She made a rapid swipe of her eyes and hedged, “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do,” he replied. “Did you ever stop to wonder why we were given such preferential treatment? It’s because we’re more easily controlled.”
“By the Hegemony?”
“Training young people to be pilots is a two-edged sword,” he went on, his voice cutting like raw acid. “They need us in order to guide their ships and hold their empire together. But handing such power to young people who have not come up through the proper Hegemony ranks is dangerous business. So they cull those they can from the landed gentry, families with the most to lose. Their hope is that the parents of these young people will have instilled in them a sense of loyalty to the Hegemony. But if not, then these are people whose families they can get to easily and hold for ransom or worse.”
She inspected his finely chiseled features, asked, “Are they doing this to you?”
“Not yet,” he answered. “After an absence of almost three years, I have every right to come and visit my family. But the emissary was not here to see you. Not just, anyway.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing much.” Bitterness stretched his features taut. “Just asked about my sister’s health. She requires a medicine that isn’t available on Avanti. Without it she wouldn’t last a week.”
“He would do that?”
Dunlevy’s eyes remained on the control tower’s closed portals. “He knew and I knew. The message was clear. I must do the Hegemony’s bidding or my family suffers.”
Consuela took a long mental step back, then said in a subdued voice, “I can’t ask you to take that risk.”
He looked down at her. “What are you talking about?”
“Trading your sister’s life for information about where Wander might have been taken,” she replied. “I couldn’t live with myself.”
For the first time since they had met, Dunlevy showed genuine humor. “If they even suspected I had followed the diplomat ship’s departure, you would be talking to a little pile of ashes.”
Hope sprang anew in her heart. “Then you’ll help me?”
“You still don’t realize how big this matter really is, do you?” He turned and took the stairs to the pilot’s chair in long strides. “Come up here and hook up.”
Consuela followed him slowly, slid into the chair next to his, looked at the headset he jammed into her hands, and hesitated. Then it hit her. She was sitting unshielded in a control tower and was hearing no voices. She looked out through the main windows at the empty vista before her and realized for the first time just how cut off Avanti really had become.
She handed back the headset. “I can’t use this.”
He looked up distractedly from his adjusting of the amp controls. “Why, what’s the matter?”
She studied his face a moment, then replied, “I think it’s time I trusted you.”
His hands became utterly still. “What are you talking about?”
“If I plugged myself into that amp with this,” she said, indicating the headset in his hands, “you’d have a screaming idiot on your hands in no time flat. I know. I’ve done it.”
The blaze of triumph came and went with the speed of a lightning strike. He leaned forward and hissed, “You’re a Talent?”
“Just so you understand, let me tell you exactly what I am,” Consuela replied. “I am somebody with exactly zero training on watch, and with precisely one space trip under her belt.”
Quietly she outlined her days at the port, leaving out her unexplained arrival, but little else. How she collapsed at the onset of her first class, and had scarcely recovered when Senior Pilot Grimson had shuttled her up to the tower, reacted just as Dunlevy did when she complained of voices—
“Without amplification?” Dunlevy’s agitation was so great he could scarcely hold himself in the chair. “You heard the control tower’s communications even when you weren’t hooked in?”
“Not only that,” she said, and told him of watching the ship’s departure with Wander, feeling time slow with the countdown, until she felt connected to the moment beyond time when the gravity shield was released and the ship departed.
With that, Dunlevy appeared to stop breathing. He swiveled around to face out over the empty field and stared at nothing for the longest time before whispering, “I had heard rumors. We all did. That there really were sensitives whose abilities broke all the known boundaries. I thought they were legends.”
“There’s more.” Consuela waited until he had swung back around, then told him of Pilot Grimson’s sudden appearance, and how they had been rushed into Captain Arnol’s ship. How on the voyage she and Wander had been simply experimenting with the mind-amp controls, trying to extend their senses out as far as they could without losing shipboard contact, when they had found the shadowlanes.
“Arnol mentioned this,” Dunlevy murmured. “I had trouble believing him, though.” He inspected her. “Another legend come to life.”
“You have spoken with the captain? When?”
Dunlevy waved it aside. “Finish your story, then we will move on to other things.”
“There isn’t much else. We tracked down each shadowlane as we approached, and on the third we found the pirate ship. Captain Arnol planned to attack first, but I guess they got in one shot, because the next thing I knew I was here in the hospital.”
Dunlevy sat in silence a moment longer. “Two Talents in the same class, and a diplomat’s ship suddenly appearing out of nowhere,” he said to himself. “No wonder Grimson panicked and rushed to get away.”
“How is he?”
“Worried, of that I am sure.” He raised himself with difficulty from his reverie. “He should be made aware of what has transpired. Would you like to speak with him?”
Suddenly Consuela found herself missing the stern-visaged teacher. “Very much.”
A second hint of genuine humor surfaced. “I understand your sentiments perfectly. He is a fright to study under, but whenever I am faced with the unsolvable, I try to do what I think he would expect of me.” Dunlevy bounded to his feet. “But first we shall find you a damped headset, second I shall show you the quadrant where they took your Wander, and then you will see what our dear Master Grimson has to say for himself.”
He left and returned with impatient swiftness. He plugged her in, then sat and watched her adjust the headset’s damping effect. He leaned over, read the dial, and sat back with a bemused expression. “You can truly detect the amplifier’s power at this stage?”
“Any more and I’d be climbing the walls,” Consuela replied.
“Then perhaps there is hope after all.” Agitation sped his movements as he bent over the amp’s controls and said, “Just relax and follow my lead.”
“I don’t—” Consuela stopped as her focus was drawn first out to the nearest thruster shield, then out and up. And up. And farther still. “Oh my.”
“Relax,” he said, his hands busy, powering them together farther and farther away. “Stay alert.”
Here was the power of a pilot on watch, she realized. Here was what her lack of training kept her from both doing and fully understanding. Not simply communicating with oncoming and outgoing ships. Not simply sending messages and directions out across the vastness of space. But connecting with space. Reaching through the limits, and beyond, yet all the while resting steady and in control there in the tower.
Consuela felt herself sitting and breathing and feeling her racing heart, yet at the same time found herself being guided farther and farther out through the heavens, remaining steady only because she was fastened firmly to Dunlevy. Farther and faster she moved, and knew that here was one skilled and trained and truly in control.
“There,” he finally announced, the whispered word resounding out in the stars where her mind was reaching. “This is as far as I managed to follow. I do not know if they were cloaked in some way, or simply passed beyond my ability to track them. B
ut this is the quadrant where they were headed.”
Even under his steady direction, all she saw was a limitless field of unknown space. She felt as much as saw him draw barriers that limited the range to a sort of distended cone, yet even here the expanse was enormous. “So many stars,” she whispered.
“Two hundred and forty inhabited systems,” he agreed dismally. “Not to mention twice as many that are not yet charted, or have no known planets, or simply are not thought to hold anything of worth.”
With a sweep of his hand he drew them back, the instant of her return so shocking she was forced away from the seeming hopelessness of their challenge, and back into the relatively safe confines of the tower. Consuela took a breath, said, “That was incredible.”
“The tricks of our craft,” he said deferentially. “Had it been you up here, perhaps we could have identified precisely where they landed.”
“Had it been me up here,” Consuela replied, “I would never have left the field.”
If he realized she was paying him a compliment, he did not show it. “And now to see if our dear Senior Pilot Grimson is available.”
Again there was the sweeping outward, this time focused into a beam that followed a tightly controlled path. Consuela allowed herself to be swept along. She recognized even more clearly that having extra talent did not in any way make up for a lack of training.
There was a sense of planetary approach, then the call from Dunlevy, This is Avanti Spaceport, Watch Communicator calling with a message for Senior Pilot Grimson.
He is off watch, came the droned reply. Report and I will pass on.
Negative. This message carries priority one, code red.
You had better be right, Communicator, came the laconic reply. Grimson hates to be disturbed when he is teaching.
This is urgent, Dunlevy stubbornly repeated. I take full responsibility.
Hold on, came the response, and the contact ended.
Consuela waited with the patience of one who could scarcely comprehend what she was sensing. There she sat, safe and calm in a chair which molded to her in a comfortable support, looking out through tower windows at the broad expanse of empty field. And yet at the same time she was suspended in space, in contact with a world so distant she could not have found it on the clearest of nights, even if she had known where to look. Aware of the world about her, and still able to see out and through the endless night of space.
Grimson here, came the familiar icy voice. This had better be good.
Dunlevy reporting, Senior Pilot. I have a colleague of yours here with me.
Consuela found it possible to extend her thoughts better if she whispered softly. Hello, Senior Pilot.
Instantly came the sharp response, Hold! Then nothing.
Consuela drew back and looked toward Dunlevy, but he remained motionless, save for the lifting of a single finger. Wait.
A few moments later Grimson returned. All right. This is as secure a channel as I can arrange on short notice. What news?
Very little positive to report, Senior Pilot. Swiftly Dunlevy sketched all that he knew—starting with their discovery of the shadowlane and the pirates, ending with Wander’s forced disappearance. Dunlevy spoke with the terse compactness of one accustomed to giving official reports. When he finished he simply stopped and waited.
I knew it was too good to be true when the diplomatic vessel departed from here so swiftly, Grimson said finally. They were headed your way.
Are you under suspicion?
If so, it is nothing more than that. For the moment, in any case. My records show clearly that a training flight was arranged for two gifted students. Nothing more, nothing less. What they may surmise, when given time to reconsider, is anyone’s guess.
Consuela could stand it no longer. Where have they taken Wander?
That I cannot tell you. A trace of sympathy crept into Grimson’s disciplined calm. It is one of the Hegemony’s most closely guarded secrets.
If it exists at all, Dunlevy added.
Of that I have no doubt whatsoever, Grimson responded. Wander is not the first Talent I have lost to the diplomats.
Of course, Dunlevy said slowly. That was why you took immediate steps to send this pair away.
To no avail, I fear, Grimson said. For Wander, at least.
But Consuela refused to accept the note of hopelessness, even for a moment. Dunlevy watched the diplomat’s ship depart.
A keenness surged across immeasurable distances. You tracked the ship?
To the quadrant only.
Tell me.
Vector Nine.
So far. The senior pilot was silent. There was once a Hegemony battle station out that way. Before my time, but my own teacher had apprenticed there as a newly released scout. A terrible place, he said, one so horrible not even battle-scarred troops could stand it for long. Then the empire’s borders were extended outward, and to everyone’s relief the station was moved.
And the planet?
Abandoned. Grimson hesitated, then offered, Or so they say.
This could be it. Dunlevy’s own excitement remained barely under control. You have the coordinates?
Somewhere. I shall scour the records this very day.
This is news the chancellor must hear, Dunlevy said. Does the planet have a name?
Indeed, Grimson answered. Taken from a time beyond time, or so legend has it. They called it Citadel.
Chapter Six
Rick found himself growing enormously bored.
He would have never imagined such a thing possible. But he missed the stringent challenge of combat, of being tested to his limits and beyond.
No question about it. Having a life of wine, women, and song grew stale faster than he would have ever thought possible.
News of their having captured a pirate vessel arrived before their ship did, as Arnol’s first report had been broadcast all over the planet Avanti. They landed at a spaceport full not of ships, but of people. Rick would never forget that sight as long as he lived, a mass of people stretching out in every direction as far as he could see.
It was only with time that he and the others began to understand why they had received the greeting they did. How for ten years the world had begged and pleaded with the Hegemony for assistance against the pirates, and how the Hegemony had replied time after time, “What pirates are these?” For the Hegemony’s official position was that, yes, of course, there were the occasional villains. But as to an organized band waging war for profit in space? Inside the Hegemony’s borders? Absolute nonsense. And since nobody had ever encountered pirates and lived to tell the tale, all they had to go on were snatches of cut-off conversations and rumors of outworld slavers fattened with the product of pirate attacks.
But now they had captured a pirate vessel. Intact, with crew alive. And done not by a Hegemony battle fleet, bristling with men and weaponry. No, by a single trader traversing the Hegemony lightways, alone and outfitted with a grand total of four weapons officers and two trainee scouts.
Truly this was the stuff of legends.
Rick found himself singled out for special attention. For when the full account was heard, the world learned that it was he who had saved the ship by overcoming the effects of the stunner blast and firing off three well-aimed bolts of his own. The chancellor himself mentioned his actions at the reception honoring the crew before awarding him the same knighthood medal that they all now wore.
Things started heating up that same night.
Scarcely had he recovered from the spotlight’s shock when the first women approached him. Their manners and their speech left no room for doubt. And it was not just one. Lady after highborn lady had drawn near and made him offers that had set his ears aflame and left him unsure whether to laugh out loud or pinch himself to make sure he was not dreaming. By the end of the night he felt ten feet tall and loaded for bear.
But to his utter amazement, within a week the adoring fans who followed them everywhere, the adulation an
d everything that accompanied it, all began to fade. Rick found himself yearning for the relative simplicity of space.
That very morning Captain Arnol noticed the change, and approved. At breakfast he had observed Rick seated glumly in the kitchen of their palatial quarters and remarked, “There’s hope for you yet, Lieutenant.”
“Captain?”
“I have accepted a somewhat irregular request from the local Chancellor, one that will have to remain confidential for a while longer. To be perfectly honest, I know little of the details myself. But I have decided to trust the chancellor and respect his need for secrecy. I’m sending the ship onward under the command of my number two.” Arnol inspected him over the rim of his coffee mug, then said, “I’ve decided to keep you here with me.”
Rick scrambled to his feet. “If it’s all the same with you, Captain, I’d rather get back into action.”
“I see that you would,” Arnol said approvingly. “That is precisely why I have decided to hold you over. You and Guns will be my weapons contingent.”
“For what, Captain? We won’t have a ship.”
“At the moment. Things are brewing beyond the horizon, that’s all I can tell you.” Arnol set down his cup. “I have a meeting this morning with the chancellor. Perhaps there will be more to report later on.”
Glumly Rick had spent the morning watching most of his crewmates pack up and set off. No matter what the captain said, he genuinely wished to be among them. And Guns was no help. The grizzled weapons officer had not stirred in almost two days. He had the ability to store up sleep and food as a camel did water.
“Ten-hut!”
Rick bounced to his feet, then realized the sound had come from far down the corridor. The captain. Arnol must have returned. Swiftly he donned his uniform and scurried to the front gallery.
“Ah, Lieutenant, good. Is Guns with us?”
Rick found himself unable to respond, his attention captured by the entourage accompanying Captain Arnol. The chancellor was there, along with a pair of statesmen, plus a tall man in pilot’s robes, plus guards. Lots of guards.
The Dream Voyagers Page 17
