The Alliance

by David Andrews

  Her need for him was sharp and sudden. A yawning chasm in her soul threatened to engulf her, but Kayelle fought it down. She was an Adept, the great-granddaughter of a Tetrarch with a unique opportunity to serve her world. Noblesse oblige had many facets. Not the least of these was to deal with whatever situation life handed you, whining and regrets not permitted.

  She touched Dakar’s arm. “Let’s keep moving. There must be more than this.”

  He studied her face for a moment and then drained the glass in his hand. “There is.”

  * * * *

  Consciousness seeped into his mind, creeping furtively like a burglar in the night, until memory nagged him awake. Jean-Paul surged upright from the bed he’d shared with Kayelle. She’d felt very close for an instant, as if he’d heard the echo of her voice from a great distance.

  Had he missed her call?

  “You were dreaming.” Peter had sensed his distress. “There was no call.”

  Jean-Paul processed that. He felt no doubt in Peter’s mind. “Can you monitor our private channel?”

  “I can monitor the part of your mind that would hear her call when you sleep.” Peter always read more into questions than the words.

  “Can the others?”

  He felt Peter considering the question.

  “No.” The admission was reluctant. “They can’t.” His father’s mind had leaped beyond the questions to the ramifications this had for his deepest fear—that he had created this reality and it was just a dream of a dying man.

  “Does it matter?” It felt strange to offer comfort to his father. “We live, we breathe, and we love.” The last was a shaft of pain. “If we are just your dream, it is real to us, and that’s all we need to know.”

  “Jean-Paul, are you awake.” Kayelle’s mother stood at the door. She’d sensed the activity of his mind.

  “Yes, Ella.” He felt Peter leave.

  “They’ve not found her.” She said it as a statement, not a question, accompanied by the despair only a mother can feel for her child. Jean-Paul felt lessened by the comparison with his own fears.

  “No,” he said. “We’re still looking.”

  “You must be exhausted. I thought you’d sleep longer. It’s only been two hours since you lay down.” He was her connection to Kayelle. She’d shared her daughter’s emotions and knew their center had shifted. She could only follow them, looking after him brought a little piece of Kayelle closer.

  “It feels longer.” The pretense of searching on Viridia was more wearing than his true search in Limbo, but Peter’s word was law. He had to provide the comfort of action for the parents and the Tetrarchs.

  “Come to the kitchen. I can’t remember when you ate last.”

  Neither could Jean-Paul. He didn’t feel hungry, but his last meal was at the beach camp with his family—he thought.

  “Coming,” he said, and followed her out of the bedroom.

  The Tetrarch joined them halfway through the meal, querying politely before he entered. “I sensed you were awake again and thought I’d join you to discuss our lack of progress. My brother Tetrarchs are willing to send more men, if you think it will help.”

  “I don’t know what will help.” Jean-Paul had to be honest. “We have no sense of her presence, but I can’t believe her dead. My ship’s instruments record no landings other than mine, so she should be where we can find her. She isn’t. I must continue searching, but I can’t demand it of others.”

  The Tetrarch shook his head. “Kayelle is honored by all for her work with the sick during our recent troubles. We have more volunteers than we can handle and none complain of your efforts. Tell us where to search and it will be done.”

  “My only suggestion is a line search through the area I sensed her heading toward.” Jean-Paul hid his guilt at suggesting so futile an exercise, but Peter had given him no choice.

  “It will be done,” the Tetrarch said. “Every Adept is being informed by riders and all fishermen have their instructions.” He looked hard at Jean-Paul. “Get some sleep. I can’t make it an order, but I can ask as a friend.”

  “As soon as I’ve eaten.” Jean-Paul’s guilt increased at the genuine concern he sensed in the older man. Peter and the others played these games; Jean-Paul didn’t.

  * * * *

  They held the auction at eleven am, a very low-key affair. The four potential bidders, two men and two women, gathered in a small room with the game coordinator and each provided proof of his/her solvency in the form of certified drafts. The coordinator then raised the bids in one million credit stages until only Dakar nodded his acceptance of six million credits. The others shook hands with him and this settled the deal.

  Kayelle followed it from the next room. Her powers increased with the greater demands placed on them, proving Jean-Paul right.

  “To the game room?” she asked as Dakar emerged.

  He nodded to confirm he’d won the auction. “We’ll eat first and you can change into your most devastating outfit before joining me. I saw Rohan ogling you. Knock his eyes out for me. I want time to settle into the game.”

  They ate at a restaurant overlooking the large ornamental lake in the center of the dome, their table prominent enough to ensure attention. Kayelle was aware of a constant murmur of mental speculation, unrestrained by the conventions that dominated its spoken version.

  To divert herself, she followed Dakar’s mental preparation for the game. His lips moved slightly as he recited probability tables, effortlessly calculating the effect of displayed cards in a manner reminiscent of an idiot savant. She saw no conscious process involved. He merely pictured the cards and the results available appeared in his mind. Next came a catalog of the known idiosyncrasies of his opponents and those they’d played with recently. Gamblers learned from each other, and the more recent the lesson, the more dominant its effect. This led to his repertoire of subtle hints used to mislead and entrap, patterns of behavior the others could read at their peril.

  “You remember the signals,” he asked. His mind still followed the familiar procedure.

  “Yes.”

  They’d agreed on a simple system of signals to cover his needs for refreshment and hers for toilet breaks. He wanted no stranger standing behind him.

  “We won’t start playing until one. The preliminaries will take fifteen minutes and the first round is nothing. Aim to join me before twenty past.” He stood up, his meal finished. “I’ve one or two domestic chores to deal with first.”

  She watched him walk away, each step taking him further into his professional persona, a version of himself he thought of as “The Gambler.”

  Ten minutes later, she surveyed the line of gowns in the walk-in wardrobe of their suite. Over-dressing would be fatal, signaling her purpose and destroying her effectiveness. It was an afternoon session, the one-way glass of the roof open to the sky, both to give the sense of space to a small room and to prevent the deployment of unauthorized watching devices. She must dress appropriately, achieving her effect by hints rather than the open display she would use later.

  A dramatic color or pure white?

  She could wear either and her wardrobe provided choices Viridia had never seen.

  White it was. A simple dress with a decorous neckline in a fabric soft enough to cling, promising much while revealing nothing. Hair loose, brushed until it shone, no decorations and no jewelry. She’d looked into Rohan’s mind and seen herself there. She’d make that image live and see how he reacted.

  At one fifteen, she entered the game room and found a high chair waiting for her behind Dakar’s chair. She sat, ankles crossed, legs decorously slanted to one side and accepted a drink from a passing waiter as Dakar’s guest, and she would pay for nothing, the gold token unnecessary.

  A deal proceeded. The automatic machine delivered cards to each player in the prescribed order, so she had an excuse not to look at Rohan. It was enough to feel his reaction in her mind.

  He was fascinated, not even looki
ng at his cards until Dakar reminded him. He reacted badly and then lost the hand with foolish bid. The knuckles of the hand holding the cards turned white when he realized his mistake.

  Kayelle wasn’t proud of her satisfaction. It felt unclean, as if she lowered herself in everyone’s eyes.

  All players returned their cards to the machine and it whirred longer in the shuffle than usual before announcing the deck damaged. No one looked at Rohan as the supervisor passed a new deck with the seals unbroken around the table before removing the jokers and inserting it in the machine.

  Dakar was right. The cards were boring, the individual reactions predictable, as round followed round, and the odd mistake in calculating the probabilities coming almost as a relief. Even the big pots followed predictable patterns and Kayelle stopped following the run of the cards when she sensed Dakar played with only half his mind. The rest waited for a pattern to emerge to say that the next kill was imminent.

  Rohan’s mind was more active. He felt hungry, not for the credits, but for the thrill. He enjoyed the build-up to the moment when his opponent realized they’d over-committed and would lose big. He wanted Kayelle to witness his triumph. Dakar had taken her away before the last one; she’d have to stay for the next.

  It started slowly, with the player on Dakar’s left calculating whether he could afford the Authority’s rental on his chair. As long as he occupied it, the charge was one million per week, only vacated chairs were auctioned. He’d shared the spoils of the last kill. Was it enough?

  The tiny doubt was the trigger for him to shift his reading of the probabilities just a little. His selections became unconsciously more aggressive. Two hands later both Dakar and Rohan had recognized the shift and pounced.

  Until this moment, Kayelle had accepted Dakar’s reputation without considering what it meant. She’d thought him a good man, honorable, and decent. Now she saw the killer instinct unleashed as he planned one destruction and prepared the way for others. Rohan looked no further than his current victim. Dakar set up future conquests when the spoils would be higher and the task a hundred times more difficult.

  She had a decision to make.

  Did she follow Jean-Paul’s example and interfere because she could, or stand back and observe? The young man on Dakar’s left was out of his depth with these two. She could nudge him into making the right decisions and let him escape the consequences.

  There was the oddest sense of some mind just beyond her perception watching, judging. Could the Authority employ telepaths to monitor the game? It could be their final, unbeatable, defense against cheating. Jean-Paul had proved he could monitor their minds undetected. Was there another like him here? She could almost feel him surrounding her. A sudden longing swept the young gambler’s plight from her mind.

  “Jean-Paul, where are you? I need you!”

  * * * *

  Jean Paul started awake, his heart racing, his mind still enmeshed with his dream of Kayelle calling his name.

  “We’ve found her.” Peter stood by the bed. “Jack traced her to Xanadu. She’s at the Pleasure Dome and safe.”

  “I heard her calling and thought it a dream.”

  “She’s safe. Karrel is watching over her. Go to the ship. Jack has sent a message saying where she is. Show it to her parents and the Tetrarch and say you’re going to fetch her and then return to the ship. Jack will fly it to Xanadu while we go ahead.” Peter gave him a hug. “We’ve found her and she’s safe.” He stepped back into Limbo, leaving Jean-Paul staring at nothing. Jean-Paul’s mind still whirled with the transition from his dream.

  “Jean-Paul.” Ella stood at the door. “I felt you wake. Do you have news?”

  His shielding must have slipped.

  “Yes,” he said. “I have to go to my ship. There’s a message.” He’d think of some explanation later. Almost everything about the ship was a mystery to Ella.

  “About Kayelle?” The dawn of hope in her mind washed over him. She’d secretly given up.

  “I think it is. I’ve had others searching off-planet.”

  “Go, then.” She stood aside. “Hurry.”

  It gave Jean-Paul an excuse to run.

  * * * *

  Kayelle disciplined her mind back to the problem in hand. Should she interfere? Not to do so felt wrong, but the young man had entered the game knowing the risks, balancing them against a chance of riches and the thrill of playing for high stakes. His decision to squirrel away his original stake absolved her for the moment. She’d stand back unless he decided to breach it.

  Rohan and Dakar played two more hands with no move. She began to relax when she sensed a stir of excitement to her left. The young man’s hole cards were good. He resisted the temptation to study them, placing them face down with studied casualness. He would bet fifth, but his cards and the three cards dealt face up gave him a flush in spades, a good hand with potential to become better. He held a four and a five in spades and a six, a three, and a nine, all spades, lay face up before him. If the fourth or fifth card dealt face up were either a two or a seven of spades, he’d have an unbeatable hand unless someone held the eight and ten of spades and the seven came up rather than the two.

  The player on Rohan’s right opened the betting with a hundred credits. Rohan, holding two eights, one of which was the spades, giving him a possible flush and blocking a straight flush in one direction, doubled the stake. The others followed the pattern and the bet was eight hundred credits when it reached Dakar. His hole cards, both threes, gave him three of a kind with the three of spades showing, so he raised the ante to sixteen hundred.

  The young man hesitated a fraction before making the bet three thousand, two hundred credits. The sixth player had the ace of spades as one of his hole cards, giving him a possible ace-high flush, so he pushed six thousand, four hundred credits into the center.

  The machine dealt another card, face-up. the eight of clubs.

  Kayelle felt the next player’s struggle. The eight hadn’t helped him, yet the two of spades in his hole cards gave him a possible flush. One that any other spade would beat. His fall back was a pair of nines. To keep himself in the game until the final card, he covered the bet and called.

  Rohan now had three eights. On what showed, only three nines, a flush, or an unlikely straight flush could beat him. He doubled the bet to twelve thousand, eight hundred.

  The next two players called by covering the bet.

  Dakar’s situation had changed. He blocked out the threes, but any other possible three of a kind would beat him, as would a flush and he held no spades. Common sense said cover the bet and call, and his reading of the other players supported this action. He sensed a flush to his left, the hesitation had been a fraction too deliberate, and Rohan’s bet suggested a superior three of a kind opposite. The others, he could discount, unless the last card was a spade.

  Kayelle felt amazed. Dakar, without the benefit of telepathy, had defined the situation precisely.

  He stacked chips until he had twelve thousand, eight hundred credits in front of him and sat looking at them, considering, and then added another twelve thousand eight hundred before pushing them all into the center, shaking his head all the time.

  The young man playing on his left counted his chips. His only fear was a spade, other than a two or a seven, or a pair to make either a full house or four of a kind. Without these, the hand was his. He took five ten-thousand credit chips and added twelve one-thousand credit chips to double Dakar’s bet and tossed them into the center.

  The next player covered this and called.

  The machine dealt the final card—a three of hearts.

  The original better folded. He had nothing but the pair on display.

  Rohan now had a full house. He could beat a flush, the most probable hand on the face cards and his eights ranked second of the face cards, only someone holding a pair of nines or a pair of threes could beat him. He doubled the bet.

  The next two players folded and it was Dakar’
s turn, with the winning hand of four threes before him. A straight flush was impossible. He couldn’t be beat.

  Kayelle expected elation and found disappointment instead. He didn’t like sure things. Winning without risk was Dead Sea fruit, ashes in his mouth. He’d milk the player on his left and cut as deeply as he could into Rohan’s stake, knowing he couldn’t lose on the cards and could ride out any attempt to buy the pot, but the thrill disappeared.

  “Hello.”

  Engrossed in the puzzle of Dakar’s reaction, Kayelle didn’t respond immediately and then her mind froze. He was here.

  “You called me, and I came halfway across the galaxy to have you ignore me.” Jean-Paul’s tone teased her. “A kiss would be nice. I’ve been worried.” His arm wrapped around her waist. “You seem to have coped very well.”

  “I knew you’d find me.” It was important he understood her trust. “Can we go somewhere private?”

  “Of course.” Her lips tingled for a phantom kiss.

  She remembered to signal a toilet break to Dakar and he welcomed the excuse to look away from the table, giving Jean-Paul a long considering look.

  “Will you be coming back?”

  “Anneke will watch your back for the rest of the session,” Jean-Paul replied, gesturing to the woman on the other side of Kayelle.

  This was no conventional beauty, Anneke had chosen bright colors, vibrant with life, and let the intelligence in her face commanded attention. “Will I do,” she asked Dakar.

  “I am honored,” he said. “We’ll discuss how much after this hand.” He turned back to the table, but Kayelle sensed Anneke’s face in his mind.

  “Hi, Kayelle. I’m this idiot’s sister. You led us quite a chase, but the whole family is waiting.” Anneke may have ended her greeting with a warning, but Kayelle felt her mental embrace and its warmth told her this was an ally. “You’ll find we all are.” Jean-Paul was not the only one who could scan minds without opening theirs.

  “Shall we go?” Jean-Paul had taken her hand and waited. “We’ve taken the suite next to Dakar’s.”