Universe of the Soul (24 page)

“I
thank you again for your wonderful hospitality,” Adri bowed to the two dozen junusarians who had gather to watch her departure. The headmaster raised his right wing in a token of farewell, his feathers picking up the light from the setting sun star and glimmering as if covered in hundreds of tiny dewdrops. His clawed hand-like appendages remained calmly folded across his middle. The junusarians made an impressive spectacle as they stood or flew around the departing ship. Taller than Adri, their fierce feathered faces were greatly offset by their quiet, deep-thinking natures.

The pacifistic natured junusarian monks had been more than gracious hosts to the battered Advance Force soldier. Even when the week of recuperation turned into three and their empowered guest grew less and less gracious. Blair had failed to mention that, while a week of rest was all her body needed, the junusarians were not space travelers, and in fact, did not own so much as an air bike. Thus they had to wait for another two weeks until a space merchant happened to dock at the monastery as it made its way to the Uthrib Space Mission on the Commonwealth side of the galactic divide.

Despite her disgust at the unavoidable delay, Adri did not let the time go to waste. As soon as her legs could support her, she explored the giant monastic complex where the local group of junusarian monks lived in near silence. Most of the complex was underground to avoid the melting heat amplified by the surrounding desert. She discovered that most of the complex was very old; older, in fact, than the High Temple in Corinthe, the capital city of the Commonwealth. When she asked Blair whom the monastery was dedicated to, he just smiled and nodded his head without answering. Adri figured it out for herself only a day later when she stumbled upon the temple's inner sanctum, hidden at the core of the monastery seven stories beneath the planet's surface.

The coincidence was far too massive to avoid, so Adri tried not to think about it.

Shouldering the borrowed travel bag full of gear, Adri walked up the gangplank to the entrance of the little freighter. It felt strange to be wearing civilian clothes. It didn't help that most of the clothes were old castoffs that the monks had collected over time. Adri's current wardrobe consisted of a small pair of boy's pants that were too long in the legs, boots that were a little big, and a shirt that fit well as a tunic. She had finished the outfit off with a long jacket that nearly fit. Not bad, considered how few humans stopped by here. When she reached the top of the gangplank, she turned to watch Blair giving a final bow to the headmaster before picking up his own bag and following her up. He still wore the baggy desert garb that was adapted from the junusarians' monastic robes.

“Are you going to miss home?” Adri asked as the gangplank withdrew noisily into the belly of the freighter and the blast doors fell down over the entrance, blocking the view.

“Yes.” Blair stared at the closed door for several seconds before turning to Adri. His face was, as ever, calm and impassive. “But I was always meant to leave.”

Just then the captain of the freighter ambled up. He was a short, portly human with an amiable attitude and a perpetual smile. He and his first mate, who looked much the same, couldn't be more obliging to the two unexpected passengers they had taken on. They had landed on Junus two days before in need of some minor repair to their engines. Surprisingly, the prospect of unpaying passengers was welcome to them with little question. Then again, the monks offered their facility free of charge. “Get you set up, right away,” he said to them, guiding them around the cargo hold and into the cramped common space that served as the ship's kitchen, dining room, recreational room, and whatever else it was called upon to be. In one corner of the room sat four jump seats, which the captain directed them to. “Strap yourselves in. Jiko and I are about ready to take off. We'll tell ya on the overhead when it's safe to wander about the cabin.”

Adri smiled blandly after him as she sat down on the cleanest looking seat. If both she and Blair hadn't already agreed that her identity (both as an Adept and as a Commonwealth officer) ought to be concealed for as long as possible, she would have had a few things to say about her knowledge of space travel. As it was, she tried to play dumb as much as it was bearable.

“Captain Arkow certainly seems obliging,” Blair commented from beside her, strapping himself into the seat.

“Yeah,” Adri tightened the last strap before leaning back in her seat and closing her eyes. “He doubtlessly wants us to be comfortable so we won't go snooping around and find his smuggling cache.”

“Smuggling? How did you know about that?”

Adri waved her hand dismissively. “It's written all over his face. Anyone without a secret to hide would act more put upon to take on a couple of non-paying passengers. Instead, he acts as though he's an uthrib on his Life Quest walkabout. Definitely has a secret, and the most obvious one would be smuggling. Besides, look where we are, right on the border between the Coalition and the Commonwealth. He lands in an out-of-the-way place like Junus in order to avoid detection. Obviously a smuggler.” She opened her eyes and turned to stare at him. “How did
you
know?”

Blair adjusted the straps that went around his chest and hummed. “Like you said, Rael. It's written all over his face. Are you going to do something about the smuggling?”

“No,” she frowned at Blair's passive face for a long moment before relaxing again. “I'm not a patrolman, and I couldn't enforce anything even if I was. Besides, they're giving us a lift.”

For someone who had spent the last nine years of her life aboard a military space vessel, journeying in a merchant freighter was a bit like riding an air bike after traveling in a luxury shuttle. The initial takeoff was jerky, causing both her and Blair to grab hold of their harnesses, and the exit through the atmosphere left something to be desired. It left Adri wondering if the engine repairs had been done correctly. She sent more than one devastating glare in the direction of the pilot's cabin as they were flung to and fro by the friction of leaving the atmosphere and entering space. At last, however, the incessant jolting and banging ceased and the smooth gait that Captain Arkow had praised at last made itself known.

As soon as the gravity levels reached normal, Adri unfastened herself and stood, pulling her limbs into a series of stretches designed to help the human body adjust to the artificial gravity and other changes due to space travel. Beside her, Blair watched and eventually followed suit.

Adri frowned as the young man's usual gracefulness was replaced by hesitant awkwardness as he copied her stretches. A new thought occurred to her. “Blair, have you ever done any space traveling?”

Blair finished the stretches and glanced over at her. “Why?”

“You don't seem…”

“As co-ordinated?”

“Yeah,”

Blair kept his head down. The gem on his forehead caught the grubby light and flashed. “Yes, I have. A long time ago. I traveled with my family away from our home planet in a mass evacuation. I got sick on the journey, like many others. The transporter eventually left the ill and infirm on Junus before continuing on. I've been there ever since.”

Any amusement Adri had felt over seeing Blair out of his element ceased. “What about your family?”

“I was the only one that was ill.”

“I see.”

Blair finished his stretches with a roll of his shoulders. “What happens now, Rael?”

Adri wandered around the cramped common space, gauging the area with a soldier's practiced ease. “No doubt good Captain Arkow will show soon, and after that I imagine we'll be left to ourselves for the greater portion of the voyage.”

“Good,” Blair replied. “That will give us plenty of time to work on your control.”

Scowling, Adri turned to glare at the young man who stood so calmly across the room. His arms hung loosely at his sides, the baggy brown tunic that she had never seen him out of draped in a nondescript fashion. Even his golden blond hair hung down to his shoulders in a nondescript way. If it weren't for that blue gem on his forehead and the intensity of his eyes, Adri thought he could have passed unnoticed in a crowd of three. “Do you practice being invisible in that monastery of yours?” she asked in aggravation.

“Do you practice shooting a blaster?”

“So it's part of your whole pacifism thing?”

Blair nodded. “Violence should always be avoided if possible.”

Adri rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. Spare me the lecture. Violence is my best feature,”

“I might have to agree with you,” her companion replied blandly. “For it certainly isn't your command of patience, tranquility, diplomacy, or open-mindedness to the naked truth.”

Realizing she had left herself open for that one, Adri conceded defeat. It was not much fun to argue with someone who always seemed to have
right
on their side. “Fine, we'll do some mystic training.”

Blair nodded and resumed his seat, closing his eyes in apparent meditation. Adri had a sneaking suspicion that the whole discussion had been leading to that one topic. The little monk was devious that way.

“I'm not, actually,” Blair said suddenly, his eyes still closed.

“Not what?” Adri demanded.

“Not a monk. Only junusarians are allowed to enter that particular order, due to the necessity of flying from shrine to shrine around the planet, which I obviously can't do. I was merely a layman whom they allowed to participate in their daily lives.”

Did I think out loud?
Adri puzzled over it for a second before a door slid open and Captain Arkow stepped in with his trademark smile.

“And how are ya doing now? I admit we got off to a bumpy start, but the rest is smooth riding until we reach the space mission.”

“How long until then?” Adri asked.

Arkow rubbed his thigh. “Ah, about thirty-one standard hours, give or take. You are welcome to move about here as much as you wish, the meal simulator is over there in the corner, and the seats fold down to make bunks. No blankets, I'm afraid.”

“Mm hm,” Adri stared at Arkow cryptically, guessing that the blankets had been commandeered to aid in shielding the contraband cargo somewhere in the ship's hold.

Arkow cleared his throat and shifted his gaze away from Adri's. “If there's anything you need, just hit the communicator switch here by the door. Jiko or I will see that your stay is as comfortable as we can make it.” With that, he scurried out.

The door closed, and the tiny blinking light showed that the lock had been engaged. “Well, he certainly doesn't trust us,” Adri said dryly.

“You make him nervous. He guesses that you know what he's up to, and he's worried you'll do something…legal about it.”

“You know, you can be really creepy sometimes,” she took a restless look around the room. The confined space and lack of activity was going to drive her crazy before they so much as passed another light year.

“We have a great deal to accomplish,” Blair said. “Don't worry about boredom just yet.”

Adri hissed a breath and ran her fingers through her hair. “By Danwe, I swear sometimes you can read my mind!”

“I can.”

That brought her up short. She stared at Blair with new suspicion, a more than a trickle of hostility. “You can what?”

Blair at last opened his eyes. “I can read your mind. Not all the time, but on occasion, when your thoughts are directed at me, or when there is very little interference and your mental blocks are down, like here.”

“Can you read it now?” Adri asked. She mentally pictured a thick shield around her mind, impenetrable, protected everything within from invasion.

Blair's lips twitched in his faint version of a smile. “No. Now that you are aware that I can slip in, you've protected yourself, which is very good.”

“Why didn't you tell me about this little gift earlier?”

“In truth, it is just a little gift. I'm a much stronger telepath than I am a reader. I've only ever been able to read about a handful of people, although I can speak to nearly anyone's mind.”

There was silence for a few moments as Adri absorbed this new information. On a normal day, in her normal life, this information would have been shocking and more or less suspect. However, ever since she'd taken a header off a space ship to a planet's surface, the strange was becoming more commonplace. “So you can sometimes read my mind, but you can always talk to my mind, right?”

“Quite. Although you could change the ‘sometimes' and replace it with ‘almost never.' Like I said, it is a very weak gift.”

Deciding that amusement was the best course of action, Adri smiled. “I wouldn't go about telling people that you have all these…weak talents. You may find yourself incinerated as an
umagai
. Not that you talk much to begin with.”

“I am no necromancer. But speaking of gifts, why don't we start with some concentration exercises?”

The concept of time can spin away when one enters the vast darkness of space. With the absence of the rising and falling of the light-giving sun star, the human body loses its cues to wake and sleep, existing in an artificial time construct that mimics planetary time. Philosophers have wondered, is this a sign of humanoid achievement over space and time? Or is this merely a poor adaptation of weak mammals to exist in a realm to which they do not belong? Regardless of the intellectual outcome of such a query, Adri always thought that the hours of uninterrupted space travel left her far too much time to think.

The “night” hours had arrived, and after endless hours of concentrating and training with her less than predicable ‘abilities,' Adri embraced the idea of sleep. However, that the comfort of unconsciousness was not to be had. Again. So while her companion slept, she was left to lay in the semi-gloom on an incredibly hard jump seat-turned-bed, listening to the ship's engines hum and Blair breathe. All in all, she'd much rather have gone to sleep; there was less temptation to be… insubordinate, and Adri was feeling very tempted now.