This Alien Shore by C. S. Friedman

Author:C. S. Friedman [Friedman, C. S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

TANJI

The tanji is not afraid. Fear is for creatures who are alone. The tanji is never alone.

When it is weak, others will support it. When it is strong, it will support others. The ebb and flow of interdependence is as natural to it as the pulse of blood in its veins.

Community is safety.

Loneliness is fear.

Isolation is death.

KAJA: An Outworlder's Guide to the Gueran Social

Contract, Volume 2: Signs of the Soul

INSHIP: EXETER

Everything had changed.

Allo and Sumi and all the others still spoke to her politely, and even made what seemed like sincere attempts to be friendly, in between all the questions they asked her—most of which she couldn't answer, some of which she wouldn't answer—but it just didn't ring true any more. Was that because something in them had really changed, or was she just less able to accept their efforts at face value? And if the latter, why?

She knew when it had begun, of course. The minute Calia dug the probe out of her arm—the minute the words "Guild trace" were voiced in her cabin—some intangible, unnamable transformation seemed to have taken place in all of them. Her relationship with them had changed at that moment, but she couldn't say how. The words were the same, the looks, all the subtle moves and gestures, but the emotions underlying those things had altered. And she lacked the social acumen to define just what was different, or even to understand how she knew it. One thing was very clear, however.

She had to act. Soon.

It was Derik who told her that first, his tone as always imperious and hostile. Then Verina agreed, adding validity to the thought. In the end even the child-Others agreed, making for a truly rare consensus of spirit. Only Zusu held back ... but Zusu was so afraid of the consequences of her actions that she preferred to huddle in a dark corner of their shared brain, lost in dread of what others would do to her. So she was hardly a fit counselor in matters like this.

It was no longer enough to be reactive, the voices warned Jamisia. She had to move on her own now, analyze the situation, and determine how she was going to get control of it. She had already let the enemy drive her from her home, restrict her movement on the metroliner, and now she was letting it control her here as well. That had to stop. That faceless, nameless corporate enemy whose shadow hung over her life like a pall would control her whole life if she let it, until such time as it demanded that very life in sacrifice. That mustn't be allowed to happen.

She had to take control.

She had to do ... something.

But what?

It wasn't an easy mental adjustment for her to make. In all of her life she had always been dependent upon others, and had been content to stay that way. First, for six years in a comfortable childhood with her parents, and then, when they died, with Shido Corporation.

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