by Chris Reher
Dmitra shook his head. “Order increased security for the Factors. We’ll assume them to be a target. But I don’t want to escalate this just yet. We’re missing too many answers. You’ll direct Intelligence to determine if there is reason to believe we’re looking at an actual incursion or if this is just some sort of anomaly.”
Celois nodded, not convinced that what they had here wasn’t, in fact an anomalous incursion. This wasn’t the first time that his instincts and the General’s adherence to policy had clashed. Then again, he didn’t have to deal with civilians whose political interests wouldn’t let them admit to a threat until someone was lobbing missiles into their streets. “Major Terwood is already in position and equipped to track Kada. By now Kada will have scrubbed his ship, wherever it is. But he’ll turn up sooner or later.” He gestured to the woman at the table. “Doctor Patman, please prepare a protocol that’ll let the governors’ security teams add a brain scan to their routine processes. Nothing too overt. See if we can add it to the retinal scans.”
Bayla raised his hand. “Sirs, we still have that mystery with the disk,” he reminded them.
“What disk?” Celois said, wondering how much other information wasn’t being shared here today.
“There appears to be a device being used to bring material out of sub-space,” Bayla said. “The Caspian said they were hired to deploy it during the jump and then deliver it to someone on Rishabel. That’s when he became infected and was abandoned by his cohorts. The Vanguard agents went to intercept a subsequent delivery, with catastrophic results.”
“And Kada probably a witness to that, too,” Celois said with a sigh. “Do we know the reason for this collection?”
Bayla shook his head. “Until we know more we can’t even guess at a reason. Our worst fear is that, while they are bringing the entities out of sub-space, some of them have escaped, or were released, with the outcomes we’ve seen.”
“If they are able to invade our people’s minds as well as our electronic system, we could be looking at an invasion that might be orchestrated right here in real-space. Someone is bringing them here to gain an advantage. Which leaves us with Shri-Lan, of course. Perhaps also the Arawaj rebel faction.”
“Rebels?” Dmitra said. “They’d never be able to control something like that.”
“The Arawaj faction has some very fine minds among them, if not the funds to do much with them,” Celois reminded him.
“Speaking of fine minds,” Doctor Patman interrupted. “I’d like to request more staff. Specifically, I could use a telepath.”
Dmitra grunted noncommittally. “You mean a Delphian?”
“Yes. Shan Chion is here at the facility. Given this case, I’m sure we can persuade her to join our team on this project.”
“Very well. Move your patient, the coherent one, to the upper floor. I don’t want a Delphian civilian down here.” He ran both of his hands over his hairless, tattooed head. “Let’s be clear. I appreciate the research opportunities these aliens present. But if someone is deliberately bringing them here, our first priority is to find out what their intentions are. Structure your interviews accordingly.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dmitra sighed. “If Kada is being controlled by an alien entity, a great many of our operations are compromised. Find him. Contain him. Get a grip on that thing in his head. Bring in those who are behind this collection project. Send whatever support Major Terwood needs without drawing too much attention. I want this thing contained before it spreads.” He watched Bayla pull the data sheet off the table and sling it over his shoulder. None of the others moved. His eyes shifted to Celois. “By any means necessary.”
Chapter Six
“That is a research lab?” Khoe followed Seth’s eyes as he craned his neck to find the tower perched on a cliff jutting out from the mountain before them. From here it looked like it wouldn’t take much of an earthquake or rockslide to tumble it off the edge.
The Dutchman had brought them to Magra, one of the more contested planets of Trans-Targon. Magra Torley, the smaller of two continents, offered services for people, like Seth, looking for a thorough scrubbing. His favorite outfit would ensure that the Dutchman’s identifying signals were replaced and screen it from tail to tip for any Air Command tracking devices he might have picked up on Feyd.
A commercial flight then took them to Magra Alaric on the opposite side of the planet. Aligned with the Commonwealth, this continent remained largely unmolested by rebel activity while Air Command forces staffed a number of bases there, both on the ground and in the sky. It was a pretty place to live and work, with a temperate climate and a mix of modern, sociable populations.
The Delphians had found a perfect location for their research center here, in the military’s protective shadow but free of the social strictures imposed by their own government. Unlike those on their homeworld, this facility welcomed visitors and colleagues of many origins to collaborate and share their knowledge.
Seth paid the shuttle operator and leaped to the ground. “Delphians are secretly very dramatic. They love an impressive edifice.” He started up a small skimmer provided to bring visitors from the drop-off to the main building. The ground rose sharply from here to the foot of the tower, built for some long-ago purpose and adapted by the Delphians for their research station. It blended into the craggy mountains that surrounded them with a stone façade covered in clinging plant life. Only the transmitter array on the rooftop suggested something other than ancient battles taking place here. Unseen, a sophisticated deep-space telescope travelled above it in geosynchronous orbit.
He breathed deeply of the clear highland air, as always happy to inhale something other than the canned gas aboard the Dutchman. A broad valley below them reached for the distant sea with a network of rivers and he let Khoe have her wide-eyed fill of the spectacular scenery. She exclaimed in amazement when a flock of long-legged shore birds swooped overhead on their way down the mountain. He obliged her by slowing the air car when she insisted that he touch the pink and purple seed fluff on one of the evergreens that grew up here. The trip to the tower had seemed far too short and he resolved to show her more of the planet on the way back.
“Doesn’t look like anybody is home,” Khoe said when they approached a door set deep into the stone wall.
“I’m just hoping Caelyn is here. It’s been a while.” Seth placed his hand onto the door’s com panel to request entry. He had not dared to call ahead, fearing Air Command eyes on this place like they had eyes everywhere. But even if his friend was away on one of his frequent missions into whatever unknown fascinated these people so much, he hoped for a relatively friendly welcome here.
“Have you known him for long?”
“Some years. He helped us save a bunch of cephalopods in the badlands when we needed a spanner to get us out there. We’ve been friends since.”
“Squid? Isn’t that what people here eat for dinner?”
“They were special squid.”
The door slid aside to show a towering Delphian woman dressed in crisp blouse and sarong. She inspected Seth with calm indifference. “Welcome,” she said without inflection.
“Thank you, Elder Sister,” Seth replied, using a Delphian dialect although she had addressed him in Union mainvoice.
Khoe peered at her with interest. Like all Delphians, she was hatchet-faced with cold sapphire eyes in a pale, unsmiling face. Her silvery hair hung straight to her shoulders, much shorter than was customary among the males of her species. “She doesn’t sound very friendly.”
For a Delphian, that was a loving embrace, Seth replied when he was waved inside.
“What has brought you to us?” the woman asked, allowing him no further than the small vestibule from which two interior doors led elsewhere.
“My name is Sethran. I am here to see my friend Caelyn,” Seth said. “I have not seen my Elder Brother in many months.”
She regarded him silently for a long moment. “I will ask him if he wishes to see
you,” she said finally and turned to a door which opened only after a hand and retinal scan.
Don’t touch that, Seth told Khoe when he felt her reaching for the access panel. We have nothing to fear here. Let’s not annoy them by poking into things we shouldn’t.
“You didn’t think you had anything to fear on Feyd, either.”
He reached out to pinch her for that but then considered the cameras that were surely observing him closely. It would probably not do to have him seen groping through thin air down here.
They did not wait long before the door opened again and another Delphian arrived. This one was dressed as casually as Seth and his straight blue hair hung loose over his back. “Centauri,” he greeted him. “What trouble brings you to my door this time?”
Seth grinned. “I’m happy to see you, too, Delphi.”
Caelyn beckoned him to follow into the tower’s interior. Seth almost expected damp stone walls and musty dungeons but walked instead through a bright open space where only support pillars remained of the walls. “You’re lucky to find me here. I’m leaving in a few days for Callas. You should have let me know you were coming.”
Seth shrugged. “Too many ears listening in. I took a chance.” He stopped to peer curiously at a complex diagram floating above a holo emitter. A few people, not all of them Delphian, sat around it in murmured discussion. In another part of the workspace, a Caspian blessed with a beautifully spotted blond hide lectured in front of a disassembled mechanism. Neither group seemed to be disturbing the other. Seth had not visited this location before but it was generally assumed that the researchers here concentrated their efforts on astrophysics. Hopefully, he thought, the sort of physics that explained Khoe’s existence and the events that brought her here.
“Of course you did,” Caelyn sighed.
They took a small lift, little more than an open metal cage, to one of the upper floors of the tower. A window set into the deep, curved wall seemed to wrap almost entirely around the comfortable lounge, flooding it with sunlight. Caelyn ushered him to a lounging area and went immediately into a service alcove. “You still drink that vile charwood tea?”
“It’s all we had on Feron. So now I’m used to it,” Seth said, looking out of the concave window and over the valley below. He drew Khoe’s attention to the side of a steep embankment where long ago people had carved homes into the soft rock. Colonies of birds now roosted in them and the cave openings were a riot of brilliant plumage. “This place is terrific.”
“Isn’t it? I’ve been here a while now, off and on. We’re doing some wonderful work with the signals from the outer badlands. Time to head out again, though. My feet itch.”
“What’s wrong with his feet?” Khoe asked.
He’s an explorer. And a top level spanner. He’s happiest out there. I’ve seen him crack the tightest of keyholes and come out laughing.
“Didn’t think Delphians laugh.”
Not in public.
“What’s that?” Caelyn, bearing two cups, came to where Seth stood.
Seth blinked. “What?”
“I thought you said something.”
Seth sipped his tea. “I did. But not to you.”
The Delphian’s steel-blue eyes regarded his friend with curiosity. “To the point, then. Why are you here?”
Seth considered how to approach this. “I met someone,” he said finally. “Might be first contact, for all I know.”
Caelyn’s eyebrows rose. “Where? When? Do you have recordings?”
Seth glanced at Khoe. “More than that.”
“Are you going to share that? I’m assuming that’s why you came out here. What does Targon have to say?”
“Targon isn’t sociable about the whole thing.”
“Why not? They’re much better equipped for xenology than we are. Delphians aren’t exactly experts on other species.”
“To say the least.” Although Delphi had communities of ethnologist and xenobiologists working off-planet, it was no secret that they, as a society, viewed outsiders with suspicion and even disdain. Few off-worlders were allowed to set foot upon Delphi’s well-protected surface. “But I think your people might actually be better suited for this than Targon.” He perched on the deep stone sill and waited for Caelyn to do the same. “Found something in sub-space. Someone.”
The Delphian’s cup paused on its way to his lips. “Did you just say sub-space?”
“Did.” Seth studied Caelyn’s expression before his friend shuttered it behind that sometimes irritatingly bland expression Delphians wore to hide their thoughts. It was not as surprised as he would have expected.
Caelyn leaned back into the curve of the window and drew his long legs up onto the sill. “Tell all,” he said.
“Something came aboard my ship during a jump. Charted site, easy span. But I emerged way out by Rishabel. It… She says she originates in sub-space. Someone out here is harming them. Taking some of their people out. I’ve seen evidence that she might well be right about that. Unfortunately, it seems to involve pirates and Air Command by now. Maybe rebels.”
“She?”
Seth smiled. “Want to meet?”
“Yes! Where is this creature?”
Seth tapped his forehead. “Right in here. Small enough to ride a com link into my brain. Communicating, even manifesting.” He grasped Khoe’s wrist to tug her closer to himself. “You’d be looking at her right now if you could see her.”
Caelyn cocked his head to the side. “You do know that extended periods of time alone in deep-space can have some unpleasant side effects, right?”
“I’m sincere. Her name is Khoe.”
Caelyn put his cup down on the sill and raised a hand, a question on his face. Seth nodded and leaned forward. After a moment’s hesitation, Caelyn touched the neural interface at Seth’s temple and briefly closed his eyes to establish the khamal, a mental connection usually made only between Delphians. But being off-world and restricted by fewer rules, along with the advent of the neural implant, led some Delphians to extend the privilege to other species.
Caelyn dropped his hand and turned his head to see Khoe standing beside them. She took a step back when she felt his presence.
“Hello,” Caelyn said gently.
She looked over to Seth. “He can see me?”
“I can,” Caelyn replied. “Through Sethran.”
“I don’t know if I like that.”
Seth took her hand in both of his. “Just let him take a look. There’s so much we don’t know.”
Caelyn’s eyes took on a faraway look as he tried to reach out to Khoe. But after a moment he frowned and returned his attention to them. “Nothing. Only what you see and hear.” He looked at their hands. “And feel. That part is interesting. This is far beyond mere hallucination.” He held his hand out until she moved closer to allow him touch her arm. “You would be a fascinating study. You manifest perfectly. How did you assimilate so much? How long have you been here?”
“Not very. Would be…” she calculated silently. “Would be about sixty hours on the Dutchman.”
“Targon time,” Seth confirmed. “She’s been scanning my onboard archives and I’ve downloaded some things from Feyd when they weren’t looking. Well, she did. She is able to breach anything, it seems. Including Air Command encryptions.”
“Electronic systems?” Caelyn said. “I can see why Air Command wouldn’t want you running around loose out here.” He nodded to Seth. “And with that I mean you. You’re not exactly a favorite son among them.”
“They’re already trying to get their hands on her.”
“Why are you here?” Caelyn asked Khoe. “Some explorer from the Big Empty, here to learn about us mortals?”
She shook her head, too unfamiliar with Delphians’ austere features to see the humor brightening Caelyn’s eyes. “They… somebody has taken some of my people. One of them is most important to us. I have to find out how they did that. To… to stop it. We don’t know why that is hap
pening.”
“On purpose, you think?”
“I was kinda hoping you could help us figure that out,” Seth said. “If someone is taking her people, we need to know why. What’s so valuable?”
“I can see how breaking into secure systems might be valuable,” Caelyn said. “Do you have any other talents?”
Khoe glanced at Seth, looking guilty.
“We’ve observed some energy transfer,” Seth said. “She’s using thorium and a bit of me but I’ve been able to crank out a lot of punch. That sort of conversion would be worth quite a bit, too.” He winced. “Some folks might have gotten in the way of that.”
“Dead?”
Seth nodded. “Vanguard. But she’s able to control it now.”
Caelyn exhaled sharply. “I think you need more expert advice than what I have for you.”
“What do you mean?” Khoe said.
“He means a Shantir.”
“There is one in the city,” Caelyn said. “I could get him here by morning. And I want to talk to some of the others. Saias’ team downstairs has been involved with sub-space projects. We have some theories. Maybe they’ve heard of this.”
Khoe took another step closer to Seth.
He slung an arm around her shoulder. “Don’t worry so, Khoe. No one will hurt you here.”
“The Centauri is right.” Caelyn hopped off the sill. “We are able to learn from past mistakes.” His sardonic look to Seth did not disguise his opinion of the Union’s methods where exploration was concerned. He reached out to sever his mental link to Seth. “And now you look very peculiar doing that.”
Seth dropped his arm. “Can I stay up here till your Shantir arrives? The Dutchman’s in the shop.”
“Of course. We have some rooms upstairs. It’s nearly time for dinner. But first I want to show you our new lab. I know how fascinating you find baryonic matter research.” He smiled when Seth rolled his eyes. “We’ll leave the actual quantum quandaries for tomorrow.”
* * *
“Seth?”
Seth grumbled something that didn’t sound like real words to himself any more than they did to Khoe and turned over to pull the blanket over his head. That of course didn’t remove her persistent presence from his mind and he sighed when she continued to prod him.