Eye of the Ocean Book 3 Ji'jin Station

Eye of the Ocean – Book 3: Ji’Jin Station
She laughed. His robes were layers of white cloth, a faint blue in the folds, and he
seemed to take some pleasure in them as well, handling the brocade edging as
though reading a story in the white-on-white pattern.
They talked while he worked on the fresh herbs the medic had left, sucking the
moisture out before letting the dried mass fall into the ice melt in one of the food
bowls.
She must have nodded off; she didn't hear the door. “I hope I'm not disturbing
you,” Cayse said. Two guards were with him as they always were when he
visited. “Would you join me?”
Her head pounded, she had moved too fast getting to her feet. Hic'lic hadn't
woken up and she poked him with her foot until he stirred. “Join you where? The
two of us?” She didn't like to be separated from the Wa'tic, not sure that he'd be
there when she came back - or that she wouldn't come back.
Cayse made a motion of allowance. “If you wish.”
Hic'lic refused to come in far and hunched down just inside the entrance,
blocking the back swing of the massive wooden door. Others of Cayse's staff
spread out and through the open doorway, she saw more of them in the hall. The
human aides looked uneasy, Eunni thought, they didn't seem to notice Hic'lic
there, but were watching her instead.
Or Poss a'ltic. The Empress was about where Eunni had last seen her.
Unchanged, her tass'alt next to her. The garden hadn't changed either. Smoke
still rose from smoldering reeds ... except the smoke didn't go anywhere and
reeds never finished burning. Op'ki'na's body was where it had been, unchanged
as well. She had asked repeatedly if he was alive and been met with silence. Now
she knew why. One of the ti'Linn guard had been trapped the same way, half a
step out of the water and frozen, the Zimmer rifle held in one pincer. Even the
sand was resistant to her feet. It felt like spongy cork and didn’t show her
footprints as she walked to stand next to where Ulanda was lying. With the tip of
her sandal, she touched the skirt of the gauzy robe. It might as well have been
solid stone.
Eunni had carried Hic'lic out of the garden; she hadn't let any of them touch
him. Would he have been here, like this, if she hadn't? And Ulanda? Could she
have carried her out to safety?
And Poss a'ltic? The Empress had been by the door with her tass'alt. Drawn
fine, the human part, that is, until it was difficult to see the woman under the
Priest. Like Sarkalt, was Eunni's first impression, but without the same effect on
her. She'd gotten more used to such things. The woman's questions had been
increasingly out-of-synch but Eunni had put it down to her being more in the Net
than paying attention to what was going on there. And she'd gotten used to
Laurel Hickey www.2morrow.bc.ca