Prosperine: The Adventures of the Space Heroine Hickory Lace: Books 1, 2 & 3 (The Prosperine Trilogy)

by PJ McDermott

  “Keen to see what was inside too, but terrified at the same time.” Saurab grinned.

  “Sequana was more adventurous than Barbish. He seemed prepared to take the risk of meeting whatever monster his imagination had conjured up. After we got to know him better, we discovered he was a gifted scholar but hugely ambitious—always on the lookout for a way to get ahead of the pack. Even at that age, Sequana believed he was destined for greatness. Barbish, though—he was scared witless. Wanted nothing to do with us and practically begged Sequana to leave with him.”

  “But Sequana stayed.” Hickory’s mind raced.

  Jakah’s expression was obscure, hard to read. “We offered both of them money—a lot of money. But Barbish would have none of it. As it turned out, he and Sequana had spent much of their pilgrimage debating the existence of spirits other than their god, Balor. Sequana took the hard line—nothing exists except the god—but Barbish was more inclined towards there being a balance of good and evil.

  “I feel sure Barbish didn’t think of Saurab and me as spirits or anything like that, but he did consider us very strange. Perhaps he thought he might use us to further his own ambitions—parade us in front of the priests as examples of his newly developed philosophy.

  “He and Sequana argued. Sequana was more curious than afraid—or maybe he was just greedy. He demanded we tell him what we were up to. He tried to convince Barbish to play along, but Barbish wasn’t interested and threatened to go to the temple council and expose Sequana himself for consorting with evil.” Jakah paused and looked at them from beneath hooded eyes.

  Hickory nodded at him. “Go on.”

  “That’s when it all turned nasty. Barbish got up to leave and Sequana struck him with his staff. He beat him to death right there in front of us.”

  Jess and Gareth looked at each other in horror.

  “Couldn’t you stop him?” asked Jess.

  “It all happened too fast, and we were caught off guard,” said Saurab. “I was stupid enough to point a blaster at him, but he wouldn’t have known what it was.”

  Hickory thought Saurab and Jakah sounded less than convincing. She considered reaching out with her empathic skill but felt that would be a breach of trust, and trust was essential if they were to get the job done.

  Jakah continued the story. “We gave him money and a few trinkets we’d brought with us from Hirialasis, but that wasn’t enough for him. He was curious about the Shahrazad, demanded we tell him what it was used for and how it worked. I’m sure he instinctively knew it was some sort of flying device and he kept poking around looking for the balloon envelope—but mostly I think he wanted knowledge. I gave him a book to read, one of the old-fashioned print ones, but still something magical as far as he was concerned with a lot of strange pictures and symbols. Then Saurab had the bright idea of connecting him up to our computer learning program.”

  Saurab looked embarrassed, and he squirmed. “Ah, well. I have to admit that probably wasn’t my most brilliant idea,” he said.

  “What happened?’ Hickory glanced at Jess. She was staring at Saurab, one hand in front of her mouth.

  “I figured if we killed him there would be consequences. These were well-regarded naurs, and one was already dead. I thought if Sequana learned about the universe, perhaps it would broaden his outlook on things—make him more…amenable.” Saurab spread his hands.

  “To becoming an ally for your smuggling operations?” said Jess with a quick, disgusted snort.

  “Yeah.” Saurab sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “Unfortunately, it didn’t work out like that. He didn’t believe what he saw, not immediately anyway. Too much for him to take in, I suppose. He realized by then we were not from this planet, but he was convinced we came from some demon realm, some other plane of existence. Can you believe it? After all that arguing with Barbish about there being no hereafter and now Sequana believed in evil spirits. From that time on, he persecuted us and tried his best to get rid of us. In his mind, we were evil.”

  They fell silent for a moment, and then Gareth said, “Why didn’t he just report you to the authorities?”

  “I guess because of what we might tell them about Barbish. But he took to ranting about a ‘demon realm’ and ‘devils on two legs.' His own clergy thought him mad. It was so far removed from their cultural beliefs. The Avanauri people don’t have any concept of Karotz, or Hell as you call it. They never discovered what he had done to Barbish, but they tossed him out anyway, which was probably their mistake.”

  Hickory shaded her eyes and gazed at the forest, and the mountains draped in snow and ice on the other side of the ravine. According to her map, this chasm stretched all the way from Birregur in the west to the Sea of Haagar in the east. The fortified town of Crodal, which was their first destination, lay on the other side of the forests. There wasn’t a bridge in either direction for a hundred miles, and so their only option was to cross the canyon by climbing up and over it.

  Gareth leaned over the edge, his hand on his chest. His face was ashen when he moved back. “My God, that is awesome. I thought I was going over for a second. How far down do you reckon it is?”

  “Over a mile from here to the bottom. Add another six hundred yards on the other side to get to those forests,” said Hickory, shading her eyes. “It’s going to be one heck of a climb.” She looked anxiously at Gareth and Jess. Even for an experienced rock climber like she was it was going to be challenging enough. She was fairly sure Jess would manage, as they had done a little climbing together in Nepal while on holiday a few years back. Let’s hope she isn’t too rusty. “Gareth, are you alright?” She reached out to the young man who was bent over, spitting out bile.

  “I’ll be okay in a minute,” said Gareth, coughing. “Just got something caught in my throat.” He stood straight and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

  Saurab laughed. “Wouldn’t be a little acrophobia stuck back there, would it Gareth?”

  They placed their packs side by side away from the canyon edge and spread out their swag for the evening. Saurab collected some twigs and built a fire.

  The nightly Aurora display was just settling in, even more spectacular this far north. Flashes of iridescent purple shone through curtains of green and red that seemed to hover over the mountains like a shimmering cloak.

  “Impressive sight,” said Gareth. “The night sky is crystal clear this far from civilization. The air even smells cleaner and everything is brighter.” He shifted his gaze from the heavens to the ravine and sighed. “So, how are we going to get down?” he asked Hickory.

  “I never realized you had such a fear of heights. How did you make it through basic training with the Corps?” she said.

  “Just forced myself to do what I had to, I guess.” He smiled innocently at her. “I don’t like failure, but there never was anything like this at school.” He waved an arm to encompass the enormity of the scene in front of them. “This compares with the Grand Canyon for splendor. And somehow the exercises on Earth were easier because they were just that—exercises. I knew thousands of people had done it before me. This is a whole new ball game.” He was quiet for a minute then picked up some sand and let it trickle through his fingers. “Do you ever wonder what happened to the Teacher?” His face took on a faraway look. “This place reminds me of him—majestic, serene, steady, but with some indefinable power. He was quite some guy, eh? I wish he were here now. It always felt safer with him around.”

  Gareth had been captured and tortured physically and emotionally on his previous visit to Prosperine. The Teacher had spent days trying to repair the damage to his body and his mind. Hickory herself had become very close to the alien. At first, she had thought he could be what the Corps had been searching decades for—an incarnation of Jesus Christ. Instead, she had concluded that he was a highly evolved Avanauri, the first of his kind. She still wondered whether she’d got that right, but that was what she had included in her formal mission report.

  She smil
ed. “The admiral said there were rumors he had vanished. I doubt that very much—no, he’s out there somewhere.” She gazed into the distance as though she might pick out his slim, tall silhouette making its way towards them. She patted Gareth on the shoulder.

  “You'll be all right,” she said. “We’ll strap you between Jess and me with a rope. You’ll be safe enough. The slope looks navigable. There’s at least one animal track I saw, and if we follow that we should be okay.”

  “What about the other side. How are we going to climb one and a half miles of sheer cliff face?”

  “I don’t know yet, but we’ll manage,” said Hickory.

  Hickory slept fitfully, dreaming about her father, the Admiral. That was how she’d always thought of him, the Admiral with a capital A. Then she’d discovered at the end of her last mission that he wasn’t her real father. She shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, he’d never behaved like a parent. Eventually, he’d told her who her birth father was—killed in a car accident on Earth not long after she was born. Incredible to believe such a thing could happen now, but she’d checked with the central office of records in New York, and it was there in black and white. Her father had been an Empath, too, the admiral had told her.

  Her subconscious drifted to the pre-mission briefing. The admiral was being evasive. Hickory could tell just by looking at him. He was keeping something back.

  “Yonni was quite agitated,” he said. “Apparently this sword of Connat, or whatever it’s called, is looked upon by the Avanauri as a sacred relic. I’m not sure whether Yonni believes that rubbish but even as a symbol it could be a powerful weapon in the wrong hands.”

  “The wrong hands, in this case, being Sequana-sèr-Kiri, the Pharlaxian rebel leader?” said Hickory.

  “Exactly right. It’s imperative we retrieve it. Intelligence says he’s on his way to Erlach, planning to raise an army.”

  Hickory knew the story of the sword of Connat-sѐra-Haagar and had read the book, written supposedly by the legendary heroine. “If you only think of it as a symbol, you’re underestimating it. From what I’ve read, the weapon has some mystical power.”

  The admiral snorted. “Superstitious nonsense.”

  Hickory wondered why he was so emphatic. Surely he’d seen enough inexplicable phenomena in the universe to know all things were possible. I wonder how he feels about the Corps’ quest. This was one of the many questions about the admiral she had no answer for. She said, “I’d compare it to Arthur’s Excalibur or Joan D’Arc’s ‘sword from Heaven.’ There’s enough evidence to suggest both existed and both had inherent power. Connat’s sword is supposedly what enabled her to triumph over the Erlachi. Although its provenance is in some doubt, there is an ancient script that warns it must never be used again.”

  The admiral pressed his lips together and shook his head. “You don’t believe that sort of stuff, do you? Ghost stories designed to scare the uneducated and simple minded.”

  “I believe there are things in this universe that can’t be explained by science.”

  “Only because science has better things to do than chase up superstitions!”

  Hickory bit her lip and looked away. There wasn’t any point in arguing. “Is there anything else I need to know about this mission, Admiral? I don’t want to find myself as the Agency’s pawn in some political game of chess.” Her eyes strayed back to the head of the Intragalactic Agency sitting across from her at the holo-table.

  He was examining her with interest, shaking his head slightly. “Sometimes, I just can’t fathom you.”

  “No need to be defensive. It’s not as if it hasn’t happened before.”

  He shrugged. “Sometimes the needs of the organization outweigh those of the individual.” He held up his hand to forestall further discussion. “Not this time, though, I assure you. You have as much information as I have about this mission. Just find the sword and return it to Yonni.”

  “And the Teacher? How does he fit in?”

  “Nowhere, as far as I know. He hasn’t been seen for months. He’s disappeared, and frankly, that’s alright by me. That naur is a loose cannon, too unpredictable for my liking. And remember, on this assignment you work for me in the Intragalactic Agency, not the Alien Corps, so forget about alien Messiahs.”

  She had left his office on the spaceship Adventurer, feeling she had missed something. Some piece of information the admiral didn’t want to share with her. No doubt it would surface in due course.

  Hickory tossed and turned fitfully, and it wasn’t until the light of pre-dawn that she fell into a deep dreamless sleep.

  Erlach

  “Why the heck did I volunteer for a mission where I have to pretend I’m a mountain goat, eh?” Gareth tried to put on a confident front. “I mean, I don’t mind hot desert, I’m good under deep oceans and even in airless environments. Can I help it if I have an allergy to heights? It’s actually a primary defense mechanism, you know. It’s been built into the psyche over generations—ever since man lived in trees. It’s tribal conditioning, really. Not my fault…”

  Jess tutted. “You’re babbling, Gareth. Stop whining and concentrate on placing one foot in front of the other. Don’t look down and you’ll do fine. This is good practice for when the real climb starts. You should try and make the most of the learning opportunity.”

  “The real climb!” Gareth spluttered.

  Jess broke into a huge smile. “Yep. This is just a hill, really. We’re nearly halfway up. Keep your eyes on the track!” she said as Gareth craned his neck searching for the top.

  “You’re enjoying this, Mother, aren’t you? Well, have a riot, eh. My time will come, don’t you worry.”

  Jess laughed at the sour look on Gareth’s face. “Only if you get to the top, boyo. And the way you’re going that’s no certainty.”

  “Alright,” said Hickory. “Can you two pack in the bickering? You’re giving me a headache just listening to you. Jakah, Saurab!” she shouted to the Dark Suns who were a hundred yards up the track. “How much further?”

  Jakah rested on his walking stick and called back. “Not far, half a mile at most. The track looks better up ahead.”

  “Keep a sharp lookout. This looks like a regular trail for creatures living hereabouts.”

  Jakah nodded and resumed climbing.

  “That’s just great,” moaned Gareth. “She says ‘keep a lookout for wild animals,’ and you tell me to watch my feet. I’ll be lucky to survive either way. If I don’t fall, I’ll end up as some beast’s dinner.”

  He stepped on a wet rock and lost his balance.

  Jess and Hickory immediately tensed, attempting to hold his weight, but they were hauled over the loose shale as he tumbled towards the edge.

  “Oh God!” he said, his voice a croak as the earth fell away from under him. The rope went taut, and he stopped with a jerk, suspended in midair. His body swung silently, and he looked downwards to where a tiny white stream wound its way along the valley floor, one and a half miles below. He swallowed and shut his eyes.

  Jess had dug in her heels, but Gareth was too heavy, and she was being dragged slowly towards the edge. She wrapped the rope around one hand and plunged her knife into the ground with the other to act as a brake. She screamed at the pain in her arms. “Hickory, I can’t hold him.”

  “A few more seconds!” yelled Hickory as she sprinted towards a tree growing on the slope beside the path. Quickly, she looped her end of the rope around the trunk, tied a midshipman’s hitch, and pulled on the loose end to take up the slack. She ran to the cliff edge, grabbed hold of Jess’s rope and hauled Gareth back onto the ledge.

  The three lay on the ground, panting. Jess scrambled over to Gareth and grabbed him by the jacket. “Keep your bloody eyes on the path, I told you.” Her eyes flashed, and she thumped him on the chest. “Get it into your head that it’s not just your life at stake —stop being an idiot.”

  Gareth trembled from the shock. “I…I’m sorry, I slipped, I—” />
  Immediately, Jess was contrite. “Oh Gareth, you’ll be okay. I promise.” She tutted, then placed her arm around his shoulder and helped him to his feet.

  Hickory raised her eyes heavenwards and brushed the dust from her tunic. “Everybody’s okay then? That’s good. Can we get moving now?”

  A trickle of shale from overhead caused them to look up. At the same time, Saurab shouted his warning. “Watch out! Violator.”

  Half as tall as a human and black as soot, the violator inched along a barely visible track parallel to the one they were on. The beast’s muscles rippled as it negotiated the steep gradient and its head swung slowly from side to side, low to the ground. Yellow eyes on opposite sides of its head swiveled back and forth. It snuffled the trail through a single nostril located high on its snout. Every few steps, it lifted its massive head to survey the group as though to make sure they were still there.

  Hickory eased her sword from her belt and spoke in a low voice. “Everybody stay where you are. Be ready to defend yourselves.”

  Gareth moved in front of Jess, his sword at the ready.

  They waited, watching the beast slink by. It paused when it came level with Jakah and Saurab, then leaped onto the track ten feet further on and trotted away.

  “I guess he wasn’t hungry,” said Gareth, sheathing his weapon.

  Jess retrieved her knife and said. “You recovered quickly.”

  “Big, dangerous animals I don’t have a problem with. Vertical cliffs and angry little women—that’s another story.”

  Hickory smiled at the look on Jess’s face. “I think we were lucky. Violators are built for speed and agility. This path doesn’t leave much scope to use those skills. But keep your eyes open, just in case he decides to wait for us up ahead. We know these guys generally travel in packs. I wouldn’t like to be surrounded on this narrow trail.” She called out to Jakah, “Move on. Let’s get to the top as quickly as we can.”