Dominion by John Connolly Read Free Book Online Page B

just as easily pick up an egg without cracking it as strike a lethal blow. Its head was a great, elongated bone mask, dotted with multiple black eyes at its thickest part before narrowing to a point barely wider than a man’s hand. They could see no sign of a mouth or jaws.
    â€œAgain,” said the voice, “is this preferable?”
    â€œMan, bring back the other guy,” whispered Thula to Paul. “Even without pants.”
    The head of the hologram tilted in his direction.
    â€œNo offense meant,” Thula added.
    Syl stepped forward.
    â€œYou are Cayth, aren’t you?” she said. “All of you.”
    â€œThere is not one. There is only all. I am Cayth. We are Cayth.”
    The hologram flickered and vanished, to be replaced by a series of rapidly changing images, in which each of them saw some of those whom they knew and loved: parents, brothers, sisters, friends, comrades.
    â€œWhere are they getting these from?” asked Paul.
    â€œSome of it is from the databases on board the Nomad , I imagine,” said Syl. “But most of it is from us.”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œWhen they scanned us, they saw the things we care about, the things we hold dear: memories and images, families and friends—all that we treasure. They also probably saw what we had in the ship: those mementos we all keep.”
    Paul glimpsed his mother, smiling at him, uncannily like the old passport photo of her that he kept in his pocket. Thula watched one of his brothers grinning at him, just as he did from the picture of them together that was one of his most prized possessions.
    Syl saw her father, and she stumbled backward, the shock of him there, apparently in the living flesh, clear on her face.
    â€œBut when they scanned you, you were blank, Syl,” said Thula softly. “I saw it.”
    She swallowed hard, and when she spoke her voice was high and sharp.
    â€œWell, obviously they saw more than you did,” she said.
    Paul caught Thula’s eye, giving him a warning look; he kept little from his longtime comrade, and Thula was aware that Syl possessed some very strange abilities. He’d even seen a little of them for himself. She was an odd one, he thought, watching her surreptitiously as her honeyed features smoothly recast themselves and her face became a mask once more. She was the sort of complicated girl his mother had warned him to avoid. Clearly Paul’s mother had not done the same. Perhaps she should have.
    And still the images continued to change, like a reel of tiny films.
    Meia saw Danis, to whom she had spoken just before she left Earth, and whom she trusted; and she saw the human, Trask, too, leader of the Resistance movement in Edinburgh, as much friend as enemy. Curious, she thought.
    And from all of these images, the Cayth created a single figure, containing a little of each of those whom the others found reassuring, trustworthy. It was vaguely masculine and middle-aged, and, like the original composite, it combined human and Illyri features—skin as dark as Thula’s, its face set with entirely lidless Illyri eyes—but it had a kind of gentleness to it, as though the Cayth had somehow managed to pinpoint the finest qualities of each of those remembered. It wore the uniform of a Brigade officer. The campaign badges on the left breast were familiar to Paul. It was a replica of the uniform worn by Peris, their old guardian, now left behind on Erebos.
    â€œIs this preferable?” the composite asked, and there was humor in the voice.
    Nobody objected. It seemed that this was, indeed, preferable.

CHAPTER 10
    T he observation deck, previously empty of furniture, produced chairs from the floor, and an oval table, precisely like those on board the Nomad . A shape began to form in the wall, and what might almost have been a female version of the Cayth figure appeared, sliding effortlessly out of it with a soft plop. Paul heard Syl gasp beside him, but