To Touch the Stars

by Tess Mallory

  Eagle. Sky's voice found him and her mental arms closed around him. You mustn't leave me, she said anxiously. You are withdrawing from Telles's mind and 1 can't stop now to take you out. If you let go of my link? you'll be swept away.

  I can't do this, he said. Yes, you can.

  No he couldn't. He was not ready for this. He and Telles had grown up together on Rigel. He and Telles had grown up together on Rigel. He knew his friend's mother and father. He knew them. He became aware of his heartbeat again, felt his chest rise and fall as air entered him again.

  Come, Sky said to him, pulling him back toward the darkness. We'll find Mayla's handiwork.

  This time they did not enter the place where the images stood. Telles rejoined them, silently, and Eagle felt them rise up together, above the dark mist below. They were flying somehow. Flying through Telles's mind. He shivered with the power of it. No wonder his father feared the Cezans. No wonder he had tried to destroy them.

  Tried to destroy them? Where had that thought come from? No, his father had done nothing to the Cezans. Nothing. They had destroyed themselves by betraying the Andromedan people.

  Shhhhhh. Sky's voice startled him out of his reverie. Stop thinking, Eagle. Stop trying to figure it all out. Look.

  She pointed downward. Below them was a long line of midnight blue, a streak of color against the gray. Then they were standing beside it, suddenly, magically. It stretched like a river at their feet. Telles knelt down beside it, one knee on the ground, his hands linked together over the other.

  This is where Mayla touched Telles's mind, Sky told them.

  Eagle glanced at Sky. She had her eyes closed, her hands stretched out toward the river of blue. He followed the path of her fingers and before his eyes the blue river rose, gyrating in front of them, spinning like a cyclone. The gray began to break up around it, to dissipate like smoke, parting like a dismal curtain to let in a beautiful picture hovering behind. Eagle could see a blue sky, the color as deep as a Rigelian ocean. Pink clouds drifted across the broad expanse and below, a beautiful city glimmered, its tall spires and buildings darting upward like ethereal monuments. The shapes were very familiar to Eagle. He'd been given his first medal in the tallest building, at his first Forces awards ceremony. The image sharpened, shifted, and he could see another, older building, large, once magnificent, now half-demolished, dirty, its columns eroded by time.

  The palace, he whispered.

  The picture changed again, this time giving them an aerial view looking downward on some sort of compound ringed with twisted columns. In the center was a large building, three huge squares built one on top of the other, growing progressively smaller.

  The temple, he said.

  With a start, Eagle realized what he was looking at. He turned to Sky. Telles rose and crossed to stand beside him.

  Andromeda. Eagle made the pronouncement, feeling some sense of relief sweep over him.

  That's where my sister is, Sky said, and he heard her own relief, tempered with fear. Mayla is in one of those places we just saw—either in one of the government buildings, in the old palace of my family, or… She looked directly into Eagle's eyes. In the temple of the Seekers.

  Chapter Eleven

  The Defiant entered orbit around Andromeda, and Sky leaned back in the command chair, releasing her pent-up breath in a soft, soundless sigh. She had set course as soon as she had brought herself and Eagle out of Telles's mind. Eagle hadn't said one word of opposition, but neither had he acknowledged what she had shown him in his friend's thoughts. At the moment, she didn't really care. To be on her way at last to her sister—a thousand sons of Zarn could not shake her elation.

  She had kept her distance from Eagle since they had started for her home world. It had taken three days to reach Andromeda, traveling at top warp, and she had spent most of the first day in her cabin, finishing the healing process she had begun on her shoulder wound, resting for what might He ahead. The second day she had met with Kell, Telles, Eagle, and P'ton to discuss how they would get by the Forces security system that guarded Andromeda. She had been proud of how cool and aloof she had managed to stay, in spite of Eagle's green eyes burning a hole through her during the entire meeting.

  Now they were here, at her homeworld, a place she had not seen in twelve years. Andromeda. Just the name brought back memories so poignantly sweet that tears filled her eyes as she gazed at the views ere en. It was a blue-green world, covered by pale clouds that kept the planet shrouded in secrecy—until Zarn's forces had ripped away the veil of privacy and contentment. Now the clouds remained, but Andromedans were little more than slaves, and the once-proud people viewed with no greater respect than any of Zarn's conquered empires. But it was all about to change. Sky leaned forward, her hands linked together in front of her. "Are we ready?" she asked P'ton. He nodded and she settled back against the chair trying not to look at the helmsman's station where Eagle sat.

  It had been decided at their meeting the day before that they would attempt to enter Andromedan space by using a code Eagle would provide. Eagle would fly the Defiant, and if all went well, the code would bring down the force field protecting the planet long enough to let them slip into the atmosphere. How Telles had managed to circumvent the defense system and bring Mayla to Andromeda—or why—none of them could fathom, and Sky had not been able to discover during her probe into his mind. They had seen no details of his forgotten journey, only the destination.

  Once they breached the force field, they wouldn't be able to shield themselves from the Forces' sensors, but they could sure run like hell once they got inside. Eagle said he could do it, could evade the ships and find a safe place to land to begin their search for Mayla. Now if only he was telling the truth…

  "Prepare to transmit code," she ordered. Kell moved closer to her chair and placed one hand on the high back. She was glad for his presence. Things had been strange between them lately, what with his anger about Eagle and her own tension. After this was over, she would sit down with her friend and they would have a long talk, straighten everything out.

  "Transmit."

  "Aye, aye, Captain," Eagle said. He glanced back and to her astonishment, winked. For some reason she felt the tension leave her shoulders, and she had the oddest sensation that everything was going to be all right.

  Then everything went terribly wrong.

  "The shield isn't going down," Eagle said, his fingers flying across the instruments in front of him. "We're going to have to pull up."

  "What's wrong?" Sky darted a look at Kell, and he crossed the bridge to Eagle's side, taking the empty navigation seat beside him. He began punching in a series of commands and after a moment, turned and nodded at Sky.

  "It isn't responding. Hard about."

  "Hard about, Colonel," she snapped. "Why isn't your code working? Or is this another one of your tricks?"

  "It's possible—no, it's probable—that after the fiasco on his ship, my father contacted Andromeda and told them to change the codes."

  "Damn." Sky knotted one fist. "Now what?"

  "Let me try another angle. I know a few tricks that have been known to fool a shielding program. Maybe I can still get it to lower."

  "The dragon?" Telles's voice came from the lift and Sky turned. He moved across the bridge to Eagle and stopped beside him. His friend glanced up and nodded.

  "Yeah. It worked on Cantus 5."

  "Sure, but that was an old security system. You know Zarn keeps his best defenses around Andromeda and Rigel."

  "It's worth a try."

  "What is the 'dragon'?" Kell asked, piqued out of his silence by his curiosity.

  "Just a program Eagle came up with that keeps a certain part of a shielding system busy while another command sneaks in and orders certain parts to lower. If it works, it'll punch holes in the shield and we'll be able to slip through."

  "But won't they still catch us with their sensors?" Eagle and Telles exchanged glances.

  "That's why we call it
the dragon," Telles explained. "When we hit the holes in the shield, for an instant our image will waver. In that instant, we'll send a burst to the Forces computer telling it that what it is seeing is a dragon."

  Sky stared at him open-mouthed. She shut her lips together abruptly, then shook her head. "A dragon," she repeated. "I might have left your brain more scrambled than I thought."

  Telles chuckled. "They'll be trying to figure it out for at least a few minutes, and that will give us time to evaporate—to head for a secluded landing place."

  "That Eagle will find for us, no doubt."

  He shrugged. "We haven't got a whole lot of choices. Remember, you're the one who was talking about trust."

  "Yeah, right. Trust." Sky turned to face two clear green eyes. "What about it, Colonel—can I trust you to help me find my sister?" Eagle held her gaze without speaking for too long before he finally nodded. "Yes, I'll help you."

  "And then what? What happens after we find her?"

  He clenched his jaw and looked away, back to the views ere en displaying Andromeda in all of her glory. A darkness darted like a shadow across his eyes. "Then?" he said softly. "You get your sister back."

  He turned away and Sky felt the bond between them once again, and this time it told her Eagle was hiding something from her, something dangerous, something likely to break the fragile thread of trust between them.

  The landing was rough. Eagle switched oft? the views ere en computer and for a rare change the bridge window became exactly that: a window. The twisted blue-green vegetation outside the Defiant wafted against the window, the large, fanlike leaves almost covering the ship itself. The "dragon" had worked. He had successfully punched holes in the force field and slipped through, convincing the Forces' computer it was seeing a mythological creature, not a space vehicle, confusing the system and buying them the time they needed to dart across the sky and evade the sensors' second sweep of the area.

  Eagle had known where to land, just as he had promised Sky, and had settled the ship down in a secluded wilderness area near the temple of the Seekers. He frowned. He didn't like being there, didn't want to explore the ancient ruin, but it was the most logical place for Mayla to have hidden, and he had to help Sky find her. Now, more than ever, he was determined to use Mayla as a means by which to force his father to change.

  He thought Sky would understand; still, he couldn't take the chance on her negating his plan under the guise of protecting her sister. He wasn't going to let anything happen to Mayla, but he felt sure there would be no real way to assure Sky of that.

  Sky. Their journey together through Telles's mind had shown him again this woman's inner essence, had bound him to her on a deeper level. He was still struggling with her claims of his parentage, still too afraid to let her inside his own mind, but he had finally found the courage to admit, at least to himself, that he loved her. What she felt for him, he hadn't a clue. She stood now, just behind him, staring out at the lush landscape of her homeworld, her fingers biting tensely into the headrest of his chair.

  "Where are we?" she whispered, her voice filled with something he couldn't define—fear, awe, trepidation? Or was she just overwhelmed because she was home again, at long last?

  "We aren't too far from the Seekers' temple," Telles said, stepping up and peering through the window. "Do you see that large stone?" Sky leaned forward and squinted her eyes. "Near that big tree? Yes."

  "That's a sort of guidepost, a marker, leading to the temple."

  "Sky."

  Eagle glanced up at the man who had spoken. Kell's blue eyes were like hard shards of glass. He had opposed their coming to Andromeda, sure it was some kind of trick, positive that there was no way Telles could have brought Mayla to a world so well guarded by the Dominion, and lived. Eagle had his doubts too, but he knew what he had seen in his friend's mind. Perhaps they should have allowed Kell to come with them into Telles's mind. Leaving him out of the loop had definitely caused a rift between him and Sky and had obviously heightened his suspicions.

  Sky turned to face him, her hesitance obvious. "Yes, Kell?"

  "I am asking you again not to do this. This is a trick."

  He shot Eagle a furious look, then turned his gaze to Telles. "I don't know how they fooled you but I assure you there is no possible way your sister could have been brought to Andromeda without the Dominion being alerted."

  "They haven't been alerted to our presence this time," she countered. "Perhaps Telles used the 'dragon' to gain entrance when he brought her."

  "How do you know they haven't been alerted?" Kell said sharply. "Because he says so?" He gestured at Eagle with one hand, then folded both behind his back, as if aware he was becoming too emotional. His voice calmed. "Sky, I will not follow you into this trap."

  Her chin lifted and her smooth jaw tightened. "Then I will go without you."

  Kell held her gaze, his own pointed chin rising, his eyes becoming hooded, wary. "Very well. That is your decision." He spun on his heel and left the bridge, the doors of the lift sliding shut behind him with solid finality. Sky stared impotently after him before striding across the room to the lift. She stopped and looked back at Telles and Eagle. P'ton and Cordo were busy in engineering and for a moment, the camaraderie, the connection, was back between the three of them in full force.

  "I'm going to my quarters for a few moments to prepare. Please meet me in the docking bay in fifteen minutes." She pressed the button beside the doors. They parted and she disappeared into the lift.

  Eagle watched her stalk into the confines of the elevator, her back ramrod stiff, her shoulders taut, and felt his admiration for the woman flood over him again. What strength, what courage in the face of overwhelming odds. If only he truly was an Andromedan, perhaps… He pushed the thought abruptly away. He was not an Andromedan. He refused to accept it. He didn't know why he was experiencing the strange waking dreams, or why Telles insisted on sticking to this bizarre story of Zarn's treachery against him, but he felt, to the core of his spirit, that he was not Andromedan. Wouldn't he feel it, being back on Andromeda? And he had been here many times over the years and never—His thoughts stopped as though they had hit a stone wall.

  He had never been to the Seekers' temple. How had he known where to land the ship? He shot a look over at Telles. He had never been here either. How did he know about the stone marker?

  "What's going on?" he said, watching his friend's face carefully. "You've never been here before."

  Telles turned from looking out the wide window and raised one golden eyebrow. "I beg your pardon? I was born here. My father brought me to the temple twice a week."

  Eagle rose from his seat, running one hand through his hair before facing the man with his doubt. "Telles, how do you know that someone hasn't implanted these thoughts in your mind?" He saw the barest glimmer of fear dart across the blue-gray eyes and quickly disappear. Eagle moved closer to his friend, ready to press his point.

  "What are you talking about?" Telles asked.

  Eagle leaned back against the control panel next to him and folded his arms across his chest.

  "What if these memories you think you're having about being the son of a Seeker, about my father probing your mind and erasing your memories—what if those thoughts are the ones that have been placed in your mind—by the rebels? If Mayla has the kind of power I suspect she has, it would have been simple for her to do that, especially if you were almost dead, too weak to resist her."

  Again, the brief flicker of fear. Eagle felt a sad sort of triumph. Telles wasn't as sure about all of this as he purported to be.

  "Yes, what you're saying might be true," he said. Eagle couldn't speak for a minute. He'd expected more denials, more arguments, not this careful capitulation. Then Telles continued and he knew he'd been very expertly trapped by his own words, hoisted on his own petard. "But there's only one way to find out."

  "And what would that be?"

  Telles's gaze shifted from Eagle's to the blue-green
jungle outside the Defiant's window. "Our answers lie in there, Eagle. In the temple of the Seekers. Now," he folded his own arms in mirrorlike imitation, "the question is, do you have the guts to face the truth? Do you have the courage to find out who the hell you really are?"

  Eagle couldn't help the quick glance toward the mammoth stone in the distance, couldn't help the sharp intake of breath. He'd rather face a hundred Centaurian bone-disjointers than walk inside the ancient ruins of the Seekers' temple. Telles was right. It would take courage for him to search their archives and prove to his friend there was no record of his existence on Andromeda.

  A cold sweat broke out across the back of his neck and on the palms of his hands. The archives? What archives? Everyone knew the writings and records of the Seekers—the great historians and philosophers of Andromeda—had been destroyed by their own people after Zarn's Forces arrived and eradicated the threat of the slavers, placing the world under his protection. All records of Andromedan history were gone. Then why did he know they existed? Why did he have a very clear picture in his mind of exactly where those ancient archives were located?

  He staggered a little as the blood rushed away from his head, and Telles held out a steadying hand against his shoulder.

  "Eagle, what is it?"

  "Nothing. I—" He broke off and shook his head. "Nothing. Sky's waiting. We'd better get going."

  "You didn't answer me." Telles's fingers tightened on his shoulder, keeping him from moving. "The answer for both of us lies in the temple of the Seekers. Are you willing to look for the truth, and accept it when we find it?"

  "If we find it."

  Telles smiled, a grim, tight smile. "We'll find it."

  Eagle straightened his shoulders and Telles's hand fell away. "All right," he agreed. "If this is what it takes to make you realize you're the one being duped, then I'll help you search for this so-called proof" He turned and let his gaze sweep over his friend. When this was all over, Zarn would kill Telles unless Eagle could convince him otherwise. "If we don't find it," he said, "you have to come back with me to the Forces." Telles's mouth lifted in a real smile. "So your father can execute me for treason? I don't think so."