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 Someone or something was down in the tunnels. Something that sounded like
roamers. We didn t have a choice, Bosaru said shortly, walking down the hallway to
the entrance to the tunnel and opening the door. He took a couple steps down into the
tunnel and looked around. No one. He listened for a minute. Nothing. They were safe
for now so he came back.
Just to make sure, Bosaru locked the entry to the tunnels and sat so that he could
see the doors leading to both the dining room and the tunnels.
 Roamers during the day? Jenatt inquired, glancing at him.  Daegon, surely you
were mistaken.
 They sounded like roamers, but I don t think they were, Imreen said, taking a
deep breath and sitting down, still looking around. She appeared as uneasy as Bosaru
felt.  Daegon said they didn t sound big enough.
 And she shot at it, whoever or whatever it was, Bosaru said. He didn t mention
the enthusiasm.
 I take it you know who she is, Jenatt said tiredly.  And Lady Imreen, you know
who he is. And you re here together.
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Echoes of Passion
 You can blame your son, Imreen said.  He decided he wasn t going to lead
Daegon around in circles. I don t blame him. He decided to go to the plant to catch a
half shift. I don t know if he mentioned it to you.
 He didn t. Thank you, lady, Agie said.
Bosaru closed his eyes for a moment.  Now. Tell me your story, Lady Imreen, he
said.  Tell me how you ve come to be here.
Imreen shrugged.  If you have an eternity. Are you sure you want to hear it?
Bosaru nodded.  I do.
 There isn t much for me to tell you. Life changed dramatically after you and I first
met and you gave me your family surstone. The mediation attempts didn t work, as you
know. War became inevitable.
* * * * *
And even though Imreen Imra Haren Daleen back then had been taught the
Neoti were the devil incarnate at least that was what her nursemaid had said her
father had had a different take on the matter. A matter of distance was all that separated
them. They all came from the same stock, he had said. Time and distance had made
them different, so they could be all the same again by taking away the two factors.
As the Vozuans began to arm themselves, amassing weapons of destruction, her
father had tried to send her off-world, to Aboo Two, like the Bosaru family. But the
Vozuan Politicam had put a stop to that. It questioned the faith of the Vozuan elite, they
said. The Vozu would triumph, and they would all stay, that was how certain they were
about it. The Verot was sure. The Verot would know. The Order of Verot told everyone
they had no doubt.
That was what the general population were told to believe. Those who did not?
They went away, never to be heard from again.
So the Vozuan elite stayed, growing more and more uneasy as the violence
escalated, not only against the Neoti but against their own as the fabric of their society
disintegrated. The Verot will save us, they heard, but they no longer believed but had
no way to get out.
Then the Verot slipped away in the midst of the final chaos, leaving the Politicam in
pieces and the families of the elite open to slaughter when the people, the Vozuan
people who had believed and worked as a whole toward a victory, realized the Verot
had run away. They blamed the elite, and so many died at the hands of the terrified
mobs.
Imra was alone by then. Her father had died at the beginning of the misbegotten
war of a cancer and her brother had died in the battlefield, at the Battle of Ferot
Permian, where the rivers of Dau came together and the waters had run blood red for
days afterward. She never found out what happened to her brother s body.
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Eilis Flynn
Then news came that the oscillator corrosive, long gone from Neotia Prime and
stolen from the Secret Sciences Police vaults, was activated& and it spread without
cease, devouring earth and air and water and fire. And people. And the mass
evacuation of the planet began.
By sheer luck, she made her way onto one of the massive transports leaving after [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]