He realized she was trying to figure out how much he had gotten out of her mind. “I understand your concern. If it makes you feel better, one of our research guys dug up your record. That’s how I learned your real name. Not from in here.” He pointed at his temple.
Contrary to what he’d hoped, she breathed even more shallowly. “What do you want?”
“Ardra.” He curled as much telepathic influence as he could into the name. “I already told you what I want. I want to find out what you know. There may be a very important number in your head.”
“Number?”
“Yes, a coordinate. All you have to do is relax and let me see if you’re carrying it. Then you’ll be free, and you can go wherever you want.”
She mouthed the word free but didn’t move.
“Come on. Stop fighting me.” He deepened his voice. “I can see you’re tired.”
Slipping into her consciousness, he seized control and put her under before she could resist.
Later that evening, Jack headed over to Walter’s house to give him an update. He found the superintendent sitting in his living room with half-a-dozen reports spread out in front of him on the table. Jack had to give the man credit. He did work hard.
“Can I fix you something to drink?” Walter rattled his glass, which still held a few sips of imported whiskey.
Jack shook his head. He was pretty exhausted as it was, and a drink would put him to sleep.
Walter’s living room was a dark but comfortable space. A red patterned carpet covered the floor, and two large brown sofas were stationed across from each other with a coffee table in the middle.
“So what do you have for me?” Walter asked. “How’s it going?”
Feeling a headache coming on, Jack rubbed his right eye with the heel of his hand. “Not very well. This is a lot harder than I thought it would be. I’m making the most progress with Tarrin, the young soldier, but he’s putting up a fight. The old man isn’t difficult, except I have to be careful not to overtax him. I’m still not sure which one is the carrier. They all fit the profile, and they all seem to have some pretty awful memories they’re trying to hide.”
If Terrah hadn’t been so opposed to using her skills for the military, he would have asked her for help. Damek was still in training, and this sort of work was too much for an apprentice, even if the young man had been inclined to assist. There were other precepts on the planet, of course, but the war kept all of them busy. They’d been especially inundated since the last campaign. Even if someone did become available, Jack wasn’t sure he would turn over any of the prisoners at this point. Some precepts used more mental force than others. At least he could ensure the three under his care were well treated.
Walter leaned forward and skimmed through one of the tablets on the table. “What about Ardra Kelly? Nash says we can’t find any further trace of her in the main databases.”
“Ardra? Ardra’s my toughest case of all,” Jack admitted. “I don’t even think she’s originally Tetch.”
“What makes you think that?”
“There are too many missing pieces. Even if she did get snatched by some black market intel dealer, the Tetch should have better records on her. If the government seized her, then what made them choose her in the first place? I mean, why her? It doesn’t make sense.” He hesitated a moment. “And there’s something else. She’s a precept. Low or mid-level by my estimation.”
“What?” Walter practically jumped to his feet. “She’s a precept? The Tetch are using precepts for carriers now?”
“No,” Jack said. “The Tetch couldn’t have known. What I’m trying to say is that I don’t think she’s Tetch. If she is a carrier, then the Tetch kidnapped and programmed a precept just by chance. Unfortunately, it happens to work in their favor.”
Walter scowled. “How so? If she’s a precept, doesn’t that help you in the exchange?”
Jack shook his head and kept his patience. “The connection between us is stronger, but it gives me more of a struggle to keep her under. She blocks me from what I need to know, and she’s already becoming conscious of my probes more quickly. This makes my intrusions all the more damaging.” He felt a small pang of guilt. “You should see her. The stress is wearing on her, and I don’t want her to suffer a mental break.”
“That would keep you from getting the intel?” Walter asked.
The single-mindedness of the man never ceased to amaze him. He found himself giving his boss a dirty look.
“What will you do?” Walter asked more gently.
He sighed. “The next step is to get her to examine her own memories to see what doesn’t add up. We’re fortunate she hasn’t received any training. I’ll have to employ a little more subtlety and keep her off-balance. She doesn’t always perceive my influence when I’m careful. If it comes to a direct confrontation, I can force her, but I won’t take that path unless I’m left with no other choice. It could really hurt her.”
“You may soon find yourself in that position,” Walter warned him. “We don’t have much time.”
Time was definitely on Jack’s mind when he met Ardra again two days later. He pushed her hard, hoping for results, but she proved she could be stubborn.
“Name a childhood friend,” he demanded.
“I am not carrying military intelligence.”
“Real or imaginary. It doesn’t matter.”
“I’m not a carrier,” she insisted.
“Come on.” He used a more coaxing tone of voice. “I’m just asking you to name one of your childhood friends.”
Jack watched her muscles slacken a little, but she still kept fighting him.
“I didn’t have any,” she said. “We moved around a lot when I was a kid. I guess I never got the chance.”
“Okay,” he said. “How about at school then? Girlfriends? Boyfriends?”
If he had harbored any doubts before, Jack was now certain. Ardra was a carrier. Somewhere in her mind was the intel he needed, probably enveloped by whatever trauma she had gone through when the Tetch had downloaded it into her brain. The truth was there. It was just buried beneath her confusion and a lot of false memories about a life that wasn’t really hers. He had to challenge those lies. He had to make her see. Although she tried not to let it show, he could tell he was starting to get through to her. He could practically feel the little storm in her brain.
Tetch programming had to be a straightforward history in order to stick, and only so much information could be forced on an unwilling mind. Too many memories were like glaring lies waiting to be disproved, so the result was a story with a lot of holes. It only worked because the mind—remarkable instrument that it was—tended to fill in the gaps by itself. That’s exactly what was happening now. Ardra’s mind was racing to patch the holes and smooth out the incongruities. It was a way of preserving her equilibrium, but her psyche was defending a fantasy at great cost. He had to rip that false foothold out from under her.
“I was too busy studying in school to make friends,” she finally replied.
“Classmates then. Name one of your classmates.”
“Look, I didn’t care that much when—”
“Name one,” he insisted. Come on, Ardra. Accept what has happened to you and let me help.
“I’m not good with names,” she retorted.
He scoffed. “Oh, come on. You’re not that many years out of school. Surely you can give me one name.”
“Leave me alone,” she snapped. “This has nothing to do with anything. I don’t care.”
“Don’t care?” he asked. “You’ll have to come up with something better than that. You’re not brain damaged, are you? You still remember your own name, right?”
“Of course!” She was shaking now, but it was with more than one emotion.
Accept it, Ardra, he thought. It’s okay to get upset, but let yourself see the truth.
“You don’t remember your classmates or your friends or any boyfriends,” he said. “You probably don’t rememb
er a single one of the apartments you lived in with your parents—only a few flash images at best. You can’t recall the smell of your mother and father or the feel of their touch. Am I right? Just mental pictures and a colorful little story, but no sensations. Doesn’t that strike you as odd? You know it doesn’t add up. It only makes sense if none of it is real. It’s all a bunch of lies the Tetch fed into your brain.”
This last shot finally told, and she lost her temper.
“Shut up!” She jumped to her feet, anger and desperation rolling off her in waves.
Jack looked into her eyes and saw twin cobalt flames glaring back at him.
“You don’t know anything about me,” she said.
“I know as much as you do. We can learn the rest together if you’d let me help.”
She hesitated for a moment, and something in the way she looked at him made his heart turn over. Then she crossed her arms. “Leave me alone.”
Jack resisted the urge to take her in his arms. Right now, part of her—some stoic, logical fiber—was processing all of this, but the rest of her rejected the truth.
He decided this was a good point to stop for the day. “All right, Ardra. I know it’s hard, but consider it, okay?”
She didn’t answer.
He moved to the door and called for the guard to come get her. Her gaze never left his as she was led out of his house, and he hoped she would think things over once she got back to her holding cell.
Long after Ardra had returned to her room, she was still fuming. It was bad enough she felt some weird connection to Jack. Now she was letting him get under her skin.
She would know if she was a carrier, wouldn’t she? Just because she couldn’t come up with the name of a childhood friend or classmate didn’t mean anything. She hadn’t remembered that student tech’s name—Melissa or Meissa or whatever—either. Ardra wasn’t good with names. And even if some of her memories were a little vague, they were still real to her. There was no way she could be confused about her whole life.
She cursed her doubts as she went back to work. Whatever Roimirans had built this holding cell had done a shoddy job at construction. Yes, the walls were thick and the window had thin wire filaments running through the glass, but they hadn’t exactly escape-proofed the screws. Since the day she had arrived, she had been checking the room from floor to ceiling. She had discovered that the screws fastening the window frame to the wall were visible beneath a thin coat of builder’s mud and gray paint. All she needed was a tool to attack these vulnerable spots. Then she might be able to pull the whole window out.
The chair in the corner gave her just such a tool. One of the little metal feet worked as a makeshift pick, and the rest of the chair provided a step stool to reach the window. It was a little wobbly because of the shortened leg, but she had good balance. Every evening when the guards left her alone and every day she wasn’t with Jack, Ardra kept scratching at those screws.
She had been smart enough to start on the bottom ones, which weren’t visible to anyone standing at ground level. So far, she had already uncovered and removed two of them. It looked like there were three pairs on the bottom and three on the top, and there was no sign of any on the sides. She continued working, only pausing occasionally to think about the freedom that waited for her on the other side of the glass.
When the time came to break out of this room, she had to know where she was going. From what she could see, there was a clear area that ran off from the main path bisecting the compound. She knew from experience that there were six buildings up the road to the south, and then there were some plant crops, a few residential homes and finally Jack’s house. That certainly wasn’t the direction she wanted to go.
All right, Mr. Deimos, she thought. What’s up the other way?
She didn’t expect anything to come of the question, but an image of a long one-story building suddenly flashed inside her mind. There were two doors, both of which were closed, but she had a clear image of what was inside. She saw a young man sitting in front of a bunch of equipment. He had earphones on his head, but he had them half off as he talked to another woman who was frowning at him. The building’s purpose became clear to her in an instant—communications. Maybe she could use that. She kept working and tried to form a plan.
The next day, Jack finished another session with Tarrin Thales and stepped over to the communications building. The noonday sun shone brightly behind him as he entered, but he closed the door against the heat.
“Hey, Nash,” he said when he spotted his friend. “How are you?”
This time, the young man wasn’t tethered to earphones but was gabbing excitedly with Norma. His lips were shaped in a big grin, and there was a lot of energy in the room.
“What’s happening?” Jack asked.
Norma rolled her eyes. “You’re just in time. It’s not interstellar news yet, but I’m sure it will be. Our Roimiran Romeo caught a break.”
He smiled. “You asked Celia out on a date?”
Nash nodded proudly.
“I don’t have to be a precept to guess her response. Way to go, Nash. You two should hit it off.”
Nash cleared his throat and glanced at Norma, which seemed to be her cue.
“Oh, for the love of morons,” she said. “Just tell him.” When Nash didn’t respond, she threw up her hands and turned to Jack. “Ask him where he’s taking her.”
Now he was really curious. “Where are you taking Miss Roberts?”
“Only to the best restaurant this side of the galaxy,” Nash announced, all but puffing out his chest. “We’re heading over to the Delta compound to the Stargazer Lounge. I have reservations for this evening.”
Jack was impressed. “The Stargazer? That must have cost you some serious credits.”
“You’d better believe it,” Nash said. “But she’s worth it. Celia is smart and pretty and funny. I can’t believe she agreed to go.”
“Once again, I told you she likes you.”
“Tonight is going to be perfect,” his friend said. “The sky is clear, the temperature is right, and Celia and I will be dining at the Stargazer.”
“All right already.” Norma had turned exasperation into an art form. “You’d better learn to shut up before Celia finds out what an insufferable drone you are. Now move along. You’re holding up my work.”
Jack shot her a look.
“I hate to knock you out of orbit,” he told Nash, “but I wanted to check on the status of your research. Have you learned anything else about Ardra Kelly? I need to know her background.”
Although it was obviously a struggle, Nash focused. “I haven’t uncovered anything yet, but maybe if you could give me some more clues, I could find something faster. Otherwise, I’m waiting to hear back from some of our operatives. I contacted as many as I could to find out if they know about her.”
“Hopefully, that will turn up something. I’ll keep working with her and see if I can learn anything else.” He glanced at the dreamy expression that had returned to Nash’s face and had to smile. “All right. I can see where your mind is today. Relax and have fun tonight. I’m sure you and Celia will have a wonderful time.”
Nash grinned.
After Jack left, he found that he was also preoccupied with a woman. He couldn’t stop thinking about Ardra—about who she was and where she had come from. He knew that someone, somewhere, had abducted this beautiful woman. It was impossible to believe she had willingly submitted to programming, so who had done it? When he closed his eyes, he could imagine her lying bound and helpless with shadowy figures looming over her, but he could never picture their faces. More than anything, he wanted to help Ardra and to know the truth, but she kept fighting him.
The next morning, Jack decided to follow up on one of the first clues she had given him—the wind chimes. After an hour, he managed to get her mind moving toward the soft melody, and he entered into her memories. The clangs and dings gradually floated farther away until they seemed to resonat
e from more than one direction. She was no longer hearing the chimes from his back patio but recalling them as an echo from her past. Along with the sound, he saw the inside of a house and, through the window, a small yard.
This, evidently, was Ardra’s mother’s house, the place where she had grown up. It was a comfortable home with creamy walls and warm furniture. In the kitchen, there were bits of light wood trim on all the cabinets, and he felt the heat of an oven. Tapping into Ardra’s olfactory sense—or her sensory memory—he took a deep breath and smelled the sweet odor of freshly baked cookies. His mouth watered.
Who was the baker? Focusing more carefully, he saw a woman with Ardra’s face near the sink—not Ardra, but some older version of her. The woman’s hair was thick and a lighter blonde, and there were touches of gray running through it. The skin beneath her eyes was wrinkled and a little shadowed, as if she was tired or had recently been sick.
Jack moved closer and entered into this woman’s body, adopting her countenance as his own. He stared out from her eyes, using her image as a shield. Ardra was sitting at a nearby table.
He called her name gently, and she turned to look at him. “Yes, Mom?”
“Where are we right now?” he asked.
She tilted her head, clearly thinking this was a strange question for her mother to ask. “We’re in the kitchen.”
“I know that,” Jack said, “but where is this kitchen?”
“Mom, are you okay? Are you feeling sick again?” She was already on her feet and walking forward to take her mother’s arm.
“I’m fine,” Jack assured her. “Maybe a little tired.”
Ardra still looked worried. “We’re home, Mom. This is our house. Why don’t you sit for a while? You know you’re supposed to take it easy, and you’ve been on your feet baking all day.”
She settled Jack, in her mother’s guise, into a chair before she sat opposite him.
“I know,” Jack said, “but I like to do it. Besides, I feel much stronger today.”
This seemed to make Ardra feel better.
“You were telling me about your visit with your friend, Estelle,” Ardra reminded him. “You said she gave you an earful about her new gentleman friend.”
A Stellar Affair Page 6