"I know," Tiri agreed, taking a chair nearby. "We have a few hairs to work with, and even though we're using only a microscopic bit at a time, we have an entire universe to search, rather than a single planet, like we usually do."
Our talent was inherited from our grandmother, who'd been dead for years. At least we'd improved on what we'd learned from her, employing something that vibrated at a similar frequency to search for like items in the same era.
Not-so-important scroll fragments from the same time period could be used to search for a much more important set of writings. Bits of clay pots would assist us in finding caches of ancient pottery, which in turn could pinpoint ancient cities or burial grounds.
We'd discovered so many ancient things this way, including buried coins and other treasure, by using a single coin minted by the same dynasty.
If we knew the planet where Mae'Sandar Keel had been taken, we'd likely have found her already.
"We have to keep looking," Tiri said. "Just not right now. I need a long bath or a swim or something."
"I want a swim," I said. XIII was large enough to have a lap pool near the back. Swimming was our exercise of choice, to get a series of failures out of our minds through physical effort.
"I really wanted to see Director Riffler again," Tiri stretched and yawned. "He certainly appeared interested."
"You know we intimidate men," I pointed out. "We're not helpless or stupid, and you know how that goes, sometimes. He's had plenty of time to rethink his attraction."
"Then let's go swim and get everything out of our heads for a while."
"Right behind you." We walked out of our lab together.
CSD Headquarters, Campiaa City
Jett Riffler
I'd called myself a fool and sent required records for signatures by comp-vid to Randl, instead of showing up on BlackWing XIII, hoping to have dinner with two beautiful women.
What if they didn't want to be paired or courted together?
A Fi'Gu, or leader of his race, required at least two wives when he married. It was tradition.
They probably knew that by now; the tattoo on my face announced what I was to those who knew, and those two were more than knowledgeable of ancient races and customs.
Perhaps they weren't attracted to tattoos—some weren't. Half my body was covered in tattoos—a Fi'Gu's markings.
You're overthinking this, I scolded myself. Truth was, I hadn't been attracted to anyone for nearly a century. I'd been too busy handling things for my race and for the CSD—sometimes at the same time.
It would be comforting to have wives who not only cared for one another, but who understood customs and traditions.
"Damn." I rubbed my forehead. "Get back to work," I ordered myself. Things would either work out or they wouldn't, and I had no time to make myself crazy over what lust and attraction could do to the best among us.
Prophet's Compound
Le'Vestar Limn
Mae and I were halfway to our goal of sequestering the hold the Prophet held over us when he walked into our laboratory, followed by a terrified Yurik. I saw the struggle in Mae's eyes, first—getting that close to the one who held our reins made the obsession more virulent.
"Yurik has been unsuccessful in obtaining certain replacement parts for my ship," the Prophet said, his words and voice sounding as well-oiled and poisoned as a venomous snake's. His left hand moved continuously as he clacked two round objects together. From the sound of it—they were made of solid glass.
"It is an older ship, my Lord," I ignored the questions in my mind and dipped my head to him before he could accost Mae about parts we didn't have.
"What shall I do? I want my ship functional," the Prophet snapped.
"If we had proper equipment, we could fabricate the parts ourselves."
"You're sure of this?"
"Yes. I am an engineer, as you know, as is my colleague." I nodded toward Mae, whose eyes held unblinking terror.
"Very good. Yurik, find what they need to manufacture parts. I wish to send my pilots out in search of other ships."
"It will be done, my Lord," Yurik bowed low.
"Of course it will be done." Tossing out his right hand, the Prophet casually forced power through his fingers. Yurik was knocked off his feet and into a nearby table, jarring everything we'd laid upon it and causing a few important things to fall.
As ringing metal fittings clanged and rolled across the concrete floor, the Prophet disappeared from our presence in an angry burst of light.
Chapter 8
Queen's Palace, Le-Ath Veronis
Kooper
"Searching through the waste from an entire neighborhood has turned into a foolish quest," I told Queen Lissa. "As for stomach contents and such, there's nothing out of the ordinary there, either."
"Have you had Randl check what's been removed from stomachs?" Lissa asked.
"No, we only checked for poisons. I'll have Randl on it by the end of the day, though."
"Sounds good. Doesn't hurt to check everything, does it?"
"Of course not." I silently berated myself for not thinking of it already. "I'll have Opal and Kell look into it, too."
"Kell would know poisons better than anyone." Lissa's words were dry.
He would—as the creator and head vampire of the Order of the Night Flower, Kell was the expert on such in both Alliances. Subtle poisonings were his specialty.
Had the Prophet taken up the craft, too, with less than honorable intentions? Had he created something that would get past our most sensitive equipment?
What poison would turn a family against each other? Had he found a way to infuse it with obsession?
"I believe we just had the same thought," Lissa said. "And it's terrifying."
BlackWing XIII
Randl
"We're treating this as a biohazard," Kell said as he directed the sealed carry-bot to my desk using his comp-vid. "We haven't touched any part of it, and don't intend to."
Stomach contents of the latest victims sloshed inside the clear globes of the carry-bot. I shoved the idea of where the brown mushiness had originated and concentrated on finding any connection with the Prophet.
"There's absolutely nothing there," I shook my head at Kell.
"Well, it was a thought," Kell sighed.
"No, I didn't make myself clear," I said. "This—stuff, whatever it is—didn't come from the Lindom family. I don't know where it came from, but it isn't from anyone's stomach."
"Fucking hells," Opal hissed. She'd stood behind Kell, a silent witness to our exchange. Her anger had come quickly, however.
Someone, somewhere, had switched the contents removed from the Lindoms' stomachs for something else.
"I just sent mindspeech to Kooper," Kell growled. "He's not pleased."
"Find out what happened to the same contents from the Gant family," I said.
"Already on it," Kell replied. "Keep that contained and sequestered," he pointed to the carry-bot. "We'll be back."
Avii Castle
Quin
"He's obsessed," I handed the photograph of Kooper's Chief Forensics Officer back. Kooper looked angry enough to blast his comp-vid to pieces once I told him what I'd seen. I'd gone through images of everyone in the forensics lab, getting to the Chief at the last.
The Prophet was extending his reign of terror to include innocent families, and we still hadn't determined how he'd done it. Both families had ingested something infected with the Prophet's disease, that much was clear, and he'd reached out to command one of Kooper's employees to remove the evidence of it.
I didn't want to tell Kooper what I thought—that this was the Prophet's way of retaliating against him and Jett for standing against him on Campiaa. The Prophet had lost an entire fleet of stolen ships in that battle, along with his dead army and many of his minions on the ground.
Randl was obviously first on the Prophet's list to destroy, but Kooper and Jett were close behind.
"He want
s me, too—doesn't he?" Kooper guessed what I was thinking.
"And Director Riffler. He has all along, remember? Randl has inserted himself deliberately onto the Prophet's kill list, but the Prophet was targeting Jett and you on Pyrik, and then again on Campiaa. Getting you and the Alliance leaders out of the way would allow him to take over. You've managed to fight him back every time, plus, the ASD and CSD, working together, destroyed his new fleet of ships. He's furious, now."
"Do you think he may have counted on jealousy between Directors?"
"That's possible. If he did, he's more than disappointed that you continue to work together, rather than pursue him separately."
"Something to think about," Kooper said absently. I knew he was thinking about Randl, now, and how Randl often was a step or two ahead of both Directors. Kooper couldn't feel jealousy, but he could feel envy and frustration. Randl could and did do things that Kooper couldn't.
Saying something to Kooper about that could only make things worse, too, so I didn't. "It's going to take all of us, working together, to bring the Prophet down, Director Griff," I told him instead.
"You're right. Thank you, Quin. I have a Chief of Forensics to corner, now."
"I hope you find him," I said.
Kooper closed his eyes for a moment as his shoulders slumped. He didn't have to ask what else I'd seen in the image—that the man Kooper now hunted had disappeared, even from my finding skills.
BlackWing XIII
Randl
Kell and Opal returned for the carry-bot, and to let me know the information Quin had given Kooper. The Chief Forensics Officer for the ASD had been compromised and obsessed by the Prophet.
He'd replaced stomach contents with mush and then disappeared. The Prophet was telling us that he could get to anyone he wanted, just because he wanted, and for now, we were powerless to stop him.
If it were the Prophet's intention to stretch Kooper and Jett's resources to the limit, he was doing a fine job of it. I had no idea how many people they'd already assigned to track down sources and uses of recycled concrete; every ship in the BlackWing fleet was either searching for the bone-filled concrete stashes the Prophet had already made or looking for his kidnapped victims, and then there were the usual criminal activities that they were already investigating.
"This is impossible," Opal shook her head as Kell directed the carry-bot to follow him.
"Yeah. That's it in a nutshell," I agreed. "We may never know what those two families ate that the Prophet contaminated. It could be a single ingredient—or the entire meal."
"One family had salad and a noodle casserole; the other pork and apples," Kell agreed. "Not much in the crossover department. Have you considered that some of the stolen items from the food warehouse may have been used?"
"I've considered it, and concede it's possible," I said. "But how did he get it into two households? Security vids show nothing, as you know."
"I'll look into the food shopping habits of both households, then," Opal offered. "I'll let you know if I find anything."
"Thank you."
"He could be dead, for all we know," I told Travis and Trent at a private dinner meeting. I'd filled them in on the Chief of Forensics disappearance, after he'd sabotaged the investigation into the deaths of two families.
"I worry about the food supply being compromised," Trent rumbled. "This could affect anybody anywhere."
"I've spoken with Gerrett about what those families used to cook their meals—ingredients and such, and there's not much to go on. No similarities in components that we can tell."
"Then the Prophet isn't limiting his influence on a single thing," Travis grimaced. "Fucker."
"And, like the recycled concrete, he can choose whenever he wants to activate his influence," I pointed out.
"Fucker is too nice a term for the Prophet, bro," Trent told Travis. "It gives ordinary, everyday fuckers a bad name."
"Agreed. I'll certainly revise my description. Thank you for the input."
"Anytime. It's the least I can do."
"You've always been helpful that way."
"You know it, bro. Want to settle this in the dojo?"
"What just happened?" I asked, after looking from one brother to the other.
"Come on, dude. You need to work off some anger and anxiety, too. Grab your blades and we'll get on it." Travis stood and stomped out of my office.
Miz'Sandar
"A laser rifle has more kick than the newest version of a ranos rifle," Markus told me as I took aim at the target. "These replicas will give you the weight and feel of the real thing."
I held a replica of a ranos rifle in my hands, wondering how much less a kick it had. I'd always braced myself when I was learning how to fire the laser rifles. I was about to fire when Captains Travis and Trent, followed by Randl, walked into the exercise facility.
All three carried swords. Not practice swords—these appeared real in every way.
"Those aren't their Grey House blades, or Randl's personal swords that nobody else can use," Markus found me gazing at the new arrivals. "Those are just everyday blades that a warrior on Falchan might have."
"A Falchani warrior's blades are serious enough," I said, blinking as blades were set aside while all three went through a stretching session.
Vik showed up then, armed just like the other three. I was going to see all of them fight with two blades and found myself looking forward to it.
"We can take a break," Markus grinned. "It's fun to watch them," he added.
By the time stretching was over, a larger audience had arrived, including Sabrina, Dori, David and several others.
"They blow off steam this way," David said as he settled on the bench beside me. "I figure they got some not-so-good news and they're working their way through it."
"Don't worry, we'll hear what it is before long," Markus, on my other side, patted my shoulder.
"But what if it's about Mae?" I asked, struggling to keep my voice steady.
"They'd have come to you already," David replied. "I think it's something to do with those two families who turned on themselves. We already know the Prophet is involved—they may have some disturbing updates for us."
"Stop worrying about it and watch," Markus said softly, rubbing my back for a brief few seconds. "Here we go." Markus dropped his hand; I jerked in my seat as Travis and Trent attacked one another so swiftly I almost missed it.
Randl
"I doubt the Forensics Chief was kidnapped. He's obsessed, so all they had to do was crook their finger and he'd go willingly," I answered Miz's question at the ship's meeting later.
The sparring session had helped a great deal—things were falling into place and there was less panic as they did so. "The powerful can't find him anywhere, so he's hidden by a Sirenali, just like the Prophet and his minions," I went on.
"He's probably with the Prophet, then, advising him on new ways to contaminate food and interfere with the investigation," David complained.
Those were my concerns, too, so I didn't respond. Having a Chief of Forensics expert on your staff could lead to all sorts of criminally-induced ideas.
"Are there any other obsessed employees at the ASD or CSD?" Dori asked.
"Quin is going through all the rosters again," I said. "It's a long and tedious process, and could require repeating almost daily."
"That's not good," Vik growled.
"It's easier than having them followed—they'd be following themselves," Trent said. "The Prophet is deliberately spreading our resources thin. With these random murders, he's forcing us to scramble to make sense of any of it, when there likely isn't any to be found."
Trent was probably right—if I wanted to create chaos, it's exactly what I would do. I just couldn't figure out, yet, how the Prophet arranged for those killings to happen so randomly.
"Do you suppose it's like putting one piece of poisoned fruit in the barrel, waiting for an unsuspecting innocent to come along and take it?" Miz asked
. His brow was creased as his mind sorted through possibilities.
"Miz, I think you may be right," I said, forcing myself not to shudder. Wherever the poisoned items had been placed, it had been completely random, in my opinion—a bomb waiting for someone to pick it up and take it home with them.
Kell, I sent mindspeech. I want names of markets and grocery outlets where both those families shopped, and then we need vid images covering the days they last shopped there.
On it, Kell replied. I'll have it for you by tomorrow. Want me to report this to Kooper?
I can do it, I said. I need to speak with him anyway.
Good. Thank you.
I'd already decided to have a meeting with Kooper—and Jett, Teeg San Gerxon and Queen Lissa. She'd relay important information to Ildevar Wyyld, the Founder of the Reth Alliance.
It was only a matter of time, now, before the Prophet played his hand—offering to stop murdering innocent families in exchange for information.
On me.
Founder's Palace, Campiaa
Wyatt San Gerxon
When Randl asked to have a meeting with Dad, Kooper, Jett, Gran and me, we had it put together in record time. We now sat in Dad's meeting room to discuss new information regarding the family murders on Pyrik and Lordinus. Opal and Kell accompanied Kooper when he arrived, as they had information to share, too.
Jayna sat beside me; Dad wanted her and Tybus in the meeting with us.
"We've gone through security images from the grocery shops both families frequented," Kell began. "There's nothing out of the ordinary in either. We do have a list of items purchased, however, so we're backtracking to packing facilities, growers, everything. Somewhere along that chain of food handling, the Prophet placed something he contaminated, waiting for someone, somewhere, to consume it."
"I get angry, every time I think that going into the kitchen to cook could result in somebody's death," Gran huffed. She loved to cook. As she was powerful, the infection might not affect her, but it could destroy the comesuli who worked in the palace, along with any unsuspecting humanoids.
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