by Jean Kilczer
Or worse. The death of all of them!
Joe's hovair flew over the ravine. I heard it land. Dammit. Them too? Under better circumstances, we could've had a party. Circumstances being what they were…. I concentrated on the red coil, which was weakening. Block out everything else, I told myself as I forced it to strengthen and spin faster. I targeted Lennie's mind and threw the ball with a note attached: The exit from the lab, Lennie. Go to the exit! I sent it with all the force I could muster. Somewhere, Shannon was talking to Joe. I had other concerns right now. You want to go to the exit, Lennie. Flee this dangerous lab. Flee for your life! Run to the exit!
I knew George felt the send too.
“For Christ's sake, don't listen to him, Lennie,” I heard George say in my mind. “We're not going anyplace until the general's people show up. Don't you get it? He wants to relay the location of the lab to W-CIA.”
“I'm feeling scared, Dad!”
“It's about time,” George responded. “Look, all you have to do, son, is to keep your mind quiet. I'm getting on the horn with General Rowdinth's captain to see what action the Elite Guards are taking.”
“Hurry up! My mind keeps wanting to go to the surface entrance.”
“That's him influencing you. Fight it. Sing a song inside your head!”
I squeezed my eyes shut and imaged the tight red coil, like a miniature tornado, growing from the core of my tel power. If I were going to influence Lennie past his resistance, it would have to be a tornado that subjugated his own will.
My eyes burned as I forced the coil to grow and spin. A powerful funnel of thought control. I took a deep breath. This was going to hurt. But it was worth the pain if it worked. I threw the coil at his mind with everything I had and felt it hit its mark, influencing the electrical impulses of his brain and turning his thoughts to my desire.
The surface entrance, Lennie!
And there it was!
I pressed my hands to my eyes in an attempt to quench the fire in my brain.
Beyond the narrow woods, between two hillocks, lay a sunless chasm, deep and jagged as a murderous thought. The tortured land was strewn with grant boulders from ancient upheavals. And current upheavals, I thought and knew with certainty that a dark cave entrance would lead us to the project that could destroy Earth.
“Joe!”
I had to tell Joe! If I went there myself, Rowdinth would surely detonate the device in my head. There's close. And then there's too close. And that would be too close.
I brushed off the sand and tried to climb the ravine, but I kept sliding back down on loose shale. “Joe!” I called again. “I'm down here. It's Jules.”
“What the hell?” I heard Joe utter.
They came to the lip of the ravine with Chancey holding Shannon's arm in what seemed to be a pretty tight grip.
“You want to let her go?” I called. “Or are you afraid she'll beat you to a pulp?”
“Jules,” Huff said, “did you fall in, my Terran friend.”
“No. Just get me out.”
“We should leave him there,” Joe called. “I told you to go to a mine.”
“I know where the entrance is to the lab,” I said.
That did it. They formed a human chain, with one Vegan, and pulled me up.
Shannon looked bedraggled, but worse was the expression on her face.
“Shannon? What happened?” I touched fresh bruises on her cheek. What did Rowdinth do to you?”
“Oh, Jules!” She shook her head.
“Let go of her,” I told Chancey. “She's not going anyplace.”
Chancey released her and she leaned against me and sobbed. I put my arms around her. “It's OK. You're safe now,” I whispered.
“It's na OK, Jules!” She pushed away from me. “He's killing me people, one by one! He says he won't stop until I bring ye to his citadel.”
Joe pulled her back and got between us. “We can't allow that,” he said. “Jules, where's the entrance to the lab?”
I scanned the woods and pointed to the two hillocks beyond the trees. “Between those hills, Joe. There's a chasm with a cave entrance.” I smiled at him. “That's it.”
I swear I think he gave me a look that bordered on respect and affection. Although, I could be imagining it.
“Does Rowdinth know you found it?” Shelley asked.
“No. Not unless the tag I learned it from is dumb enough to tell Rowdinth he let it slip from his mind.”
“Be that as it may,” Joe said. “That's a big valley with a lot of abandoned mine shafts. Can you describe the exact location of the cave? I don't want you going there yourself.”
“Me either.” I told him where to look. “They've got some sort of a defense system set up in case of an attack.”
Joe squinted toward the two hills. “Then we don't go there until the W-CIA Shaka teams are prepared to occupy the lab.” He took out his SPS unit and strode away from the group.
“Joe!” Chancey called. “Tell W-CIA to send along a physicist with the teams.”
Joe waved back and kept talking into his unit.
I turned to Shannon, who stood with sagging shoulders, and put my arm around her. “It's going to be OK, lass,” I murmured and kissed her forehead.”
Would Rowdinth keep his word and free Shannon's people if I gave myself up to him? I bit my lip.
Chancey took a step toward me. “Don't even think about going to the citadel and surrendering to Rowdinth like a dumb shit!” He had read me like a holo.
“Jules,” Shelley said, “if Rowdinth gets his claws into you, you might be forced to tell him that we know about the surface entrance.” She glanced at Shannon with a maternal look. “Of course, it would free her people.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Shelley?” Chancey said. “You know the stakes we're playing for here. W-CIA wants a surprise attack of the lab. They want it secured without damaging or destroying the project in a firefight.”
I nodded. “And before Rowdinth gets a chance to move the project to another secret hideout.”
“You wouldn't walk into him, would you, my Jules friend?” Huff asked. “General Rowdinth would not be kind to treat you.” He put a paw on my shoulder. “I have heard him with my own ears say he dislikes you to hate.”
“No, of course not, Huff,” I said. “I know better than that.” I patted his paw and stared at the hills. I'd given our scientists a means of studying the dark-energy project's technology. “But what about Shannon's people?” I glanced at Shelley. “But don't Shannon's people count for something?”
Shelley nodded solemnly.
“They're…” Shannon wiped her eyes and stared at Shelley. “They're my family.”
“I know, Shannon,” I said.
Chancey hooked his thumb under his shoulder rifle strap and stared at me. There's no stun setting on a projectile rifle. “Our military,” he said, “can mount a mission to free her people after the lab is secured.”
That may be too late, I thought. “Huff, do you have any idea where Rowdinth would hold so many people?”
“Somewhere- or place they cannot be noticed from afar,” he said.
“Yeah,” I nodded. “And then he could holo-shield the area from SHAKA reconnaissance flights.”
“He probably has it done,” Huff said, “already by this day.”
Shelley was strangely quiet as she stared at the two hillocks. I wanted to probe, but she was a comrade in arms against Rowdinth, and that would've been unethical.
“You have any ideas, Shell?” I asked her.
“What?” She jumped. “Oh, no. No. I think our plan's in place.” But she seemed strangely disturbed.
Joe continued to pace as he talked on the unit with animated gestures.
If Rowdinth got a chance to move the project before the W-CIA Shaka teams could stop him, we'd be back to square one. There was nothing more I could do to help the government forces. But I could save about a hundred people. Shannon's people.
I thought of my daughter Lisa. I should have visited her on Earth after Willa's death. How would she remember me, if…?
“You're right, tags,” I said and glanced at Chancey as I assumed a relaxed, non-aggressive stance. “I'm sorry, Shannon, but I can't help your people.”
Her lips quivered and I knew she was holding back tears. I let my hand on her shoulder slide down to her waist, and then to my holstered stingler as I stood behind her, one of the charged weapons, and thumbed the ring to the stun setting. “Maybe the Shaka team can rescue them.”
She felt the motion, nodded, and remained still.
“Watch out!” Shelley cried to Chancey and drew her weapon.
Before she could fire, I beamed her.
Chancey slid the rifle off his shoulder, but my stingler was already aimed. I fired and watched the two of them slump to the ground. Huff threw up his paws as though to surrender.
“Joe!” Shannon pointed at him.
He had unholstered his stingler. I threw Shannon in front of me as he fired. I knew Joe well. The weapon would be set for stun. I felt a tingling in my wrists and Shannon collapsed against me. I fired from under her right arm.
Joe staggered back. He dropped the SPS. Then he fell, too.
I swung the weapon toward Huff.
“Let me company be with you!” he cried. “Perhaps I can help to offer.”
I holstered my weapon. “Help me with her.”
He lifted Shannon over his broad furry shoulder. I checked Shelley and Chancey. They were both breathing okay. Damn! I thought. Chancey would've killed me with his old projectile rifle, rather than see me surrender to Rowdinth.
Joe was breathing okay too. I fished his pipe out of his jacket. “I'm going to do you a big favor, Joe.” I flung the pipe as far as I could. Then I scrawled directions to my hidden one-person hovair in the sand to give them a ride out of here, while Huff carried Shannon into Joe's rented hovair camper. I followed him and sat in the pilot's seat. God, I was tired. And hunger was an ache. But I forced down my needs and concentrated on the effort ahead.
Huff lowered Shannon to one of the cots and seat-belted her in.
“Which direction to the citadel?” I asked him as I started the craft and lifted it into the sky.
“That way lies the citadel.” Huff pointed northwest. “Jules?”
“Yeah, I know, Huff. Don't go there. Sometimes we just don't have a choice.” I rubbed my eyes to clear my vision.
That way lies the citadel, and torture or death. Maybe both. I could walk away from this. I had no responsibility for the lives of Shannon's people. But how many of the hundred or so had Rowdinth already murdered as he waited for her to bring me in? I felt a mental shiver and rubbed my arms.
I could walk into Rowdinth's lair and probe his sick mind for the location of the dwarf community. I could let him think my tel powers were for hire to discover Alpha's plans to destroy his project. If I could squeeze the community's location from his deranged mind, I might be able to relay the information to Shannon and Huff, who could be waiting, hidden on the surface nearby.
The Shaka teams, probably already on their way here, might agree to save the community if they already knew the location. It was the longest of shots. Then there was that little problem of a bomb planted inside my head. I touched the sore spot behind my right ear as I turned the craft northwest, toward Rowdinth's lair.
Chapter Fifteen
“My comrades in arms,” Rowdinth addressed the six nervous military officers at the conference table in his great room, “may I present to you a Terran telepath.” He gestured broadly toward me with his walking stick as I stood, my wrists and ankles shackled in irons and chains, flanked by two of his Elite Guards. “Jules Rammis by name.” His whiskered snout twitched into a smile.
The officers nodded at me as though I were a guest, and glanced nervously at each other. Holos of Earth, Alpha, and the colonies' star systems hovered above the table, with a red tag on Earth. The Vermakt flag was draped across a wall, with the bronze statue of Rowdinth on that high, Greek column. A plaque beside it with a protruding claw was probably the Soldier's Oath of Loyalty. The two sharks circled their tight quarters so they could breathe, but they crowded the tank's far side when Rowdinth walked by and tapped the glass with his stick.
“I kept my part of the agreement, General,” I told him. “Now, as the honorable leader of the great Vermakt race, I expect you'll keep your part and free the dwarfs.” Eat that, I thought, in front of your officers, you murdering bastard. I would never forget that it was by Rowdinth's orders that Willa had also been killed when he sent his police after Joe and me back on Halcyon.
He strolled around me and raised the pointed walking stick to touch my throat. “But I already have you!” He turned and chuckled to his officers. The crote was playing to the crowd. I sighed as I watched him fish out the detonator from his uniform and finger the red button. He wouldn't push it. The nuclear device was powerful enough to blow him and his citadel into the next dimension.
The room was too hot, with the fire blazing. Too stuffy, with the sour smell of Vermakts. Pale Drackin lay curled before the fireplace, his wings folded, his hooded white eyes fixed on me, like Death waiting for permission to strike.
“I told you before, General,” I started, “I have no ties or sympathy for Earth or Alpha. No one there ever treated me right!” I figured he was familiar with paranoia.
I lifted a hand to rub my eyes. A Guard gripped the chain and yanked down my wrist. Where the hell did they think I was going? Oh, I get it! They're afraid of my tel power. “Release the dwarfs, General. Tell me what you want, and we'll do business.”
I knew full well what he wanted. Discover Alpha's plans to counter his threat. Sure, rat-face. Why not? Only it's way too late. If only he knew that his days as the worshipped messiah of the Vermakt race were numbered. I wished I could tell him.
“I'll tell you what I want.” His tone was strident, as usual. How did his vocal chords cope? I wondered. But then, he was all mouth. “When I'm ready to tell you what I want!” He jabbed my chest with the walking stick and spoke to his officers in their native tongue. They chuckled stiffly. A few murmured an answer.
I closed my eyes, but I swayed and blinked them open again. I was so weary, my knees trembled. My body ached for sleep. I pictured a meal of mock steak, mashed potatoes, and a salad. My favorite fare. Neither food nor sleep were in the offing. The geth state, that pleasant pause between lives, sans body or troubles, seemed welcome. If I knew for certain that Great Mind would allow me to reunite with Willa, I would've lunged at the rat bag, made a grab for the detonator and blown us all to that comfortable state. But Spirit had told me, rather adamantly, that the Great Creator of it all did not take kindly to suicide as a way out of troubles. Too much like walking away from lessons needed toward that degree called Nirvana. And He/She/It set the rules. The rest of us have limited control over the vagaries of our lifebinds.
I had left Shannon and Huff with Joe's rented hovair before walking toward the general direction of Rowdinth's lair. That was the limit of my control over the vagaries. An automated hovar had burst out of a dune and stopped beside me while I climbed inside. The windows were black. The doors were locked as it drove me into a citadel vehicle entrance.
I lowered my head and tried not to think about the consequences past freeing Shannon's people.
After that, the chips would fall, all right. I wouldn't be surprised if an assassin accompanied the Shaka teams to execute me before this “loose cannon” could do more harm. It would be a coup de grace, with the surety that Rowdinth would do it himself when he was finished with me, and not as gently as a hot beam to the head. I glanced at the sharks and wondered if they were kept hungry?
I gathered my tel powers yet again, an exhausting task that had helped to drain me, and probed Rowdinth's sick mind for the location of the dwarf community.
Here lies the path to madness! I thought.
I encountered a mindscape so
heavily linked to the primal core that the gentler emotions could not take hold. Here lived mistrust and a rage for power and exaggerated praise. A demented child who could not tolerate criticism. But something more made me shiver in the heated room. Sexual desire, so twisted it could only be satisfied through pain and death, even his own.
I closed my eyes and threaded carefully past this tortured hell of emotional fire and ice, and latched onto an image of the dwarfs. Ripped walls of gray-streaked granite canyons. Stark shadows in a sunless valley. A stream that rushed toward the sea.
And there!
A gathering of diminutive Terrans huddled within cold shade. Vermakt soldiers with rifles.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” Rowdinth asked and tapped the floor near my boot with his walking stick.
I was not surprised. I knew he was a sensitive. “Can you blame me for wanting to know what this is all about?”
“How did you find the entrance to my citadel?”
“Shannon told me generally where to look.”
His voice rose. “Then why isn't she here with you?”
“That wasn't part of the deal. You've got me, and my tel powers. Now let's talk business. What is it you want me to do?”
He walked quietly around me and whacked my knee from behind with his stick. My leg collapsed. I fell to the stone floor with a clang of metal, and shuddered in a breath against the sharp sting. The disturbed sharks swam faster. Through tears of pain I saw Drackin lick his lips. Was that to be my fate when Rowdinth was done with me? Drackin savaging me to death while my hands and legs were held in irons?
I got to my feet sluggishly with the help of a Guard and felt sweat trickle down my hairline.
“I'll tell you when I'm ready to do business,” Rowdinth shouted near my face. His bristly hair fell over his eyes. I stared at the unit in his hand. His thumb was on the red button.
Drackin got to his feet and padded out of the room through a back door. The six officers also shuffled toward the door en masse.
“Where are you cowards going?” Rowdinth demanded, his voice a screech.
