Eighth Circle

'We played at being guardians if that's what you mean.'

'Were you good at it?'

'My father warned against that.'

'He was very wise.'

'He didn't want a surrogate in the family,' Bryn said.

'I had no idea that the common people knew so much about the guardians,' Crispin sounded impressed. 'We thought they were taken in by all that nonsense on television.'

'Bryn's family is not common,' Liala protested.

'I'm sure Crispin didn't mean that,' Bryn said quietly.

Crispin smiled and looked more relaxed. Liala guessed her brother was getting to know Bryn and felt more comfortable with him. He was shy by nature and his upbringing hadn't helped. It would have been a big step for him to get to know a common person.

They had more in common than she expected. Bryn knew a lot about computers and told Crispin things her brother had only guessed at. But that was nothing compared with what he had to say about surrogates.

Crispin thought the only way to detect a surrogate was to cut him up and look for the implant in his brain. He called that testing-to-destruction. Bryn said his father had built a surrogate detector that tapped into brainwaves and worked at a distance without anyone knowing.

Liala listened to them talking. Bryn clearly came from a remarkable family. His father had been a senior technical expert for Plaid Koerno. Uncle Allain was the resistance movement's present commander. She wondered if fate had brought them together.

***

The moon had set before they sneaked onto the deck with their bedrolls. Liala recalled that it was full moon when she went out with the dolphins to greet the Lord of Light. Fourteen days had passed since then and her life had been turned upside down. She snuggled against Bryn and took his hand.

'Crispin is in his cabin ... my cousin Peter has first watch.'

She nibbled his ear and felt his hand slide up her arm.

'He had that operation on his inner mammalian cortex.'

'Who did?'

'Peter.'

'So what?'

'He might not approve. Once it's removed you no longer get the urge and that could make you think that other people shouldn't get it either... particularly if you are taught that it's wrong.'

'What's wrong?'

'Sex,' Liala whispered.

'We are not having sex.'

'Not yet.' She snuggled up closer. 'I might have got it wrong but it goes something like this. We are all related to fish and they came out of the water and turned into reptiles. When that happened our ancestors, the reptiles, couldn't go on reproducing like fish. They couldn't throw around eggs and sperm in water because they were on dry land. That meant they had to be more targeted.'