“Okay…” Jon said, bemused by these actions.
Bast raised his head. He looked frightened. Finally, he shoved upright and cocked his head.
Jon waited, wondering what the weird performance meant.
“I am not…convinced on the truth of the matter,” Bast said in a shaky voice. “I felt sure on the Gilgamesh. That is why I spoke to Gloria.”
“She didn’t mention anything about this to me,” Jon said. “Hmm, that’s odd. She would have told me if you were coming back.”
The shock in Bast intensified. He moved his mouth without saying anything. Finally:
“There was a legend on my world. According to it, we Sacerdotes did not originate on our…what we called our home planet. Long ago, the legend goes, we fled our first home. After landing on our new home, we fought a hidden race already there. The war proved long and disastrous, as we became vicious in order to defeat a vicious foe. We lost much during the war, including the knowledge of space travel and other industrial blessings.”
“You’ve never told me any of this before.”
“Please,” Bast said. “I…I have begun to wonder at my own sanity. I have committed a terrible deed. I attempted a thing no Sacerdote was supposed to do unless…”
Bast rubbed the back of his head like a man losing his mind.
“I feel at times as if I’m dreaming. Yet…that may be another evil because of what I’ve done.”
“Settle down,” Jon said. “I have no idea what you’re babbling about.”
“I checked the computer before I came here to talk to you. You Earthlings know about witches.”
“What?” Jon said.
“Witches cast spells. Is that not so?”
“That’s fantasy, Bast.”
“No,” the Sacerdote said. “Witches are all too real. They have potent spells allowing them to shimmer with power. We fought them, Jon. The hidden ones had come to our new world, too, before our arrival. Maybe they had been heretics on their old world. In the final days of the Great War, our elders learned that the hidden ones had come from a cold wet world in the Ester System. The witches could understand minds without using speech. They could force the weak-willed to do terrible deeds. They talked with each other over long distances.”
“Yeah?” Jon said.
“I searched the computer,” Bast said in a rote manner. “You have another name for such creatures. Telepaths.”
Jon blinked several times. “You’re talking about mind readers. You don’t mean real witches.”
“Yes, real witches.”
“No,” Jon said. “Real witches use black magic. That’s not what you’re talking about.”
“I am speaking about the Seiner power of their telepathic hive minds.”
Jon stared at Bast in disbelief. Finally, he shrugged.
“If bloody-minded AIs are real,” he muttered, “why not real alien telepaths, too. But what does any of that have to do with us?”
“This is difficult for me,” Bast said. “In the ancient days when the Sacerdotes and Seiners fought on our new world, we delved into our own minds in order to face our deadly foes. Using the shimmer cost a Sacerdote dearly. But some did it to save our race. Because the elders realized we might someday face Seiners again, they kept the old knowledge alive. In their youth, all Sacerdotes learned how to tap their minds. But we were warned never to do so unless…”
Bast rubbed the back of his head again. He seemed agitated.
“I felt someone watching me aboard the Gilgamesh. I felt her mind trying to pry into mine. At first, I blocked her while mentally solving a difficult mathematical formula. After her shimmer departed, I recalled the old teaching. I opened my spirit, Jon. I reached out and brushed her mind while she spoke to Premier Benz.”
“Go on,” Jon said, grimly.
“She is the Magistrate Yellow Ellowyn,” Bast said. “She is the strongest of her kind. The AIs attacked her world. The surviving Seiners fled the star system. Some hid on Mars.”
“Mars, huh? Yeah, I’m beginning to see the connection to the Gilgamesh. You’re saying there were alien telepaths on Mars?”
“Yes. I think they came to Benz. I believe the Premier tried to control her, but he failed. She is most interested in the AIs. For reasons I cannot fathom, I believe she is hindering us from developing the new virus.”
“That doesn’t make much sense if she hopes to control the battle station.”
“There’s more,” Bast said. “Vela is missing because of her. We need Vela. The Seiner realized that, I think. She is not going to make that mistake again.”
“What mistake?”
Bast shook his head.
“I heard pieces, Jon. I felt her…evil. She means us harm.”
“Us, as in the flotilla?” asked Jon.
“I believe us as in humans, even though I am not human.”
“She’s taken over Benz?”
“That is a logical conclusion.”
“And if she’s staying hidden…she doesn’t trust us.”
“Seiners never trust. They are a vicious race according to all the legends I know.”
“One good alien species—Sacerdotes—but a whole heck of a lot of bad ones,” Jon said. “Suppose you’re not flipping out. Suppose this is all true. What do you propose we do?”
“We must kill the Seiner in order to free the Gilgamesh and save ourselves.”
“Did she sense your telepathy?”
“I am unsure. I think she will if I attempt the shimmer again. But there is another problem. Sacerdotes are not born telepaths. Only one Sacerdote in a million could use his or her limited telepathy without going mad. I dare not do what I did again. I can already feel the moorings of my sanity slipping. I do not want to become a raving lunatic.”
“But if you’re the only one who can face her—”
“No,” Bast said, interrupting. “That is not quite how it works. I overheard her speaking to Benz. She cannot read my mind easily. I believe she has trouble reading yours as well.”
“You’re kidding? Why do I have a protected mind?”
“She said some semi-hive mind species have loners. Once a Seiner learns a species mind pattern, he or she can control anyone of that race. But loners have different modes of thought. You are such a one among humans.”
Jon picked up a billiard ball, hefting it. He set the ball on the table and flung it into a back pocket.
“You’re saying you and I are immune to her full power?”
“I am while I concentrate on the mathematical formula. I cannot do that forever, though. You, though, I suspect she cannot enter your mind.”
“It’s just the two of us, huh?”
“Unless you believe there are more of you that have this loner type of mind.”
Jon rubbed his chin. This seemed like a crazy out of the blue problem to have now while facing two approaching cyberships and an AI battle station afterward. Somehow, Benz had picked up an alien hiding on Mars. This alien was screwing with the people aboard the Gilgamesh. Benz had been acting strangely lately.
“How many of these Seiners are on the Gilgamesh?” asked Jon.
“I cannot be utterly accurate, but I think one or two at most.”
“So…we can either turn on the Gilgamesh, destroying the cybership to get rid of this…mind reading alien witch. Or—”
Jon turned toward Bast. The commander laughed sharply.
“Do you sense her?” asked Bast.
“Nope,” Jon said. “But I have an idea about how to solve the problem. She read your mind a little…didn’t she?”
“No, I—”
“Bast, you had a math shield. I doubt you know if it was one hundred percent solid. You’re afraid to practice more telepathy. Okay. Here’s the point. If I don’t tell you anything, you can’t give it away.”
“Yes… That is true.”
“Yeah,” Jon said, as he began to walk around the pool table. “You have to go back, Bast.”
“I w
ould rather not.”
“You have to. I can’t tell you why just yet, but you have to. Let’s see….” Jon stood still as he made some swift calculations. “Let’s say, in another two days. You’ll go then.”
“If you think I must,” Bast said.
“We can’t risk a fight with the Gilgamesh. If we’re going to grab the battle station, we need Premier Benz’s vessel. We need a new and improved AI virus. But it sounds like we’re not going to get it until the Seiner is out of the way.”
“That all makes sense.”
“Yeah,” Jon said. “I think so, too. You do your part, Bast, and let me do mine.”
“Do you believe you can succeed?”
A crooked and rather sinister smile stretched Jon’s lips.
“Yeah, Bast, I think we can.”
-27-
As the flotilla raced for the most inward gas giant, as the AI cyberships maneuvered out toward the same Jovian world, Walleye sauntered along a medium-sized corridor in the Gilgamesh. Hawkins had sent him over.
The mutant from Makemake wore his buff coat. He received a few odd glances from Martian crewmembers but otherwise seemed to move like a ghost through the mighty cybership.
Walleye had rejoined the Nathan Graham a day ago. He’d been accelerating in the Daisy Chain 4 for quite some time. To aid him, the three cyberships had decelerated just a little. That little had been enough to bring the Daisy Chain 4 close enough so to begin braking maneuvers.
Walleye sighed as he sauntered into a Gilgamesh cafeteria.
Nothing had gone as he’d thought. Oh, he’d spoken to Commander Hawkins after boarding the Nathan Graham. They hadn’t talked about the destroyer, his decisions as mission captain or the failure to stop the robot ship from beaming a message to the battle station. Not on your life. Instead, Hawkins had given him a fantastic tale about alien telepaths living on Mars, mind control and the so-called fact that loner humans appeared to be impervious to their telepathic powers.
“I’m a loner,” Hawkins had told him. “I suspect that you’re a loner, too. That means the Seiner can’t read your thoughts.”
Everything he’d said after that had made sense. Walleye had been an assassin on Makemake. Here aboard the Gilgamesh, humanity badly needed one. Thus, Walleye was back to his old tricks.
In the cafeteria, Walleye grabbed a burger, coffee and fries. He went to a table and began to eat.
It seemed to him that he was probably the least likely candidate to pull this off. If a telepath couldn’t read his mind, he was the obvious person she should worry about. If he were a telepath, he would put the new mutant in the brig.
So far, that hadn’t happened. He wondered why. As he munched on the fries—Walleye loved fries more than anything—he came to a conclusion. The telepath must have ordered ship security to watch him. That’s what he would have done in her place.
Hawkins had gone into detail concerning his mission. The commander had told him about Bast Banbeck. That had surprised Walleye. Not the information itself—he believed it. He was surprised that Hawkins trusted him enough with the fantastic revelation about his Sacerdote friend.
As Walleye ate his burger, he realized Bast would have to risk madness one more time. If the Sacerdote refused…
Walleye dabbed his lips and pushed the empty plate aside. He sipped coffee afterward, thinking through all the angles. He’d been here a day. He’d wandered around and had come to a conclusion regarding the alien’s probable location.
Walleye finished the coffee, set the cup on the plate and brought them both to the dispenser. Afterward, he put his hands in his buff coat pockets and began to saunter to Bast’s quarters. In Walleye’s estimation, it was time to make their move.
***
“Now?” asked Bast.
The huge Sacerdote shook his head. The alien sat on his cot with his vast hands clasped between his knees.
Walleye gauged the Sacerdote. He didn’t know the species that well. Bast seemed human in most ways, but there were variations. Besides, Walleye didn’t want to guess. He kept it uppermost in mind that Bast was an alien. That meant he wasn’t human. Bast might be 90 or 95 percent human. But chimpanzees had near human DNA, and they weren’t really human at all. So, Walleye would not try to apply human motivations to any of Bast’s actions.
Bast looked away. He didn’t seem to be staring at anything in particular. Finally, he concentrated on Walleye again.
“I can’t do it,” the Sacerdote said.
Despite Bast’s resolve, Walleye sensed great sadness in the giant.
“I want to rid the ship of the witch.” Bast shook his ponderous head. “But I do not want to lose my mind in the process.”
“I don’t want to get shot and have my heart stop beating,” Walleye said. “But dead is dead, so how does it make any difference how it happens?”
“Going mad isn’t dead.”
“Right,” Walleye said. “There is that aspect to it. If you’re crazy, there’s a chance someone can cure you. So there’s even less reason for you to hesitate.”
Bast made a forlorn sound.
“You do not understand,” the Sacerdote said.
“Never said I did,” Walleye replied.
“If I go mad, I might cause terrible havoc to the rest of you. We Sacerdotes have latent mental powers, but they come at a great cost. How does it help the rest of you if the Seiner dies but a more terrible menace rises in her place?”
“It doesn’t,” Walleye said flatly.
Bast stared at the little mutant. Finally, the Sacerdote smiled sadly.
“I like you, Walleye. You are different from the rest. There is strength in you. You have…a terrible competence.”
“Bast, it’s simple. They’re watching me. As long as they do, I cannot act as I’d like.”
“I’m not a trained telepath. I can mentally follow someone who has spied on me. But what you’re suggesting is far beyond my competence. It won’t work.”
Walleye turned away as he ingested Bast’s news. He didn’t see the mission working now, as he doubted he could sneak near the Seiner’s quarters undetected. He simply did not believe the Seiner hadn’t tested each of them as they left the shuttle. He had to be a marked man. She would have tried to read his thoughts, come up empty and realized he was the dangerous one. It would seem she’d decided to give him free rein of the ship for a time. Why would she have done that?
Walleye nodded to himself.
She wanted to see what he would do. If there were a few minds she couldn’t read, she would judge them by their actions.
How could he use that against her? They allowed him free reign but logically kept a close watch on his actions. They would pounce on him if he headed for her area of the ship. He recalled seeing a few too many people in that area. Those had been goons, guards, he supposed.
Suddenly, a sly smile stole over Walleye. He had a low probability method of killing the telepath. It wouldn’t be much of a chance, but at least it would be something.
Walleye turned back to Bast.
“You won’t delve into your mind, huh?” he asked.
Bast shook his head.
“Are you adverse to direct action?”
“What do you mean?” Bast asked.
Walleye told him.
Bast looked away again. Finally, the huge fellow sighed.
“I do not like that method either. I am not a soldier by nature.”
Walleye waited for Bast to make up his mind.
“Yet…I am willing. As you said, dead is dead. Let us attempt this. When do you think would be the best time?”
Walleye glanced at his chronometer and then looked around the room. When he didn’t see what he needed, he went to the closest. With his hand on the door-handle, he turned to the Sacerdote and raised an eyebrow.
“Yes,” Bast said.
Walleye opened the closet door and rummaged around. Here’s where he’d stashed it. He stepped outside with the item in hand.
“What’s the saying?” Walleye asked. “Right. There’s no time like the present.”
“Now?” asked Bast, sounding dismayed.
Walleye nodded.
“Then hand me the weapon,” Bast said.
-28-
The idea was simple. If security teams watched them through ship cameras, then Bast and he had to use speed combined with surprise.
Walleye had found many truisms in his trade. Here on the Gilgamesh, the enemy had overwhelming strength. It was similar to when toughs brought a sniveling mark to see a boss. The toughs were big and strong and usually armed to the teeth. The mark was terrified, wondering if he would leave the boss’s place alive and with all his fingers. Under those conditions, one of the best chances came from drawing a hidden knife, lunging at the boss and stabbing him in the eye before anyone could draw his gun. Later, the toughs could kill the “sniveling mark” killer, but the assassin would have taken out the boss.
On the Gilgamesh, security had overwhelming strength. Plus, they must be studying him to see what he would do. Naturally, they could have people in place to stop the small mutant. Would they have enough people in place to stop a charging Sacerdote with a heavy combat rifle and with Walleye bringing up the rear? Would they be ready for a direct assault upon the Seiner’s quarters?
Possibly. Then again, possibly not.
Walleye was counting on the latter. If he was wrong, well, dead was dead. So far, no one had paid any attention to him and the huge Sacerdote as they trudged down a corridor.
Bast didn’t have the combat rifle out. He carried a load of supplies. That was camouflage. Hidden among the apparently heavy supplies was the combat rifle. When Walleye gave the signal—
Ah, Walleye noted two security people ahead. That would be the starting line. That was out of bounds for them. Thus, once they entered that area, undoubtedly, alarms would ring. Then it would be a matter of who was faster. That’s why speed and surprise would be so critical for them.
The situation began to play out as Bast approached the two people.
“Just a sec,” said a beefy man. He wore a Martian Space Service uniform and was much thicker than the average citizen of the Red Planet.
A.I. Battle Station (The A.I. Series Book 4) Page 27