Uncharted

by Evangeline Anderson

  “What if I told you that you could stop all this? That you could save the women of this planet from their bondage, get rid of Krumf, and save your own female into the bargain?” Valdor asked. “Would you be interested?”

  Terex frowned skeptically. “Of course I’d be interested. But how? Have you got some magic up your sleeve?”

  “No—but you do.” Valdor cocked his head to one side, studying Terex through narrowed eyes. “Otherwise, how could you have fooled the Nixian fingerprint and retinal scanning systems? Tell me this—do you have the ability to fool them again?”

  “Why should I tell you that?” Terex demanded. “Why should I trust you at all?”

  “I could ask you the same thing,” Valdor replied. “It’s not every day a male comes home after a century’s absence to find his entire world horribly changed and then gets placed under suspicion of treason because someone is impersonating him—very convincingly too, I might add.”

  “I didn’t know you’d returned,” Terex muttered. “I didn’t even know I looked like you until the command tower called me by your name.” He sighed. “I played along because I thought it would be easier to get what I wanted as a known and respected person rather than a stranger.”

  “And what was it you wanted?” Valdor asked. When Terex didn’t reply, he leaned forward and murmured, “No matter what it was, I have something here that can help you find it.”

  From within the folds of his cloak, he drew out a small silver sphere about the size of the Earth fruit called an orange.

  Terex caught his breath as he watched it blink and glow in the other male’s hand.

  “The silver sphere which finds the trail!” he breathed.

  “The Sphere of Location. Observe…” Valdor touched the top of the blinking sphere in his palm. It opened under his touch and a small tray emerged on the end of a snaking mechanical arm. “Place even the tiniest bit of DNA from whatever or whomever you are seeking on the tray and the sphere will analyze it and scan the universe for it, pointing you always in the correct direction until you reach your target.”

  “But how can that possibly work?” Terex demanded. “How can any scanner be so sensitive? How can any probe be so strong and far-reaching?”

  “It uses Letition technology,” Valdor said simply.

  “From the Letites? The same race you went to consult with about the fate of your world?”

  “The same. They see both forward and backward in time.” Valdor sighed. “You know by my reckoning I spent less than a solar year with them? And yet, when I returned through the time vortex to my own part of the universe, I found my planet had aged a century without me—a terrible century in which most of my people had been killed, the females had been enslaved, the environment polluted, an inequitable class system established whereby a very few were ridiculously wealthy—able to drive about on foolish golden carts on a special road while the vast majority slaved in smog-belching factories and lived in poverty…” He sighed again. “I could go on but what use is it? The questions I went to ask the Letites are all moot now. Why ask about equality for the sexes when no one understands the meaning of the word anymore?”

  “It must have been a terrible shock to you.” Terex felt grudging sympathy for the other male. “To find what Krumf had done in the relatively short time you have been absent.”

  “Yes, Krumf…” Valdor’s eyes narrowed. “He is the author of all this. The reason my people were exterminated like insects. He is the reason my beautiful world was despoiled, its strong, intelligent females enslaved and belittled, the majority of its people condemned to inequality and poverty…” A muscle in his jaw clenched and he focused on Terex. “But you—you understand! I heard the way you spoke to your female—you still have the reverence for all things female and feminine the Goddess instilled in her children.”

  “Yes,” Terex said heavily. “Despite the fact that I allowed Krumf to make me brand her, to sear my initials into her flesh as though she were nothing but chattel to be bought and sold at an auction.”

  “Krumf corrupts everything he touches,” Valdor said darkly. “I more than anyone should know that. Just as I know that wallowing in self-recrimination and guilt is not the way to fix what he has broken.”

  “What would you have me do?” Terex spread his hands. “Why do you show me the Sphere and speak of me saving your planet from bondage?”

  “Because it was foretold you would—by one of the last Kindred priestesses before the pureblooded Nixians killed her,” Valdor said. “Listen to her words:

  “Valdor returns, first once then twice

  The second time he pays the price

  To end our bondage with his deed

  That cures us all and slays the Need.”

  “What does that mean?” Terex asked. “And why can priestesses never simply say what they mean?”

  “I don’t know why they must be so cryptic,” Valdor admitted. “But in this case, I think it’s fairly obvious. ‘Valdor returns, first once then twice’ refers to the fact that I came home and shortly after, you came here impersonating me.”

  “But what price must I pay?” Terex demanded.

  “I believe you have already paid it—losing your female to the Need and to Krumf is a heavy price indeed,” Valdor said soberly.

  “Too heavy.” Terex massaged the back of his neck wearily. “And the deed I am supposed to do? The one that ‘slays the Need’? What do you make of that?”

  “I’ll tell you,” Valdor said. “But first you must vow to undertake it at once without stopping for anything or anyone.”

  Terex frowned. “Are you asking me to leave this place and go on a quest without Elaina? Because I won’t do that—won’t abandon her in this horrible place to be…to be hurt by that bastard Krumf and killed by the Need.”

  “I’m not asking you to leave her for good,” Valdor said soothingly. “Just to go and seek the cure for her and for all the females on this planet and bring it back.”

  “And what happens while I’m off on this wild chase—what if I’m gone too long and Krumf decides he wants to…wants to…” His throat worked but he couldn’t get the rest of his sentence out.

  Valdor appeared to understand, though.

  “I don’t believe you’ll have to travel far,” he said. “And if you do the job correctly, Krumf won’t be able to abuse or molest your female. Because he won’t be able to regenerate.”

  “What?” Terex frowned. “Explain.”

  “First swear you’ll undertake the mission,” Valdor said evenly.

  “Why?” Terex demanded. “Why ask me when you clearly understand it better? Why not do it yourself?”

  “Because I don’t have your talent of impersonating others—of being able to trick retinal and fingerprint scans.” Valdor looked at him intently. “Will you do it or not?”

  Terex took a deep breath. Goddess, let me be making the right choice, he prayed. At last, he nodded.

  “I will,” he said. “Explain everything and let me out of here.”

  * * * * *

  “What are you doing in here?” Zerana stared at Elaina with wide, uncertain eyes. “How can you be here in the Need harem when you belong to Master Valdor?”

  “Apparently I don’t…don’t belong to him any longer.” Elaina tried to keep from crying but a stray tear trickled out—she couldn’t help it.

  “Oh, Elaina!” Zerana took a step forward, her arms outstretched…and then stopped, obviously afraid of touching her.

  “It’s all right,” Elaina whispered. “You can touch me. Apparently I…I have the Need. So it’s not like you can infect me when…when I’m already infected.” She took a deep breath. “I think I know how it happened. I tried to help one of the Needy Ones when we first came to this planet and she was crying. I got her tears on the sleeve of my sweater and then I rubbed…rubbed my eyes. And I guess I didn’t want to see it before. Didn’t want to admit…”

  Her words became halting and then stopped altogether.
Another tear slipped out and this time it was followed by another and another until she was crying so hard she couldn’t catch her breath.

  She cried for the way she and Terex had parted, for the dead, hopeless look in his eyes as they dragged him away from her…she cried for herself, knowing that the Need would kill her and that Krumf would probably have his way with her long before it did…but most of all she cried for Gina—for her sister whom she had failed so badly.

  She’ll die now—there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I won’t even be there to hold her hand at the end. I’ll be stuck here for the rest of my short life and Gina will die alone never knowing what happened to me.

  It was the last thought that made her cry the hardest—cry until she felt like the sobs might shake her apart with their intensity. And then Zerana’s arms were around her and she was patting Elaina’s back and whispering soothingly into her ear.

  “It’s all right, my friend. All will be well…all will be well.”

  “I…I don’t see how it can be well,” Elaina managed to choke out through her sobs. “Not when I’m stuck in here and I have…have the Need and I can’t get to my sister and…and everything is so…so screwed up!”

  “I don’t understand either.” Zerana gave her a long look. “But I believe in the prophesy. Now that your Master Valdor is here, he will save us from our bondage.”

  Elaina didn’t have the heart to tell her that Terex wasn’t really Valdor at all, or that he’d been dragged off to prison and wasn’t in a position to rescue himself from bondage—let alone anyone else. But it was kind of Zerana to try and comfort her and even if she couldn’t share the other woman’s optimism, she could at least share her friendship.

  “Thank you,” she said, swiping at her eyes with the ragged remains of her bathing garment. “It’s kind of you to say so. Kind of you not to lose hope.”

  “Hope is all that keeps you going in a place like this,” Zerana said seriously. “Come, my friend—let’s find you some new clothing. You can’t be seen in such rags.”

  Elaina still felt so miserable she would have been happy to curl up in a corner and ignore everything. Who cared if she was wearing rags? Who cared if she looked presentable?

  But Zerana’s lovely face was bright and encouraging and her hand on Elaina’s arm was gentle and kind. For her friend’s sake, Elaina allowed herself to be led deeper into the harem, trying to ignore the curious glances the Nixian women threw her way.

  Even as she walked, though, threading her way through the richly decorated prison which was now her home, she couldn’t stop thinking of the big Kindred she’d come to care for so much.

  Terex, she thought. Even if I never see you again, I hope you know I love you too.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Terex withdrew the tiny, tattered blossom from the inner pocket of his cloak—the same cloak, in fact, that Valdor had been wearing, for they had traded clothing—and examined it carefully. It was bright, silvery white with brilliant purple veins running through its delicate petals.

  “Be careful with it,” Valdor had told him. “It’s the only bit of the little helper plant I was able to lay my hands on. Preserve it carefully for it will help you find the rest.”

  Still thinking of the other male, Terex placed the tiny blossom in the tray of the silver sphere and watched as the long mechanical arm withdrew to the interior of the mechanism and the hatch at the top of the sphere closed.

  He had left Valdor sitting in the exact same cell the other male had found him in. At first, Terex had thought this was a bad idea.

  “Are you certain you want me to leave you here?” he’d demanded before leaving.

  “I must stay here,” Valdor replied. “Or the guards will know you’re gone when they come to give you food. The alarm will be raised and your task—already difficult—will become impossible.”

  “Do you really trust me so much?” Terex persisted. “You don’t think I’ll leave you and simply go back through the Blind without you?”

  “I know you won’t.” Valdor had looked at him steadily. “And it isn’t you I trust so much as your love for your female. You won’t leave her here—you’ll come back for her but only after you bring the cure for the Need.”

  “You’re right,” Terex told him. “I’m just surprised you’re willing to risk so much on a complete stranger.”

  “You’re not a stranger—you’re another Kindred. A brother.” Valdor had put and arm through the bars and Terex took it in a warrior’s clasp. “Make me proud, Brother,” Valdor said softly. “Show the Nixians that the Kindred are still a force to be reckoned with.”

  Terex had squeezed the other male’s arm tightly before letting go.

  “I will,” he vowed. “I swear it by the Mother of All Life—I will find the cure and I will come back for you and for my female—for Elaina. And when I do…” He gritted his teeth. “I will end Krumf and everything he stands for.”

  “That job is mine.” Valdor’s eyes flashed. “It was my home world he despoiled—my people he killed.”

  “We shall see then.” Terex nodded at him and the other male nodded back.

  “Go with the Goddess, Brother,” he said to Terex.

  Terex had nodded once more and then left him in the cell. Wearing the other male’s clothes and armed with his access codes, he’d been able to make his way out of the palace and back to the space port where he’d docked his ship in the first place.

  Lifting off without Elaina was one of the hardest things he’d ever done in his life but it was necessary. He told himself he had to take this opportunity—had to get to the little healer plants before Krumf’s men came to harvest them. If he stopped to try and get her out of the harem first, he might be recaptured and there would be no second chance—of that he was certain.

  He watched anxiously as the silver sphere completed its calculations and then began to display coordinates.

  “Hmm…” He scratched his head. “Off planet? How far off planet?”

  To his surprise, the silver sphere answered him in a tinny, mechanical voice.

  “The target you seek is located on the far side of this planet’s nearest moon. It should be a relatively short flight provided that your vehicle has a moderately adequate propulsion system.”

  “It’s one of the fastest ships my people manufacture,” Terex assured it. “A trip to the nearest moon shouldn’t take more than a solar hour or so.”

  “Then I suggest you set coordinates,” the sphere answered in its tinny voice. “Time is of the essence. The target will be harvested in two point two solar hours, giving you barely adequate time to complete your mission.”

  “How can you pinpoint the exact time so perfectly?” Terex asked it as he input the coordinates into his Navcom.

  “My makers see both forward and backward on the chronological plane,” the sphere answered. “This forward vision, as they call it, is the reason I was sent to this planet in the first place—because they knew that Master Valdor and you, Commander Terex would have need of me in the future. They have endowed me to a limited degree with their knowledge, so I can see what may happen in the immediate future.”

  “Can you tell me if I’ll be successful?” Terex asked it. “If I’ll be able to cure the Need and save Elaina?”

  “Negative,” the sphere chirped, much to his disappointment. “For I can see all possible futures—as the timeline branches, the possibilities become infinite. However, in all possible futures I see Krumf’s personnel coming to harvest the little healer plant. I am hopeful that your actions will lead to one of the favorable outcomes I see, rather than the unfavorable ones.”

  “What outcomes do you see? Tell me some of them,” Terex coaxed.

  “Negative,” the sphere bleeped. “To speak of futures that may be would be to change the future that must be. It is forbidden. I can only give you the most general of warnings and directions.”

  “Well, I suppose it’s better than nothing,” Terex growled. “Come on
—let’s go to the nearest moon and see what we can find.”

  The trip to the nearest moon—named Grs, according to his Navcom—took a little over an hour, just as the sphere had predicted. It was a small, gray moon without a mark on it—little more than a rounded asteroid floating in space.

  “Well, this doesn’t look promising,” Terex muttered, frowning. “I don’t see how anything could grow on such a barren landscape.”

  “Perhaps the surface of the planet is not our destination,” the sphere, which had been silent for most of the trip, remarked.

  “Good point. Initiating subterranean scan.”

  At last he found what he was looking for—a network of caves just below the surface of the moon’s rocky crust. And, almost hidden by the grayish dust that covered it, a docking port.

  There was a ship already there when he landed and at first Terex was afraid the males sent by Krumf to collect the harvest had already gotten there. But a closer look at the craft revealed it wasn’t Nixian at all. It was too thickly covered in the grayish dust to see details but it appeared to have been abandoned—at least, the sensors of his own ship didn’t detect any recent activity. Not only that—it was barely docked at all. There was extensive damage to the hull, as though the landing had been a controlled crash.

  What was going on here? Terex had no idea but he did know he had no intention of leaving Grs without the little healer plants. Anyone who tried to stop him would have a deadly fight on their hands.

  “Be cautious,” the sphere said, just as he was about to step through the airlock with his blaster drawn. “Several possible futures within this time frame lead to your death and/or dismemberment.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” he said dryly. “I’ll be on the look-out.”

  But when he passed through the airlock and into the dusty, quiet area of the underground complex, there was nothing to see and no one to challenge him. Lying on the floor was the body of a male with blood and dirt on his face—a quick check of his vitals showed he wasn’t alive and hadn’t been for some time. Also, he was beginning to smell.