by V Guy
She paused and groaned. “This will take forever.”
He paused. “We’ll get there.”
Evelyn released a sigh of exhaustion. “May I have a rejuvenation?”
Sofia Maris made her goodbyes when the ship arrived at San Vin, had a final session with Malik to forget the experiences at and following Bedele, and was then deposited at her parents’ home. The crew traveled to Taipei, added hacking modules to the entry stations, and the operatives were dropped off at a Tanian space station. Abbreviated Saturday morning sessions were interrupted by their arrival at Salient’s last known location.
Ileana entered his quarters after a patient’s departure. “Who do you wish next?”
Malik gazed at her and shook his head, his mental fatigue exhibited by subdued coloring and a drawn visage. “I’m taking a break. We’ll continue later.”
“How will you find a missing star system?”
The two jumpers appeared at the port bulkhead, and he glanced their direction. “I’m uncertain.”
She looked critically at the spiders. “Do you need sustenance?”
“I do need to stretch my legs, but I’ll get something later.”
Ileana nodded and departed, making last glances at the creatures. The least afflicted institute initiates had taken the presence of the jumpers in stride. The women affected by the implants and conditioning were well acquainted with loneliness and pain, and large spiders who avoided them were largely discounted as curiosities. Violet was the only woman to offer anything similar to a typical response; she was terrified.
Malik sensed the jumpers’ impatience and rose. “I need an hour.”
They remained impatient; he left anyway. Ileana had food and refreshment waiting in the galley and gave him a knowing smirk as she walked away. Two commandos approached.
“Do the facilities meet your specifications?” Bomani asked Malik. He and Borislav had finished reverting the bathroom fixtures in Serena’s old quarters to Malik’s physiology.
“They do,” he said, nodding and smiling. “Thank you for working the nights. I do appreciate showers.”
“Anything else?”
He knew the inquiry was an open one. “Just the patients, although I’ll need someone to break from the infirmary to cover the bridge.”
“I meant about Kroes,” said Bomani. “She’s the problem. She’s also vulnerable with the files cleared.”
“She is. She’s also smart, which means she likely prepared in advance to be untouchable. Kroes has many contacts across the Confederation. Finally, she’s useful; without her, we’d lack this freedom.”
Bomani watched as Malik dug into the awaiting food. “We could find her.”
Malik grabbed his flagon of water. “I already have—Kroes is at Tania.”
The commando’s eyes widened in surprise. “Then she could be killed. We don’t need her help to fix these women.”
“But we do. Besides, I’m certain she has a stash of information preserved for her expiration.”
“If she breaks her word, we could make her pay.”
“She didn’t seem so inclined. Still, it’s an option.”
He pondered Malik’s certainty. “How did you know?”
Malik smiled. “She left two of her commandos to watch us. I mentally found and broke them, then I linked to the other three when they reported. I installed those recording modules, like the one Helen possessed, into the recipients’ brains as well as in the local watcher. When the commandos exchange data, they’ll unwittingly exchange sensory surveillance. The closest one dumps it into a prescribed Xist location, and I retrieve it.”
“What if she changes the codes? She’s proactive.”
“I’ve established backdoors.”
Bomani stood back in amazement. “Okay, then. That’s good. No surprises.”
“The simulator is now clear,” said Ileana, returning from the entry passage. “You can go for a run.”
“She’s like a house mother,” said Bomani, amused. He watched her leave.
Malik smiled as he rose. “Ileana is organized. I’ve become too predictable.”
“No, you’ve become family. Have a good workout.”
Evelyn met with Malik when he returned to his quarters. “We’re as close as we can get to the system’s calculated center. How can we help?”
Malik glanced warily at the waiting jumpers. “One person needs to man the bridge. I’ll let you know.”
He calmed himself. He could hear and feel them in his mind, two arachnids that traveled the substrate with a nary a thought. That instinct was well suited for what they knew but hurt them overall; they lacked the concepts of innovation and risk. Trying to connect to something that was unknowingly present at their destination magnified the challenge.
Malik quieted his mind, disconnecting from Xist, extracting himself from the local systems and drawing his perceptions fully into himself. His quarters appeared to collapse around him as he reduced his awareness of the surrounding smells, flavors, sounds, and sights. Pepper and Mint waited expectantly, ready to support his mind.
He felt them and their foundation of potential. Their power and focus were potent, but Malik could discern no direction. His tools were available, the incentive was clear, and the moment was sharp, yet his mind made no impact.
The jumpers always knew where to go, and their skills were precise. Unfortunately, this was a moment when they were clueless. “Where to go” was gone.
Malik perceived that the jumpers functioned on an established set of internal programming; they slid beneath space like Drelas skipped entire portions of it, without any conscious thought. Finding Salient would involve creativity. He let himself relax as he reconsidered the framework of his project.
Leaping from Obarac when it exploded was a spontaneous act of desperation, and the guiding minds of a jumper and a dragon were the reasons he survived. Displacing the explosives from Boris involved something equally instinctual, while the remote sight discovered at Angelis and practiced at Dakota was entirely learned. Catching Drelas in the middle of a teleport was no less automatic. Help was necessary for their survival, but he was the one that made the necessary adjustments to rescue his girl. Assistance was entirely unavailable at the mining asteroid. Malik’s mind had involuntarily reacted, yet it was entirely he who had completed the multi-system jump. He could do this.
I also lost the child, he thought angrily. Not this time.
Malik’s helpers waited. He closed his eyes and attempted to replicate those feats of survival as a planned action, rather than one made out of desperation. He touched their focused minds, felt their acknowledgement, and established them as foundations. Mentally turning away from them, he reached outward to the unknown.
He immediately recognized the fog and remembered the terror when first within it. Firmly grasping the jumper’s two solid tethers, he sent his mind outward and plunged into the mist. Cold and darkness enveloped him, and the tendrils of the insubstantial touched him. Instead of recoiling, he embraced them.
An extended period of interaction demonstrated that these filaments were fairly consistent, despite the extent of his separation from the jumper’s minds. The mental clouds darkened, the surroundings chilled, and dispersal tempted his mind’s edges. Malik was stronger now than during his first immersion. He resisted the pull, plunging farther into the mist in a search for the missing solar system. He reached a point of isolation calculated to be the depth of Drelas’s errant teleport and made circuits around a slowly expanding, imaginary sphere. After an extended search period, he returned to the jumpers and set out in perpendicular vectors to cover every point of his mental compass.
He withdrew from his meditation in a sweat. Mint and Pepper were unperturbed.
Direction was undefined within the Marson Substrate, and distance was difficult to measure. Malik referred to travel in the substrate as either “submersion” or “skating,” yet both terms implied qualities of up and down. They were technically incorrect
. Wherever the ship resided in reality, the substrate was equally everywhere around them—above, below, port, starboard, foreword, or aft.
He rested and contacted the bridge as he contemplated the problem. Within twenty minutes, the ship was within ten light minutes from one of the system’s free-flying comets. The jumpers understood Malik’s next experiment; their senses indicated their readiness.
They immediately directed his mind to the small, icy object. His mind touched the object, much as he had done with the man watching the console at Dakota, but without the pain or the stress of the previous encounter. Manipulations around the comet’s surface gave him limited information and a method to reach it. With one part of his mind locked on it, he explored the boundaries of the jumpers’ touch. Repeated physical steps away from the object increased their separation, yet the jumpers’ technique remained unchanged. Rigid, dependable, and secure, their instinctual method was flawless. It was also inflexible; even after the ship was moved to the opposite side of the system, their connection passed remarkably shallowly through the substrate.
Salient would be missed by this method if it were any more deeply immersed, especially if it were as deep as Pathfinder was when dropped by the Sassist.
The ship returned to the center of Salient’s empty system and dropped under shallow immersion. Pepper and Mint refused to open a link, confusion indicating their disorientation. Pathfinder was returned to normal space.
This failure triggered the idea of using the ship’s look-down-look-up (LDLU) long-range sensor system. The transmission was similarly shallow, and a deeper substrate scan dramatically shortened its range. Next, Malik had the ship fly to the entrance of the Nowhere to Catricel channel one system away. A brief use of the lookup revealed the gravitational conduit to be remarkably shallow. They returned to Salient.
He looked at the steadfast jumpers, wondering what they must have thought when they sought him. “Can you be an anchor, without actually opening the breach?”
They were inscrutable.
“Activate the charger, minimal setting,” he said to the bridge.
Mint and Pepper were mirrors of the activation, shifting with the breach’s opening. Malik relaxed his efforts and focused, touching the jumpers for a point of reference before reaching the breach. When his mind touched the charger, he recoiled.
The breach was a wild, almost untamable chaos. He tried again, approaching the interface with care and easing his way forward. The jumpers were examples of excellence when handling breaches, and he studiously listened to their responses as he again made contact. Order slowly followed. The wildness of the interface resisted taming, the process was slow, and he was sorely taxed before he was confident the breach access could be useful as a search tool.
Two more starts later and the energies begrudgingly yielded to his jumper-guided control. He was pressing forward to explore farther when the interface refused to yield. A more determined foray into the interface met an equally resolute resistance, and the interface shut down when he sensed he was finally making progress.
“We’re having problems with the charger,” said Bomani in response to his query. “Some of the safeties were being challenged, and the system automatically shut down. Should we retry?”
Malik recalled his challenges beyond the equipment. “No,” he replied, sighing in frustration. The controls that kept the breach charger within safety limits also kept him bounded.
“I can’t look deep enough, with either your mental support or the ship’s breach wedge,” he said to the jumpers. “Could you teach me how to do this unassisted?”
For once, they were reluctant. An acknowledgement of their mutual need shifted their stance, and a cautioning acceptance followed. Malik understood, knowing that an accident on his part when using a substrate breach could kill everyone.
Mint and Pepper were stubborn teachers and innate masters of their craft, understanding enough of its foundations to realize when Malik did. He, on the other hand, communicated a measure of flexibility to their hardwired skill, his agile mind quickly grasping the concepts and implications. The two jumpers were diligent in their need for structure; they demanded more than imaginable from a couple of spiders. After six hours of lessons, their very logical and rigid minds permitted him the opportunity to try. Malik stood, stretched, and popped his joints.
“Very well, then,” he said, irritated by the delay. “Let’s do this.”
The first element to create was the breach itself. As his variant was less intuitive and natural than that of the spiders, more secure shielding was necessary. This was something he naturally possessed; he established it quickly. The breach required more effort, and several attempts produced a red, glowing sphere the size of large marble suspended between the claws of his left forefoot. Since the jumpers were unwilling to experience a deep-substrate exposure, Malik was obligated to create his own anchors. He pressed his mind into the substrate, testing his control, and he faltered after a brief piercing of the layer. The breach closed first, the anchors disengaged, and the shield fell. Three more attempts met with the same fate, and he ceased his efforts to recover. A brief communication with the bridge led to Pathfinder making a return course to Evaline.
His command for departure meant an acknowledgement of success would be sought. Arturo, Maria, and Ileana arrived to hear the news.
“Nothing,” replied Malik. “But defeat has yet to be conceded. Finding them will involve considerable learning.”
Ileana brought him food and water. “Will you be doing any more sessions today? Surprisingly, some of the women look forward to them.”
He nodded, pleased. “How many more?”
Maria had arrived with food as well, but for different creatures. She made a private grin and looked expectantly at the jumpers, who peered questioningly toward him.
An amused expression formed on Malik’s maw. He nodded, and the jumpers sprang, landing on her biceps to climb her forearms to partake of her gifts. Maria made another sly smile then eased out, spiders riding her shoulders.
Ileana glanced at her, looked at Arturo, and rolled her eyes. “Eight.”
Malik looked thoughtfully at her and sighed. “If the others must work through their fatigue, then so must I.”
The initiates’ enthusiasm invigorated his flagging spirits. The twenty-fourth hour of the twenty-six-hour Evaline day was quickly approaching when the day’s final session ended. Evelyn and Arturo entered after the last woman’s departure.
“Any sign of our missing world?” asked Evelyn, her eyes bright.
He shook his head and stretched. “I’m still learning to see as the jumpers. We might yet succeed.”
“Did they help?”
Malik made an ambivalent shrug and explained his difficulties.
Arturo furrowed his brow in confusion. “You said we might yet succeed.”
“We might. I lack sufficient control. The jumpers were willing to coach me; I’ll need practice.”
“Then you could find Salient,” said Evelyn, raising her eyebrows.
Malik became thoughtful. “After healing the women, restoring Fates, finding Selena, and satisfying Kroes? Perhaps.”
17: Fatigue
Day 699, Pathfinder, Evaline
Friday evenings became his relief, as Malik’s interviews were repetitive and tedious. He stopped at the base of Pathfinder’s ramp after a long run from Silas, gazing at his expectant crew in fatigue. “Am I missing something?”
“Where are we going?” asked Evelyn, her face drawn. “We travel every weekend.”
“Bedele.” His coloring turned ashen; he shuffled past them in the entry passage. The prowler greeted him.
“Are we getting a cure?”
Malik set his teeth even as he stroked Lallis’s back. “We’re getting information to find the cure.”
Evelyn followed him to the galley and raised her eyebrows. “Then we have targets.”
“We do.”
“Does this mean you’ll have s
omething by Newday?”
“No, but I will need some of your helpers.”
Evelyn frowned.
Borislav was nearby and straightened. “What are we doing?”
“Twenty warehouses and production facilities must be examined.” Malik handed a device to the man. “These are where we’re going.”
Bomani paused and smiled. He copied the data to his device and stood. “I’ll check with the others.”
“You’re taking them again,” said Evelyn, scowling as the man left. “These are long days even with their help.”
Malik glanced at Nina, one of Ileana’s four assistants. “Are the next five schedules clear, and are the women ready?”
Nina nodded.
He glanced longingly at the waiting food. “Evelyn, you have patients remaining. I’ll manage the bridge until someone is free, and my forays to the planet can be made during the night hours when you aren’t busy. Nina, please handle any rescheduling.”
She nodded eagerly. The woman shared an increasingly growing deference and attentiveness and if necessary, would make rearranging the appointments their personal challenge.
“Thank you,” said Malik, smiling. “Give me forty-five minutes.”
Liola watched the woman depart. “You’re surrounded by worshippers. I think it’s affecting your efficiency.”
He laughed and started to eat. “I don’t mind the distraction if you don’t.”
“Did you hear from Kroes?” asked Evelyn.
“I did, and I can influence her. I’m working on subliminal conditioning.”
Malik had related the particulars of Kroes and her blackmail to the remainder of the crew. They were understandably upset.