by Jaleta Clegg
The ship handled wrong when we finally lifted. The new stabilizer threw off the balance on the other three and we needed to clean the vent tubing again. I was planning on cleaning it while we were on Landruss. I'd run out of time.
We still made jump without difficulty. That part of the ship worked fine.
Clark shut the door to the cockpit after we shut down the sublight engine. Jerimon was out in the lounge keeping Larella entertained. Beryn had gone to sleep on one of the bunks in Jerimon's cabin. Mart was still locked in the end cabin with Ghost.
"What?" Jasyn asked Clark.
"I got the papers for Mart." He swiveled his chair around to face both of us. "I registered him as Mart Jericho, small ship engineer. It wasn't as expensive as some other qualifications would have been. The paperwork won't stand up to much scrutiny, though."
"We knew it would cost us," I said. "It only has to be good enough to get us to Besht."
"The name Jericho caused a few ripples. I should have listed him as Mart Smith."
Jasyn drummed her fingers on the edge of her controls. "Do we have to worry about the Patrol?"
"Probably not," Clark said. "Other than that, I don't know except for whoever was chasing him on Verrus."
"They wanted him dead," I said and wished I'd kept my mouth shut.
"Someone else wants him alive," Clark said. "They wanted a picture of him for the papers. That isn't standard. They were a bit too insistent. Someone is paying money to find him."
"I never got the chance to tap into Landruss' datanet," I said. "Our ship library turned up nothing on either the silver lady or Jericho."
"Then we know pretty much nothing," Clark said.
"Lowell has an agent on Besht," I said. "I'll contact him there. He can unravel the mystery."
"And your curiosity will kill you," Jasyn said.
"He's more than he seems. He can make empathic contact with me." I squeezed my hand closed, remembering the feel of the golden energy flowing between us. "When he wants to," I qualified. "Larella says he was mind wiped. But he can still remember. Sometimes."
"You want to explain that?" Clark asked. "We know he remembers how to play cards."
"Earlier today, when I was alone with him. He said this place was wrong. I asked him about it. He went strange. He said they were after him for killing the children. He doesn't remember anything about it now."
"He killed children?" Jasyn was horrified.
"It's almost as if he's two different people. Mart wouldn't hurt anything. The other person who remembered the children—" I shrugged.
"Then he's dangerous," Jasyn said. "We should have turned him in."
"It can't be a mind wipe," Clark said. "There wouldn't be anything left of his memories. Some kind of mental block?"
"You're asking the wrong person," I said.
Jasyn shook her head. "What are we going to do?"
"Find the answers and be prepared when he manages to unlock his mind," Clark said.
"Maybe we can get Lady Rina to read his cards," I said.
"If she's still alive," Jasyn said.
"So we keep a close eye on him." I stood and stretched. My necklace swung free. I'd forgotten I was wearing it.
"What's that?" Jasyn asked.
"Darus sent it to me." I showed her the cat.
She laughed.
"Whatever happens, Ghost approves of Mart," I said. "By the way, she's going to have kittens soon."
"Good for her," Clark said.
"Good night," I said as I opened the door.
Jerimon was bent over the table looking at something with Larella. They didn't look up. I went into my cabin.
Larella had left piles of clothes and suitcases on my bunk. I pulled out the upper bunk and started chucking things up there.
"What are you doing?" Larella asked from the doorway.
"Moving your stuff off my bunk. You get the top one."
"I don't like upper bunks," she said.
"Too bad." I tossed an armful of fluttery robes at the bunk. They slid off onto the floor.
"You're getting them dirty," she complained, gathering up the ones that had fallen.
"Then put them in here." I opened one of the storage lockers, one I hadn't put anything into yet.
"It isn't big enough."
"Then find a different ship." I was tired and I didn't want to deal with her. "You have until I'm out of the bathroom to move your things or I'll shove them out the airlock."
I went in the bathroom. She had placed tiny bottles and containers of things I didn't even know names for on every surface. I closed my eyes and took three deep breaths to keep from screaming. I opened a shallow locker and started stacking things into it.
Larella heard the bottles clinking and stuck her head in. "What are you doing now?" She frowned as she took a bottle out of my hand.
"You have to put them away," I said. "It's dangerous to leave them out like this. You're lucky none of them broke during liftoff."
"You're a good pilot," she said as if it was justification for breaking the first safety rule you learn in space. Never leave anything out where it might become a potential missile.
"That doesn't matter," I said sharply. "Everything has to be put away and kept put away. You can use these lockers. Make sure you keep them latched." I owned a couple of combs and a toothbrush and not much else. My bathroom lockers were mostly empty.
"Don't touch that," Larella said, pouting. "I'll put them away in the morning."
"You'll put them away now."
"You can't order me around like this."
"Do you see these?" I pulled my collar out so she could see the captain's bars pinned to them. "In space, on my ship, I make the rules. That's what being captain means."
"You don't order Jasyn or Jerimon around."
I wanted to smack her pert little nose. "Jasyn doesn't need ordered, she knows better. And you can ask Jerimon about me ordering him around. I do it when I have to. Put these away, and your other things, now, or I will space them."
I left the bathroom. My cabin was still chaos. Her clothes were on both bunks now, and hanging out of the locker. I slammed two more open. I had to leave the cabin before I started shouting. I went back out to the lounge.
Jerimon had his feet up on a chair and a hand of solitaire laid out. "You should be nicer to her, Dace. She's never flown anything but commercial ships, big ones. She doesn't know better."
"Then she'd better learn fast," I said, banging open a cupboard in the galley. All of Jasyn's rolls were gone. "I don't care how much you like her, Jerimon, she isn't taking over my bunk and my cabin, and leaving her things all over my bathroom. If Jasyn didn't have hangups over propriety, I'd send her to you and let Beryn sleep in my extra bunk."
"He snores," Jerimon said, shifting cards.
"Maybe I should just move into the engine room or the cargo bay." I slammed the door shut on the cupboard.
"There's no reason for you to be so grouchy," Jerimon said.
"Yes, there is. I'm tired. I've got four skinned knuckles. I want to go to sleep, but my bunk is covered in clothes so bright I risk going blind just looking at them."
"You're jealous," he said, glancing at me with his incredibly blue eyes. "Because she's sweet and good natured and better looking."
"Shut up." I smacked him across the back of his head as I walked past.
He retaliated by swatting my behind. I had him flat on his stomach with his arm twisted behind his back in less than ten seconds. Cards spilled off the table.
"No one does that to me and gets away with it. Next time I'll break your arm." I got up, walking back to my cabin.
"Is that why you like Tayvis?" Jerimon shot at me. "He's too big for you to push around."
I pretended I hadn't heard that remark.
My cabin still looked like a disaster in a costume factory. I pushed Larella's clothes off my bunk. I lay down and wrapped my blanket around me, turning my back to the room. I pretended I was asleep when she s
tarted picking up her clothes. I didn't have to pretend long. I was worn out.
The next day didn't go any better. Larella seemed determined to cause problems. I was the only one who even suspected she wasn't as innocent as she claimed. Jerimon was quick to defend her. I would have locked myself in my cabin except I'd agreed to share with her. The two and a half days to Jewel may as well have been a month.
Larella started out by deciding to shower. The fifth time she cycled through the water I lost my temper. I banged on the bathroom door.
"What?"
"Two cycles of water at most," I called through the door. "We don't have enough for unlimited use."
"It takes three just to rinse my hair."
"Then cut it off."
"Dace," Jasyn said from the door to the cabin, "go check the engines or something. Just go away for a while. I'll talk to her."
I started to protest.
"Don't hurt Jerimon as you go past," she said as she pushed me out of the door into the lounge.
Jerimon and Clark were playing Crystals. Beryn was taking something apart.
"Would you rather be on the Twinkle?" Jerimon asked, referring to the courier I was flying when I'd first met him. Right then I wished I'd never met him, never worked for Belliff, never did a lot of things. Right then, even staying on Tivor my whole life actually looked appealing. No, that would never be appealing. I ignored him. I went up the steps to the small cargo hold, the only one we had that was pressurized. It was right at the back of the lounge, above the engines.
"Do I dare ask what you're doing?" Clark moved pieces on the board.
"Inventory," I said.
The cargo bay was basically a narrow hallway with storage compartments along both sides. I went to the very back and sat on the floor. The cargo bay didn't have a door. I could hear them talking, even though they were trying to keep it quiet. They were talking about me. Again.
I pulled my knees up and tried to figure out a way I could leave without raising more eyebrows. That was a lost cause.
I had my lockpicks in their hidden pocket on my left ankle. I hadn't used them in a while. I pulled them out and picked the locks on the bins, just for practice. I locked and unlocked them with my picks. I was a bit slow, but I hadn't lost my touch.
The cargo we kept here was mostly speculation items, things we picked up to see if they'd sell somewhere. It was mostly jewelry, small and expensive and readily sold a piece or two at a time if we needed cash. I had several bins full of assorted spices, vacuum sealed to preserve the flavor. Jasyn used a lot of them in her cooking. We had some embroidered scarves and an assortment of other odds and ends.
I opened a storage locker, one of the bigger ones on the bottom at the back. Three large boxes were stuffed inside that hadn't been opened since we picked them up on Shamustel. Too many things had happened since then. I'd never gotten around to it. They contained the entire inventory of butterfly necklaces I'd been given, the ones like the crushed one Mart had been holding when he ran into me.
I tugged the boxes out and opened one. It was full of velvet bags of all colors. I emptied the box onto the floor and pushed it to one side. There were several hundred bags. I started piles of different colors.
Red, blue, green, turquoise, violet, and gold. Rich colors and soft velvet were a pleasure to touch. Some were trimmed in silver or gold. Some sparkled with embroidered flowers picked out in jeweled thread. The bags themselves were good trade items.
I started with the red pile. There were five different variations. I picked out those with gold trim. I was down to only twenty bags. That was a more manageable number. I pushed the others out of the way and opened the first bag.
The necklace was a single strand of gold so fine it floated. Caught in a knot was a tiny creature with six wings of ruby red. I put it on its bag and opened another. This one had four wings of pale blue. I put it aside. I opened fifty of the bags and couldn't find any sort of pattern. The only way to inventory what I had was to open all the bags. It was a hopeless task, but I had plenty of time to kill.
I picked up a dozen of the necklaces. Creatures fluttered and danced as I moved. They were so incredibly lifelike, I could almost feel them breathing. The workmanship was amazingly delicate.
I slid open three flat drawers. Red and purplish ones would go in the top one, I decided. Greens and blues in the second, the rest in the third. And bag colors wouldn't matter. I slid the ones I'd opened back into bags and put them in the right drawers.
I lost track of time, opening bags and sorting the necklaces by color. I hesitated over a strand with five of the creatures knotted into it. They were each a different color. I finally settled on putting it in the bottom drawer.
It took me until lunch to sort the first two boxes. I wondered how these tied in to Mart. Why had he been clutching one? Where had he gotten it? What had happened to the owner of the jewelry shop? Why had she left her inventory for me and not someone else? Who was she? Who was Mart? What was Jericho? What children had Mart been talking about? Why was I mixed up the middle? Again.
Larella pointedly ignored me during lunch. That was fine with me. She was wearing more normal clothes, if you could call a frothy pile of chiffon held together with ribbons normal. It kept Jerimon's attention.
Mart came out to join us. He held Ghost. She was draped on his arm, looking very relaxed and happy. Larella frowned at him and the cat as they sat at the table. I took my plate and sat on the steps to the cargo bay. Beryn took his lunch to the engine room. If he'd been anyone other than Caid's grandson, I would have locked him up. As it was, he was starting to make me nervous. The Phoenix was my ship and I was supposed to be the one tinkering.
"What have you been doing?" Jasyn asked me.
"Not picking fights," Clark muttered.
"I heard that," I said. "I've been sorting those necklaces."
"Necklaces?" Larella's ears pricked up.
"So far I've counted five hundred and twenty three of them," I said, ignoring Larella. Two could play that game. And I was better. "That was the first two boxes. I'm going to sort the last one after lunch."
"We ought to find a buyer for those," Clark said. "Maybe try one of the emporiums on Besht."
"They'll nail us with luxury import taxes," I said. "Cheap jewelry counts as much as expensive stuff. Maybe we should follow our original plan and take them to Typoll. We don't have anywhere we need to be, except Besht." I knew how long we stayed there depended on what condition Lady Rina was in.
We finished eating in silence. The thought of Lady Rina incapacitated or dead was too much. She was too alive, too vibrant. But she was old. How old, I didn't have a clue. Old enough that she showed it. Considering her wealth, she could be well over a hundred.
I stood and put my plate in the sink. Larella stopped me by grabbing one wrist. Her hands were small, delicate, and a lot stronger than I expected. I resisted my first impulse. Jasyn would lecture me for days if I broke Larella's arm.
"What?" I said as politely and patiently as I could.
"There's something wrong with your aura," she said. "I felt it before but it took me a while to figure it out."
"It's spiky and purple and I like it that way," I said and tried to pull my hand free.
She stared into my eyes. She was slightly taller than me. Her eyes were a warm gray. Whatever she saw in my eyes upset her. She moved faster than Ghost and grabbed Mart's hand. She pressed my hand to Mart's, palm to palm. Her own she kept wrapped around both of ours. She closed her eyes. Sweat beaded her lip. Mart stood, brushing Ghost from his lap. He stared at Larella, eyes wide with fear.
"What are you?" he asked.
"Hush," she said.
I felt the slightest itch at the base of my skull. Mart's hand was sweaty. His nervousness bled through our clasped hands. Nothing much happened for a while. Jerimon shifted in his chair and started to talk.
"Shush," Larella said sharply. Her eyes were still closed, her face creased with concentration and effort.
Whatever she was doing didn't affect me, but Mart was breathing hard. His fingers curled around mine, squeezing tightly. He watched Larella's face.
I felt a sudden wordless demand. Energy poured out of me through clasped hands. Larella's hair and chiffon strips crackled and waved, charged with excess power. She did something I couldn't interpret or explain. The power surged between the three of us. Something snapped in my head. The backwash of energy made me stagger. Larella let go of our hands and sat at the table as if nothing had happened. Mart stepped back, rubbing his hand.
I didn't feel any different except the tie between me and Mart was gone. All the residual anger and pain I'd picked up from him was gone. It explained why I'd been in such a bad mood.
"He's not mind wiped," Larella announced as she helped herself to more of Clark's casserole. "It's some kind of mind block. I can't break it, even if I wanted to. And from what I glimpsed, I don't want to."
"You know who I am?" Mart asked her.
She shook her head. "You are who you are. You are not who you were."
"Well, that certainly clears things up," Clark said.
"He was a different person before the mind block," Larella said patiently. "There were," she hesitated, searching for words, "things, buried behind the block, that need the right trigger. Like the link he forged with Dace. I don't think either of them realized it."
"How could he do that?" Jasyn asked. "Dace is only telepathic when it comes to rocks."
Larella blinked, confused by that statement.
"Forget it," I said. "I'm not even remotely latent."
"It wasn't telepathic," Larella said, as if it explained everything.
"I'm not a telepath?" Mart asked.
"I didn't say that," Larella said.
"Start at the beginning," Clark said. "With the basics."
"There are more psychic forces than just telepathic or empathic powers," Larella said. "Sensitives, those with telepathy or empathy, are just the most widely studied. So far, no one has proven that anyone can actually perform telekinesis or teleportation. The power needed to move objects physically is several orders of magnitude greater than that needed to convey thoughts or emotions. Thoughts and emotions have no tangible weight. Teleportation, moving things through time and space, requires such enormous amounts of energy that only stars can produce anything close to what is needed."
