He understood her concern. “I know you fear the portal will open your worlds to an invasion by Ramans. But Firsts will not like it here.”
“But what of the underfirsts? If they came here, they would be stronger than people from Earth. They could enslave us like the Firsts have done to you.”
“The plan is to send back salt. Not to bring my people here,” he tried to reassure her.
“But if any of them come, it could throw Earth into chaos.”
“Our plan is to colonize another world in our own solar system.”
She twisted and tore the grass in her hands in frustration. “Plans can change.”
“I will make sure that doesn’t happen.” Cade had no wish to enslave her people, take over her world, or do to others what had so cruelly been done to him.
“How?” She turned and stood. “Once you build that portal, everything will change.”
“I will configure the portal to allow nothing besides salt to go through.”
She raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Nothing will pass through besides salt? No machines? No viruses? No weapons?”
“I can reprogram the portal to only send salt.”
“But, how will you go home?” she asked, and he could see that she understood he had a problem.
“Without my ship, I’ll be stranded here, possibly forever.”
“No one will come looking for you?”
“My brother doesn’t remember me. The others will have their hands full, relocating an entire population to another world. And they’ll likely assume I’m dead. No one will come looking.”
“I’m sorry, Cade.” Sympathy poured from her so strongly that he could feel it wrapping around him like a warm blanket.
“You have to protect your people. I understand.”
“Thank you.” Her eyes swam with tears, but none escaped. “You could never change the program?”
He kneeled beside her. “That can’t happen. Once the portal is open the forces are enormous. Changing the parameters is impossible.”
She took a deep breath and clearly suppressed her feelings. “I’m still worried about Earth. Seems to me we’re taking a huge amount of risk.”
Cade frowned, wondering if, now that she’d experienced his growing Quait, she feared him. Last night, he’d tried to be gentle. He’d tried to give her pleasure. But she’d had no choice in their lovemaking. From experience, he understood that the lack of freedom upset how one thought of oneself and the world. “I can’t give you a guarantee.”
Shara rubbed her brow. “Could we send a large shipment of salt through the portal, then close it forever?”
“Perhaps.” He understood her fears. “But once the Lamenium ignites, closing the portal might change your asteroid’s orbit.”
At his words, her face paled. She tightened her lips. Then her eyes shifted to the west. “Is that a helicopter?” She broke into a wide smile. “I can so taste a crisp grilled chicken salad drizzled with balsamic vinaigrette. And feel a hot shower with scented shampoo and a bed with clean-scented sheets.”
He grinned at her enthusiasm and focused on the black dot in the sky. His sharper vision picked out rotating blades. “We’ll be out of here in a few minutes.” He expected her to comment on the chopper, on more of the luxuries she missed so much. But she remained quiet, pensive.
His thoughts turned to practical matters. “Since we won’t need to take life to survive, let’s dismantle my traps.”
“Okay.” She placed her hand in his. “By the way, I don’t think it’s possible for you to turn into a monster like Jamar.”
Confused, he eyed her. First she questioned him about his people wanting to invade her world. Then she told him he couldn’t become like a First. And the two sentiments seemed contradictory. “Why not?”
“After a First no longer needed to eat, would he worry if his traps killed an animal?”
“Of course not.”
“And does Jamar ever concern himself with pleasing his partners?”
“The concept would be foreign to him.”
“Would a First give up his home forever to protect Earth?”
He shook his head. Cade understood that she was trying to tell him that he would never become like the Firsts—no matter how much power the salt gave him. He wished he could be so certain.
But he also wondered if the underfirsts were ready to cope with even limited powers of Quait. It was ironic that the salt they needed to make them strong enough to escape their captivity possessed the ability to turn them into monsters like their captors.
In all the discussions he’d had, none of the underfirsts had considered the possibilities or the ethical problems. They’d known salt would give them physical strength, but they’d all believed Quait was inherited by Firsts alone.
None of them had realized that salt could give them the power of Quait.
Cade had many doubts about what might happen to his people after he sent back the salt, but he didn’t even consider abandoning his mission. Until one had lived under the absolute control of a First and had suffered from the abject agony of living or dying solely on the whim of another, one couldn’t understand that taking almost any risk offered a better life than the misery in which his people now existed.
Apparently, the helicopter couldn’t land safely in the uneven terrain. Instead, their rescuers lowered a line and a harness. After they strapped into the harness and the line reeled them up toward the helicopter, he looked down at the desert below.
Shara squeezed his hand. “The stand of trees and the spring appear to be the only source of water within miles.”
“We were lucky.” He said a short prayer for the pilots and passengers who apparently had not survived.
Her eyes shined with grateful tears. “You saved us when the rocket exploded, and you knew where to look for water. That’s not luck. It’s Quait.”
When they reached the helicopter, Cade helped Shara into the craft. Then he climbed inside, shut the hatch behind him, and turned to thank their rescuers.
One of them held a gun to Shara’s head.
Stars!
They’d walked right into a trap. He should have figured Jamar might look for the portal piece and them at the same time. He should have been more suspicious. He should have protected her.
Shara’s eyes widened with confusion and horror. She stared at Cade, looking for answers.
He had none.
Worse, he could do nothing to help her. Not when her captor’s finger tensed on the trigger. Not when a second man aimed another weapon at Cade’s chest.
Cade had no idea of these strangers’ identities, but every bone in his body told him that Jamar paid and controlled them. Cade couldn’t use his Quait on them. Or bribe them. If Jamar followed his normal working procedure, the First had either threatened these men’s families or might even be holding their relatives hostage.
Sickened that they’d been caught, he feared most for Shara’s safety. If not for him, she’d be swimming on her asteroid. Not hungry and tired and about to have her brains fried by a laser.
One man shouted orders, his voice carrying above the noise of the chopper. “Place your hands behind your head and turn around.”
With Shara’s life in danger, Cade had no choice. He did as ordered, and within a moment, his captor snapped metal handcuffs over his wrists, and his fury ramped up.
Somehow, he had to find their weakness. Take the initiative.
As his anger simmered, he tested the handcuffs’ strength and found them surprisingly sturdy. When he caught sight of Shara, her gaze dropped to her captor’s pocket, where keys dangled.
Good idea. Bad timing.
Possibilities of escape entered his mind—none feasible at the moment. Cade raised his voice to be heard over the engines. “Where are you taking us?”
“To Jamar. He said to tell you that he wants the pleasure of watching you suffer.”
46
After all Jamar’s hard digging in the muck, his primitive vehicl
e got stuck in the sand. Alone in the desert he cursed his rotten luck.
With no slave labor to coerce, he’d have to dig out the hovertruck. Already sore and blistered from digging the first portal part free, he should be rushing to the Moon to retrieve the second piece. Instead, he was stuck in the muck. He swore by every grain of salt in his body that Cade would pay for his pain. If the underfirst hadn’t rebelled and stolen the spaceship, then hatched this mad plan to send salt back to Rama, Jamar would be back home on Rama, his Quait at full capacity. Instead, he was stranded on this hellhole of a planet with no slaves to do his bidding, the sun beating down on him as he dug in the sand and sweated salt like a primitive.
When his link rang again, Jamar swore, tossed the shovel aside, and growled. “What do you want?”
“You said to report.” The muffled words came through the vidlink along with the whir of helicopter blades.
“Then report.”
“We have Cade and the woman.”
Satisfaction poured through Jamar. “Good. You know what to do.”
He ended the call, his sense of urgency ebbing. With Cade and the woman in the clutches of Jamar’s mercenaries, Jamar needn’t rush. He could take the time to find someone else to do his dirty work.
As a hovercar pulled up beside him and a young couple approached, he smiled at his changing luck. An athletic-looking young man with curly black hair and dark eyes removed a shovel from the back of his vehicle. “Need some help?”
“Would you like some cold water?” A pleasant looking female, with hips a bit too wide for his taste offered him a canteen.
“Thanks.” Jamar didn’t have to use much Quait. The couple already wanted to help. When they finished digging him out, they offered to take him to their home at a kibbutz. Apparently, they lived with many other like-minded people, collectively working for the greater good. Idiots.
Jamar was about to apply more Quait to take further advantage of the woman’s hospitality, when a convoy of soldiers passed by. Deciding he could find a better-looking female in the city to tend to his needs, he waved good-bye to the stupid Samaritans and headed for Siren City.
Jamar took over the penthouse suite of the Mar’s finest hotel. He spent an hour on the vidlink making arrangements. While using his cloaked spaceship to travel around Mars would have been more convenient, he had to uncloak to land, and he didn’t want its unique design to attract notice—that ship was his ticket back to Luna, then Rama. Finally he called the hotel concierge and told him he wanted a dozen professional women. Jamar was in no mood to taunt an innocent who would likely faint if he revealed the violence seething in him and requiring release.
Only ten women showed, and Jamar demanded that they all strip—except for their high heels—and stand like statues for his inspection. Four he dismissed with five hundred credits each for their trouble. He left his wallet in plain sight. The remaining six whores gloated, pleased with his generosity to the others, believing they would be well paid for their evening.
Good. The greedy bitches would take more pain before complaining—exactly as he wanted.
But first, the naked women could bathe him, massage him with oils, and pamper him. Ah, he deserved a little indulgence. His hands still stung from blisters. And his reddened skin burned from too much sun.
But Jamar had the first portal piece, and he had located the second. More important, he had captured Cade. He would have rubbed his hands together in glee, but the women had maneuvered him onto a padded table. Two women massaged his hands with a soothing oil, two others did the same to his thighs and calves and feet, while one rubbed his head, neck, and shoulders, and the other kneaded his back and buttocks.
One bitch carelessly didn’t use enough oil and popped open a blister on his palm. He picked up his belt.
47
After Trevor’s brief talk with Teresa Alverez, the reporter went to work. Teresa had told him nothing about Shara, but Trevor had learned that her rocket had gone down over Mare Sirenum, that a search-and-rescue hoverplane spotted them, and how the rescue helicopter’s pilot reported that an unidentified chopper had picked them up instead. From there, the trail had gone cold. Even Teresa’s interworld contacts couldn’t help her locate the chopper.
Unfortunately a missing retired holovid star wasn’t important enough to request time on spy satellites. Trevor had to decide what to do next. Since Jamar was after Shara, he figured if he found Jamar, he might also find the actress.
A man as cruel as Jamar might leave a trail of other victims—more brutalized women—behind. If Trevor could find those women, his legwork might eventually lead him to Jamar. Trevor hit his vidlink, grateful for the intersolar Internet. Research that might have taken weeks could now be done in hours, especially since Trevor was a master at reading between the lines of newsvid stories.
He set his search engines to look for stories about women brutalized by strangers. Although he combed databases of newsvids throughout Earth, Mars, and Luna, surprisingly, there weren’t as many as he’d feared. Most women suffered battery and abuse from fathers, lovers, and husbands. Once he eliminated all crimes by anyone except a stranger, he had less than a hundred cases. And when he again narrowed the stories down to only the most brutal and cross-checked to see which women had survived their ordeals, he had merely a handful.
If necessary, he would ask questions of the investigating police officers of the dead women, but Trevor preferred to speak to those who had lived. He called the first victim in New York City. She refused to speak to him. The second in South Africa didn’t answer the vidlink. The third on Europa hung up on him. Trevor kept trying. Although Trevor would have preferred to visit the women in person, he didn’t have the time or the expense account to go gallivanting across the solar system.
The fourth victim, Donna Finneran, now lived in Georgia. A former rocket stewardess, she’d met a man on a flight between Io and the space station. According to the story, Donna would have bled to death if a robo-maid hadn’t found her in the penthouse suite of a four-star hotel on the space station.
“Hello.” Donna picked up the vidlink on the first ring, her southern accent clear and vibrant.
“Donna, my name is Trevor Cantrell, I work for a newsvid station in New L.A. The reason I’m calling is that I believe the man who hurt you is hurting other women. I’d like your help to try to find him.” Trevor knew some reporters would have whitewashed the truth and tried to win Donna’s confidence before revealing what they wanted. And sometimes he himself operated in that fashion to make his job easier—but he only did so to secure information that was relatively unimportant. In this case, Donna had been through enough deceit and trauma. He would not lie to a woman who’d been so badly beaten.
She spoke slowly, carefully, and without emotion, as if still in shock, as if she still lived the nightmare but refused to let it touch her more than it already had. “I’m not sure I can help you. I don’t remember much about that night.”
“Actually, I’m more interested in what happened before he hurt you. Can you tell me how you met the man?”
“He called himself Jamar.” When she spoke the unusual name, Trevor figured he had the right man. “I’m not certain how we met.”
“What do you mean?”
“He claimed we met on one of my rocket flights, but the spaceline had no record of his purchasing a ticket. And I don’t remember seeing him on the rocket.”
“Where is your first recollection of meeting him?”
“At the space station hotel. I was napping by the low gravity pool and opened my eyes to find he’d taken the chair beside me.”
“And Jamar acted as if you’d already met?”
“Yes. And I didn’t want to admit I didn’t remember him. So I pretended that I did.”
“That’s understandable. I’d imagine most women would have done the same thing.” He took notes furiously as she spoke. “What happened next?”
“He bought me a drink.”
“And?�
��
“I don’t drink. I’m allergic to alcohol. I have weird body chemistry—it makes me sick.” Donna stopped talking.
“And?”
“I’ve never told anyone else what happened. You’ll think my mind is unhinged because of what that bastard did to me. But . . .”
The hair on the back of Trevor’s neck prickled. “I’ve heard many inexplicable things about Jamar. Please, tell me.”
“I didn’t want that drink—and I’m not a recovering alcoholic. Yet, somehow despite my allergic reaction to alcohol, I was picking up the glass, raising it to my mouth, swallowing the vile stuff. Did I mention alcohol smells terrible to me? Well anyway, I drank the entire glass—against my will.”
“You were afraid if you didn’t drink it that he would hurt you?”
“No. It was as if he took away my will. No, my will was strong. I didn’t want the drink, period. But Jamar . . . somehow he made me pick up the glass and drink.”
“Did he hypnotize you?”
“I don’t know. I can’t explain what he did. I was fully aware that I didn’t want to drink. I actually tried to toss the liquid in his face. But it was as if some other power controlled my body.”
“I’m so sorry.” Trevor’s thoughts raced. What exactly had he stumbled across? He had a jeweler who’d never seen gemstones like the ones Cade had sold. He had a pilot who claimed he’d seen Cade’s ship explode out of the space. Teresa Alverez had told him Jamar had usurped her will, and now this woman claimed Jamar used some kind of mind control over her, too. Two sources were all he needed to verify a story. “Do you recall how long it was before you’d last eaten or drank before Jamar approached?”
“Hours. I don’t think I was drugged.”
“Do you have any clue at all why he picked you?”
“After he tied me up, the bastard told me.”
“I’m sorry to cause you this pain.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s not like I ever forget. He haunts me. I want him caught. I want him dead.”
Lunar Heat: 1 (The Heat Series) Page 21