Searching for the Kingdom Key

by TylerRose.

  The cube bounced onto and across the table to stop in front of the Thuliot delegation.

  “Oops. Guess you’ll have to start over with the truth.”

  She walked out, Alen turning five shades of red.

  “You can’t do that, Tyler,” he hissed in the corridor.

  “I did it. What’s Earnol going to do? Fire me? No one in that room is going to say a damn thing because Sistair would get in trouble for the deception. What’s next?”

  “Uhhh…Picking up trade contracts on Shabta Prime and taking to Deek’Trai V. And then the reverse.”

  “Not three? Or is it four? How many planets do they have?” she asked.

  “There are three inhabitable planets within the system. Three, four and five. We’re going to five, which is in the beginning stages of the final application process. I’ve sent messages that we’re on the way. They should be waiting for us.”

  Activating the booster, they arrived in yet another little transport room. The package was there. Immediate teleport to Deek’Trai V, a secretary was waiting was waiting for them. Package signed for, another given, they went back to Shabta Prime to drop off. That signed for, they were done for the moment. They went into the city to get a meal.

  Shabta Prime was an encapsulated city on a toxic planet, a colony that turned into its own full-fledged society. It’s chief exports were gasses from the atmosphere and minerals from mines.

  “When do we go back to the station?” she asked.

  “If we don’t have another pick up within an hour or so, I head back. There are several teams, so someone is always on.”

  “Oh, I don’t care about that. I’d be happy not going back to the station at all if I didn’t have to.”

  “We do need to change clothes,” he pointed out.

  She lifted her hands from her lap, showing him one of his own t-shirts. He laughed.

  “I guess you wouldn’t have to go back.”

  “So let’s not. Embassies have lodging available, right? As employees of the Congress, we would be entitled to whatever we needed, wouldn’t we?”

  “Now I see why Earnol gets annoyed by you. You don’t follow the rules he has so carefully crafted.”

  Their food arrived, halting conversation for a moment.

  “He does make all the rules, doesn’t he?” she asked. “As President of the Council and Chief Administrator, what he says goes for pretty much everything.”

  “Unfortunately. Now and then some faction tries to depose him but he never gets caught in whatever it is he’s doing wrong. And elections are every twenty five years. The next isn’t for another twenty.”

  “Did he decide that too? Made it a long time to be in office so only people who are young or expected to have long lives can even hope to run against him?”

  “The young don’t succeed because of lack of experience. The rule is a person has to be reasonably assured that they will not die in office of old age.”

  “And most planets don’t have an expectancy much past…what? A hundred years?” she asked.

  “About that. Some as much as 150. Even if there is a candidate, Earnol has enough of the Congress under his thumb that they vote for him out of habit,” Alen complained.

  She stopped her questions for a moment, eating some of the very nice meat sandwich that was much like roast beef.

  “What about this team that scouted Earth for the station?”

  “What about them?”

  “Everything. What do you know?”

  “That it was a big mess. There were two or three factions and they all despised each other. The story is that the team was scouting a location for the Congress, but they ended up living on Earth. There was an invasion and somehow they all ended up executed for pretending to be gods. Earth has been mostly off limits since. Then the attack last February sealed the isolation. Only the people who are from there are allowed to go there.”

  Tyler sat back in her seat, that whole story ringing false through no fault of Alen’s.

  “Who was on the scouting team?”

  “All I know for sure is Earnol’s father and brother, Taft, were there. And his stepmother. It was a family thing.”

  “How long ago? Three thousand years?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Civilization then was in China, Egypt, Greece, Rome. They got in trouble for pretending to be gods? Which ones?”

  “That I don’t know. But Taft went back and pretended to be the Christian god. He let the people make up their own name for him.”

  “A dude named Taft fathered Jesus Christ?” she asked.

  “Apparently.”

  She stopped asking questions. After the meal, they went back to the embassy to ask for rooms. Two rooms they could not have, but there was a single room with two twin size beds.

  “That’s fine,” she said, and was given the key.

  Enough like a hotel room, not that it mattered, and she brought her messenger bag to her hands. She’d packed it with clothes and a blank journal before starting the day.

  “Is there something you want from your room?” she asked.

  “Yeah, actually. I keep a backpack ready. It’s by the door. You can do that?”

  It was in front of her on the bed.

  “Yes, I can.”

  “How many things can you do that other people can’t?” he asked.

  “Is it really that uncommon?”

  “Most people I know who have anything are limited to low-level telepathy that barely passes empathic. They sense emotions more than thought. A couple people can move things now and then, but with great effort. The only people who have more are Earnol and Julian, Earnol more so. Is that why he doesn’t like you? You’re just as full of psionic abilities as he is?”

  “I don’t know but it sure seems to come up a lot,” she replied, getting out her ringing phone. “Yes, Julian?”

  “Why haven’t you come back here?”

  “Because I don’t want to. If we’re teleporting from one place to the next to deliver shit, we don’t have to. We’ve done our shift for today. All hours are accounted for. Where we spend our downtime is our business. We’re spending it in this bubble sphere place. Because we can.”

  “You’re going to get into trouble with my father if you keep this up, Tyler.”

  “I give a shit. He should clone himself so he can go fuck himself.”

  “See you when I see you then,” Julian said, and ended the call.

  “Well?” his father demanded from the other chair.

  “She is taking the opportunity to stay there for the night and they’ll continue in the morning with their duties.”

  “Good. Let her think she’s being defiant. It serves me perfectly well to have her not be here. The longer you keep her away from me and this station, the better.”

  She and Alen palled around from one embassy to another for two weeks, staying the night on the planet of their last stop. She got a good look at the people involved in the running of the Congress, their deceptions and outright lies toward each other. Staying over on Sistair one evening, she went to a library and started digging into the scouting team.

  Three thousand years ago. Nothing. Hours of searching for anything about a team scouting a site for the Congressional station. Nothing. Not a single mention in a single book. She had a thought that she might be going about this the wrong way. While there were still books, most information was kept on computers.

  She went to one of the wall consoles and found an icon that said Vocal Inquiry. She tapped it.

  “What is your inquiry?”

  “How old is the Celestial Congress?” she asked,

  “The Celestial Congress is 1883 years old.”

  “When did the Celestial Congress move to its current location?” she asked. How long ago?”

  “The Celestial Congress moved to its current location 475 Sistarians years ago.”

  “On what date?”

  “Clarify. Start date or completion date?” th
e computer replied.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “The Celestial Congress required half a year for all Congressmen and Ambassadors to make the move and arrive to begin work. The Congress moved 475 Sistarian years ago.”

  “The Congress moved. Not the station itself?”

  “The station was already in place,” the computer said.

  “Where was it located before then?”

  “Clarify: It. The Congress or the Station?” the computer asked.

  “The Congress,” she replied.

  “The Celestial Congress was located on Sistair, in the planet’s capital city, from its inception until it moved to its current location.”

  “When did the station move to its current location?”

  “There is no answer to your query.”

  “Was the station built for the Congress?”

  “There is no answer to your query.”

  “Who lived on the moon station before the Celestial Congress?”

  “There is no answer to your query.”

  She blinked at the machine with suspicion. “What was the first date the Congress convened on the station?”

  “There is no answer to your query.”

  “What is the name of the Sistarian Senior Congressman?”

  “There is no answer to your query.”

  She had been shut out. Someone didn’t want her investigating and she could guess who.

  Why in the world would a scout team go to a place 3000 years ago to find a location for a thing that wasn’t going to exist for another 1200 years? That made no sense. If they had been on Earth that long ago, did the people see their abilities and think them gods? That would be an easy assumption for a simple people.

  She met up with Alen at an outdoor park restaurant an told him what she had found and how she’d been shut out.

  “You know, you might get more out of the Doyen Confederacy than a library. They keep their own records. And a group going to Earth would more likely have come from them way back then.”

  “Alen, I love you!”

  He flew backwards out of his chair to slam head first into the cement wall. People scattered in all directions with shrieks and shouts. Solomon was there, picked him up and slammed him into the wall again, hard enough to kill him. Tyler felt him die as she ran in to tackle Solomon with a flurry of punches.

  “Stupid fuck!”

  He got in a good hit and stunned her.

  “I told you that you can never love anyone,” he said, and slugged her another one to knock her out.

  She came to in that same room, nude and on that same bed but not tied to it. Head thick as mud, the band was around her upper arm again. She felt its tightness.

  “Took me a couple weeks to catch up to you. Didn’t take you long to fall in love,” he said, taking the yin/yang ring from her right pinkie.

  The Sanctuary ring. She’d forgotten its purpose. She could have used it last time, she kicked herself.

  “He told me how to get some information, stupid. Not romantic love.”

  “It wasn’t? You seemed happy enough to say it.”

  “Because you don’t know fuck-all about me, you dumb shit. Alen was only a co-worker. I never fucked him.”

  He laughed at his own error.

  “I told you not to remove the device,” he said when he stopped laughing.

  “It was done without my knowledge, without even asking me. Whoever told you where I was can tell you that too, I’m sure.”

  “No one had to tell me. I know what you taste like. I know what you smell like, and I know what you feel like.”

  His hand on her leg and she kicked at him. He smacked her leg and she kicked at him with the other. More smacks that turned to punches, and more kicks until she was fighting him as fully as the mental chain would allow.

  She knew her punches weren’t hard but kept hitting and kicking back as long as she had strength in her arms and legs. She kicked him off the bed and he dragged her down with him. His punches were far harder and he didn’t stop when she did. When he was done beating the outside of her thigh with his pounding fist, he flipped her over and opened his pants to have her there on the floor.

  Rather than tighten the mental chain when she started to fight again, he grabbed her hair and smacked the side of her head into the floor. She stopped fighting. He was escalating. She had to mind how far she pushed him. He was getting more violent with her much sooner.

  He left her there when he was done with her, sat in a nearby chair to watch her. Dialing down the mental chain a couple notches eventually let her sit up, effort though it was.

  “I like when you fight. It’s an open invitation to be violent in return and subdue you. It’s a tremendous turn on, so keep it up. That’s fine for when we’re alone, and I won’t cause you damage that won’t heal. I have to go make a business transaction and I’m going to take you with me. You will behave when we are with my associate. If you don’t, I’ll let him take you for a while and punish you however he wants. He might cause you damage that won’t heal, and I’ll let him. I won’t be there to stop him. So your hide, your bones and your skull are all in your own hands, my little whoreslave.”

  He reached into a box next to the chair and pulled out a pair of cuffs on short, stiff cables with a metal bar between them. They went on around her upper arms just above the elbows. The bar was long enough her arms weren’t pulled inward. It kept her elbows at her sides and limited her range of motion. Gripping the bar, he hauled her to her feet and attached a leash a ring on the side of the right cuff.

  He walked away and back.

  “Put these on,” he said, dropping a pair of slip on sandals in front of her feet.

  She did, deciding a measure of cooperation would get her more information in the long run. He used his finger to comb her hair out of the mess it was in, and drew back the sides to make a ponytail handle at the back of her head. He grabbed it tight, forced her to bend backwards.

  “Are you going to behave?”

  “I don’t know,” she was bold enough to say. “We’ll both just have to see, won’t we.”

  He chuckled and stood her upright again, keeping hold of her forearm to pull her along with him. He took her out of the room, left into the corridor. Then a right at the next corridor. She added the path to the map of the ship she was assembling in her head. Into an elevator that floated down two levels, turning to the right, there was a ramp already extended through the open doorway. She knew the way out if they were planetside and she had the opportunity.

  They walked down with four armed men she’d never seen before. Looked like a mercenary crew. Looked like none of them trusted the others in the team. They weren’t a buddy system yet. Each one was out for himself. She could use that. She only needed one to sympathize with her and give assistance.

  The ship was in a hanger and another team was waiting halfway to the open bay door. Outside was bright sun.

  “Is she going to be part of the deal?” the dark haired man in the middle asked.

  “No. I can’t trust her to remain alone in the ship.”

  “Chain her to something,” the guy said.

  “She’s enough of an escape artist that I can’t leave her alone without a gun pointed at her,” Solomon said.

  “That doesn’t sound like much fun for her.”

  Tyler laughed. “I like him.”

  “Shut up,” Solomon scowled at her, and then at him for smiling at her. “Where is it?”

  The other man reached into the pouch resting against his hip and took out a cylinder about the size of a soda bottle. In it was a white powder that slid and flopped like talcum powder inside while he spun it slowly.

  “The real deal? Or will I find it’s chalk?” Solomon asked suspiciously.

  “It’s real. Direct from the Emperor’s own stash. They don’t cut it for him.”

  “Did you kill the old cat in order to get it?”

  The seller chuckled. “No. But that container is proof
that a Neverseen can be paid off. If you want to keep her for any length of time, I suggest you not give it to her. Rovan has a tendency to make lesser species kill themselves.”

  “Lesser species?” she shot at him. “What the fuck are you? Demigod with a pedigree tattooed on your ass?”

  He laughed but Solomon smacked her. She kicked his knee hard enough to make him go down to it on the floor. He pulled her down with a twist of her leg and threw her onto her back. On his feet, he put a foot on her throat, staring down. His hard shoe dug into the underside of her jaw, sharpness of the square corners of the heel pressing deep into her throat.

  “Are you done?” he glared down at her.

  She gave him an equal expression, unable to speak for the pressure against her larynx and cut off oxygen. She slammed a fist onto the cement floor.

  “Don’t make me rethink wanting to keep you alive,” he said before removing his foot.

  She lay there catching her breath before sitting up and slipping to a hip to get to her feet. The floor was filthy, leaving a layer of dusty grime on her back, hip and leg.

  “I’ll give you five thousand Ruds cash for her,” the seller said.

  “She’s not for sale. Pay him for the Rovan,” Solomon said, grabbing her by the ponytail to made her walk backwards up into the ship.

  The roof of the hanger was already opening to let the ship fly out. The ramp was closing under them as they walked up into the ship. Solomon threw her into a wall, kicked her leg, shouting about embarrassing him in front of a business partner. Off her balance and falling over onto her arm, a knee coming up, and he punted her in the crotch like she was a football. Thrown off balance the other direction, she fell and was flipped onto her back.

  One more kick to her crotch and he walked away the opposite direction, the ship taking off.

  “Put her in the cell.”

  The man left behind to do it took the cuffs off her arms first and waited for her to be able to stand and walk. He let her lean against him as she limped along.

  “I admire your spirit, woman; but he’ll only be pushed so far.”

  “If he kills me, all my troubles will be over, won’t they,” she replied.