by Jay Aspen
Could get Qat shut down. Or worse.
Two days at the carbon-fibre plant in the tropical forests of Karesh turned up nothing. Except two wasted days. Another source of impatience. If the cable network expansion hadn’t been vetoed again last year he wouldn’t have to travel so far to gather intel from anywhere beyond the twin cities of Kar and Merkaan.
Primae IV isn’t your average remote planet on the far edge of navigable space. Its resonance, far more powerful than the mere 7.83 hz of the colonists’ homeworld, interferes with coms transmission over a five mile range. And since resource extraction and use of machines disrupts the resonance, damaging everything from food-crops to human health, any new development is meticulously checked before release for general use. Ninety percent of tec innovations never make it out of R&D––including powerful transmission waves.
Zin walks into the tall white building of Merkaan’s police HQ, checks security cameras above the inner door, waits till the corridor inside is empty and steps through to back offices that don’t officially exist.
He pulls off the micro-lens with a sigh of relief. It blocks some of his resonance-sensitivity, losing him a level of alertness that has kept him alive more times than he cares to remember. He hands over the holo-vid image of his stalker; stocky, muscular, ridiculous single-diamond latest-fashion implant on the cheekbone below the right eye.
Zin walks into the boss’s abali-white office and stands facing him across that meticulously tidy glass desk at the end of a room that somehow seems designed to intimidate. Updates him on his new plan. Usual unwavering fierce stare in response.
No wonder they call him the Scorpion.
And the usual disclaimer. ‘Zin, I can’t order you to do this. You’re a deniable volunteer. And if you’re caught, you were never here and I know nothing about you.’
WEBDANCER HANNIK SENSES real agitation in Professor Maret’s manner, noticing deep worry-lines on his grey-bearded face. It’s well known he takes his teaching work seriously––some say too seriously––but the strain of too many sleepless nights has brought a tightness to his voice as his concerns spill faster than the fountain burbling and splashing at the edge of the warm, dawn-lit Karesh forest beyond the open door.
‘Hannik, something’s not right. I’ve had difficult students before, but I usually sense what their problems are, how to guide them, even if it takes months. This is different. In some ways Aisha seems to know more than anyone at the faculty, but so often she just argues obscure details.’
The elderly Webdancer pushes back her long dark braid, failing to repress a grin. ‘Hmph. Sounds like Aisha’s usual impassioned response to complexities!’
Maret shakes his head. ‘It’s more than that. She’d been fine for several weeks, then yesterday she wouldn’t even try the new exercise––just kept arguing the validity of the Fourth Principle itself. And this is a student with exceptional intelligence and resonance-awareness.’
‘Maybe she’s scared. Those navigation routes can be intimidating.
‘I’ve never seen her scared of anything, not wildside anyway. There’s something else but I can’t see it.’ Maret shuffles his feet on the orange-weave rug like a nervous grey dragonfly, anxious to resolve his concerns. ‘Hannik, I know your support-mother role for her concluded when she came of age but... I wondered if that experience might give you more insight than I have?’
Hannik smiles affectionately, recalling a fascinating if rather hair-raising year steering her desert-born protégé through the vulnerability underlying those wild escapades and into some semblance of university protocol.
Was it really three years ago? Four? Feels like yesterday.
‘Of course. I’ll talk to her. I’m still her web-mentor, due for another tutorial soon. I’ll bring it forward.’
Maret looks relieved. ‘Thanks, Hannik. It means a lot to me. If a Webdancer with your experience confirms the resonance isn’t out of synch, it might give her confidence to try the route again.’
Hannik watches him walk back to the bay mare waiting patiently by the fountain in the soft dawn. She sinks into the cushioned hover-seat and stills her mind for a few moments. Her innate gestalt ability reaches for answers to the problem of Maret’s recalcitrant student, but no converging strands of scattered information weave patterns across the quiet peace of the morning.
Sometimes Aisha reminds Hannik of her own wild and unconventional student days, before she finally understood the value and power of Order discipline to enhance her natural skills. Still, it’s always easier to see the advantages in hindsight.
These last weeks Hannik often finds herself watching the green replacement seed at her dome’s apex. It waits, ready to drop into the pod as soon as the ripe seed releases in a few months’ time, assurance that her home will remain active, alive and comfortable for at least another five years.
But will I still be here for that five years?
Her long and hitherto satisfying informal association with the university has started to feel... uncertain. Restlessness or some inner need demanding attention? An urge to a new direction? Sixty of her eighty years she’s worked here and barring accidents has another sixty still to fill with––what? Something fulfilling, worthwhile, using the inherited mental and physical gifts she worked so hard to develop?
Present-day peaceful politics and extended lifespan were only a distant dream for early Pangaean colonists––but perfection brings its own challenges. Making life meaningful when spoiled for choice and lacking the threat of destitution demands a high degree of self-discipline. Her skill at helping students develop this elusive quality was the main reason she was asked to stay on and teach at the faculty for decades after her initial contract expired...
Her eyes stray to the message that had arrived on her holo-vis a few minutes before Maret arrived at her door.
Hannik, I’m back in Merkaan––sorry I didn’t make it over to see you while I was in Karesh as I promised. I think I was being followed. Things are getting worse here in the capital. More disappearances. Need your Webdancer skills as well as your gestalt. Will try to arrange a meeting soon. Zin.
Why would her old friend avoid official channels to contact her like this? Webdancers are bound by oath and by law to avoid politics in order to focus on their resonance-balancing responsibilities. If Zin is crossing those lines to contact an experienced Webdancer, something must be going seriously wrong.
Contemplate later. Time for that talk with Aisha.
HANNIK ARRIVES OUTSIDE my domehouse, her sand-robe bundled under her arm, sweaty mossgreen riding clothes sticking to her shoulders. Before I’ve a chance to speak she waves me to sit, brusque efficiency at full impact.
‘Aisha, I think you have seen something in the web. A disturbance. I just got back from the desert-cliffs, a little further on from the training area.’
‘You felt it?’
At last! Someone else has experienced this...
Hannik’s brow furrows, her voice softening, full of concern. ‘Yes. I felt it, for the first time. Did you know what you were sensing in your attunement?’
I search for words. ‘Not really. Unease. Shadows. Fear. A discord within the harmony.’
‘What about on the smaller practice grounds? Where it’s supposed to be safe?’
I hesitate. ‘The prof was getting really exercised about how we’d all been partying too much. Why we were having such spectacular crashes.’
‘And?’ Hannik raises a quizzical eyebrow. The bubbling pots are embarrassingly evident through the open door.
‘Erm, well, we had. So the others weren’t surprised when it looked like we were getting our just rewards so to speak. I was the only one certain the wobbles in the wave-form were more than just the tail of the hangover.’
She seems thoughtful, her scan full of shadows as she looks ahead into an uncertain future.
‘Aisha, you’re from the deep desert, you grew up in that matrix and you’re ahead of me at sensing disturbances. Even ex
perienced Webdancers work within the focus of their own region.’
‘I don’t understand. I’ve another year of study...’
‘Your resonance sensitivity is sharper than anyone I know and we’ll need your desert expertise if every sector has to be checked.’ She ignores the way I’m staring at her open mouthed. ‘Welcome to the team I’ll be putting together over the next few days.’
‘Wh––’
‘You’re taking a sabbatical.’ She gets to her feet. ‘Be ready to leave in the morning.’
I walk her to the end of the path, trying to make sense of this abrupt end to my studies.
Will I be working alongside other Webdancers? How long will it take to solve this––
A stab of white-hot pain lances through my body, blotting out thought and movement. I give a low moan and stumble. Hannik catches my arm before I fall.
‘What?’
‘Maret!’ I struggle for breath, gasping his name, frantically waving her away. ‘Go! I’ll be fine. Find him!’
Hannik senses the urgency and runs towards the cluster of spacious connected domes forming the main university hall.
The pain fades with a rapidity that feels somehow unnatural and the strangeness of it compels me to follow her. I can’t tell if the shadows creeping up my spine are dangers sensed directly from the web-matrix or whether I’m picking up on the experienced Webdancer’s insistence that my senses are already sharper than hers.
The campus is a relaxed spread-out affair, scattered pale green domes and smooth, broad grass paths through the shrubbery that allow students and teachers to engage in walking tutorials or find secluded leafy spaces to practice attunements.
When it comes to running flat out trying to get somewhere in a hurry, it’s downright frustrating.
I catch up with Hannik outside Maret’s office near the main hall. The door is slightly ajar. Now I can feel for certain something horrible happened in that room even before I follow her through the doorway and see the elderly professor lying framed in a dark circle of blood pooling on the floor.
Hannik holds me back. ‘He’s dead. In the last few minutes.’
I run back into the atrium, trying to sense where the murderer went. Classes finished an hour before and all is quiet. I would hear footsteps if there were any.
Too late.
I get back to the office, breathless from shock more than exertion. Hannik kneels by Maret’s body and points to the neat stab wound in his side, thrusting upwards to the heart.
‘Professional assassin.’
My brain isn’t keeping up. ‘Why?’
Irithen has always been home to plenty of fights but mostly posturing and show, out in the open. This sly, secretive technique is rare in the oasis-cities.
Hannik doesn’t answer, rummaging through untidy piles of memory capsules and papers on the desk. Maret has a reputation for being a terrible hoarder and a chaotic one at that, but I’ve sat through enough of his tutorials to have gained a few insights into his pet muddle. It’s rather similar to my own.
The assassin hadn’t delayed to search through the jumble for my teacher’s holo-vis and after a few minutes I discover it under a heap of books. Maret always professed a particular liking for the antiquated paper style.
I scroll to his coms page and hastily glance through two short messages and one reply, Hannik reading over my shoulder. I look at the source address for the reply and freeze.
‘Deron? First Minister to the President? What’s happening here?’
‘Out.’ Hannik grabs my shoulders and pushes me through the door.
‘But Maret––’
‘Dead and you’ll be next if we don’t move fast.’
I run across the grass with her. ‘Where––?’
‘Where’s your holo-vis?’
‘At home. Why?’
‘We’d better take it. They find it, your friends could be in danger. No messaging, not even campus security. They’ll find Maret soon enough.’
Hannik stays by the door watching for intruders while I throw a few things in a bag with my holo and dash outside again. Hannik pushes me ahead of her.
‘Horses. We go to my place. Maret didn’t mention my name but it won’t take them long to work it out. We keep it brief.’
I use one of my shrubbery-shortcuts, hoping it will throw off whoever might be on our tail. We almost reach the stables when the assassin strikes, moving like a dark shadow from the trees with deadly efficiency, a blur of movement as his blade flashes in my peripheral vision.
No time to focus on energy-direction. I twist and roll clear, kicking out at the side of his knee as I move, snapping the ligament. He stumbles with a grunt of pain, then recovers his stride and comes at me again.
That injury should have stopped him!
I scramble to my feet and dance out of his reach, trying to work out what kind of fighter this is. My hunting knife is already in my hand but I’m wary of attacking until I know just how indestructible the rest of him is.
At last my panicked senses manage to focus enough to pick up where the injury causes a flaw in his move-intent and I can keep him turning on his weak side.
It’s just enough. Hannik moves in with the speed of a striking Kareshi pit-viper, slamming her elbow into his eye and twisting his neck as he falls. He doesn’t get up.
I scramble to my feet, the sickening crunch of snapping vertebrae still in my ears. Alone, I wouldn’t have come out of this alive.
Because he’s a professional killer or because I’m half blind with this resonance-glitch?
‘How could he––’
Hannik looks down at the slumped body, her comments hard and curt. ‘Cyborg-enhanced. C5 is the key weak spot. You need to know exactly where to put twist-pressure.’
‘But cyborg-enhancement is illegal! How did you––’
Hannik pushes me ahead again. ‘Educated guess given the circumstances. Horses. Now.’
End of Preview
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IF YOU WANT TO FIND out what happens next, you can pre-order Webdancer on Amazon!
Pre-order Webdancer here.
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Author’s note
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The Infinity Paradigm series reaches deeper into the training and abilities developed in the Phoenix Enigma series. In the distant future, different planetary colonies will develop and diverge in different ways, much as different countries have currently evolved their own skills and cultures.
Far-flung planets will have unexpected conditions. In this case, Primae IV has a resonant frequency far stronger than Earth’s mere 7.83hz. Too much hunting, mineral extraction and use of tech forces it out of balance with disastrous results for the colonists, forcing them to develop sophisticated tech that works in harmony with nature’s forces.
And then, what might happen in the inevitable clash when the conquerors arrive?
And of course, I freely confess to taking plenty of liberties with the actual science! Psychoneuroimmunology is in its early stages (it saved my life after a climbing accident) but could become dominant if antibiotics continue to lose potency. Surgery and disease control will have to change radically. How will that evolve?
(And if you still find giant sand-lizards less plausible than beating lightspeed, check out our dinosaur history and compare it with E=mc2.)
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Acknowledgements
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Enormous thanks to my wonderful support team who helped me through the maze of getting my story finished and out there: Michael, editor-in-chief, who doesn’t mind taking the proverbial axe to anything he deems too convoluted, Roger, cyber-guru who patiently extricated me from numerous IT pickles, and Christopher, tech-guru who educated me on the strange possibilities that might be achieved in a world of future-science. Thanks also to supportive beta-readers Simon, Rufus, Kevin, Laura, Janet & Richard.
Maps
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a look on www.jayaspen.com/maps
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More details on www.jayaspen.com
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Sharksinger is a work of fiction.
Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
First edition 2020
Copyright © 2020 Jay Aspen.
Did you love Sharksinger? Then you should read Webdancer by Jay Aspen!
On a distant planet at the edge of Empire, Aisha travels from the deep desert to study at Kar university. If she's accepted into the elite Order of Webdancers her life will be one of adventure and danger, roaming the wilderness and using the powerful planetary resonance for navigation, combat and summoning.
Aisha's dreams are shattered when she detects dangerous disruptions to the frequency and her life becomes a race to survive assassins sent by those who want this information kept secret. When the Empire invades her planet she persuades Captain Reith, one of the mercenaries, to join the fight to protect her home.
But the heart of the enemy is a dangerous place…
Read more at Jay Aspen’s site.
About the Author
Jay writes from experiences in wilderness travel and extreme sports; snow peaks in the Andes, big walls in Yosemite and Baffin Island, sailing the Irish sea to photograph puffins and dolphins. A science degree and training with Himalayan shamans led to an interest in bio-psychology. She lives in the wild Welsh Borders, sings jazz, rides horses.
Read more at Jay Aspen’s site.
