by Adam Carter
But such notions were silly, and she shook them from her head. She would soon be piloting a glider through a strenuous competition: she could not afford to be having second thoughts concerning her sanity.
“You sure you’re all right, Heather?”
“I’m fine, Sara,” Tarne replied without actually knowing whether it was true any longer. “Just anxious to get up there and win this thing.” She tried to smile that she might reassure her friend, although found the confused state of her mind was getting in the way.
“Just make sure you don’t commit yourself to too much,” Kiel advised her.
Tarne did not know why she did not take the advice of her friend, although intended to see this through until the bitter end.
*
The afternoon had at last arrived, and the entire university had flocked onto the field or taken up observation points affording them the best views of the action. There were no lectures or tutorials scheduled for the same time as the contest, there never were; the professors knew no one would turn up to them. People had come in from the street that they might observe the competition; many of them former students, many others simply those who returned year after year in the hopes of a human victory.
Tarne noticed as she arrived upon the field that Darkthorne had already made it. He waved to the crowds, lapping up the attention like a parched dog at the riverside, as though all the effort had been upon his shoulders. He was standing beside the Princess Aurellia, which had been polished and thoroughly buffed since she had last seen it. She could see standing beside the Princess another glider, and beyond that another. There were ten gliders in all, each a respectful distance from their neighbours, and each with a dedicated team bustling about it. She could see the Nagas glider, one out of all ten, and despaired. It seemed a very poor effort, for it was a simple skeleton with very little to it.
“Heather,” Darkthorne said anxiously, his grin wide for the audience even as he continued to wave their way, “I was afraid you weren’t going to make it.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” she grumbled.
“Smile,” Darkthorne hissed through his own insane grin.
“Why?”
“What?”
“If we win, who cares if we were smiling; and if we lose, again who cares?”
“She has a point,” Sparky said, “although to be fair, Heather, it’ll still be cool to keep in with everyone.”
“Just ignore them,” Kiel said, “you know how boys can get. How are you feeling?”
Tarne had never known for Kiel to care much for anything, and was fairly surprised she kept asking her that, as though the answer actually counted for anything.
“Like it matters,” Tarne muttered.
“Of course it matters,” Kiel said. “Heather, if you’re not up for this, then just say so. No one’s going to think any less of you for not going up there today.”
“I will,” Darkthorne said.
“No one of any importance,” Kiel corrected herself.
“Hold on a moment,” Sparky said. “Whoa there, what’s all this talk again about not going up there?”
“I’m fine, really,” Tarne said. “I just need to get on with this, all right?”
“Just remember we’re in this to win,” Darkthorne reminded her.
“Duh, as if I’m gonna forget that.”
“How long have we got?” Kiel asked.
Sparky checked his watch. “About ten minutes. I’m going to go over the rudder again. I’m still not one hundred per cent sure we actually fixed the problem there.”
“I’ll be back in a minute,” Tarne said, heading across the field.
“Where are you going?” Darkthorne called.
“I’ll be back. Stop worrying so much, Jagrad.”
She said nothing more, and if Darkthorne or any of the others had said anything, she did not hear them. She did not need to go anywhere, she just needed a little space. She found a wall far from the crowds and sank against it. Closing her eyes, she tried to force the madness from her brain. Her mind was churning with thoughts which had no place within her head, and she could not believe it was all connected with her programme. She had known from an early age she was different, that she had strange latent psychic abilities, although she had never considered herself particularly special. More attuned than most perhaps, but not special. Even within her own class, there was a rich diversity of talents. There were those, like her, who were psychic, there were those who had mild telekinetic abilities, those who had some small mastery of telepathy, and a whole host of other abilities. However, there was not one within her class who had ever described just what she was feeling within her mind, what she had been feeling for a long time now.
A long time, even though she honestly could not remember anything about the week before last. She had a whole plethora of memories within her mind, and while she knew to call the visions memories, she knew they were not her own, and yet somehow at the same time were. They were not memories of her own past, but of some other, stranger past. She remembered walking along a quay in the darkness; wearing some form of pressure suit whilst in a vacuum; standing before a king whose name and face escaped her. She also had vaguer memories which she knew were memories of memories and which most probably had never happened to anyone. She remembered attending a Wicca class, she remembered training outside the Earth, and, most disturbing of all, she recalled one time being burned at the stake, and having someone ride to her rescue at the last possible moment, as though he was Sir Lancelot du Lac. She struggled to put faces and names to the images; one face, one name would do it.
And then she saw the face of the knight who had rescued her from the burning, and recoiled in horror.
It was Jagrad Darkthorne.
“Heather?”
Tarne started, although as she opened her eyes it was to find they were already open and that she had been staring wide-eyed at nothing. Charlie was standing before her, a worried expression etched upon his face, and she shook her head to try to force the weird images from her brain.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Charlie.” She placed a hand to her face and rubbed at her temples with her fingers. “Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
“Maybe because I’m not the only one who’s sensed that things are not at peace with you.”
“At peace? Now there’s an understatement, what with the war raging in my head.”
“You’re reliving that which you have lived, and yet cannot remember wholly.”
“Tell me about it.”
“At the arena, you’ll be tempted to reveal the truth. It would be best for you if you refuse to do this.”
Charlie had spoken flatly, seriously, and in a tone he had never used before. And then Tarne realised what he had just said and snapped her gaze directly to him, her head pains all but forgotten. “Come again?”
“The arena,” Charlie repeated.
“Arena? What arena?”
“Stick-in-the-mud.”
“What?”
Charlie narrowed his eyes. “Look, you know I’m only trying to help you, that I’ve been trying to help you for a long time. But time is precisely what we have very little of now. I intended to take this slowly, so whoever the enemy may be, he or she didn’t discover the truth, but time is against us now.”
“I’m sorry, Charlie, you’ve lost me.”
“My name is not Charlie,” the Nagas said, and disappeared prematurely as someone appeared behind him.
“Heather,” Darkthorne said with no small relief. “What have you been doing? Come on, you’re going to miss your own launching.”
Tarne looked about, although there was no sign of Charlie, no sign he had ever been there, in fact. Kiel had mentioned the night before that she had never known a Nagas by the name of Charlie, and had insinuated that Tarne had fabricated him within her own mind. With her mind currently in a state of flux, she was not so certain this was not the truth, and while she debated
upon whether to ask Darkthorne for his opinion, she realised she did not care for it.
And all that nonsense about an arena and stick-in-the-mud was just too ludicrous for her to contemplate.
“I’m coming,” she said, moving past him determinedly. “Now let’s go win this contest.” She had not taken more than a few steps, however, when she caught sight of three Nagas around the corner. They had not seen her, and were hurrying towards the field, obviously heading for the contest.
“Hurry,” one said, “we don’t want to miss this.”
“I don’t see what the big deal is,” the second said. “There are ten teams this year, so what? There’s still no way a human can beat our guys. They could have a hundred teams and we’d still outdo them.”
“Yeah, but I hear they have some form of psychic piloting this year.”
“Still won’t make any difference.”
“How can you remain so calm? You know what’ll happen to us if our guys fail. The worst that happens to the humans is that they leave in disgrace, but we’d suffer a lot more than that, remember.”
“And worrin’ about it’s going to make it any better for us?”
“They lose, we’re all through.”
“Then let’s get there so we can give them our support. Honestly, you’d think we ...”
Anything else they said was lost as they disappeared from Tarne’s range of hearing. She turned to Darkthorne and said accusingly, as though whatever it was was all his fault, “What was that about?”
“I have no idea,” he replied with a frown. “Sounded serious, though.”
“If the Nagas intend to kill their entire team for failing, there’s no way I’m even going to try to beat them, Jagrad.”
“Understandably, although you heard them: they weren’t a part of the team.”
“Then maybe they plan to execute a whole lot more than just the team.”
Darkthorne considered that. “Leave it with me,” he said. “You go get ready, I’ll follow those Nagas and see what they meant. I’ll be back before you launch, there should be time. If I’m not back, launch without me, and I’ll try to contact you with whatever I’ve found.”
“That involves my trusting you, Jagrad.”
“So?” Darkthorne said crossly. “Does that mean you don’t trust me now, Heather?”
Tarne realised she had spoken out of turn and averted her gaze. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said that.”
“Look,” Darkthorne said, hiding well the fact he was angry with her, although she still managed to notice anyway, “I’ll find out what’s going on and if it’s something worth losing the contest for, I’ll signal you from the ground with a red flag. I wave a red flag, you lose. Otherwise, you play to win, girl, you got that?”
“I got that.”
“Then go on. I’ll catch up to you at the finish line.”
Tarne left him then, not understanding from where all her sudden ire towards him had come. She could not afford to consider it too much, however, for she had a contest to win.
She arrived back at her glider with time to spare and strapped herself in. Sparky had clearly been worried that she had not been there, but Kiel managed a half-smile as Tarne strapped herself into the contraption, and said, “You sure you’re OK, Heather?”
“No,” she replied truthfully, “but I’m going up there anyway.”
“Then good luck.”
“Thanks, Sara.”
Sparky stepped away from the glider, moving to stand beside Kiel as he wiped his oiled hands upon an already-dirty rag. “Just remember to use the sun as your advantage. It’s blazing bright today, fortunately, so position yourself as best you can to place the sunlight in the eyes of your opponents.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Well, good luck.”
“Thanks, Sparky.”
Sparky looked about with a frown. “Where’s D.T.?”
“Checking something for me. Do me a favour, Sparky, and get a red flag ready for when he gets back. With any luck, we’re not going to need one, but just in case?”
Sparky had no idea of what she was speaking, although he nodded anyway. “Will do. Break a leg and all that.”
“I sincerely hope not.”
The gliders were all lined up along the starting line, their pilots strapped firmly into their harnesses, and the referee stepped up to the line with his starting gun raised. There was a panel of judges sitting off to the right, although it was the job of the referee to make certain the rules were adhered to. Tarne ignored the referee and the judges, and looked about for Darkthorne’s face within the crowds of people. She could not see him, and worried he would not be back before the end of the contest. If she did not know whether to win, should she win anyway or just throw the contest?
But no human had ever defeated the Nagas entrant, so she knew the point was most likely moot anyway.
“Gliders ready!” the referee said; then fired his gun.
The gliders took to the air as one, gaining height and confidence with every second. Tarne put all the other contestants from her mind as she approached the first of the challenges. It was a simple gravity-defying arrangement of wooden blocks and beams. The science involved in keeping the wood afloat upon the air currents would have sounded as sorcery to the folk of only a century or two earlier, and Tarne recalled a time when even she would have considered it so; maybe even would have been blamed for it as a sorceress.
She shook such thoughts from her head violently. If she allowed her concentration to lapse, she might well be killed. She would not fail the competition, and moreover she would not become a casualty for historians to debate.
Tarne tilted the glider with her body, edging the contraption slightly to the left. The wind factor was minimal, although ever present, and she considered her options carefully. Two of her opponents had already rushed at the blocks and were making good progress, although she did not spare the time to view the others. She heard gasps from the crowd and envisioned one glider already spiralling towards the ground. Taking a deep breath, Tarne pushed her glider forward, dropping steeply and then shooting back up towards the wooden blocks and beams.
Her glider evaded the first of the beams, swivelling with her body to pass through the floating, wooden maze. She broke through the final gap, heading directly skyward and hovering there for several moments as gravity made up its mind as to whether it should claim her, and used the opportunity to steel her nerves. She would have to enter the second stage of the contest now, which meant returning down through the blocks at breakneck speed.
Her glider began to turn as the earth decided to reclaim her and Tarne stared straight downward to see the wooden obstacles begin to rotate. Faster and faster they moved, and Tarne hugged herself closer to the inner supports of her glider.
Suddenly, she was among them, weaving and spinning and evading everything. Many considered this, the second stage, to be the most difficult of the entire competition, and she expected several contestants to fail at this point. For Heather Tarne, however, it was only a matter of stern concentration and sharp mind. She blocked off every thought, every hope, every fear, and concentrated only upon the spin of her own glider. The blocks were before her, around her, behind her, moving at their steady pace, and she could not affect their movements. All she could affect was her glider, and she would force it to fit through the gaps no matter what.
And then she was through, and levelled off her glider. She was still around twenty metres from the ground and knew there was no chance of her actually falling. Casting a quick glance behind her to check for damage, she saw her glider did not appear to have touched anything on the way up or down. Now she was through the second hurdle, she decided to see how the other contestants were faring. Two gliders had been damaged on their downward journey through the spinning wood and lay in crumpled heaps upon the ground, while a third was veering dangerously without a rudder.
None of those gliders was that of the Nagas, which she saw now m
ove gently past her. It may have been skeletal of frame, but such a design had only served it well during these, the first two tests, for it also had taken no damage. She caught the eye of the Nagas pilot, who was clearly examining her glider just as she was examining his. She cast a thumbs-up towards the Nagas, although the snake-man pointedly turned his head and ignored her friendly gesture.
“And you,” she muttered.
The third round of the contest followed and Tarne turned her glider towards it. This involved the skill of eagle eyes in addition to expert piloting. A section of the field had been converted to a lake, over which there had been placed a low roof, and it was beneath this roof that the gliders would have to manoeuvre. There was space of exactly seven metres between the surface of the water and the underside of the roof, and beneath the water there were artificial vents randomly placed. The vents would spew forth geysers of water at irregular intervals, the resultant jets of water being strong enough to bring a glider down should it make direct contact. This was the round at which Tarne was best suited. As a psychic in training, she could easily time the geysers and make it through the pass, where other pilots would falter.
She licked dry lips and closed her eyes as she muttered a brief prayer for courage; and then she shot downwards, veering sharply that she might enter the tunnel set above the water.
There was another glider entering the tunnel alongside her and keeping a distance of ten metres. Tarne ignored him, concentrated instead upon the water. She could see several dark spots forming, and knew this meant the water was escaping the vent beneath her. She was moving at such high speeds, however, that the dark patches meant nothing to her: she would be over them and gone by the time the water exploded. It was the white patches she had to be concerned with, and in particularly the white froth forming upon the surface indicative of an imminent explosion.