Being of the Field

by Traci Harding

  For the first time, Taren felt in her heart that Anselm was truly her father and she embraced him back. ‘I’m good, truly,’ she told him as she freed herself and looked at the queen, who was obviously restraining her need to hold her daughter.

  ‘It was the stone you sent me that turned the situation in my favour and bought me some time.’ Taren smiled warmly at her mother, as she pulled the stone from her pocket, using her sleeve as a glove to prevent it making contact with her skin.

  The queen’s emotions overcame her, and tossing formality and fear aside she rushed to embrace her child. ‘Thank the universe I did something right.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know…I think you’ve done a whole lot right just recently.’ Taren was overwhelmed to be finally holding her mother. ‘Welcome home to yourself,’ she whispered, reducing both of them to tears.

  ‘That’s a handy little gadget,’ Zeven commented to the captain, interested in looking over the weapon they had retrieved from Khalid. ‘Is it something new the USS came up with?’

  ‘No,’ the captain said sadly, and handed it to Zeven. ‘Kalayna designed it.’ Lucian nearly choked on his words and Zeven was confused by the captain’s lack of enthusiasm.

  ‘Kalayna designed this…whoa! That’s awesome! Isn’t it?’ The sorrowful look on Lucian’s face made Zeven’s heart sink. His eyes turned once again to the bloodstain on the carpet, and instinctively Zeven knew the blood belonged to Kalayna. ‘What happened?’

  Lucian held up both hands in the hope of calming Zeven before he lost his temper. ‘If I tell you what happened, you will wish to seek revenge, and we need you right now.’

  Zeven’s jaw clenched as this confirmed that Kalayna had been killed. ‘What happened?’ Zeven repeated, backing up as objects in the room began to quiver.

  ‘I need you to focus on the problems at hand,’ Lucian repeated more firmly.

  ‘Zeven, please!’ Taren appealed, whereby the objects threatening to take flight stilled.

  ‘I’ll find out on my own,’ he stated and he turned his will toward locating Kalayna.

  Zeven landed in Kassa’s medical quarters and stared at a body bag. Outside in the waiting room, he could hear Aurora weeping as she conferred with the doctor.

  It was difficult to accept that Kalayna was in that bag. He’d brought her back from the brink of death once and had hoped he could do it again.

  ‘I’ve tried.’ Ringbalin’s comment startled Zeven to about-face, where he found the botanist sitting quietly in a corner. ‘But healing only works on living things. Once the spirit has taken flight the game is up.’

  Zeven clenched both fists and his entire body in an attempt to restrain his grief. ‘Who did this?’

  Ringbalin was surprised by the question. ‘Did the captain not tell you?’

  Zeven’s eyes narrowed as his patience was coming to an end. ‘Who?’ His constrained, hushed tone demanded an answer and Ringbalin sensed he’d best not deny the pilot satisfaction.

  ‘Khalid Mansur.’

  Zeven focused his will on Khalid target, trembling with the conviction that was pulsing through his veins; he’d never wanted to hurt someone so badly in all his born days.

  ‘I had rather expected you to pop straight off and seek revenge,’ Ringbalin commented when, minutes later, Zeven was still standing before him.

  ‘So did I,’ Zeven grumbled, confused.

  ‘Perhaps Khalid has a psychic shield protecting him from being sought by psychic means,’ Balin offered up a possible explanation.

  ‘What the heck,’ Zeven objected. ‘Nobody ever mentioned there was such a thing.’

  ‘It usually takes the form of an amulet, or in the case of the Phemorian queen, it took the form of a crown.’

  ‘An amulet,’ Zeven queried. ‘Like a medallion?’ He didn’t recall spotting any such item around Khalid’s neck.

  ‘Could be,’ Balin agreed. The pilot threw his hands up in frustration.

  ‘Do you think such an item would shield him from the effect of the psychic neutraliser as well?’ and with the thought that Khalid might have been faking his disability, Zeven realised leaving Taren had been a mistake. He would have sped straight to her, but Aurora opened the door and saw him.

  The girl flung herself into his arms, elated to see him alive and devastated by Kalayna’s death. ‘Please don’t vanish again—’

  ‘I have to go,’ he was sorry to say as he peeled Aurora off himself. ‘Taren is in danger.’

  Kassa, who looked on from the doorway, gave a heavy, sympathetic sigh. She could feel how torn Zeven was, along with Aurora’s fear of losing the man she’d loved for so long and finally won. They both grieved the loss of their intimate friend. And losing two crew members in tragic circumstances was a giant reality check for them all in regard to their own mortality.

  ‘You’re in danger,’ Aurora appealed, her tears causing her make-up to run black lines down her face. ‘If you must go, take me with you. I hate waiting to see if you’ll come back in one piece next time.’

  ‘Don’t I always come back in one piece?’ Zeven said in his own defence. Aurora hated that reassuring smile of his, as she had no resistance to it. She allowed him to kiss her, let her hands go and vanish.

  ‘I thought he’d never leave.’ Khalid’s voice made all present jump.

  ‘Damn it!’ Lucian grumbled at Zeven’s departure, and then calmed when he realised that, through his spirit contacts, he could probably get the pilot’s arse dragged back to him when required.

  ‘I could try going after him,’ Taren proffered, although she was still not very confident with her PK abilities. And that was only if she had fully regained her Powers.

  ‘Let him go. Azazèl will know where to find him.’ Lucian took hold of her shoulders to prevent her disappearing again. ‘Right now, we have about two hours to figure out how we are going to hide you from Khalid.’

  ‘The triple-S have psychic containment quarters beneath their offices in Heavensgate,’ Anselm offered, moving over to them. ‘These rooms prevent psychics escaping or entering unauthorised—’

  ‘You’re not going to lock me in some containment area!’ Taren objected.

  ‘It’s the only place we can possibly hide you from Mansur,’ Anselm insisted.

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ Taren argued. ‘You never did hear me out about what I want—’

  A chime from the door exasperated Taren, and Anselm’s guards entered to let him know that the ship had been given authorisation to dock at Heavensgate.

  Anselm thanked and dismissed his men ahead of turning back to Taren. ‘Please can we do this my way, and once you’re safe, I promise I will help you do whatever you want.’

  Taren smiled, and looked at her mother who nodded to show that Anselm spoke for her too. ‘I will hold you both to that promise and Lucian is my witness.’

  The captain nodded, none the wiser to what she had in mind.

  ‘Very good.’ Anselm was now eager to get them to their destination. He rounded everyone up and began moving them towards the door. ‘I look forward to hearing what we’ve agreed to, once I have Khalid restrained.’

  ‘I’ll have my Valoureans go ahead of us,’ the queen suggested.

  ‘My agents are all psychically gifted and trained,’ Anselm told her proudly.

  ‘But they are all wearing restraining devices. It will take hours to stabilise their magnetic fields,’ Qusay-Sabah Clarona argued.

  ‘Fake,’ Anselm smiled sweetly.

  ‘Why am I not surprised?’ The queen grinned at his cheek, in retrospect. ‘Fortunate that we are on the same side now.’

  ‘Very fortunate,’ Anselm replied, pausing to admire her, which delayed the departure of the entire party.

  Whilst the queen had been meeting with her viceroy, Anselm had been doing some investigative work in the secret service database that stored erased memory. He had been stunned to find that he—‘Jabez Anselm’—had a file. The memory file was over fifty years old and pertained to a si
x-hour period, the same period during which he had lost his heart to Qusay-Sabah Clarona. It had come as no surprise to him to discover that the memory extraction order had been authorised by Khalid Mansur.

  ‘It is my great regret that I was not there to save you from the Phemoray, Clarona.’ Anselm now knew that he had called her this as it was the part of her name he liked the most…it meant ‘morning’.

  Taren’s heart fluttered to see her parents so smitten with each other, and she felt sure they would have kissed had it not been for present company.

  ‘I shall never have the wool pulled over my eyes like that again,’ Anselm vowed to his long-lost love.

  His words stirred a desire within Taren to ensure her parents’ future happiness and the happiness of all involved in this twisted web of deceit, lies and ancient prejudice. A light-headedness caused Taren’s vision to blur and she staggered.

  ‘Taren? What is it?’ Lucian grabbed hold to steady her, but she became a dead weight in his arms. ‘She’s going into a trance…she’s going to change the future…’

  Lucian’s voice did not fade as Taren continued to perceive her present situation from above her inactive form.

  ‘We’ll have to carry her,’ Anselm suggested.

  ‘No, we shouldn’t move her, or make a move ourselves,’ Lucian laid Taren down on a lounge. ‘I’ve learned that if Taren goes into trance, something dire is about to happen. Best wait and heed her advice.’

  ‘And what if she takes hours to awaken?’ Anselm posed. ‘We need to get her to a safe area now.’

  ‘And miss an opportunity to heed her warning?’ Lucian pushed his view, not prepared to risk it.

  At this point, reality split in two: one stream where they waited for Taren to wake; the other where they did not. Taren’s consciousness pursued the time stream of the latter scenario…

  When their party disembarked from their craft, they were met by a large contingent of agents and officials from the USS, who were all surprised to see their president disembark from the vessel with the Queen of Phemoria, who had issued the arrest warrant for everyone on board. The queen explained that there had been a huge misunderstanding as Sermetica and Phemoria had been engaged in sensitive political talks on board the vessel and its presence in the Phemoria system had, therefore, not been officially announced. The USS officials present could only be delighted to see the Queen of Phemoria on speaking terms with the President of Sermetica. Obviously, this held the promise of a better relationship between Phemoria and all the other planets of the USS.

  ‘Along with my viceroy, Jalila Lamis, the Chairman of the USS and I have been discussing a new democratic future for Phemoria,’ the queen announced. This news was an enormous shock to everyone, but, equally, everyone buzzed with delight.

  ‘But what of the Phemoray?’ asked a senior official, who’d been dealing with their unusual and threatening demands for decades.

  ‘The reign of the Phemoray has come to end on Phemoria. They will never return to power for as long as feminine rights are upheld on our planet and throughout the United Star Systems,’ she declared to the USS press, who were there expecting an arrest, not a major political coup. The announcement caused a further frenzy of excitement and amid the turmoil no one heard the sniper’s bullets until the Queen of Phemoria was hit, and seconds later the President of Sermetica dropped dead alongside her.

  The gathering at the space dock erupted into pandemonium, while Taren’s consciousness took flight from Heavensgate and sped towards AMIE…no one had noticed it was now headed back towards the inter-system gateway.

  On the observation lounge at the rear of the bridge of AMIE, Leal, Kassa, Ringbalin and Aurora were sitting bound and gagged. It was Swithin Gervaise who sat behind the controls and alongside him stood Khalid Mansur.

  ‘So, only you and I know the code to override the systems now?’ Khalid queried Swithin, who grinned.

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Excellent.’ With a thought, Khalid sent Swithin’s heart into cardiac arrest, and the rest of the crew looked on horrified as Khalid approached to address Aurora. ‘You had better hope your boyfriend notices this ship’s change of course before you pass back through the inter-system gateway. Our sub-station is having a little meltdown today. It seems the exit passage has mysteriously jammed on the Maladaan system.’

  Aurora’s eyes parted wide in fear, as did the eyes of her friends and colleagues alongside.

  Taren’s perception floated up and away from the space institute and she sped forward into the inter-system gateway that AMIE approached. Upon entering, she was swept up in the vacuum of the ancient quantum tunnels and spat out in the remnants of the Maladaan system; she was immediately swept backward by a wave of energy. After a while, she was sucked forward into the expansive darkness where her home planet had once been located. The passage through this darkness was fleeting, as up ahead there was a quasar-like pulsing of colourful light at the centre of a gap in the darkness that had the appearance of a great glowing eye. The tide carried her through the eye where she was shot out into the universe parallel. The ebb of space nearly drew her back through the eye, but she fought free of the rip and continued along with the flow of invisible matter toward the nearest star system.

  There, Taren spied her missing home planet, minus its many satellites, but from all appearances it was otherwise perfect. But on the far side of the sun, directly opposing Maladaan, there was another planet in the same orbit. This was a breathtaking aquamarine-green globe of immense natural beauty. There was but one city on the entire globe and it was grand in the sense she had of magnificent cities only known in her universe through ancient myth and archaeological ruins.

  Taren’s consciousness honed in on one building, one room, one individual in particular. He was youthful, dark-haired, dark-eyed and handsome, and he smiled broadly at her and said: ‘Welcome back to Kila…Goddess knows, I really need you.’

  Taren did not recognise this man and yet she felt as if she had known him forever and was compelled to help him. As she felt her consciousness threatening to shift once again, her heart began beating rapidly in protest—she didn’t want to leave this place, this mysterious person with whom she felt such an affinity.

  She was hurled backwards along the time stream, kicking and screaming, through the universal crossing, the remnants of the Maladaan system, the shattered entry of the inter-system gateway, and back to Sermetica.

  ‘I am her father! I’ve been dealing with Taren’s psychic episodes far longer than you,’ Anselm was saying to try and get his way. ‘And I say we move now.’

  Taren’s consciousness landed with a huge body slam and she awoke in a panic. ‘Thank heavens,’ she gasped as she took in her surroundings. ‘You’re still here.’ Taren turned to her parents. ‘There are snipers waiting for you to disembark.’

  ‘What?’ Anselm had expected to be confronted by an embarrassing incident, not an assassin!

  ‘Check that Swithin Gervaise is still in custody,’ Taren suggested.

  ‘What? Why?’ Anselm was perplexed. ‘Is he the sniper?’

  ‘No!’ Taren groaned, as she needed to be more succinct about what she said. ‘Khalid is about to conscript him to his cause,’ Taren said quickly, stressed at being questioned. She had too much to address at once, and more to remember. ‘Swithin knows AMIE’s systems,’ she explained, as her eyes turned to Lucian. ‘AMIE’s changed course. She’s heading for the inter-system gateway.’

  A chime from the door announced a visitor, and an agent entered to inform everyone that the inter-system gateway had had a malfunction and was closed until further notice.

  ‘What kind of malfunction?’ Lucian was alarmed.

  ‘I don’t know, they didn’t say,’ the agent shrugged.

  ‘Check on Swithin Gervaise for me,’ Anselm requested as the guard departed, ‘and abort the docking in Heavensgate. We’re to remain where we are until further notice.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the agent confirmed and as
soon as the doors closed Taren spoke up.

  ‘Khalid has locked the exit passage of the gateway to the Maladaan system.’

  ‘But there is no exit passage in the Maladaan system!’ Lucian stressed. ‘Where is Leal?’

  ‘I saw him bound and gagged along with the rest of the crew,’ Taren said, holding back tears, until she saw their saving grace materialise before her. ‘Zeven!’

  ‘I thought you’d be seeking revenge on Khalid.’ Lucian was greatly relieved to see him.

  ‘I would be, if I could find the sonofa—’ When Zeven spotted the Queen of Phemoria, he refrained from finishing the sentence.

  ‘Khalid has an amulet protecting him, but not even his lover has seen it on his person,’ the queen said. ‘It’s possible he might have had it implanted in his body.’

  ‘It’s in his right hand,’ Anselm said, finally realising that the evil charm would explain the dark blockage he had perceived in that area of Khalid’s light-body. The charm would have hindered Anselm’s psychic sight and shielded Khalid’s full aura, but because the amulet was a physical object, Anselm had detected it.

  Anselm’s agent returned to let them know that Swithin Gervaise had indeed escaped.

  ‘Then Khalid is already on board AMIE,’ Taren concluded regretfully. ‘He’ll kill Swithin as soon as he has finished reprogramming AMIE’s systems to respond only to a private password.’

  Swithin was not presently Lucian’s favourite person, but he did not wish him dead.

  ‘But I just left AMIE and everyone was fine,’ Zeven complained, becoming agitated when he realised he might be in the wrong place at the wrong time yet again! ‘You’ve taken another little trip into the future, haven’t you?’ he demanded, confronting Taren. ‘What about Aurora?’

  ‘Khalid knows you’ll only go after live bait,’ Taren replied.

  ‘So it’s a trap, is it?’ Zeven was livid, but with a deep breath, he managed to keep his emotions under control and think rationally. ‘This amulet of his is made from metal?’ he asked the queen, who nodded. Zeven looked thoughtfully at a sculpture sitting on a table that featured several metallic balls. He held out his hand towards the piece and issued the intention of magnetism. The balls tore away from the sculpture to land in his hand, and he grinned at Lucian. ‘I think I have an idea how we can take Mansur out, but…it’s risky.’