Read Forgotten Suns for Free Online Page B

on to her wrists. Damn, he was strong.
    “Sleep,” he said. “Dream peace. For this night, forget.”
    That bastard. He was turning her orders back on her. Making
them stick.
    “You’re Psycorps,” she said before she slid down into the
dark. “That’s the only thing you can be.”
    “Not the only thing,” he said.
    She was floating: drifting through infinite space. His eyes
were dark, but they were full of the sun.
    A solar-powered man. MI would be all over him when it found
out.
    Not from her. MI should have mindwiped her when it had the
chance. She owed it nothing now. Not one thing.
    ~~~
    Rama never mentioned that night. Khalida made sure he
never had occasion to try. She had the rest of the cataloguing to do before
everyone came back. He had stalls to clean and Brats to chase and locks to
hack. But if he stole anything else, Khalida did not know about it.
    Most of the antique gold he had come with was safe in the
vault. The torque never did turn up there, nor did one of the armlets and a
ring. Khalida quietly adjusted the inventory to fit. Just as quietly, Rama
appeared wearing none of the articles he had liberated.
    He had settled in so seamlessly that unless she stopped to
think, she could not remember this place without him. That was disconcerting in
its way, but so far it managed not to be dangerous. She had him under
surveillance. That was the best she could do.

7
    Intersession was ending, and not just because the chrono
told Aisha so. The summer storms were shorter and weaker, and the heat was
gradually getting less. Some of the nights were almost cool.
    Birds had started flying south. The herds of antelope had
come back to the plain. Very soon, the tribes would come back, too, and so
would Mother and Pater and the rest of the expedition.
    She hadn’t forgotten her mission. She’d changed tactics. She
had questions to ask the tribes. She might find ways to get hold of a rover,
too. She was still pondering that.
    ~~~
    Aisha and Jamal took Rama out one morning to see the
antelope. It was the schoolbot’s day to be down for maintenance. They could do
what they wanted, as long as they had adult supervision.
    That, these days, was Rama. Vikram had the bots out in
force, cleaning cabins and getting them ready for the new crop of staff. Aunt
Khalida was where she usually was, holed up with the computer.
    Aisha was worried about Aunt Khalida. She was working too
hard and not sleeping enough, and she bit one’s head off if one said anything.
Pater would talk some sense into her. For sure nobody else could.
    But today was a free day, one of the last before everybody
came back. Aisha planned to enjoy it.
    The antelope were just beginning to fill up the winter
grazing grounds. There were hundreds now, compared to the thousands that would
pour in later, with the tribes following. Antelope were the best hunting of
all, and they brought smaller animals with them, and birds, enough game to feed
half a world.
    Aisha was not out to hunt anything. She just wanted to see.
    Jamal had his reader with him. Watching animals was not his
favorite thing, though he was always glad to get out of the house. She thought
Rama might bring his, too, but all he had was his water bottle and a bag full
of lunch.
    Aisha’s favorite herd was back already. The old male with
the crooked horn was still alive. He had a dozen babies, most of them striped
dark brown and gold like him, and a band of new wives that he had won from
another male.
    Aisha was glad to see him. “He’s old,” she told Rama, “but
he just keeps going on, collecting wives and scars.”
    Rama lay beside her in the tall grass. He had a hungry look—not
kill and butcher and roast a fat doe hungry, but as if there was something here
that he wanted so badly it hurt. When some of the babies came bounding and
leaping and mock-sparring over near where they were, he almost forgot to
breathe.
    “They’re beautiful,” she said.
    “Yes.”
    “I think people rode them once.