Only Human

by Chris Reher

  Nova immediately dropped the Eagle to hover between the transport and Tychon to shield him as his kite succeeded in breaking the large ship into several pieces. She cringed when she felt pieces of the hull impact against the Eagle's shields.

  "Ty!" she shouted and recast her sensors to follow his trajectory away from the blast.

  It really, really hurts when you do that, Captain. Don't shout into someone's brain like that. Now if you could come and get me we could get out of here.

  I’m still collecting shrapnel for you.

  Kind of you. Let's see if we can fish me out of this pond before I run out of air. Open the cargo bay door.

  You'll have to duck. I might have forgotten to secure the galley bins.

  Can you see what I'm seeing?

  Sort of, she acknowledged. More like I know what you're seeing. Damn, shrill coming at us! She shot away, far enough to flip the Eagle and return, taking the enemy ship head-on. It flung a wide swath of debris and she felt parts collide with the ship. Please tell me you didn't catch any of that!

  I'm all right, came the unruffled reply. Focus on what I'm seeing. I'll guide you here. Don't use real-vid or it'll feel like you're looking in a mirror. Just feel me. Drop the shields and spin down the gravity. Once I get close enough the Eagle should start pulling me. I'd like to end up inside the bay, not stuck to the hull.

  She carefully directed the ship, relying on his infinite patience to help her nudge the Eagle toward where he floated, his suit and the small store of oxygen in his seat the only thing between him and the cold nothing of space. She closed her eyes as she edged closer to him, aware of how small the cargo gate suddenly appeared. It seemed an eternity before he slipped into the bay, using the container rail to pull himself inside. She gasped for breath that she hadn't been aware of holding as she restored gravity and air pressure.

  Only moments later, he sauntered into the cabin, grinning triumphantly as he removed his helmet and gloves.

  That was some fancy footwork, Captain. Headwork.

  Nova jumped out of her couch, barely taking a moment to remove her headset. “Are you out of your mind?”

  He sent a mental question.

  “That was damn risky, Tychon! What if I hadn't been able to get through the reach? What if they hadn't been interested in captives?"

  "They would not turn their noses up at a free kite, not even a damaged one."

  "That is supposing an awful lot! Punching out in the middle of nowhere? You could have been killed!"

  "I got that idea from you, actually."

  "I bailed with a parachute, not in space! What if you'd been hit by some of that junk? What if we hadn't managed to pick you up? You'd still be floating around out there. We're alone here and no one knows where we are. If you haven't noticed, we don't have a spare spanner on board."

  "Welcome to the Vanguard, Captain. This is what we do here. Of course there were risks. But they were a lot lower because I know you can keep it together. At least during a scramble, if not after."

  Her shoulders slumped. "You're a madman. Sir."

  Thank you for worrying about me, he said silently. He stepped closer to her and adjusted his hands around her head.

  "What are you doing now?"

  Closing the khamal.

  "The what?" Nova felt his touch within her mind. As a door closes, so the link between them shut. She could no longer receive his thoughts. She felt a brief sensation of loss, as if he had taken away something that had been an almost physical comfort.

  He looked into her eyes for a long moment before he removed his hands from her face. "All right?"

  She nodded and quickly stepped away.

  "It's called a khamal. This one is just telepathy of sorts. Not all species are receptive to it. Your interface did most of the work. Khamal is a broad term, really. It just describes any one of many states of perception or consciousness. To us even sleep is a khamal."

  "How many are there?"

  "That depends on how well trained you are. I can use five or six. Some people can produce more than twenty that I know of. Originally, the main purpose of the khamal was to achieve serenity, to help in prayer and meditation. Most of us are usually in one state of khamal or another. Certain forms of khamal are used for communication and teaching, others for healing. People sharing a khamal must be touching when it begins and ends."

  “Why don’t we always talk like this? In our heads.”

  “It takes a lot of energy and concentration. And it gives me a nasty headache. Probably because you’re not Delphian and I have to use your nodes to reach you. I’d ask one of our healers about that but I have the feeling they won’t like me even telling an off-worlder about this, never mind engaging in it.”

  "Can I learn this?"

  "Not this one, Human. I can teach you some other ones. Like how to stay calm and not shout at your commanding officer."

  She moved ahead of him into the cockpit. "Nothing left out there but salvage." She cast the ship's sensors to get a bearing on their location and then got a bearing on the cabin. Every loose object had floated free during the rescue and now lay scattered over the floor of the ship. "And since it's your fault that we had to go zero-G, you get to clean this place up, Major."

  He surveyed the cabin to see her boots, her helmet, her reader, her gun, her tea bottle, her unfinished charts and several pretty combs that also weren't his. He sighed and dropped heavily onto his couch. "You're going to have to jump, Greenie. I think I got a little buzzed out there." He held up his hand to show her his fingernails. "Not that you can tell if I turn blue."

  "I think you just made a joke."

  "It's the hypoxia, I think." He fastened an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose.

  "Just in case you are seriously impaired, can I remind you, Major, that I've never spanned a reach on my own before? I'm just a chartjumper, remember? Not a genius."

  "It'll be fine," he said, his voice muffled. "The beacon they posted will still be near Targon. So it's sort of like being charted. Just not stable. Let the ship find the keyhole and then look for the beacon. I'll be right here."

  "If you're sure..." she said, already engaging her interface, hoping that he would not suddenly come to his senses and remember established operating procedure.

  "Breach the reach, Skipper!"

  * * *

  Targon was in a state of celebration when the Eagle touched down in the central hangar. A cheer rolled through the crowd when her pilots descended along the lowered rear gate. Overhead, a large screen looped a video that Nova had sent of the enemy carrier falling apart. The exuberant crowd shouted approval each time they saw the Major's chair eject from his kite.

  Nova blushed, unaccustomed to so much attention. Tychon winced when he saw the display and hoped to avoid Colonel Carras for a while.

  There was a noticeable sobering of spirits when the overhead screens scrolled along the results of the battle. The opponent had been wiped out with unknown casualties aboard the enemy carrier and sixty-three fighter planes down. Targon had lost twelve fighters and sustained some surface damage.

  "What did they want?" Tychon wondered aloud. "Hardly any damage to the base. One rebel carrier. Less than a hundred fighters against all of Targon's weaponry? Doesn't add up."

  "Probably Tharron flexing his flabby muscles."

  He shook his head. It ached. "Maybe. Let's see if we can get a break before debrief. You must be exhausted after that jump." He saw Colonel Carras wave to him from the concourse. "Watch me get flak from him, too," he mumbled.

  “Tell him you’re really sorry about the kite and that it won’t happen again,” Nova called after him, then turned her attention to the planes still coming into Targon. She joined the pilots that loitered by the chutes, cheered the new arrivals and waited with dread to find out which of their comrades would not return. She finally saw Cassandra, looking a little peaked but wearing a sassy grin on her face. She held up four fingers, her personal score.

  A group of
pilots rounded a fuelling truck and before Nova was able to duck out of sight Fynn Bridger spotted her. His initial look of surprise was quickly clouded by a glower. He handed his helmet to one of his squadron mates and let them move along without him.

  He glanced up at the overhead screen. "Heroes again, aren't we?"

  Nova smiled nervously, suddenly feeling guilty for having left him on Myra without a farewell.

  "Hello yourself, Fynn. Glad you made Targon," she said awkwardly. "Sorry I, uh, had to break our date back on Myra. Didn't think I'd be taken out of there so fast. How are you making out?"

  "Not as well as you."

  "Huh?" The venom in his voice startled her. He had always been easily irked and she had learned to step carefully around his fouler moods. This kind of welcome, however, came unexpected. "Oh, Vanguard. Was quite a surprise, wasn't it?"

  "I was talking about the pretty picture you paint with your C.O."

  "What?"

  "The Delphi. Everyone can tell how you made it aboard the Eagle."

  Her eyes narrowed in anger. "I was advanced there on my own merits. It had nothing to do with my father!"

  "Or who you slept with. Or what you slept with."

  “You can’t be serious! What’s gotten into you?”

  "Being dumped for one of them, for starters. I thought you and I were going to go places. But you left for brighter skies."

  "Fynn," she sighed. "There was never anything there for us. We never even got along all that well. You always knew that I'd leave."

  He gripped her wrist. "You really think he's better than the rest of us, don't you? Vanguard. A Major. A perfect track record! Probably make Lieutenant Colonel soon. Well, don't ever forget that he's blue!"

  "What?" Nova whispered.

  "Why would you want to mess with a Delphian?"

  "It is the only model that man comes in. What does the color of his hair have to do with anything? Since when are you such a bigot?"

  "I'm not talking about his hair! You listen to me, Nova! This type of thing will never be accepted on Delphi or Terra."

  "What do I care about Terra!" She pulled her hand out of his grasp.

  "Don't you know what those people can do to your head? Have you been brainwashed already? Tell me, Nova, does your father know?"

  "Why are you doing this?"

  "Hit a nerve there, didn't I?"

  "Let me hit one," a low voice rolled out in a growl.

  Fynn turned and blanched when he saw the Delphian behind him. He stepped away from Nova. "Just congratulating the Captain, sir."

  Nova's eyes snapped to the Terran. He was afraid! Fynn had his faults, but cowardice was not one of them. He had never shied an insubordination charge and certainly never backed out of a fight. His hand had instinctively strayed to his holster. Where did this fear come from?

  "Ty..." she began.

  Tychon grasped the younger man's lapel in a firm grip. Nova heard a part of Fynn's flight suit give in to the strain.

  "I am Delphi, as you've observed quite cleverly," Tychon snarled. "Delphians get very annoyed when you upset their friends. It isn't nice."

  Fynn managed a small, unclear sound.

  "Perhaps you are tired of your bars, Lieutenant?"

  "You can't do that!"

  "You have no idea what I can do."

  The Lieutenant struggled, causing further damage to his suit. "If you think you can try your mind tricks on me you'd better think of your own future!"

  Tychon barked a short laugh and released Bridger so suddenly that the younger man nearly stumbled over his own feet.

  Nova felt Tychon’s rage smoldering, threatening to explode, as they headed for the officers’ quarters. He walked in long strides, not looking to see if she kept up. He entered their assigned suite where he tossed his jacket across the drab room onto a lounge.

  "Damn insubordination! What kind of god-cursed army do they run here? You are his superior, damn it. Can you not handle a common soldier?"

  "You heard what he said?"

  "Enough. It doesn't matter. It shouldn't matter to you if you intend to keep working and living with me. If you can't handle a jealous boyfriend I'd like to see how you'd deal with our Delphi supremacists. Or your own!” He tugged impatiently on his braid to loosen it and had turned toward one of the small bedrooms when he noticed that she still stood by the door, watching him warily. "What's the matter?"

  "Why was he scared of you? What was he talking about mind tricks? What does that mean?” She touched the small implants at her temples. “What does this khamal-thing do?”

  “I told you what it does.”

  “Tychon, what was he talking about?” Her voice rose even as she sought to control it. “What haven’t you told me?”

  “He’s worried about nothing! He’s as ignorant about Delphians as anyone else.”

  “So am I. Tell me!”

  “It’s just ancient history. At one point, we used our minds in battle. Long ago when there were still battles to be fought among the clans. If you can reach an enemy’s mind, you can cause him pain. You can kill him, even. Or back then, anyway. We do not use that ability any more. It’s an uncivilized form of khamal. Obsolete.”

  “It can kill?”

  He crossed the room in a few long strides. She shrank back when he grasped her arms. “Nova, don’t ever be afraid of me! I could never hurt you. I would have to get unimaginably wound up to even want to get into anyone’s head like that. I can't think of any Delphian that could. I could no more harm you with this than I could fly.”

  She looked up. “You can fly!”

  “I need you to believe me.”

  “Since when does it matter what I think of you?” She tried to pull away but he did not release her arms. “You don’t care what anyone thinks unless they’re Delphian.”

  “That’s not true,” he said. His hand travelled up to her head and she felt his thumb brush gently over her temple. "I saw you today, in there. You matter."

  "You told me you can't read my thoughts," she said, not quite trusting her voice.

  "Do I have to?"

  She searched his face, drawn into the blue depths of his eyes that today did not hide his emotion. To her, the short distance between them suddenly widened into a strange perspective as she battled her own feelings as much as old opinions and trusted beliefs. She held his gaze, unmoving, waiting.

  "Gods," he breathed unevenly and bent to kiss her. When she did not object, he parted his lips to kiss her again. She responded fiercely, hungrily, and each second that passed seemed to whip her own need for him to greater heights. When his lips trailed to her throat they could both feel her quiver under his touch.

  He picked her up and carried her into one of the suite’s bedrooms. Their families and heritages were forgotten when he bent over her to unfasten her flight suit. She, too, tugged at his clothes, discarding the insignia, forgetting what it meant. None of this mattered now, when he kissed her again, wanting to kiss her forever.

  Nova was surprised to feel a peculiar sense of disbelief that this aloof, contained person would come to her with so much passion. The lips that had seemed so cold lit a fire under her skin, trailing the gentle hands that wanted to know every contour of her body. She felt herself respond to his touch until at last she pulled him closer, clawing at the smooth skin, ready for him, wanting him.

  He lifted his tousled head to look into her face. His fingers brushed over the interface node at her temple before he moved over her to enter her with a moan of pleasure. She received him eagerly, with a sudden mental clarity and physical awareness that she had never felt before. But there was more than just awareness of herself and of him. She felt the thousands of people on the base around them, perhaps even the heartbeat of Targon itself. Astonished, she let her mind float freely, feeling the wonder that Tychon was showing her.

  It was a high unlike any she had ever encountered. There was a limitless vastness within her while at the same time she felt herself as minute a
nd insignificant as any star seen from a distance. Her attention wandered as she puzzled over her strange state. She had heard of the power locked within the Delphian mind but how was he reaching her now with it?

  Tychon's thoughts finally pulled her back, calling for her until she felt only him. She saw with his eyes, feel with his body. As he could with hers. Her high was physical now, there were only the two of them on Delphi, sharing a telepathy more intimate than any encounter she had ever had.

  He moved her slowly, enjoying her reaction, holding them both back until her nails raked the skin of his back and he let himself go, feeling her tension rise to match his own until it surpassed even the dangerous euphoria of an untethered spacewalk. The free fall back to Targon came much too soon.

  She let him pull her along when he rolled onto his back, exhausted. “Another khamal?” she asked, feeling his powerful heartbeat under her cheek. Although his startling mental images were rapidly fading from Nova, she perceived his fondness for her as well as a sated, serene state of mind that closely matched her own. “Was that what it was? I could feel you. I mean, I could feel you in my head."

  "It's a sort of mating ritual for us, I suppose. It brought your sense of perception up to what I felt."

  "I was feeling the whole base! Everyone! Don't tell me you're like that all the time. You'd never be alone for a moment's peace."

  "No, I was showing off. It is a khamal, a mind link like the one earlier today, but more physical. I didn't know if you'd like it." He smiled at the memory of her reaction. "I'm glad you did. Joining minds with your mate is the most pleasurable of the mind links."

  Nova nodded, recalling the sensation.

  "The khamal in all of its states is a part of what makes us Delphian. We could not live without it. It is what makes our minds different from yours." He paused. “But it is not dangerous.”