“That is the best news I’ve heard in a while.”
Refreshed and feeling much better, we left the hotel and took another taxi flyer. Leaning closer, she explained, “The last pilgrims for this season will leave soon, and we will be among them. Then this town shrinks to one-third of its size. Most shopkeepers strike their tents after this season and return with the beginning of the next religious season. Besides being the center of a religion, this place is also a playground for probably every intelligence service in this galaxy.”
I asked, “Why, what is so special about Netlor?”
“It’s a neutral ground for one. Services can meet, exchange caught spies, watch each other and use this place as a gate into the territories of each other.”
She pointed at a tent with a sales stand attached to it. Sacks and boxes spilled out all around the front of the tent and a bluish cloud of smoke hung over it all. “That incense and spice dealer is also the field office of NW3 or, more precisely, of the Shiss Intelligence service Naxxxtuu-www. The dealer is human, and he does make good business on his incense, but he and his crew also send regular briefs to the palace of the first nestling, among other things.”
She laughed as she made me look to an impressive modern tent with forcefield reinforced Intelli-fab canvas walls, neatly stacked wares and project-a-sign advertisement showcasing fruits, bread, and meat products. “Can you guess who is hiding behind that grocery merchant’s front?”
I rolled my eyes and said, “Naval Intelligence, would that not be a little too obvious?”
She nodded. “You got it right. It is the front for the NAVINT service, but then seven minutes ago, all these tents were just tents to you. I am sure NAVINT has other operatives around, but sometimes it is just as good to loudly proclaim your presence and thus attract lots of eyes and ears while you have friends of yours do something very quietly.”
What she said made sense, and I pointed out a stack of three Universal Containers towering over most of the other tents and temporary buildings around. “This is probably the Kermac outpost, right?”
She patted my shoulder. “Very good indeed, my young student. Tell me how you figured that out.”
“For one, it is taller than the others; it is a building rather than a tent. It is close to the Union Outpost and tall enough to overlook and watch the NAVINT tent. The keeper sweeping the front is a Turotonk; they are, if I recall, a Free Space species leaning toward the Basil, who are in turn a Kermac Thrall species.”
I could not tell if she smiled or wanted to eat me with her big Oghar maw. “Lots of conjecture but all correct. The Kermac, the Shiss and many others cannot afford not to watch the fancy and flashy tent of NAVINT.”
I sighed. “All I wanted to be is a starship captain, not a spy or counter-intelligence, and I find myself sliding down that path, being involved in more clandestine stuff than Nubor Santini.”
She asked, “Who is Nubor Santini?”
I watched her as she gave the taxi pilot a few coins and said, “He is the hero of a GalNet show that comes on every Thursday on the Action-Teen channel and he catches Kermac spies and such with his Ultra Power Team from Planet T.”
She seemed amused and motioned me to get out as the flyer had landed in the middle of an alleyway between those rows of tents and huts.
After we stepped off, she said, “You might not be Nubor Santini, but consider all that you experience now as a school of life and maybe one or the other thing you learn now about the universe will help you later when you are a starship captain.”
I really missed having a pocket where I could shove my hands. This Togar costume, of course, had none, at least none for the hands, so I crossed my arms instead and said a little gloomily, “Right now, I simply hope I graduate or, if I am lucky, they let me repeat the month I missed chasing through Free Space.”
She took my hand and patted it. “No worries, my Soja. Richard is keeping tabs on everything you do, and I don’t think he misses much, even if he pretends otherwise, or if you and I think he does not know about it. He let you command that big tub, and I am sure there is a ship command for you somewhere down the line. You are still young, very young, and it might take years, sometimes decades, before they offer you a command chair and you got to fill the time till then doing something.”
“You know the admiral well?”
Her voice had a solemn quality to it as she said, “I think no one knows the Eternal Soldier well. He is as much an enigma as he is the rock and the unshakeable foundation; there is no one in this universe I respect more.”
I liked her even more after she had said that.
While we were talking, we did not walk very fast and without apparent hurry along the gravel-paved alleys between tents and huts.
Merchants and dealers praised their wares with coarse voices, and pilgrims in golden cloaks and frocks rushed in every direction. She explained to me that a running person or someone in an apparent rush would draw more attention than a relaxed strolling person.
I looked at her and said, “What made you decide to become a spy? I mean besides being the Sojonit leader.”
She spread her arms. “Only a very few perhaps choose to be in this business. Usually, it chooses you. Spies are made by others; it’s not a choice, and it is an old game that is played behind the shiny facades of civilization since time begun. I sort of slipped into this business, and I believe if our Union wants to survive and stay on top of things, we have to play it, too. Now I want us to play it better, dirtier, and more efficient than all the others, do you know why?”
She didn’t really give me time to answer as she said, “I love our Union as much as you do. It has its faults and isn’t perfect, but I have been around for much longer than even the Eternal Soldier, and I have not seen anything like it since I left Sares Prime a million of your years ago.”
I gasped, “You were talking about yourself when you told me the story of the Sojonites. You found the Rainbow Place, right?”
She started walking, and I followed her over the unpaved gravel and dirt. “Yes, I was one of the Saresii who left Sares Prime with our last space ship.”
The realization that she was that old made me wonder who she really was. I didn’t doubt her word one second. In my own short life, I had met several immortals, but the age of everyone I had ever met combined did not come close to her lifespan.
She gestured to a big pink tent with a large Sojonit Goddess statue about two hundred meters ahead and said, “That is where we are going.”
After walking another hundred meters or so, she said. “You are very quiet suddenly. Have I frightened you? It is not often I reveal this aspect of me.”
I answered, “Frightened? No, I am not frightened, but deeply in awe and really unable to understand it, to put my mind around it, even though I believe you.”
Only now, I noticed she had her hand on my back and said with a warm tone in her voice, “You met immortals before, have you not? Egill, Ekhard the ancient keeper, McElligott, Richard Stahl, who takes particular interest in you. There are your Coven friends and of course the Narth. It is conceivable that you, too, will go this lonely route eventually. If you do indeed join the Narth, then your age is no longer measured in years or even centuries. I think the Narth don’t even count or perceive time as the rest of us does.”
I never thought about that and said as we closed on the Sojonit tent, “Narth is my friend on a level I can’t explain, but I am not sure if these metaphysical things he says always mean something to a human. I am a simple Neo-Viking of Nilfeheim. How could I possibly become a Narth? I know so little of them, and they are so completely alien. And besides, Egill does not count. He is only something like four-hundred years old, and how can Ekhard be immortal? He is dead.”
“After what point do you think immortality does count? Your distant grandfather, especially after he received help from the Saresii, can get as old as he wishes to be. Ekhard simply didn’t want to live anymore. That’s how immortals mostly
die, by the way, they simply don’t want to live anymore after losing everyone they knew, after they fulfilled whatever task they had or by no longer really fitting in.”
I listened to her and then said, “You know much more about me than you let on.”
She didn’t respond to that directly but said instead, “You still think in human terms, Eric; you’ve barely begun your second decade. Even by human standards, you’re barely an adult. Understanding will come when it is time to understand those things.” Then she laughed. “Yes, you are a child of your world, but you have long ceased to be simple, my young friend.”
I frowned and said, “Not that I mind the company of immortals and all that, but I wish all of you would stop talking in this cryptic fashion. I always feel like I am getting an answer but too stupid to get it.”
She laughed. “No, my Soja, not too stupid. Too impatient, and too young. No worries, once you get to be my age, you will find out there are still as many questions and things you don’t understand as when you started. There are still times, maybe not as many as there used to be, where I feel the same way. Especially after talking to a Narth.”
With that, we entered the Sojonit temple tent.
Inside, it smelled just like in the temple on Sin 4. It was a fresh, feminine perfume not as sweet and thick as the smell of the incense candles I still remembered. It was cool, and a typical Sojonit in the standard pink uniform sat behind a frilly desk and greeted us with a voice as frilly as the desk. “Welcome, travelers; leave the sorrows and tribulations of the outside world behind. May the Goddess Sojo bless you with a joyous journey into the blissful heights of sexual ecstasy and carnal satisfaction we servants of the Goddess will provide to you.”
Mother Superior said in a strange language I’d never heard yet perfectly understood, “I am the Mother Superior.”
The Sojo got up only to bow deeply. “Your neural patterns are indeed those of our most exalted leader and your aura matched the one on file. Welcome to the Netlor Temple of the Goddess, Mother Superior.”
She touched a flower-like inlay on the artfully decorated desk surface and a pink sheer-looking curtain flickered with purple energies and vanished. The seemingly wispy curtain was actually a holo-disguised TransDim forcefield. This innocent-looking large tent could probably withstand the onslaught of a large caliber FE-cannon.
The tent was about the size of a Nilfeheim three-family home.
Behind the main entrance were several separate service chambers arranged around an indoor pool filled with perfumed water gurgling from an illuminated color-changing water fountain. Two Sojonites bathed in it with a human customer.
He paid little attention to us.
We entered the service compartments, separated from the main interior by heavy curtains; she closed the curtain behind us, and I could hear the fine humming sound of an invisible forcefield establishing itself. The room was filled with satin pillows, luxurious carpets, the light came through the crème-colored canvas walls, giving the illusion they were indeed just thin fabric tent walls. There was a kitschy-looking, elaborately styled divan with satin sheets and more pillows. The entire divan, big enough to accommodate three Perthanians, slowly lifted and revealed a steep spiral staircase.
After descending the staircase for more than ten minutes, I almost got dizzy doing it. Walking through a narrow corridor, we passed a solid-looking Ultronit door and into a comfortable, cool and modern furnished lounge.
Before the Ultronit door hummed shut, I turned and saw the entire corridor shrink and turn to solid rock!
The Oghar female shimmered into the form of a Saresii and the now far too big leather and steel outfit simply fell all around her to the floor. She motioned toward the now closed door and said, “The power we use to shift forms is not limited to our own bodies. If we are together and link our abilities, we can affect other matter, too. To affect such vast quantities of matter, we use Saresii Psi enhancers and predetermined patterns. That, of course, is the short version of an explanation how this works.”
Women, so I found, or perhaps the ones I knew so far, had much fewer inhibitions to undress even before others. She appeared perfectly content being completely in the buff, but then she had a wonderfully shaped body. In this regard, the Saresii were as human as could be and very attractive to boot.
She waved her hand. “You can take that Togar costume off now. We will take the rest of our journey together pretending to be Union citizens and pilgrims on the way back from a trip to the statue.”
It took a sharp knife and some careful cutting to get the tight suit open. Bioflex was living tissue, after all, and it did not require buttons, zippers, or other closure systems, but like Intelli-Fab, the seams grew together and had to be cut open to separate again.
A Sojonit came in gathered the items and said with a nice inviting voice, “If you’d like to tend to your hygienic needs, Sister Nightshade, there is a bath if you step through that door.”
I was glad I could leave the room. Despite my recent experiences, I still liked to wear clothing, especially in the presence of women.
The Sojonit opened the door for me and said, “If you’d like company or would like to be washed, let me know.”
I blushed and thanked her for the offer but declined.
After the bath, I was asked to use an Auto-Dresser once more, and it gave me a golden-colored flowing gown and once again female features. Mother Superior wore the same golden garment. She asked me to sit and listen to the report one of the sisters gave.
“The Worm and the Kermac have stopped searching for the human on Sin 4; a taxi driver was found who claimed he had seen the human fall to his death and the reward retracted. Luckily, no one made the connection with the events on Alvor’s Cove. There they believe the ruckus was caused by the crew members of an enslaved mercenary leader, who managed to escape with several members of his crew, stealing the personal ship of the local lord and leaving his highness behind, tied up and on lying on the landing field for hours. The local lord is furious, but no one is looking for a Terran or Union officer.”
Mother Superior nodded, satisfied. “It seems your friends from the slave pen made it, too, and provided us with a good cover. I was already afraid someone would associate the events on Sin 4 with the ones on Alvor’s Cove.”
The Sojonit that briefed us glanced on her PDD and said, “I doubt the local lord will make too much fuss, as he found out it was Tirkov Steen. He would not want the Steen’s Devils to pay him a visit. Unlike the fleet, private mercenary units can go anywhere and that one is one of the famous ones.”
I decided to read up on this mercenary business once I had a chance. Not that I had any plans to ever join such an outfit, but maybe I could send Tirkov a message one of these days and see how he faired.
Mother Superior was pleased as well, saying, “Nothing better could have happened, given the situation. The incident is just one of many like this in Free Space and no one will talk about it tomorrow.” She gestured toward the PDD. “We have been out of the loop for a while, my Soja and I; any news from home?”
She nodded. “GalNet One transmitted a mass execution of sixty-one individuals from a planet called Newport, all accused and found guilty of treason. The Assembly officially welcomed the Botnaars into the Union of Civilizations. Those war-loving brutes from the Spinward section used to be independent Free Spacers after they left the Galactic Council seven hundred years ago. Also, the arrival of the first 500 Narth at the PSI Corps Academy on Phantas caused big news and was hailed as a momentous historic event. The Narth Supreme addressed the Assembly for the first time just three days ago and finally, Alycia Lichfangh and Admiral Stahl announced their engagement and their intent to marry. That is still all over the talk channels.”
Mother Superior turned to me. “Alycia Lichfangh is the Commandant of the PSI Corps. She and McElligott founded it as a special task force and research group to develop means of Psionic protection and combat Psionic crimes and espionage. Only bei
ngs with an HD-PSI index over 500 and intensive testing and training are admitted. Lichfangh has many psionic talents and no one can lie or not answer her when she is present.”
I didn’t know much about the PSI Corps, but I had met the General in Admiral Webb’s office when I was admitted to the Academy. There was always plenty of talk and scuttlebutt about them, and everybody knew something about them. From Academy classes, I knew the PSI Corps was one of the most potent Special Forces units, primarily engaged in internal security and counter-intelligence. It was, so I had learned, mostly due to the PSI Corps that, despite all efforts of the enemy, no outside force had yet discovered the secrets to several key technologies that made the Union and Terran forces as strong as they were. Chief among those technological secrets was the translocator cannon. But the entire PSI Corps had only three or four thousand members and their resources were always stretched to the limits.
The Sojonit with the PDD said, “All that makes the Nul and especially the Kermac very nervous. You can feel the tensions, especially here on Netlor. Five hundred Narth to become trained PSI Corps agents are bad news for anyone spying on the Union, especially, of course, the Kermac and the Worm. No one knows the true potential of the Narth, but no one doubts they are beyond anything we know so far.”
Mother Superior again turned to look at me from the side. “As you know now, that was the reason they tried to get to you, but now your Narth is just one of many, and they won’t focus just on you anymore.”
I leaned back and sighed. “That is indeed good news then. I’d rather be one of many and not the focus of an entire enemy civilization and a criminal organization to boot.”
She gave me a long look and now, for the first time, perhaps because she didn’t wear her mask, I felt that same eerie feeling that made my skin crawl when an immortal looked at me. I had the same eerie feeling when McElligott and Admiral Stahl had looked at me directly. Somehow, I was also certain there was affection in her eyes and also a hint of fear or sadness.
Eric Olafson Series Boxed Set: Books 1 - 7 Page 66
