“Smart,” the guard captain approved. “Tie up all the loose ends. No need to have our little attack on Avanti shouted around the spaceways.”
“Besides which,” the diplomat continued, “that emissary is a fool. The only reason he holds that post is because of allies within the Hegemony court.”
The two were sealed within the diplomat’s quarters, the papers and consoles shoved aside to make room for a flagon of wine and two goblets. The warrior poured them both another tumbler of the amber fluid. “How much trouble could one girl be?”
“I wonder.” The diplomat drank from his heavy crystal glass. “Could she have left this Wander a message? Is that why he has been returning to Avanti? Something in that quadrant has been wreaking havoc among my monitors. Two of them are under heavy sedation at this minute.”
“So I heard.” The guard captain was a grizzled warrior, a man of many skirmishes and wars and medals. He was utterly pleased with this present berth, keeping sky-bound weapons poised and armed, an occasional off-planet exercise to keep his men on their toes, everything they could ask for to keep them content in their hole, and far enough away from the Hegemony to remain untainted by court intrigue. “But I thought sending such an unattached message was impossible.”
“For standard pilots and communicators, certainly. But for a full Talent?” The diplomat sipped at a drink he did not taste. “There are so few of them that what they can and cannot do remains a total mystery.”
“The girl?” The guard’s eyebrows lifted a notch. “A Talent?”
“I was so sure it was impossible. The boy shows the potential. He did, after all, detect the shadowlanes as they passed.” Another sip. “I never thought there could have been two of them together. Never. That was why I was so quick in believing that blasted Arnol when he dismissed her as a mere parasite. May the pirates soon make dust of him and his new vessel.”
His scars and his years of service had earned the captain the rank of diplomatic courier, which meant he carried many more secrets than he ever wished to know. “So what now?”
The diplomat pondered a moment in silence, then turned and said, “I want you to go back for the girl.”
“To Avanti?” The guard captain pursed his lips. “Difficult. Maybe impossible.”
“It wasn’t before.”
“Ah, but this time me and my men, we’ll be robbed of the element of surprise. They’ll be ready and waiting for us.”
“I don’t care.” The diplomat raised himself to his feet, indicating dismissal. “Contact the emissary through our channels and find out where they’re keeping her. Make sure you mark the communication urgent, priority one, otherwise he might take months to reply. Once you’ve gained the information, make a midnight run. Avoid the spaceport entirely. Take all our available ships and the entire detachment of dragoons if necessary. But find that girl and bring her to me unharmed.”
Chapter Sixteen
It was a painful night.
Without fully understanding why, Rick knew he was standing at a crossroads, and it had nothing to do with whether or not he chose to return home.
This choice involved his heart.
He knew how easy it would be for him to become the callous lover. It called to him with a plaintive familiarity. He was strong, he was handsome, he was a hero. He could have any girl he wanted.
Almost.
That he had offered his heart to Consuela and that she had turned him down was all the invitation he needed to never give himself in love again. He saw it all with instant clarity. He would become the man who gave his heart to none, who took and took and took, and gave nothing in return.
It was so attractive, this invitation, so very easy to accept. He would have a life filled with conquests, with women eager for his summons, with pleasures he could scarcely imagine. He would rise in the ranks, be showered with honors, and with them would come ever more beautiful and cultured and eager women. He would have riches. He would have fame. He would have it all.
And never be hurt again.
It called to him, this vision, and all he had to do was simply accept. The life was there for the taking. He knew it with a certainty that went beyond all earthly logic.
Yet it was with this very same clarity of vision that he knew such a choice would leave something unanswered. Some essential hunger would always go unfulfilled.
He lay there, tempted to shove the troubling visions aside and simply accept what he could so easily come to consider his due. But he did not. The quiet call of his own heart spoke to him, awakened by the love he saw in Consuela’s face and gaze, a love destined for another and ever denied to him.
Yet was it really?
His pride would certainly like for him to think so. That if he could not have this woman’s love, he would give his own to none. Yet the night’s crystal clarity, fueled by his heart’s soft yearnings, left him knowing that in truth it was not so. That were he to learn how to open his heart, he could have all, but only if he were willing to give all.
And this thought terrified him.
All his life he had made it by being tough, by holding back and striving for the top, being the loner who was constantly struggling for success. To be the best. At whatever cost. Even the cost of true affection.
Could he do it? Could he learn to accept someone into the innermost parts of his being, sharing all the hurts and the angers and the blackness that had fueled his scramble for the top? Rick struggled to push aside the eager temptations for just a moment and to examine himself with honesty.
And with honesty he realized that he could not do it alone.
It was this simple truth that troubled him most of all.
****
Two standard days later, the strain was showing. Consuela ate all her meals in the saddle, and left the flight deck only for three-hour snatches of sleep. Her rest was never long enough to be truly satisfying. Without actually ordering her to stay, Arnol continued to make it clear that he needed her there as much as possible. It was not enough to search for shadowlanes. She needed to set up a continual sweep of surrounding space, their only hope against surprise attack.
Dunlevy matched her hour for hour and never allowed her to sit a watch alone. He had numerous years of spacing experience behind him, yet he did not carry the burden of the search. The pilot did not show the pressure, save for a gathering half-moon of darkness under each eye.
Still, their searching had paid off. Three shadowlanes had been identified and marked on their computerized charts. Consuela had then powered-down long before they actually crossed the shadowlane path, thus saving herself the strain of making contact again while amped.
But they had found no pirates.
Dunlevy sat with his plate perched in his lap and a glass making a chilled puddle on the edge of the pilot’s console. “I confess I felt some of the private exchange between you and Wander back there. For that I am sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she said, too tired at the moment to feel shame over their intimacy being sensed by another, especially one she was coming to see as a friend.
“I have never heard of anything like this ever happening before,” he said, shaking his head at the memory. “It is one thing to transmit a mental message formed into concrete images and words. But emotions. Never would I have thought such a thing could be done.”
“Wander is a very special man,” she said, blushing with the pleasure of such a claim.
“Yes, he is,” Dunlevy agreed. “I am only now beginning to understand just how special.” He drained his glass, gathered the remains of her meal, stacked the dishes and set them to one side. “Shall we commence?”
She made a face. “Do we have to?”
“No,” he said calmly. “But if you do not, who will?”
She sighed, accepted her headset, fitted it into place, leaned back and began turning the power dial. Gradually her awareness shifted away from where she sat, moving beyond the flight deck, extending out and away from the lightway. Each t
ime she pushed herself a little farther, extending her reach, trying to see how far she could manage to sense forward and around without losing her sensory anchor upon the ship.
Then she found it.
“Shadowlane!” Consuela called, sitting upright, not bothering to mask the tension that shot through her body. “And a ship!”
The flight deck was catapulted into action. “Yellow alert,” intoned Captain Arnol, bolting from his casual stance at the rear of the control room directly into his station. “All hands, prepare for action.”
The helmsman sounded the alarm, the flight deck shone with the pulsing yellow glow, then all tensed and waited. Every eye in the flight deck was upon them as Dunlevy leaned toward her and said quietly, “Are you sure?”
Consuela checked again, a swift in and out that left her nerve ends screeching. “A shadowlane and a stationary ship,” she confirmed.
“Power Control Officer,” the Captain intoned softly, now unwilling to shatter the moment. “Move to full shield.”
“Full shield it is, Captain.”
Dunlevy asked quietly, “Can you show me?”
She nodded, accustomed now to his following her out, leading him to a place he could not see himself. He in turn had the training she lacked to pinpoint the timeline.
“All right,” Dunlevy said. “Let’s go.”
“On the ready, Navigator,” Arnol ordered.
“Aye, Captain, ready to take the mark.”
The incessantly angry buzzing struck her with the force of a billion metal bees. “There!” Consuela cried.
“Four hours, fifteen at . . .” Dunlevy paused, then shouted, “Mark!”
Arnol looked at the navigator. “Anywhere near the point where other ships have vanished?”
She inspected her charts. “Aye, Captain. Nine have sent their last recorded message before that point. And it matches the information Avanti supplied from the captured pirates. The pirate base should not be far off.”
Though it cost her tremendously, Consuela did not back away. She had to be absolutely certain. She extended out, out, searching one way, then the other, and found it. “A second ship! They are sitting on either side of the intersection.”
“Helmsman, full stop,” Arnol commanded.
“Aye, Captain.” A long pause, then, “Ship is stationary.”
Arnol keyed his console. “Guns, there are two targets, not one.”
“Two ships, aye, Captain.”
“I am giving you three hours for a final trial run. Make it count, and make it good. Nothing fancy. Follow your orders.”
“To the bitter end, Captain.”
“Red alert in three hours and counting.” Arnol switched off and turned to the pilot’s station. “Join me aft for a coffee, both of you.”
Chapter Seventeen
“I want you to tell me what it is like,” Arnol said. “When you traverse the shadowlane.”
Consuela sipped at her cup, then set it aside. Her stomach could not accept anything just then. “Awful. Like termites eating inside my skull.”
Arnol glanced at Dunlevy. “That does not sound like a simple trace of leftover energy belonging to an ancient shadowlane, Pilot.”
“No, Captain, I agree.”
“Whatever it is, it’s powerful,” Consuela confirmed.
“Then it makes it doubly difficult to ask this, but ask it I must.” Arnol’s face was grave. “We have two choices in attacking the pirate stronghold, assuming we are successful with this first skirmish against the two pirate vessels.” His hands drew star charts in the air between them. “We can travel along the shadowlane, which was our original plan. Ride down the line until we come within Blade range.”
Stationing his arms as intersecting points, he went on, “Or there is a second option. Once we have completed our attack on the ships, we could reverse back down the lightway. We could then cut through open space, traversing a line charted by our navigator. That might give us an extra advantage of attacking the base itself from an unexpected quadrant.”
“Oh no,” she murmured, the captain’s request coming clear.
“I’m afraid so,” he replied somberly. “The only way this is possible is if you would first cross the distance yourself, giving us a specific mark for where the pirates have their hideout.”
“I would be there with you the entire way,” Dunlevy assured her. “There would be no need to make the traverse but once.”
“It could mean the difference between success and failure,” Arnol told her. “Between losing half our Blades or more, and having no casualties at all.”
He had hit her with the one argument she could not refuse. Consuela nodded once and started back toward the pilot’s station, knowing she could not live with herself if she did nothing and something then happened to Rick.
Dunlevy settled into the saddle beside her. “All the way,” he said quietly, “I’ll be there beside you.”
She nodded, her eyes already closed and one hand tuning up the headset dial. “Just hold my hand, okay?”
It was harder than anything she had ever thought possible. To begin with, the range was extreme. And traversing the shadowlane was like trying to focus at the limits of her ability with a drill biting into her brain. But Dunlevy was as good as his word, not simply traveling alongside her, but striving constantly to surround her with his confident strength. The pressure on her hand was matched by the sense that he walked with her, unaware of the way she traversed, but always there, ready to draw her back if the strain became too great.
It almost did, before she hit upon the idea of not remaining upon the shadowlane at all, but rather skipping along like a stone jumping across water. Touching it just often enough to hold to her course, then speeding along through empty space, allowing her mind and extended senses to recover from the shock. Passing farther and farther beyond what she had thought would be her maximum range.
Then she found it. “There!”
“Mark!” Dunlevy’s voice was saber sharp. “Eleven hours, eleven minutes, and thirteen seconds.” Instantly he began pulling her back.
“No, wait.” Much as she wanted to go, to escape, to return, she had to be certain. She scouted as swiftly as she could, almost overwhelmed by what she found. Knowing she needed to discover everything possible, knowing she could not stand much more. Then, “All right.”
Back more swiftly than she thought possible, but not swift enough to suit her. Returning to an almost blinding headache and a weakness so great she could hardly strip the headset from her temples. She turned to Arnol, winced at the lance of pain caused by the movement, whispered, “An ice planet. Something around it, I don’t know what, a horrible buzzing.” Each beat of her heart tightened the band of pain around her skull, bringing the darkness that much closer. “Four ships, I’m pretty sure. One of them is big, not as big as us, but still very large. Two banks of weapons on the surface. I don’t think . . .”
She did not feel Dunlevy’s arms envelop her and lift her from the seat. Nor did she see the crew rise to their feet in silent salute as he carried her from the deck.
Chapter Eighteen
“Do you sense anything else out there besides planets and lightways?”
Although the question was asked in the most casual of tones, Wander was instantly on alert. “Like ships? Sure.”
Digs’ tone turned impatient. “No, something else.”
“Like what?”
“Nothing.” He seemed angry that they were having the conversation at all. “I’m supposed to ask you that, but I don’t know why.”
Wander turned from his examination of the distant cavern floor. Watching the floater descend and ascend through the vast subterranean hall granted him his only sense of freedom. He had stopped looking through the narrow windows. Viewing across the lifeless landscape to the raging storm overhead left him with the sense of living in a prison with flames for walls.
“He’s always so concerned about what you see,” Digs went on, scuffing his foo
t across the floater’s stone floor.
“Who?”
“The Dark Courier, who else?” He shot an angry glance Wander’s way. “He asks a lot of questions about you. Whether you see things that aren’t there. Every day he asks. I tell him you do good work, that’s all I know.”
Wander inspected the wiry young man, his pinched features, his darting eyes. “You’re a good friend,” he said slowly.
Digs raised his head, returned the gaze. As the floater settled into the ring, he said softly, “You’re hiding something, aren’t you?”
Wander continued to meet his gaze but said nothing.
Digs went over to the station and sat down. “I want to try something.”
Wander followed him over, seated himself, settled his headset into place, remained silent.
“It’s the only way you’re going to trust me. I decided that last night. If you’re the sensitive I think you are, I think it ought to work.” He settled back, closed his eyes, said, “When we power up, just follow my lead.”
With the surging force, Digs held them both anchored to the cavern. Instead of extending themselves out and into space, he turned inward.
Wander resisted the compulsion to push away. Instinctively he understood what Digs was attempting, and allowed himself to be drawn forward, down, into the other young man’s mind.
He saw the turmoil and pain of a hard life. A family even poorer than his own, tied to a scrabble-earth farm on a distant outworld, the first candidate scout his homeworld had ever produced. Sent terrified and alone to a distant world, trained for less than six months, before being uprooted once more and sent here. Trapped and lonely, one of the few lower-class outworlders to be trained as a monitor. Hating his life, yearning for a freedom that could never be his. Chained and trapped and chafing in his stone-walled prison.
Wander allowed himself to return, and opened his eyes when the power-down was completed to find Digs watching him with those darting eyes. “Did it work?”
“Yes.” He did not know how to express his feeling at this sudden gift of confidence, so all he said was, “Thank you.”
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