"He can do that?" Sabrina asked Travis.
"Probably."
"Look, I'm tired, too. I think I'll take an extra beer to my suite and watch the news vids," David said. "Have fun," he told Trent. "See you at breakfast."
Stop trying to play matchmaker, I sent to David as he and I walked the hallway leading to our suites. There isn't a glimmer of hope for me in Sabrina's eyes.
Unless you put it there. She has no idea what she wants, David snorted. Sure, Travis and Trent are there, so you have to catch her attention in other ways.
"What else do I have to do, man?" I said aloud while flinging out a hand in frustration. "I've played all my tricks. You see how unimpressed she is."
"I wouldn't call them tricks," David turned and stopped in front of me, causing me to stop, too. When he put fists on hips, I knew I was in for a lecture. "She's alive because of you. Admit that, at least. Sure, Travis and Trent can draw any woman's eye, but to say she ignores you completely—that's harsh, man. I think she's better than that."
"She's better than me," I sighed and moved around David, who didn't want to budge. "Why would she want anyone who's a half-freak from Vogeffa II?"
"Bro, you just described me on Old Earth," David stomped after me. "Dwarves aren't common there, as you bloody well know already. I outrank you. Stop thinking like that, you fucking sod."
"Right."
"I'm not kidding." He was still castigating me when I shut my suite door in his face. "Bloody bugger," I heard him growl as he strode off.
"Fuck." I sat on the edge of my bed and dropped my face in my hands. "Stop letting your insecurities out after a few beers, Randl," I mumbled. It never did any good and only served to make me feel worse than I did already.
"Learn to live without her," I added. "People do it every day."
Travis, Trent and Sabrina were gone when I made my way to the kitchen for breakfast the following morning. A hangover pounded in my head, too.
"A few too many last night?" Pap asked while shoving a cup of tea toward me. I landed roughly on a barstool at the kitchen island, grateful my journey was over for the moment.
"Maybe." I answered his question.
"I'll get you something." He rose, pocketed the comp-vid he'd been working on and left the kitchen. "Pain-kill," he was back after a bit with a small bottle in his hand. He set the bottle beside my elbow and walked to the sink for a glass of water.
I shook out four tabs and tossed them back, then drank most of the water Pap brought.
"Son, I know it's not my business, but I couldn't help noticing how you look at Sabrina."
"Yeah. You and everybody else in the Alliance," I acknowledged. Lifting my tea, I sipped the hot liquid while pointedly looking anywhere except at my father.
"I guess you'll figure this out on your own," he said. "I'm going to work. If you need anything, send a message."
"Hey, Bro," Travis and Trent appeared shortly after Pap left. "Kooper says he has new information on the small-time pirate attacks, including some vid-recordings for you to study today. You have to come to Headquarters to do it, though, because this isn't information he can transfer to your comp-vid."
"All right," I agreed, pushing my chair back to stand.
"No, eat breakfast first. Where's Dave?" Trent asked.
"Haven't seen him this morning," I said.
"I'm here." David walked into the kitchen and climbed onto a barstool. A kitchen comesula brought him a plate of food and coffee as he made himself comfortable. "I got the wakeup call from the boss," he grumbled as he lifted his cup to drink.
"We did, too—plus marching orders to bring Master Gage to Headquarters this morning," Travis said.
"Pain-kill?" I pushed the small bottle toward David, who took it without comment and dumped two tabs in his palm.
An hour later, the four of us walked into ASD Headquarters, located in Lissia. We were tagged with employee visitor passes, indicating we were field agents. We had Sabrina's weapons hidden in our clothing and sailed past security with barely a grunt from the personnel, there.
Travis sent mindspeech to Kooper advising him of that fact, which brought the Director out of his office and into a hallway to greet us, while wearing a huge smile.
"Come on," he motioned for us to follow him. "We have the vid images set up in a viewing suite. I think you may be as confused as I was when I saw them the first time."
The viewing suite had theater seating, so that anyone watching the vids had a clear view of the recordings. I sat on the second row with David. Travis and Trent took the row behind us while Kooper took a chair on the floor to operate the vid-projector.
"Here's the first one," Kooper announced. I settled into my seat to watch. At first, the camera recorded normal activity on a freighter ship—crew moving about, attending to duties and so on.
Until the lights went out. The hair on my arms rose in alarm; something was happening and the camera couldn't record it, as it was as much in the dark as the crew. I could hear shouting and a few screams of pain, but the camera had been effectively prevented from recording anything.
"This is odd, because the camera should have gone into infra-red mode and continued to record. It didn't," Kooper pointed out. "The crew who screamed were dead when the lights came on again, roughly half an hour later. By that time, everything had been stripped from their cargo hold and they'd been left to drift in the shipping lanes."
"What were they carrying?" Travis asked.
"Food—mostly packaged stuff," Kooper shrugged. "Things that wouldn't spoil for a while."
"Any records of it being re-sold elsewhere?" Trent asked.
"None. It could have been carried to a non-Alliance world and sold or traded there, but we have no records of it showing up again in either Alliance."
"Do we have images from other ships?" I asked.
"We do. All of them look like a replay of this first one."
"Was food their main objective?" Travis asked.
"Except for the few times medical supplies were taken. The reason I showed you this particular one," Kooper added, "Is that this ship is in port on Refizan right now. It regularly makes voyages between that world and two others. The crates stolen were from Refizani farms and such, that package their own food supplies. Two other ships from Refizan were targeted at different times, but both were attacked using the same methods."
"No indication from the sensors that another ship or ships were in the area?" Trent asked.
"None. The journey was normal every time, until the lights went out and they were boarded."
"Is there a way I can visit the ship on Refizan?" I asked. "I hope I can do what I did before, and recall images from the past."
"I thought you'd never ask," Kooper grinned. "I'll get us there; we've already set it up with the Captain and crew. They're waiting for us to arrive."
Refizan Space Port
Randl
"I'm pleased you've come to investigate this. Here's the manifest from that trip." Captain Len of the Furrow greeted us and handed a comp-vid to Kooper. He wasn't voicing his entire thoughts, however.
He'd been angry that the ASD hadn't thought it important enough to investigate before.
Captain Len's second-in-command blinked at me as I passed him in the narrow passage leading to the cargo hold; he wondered why a blind man would be accompanying the ASD Director and a hand-picked staff.
"I'd like a list of any employees on the ship during that attack who are no longer part of the crew," Kooper said as he studied the comp-vid. He already knew what they were carrying. He and I were more interested in crew members and whether any of them could have been involved with the piracy.
"I'll have it before you leave," Captain Len agreed. "Here's the cargo hold. As you probably already know, it was stripped, right down to the last splinter of every crate. Nobody came to look at it, then. I have no idea what you think you'll find two turns after the fact."
"Allow us to make that determination," Kooper held u
p a hand. "You may stay. All others must leave while we conduct our experiment."
"Experiment?" Captain Len didn't like the sound of that.
"Harmless, I assure you," Kooper assured him.
When the cargo hold was cleared of other crew members, Kooper nodded to me. I'd already chosen my spot; it was near the place where a crew member died. Taking a deep breath, I walked toward the selected area and placed my hands on the wall there.
The cameras couldn't see anything that happened.
The vision of what happened wasn't hidden from a blind man, however. I jerked when I saw the images after darkness enveloped the ship. I gasped again when I saw that Vrak was one of the six men who'd boarded the Furrow to steal its cargo.
Trent
This time, Randl included all of us in his visions. I felt as if my sight had been closed off to everything around me, sending me into a tunnel where I watched the events that took place in the cargo hold two turns earlier.
Two crew members were shot with laser pistols after the ship went dark, and six men, Vrak included, placed devices of some sort on the large crates that filled the ship's hold.
Those huge crates subsequently disappeared.
I think we're watching how three people disappeared on Pyrik, Kooper's mental voice was dry.
It didn't take long to remove the cargo—only a matter of minutes. The six men disappeared after that and the ship's lights came on, revealing two dead men and a scrambling crew.
I blinked at my surroundings, as if I'd been folded from one timeline to another, too abruptly for me to properly assimilate myself.
Captain Len stared at Randl, who removed his hands from the wall.
Somehow, Randl had included him in his vision.
"Randl, did you see anything else in those men?" Kooper asked, once his vision cleared.
"Vrak was in charge, as you've probably guessed," Randl replied. "They were taking the cargo to feed their people."
"Their people?"
"These pirates and their families."
"Where were they?"
"No idea; that was fogged. I was only able to read what was first and foremost in their minds—stealing food."
"I'll be wrapped in bacon and fried to a crisp," the Captain breathed.
"Doesn't sound particularly comfortable," Randl observed.
"Captain, the leader of those men has been dealt with and is now officially dead," Kooper informed Len. "We merely have to search for the others, now."
"I never thought we'd get anywhere with this," Len confessed. "Thank you for coming. You have my gratitude."
"Thank you for allowing us on your ship," Kooper spoke smoothly. "You've helped us a great deal, today."
Chapter 18
Beach Palace, Le-Ath Veronis
Randl
"They're holed up somewhere, we have no idea where, and they're stealing food to feed their people in order to avoid normal purchases and their subsequent transportation," Kooper said.
We sat on a wide patio outside Queen Lissa's beach palace, discussing what we'd learned aboard the Furrow. "If they're on a planet—say Pyrik, for argument's sake—hauling food in and out could raise suspicions, I suppose," Trent suggested.
"True. Like Randl said once before, they could be right under our noses and we could miss them easily," Kooper paraphrased my words.
"Or, perhaps they're in a place where nobody is supposed to be," Travis said. "Hauling supplies in and out could be a red flag."
"If they steal food and supplies, they hide their numbers," David pointed out.
"Also true," Kooper agreed.
"I didn't notice that the other five men had what Vrak did—that ability to record anything and everything with every cell of his body," I said. "They had the encroaching fog that we've seen before, but not the other. Perhaps only certain ones are selected for that."
"Supervisors, or chief bandits and pirate watchers?" David joked.
"Entirely possible," Kooper agreed.
"Maybe it's a progressive thing, too," I mused. "The older ones have the cellular recording ability. The younger ones may get there eventually—like the growing virus or whatever it is we've seen before."
"That's a frightening thought, but we do know Vrak's been around for a while," Kooper frowned.
"Director Griff?" I turned to Kooper.
"What is it, Randl?"
"May I see the gold coin from Vogeffa II again?"
"Of course. It's in evidence now, but I'll get it out for you. Take a break and have lunch; you've earned some time off. Don't forget dinner later on Avendor."
"You look fine, stop fretting," Pap told me later, after I'd dressed in a dark-blue knit shirt and cream pants. "It'll be warm there, so close to the equator on Avendor. They said dress casually."
"Who are these people, Pap?" I asked.
"I've met Merrill, he's one of the owners of NorthStar and one of Queen Lissa's mates. The others I haven't met, but they'll be there, too. Don't worry, you know most of the people invited tonight. It's just a meal, son."
"I know."
"It's because she'll be there, isn't it?"
"Part of the reason, yes."
"Stop worrying and be yourself. Tomorrow you have to go to Harifa Edus, remember? I'd suggest holding back on too many drinks."
"I was planning on it," I sighed.
"Then I'll let our transportation know we're ready."
Transportation turned out to be Winkler, who grinned at Pap, David and me when he arrived in the entry shortly afterward. I lifted an eyebrow at him—the last time I'd seen him, he hadn't known who the father of Lissa's child was.
He was overjoyed to be a father, now that he knew.
"Congratulations," I dipped my head to him.
"Should have known I couldn't hide it from you," his grin widened. "Come on, we're expected pretty quick for appetizers and drinks."
David gave me a wink; his wife would be there to meet him. My shoulders sagged as Winkler folded us to Avendor.
"You come. Meet brothers," Bekzi was already there when we landed outside the huge villa. The others were walking up wide steps to enter the home. Bekzi wanted me to come with him.
After getting a glimpse of Sabrina, Travis and Trent just inside the door, I was willing to allow Bekzi to pull me away.
"This Nenzi's shop," Bekzi grinned after folding me elsewhere.
"We're not at NorthStar, now, are we?" I asked.
"EastStar," Bekzi confirmed. "Reah and Edward have space for us."
"Where did you find these?" I drew in a breath as I took in a huge, polished floor beneath a high roof, that housed at least fifty exotic vehicles. Many of them had actual wheels, which were meant to touch a road rather than hovering above it.
"We look in right places," Bekzi grinned. "Buy and restore, most times."
"This is exceptional work," I stepped forward to place my hand on the first vehicle. It was painted bright yellow with a tan, canvas roof. "The roof folds down?" I asked while stroking the smooth, polished metal exterior of the car.
"Yes. Ride open air. Nice."
"Hello." Seven more appeared close by; Bekzi's brothers, as he'd said. Soon enough, they were telling tales of this vehicle or that in their shortened speech, making me laugh as often as not with stories of successes and failures in vehicle restoration.
"What about this one?" I asked, touching the smooth, silvery-gray exterior. A small statue of a winged woman graced the hood of the vehicle, as Nenzi, Bekzi's brother, called it.
"Nineteen twenty-five Rolls Royce Phantom," Nenzi shrugged. "We convert to hover-car. Wheels for show, mostly."
"It's beautiful," I sighed, taking in the curved wheel-wells, front and back. Its windows were curved at the top, echoing curves elsewhere, while the chrome radiator cover, flanked by the round headlamps on either side, added to the elegance of the vehicle.
"You drive sometime," Nenzi promised. "We go back for dinner, now."
At least I was placed betwe
en Bekzi and Nenzi at the table, and enjoyed their company very much. Only upon occasion did my eyes stray to Sabrina, who sat between Travis and Trent.
Pap was close by, talking with two of Queen Lissa's mates—Rigo and Gavin. Both were asking questions about Vogeffa II, and Gungl in particular. It brought back my dream, and how the hooded man had spoken to someone there who'd had his back turned toward me.
I hadn't been curious enough about who it could be, I realized, and wished I could revisit the dream.
"You thinking about something," Nenzi observed.
"Yes. I'm sorry," I apologized to him.
"Not worry. It important, I think."
I couldn't help thinking it was important, too, but I couldn't say how, or why I hadn't really worried about it until now.
I heard our guest in the dungeon led a pirating party onto a Refizani ship, Queen Lissa sent to me.
I saw it, I confirmed. I still couldn't read anything in him because of the fog on his brain, but I saw in the others that they wanted the food to feed themselves and others like them.
That's what Kooper tells me. Is there anything else?
I've had some dreams, I confessed.
Ah. Let's discuss that after dinner, she said. Dreams can be quite revealing, actually.
A part of me felt nervous about telling her, while another part felt relief. If anyone could sort out dream from reality, perhaps she could.
That's how I found myself in a wide solarium later, which would surely present an amazing view of gishi trees across the landscape during the day.
Tonight, it showed a moon half-full, pouring its light from a cloudless sky.
"It's all right to speak in front of everyone here," Lissa reassured me. The two who'd discussed Gungl with Pap were there—Gavin and Rigo. Yes, I understood that Rigo was ancient, and had once borne the title Rigovarnus I, of Hraede.
The others were our hosts for the evening; Kiarra, Merrill and Adam.
They all belonged to a small race of defenders, who'd risked their lives countless times to save entire planets from the Ra'Ak. I'd seen mutated Ra'Ak on Bornelus. I understood their interest in what I had to say about that. After all, if a new race of those terrible creatures had evolved, they needed to have as much information as they could gather.
MindSighted: BlackWing Pirates, Book 1 Page 25
