by Gian Bordin
"You are now free to roam the ship for the next eight days, Anouk."
While checking the control screens, she released her restraints. Then she searched the ship pharmacy for pain killers and compresses that would reduce swelling. She applied the compresses to Atun’s head, sitting next to him, holding a hand, waiting for him to wake up which she knew would be soon.
"Atun," she murmured when she sensed the stirring of his mind.
He opened his eyes and met hers. There was a childlike vulnerability in his.
"Everything is fine. We are safe. Come, drink this." She helped him sit and gave him the cup.
"Are we in space?"
"Yes, on a course to Palo."
"What happened?"
"Later, Atun, later. Sleep now." She gently pushed him down. Then she lay at his side so that he would feel her warmth, caressing his cheek, and waited for him to fall asleep.
Atun was up and about the next day. The swelling took several days to disappear. Three days into the journey, he got down to assembling the equipment with her help. By the time they reached Palo, everything was ready for the tests.
* * *
"I said no violence, and now four people are dead. Why did you go against my clear instructions?" Chen Young thundered at his son.
"I thought you meant that Yuen-mong should not be harmed."
"I said no violence, and no violence means exactly that. What was not clear about it?"
"They only wanted to make the domestic talk and see what equipment they had loaded into their ship. They had instructions not to harm anybody. How could I know that she would cause such havoc?"
"I warned you not to underestimate her. Do you know if she was hurt?"
"The lawyer who talked to the survivors thinks she was not. She lifted off, so she must be OK, and she violated takeoff procedures too. She has no respect for authority."
"Have you taken steps with the port authority that they will not prosecute her for that?"
"Syd Twan has already done so."
"What did she tell him?"
"All he told me, and I believe him, is that somebody wanted to know what they were up to and that they had no intention of letting them know."
"She did not name who?"
"No. I don’t think she knows."
"Don’t count on that. I would not be surprised she knew that they were shadowed and suspected you to be behind it."
"But how? The guys were sure that they were never noticed."
"She is an empath. Didn’t you know? She probably knew it right away when somebody was on their tail."
"But they didn’t touch the listening devices."
"That is because they are cleverer than you give them credit for. That would have warned you. Did you ever find out anything useful?"
"No."
"That proves it."
"What are we going to do now?"
"Contact your people on Palo and have them be watched when they arrive, but more discretely. Warn them that she is an empath and, if threatened, ruthless. And absolutely no violence this time. You got that?"
"Yes."
Chen Young waved his hand in dismissal. He remained at the window and let his gaze lose itself on the distant shore. He had no doubt that his granddaughter was up to something that concerned the Young dynasty. The proof of that was that she wanted to keep it a secret from them, and it could hardly be gold mining on Aros. So what else could be of great significance to them? The only thing he could think of was something from her father’s research, something that she had held back from them, something that they had even wiped from their ship’s AI system without leaving any traces. Their technicians had not found anything, no traces of deleted research files, only traces of other deleted files, personal ones or of no interest. Had he underestimated her lover too? Maybe they should have him killed in an accident. But would that make her abandon whatever she planned? Somehow he could not believe she would, not from what he had seen of her. She was the most formidable opponent he had ever encountered and he loved her all the more for it. She had re-awoken his love for his daughter, and he had transferred it on her.
A smile fleetingly passed over his face. She might beat me, he mused and it felt all right.
19
Rather than land on Palo, Atun suggested that they land on its colonized moon. This would give them a few more days of breathing space before the Youngs would catch up with them. They landed just outside one of the four domes that provided a breathable atmosphere for its inhabitants and set up quarters in its space hotel, transferring one set of the assembled equipment to their rooms. During their first few hours there they enjoyed the spectacular vistas of Palo from its space view restaurant. The food was surprisingly good, although Yuen-mong missed the wine. The dry dinner beer was pleasant, but no match to a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Gris from Old Earth. Anouk could hardly contain her excitement, constantly pointing to new features of Palo appearing over the horizon. After two hours, the rotation of the moon hid Palo and they faced the vastness of space.
Yuen-mong also became aware that Anouk must have fallen in love with Atun. Her gaze time and again came to rest on him and, whenever he spoke to her, she blushed. She’ll have to learn to cope with that. Yuen-mong was certain of Atun’s love for her. But she decided to make him aware of Anouk’s state of mind and hoped that it would not interfere with their experiments.
After a good eight-hour sleep and a healthy breakfast, they set up their initial test. Yuen-mong first explained to Anouk what they were trying to achieve and the role she was going to play in it. She helped them set up the equipment and rehearsed again with the girl of how to induce self-hypnoses. Then she went to Vishnu and prepared herself. She was convinced that she would be able to operate the equipment even while under self-hypnoses.
The test consisted of Yuen-mong looking and leafing through the poetry book ‘Whispers in the wind’, which Atun then was supposed to see on the flat screen connected to Anouk’s helmet. Anouk’s vision of Atun at work in turn should show on the flat screen connected to Yuen-mong’s helmet. That screen was placed just at the edge of her own vision. If the test did not work, they would communicate by buzzing signals using standard communication channels.
She received the signal that they were ready, focused on her favorite poem in the book, and induced self-hypnoses. She directed all her strength on Anouk’s mind and sensed her strong response. And then, at the edge of her vision, she saw Atun’s face on her own screen. She heard his cry, a mixture of relief and jubilation: "It works; it works!" Yes, it worked, was her own silent triumphant cry.
Within a quarter hour she was back in their hotel quarters where she fell into Atun’s extended arms and hugged him. "We did it, we did it."
"Yes, the first test worked. Now comes the serious testing over space."
Atun and Anouk got immediately ready to depart from Palo’s moon, going into an orbit around it. Standard communications would only be delayed by one to two seconds, depending on where they were in the orbit. They tested instantcom, while at the same time maintaining standard communications which she was able to observe on the hotel’s ICE comunit. Instantcom was always one to two seconds ahead. The picture had though not the same clarity. Would it get even worse with increased distance, she questioned herself. This thought somehow broke her self-hypnoses, and to her amazement she continued receiving the picture. In fact, it became clearer.
She reported this discovery to Atun who was as puzzled about it as she. A repeat of the experiment confirmed the same result. They checked if it also worked for Anouk, but no useful signals materialized.
With barely another twenty days until the start of the annual UniCom Communication Convention in Androma, this left them only twelve days for the long distance test. Atun took the ship four days into space. While she waited for the appointed time, keeping largely to her room, she contacted Syd Twan to find out whether he had been able to sort out her takeoff violation. A day later she recei
ved his confirmation that all charges had been dropped and that the three surviving attackers had confessed to attempted robbery. He also reported that her notoriety had shot up by another few decibels when it leaked out that she must have single-handedly taken out all seven robbers.
At the exact synchronized time, corrected for space distortion, they established contact. She did not even bother with self-hypnoses. The picture had only marginally lost in quality. Nevertheless it suggested that, for very large distances, instantcom would at least initially have to be done in relays over a network, similar to HST.
Four days later Atun picked her up on the moon and they landed on Palo, not in one of its major urban areas, but at the small Cherni space port in its spectacular alpine chain of snow-covered mountains. Atun and Anouk just stayed long enough for her to disembark with the equipment and then took off again. She signed into a hotel under the name of Rona Tomaka. As she was shown to her room, the sound system played the song of the dawn bird. Was there no place in the galaxy where she would escape this persecution? She watched the entertainment channels. To her great relief her face never appeared. At least she would be spared that aspect.
Watching the local tourist guide, a notice caught her eyes about the rare partial lunar eclipse in the five hours prior to the Palo midnight six days hence. She queried the hotel ICE comunit for the exact timing and discovered that this translated to the evening hours of March 25 standard time. This would fall right into the middle of the UniCom Conference. If the timing was right, what a more spectacular event would she be able to find for proving that instantcom meant really instant? She and Atun had brainstormed on several occasions for a possible live event that would be convincing enough not to be immediately put down as a fake and returned time and again to using an official, like the mayor of a city, superimposed on a life broadcast that showed the time and could some 12 hours later be verified as genuine. However, seeing part of a lunar eclipse that had occurred the last time 68 Palo years ago would be an event the timing of which could be checked on the spot during the presentation.
She spent the next five Palo days on various excursions around the resort, including her first snow boarding experience — zooming down a slope at fifty kilometers an hour was exhilarating — but she found the 32-standard-hour Palo day rather tiring. She also slept a lot.
On the eighth standard day in the resort she waited impatiently in her room for the appointed time. She was hooked up to the equipment fifteen minutes early, counting the seconds. Half a minute before the time, she tuned in. A few seconds later she felt Anouk’s touch and then saw Atun on her screen. She suddenly realized how much she longed for him.
"I miss you, Atun."
"Not as much as I miss you, Yuen-mong. Let me see you."
She moved in front of the mirror, so that she could see herself. "Here I am, although only a mirror image."
"I like you either way. You haven’t lost your humor. Anything exciting happened?"
"Yes, I have learned several winter sports. Have you ever done any snow boarding?"
"Yes, I did it regularly when I was in my teens."
"I will race you the next time we come back here. Any news from Androma?"
"Yes, the mayor of Androma has been indicted for corruption. It’s also said that he’s involved in insider trading and child prostitution. So his face has replaced yours on the news channels."
"I don’t mind… What is insider trading?"
"I’ll tell you another time —"
"I have another piece of exciting news. There will be a partial lunar eclipse here between 19:18 and 23:57 hours on March 25 standard time. When are you scheduled to give your presentation?"
"I’m on the second day as the last of three papers of the first afternoon session which starts at … 23:10 standard time on March 25, but I’ll only be on about a standard hour later and that’s unfortunately too late to catch the end of the eclipse."
"Then see to it that you are the first of the three papers. Bribe the other two with a few thousand credits. I don’t care how much you spend. It’s essential."
He broke into a smile. "Oh Yuen-mong, will there ever be an obstacle that’s too big for you to shift?"
"Atun, every man has his price. Find it and pay ahead of time."
"I will, I promise."
"So I will be ready at 23:10. When do you plan to land?"
"On the morning of the presentation, to reduce the risk of being kidnaped again."
"Syd Twan has cleared me from the takeoff violation. Contact him and ask him to have secure transport available for you to bring you directly to the conference center."
"Do you trust him?"
She pondered that for a moment. "Yes, at least for this. I will send him a message too. I don’t think he would want to risk losing my favor. How is Anouk?"
"She’s nervous, but holding up."
"Give her my love and courage now. We are almost there, Atun. My thoughts are with you."
"Bye, love."
She cut the contact. Later that day, she would get in touch with the mayor of the resort and ask him to cooperate with an experiment that would help promote his resort as a tourist destination for rich Andromatians.
* * *
Atun was waiting impatiently for the session chairman to finish with his announcement. The man had already eaten five minutes into his time. Anouk was sitting on a chair next to him, wearing the helmet and facing the audience. He knew that she had established contact with Yuen-mong, but he had not switched on the video projector that would show her on the twenty-by-twenty foot screen to the packed audience in the hall. The mood of the participants was boisterous, full of anticipation for a good laugh.
Finally, he was given the go-ahead. He turned on the video projector, and Yuen-mong’s face appeared, the top of her head covered by a strange helmet. He was struck by her beauty.
"I guess, Yuen-mong Shen, even as a mirror image of herself, needs no introduction," he started tentatively. When the applause of the audience had died down, he continued: "She is my co-presenter. Yuen-mong, tell us where you are."
"I am in Cherni, the famous winter sports resort in the Alpine Chain on Palo —"
Laughter and a shout "Good try!"
"— I promise you that I will have the last laugh. With me is Cherni’s mayor, Ranco Pazzoli."
The screen image shifted, revealing that she had been facing a mirror, and the smiling face of a chubby man appeared.
"Mr. Pazzoli, would you tell the audience in Androma which team won the final of Palo’s ice hockey championship earlier this evening, otherwise they will have to wait another eight or nine hours to know the result."
The man beamed and said: "Greeting from Cherni, the acclaimed winter sports resort on Palo that has no equal in the galaxy —"
More laughter and cheering.
"— The match was won by the Blue Sticks 5 to 3."
"Were they the favorites?"
"No, in fact the betting odds were 4 to 1 against them."
A lone voice from the audience shouted: "I won, I won." Followed by more laughter.
"Mr. Pazzoli, in a few minutes a rare event will finish, an event that last occurred how many years ago?"
"It is an almost complete lunar eclipse and the last one happened 68 Palo-years ago."
"That is about 112 standard years, correct?"
A shout from the audience: "She can count!"
"I bet better than you," came her immediate answer. "Let’s watch part of the end of this spectacular event."
The picture shifted away from the mayor, past a few people in ski and winter gear, up the dimly lit slopes of a mountain scene into the sky, where the Palo moon was three quarters visible. While this happened, they heard her voice: "Will somebody in the audience please verify that this event is occurring right now?"
For the first time, there the participants responded with complete silence as they watched for more than a minute how the obscuration of the moon almost impercepti
bly diminished.
"Very clever video work, congratulations," came a lone shout from the audience, followed by a few reluctant laughs.
For a second or two, something similar to a tablet, held by a hand slid into the screen, while the scene of the moon lost its sharpness, and then the device slid off the screen, restoring the focus on the moon again. Atun guessed that Yuen-mong had taken a quick look at the audience on the flat screen connected to her helmet.
A few seconds later, the picture turned back on the mayor. "Mr. Pazzoli, what date is it today on Palo?"
"The 13th day of the 2nd month of the Palo year 243."
"Can you prove that to the audience?"
"Yes, Cherni is one of the few places in the galaxy where a printed newspaper is produced, like the ones on Old Earth. Here it is."
He held up the front page of a paper. The date he had stated was clearly visible under the heading ‘Cherni Tourist Daily.’
"And that translates to what standard date?"
"March 25, 2427."
"How does that rate for clever work, you there in middle of row 4?"
The audience applauded.
"Could you also tell the audience what standard time it is right now?"
He beamed and they saw him consult his wristwatch: "The standard time is now exactly 23:21."
"You are one minute behind," came a call from the floor.
Suddenly, the song of the dawn bird could be heard in the background. "Oh, please, shut off that song. I’m sick and tired of it," they heard Yuen-mong’s exclamation. The audience roared. It took several seconds before her voice came through the noise again. She seemed to be talking to somebody near her.
"… I will give you ten thousand credits if you show mayor Pazzoli and me as part of your lunar eclipse report. It will be the scoop of your career, I guarantee it."
The screen showed a camera crew with a reporter. The camera seemed directed at the audience, the mayor just visible on the side. Yuen-mong’s voice returned: "I now suggest that those who still doubt that they have seen the first instantcom demonstration to have the equipment that Atun Caruna has on the stage carefully checked that it does not receive or send any signals other than those from and to Anouk Olson’s helmet. In the meantime, let us watch the last minutes of the Palo lunar eclipse. Good-bye. See some of you in ten standard days, the time it takes to get back to Androma. Thank you again, Mr. Pazzoli, Mayor of famous Cherni on Palo, for your participation in this demonstration."
