The Betwixt Book One (25 page)

‘
Can't you just ask him? I mean, if he contacts you – if he
told Doctor Cole about the dig site . . . if he
seems to care about this situation, to know something about it –
can't you just ask him to help us?’ my voice had a note
of . . . frustration in it. I felt like I was
constantly being pushed around in a circle, blindfolded and with no
control over where I was going, in what direction I would be thrust
next.

‘
It is complicated,’ Od began.

‘
This whole thing is complicated, and getting more and more
convoluted by the minute. I just want straight answers. Why were
you at that dig site, and what exactly are you doing gallivanting
across the galaxy?’ Jason turned to me again, but this time he'd
lost his harsh edge – I could still see the tired desperation
behind his eyes, but most of the fight had gone out of
him.

I felt weary too. I felt like I needed to be alone to try and
figure things out . . . . ‘We were looking for
weapons,’ I said, voice even, but distant. ‘I left the station
because I fought a Twixt., well, two Twixts. I didn't believe it at
first – when this tiny, red alien told me I was the descendant of
some kind of . . . of . . . something
different. Some ancient race with the ability to see the Twixts, to
fight them.’ I shrugged. ‘But I got his point when that ghost ship
came to the station, and I saw that thing in the cargo
bay.’

‘
That was you. Ripped white blouse.’ The Commander
looked . . . .

I looked away quickly.

‘
That was me. Then again in your engineering bay,’ my voice was
practically cracking, but I didn't care, I just wanted to get
everything out. I was sick of keeping secrets. It wasn't getting me
anywhere. And the more I thought I was protecting, the more I
realized I didn't know.

The Commander was just a dark shape in my peripheral vision as
I stared at some scuff mark on the floor. What his expression was,
what his body language entailed – I was too scared to look over to
check.

‘
The Twixt was inside one your cores –
doing . . . I don't know, something. But then you
drew it out. I tried to fight it,’ I smiled vaguely, still staring
off into the distance,’ except I didn't know how to make my gun
work.’

‘
So you threw it instead?’

‘
Yeah . . . . After
that . . . . well we managed to get the gun
back,’ I flinched as I spoke, but honestly, I just had to keep on
going. I felt it was very important for me to own up to everything
right now. Even if the Commander wouldn't believe me, it didn't
matter. I had to tell the truth . . . and just hope
he wouldn't pull his pistol from his holster and shoot me right
there. Of all the people in this room, even Crag'tal and Od, the
Commander was till the only person who hadn't lied to me, hadn't
refused to tell me
information . . . .

‘
Yes, you did,’ the Commander's voice was much quieter now,
‘and I'd like to know how at some point.’

‘
Then we went off-station . . . they said we'd
be going somewhere to look for artifacts . . . or
something. We ended up on that moon, where you found us. I'm not
sure what we were expecting to find . . . but that
Twixt thing . . . that was a surprise.’

I finally looked up.

He was looking my way.

‘
I don't really expect you to believe me,’ I added quietly,’
and I don't really have any evidence to back up what I'm saying. Od
used to have a trapped Twixt, in some kind of containment field,
but that's destroyed now.’

He nodded.

‘
And if what Od says is right, and that the Rain Man is the
only one with real evidence, real answers. Then I guess you aren't
ever going to believe us, if we can't meet him. I don't really know
what has to happen now,’ I was very careful with my words, saying
them so slowly and clearly, mostly for my own benefit, ‘but you
need to know that Doctor Cole didn't have anything to do with this.
We turned up at her dig site, unannounced, uninvited. And Crag'tal,
he doesn't have anything to do with this either – he just tagged
along for this bit of the mission. Even Od, well, he didn't do
anything wrong – I was the one who boarded those ships illegally,’
I left out the bit about Od shutting down the security systems and
showing me the way, but the Commander didn't need to know that. ‘So
if anyone deserves to be punished over what happened – it's me,’ I
put a hand to my chest and rested it there. I could feel my heart
beating through my ribcage, shifting my fingers up and
down.

The Commander didn't say anything for a long, agonizing.
moment. ‘Let's say I believe you. Let's say I think, for one
moment, that a diner waitress had the smarts to illegally board a
GAM Cruiser, to obtain high tech weaponry, to plot a course to a
Crag moon. You honestly willing to fall on your sword – take the
blame? Now, we aren't at war, but disabling security systems on GAM
ships still counts as treason. You know what the punishment for
that is?’

‘
No.’

‘
Do you want me to tell you what the punishment is, or do you
just want to start telling the truth instead?’

‘
I am telling you the truth. I don't really know what's going
on, and yeah, I'm still just a crappy old diner waitress – but I
don't lie. And I'm not lying now. I've made some pretty stupid
mistakes – I don't have the smarts as you said, I'm just a halfy
floater, after all. But there's one thing that I do know,’ I looked
right at the Commander, concentrated on staring right into his
eyes, ‘those Twixts are real. You can't see them, I can. And
believe me, Commander, they are there.’

We stared at each other for perhaps an eternity, till he
finally pulled his eyes away.

‘
I don't know what's going on,’ he repeated, this time with far
less finality, and with a broken glance my way. ‘But I'm not above
asking a few questions.’

I became very still – that calm, unbelieving still you get
just after you realize a sudden movement from your side was not an
attack, but the innocent flutter of some leaf. Was the
Commander . . . was he going to let me
off?

‘
If both of you say the Rain Man has something to do with
this,’ the Commander sighed heartily, ‘well, I can put in a request
for audience.’

Od practically popped at that. ‘You, you can do that? But he
will ignore – he will ignore you!’

Jason shifted his neck from side to side. ‘I'm a Commander in
the GAM, I'd like to think I demand I bit more respect.’

Doctor Cole snorted. ‘It's not going to work, Jason – the Rain
Main doesn't just drop what he's doing and race across the galaxy
on the whim of some—’

‘
No, Doctor Cole, it works exactly like that. If the GAM wish
to peruse leads on investigations into threatening situations – and
I'm not taking a leap when I classify your friend on that moon as
threatening – then we have the authority to demand practically
anything. You may not like it, but that's how the galaxy
works.’

Doctor Cole was silent, eventually giving a shrug and shifting
back in her chair. ‘Whatever you say, Jason. But if you can
honestly line up a face-to-face meeting with the Rain Man – well I
might start sending you Christmas cards again.’

The Commander cast a confused glance his mother's way, then
looked back at us. ‘If this Rain Man has all the answers, then
we'll soon find out what they are.’

I sat up straight, finally letting my hands rest still by my
side. ‘Are you serious? You can meet with him?
But . . . won't it take weeks, months – or god knows
how long to get to him? And you can't very well divert your whole
ship. Where is his planet—’

The Commander put up a hand to stop my chatter. ‘The Rain Men
live on ships, they aren't planet based. They are a flotilla of
floating, massive libraries. We find the Rain Man you're after, put
in the official request – and we'll meet somewhere in the middle.
And no, I won't be diverting my whole ship. Depending on where he
wants to meet, we will either rendezvous at a station, meet on a
planet, or I will take a light cruiser to his vessel.’

Od jumped to his feet, his face as round and happy as a
lollipop.

The Commander shifted back a bit, eyes narrowing at the sudden
movement. But surely, even he could see Od was just popping with
enthusiasm, not rippling with danger.

‘
You will honestly meet the Rain Man? You?’

The Commander looked quickly my way, and it was clear he was
equal parts surprised and amused – just wanting to know whether to
take Od seriously. ‘Ah, yes.’

‘
And you will take us with you? You will take us to meet the
Rain Man? It will bring hope to this quest – he will have
information, maybe even artifacts. – he will know things I have no
hope of finding elsewhere—’

I tried not to laugh at the exasperated look on the
Commander's face. It was like he was dealing with an excited child
who wouldn't stop recounting the fantastic day they had at the
zoo.

It was funny how things could change so quickly. Five minutes
ago, I was dead sure the Commander would throw me out an airlock
for illegally boarding his cruiser, now I couldn't stop smiling as
he was overwhelmed by an enthusiastic, tiny alien.

But was he actually serious, could he really arrange a meeting
with the Rain Man? And what would the Rain Man have to say? What
could he tell me . . . a mysterious alien living on
a ship full of books and
data . . . ?

Just as I was starting to let my eyes become unfocused, in
order to imagine one entire ship stuffed full of books with a
strange, wonderful alien at its center – the mood
changed.

‘
Not going to work,’ Crag'tal spoke up for the first time,
‘what about Tarian Mercs?’

The Tarian Mercenaries . . . I'd forgotten all
about them.

‘
Tarians don't just give up,’ Crag'tal rumbled, his voice far
deeper than even the Commander's. ‘They keep trying till get what
they want.’

The Commander uncrossed his arms, lifted his head slightly,
until the muscles of his neck were taught and visible, and looked
at Crag'tal without any hint of a smile. ‘I don't need a lesson in
the psychology of a Tarian—’

‘
They haven't got what they're after – they don't stop till
they do,’ Crag'tal repeated. ‘Not lesson, fact.’

The look on the Commander's face was . . . not
nice. And it gave me every hint that maybe Jason didn't like
Crag'tal.

‘
Well,’ I started speaking before I'd even opened my mouth
properly, eager to distract the Commander from enraging the bull
Crag. ‘Maybe they just want you to believe that. I mean, if they
were after the Twixt – that's long gone. So wouldn't they just give
up—’

‘
Don't know what after – might not be gone. Could be you,’
Crag'tal was even more to the point than the Commander.

I felt very sick all of a sudden. ‘That's silly,’ I rallied,
‘I've never even met a Tarian . . . ‘ I trailed off,
realizing my line of reasoning was about as flawed as Jason's
desire to anger Crag'tal. Was I honestly suggesting that the
Tarians couldn't be after me because they'd never met me? As if
they only carried out mercenary activities against family and
friends? Or perhaps required a ‘getting to know you’ session before
they snipered you from afar.

But it was more than that, even if my brain was too addled to
come out with the proper reason. I knew the Tarians couldn't have
been after me, I just knew it.

‘
This is a GAM Cruiser, even if the Tarians come back, we can
take em.’

Tarian Mercs, the Rain Man, the Commander, my mother,
thousands of years alone in space – there was a lot for me to think
about. There was no way I was going to get any sleep
tonight.

And what made it all worse, was the fact I didn't have a Hipop
to cuddle up to. He'd been left behind on the planet. Though,
thankfully, Crag'tal had arranged for him to be picked up and
looked after. It meant I would be alone,
though . . . facing whatever would come next with
only the people in this room.

I looked at the back of the Commander's head as he tried to
settle Od down – the Kroplin was still practically dancing at the
prospect of meeting the Rain Man. Could I trust Jason? Because
everything was in his hands now. He had the power to make or break
this – to send me off to prison, or set me on my way.

And it was all types of agonizing. waiting to find out which
one he'd choose.

Chapter 14

Just when I thought things were settling down, when I thought
I'd have time to draw a few calming breaths and look back on this
last crazy chapter in my life – something else happened. The
Commander asked me to stay behind as he motioned everyone else out
of the room. Apparently, he wanted to talk to me.

I sat still in my chair, my feet crossed, and my hands clasped
in my lap. I couldn't imagine what else he wanted to talk about.
Surely, this was the part where things would start happening –
where we'd fly across the galaxy to meet the Rain Man, and finally
get some questions answered. But no, he wanted to talk
more . . . . but what more was there possibly
to talk about?