Halcyon Nights (Star Sojourner Book 2)

by Kilczer, Jean

“Someday you'll be blackroot feed if you don't show tail,” she called. “We don't have no real police force now, mister. That's the czar's people.”

  The big chestnut had a rough gait, but I felt the power of muscle and sinew and bone beneath me. His sturdy shoulders butted wind as he leaped ahead. Snow flew under pounding hoofs. Hot breath whipped back from his nostrils.

  Behind us the howl of mantas.

  I turned on the scrambler. Now let them chase trees with their tracking systems. Still, though, they had lights and infras.

  I prodded the horse's sides and he stretched out into a flat run. Cold air burned my throat, snowflakes stung my cheeks as we raced for a dark forest of standing trees. Lisa clung to the saddle horn from under her blanket and I held her high against me to soften the jolting gait for her. Tikkie did his best to keep up as we plunged onto a game trail in deep woods, but he was dropping behind.

  I wondered if there were blackroot here. I hadn't seen any in this high country. Overhead, a snowy roof of prickly leaves blocked stars in a thick canopy. And blocked the mantas' visuals, I hoped, and held onto the blinking scrambler, the reins, Lisa, and wished I had at least one more hand.

  The chestnut wanted to slow in the woods, but the deep whine of engines drew nearer, shook snow from branches, and I prodded him on. His breath labored as he maintained the hard gallop. Our lives depended on his strength and his sureness of foot. Did my pursuers realize I was heading northwest to the Kubraen village, guided by my wrist locater?

  The game trail turned northeast. Crusted snow cracked beneath my mount's sharp hoofs as I turned him northwest onto untrodden snow.

  Daddy, Lisa sent.

  What? I tried to keep irritation out of my thoughts. I needed my mind clear with the mantas breathing down our necks.

  Sorry I was bad. Didn't mean to.

  What do you mean, bad?

  Be good from now on. Won't cry. Promise! Her sadness and guilt formed a heavy ache within my thoughts, and I realized her tel-link had become more powerful. I hugged her close and wondered, fleetingly, just how strong and manipulative her tel powers would eventually become? You're already good, Squiggles. You're the best! I couldn't have made it without –

  A bipedal animal rose up from his night roost under snow and hooted, a gray ponderous shadow there among trees. The chestnut's gait never wavered. I patted his neck around Lisa and told him what a good horse he was.

  Behind us the roar of mantas.

  Had they loosed electronic air sniffers to hunt us down? The thought hit me like a pail of ice water. I pictured the swift, compact machines skimming snow on air cushions, triangulating to zero in on us. If so, there was no escape, and this run was a futile endeavor through darkness.

  I opened my mind, tried to probe a pilot's thoughts…

  Dogged determination. Excitement. Rhythm of motion. Smell of dog. Burning in legs. Lungs. Yearning. Image of hay.

  Hay?

  “Nice horse,” I muttered and reached around Lisa to pat his neck again. There came a tingling against my body, more a vibration in the bones of my left arm and thigh, from a westerly source. It dragged at my senses like a mental compass needle. I rubbed my left cheek and purposely turned my head away. It tickled my ear and I was drawn back to it. “Lis? You feel that?”

  She shook her arm out from under the blanket and pointed northwest. “That way, Daddy!”

  “OK, Lis'.” I continued northwest. But to what? Was the silver tag providing directions? Nice to think so, but I wouldn't bet our lives on it. The horse slowed and I pressed his sides. He stumbled and I pulled up his head. He'd rest later. We all would.

  One way or the other.

  Chapter Seven

  Willa Carson lay face down in the snow, her heart pounding against the ground as the wail of police mantas deepened to a roar and thudded overhead. Her frightened horses neighed and threw their heads from the corral, their breath pluming in cold night air. Her dog whined and licked her face. “Go away, Buck,” she hissed. He wagged his tail and clawed at her arm.

  Fear iced her heart, made her lungs labor as a manta broke away from the pack to circle back. Its beam swept the ground and nailed her in its light.

  “Lord of Great Unity,” she breathed, shivering as cold penetrated her body, “don't let it land!” Could she feign unconsciousness if it landed? She tried to slow her breathing but could not. Her story had to be that the offworlder stunned her with his weapon and took the horse.

  No!

  She could not know he took the horse. She would have to act surprised when she looked at the corral. Through slitted eyes she watched the manta bank and lift to join the chase over thick woods where the offworlder and his daughter had disappeared on Galahad. She breathed a sigh of relief.

  “There ain't nothing more I can do for you now,” she whispered toward the woods as she got up, a gloved hand pressed to her frozen cheek, and retreated into the dim barn. Buck howled when she climbed the ladder to the loft.

  “ 'Sometimes you're just down to makin' it alone, girl, or not makin' it at all'.” She parroted her dead father's words to ease the grip of fear as she brushed aside hay, pulled up a loose floorboard and lifted out the sublink. She fitted the headset over her ears and typed in the randomly selected code-of-the-day to scramble their conversation. But it was the act of punching in Libre, her Liberation Front name, that finally pushed aside a sense of foreboding and reinforced her dedication to RECOIL, Reformed Constitution for Interspecies Law.

  Through the loft window she watched manta lights circle above distant woods. “You haven't found him yet, have you, you dumb scuks!”

  Alone in the darkness she smiled, remembering how the man's blue eyes, catching light from a glowball, had peered steadily at her from beneath the broad-brimmed hat, fearless, it seemed, while she held him at bay with the rifle. Remembering how his scraggly light hair swung across his sharp-featured face as he'd put his own body between his daughter and her weapon, and how easily he'd sat Galahad, handling her high-strung stallion with a quiet voice and gentle reins. He'd picked the right mount, too, for a fast ride into the woods.

  Would he have shot her if his hand closed on the weapon under his blanket? “Must've been just set for stun.” She rubbed her eyes and squinted out the small window. The mantas were still in the air, and that was a good sign.

  Wind blew a flurry of snowflakes through the window. She lifted her jacket collar and brushed hay off her thighs. And how her heart had quickened, she reflected, with the reckless thought of saddling Ginger and galloping after him with nothing but an offer to guide him to the Kubraen village.

  She smiled at the irony of it. The offworlder would have regarded a safe warm haven for the night as being next door to heaven. She saw his ragged path to the woods. It was a dark rift in the snowfield that glittered in light chipped from frozen moons. She drummed fingers on the sublink, waiting for her contact to respond. “Where in hell's hot spokes are you, Rache?”

  The czar's police could still return to question her, especially if they didn't catch the man…Jules. For a year now she'd carefully cultivated the persona of a reclusive non-political loner who preferred the company of horses to humans. But lately, in the frown of a patroller passing her in town, in the way police cars slowed to pace her as she walked a street, she feared the czar's people had grown suspicious.

  “I'm probably turning paranoid,” she muttered to herself, “along with all my other virtues.”

  She watched the mantas' lights probe treetops and smiled. They were still searching for their quarry. Silently she prayed for the offworlder as she waited for her contact, and saw Puny, her two-year-old bay gelding, trot along the corral fence on bony legs, head low, seeking a breach so he could follow Galahad, his sire.

  Static crackled on the sublink. Her contact's distorted voice came through and identified his code name, First Man. They had never met, wouldn't, in case of capture, until open revolution against the czar finally erupted.

  “Co
mmander Rache!” She hunched close to the unit. “The offworlder an' his daughter just came through here.”

  There was a pause. “Where are they now?”

  “Heading for the northern Kubraen village.”

  “On foot?”

  “No, he took one of my horses, but he's got half the police mantas on his tracks.” She glanced out the window. The mantas were disappearing into the northwestern sky. “If he makes it to the village, an' I'm not saying he will, RECOIL can keep an eye on him through our Kubraen contact.”

  “You let him go? Libre, did you consider that he might be a czar plant?” Even through the link's distortion, Willa heard anger in the commander's tone.

  “I don't see how. Those mantas didn't show up here till Buck marked his pants. How could he figure on Buck as part of his cover that he wasn't a czar plant? An' if he's I-DEA, I figure he must have a plan, so he wouldn't be half as lost as he looked. Anyway, I-DEA wouldn't let him bring his daughter along on some mission, even if he wanted to.”

  “That's a lot of figuring, Libre. Just suppose the patrollers figure you helped him escape?”

  “But if I turned him in an' he's really I-DEA, he'd be executed. An' the czar wouldn't just stop short of just killing him. He'd kill the child too! You know, Rache, someday we're going to have to live with the things we did to win back Laurel.”

  “For now we'll live with what we have to do. We intercepted a message from Bjorn's ship to the czar. The man may or may not be I-DEA, but he and his daughter are telepaths. One of them is fairly powerful. That much is certain. If he's I-DEA, Libre, and he's captured, then sooner or later the czar will have two telepaths to use against us.”

  She heard Rache sigh and wondered if he were rubbing a knuckle across his lips, the way her father used to do.

  She shifted position. “The I-DEA mind sensitives have got brain implants, Rache. They can shut down their telepathic cell clusters if things turn bad. There ain't nothing stopping him from activating those implants with a brainstim till – “

  “Libre, all they'd have to do is threaten him with his daughter's life!”

  Willa drew back from the sublink. “We know what he looks like. I-I recorded that viscast about him kidnapping his daughter.”

  “I'll notify our Kubraen contact that he's on his way. You should have detained him. RECOIL could have used two telepaths.”

  An ache of tears began behind Willa's eyes. The guilt and shame she felt was an ingrained response, she knew, from times her father had admonished her for bungling ranch chores. A clawing finger of anger made her cheeks flush. How easily she'd fallen into the old defensive mode! “I couldn't bring him to a safe house, Commander. Just in case he really was a czar plant.”

  “Bringing him there didn't necessarily mean he would have left. We're not megadreaming here, Libre. We're deciding Laurel's future with every move we make.”

  “I had to make a call, Commander. I made the best one I knew how at the time.”

  “Yes. You did.” His tone softened. “I'm aware of your dedication to the cause. Do you have a plan in place should the police question you on his getting away with one of your horses?”

  “I think he's got a stingler. I'll say he stunned Buck with it. An' when I came out of the house to see why Buck was howling, he was hiding in the barn an' he stunned me with it too.”

  “And when you 'wake up'?”

  “I'll call the police.” She looked at her watch. “That'll be in about fifteen minutes.”

  “Things could get very tight if the police question you. A brain scan would show that you weren't hit with a stingler. Remember our signal if they take you in. Drop your – “

  “Drop my glove on the ground in front of the barn. I know.”

  “If it should come to that, you understand that you must not divulge any intelligence.”

  “To my last breath',” she recited. Her chest felt cold as she glanced out the window. The manta lights were gone beyond trees. “Anyway, I figure on keeping both gloves,” she said with forced assurance. “Rache? This man, Jules, he mentioned a silver alien on Halcyon. First off I thought it was an I- DEA code to see if I knew it, but – “

  “Is that the term he used, a silver alien?”

  “A big silver alien. He acted surprised when…” She heard Rache speak to someone, heard the other's muffled answer.

  “Yes, Libre?”

  “He looked surprised that I didn't know what alien he meant. I think…” She bit her lip and held back the personal thought through habit.

  “You think what?” Rache urged. “Libre, I need the input of your mountain-goat brain.”

  “I figure he's what he says he is, a tag caught up in something he don't understand either. I think he came here looking for this alien an' I think we ought to help him find it before the czar catches up to him.”

  “What part of your anatomy formed that decision?”

  “Maybe the real risk,” she said stiffly, “is that he's a civilian caught up in the dream traffic an' the revolution, an' he don't know squat about staying out of the czar's path. Suppose he finds this alien he came all the way to Halcyon for, an' it's some native being here that could be useful to our movement? Or to the czar! Would be helpful all around if we could recruit him into RECOIL.”

  “You had a chance to bring him in. Unless he can prove he's I-DEA, we'll recruit him or terminate him. We can't allow the enemy to capture two telepaths, especially…What? Libre! Wolf Ridge just contacted the mantas with orders to bring you in. Get the hell out of there. Now!”

  Willa sucked in a breath. “How could – ?“ She stared through the window and saw a returning set of lights skimming treetops. “Oh God, Rache. They're coming back.”

  “Get out. Now!” The sublink went dead.

  With a sob of terror Willa ripped off the headset. She flicked a red switch on the sublink and heard the unit implode as she scrambled down the ladder. The returning manta droned closer. “Oh God.”

  She tripped over Buck as she pulled Ginger's bridle off a hook, jumped up and dashed outside. The black police ship roared over the barn, blotting stars. A shaft of light from its belly probed the ground.

  Sleep…

  Willa's limbs suddenly grew heavy. Sleep became an imperative within her own thoughts. Subliminals from the manta! Warm safe sleep, Willa, a part of her own mind told her. Just lie down and sleep. The thought almost brought her to her knees. She groaned as she stumbled across the snow to the corral.

  Your work is done. Lie down now. Rest.

  She swayed.

  Get that gate open and an' get the hell outa there! her father's husky voice seemed to say inside her head. I don't want no excuses, girl. Just do it!

  “Just do it,” she muttered and imagined his iron will flooding through her mind as she lurched to the corral.

  “Daddy,” she sobbed and unhooked the looped wire that held the wooden gate closed. “Help me!”

  It seemed it was not her strength that pulled open the gate and allowed her to run into the corral. She crouched between Puny and Brandy, her Thoroughbred bay, as the manta's light swept the horses' backs. The beam missed her.

  Sleep! Your muscles burn, Willa. They can no longer hold you. Healing sleep.

  Strength drained like blood from a wound. She stumbled as she made her way to Ginger, the bridle pressed hard against her chest, as though to protect her from the sear of hot light as the manta fired randomly. “Come on, girl!” she cried above engines, but Ginger trotted away, spooked by the hot beams.

  The manta hovered over the barn, its shriek painful to her ears, the vehicle's light pinpointing the spot where she had lain. The light swept toward the corral again as sensors probed for living forms. Snow swirled in the draft at her back, lifted her hair and attacked her neck with frozen darts of shattered ice. The frightened horses whinnied and trotted to the corral's far side.

  Come out into the light, her mind murmured, though she knew it was not her thought. Come home, Willa. />
  Her knees almost buckled when she reached the mare. Ginger reared, her eyes showing white, swung her head to look at the manta, then trotted away, lashing out with rear hoofs.

  “Hell's spokes!” Willa followed, avoiding the beam. “Come on, Ginger! Look what I got for you, girl.” She extended a hand as though it held a carrot, Ginger's usual treat.

  The mare stopped, snorted and pawed the ground.

  Willa, there are no cares, no pain in sleep.

  Willa clenched her teeth and fought off a desire to curl up in the snow. She went to the mare, though it was like pushing against water, talked to her in a soothing tone, blocked out her own thoughts, blocked out everything but the need to escape.

  Her hand felt leaden as she raised it to stroke the animal's shoulder and put on the bridle. Her knees went weak when she grabbed a handful of mane. With an effort goaded by desperation she lifted herself to Ginger's back.

  The hovering manta's light widened its search pattern.

  Willa herded Brandy and Puny out of the corral and saw them scatter across the barnyard. Ginger tried to follow but Willa reined her in and studied the far fence of the corral. Ginger trusted her, Willa knew, as she urged the mare into a lope and headed her in a circle around the corral to pick up speed. As she'd hoped, the manta's light probed the two horses, searching for her.

  “We can do it, girl,” she whispered as the manta thumped down in the barnyard and churned up snow. “We can do it!” She crouched low over the horse's winter-furred shoulder, a shock of mane and the reins grasped in her hands, her teeth gritted against the command to sleep.

  For all eternity! she told her fogged brain and guided Ginger toward the snow-covered fence. She held her breath, relaxed her muscles to give Ginger confidence as the mare approached the railing, her hoofs spraying snow. Behind them, the manta's sweeping lights checked Brandy and Puny.

  “Where the hell is she?” a manta loudspeaker blared.

  “There's another horse in the corral,” came the answer.

  “Not anymore!” Willa whispered as Ginger sprang and sailed over the fence. A rear hoof smacked the rail and the mare stumbled but regained her balance. Tendrils of the subliminals faded as Willa hunched low over Ginger's back and headed her toward the woods.