Old Secrets (The Survivors Book Thirteen)

by Nathan Hystad

  “Not all of us had the abilities. Only a few, actually.”

  This was news to Jules, and she contemplated it. “How small a percentage?”

  “Maybe one in a thousand had some form of power like us,” Dal’i said.

  Dean dropped the pebble and reached to pick it up again. “Then why did they destroy everyone?”

  “The power was possible in any child. There would be three generations of normal Zan’ra, with no sign of the essence in any of their lineage, and a couple could conceive a child born with the abilities. They didn’t want to risk it.” Dal’i took this devastation with ease, but Jules supposed she’d had eons to ponder and accept their reasoning.

  “What are the four circles? The Four, right?” She pointed toward the tree, where the circle was etching into the bark. “It’s on the coffin too, on Desolate.”

  “You’ve been there?”

  “I have. I’ve spoken to him,” Jules advised her.

  For the first time, Dal’i acted shocked. Nothing seemed to bother this girl, but something about this news struck a chord. “What do you mean, you spoke with him?” She stood, and even upright, she was almost eye-level with Jules.

  “I wouldn’t say it was a great conversation. One day I fell into the ocean, and he talked further. Told me to free them, and that I knew what that meant. It was more frightful than her.” Jules pointed to the tree trunk.

  The orange in the Zan’ra’s eyes dimmed momentarily. “We cannot speak to them, not through our seals.”

  “I can.”

  The girl shook her head, eyes frantic. “This is bad. If they’re able to talk to you, then it’s worse than I thought. We have to reseal them. It will take all of the Four, and that won’t be simple to orchestrate.” Dal’i paused, tapping her chin slowly. “What did she say?”

  “She came to me as a shadow vision, telling me I must free her. That it was the only way,” Jules said.

  “Jules, we might need to free them,” Dean said. “Your dad said with Lom of…” Dean was lifted from the overturned tree he was perched on, orange tendrils of energy snaking around him. She floated along, moving toward the center of the mountainside lake.

  “What did you say?” Dal’i’s voice was deep, booming and it echoed in the quiet night.

  Jules threw her sphere up quickly, racing to his aid. “Stop it!”

  Dal’i didn’t listen. She pulled the burning ropes tighter, and Dean let out a shout.

  “We must never free the Deities. It will mean our death. The Four will be gone, all signs of the Zan’ra removed forever. We cannot allow this,” Dal’i said, and Jules moved beside her.

  “Let’s discuss what our situation is. Maybe you can help,” Jules said.

  Dal’i glanced at her. She was floating, but not in a bubble. “Promise me you won’t do anything to release them from their binds.”

  Jules shook her head. “I’ll do anything to stop Lom of Pleva from harming our universe. Release Dean, and I’ll fill you in on our plan. If he’s successful, none of this will matter. A million versions of you will fuse together, rendering you mad in an instant. We can’t let this happen. I won’t.”

  Dean gasped as she let him go. He began to plunge toward the icy water, and Jules shot below him, encircling him in her sphere. He stood, clutching at his chest where the tethers had burned his EVA slightly.

  “Tell me of this Lom.” Dal’i headed back to the fire, and Jules glanced at Dean.

  “You okay?”

  “You still have the bracelet,” Dean told her, tapping her forearm. The device from Professor Thompson was strapped under her sleeve, but she didn’t want to use it to steal the girl’s powers. Her essence, as Dal’i called it. She wanted to befriend the girl, because that was her one way to see this through and bring Patty home.

  “Come on. Let’s finish this conversation.” Jules brought them to the warmth of the flames, and as she started to tell the other about Lom, she saw the shadow rising from the tree’s trunk.

  ____________

  “Boss, this was foolish,” Slate told me.

  “I have to agree with Zeke,” Mary said. “How could you put yourself at risk like this?”

  Sergo buzzed across the table, and Loweck drummed her fingers on the surface. Suma was noticeably absent, having been sent to the crystal world where Jules’ Zan’ra essence had been hiding out for thousands of years. I had no idea if our plan would work there, but it was worth the effort.

  “What? I had to see if he was watching me, and he was. I proved he’s able to track me,” I assured them, but it wouldn’t make a difference. I’d stuck my neck out tonight, and it could have ended poorly.

  “What did you really get out of this?” Slate asked. He was pacing behind me, arms crossed over his broad chest.

  “I found out he has operatives at Udoon Station,” I said.

  “Great. The same place where we trapped him the first time. Don’t you think that’s a little convenient, Dean?” Slate asked.

  “And who the hell is Viliar?” Mary asked.

  “Not one of the Padlog—at least, not that I know, but I do have some information,” Sergo said. “The Supreme has done his own digging, and one of the factions has been overheard being sympathetic to PlevaCorp. There’s even evidence of this group meeting with some of his corporation’s ships in the Deeli system. He questioned them, and they said they were just trading goods, but he noticed they were very skittish.”

  “Good work, Sergo,” I told him, making his antennae wave slightly. “Do you have someone’s name? I’d like to have a chat with him.”

  “Her name is Foral, and she’s a mean one. She’s listed as a mining hauler, but we all knew her as a space pirate and curator of specialty goods. I may have... traded with her once or twice. In my youthful years,” he added.

  “Would you be able to set something up?” Mary asked him.

  Loweck looked dubious. “Won’t she find out you’re working on Light for the Alliance?”

  “She’ll believe any story I tell her. How about I mention the Inlorian bars I … ‘borrowed’ from Inlor all those years ago. Remember that?” Sergo asked, and I laughed.

  “You were so close to being killed that day. Don’t you remember?” I threw that back at him, and he waved his hand in a dismissive gesture.

  “I wasn’t worried,” he said.

  I decided to let him have his delusions of grandeur, since I’d saved his life by mere seconds. “Okay, contact her, set up a meeting. Say you managed to recover your chest of goods, and you need to offload them because you’re too hot,” I suggested.

  “Done. Where do you want to meet her?” Sergo asked.

  “How about Bazarn?” Rivo asked, spinning around in her chair. She’d been so quiet, facing the wall, that I’d forgotten she was even there.

  “Why Bazarn?” Mary asked.

  “Because I hold power there, and we can trap them and use my interrogation room,” Rivo said.

  “You have an interrogation room?” Loweck asked, eyebrow raised. Her orange hair fell over her brow, and she brushed it back. “That’s so cool.”

  Rivo smiled. “Dad had a few enemies, as you know, and occasionally, he needed to… pry some information from spies. You’d be amazed at what these stuffy business types will tell you with a few simple threats.”

  I cleared my throat, shaking my head slowly. “While I don’t condone torture on the whole, I agree this is a good plan. Bazarn. If she can make it in week, let’s do that. We’ll use the portals and figure out how Lom is contacting this Foral. Everyone good?”

  “Dean, you still didn’t tell us what Lom demanded,” Mary told me in front of the group. I’d intended to bring it up in private with her alone, and maybe Slate.

  “Yeah, what did the old tin man want?” Slate asked, probably trying to add some levity to the grave scenario. It didn’t work.

  “He said to turn myself in to this Viliar at Udoon,” I informed them, glancing at Mary, who remained stoic.
/>   “To what end?” Loweck asked.

  “He said I’d be able to travel to his time, and he’d stop messing with things here.” I stood, sending my rolling chair a couple of feet, and Mary’s hand flew to her mouth in an over-dramatic response.

  “You can’t be thinking about it,” she said.

  “I haven’t had time, but the reality is, I would if I believed him.”

  “Boss, tell me you don’t believe him,” Slate said.

  “No. Not for a second. He’ll stop at nothing to destroy us, even if he has to bend space and time to accomplish it. Which is why I need something from Fontem’s cache.”

  “What is it?” Sergo asked, but I couldn’t say, not yet.

  “All in due time,” I advised them. “Meeting is adjourned.”

  The others started to file out, and Sergo stopped at the doorway. “Uhm, Captain… Can I ask a favor?”

  “Sure, what do you need? I asked the bug-man.

  “Can we keep the name of our contact from Walo?” he asked.

  I had a feeling I knew where this was headed. “Why?”

  “Well, those lonely nights in the cold dead dark of space can be tough. It was only once, but I think Foral might still have feelings for me. I mean, I’m good at buzzing an antenna, if you know what I’m saying.” Sergo’s mandibles opened and closed a few times, and I pushed past him.

  “I can’t make any promises.” I walked through the corridor, following after Mary and Slate.

  Sergo shouted down the hall after us. “It was way before Walo. She’s just… the jealous type.”

  Slate craned his neck and smiled. “If you think you’re in trouble with Lom, imagine being Sergo when Walo finds out about this.”

  Thirteen

  The shadow wavered by the tree, and Jules braced herself for the Deity to push words into her mind, only it didn’t. The cloud dissipated, leaving them alone. It didn’t look like the others had noticed.

  “It was quite the feat, fixing the Shandra,” Dal’i told her. Dean lay a short distance away, gently breathing as he slept. It was late, but Jules had too much catching up to do to sleep yet.

  “What were they like before the Theos?” Jules asked, nervously glancing at the tree again.

  “They were used a long time ago. Commonplace among most races. They inspired commerce and community, but also created tensions and war. Eventually, they were shut down,” the girl said. It was hard to think of her as anything but, since she was so small and youthful in appearance. Jules was the real girl here, having lived for a short sixteen years: a sliver of time in comparison to the other Zan’ra sitting opposite her.

  “Then the Theos came along and added more of them, using the same technology, and once they messed the balance up by destroying the Iskios, they were faltering, dying off. They decided to place themselves in the stones, offering their lives to fuel the portals. It was quite the feat, one I never expected to see in my lifetime.

  “And when the Vortex arrived, and they were banished for good, the Theos once again had no choice but to depart from the stones,” Dal’i said.

  “The Vortex. That was my mother. My father stopped it, sending it to another dimension,” Jules told her.

  “You’re joking, right?” Dal’i’s mouth twisted into a sardonic smile. “You have quite the imagination.”

  “No, it’s true. I was born shortly after. My mom was pregnant with me, and we assumed I was Iskios, because of my green eyes. Turns out Ja’ri was waiting there for a host. She entered my mother, but was probably pushed aside by the Iskios, so she came into the womb. At least, that’s how I picture it now,” Jules said.

  “You have got to be kidding me. That’s amazing. And your dad saved you two?” Dal’i asked.

  “He did. He saves a lot of people. He’s a great man,” Jules said, suddenly shy for some reason.

  “Sounds like I have a lot to learn. Perhaps tomorrow we can continue,” she said.

  “You need sleep?” Jules asked.

  “Don’t you?”

  “Sure, but I thought…”

  “We remain flesh and blood. You and I aren’t that far off, even if you are human.” Dal’i had no pack and lay on the ground without a blanket. Jules had an extra rolled up in her pack and passed it over.

  “Where will we go?” Jules asked, moving closer to Dean.

  “To the next Deity. See if he’s feeling talkative,” Dal’i told her.

  Jules closed her eyes, envisioning a shadow moving behind her lids, and she fell asleep to the sound of the rushing waterfall and the crackling of their fire.

  ____________

  I was uncomfortable with our new guest being on board Light, but I opted to defer to Jules’ decision. If she was confident that Dal’i was on her side, I had to support it.

  Almost a week had passed since Jules and Dean had arrived with the other Zan’ra and so far, I’d rarely seen Jules without her new ally at her side.

  “Good morning, honey,” Mary said, stretching and adding a deep yawn. She wore a fuzzy white robe and came to the island, pulling up a stool beside me. “Couldn’t sleep?”

  “Not really.” I’d been up for a couple of hours already and had taken Maggie for a walk around the ship to clear my mind. We were less than two weeks from Techeron, and I was still waiting for Jules to extract information from Dal’i, who’d been less than willing to speak with anyone but my daughter.

  Jules had been keeping quiet too, which was a little worrisome, but she told me she was fine, and that they were working on a plan. She’d assured me she’d fill me in when it was drawn up, so I left them to it.

  I walked to the kitchen, pouring Mary a cup of coffee, and slid it across the countertop to her. She peered down the hallway and leaned in, whispering. “We asked her to stay here in our suite, Dean. Is that what’s bothering you?”

  Dal’i had stayed in Hugo’s room since they’d arrived, and other than the glowing eyes, she seemed like another teenage girl.

  “No. It’s not that. Too many unknowns. Seeing Jules with another of the Zan’ra… It feels a little permanent,” I said, not certain what I even meant.

  Mary nodded anyway, sipping her coffee. “I get it. How do you think Dean’s doing?”

  “Fine. At least they let him in on their conversations. That must have taken some convincing on Jules’ part.” I smiled, imaging Jules giving the other girl an ultimatum.

  “They’re leaving today, right after you,” Mary told me.

  “I know. Do you really think Patty will be there?”

  “Let’s hope so. Jules has the bracelet, meaning she should be able to neutralize the essence, or whatever they’re calling it.” Mary sipped her coffee, and I stood. I was restless.

  “I’m going to try to return today, if possible,” I said. “Interrogating one of Lom’s Padlog contacts doesn’t seem fun, but hopefully, we’ll bring some solid details home with us.”

  “Then we’ll be near Techeron soon. Fontem better not be leading us on a wild goose chase,” she said.

  “With that guy, I wouldn’t be surprised.” I cleaned up my dishes and passed by Mary, leaning in close enough to peck her on the cheek. “It’ll all be over soon, and we can return to some sense of normalcy.”

  Mary averted her gaze, staring into her coffee. “That’s the plan.”

  An hour later, I wandered over to deck two, finding our entourage ready to go. Slate leaned against the wall, wearing dark gray pants and a long-sleeved black shirt. Loweck was beside him, her green hair and orange skin a trademark of her distant race. It was a good thing no one stood out on Bazarn, not with the constant thrum of visiting aliens. She had on a gray jumpsuit and smiled as I neared them.

  “Why do you look so happy?” I asked her.

  Loweck glanced at Slate. “I’ve been cooped up here for too long. It’s about time I was asked to do something important and serious.”

  “I fully trust you to put Foral in her place if she gets out of line,” I told her, and she beame
d at her husband.

  I walked over to the petite Molariun woman and set a hand on her shoulder. “Rivo, thanks again for hosting this. I’m glad to have you joining us.”

  Rivo wore her business attire, a white pantsuit, and she seemed so much older than the girl I’d rescued from Lom’s robopirates years ago. “It’ll be good for me to peek my head into the Alnod Industries offices again, to remind the subordinates I still run the show.” She winked at me, and Sergo buzzed near the door.

  His antennae flickered nervously on the top of his head. “What’s the matter, Sergo?” I asked.

  “Walo.” He pointed at the corridor, where the Supreme’s granddaughter stalked toward us.

  Her wasp-like face was set in a deep frown. “Foral… you were with Foral?”

  I stepped away, not wanting to be in the middle of a relationship dispute. They moved farther down the hall, but we could hear their arguing as if they were right beside us.

  “So…” I turned to the group. “Foral is supposed to be meeting Sergo at the promenade in an hour. We’re going to be close by, and when he leads her toward Kennio Lounge, we intercept, toss her in the shuttle, and head to Alnod Industries.”

  Slate nodded along, resting his pulse rifle on his shoulder. Loweck reached into a brown pack and pulled five small disks from inside. She passed one to me, then to each of the others. “Stick these in your pockets. If anything goes wrong, we can track one another on our wrist tablets.”

  I lifted my arm, tapping the screen, and saw the blinking lights as they synced with the programming of my localized map. “I hope we don’t need these.”

  “Better safe than sorry,” Slate said, using the old adage.

  Sergo walked over, his shoulders slumped. “Walo wants to come.” His voice was quiet, pleading.

  Walo bristled behind him, arms crossed. “Captain, do you mind if I tag along? I wouldn’t want his… stinger falling off without me around.”