a happy life together.”
“That’s all they wanted.” Larson studied the holo of Rhela for a moment longer then looked away, as if the image pained him.
Jormoi shut it off, and they waited.
“How long has it been?” Larson rubbed his eyes, looked around at the small room. “I’ve been down here so long sometimes it’s hard to keep track.”
“It’s been a little over twenty years since Rhela’s parents left Raccelton,” Gavin answered, “if we’ve got the timeline straight.”
The old man rested his head heavily in his hands. “When Jadar took Portia, he asked me to go with them. But I thought I could do more good here, sway Braydon away from his course.” He laughed bitterly. “Last I knew, Jadar might have been the only one able to override the lock on the Archive’s access point to the complex. When I got the signal that someone was coming, I’d hoped…”
His voice faded into the past, then he shook himself, continued.
“Braydon was a student of mine once, I thought I could reach him, show him how wrong his plan was. But when I confronted him, he locked me up in the old complex. As Jadar’s closest friend, Braydon thought I might be holding on to more secrets from the before times. But, then the harvest began again and I realized someone had to stop this.”
“Wait?” Gavin stepped towards the table, arms crossed. “Are you the one that sent the message to the Alliance?
Larson nodded. “From here I’ve been able to monitor some of the Council’s meetings, knew that villagers had been disappearing. I’d spent enough time in the Archives that I suspected what was happening. But the Council wasn’t going to do anything about it.”
His face scrunched up into a scowl. “If anything, the attacks by the Haleru were useful to them, helped cover up Braydon’s methods for dealing with the problem of the followers.”
A cold pit opened in Gavin’s belly. “What exactly do you mean ‘the problem’ with the followers?”
Larson pushed away from the table, went over to the control panel, began flicking switches.
“Sometimes I can get into his systems, mix up his files, slow him down a little. But he’s hedged me in tighter and tighter these last few years. Doesn’t need me, won’t listen, but won’t let me go. Never wanted to let anyone go who might be useful to him.”
Coracle nudged his hands away from a large panel.
“I haven’t seen a cat in years,” the old man mused. “Nice to have one around. Maybe you can leave it with me for the company.”
Sitting back on his haunches, Coracle narrowed his eyes. “I’m a he, not an it. And if you’d answer my friend’s question about the followers, I’ll see what I can do to restore your access.”
Clutching at his robe, Larson staggered back. “Hallucinations. It’s finally happened.” He turned wide eyes on Jormoi and Gavin.
“How do I know you’re not hallucinations as well?”
Gavin guided the old man back to his chair before the wobbling legs collapsed. “Look at it this way. If we are, you’re just talking to yourself. No harm in that, is there? And if we’re not, then maybe we can do something to help you.”
They waited as Larson scratched at his neck, considering, then finally nodded.
“The Elite thought that spending the journey to Crucible in suspended animation would save them danger and boredom of such a long trip. But they didn’t realize that the Neo-Zorians followers who they counted on to provide their labor force had just enough recessive psionic genes that generation upon generation of families reinforced the trait.”
“The Gifts,” Jormoi interjected. “The Elite don’t have them at all, do they?”
“It wasn’t obvious when they first landed,” the old man continued. “They were too busy building their capital, arguing between themselves as to how much technology they really wanted to get rid of, and how much was just a show for their followers.”
Larson waved at the chaos of the room with a grand flourish, the movement encompassing the tech the colonists had reportedly left behind as well as the stoneware plates and handwoven textiles of this new world.
“They realized, no matter how superior the Elite thought they were, too many of their followers now possessed powers they didn’t. And it was something they couldn’t just take for themselves.”
“So, they started taking the women,” Gavin said grimly.
“And worse,” the old man said. “Jadar fled with Portia when Braydon was trying to expand his experiments. Braydon had approached the last Sleeper in hopes that Jadar had