One Fell Sweep (Innkeeper Chronicles #3)(20)

“My deepest apologies, but the security of my inn is my priority. I am bound by the innkeeper laws. These laws dictate that I keep my guests safe first and foremost. What you are suggesting - retrieving the Archivarians - would require me to leave the inn unattended. Nor am I capable of doing the retrievals. I’m an innkeeper. I’m at my most powerful here, at the inn. This is my place.”

“We have seen you rescue your sister. We have observed. We know you are capable.”

George must’ve wanted to help them desperately. I wanted to help them.

“I can’t. Doing this would make the inn a target for the Draziri and they won’t abide by the treaty of Earth. The secret of the existence of other galactic life must be kept. It breaks my heart to tell you no, but I must. I’m so sorry.”

“The treasures we have given were our most prized possessions,” the Hiru said. “Our books. Our images. Our secrets. Everything that made us. We are dying. Our culture will be gone without us. It has value. It is rare. The Archivarius prizes rare.”

I bit my lip.

“Enough for two,” the Hiru said.

“Two what?” Maud asked.

“Enough for answers to two questions,” the Hiru said. “The Arbitrator told us.”

He raised his hand. A panel on his forearm slid aside and a translucent image formed above it, woven from the tiny yellow lights. The picture of my missing parents, the one I kept hanging on the front room wall.

“Help us,” the Hiru said. “And you can ask your question.”





CHAPTER 5


Silence claimed the room.

Maud was looking at me. It was my inn and it was up to me to respond.

“Will you give us time to discuss your proposal?”

The Hiru nodded. “My time is short, but I’ll wait until the beginning of the light cycle.”

We had until the next morning to decide.

“Follow me, please.”

I led him through the hallway, forming a new room downstairs as we walked. So little was known about the Hiru, but the one thing my mother told me was that reproducing the Hiru’s native environment was beyond the inns’ capacity. Gertrude Hunt could create almost anything with my direction and the proper resources, but some things, like intense heat, for example, were off-limits. The inns could handle small controlled flames, like fireplaces and pits, but large scale blazes put them under undue stress.

According to my mother, the Hiru's environment required a very specific combination of gasses, pressure, and gravity, and we simply couldn’t match it. A Hiru was never truly comfortable anywhere, but they liked water. When one stayed at my parents’ inn, my mother made her a room with indigo walls and a deep pool at the end. That had to be my best bet.

The Hiru moved behind me, his gait slow, ponderous, and labored. Our galaxy loved tech in all its incarnations. A high tech assault suit or a bastard sword, it didn’t matter - once it was made, someone would almost immediately try to improve on it. The Hiru were the glaring exception to this rule. There was nothing sleek or efficient about them. They were clunky and slow, as if some mad genius had tried to build a robot with things he’d found at a junkyard, but died before he could improve his design past its first, barely functional prototype. Even his translator was so ancient, it failed to associate “morning” with “beginning of the light cycle.”

But there was so much sadness in his voice. The translator may have been antiquated, but the emotion was there. I had to do better than an empty blue room.

I closed my eyes for a moment and tried my best to feel the being standing next to me. If I were he, what would I need?

I would want beauty. I would want hope and tranquility, and above all, safety. But what did beauty mean to a Hiru?

“Tell me about your planet?” I asked.

“There are no words.”

Of course there weren’t, but this wasn’t my first day in the inn. “Tell me about the sky.”

The Hiru paused. “Colors,” he said. “Twisting and flowing into each other. Glowing rivers of colors against the dark blue sky.”

Mom was close with indigo. “Red, yellow?”

“Red, yes. Lavender. And lights.” The Hiru slowly raised his massive metal hand and moved it. “Tiny sparks of lights across the sky to the horizon.”

“Clouds?”

“Yes. Like a tall funnel, twisting.”

We reached the door. I pushed it open with my fingertips.

The round room stretched up, rising three stories high. At the very top, a maelstrom of clouds turned ever so slowly, a 3-D projection streaming from the ceiling. An aurora borealis suffused it with light, alternating among deep purple, red, pink, turquoise, and beautiful, glowing lavender. Tiny rivers of glowing dots swirled, floating gently through the illusory clouds. The chamber’s walls, deep indigo stone, offered two seats shaped to accommodate the Hiru’s body protruding from the far wall. In the center of the room, right under the sky, a pool of water waited, twenty feet wide, round, and deep enough to submerge the Hiru up to the chin of his helmet.

“Enjoy your stay.”

The Hiru didn’t answer. He was looking at the sky. Slowly, ponderously, he moved to the pool, the openings on his metal body hissing shut. He stood on the first step of the stairs, half a foot in the water. The glow of the aurora borealis played on the metal of his suit. The Hiru took another step, moving in deeper. The water lapped at his body, he turned, and collapsed into the water, floating, his face to the sky.