by J. E. Gurley
Jazon reached up, grabbed the small physician by the edge of his loose robe, and yanked him down onto the bed until his face was just a few centimeters from Jazon’s face. He could see the Dastoran’s mouth working, trying to protest, but ignored him.
“I’m getting up. Bring my clothes, or I’ll slice out your liver and eat it raw.”
His threat of cannibalism believed or not, changed the physician’s mind.
“Of course, Mr. Lightsinger. If you insist on leaving, let me help you.”
Jazon released him, and he helped Jazon to his feet. When Jazon realized he was in no shape to put on his clothes, the physician helped him to dress. His first few steps were wobbly, and he almost managed to knock over a tray filled with microsurgery apparatus standing beside his bed. He glanced at the bank of machinery, most of it exotic and unfamiliar in spite of his long stay in a Marine medical unit after his injury. The Dastorans had spared no expense to save his life.
While he wasn’t looking, Hthrothama injected him with a hypo. He almost knocked the Dastoran physician down instinctively, but his mind immediately felt a little less cluttered.
“If you insist on leaving,” Hthrothama said, “the kathimin will ease your pain and reduce the effects of the sedatives. If you were to fall and injure yourself further ….” The physician held the hypo in front of himself like a shield as he slowly backed away.
Jazon nodded his appreciation to the bewildered physician and shuffled to the door. He was certain Hthrothama would contact Lord Hromhada immediately, but he didn’t care. He and Ulrich would be long gone before Lord Hromhada found them.
“Where do you think you’re headed?” Ulrich demanded as Jazon reached the hall. Ulrich was sitting on a bench beside the door, a position he had assumed regularly since Jazon’s injury.
“To my room,” he mumbled.
Ulrich shook his head sadly. “Your room’s a mess. They haven’t completely restored it.”
Jazon didn’t slowdown, half-afraid that inertia would drop him to the floor if he stopped moving forward. “Oh, yeah,” he said, remembering the fight as if a nightmare blurrily recalled upon awakening. “To your room then,” he called over his shoulder.
Ulrich sighed and followed. “Let me help you.”
He placed one of Jazon’s arms around his shoulder and took some of the weight off Jazon’s rubbery legs. Jazon realized just how far gone he was, and let Ulrich accept a little more of his weight.
“You’re a prince, Ulrich,” Jazon said. “No, you’re a count.” Ulrich ignored his attempt at humor.
The Healing Chamber was two decks above and a third of the ship’s length from their rooms, aft of the Great Hall. He barely recalled the transport ride or the silent Dastoran servant who operated it. The short corridor to their rooms loomed before him like an endless passageway. By the time they were outside Ulrich’s door, he was on the verge of passing out from the exertion. His side throbbed horribly, and each step sent spasms of pain shooting through his legs. Finally, Ulrich helped him to a chair. He grimaced as he plopped down in the seat, his legs too weak to support him.
“Sit here. I’ll get you some water,” Ulrich offered as he headed for the small in suite pantry.
“No water,” he groaned. “I need a drink.”
Ulrich paused, glanced askew at his friend, shook his head in wonder, and walked to the bar. He poured a shot of clear liquid into a glass and handed it to Jazon.
“Here, vodka.”
Jazon smiled at Ulrich’s look of consternation and downed the liquor. The alcohol burn brought life back to his chest and stomach, then continued to his fingers and toes. The combination of vodka and the drugs seemed to work in tandem to ease his pain and open his eyes. The bells in his head receded, and the shakes stopped.
“Thanks. Much better.” With his mind a little sharper, he looked around.
Ulrich hadn’t changed his ways much. Clothes lay scattered everywhere, strewn on chairs, the bed, tabletops, and even the floor. Dishes stacked on a table beside the room’s small food processor bore traces of past meals. More dishes tottered precariously beside the computer. Ulrich’s view screen showed the planet Lahhor below them. Jazon guessed the ship was in a geo-stationary orbit above the major city of Hhat, one of the few cities on the planet. A vast, milky ocean covered almost ninety percent of Lahhor’s surface. A belt of low islands circled the equator like beads on a string.
Hhat, site of Lord Hromhada’s ancestral home, the Keep of the Tuss Enclave, was located on the largest island approximately the size of Ireland on Earth. A band of pink clouds resembling spun cotton candy hid the island from view, but Jazon knew that Hhat possessed a large spaceport – and a way home.
Ulrich sat across from Jazon and stared at him for a couple of minutes. The scrutiny began to irritate him.
“What?” he snapped.
Ulrich smiled and shook his head. “You’re a lucky bastard. You should be dead. Not many men fight a Trilock and live to talk about it.” His voice held what sounded to Jazon like a touch of admiration.
“Pure luck,” he retorted. “I could smell the stinking bastard in my sleep. Otherwise, he’d have knifed me and maybe taken a few bits for a snack later.”
Ulrich grimaced at Jazon’s grisly scenario. “His name was T’Tirik of the T’Oki clan. The other Trilock is under guard and claims he knew nothing of his friend’s intentions.”
Jazon laughed. “Yes, he’s a good Trilock.” He thought for a moment. “T’Oki clan, huh? They’re a proud bunch. Warriors. Hate Terrans for even being in the Alliance. Maybe it was personal.”
Ulrich stared at his friend, astonished at Jazon’s about face. “You don’t believe that, do you?”
Jazon rolled his eyes. “Not for a minute. They don’t want us to join Hromhada’s little venture.”
“Are we?” Ulrich asked pointedly.
He tried to gauge Ulrich’s thoughts, but his friend’s mask was up, concealing them completely. He pointed to the view screen with Lahhor spinning in its center. “We’re getting off this ship as fast as we can while we’re still alive. Between the Cha’aita and the Trilock, we wouldn’t stand a chance.”
Ulrich said nothing. He cast his gaze at the floor and toyed with his glass of water. Finally, he spoke. “I’m staying.” He looked up at Jazon defiantly.
Jazon realized he should have suspected as much. “Don’t be stupid, Ulrich,” he burst out. “The Dastorans can’t help us. Nobody can. We have to help ourselves. We have to stick together.” He was shouting, waving his hands in the air, but he could see his words were having no effect on his friend. His own mind was growing fuzzy. The alcohol, combined with the sedatives that the physician had injected him with before the surgery, was slowly going to his head, and he couldn’t formulate his thoughts coherently enough to tell Ulrich what he meant. He wished he had another shot of kathimin. “Lord Hromhada is caught up in this … quest like it’s like a Holy by God Crusade. He’s blinded to the reality of it.”
“I believe in what they’re trying to do,” Ulrich explained. “I have to believe it’s possible. Can’t you see?” Ulrich was pleading. His voice was breaking with a jumble of emotions – fear, guilt, and devotion to his principles and to his friend.
“Zealot!” Jazon yelled. “I can see you’re going to die, all of you. Well, I’m not. I’m getting off this tub and finding another ship home, even if it’s sub-light ore freighter.”
Ulrich said nothing more. He walked over to the computer and began to scan the screen. Jazon longed to see what his friend was so interested in, but his pride wouldn’t let him. Stupid fool! Ulrich had turned religious, and the Dastorans in their white, shiny armor had convinced him that he was Sir Percival after the Holy Grail. Well, even the venerable Dastorans were hiding something beneath their polished exterior – something dark and sinister. It doesn’t take more than a knife in the lung to get my attention, not Jazon M. Lightsinger. Maybe those micro-knitters had done more than given him new flesh. Maybe
they had given him more sense, too.
He hobbled over to the bar and took the bottle of vodka back to his chair. There, he slowly but methodically finished it. By the time the bottle was empty, he was too. There was nothing left inside him. His anger was gone, drained like the bottle, as well as his resentment at Ulrich’s decision. He could see clearly, as if the fight, or the vodka, had lifted some milky haze from his eyes.
Ulrich was a grown man, and they had been through quite a few scrapes together over the past few years. He probably owed Ulrich his life, maybe more, but Ulrich had followed Jazon this far without complaint. Maybe Ulrich needed to move on, get away from his influence. He was, after all, a Count. Wasn’t that what Counts did, consider the facts, make decisions and stand by them – like a judge? Who was he to judge a judge?
“Count Ulrich,” he murmured, and then laughed at the sound of it. Ulrich looked up, but didn’t respond, merely returning his attention to his computer screen.
Jazon sat there in silence, watching Ulrich work. He tried to think of some reason to stay with his friend, but his head was too empty. So was his soul. It was as if he had purged his essence while in the infirmary, and all that remained was determination.
“I’m out of here,” Jazon announced to the room and eased out the chair by sliding to the floor. Ulrich didn’t bother to look up as Jazon levered himself to his feet and staggered to the door. The door hissed open.
“Sshhh,” he whispered to the door, and then laughed. He glanced at Ulrich one last time, biting back on a trenchant remark concerning Ulrich’s dubious lineage.
Outside in the corridor, he flipped a mental coin to determine what to do next. He decided that if the shuttle was forward, that was as good a direction to head as any other.
The short corridor seemed endless as he stumbled along, using the wall for support. When he came to the transport, his speech was so slurred that he had to repeat the only Dastoran words he knew three times before the transport recognized them.
He reached the Great Hall, chose a corridor headed vaguely forward, and followed it. It ended abruptly at a sealed door. He attempted to open the door several times, finally giving up and sitting down on a curved stanchion supporting the deck above. He didn’t know how long he sat there brooding before the door opened with a loud hiss, and a wheeled robotic carrier emerged with a load of electronic apparatus. He rushed through the door before it closed. The room was a cavernous storeroom a hundred meters in length and half as wide filled with row upon row of shelving units. The ceiling stretched at least thirty meters overhead. Nimble Dastorans, smaller and less defined than any he had seen, whisked up and down the stacks on tiny elevators, hardly more than a disk large enough to support them, choosing items and placing them on conveyor belts that continued out of sight beyond the walls. The Dastoran warehousemen ignored him, even when he yelled obscenities at them. Their diminutive minds contained only enough brainpower to recognize coded item requests, pull the items from inventory, and dispatch them to their proper destinations. He shook his head sadly. Dastorans, despite their godhood, had little regard for their own creations, using them like tools. Was this what Lord Hromhada thought of Amissa, or even him and Ulrich? Did Amissa look at these semi-sentient creations and weep, seeing in them her own six-hundred-year-enslavement?
He ambled over to the shelves and examined a few items in the bins. One shelf was devoted exclusively to electronic parts such as the robot had been carrying. Others held large replacement ceramic liners for Skip engine coils, machined parts, or crystal nodes. Some he could not identify.
He continued walking and examining items until he reached a sealed locker with a stylized symbol he did recognize – Caution. Curious, he picked up a steel bar from a bin and used it to pry open the door.
Inside, he found weapons – racks of pulse rifles, a few heavy lasers, dozens of pulse handguns, and small orb he assumed was the Dastoran equivalent of a stun grenade. He picked up one of the handguns and marveled at the feel of it in his hands. It felt a part of him, a part that had been missing for years, forgotten until reminded by the tactile sensation of holding a weapon in his hands. His Marine training flooded back. He placed the pulse handguns in his belt and attempted to reseal the door to the locker. The scratch marks from his makeshift pry bar were visible, but satisfied it would pass a casual inspection, he continued walking forward.
His vodka high was wearing off. His side felt as if the Trilock had shot him with a pulse rifle. He was gasping for air with every breath. Maybe the physician was right, but it was too late to worry now. He was bound for Lahhor. He caressed the pulse gun tenderly.
Let them try to stop me, he thought.
Lord Hromhada sat on a low stool across from Amissa, her eyes glazed by the post-hypnotic suggestions planted there by her neuro-teachers. He felt ashamed each time he used her in this manner, but this was her purpose. Its roots ran far deeper than his ascendancy to the Tuss Highborn leadership. He was a tool as well, crafted by his ancestors and used for the purpose intended, like a chisel to stone. His life no longer belonged to him. His life belonged to the Tuss Enclave.
Too many had died at the hands of the Trilock in that bitter so-called ‘misunderstanding’, a truly dishonorable and useless event. The Trilock could never learn that less than one third of the Dastoran population had survived their vicious attack.
Of the nearly one hundred fifty thousand of his own Tuss Enclave, barely fifty thousand now remained. Even now, the Enclave survivors were gathering at Dastora, preparing for the Great Adventure.
If, he thought bitterly, I can tame this wild Terran.
“Amissa,” he encouraged softly. “Concentrate on the Trilock ambassador. Enter his mind. Peel away the layers of deception and deceit, and find the seeds of his purpose.”
He watched her face contort, as her subconscious fought against this rape of her will. He marveled that even after six generations, her persona still fought for mastery. She was a strong-willed woman, much stronger than any of her predecessors. It pained him to watch her inner turmoil, knowing that in the end, the implants and hypnotic suggestions would surely win out over raw will.
Her eyes opened, empty as the void between stars. She looked without seeing. “Yes, my Lord,” she said with no trace of emotion. He observed as her eyes dilated in intense concentration, the azure almost disappearing. He glanced at the Trilock, sedated and strapped to the table at the edge of the room, thrashing and fighting against his bindings even while unconscious. His Clan had prepared him well for his treachery. Lord Hromhada felt a momentary desire, almost a compulsion, to walk over and slice open the Trilock’s veins, letting his treacherous blood spill upon the floor. So much blood, his kin’s blood, had been lost without cause; surely, the blood of one mad animal Trilock would not upset the balance of the universe.
No. The Trilock, too, would serve his purpose.
“He fights, my Lord,” Amissa informed him.
“Suppress him,” he urged. Lord Hromhada yearned to link directly to Amissa’s mind and explore the Trilock’s mind, feel what he felt, see what he saw, but if he left any trace of his personality, the political ramifications could prove disastrous.
Her face tightened with intense concentration. The Trilock’s struggles increased, and then abruptly ceased. After a moment, she said, “He was ordered to accompany us on the mission against his will. I detect a psychic kernel planted deep within his mind that I cannot reach. It is a deep suggestion designed to trigger at some later date.” She probed deeper. “He knew nothing of his companion’s orders to assassinate Jazon Lightsinger.” Her eyes began to water, and her facial muscles began to twitch as she fought to pierce the Trilock’s implanted psychic command.
“Enough,” he called and watched Amissa slump in her chair. Instantly, the Trilock Ambassador’s struggles ceased.
Breathing heavily from the effort for such a deep probe, she said, “He will attempt to deliver the ship to the Trilock.”
Lord Hromh
ada nodded. “It is as I suspected. One sent to murder; the other sent for what – thievery; surely to try to interfere in some manner. If we prevent his accompanying us, the Trilock will have sufficient reason to refuse us entry into their territory.”
He knew he was speaking to himself. Amissa sat patiently awaiting his next command, as a machine awaits its operator to punch the proper button. Lord Hromhada looked into her blank eyes and sighed heavily.
“Erase all traces of your probing. Let the Trilock think his secret is safe, for the time being, anyway.”
He looked at Amissa, pale and perspiring from concentration. He suspected her creators had birthed something more than they had anticipated in the cloning tanks. He hoped her usefulness would not end with this mission. The search for perfection was nigh complete in her genes. One more generation, perhaps, and they would have the Avatar they had sought for millennia.
How utterly strange it was that its fulfillment would come only with the help of the Terrans. Was it a quirk of the Mahata Fey, a flaw in the Three Principles, which bound the future of the Dastoran race to such an imperfect, primitive race as the Terrans?
For years, Lord Hromhada had studied the inner workings of the nexus of the Mahata Fey, where the molecular world and the psychological merged. He knew it would be possible for the right mind to mold space, as sculptors mold clay. This was the ultimate goal of the Avatar. Was this woman, this Terran clone, the link to that Avatar?
Only time would tell.
“Go to your room and sleep. Forget all that has transpired here tonight.” He gently uncoupled the neuro-link from her chair and brushed her long hair over the socket in her scalp, letting his fingers run through its silky softness, imagining the softness of her body. He let that thought fade. She was no toy for his pleasure.
For two thousand years, the Dastorans had tried to enhance their low-level telepathic ability but to no avail. Lord Hromhada considered himself one of the most adept in generations, yet he could barely read the surface emotions of people, especially such alien species as Terrans. His people needed the Avatar to survive. If they were ever to navigate the pathways between dimensions, they needed a mind capable of sensing the very fabric of time and space, an Artificial Intelligence that could foretell the presence of objects before they became a navigational hazard. The Avatar would be a prescient AI, artificial in that its human mind, its emotions, its being, would be stripped away leaving only the enhanced organic mind designed to follow their commands.