She pointed. “Do you see them?” She twisted him forward again and pointed to Armana. “You have to get to that town before those people catch you. Do you understand?”
He still grinned like an idiot. “I’m a behavioral scientist. I’m here to study people and the long-term effects of living in close proximity to an anomaly.”
What was he babbling about? She gave him a rough shake. “Do you understand me?”
“Yes, I do.” He started to run again, and Denefe kept pace with him. He concentrated on his arm movements, and then said, “I’ve studied you since you arrived and I knew you wouldn’t leave me.”
Studied her? When? How? She’d seen no one watching her, overtly or otherwise. It kinda felt creepy. She growled, “I still might. Now, stop talking, you’re wasting energy.” She increased her pace, forcing him faster, though he didn’t appear to notice.
After running in silence for a few minutes, he nodded toward Torenz, who ran in front beside Jileah. “I’ve studied him for a long time now. I never liked him, nor trusted him. According to my studies, he’ll betray you in the end.”
She knew what Baker said was true, deep down inside. Torenz had spied on people, lied, kept secrets, and held everyone prisoner, but he was her brother. She had to give him a chance to straighten out his mistakes. Even if he didn’t. That was all there was to it.
She pressed her lips together and increased the pace again. Baker was forced to focus on his running and he said no more. His breathing came more and more labored and raspy as they ran. She’d have to call a break, of sorts.
“Jileah. Can you and Torenz drop to a jog? Let’s give them a little break.”
“Not a problem.”
Immediately, as her brother and the nurse slowed, the cluster behind them stalled to a walk. When it became apparent the two were going faster than they, a few groaned and picked up the same pace, but the rest remained at a walk. Baker took his instruction from Denefe’s pace and kept up a jog, though his face plainly showed his weariness.
Armana didn’t seem to grow closer at all. She’d been wrong. The town was farther away than it looked. She glanced behind at the raiders. They were only about fifteen minutes away.
“Torenz. There’s no way our group can get to the town before the raiders catch us.”
Ahead, he stopped and watched the dust cloud grow nearer. “It’s the telepath from Hebenu. I’ve been trying to reason with him, but he won’t listen. What if we all scatter? Some might be captured, but some would make it. Or we could split into small groups.”
“No, the best plan is to stay together, for now.” Damn that Baker for reading her so well. She stopped beside her brother as Baker ran on. “We could dig into the sand and hide.”
“These are desert people. They’re used to those kinds of tricks.”
“What would they not be used to? Think!”
“They’ll most probably try to circle us. What would happen if we circled one of them instead? The leader, maybe?”
She nodded. It was a good idea, but they had a couple of problems with it. “We don’t really have enough people. Besides, can you see these scientists trying to bully someone?”
His telepathic voice came grudgingly. “No, I guess not.”
They lapsed into silence for a moment. Torenz said, “It should be a simple matter to spook the camels, assuming they act like any other animal. I really don’t know anything about them, but I seem to recall they don’t have any natural predators.”
They began working on an idea.
Another ten minutes found her group at a full-out run again. The small slick on the horizon of Armana suddenly rose in front of them, but it wasn’t quite close enough to save them from their followers.
The Hebenu telepath and his raiders were almost on top of them when a thin, reedy, telepathic voice broke into Denefe’s thoughts. “You won’t make it. I have you.”
She neither slowed nor looked in his direction. She shouted at her group, “Keep going! No matter what, don’t stop!”
The telepath laughed in her mind. “I know your plans. I can see them.”
“Really? That’s impressive if you can do that. Because from my experience, telepaths can only read what’s being actively thought, not what’s dormant. What makes it really spectacular is that I don’t even know our plans. You must be part magician. Can I get your autograph?”
His “voice” was clipped, perhaps from embarrassment of his bluff being called. “In Armana another telepath is waiting. He has instructions to stop you by any means necessary, including death. We both do.”
“That’s nice. Can we discuss this later? I’m a little busy right now.” The oncoming raiders were close enough they separated to circle Denefe’s group of scientists. She and Torenz had to make their move now or never. She nodded to her brother. “Now.”
Without stopping, she entered the mind of the camel directly behind the leader. She’d never been inside an animal before. It felt wild and base. Very different from humans. She used the ancient Egyptian word for “stop” that Torenz had taught her. “Khaloss.”
She jumped to the rider’s mind. “Khaloss,” she said again. Beside her, Torenz did the same with others of the raider party. Still running, they moved from camel to rider to camel to rider through the eleven-member group behind the leader. The whole process took less than a minute. The telepath from Hebenu hadn’t even noticed the chaos behind him yet.
For the first time, she and Torenz stopped and faced the telepath. Confusion filled his frown. No doubt he’d been following her thoughts but hadn’t figured out yet what it meant or who it had been directed at. She sent the last command to his camel and, as the beast slowed to a stop, furious understanding burned across the telepath’s face.
“Very clever, but it won’t stop us for long.”
“It doesn’t need to. It’ll be just long enough, I think, for us to reach Armana.”
Chapter 54
Arrested
A few hours after meeting Lieutenant Garza, Kaleen and Ardense followed him and his men as they swarmed, quiet as death, into Bade Hallen’s outer office. The helmet was suffocating her and she could barely move from the weight of the black protective gear. At least she didn’t have to also contend with a gun.
She stumbled, but was caught by the uniformed officer next to her, who was at least twice her size and had fierce, restless eyes, as did all Garza’s men. She wondered if that was a qualification, or if Garza’s training put that into them.
As the group passed Hallen’s assistant, the young man stood in protest, only to be shoved against the wall and handcuffed. A thick, gloved hand clamped over his mouth and he was hustled out the door in absolute silence.
Garza gripped the knob on Hallen’s office door and scanned his men, receiving a nod from each. His gaze lit on Kaleen and Ardense and his mouth tightened into a thin line. He’d only agreed to bring them along because they were telepaths. It was apparent to Kaleen, he would have preferred someone telepathic and trained in military police tactics and weapons.
He twisted the knob and threw open the door. The group flowed into the office like a flood from a broken dam. The men scattered around the room, each to a different vantage point, all with weapons aimed at Bade Hallen. “Military police! Freeze!”
Hallen sat in a leather chair behind a giant mahogany desk. His uniform jacket was hung on the chair behind him and he held his hands stationary, six inches from his comm.
Garza and one of his men crossed the room in three easy strides and forcibly lifted the man from his seat. They pulled him to the side, in front of a tall window, flanked by giant wooden bookcases.
While he was searched and cuffed, one of the black uniformed men—Kaleen thought it was the same one who had kept her from falling—set down his weapon and searched the desk, violently pulling drawers open and rifling the contents. After he finished, he shook his head at the lieutenant.
Beside Kaleen,
Ardense also shook his head. His voice came across in the speaker of her helmet. “I get nothing from Hallen.”
Garza scowled.
Kaleen spoke into her microphone. “Let me try.”
She entered his mind and found him silently singing a song to himself. It didn’t surprise her that he knew how to beat a telepath. She, however, knew a few tricks of her own.
Building softly, she sang along with him, sending it to his mind, matching his thought pattern. After a moment, out of the blue, she sent the thought, Kill. Microchip. Desk.
Like a ringing bell, his mind made the automatic correction. Comm. Immediately, his face paled and the singing stopped.
She smiled. She’d beaten Bade Hallen.
She said to Garza, “The execute program is on his comm, not a remote or other device. Read the icons out loud.”
The lieutenant nodded to the man behind the desk, who dropped into the leather chair and began reading. Hallen showed no response.
Garza’s man stopped, and said, “That’s all of them, except one that has no label. It’s a smiley face.”
Hallen’s mind jumped in inadvertent connection. Detonate. His eyes widened momentarily, then his shoulders slumped and he dropped his gaze to the floor.
Kaleen said, “That’s it. That’s the trigger.” She shuddered. Hallen was an evil man, using a smiley face to kill people.
Garza nodded. He stepped in front of his prisoner. “Bade Hallen, you’re under arrest for a number of serious crimes, including, but not limited to, two counts of murder, espionage, numerous infractions of the Time Accord—”
Kaleen didn’t hear the rest. Ardense pulled her out of the office, removing his helmet. “We can’t stay. There’s someplace we need to be.”
Chapter 55
Armana
Denefe snatched Torenz’s hand and bolted toward Armana in the morning heat. Her group was just entering the outskirts of town. She reached out in her mind for the telepath stationed there. He would be listening to her thoughts from the second she made contact with him, if he wasn’t already. The Hebenu telepath would be following her thoughts too. He would assume Torenz was still working against her. She would have to be careful to keep thinking only what she wanted them to believe.
“Hello, telepath! This is Denefe Xia.”
“What do you want? Where are you?”
“I have injured people and we need your help. We have raiders on our trail. Will you help me?”
“Where are you?”
“I am entering Armana from the east now. I’d like to meet alone with you first.”
“There’s a coffin-maker on the third street to the south. It’s not a popular spot, and it’s out of the way. It’ll afford us some privacy.”
“Fine.” She cut her end of the telepathic link between them, carefully thinking of only their upcoming meeting. She and Torenz had a plan and, if he stuck with it, they’d be fine.
They entered Armana and, after winding in and out of blind alleys, backtracking, and almost getting lost, they finally found a through street. Torenz split from her to take up his part in the plan, and she continued on. Midway down, she saw a coffin in front of a merchant shop. The telepath, the one who had been posted before Starry, leaned against the building, near the opening to a small alley.
Denefe had a hard time keeping herself from looking for her people as they skulked from building to building, Jileah in the lead. The desert telepath had followed her into the town and positioned his people around her. She concentrated on thinking how much she needed help, even though she didn’t entirely trust anyone. She was desperate. People were injured and hurting.
As she approached, Starry’s predecessor pushed himself off the wall, gesturing to the alley. “This is as private as I can make it.”
She stopped and shook her head. “Not a chance I’m going down that alley.”
“Look. You came here asking for my help. I appreciate that you don’t trust me, but if you want my help, you have to at least come here and talk to me. I’m not talking over there.” He raised his eyebrows, waiting for her response.
Still, Denefe clenched her teeth and let herself look around for signs of betrayal, pretending not to see the shapes of those hiding in the dark. One of those was supposed to be Torenz. She just hoped he stayed true to her.
She nodded and followed the telepath down the alley, settling against the wall, not a foot away from him. She spoke with a low voice. “You know we’re from Definitive Headquarters, right? We all just want to get home again. During the crossing in the desert, we ran into a sand storm that flipped our skimmer. I have three injured people. We need help.”
He nodded, his gaze on her. “It’s okay. I can—” He whipped his head to the right, feigned fear clear on his face. “What was that sound?”
“I didn’t hear anything.”
“No? I’m sure I heard something. I think someone’s here. Hurry.” He gripped her arm and piloted her deeper into the alley, all the while taking quick glances behind him.
She almost laughed at the obviousness of his ploy, but she let herself be pushed deep into the dank recesses while she thought only on the possibility of someone intruding.
Once they’d gone into the alley far enough, he roughly pushed her against the side of the building, holding her there with his body. His voice dripped with loathing when he spoke. “You stupid fool. Do you think me, Hallen, or anyone for that matter, really care about you or those scientists?” He shouted for his partner from Hebenu.
Not for the first time was Denefe glad for her athletic training. She burst into a frenzy of punches, kicks, twists, and turns. More than once, she felt skin rip from her as she grazed against the stone building. The telepath hissed through his teeth as a few of her punches found his throat, inner thighs, and chest. She brought her elbow up and into his jaw, hearing the satisfying “clack” as his teeth slammed shut. The telepath worked to sweep her feet out from under her, but she countered, shoving her knee into the side of his.
Whirling to run, she saw she was trapped on that side by the Hebenu telepath and a few of his company. They wouldn’t take her easily. She placed her feet and crouched low, glancing from side to side, alternately watching the two telepaths. Where was Torenz?
Two of the desert riders rushed her, and she dropped them with a sharp uppercut to the jaw of one and a heel in the groin of the other.
The entire group came at her then. She dispatched one with a roundhouse kick against his temple and followed with her other foot to punch another man.
She dodged outstretched arms and grasping hands and bolted down the first adjoining alley. She didn’t think it would take her far, but since she was at the edge of Armana, it shouldn’t be a dead end. Most towns, even in that time, had secondary and tertiary main streets with crisscrossing alleys. It was the nature of humans to want the easiest path. She hoped Armana wouldn’t be any different. She turned out of her alley into another, and found it to be just that, a secondary main road. She grinned. Thank goodness for human nature! Still no sign of her brother, though. Where was he?
She began a mantra in her mind. Get as far away as possible! Get as far away as possible! Get as far away as possible! If she could just focus on just that, the telepath wouldn’t read what little bit she knew of her group’s plans. She’d been clear to Jileah not to divulge any of it to neither her nor Torenz. Get as far away as possible! Get as far away as possible!
The door of a house opened up to her, and she checked her pursuers. She had put some distance on them. They were just turning the corner. She skidded into the building, bolting up the stairs to the roof. The owner yelled angrily, shaking his fist at her. One of the women within the house screamed as Denefe flew past. Get as far away as possible!
She was on the roof. She crouched low to keep anyone from the telepaths’ retinues from seeing her. Armana stretched before her and she spotted Starry’s future house just in time to see the last of h
er group enter. Get as far away as possible! Get as far away as possible!
Her surmise about the shape of the town had been correct. It was long and narrow, with only one secondary street on each side. It looked as if it would be fairly easy once she got on the other side street to circle back to the rift. Get as far away as possible! Get as far away as possible!
Denefe looked down the main street again. Already, the two telepaths shouted instructions below. At least they’d focused on her and not on anyone else. They ordered a few of their people to follow her to the roof, but most were to circle the house. She ran for the edge of the wide, flat roof, heat reflecting from the white stones in waves. Hoping nothing was on the ground on the other side, she launched herself over and into the air.
Denefe tucked herself and, when she hit the ground, she let herself roll. The impact jarred her pretty badly, but she didn’t think she’d injured herself. She shoved herself to her feet. Men came at her from both sides. Putting every ounce of energy into her legs, she sprinted for the telepath’s house and the hidden time rift.
Where was Torenz? Had he, as Baker had warned, betrayed her?
Chapter 56
Home
Denefe threw herself through the door of Starry’s future home, rift spiders crawling across her skin and a whole slew of angry men not too far behind. Rounding a corner, she plowed right into a hard, lean body. Instinctively, she launched into a tirade of upper cuts, jabs, and kicks.
“Whoa! Denefe, it’s me!” Ardense backed away from her, brown eyes wild and hands up to ward off her attack. He had scrapes and cuts all over his face. One eye swelled shut. Those hadn’t come from her.
She stared for a split second, then gripped his arm, rushing him toward the center of the house and the rift. “There are people behind me. Where’s Torenz?”
“I knocked him out in a fight. Kaleen and I found your group surrounded by your brother and some men.”
So, Torenz had betrayed her, after all.
Frozen Fire Page 16