Chapter Six, The Book of Dreams

The Book of Dreams Series, in which Kira and Z'Dhia hit the ground running on the planet Aderna, and go on a wild goose hunt throughout the dusty market streets of Ingreth.

Read from the beginning with Chapter 1 of the Book of Dreams.

The Book of Dreams

Madness!

That was Kira's first impression of Aderna.

A calamity of sights, sounds, and colors assaulted them as they exited the portal. Thousands of traders jostled and shoved one another in a ceaseless stream of bodies that flowed through the street between canvassed stalls. The hot air reeked of rotting meat, fungi, spices, smoke, perfumes, and feces. AV scooters ripped through the streets, gyro transports droned above in a sky bleached white in the midday sun, traders shouted as they haggled with sharp-tongued vendors over waxy fruits and root vegetables, while children nearby cheered to the performers in masks and bright feathered costumes who juggled glowing white orbs for their amusement. Music and news dispatches blasting through open windows and the doorways of shopfronts shattered whatever tranquility that might have existed there. In a voice that boomed above the din, a vendor barked that her gold-tasseled carpets were the most colorful in the universe. This wasn't a mere sales pitch. Those rolled carpets, stacked in pyramids on her table, exploded in vibrant maroons, emeralds, eggplants, and golds.

It was all too much.

Lightheaded and nauseous from the sensory overload, Kira fell against the wall of the building they had exited and threw up, her throat and ribcage contracting violently as she emptied her stomach. When she was finished, her stomach sore, her mouth tasting of bile, she wiped her bottom lip, then glanced at the chaotic scene unfolding in front of her. The shouting, the drumming and piping, the vibrant colors, the droning, bumping and jostling were so overwhelming, so distorted and grotesque that she feared she was going insane. She had never taken a hallucinogen before, but she was sure she was experiencing one at that moment.

The sensations intensified around her. The air was thin, and she had trouble breathing. Her chest began to heave, and there was a tightness in her lungs and a lightness in her head. She needed an oxygen filter. Unfortunately it was in the emergency kit, and she'd left that behind in her flat or, rather, the matrix.

Sensing her distress, the Z'Dhia reached into his satchel and pulled out a filter. With trembling fingers, she fitted the tubes into her nostrils, clipped the oxygen box onto her belt, and adjusted the settings. She breathed in the filtered air. 

"Are you all right?" he asked.

She nodded, though her knees were still wobbly and her head throbbed with the bustle and noise. The Z'Dhia told her that traveling in the nRoom had distorted her senses. It was a normal reaction for the first time. She should regain her faculties shortly.

She exhaled deeply and glanced back at the portal. It returned to its former state––a doorway into a dun-colored building.

Her sense of reality had gone through a radical change. "Is this all real? Or has reality changed?"

"Reality never changes. It only develops layers."

"Like a tesseract." Her throat was still dry from the heaving.

He smiled. "Exactly. Like a tesseract. Here, take this." He reached into his satchel again and pulled out a small, round box. Its lid was black and ornamented with ideograms. He opened it and removed a small, white pill. She stared skeptically at him and asked what it was. "It's an analgesic, Wood. It will help with the dizziness."

She sighed, both in relief and irritation at herself––she felt like a novice on her first day at the Academy––then stuck the pill in her mouth. It dissolved on her tongue. Within seconds, her senses returned to normal. The street and its colors, though vibrant, were less intense, but the noises still clashed in her brain.

After verifying she was feeling better, the Z'Dhia announced he was ready to get started. He didn't know when the Transdimensional Coordinator will lose its signal on Volume 143 again. Kira wasn't certain herself how they were going to find it. According to the data she researched on her communicator, Aderna had thirteen districts across its landlocked territories, each containing bazaars that had on average more than a million vendors and traders tracking through it. Ingreth, the district where they were located, stretched one hundred and sixty to one hundred and seventy kilometers in the planet's northern region. The nearest district Uxiua was on the eastern side of the Gurah Mountains and was more than two hundred kilometers across.

"That's a lot of ground to cover," she said.

The Z'Dhia reminded her about The Key and began scrolling it to get information. His expression strained. She asked what was wrong.

"According to these calculations, Volume 143 has been in various locations. Fifteen in this area alone. The highest concentration on the planet."

"Looks like somebody's been working overtime to keep you from finding it."

He raised his brow. "Working overtime?"

"I'll explain later."

He led her into the crowd. "You'll have to. We need to find that volume first."

Kira wiped the sweat from her brow and adjusted the settings on her oxygen filter to high. Though layers of black netting shaded the streets, the heat was still unrelenting, intensified even more by the dense crowds congesting the narrow passageways. Voices droned steadily all around her as traders swelled and retreated around canvas stalls, parting for AV scooters before falling back again, still pushing and pulling in their own synchronized rhythms. Traders jostled them on their way to stalls, breathing their hot, musky breaths into their faces.

Kira's father once told her that a person could go mad in Aderna. Too much abundance can be as awful as too little, he said. She now knew what he meant. A vendor and a Jendavaran woman argued over what looked like fungi bark in clay barrels. The vendor snatched a large bark from the trader's hand and began screaming at her. An Adernite operated a mobile brick oven beneath a canvas beside a building. She pulled out a great slab of meat from the flames, crusty black and smoking, and tossed it onto a wooden table. A Najiumian child in a brown shift began cutting up the meat with a cleaver. His hands moved swiftly as he chopped the meat and wrapped the pieces in white paper. He handed one of the pieces to a Starrian in a red jacket with gold piping, then held up three brown fingers to indicate its price. The Starrian reached into his pouch and tossed a few coins onto the table. The boy snatched them up, then returned to his work, scratching his elven, white-tufted ear that was exposed through the strands of brown hair he tied up in a topknot on the crown of his head. 

Every street they passed offered the same. Traders inspecting goods and wrestling over a bolt of cloth or a hand-woven basket operated with a madness all their own. Yet there was a method to it all, a system eked out over a century of evolution. None of the stories Loren told her about the planet, no matter how rich in detail, could ever do it justice.

Kira undid the top clasp of her uniform jacket, then fanned her face with her hand, still in wonder over it all. The Z'Dhia walked in silence beside her, staring at The Key, unimpressed. With the hood of his cloak concealing his head he was a vision of cool. His desire to merge with the crowds like water molecules was his greatest strength––his weapon against his enemies.

Until now, it never occurred to her that he might have personal enemies. The Ro Kannan certainly qualified. Were there others she needed to worry about? She had been thrown so headlong into this assignment that she didn't know what to expect. She touched her weapon on her belt and recalled her deputizing officer's warning. Keep one ready.

She tilted her head to the netting above. Rays of sunshine broke through and stippled the crowds and street below. "Where are we headed?"

"The first stop on our tour," he replied, which was one of the last locations the Transdimensional Coordinator traced Volume 143. The signals were the strongest there, though they were starting to dissipate. It should, he hoped, provide some answers. His statement didn't inspire much confidence.

"Yes," she said, squeezing through a pair of Adernite traders who had briefly but comically blocked her way, "but where is it exactly?"

He looked up. "Straight ahead."

She gazed in the direction he had indicated with a nod. Five or six meters away, a four-story building with a bone-white facade stood at the end of the street. Vendors crowded in front of it. Netting shaded the street below.

Kira ran down the location of the building and its name on her communicator. "Books T'Millvorkha. It's a bookshop. Well, that makes sense. Where else would you find a book?"

"I doubt it's there now," he said as The Key ticked away like a Geiger counter. "But whoever runs this shop knows where it went." He grinned slyly. "Why don't we pay him a visit and ask?"

A cool draft blew through the door of the shop as it slid open. Despite the windows along the front edifice, only a few dusty sunbeams broke across the well of the main floor, embellishing a book-cluttered table and carpet underneath. Above the entrance was a metal walkway with a flight of stairs nearby leading up to it. As they moved closer to the center of the shop, Kira noticed that four flights of levels ran all along all sides, with rows of bookshelves crammed with tomes occupying each one. Piles of books and manuscripts cluttered the grated floors and stairwells and were stacked in columns on the main floor.

Kira was shocked by the abundance. It reminded her of the libraries on Earth, which she had seen only in pictures and the documents she played on her holographic platform.

She examined one of the volumes from a stack. It had a blue hardcover with strange markings. The parchment leaves were brittle, smelled of dust and age, and written in the same black copy inside. Though she could not read the markings, she recognized the language as Starrian. She typed the title in her communicator for a translation.

Othello, it read in digital block letters.

She smiled inwardly. Translated books from member planets weren't uncommon. To promote unity and common fellowship among the memberships, IPPA encouraged the sharing of books and ideas, which it facilitated by adopting the alphabetic symbol as a universal language to easier translate. When Kira was at the Academy, she took a class on the classic oral storytellings on Najiumian myths and origin tales. Many member planets continued to use their native symbol and glyphs for planetary communications. In the past, most member planets, such as Idris-Sarra, Najiu, and Aderna, used logographic linguistic systems. The Book of Dreams was written in Old Idris-Sarran, which used ideograms for alphabetic and syntactical equations. Few had seen examples of their now dead language, but their difficulty and complexity were well known. It was one of the reasons, along with being prewar artifacts, that the underground markets considered the volumes highly valuable. The ancient, musty tomes throughout the bookshop drew Kira’s eyes. A very likely place to trade the volume, she thought.

She returned the book to the stack and consulted her communicator again. The seller, T'Millvorkha Kaphra, had been running the shop for over fifty years, though it was much older than that, when his father established it over a hundred years before. During the Galactic War, soldiers based in the district were some of its earliest patrons. Along with its vintage selections, the shop traded holographic pornography. "Well, that explains that," she muttered to herself abhorrently. It became legendary for being one of the few buildings that survived the Thirty Nights of Hell, or Vesturah Lakh in Adernite. During the war, the Alliance used underground tunnels to transport weapons and soldiers to key battlefronts along the Gurah Mountain range. When the high command in the Ro Kannan armada discovered what the Alliance was doing, they ordered the aerial brigade to attack the city. For thirty days and nights, the armada's infamous fighter ships, Man Rays as they were dubbed by Betan fighters, dropped bombs on the city, destroying key strategic points along the tunnel systems. Almost 70% of the city was demolished. The entire street where T'Millvorkha's stood was leveled. Only the bookshop famously survived. After the war, it became a legitimate trading hub for book dealers around the Zharkassar system, gaining a reputation for being one of the finest. T'Millvorkha Kaphra apprenticed under his father, then took over when the elder passed away, earning a reputation for his integrity and high standards.

"So high, in fact, he only trades with private collectors."

"And thieves," the Z'Dhia added as he scanned the air. The Key continued to tick as he moved it in a half-circular motion.

"I doubt he'll cooperate with us, especially after we accuse him of illegal trading. Jendavarans tend to take offense at that."

"He can take offense all he wants, but the facts say otherwise."

"What are those facts?"

"Right now, The Key is calculating the residual organic compounds in the shop and matching them with the chemical residue on the volume. That should calculate who had it last."

"Organic compound residue? You mean proteins, amino acids, genetic materials? How is that possible? Wouldn't you need samples to analyze that?"

"All the samples I need are already catalogued in the Transdimensional Coordinator."

"So what are you doing right now then?"

"Scanning for molecular fingerprints."

"Considering the number of books in here and the number of times they've must've changed hands, that must be a hell of a lot of fingerprints."

"Not more than you would imagine," he said.

Kira shrugged and breathed through her oxygen filter. None of it made any sense, but she trusted the Z'Dhia knew what he was doing. Something else did occur to her. All this knowledge and technology that was available to him must be recorded in the Book of Dreams. It should have been obvious from the start. In all the shock of entering the nRoom and traveling through time and space it never occurred to her until now. She asked him to verify, but he instead focused on his readings, his face taut with concentration.

"Well, is it? What exactly are in those volumes?"

"Betan."

She shot up her eyebrows. "Betans?"

"The DNA strands—they belong to a Betan. And…a Varmitian."

"Betans and Varmitians? This far out in the quadrant?"

He looked at her. "Apparently."

The rustling of clothes and a gasp sounded behind them. Startled, they turned to face the Jendavaran male standing in the threshold of a doorway. He had golden furskin and a luxuriant mane, an intelligent face, and gentle eyes. The first word that came to Kira's mind about his fashion sense was elegant. Long, olive-green coat with gold dots, a Jendavaran scarf wrapped around his neck, a white shirt, tan trousers, and tasseled slippers. Sapphire and emerald rings adorned his fingers (Kira noticed his long, curved nails, sharp as claws). A brass wrist bracelet peeked from under the wide sleeve of his coat. If there was anyone who was likely to buy and trade something as rare and valuable as a volume of the Book of Dreams, he seemed the most likely candidate.

"Oh," he said, clutching a few books to his chest. "I didn't know anyone was here."

"We just stepped inside," Kira replied.

"Yes, apparently." The bookseller went over to a counter near the back entrance where he set down the volumes and began arranging them. "Do you have an appointment?"

"Appointment?" Kira glanced at the Z'Dhia, eyebrows raised. "No, we don't."

"I only deal with private collectors and only if they have an appointment."

"Then we are in good standing," said the Z'Dhia, "for we did not come to trade."

"Oh?"

"No," Kira said and took out her ID-badge. "My name is Agent Kira Wood and I'm with the Office of Claims Department."

T'Millvorkha's expression slackened. "Well, then, I am T'Millvorkha Kaphra and I am the owner of this shop."

"Hello, Mr. T'Millvorkha, we'd like to ask you a few questions if you don't mind."

"I do mind, if I am under investigation. Since I do not have a choice, then I suppose the answer is: no, I do not. And please, call me Kaphra."

"You're under no investigation," she assured him. "We'd just like to ask a few questions, if you don't mind. I'm sure you're very busy, and we don't want to take up too much of your time, but we appreciate whatever help you can offer."

Kira slid easily into diplomatic-mode, though she needed to be careful. There were two ethnicities of Jendavarans separated by region––the northerners and the southerners. Northern Jendavarans had mostly white furskin and blue eyes, while southerners had largely golden furskin and dark or amber eyes, though there were intermixes between the two. Their customs and cultures were also unique. Kira had only researched northern Jendavarans, but she assumed there were commonalities and overlaps. After a few minutes of talking to the bookseller, she realized the error of those assumptions. Any northern Jendavaran would not have been as polite.

"May I ask what this is all about?"

"It's about one of your clients," the Idris-Sarran answered.

The bookseller shook his head, causing his massive hair to flutter. "I'm sorry, but I am not at liberty to discuss my clients."

The Z'Dhia inhaled deeply, then folded his arms. "I don't care what you are not at liberty to say. You'll answer whatever questions we ask you. Do you understand, T'Millvorkha?"

Kira frowned at the Z'Dhia. A few seconds of awkward silence passed before them before Kira said, "Why aren't you at liberty to discuss them?"

"My clients," he said, "you see…you see, they expect a certain measure of confidentiality. So, you see, I very well can't answer your question. You can appreciate, I'm sure, the position I am in."

"This client is a thief. He stole from my people, which means you stole from us as well. I suggest, for your sake, T'Millvorkha, that you change your mind."

Kira shot him a look. Why was he threatening him? Why imply that she has the authority to detain him if he refused?

"Thief? I am no thief. What proof do you have of this?"

"Enough," the Z'Dhia said.

"As I thought," he said haughtily. "You have no proof at all. What is this? What right do you have to accuse me of anything? I know my rights. I don't have to answer questions without a formal writ of authorization and without a mediator present."

"You're right," Kira said, gazing testily at the Z'Dhia. "You're not obligated to cooperate with us, though we'd appreciate it if you could." The Z'Dhia pulled the hood back down from his head, and Kaphra let out another "Oh" as she continued. "Will you help us?"

"I'm a legitimate dealer. I would never trade contraband. Only seven varas ago I passed a regulatory inspection––"

"Where is it?" said the Z'Dhia. Kaphra shook his head. "The volume," he barked. "Where is it?"

The bookseller wrenched his hands as he looked from him to Kira, then back again. "I–I honestly don't know what you're talking about."

Kira returned her ID-badge to the clip on her belt and intervened. She had no idea what the Z'Dhia was doing. Did he think that intimidating the bookseller would help? "Did any of your clients ask about the volume the Z'Dhia is referring to?"

"How many times must I tell you? I cannot reveal anything about my clients. My reputation depends on it."

"Your reputation?" the Z'Dhia said sarcastically.

"Yes, of course. On Aderna, a trader's reputation is everything. My industry in particular depends on good––" he looked at Kira––"I believe Betans refer to it as 'word-of-mouth?'"

"Really?" said the Z'Dhia, stroking his goatee. "Tell me: What do you think would happen to your reputation if word got out that you trade on the underground?"

"Got out?"

He nodded. "Let's say someone happened to spread stories about your reputation, that you trade on the underground, that your goods are cheap products not worth the credit you trade them for? A brakha vulah. What do you think would happen then?"

The bookseller gulped. "Are you threatening me?"

The Z'Dhia answered with a wry grin. Kira stared at him, astonished. She never thought he could be so ruthless.

"Your shop," she said, still eyeing the Z'Dhia curiously, "has been in business for a hundred years. Is that right?"

Nervously T'Millvorkha nodded. "Yes, before the war. There weren't many trading shops in Ingreth at the time. It was just a township then. No more than two hundred or three hundred Adernites living under the desert mountains. It became popular, especially during the war. There were many soldiers who kept themselves occupied by reading. Ingreth didn't have much in the way of entertainments in those days."

"Your father founded it."

"He ran it for many years until he became ill and I took over."

"He sounds like a bold and enterprising man. He must have been very well-respected."

"Oh, yes, very much so. His integrity is renowned throughout Aderna. I take great pride in following in his esteemed example. That's why I am pained to hear that you think I would have anything to do with contraband."

"Please, don't be. As I said before, we're only here to ask a few questions. If you agree that trading contraband is wrong, then you'd want to help us. After all, that's the only way we can make sure your industry remains honest."

"I agree. In my industry, honesty is the only policy, I say."

Kira looked smugly at the Z'Dhia. Let's see what you think about diplomacy now, she thought. He narrowed his eyes, then asked Kaphra if he ever had clients from Beta-1.

"I don't have any Betan clients."

"What about browsers?" Kira asked. "I'm sure you've had a few come in from time to time to look around."

"Browsers? No, no browsing allowed. Appointments only."

"How about Varmitians?"

"Varmitians?"

"Have any visited your shop recently? By appointment, of course."

Kaphra's lower lip shuddered. His eyes appeared to glaze over, as if he was deep in thought. "There…there was one visitor," he said. "From Varma. But only one."

"Did you trade with him?"

He nodded. "But it's not what you think. It was a completely legitimate trade."

The Z'Dhia scrutinized him sharply. "Tell us what you know, T'Millvorkha."

"Before I begin, let me state emphatically that I am a legitimate dealer and everything I have done then and now has been within regulation. If I had known that someone possessed contraband, I would have alerted the authorities."

The Z'Dhia slivered his eyes again. "Proceed."

"It was a few varas ago. I was examining a few recent acquisitions when the Varmitian entered the shop. He was quite handsome, elegantly dressed, but cold, aristocratic, formal."

"Did he give a name?" asked Kira.

"He never volunteered it and I never asked. He didn't have an appointment, so I was prepared to send him away. He was determined to speak to me. He said that he was in a hurry and that time was of the essence. I assured him we could arrange a meeting at a more convenient time for us both, but he persisted. It was of 'the utmost importance' were his words."

"He wanted to trade the volume with you," said the Z'Dhia.

"No, not at all. He wanted to see if I had a certain book in my collection. A book of translations."

Kira and the Z'Dhia exchanged more looks. Of course, she thought. If she had a volume of the Book of Dreams, she would want to be able to read it too. She asked Kaphra what kind of book of translations was he looking for.

"Mainly prewar language systems across the galaxy––hieroglyphs, pictographs, pictograms, ideograms, numerical, geometric. Anything I had in my collection. I told him I had a few such books."

He went over to the wooden counter and slipped on a pair of gloves. The latex stretched over his long nails. He removed some manuscripts from a shelf underneath and placed them delicately on the counter. He opened one of the manuscripts. Illustrations and Oelling script etched in ink filled the pages. The Z'Dhia leaned down and peered at the page. He examined it for a few seconds before he lifted his eyes and told the bookseller to continue.

Kaphra closed the manuscript and opened the other one. Again, both Kira and the Z'Dhia examined it.

"Did the collector tell you why he was looking for a book in translations?" she asked.

He shook his head. "He was quite reluctant to reveal anything about himself or his intentions. I was concerned. After all, I am a legitimate dealer. I've come across collectors who looked as if they were quite familiar with the underground. That's why I meet with collectors by appointment only. Most of my clients come to me by recommendation through respected dealers. It is the only way I can ensure that my clients are legitimate.

"When I showed him these manuscripts, he asked if I had any books that focused on one language. I asked if he had anything particular in mind. That was when he showed me the book."

Kira could almost hear the Z'Dhia's heartbeat quicken, but his expression remained neutral, flat.

"The aristocrat had a bodyguard or accomplice with him, a Betan."

The Z'Dhia frowned. "You said you didn't deal with Betans."

"I said I didn't have many Betan clients, which is true. I never said I have not interacted with them. And this Betan, as I said, worked for the Varmitian."

The Varmitian hailed the Betan, who came forward with a box that he removed from a satchel. The box was wooden and had etchings on the lid in a language T'Millvorkha wasn't familiar with. "I assumed it was Betan-English." The Varmitian took the box from the Betan and placed it on top of the counter. Inside was a book of the most extraordinary quality. "Dark-colored cover and binding. Gold leaf. Strange ideogrammatic language on the cover," he said excitedly. "I'd never seen anything like it."

The Varmitian opened the book and began thumbing through its pages. The writing was in the same ideograms, handwritten in heavy dark ink. The entire page was filled from top to bottom with the writing. Some pages had illustrations––one, the Jendavaran recalled, of the anatomy of a humanoid, another of the galactic core. "It was quite intriguing."

"You saw this book, but you claimed you had no idea what it was?" The Z'Dhia's voice was hard and cold.

"No, of course not," he said, slightly offended. "As I told you, I do not deal in illegitimate trade. To be honest, it is only now that I realize what the book might have been. Even when I touched it––"

"Touched it?" The Z'Dhia cocked an eyebrow, downcast his mouth.

"I wanted to touch the page, to test its value, but the Varmitian slapped my hand away. I managed to graze the edge of the page. It was a sekrah, less than a sekrah, but when I touched that book it felt as if…as if…" His voice fell away. His golden eyes were aglow. When he found his voice again, he whispered in awe. "As if I had seen the center of the universe."

Kira drew in her breath. It amazed her that after everything she had seen and experienced that day, she could still be astounded. The Z'Dhia focused on the bookseller, unblinking, unfazed.

"So you did know it was the Book of Dreams."

"I knew it was extraordinary. But I had seen many extraordinary books in my time."

"Is that what you tell yourself? To justify it?" The Z'Dhia's eyes blazed. "You didn't tell the authorities, did you? You didn't speak out."

Kaphra widened his eyes. "I told him I didn't trade with racketeers. He told me he wasn't a racketeer, that the book was a gift."

The Z'Dhia laughed incredulously.

"What was I supposed to believe?" He turned to Kira, eyes beseeching. "I have never seen a book like it before. I had no reference to believe it was nothing more than a strange volume. The Varmitian did not tell me what it was. How else was I to know?"

"Did he show you any verification certificates to prove he was telling the truth about it being a gift?"

"No, I didn't think to ask."

The bookseller told him he would be fine with trading a book on translations but nothing more. The Varmitian claimed he wasn't interested in a trade. "He said he needed help in translating the book he had. He had looked all over for the books, but he couldn't find any. He wanted to know if there were any booksellers he might turn to. I told him I could arrange to have some of my colleagues in the neighboring districts teleport their books to my shop. But it would require trades."

"What did he say to that?"

"He was pleased. He said he could arrange for a few trades if I could find the right books. And that is what we did. I arranged to send books to him from other sellers and we made a trade. You must know, I never directly traded with him myself. I acted only as an intermediary."

The Z'Dhia asked him if this arrangement was still ongoing. He shook his head and said that only a day before he delivered a few books to the Varmitian but was told that it would likely be the last.

"He told you that?"

"In so many words."

"Did he explain why?"

"I did not care to ask."

"You said you delivered. So you've been to his domicile."

"Well, no, not exactly. A Najiumian boy came to pick up the books. He was the one who told me this would be the last time he comes here. I took it to mean that there would be no more transactions between us."

"You know where the Varmitian lives then?"

"No, I do not know where he lives. He never told me. As I said, I left the books with the boy. You'll have to ask him where the Varmitian lives."

"We would appreciate it if you could give us a name," Kira said. "We'd like to talk to this Najiumian."

The bookseller glanced from Kira to the Z'Dhia with the slightest of smiles. "My greatest apologies, but I do not have the answer to that as well."

The Z'Dhia turned on his heels and stormed out of the shop. Kira asked the bookseller if there was anything else he might tell them. He shook his head.

"Are you absolutely certain I am not in any trouble? I…I do have my reputation to think about."

Kira stared at him for a few seconds before she confirmed at last he was not. A look of relief washed over his face. She shook the man's hand and thanked him for his cooperation.

When she joined the Z'Dhia outdoors, he spun on her. "Fool." Kira stopped in her tracks, stunned by the vehemence in his voice. The stoic, logical image of him melted in the Adernite heat. "No help at all," he said, then scrolled for data on The Key.

"The way you went after him? I don't blame him."

"He knew what the Varmitian had," he seethed. "Yet not only did he say nothing, he actively aided him. No man of his nature is honorable or respectable."

"What about the Najiumian delivery boy? That's something."

The scowl on his face softened. "Unfortunately, we do not have a name, so I doubt the usefulness of it. T'Millvorkha isn't the only bookseller our Varmitian has had dealings with. One of them will have the answers I seek."

Kira crossed her arms. "Will you go after them the same way you did T'Millvorkha?"

He furrowed his brow and stared at her for a long time, studying her it seemed. "This is my mission, Wood," he began. "If my methods are displeasing, then I release you from it."

"First of all," she said with an insulted laugh, "you don't have the authority to release me from anything. Second, no, I'm not pleased with your methods. You saw what I did in there. I don't discount your anger or passion, but if you want to find this Varmitian, you should at least consider that my training as a diplomat will go a long way toward that."

A resigned sigh escaped his lips as he took her arm. "If that is the case, then may we find him sooner than we hope."

Share, Subscribe, and Post a comment. I’d love to hear what you think so far of the series. Will Kira and the Z’Dhia’s different methods affect their working relationship? And who is this Varmitian and what exactly does he want with the volume? To find out, click below to the next chapter.