by Mary Andrews
Rael pushed his chair away from the table and frowned. “I think we've stumbled onto a PSI ring here. Is there anything you can do for the ambassador, Ira?"
Ira shook his head, “Not a thing,” he said. “They're both being held hostage. So maybe, if we can find her, she might be able to help us ... maybe. But we don't have enough to go on now, do we?"
Laynald looked up from the thick steak on his plate, “We have the planet, the city and the location where the ambassador was found. He is an important Gov agent being held hostage, and he was not killed or detained. Sounds like a specially engraved invitation to me.” He returned his attention to the meal.
Rael considered this. “Nemesis: Commander Kree, please—audio only."
From across the room a large, blank wall screen activated. Kree's voice answered, “This is Kree."
“Pointe here. Commander, secure your patient and await our return."
“Understood,” Kree replied.
“We embark immediately. Nemesis out.” The com disconnected. Rael paused; from beneath shaggy silver hair his temple implants glimmered for a moment longer as he silently set the ship's course.
Rael gathered empty plates and utensils from the table and reloaded them into their compartments. The sterilizer hummed. “I'll link up to The Hive and compu-scan the destination.” Laynald looked at him expectantly. “Yes, yes, yes, I'll forward you the biology and botany info, Laynald."
Ira slumped back in his chair and finished off his drink. “It's a pleasure planet Laynald, so the biology's going to be pretty diverse."
“Hmm, guess I'll have to stick to neural tranquilizer type ammo then, just in case.” Laynald had that sinister look on his face again. He loved a good hunt—the more dangerous the better. Ira wondered again at how any one person could be both healer and assassin so easily, but Laynald had told him long ago that the only difference between the two was perspective.
Rael turned his attention to Ira again. “Don't worry, kid,” he said. “We've got more to work with than you'd think. On Tanivol we should be able to backtrack the ambassador's trail easily enough with local crowd scan records. Neural disrupter systems have traceable signatures too, and they cause recognizable power drains, not to mention that they require special facilities for that kind of use. We'll find whoever she is, but if she's as strong as you say, give some thought to how we're going to control her once we get her."
Laynald rose and cleared his dishes away too. “Well, we know she's susceptible to disruption—"
Ira scowled. “I'd hope we could do better than the scum controlling her now."
Rael started for the door. “It's nice to have options, kid. Planet-fall is in six hours. Use it well.” He left the room.
* * *
CHAPTER 2
The main spaceport at Tanivol was impressive. It had towering touchdown trivets and multiple lift ledges for both public and private use. Its special species sectors and subdivisions were said to be the most accommodating in the quadrant. As far as pleasure planets went, this one rolled out the red all the way to the curb.
Rael smiled and concentrated. His temple plates sparkling, the Nemesis glided gently down into an isolated ground spot within the restricted area designated for Gov craft only. This will do, he thought. From here, the squad could quick-access any of the surrounding species sectors if need be, but he fully expected that the humanoid quadrant would hold his answers this time.
The team met again in the common room's lounge area to begin the search in earnest. Ira sprawled across one of the main couches as Rael and Laynald dropped into the comfortable cushioned chairs nearby.
“All right, kid,” Rael finally began, “let's try this again.” His temple plates flickered, and the room's lighting softened. “See if you can track our mystery woman's resonance now that we're on the planet. They have to be keeping her somewhere nearby, especially if they're using her to bait Gov Agents."
Ira nodded and nestled into the cushions of the soft sofa so that his body was fully supported. Sometimes these things took a while. He closed his eyes, and listened to the sound of his breathing and then his heartbeat, he allowed his body to drop away as he opened his mind to extend his focus outwards, recreating the unforgettable image of his target-pattern. Then, as it solidified before him, he poured himself into it. Assuming his target's very essence and form, he reached out, tendril-like, searching amidst a myriad of others for the draw of her matching resonance, like-unto-like.
It felt like an eternity, and then, there it was.
He allowed it to pull his forged pattern toward her until they snapped together, united as one.
Her heartbeat races, and she gasps. A searing pain rips across her body. Eyes open to nothing but darkness and another piercing sound/vibration/pain that shatters everything.
Ira's mind recoiled from its ferocity, his senses so jumbled he could do nothing but flee from the onslaught. He struggled to return to his own resonance and form, forcing her pattern to drop away until only the memory of her agony remained. Floating aimlessly for a moment, he regained his composure. The silver pathway back to his body beckoned to him. More than ready to be drawn back to the brightness of the common room and the probably worried faces of his teammates, he reached for it.
* * * *
“It has to be slavers,” Ira started to say, but a sudden burst of anger from the captain stopped his words. Through an overwhelming exhaustion, Ira siphoned the emotion into himself and forced its dissipation before realizing what he had done. A lifetime's-worth of training had beaten non-intrusion into him, but since the captain hardly ever projected any feelings, and Doc was always so controlled, it had caught him off guard. He lowered his eyes. “I ... I'm sorry sir, it was a reflex. I should not have...."
Rael stared back at him in surprise, then waved it off. “It's ok, kid. Don't worry about it. I have a special hatred for slavers, that's all, so my reaction was a bit of a reflex too. Sorry about that. Go ahead and finish."
Ira watched the captain fidget for a moment and realized just how little he really knew about him.
“It was the same as before. There were no visuals at all. She is in total darkness. There was not so much as a glimmer or glow of light anywhere. And the pain was all encompassing. It made it hard to tell anything about her environment. I couldn't even tell if she was bound or free, but there was definitely a neural disruptor, I heard it cycling from a short distance away."
“Hmm ... were there any smells that you could discern?” Rael asked.
Ira paused in thought, “Nothing stands out, so the air must've been processed same as the ship's since that's what I'm used to."
Ira startled as Laynald handed him a steaming cup of what smelled like the same concoction from before. He had not even realized that Doc had gotten up.
“Drink up,” Doc commanded and then motioned Rael toward the room's enormous view-screen. “Catch your breath, Ira. We can still do this the hard way. Can't we, Rael? Deep search isn't going to turn up anything more than the room's size and disruptor model."
Rael nodded. “Yeah, guess so.” They both turned their chairs to face the other direction. “We may as well be comfortable while we see what kind of trail Dash left for us to follow.” The captain shifted the chair into recliner mode and sighed. “There, that's more like it."
Ira watched for a long time as Rael systematically opened the ship's channels to allow a torrent of countless commercial offers to flash-play across the wall-screen. There were free passes to nightspots, special order entertainments of all kinds and a never-ending multitude of spectacular enticements for travelers to come out and play.
Ira shook his head as a procession of lewd-looking women strutted their goods across the screen. “If this is the kind of offers they send Gov-ships, I'd hate to see what they must be sending to commercial cruisers."
“It is a pleasure planet, you know,” Laynald stated flatly, “but it seems to me that a couple of places here seem to be soliciting more
heavily than the others."
Rael nodded, his temple plates flickering again as he sped up the scrolling ads to a near blur. “No doubt about it,” he finally said, “we've got four ... no, five serious contenders for Team attention today. So now, let's see what kind of trail the ambassador left for us."
The procession of ads slowed again, and the screen split to also reveal a city map, which in turn zoomed in to display the spaceport and its immediate area. A third split showed a healthy collection of surveillance cam read outs that pretty well documented at least some of the ambassador's whereabouts from the time of his arrival on Tanivol. A fourth screen revealed police reports of activity in the area. The fifth, sixth and seventh scrolled utility data, property owners and building blueprints.
Ira closed his eyes and wished it would all go away. It didn't. In fact, several more screens appeared, and the scrolling sped up, so he got up from the couch and crossed the room under the pretense of returning the cup that Doc had given him. He hated this part of the search. Soon Rael's eyes would glaze over, and the temple implants would not just flicker, they would glow, and the room would take on that dull, overwhelmingly metallic feel, and then that grating sensation would start in his head.
The Universal Hive linkup thoroughly repulsed him, but with it, Rael could tap into any of the planetary or interplanetary web links that he chose. Rumor had it that Rael had actually been born on The Hive planet since only Hive slaves were ever implanted with compu-links, but since he never broached the subject, no one would ask him. All they knew for sure was that when he was linked up, this prematurely silver-haired human was a Dark Ops Agent of unlimited resource, so much so that he had been allowed to form his own Team and choose its members. Laynald startled him from his reverie at the drink bar. “You all right, Ira? You seem distracted."
Ira nodded. “Yes, this part of the Search always scrambles my senses. Sorry."
Laynald patted him on the shoulder. “Yeah, I guess it would. Look, I was just getting ready to get out of the captain's way myself. I've pretty well gotten the lay of the land from this. That's enough for my part in this hunt. So all I need to do now is go arm up and get ready to check this place out."
Ira smiled since Laynald was always armed to the teeth no matter where he was. “Good idea. Since I can't give him anything more to work with, I guess I really don't need to be here either.” Ira tipped his empty mug and smiled. “Thanks, it really helped.” He secured it back into the sterilizer and followed Laynald's lead.
As the door whooshed shut behind them, Rael blanked the room's view screen and continued the search at a faster pace in his head. In a matter of minutes he emerged from the link with a promising plan of action and allowed himself time to wind down from the contact before directing the others to meet him at the bay doors. They would follow the ambassador's previous route from the port. Maybe Ira could surface-sense their target as they got closer.
* * * *
Outside of the port area the streets were crowded with excited vacationers, all looking to be entertained. Street performers, promo callers, solicitors, guides; a highly charged carnival atmosphere permeated everything. The dark-clad threesome seemed blatantly out of place as they traveled the walkways together.
* * * *
She slips a Free-Admit coin into his hand and motions him to follow her while Ira and Laynald look on from a discreet distance on the crowded street. She is escorting him into the Pleasure Palace. Past the maître d’ and the admit station she leads him to one of the many curtained privacy booths that line its main hall. As he steps in, she draws the curtain shut behind them. And then the dancer begins.
Sinuous movements, gown glittering in the dim light, she seductively glides toward him. He is transfixed, entranced, awash with intoxicating and exotic scents until she stops no more than a foot away from him. She reaches her hand out, gently touching his face....
* * * *
“RAEL!” Ira stood directly in his path, looking anxious. All manner of vehicles whooshed and clattered along the busy evening street, and there was a healthy crowd of pedestrians milling around.
Laynald grabbed Rael's arm, roughly forcing him into an alleyway and pinning him against a wall. He scrutinized the captain's condition before motioning Ira to take over. “Fix him if you can. I'll stand guard.” He positioned himself near the mouth of the alleyway to prevent unwanted intrusions.
Ira removed the dark glasses he had worn to hide his eyes from the public and drew closer to the captain. His slate blue eyes sparkled as he spoke. “Look at me, Rael!” He sharpened his focus, all the while projecting calmness to the confused man before him. “Can you hear me?"
Rael looked dazed.
“Talk to me!” Ira insisted.
Rael stumbled back against the wall again, bewildered. “Where did she go? How did I get here?"
Ira paused, unwilling to proceed without his captain's consent.
Rael shook his head trying to make sense of what he was seeing. Clearly he was in an alleyway, standing with Ira, but the woman was still there too, beckoning him to follow her. She was so real, so alluring. He reached out, grabbing Ira's arm to make sure he was really there. “What's happening, kid? Is she real? Can you see her?"
Ira frowned and tried to project serenity with his answer. “No, we are alone. What are you seeing?"
The confusion, the overlapping realities, his reeling senses; Rael had to struggle to focus on Ira's face. “Kid,” he managed to say, “go ahead and do it."
Ira pocketed a glove and slid his hand under Rael's cuff enough to make the necessary skin-to-skin contact. They stood locked together, motionless while Ira, interfacing, attempted to infuse some of his own strength into his team leader's core as much as possible before phasing into the other's resonance-pattern.
At last joined, Ira saw through Rael's eyes. Again the woman appeared, still beckoning and luring him to the Pleasure Dome. Ira softly infused reality onto Rael's perceptions, allowing the two versions to make sense until he felt the captain's mind stabilize. Then he turned his attention to the invading presence. Isolating it from the captain's, he flowed into it, matching its resonance—becoming it, then he reached for it. Away from Rael, across the surrounding city, through an ocean of swirling, pulsing patterns, he flowed, drawing ever closer toward it until, in nearness, it drew him to it. At last it appeared, sparkling brightly among all the others and like-to-like he joined with it again.
* * * *
Carefully shielding himself, he surfaces ... FEAR ... TERROR. She opens her eyes; a small lean woman is huddled in the far corner of an undersized room. Her shoulder-length hair is jet-black. It is unkempt and tangled, and her lip is bleeding. It hurts, but a man's menacing voice overwhelms her. “Come here, I told you!” The woman stumbles to her feet lurching forward ... DIZZY ... barely able to stop before him ... FEAR ... His massive hands seize her by the shoulders, but she stares aimlessly forward with soft, sea-green eyes. He shakes her violently ... PAIN ... She closes her eyes ... DARKNESS ... “Look at me!” the man roars.
She cringes, still trapped in his grip. “Where is he! What happened?"
He will come, she cries, his friend is here now. She is hurled across the room ... her head hits the wall ... DULL THUD ... DARKNESS ... Darkness ... darkness.
* * * *
Allowing the other's pattern to dissipate and slowly resuming his own, Ira fled back across the abyss, away from the turbulent scene and again toward his own body. Opening his eyes to an overly bright world, his whole body tingling, he waited as Rael's face coalesced before him. Ira jerked away, breaking the flesh-to-flesh contact as quickly as possible. Rael gasped at the jolt accompanying the sudden release. Both men stood semi-dazed for a moment, allowing their visions to clear.
“What the hell was that?” Rael finally managed to say.
Ira fumbled to retrieve his dark glasses and put them on. “I'm sorry, sir. Are you all right?"
“You tell me. One minute we were walking
along, and the next there was that woman!"
“Our target is being coerced to target you now, sir. She seems to be able to control from a distance. I have never seen or heard of anything like this before."
Ira allowed relief to wash over him. While returning from the Finding, he had forgotten that he was still in physical contact with Rael. For a split second, there had been no controlled connection between them, and their two dissimilar patterns had collided, causing an almost electrical jolt. It was a dangerous mistake that could have been fatal; only the captain's confused state of mind had prevented him from realizing what had happened. Ira chastised himself; There is no margin of error in what I do. I must be more careful.
Laynald spoke quietly from the alley's entrance, “Do we have a target now, or do we fall back and regroup?"
Ira reached in his pocket, retrieving his glove while he watched the captain.
Rael nodded slowly. “We really can't wait, can we?” he asked Ira.
Ira shook his head, “Not from what I saw. Are you sure, you're all right? Do you remember enough to find the place?"
Rael held out his left hand and opened it. A golden token glittered in the dimly lit alleyway. The letters scrolling across an arrow shaped marquee read: “This Way To The Pleasure Palace.” No matter which way they turned the arrow held true ... guiding them straight to the club's main entrance.
* * * *
Rael fought back a feeling of dread as they approached the glittering visage of The Pleasure Palace. Everything looked exactly as it had earlier when she had led him here. The doors again opened automatically as he reached them. The same lively music drifted toward him from the doorway. Again, the sounds of laughter and merriment greeted him. As before, the maître d’ smiled at him and waved him past the admit desk, motioning toward a hallway that he already recognized. Rael felt his heart race as he approached the privacy booths. He quickened his pace. Despite his terror, he wanted to be there.
However, two big burly attendants stopped Ira and Laynald as they entered the building. “I'm sorry, sir, but could we see your pass?” one of them asked.
