Trapped On Talonque: (A Sectors SF romance)

by Veronica Scott

  It bothered him to be viewing a lifelike hologram of a man who’d ended up a dead, burnt corpse in Nochen sometime after leaving this message, whatever it might contain. And it bothered Nate to be bothered. Excess imagination wasn’t one of his standard problems on a mission. This isn’t exactly a mission anymore, and we’ve never been sent to explore a millennia-old, abandoned alien facility either. He took a deep breath and studied the second hologram’s face, trying to suppress the image of the man as an ashy corpse clutching the red box.

  “You never heard of him? No one ever mentioned his name?”

  Bithia shook her head again. Tiring of the subject of the unknown M’negel, she walked to the nearest console and started flipping gemmed levers, pushing symbols in a deliberate sequence.

  “Do you want us to step outside so you can hear the message in private?” Nate asked.

  She shook her head emphatically and stopped what she was doing to respond. “It can only be played once and will be gone. I want the two of you to hear it with me.”

  “Only once? An inefficient idea,” Thom said. “What if the contents got played by accident somehow?”

  “Originally, it would have been set for infinite replay. But once those in charge took the pleikn out, then this device also has a finite auxiliary power, as you call it. We’re seeing the images because the power’s drained to the last level. The device displays the image of what is contained as a warning to take action or lose the data. Or so I’ve been told. I never heard of it actually occurring before. It would take eons for the power to drain away.” She stopped and grimaced at what she’d just said. “I guess I must be glad enough power remains to display the image and play the message once.”

  Thumbnail lecture on holographic-messaging technology over, she turned to the controls. “Here we go. Listen carefully.”

  Nate stopped her. “Wait. We aren’t going to understand it, are we? I mean, neither of these guys speaks Basic.”

  “Neither do I, you know.” She seemed amused at the idea. “You didn’t realize? You and Thom hear me in your own language because of the way I speak and project to you mind to mind simultaneously. I’ll project to you what I hear my father say, translated to a format your minds can understand.”

  “Even me?” Eyes wide and mouth gaping in astonishment, Thom rubbed his head. “I tested negative on any test for latent psionic abilities.”

  “I guess the lady has more than enough for the three of us,” Nate said. He flipped a mental switch, activating a top-secret, special data-recording implant of his own. There might never be a way to play it, if he didn’t make it home, but at least there’d be a chance. She’d tried to save the course home for him, and he was going to try to save her father’s last message for her. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  “Now.”

  She flipped over a sapphire triangle on the far left corner of the board.

  Her father took a breath and opened his eyes, gazing straight ahead. For the space of a few heartbeats, he said nothing, apparently mulling over what he wanted to say. Nate could hear subdued noises, as if other people were talking, coming and going in the same space where they now stood. It was eerie and unsettling. He caught himself checking the perimeter for the people making the sounds. The deep voice of Fr’taray brought his attention sharply to the hologram.

  “Bithia, I’m leaving this message for you just in case. I’m not actually sure why, but something odd is going on back home, and I don’t like the feel of it. We’ve been urgently recalled. All the expeditions in this quadrant have been summoned, the research canceled. I believe it may be a total recall, everywhere. I don’t know.” He ran a hand over his face, his expression more tired than serene now. “Definitely one of the things I intend to find out. Whatever it is, it’s totally unprecedented in my career.”

  And he doesn’t much like it. Used to giving orders, not taking them.

  “I requested a three-day delay so you could come with us and was refused in no uncertain terms, even when I sent more detail. I sent a private message to the representative of our expedition’s sponsor, which went unanswered. An affront which has never happened, not to me.”

  Now Nate could tell he was annoyed. Maybe even a little worried.

  Fr’taray went on, “There isn’t time to try again or to contact anyone else. We’re leaving within moments. Two of the transport flyers have lifted off already—” He glanced to the side of the room. Involuntarily, Nate looked the same direction. “The official in charge will be in here again any moment, glaring at me for delaying the departure schedule, so I must be brief. I’ve given Hialar strict instructions not to let you out of the healing chamber under any circumstances until I can oversee your release personally. I’m sorry, daughter, but whatever is going on, at least I know you’ll be perfectly safe and protected within the chamber for however long it takes me to straighten them out at home and return here.” He rubbed his forehead and forced a smile. “You won’t even miss me, being asleep of course. Anyway, beloved child, hopefully we can celebrate your day of birth and the Festival of the Red Moons together as we’d planned, with Hialar and Frantlia and her famous six-spice cakes. I should be back by then. This message is…is—I don’t know—ridiculously unnecessary. I should erase it.” The figure leaned forward impatiently, as if to toggle the same switch Bithia had been manipulating. She moved, eyes locked on the face of the hologram. “But, on the other hand, it’s for you only. You won’t laugh too much at the foolishness of your fond old father, will you? It’s just, this is all so odd.”

  And with that, the figure of Fr’taray winked out.

  Bithia screamed from the bottom of her heart, as if the real man had perished in front of her eyes, instead of his last message erasing itself. “No!” She collapsed in a heap to the floor.

  Cursing himself for not anticipating the depth of her distress, Nate rushed to her, kneeling to enfold her in his arms. She’d come apart, weeping hysterical tears as if she’d never be able to stop. He murmured soothing things in her ear, stroked her hair, tried everything he knew to be gentle and calming.

  Thom, ever practical, removed his pack and dug through the contents for the medkit in case a tranquilizer inject became necessary.

  Nate picked Bithia up and took her to an oversized, heavily cushioned gray and blue chair pushed back at an angle from the console. Wonder if this was the chair she said her father favored on these expeditions? Dismissing the fleeting thought as a distraction he didn’t need and she wouldn’t appreciate, Nate sat with her in his lap, curled against his chest, sobbing. Her whole body shook and convulsed with the force of her grief. It tore at the heart to hear, even for such a hardened veteran as he was. Nate frowned over her head at Thom and shook his head at the inject. He felt he should endure her storm of emotion, let her express the anguish and sorrow, not try to dull it with medication. She’d waited thousands of years for this moment. He could offer a few moments of silent comfort.

  Eventually, to Nate’s relief, her weeping became less wild, the sobs softer.

  “Sweetheart, at least you got to see him, to hear he was thinking of you, he loved you. And now you know the Hialar didn’t play a cruel trick on you all these centuries. The clan was obeying your father’s last request to keep you safe. He must have loved you very much.”

  “Yeah, you could tell,” Thom said gruffly. “Listening to how many times he questioned his orders and tried to get a break on going without you tells you the truth.”

  “But I’ll never know—”

  “Until five minutes ago, you were sure you’d never see him again, never hear his voice, never know why he left you behind, okay? I think you have to take what the Lords of Space gave and not ask for more.” Nate ruthlessly cut off her beginning protest, sad for her pain but firm in his belief. There was silence for a moment or two, other than Bithia’s occasional sobs diminishing in intensity, mixed with hiccups. Thom put away the inject and got out his canteen instead, offering it to Nate.

&n
bsp; He handed it to Bithia. “Here, sweetheart, try a little water. We have one last piece of the story to uncover when you’re ready to deal with it.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, choking slightly on a residual hiccup as she sipped the water. She handed the canteen directly to Thom. Nate wiped a drop of water off her chin with one gentle fingertip, smiling. “That other guy is waiting to tell us something, isn’t he? And he obviously came after your father left, so he might shed more light on events.”

  “Or he might not,” Bithia said. “But you’re right, we may as well hear all there is to know.”

  She unfolded herself from his lap, straightened her tunic and walked to the console. She hesitated. “My hands are shaking. Will you help me with this?”

  “Of course.” He came to her swiftly, kissing her cheek and taking one trembling hand firmly in his own warm grasp. “Tell me what to do.”

  A mental picture, three levers in a row, ending with the sapphire one. Nate reached out and executed the required sequence.

  M’negel opened his eyes, studying the room curiously. “So strange to be here after all this time, after hearing Great-Great-Great-Uncle Tedesk’s stories.”

  “Tedesk was my father’s number one assistant,” Bithia whispered.

  In the next breath, M’negel turned his head in their direction as if he’d heard her whispering. “Ridiculous as it may sound, the uncles said that if I ever came here, I had to leave her a message. Excuse me, leave you a message, Bithia, daughter of Fr’taray.” He executed a formal kind of bow, making a hand gesture almost like a salute. “As if you’ll ever hear this message.” His high-pitched and abrupt laugh was jarring. “Maybe I ought to start over, you think?”

  He was asking some impatient companion there in his own time. The hairs on the back of Nate’s neck rose. Was M’negel talking to the person who murdered him later in the warehouse? “All right, I know we have to hurry. It’s just every time I heard the story, the uncles emphasized over and over the necessity of leaving her a message in case the extraction attempt fails. Bithia, we’re going to Nochen to get you out, to take you home, even though you’re not going to recognize it, or us!” He laughed again, an odd laugh, mocking rather than amused.

  Nate was suddenly glad these people had failed in their attempt to rescue his lady. Something about this M’negel’s attitude bothered him, completely separate from the knowledge of how the man had died.

  “If you ever get this message, it probably means I failed somehow, or else the authorities came and stopped us. Some people don’t think the daughter of Fr’taray should be brought back, into the mess things have become. You’re a symbol of what was, our better days. So if you’re hearing this because I got caught, I have to tell you I left my ship on the second of those pretty red moons. You can take my flyer to find it, if they don’t take the flyer with them or disable it. I bequeath you my flyer and my ship,” he said grandiosely, making a sweeping gesture with both hands. “But they won’t find my ship, I can promise you. And as a precaution, I didn’t leave the coordinates on the flyer. I’m too good at games after all these years of hide-and-seek with the enemy. The coordinates are—”

  Suddenly, a vivid, burning flash of pain struck deep inside Nate’s head, seeming to brand onto his optic nerves a string of numbers he simultaneously perceived as visible points in space. He groaned, putting both hands to his aching forehead, blinking back involuntary tears of pain.

  He could hear M’negel concluding his remarks, “We’re going now. I hope you never see this ridiculous message, because I hope to take you home in triumph. But I did what the uncle and his wrinkled cronies told me to. All right, all right, I’m coming!”

  And he winked out of existence.

  The three were silent for a moment.

  “Odd from beginning to end,” Bithia commented at last, tilting her head to the side and considering what she’d heard. “I can’t say it explained much.”

  “He sounded drunk,” Thom said. “Or high.”

  “Nate, are you okay?” Bithia asked with sudden concern, seeing him rubbing his temples, eyes screwed tightly shut. “What happened?”

  “When he gave the coordinates for his ship, he sent them mentally too, the way you transmit instructions. Only you’re about a thousand times more subtle, I’m glad to say. Didn’t you get them?” Nate was amazed. He tried opening his eyes and promptly clamped them shut again, unable to handle the electric whorls and jagged lines obscuring his sight.

  “What coordinates?” She stared at him. “The holo was interrupted, nothing but ripples and static. He didn’t say anything for a moment.”

  “Well, he sure as hell thought it.”

  “May I look? If he left a ship, and if it’s still there—”

  Gesturing for her to come closer, Nate kept his eyes closed. “Be my guest. Read my mind. And if you can make it stop hurting so damn much and interfering with my vision, I’ll be grateful.”

  Bithia moved his hands aside and rested her fingertips gently on his temples where he’d been rubbing. Nate kept his eyes closed. He had trouble keeping his balance and swayed a little, Bithia moving in time with him but keeping her eyes shut in deep concentration. Thom came to them, spreading his arms like wings to embrace their shoulders and hold them steady.

  “Whatever you’re doing helps,” Nate said. “My head doesn’t hurt so much. But the numbers, or coordinates, or whatever the data is, are fading. I can’t see them anymore. And I don’t remember them. He didn’t manage to get them into my memory, just screwed up in my visual circuits.”

  “It’s all right, I’ve got them,” she announced with suppressed excitement in her voice. She took her hands away from Nate’s face, opened her eyes and did a dance step. “M’negel left us the coordinates to his ship! To his interstellar ship!”

  “But is it still there? Does it have room for three people? Would the ship be functional after all these centuries? And how do we get there from here?” Thom asked rapid-fire questions, ending with his final concern: “Can you pilot it?”

  “The flyer in the hangar bay must be his,” Nate said, trying to deal with the issues. He gingerly opened and closed his eyes a few times, much relieved to have his normal vision restored. “Step one is to check the vessel out, see if it has power. This is definitely a time to go slow and not get our hopes too high. After all, someone not from Talonque murdered M’negel and another person in the warehouse. The killers may have sabotaged his flyer or his ship or both. He seemed apprehensive, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah, kept talking as if his being here searching for you violated the rules,” Thom said to Bithia.

  “I wonder why Tedesk of all people would make his descendants promise anything to do with rescuing me? Perhaps there was a reward?” Bithia pondered, sinking into the chair she and Nate occupied earlier. “Of all the people on the expedition, he and I didn’t get along.”

  “I remember you telling me the first time or so we dreamed together,” Nate agreed. “I’m sorry we didn’t find out anything else about your father.”

  She stared at the floor. When she spoke, her voice was so quiet he had to lean close to hear her. “I think I prefer this outcome. I think you’re right, your—what do you call them? The Lords of Space? Granted me enough grace to hear my last message from my father, but not to know the rest.” Then she did look at him. “Did you hear M’negel talk about years of dealing with some enemy?”

  “I’m sorry he, and his companions, whoever they were, died in the attempt, but I have to tell you I’m glad he failed to rescue you.” Nate shared with her what he had been thinking as M’negel talked. “Not only because I wouldn’t have met you, but there was something off about him, about the whole deal—”

  She nodded her agreement. “He reminded me of Tedesk, who wasn’t a pleasant person. The longer he talked, the more I detected a family relationship. Clearly, M’negel had something to gain from this rescue attempt, a reward perhaps.”

  Thom, who’d bee
n leaning against the hologram console, straightened decisively. “Ready for the flyer?”

  “Let’s check it out,” Nate said. “Unless you want to rest a bit longer? Or did you want to check the personal quarters first? You said the area was off this level, right? See if your stuff is here, or if your father left anything you want to take with us?”

  “No, let’s get on with it. As you say, the flyer is the next step, and it may lead us to escaping this planet.” She held up a hand to forestall the warning Nate was about to utter. “Yes, I know, one step at a time, your favorite approach.”

  “What about searching your quarters?”

  “I don’t want anything from the old life. Even if my father put the whole thing under stasis lock and it’s there perfectly preserved and waiting, I don’t want it.”

  “No jewelry, clothes, books, pictures of your parents? Nothing?”

  She shook her head again, even more definitively. “We’ve been all through the discussion. I appreciate what you’re doing, presenting the counterarguments, but I’ve thought my decision through. Now, can we go?”

  Nate stood aside and made a sweeping gesture. “After you, my lady. No more arguments from me.”

  Nate realized the lighting wasn’t as strong as they descended the endless stairs and made their way as rapidly as possible to the hangar.

  “Auxiliary running down fast, you think?” Thom speculated as they crossed the vast expanse of the hangar floor to investigate the flyer.

  “Yeah. I don’t want to stay here in the dark, do you?”

  Thom shook his head emphatically. “I’d prefer the snowstorm brewing outside if I didn’t know we’d freeze to death inside of five minutes.”

  Nate studied the flyer for a few moments, walking around it. It had been parked haphazardly, one winglike projection nearly touching the wall.

  “As if it was shoved out of the way of something bigger,” Nate said. “How do we get inside? I don’t think my Special Forces override code is going to be much help here.”