Crystal Healer Read Free Page A

think my husband's cold, unwavering stare also may have played a part.
    Volea and Malaoan, who also sensed the rising tension between Xonea and Reever, quickly agreed to an adjournment, and after making polite farewell gestures, departed. As my ClanBrother left the conference room, he paused for a moment to loom over me.
    "If the true reason for this fact-finding delay is to provide time for you and Duncan to leave Joren," he said, a muscle twitching under his eye, "you will find that you must also obtain my permission for travel offworld."
    "Why would I want to do that?" I made my expression bland. "According to you, I am a mental deficient, and you have seen to it that I will be treated like one. My freedom has been taken away and my decisions will be made for me. Life could not be easier unless I were brain-dead."
    "I will have the name of the one responsible for this, Cherijo," Xonea promised, glancing once more at Reever before he strode out.
    After the door panel had closed and we were alone, my husband put an arm around me, and I allowed myself to lean against his shoulder.
    I felt as weary as if I had spent three days fighting in a bloodsports simulator, until I formed a new link with my husband and his strength came flooding through it. How much do you think he knows about what really happened to us on Trellus?
    Enough to justify an attack on the colony. Out loud, Reever said, "Marel is waiting for us with Salo, Darea, and Fasala at the pavilion. They arranged for us to have a private meal with them."
    I hated that we could not speak openly and freely, but Reever and I both suspected that the Jorenians were keeping us under constant drone surveillance--on Xonea's orders, no doubt. "Then why are we standing here?"
    After spending all my life on the frozen, wind-torn surface of Akkabarr, then weeks in the crowded, utilitarian envirodomes of an airless rock like Trellus, I could better appreciate the vivid charms of Joren. Above our glidecar, the sky, streaked with a multitude of colors, looked down at its beautiful reflection in the wide, gleaming fields of silvery yiborra grass. Flowering plants, the main staple of the Jorenian diet, grew everywhere, and in more colors than I could name. Nor did I mind the warmth and mild climate, although I suspected I would never feel at home anywhere but on the ice fields.
    "It is lovely here," I said to Reever. "Did Cherijo like it?"
    "She did, although we never had the chance to spend very much time on Joren." Reever maneuvered the vehicle around a slower-moving transport conveying cargo containers and some strange-looking equipment. "Do you remember anything of Terra?"
    "I have your memories of North America and France." I did not wish to insult his natal world, but both regions had seemed sterile, boring, and overpopulated. "We will never return there, will we?"
    "No." He sounded grim. "It would be too dangerous. We . . . Cherijo and I barely escaped with our lives the last time we were on Terra."
    The only blood family my former self could claim, aside from Marel, were the other products of Joseph Grey Veil's illegal experiments in genetically engineering humans. I knew from her journals that Cherijo believed she had several "brothers" who, like her, had been made in Grey Veil's laboratory, although something had gone wrong with each of them. One in particular, a disturbed young male named Rico, had captured and tried to kill both her and Reever as vengeance for how cruelly he was treated by their "father."
    I had no desire to visit Terra, and I could not think of returning to Akkabarr, not after experiencing the freedom of living among the ensleg. Offworld species like the Jorenians respected and valued their females; they were considered equal to males. The rebellion had changed how females were regarded on Akkabarr--we had gained much status while caring for the wounded on and off the battlefield--but if I ever returned to live among the Iisleg, I could still be beaten to