Rescue from the Planet of the Amartos

by Dale Olausen

  Coryn looked at her intently.

  “Do you think you would want to? It might be dangerous.”

  Sarah met his gaze evenly.

  “Do I have a choice? Will The Organization ever let me be? Can I just go back to being Sarah Mackenzie, ship mechanic?”

  She went on to finish the story, telling about the final scene in the tunnels, how the greencat had discovered that they were in danger from two directions. She noted that as they struggled to avoid the physical danger she unexpectedly found herself fighting off two mental assailants.

  “While trying to shake them, I went out-of-body again,” she said. “The greencat must have dragged my body to safety along the side tunnel and out of the mountain. I guess that’s when you picked us up.”

  “That’s correct.”

  He hesitated for a moment, thinking, looking at the table, then levelled his gaze at her again.

  “What about the time between the moment when you left your body and the moment tonight when you regained your consciousness? Where were you all that time?”

  It would have been nice to have been able to please him. Sarah sighed and shook her head. There was a finality in the gesture with which, he realized, it would be useless to argue.

  “I’d rather not go into that.” She sounded apologetic. “I need to sort it out for myself first, before I talk about it with anybody else. It was – things have been – kind of – mindboggling.”

  He accepted the refusal gracefully.

  “As you wish. But if ever you want to talk about it, I’m a very good listener.”

  “I believe you are,” she said with a smile. “I’ll look you up.”

  “If story hour is over, folks, how about we all try to get a couple of hours’ sleep before morning comes, and it’s time to go down and meet the Beth? The Ranger ships have arrived, and the Explorers are coming down to hug and kiss the freshly returned crew-mate. They’ll be here by mid-morning for sure.”

  They both turned to look at Steph. The conversation had been so intense, they had almost forgotten his presence. He yawned widely as he returned from the control area where he apparently had relocated while listening to Sarah and Coryn’s talk.

  “The ship’s in a nice safe area, well locked up and I feel about ready to crash,” he said.

  “A great idea,” agreed Sarah. “A bed would be just the thing. I’m not sure that I remember what one feels like.”

  “It’s probably just as well you can’t remember all that time lying down,” Coryn laughed. “You better crawl into the sleeping cubicle on the left. This time, I’ll take the couch.”

  Sarah smiled thanks; then stopped abruptly in the act of opening the sleeping cubicle door.

  “One last question,” she said. “What about Matty?”

  “What about Matty?” repeated Coryn, looking puzzled.

  “The young mystery man. Who is he? What does he really do on XER? What about his unusual talent of being able to hoodwink security? It all seems rather convenient, now.”

  Coryn burst out laughing.

  “He’ll burglarize my apartment if he finds out that I’ve told you this, so please be discreet. He’s an Agent, born into the business – both his parents are Agents, too. XER is suspected of having Organization sympathies and it was thought that a teenaged ne’er-do-well might make an effective spy. The Authorities don’t have enough respect for the young, to suspect them of anything but being young and foolish.”

  Sarah nodded knowingly and made a face.

  “As for the unusual talent – well, the Agency has its secrets too. There are ways of making people invisible to security systems, especially if you start them young. The ‘born Agents’ have a usefulness all their own because of that.

  “When I learned that you were Stone-sensitive, I told Matty to look after you. I didn’t tell him why, which was unfortunate. It might have saved us all a bundle of trouble.”

  Sarah yawned. “And the Explorers would still be searching for an entrance to the tunnels, and the Stones wouldn’t be safe on Kordea. And I’d still be living the boring life of a ship mechanic on XER. Good night.”

  She slipped into the cubicle and shut the door behind her.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Half of the big orange sun had climbed above the horizon when Sarah hurried down the Camin’s stairs into the clear morning light. Steph had told her that the Beth was on its way to the ledge the Scoutship had settled on—the same ledge which the Beth had originally used as a Base. A Ranger ship would be following shortly, with equipment and expertise to put the Camin back together, enough, at least, to be space-worthy.

  “Hey, if you want to put your ship-mechanical abilities to use, Sarah,” Steph had said over breakfast, “you’re welcome to work on this girl. I bet you haven’t fixed up one like her before.”

  Coryn had watched Sarah’s eyes light up.

  “That’s definitely a thought,” she had responded. “You’re right, I’ve never worked on a Scoutship like this one. Although I’ve seen the plans for it; the Maintenance Sector Library at XER had an amazing collection of ship specs. Anything that might be shipping across the universe; they had the plans to it. It could be awfully useful, though I couldn’t quite figure why they bothered. No way they saw most of the craft there, and with Kalso into corner-cutting, they’re likely to see fewer and fewer of them all the time.”

  “Now, there’s a bit of information that’s useful for the Agency to know,” Coryn had said, looking at Steph over Sarah’s head.

  “The Camin look-alike.” Steph had nodded vigorously. “You Agents are going to have to infiltrate—or re-infiltrate—the XER Maintenance Sector. Maybe that’s where the leak is.”

  “And here I thought that I was stashing Sarah, the amarto-sensitive, into a safe hole, when she went off to XER,” Coryn had given his head a shake. “Maybe I was tossing her into the proverbial lions’ den.”

  “I promise to help look after your baby, guys, after I’ve made sure that the Beth is okay to travel,” Sarah had said with a relaxed grin, as she put her breakfast scraps into the disposal. “But if I could have the loan of a protecto-suit, an emergency kit, and a tracer, I’d like to step outside the ship for a little bit. Refresh some memories, you know; maybe see if I can’t get in touch with the greencat, one last time.”

  *****

  Memories of her first morning on the planet came rushing back to Sarah as she looked around. The circular mountain range, the shadow-filled plateau inside it, the huge orange sun, were all as they had been then. But the brown-orange tint of the shadows seemed normal now, and the scents carried by the mountain breezes had grown familiar from her days with Jodi’s exploration crew. It was wonderful to feel again the solid rock under her feet, and the wind ruffling her hair and caressing her face. What a pleasure it was to be whole and complete again, inside her own physical reality!

  She walked over to the edge of the rock to look down the slope along which she had taken her first hike on the planet. Were the orange flowers still blossoming among the filaments of “grass” or had their season passed? She recalled the variety of bushes that had intrigued her and the big insects that had fed on the juices of the only fruits that she had seen. The seven-legged lizard – was it even now sunning itself on some rock? And what of the greencat – oh, yes, the greencat – where was it? Her fingers reached for the green and gold stone that lay against her skin. The animal was out there – she could sense it – prowling its territory, making sure that no harm had come to it during its absence.

  She touched the amarto nestled between her breasts through the protecto-suit’s fabric. The Stone felt warm against her flesh, and suddenly she knew which direction she had to walk in, to meet her feline friend. She scrambled over broken rocks at the edge of the ledge, remembering how she had almost taken a tumble, the first time she had gone exploring.

  The animal waited for her among the bushes. She dropped on her knees in front of its magnificent head, and stared into it
s beautiful eyes.

  “You must go to that damnably hot planet of the Witch-women, my friend,” the greencat mindspoke. “Those women know much, and they will teach you, if you let them. You won’t be happy there, which is a pity, but they are just as stubborn in their own way as you are. You’ll clash with them, but you will learn a lot.

  “I’m tempted to come with you - once my kind attached ourselves to those who were something like you. I have grown fond of you, even as you have learned to care for me. But that world of the Witch-women is too hot for me, and it never gets dark, not as I understand darkness. It would not suit me; and after a while, I would not suit the Witches.

  “You must go, however. Come and see me when you have learned all that they can teach you - or send for me, if you need me. You will find out how.

  “One more thing. Trust that man with the odd, pale hair. He is not stone-sensitive but his mind is more open than many. He is intelligent, and he cares about you - perhaps as much as I do.”

  *****

  “It’s a very beautiful place.”

  Sarah, returned to the ledge to watch the Beth land, met Coryn who had also come outside. A Ranger ship, as promised, was nosing around on Camin’s other side, looking for a suitable spot to put down.

  “Yes it is,” agreed Sarah. Grinning, feeling slightly childish, she added, “My first alien planet.”

  “But not your last. You’re lucky that your first alien world turned out to be so beautiful,” he told her with a smile. “If it had been a bare, airless rock you might have had reason to wonder why human beings had ever left Old Earth in the first place.”

  “Oh, I never wonder about that. I know why they left.”

  “Really?”

  “For the same reason that I left. The reason why the Explorers explore, and - ” she turned to probe the depths of his blue eyes with her own dark ones, “ - why you’re an Agent instead of just a comfortable alyen.”

  “The desire for adventure, you mean? The need to take risks, to dare? Yes, that’s what draws us all on. The need to know what we don’t already know, to experience what we haven’t yet experienced.”

  “You said it much more eloquently than I could have.”

  She turned her eyes back to the view, but he kept his on her lively face. She was not a sweet young thing to be lightly dismissed. She had spirit and depth and courage. Unfortunately, she would need all three, he thought. She was right about The Organization. They would spare no effort now.

  When he spoke again, however, it was to change the subject.

  “It’s a strange planet,” he said. “I find myself wondering about its past. Your greencat and the white humanoids that attacked us intrigue me. It’s interesting that the cat is closer kin to us as far as intelligence is concerned, but the others look more like us. However, I suspect that the similarity between that cat’s mind and ours is superficial. It must have knowledge that our highly advanced technological civilization has not yet begun to dream about.

  “Perhaps this world was once home to a civilization so advanced that we cannot imagine it? Are the greencats the last remnants of it? And the sacrificial rites of the humanoids, might they not be a vestige of some ancient rituals which once held great meaning and purpose?”

  Sarah smiled. “Perhaps you should have been a story-teller. Or a scientist.”

  She pressed her fingers to the Stone again.

  “I get a glimmer – but only a glimmer – of an answer to your questions,” she said. “The greencat tells me that its kind were once, so long ago that the mind boggles, one of two species that co-operated to create a great civilization. The second species looked something like us. They and the eyeless ones were deadly enemies.”

  He watched as she let her hand fall from the spot between her breasts where the gem lay, hidden by the protecto-suit. There was that about her, too, this gift that she could not share.

  “Sarah.”

  Her eyes had a faraway look. He pulled her back from her reverie with his own piercing blue eyes and the tone of his voice.

  “Sarah, what do you plan to do?”

  She looked startled.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your talent. The sensitivity. So rare a gift among us Terrans. Up until now, nobody guessed that one of us could have it to the extent that you seem to. You have had no training at all, yet you keyed dozens of Witches’ Stones. And you didn’t even know what you were looking at!”

  She laughed uneasily and looked away; then the laugh died abruptly.

  “Yes.” She stood stiffly beside him, refusing to look at him. “I have it.”

  “It needs to be developed. It’s not safe not to.”

  Now she did look his face and smiled thinly.

  “You and the greencat, both. What’s your suggestion?”

  Coryn drew a breath.

  “Kordea.” He shook his head unhappily.

  “Kordea. With the Witches.” She repeated it in a whisper and stared into the distance. “That was the greencat’s advice, too.”

  “Yes, Kordea.” The words came reluctantly from him. “It’s the only place there is.”

  “I’d be useful there, I suppose.”

  Coryn reacted with a start.

  “It’s not that Sarah. You’d be safe there. That’s what matters.”

  Sarah locked eyes with him for a moment. There was a stirring somewhere within her.

  “I’ll give it some very serious thought, I promise.”

  *****

  “Well, for heaven’s sake…do you two intend to stand there admiring the view all morning, or are you going to come say hello to the Beth?”

  They turned to look. Steph stood between the two spaceships, his hands on his hips, shaking his head.

  “Oh – we’re coming, of course,” called Sarah, glad to drop the topic of Kordea in favour of more pleasant thoughts. She looked at the Beth and suddenly wanted nothing so much as to be in the company of the Explorers.

  Coryn’s hand fell onto her shoulder to detain her for a second. She looked into his eyes and smiled warmly. He let his hand fall and she turned to run towards the Beth.

  THE END

  Also by Helena Puumala, on Amazon.com

  Novels

  The Kati of Terra Series (Available in Print and E-book)

  Kati of Terra Book 1: Escape from the Drowned Planet

  - Kati and Mikal’s first adventure, their perilous and romantic escape from the slaver Gorsh. While stranded on the Drowned Planet, Makros III, Kati and Mikal are relentlessly pursued by the slaver’s minions.

  http://www.amazon.com/Kati-Terra-Book-One-ebook/dp/B00811WVXO

  Kati of Terra Book 2: On Assignment to the Planet of the Exalted

  - Their continuing pursuit of the slaver Gorsh leads Kati and Mikal to the dystopian planet Vultaire, where a degenerate elite has reinstituted slavery. In order to save the victims and themselves, they have to help save a world.

  http://www.amazon.ca/Kati-Terra-Book-Two-Assignment-ebook/dp/B00D0H15CC

  Kati of Terra Book 3: Showdown on the Planet of the Slavers.

  - Kati and Mikal face Gorsh and his allies on the slaver’s home world, the planet Wayward.

  http://www.amazon.com/Kati-Terra-Book-Three-Showdown-ebook/dp/B00KHBN8FG

  The Witches’ Stones Series

  The Witches’ Stones Book 2: Love and War on a Dangerous Planet (coming soon)

  - The shadowy galactic force, The Organization, continues to threaten the planet Kordea and the entire Terra Confederation, with their combination of human technological prowess and captured Kordean psychic talents. Sarah Mackenzie and Coryn Leigh must thwart those ambitions, even as their growing passion for each other complicates their mission.

  Short Fiction

  Love at the Lake

  - Will an eighteen year old beauty’s visit to the lake leave a ruined marriage in its wake?

  http://www.amazon.com/Love-at-Lake-Helena-Puumala-ebook/dp/B00IPSZKLS

  Love and
Rebirth on the Prairie

  - A widow rediscovers love, in its varied and sometimes mysterious forms.

  http://www.amazon.com/Love-Rebirth-Prairie-Helena-Puumala-ebook/dp/B00TGOASEY

  The Boathouse Christ

  - Uncanny events unfold around a young woman’s religious experiences.

  http://www.amazon.com/The-Boathouse-Christ-Helena-Puumala-ebook/dp/B00JBRD90Q

  Where the Apple Falls, An Easter Story

  - A family is divided by lifestyle and religious belief, but an Easter Service and a freshly planted apple tree bring them together, along with a little paranormal help.

  http://www.amazon.com/Where-Apple-Falls-Easter-Story-ebook/dp/B00JSDW6XY

  A Christmas Miracle at the Lake

  - A heart warming Christmas tale, that follows the characters in the "at the lake" stories, as they spend Christmas at the snowed in confines of their summer cottages, where something wonderful happens on Christmas Eve.

  http://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Miracle-Lake-Story-ebook/dp/B00RAWMO32

  Beyond the Blue Door, A Halloween Story

  - Two haunted houses are involved in this tale. But where does the greater evil reside - in the safe family domicile of our everyday world or in the creepy old abandoned farmhouse?

  http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Blue-Door-Halloween-Story-ebook/dp/B00OX60XJU

  Northern Gothic Stories: An Anthology

  - An anthology of paranormal fiction, along with some crime stories.

  http://www.amazon.com/Northern-Gothic-Stories-Dale-Olausen-ebook/dp/B00AQT8IJ0

  Children’s Fiction

  Nathan’s Adventure in the Other-Other Land (Print and E-book)

  - An illustrated children’s story. A boy from the regular world, Nathan, must help Prince Roland save his sister Princess Pepper from the Black Dragon, in the land beyond the mirror, the Other-Other Land. But to rescue the princess, they must face many dangers: hungry tigers, malevolent mushrooms, swamp monsters and more.