Page 11 of Star Bringer
I only hope that whatever she’s got here is as good as she thinks it is. Because all of our lives depend on it.
The small crowd behind me starts to shift restlessly.
Dr. Veragelen must feel it, too, because suddenly she cuts to the chase of what I get the impression was supposed to be a pretty lengthy speech. “What I have in here,” she says, gesturing to the doors behind her, “is far beyond any technology currently in use in the Empire of the Senestris System. What I have in here will awe you. It will inspire you. And it will prove to you, once and for all, that I am capable of doing more than averting disaster. I am capable—weare capable—of nothing short of absolute salvation.
“Salvation for your families. Salvation for your planets. Salvation”—her voice drops to a whisper that echoes throughout the now silent corridor—“for the entire system.”
Well, this sounds more like what we’ve been waiting for. My heart is beating fast and hard as she presses a palm to the biometric scanner.
This is it. This is it. Please let this be it.
“Ambassadors.” Dr. Veragelen looks at each of us in turn. “I give you what I am certain is the answer to all of your questions. And your prayers.”
Then she throws open the doors to the laboratory with a flourish.
My mouth drops open.
Hot steaming drokaray droppings.
Chapter 5
Kali
For a moment, nobody moves. Or says a word.
I stand in the hallway, staring through the wide-open doors with my mouth agape as I try to figure out exactly what I’m looking at. The room beyond is huge—even bigger than the docking bay. It must take up the entire height of the center of the ship. And filling most of the space is a black sphere hovering without any visible means of support about three feet above the floor.
I swallow hard.
For her part, Dr. Veragelen looks like the bamiling that ate the varmak. Then again, she more than deserves the self-satisfaction. When else has an entire group of politicians actually been struck speechless?
“Can we go in?” Rain asks, and there’s an eagerness in her voice that’s unmistakable. She’s the closest delegate to me, separated by Arik, who makes sure no one gets too near, but that doesn’t stop her from peering around him, looking more like an excitable young girl than the High Priestess of the Sisterhood.
It makes me like her more than I expected to—and probably more than I should.
“Of course. Of course,” Dr. Veragelen says as she strides through the open door. “After all,thisis what I invited you all here to see.”
I don’t miss her subtle emphasis on the word “this” or the fulminating glare she shoots in my direction when she thinks I’m not looking.
Rain bounces forward, but her escort touches her arm before she can take more than one step. She glances up at him questioningly, and he nods subtly toward me. As soon as he does, she gasps in horror, ducks her head again, and mutters something under her breath.
I want to tell her that it doesn’t matter—that I don’t care who goes in first. But my mother lives for pomp and circumstance, and as long as I’m here, representing her, I need to as well—or I’ll never be allowed off-planet again.
And there are a whole lot of places I want to see. And maybe, just maybe, if Dr. Veragelen can do what she thinks she can, I’ll finally have time to do them.
But this second gaffe—or is it the third?—of Rain’s does beg the question: Why would Serati send an ambassador with absolutely no formal training in royal protocols to an important event like this? It makes no sense foranyplanet to do that, let alone one whose code of law is so elaborate and extensive it makes the Empress look like an anarchist. I try to remember what I’ve heard about the high priestess. Not much—the Sisterhood are a secretive lot—but I do know that high priestesses don’t usually take an active role in politics.
Still, their mistake isn’t her fault, so I give Rain an encouraging nod as I walk into the room, then fix my attention on the black sphere. What is it? A memory niggles at my brain—I know I’ve seen something similar before. But in a dream.
When I was thirteen, I started having strange dreams. Dreams of the dying sun and of artifacts I somehow knew had never been made by humans. Of flying through space when I’d never been on a spaceship. I told my father, and he toldmeto keep the dreams to myself. I’m not sure why; maybe he thought my mom wouldn’t like it. She can be a little strange about me on my good days—the last thing she needed was a reminder that I’m less than perfect.
My father was assassinated two years later—the worst day of my life—and I’ve still never told anyone else about the dreams.
The sphere is about the height of a three-story building, and not opaque, as I first thought, but vaguely translucent, though I can’t see inside. There’s a motif right in the center facing me—it looks like a star surrounded by a circle. I’ve dreamed of that image before as well, and a shiver of something ripples through me.
The laboratory is filled with technicians in form-fitting black lab suits, all moving purposefully around the sphere. Guards are stationed at regular points at the periphery of the room, and they all have laser pistols and electric batons—is the doctor expecting trouble?
Scaffolding has been set up beside the sphere. Technicians swarm over it, taking readings from various points of the surface. Others are moving around it with equipment and HUDs. More techs bearing the insignia of the Corporation work at consoles around the room.
