Beast of Dreams

by Cynthia Williams

  “Hey!” she yelled, startled.

  “What’s the big problem?”

  “You just got me all wet, again. Did you have to shake yourself off like that?”

  “How many towels do you see around here?” he asked, a bit indignant.

  “Okay. I understand that, but did you have to do that right here?”

  “I would have moved away but this was the farthest I could go without crossing the barrier.”

  He had a good point and Amanda felt a bit contrite. “Oh…okay. Well, you would have been fine, actually. The perimeter is one-directional.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that if you’re coming in, you get a nasty little shock. Going out, nothing.”

  “That’s fascinating. Ours aren’t that sophisticated. Can you set it up backwards?”

  “Backwards?”

  “Yeah. Set it up so something can come in, no shock, but if it tries to get out, it gets a shock?”

  “Sure. Want me to show you?”

  “Yeah.”

  Amanda led him over to one of the perimeter units and showed him how she could set the relays to various levels of shock repulsion and how the directional controls could be set so the barrier only faced outward or inward, depending on what was needed.

  Behind her, Karrick smiled wickedly to himself as he listened to her instructions.

  * * * * *

  Karrick put on his clean, but somewhat damp, breechclout and headed toward where Amanda, already dressed in a nearly dry tank top and shorts, was inspecting her tan suit. He admired the round curves of her backside as she kneeled over checking the controls.

  “What kind of suit is that?”

  “It’s a Remington 2830 All Terrain Environmental Suit,” she said, proudly. “It’s the newest model. I’ve had it for two years and this is the eighth expedition I’ve used it on.”

  “Pretty fancy.”

  “I know. But it’s worth its weight in antimatter. It saved my life on my last expedition. We were in the Earth Prime solar system, on one of the moons of the big gas giant, Jupiter. The moon was Io, which is covered with active volcanoes. There’s a penal colony there and my company was contracted by them to find heat-resistant native materials that could be used to help them to expand their facility. I was near one of the most active, gathering samples of magnesium-rich silicate rock, when it erupted. Despite our best efforts to predict when the volcano would be dormant, we were surprised…” she said, abruptly stopping at the solemn thought of the volcanic explosion.

  “What happened?”

  “The volcano suddenly erupted and shot plumes of molten sulfur and sulfur dioxide gas, destroying our transport and killing three of our party. I was with two other scientists. We were buried under a huge mound of ash, and though the temperature inside the mound was over five hundred degrees C, our outer suits protected us, since those were specially designed to resist extreme temperatures.”

  “That must have been incredibly frightening. I’ve studied the Earth solar system and know that Io is indeed very dangerous,” Karrick commented, concern in his tone. “So this suit saved you because it can be used as some kind of outer space suit that resists extreme conditions?”

  “It can. But in this case, Carter and I had decided to wear our Remingtons underneath our outer space suits, as a form of double protection. As you probably know, Io is extremely nasty and unpredictable. The Remingtons saved our lives. It wasn’t heat that killed Johnston, the other scientist who was with us; it was asphyxiation.”

  “How did it make a difference? Does it have its own air supply?”

  “It does, but not in a conventional sense. When it’s in a self-contained mode, the suit will recycle air and actually break down carbon dioxide to release oxygen.”

  “That’s a very practical thing to have. What else does your suit do?”

  Amanda, pleased that he was interested in her suit, was delighted to answer. “Well, when Remington says this is an all-terrain suit, they really mean it. It can be used virtually anywhere, from an airless asteroid to a planet with a gravity of ten G’s. It can be used in almost any kind of atmosphere, even including one that is highly acidic, with high temperatures. You could wear this on Venus. The suit will function fine from negative two hundred and fifty to nine hundred degrees C.”

  “Pretty damn impressive.”

  “It is.” She grinned like a child showing off her prize toy. “I’ll put it on and show you some even more impressive stuff.” Snapping open the suit, she stepped inside, then closed it back up. “Okay, try punching me as hard as you can.”

  His eyes widened a bit. “Are you kidding?”

  “No.”

  “I hit pretty hard.”

  “Shut up and just do it!”

  He punched her. She looked at him with disgust.

  “Harder. That wouldn’t kill a fly.”

  “I warned you,” he said before he again punched her, this time fairly hard. She didn’t move and he felt a slight vibration when he hit. He looked at her, his face animated with excitement. “It absorbed the impact, didn’t it?”

  “Yes.” She opened a wrist panel, pressed a code, and then closed the panel. “Try it again.”

  He decided to hit harder now, since the suit had shown it could easily take the harder punch. Taking a deep breath, he slammed his fist forward as hard as he could, only to find that he was immediately flung back about two meters. The look of astonishment on his face was priceless.

  Amanda laughed. “A…R…F…F… Automatic Repulsion Force Field. Want me to help you off your butt?”

  “ARFF? You could have a bit of fun with that name around here.” He tried to get up and then sat down again. “Ouch, I think I broke my tailbone,” he groaned.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No. I think I hurt something,” he said, his sensual face contorted with pain.

  “I’m really sorry. I’ll help you up.” She walked over to him and offered him a hand up. He grasped her hand and with a wicked snigger, quickly pulled her down for an embrace, but every which way he tried to put his arms around her, they were repulsed.

  “Damn. It’s like pushing two strong magnets together, with their poles opposing each other.”

  Amanda had tears on her cheeks from giggling so hard. “I should have known better!” She reached over to open her wrist panel to shut off the force field, and then hugged him hard to her. “Oh, you wonderful beast! Thanks for being so much fun to be with, Karrick,” she said, giving him a quick smack on the lips.

  After a few minutes of resting in Karrick’s arms, Amanda was feeling mischievous.

  “I’m hungry, are you?” she asked.

  “Sure.”

  “I got just the thing. You can help me use up this vegetable hash I’ve got on hand.”

  Amanda went into her tent and brought out two containers of hash. She tore off the lids, which pulled apart to yield two small shallow spoons. After thirty seconds, steam rose from the containers. She handed him one and waited until he took his first bite.

  “Yuck! Are you trying to poison me? This tastes like shit!” he said, grimacing and trying to wipe the food off his tongue with a finger.

  Amanda dissolved into a fit of giggles.

  * * * * *

  An hour later, Amanda and Karrick sat comfortably on the sun-warmed rock, enjoying each other’s company while they discussed their likes and dislikes about camping in the wild. He disliked having to build shelters and for her, it was the lack of variety of food supplies. Everything, especially vegetable hash, tasted the same after a while. He chuckled at that and accused her of trying to make him suffer earlier, if for no other reason than to share her misery of the food.

  After a little while, they started talking about family.

  “My pack brother Jadd would go crazy if he saw all the stuff you have. That kid loves gadgets almost as much as you do.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Fourteen. Just shot up two de
cimeters in the past year and his voice croaks half the time, since it started changing. He’s curious about everything and drives my dad nuts with questions.”

  “Are both your parents alive?”

  “Yeah. Dad had a mild heart attack last year, though. My mom nags him about smoking his pipe and only lets him eat salads. How about you?”

  “My mother passed away when I was just a baby. My Uncle Sirus and my father raised me. Dad died just a couple of months ago. It was very hard dealing with that…”

  “What happened?”

  The pain was naked in Amanda’s eyes. “Several weeks before he died, my father had me meet him in secret and told me that I should come here and do some research on the Logan crash. He said that I might find out some interesting things that would help the wolfan. He’d been obsessed with helping the wolfan, saying that the Conglomerate was ready to start the next phase of their plan to ensure ‘human purity’. I should have believed him but it just seemed too outlandish, even for them. I told him I’d think about it, but I really didn’t intend to come here. I thought it was just an obsession and I was worried that my license to explore would be permanently revoked at the very least, if I was caught.”

  “What changed?” Karrick asked.

  “The extermination of all wolfan at the Ursae Majoris Space Station Observatory happened,” she said, a suffocating sensation tightening her throat.

  “Extermination? What the hell does that mean? How many died?”

  “The reports say that fifty-seven wolfan died, but they didn’t include my father, who was there, or the fact it could have been so many more wolfan than that.” She paused and looked at him with curiously. “You haven’t heard of this?”

  “I didn’t. We’ve been out of contact for a long time.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, placing her hand over his. “About three and a half months ago, the Conglomerate dispatched an armed ship to the observatory, claiming that the wolfan were not using it for scientific purposes, but instead for reconnaissance on the alpha sector. That was their excuse to blow it to hell and back.”

  “The Conglomerate got away with this?” Karrick asked, his nostrils flared in fury.

  “Yes!” Amanda looked at him, suspicion nagging her. “Just how long have you been out of touch?”

  “Why?”

  She gently pushed herself out of his arms and backed away to sit on her knees, staring at him. Her pensive green eyes wide, she said, “Because the Conglomerate has been pushing the edge for the past ten years. They declared ten years ago that no subspecies is to be allowed off their homeworlds except for approved scientific studies, which are normally opposed. The wolfan set up the Ursae Majoris Space Station Observatory two years ago on the edge of the wolfan sector in direct violation of that ruling, claiming that the observatory was in their space and therefore not subject to it.”

  “Shouldn’t they have been safe, then?” he said.

  “Most people accepted that but then lately the Conglomerate came up with a story that the wolfan were using the observatory to spy on human worlds. This is the third such attack in the past five years, but it was never so blatant before. A few died in the first two attacks, but the Conglomerate totally obliterated everyone on that station. They’re now claiming they have jurisdiction over all worlds, regardless of which subspecies live on them.” Amanda’s voice tightened. “My father thought, and I am now starting to agree, that this is the beginning of a systematic extermination of the wolfan.”

  Chapter 6

  Karrick stared at Amanda, his desire to tell her the truth at war with his responsibility to his pack. He also needed to think more and discuss with his pack her conviction that the wolfan were being exterminated. “We have been out of contact for a very long time and this is the first I’ve heard of these attacks.”

  “How long, Karrick?”

  “A long time, Amanda. I can’t tell you more. At least not yet.”

  “Why?”

  “There are others of my people that I might be betraying if I answered,” he sighed.

  Amanda could appreciate his concern to protect the others. “Okay, I’ll wait, but Karrick, I think I can help you and your people. Please don’t throw that chance away.”

  She waited for him to say more, and since he remained stubbornly silent, she figured he should hear the rest. “Karrick, I didn’t finish telling you what happened to my father.”

  He turned to her, a look of curiosity on his face. “You said he died on the space observatory…”

  “He did, but he also helped get over one hundred and thirty men, women, and children, all of them wolfan, to safety.”

  Karrick felt some relief that at least some wolfan lives had been spared. He answered, “Thank god some were saved. I’m sorry you lost your father, though.”

  “I should have been there to help him. Even at the last, he was looking to me to help with the investigation of the crash, even though I failed him.”

  “You’re here now.”

  She looked at him. “I know, and I hope I might find some answers that will help. What bothers me is that if I hadn’t argued with him, I would have been with him to do the right thing by helping him when he really needed it.”

  “Perhaps not, Amanda. If this thing that’s going on with the Conglomerate and the wolfan people is as dangerous as it sounds, maybe the reason he sent you here was in the hope that you would be safer here, or find something that would ultimately protect you and my people, too.” He stared intently at her. “He went to the observatory alone with your uncle, right? He didn’t send anyone else?”

  “No.”

  “For him to even know about this happening, he would have had to been privy to the information or able to find it out about in some way. To me, that means he had to have some kind of important position or access to a position…”

  Amanda stared at him, wondering at his ability to reason this through so well, as if he’d had some insight into her father from knowing him. But that’s impossible, she thought. “So, what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that perhaps your father felt he had no choice but to go himself, and in his concern to protect you, didn’t want to risk your life. He also trusted you very much to send you here, knowing that you would be smart enough to understand whatever was to be found and figure out a way to use it to help my people.”

  Her eyes were deep in thought as he looked at her.

  “Your father sacrificed his life to save wolfan,” he said with quiet firmness. “Just who was he, Amanda?”

  “Jonathon Parker.” She watched his face and saw no surprise in his eyes, but rather a look that said his suspicions were confirmed. Karrick clearly knew much more than he was telling her.

  * * * * *

  After Amanda’s revelation about Jonathon Parker, she insisted Karrick leave her camp and go back to his, telling him that she needed time to think and be on her own. He respected her wishes, sensing that she was morose about her father’s loss.

  Karrick put himself into a dream trance and contacted Jarwok and the other elders to bring them up to date. After learning that Amanda was Jonathon Parker’s daughter and her reason for coming to their planet, they’d agreed that it was safe to let her know of their existence.

  Hours later, Karrick stealthily entered Amanda’s campsite. The ground was wet where he stepped, a build-up of dew from the cool night. The moon was high and full, allowing him to easily see, especially with his wolfan eyes, which were very, very adept at seeing in the dark. He could easily distinguish the control settings on the perimeter alarms, something that gave him smug satisfaction.

  He pulled out a remote control set to the same frequency as the perimeter alarm. Amanda’s demonstration earlier helped confirm his suspicion that her security system used the same technology as the pack’s system. Deftly turning off the settings so he could slip into her camp from the outside, he entered the interior and reset the perimeter to prevent animals from coming in. No way was he
going to repeat the nasty shock he endured earlier in the day.

  Silently moving near her tent, Karrick could easily sense her deep sleep. He had decided to initiate several dreams tonight with her, but figured he better be close by when she woke up after the second one. He had plans for her that would involve her cooperation.

  He judged her sleep deep enough that she would likely not notice his quiet movements. If she did become aware, he was ready to manipulate her thoughts so that it seemed a part of the natural environment of her dream.

  He had hoped that she would see the logic of his arguments and realize that she carried a false burden of guilt over her father’s death. However, he knew that she still suffered and her pain was much deeper than on the surface. Earlier in the day, after noticing that Amanda hadn’t left her tent for a while, he attempted to touch her mind and found that she’d fallen asleep. He’d stood in the still shadows of her mind while silently watching one nightmare scene after another of her father dying amongst the wolfan left on the space observatory. The quality of the dreams left no doubt in his mind that she’d spent too much time dwelling on her inability to save her father.

  Her pain had become his and his intent now was to send her a ‘healing dream,’ one that would help her to resolve her internal issues with her father and find some peace.

  He had never done this before, so had contacted his mother, via dream communication, for advice. Upon learning that Amanda was Jonathon Parker’s daughter and of the young woman’s turmoil, his mother was more than eager to help and offered to teach him the intricacies of dream healing. Karrick quickly accepted and the two spent several hours going over the techniques. A side benefit was that Karrick now had more tools for enabling him more control over his dream manipulations.

  It took him a few minutes to figure out how to open Amanda’s tent, and only by chance did he find out that if he moved his hand in a certain direction over the sheer netting, it parted and rolled back, allowing him to enter. Once inside the tent, he spent another couple moments moving his hand over the entrance until he found the correct hand movement that allowed it to close into a seamless barrier against insects.