Embrace the Romance

by S. E. Smith

  I see you. The truck moves slowly. You still have time to catch it.

  Firing his blaster at the driver of the truck, who slumped in the seat as the windshield vaporized, Grant drove straight at the medium sized cargo hauler. The man riding shotgun with the driver apparently took control of the vehicle and straightened its path, again heading for the gate. Grant shot out the antigrav units closest to him, sending the truck into an uncontrollable skid, tipped on its side, and ramming the fence before coming to a halt.

  He drove his own tiny vehicle to the rear of the truck. Blaster in hand, he wrenched open the door. “Hand her over.”

  Hands raised, braced against the tilt of the vehicle, a monk grinned at him. “Gladly.”

  A gagged and bound Desdusan was shoved into his arms as the monks fled in all directions.

  Swearing, he lowered the woman to the grass and ripped off the gag.

  “A group of other monks took Karissa,” she said, breathing in harsh gasps. “I saw her get into a groundcar. Older model, black, with red trim. They headed for the main audience member exit.”

  Find her, he sent to Valkyr, even as he was checking the readout for the tracker, which showed a stationary target.

  “Someone will come,” he said to Desdusan apologetically as he rose.

  “I’m fine, go on, save Karissa.”

  As sirens blared, he wasn’t too surprised to find Karissa’s elaborate wig and crown of ornaments lying on the cargo dock. Grant faded into cover and made his way to where he’d left his own vehicle, parked on the periphery of the vast lot. The police activity was concentrated on the abandoned truck at the cargo gate as he opened the back of his groundcar and extracted an individual speedcycle, built to go fast and dangerous. Buying the bike earlier in the day had used up a substantial portion of his credits, but he’d wanted to be prepared for any contingency.

  The speeder was an air and ground model so he ascended straight up and took off toward the mountains. True to his word, he’d researched the particular sect paying so much attention to Karissa both on the Zephyr and here on the planet. The order guarded their information closely but hadn’t expected to be hacked by someone with the refined skills of a military operator so he’d learned where their primary temple was located, on a mountain peak outside the city, and the information they’d been running a Thousand Year Song rumored to be close to completion. Maybe the sect snatched Karissa to sing the final verses. But why go to so much effort and risk? True, her vocal range was rare, if not almost unheard of, but couldn’t any competent singer handle the song? And what did they expect to do with her after the song was complete?

  He’d found the salacious tales of how in centuries long past, the ultimate singer became a human sacrifice to please the gods with his or her voice in the afterlife, but surely no one was mad enough to believe in that stuff nowadays?

  While he pondered, he flew at a high rate of speed and received updates from Valkyr.

  Following the car described, the bird reported. They go to the destination you identified but the road winds. There is no other habitation in the immediate area.

  I’m going the direct route. I’ll be there before they are. Recon the site, then check back on the car.

  He sent an anonymous report to the Calillia authorities but without much hope of help arriving in time. If they came at all. The planetary government was pretty hands off about anything to do with the Thousand Year Song business. And who knew what Ted might be saying right now. Desdusan would give her version so obviously something nefarious was happening but would her testimony be enough to spark official action?

  One is none, as his branch of the service always said, and here he was, the one person who had a chance of reaching Karissa. But he had Valkyr and no one on this planet could possibly imagine what the eagle was capable of doing. The human races had a deep seated fear of attack by a wild animal and Valkyr in full battle mode was terrifying.

  Over the location now. The bird sent a visual, as he’d been trained to do, and Grant put the speedster on auto, so he could concentrate on the layout.

  Can you tell where the singers are?

  Grant felt Valkyr’s movements as the eagle drifted over the temple, riding the thermals and searching. Here.

  The choir was singing in an outdoor amphitheater, next to a stage surrounded on three sides by ornate pillars, with the fourth side being the sheer mountain wall, as the peak towered far above the plateau where the complex had been built. There was no roof over the stage.

  Got it.

  He was over the site now, drifting silently in the night sky on antigrav alone, having cut the power. Check on Karissa.

  The car has arrived in the outer courtyard. She walks with a group of men in the direction of the singers.

  He left the speedster on auto, locked into a circular staging flight, high above the temple, and flew himself to the temple using his personal antigrav pads. As he drifted closer to the ground, he heard the choir. There was no audience and the attention of the earnest singers was locked on their director. Cloaked in his personal disruption shield, Grant landed on the far side of the stage and moved to hide behind the pillar closest to the raised dais where he believed the monks intended Karissa to stand and sing. Blaster at the ready, he waited.

  They are nearly there. She walks freely.

  Grant took a deep breath and consciously slowed his heart rate as Karissa came into view on the path skirting the building, leading to the stage. She and a man in elaborately decorated vestments walked ahead of the others. Two of the monks were the men he’d encountered before. She didn’t seem to be under any coercion.

  “Now you understand your part must begin eight beats before the choir completes the last verse?” the high priest was saying.

  She nodded. “I got that. Let me sit and study the score so I’m ready.”

  The high priest led her onto the stage, indicating the dais with one hand. “You’ll stand here, facing the mountain.”

  “Not the audience?” She shrugged. “Have it your way. You do understand I’m going to be pressing charges against you and your sect when this is over? I’m here under duress and if it was anything but the end of a Thousand Year Song, I wouldn’t give you so much as a single note.”

  Don’t threaten them, sweetheart. He admired her spirit but this whole setup was ominous and weird.

  The priest bowed. “Again, I apologize but when our singer was killed in an accident six months ago and you repeatedly refused to help us for payment, or out of charity, we were left with no choice. The song must end properly. “

  “Go away and let me warm up my voice. I just sang an entire concert, in case that’s escaped your attention.”

  Tense, Grant waited while the official stepped a few paces away to answer a question from one of his subordinates. Seizing the moment, Grant crossed the few feet of stage between him and Karissa, placing himself between her and the monks, and decloaked. Blaster in hand, he said, “This farce has gone on long enough. Say goodnight to the lovely lady because she’s leaving with me. Now.”

  Karissa gasped and surged to her feet. “You came!”

  “And we are leaving. Stay behind me.” He sent the autopilot on the speedster a subvocal command, to land in a clear space close to the stage.

  “I can’t,” she said. “Not until I’ve sung for them.”

  The high priest’s face was a study in oily triumph as he bowed his head to her.

  “These people kidnapped you, and Desdusan, who got banged up but is okay by the way, and you want to stay and do them a favor?” He could hardly get the words out.

  She laid a hand on his arm but stayed behind him. “It’s a thousand years, coming down to tonight, to this moment in time. How can I walk away and break the song?”

  “We admit our methods were wrong, but once she’s sung the concluding verses, you will both be free to go, with our undying gratitude,” the priest said.

  Grant didn’t trust his manner, which exuded super
iority, or the odd glee in the man’s eyes. This guy knows something we don’t.

  “You have the blaster,” the priest said. “Guard your lady while she sings and then depart unmolested.”

  He backed up, Karissa moving with him, until they stood on the other side of the stage. He kept his focus on the priest but said in a whisper, “I don’t trust this whole setup.”

  “I have to sing. I’m too much of a Calillian to refuse. I’m sorry—”

  He shook his head. “Don’t apologize for being yourself. I don’t like it one bit but I’ll back you. Just be ready to jump when I say so as soon as the song is done.”

  “Agreed.” She gave him a squeeze around the waist and kissed his ear. “I need to loosen up my voice. The night air and the altitude are causing me problems.”

  He escorted her to the stage and stood as close as he could while she ran through scales. The choir continued to sing their part unabated, which he found unsettling. None of all this byplay, not even his waving a blaster at their high priest, had produced so much as one wrong note. The performers certainly did take their song seriously.

  Karissa took a deep breath, stood straight and began to sing, softly at first as her melody cut across the one the choir was belting out, but then their harmony began to fade as the men and women performed their final notes, and her voice dominated, ringing out in the still night air, echoing off the mountain.

  The high priest and six monks came to stand in a semi-circle at the edge of the stage, watching Karissa almost hungrily, Grant thought. He indicated the need for them to keep their distance with a menacing gesture of his blaster. The choir director left his podium and came to attempt to direct Karissa but she was in full flood on the music and ignored him. The choir filed out of the amphitheater, which again had Grant’s hackles up as he found it unbelievable the celebrants wouldn’t remain to hear the end of the Thousand Year Song.

  Get ready, he warned Valkyr. Things may get hairy.

  A mist had begun to creep across the lawn, moving onto the stage. Grant realized the hair was standing up on the back of his neck and his arms, and his nerves were tingling. His blaster felt as if it weighed a ton and he had to struggle to hold the weapon level. There were odd sounds behind him, in the direction of the mountain, and flashes of orange and electric blue light hit his peripheral vision. The monks, who were facing the cliff, as was Karissa, gesticulated and whispered eagerly among themselves.

  He wished he knew how much of the song remained.

  “Eons ago,” the high priest said conversationally, “A race of powerful aliens used gates to visit other worlds. The Mnuc’osan technology was sound-based, harnessing harmonics and waves far beyond any understanding humankind has yet reached. Something happened on their home world—no one knows what —and many exploring parties found themselves stranded as the central power source flickered and died. On one planet, the primitive local inhabitants revered music, as it happened. A smart Mnuc’osan figured out that by sustaining and building upon a certain set of sounds for a thousand of the planet’s years, enough power could be accumulated for the gate to be coaxed to open and the travelers could go home.”

  “Are you telling me this whole Thousand Year Song thing was started by a bunch of stranded alien scientists?” Grant asked.

  The priest nodded. “Many of our party have gone home in exactly this way now, although we don’t know what awaits them. Now it’s my turn, with the last of my companions. But the final notes must hit certain key frequencies to activate the gate, which is why we needed Karissa so desperately when our lead singer died in an accident.”

  “So you were the ancient ‘gods’ the Calillians sang to appease?”

  Grant observed the priest had lost a bit of his human form, the face elongating, the body growing taller and thinner. He blinked hard to keep his focus against the forces in play and the assault from the song Karissa was valiantly singing.

  “Apparently the superstitious natives thought it was a religious pursuit. We of course had to hide our true purpose. And our identities. As the planet became more civilized, it was essential to maintain a society structured to revere and continue the singing, even when there was no longer any belief in the gods.”

  He and four of the other monks were definitely transforming into wraithlike beings as Grant watched. The remainder of the group stayed human, barely paying any attention to the conversation between Grant and the high priest. He heard one man murmur, “Heaven” as he pointed at the mountain wall.

  The wraiths began to drift past Grant, toward the mountain. He moved closer to Karissa, stepping onto the stage with her, and checked the mountain with one rapid glance. A portion of the solid stone had transformed into an oddly shaped, gaping maelstrom of mist and colors.

  “What happens to us when you’ve gone?” asked one of the human monks plaintively.

  “I neither know nor care,” said the wraith.

  Karissa grabbed Grant by the arm, fingers digging into him and sang a few more notes, ending on a high crescendo, holding the final bell-like tone for an impossible time. She rocked on her heels as she finished, and Grant caught her as she stumbled.

  The wraiths flowed into the gate she’d opened for them as if sucked into a vacuum, attenuating as they streamed past the stage, partially obscured by the mist.

  The wraith who’d been the high priest in his previous form paused, swirling around them in a dizzying wave of colors, accompanied by an oddly putrid scent. “Your manager expected us to kill you. This was our bargain with him. Ted said he was the beneficiary of your life insurance and your will when it came to your intellectual property. Petty human concerns.” The wraith laughed and the sound was discordant in such an eerie way that Grant had to fight not to blast it with his weapon, fearing to do so would have no effect and might trigger some kind of deadly vengeance by the uncanny alien. “But you served the Mnuc’osan interests well this night, and as I am the last to leave this benighted planet, there’s no need for further secrecy. You may live. The knowledge is yours, if you survive what comes.”

  With a shriek of high speed wind, the wraith spun away from them, plunging into the heart of the gate as if it had no further power to resist the summons from its home.

  One of the monks screamed and ran after the being, entering the eerie mists in the heart of the mountain.

  “You promised us heaven,” cried another as he too ran stumbling after his fellow. He fell into the still swirling colors and vanished from view with an anguished shriek.

  Now the rest of the monks crowded forward. Grant grabbed a dazed Karissa and sprinted for the speedster.

  There was a small explosion of sound, colors streaming all around them in such density Grant was blinded for a moment, although he kept moving forward, carrying Karissa. He heard screams and groans as he literally ran into the speedster with such force he knew he’d be bruised later. Vision clearing a bit, he helped her take a seat in front of him and then he was lifting off into the air, even as a group of men ran toward them, cursing and begging her to sing more.

  “We need the gate to heaven,” one yelled. “It must reopen. We were promised forgiveness for our sins and a life in paradise.”

  “Take it up with your masters,” Grant yelled. “The Thousand Year Song is done.”

  He took the speedster aloft in a wide swoop over the plateau and risked a glance at the place where the gate had been. Part of a man lay at the base of the mountain slab, as if he’d been cut in half trying to escape when the gate closed. Karissa averted her eyes.

  Valkyr swooped down to fly next to them. The mountain rumbles. My winged brothers have abandoned the heights and flee.

  Sure enough, a broad swath of the sky was obscured by huge flocks of birds, all streaming away from the mountain, just as he, Karissa and Valkyr were fleeing. Grant heard a loud rumble behind him, growing louder until it filled his ears and drowned all other sounds, leaving him temporarily deaf. He banked the speedster and watched as the entire face of
the mountain detached and slid away in the blink of an eye, taking the temple and the road and everything else with it. The dust cloud boiled toward them and Grant flew as high as he dared pushing the engine to give him all the power it had as he set a course to escape the disaster zone.

  Eventually he landed in a clear spot, on a swath of green pasture, and lifted Karissa off the speedster to hold her tight.

  “I was there and I can’t believe it,” she said. “No one else will either.”

  “I guess they opened their gate once too often,” he said.

  “I wonder what the Mnuc’osan found when they got home, if they got home?”

  “We’ll never know.” He gave her a hug and a kiss. “But we are going to file all the criminal charges we can think of against Ted for plotting attempted murder while concocting this scheme with the monks. I recommend we don’t explain the alien connection.”

  “Not at all?” She frowned. “Not even to the Sectors authorities?”

  “I have certain contacts from my Special Forces days—I’ll give them a heads up, but it seems the active threat is over. And Calillia can go on with its tradition of the Thousand Year Songs as a tourist attraction, no harm, no foul, right?”

  “Right.” She sighed. “Nowadays no one actually believes the songs bring good luck or favors from the gods.”

  “So can I be seen publicly with you, my songbird?”?” Grant grinned.

  “My lawyer sent me a message right before the last set of the concert. We’re all clear, the contract expired and the restraining order is cancelled too. You do realize we’ll never be free of the media scrutiny, the fan interest?”

  “I accept the challenge,” he said. “It’s the price for being with you and loving you. And once I’m in charge of security and other arrangements, the situation will be a lot more controlled. Less chaos. More privacy.”