Forgotten Suns by Judith Tarr Read Free Book Online Page A

differently, too.”
    “You’re planning to ride those things?” Vikram said.
    Aisha bit her tongue. It wasn’t her place to say Rama
already had.
    Rama smiled at Vikram. “Wouldn’t you like to see me try?”
    “Why?” Vikram demanded.
    “Why not?”
    “Your funeral,” Vikram said, the way everybody did sooner or
later with Rama.
    Except Aisha. She had observed that when Rama set out to do
something, he knew he could do it. He never tried anything totally impossible.
    “Before you lay me in my tomb,” Rama said to Vikram, “will
you help me with the saddle? I can see what it needs, but I’m not familiar with
this kind of tree. Show me what to do.”
    Vikram shook his head, but he sat down on the workbench and
pulled the half-dismembered saddle over toward him and held out his hand. Rama
put the seam ripper in it. A moment longer and their heads were together, wavy
black and steel grey, turning a horse saddle into an antelope saddle.
    ~~~
    Jamal was a menace with a computer. Mother said it, and
she would know. She was fairly dangerous herself.
    Aisha caught him the day after Rama brought the antelope in,
pretending to take a nap but actually deep inside the house web. She’d been
looking for Mother’s articles on antelope, but a tweak in a search string led
her to Aunt Khalida’s files and a fragment of code that Jamal hadn’t quite got
around to hiding.
    She slipped out of the web as stealthily as she could, ducked
down the hall to his room and sat on him. She was still heavier than he was,
though just barely.
    He came out of the web with a lurch and a squawk. “ Hey! What do you think you’re—”
    “What do you think
you’re doing?” she shot back. “You know what happens when Aunt Khalida catches
people hacking her files. Do you really want to be locked out of the web for a
tenday?”
    “The way you were?” He scowled at her. He’d been practicing
Pater’s patented expression again; it didn’t work as well on his thin boy-face,
and he’d have to grow much more imposing eyebrows. “Do you think she knows what
Rama is up to?”
    “Why?”
    He pushed at her. She stopped sitting on him and perched on
the end of the bed instead. He sat up and hugged his skinny knees. “You don’t
think it’s weird that he’s training wild antelope to ride?”
    “I think everything about him is weird,” she said. “What
were you doing in Aunt Khalida’s files?”
    “Nothing.”
    He barely looked guilty, which told her all she needed to
know. “You couldn’t get in.”
    That stung him. “I would have, if you hadn’t ripped me out.”
    “You’re lucky I caught you before she did.”
    “I was almost there,” he said, and now his scowl was almost
of Pater proportions. “She has to be running searches to find out who Rama is.
Or what. I want to see what she’s found.”
    “She hasn’t found anything,” Aisha said. “You should have
asked. I could have told you.”
    “I hate you,” he said mildly.
    “I hate you, too.” Aisha fixed him with her firmest stare.
“Look. Whatever happened to Aunt before she showed up here, she’s a right mess.
I don’t think we should cross her any more than absolutely necessary. And that
includes getting caught hacking her personal files.”
    “I won’t get caught.”
    “No, you won’t. Because you’re not going anywhere near
them.”
    “Says who?”
    “Says you, if you just wake up to yourself. It’s not worth
getting grounded to come up with nothing, and you know it. If anything does
show up, we’ll find out. One way or another.”
    One thing about Jamal: if she pushed hard enough, he
actually stopped to think. He was still scowling, but he’d stopped arguing.
    “What Aunt doesn’t know won’t hurt us,” he said. “Fair
enough about the files. But, Aisha, there are antelope in the barn. Sooner or later, she’s going to—”
    “Make it later,” Aisha said.
    ~~~
    Aunt Khalida might not have found out at all until
everybody came back, except