"Come on, you don't want to get into a shouting match with him," Jayna took my arm and steered me toward the door. "He's the Captain, in case you haven't guessed already."
Randl
"She's used to being her own boss," I said. "She works in her father's facility, but her designs are separate from his. She doesn't need his guidance or his money any longer."
"Then she'll have to get used to this," Travis sighed. "It wasn't my choice to sign her up. I suggested hiring her as a consultant. Kooper had other ideas."
"When will you tell her she's officially a pirate?" I asked.
"In a few days—if we don't kill each other, first. We'll inform her of the whole situation, too, if things work out. Kooper says the Conclave has been postponed for five days, due to the need for a replacement for President Bargel. He has four Vice Presidents who preside over different sectors, and one will have to be chosen to replace Bargel."
"Sounds like fun," I said.
"You know, I like your sense of humor," Travis sighed.
"I never got to use it around Amlis."
"I got that idea after we met with him."
"I'm grateful I don't have to listen to him any longer," I confessed.
"I would be, too. Go to bed—we have an early day tomorrow. Besides, Jett Riffler owes his life to you. He won't forget that."
"His life is his own," I said. "Good-night, Captain Travis."
Quin
I'd seen images of everyone except the President of Pyrik and his new bodyguards. I was looking at him now, via live vid-feed.
"There's an obsession," I told Kooper, who sat beside me in an interrogation room as we watched the vid-feed from Bargel's cell.
"That's what I was afraid of," Kooper frowned. "Riffler says the anomalies he spoke of are in accounting and the atmospheric measurements from around Pyrik."
"Planning to question the people who took those measurements?" I asked.
"Tomorrow. Was hoping you could watch while one of mine questions them."
"I will, but what if they're obsessed, too?"
"I'll ask Randl to take a look. If he can't determine anything, we're back where we started on this. Either way, I'll have a new team taking the planet's temperature tomorrow, and going over the books."
"The planet doesn't carry the poison from Siriaa, I know that much, but something has bothered me since I got here," I admitted.
"Any idea what that is?"
"Not yet. Get your people on it, and I'll work from another angle."
"Sounds good. Anything else you can tell me about our murderous President?" Kooper jerked his head toward the vid-screen.
"No. Sorry."
"I'm sending Kell into that building tomorrow as mist, to see if he can find out who's watching and listening, and how they're doing it."
"Where the rocket was fired?"
"Yes. Randl says somebody's watching the inside, but Travis and Trent couldn't locate what or where it was."
"What if it's a scry?" I asked. "Bel Erland can do that sort of thing long distance."
"That's frightening," Kooper said. "I'll check on it, though."
"Send Wellend with Kell, then. Maybe he can determine whether a spell is involved."
"Good idea. Will you ask him to meet Kell in my suite tomorrow morning at seven bells?"
"Of course."
Sabrina
I dressed with my eyes half-closed, thinking all the while that I wanted to go back to bed and sleep for a week.
Jayna was dressed and looked far too wide-awake so early in the morning when I answered her knock on my cabin door.
Fergue would have called her homely.
Fuck Fergue, I reminded myself. All he was concerned about were his looks—and how other people looked. Jayna was perfectly fine, in my estimation. Certainly she was fit enough and wore her uniform well.
I followed Jayna to the galley, where two crew members were busy serving breakfast.
"Try the bagels and cream cheese," Randl suggested as he joined me at the end of the serving line. "Do you need something to settle your stomach?"
How the fuck did he know I had an upset stomach? After a moment, I realized it was a useless question.
"I think it'll be all right, once I get some food," I said. "I didn't eat dinner last night."
"You should have asked for something while we were at the bar," Randl observed.
"Yeah." I did as he suggested, however, and went for a bagel and cream cheese in all its blandness—with tea, of course. No need to vomit on the Captain's shoes or the vid-console while studying rocket blasts.
Randl
"Hey bro," Trent dropped his tray opposite mine at the table I'd chosen. Sabrina selected a tiny table near the wall, indicating her desire to be left alone.
I didn't bother her and went to a table three over to give her privacy. After all, her life had changed dramatically in the space of a few hours. She was unsettled, just as her stomach was.
"Good morning, Captain Trent," I grinned at him. No need for him to know I was worrying about Sabrina.
"Travis and I came up with an idea last night," Trent said. His spoon rattled inside his mug—he was stirring honey into his tea.
"What idea?" I asked. I could have used my vision to see, but I chose to let him tell me instead.
"We know you don't see stuff immediately, so it wouldn't do any good to teach you how to fight."
"Very true," I agreed. Trent sipped his tea for a moment. "What we came up with is this—how about learning to break out of a hold if somebody grabs you? We can cover all sorts of scenarios, and teach you what it will take to get away from that kind of thing."
"That's—that has possibilities," I said, mulling over the idea in my mind. "Yes—I would very much like to learn that."
"Good. You start tomorrow. Jayna will be training Sabrina; Travis and I will work with you. Today, Trent and I will see what Sabrina can tell us about those rockets, and sort through whatever Kooper sends us from the building and the air and soil quality surveys he's conducting. You, you lucky dog, get to go with Quin to take a look at the former President and some of his scientists."
"Are they studying the bodies of the affected ones?" I asked.
"I heard that they were. Why?"
"I think it's dangerous," I said.
"Again—why?"
"I can't pinpoint a reason; it just makes me uncomfortable."
"Feel free to say that to Kooper, although I can't guarantee what his reaction will be to the term uncomfortable."
"I was afraid you'd say that."
"Go do your part for the ASD today, and try to figure out why the forensic exams make you uncomfortable."
"Right."
Sabrina
"This is and isn't my technology," I said when Travis came to check on me mid-morning.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
I wanted to thump my forehead on the desk. If I explained the design, fabrication and testing of the technology in layman's terms, it would take forever and I wasn't really in the mood.
"What it means," I said as patiently as I could, "is that they have the beginnings of my design, but not the latest results. Look," I tapped the screen on my left. "That's what was fired at the ship. Here's the actual laser rocket," I pointed to the blast line that destroyed its target. "You see how it looks solid from the sat-bot's vantage point?"
"Yes."
"Now look at the six other shadow blast lines," I moved the image with a pointer. "They look hollow—you can tell they're fake from outside the planet. On the planet, and viewed from a horizontal position, they look like the real thing. Here," I pointed to the right screen, "Is the latest test after I improved my design."
"All of those look solid," Travis blinked at the images.
"Yes—from above and below. They're supposed to be exact duplicates, so you won't know which blast line is the real one."
"Tricky," Travis breathed as he looked from one screen to the other.
/> "This means that if they stole my design, they had to steal it nearly a year ago, if you compare the records of my test results to these."
"Then we need to work backward, to see what was going on in your father's research facility at the time."
"Right."
"I'll get Kooper to ask for employee records and security vids," he said. "That's just—well, genius," he shook his head at the images.
"Right." I wasn't about to disagree with him. I was confident in my designs, if nothing else. What troubled me most was that I was now sure someone had stolen what I'd created, and in the wrong hands, it could become a terrible weapon.
As it had already, I reminded myself.
Randl
"How did he get elected?" I asked. Bargel was far from eloquent, and had only dim recollections of the actual laws governing his planet.
Quin and I sat in a small room connected to the interviewing space, watching a live vid-feed of the questioning performed by one of Kooper's skilled operatives. A fog covered his mind, true enough, but there was enough of his regular personality there to make a judgment in the matter.
"It's as if the fog is slowly enveloping his mind," I added, watching Bargel fumble another answer.
"I get the same feeling," Quin nodded. "And that's really strange. I've never seen anything like this before."
"How does an obsession work?" I asked. "I've had no experience with them until recently."
"The obsession is immediate and absolute," Quin said. "It can only be removed by the one who laid it, or, in extreme circumstances, by one of two people."
"Don't let them near him," I pointed at Bargel's image. "I don't know why I think that, I just do."
"Do you think Bargel may have some resistance to the obsession?" Quin asked. "I've never seen anyone do it before, but then I haven't seen everybody who's ever borne an obsession."
"I don't know." I wanted to shiver and forced myself not to. David's phrase about getting the willies came to mind. The term seemed appropriate for this situation.
Quin rustled her feathers as she stared at Bargel. "This really bothers me," she said. "And I can't explain that."
"I said the same thing this morning. Trent told me to come up with a better term and a reason for feeling uncomfortable about this before telling Director Griff."
"Kooper does love his concrete answers," Quin acknowledged.
Kooper walked into our tiny room at that moment, as if he'd been called. "Wellend says there was a heavy spell on that building, so your hunch was a good one," he told Quin. "The thing is, it disappeared almost the moment he discovered it—as if they were afraid he'd track it back to the one who cast it."
"So that's what a spell feels like," I said.
"What did it feel like?" Quin asked.
"Like a buzzing in my head," I explained. "It wasn't comfortable."
"I'll get the reports on soil and air quality this afternoon, to compare to the ones Bargel has distributed in the past ten years. We'll see how that matches up. Unfortunately, going through the books will take longer, but we've got the best account-bots working on a preliminary report," Kooper said.
"Will you notify us on the findings?" I asked.
"Sure. Plus, the three killed yesterday weren't any of the ones we've seen before, so who knows how many are out there?" Kooper complained.
"I can't see anything in Bargel about them," Quin said. "I doubt he saw any difference in them and anyone else."
"I want both of you to look at all his employees tomorrow," Kooper said. "To make sure there aren't more of them he hired."
Quin and I watched Kooper leave, closing the door firmly behind him.
"Let's see what we have," Quin said. "First, it looks like these affected people want to destroy the Conclave—whole or in part we don't know, yet. Second, they wanted to kill Director Riffler. They almost accomplished that. If it hadn't been for you and Sabrina Kend, he'd be dead. Three—there's something Bargel wants to hide, but we don't know for sure what that is. Is there anything I missed?"
"Four—what do they ultimately want?" I asked. "Going to this much trouble goes far beyond the usual, doesn't it? Even with a desire for revenge of some sort, does that encompass every leader in both Alliances? That would be some plan of revenge, all right."
"I've seen a plan for revenge that stretched that far, but it was eventually destroyed, along with the ones who planned it. But," Quin held up a hand, "We're forgetting V'ili, I think."
"V'ili?"
"I need to tell you about V'ili," Quin said. "Do you have plans for lunch?"
"Not yet."
"Good. I'll see if my mother can join us."
"I didn't know you had a mother."
"Wait until you see her," Quin smiled.
Amlis
They thought I was still crazy. Some of them, anyway. Rodrik treated me as if I were made of glass.
I missed Randl. Anyone would, but he'd become a crutch for me. I understood that, now—after it had been carefully explained.
My meeting with the white-winged woman—after Quin healed me of everything including my mental issues—hadn't gone very well.
"Randl has more important things to do," intense blue eyes had gazed into mine. "It's time you set him free."
"And how do you propose I do that? I need him to train his replacement, at the very least," I'd complained.
"Any assistant worth his or her weight in breakfast cereal will figure things out fast enough," she snapped. "Let Randl go, and don't make him second-guess his decision to leave your employ."
I'd done exactly that, and felt like an ass for doing it. If Randl ever spoke to me again, I'd be much surprised. Perhaps not as much as learning that New Fyris had a Guardian, but I'd been warned not to tell that secret. It would only add to the already low estimation of my mental stability.
I considered that Rodrik and I had made an enemy of Quin long ago—it merely had taken years for her to feel confident enough to express her anger.
She'd healed me first, before giving Rodrik a black eye and bruises. Both of us should feel grateful, I think, for the compassion she bore for any living thing that needed her help.
Time for the Prince of New Fyris to stand on his own, the winged woman said. Make your country self-supporting and happy.
I turned away from the window in my room and stared at the comp-vid in my hand. Lists of programs to improve New Fyris with funding from the Alliance required my attention.
Randl
"She'll be here," Quin said as a third place setting was added to the table. Quin chose the balcony outside the suite she shared with Justis, to have our midday meal.
"Does she have wings?" I thought to ask.
"When she wants them."
Who had wings when they wanted them? You either had them or didn't, in my experience.
"Depends on the person."
She'd appeared in her seat as if she'd been there all along. I drew in a breath, waiting for my vision to settle. I saw her image.
Nothing else came.
"It's all right," Quin patted my hand. "You won't see anything, either. Randl, this is my mother, Zaria."
Chapter 7
Quin
Randl had such a look of wonder on his face, once his mental vision picked up the sparkle of gold on Zaria's skin and wings.
"Mom, Randl needs mindspeech," I said as Randl continued to stare.
"I know." She turned a smile in my direction. "I have something else for him, too, plus gifts for a few of his friends."
Randl expressed his confusion with a perplexed frown.
"Don't worry," I reached out to pat his hand. "Mom knows more about people than I do."
"We'll eat first," Zaria declared. "Then we'll look into Randl's lack of mindspeech."
Randl
"How does this work?" I couldn't help but feel worried as Quin's mother, Zaria, placed her hands on either side of my face.
"It's completely painless," she said with a smile in h
er voice. "Close your eyes." There. You have mindspeech, she informed me. As for your mind vision—it was already working on making the visions come faster. I just hurried things along. Open your eyes.
"I didn't feel anything," I said and blinked. Yes, I was waiting for my mental vision to clear before seeing what was before me.
I found Zaria's face close to mine—immediately.
"Your brain was rewiring the pathways, I just accelerated the process," she smiled at me.
"How?" I breathed, blinking at her again. I'd never been conscious of my blinking before. Emotion welled up and my subsequent breaths were shaky.
"It's a gift," she patted my cheek and moved away. "The how doesn't matter, just that it is. Now, here's this." She lifted a fine gold chain from the table and held it out to me. Hanging from the chain was a small, gold medallion.
"It has your name on it," she said and dropped it over my head. "It will only work for you. Never take it off—even while bathing."
"What is it?" I dipped my head and lifted the medallion with shaking fingers.
"A good luck charm," she laughed. "I have one for several others, too—the boxes here are marked with their names. When Miss Sabrina complains that she doesn't want gifts from strangers, tell her Zaria says that Fergue is the biggest asshole in the universes."
"I'll uh, remember that," I floundered.
"Good."
"I put the boxes in a small case for you," Quin said. She'd been watching her mother work with me and now smiled as she lifted the small satchel. "Keep the case—it's the kind businessmen use to carry comp-vids and such."
I was overwhelmed for a moment, by the generosity of the two women. Zaria had given me gifts far above anything offered to royalty.
Does it work? I sent mindspeech to Quin.
It does, she laughed.
"Thank you, Zaria," I stood and bowed to her. "I cannot repay you, except in gratitude."
"From you, that is more than enough," Zaria said. "Just keep doing what you're doing. I think those gifts will pay for all." Keep your vision adjustment to yourself, she added in mindspeech. Except with Kooper, Travis and Trent. Ask them to teach you how to shoot a pistol.
MindSighted: BlackWing Pirates, Book 1 Page 9
