There was still one thing that didn’t make sense in the middle of everything else that was adding up to a tangled confusion. What the hell were these people doing in Yorkstone? Yorkstone was a nice city. Carl Talbot, Bridgett Farrell, they just didn’t belong in a place like this. Even Morrish had said it. It made him question again what he was doing here himself. Jack had simply been coasting for too long, but this time it was a different sort of coasting. In his previous existence, before he’d met Billie, he’d let fate play its hand, always counting on circumstance to lead him in the right direction, allowing his inner senses to do the work for him. Now, in this environment, it was different. The place itself had become the excuse. Nothing turned up because there was nothing to turn up.
And now he was getting frustrated. The suspected call had not happened, Billie was getting nowhere further with her research, nor was there any sign of Bridgett Farrell. At least the police had not been back, but he suspected that wouldn’t last either. He couldn’t imagine that they’d managed to work out anything on their own.
Laduce’s snide comments had set him thinking about Billie again too, and that wasn’t a good thing. Their relationship was full of unexplained tension recently. Maybe it was just because she was getting older. He’d thought, maybe, that getting to Yorkstone would have given her what she needed.
Regardless, there were more important things to deal with, matters more pressing. He was achieving nothing sitting in his office, fiddling, resisting the urge to play around with the furniture. He called up the notes Billie had been working on and scanned through them, looking for clues. He went back to the pictures of Mandala, studying them. There had to be something he was missing. He narrowed his eyes at the picture of the archeological site, trying to blur the image, looking for correspondences. He sat back and shook his head with a sigh. Nothing was coming. Once again he called up the sketch of the artifact, staring at it till it too blurred into a meaningless smudge. He stood, cleared down the screen, and walked over to the window, his hands clasped behind his back. He’d wasted almost an entire day since the incident with the guy on the street and had nothing to show for it. He felt like growling, growling at the world and growling at Yorkstone in particular.
The system announced a call and he turned slowly, a half smile forming on his face. This was it. It had taken longer than he’d expected.
“Answer. This is Jack Ste—” His voice drifted off to nothing. Bridgett Farrell was looking at him from the wallscreen. She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue and spoke.
“Have you got it, Jack?”
“Have I got what?”
She lifted a finger to her lips and spoke in an even quieter tone. “The object, of course.” She was clearly nervous, glancing off to the side.
“Where are you, Ms. Farrell?”
“I can’t tell you that. Not now. I need you to help me, Jack. I think I’m in trouble.”
Jack walked closer to the screen. “Why would that be, Ms. Farrell?”
“Have you found Talbot?”
Jack looked down at his fingernails, then slowly back up at her. “Talbot’s dead.”
She gasped. She looked shaken. Either she was being genuine or she was really good. At this point, he didn’t know which one. She looked as if she was struggling to maintain calm.
“If Carl’s dead, then someone else has to have the artifact.” She bit her lip. “You have to help me. I’ll double your fee. I’ll double the amount. Just help me find it, Jack.”
Jack’s head was ticking. He had to find this woman. She was going to lead him to the artifact one way or another, unknowingly or with full knowledge of what she was doing. Somehow, he thought it was the latter. He still didn’t know how much she really knew and how much she was telling him, but he was going to play along for now and see if he could come up with the answer. There was some reason she was keeping things from him. Maybe she really was scared.
“Listen, Ms. Farrell.”
“Call me Bridgett, please.” Her hand was playing with the pendant at her throat.
“Why” said Jack. “What do other people call you?”
There was a slight flicker of her eyes at that, but she let the comment pass. “Can I trust you, Jack?”
“I don’t know, Ms. Farrell. Can I trust you? What can you tell me about a place called Mandala? Or maybe Balance City?”
She looked away. The hand that had been playing at her pendant drifted up to touch her hair, and she moistened her lips once more. Again she glanced to the side, then leaned in closer.
“None of that’s important, Jack. All that matters is the artifact.”
Jack leaned back on the desk. “It’s been a couple of days, Ms. Farrell, and you’re nowhere to be seen. I’m afraid your retainer has run out. I’m going to have to see some sort of mark of good faith.”
She tutted and sighed. “Why?”
“Because you’ve been taking up my time on what seems like a pointless exercise. If you expect me to keep working on this, I’m going to need some more. Show me that you mean it, Ms. Farrell.”
“Is that all it’s going to take . . . I would have expected a little more trust from you, Jack.” Her handipad lifted into view. “How much?”
“Six, no, ten should do it.”
She pressed her lips together and nodded. A small split panel emerged at the bottom of his screen showing the transfer taking place.
“Okay,” said Jack. “I need to know where you are.”
“I’ll be in touch,” she said. The wall went blank.
What the hell was this woman playing at? Jack ran his fingers back through his hair and grimaced. He’d just ensured that he was truly tied in now. He turned away from the screen to see Billie standing in the doorway watching him.
“What are you doing, Billie?”
She shrugged. “I heard voices . . .”
“How much did you see?”
“Enough.” She shook her head, turned, and walked back into the living room, leaving him standing there.
“What am I supposed to do, Billie?” he said, but she had already gone.
“What am I supposed to do?” he breathed.
Carl Talbot was back. The “after” Carl Talbot, not the “before.”
Jack suppressed the gag reflex that threatened to overwhelm him. It was just a dream, but the natural reaction was there, forcing him to fight it.
“Yack Stein,” said Talbot from his ruined face.
Jack tried to look away, past the blasted features, trying to determine where they were. Above him lay a broad ceiling. No, it wasn’t a ceiling. It was farther away than that, far, far above. It was . . . it was sky, but dark, leaden gray. That was all he could see. They were standing on nothing, floating. Quick traceries of light shot back and forth below them. Jack tried to look everywhere but at the face that was speaking to him.
“You . . . haf . . . to go.”
“What is it, Carl? Where do I have to go?”
Talbot tried to wave his arm. His remaining eye looked surprised. He gestured with the other, good arm. The sky disappeared. The lights in the darkness disappeared. Blankness remained. They floated in nothing. Jack peered into the nothingness, trying to work out what he was supposed to be seeing. There, over Talbot’s maimed shoulder, something was forming, far away now. He concentrated. Quad shapes. Quad shapes like four thick, stocky legs, joined to a central spire that reached up into the sky. The same shapes he’d seen before.
“ ’Ere!” said Talbot emphatically. “You haf to go.”
“Why do I have to go there, Carl? Tell me.”
Talbot drifted into vaporous wisps and blew away, saying nothing more. Jack was left with the structural image in front of him. He stared at it, imprinting it deeply.
Then he was somewhere else. He was standing on a plain. Silver shapes whipped above his head, almost too fast to follow. One zipped silently past, whipping his head back as he tried to track it.
He turned to follow it into
the distance.
Something was standing behind him. It was tall, with four legs spaced evenly around a thick central body. It seemed smooth, featureless, shining slightly with a sleek, silvery slickness. At first he thought it was some sort of sculpture, the same sort of structure as the other things he’d seen, but on a smaller scale. And then it moved. Jack took a step back. Again, one of the four legs swung forward, repositioning the body. The top of the thick central shaft tilted forward. The whole thing looked ponderous, awkward. About halfway up the shaft, something slowly bulged, then separated. A section folded down and then another. Behind one of the sections there was a hollow. Jack shook his head. This was just weird, and the weirdness was working in his chest, making his heart pound faster. There was something in the hollow. Despite the fear starting to rise within him, he looked closer. There was a shape in there, something flat, rectangular. He recognized that shape. It was the artifact.
The sections that had folded down swung back up, and the hollow was concealed once more. The bulging torus slowly merged back into the shaft, and then the thing was gone.
Jack swallowed.
He woke, staring at the ceiling in the darkness, knowing what he had to do, but struggling with a deep sense of unease. How do you deal with something that’s truly alien? He was used to things that he could control, even in the dreamstate. Thoughts, symbols, had their place in the human psyche, and they were things he could come to grips with. If his visions were suddenly taking him into an area where the energies had nothing to do with humanity, he had no guarantee that he could control that. He had no guarantee that there were any psychic anchor points he could hold on to. What would stop the dreams from sweeping him away completely? Maybe this time he really was getting in too deep—lost subconsciously in an alien civilization. He didn’t think it was possible, but sometimes, even he didn’t know how his abilities worked. Alien sendings? Alien minds? No, it didn’t bear thinking about.
It was a long, long while before sleep found him again.
Nine
Jack wasn’t quite sure how Billie was going to take his news, so he waited till she was showered and well and truly awake before he mentioned it. As it was, he needn’t have bothered.
“We need to go on a bit of a trip,” he told her.
She stopped running her fingers through wet hair, waiting for him to continue.
“I had a dream last night. I think I know how to work out this whole mess. I thought about going alone, but with you along, it’s the perfect cover. I’m about to be your rich uncle, Billie.”
“Okay. Where?”
“We’re going to Mandala.”
Her eyes widened. “Really?”
“Yeah. We have to go to the archeological site. I don’t know why, but that’s what we have to do.”
“Yes!” she said, jumping up and spinning around on the spot.
He stared at her. He’d been expecting something, anything, but not this. Billie just didn’t get excited about stuff. Just when he thought he had her all figured out, she went and did something that screwed it all up again.
“What . . . ?” he said slowly.
She grabbed his arm and swung it. “It’s great. I never thought . . . It’s great. We’re really going there?”
He carefully extricated his arm from her grip and stepped back out of range. “I don’t get it, Billie.”
“What’s not to get? Just imagine it. Think about it.” She thrust her arms wide. “Aliens.”
“Yeah, well, we’re going to have to get some bookings worked out. Find out where we’re going to stay. It’s going to cost, but despite what you might think, that little conversation yesterday afternoon with Bridgett Farrell seems to have come in useful.”
She shrugged and turned away, heading straight for the wallscreen.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for timetables and prices. And checking out Mandala bookings. Who do you want to be?”
“It’s that easy for you?” he said.
“Uh-huh,” she replied without turning around. “Who do you want to be?”
“Yeah, well, we can’t use my name. Think of something, will you, Billie? Whatever it is, we’ve got to make it believable. You’re my niece and I’m taking you to Mandala as a treat because you really want to see the alien ruins.”
“What is there to believe?” she said, looking back at him over her shoulder with a grin.
“What do you mean?”
“I do really want to see the alien ruins.”
He left her to it. She’d have the best deal set up soon, and whatever ID they needed she could set up in a matter of minutes. Her time with Pinpin Dan sometimes came in useful. She already had a file of prepared IDs that Jack had used in the past.
The problem of Morrish and Laduce still remained. How would it look if he suddenly skipped town? Not only town, but the planet as well. If Laduce found out, he’d be after Jack like a man on a mission. Hopefully the pair of them would be slow-moving enough not to get around to him before he and Billie got back, if they did get back. And if not, he’d deal with it when he had to. All he knew was that he had to do this. The dead Carl Talbot had told him so.
He was Jack Stinson, CEO of Carmody Industries. The company name was vague enough to be any of a number of conglomerates that stretched across the system. Mining mainly. He looked down at the ID. Okay, but there was something wrong about it. It didn’t feel right.
“Billie, what’s wrong here?” He scratched his head.
“Look at you, Jack.”
“What?”
“Look at that coat. Look at your clothes. Do you look like a CEO?”
“Mirror,” he said.
The wall realigned itself and became reflective. He looked at himself critically. Billie was right. He looked nothing like a CEO. Forget the clothes, the slight stubble was okay, but the unkempt hair, the whole demeanor. He straightened his stance and pulled at his sleeves, trying to smooth things. It wasn’t working. They had to go shopping. He grimaced. They had little enough of Bridgett Farrell’s funds left, maybe a couple of grand after Billie had made the bookings. The resort had taken up most of the money, the transport a good slice of what was left. Maybe a couple of grand would be enough. Billie needed some stuff too. High end.
“Yeah. Okay. We’re going shopping,” he told her. She grinned and gave a little jump. Suddenly it seemed that everything they were doing pleased her. She was happier than he’d seen her in a long time. It made him wonder. Was he really giving her enough? He knew that a lot of her attitude was simple bravado, but underneath that, he didn’t know if she was really happy. She seemed content with him, but that didn’t mean she was happy, did it? He shook the thoughts away and checked the handipad to see how much they did have left. Two thousand three hundred and fifty-eight. Well, it looked like they weren’t going to be getting room service when they got to Mandala.
“Come on,” said Billie, dragging at his sleeve. “What are you waiting for?”
“Can’t we do this here?” he said.
“No, Jack. Are you stupid? Not for the kind of stuff we need.”
She was probably right. He slipped the handipad away and followed Billie out of the apartment, wondering now, for a totally different reason, what he was getting himself into.
As they climbed aboard the shuttle he grabbed her shoulder, pulling her down to one end of the compartment. Up at the end, they were far enough away from the other passengers to talk.
“Okay, let’s go through what we need to do,” he said as they sat.
“It’s simple,” she said, glancing around the carriage.
“Yeah, okay, it may be simple, but I need to hear it again.”
She rolled her eyes, then became all serious. “You’re Jack Stinson. We’re visiting Mandala as a vacation treat for your niece, Susan.” She tapped her chest, then continued. “We get on a transport out to the port. We catch a ship to the relay station. We jump to Antioch. From Antioch we get the private
liner to Mandala. There’s a shuttle there that will take us to the resort. It’s called the Mandala Country Club.”
He nodded. It seemed simple enough. They could work out the way to get to the archeological site when they got there. The resort pages had talked about organized trips out to the ruins. He suspected it was a fairly standard excursion from the place. It was just the sort of thing that rich tourists would love to brag about when they got back home. “So, is there a city name? You’ve only talked about this resort.”
She frowned. “No. Mandala’s kind of funny. It’s all Mandala this, Mandala that. The site has a name and that’s about it. It’s called the City of Trees.”
“Huh,” said Jack. “Why?”
“Well, they say it looks like a big forest of square trees.”
“Hmm,” said Jack. He remembered the strange forests that had populated the dream. That structure in the distance suddenly made more sense. The City of Trees. It had to be the same place.
“How long are we going to be traveling?” he asked after a few moments.
“Altogether? Probably about a day.” She shrugged again. “Mostly we’ll be waiting. You know, the ships take almost no time at all.”
He did know, and so did she. The new drives developed by Outreach had totally changed travel. Now, getting from one place to another between the stars was almost instantaneous. The routes were expanding daily. Despite the ease, he felt a certain level of discomfort traveling on ships developed and supported by Outreach. Merely thinking about it sparked a nagging nervous unease. There was too much history there with Outreach, and mostly, history he would prefer to forget. In many ways, he just couldn’t. Outreach had used the mining crew from Dairil III as experimental subjects in their initial tests of the new drive, often with disastrous consequences. There were places people just weren’t meant to go. He swallowed, pushing the thought away.
“Okay, that seems to all work,” he said.
They changed shuttles about halfway up. The shopping district they were heading for was at the more exclusive end of the spectrum, and Jack, picking intermittently at his coat and light sweater, felt slightly uncomfortable. There was a change in their fellow passengers. They were better turned out; there was an aura of affluence about them. He could see the style, sense the difference, but it was nothing he’d ever really aspired to. He sniffed, trying to suppress the feelings. They were irrational. Billie was fine; she was watching the outside, everything they passed, the people, the buildings, the streets. He wished she’d done something about her hair before heading up here, but it was a bit late now.
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