13. YASHID
We ended up in what looked like a large hangar on an airport and we were marched up onto a dais decorated with flowers and welcomed by an initial speaker followed by the Chief Minister a politician, who praised us for rescuing their folks in space. I suppose it was big news here and there were lots of cameras. Dillion was pushed to say thank you for the warm welcome and we each got a big medal hung around our necks. We were then ushered into a greeting line of sorts and various leaders shook our hands as well as many prominent people some of whom were from Trat Mining Conglomerates who seemed particularly thankful. They looked the part, mostly-fat cats who sat in large soft chairs demonstrably manifesting their years of too much to eat and drink. There was one wizened and wiry gentleman who described himself as a major shareholder who pulled Mader aside and we knew it was our target Yashid. He had the hooded eyes of the devious and was obviously trying to get us all together. He said, “ I don’t expect you to know me, but I’m one of the major private shareholders in the TMC and I sure would love to hear directly from you about our men and what happened. I am Yashid.” We noticed that his beady eyes were darting back and forth as several other dignitaries started to sidle over. I guess he would have liked to have us to himself but knew he couldn’t. At the same time, we felt someone, likely that sweet looking pudgy lady in her fifties sitting a short distance away seemingly staring at some paperwork in her hand attempting to snake into our minds. Our thoughts immediately focused on the here and now, not thinking of the events in space. She was trying to read our thoughts and memories, so we made sure that there was none for her to get. With our partitions up we spoke to each other and surreptitiously recorded the crowds on our vidcoms, each taking different sectors. Mader told him very matter of factly, that they were lucky we had gotten there in time and that they doing well except for the poor gentleman who had died. We were able to report that the man who had been paralyzed had regained some small amount of movement in his legs. He looked toward the fat lady and we noticed that she shook her head as if to the negative. Finally he put his card in each of our hands thanked us and seemed to have lost interest. It was totally obvious that his goal had been to focus our thoughts on the events then have our thoughts read to see what we knew that might be compromising to his enterprise. We had however hit the jackpot in his mind. Names, dates and locations were now ours to use. He had been easy for us. Mader had even got to touch him as he proffered his card. That was a mistake that he would later regret. We now had a connection to his mind that we could milk for quite a while. Aha! ‘Mission mostly accomplished’ on that front is how we assessed meeting him.
Mader and ourselves were busy dictating names, locations and numbers into our vidcoms as he thought about them within his mind. He was quite a despicable creature. He was absolutely uncaring about the people who we rescued and was happy that the Captain Mischa was alive only because he really was a good spaceman and it meant the Corporation would not have to work hard at recruiting another Captain. They were tough jobs that few wanted to risk their lives doing and they had had to get him all the way from Toigan. Now we knew that his two teams in space securing his ore were comprised of Captain Marybeth and Brataslav with two additional crewmen on board the former freighter Marigot converted to armed spaceplane, and his comrade in arms Madhi with his three crew members in the converted freighter SanQuentin. Those were the two sets of crews guarding their haul. In two months they would send a message to Trat Mining Conglomerate demanding an ungodly sum to be credited into their untraceable accounts that he had his son Jimblatt through intermediaries set up. The last haul two years ago was devastatingly profitable. All his men had been more than well compensated. He reasoned that well, he was the generous type. He had made them millionaires. So they knew the rewards and would stay hunkered down in space under their cloak or whatever they called it. Professor Wainscot with his team who had worked hard on the cloaking technology had done well too. The old fart was able to retire and is enjoying traveling. Yashid had thought of hastening his movement from this life but after deep contemplation, felt that to kill the old fart might attract more attention than letting him live. He had seen some stupid geniuses try to clean up the loose ends only to have vengeful documents come out.
People who work behind the scenes often leave documents to rip apart their bosses if they should be killed off. So he wasn’t going to make that mistake.
Those little kiddos from Toigan didn’t seem to be worth fooling with, he had concluded. His fat lady told him that they were kids with innocent thoughts and were very neutral to his presence. They only seemed mildly curious, if that, as to who he was. That had made him satisfied. Let them have their chat with the little jokers Martinette and Munchin. He was still a little miffed that despite all his money and pull, he was unable to maneuver to own them or their closest underlings. He made himself happy at the memory of how easy it had been to get twelve high tech missiles up into space under their very noses, disguised as mining equipment by buying off the export and inspection folks. Money just made the world go round and round, never mind what they teach in school he thought, with a smirk on his face. He consoled himself with the thought that it wasn’t necessary to have everybody under his thumb. He’d have to pay out too much that way. It was more fun to go around them while they stood there like the dumb fools that they were anyway. His driver saw him smirking as he chauffeured him up his manicured driveway and thought , “He just got one over on some poor sucker. He pays me well and that’s all I care. I just hope to retire in four years and live quietly with my old lady.”
14. MARTINETTE AND MUNCHIN
As Six made their way from the welcome ceremony put on by Baclet Aeronautical Society Administration (BASA) to welcome the astronauts visiting from their sister planet Toigan, an admittedly rare occurrence, they slow walked through the crowds there to greet them. Among the crowds were people associated with the Trat Mining Conglomerate interests, there purportedly to thank them for helping out their employees who had needed rescuing. Six realized that they were being watched. The feed was being seen all over Baclet through the news agencies and that feed would take one hour to Toigan and more than that to get to the moon Trat and the planet Threeme. It would be seen also on the BMOS and by Captain Ronald on the Celeste. There were some very critical and experienced people watchers in the intelligence security agencies including Mr. Martinette of Defnet and Chief Munchin of Securinet with their top assistants just a hundred yards away, observing from the privacy of a large conference hall on this sprawling Air Force base where the rescuers had been transported. At the right time when the mingling started to wind down, they would be shepherded toward this conference room for the real meeting. In the meantime, Martinette and Munchin who were especially good friends as well as colleagues and more than that were responsible for helping to get each other into their respective powerful positions sat next to each other and were absorbing the scene. They particularly focused on the dynamics and unscripted movements of Six as they walked together. Martinette whispered, “Don’t you see how they move, like a sinuous snake pointedly going in the right direction but flowing among and between each other, at all times outward facing with all angles covered at all times. It’s as if they are one body and each body part knows the relative position of all the other parts. They are slowly making their way towards our location as if they know already where we are, just waiting our turn. It’s hard to believe their seeming sense of awareness. I have only seen that kind of movement among special forces. Yet the special forces are usually in the late twenties up to the forties by the time they are that smooth. Yet these are just teens. I don’t know any teens in Baclet that would move with such poise, assuredness or for that matter deadly seriousness. They are quite frankly scary. No wonder they were able to pull off the rescue and fend off attacks that would have exterminated any other group.”
Munchin said, “I couldn’t have put it better Mart! Toigan has produced some incredible people and
technology I must say. We need to buck up and really learn from them. I can’t be heard to speak like that openly, planet and national pride is at stake Lordy!” Their assistants were spread out like a fan behind each leader and were murmuring among themselves too. There was very little rivalry among those two departments since their heads were so friendly and cooperative. In fact there was some exchange of talent back and forth with no hard feelings. Both of their wives sat together not far from their husbands and carried on a relaxed banter with each other. They all socialized together, as did their kids who were just about to enter high school though in different parts of the nearby capital city called Tivoliville. They were only eighty miles from the city and their homes and had gotten here by official convoys, eschewing the expense of aircraft for such a short trip.
Martinette also had his sister Yovel with him, but she was seated with her husband way to the back giving him his distance at such official functions. She has been indispensable to his success at every stage. For a few moments he entered a little reverie. He thought of his mother Lynn and how from the time he was a kid, he would sprawl on the couch with his head in her lap and how she would run her fingers through his hair and gently caress his scalp just so. This was the earliest, most soothing interaction he could remember with anyone and to this day whenever he went to visit his Mom or she came over, her walking past him on the couch and briefly caressing his scalp settled his seething mind with comfort and calm. Next in line was his slightly older sister Yovel who doted on him. Since as a little child he found that she was the one person with whom he could have full and clear conversations while to everyone else, including their parents there might only be a few grunts heard. In fact, his parents early on discouraged those ‘awful little noises’ between them because they said to Yovel, “please teach the boy to speak properly.”
So Yovel and Martinette just learned to speak to each other in their heads and never ever let anyone know that they were doing so, since they expected the usual disapproval. It became their private way of communication and Yovel seemed in addition to have what he thought of as a ‘sixth sense’ where she could understand what people were thinking just innately. That saved ‘her bacon’ many many times, at least once from a kidnapping and maybe three times from rape. Oftentimes Martinette would be the one who would show up to disrupt those near crimes and they were both able throughout their lives to help foil various crimes and even solve quite a few. That was the secret as to why at the age of thirty six he was Chief Martinette, well respected and highly decorated in Baclet. Yovel never strayed far from her brother, working in the same office and giving and getting advice to and from each other. Not even their parents knew their secret, even though their parents understood that they loved each other with no apparent strife as most other siblings tended to have. They just thought that Yovel was still ‘protective’ of her younger brother, that’s all. They of course made sure to give each other enough space so as not to alienate their respective spouses. In fact a key part of them settling on each of their life partners was how well they could tolerate the closeness of the brother and sister team. So here now at work, Yodel was his special assistant ad hoc and no one in the department questioned the arrangement.
Martinette and Munchin had met in college and played soccer together and studied legal affairs and law enforcement together. They both felt that that was their calling. Upon graduation, they each got jobs in their current agencies and climbed the ranks. Munchin would frequently get curbside consultations on issues and vice versa. They were both ambitious and in particular, Martinette would keep a lookout for his friend aided by his secret weapon that of course Munchin did not get told about. So on a few critical cases, which Munchin got unexpected help with solving some criminal and a few civil, his profile got the boost it needed. Ultimately, two years after Martinette succeeded his retired boss, Munchin also got the nod to succeed his retiring boss at Securinet. Their lives have been intertwined in more ways than they could count. These men have helped each other to become who they were and had each other’s implicit trust and respect. Thus they could bare themselves mentally without worry. They both were aware of the national and planet wide crisis that they’d faced when two years ago, there was this hijacking and then ransom. It was terrifying at all levels and they’d felt powerless to solve it. He and his sister Yovel felt deep in their bones that sleepy Yashid might be involved but couldn’t prove it.
His sister who had gone with him when he was a junior officer to some casinos had realized that there were mind readers in those places and they both had learned how to think intensely about things other than what they were there for, to not be scanned accurately by those folks. Thus they had come to realize that some of the ultra rich crooks like Yashid used people with that gift to scan others minds and position themselves to therefore take advantage when they found vulnerabilities. Advising Munchin on how to protect his mind and that of each of their trusted senior officials by such techniques had certainly helped to prevent those crook types from wrangling control of their people by blackmail or similar means. Of course to Munchin, this all happened by paying some of those mind readers to come in to teach their department how they could be vulnerable. They were none the wiser that their real protector in Chief was none other than Yovel.
In the meantime Six had meandered steadily toward the conference room with a word from a smartly uniformed officer who had ostentatiously marched up saluted and said, “Chiefs Martinette and Munchin await your presence in that conference room Ladies and Gentlemen when you get free.” He had then marched off. One final gauntlet, the reporters, lay between them and that conference room. Thankfully due to the request from their Toigan Defnet relayed through Captain Ronald, there would be only one reporter allowed and only three questions. Her badge read ‘Tivoliville news’ and she said, “Welcome to Baclet and our capital city Tivoliville to our Toigan neighbors from all of us. How are you liking Baclet so far?”
Dillion said, “We are impressed with the welcome Ma’am and so thrilled to be here among you all. You all have been so nice and so beautiful. We know this trip is all about business and will be short, but I can tell you that we will have to find a way to make it back. We hope that this will be the start of more people to people exchanges and not once every fifty years as it has been before. Now that travel is becoming much much faster with the improvements in technology, we hope to be back and for fun, not just when there is a bit of crisis.” The lady reporter continued with her wonderful lilting voice, to our ears anyway, with her nice softball questions, “Do you have anything to say about our folks who were rescued?”
Dillion said, “We could not have saved one of your poor engineers and we were so deeply saddened for the family and his greater family here on Baclet, but we were thrilled to have gotten there in time to pick up the rest of the survivors even though they all had varying injuries. They are all making steady recoveries on board your very capable BMOS with the highly capable medical team that you all assembled. We know that they will get to come home soon once they become stable for the trip. We wish you all the best.”
She then asked, “Can you say anything about the rumor that you and your ship were attacked after you had already picked up the survivors and were on your way here?”
Dillion paused and then said, “The people of Baclet will soon put all this behind them Ma’am with our help.”
The reporter perked up and started to ask another question but stopped suddenly when Dillion and the whole of Six all bowed from the waist up with hands clasped at the chest demurely and walked at a very brisk pace toward the door of the conference room with reporters excitedly shouting questions to their backs and the crowd around them clearing a path. The two uniformed officers at the door smartly pulled it open to allow them in.
Six when they all got through the doors trundled to a halt. They got their eyes used to the new bright lighting and immediately recognized Chief Martinette and Chief Munchin as well as a few of their se
nior aides from their one conference from up top on the BMOS. Chief Martinette now that they were close by seemed to be, well ‘open’. There was a lady sitting in the back who looked like him strangely enough and they clearly heard the two of them talking to each other.
Six was a study in calmness, seeming to collectively take a deep breath before stepping forward toward the small crowd who stood to their feet clapping in welcome. They felt the genuineness of the outpouring. Real goodwill and sincere thanks emanated from the Defnet and Securinet crowd which had sat a little separated from each other behind their respective heads. The lady in question though had been sitting way to the back in a little elevated area amphitheater style with a curved balcony in front of her. They and she too were standing. In keeping with the diplomatic projection of thanks and humility, Six bowed from the waist down hands clasped briefly but eyes up and scanning. That scanning was obviously internal based too. They had instantly compartmentalized and conferred among each other, “Should we test them, it could be useful with minimal downsides since we can’t be accessed easily?” The consensus said, “Let’s try.”
Jonah mentally said, “Do not be alarmed. I am Jonah of Six. Respond in both of your minds if you can. If you can’t respond but can hear us, just wave your left hand three times.” This was directed at Chief Martinette and the lady sitting in the back. The two of them turned two shades paler and swallowed, no more like gulped! Then came the answer, “Oh Lord Jonah I hear you loud and clear. My sister Yodel is in the back and I’m sure she hears you too.” His color was coming back and now he looked flushed with excitement. She said, “We didn’t realize that we could hear others so clearly in our heads. Do you hear me, am I getting through. My brother and I have used this all of our lives and not even our parents know. Oh dear.”
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