Some people had strong psionic walls, and the sensitivity to know when someone was doing the equivalent of snooping and sniffing around the foundations. Others had the gift of being so head-blind and psionically deaf that they were the equivalent of white noise generators. That had come in handy in some sticky or tense situations. Some races were genetically more strongly disposed to psionic talent than others. Some used psionic gifts as proof they were superior to other Human races, and granted themselves the right, even the duty, to go spying into everyone else's minds. They sulked when they learned of the rules of psionic etiquette established by the Le'ankan, and the guidelines agreed upon by everyone who wanted to join the Alliance. Agreeing to those rules didn't mean they followed those rules. That made it necessary to have crew who could sense psionic attack. Or throw up a wall to defend those who couldn't defend their own minds from spying, invasion, and attempts to hijack them. Especially on board an E&D ship, heavily loaded with equipment and weaponry.
Some people, however, managed to get through the Academy and through Basic without learning the mental disciplines to lock the door against psionic invasion. That meant it might come open after a judicious tug from a strong mind.
Genys located too many members of the Defender's crew who had pretty loose mental doors. A Nisandrian diplomatic ship with at least one registered mind-hunter and probably four junior, unregistered mind-hunters, had the mental strength to not just tug doors open, but start rummaging through those minds. By now, everyone on the Defender had to know a Nisandrian ship was docked at Sheffroab Station. Everyone on the Defender knew M'kar was a Nisandrian, although it wasn't clear how many knew she was a half-blood. She taught the children self-defense and hunting techniques, and a handful of Nisandrian words that sounded awful but were essentially sugar-water, in terms of foul language. The children adored her. Especially when she growled and hung them by their ankles.
"We're dead meat," Genys said with a groan. A headache throbbed right in that intersection of the spears through her eyes and temples. How were they going to keep the children from thinking very loudly about M'kar if Nisandrians managed to come on board?
Forget about the people with loose mental doors running into a Nisandrian mind-hunter. The children were their weak point.
~~~~~~
The next morning, Genys woke to a report on the screen in her cabin office, compiled by her yeoman. Tress and Jasper Lore had spent the night in medical, being monitored for psionic activity. Father and daughter experienced simultaneous flares of activity, three separate times. Each time, Tress woke up in tears. In her nightmares, someone big and mean was trying to find her and she kept trying to make herself smaller to hide. Jasper reported an impression that someone was knocking on a door that he hadn't even known was there. He requested discipline training from Tahl.
Genys brought Jasper and Treinna in for a private talk once Tress went to the schoolroom tucked into a corner of the rec deck. Her big, taciturn Chief Engineer's face darkened and his eyes gained new depths when Genys explained her theory: the Nisandrians were probing the ship's residents, and started with the brightest spots of psionic energy. Tress might have attracted the attention of the mind-hunters by picking up a mental "scent" from contact with M'kar.
"After all, she did pick up the image from M'kar's mind, of lobbing hooples at the Nisandrians," she said.
She went on to reassure the concerned parents that she had already talked with Tahl and other members of the crew with some training in psionic shielding techniques. Minds were most vulnerable during sleep. Genys had a meeting with Administrator Wexel, to find a way to keep Nisandrians from coming anywhere near the Defender while their ship was docked at Sheffroab. Tress's safety was of utmost importance.
Jasper let Treinna do all the talking, but that wasn't unusual. Genys wondered sometimes how the two of them had ever gotten through courting and pre-marriage counseling, much less fifteen years of marriage, just because he was the extreme of the strong, silent type. Maybe that was a demonstration of some psionic talent in Jasper that worked unconsciously, providing communication between them without either one being aware it was happening?
Genys put that thought away to chew on later, when the whole Nisandrian problem had been put behind them. As in the ship leaving Sheffroab. Hopefully they didn't plan on staying until the Defender left.
Less than an hour later, Decker contacted Genys as she headed to another meeting with Wexel. Two hooples were missing. One was mechanical, the other organic.
"How?" Genys didn't even flinch when her voice reverberated off the walls and ceiling of the corridor. Several people passing her turned to look. She probably had a panicked expression on her face. Not a good look to go with captain's stars. "No, don't tell me. I'm on my way back."
She turned and headed for her ship. Even worse than civilians and crews of non-Alliance ships seeing an Alliance Fleet captain having a nervous breakdown was letting them hear whatever Decker was about to tell her. She gnawed on the possibilities as she hurried double-time. Decker met her at the hatch.
"Lore switched in a security feed loop of empty corridor, then had one of his minions distract Trascue, and he slipped in and opened the bins. He didn't think about the recorders inside the room itself, just the sensors on the door and corridor."
"That's because it's not standard. I wanted security in case Tress tried …" Genys forgot to breathe for a moment as the explanation slammed through her head. Part of this was her fault, because hadn't she really given Jasper the idea? There was no one in the entire Fleet who was as protective about his little girl as Jasper Lore. "Where is he now?"
"Working on it."
"Try Docking Arm Two." She leaned back against the wall and listened while Decker checked with his people.
Station Security feed caught Jasper (fortunately, not in uniform) bowing to two Nisandrian officers. He was visible only from the back, but there were very few men built like Jasper, so even in civilian clothes he was recognizable. He held out a long box, dark red with streaks of black, and big enough for two hooples. Genys shuddered when one Nisandrian smiled, baring his teeth in what looked oddly like glee, then held out his hands to take the box. Jasper stayed where he was, arms crossed over his chest, as the two hurried down the long docking arm, back to their own ship. Something about Jasper's posture made Genys shudder. She went to her ready room, called Treinna to meet with her, and left word for Jasper to report there when he returned to the ship. Then she remembered.
Jasper had that exact same posture right after winning a massive, multi-strike game of one-upmanship with a rival ship in the Fleet. The contest was essentially harmless silliness, pranks without any real damage or mess. Jasper had won by filling the other ship’s shuttle bay with a rapidly growing slime that looked like whipped cream, smelled like triple-concentrated cherry syrup, and had the consistency of polymer foam. The slime had resulted from an attempt to create an organic type of fire retardant that wouldn't poison alien environments. When anyone tried to cut it or burn it or scoop it out of the place where it was growing, it responded by tripling its density and growth rate. Fortunately, the lifespan of the slime was only an hour, but during that hour, no one could get into the shuttle bay. The sweet smell turned fecal while the slime decayed. Jasper won because when the slime finished decaying, it turned to harmless liquid that was easily mopped up and didn't leave a sticky residue.
Knowing Jasper's genius, and his passion for defending those he loved, Genys could only shudder and be grateful he had a sense of humor at all.
Chapter Five
"No, that's not a lot of humor," Treinna said, when Genys showed her the image of Jasper handing the box to the Nisandrians. "That's a box M'kar got from some inbred, high-ranking, vacuum-brained indiferp with delusions of being a scholar. Who doesn't have the hand-eye coordination to wipe his own backside."
"Her words?" Despite the possible intergalactic incident ready to explode through the starbase, Genys had to grin.
"Toned down. Without the hand gestures." She shuddered. "She gave it to Jasper and begged him to find a use for it as degrading and destructive as possible. The engravings on the outside have her name and his, all twined together, and the promise that his passion for her -- as in, passion to control her and own her, and through her control her father's clan -- will last as long as the box. It's nearly indestructible. Why would he give away her presence on the ship by giving them that box?"
"Jasper isn't in uniform."
"How hard will it be to find someone built like him and identify the ship?" She sighed and sank down on the couch in the ready room, and they waited in silence for Jasper to appear.
Genys almost didn't recognize Jasper when he stepped into the room. As Treinna had said, there were few people built like him. Face-on, however, he was a different man. He wore Nisandrian facial tattoos, and a wig of braids, tightly interwoven with Nisandrian charms. Treinna's mouth dropped open, then she let out a little shriek and lunged at her husband. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him hard and long, right on the mouth.
Jasper turned bright red, so the lightning bolts on his cheek and forehead and zig-zagging around his neck nearly vanished.
"What did you do?" Genys demanded, when Treinna finally let him come up for air and they sat down on the couch facing her, holding hands.
"I told them I had a message for their master, and a sign of my war leader's esteem and devotion toward him. Indiferps never even asked which ship I came from or where M'kar was, and how they could get in contact." Jasper shrugged and one corner of his mouth quirked up. He reached out and rubbed some of the paint off Treinna's face.
"You bombed them with hooples." She didn't know whether to laugh or call out a red alert and brace for a bombardment from the Nisandrian ship. At the very least, she should write up a report and send it at ultra-priority speed to Fleet headquarters, to warn them that diplomatic relations with Nisandros could soon break down.
Three hours later, the Nisandrian ship left abruptly, ignoring repeated requests from Sheffroab Station personnel to fill out all the required documentation. How long, Genys wondered, would it take them to find out where the hooples came from? Maybe they didn't even know what hooples were. Then again, Nisandrian pride was such, they might never admit to anyone that they suffered hoople addiction, and certainly would never ask for help.
She might never know the end of that particular story. However, speculating on what had happened on board that ship once the box opened, the sedated hoople woke and started farting, while the mechanical one projected its addicting song and light show, would provide many hours of amusement. For her, and everyone on the ship who considered M'kar a friend.
~~~~~~
Before the end of that day's shift, her good mood evaporated with a communication from Fleet. Hiver signals and fuel emissions had been detected in several quadrants on the far side of the sector Sheffroab Station serviced. New data suggested that children and adolescents were higher on the "hunting" list of Hivers. Their brains had not undergone several physiological changes caused by hormones and other chemical developments as they approached maturity. Therefore, all ships with families were automatically barred from patrols that took them within a specific range of known or suspected Hiver activity.
"Specific range. That's the exact wording. Meaning 'we haven't decided yet, so leave the blank open,' can you believe it?" Genys snarled to Treinna. They sat together over mugs of hot herbal tea in a quiet corner of the recreation deck, at the end of her shift. "It just galls me. Hivers, coming this much closer to our patrol area. Threatening any children, not just ours."
"Why are children higher value to the Hivers?" Treinna rested her hands on the table, bracketing her mug, watching Genys with big, somber eyes that dominated her sharp-featured, long face.
"It's not just using Humans for power for whatever they do with their weird half-plant, half-insect, half-machine ships." Genys wished she could summon up the energy, the humor to laugh at the paradox of three halves. Treinna certainly didn't laugh. "Now the theory is that they're using Human brains for storage, for databanks, not just power cells. Maybe to run those weird ships of theirs. Enlo's curse on those traitors to Humanity."
"That would certainly explain the comas that even the best telepaths can't penetrate, and why everyone we take out of the cocoons dies," Treinna murmured. "It's life support and accesses their brains for whatever purpose the Hivers have. Their brains are drained of energy, or they're so full of the bugs' data, they can't find their way out again."
"We've got flying, space-worthy hives. Why can't we find a gigantic flame-thrower that works in space and scours those huge nests and all the bugs living inside them, just like we used to do with nests on my grandparents' farm?"
"We've only scratched the surface of uncharted space. Who knows? We might find it one of these days." She raised her drink, and Genys responded a moment later, clinking the two heavy white mugs together.
~~~~~~
When all sensor reports agreed that the Nisandrian ship had completely moved on to another sector of the galaxy, Genys gave the order to wake M'kar. The Defender's decoding team had been working steadily since obtaining the password, but the fragments of data were like individual pieces to a massive picture puzzle, with no clue what the picture would be. The decoding team had offered the theory that only part of the tangle came from the attempts of outsiders to access the Corona's databanks and take over the ship. Dulit had added his own tangles, to protect the information. Maybe M'kar would have better luck, since she knew how Dulit's mind worked.
All the more reason to wake M'kar and get her involved in the mystery she had brought to the ship.
"The Corona is gone, isn't it?" M'kar asked, when she reported to the bridge, directly after passing her physical.
"Yes. How do you know?" Genys said.
"The mental critter-chatter is gone." She stepped up to the command platform in the center of the bridge and rested one foot on the top level, giving the back of one leg a few stretches while she thought. "They say you don't dream when you're shot full of hibernation juice. I'm starting to think they, whoever 'they' are, don't know what the nethers they're talking about. I've got these pictures in my head …" She narrowed her eyes, and though she was looking at Genys, her captain felt sure M'kar saw something else entirely. "You're off in how long?"
"Three minutes."
"Time to tell you what trouble Dulit left for me."
When Genys caught up with M'kar, the lieutenant was leaning back against the wall opposite the door of the stasis chamber. She had her arms crossed over her chest, head bowed. She stared from under her brows with a force that had several times in the past threatened to penetrate the proverbial lead-lined box.
"What's the problem now?" Genys had to ask.
"The Corona was the source of the critter-chatter I was suffering."
"We already covered that." She started to cross her arms and lean back against the wall, but that would put the stasis chamber at her back. Genys didn't want whatever was in that ti box behind her. For all she knew, it could wake from stasis of its own free will and come through the bulkhead and rip out her spine.
"Stasis chambers only work for so long."
"Meaning?" The unfocused haze in M'kar's eyes suddenly clued her in. Her Chief of Talents was figuring this out as she went.
Not the most reassuring sensation for Genys, after all the twisting and conniving and deception surrounding her ship in the last few days. The smart tactic was to hold on tight and trust whoever was doing the steering, however minimal it was. Trying to take over in mid-flight, or mid-fall, or mid-hurtle, as the case might be, would only complicate an already complicated situation.
"They don't halt time. They just slow it. And provide a psionic buffer. Not a barrier. There are things in my Nisandrian blood that combined in new and unpredictable ways with the psionic heritage from Mom's side of the family -- not that I will ever admit them
outside this room." A tiny smirk twisted up one corner of her mouth. "What I was starting to say … We need to open that box, much as I hate to. Because just from the little I've picked up, we're not going to Le'anka any time soon, are we?" She sighed when Genys just shook her head. "You don't put live things in stasis for very long. Especially something teetering on the knife's edge of sentience."
"Oh …" Genys honestly couldn't figure out what to say that would adequately express the maelstrom picking up speed in her head and gut. She was afraid if she started to search for the words, she might not stop for a good long while.
"Yeah. Whoever is in there is gonna need fresh air pretty soon, and since I don't know what stage of development it's in, I have no idea how long the natural food store will last while it's sleeping. This thing is too precious to me to take any risks."
"All right, let's let this jinn out of its magic lamp. Will ordinary pan-species tranqs do any good? Or would we set off an allergic reaction and kill it?"
"We'll figure that out when we untangle what Dulit sent me. Treinna says he encrypted things, along with the scrambling done by Hivers or Gleaners or whatever they ran into."
"Hivers?" Genys thumped the back of her head against the wall twice. "Just what I needed to hear. One planet-sized cherry on top of a lot of rotten whipped cream. You have a lot to spill."
"Later."
M'kar pushed off the wall and crossed to the controls for the stasis chamber. All the monitor and diagnostic screens around the controls were lit, catching the readings from inside the ti box in every spectrum. One small screen showed the box as solid, dull black. Genys checked the classification of sensor at work. She wasn't surprised to learn that the box had been lined with something that defied general range sensors. Essentially, the proverbial lead-lined box.
Screens flickered, displaying the changes in atmosphere and energy as the stasis chamber shut down and the ti box and its contents slowly slid back into the stream of time's ordinary flow. M'kar leaned forward, resting her forehead on the clear shield that let her look into the chamber.
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