by Jaye McKenna
“Well, fuck.” Pat’s shoulders slumped. “You know there’ll be a psionic evaluation. I had to order one. If they find out he’s been tampered with—”
“Then the Senate will have to look someplace other than me. I might be able to get into people’s heads, but I can’t do it without leaving tracks a skilled mind-healer could find.” Draven could, though. He could slip in and out and never leave a trace. If Draven had messed with Sylvester’s memories, there would be no evidence to find.
Draven was damn good at what he did.
Cam knew. He’d been on the receiving end of it once. Those five minutes in DeMira’s sitting room still gave him the shivers. He’d spent years going through FedSec’s conditioning programs, working to perfect his own abilities. He’d thought his shields were impervious, his psionic web of lies perfect, but Draven had slipped through his defenses as if they weren’t even there.
Learned things Cam had buried so deep, no one should have been able to access them.
And Cam hadn’t felt a damn thing. Hadn’t even sensed his presence.
“Did you order Draven to interfere with a Federation Senate investigation?” Pat asked.
“Jesus, Pat…” Kyn murmured.
“No.” That, at least, was the truth. Draven had set himself that task the moment he’d known there was a threat to Miko. Knowing how things were between Draven and Miko, Cam doubted anything he’d had to say about it would have changed Draven’s mind.
Pat didn’t look like he believed him. “You’re going to have Internal Affairs crawling up your ass if you’re not careful, Cam.”
“Won’t be the first time,” Cam said with a sigh. “Before you decide how much to report to Iverson, let me tell you something that might influence your decision.”
Pat gave him a grudging nod. “I’m listening.”
“I’ve had word from Miko that the Command Council is going to ask us to participate in a demonstration of the effectiveness of Ravanifen.” At Kyn’s blank look, Cam added, “It’s a drug developed by ChemGenTech. Destroys psi without destroying memories. The Aurora Senate has been in closed meetings, discussing legislation that would force psions to take the drug.”
Kyn’s shock was almost a physical blow, stealing Cam’s breath like a fist in the gut. “Makes a sick kind of sense,” Kyn said, his voice uneven. “Being a psion in the Federation is getting pretty damned uncomfortable.”
“We have a plan,” Cam said.
“Who is we?” Pat asked.
“Miko, Anja, and me.”
Pat exchanged a long, unreadable look with Kyn, then leaned forward and fixed dark eyes on Cam. “Let’s hear it.”
* * *
Miko had penetrated the Wanderlust’s net so deeply, it felt almost like an extension of himself. While his body lay on a bunk in the crew quarters, his mind ranged through the ship, tracing the data conduits out to the station and beyond.
Following connections that only existed in the mythe, Miko found his way to the big data structures housed in data cores buried in vaults deep under the city of Iral, where copies of the Federation archives were kept. The data structures were like an endless maze of shimmering lights. Miko’s knowledge of the net and his ability to move through the mythe led him unerringly to the information he wanted: survey data on the myriad worlds discovered and studied in the four centuries since humanity had taken its first tentative steps beyond Earth’s solar system.
It didn’t take him long to find a handful of candidates that could support a human colony in reasonable comfort. All had been discovered more than fifty Standard years ago, and none boasted the kind of profile that would bring them to the attention of mining or agricultural ventures.
Miko found himself drawn to one world in particular: a water world dotted with too many islands to count. He opened the image file on the vid-screen in his cabin and studied the pictures taken from orbit.
The oily blackness that was Rafe pulled him back to the surface. It oozed through the mythe, moving toward him. Miko pulled his mythe-shadow in tight and steeled himself. He’d been making an effort not to show Rafe how uncomfortable his presence made him, and since Rafe couldn’t sense him, as long as Miko could keep his face and his body under control, Rafe wouldn’t know.
It would be easier if he could hate Rafe, and before Tarrin had come into his life, he might have. Now, though, that bleak emptiness he sensed in Rafe’s mythe-shadow made him ache for what they might have been to one another. He could have used someone like Rafe on his side. And Rafe… poor Rafe was as lost and alone as Miko had been before he’d met Tarrin.
When the chime on the door sounded, Miko unlocked it through the Wanderlust’s net.
Rafe edged in, a frown marring his smooth brow. “Are you… is it okay if I come in? I don’t want to hurt you, but… I need to ask you something.”
“It’s fine,” Miko said through the voice synth, and hoped his face didn’t betray his discomfort. As long as Rafe didn’t try to touch him, he could pretend it didn’t hurt. “What do you need?”
“I… wondered if you’d be more comfortable if I asked Anja to put me in cold-sleep until we get someplace where we can put some distance between us.”
“It wouldn’t make any difference,” Miko said. “I would still feel you in the mythe. Cold-sleep doesn’t change the shadow you cast there.”
“Oh. Okay. I just thought… it might make it easier for you.”
“Thank you for thinking about my comfort,” Miko said. “But… I need to get used to you. If we’re going to end up on a new world, we’ll need to stick together. We won’t be able to put that kind of distance between us.”
“I… I hadn’t thought about it like that. It hasn’t really sunk in yet that we’re really going to leave the Federation.” Rafe’s eyes drifted to the image of the water world Miko had left on the vid-screen. “Is that our new home?”
“Maybe. It’s the best one I’ve found so far.”
“Looks like it’s mostly water,” Rafe said, studying the screen.
Miko magnified and rotated the image so Rafe could see some of the islands. “Eighty percent of the surface is water,” he said. “Earth is just over seventy percent water, and Aurora is seventy-five. Most of the land on this world is island chains. There are a lot that are too small to see, even at this magnification.”
“Miko…” Rafe’s mythe-shadow drifted toward him, and Miko flinched before he could stop himself. Black eyes widened, and Rafe took a step back. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I… I can’t help it.”
“I know. It’s not anything you have control over. You can’t change the shadow you cast into the mythe. You can’t even sense it.”
Rafe looked away and caught his bottom lip between his teeth. “Can you… can you teach me not to hurt you?”
“No. I can’t even teach myself not to feel you.”
“I wish…” Rafe trailed off, shaking his head as he edged back toward the door. He stopped before opening it, eyes fixed on the water world on the screen. “Hope,” he said softly. “You should call it Hope.” And then he was gone.
* * *
Cam followed Anja down the shuttle’s ramp and into the Wanderlust’s shuttle bay. Behind him came Angus, Tarrin, and Pat. The four of them had come up to the ship to meet with Miko and Anja to decide the fate of all the psions who chose to escape the Federation before the hammer fell.
“You’re sure nobody tracked us here?” Pat asked Anja as they crossed the huge space.
“I didn’t believe it was possible at first, either,” Anja said, “but Miko’s damn good. I don’t know how he does it, but there have been no sensor blips, no station logs, nothing to suggest the shuttle ever left the ship. I haven’t been contacted by the Station Master or the spaceport regarding unauthorized trips to the surface, and this is our third secret run in as many days.”
Pat nodded, apparently satisfied. Cam hadn’t had any doubts. Miko had proved his ability to hide da
ta and fox sensors so many times, that if Miko said he could do something, Cam believed him.
Anja led them through the ship’s corridors to her office, where Miko was waiting for them. Miko’s face lit up with a happy smile when he saw Tarrin. He practically ran into Tarrin’s waiting arms and hugged him hard.
When they pulled apart, Miko turned to Cam and signed, I was worried about you.
Cam was worried, too. Sylvester had been moved to the FedSec medical facility on the outskirts of Iral, and Internal Affairs was looking into the attack that had left the investigator with no memory. An official investigation had yet to be opened, but it was only a matter of time. Miko, no doubt, already knew more about the situation than he did, so Cam just said, “There’s nothing to worry about yet.”
When they were all seated, Anja said, “I know Cam’s briefed you on our plan to set up a colony someplace outside the Federation. Miko’s been working on finding us a new home, and he’s found three worlds that fit our requirements. None of them have the biological or mineral resources that would attract corporate interests, and all of them are far enough away that it will take the Wanderlust four jumps to reach the nearest one.”
“Four jumps?” Pat looked surprised. For a ship with the mass of the Wanderlust, four jumps could cover a lot of distance.
“It’s a long way,” Anja said. “Which is good. The farther we are from Federation transport routes, the better.”
“Can we go that far and still have enough fuel left for the return trip?” Cam asked.
“Absolutely,” Anja said with a sharp nod. “We’ve already taken on all the fuel we can hold and filled the reserve tanks. The extra mass means it’ll take us an additional thirty-three hours to reach jump insertion velocity, but fuel won’t be a problem.”
“What about being found by accident?” Pat asked. “How likely is that?”
“Once we decide on a world, I can hide it.” Miko’s electronic voice came from a speaker located somewhere above them. “I can tweak the survey data to make it look like a barren rock with no mineral resources… or even make it disappear from the database entirely. Once we know which one we like, I’ll look at the data and make whatever changes make sense.”
“I don’t understand how we can find worlds so far from Earth that are so perfectly suited to us,” Angus said. “Right down to soil that can support our crops. Almost as if they were made that way.”
“They weren’t,” Miko said. “But the worlds that can support human life lie close together within the mythe, regardless of their physical distance. When the Veil Between Worlds is thin enough, people, animals, and seeds can move freely between the worlds. There’s been a lot of speculation among Federation scientists about where Aion’s human population came from, but it’s all wrong, because they don’t take the Veil into account.”
“I thought it had been decided that Aion was a lost colony from the early days of interstellar travel,” Pat said.
“That’s because it’s the easiest way to explain it,” Miko said. “Federation science can’t measure the mythe, and your scientists don’t believe in it. The truth is that Aion’s people and Earth’s people are the same. They started on one world and crossed to the other when the Veil Between Worlds was thin enough to allow it. If we keep looking, we might find human populations on other worlds, too.”
Pat looked doubtful. “Did your dragons tell you that?”
Tarrin shot Pat a scowl, but Miko only shrugged and said, “It doesn’t matter how you believe it happened. It did, and it’s good for us.” An image filled the data screen on the table’s surface. Everyone leaned forward to look at the blue-and-white sphere of water and cloud. “This is our best choice,” Miko continued. “There are two others that would do, but one has a much narrower temperate zone, and the other is a lot more geologically active. This one is all islands.”
“Islands and ocean?” Cam didn’t try to hide his doubt. “Looks like a great candidate for a resort world.”
“It’s too far away from the Core Worlds to be economically viable,” Anja said. “Four jumps from Aurora… you’d be looking at six or seven from Earth, depending on the size of the ship. That’s going to be an expensive trip. Not worth the trouble if most of the population can’t afford to travel there.”
“It was also discovered nearly a hundred years ago,” Miko added. “That means anyone who was part of the initial survey team and has a personal memory of the place is dead. And no one’s shown any interest in it. It’s too far off the trade routes, the mineral resources are buried too deep, and there isn’t enough continuous land mass to make it good for large-scale agriculture.”
“What about climate?” Angus asked. “What sort of temperatures are we looking at?”
“Earth-normal,” Miko said. “With plenty of animal life. There are some small predators and herbivores on the bigger islands, and the seas are teeming. We’d have to eat a lot of fish at first.” Miko wrinkled his nose.
“How big are the islands?” Cam asked.
Miko swiped a finger over the display, rotating the image and then zooming in. “All different sizes. Most are part of long chains, a few are isolated. This is the biggest. It’s about half the size of Earth’s Australian continent. It’s in the northern hemisphere, not too far north of the equator. We’d have to send people down to be sure, but until we know more, it’s our first choice for landfall. We’d have a long growing season, and the winters would be a lot milder than they are at the campus. More like Aurora’s equatorial regions.”
“It sounds ideal,” Pat said.
Cam nodded. “Like it was made for us. What’s the catch?”
“The catch is that these initial surveys aren’t that thorough,” Anja said. “Especially on worlds like this, where there aren’t the resources to attract commercial interest. This planet can support human life, and our crops would grow, but we don’t have any data on local wildlife, plant toxins, diseases, that sort of thing. If we were starting a colony with the Federation’s blessing, we’d have a more in-depth survey done with a focus on local hazards. As it is… we’ll have to take our chances.” She looked around the table. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m in. Starting over from scratch sounds a lot better than what the Federation has planned for us.”
“Rafe said we should call it Hope,” Miko said.
“Hope. I like it,” Cam said. “Once we announce this, there are going to be a lot of questions. I’d like to be able to tell people what they can expect… to be honest, I know nothing about setting up a colony.”
“They can expect to work damn hard,” Anja said flatly. “I’ve looked over the equipment and the manuals on how to set everything up, and I won’t lie to you: we have a lot to learn. We’ll be growing our own food, and building our own shelters. Basically, everyone works, or no one eats. We can accommodate a thousand passengers on the initial run. The original clients ordered one thousand cryo-tubes as part of the cargo — they didn’t like the idea of tranking down for jump. Thought cold-sleep would be safer.”
“How long until we can start bringing people up?” Cam asked.
“Tomorrow. My tech crew is pulling double shifts getting the cryo-tubes set up. We’ll bring up a shuttle load at a time and settle them down into cold-sleep right away, so we don’t have to worry about housing them. Wanderlust is a freighter, not a passenger transport. She doesn’t have the facilities to feed and house much more than her crew, not even for a day.”
“Good,” Cam said, “because people have been trickling in ever since the Aion Incident hit the news nets, and I’m running out of places to put them.”
“Coordinate with Miko and with Rhys Tyler,” Anja said. “Rhys volunteered to pilot the shuttle, and we’ll need Miko to hide it from the satellite sensors. Tell people to focus on packing clothing and small personal treasures. Food and shelter are covered, but it’ll take us a while to get up to speed producing everything else we need.”
“A thousand cryo-tube
s,” Angus said, glancing at Cam and then at Anja. “It won’t be enough. We’re going to have a lot more than a thousand people to move, once word gets out.”
“This won’t be a one-trip operation,” Anja said. “I never expected it to be. Make sure people understand that, too — we’re not leaving anyone behind. The first wave will depart as soon as we’re up to capacity. Once we’ve dropped them off and unloaded the equipment, we’ll be heading back for the next wave.”
“That will take time, lass,” Angus said. “Where are we going to put them all? How are we going to feed them? The campus isn’t big enough.”
“I’ve been discussing that with Vaya and Nick,” Tarrin said. “We propose to go before the Council of Chiefs and request that Aion serve as a temporary gathering place for psions who wish to leave the Federation. With the permission of the clans, we could set up a camp where people could wait for transport without fearing for their lives. If the Federation Senate is agreeable, we may even be able to convince them to assist us in transporting people and supplies to Aion.”
“I can’t imagine the Senate not agreeing,” Angus said. “It would take care of their psion problem without them having to worry about the ethical implications of enforced drugging.”
“How soon can you talk to the chiefs, Tarrin?” Cam asked.
“The clans will not begin gathering in Akajhan for a few weeks yet,” Tarrin said, “but that means Nick, Vaya, and I will have time to travel to Hope with the first group and see it for ourselves. We can bring back pictures of the new world to help keep up the spirits of those who are waiting. We’ll return to Aurora with Anja when she comes back for the second wave of colonists. From there, Nick and Vaya will travel to Aion to speak with the Council of Chiefs. If Avery’s office can arrange for a fast courier, I will go with them, and then on to Earth for the next Federation Senate session. I expect the Senate will be more inclined to be helpful if we already have at least some of the pieces in place.”