by Reiter
His eyes blinked as the stone hard facts could not be shaken or dismissed. She never missed hitting him, striking his head more than anywhere else, and with such an aim, why was there no signs of trauma on his forehead or skull? His head came up, but he was still contemplating.
“You were…”
“Feeding you information,” she replied. “Information that I did not think I should be without, and also what I could not afford to be found knowing. I stored it all in your mind.”
“The perfect hiding place,” Dungias added as he stopped pacing. “No one searching for you and your kind would even bother to look at a shay-spawn.”
“Well, there was one,” Danatra corrected. “But I changed his appearance in your memory to make him look like Kinjass.”
“What?!”
“I did not expect you to be able to read what I was storing!” Danatra explained. “All you were supposed to see was me mistreating you. Before I knew anything you were reading the materials and even teaching yourself Pax’Dulah! Now you know it better than anyone I’ve ever seen!”
“You mean… you are responsible…” Dungias started to speak but had to stop as the realization of how his foundation had been laid came into focus. He looked at Danatra and chuckled. She looked at her Vu-Prin, confused, and moved to touch him.
“What is it?” she asked. The moment her hand touched his arms, Dungias collapsed to the floor cackling. He had never heard a funnier joke than Danatra being responsible for creating Dungias… and on top of that… it was a fluke! “Dungias, are you all right?” she inquired, keeling down beside him. Postulating her question in his mind only added to the hilarity and he pointed at his Vi-Prin, laughing and rolling on the floor. Danatra tried to reach into his mind, but ever since the creation of Alpha, the aperture that had been her place of entry was not always open. Dungias felt her approach and started to cry and grab his sides.
“STOP LAUGHING!” Danatra projected and Dungias winced from the sharp pain that stabbed into the back of his brain. “I’m sorry,” she pleaded, taking hold of Dungias. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do. It looked as if you could not stop yourself.”
“An accurate statement,” Dungias said, wiping his eyes. “I doubt anyone laughs like that twice in a lifetime. If I do laugh like that again, I know I will have found another sibling; perhaps even another master.” Danatra stood up and offered a hand to her Vu-Prin. He took it in a manner that suggested they had demonstrated such trust in each other a thousand times over. Dungias stood and Danatra looked up into the eyes of her younger sibling.
“You’ve gotten taller,” she managed to say. Dungias smiled down on her. He slowly and ever so gently brought her body toward his, wrapping his arms around her. Danatra struggled to keep her breathing steady, but the tears still welled up in her eyes and the emotion was more powerful than anything she had experienced… with the exception of Dungias. She burst into tears as she grabbed Dungias, begging for his forgiveness. The Traveler said nothing as his eyes slowly closed. He started to sway back and forth with his Vi-Prin, stroking the back of her head, telling her to release the emotions she had to have been holding for orbi-terms.
“I am sorry, Danatra,” he finally whispered. “But I can never forgive you.” Danatra cried even harder, feeling herself fall into a reality she had dreamt too many times to count. When Dungias forced her to move back, she tried, in vain, to keep a hold of him. “Listen,” he commanded and Danatra whimpered as she gazed into his eyes. “The essence of forgiveness suggests the parties involved wish the matter in question had never happened. Look at me, saytrah, my strong Vi-Prin. Look upon me and see what you have brought into our world. It may not have been your intention, but without your actions, I am not the Dungias you see before you, and the Stars would have passed me over.
“But because you sought to make a change among our people, I have become a Star Chaser!” Danatra could feel Dungias inviting her into his mind where he more quickly conveyed what he had come to know… what he had become… and she gasped, stepping back from him. Looking deeply in her eyes, Dungias knew that there was no disbelief or disapproval in her, just overwhelming shock. “And apparently you did not throw every one of your data files at me.”
Danatra laughed before shaking her head. “No, not every one of them. But this is what I know of the Star Chasers,” she said, touching her hand to his temple. “I was foolish enough to pass it off as folly. I suppose I am still too Malgovi for my own good.”
Dungias closed eyes as he received Danatra’s touch and her memory feed. “Where did you find all of these books?!” he wondered.
“Silly Traveler,” Danatra smiled, thinking of her response. “… they were never books or data files. That was simply the interpretation I gave your conscious mind so that I could store what I had found in your subconscious.”
“Which only takes me back to my original question,” Dungias thought.
“The secrets are out there, my Vu-Prin,” Danatra asserted as she fed her Vu-Prin the images she had discovered on one of her many fact-gathering expeditions. “… and only those with station have managed to hold on to those who pass it down through the generations. Oddly enough, the Vinthur know more than the Malgovi, but they have yet to make the incantation to guard against dreaming.”
“Which would mean they have not found the spell that protects their minds,” Dungias concluded. Having dealt with the Vinthur, he knew very well how problematic MajiKs could be.
The images he received from Danatra filled in some of the blanks that Nugar had not been able to answer. Much more was prophesized beyond the advent of the Star Chaser. According to the appropriated information Danatra had given him, the Star Chasers left because they felt their people had abandoned reason and were no longer worthy of the Stars. They had deemed the gifts of the Founders, which the Star Chasers credited as being life-saving, as riches too easily gained and therefore never truly appreciated. The last thing the Star Chasers wanted to do was add to the travesty. But they claimed that from among the people there would come one who would bring a reckoning to the wayward peoples, exacting an undeniable justice. That one would be a Star Chaser who would “shine from the shadows, blinding the corrupt and illuminating the Vin-Mal”! Danatra was good enough to add that the Star Chasers used that term to refer to the union of the Vinthur and Malgovi.
“I will admit they are more difficult to read,” Danatra said as she removed her hand. “But, as it stands, it is worth the effort and the risk. The most potent incantation, much like the most powerful iro-form, cannot stop a proper application of ThoughtWill. In their dreams, I become their missed opportunities, their second chances… I am the embodiment of their fantasies… and while they dream of what they could not do in life, I take inventory of what they know. Oh, the things I have found, Dungias!”
“Yes, I am becoming quite aware,” he replied. “And from what you transferred to me, there are those whose only lot in life is to learn these things and keep these facts locked away in their minds?”
“The Savanté,” Danatra nodded. “There are many different levels of them,” she explained. “Some of them may only know mathematics or mechanical engineering concepts. Others are walking tomes of incantations and documented ceremonies of MannA applications.”
“Unbelievable!” Dungias whispered.
“I’ve only ever encountered a waking and wary Savanté once in my lifetime,” Danatra reflected as she started to walk away from Dungias. “It was the star-term that I came to know the limits of my ability and very nearly the limits of my life. The Savanté are highly trained in PsyoniKs.”
“What?!” Dungias asked, taking hold of Danatra’s arm and spinning her to face him. She put her hand to his chest and patted it.
“Easy, Dungias,” she tried to calm him, though it was difficult. His genuine concern was overwhelming and even in his one-handed grasp, she felt loved and more importantly… she felt safe! “Aside from their powerful blocks, they train in t
elekinesis and mind-to-mind offensives. They are heavy-handed clods with no appreciation for nuance or technique. The one I encountered detected a thief and he killed three guards and leveled three-quarters of the Soxian wall of the Palace trying find me.”
“Palace?” Dungias repeated, looking at Danatra. The flare of her nostrils and the widening of her eyes gave him as much as any mental probing. “So the Queen keeps these Savanté as well?”
“It is more a functionality of the Throne than the Queen herself, Dungias,” Danatra advised. “I have never felt her presence among them.”
“How many times have you been ‘among them’?”
“Speed of thought, remember?” Danatra returned. “By the time my target has finished their dream, I have viewed their life. And I have been doing this since I was seven.”
“And storing what you thought was noteworthy in my mind,” Dungias added, but he had not forgotten the point regarding the Queen. “But if I was your vault, how did you ever come to remember anything you had stored inside my mind?”
“You forget how we said goodbye, my Vu-Prin,” Danatra said, lowering her head.
“The punishment you gave me was to keep me from noticing you take the information from my mind!” Dungias realized.
“I only copied what I had stored. After what I saw you do in the Games, I could not take it from you.
“Dungias, I hear your words and they are a comfort, but I am filled with regret!”
Dungias’ eyes squinted. “You have been an excellent supplier, Vi-Prin.” He nodded as he came to a decision.
“Computer, what is our current destination?” Dungias asked, taking hold of Danatra’s throat. She was lifted to her toes as he choked her. Danatra gasped for air as she grabbed the forearm that felt more like a support beam.
“There is no destination,” the computer stated. “We are currently engaged in a circular path.”
“Prepare a full perimeter ion burst and once it is ready to discharge, drop the stealth field, emit the pulse and set a course for Gavis Station. Alter the ion-fire rate by a bonus of twelve percent before engaging that course and three tonki into that course emit another ion pulse, erect the stealth field and head directly for Threm at our best possible speed.
“A good Traveler can track ion trails, but the dual bursts should shake them if they do not already have a visual of this ship,” Dungias explained, looking at his choking sibling. She was indeed in good physical shape, but his strength and her fear negated any chance she had to remove herself from his grip. “And speaking of viewing one’s life,” Dungias said, taking out Alpha. It began to glow, as did his eyes before he closed them. An instant later they opened them and he released Danatra. She coughed and panted for air as she staggered away from him. Dungias started for the door.
“You’re taking us back to Threm?!” Danatra struggled to speak.
“I am curious,” Dungias said, unlocking the door to the chamber. Danatra looked at her sibling and focused her thoughts. Her body shuddered as she struck a wall that struck her mentally in return. He was using the very defenses her recruiter had taught her, and Dungias’ were much, much stronger! Combined with the fortifications Nugar had taught his most recent student, Danatra felt the strongest mental defenses she had encountered since the star-term she had met her mentor. “Entrance into my mind will be along my accord, Vi-Prin,” Dungias said as he looked around the room. “And I suppose I cannot be too angry at you building this ship, engineer. The principles used in its making are the ones you uncovered and stored inside my mind.”
“I stored the beginnings of those concepts,” Danatra corrected. “You must understand it was your mind that put them to task and made incredible corrections and improvements along the way. The design of your Osamu goes beyond anything I have ever reviewed. Alpha has a mind of its own, and an emerging sentience.
“Did it tell you to choke me?” she asked.
“It suggested I find a means to distract you, actually,” Dungias answered. “The exact means was my… contribution. It was also necessary to create the basis for you to remember your life and, more importantly, your training. I needed to record and live that moment. Since all of what you learned was in the mind, the time it takes for me to review and apply what I have recorded was made even shorter.
“For the knowledge, my Vi-Prin, I am forever grateful. As for the trauma I endured while you developed your persona, consider us as even. Leave your guilt in this room, Vi-Prin. It serves nothing and suggests that despite your incredible intellect, you understand so very little.
“We are returning to Threm,” Dungias said to Felrus as he stepped out of the chamber. “Be sure to inform everyone on board that all those not wishing to engage with the Throne should consider taking their leave when we reach TehShagu. There is no shame in this. It is my course that leads to the Queen. Your treks may lead you elsewhere.”
“It will be done, Master,” Felrus replied. “But know that my place is with you.”
“Your place is with my Vi-Prin,” Dungias corrected.
“And her place is with her Vu-Prin!” Danatra proclaimed. “If you know of my life, as I believe you do, you know that my mentor has joined the Stars. There are many benefits to our approach, but one tragic weakness is that without my mentor, I do not possess the means to contact a superior in the Schatten-Kraythe.”
“You assume there is a superior in the Schatten-Kraythe,” Dungias remarked. “There is not, from where I’m standing. And the lack of a mentor is not the only place you have strayed from the mainstream, Vi-Prin.” Dungias allowed a smile to show on his face.
The secrets of the Schatten-Kraythe were considered to be well kept, with their system of limited personnel knowledge and accessibility. With the loss of her mentor, Danatra had allowed herself to play more freely with the rules. She had three recruits, two of whom were Vinthur and resided in the K’Dalkian System. They were twin sisters and had been born with more potential than Danatra could accurately measure. For five orbi-terms she had been training the two, but Danatra had kept from bringing them into the fold, as she suspected her mentor might not have been lost in the traditional sense.
With what her Vu-Prin had managed to do… had managed to become, Danatra had thought it wise to have her first trainee close at hand. Jamille was in her cabin, resting in a deep meditative state, replenishing his strength. It had taken a great deal out of him to veil the entire MarrZo estate and keep Warseth’s two Savanté unaware of what was happening when Dungias was affecting his escape. The smile Dungias wore told Danatra that he was quite aware of what she had done for him and what she was willing to do.
A turn of his head saw the smile slowly fade as his eyes turned sharp and full of intent. Dungias turned quickly on his heels and started for the bridge. “If you two are staying, Danatra, you are my Chief Engineer. Felrus, you are my Exemplar.”
“And what would you have me do?” Thuranos asked.
“I would have you depart the ship,” Dungias replied. “That is why we are going to Threm.
“But I am ready to fight!”
“And I am relying greatly on that,” Dungias said, taking hold of the man’s shoulder. “By the time we land, there will be a list of instructions you will have to carry out. It is vital that you succeed in your mission or this uprising of ours will be a newborn star that burned too brightly and consumed itself.”
“It will be as you order, Master,” Thuranos said and Dungias quickly turned to walk away.
“It is often said that only a true Master hates to be called such,” Danatra projected. “… Master!”
“And spare yourself as much as possible from any further mental efforts, Vi-Prin,” Dungias directed. “If what you say is true, you will be the only one who will be able to defend our minds. We will need you at you best capacity and capability!” He could hear his Vi-Prin swallow hard as she stopped walking. Dungias left the young woman to her deliberations but was glad to hear her making her way to the engine room.
Upon reaching the bridge, Dungias took into account the time remaining before they would reach Threm. The ship was moving fairly close to the speed he had calculated. They were going to arrive a few tonki earlier than expected. After hearing the destination for the ship, the pilot was happy to hear they were being given alternatives. Dungias dismissed the man and was not surprised when he collapsed just after leaving the bridge. Felrus picked him up and dragged him to the airlock where Danatra was waiting to wipe his mind of his most recent memories. The same was done for the mercenary Danatra had recruited for this specific trip, and Dungias was able to deduce how his Vi-Prin had been able to afford the funds necessary to operate and build this ship: she convinced people to give her money or the tools, parts and equipment she needed.
Approaching Threm, Dungias uploaded his program into the ship’s computer. Scans were made as logs were breached and checked. Before atmospheric entry, Dungias had the information he needed, and he smiled at the timing of the Slide-Star’s return. He signaled Danatra to ready the three people for a quick departure. The short-range teleporter was ideal for his aims as Dungias piloted the ship back into the Void. While a crew of three was slightly less than nominal for the freighter, Dungias was a Traveler and most of their long-range craft were three times the size and sophistication of the Slide-Star; Danatra was indeed a Chief Engineer which left Felrus to man the helm as they maintained ship systems. The Warrior did not know what the Traveler had in mind with the course he had plotted, orbiting twice around Threm before actually pulling away from the planet. His timing, however, could not have been more accurate. The Slide-Star came away from Threm just as a Royal Carrier dropped from Light Speed to receive a shuttle from the MarrZo estate. By the time the shuttle landed inside the carrier, the Slide-Star was locked to the underbelly of the gigantic spacecraft. The ship wasted little time in turning about and moving off from Threm, charging up to speeds in excess of Mark Eight. Three pairs of eyes looked at the hull of the carrier from the bridge of the freighter and two heads were shaking in doubt.
