Spears of the Sun (Star Sojourner Book 3) (18 page)

“Is the military expecting you to detect his hiding place among the stars?”

“I suspect that's why I'm along on this cruise.”

“Can you do it?”

“Alone?” I shook my head. “No. I've been asking some friends for help.”

She sat back and sighed. “I'll be glad when this madness is over and I can return to my real work.” In a relaxed state, her small frame seemed vulnerable.

“Me too.”

“What do you do?”

“I'm an astrobiologist. I'd like to get back to – “

“You never mentioned that you're a scientist!”

“There was no reason to.”

“A PhD?'

I nodded reluctantly and sipped coffee. I had earned it for my forced study of the race of Loranths.

“Then you're a doctor.”

God help me. Now I had a union card into her exclusive club. “It has nothing to do with this work,” I said, “and obviously physics isn't my area of discipline.”

“I'd still like to discuss your record of accomplishment, Doctor. It's always a pleasure to discuss research with a peer.”

I thought of narrowly escaping from a field of sucking blackroot I was studying on Halcyon, and dangling from the underside of a helicopter while the roots leaped up and snapped at my heels. I took a breath. “I did my dissertation on the parallel evolutionary mechanisms of reptilian life forms on planet Syl' Terria, and those on Earth, as proof of a universal law of evolutionary development.”

“Fascinating.”

I thought of Sye Kor. “It had its moments.”

“How long did it take you to complete your degree?”

I lowered my head. “Five years.”
And a lost family
, I mentally added. “I was hoping to discover an emerging mammalian life form.” I sipped coffee. “It would've been further proof of parallel genetic adaptation in different star systems. Damn,” I said softly. “I
saw
one too. A small, shrewlike mammal on Syl' Terria. Crossed the road right in front of me. But, I ran out of time.” I pushed back my chair. “Well, Doctor Stone, I have some tel research to do for this mission. So, if you'll excuse me?”

“Certainly, Doctor Rammis.”

I retreated to a tiny private room with a small chair and a foot-wide desk, which were all we were allotted on the craft, and sat down with my knees up around my chin. Me and my big mouth!

I rested my head in my hands and closed my eyes.
Val Tir Sye Morth,
I sent.
Are you out there?

Oh, no! Not the Loranth Calling Time? So soon. No. I am not ready to take on a new body. I will cloak if you persist!

It's me, Morth. It's the Terran Jules Rammis.

Jewels! Are you already in geth state? What sent your kwaii into the eternal?

I'm still in the same body, Morth. Are you sending in stelspeak, because now I can understand you a lot better?

I discovered a holo called Learning Stelspeak in Seven Easy Lessons in the new Loranth museum. You remember the old one, don't you?

Let's not go there, Morth. You know I had reasons for what I did
. I had destroyed the Loranth's Museum/Library/School/Church after Sye Kor infected Terrans on Syl' Terria with his virulent viral disease.
I need your help, Morth
.

I am counseling the kwaiis of youngsters who fled from their planet when their star went nova and destroyed the entire system.

Sye Morth, this can't wait!

Once we were friends, Sye Jewels, but your destruction of the museum is a wall of old-growth between us now.

You remember my friend Jack Cole?

Of course. He accompanied you on your treacherous excursion into the very heart of our culture, where you destroyed the –

All right, Morth! I remember what I did. Do you also know that Jack's young daughter Heather died from Sye Kor's plague, along with a baby his wife was carrying, and two hundred other Terrans on your homeworld?

I…but I assumed the gland antidote was developed by my people in time. After all, you and Jack survived because of the serum.

You assumed wrong. Now my entire homeworld is threatened by a madman. Listen to me, Morth, two very powerful telepaths from planet Halcyon have already agreed to help stop him before it's too late. Will you join us?

If it means saving your homeworld, then the cause is just. What is your plan, Terran Jewels?

Oh. I'm still working on that.

May I interrupt,
Spirit sent.

Sure
, I answered him,
if you have a –

I suggest that we link our tel forces, somewhat like a pulsar, and form a search pattern that orbits the outer ring of the galaxy in warp mode. Of course it would be useless to scan the inner ranges. Even the mad General Rowdinth would not venture into such killing radiation. In your words, Terran, we weed out the bastard.

That's uh,
I sent,
that sounds like a plan to me. Then we burn his brain cells once and for all and destroy the weapon!

There was silence.

“
What?
I sent.

We may well locate him on a planet,
Spirit sent,
so that his scientists can set up a makeshift laboratory with life support, to finish their project. You know the consequences, Terran, if I unleash my powers.

The destruction of the entire planet?

Though I might try, I can do no less.

I sighed.
Star Speaker. Gwis. I've been subject to the depth of your probes. I know you can stop him.

Temporarily,
she sent.
I took the Kubraen Oath of Manifest Kwaii not to terminate a life after I killed the czar's guard when they came searching for you.

Oh.
I rubbed my forehead.
A pacifist. Sye Morth?

A vegetarian now.

A what?

In my last three lifebinds, before this current geth state, I have sworn that no conscious being, with a face and-or a mother, will ever again suffer at my hands, or flippers, or clawed feet, whichever the lifebind might be.

But this madman could destroy an entire planet of conscious beings!
I sent.

I am sorry, Sye Jewels. I will assist you in locating him, but I will not send his kwaii into geth state. The deaths he causes will be on his own head, if he possesses one in his next lifebind. He alone must make recompense.

That should be a great comfort to the dying people of Earth!

Sye Morth
, Star Speaker sent,
have you stayed away from novae in your present geth state?

I have, Star Speaker. Especially the great wheels that become black holes.

I bowed out of the conversation when I heard a knock on the door. “Come in. There's room in here for everybody!”

Joe opened the door. “You comfortable in there?”

“I've been in tighter places.”

He nodded. “The flag ship's sending a drone pod. Commander Ca Prez wants to talk to you.”

“Oh, yeah?” I unfolded myself from the chair. “What does he want?”

“She didn't confide it in me.” He sucked a tooth. “There's something I've been meaning to tell you.”

“What did I do
now
?”

“C'mon. She's waiting.”

I followed him to the docking port. The airlock was shut. The panel glowed red.

He leaned against the wall with his arms folded. “Turning yourself in to Rowdinth, and reading his mind for the location of the dwarfs… That probably saved the whole community. We figure Rowdinth would've had them all executed before he left Fartherland. He hates Terrans.”

The green airlock panel blinked on. Joe pulled the lever and the hatch swung open. The drone pod was idling inside.

I touched the lump on my forehead. It was getting smaller. “Did
you
convince a Shaka team to stay behind and rescue them?”

“They agreed to it after they secured the lab. It was probably pretty damn close for the dwarfs.”

“They killed six of them, you know, as a warning for Shannon to bring me in.”

“I know.”

I slid into the pod and Joe helped me sort out the seat belts that kept the pilot from floating around in space.

“Now don't touch anything in here,” he said. “There's no grav and it's programmed for the flagship.”

“You know, Rowdinth kept a pair of White Sharks from Earth in a pretty tight tank.” I adjusted the seat for my height. “It would be nice if they were released into the ocean. They're both males, so they shouldn't have a significant impact on Fartherland's sea life.”

“If that's what you want, I'll see to it.” He clamped the straps in place. “That was a damn brave thing you did, but damn stupid to walk into Rowdinth's den. W-CIA was ready to give the nod to the sharpshooters on the teams.”

I felt my stomach clench.

“That close for me, too, huh?”

“Alpha couldn't let a powerful tel fall into Rowdinth's hands.”

“There were a hundred or so innocent lives at stake.”

“That's why I want to commend you on the
brave
part of it.

I grinned as Joe reached in and activated the pod. “That must have hurt to say it, Joe.”

He nodded without smiling. “But not as much as that crack on your head must have hurt.”

* * *

“Come in, Jules,” Commander Ca Prez said. “May I call you Jules?”

Oh no! An Altairian. “Of course, Commander.” Among all the known races, only Altairians elicited a resentment reflex in me.

“Sit down, please.”

Her office was elegant, with plush chairs and holos of her homeworld. Instruments lined the wall next to her desk, which appeared to be real wood.

“Coffee?” she asked. “I have it imported from Earth for the Terrans under my command.”

“Real Earth brew? Thank you, Commander. That's a luxury I can't resist.” I got up and walked toward the unit.

She rose and waved me to my chair. “Allow me.”

I eased back into it. It was unheard of for an officer, especially of her rank, to serve anyone.

I watched her pour coffee into an ornate cup with a silver bird in flight. The commander's scales within the bubble helmet were emerald green, as were her eyes. Her rounded snout, while showing hints of gray, was indigo.
She must be a beauty among her people,
I thought, and wondered if gray scales detracted from beauty or were seen as an added compliment of wisdom.

“Sugar? Milk? They're both organic.”

I smiled. “How can I refuse?”

She stirred the coffee and set it on the table next to my chair.

“Thank you, Commander.” It was becoming increasingly difficult to dislike her.

She clacked her teeth softly and returned to her desk. “It's we who must thank
you
for work well done.”

I leaned forward. “I came so close to killing the madman! I was ready to blow us both into the next universe. I'm sorry he got away.”

“You did what you could.”

I sipped the coffee. It was nectar and ambrosia, all in one cup. “God, this is good.”

“I thought you might like it.” She shifted in the chair and blinked wide, slanted eyes as she stared silently out a porthole.

“You have no idea where he is, do you?” I asked her.

“None whatsoever.”

“The probes?”

She shook her head.

“I've been in touch with three very powerful tels,” I said. “They intend to do a search pattern and see if they can't locate him that way.”

She tapped her fingers on the desk. “I've been informed that your telepathic reading of the two scientists showed that we have three, possibly four Earth days until their weapon is ready to launch.”

“I sipped coffee. “They didn't know I was probing. So I'd say that's what they believe to be their date of completion.”

“And the probability of your tel friends locating the general before that?”

I sat back in the chair and cradled the cup. “I couldn't venture a guess, Commander.”

“Have you been in touch with Doctor Madison Stone?”

“Oh, yes. She believes it's all just a hoax.”

“What do you believe?”

“I'm not qualified to offer a valid opinion, but if it were up to me, I'd take the threat pretty seriously. NASA was working on a dark-energy project, and the Los Alamos National Lab, a former weapons lab back on Earth, was interested.”

“That's my take on the situation, too.”

“Commander, I get the feeling this conversation isn't just a rehash of events as they stand.”

“No. General Rowdinth contacted us after he left Fartherland.”

“He
did
?”

She folded her hands on the desk. “I thought it only ethical to inform you, Jules, that he took a hostage for insurance.”

I mentally scrolled down the list of possibilities, and came up short with Shannon's name. “Not…”

“Shannon O'Malley, a woman from the dwarf community.”

“Oh, no!” I stood up and dropped the cup. It shattered at my feet. I looked down. “I, I'm sorry.”

“No matter. You understand that if we do locate the general and he refuses to surrender, we will be forced to destroy his ship?”

“Can't you just web it and drag it back to Alpha?”

“With a possible lethal weapon onboard?”

“He'll probably be on a planet anyway!”

“So I've been told,” she said. “Then we'll confront him there.” She stood up and peered out the porthole with her hands behind her back. “We have to assume that the weapon will be capable of destroying an approaching ship.”

“But Commander Ca Prez, there's got to be another way to – “

She turned. “For the sake of your homeworld, Jules, you must cooperate! If you and your tel friends discover Rowdinth's location, then your mission will be completed, and the military will proceed from there.”

I stared at the pieces of the mug. The silver bird's wings lay broken on the floor.

“I don't give a rat's ass anymore!” I shouted at Joe. I didn't like the calculated look in his eyes as he watched me from the galley table. I paced the small room, banging into Chancey and Doctor Stone's chairs. Huff kept his paws tucked as I strode by. “I've had it, Joe. Finished. Fini! All over but the shouting. You got that? There's a transport ship's leaving the fleet tomorrow. One of their stops is planet Syl' Terria. I intend to be on that ship!”

Doctor Stone leaned away as I spread my palms on the table. “I always wanted to find a quiet place in the wilderness and let the worlds go to hell in the proverbial hand basket.” I slammed the table with a fist. Plates rattled. “I've had enough!”

Huff whined and slinked out the narrow door.

“You know,” Joe started, “your sister Ginny, and Willa…” He squinted up at me. “Their deaths are not on your head.”

“That's below the belt, Joe. That has
nothing
to do with this.”

“I suspect it has everything to do with it,” he said quietly.

I looked at my plate of food, the hot coffee, but felt no hunger. “I've got nothing more to say.”

I slammed the galley door on my way to the sleeping quarters and laid down on my bunk bed. From the porthole above me, I watched an inscrutable arm of the galaxy. If only we could read between the lines of creation and touch Great Mind's Plan.
What's it all about, God? C'mon, you can tell me!
Why do you put your creations through such hell? Am I being tested for some higher plane of existence? Keep it! I just want to be left alone. Go screw around with somebody else's head for a change. You've had your fun with mine.

Huff opened the door and peeked in.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“No thing. May I enter?”

“Leave me alone, Huff.”

He looked around. “You are alone.”

“No kidding?” I put an arm across my eyes to stop tears that burned behind my lids. “You're just full of revelations.”

“No. I haven't eaten yet. Have you?”

“Go away. Go eat some fish eyes.”

I heard him tiptoe into the room. “You know, on Kresthaven we say a thing for times like these.”

“You mean when your friend is about to be disintegrated by an atom blaster?”

“When Death pads into the village on soft paws and leaves red prints behind.”

I sighed. “OK, lay it on me.” Then maybe he'd go away.”

“We say that though we swim through a sea of great fish that devour our bodies, we will not dress pair.”

“What? Oh, despair.”

“For the furry arms of a Great Love embraces us all at our time of floating up from the river, even He loves the red-lipped fish as they eat our flesh.”

I remembered my out-of-body encounter with that great love beyond the walls of our universe. “I don't want Shannon to suffer and die, Huff, especially not because of
me
. She doesn't deserve it. This fucking tel power is a curse I never asked for!” I thought of Lisa. How would her tel abilities affect her life as she grew up? Could she live a normal life? Somehow, I doubted it.

Huff padded closer and stroked my arm. “We have no power over death or life, my Jules friend. It is beyond our paws…and our hands.”

I rolled toward him and felt tears seep down my face. “I'm scared, Huff.” I clung to his arm and wiped my eyes on my sleeve. “If I help find this madman, Shannon will die with him. I don't want to be there when her kwaii leaves her body. I don't think I could take that again. But if I don't help, my homeworld might be burned to a cinder.”

“Fire and ice, my Terran Jules.” He stroked my hair. “Your former Joe in law and Chancey would stop your leaving in the way of any. I heard them say it from my behind.”

“Your…?”

“From the door's other behind.”

“Oh yeah? And how do they propose to stop me?”

“Joe has a pill he proposed for coffee cups that would force you to sleep while the transport left.”

“The bastard would have used it, too!”

“I think he said one.”

“Who does he think he is, God?”

Huff shrugged. “I will ask him for you. Is better, your former Joe in law told Chancey than chances are good…or bad, you or Chancey be hurt from Chancey stopping you to leave.”

“What makes him so damn sure Chancey could stop me? I'd take him in a fight!”

“Take him where?”

I rubbed my eyes. “Never mind. Damn them both!” I sat up. “Haven't I done enough? I saved the Terran colony on Syl' Terria from Sye Kor. Then I risked my life and my daughter's to save the Terrans on Halcyon from the dream czar and Spirit's wrath. I even saved Shannon's community. Now they want me to save the whole goddamn planet Earth!” I slammed a fist on the bunk. “What's next? The galaxy?”

“I think star systems are in between.” He lightly probed the newskin over the incision behind my ear. “It is healed, Jules!”

“What would you do, Huff? Would you leave on the transport? I'd like to lose myself in the wilderness of Syl' Terria without any demands or responsibilities. Maybe find that little mammal I saw running across the road. Or by now, maybe her offspring.”

“Would what I do?” He scratched his snout pensively. “I would think to myself, 'Is the one fish I see more than better than the sea of fish that I do not see'?”

Yeah,
I thought.
Sacrifice the one fish to save the many
. I hung my head. “I'm so tired, Huff.”

“Sleep, my Jules friend. I will love you still in the morning.”

“What? Oh, our friendship. I'll love you too in the morning.” I laid back and closed my eyes. “Huff?”

“Yes?”

“There is no morning in space.”

“No. Only the great black skin stretched out on a rack that holds the worlds and the suns in places of their own.”

“The worlds and the suns aren't the only things stretched out on a rack.”

I couldn't run. There was too much depending on my lone ability to communicate whatever my tel friends discovered back to the commander.

I swung off the bunk and strode past Huff and to the galley. Joe, Chancey, and Doctor Stone were talking over coffee. I sat across from Joe. My plate and coffee were still there. I slid the cup toward him. “You want to put something in here before I drink it, or did you already do so?”

“Did you make your decision?” he asked.

“I'm staying. You know, Chancey,” I said across Doctor Stone, who sat between us, “I could take you in a fight any day.”

Doctor Stone paused with a forkful of fried tofu halfway to her mouth and gave Joe an exasperated look.

Chancey threw me a half-grin. “After this business is over,” he said, “I'm up for a friendly bout with gloves and helmets.”

Stone slammed down her fork. “Well, Joe can be the referee and I'll cheer on the pugilists!”

Huff stood up to his full height. “And I will throw the towel for you, Jules!”

“Like hell you will!” I stared at my plate. The smell of bacon and eggs, usually my favorite breakfast, made my stomach queasy. “You know, something Joe,” I said, “if Doctor Stone is right, and this is all just a hoax, and Shannon is killed with Rowdinth and his crew, I don't ever want to hear from you again. Not from you, or W-CIA, or Alpha. Abby can bring Lisa somewhere where we can meet.”

He nodded. “If that's what you want.”

“Now, can I drink that coffee?”

He got up. “I'll get you a fresh cup.”

* * *

Chancey approached me that “night” in our sleeping quarters before the others came in. “Hey, tag,” he said.

“Yeah?” I climbed into my bunk.

“I just wanted you to know, I had nothing to do with trying to keep you aboard the ship.”

“Except that you would've stopped me from leaving.” I slid him a look. “If you could.”

“Yeah, if I
could.
Joe's the team leader.” He leaned on the bunk. “Whatever he says goes. That's just the way it is.”

I laid down with my hands behind my head. “And I'm not a team player, right?”

He chuckled. “What do you think?”

During the sleep period that “night,” I dreamed I had a fish in a tank, but I kept forgetting to feed her and adding water. Then the room filled with water and a shark came in and chased her out to sea, where I could no longer protect her.

It's a dream,
someone said in my mind.
Wake up, Jules
.

Sye Morth?

Spirit.

Oh.
I blinked my eyes open.

We
found him.

What?
I sat up in bed. “Oh my God!”

“What the hell is it now?” Joe asked sleepily.

I jumped off the bunk.

“Did he fall on his head this time?” he remarked in the dark and sat up.

“They
found
him!” I shouted.