Faron heard the elevator rise to the bridge level before the doors slid open to reveal the aging, portly Captain. He was surprised at the man’s scatterbrained and inept appearance. That did not fit with what he knew to be the requirements for captaincy of a major trans-galactic passenger liner such as the Cosmic Glory. In addition, the man’s appearance and his scent both indicated that he was very tense and nervous.
The Captain looked directly at Faron and hurried straight toward him, reaching out with his right hand as he approached. Unlike some Jasani, Faron had no problem with the human handshaking ritual and reached out with his own right hand easily.
“Captain Graey?” Faron asked politely as he shook hands, noting that the Captain’s palms were hot and damp.
“Yes yes,” Captain Graey replied quickly. “I’m sorry, excuse my manners, I’m just so relieved you are here. This whole incident is so upsetting to me, yes so upsetting.”
Dav and Ban stood half a pace behind Faron, Dav on the right, Ban on the left, as always. Faron’s sharp ears caught the nearly silent grunt from Dav that indicated he was skeptical of the Captain. Faron gave his head a tiny shake and Dav subsided.
There was something not quite right about the Captain. His scent and his actions did not entirely match. He both looked and smelled nervous, yes. But he also smelled afraid. Very afraid. Faron would wait to see how this played out.
“I am Faron Lobo,” Faron said, continuing the introductions. “This is my brother Davon, and my other brother Banon.”
“Good to meet you, good to meet you all,” Captain Graey said. “I don’t want to be pushy but could you possibly take a look at the young woman’s compartment now?” he asked, surprising all three of the Lobos. “I don’t wish to be rude, but I just don’t understand it, no not at all.” Captain Graey paused and pulled a small square of fabric from one pocket and mopped at his brow. He shoved the fabric back into its pocket and looked at Faron hopefully.
“Certainly,” Faron replied. “And perhaps on our way you can tell us what you know.”
“Yes yes, glad to, anything at all, I’m glad to help,” the man said nervously as he turned and headed back toward the elevator. “Of course, I don’t know much, not really, not much at all,” he said as the three Lobos crowded into the small elevator with him. “I didn’t even know we had missing passengers until we docked at the skyport.”
“Did you say passengers?” Faron demanded sharply. “As in more than one?”
“Yes, didn’t you know? Oh my, I thought you knew,” Captain Graey said, shaking his head. “Yes yes, two young women just missing, missing from the liner, nowhere to be found and how? How did that happen in deep space? It isn’t as though they could just take a walk and make a wrong turn you know, it’s a liner for star’s sake, where did they go? I don’t know and I’ve interviewed every crew member on board and nobody knows, nobody saw, oh my my, two missing women.” Captain Graey reached for the cloth in his pocket and mopped his forehead again. He shoved it back into his pocket just as the doors opened and they all stepped out of the elevator and into a narrow hallway.
“We’ll want whatever information you have on the other missing woman,” Faron said. “We’d also like to take a look at her compartment as well.”
“Yes yes, of course,” Captain Graey replied.
Faron followed Captain Graey down the hall, watching as the man paused twice to consult a small scrap of paper that he pulled from his pocket.
“Captain Graey, we are curious as to why you evaded our requests that you return to the skyport,” Faron asked, keeping his tone casual and his eyes sharp on the Captain’s back.
Captain Graey stiffened before turning quickly to face the Lobos, his face red. “Stupid bloody First Mate, incompetent bloody Comm. Officer, idiotic bloody relief pilot,” he ranted as he swung his head back and forth, running his fingers through his thinning hair until the short, gray strands stood on end The man was obviously agitated beyond sense. “Nearly lost me my bloody job, bloody ship, damn fools,” he continued before starting over, repeating essentially the same mantra until Faron interrupted him.
“Excuse me Captain, the lady’s compartment?”
Captain Graey froze and looked at Faron blankly for a moment before apparently coming to his senses. “Certainly, certainly,” he said, fishing the scrap of paper out of his pocket once more and holding it up close to his face. “Oh my oh my, two passengers missing, how? How can that be?” the man mumbled as he headed back down the hall. Faron shook his head and glanced over his shoulder at his brothers. They shrugged. It was hard to tell if the man was a liar, an actor, or both. Faron thought perhaps both, but the scents coming from the man were so mixed it was impossible to tell.
Finally, after two wrong turns, Captain Graey stopped at a door and pressed several keys on the reader panel mounted on the wall. The door slid open and Captain Graey stepped inside, all but wringing his hands with nervousness. He realized that the Lobos had not followed him into the tiny, third-class passenger compartment and he turned to look at them curiously.
The moment the door slid open a rush of air from the compartment hit Faron, Dav and Ban full in the face. Air which, to the Lobo’s sensitive noses, smelled strongly of the compartment’s last occupant, Saige Taylor. Lilacs, Faron thought. Lilacs and rain. Tainted with the sharp, unmistakable scent of fear.
That was his last completely coherent thought for several minutes, as that is the moment when his mating fangs burst from the top of his mouth, his cock instantly hardened, and every instinct he possessed began screaming at him to find and protect his Arima. Faron clenched his fists tightly, fighting for control even as adrenaline flooded him, urging him to action. He heard his brothers behind him, struggling with the more primitive side of their natures just as he was. The sound of Captain Graey’s whiny voice reached him on some level, but he was simply unable to respond at the moment.
“Are you unwell?” Captain Graey asked, reaching out, but not quite daring to touch the trembling Jasani male in front of him.
Faron looked up and Captain Graey stumbled back a step at the sight of the Jasani’s glowing eyes, his heart rate doubling as the other two Lobos opened their glowing eyes at the same moment. Graey knew that glowing eyes on a Jasani was a bad thing, and here he was trapped in third class compartment with them standing between him and escape.
A few very long and tense moments later, Faron stepped aside and gestured to Captain Graey, indicating that he should exit the compartment. Captain Graey did so at once. As soon as he was safely in the narrow hallway, the three Lobos entered the compartment and closed the door in his face.
Certus reached for his handkerchief again and wiped his face with it, wishing he could just leave, but knowing that he couldn’t. He had to see this thing through to the end.
All three of the Lobo brothers stood staring at each other in silence for several moments, their emotions too intense to speak of at first. Finally, Dav took a long, deep breath, and grinned ruefully.
“Perhaps we should retract that conversation we just had concerning the taking of a human mate,” he said.
“Are you referring to the one in which you and Ban indicated that, against my wishes, you no longer wished to wait for our Arima?” Faron asked archly.
Ban laughed. “Yes, oh wise, and mighty elder brother,” he said bowing low at the waist. “We concede that you were, as always, correct.”
Faron grinned and held out his right hand. Ban and Dav held theirs out as well and the three brothers clasped hands for a long moment as they grinned at each other.
“I do not know why we have been so blessed and so honored,” Faron said, “but I shall be forever thankful for it.” Dav and Ban nodded in agreement, though Ban lightened the moment by grimacing as he tugged carefully at the front of his jeans.
“I had forgotten about this particular inconvenience,” he said. Faron chuckled. “We may find it inconvenient at the moment, but something tells me that we will soon be g
rateful for it.”
“Let us finish this task so that we can return to Jasan and find our Arima,” Dav said.
“Yes,” Ban agreed. “I have an intense need to find her and protect her right this moment.”
“We all do,” Faron said. “It is too bad that we cannot vox down to the planet. But, when we are finished here we will vid Jackson. His assurance that our Arima is safe may be of aid to us.”
Faron looked around the small room, seeing it with new eyes. Suddenly the abduction of Saige Taylor was a far more personal matter than it had been mere moments before. He wished the compartment was large enough for him to shift into his lobenca. As it wasn’t, they were forced to search the small space in their human forms.
It was obvious that the room had been cleaned, the bed linens changed and the floors washed, but the room still smelled of their Arima, particularly on the small, narrow bed. There was the scent of several males in the room, and another female, but they could have been anyone. Cleaning personnel, stewards and officers searching for the missing woman, perhaps even guests Saige had invited in during her occupancy of the compartment. They had no way of knowing. Other than the tantalizing scent of lilacs and rain, there was nothing left for them to find.
When they were certain they had seen and scented the small area thoroughly, Faron opened the door and stepped out into the hall.
“Captain, may we see the compartment used by the other missing female please?”
“Yes yes, of course, right this way,” Captain Graey replied. “Its just a few doors down actually. Here it is, here it is.” Faron watched as Captain Graey typed in a code to open the door, noting that the man sounded and smelled even more nervous than he had earlier. Faron sighed inwardly. He and his brothers had no doubt scared the man half out of his wits.
The door slid open and this time Captain Graey stepped aside for the Lobos to enter alone. They only spent a few moments in the compartment, noting that it had been thoroughly cleaned, just as Saige Taylor’s had been. Again they found nothing other than the scent of the woman who had occupied the compartment, and the scents of other people, several of them matching the scents in Saige’s compartment, though none seemed remarkable. The matching scents were probably crew members searching for both women, and the cleaning personnel.
When they exited the compartment Faron turned to Captain Graey. “I would ask that we have the use of a vid terminal for a few moments, if that is acceptable,” he said.
Captain Graey nodded. “Certainly certainly, right this way, you can use the one in my quarters,” he said before hurrying back up the hall.
A few minutes later he opened the door to his quarters and ushered the Lobos inside. The three of them were so large that they took up all of the available space in the cramped room, but Certus didn’t mind. He had offered the use of his personal vid so that he could hear whatever Faron had to say. Not to mention that he didn’t want his crew to learn any more than necessary about the situation.
Faron activated the vid unit and rapidly entered Jackson Bearen’s vox code. He didn’t know Bearen’s vid code and didn’t want to take the time to look it up. The ship’s vid unit would interface with the planetary vox network and allow him to speak ship to surface. The connection went through within seconds.
“Yes,” Jackson answered.
“Jackson, is Saige Taylor safe?” Faron asked abruptly.
“Yes, of course,” Jackson replied. “She is currently sleeping in the sitting room off of my office. Why?”
“She is our Arima,” Faron announced.
There was a long silence. “Are you certain?” Jackson asked.
“Unless we were shown the wrong compartment, yes.” Faron hesitated a moment. “Does she smell like lilacs?”
He heard the sound of Jackson’s sudden indrawn breath. “And rain,” Jackson said in a low voice.
Faron looked at his brothers and saw that their eyes were blazing with emotion, as he knew his own were.
“Is everything ready for our trip to the ranch?” he asked.
“Almost. We are preparing a different ground-car for you. It’s large enough for your guests to ride in the trunk and allow Miss Taylor to sleep comfortably if she wishes,” Jackson replied. “Don’t worry my friend,” he added. “You have my word as a warrior that we will guard your Arima for you with our very lives.”
“Thank you,” Faron replied with relief. “Your assurance is of great help to us. We found nothing of use here, other than the knowledge that Saige Taylor was not the only woman taken from this vessel.”
“What?” Jackson demanded. “Why were we not informed of that before?”
Faron looked up at Captain Graey. “I don’t know yet. We will gather what information is available on the other woman before we head back to Jasan.”
“Until then,” Jackson said.
Jackson disconnected the call and looked up, meeting Clark’s eyes. “You are not going to believe this one,” he said with a grin.
For a long moment Clark just stared as he repeated the half of the conversation he had heard through his mind. His mouth fell open in surprise. “No,” he said. “Seriously?”
Jackson nodded. “Damn, lucky Lobos,” Clark said, keeping his voice low so as not to disturb Saige.
“Now that’s just not fair,” Rob said from the doorway where he was standing in order to keep an eye on Willy and Frank. They were currently lying on the floor in the hall, bound in the same manner Saige had been. “That’s the second Arima that we saw first.”
Jackson chuckled. “Don’t worry, I have a feeling our turn will come,” he said.
“What’s the bad news?” Clark asked.
“There was another woman missing from that same vessel,” he said, losing his grin. “Faron’s getting the information on her.”
“Its hard enough to imagine how one woman could go missing from a passenger liner in deep space, but two of them? And no matter what the Captain’s reason, it makes no sense that we were not told of the second woman when we inquired about Saige. Its not exactly an ordinary event,” Clark pointed out.
“Would it even be possible for a vessel like that to be boarded in deep space without half the crew being aware of it?” Rob asked.
Jackson shook his head. He didn’t think so, but he wasn’t sure. They sat in silence for awhile as Jackson pondered the problem from all directions, considering as many possibilities as he could come up with.
“We need more information,” he said finally. “Clark, call Ternin and give him a quick run-down on the situation,” he said. He didn’t like dragging the council into this, but it was beginning to look like he was going to need planet security’s help. “Ask him to run some checks for us. We need all missing person reports for the past year, as well as all passenger manifests and visas from vessels that reported passengers missing. Ask him to focus on females. If he’s got dossiers on the captains and senior officers for those ships, get them as well. Starting with the Captain of the vessel Saige was on.”
“Right away,” Clark replied.
“I have a feeling something big is going on here, something more than one or two women going missing,” Jackson continued. “I think this may be what we’ve been looking for.”
“You think this is what Barc Landon was into?” Rob asked.
“Yes,” Jackson replied. “The more I think about it, the more it fits. He worked security, so he had keys to everything while on duty, and always asked for the night shifts with the sole exception being the week Lariah arrived. He had five private bank accounts with a total of nearly one million credits. We know damn well he didn’t earn that money working spaceport security.”
“You think he was turning his back while women got smuggled through the cargo bays?” Clark asked.
“For the kind of money he had, I think he took a more active role than simply turning his back,” Jackson said. “I wonder how many women have actually gone missing and unreported during the last year.”
“Damn!” Clark swore suddenly.
Jackson frowned at his brother and waited.
“When you did the system search for Saige’s luggage, it indicated her things were in Unclaimed Locker 32, correct?”
Jackson nodded.
“That bothered me at the time but I got sidetracked with our friends in the hall and forgot about it until now,” Clark said with frustration. “Two years ago I helped with a clean out of the Unclaimed Lockers while looking for contraband. We found luggage that was up to ten years old. We got rid of everything that was older than one year. When we started there were 34 lockers full of unclaimed luggage. When we finished there were two.”
“Are you telling me that it took ten years to fill 34 lockers, and only two years to fill 30?” Jackson asked, stunned by this new information.
“Yes, that is exactly what I am telling you,” Clark replied, feeling sick at the implications of what he was saying. “How much was in the locker you got Saige’s luggage from, Rob?”
“Ten cubic meters. Crammed full,” Rob replied.
“Has someone been abducting women from incoming ships all of this time and we never noticed it?” Jackson asked, staggered by the thought. “How is this possible?”
Certus Graey waited until the Lobos left his vessel and he had been granted clearance by the skyport to shove off before returning to his quarters. He sat down at his vid terminal and pulled up the Jasani System Navigation and Communication Regulations and Protocols, scrolling quickly until he found what he wanted. He swore softly, shook his head and began running some calculations on his electronic pad. When he was finished he circled a number at the bottom of the pad, checked his watch and sat back to wait.
The Lobos' Heart Song: Book 2 of the Soul-Linked Saga Page 5
