Telepath

by Jolea M. Harrison

  “That’s too bad. You’re sure there’s nothing I can do to change your mind? We don’t get too many fresh faces through here.”

  Dain swallowed, and shook his head. “Tempting, but impossible.”

  “Oh, well if you ever pass through again, my name is Ceilia. Enjoy your meal.” She smiled, drifting off, looking at him the entire way back to the long bar that ran the length of the room.

  Dain turned his attention to the food, and ate in relative peace, trying hard to ignore the girl’s frequent glances, trying even harder to put her out of his mind. It didn’t really work, but just when he was about to give in to temptation, a man approached. He was middle aged and missing a few teeth, his expression permanently held in a leering sort of grimace. Dain looked up from his plate, and the man’s face twisted into a smile.

  “New in town?”

  “Not really,” Dain answered evenly.

  “You have a brother? A twin?”

  Dain tried to keep his expression neutral and unconcerned. “Why do you ask?”

  “Just that there’s been someone asking around for you. Gave a good description too.”

  Dain pushed his plate aside and thought he needed to get going. “When was this?”

  “He left yesterday. Said he’d be back, and pay well for any information. If you could see your way to offer—”

  “What did he look like?”

  “A dark fellow, with strange eyes. I didn’t take to him much, which is why I was saying, if you—”

  “Where did he go, and when did he say he’d be back?”

  “I don’t know, but he said he’d come again soon. That’s all now. If you’d rather he didn’t know you’ve been here, I can keep quiet.”

  Dain pulled out a handful of coins from the pouch inside his jacket. “There, that should suit you.”

  “Yes, yes indeed. Thank you kindly. I’ll be sure to let you know if the man comes back.”

  Dain nodded stiffly, tossing a few more coins on the table for the food. He pulled on his cloak. He had to force himself to keep from running from the building, but once outside he wasted no more time. “Dynan, get to the ship. Maralt’s here.”

  “What? Where are you?”

  “Still in town. I’ll explain later. Move.”

  Dain grabbed up his horse, and mounted quickly. He raced down the street to the livery where Ralion was still looking after the animals, helping to get them set up in a ramshackle barn behind the main stable.

  “Ralion, we have to go.”

  “I’ll be finished in—”

  “Now. Get a horse.”

  Ralion started, but nodded. “What’s wrong? Is Dynan all right?”

  “For now,” Dain said, pulling his horse down when it tried to rear, knowing the animal was only reacting to his fear. “Maralt.”

  Ralion moved quickly then, grabbed the nearest horse, got the animal tacked up in record time while tossing gold at the stable boy as he mounted. A few moments later, they were galloping through town. Dain turned at the road to the farm, looked back, and saw four men following them. He didn’t recognize any of them, or see Maralt.

  “Dynan, are you onboard?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sit tight. We’ll be there in a few. We’ve got company, so be ready.”

  “All right. Don’t take any chances.”

  “Right.”

  The four horsemen careened through town, scattering a crowd who’d come out to see Dain and Ralion departing so quickly. The gap between them narrowed as both groups reached the open road. At a full gallop the horses wouldn’t last long. Ahead Dain saw a sharp bend in the road where it entered dense wood. “Ralion,” he said, and nodded ahead, fearing an ambush.

  The guard nodded tightly. “If I say go, you move on. Understood? I’m not going to argue with you either, so just do it.”

  Dain looked at him, then nodded once, even though he had no intention of doing what the guard wanted. He knew he couldn’t bring himself to abandon Ralion in a fight, forgetting all the promises he made that he would run if he had to. They rounded the bend.

  Two horsemen erupted from the woods almost on top of them. Their horses reared wildly, and Ralion nearly fell off, a broken stirrup dangling down to tangle the animal’s leg.

  Dain’s sword flashed as he wheeled his horse around, meeting the first attacker with steel, and quickly dispatched his assailant. Another rider crashed into them to make up for the loss, and he knew that soon the four behind them would arrive.

  They did before the others could be killed. Dain saw them, and Ralion wheeled his horse to face them, glancing at him. “Time,” he said, and moved forward.

  At the same instant, laser fire erupted from above, blasting the ground directly in front of the animals. The XR-30 dropped down in front of the on-coming steeds. They screamed in fright, rearing wildly, and unseating two of the riders, balking at going any closer to the ship. The XR-30 spun around, its tapered wings almost brushing the trees it was so close to the wood line, and the ramp hissed open. Sheed stood in the opening with a laser riffle aimed at the two men still attacking Dain.

  His shot was blocked when Ralion went back, forced that way by his terrified horse. This time he couldn’t hold on, and half fell, half slid off the animal’s back, landing off balance. He was almost knocked over as it shied away, kicking and rearing. Then one of the attackers was on him while Dain struggled with the other. On foot, Ralion was soon in trouble.

  “The others are still coming, Dain,” Dynan said to him. “Hurry.”

  He finally managed to kill his opponent, turning to help Ralion, when he saw the first of the other attackers coming around the ship, followed by two more, then the last. Sheed, firing into their midst, took out one quickly. They didn’t have any suppression shields.

  Dain spurred his horse forward, swinging his sword with deadly accuracy. “Ralion, go!” he yelled, and killed the last horsed assailant, kicking viciously at another man who clawed at his leg, trying to pull him off his mount.

  Ralion stumbled back, doubling as a sword sliced into his side. Sheed leapt after him, dragging him back, and practically threw him onto the ramp while the ship hovered, somehow finding the strength to heave the big man onboard. Sheed turned back instantly, sword flashing out to meet the next man who approached, killing him. That left two on Dain.

  Still on horseback, Dain had the advantage, and the men he fought realized that, trying to disengage themselves. They died in the effort. He skewered one, and the other, turning to escape, ran straight into Sheed.

  “Let’s go,” the guard said, grabbing the horse while Dain jumped off, and together they ran for the ship.

  Once onboard, the craft lifted off, climbing rapidly while Sheed and Dain tended to Ralion, getting him under a restraint field before it became necessary to sit themselves. The angle of the ship changed sharply only a moment before the engines rocketed to full power. As soon as they cleared the atmosphere, Dain got up. “Take care of him,” he told Sheed, then moved forward. “I didn’t know you could fly like that, Dynan.”

  “Neither did I, and I’d rather not have to do it again. Did you see Maralt?”

  “No.”

  Dynan frowned. “That means he’ll be out here then.” He looked down at the targeting scanner. “We’re clear for now.”

  “But for how long?” Dain asked. An instant later the targeting scanner chirped. Six attack ships backed by a midrange vectored toward them.

  “A Zephron 250, and six X-class fighters,” Dynan said. “Powering weapons. You’d better head back.”

  Dain shook his head, moving instead to the navigation controls. “You head back. I’m setting the coordinates for sublight. Move.”

  Dynan got out of the pilot’s seat, watching a moment longer before moving back to the laser cannons on either side of the ship. “Com check. We’re in. Ralion’s in pretty bad shape.”

  “Right. Here they come, course, point zero five four. Weapons are charged, and Dynan, don�
�t think too much, all right.”

  For a moment, his brother didn’t answer. “Right. Firing weapons.”

  “They are all over the place,” Sheed said, and Dain agreed. The attack ships came in two at a time, in strafing runs that buffeted the ship repeatedly. Alarms started sounding, warning that too many more hits would destroy the shields, and any chance they had of escape. Another worry, Dain realized was Central Control, undoubtedly wondering what a group of attack fighters was doing in their System. Suma pilots were well known for their shoot first, ask questions later mentality.

  Every time he turned the ship to find clear space, attack ships got in his way, battering the XR-30 with laser fire. Dynan and Sheed managed to kill two of them, but that only brought the midrange into the battle. One near miss of its lasers told Dain he did not want to be hit by them. Alarms screamed, but ahead, a ship-free corridor suddenly opened. Quickly checking the coordinates, he reached for the navcom controls, and the ship blasted into sublight.

  ~*~

  Chapter 9

  Ralion was hardly conscious by the time Dain got the ship’s systems operating normally again. Sheed and Dynan stood over him, using the medical equipment Geneal had trained them to operate.

  “He going to make it?” Dain asked, moving to the console behind Ralion, looking over the controls. The ship had taken a lot of damage that would have to be repaired before too much longer, or they’d end up dropping out of sublight. He programmed in a few random course changes in case Maralt thought to follow them, putting an extra two days on the flight plan. He turned and looked at Dynan, sobering instantly when he saw the concern in his brother’s face. “What’s the problem?”

  He moved around to face Ralion, looking at the wound in his side. “He’s going into shock,” he said. Ralion muttered something incoherently, and Dain took the biomonitor from Dynan. “Here’s why. He’s bleeding internally.” He pointed to the monitor screen, then looked around the hold. “We need a table or something to lay him on.”

  Sheed quickly lowered one of the spare beds from the ceiling where they were stored, and together they moved Ralion onto it. “What are you going to do?” he asked.

  “Get his clothes off. I’m going to wash up. We’re going to have to go in there, and stop what’s bleeding, or he’s going to die from it.”

  Dynan followed him to the galley. “Dain, we don’t have the equipment for something like that. We have to get him to a Medic Center.”

  “Where? On Suma? That’s the closest one. With Maralt right behind us, it’s unlikely any of us would survive. We’ll have to figure it out, Dynan. Go back, and help Sheed. I have to get some things together.” And himself, he thought, then pushed that thought out of his mind. Better not to think at all.

  He got what he would need, and brought it all out to the hold. He handed Dynan a large pile of white towels, put the medic kit on the bed at Ralion’s feet, then set out a comboard Geneal had given him before they left the Base. He hoped the comboard and the biomonitor together would tell him what he had to do, and how to do it.

  “He’s going to need some blood, probably while this is going on. Sheed, are you a match? No? Great. All right.” He turned to the comboard, and soon found what he needed. “Sheed, plug yourself in here. We’ll wait until the monitor tells us to go ahead, but we want to be ready.”

  He handed Sheed a small square shaped device with two sides that would clamp down around his arm, and into a vein. A slender tube ran from one end. To the end of that tube, Dain attached another module that would filter Sheed’s blood so that Ralion’s body would accept it. Dain connected that to the transfusion module, and attached it to Ralion’s arm.

  The guard groaned then, and his eyes opened to slits. “What are you doing?”

  “You’re bleeding inside. We have to try and stop it.”

  “You? No, no way.”

  “Relax. Geneal told me all about this procedure. It’s easy, really.” Dain smiled at Ralion’s mumbled response, as it was plain he didn’t believe him. “Time to go to sleep for a while. Don’t worry, man, I’ll do it right. I promise.” He took a dermal injector, set it, then pressed it against Ralion’s neck. In a moment, the biomonitor indicated he was fully unconscious. “Dynan, hand me a couple of those towels there, and you need to cut a dozen or so up into strips. I have to read the rest of this.”

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Sheed asked.

  “Now that’s a really stupid question.” Dain frowned at him before turning back to the comboard, and Sheed subsided. He looked at Dynan when he’d finished, and got a tight smile for encouragement. “This is probably going to be pretty nasty. So if you feel like you’re going to be sick or anything, go ahead, but no one runs out on me, all right? Go ahead, and put this oxygen regulator thing on him. I’m going to start.”

  He removed a laser scalpel from the medic kit, activated it, then stared at the blue, glowing blade for a moment. He shook his head, trying to dispel the doubts that filled him, read the directions again, then set the blade against Ralion’s skin and in the same motion, drew a line with it along the angle of the wound. The skin below the scalpel split open, cauterizing as he went. There was still a lot more blood than he expected, and Dain closed his eyes against the momentary nausea that swept through him. He cleared his throat, and continued, following the directions in Geneal’s comboard carefully.

  He searched inside the opening he’d made, looking for the bleeding vessel, which was an extremely difficult process with all the blood. The pile of cloth strips Dynan had made for him soon dwindled to a bloody stack on the grated floor. Before long, every towel they had was cut up into pieces.

  The biomonitor chirped at him a few times, telling him Ralion’s heart rate was elevated, and his blood pressure was dropping. Quickly he made the necessary injections to keep his condition stable. “Sheed, you ready with that thing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go ahead then, and you may want to sit down.”

  “Right.” Sheed eased himself down to the floor, and activated the transfusion pump. Blood filled the tube in an instant, moving along quickly into the filter, pausing for a moment, then out the other side, and into Ralion’s arm.

  “That works,” Dain muttered. “Dynan can you get me a little more light here. It’s getting hard to see down in there.”

  Even with the added illumination, Dain found it difficult to tell what he was doing. Through the maze of tissue and blood it was almost impossible to tell what was bleeding that shouldn’t be. He frowned then, leaning down for a closer look, motioning to Dynan to bring the light down, and saw it, a vein pumping out fluid. “There you are. All right, now we’re in business.”

  He read again what he should do, and found the proper container that held a small spool of material. “What is that?” Dynan asked, peering over his shoulder into the wound, grimacing.

  “Gives you a whole new perspective on what a sword can do to your insides,” Dain said, smiling grimly as he unwound a small bit of the wrap. “This is what the comboard refers to as tissue wrap. We’ve probably had a fair amount of this stuff inside us lately. Geneal says here she uses it for everything.”

  He found the process of getting the material around the slippery vein arduous in the confined space, and it took a long time to reposition the wrap when he missed. He had to replace the material once when he got it tangled up too much.

  “This is really disgusting,” he muttered after missing the damaged area for the third time. Finally he managed it, and began the long process of checking the wound for any strips of cloth he’d packed into it, trying to ignore the fact that he was covered in blood that caked and dried on his arms.

  He was about to start closing the incision when the monitor chirped again. It was the different tone that warned him something was wrong. It didn’t stop . “What? What?”

  “Heart rate is erratic. Administer—” Dynan stopped as another sound emitted from the biomonitor; a steady, unbroken tone.
“His heart stopped.”

  Dain stared at him, fear descending on him. “Why?”

  “It doesn’t say why. It says to—”

  Dain took the monitor from Dynan, trying to think through the sudden pounding of his own heart, panic threatening to overwhelm him. The biomonitor didn’t say why this was happening, only that he had to follow the instructions it gave, and fast.

  He searched in the medic kit for the instrument he needed. It seemed to take him a long time. The cardial stimulator was a box-like affair with a thick handle on one end, its controls on the side for easy access. He fumbled with it, following the monitor’s instructions to set the device properly.

  “You need to get back,” he said, setting the stimulator on Ralion’s chest. “You too, Sheed. Go ahead, and unplug yourself. I’m not sure if...Sheed?” Dain looked at him when he didn’t answer and was met with a glassy-eyed stare.

  He reached over, and yanked the transfusion control module off of Sheed, feeling stupid that he’d forgotten to check on him, then handed it over to Dynan. “Your turn next. You can sit down later.”

  He re-situated the stimulator, made sure everyone was clear, and activated it. A loud buzz emanated from the device. Ralion’s body jerked, making Dain cringe, but the tone of the biomonitor remained steady.

  Dain stared at it again, fear mounting that Ralion was going to die right there in front of him. The thought raced through his mind that he must have done something wrong. He tried going over the procedure in his mind, trying to think of what it was, but couldn’t. The monitor chirped at him, telling him to reset the stimulator, and try again. He did. Again, nothing happened. Ralion’s heart didn’t start beating.

  Confusion, doubt and fear all sought to keep him from thinking. He didn’t know what else to do. The monitor kept telling him to reset the stimulator, and nothing else. The third attempt produced the same results. Dynan looked at him, eyes clouding with realization and grief. Dain didn’t want to accept it.

  He grabbed up the comboard, frantically searching the contents for anything that would help him, aware of the swift passage of time, and the dreadfully persistent tone from the monitor. He wanted to turn it off, to escape the finality of that sound.