Being of the Field

by Traci Harding

  Zeven had to respect her reasoning, but he knew he had to go. ‘I’ll be back,’ he assured Taren, having decided it would be okay to part from her. There wasn’t a place in the known universe she could go that he could not find her with a thought. ‘If I find myself adrift in space, I’ll be back even sooner.’

  ‘They’re alive,’ Taren said, confident in her heart that it was true. ‘But be careful anyway.’

  ‘You be careful,’ Zeven said. ‘You have a lot more to contend with than I do!’

  Taren nodded to convince him she’d be fine. Zeven closed his eyes and thought of Aurora.

  Touchdown found Zeven in the corridor where the bio-containment labs were located, between the launch bay and AMIE’s bridge, and he breathed a great sigh of relief to be in familiar surroundings.

  A woman sobbing drew his attention to Aurora on the floor beside him, curled up in a ball, crying her eyes out. ‘Why are you crying?’ he asked, squatting down in front of her and gently gripping her shoulders.

  ‘Because I am not brave enough to do what Kalayna did,’ she wept, completely oblivious to who it was she was talking to as she wouldn’t look up.

  ‘What did Kalayna do?’ he asked, crouching lower. He finally gained her attention, whereupon she ceased crying and burst into a huge smile. ‘Starman!’ She launched herself into his embrace and kissed him repeatedly. ‘I was so worried,’ she said, hugging him in between her kisses. ‘I’ve missed you so much.’ She kissed him again and began ripping the clothes from his body.

  Zeven couldn’t have been happier, but having his wits a little more about him he decided the corridor was really not the place. He swung open the door of the bio-containment lab observation room and they stumbled inside, panting and shedding layers as they went.

  ‘Unbelievable,’ Kalayna uttered, looking over the proof in her hand, yet she still couldn’t accept what she’d done. ‘This is a miracle.’

  She’d built a prototype weapon from the bits and pieces of spy equipment she still had, plus the spare parts she’d found in the hangar storeroom. ‘This has to be my Power,’ Kalayna reasoned. She’d always had a good grasp of engineering and perhaps, given a few years to draw blueprints and fiddle with construction, she might have been able to create the same device that she’d just thrown together…overnight! It was a handheld weapon that sent out pulses from the rounded nose, pulses which scrambled a psychic’s electromagnetic field for a short period. At least, that’s what Kalayna expected the device to do, but of course she needed to test it.

  As she left the launch bay, Kalayna headed towards the bridge in hopes of finding Leal there. She was polishing up the silvery outer casing of her new toy when, out of the corner of her eye, she noted shadowy movement through the window of one of the darkened bio-containment labs and she moved to take a closer look.

  Starman was ravishing Aurora on the floor of the lab and Kalayna’s heart sank. Her first reaction was to feel hurt and left out, and she briefly entertained the thought of testing her new weapon on Starman, but she had learned that blind rage was not the way to handle heartbreak.

  The sheer bliss she saw on their faces filled her heart with joy. She really did care for them both very deeply and she knew they cared about her. She could walk right in there and join them and neither would have objected, but Kalayna would feel like she was intruding…and that’s what she’d been doing all along, she suddenly realised.

  Since meeting Aurora, Kalayna felt she’d really discovered herself; she had her own fascinating life to lead and was no longer controlled by anyone else. She had to admit that a good part of her attraction to Aurora was the AMIE project, and Aurora had been more distant since discovering that Kalayna was a sleeper agent for the secret service. Kalayna may have had no conscious knowledge of being a spy, but Aurora now felt that Kalayna had only targeted and seduced her for secret service purposes. The fact that Kalayna had dared to enter the bio-containment area without permission had infuriated Aurora all over again. The relationship with Aurora was definitely over this time, and Kalayna didn’t blame her for a second. Aurora had been pining for Zeven the entire time he’d been missing and obviously Starman had been pining for Rory too.

  It had been a lovely tryst, but now that Kalayna knew the truth about herself, it was clear to her she had no claim on either Aurora or Starman.

  They got each other. I got a Power and a really cool job…pretty sweet deal.

  She reined in her emotions, backed away quietly and continued along her own desired course of action. She still needed to test her prototype.

  When Anselm arrived to collect Taren for the meeting, he was naturally curious about where Zeven Gudrun had gone and how he’d escaped.

  Taren just smiled broadly. ‘Just goes to show, you don’t know everything about me.’

  ‘He didn’t attempt to find AMIE, surely,’ Anselm asked, distressed, as he’d had plans for the pilot. ‘Not without a spacesuit? I told you there was an explosion—’

  ‘You worry too much. Starman is fine.’ Taren waved off his concerns.

  ‘Starman?’ Anselm was set at ease by her certainty. ‘Is that what you call him?’

  Taren nodded. ‘And he sure does live up to the name. Shall we go?’

  As Anselm led her to the conference chamber, Taren noted how handsome and how fit her father was for a man of his years. ‘I hear you are very popular with the ladies, Father.’

  Anselm suppressed a smile. ‘I hear you’re having an affair with Captain Gervaise.’

  ‘Mother doesn’t approve,’ Taren grinned, and then frowned. ‘Do you think she ordered the attack on AMIE that caused the explosion?’

  Anselm went to answer, but they’d reached the conference room and his guard pressed the switch that opened the doors for them. The politician waited until they were inside and the doors had been closed before he replied. ‘The truth is…I was the one who had the explosives planted.’

  ‘What!’ Taren backed up.

  ‘I needed to ensure Gudrun’s cooperation in your rescue, but I never intended for the device to be detonated. I did not give that command.’

  ‘Then who did?’ Taren challenged, just as the doors opened and a guard entered to announce the queen’s arrival.

  ‘Khalid Mansur,’ he uttered in an aside, then stood up straight to prepare for the arrival of the queen.

  In the light of this new information, Taren feared that Lucian might actually be dead along with all of AMIE’s crew…and she had her parents to thank for it. She raised her woeful face to tell the pair of them exactly what she thought of them, and was shocked to the core to see Lucian and Ringbalin escort the veiled Qusay-Sabah Clarona into the room.

  ‘Lucian!’ Taren flew to embrace him and he caught her up and swung her around. As the lovers kissed, everyone else in the room was notably uncomfortable.

  ‘Leave us,’ the queen commanded her Valoureans.

  ‘Wait outside,’ Anselm directed his men.

  ‘Jabez,’ the queen said, informally greeting him as she had not done since she’d taken up her office. ‘I appreciate you seeing us so discreetly.’

  ‘By “us” do you mean you and your witches?’ Anselm asked warily, although her demeanour was not as cold and unemotional as he remembered.

  ‘These men released me from the curse that bound me to the will of the Phemoray. Now I am my own ruler,’ she told him.

  Anselm looked at the tiny blond man standing beside the queen, rather than to the captain who was still preoccupied kissing his daughter. ‘Then we are greatly indebted to you…I think?’ He looked back to the queen whose nature was now something of an unknown. Would she be back to the wonderful, idealistic woman he’d once known and been fascinated with, or would she be someone entirely different again?

  ‘Could we speak alone?’ the queen asked, obviously uncomfortable having to make the request.

  ‘More alone than this?’ Anselm was intrigued.

  ‘We can leave.’ Taren had heard, and con
sidering this meeting was proceeding somewhat faster and better than she’d expected, she took hold of Lucian’s hand and led him to the door. Ringbalin bowed out also.

  Once the door had closed, Anselm motioned about them with his palms upturned. ‘We are alone, majesty,’ he smiled, curious. He also wondered if he should have brought a weapon to the meeting.

  Qusay-Sabah Clarona raised a hand to touch his cheek. ‘I have missed that smile,’ she confessed, to his great surprise, but he determined not to be seduced by her again.

  ‘Really?’ He backed up a few paces. ‘I have not given you a second thought.’

  ‘Of course. I was so completely forgettable,’ she said in a sarcastic tone.

  ‘There was nothing to remember,’ he retorted. ‘You drugged me and stole my DNA.’

  ‘I drugged you?’ the queen recoiled, offended. ‘You got yourself drunk and completely forgot the most wonderful night of my life!’ The pent-up emotions of fifty years came flooding forth in a burst of tears, although she realised she really couldn’t recall him being drunk that long-ago evening.

  Anselm was bemused, as she seemed so passionate about what she was saying. ‘You told me you stole my DNA and that we were never lovers.’

  ‘I lied!’ she confessed. ‘When you woke with no memory of that spectacular night, I was so angry I didn’t want you to know you’d had me at all. Soon after that I was crowned Queen of Phemoria and the Phemoray took control of my affairs…until today.’ Qusay-Sabah Clarona pulled the veil from her head so that he might see in her face that she meant what she said.

  Anselm was overwhelmed to see how beautiful she was…to his eyes she had barely aged a day. Her lips were still the most rosy and luscious he’d ever seen. Her long, dark hair was pulled back into an ornate arrangement at the crown of her head and shimmered in the light as it cascaded over one shoulder and fell to her waist. Her large pale violet eyes were awash with tears and yet she appeared serene and dignified.

  ‘I truly loved you, Jabez, and I am sorry for all the pain my curse has caused you and our daughter.’ She fell to her knees before him and Anselm’s reserve melted away. ‘Please, forgive me.’

  ‘We have both been deceived, I fear.’ Anselm knelt also—if she was so upset about his forgetting their night of passion then she had not arranged for his memory loss, and something, or someone, else was responsible. The secret services had the capability, even back then, so perhaps one of his own people had erased the memory.

  ‘Khalid Mansur…’ The queen startled Anselm with the name, as Khalid was Anselm’s first suspect as the saboteur. ‘…wishes to kidnap our daughter and use her to blackmail us.’

  Anselm didn’t doubt this was the truth. Actually it was making more sense than just about anything had in fifty years. ‘Forewarned is forearmed,’ he said, taking her hand to aid her to rise.

  ‘Nothing is more important to me than Taren’s safety,’ the queen assured him. ‘Words cannot express my gratitude to you for saving her from my sad fate.’ She bowed her head, indicating the heaviness of the burden she carried. ‘Now I have to devise a way to save the rest of my people.’

  ‘I will help you,’ Anselm said, and with a fingertip under her chin, he raised her face to look into her eyes. ‘You’re not alone any more.’

  With his words, the queen’s tears began flowing anew.

  ‘I sincerely apologise for forgetting the conception of our daughter, but I can assure you there is no one more sorry for that memory loss than I.’

  His apology made her smile. It was an eon since she’d been charmed by anyone. ‘I still remember every little detail,’ she said softly. ‘If you’d care to remember…’ she added in a seductive manner, and held her right palm up, her fingers splayed wide apart.

  Anselm was curiously aroused by the offer. ‘You can convey your memory to me?’

  She nodded, delighted that he seemed disposed to accept her proposition. ‘If you wish it.’

  ‘I can’t think of a better way to spend an afternoon.’ He led her to a lounge where they could be more comfortable.

  Out in the corridor, Taren advised Ringbalin that she needed to speak with Lucian alone.

  ‘I understand that you do.’ He suppressed a smile.

  ‘Will you be okay?’ Taren didn’t like leaving the pacifist alone among a throng of Valoureans.

  ‘We’ll see no harm comes to him,’ a tall blonde Valourean was quick to say, and her company all agreed with great enthusiasm.

  ‘Very good,’ Taren replied. She looked at Ringbalin, knowing that he must have touched them with his gentle, compassionate love for all things, just as he had obviously touched her mother. ‘Will you please let me know the minute they are out of conference?’

  Balin was a little unsettled by the request. ‘As I have been given a royal pardon, I really do need to be getting back to Module C as soon as possible,’ he said to Lucian.

  ‘Noted,’ Lucian confirmed. ‘I’ll see what I can arrange once the conference is over.’

  ‘In that case…I’ll let you know as soon as it is.’ Ringbalin frowned, resigned to waiting. He’d expected to find Zeven on board the Sermetic craft and so get spirited back to AMIE. ‘Where has Starman got to?’

  ‘On board AMIE, I expect,’ Taren explained as she backed away to lead Lucian to the quarters she’d been occupying. ‘One guess as to what he’s doing right now.’

  Ringbalin was amused. ‘I won’t expect him any time soon then.’ He looked back to the females around him.

  ‘Tell us about Module C,’ the Valourean in charge suggested, and she could not have picked a better topic to keep Balin’s mind occupied.

  ‘How did you do it?’ Taren was bursting with anticipation to know how Lucian and Balin had freed her mother, but the captain was distracted by a couple of Sermetic agents walking by and came to a standstill. ‘What is it?’

  ‘All these guards have throngs of ghosts following them about.’ His eyes were glued to the apparitions that Taren couldn’t see.

  ‘Lucian…’ Taren took hold of his face and directed his attention back to her. ‘Are you seeing ghosts?’ Inside, her heart welled with excitement and warmth to the point of overflowing.

  He gazed down at her and nodded. ‘I breathed the air of Oceane—’

  Taren was overwhelmed with emotions. ‘For me?’ Her eyes filled with tears for she knew how reserved he was about all things supernatural.

  ‘I love you, Taren whatever-your-second-name-really-is,’ he replied, a little teary-eyed himself. ‘I don’t suppose they’ll let me marry you now that you are royalty and a prominent politicians daughter—’

  ‘They don’t get any say in it…’ Taren wanted to annihilate that obstacle just in case he ever really did get it into his mind to propose. ‘…because I am not giving myself to any man but you.’

  She kissed him with such enthusiasm that Lucian had to hold her back to make a suggestion. ‘Ah…you have a room, I believe.’

  Taren realised they were attracting an audience in the corridor. ‘Let’s go.’ She grabbed hold of his hand and led the way to the whistles and encouragement of the onlookers.

  ‘I suspect Khalid Mansur wishes to kidnap you,’ Lucian informed Taren once they were alone.

  ‘Well, why not?’ Taren said frivolously. She wasn’t worried, as she had no idea who he was beyond being her father’s viceroy. ‘Everybody else has had a crack at it.’ She stripped the shirt from Lucian’s body and kissed his bare chest.

  ‘He has Powers,’ Lucian warned, although he couldn’t help smiling as clearly nothing mattered to Taren beyond their union this very second.

  ‘So do we.’ Taren envisaged the clothes vanishing from her body onto the floor, whereupon she felt her person lightened of the load of fabric.

  Lucian was delighted and sincerely impressed. ‘Will you marry me?’

  Taren knew he wasn’t being serious, but moved in closer to engage her desires. ‘In this universe and the next,’ she affirmed with a kis
s.

  Khalid had not hidden the cursed crown in Heavensgate. He had a secret place where he stashed his riches.

  In a deep crevice in a wide, remote canyon on the surface of Sermetica, there was a place known as Dead Man Downs. There was an abyss of embittered thought-forms to be found there, remnants of a human holocaust.

  After Phemoria’s revolution, several shiploads of men had been launched to Sermetica. There had been no one qualified to operate the craft, no supplies, little oxygen and water, but plenty of fuel to make it to their destination with no known survivors.

  Dead Man Downs was where those craft crash-landed.

  Inside the least damaged of the shipwrecks, there were quite a few skeletal remains, but that didn’t bother Khalid. He felt the bones added to the dark ambience. Since the craft had plunged to the bottom of the canyon, it was forever in shade, and inside the wreck, some of the rooms, especially the executive lounge, were still usable, even comfortable. However, Khalid did not come here for the décor; he came for the atmosphere, which was electric with fear, anger, pain, suffering and other negative emotions that filled him up and made him brave enough to be more ruthless and cunning than the next man.

  Khalid willed the lights and air-conditioning on, although none of the ships systems actually worked any more and had long ago run out of power. He placed the case containing the crown of Phemoria on the coffee table, to observe it while he mixed a drink. ‘This should be interesting,’ he muttered to himself. He took a seat on a lounge and rested his crossed feet beside the metal case on the table. ‘Disengage lock and open lid.’ He sipped at his drink, pleased that this spectacular theft had been so easy.

  The sound of angry females emanated from the case as it opened and a huge seething ball of red energy burst forth from the crown and simmered furiously near the ceiling of the luxurious lounge.

  Khalid Mansur, it hissed, as five veiled women appeared nearby.

  ‘Ladies, how nice of you to come.’ Khalid held up his glass in mock salute. ‘I don’t know if you are aware of this, but your planet is up for a bit of a change in management.’