by Unknown
"I don't believe this!" said the Trans/Med Director. "Panera has obviously lost his senses."
The Director of the Special Agency leaned forward, staring hard at his counterpart. "Miklos Panera is the most brilliant and talented agent we've ever had. Either his report is the truth, or he's under a spell!"
"Under a spell? What are you talking about?"
"Jalissa Kendor is a Witch! It is she who has captured himnot the other way around!"
"And exactly what do you offer as proof of this absurd suspicion?" "No proof that you would accept, but it's good enough for us. We think she is taking him to the Coven, so they can hold him hostage."
Malvina said nothing, and hid her small smile of satisfaction. She was sure they were wrong about Jalissa's intentions, but she was also secretly pleased to see that these men, who had so rudely dismissed the Coven in the past, now at least accepted its existence.
But she was left with a dilemma. Should she contact the Coven and warn them that Jalissa and Miklos Panera were comingor should she let this play itself out?
The flight to Noros was fraught with tension for both of them. Jalissa was unable to sleep for long, and Miklos was constantly scanning the console for signs that they'd been spotted or that the demons might interfere once again. For long hours, they simply stared out at the darkness and held hands, determined but wary.
"Would you leave Trans/Med?" he asked suddenly, breaking a long silence between them.
"Wh . . . what do you mean?" she asked, the question catching her by surprise.
"When this is over, we could both leave Federation service and go live somewhere elsemaybe Telera or even Mafriti."
Jalissa said nothing as she let herself imagine them spending the remainder of their days on either of those lovely worlds. But a cold certainty settled over her that it could never be.
"I love you, Jalissa, and I want to marry you."
She smiled, stretching across the space between their seats to kiss him softly. "It's a wonderful dream, Miklos. And I love you too. But it will never happen."
He frowned. "Can you see the future?"
"No, not reallyor not generally. But I know it won't happen that way."
"Then what will happen?" he asked.
"I . . . don't know." But in that very moment, she had what she knew was a sudden vision of the future.
She saw herself in a strange place. It looked like Tevingi, and yet she didn't recognize it. What she did recognize were the small stone cottages scattered about in the forest and the black-clad people moving about.
It was the Coven's old homea place she'd seen only in the paintings at the museum on Tevingi. And she was there among them, clad in the black garments of the Covena Witch once more.
I will go back to the Coven, she told herself, barely able to hold back the protest that welled up inside her. And if I go back to the Coven, he will not be there.
Fortunately, Miklos didn't ask her any more questions, though he kept casting worried glances her way as they moved silently through space, headed toward the last hope they had of finding the Coven.
He tuned into the coded broadcasts that allowed them to be updated on the situation on Ker. That world was now totally under the control of the rebels who swore their allegiance to the Coven. Apparently, no further attempt had been made to land loyal Federation troops there.
"What will they do?" she asked.
"My guess is that they're waiting to see what the Coven will do," Miklos replied. "By now, word must have reached Tevingi of the rebellion, through the Tevingian troops there. So the Coven probably knows what has happened."
He smiled grimly. "Thanks to those rebels, the Coven has more power now than they've ever had before. No one knows where they are, and the Federation can't possibly destroy Ker because of the crystal. It's a classic standoff."
But what will they do with that power? Jalissa wondered silently.
Noros was not the world of the Coven. Jalissa knew that as soon as it came into view. Miklos suggested that she could still be under the spell cast by the priests to deceive her, but she shook her head.
"This isn't the right world. Don't ask me how I know itbut I do."
Still, he insisted upon landing on the barren world, then taking the tiny hovercraft and scanning with the device that detected life-forms. Fi- nally, he too agreed that this couldn't be the right place, and they returned to their spacecraft.
"Maybe we should try to contact Danto," she suggested. "He knows where they are, and I could try to persuade him to help us."
But Miklos shook his head. "We can't risk any transmissions. That would allow the Inter-Planetary Command to track us."
"Then what can we do?"
He was silent for a moment as he studied the screen that held a map of this part of the galaxy. Then he called up a more detailed view of one sector.
"There's one other possibility," he said after a few moments. "I considered it before, but it didn't seem likely. Still, the Tevingians have always known their way through it better than anyone else."
"What are you talking about?"
"The asteroid belt. Do you know anything about it?"
"Not much," she said, frowning. "I know that centuries ago, the Tevingians mined several of the asteroids, but the mines were abandoned long ago, after they took what they could. All I can remember from my studies is that it's supposed to be very dangerous for spacecraft."
"That's right," he confirmed. "There are more than four hundred asteroids, ranging in size from a few miles in diameter to some that are almost the size of small planets. Their orbits are erratic, which means charts aren't much help, and many of them contain metals that interfere with signal transmissions.
"Some years ago, a Federation expedition went there to see if they could find anything worth mining. They lost all but one of their craft, and no one has been back since.
"The interesting thing, though, is that some scientists doubted the presence of metals that can interfere with transmissions. There was a lot of arguing about it at the time."
"What are you sayingthat the interference could have come from the Coven, rather than from these metals?"
"Maybe. You said once that the Coven couldn't affect the workings of machinery, but are you certain of that?"
"No," she admitted. "I just assumed that they couldn't because they've never encountered modern science."
"The only problem with the theory is that you remember being on the surface of the planet, and that would rule out anything in the asteroid belt. None of them has any gravity or atmosphere. They aren't planets."
"Then the Coven couldn't be there. Even if they gave me false memories of being on the surface, how could they have created an atmosphere for themselves underground?"
"The Coven couldn't, but the gods could have. After our unplanned trip to the world of the de- mons, I can believe that. How do your people account for their escape from their old world?"
"The Tevingians found out about the plan to destroy it and carried us away before the Vantrans got there. At least, that's what I was always told."
"It could be another false memory, Jalissa, designed to keep you from thinking too much about how they escaped and where they went.
"While you were resting on Mafriti, I did some research into that whole episode. That mission was planned and executed in the strictest secrecy. Furthermore, we were keeping a close eye on the Tevingians. The space-tracking system back then wasn't as good as it is now, but even so, it was impossible for the Tevingians to get enough craft to the Coven's world to carry them away, even if they had somehow managed to learn about the mission.
"What I think is that the Tevingians had nothing to do with the Coven's escape. I think the gods saved the Coven, and put your people in a place where only the Tevingians would be able to find them. They were the only ones who could navigate safely through the asteroid belt."
"But if you're right, then we can't find them."
He nodded grimly. "Tryi
ng to find our own way through would be too dangerous. I wouldn't be able to trust the readings."
"I might be able to get us through," she said after a moment. "How? You don't remember the journey."
"No, but if you're right about the problemthat it's a spell and not the presence of metalsthen I should be able to find our way through."
"It's too dangerous."
"So is doing nothing," she reminded him.
Miklos leaned back in his seat with a sigh. Jalissa knew exactly what he was thinking because they were her thoughts as well. The temptation to do nothing was very powerful. They could both resign, as he had suggested, and spend the remainder of their days on some quiet world untouched by the battles to come between the Coven and the Federation.
But they couldn't do that. Not even their love could survive the knowledge that they had turned their backs on the Federation, and she, at least, could not turn away from the Coven or its allies, the Tevingians.
She tried to conjure up an image of the two of them, living out their lives in some quiet spot, but the image was blurred by its unreality, by the certainty that a cloud would hang over them wherever they went.
Miklos roused himself from his own contemplation and began to punch in coordinates. The spacecraft ascended slowly through the atmosphere into darkest space.
"We'll try to get through the asteroid belt," he told her, though with obvious reluctance.
Jalissa nodded, then settled back to try to get some sleep. If they were right about the spell, she would need all her energy to steer them through. She drifted off to sleep with her hand curved in his, praying to the gods that she wouldn't be sending them both to their deaths.
She awoke to a sense of something touching her mind. Her eyes snapped open and she immediately turned her head to look at Miklos, thinking he had spoken. But he was asleep, his breathing slow and regular.
Then she wondered if the priests might have reached out to her. She willed herself into a trance and waited for the sensation to grow stronger. But there were no voicesonly that sense that something was there. She came out of the trance and stared out into the void, wondering if she should awaken Miklos.
She was still undecided, even though the feeling was growing ever stronger, when suddenly a chime sounded, shattering the quiet. A half-second later, the computer-generated voice announced that they had reached their destination.
Miklos awoke and brought his seat into an upright position, turning toward her at the same time.
"I feel something," she told him. "I'm not sure what it is, but it woke me up before the chime sounded."
"Could it be the spell?"
She nodded slowly. "It could be." He merely nodded as he bent over the various screens. She could see the tension in his body. How terrible it must be for him to know that the screens could not be trusted now. His belief that everything could be understood in terms of his science had suffered some devastating blows.
"We're entering the belt now," he said. "I've switched off the auto-pilot, but the collision-avoidance system is still onfor what it's worth."
Which is nothing, she thought. Now it was all up to her.
They flew on. Miklos had slowed the craft considerably, but they had only the instruments to confirm that. She leaned forward in her seat, staring into the darkness, fearing that at any moment, one of the asteroids would suddenly appear.
That strange feeling grew ever stronger, humming through her whole body now. She started to ask Miklos if he felt anything, but the words died on her lips as she had a sudden certainty of danger. And before she could tell him that, she also knew just where the danger lay.
"Turn right," she ordered.
Miklos glanced at her, then steered the craft to the right. A few seconds later, the dim shape of an object nearly twice the size of the spacecraft appeared off to their left. No warning issued from the collision-avoidance system.
For nearly four hours, they continued that way, watching as asteroids of varying size came into view, then faded into the blackness of space. Jalissa had lapsed into a semi-trance, her eyes closed as she slowly began to trust her instincts.
Then suddenly, the feeling was gone, leaving her as quickly as it had come. ''Stop!" she ordered, sitting up quickly to stare out through the viewscreen.
"What's wrong?" he asked in a tense voice.
"The feeling is gone," she told him. "Either we've broken through the spell, or . . ." She left the rest unsaid. If they hadn't broken through to their destination, then they were trapped.
Miklos had switched off the useless avoidance system, and now turned it back on again. As soon as he did, the warning came and something showed on the screen, directly ahead of them. He began to move forward slowly as they both strained to see what lay ahead.
"There it is!" he said, his gaze traveling from the tiny world now coming into view to the screen where information was now pouring forth.
"That's the one I told you aboutthe biggest of them." He glanced again at the screen. "It's about half the size of the Vantran moon."
Even though it was tiny by comparison with the other worlds they'd visited, it now nearly filled their screen. Jalissa stared at the graybrown surface, seemingly a dead rock like the other asteroids. Was this the place where she'd spent the first years of her life? Shouldn't she know if it were?
They settled onto the surface and stared around them at a twilight world devoid of any life. Miklos turned to her questioningly.
"I don't know. I don't feel anything at all."
"There's no atmosphere, so we'll have to use the airlocks and get into the hovercraft inside the bay."
They scrambled from their seats into the cargo bay, then climbed into the tiny hovercraft. Miklos, she noted, seemed far more eager than she was. But then his memories hadn't been stolen from him. If this was the world where she'd been born, the Coven had committed a grievous sin against her, one she wasn't certain she could ever forgive.
They left the spacecraft and flew slowly over the cratered surface. Both of them kept shifting their gazes from the barren world around them to the blank screen that would come to life only if it detected life in some form.
The screen was still empty when Jalissa felt something: a gentler version of the feeling she'd had before. When it began to recede, she told him to turn around. He turned the hovercraft and re-traced their route, and after a few minutes, she had pinpointed the location of the disturbance she'd felt.
"Over there," she said, pointing. "That deep crater." Miklos skimmed along its edges, then dropped down below the vertical rock walls into the bottom of the crater. It was deeper than she'd thought. As they settled gently to the bottom, she was looking up at sheer cliffs several hundred feet high.
And then her gaze fell on one particular spot, as though drawn there for no reason she could understand. As she stared at it, it began to grow indistinct, the gray-brown rock fading into a sort of mist that slowly turned bluish-white and grew, until it became an opening large enough for a craft the size of their spaceship to pass through.
"There!" she said excitedly. "A doorway! Do you see it?"
Miklos stared and shook his head.
"It's there, Miklos: an opening! We can fly through. This must be the home of the Coven."
"It can't be," he replied. "Nothing shows up on the screen."
"They could have cast a spell on it too," she insisted. "We have to go in there."
"I'm not going to fly into a wall of rock."
"You have to trust me, Miklos. I brought us through the asteroid belt safely."
He stared at her silently, then stared at the wall, obviously torn between what his eyes told him and the need to prove that he trusted her. She waited silently, knowing the conflict that was tearing at him. She no longer had any doubts that this was the world of the Coven, but she un- derstood what she was asking of him.
Finally, he took her hand. "It still comes down to trust, doesn't it?"
She nodded, and he began to move
them toward the wall.
Chapter Thirteen
Jalissa had no doubt at all that they were approaching the spellbound entrance to the home of the Coven. But she was keenly aware of the fact that what Miklos saw before them was an impenetrable stone wall. She wondered if she would be able to place as much trust in him if the situation were reversed, and was glad that she would not have to be put to the test.
Absolute trust is not something either of us bestows easily, she thought. We're alike in that.
The hovercraft slowed, but did not stop. At this point, Jalissa saw only the bluish-white haze of the enchanted doorway, but she knew that Miklos must see death staring them in the face. If they were to hit the stone wall even at this low speed . . .
Then she heard a startled exclamation from him as they were totally surrounded by the eerie light. And a moment later, it was gone.
The hovercraft was traveling slowly through a stone-walled corridor that angled downward. Water dripped from the cut stone on either side of them, only a foot or so away from the stubby wings of the craft. She turned to Miklos and smiled, putting her hand briefly over his as he guided the craft.
"Thank you for trusting me," she said.
His uncertain smile told her that he hadn'tquite. quite. But she was satisfied with that, understanding how difficult this was for him.
He gestured to the bio-scan device. "It's still not showing any indication of life-forms."
Jalissa frowned. It didn't seem likely that the Coven could be affecting it in any way. Why would they? They were certainly safe enough with the spell that kept everyone but the Tevingians out of the asteroid belt, and the additional protection of the spellbound entrance to their underground home.
They continued down the gentle slope of the tunnel for another few minutes, and then it abruptly ended in a large cavern. Miklos brought the hovercraft to a halt, and they both stared at the high-ceilinged stone room. When they'd entered the tunnel, Miklos had turned on the pow- erful headlights of the hovercraft, but they barely penetrated the darkness of the cavern.