eyes.
"There's no change."
The Saiya-jin-no-Ou very briefly laid a hand on one strong, fur-clad shoulder.
"If you need Radittsu to help you, I can relieve him of duty for a while."
Startled by the king's unwonted sympathy, Zha'haabron stared, then smiled very slightly.
"Thank you. But at the moment his duty is to you. We must find your heirs."
"Well, the offer is open. And no, I don't need you to be there. But I do want my Companion in attendance. Can the family manage without her for an hour or two? Will those little hybrid brats behave?"
Zha'haabron chuckled.
"No, but we'll cope..."
Leaving Zh'leet hovering worriedly over the little zn'hre, Radittsu made his way to the Guard headquarters, struggling through yet another howling snowstorm.
This must be hell for Zha'haabron...
But it was warm in the operations room, and Kyuri handed him a beaker of hot mulled fruit juice as he pored over the lists she'd provided for him - one of everyone who had visited the Consort's wing, the other of the authorised visitors. The two were a close match, with the exception of a couple of people that Kyuri had already had checked out and dismissed as being of no significance. Radittsu threw the lists onto the desk, snarling, tail lashing behind him.
"This is hopeless! What else can we do?"
Kyuri shook her head, expression pained.
"I don't know, sir." She frowned for a moment, then gazed up at him.
"Have you recognised that scent yet?"
"What use is that?" he growled.
"I don't know! But nothing else is working..."
He closed his eyes, concentrating almost desperately. Then it clicked. But...
"It was Anzu."
"Sir?"
"It was Anzu's scent. But there's no reason why his shouldn't be there - he's the damned brats' father, after all..."
Kyuri had snatched up the lists.
"But there's no record of his having been there during that time."
Radittsu shrugged.
"It was a faint scent. It could have been from many days ago."
"Let me check..."
Kyuri bowed her head over her terminal, distantly grateful to Marul, all those years back, for his drunken enthusing about the pleasures to be found in technical knowledge. (Although it had been years before she'd dared to admit her interest in the old technology, let alone to being able to use it!) It took her no time at all to find out that there was no record of Anzu visiting his daughters in the last two hundred days...
She frowned up at Radittsu.
"I need your authority to check all his comm calls in the last - oh, I don't know - four hundred days? Maybe a year?"
Radittsu nodded.
"You have it. Anybody objects, refer them to me. After they've given you what you want." He turned to leave, and she grabbed his arm.
"Where're you going?"
"To Anzu's residence. I'll let you know what I find."
Anzu's mate received him with a somewhat haughty courtesy, and Radittsu was quick, feigning a check on the dwelling's security - he really only wanted to see if there was any scent of the twins or the heirs in the spacious dwelling, anyway. The brief visit finished, he flew back to headquarters through the driving snow, arriving to find Kyuri ordering a squad of the Guard to the palace, another into the city, and another to Anzu's home on the southern island of Heiwa. Shaking snow from his mane, he frowned enquiringly at her. She looked anxious.
"Did you find anything?"
He nodded.
"Their scent. All of them, twins and heirs. No more than two days old."
She sighed with relief.
"And I have the names and addresses of his associates: he's made a lot of calls to the same people over the last year, none of them exactly in the line of duty. Looks like he's been planning this - whatever it is - for quite a while." She lowered her gaze. "Three of them are well-known mercenaries: I'd guess they're Zh'anah's killers. Possibly Ti'aasaan's assailant too."
Radittsu turned to the waiting warriors, scowling.
"So what are you standing there for? Go!"
As they hurried to their allotted tasks he turned back to Kyuri, who laid a hand on his wrist.
"Should we tell the king?"
He shook his head, grimly.
"Not until we know whether they're safe or not. And once they're brought in, I need to question these 'associates'. We need to find out what the bloody hell Anzu is playing at, what he has planned." He sighed heavily. "Whatever it is, it can't be anything good. Vejiita's not going to be happy that one of his Council is a traitor."
I didn't want to meet the Hassinan delegation. I was tired, harassed, angry and miserably worried about Ti'aasaan. I wanted to be with my children and Zha'haarak, preferably sleeping. I wanted Ti'aasaan well again. I wanted the heirs found. I wanted to make love to Radittsu. I wanted my life back to normal, dammit!
But Vejiita insisted...
So I stood beside him as they arrived, a strange, tall, thin people with golden skins and thick manes, dressed in heavy robes covered with colours and patterns. Too much colour, too many patterns. Altogether too... fussy. Why anyone would want to cover themselves with something like that was beyond me. You couldn't fight or hunt in it. And their faces... I frowned, trying to work out what those strange little protrusions were. Like odd little lumps covering their skin in symmetrical patterns. Were they natural?
I caught one of them - a female, I thought, she was shorter than the others, with a longer mane, more jewellery, and was hidden right at the back - staring as best she could through her long eyelashes at Vejiita, and almost grinned at the mix of shock and embarrassment on her fiercely blushing face as she ran her gaze over his body. Well, if those all-enveloping robes were what they usually wore I suppose she must be scandalised at our bodysuits. After all, they really don't leave anything much to the imagination!
Then I caught her looking at me, and half-smiled. Her eyes widened with what looked like fear, her gaze dropped immediately and then stayed fixed on the floor for the rest of the audience. Hn. I hadn't meant to scare her - was she really that nervous?
I wondered idly what she was doing with the delegation, what her status and rank were. There was no information about the Hassinans in the database other than an old and very sketchy piece on their culture and the recent observers' report, which had dealt with their natural resources, military force and possible use to the Empire rather than the people themselves, their customs, their language ...
And then I realised my curiosity had kicked in.
Well, I was supposed to be the diplomatic corps' alien expert.
... like I don't have enough to do right now...
I grinned to myself. Who was I trying to fool? I'd speak to Manzano, later, try and get something organised. Even with security as tight as it was at present, there must be some way I could get to talk to them. There had to be.
And who could tell? It might even prove useful...
© 2002 January 22nd Joules Taylor
