by Lisa Eskra
Her name was Kara Steinberg. She'd been wife to a number of wealthy men across the American Federation, using her keen insight and telepathy to always get her way. Her status as a popular socialite veiled her psionic heritage. She'd married the head-of-state, Davis Walsh, and they lived in the underground city of Reia. A clever choice of venue since few visitors trekked to the frigid moon for a vacation. Underestimating this woman would be a mistake.
In many ways Aliane looked forward to meeting her. She wondered if Kara had seen her imminent arrival and how their exchange would unfold. She often coveted the sort of power she'd be able to wield if she were able to see the future. Being an imposing telepath had its advantages, but seeing through the impenetrable barrier of time made it the ultimate psionic ability. If she knew the future, she could manipulate it, saving her decades of grief since the moment she departed Earth.
She descended into a channel toward Rêve's core and parked her ship in the cavernous starport at its base. After paying for the privilege to visit the gloomiest place in Astra, she drove a small hovermobile through a narrow corridor of rock twenty feet high. The passageways of cut granite glistened from the brilliance of their endless facets. Chambers of supercooled water glowed an unnatural blue, illuminated from below by phosphorescent lichens. Mossy undergrowth clung to the walls, able to garner enough light from their surroundings to survive. Wapini mushrooms were the moon's only food export, and a few of the wrinkled luxuries sprouted in the damp shadows.
In a matter of minutes, she arrived at the gates of the city and stopped at a small guard shack. A tall guard in a black uniform and cover approached her with an unimposing smile. "Good morning. Identification please?"
Aliane stuck her arm out the window for the guard, who scanned her implant using the front of his biometrics scanner. He then used an infrared laser to fingerprint her retinas. She'd never had her own genuine implant; they'd been swapped out over the years from her victims. Using her psychometabolism, she altered her own retinal scan until she achieved a perfect match. The arduous task afforded her unquestioned ID but not free access. Because she had no reason to be here, she expected he'd prod her further, upon which she'd use her telepathy to gain entrance. Over the past hundred years, the feat had become trivial.
"Thank you, Mrs. Worthington," he said. "Mrs. Walsh has been expecting you. Reia Hall, building at the end of Main, you can't miss it. Have a wonderful day."
Her jaw dropped as the guardsman returned to his shack and opened the large gate in front of her with the push of a few buttons. The fact she'd been on the list gave her every reason to proceed with caution. Funny that such a small act could be delivered with finesse and power.
Once the gate opened, Aliane headed to the end of the street. Until today, she'd never been to Rêve. As a psion, the last place she wanted to find herself was trapped under a mile of rock if her identity were discovered. Only one passageway broached the surface. The risks far outweighed the benefits of visiting the place alone. Until now.
Shadowy doorways and backlit windows punctuated the eye-catching fascia of the brownstones along the main road. A master architect with an artful eye had sculpted them out of the solid igneous stone that made up the crust of the moon. Light from the neoclassical lampposts emphasized the faux brick and decorative carvings. She'd seen many pictures of the Capitol, but nothing prepared her for the sight of it. Its unimposing name, Reia Hall, belied the fact it was one of the Seven Wonders of Astra. Artisans spent fifteen years toiling over the façade, and they left behind a tribute to human ingenuity.
Aliane parked at the southern entrance and feasted her eyes on the raw intensity of the structure. The building spanned just two stories, but each square inch had been toiled over for months. The dark stone had been burnished to a mirror finish. Flecks of mica gave it an otherworldly sparkle. Illusory columns protruded at regular intervals, and golden streaks of pyrite in the native rock wound from top to bottom in a helical pattern. It was a Cinderella castle for the twenty-fourth century.
A second security checkpoint waited inside the door. Guards searched patrons thoroughly; no personal belongings could be brought inside the capitol building. Because she knew the standard operating procedure, Aliane gained entrance without delay. As she passed a door that led to the legislative chamber, she considered what it would feel like to wield political authority. To control a world with a suggestion. To have a horde of loyal supporters endorsing every policy. The mere idea intoxicated her.
Continuing into the heart of the capitol, she came upon a hall of marble statues, each of them leaders of Rêve at some point in the colony's history. Most were stuffy-looking old men but a few were women. A lady stood near one of the statues, analyzing it pensively. She had short chocolate-colored hair and wore a minimalistic navy dress. Judging by her relative height to the statues, she had to be six feet tall.
"I've been expecting you my whole life, Aliane," the woman said before turning around and meeting her gaze.
"Do you really expect me to believe that?"
Kara smiled knowingly. "It doesn't matter what you believe. But you're not here to debate me philosophically, are you…"
"I want you to join my cause, to be my advisor," Aliane told her. She doubted the Seer would agree, but it was worth a shot.
"Your cause died before it even began. Too many people hate you in every corner of Astra. Stop pandering and admit to yourself that all you've ever wanted was the subjugation of humanity."
"That's putting it a bit melodramatically, don't you think? Yes, my hate has grown steadily over the years, but petty revenge is all it has ever been."
Kara took a deep breath and returned her attention to the statue. "Do you know who this is?"
Aliane glanced up at the pale sculpture of a man and frowned. "I've never had any interest in Rêve's history."
"His name was Steven Bayer. He was Rêve's first head-of-state. An amazing man. Thanks to his leadership, Rêve got off to a great start. He wrote thousands of pages of political science theory that were centuries ahead of their time. In fact, Chara's current political model borrows heavily from his ideas. In 2101 there was an attack on the capitol; psionic dissidents were suspected. Violence between psions and normals escalated until the Equinox Massacre, where a hundred suspected psions were rounded up and executed in front of the crowd. From that point on, psions were guilty until proven innocent."
"What does any of that have to do with me? I wasn't the one who killed him."
"Nothing. And everything. Lessons of the future are often learned by remembering the mistakes of the past." Kara turned to her companion. "A Seer doesn't know the future. I see the players…the events and their potential consequences. The only future I'm certain of is the immediate future."
"I didn't come here to learn the immediate future."
She combed her hand through her hair. Every finger bore rings with large gems, some with two or three. "You should care about it. You obsess about it, in fact. Late at night, it eats at you. It poisons your dreams. Fate is the one thing you've never been able to control. You'd do anything to get destiny to bend to your will."
"A lot of psions feel that way. Why should I be any different?"
"Why did you never have children?"
"That is none of your damn business."
The question caused her heart to race, and her mind immediately focused on Magnius. But with her next breath, she swept the thought away. Kara played these games with her because she could get away with them. Giving away her identity here would be suicide for both of them. Aliane saw no reason to take that kind of risk right now. The Seer held all the cards, and both of them knew it.
Aliane's eyes flashed a sharp shade of violet. <
Kara closed her eyes and spoke in a low tone as though chanting a prophecy: "When the summer moon passes through Pavo, the viper descends from the East. In te
n score days, a year of darkness will consume the valley of eagles. The horse will meet the rabbit on the day that never was, and when the planets of Chara are in conjunction, united they will strike back. After one and three days, the viper will fall."
The words didn't take the form of her formal prophecies and made less sense than usual. "Why don't you just tell me what that's supposed to mean…"
"When the southern pole star of Kashtivone goes nova, the fox will be stricken from the throne to begin the age of the seventh sin. The rabbit will burn the sky with tears for three days after she is laid to rest."
The telepath's eyes boiled in anger. "Stop patronizing me with riddles."
Kara ignored her idle threats. "During the lunar eclipse of Vega, the horse and the rabbit will break bread in the forbidden place and spend the winter navigating darkness. In five and four, the horse will lead them home. The rabbit will fall from the sky. And the people will mourn." She quickly raised her hand for emphasis. "If you want to live, you'll stop the rabbit."
Aliane balked. "Is this rabbit fellow going to kill me?"
"I don't know. There are too many possibilities for me to be sure." She took a deep breath before continuing. "Keep your enemies close and your friends closer. Don't put ambition before love. And use your power modestly."
"What happens if I kill the rabbit? Problem solved, right?"
"I'm sure you'll try. But I'm telling you now; you won't be able to kill the rabbit."
Her incredulous laugh echoed throughout the hall. "There isn't a person in Astra strong enough to best me."
Kara smirked. "I didn't say they'd beat you. I said you wouldn't be able to kill them."
Aliane wasn't sure what she should take from all this. She'd come for answers but had more questions than ever. She wanted to ask if they'd meet again but was afraid of the answer.
"Trying to figure this out is going to muddle my brain for weeks," she said and began walking away. "But I will figure this out. You'll see. I've cheated death before and I will again."
As Aliane exited the building, optimism rejuvenated her spirit. For many years she'd felt vulnerable, a victim of poor people skills and a sheltered upbringing. Since taking Zingeri as her confidante, she'd become invincible. Kara had been blathering on about nothing. Perhaps she wasn't the great Seer she was purported to be. After all, if a person guessed about the future often enough, they were bound to get something right every once in a while.
Chapter Seven
While Nadine waited in the briefing room, she stared out at the vast emptiness of space. She couldn't see Chara from here, but they were close. The constellations she remembered sharpened, and Vega faded into little more than a dappled golden dot in the distant sky.
She looked forward to seeing her husband again. She hated to be away from the man who saved her from life as a test subject, but she realized it was necessary. She'd always been his right-hand man when it came to diplomatic affairs since she was so charismatic. While she never particularly cared for the vocation, she put most people at ease with little effort, and as such, she became an ideal ambassador for United Europe.
All of a sudden, she tilted her head and winced. That feeling, again…the transient afterimage of a potent mind. Every few hours, psionic energy saturated her mind. The sensation made her heart race, and she had to catch her breath to stay centered.
Her status as a diplomat allowed access to the ship's manifest, including civilian passengers. She grabbed a comtab and punched up the information she was interested in. Several VIPs had been dropped off on their homeworlds, but only a few people had been taken on since Nadine came aboard. Matt Zoleki…the name seemed oddly familiar. As a matter of principle, Nadine didn't pry into the thoughts of others without their knowledge but in this case she would make an exception. Any psion that had given her pause demanded investigation, for both the safety of the ship and any humans unfortunate enough to get in his or her way.
After taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and cleared her mind. She felt her consciousness wander across the ship searching for him, letting the tingle in her frontal lobe guide her way. It didn't take long for her to find him lying alone in his cot. For a moment his aura blinded her. He guarded his mind as a warning for lesser telepaths to keep their distance, though her curiosity seduced her into looking deeper into his soul.
He turned out to be the last thing she expected: a loner cursing his wretched existence as a psion. Instead of being a force of evil, he was a pitiable man stuck in a life of boredom that drove him closer to the edge of despair every day. She tried to look closer, but all she could sense was his potential. An inferno raged in his heart—quenched to an ember by the anguish of life. Hiding from the truth would destroy him.
The second lady recoiled and reclaimed her body. She shouldn't have cared about a person she didn't know. But everything about this chance encounter seemed fated to be. No one was assigned a role in life at random and certainly not a psion so melancholic.
She paged him using her wrist implant. "This is Nadine Taylor. Could you come to the briefing room for a few minutes? I'd like to speak to you."
The unusual request gave him pause. "I'm on my way."
But as far as she could tell, his genuine curiosity led him to her.
When he strode through the doors, she realized he was a lot better looking in person than he had been through the periscope of her mind. His ageless features enhanced his dashing brown eyes, and despite his rather dated choice in apparel, a warm subdued presence lingered beneath his gruff expression. He'd worked hard on his middle-aged appearance; the charade would've convinced her had she not already wrested his true identity.
Nadine felt an accidental reflection run through his head in regards to Amii, and she tried to conceal her smile. "You like her, don't you…Magnius," she said at long last. Seeing the two of them—it makes sense now, she thought.
He pointed his finger at her. Like most everyone else, he objected to her telepathy. "Don't. Not to me. Not ever to me."
He used his mind to confound her, and a dizzying fountain of images swept her thoughts clean. She turned her head and grimaced before staring back at him. "I see. That explains a lot. But if you're going to talk the talk, you'd better be able to walk the walk too."
All of a sudden she channeled the burning blast of a mind probe in his direction. He crossed his hands across his face and braced for the contact. Sizzling waves of energy surrounded him while he fought off the assault. He glared at Nadine through his fingers. His resilience filled her with awe. She could not believe such a potent ability failed to affect him. He focused his energy on her side of the room and thrust her body hard against the bulkhead behind her.
Nadine crawled back to her feet and took a deep breath. "Telekinesis. Nice…very nice. And that sort of brings us back to the reason I wanted to speak to you—since there aren't any secrets between us anymore." She smoothed out her navy blue pantsuit. "Why are you heading to Chara?"
"I'll answer your question if you first answer one of mine," he said. "Amii isn't a psion by any chance, is she?"
"No, she's not. You should be able to tell she's not. Do you think if she were a psion she'd have anything to do with you?"
The off-handed comment sent Magnius reeling. "Excuse me?"
She sighed at him, not intending her words to be insulting, but she realized they came out that way. "Don't worry. You'll see her again. Eventually."
"How do you know that?"
"I'm not just a telepath; I'm also a Seer. You can take it as a grain of salt. The future isn't written, but sometimes…I see things. That's all."
"What did you see?" he probed.
All of a sudden, a vision invaded Nadine's cognition. She furrowed her brow at the intrusion. In her mind she saw an image of Amii and Magnius standing on an M-class world, staring up at the sky, filled with something she could not make out…something foreboding. A chill coursed over her when she saw figures all around them that were not human
. Then as fast as it came, the vision was gone.
Unprovoked mental flashes were a rare occurrence for her, yet she'd been having visions ever since setting foot on the Kearsarge. None of them felt coherent, like the memory of a fleeting dream. But now, the sense of dread gripped her more urgently.
"If I thought you should know something, I'd tell you."
True to his word, he answered her. "I'm on the run from a psionic assassin named Tiyuri. And I'm heading to New England because that's the only place Commander Mundammi would take me."
She gasped. "Tiyuri? He's going to find you. You must know that."
Magnius shrugged in apathy. "Then he'll find me." And with nothing more to say, he turned and left her standing alone in the room.
After the door closed in his wake, the ship dropped out of hyperspace. She glanced out the window to see the stars reveal their proper colors. Chara burned on the starboard side of the ship during their approach to New England. Without another thought, she hurried back to her quarters to pack.
Nadine didn't know for sure if she'd ever see Magnius again. He didn't want any help; he'd made that abundantly clear. If there were some way for her to set his feet on the right path, she'd do so in a heartbeat. She closed her eyes and asked fate to send her a sign.
***
Amii peered out the tiny viewport in her room and watched the Kearsarge make its final descent toward the capital city on New England, Chara. From their low orbit a wide swath of ocean filled her field of vision. Specks of snow-capped islands dotted the high northern hemisphere. A spiraling storm system swirled westward near the equator. This would be her very first trip into the heart of United Europe, and she looked forward to seeing the glorious city.
Northampton was the largest metropolis in Astra, home of more than 400,000 UE citizens. As the most populous faction, United Europe boasted almost a million people across six planets in two systems: Chara and Noàgal, both abundant in natural resources. Their worlds consistently made the top-10 of all habitable planets in Astra, along with Fantasti, DeSoto, and Kashtivone.
