“We’ve had some training,” Jelena said. “What are you?”
“Someone who’s likely going to be in as much trouble as you when my employers catch up with this ship.” Masika sighed and walked toward the animal pen.
Jelena didn’t like the way she seemed so certain that Stellacor would continue to hunt for the Snapper. Erick drove his thrust bike down the ramp, reminding Jelena that they had a more immediate problem. Searching the base and hoping to find someone alive who could tell them where Thor was.
Chapter 8
Jelena cast a last puzzled look at the dead animal as she and Erick rode their thrust bikes over the logs and toward the stone building.
“It may have been affected by the parasites the sys-net entry mentioned,” Erick said. “I didn’t do in-depth research, but there are plenty of instances of parasites that can change the temperament of the host.”
“Like rabies back on Old Earth?”
Erick shrugged. “As you said, there must be some good reasons that this place doesn’t have any serious settlements on it. The miners might not have as much trouble if they spend most of their time deep underground. And the logging would be mostly robot-driven.”
“Just so long as we don’t find Dr. Dominguez and the Starseers, and they’re all crazy too.”
“Maybe that would explain Thorian’s new assassination hobby.” Erick grinned at her.
She didn’t find the comment funny. She hit the accelerator, taking the lead as they flew over and around fallen logs and charred craters in the ground. The greenery around the structure was undisturbed, except for the spot where the ship had crashed into the corner of the building.
Two wolf-like animals leaped away from the wreckage as Jelena and Erick approached. They raced into the trees, where similar animals greeted them with mournful howls. Another of the shaggy, two-legged creatures hunkered in the shadow of one of the wrecks farther out, and Jelena tensed, afraid it would attack. It glowered balefully at them, a bone in its mouth.
A human bone, she realized, her stomach twisting. These animals were out here feeding on the pilots that hadn’t made it. It was part of nature, the circle of life and all that, but she couldn’t help but feel unsettled.
“That one going to be trouble?” Erick nodded to the bipedal creature as they slowed the bikes in front of two closed double doors made from the same stone as the rest of the structure.
Jelena took a breath, willing her queasy stomach to calm, and mentally reached out to the creature, assuring it that they would not take its meal. This one’s mind was more reasonable, more what she expected from an animal. It kept its eyes on them as it hunkered lower, returning to eating, but she didn’t get the sense that it would attack as long as they kept their distance.
“No,” she said.
Erick stepped off the bike and onto a stone patio in front of the door, lush moss growing between the pavers. The entire place looked like it had been there far longer than the ten years that Thor had been with the loyalists, training to be a Starseer and a leader and whatever else. He’d never talked much about what his education involved back when they’d still communicated from time to time.
Jelena also parked her bike and contemplated knocking on the door, though she doubted her knuckles would make much noise against the solid stone. She let her senses trickle outward, wondering if they should force their way in. Was anyone left alive to answer the doorbell?
“I don’t sense anyone,” Erick said, “but I also don’t sense anything inside the walls. I think the entire structure is shielded from probing minds—probing sensor equipment, too, most likely.”
“I didn’t read anything from the ship,” Jelena agreed.
She tapped on the stone with her staff. Nothing happened.
Erick didn’t wait for long before lifting his staff and applying some of his telekinetic power. One of the doors groaned open, scraping on the stone floor. Jelena was on the verge of saying it looked like it hadn’t been opened in years when she spotted someone’s leg, the brown snagor-hide boot surreally highlighted by the slash of sunlight beaming inside, dust motes visible in the air around it.
Erick led the way in, pausing to examine the leg—and the rest of the body. It had been a woman, her hair still tidily bound in a bun, though her cap had fallen off, and her rifle had fallen from her hands. She wore a gray Alliance uniform, her rank marking her a sergeant.
There wasn’t any blood, at least that Jelena could make out in the shadowy interior, and she couldn’t tell what had killed the woman. A Starseer attack? There were stories of Starseers who could stop people’s hearts with their minds, though Grandpa had never taught her and Erick anything like that. He’d always been almost painfully careful to not teach them morally questionable talents, but even the most basic talents could be used to hurt people if the users were thoughtless. Or naive and shortsighted, Jelena amended silently, wincing at the memory of the people she’d hurt while retrieving those animals.
“This didn’t happen that long ago,” Erick said. “Yesterday, maybe even last night or this morning.”
Jelena thought of the smoke still wafting from some of those wrecks. “I agree.”
There was another body on the other side of the room, in front of a door on the back wall. This soldier, also wearing an Alliance uniform, had been male.
Other than the bodies, the room itself was surprisingly empty, a flagstone floor stretching from wall to wall with a few pieces of stone or wood furniture here and there. At the far end, sunlight trickled through holes in the ceiling where it had crumbled after the ship struck it.
“This is the whole building,” Jelena realized, looking up and down the room’s length.
“Basement?” Erick guessed, nodding toward the back door.
They headed toward it, not stopping to examine the male soldier’s body. Jelena hadn’t dealt with death much in her life, and she found it easier not to look. She resolutely told herself that if these people had come to kill Thor, they’d gotten what they deserved. But was that true? If Thor was assassinating people . . .
“There’s a hall back here.” Erick had pushed open the back door, this one made from wood, and stuck his head through. “And a stairway.” He lowered his voice. “I can sense people now. A few of them.”
Jelena followed him into the hall, letting her own senses trickle outward. She detected two—no, three—people down the stairs somewhere. One of the minds she brushed reacted, almost like a stallion rearing up.
Who are you? the male voice demanded. There seemed to be a warning in the words, and she imagined the man—a Starseer—preparing a mental attack.
Jelena Marchenko, she replied. Then, realizing that wouldn’t mean anything to him, she added, An old friend of Thor’s. We came to check on him.
A long pause followed. Erick had stopped at the top of the stairs, his hand on the wall, and Jelena wondered if someone had also contacted him.
Thorian isn’t old enough to have old friends, the man finally said. Fortunately, his tone sounded more dry than dangerous now.
He was ten when I met him. Is he here?
Not any longer, no. The voice turned bitter. Too bad. This is his mess.
Jelena frowned. It sounded like her guess had been right, that the Alliance had attacked because they thought they were taking out Thor.
Erick looked back at her. “I’m not sure if we’re invited down,” he whispered.
“I’m not, either.” She shrugged back at him, then asked the Starseer, Is Dr. Dominguez here?
Yes.
Can we come down?
Might as well. Don’t let any of the animals in.
Erick must have heard that last part, because he looked back the way they had come, his eyes growing distant. The scraping of stone on stone sounded again, followed by a thud.
“I doubt that crumbling roof would keep those bipedal animals out if they decided to come in,” Jelena whispered.
“Probably not, but they have food en
ough out there.” Erick grimaced.
They continued down the steps into a more modern area, the walls made of some black metal instead of stone, and the floor switching to tile. Up ahead, artificial light came from an open doorway, one of several in the hall. A robed figure stepped out into the hallway and turned toward them. Gray-haired, stocky, and bearded, he wore a gray robe instead of a black Starseer one, the waist tied with a simple rope belt. The light glinted on a silver necklace hanging around his neck, three suns clustered at the bottom.
“Dr. Dominguez?” Jelena asked, stepping in front of Erick.
The man hadn’t visited the Nomad since he’d left with Thor ten years earlier, but Jelena had seen him on the comm several times since then, talking with Leonidas about Thor’s progress and about politics that she’d found extremely boring at the time.
“Good afternoon, Jelena,” he said gravely, then nodded at Erick. “Ostberg.” He smiled faintly, though he appeared weary, with bags under his eyes and deep lines etched at the corners. “No chickens following you around anymore?”
“No, sir. Jelena usurped most of the chickens when she came on board. Also, Yumi left a few years ago, so we haven’t had as much fowl. There are cats now though. Jelena finds one to rescue at almost every stop.”
“The cats are handy,” Jelena said. “Leonidas said so. They eat the rats.”
“I think he put those rats there so the cats would have something to do.”
“I hardly think that’s true.”
Jelena closed her mouth on further comments. The conversation seemed inane, especially when there were bodies upstairs, and was that blood on Dominguez’s robe?
Dominguez must have had similar thoughts because he nodded toward the doorway next to him and said, “You might as well come in.”
Jelena and Erick trailed him into a room full of tables, with large holodisplays floating in front of one wall, showing news from around the system. Were the people here monitoring the Thorian gossip? Or just the news as a whole?
Someone moaned softly, and Jelena looked toward a couple of sofas near the far wall. Two men in Starseer robes, one bald and one with white hair, lay there. A medical kit sat open on the floor next to one of them, and she realized they’d interrupted the doctor while he’d been working on them.
“Injuries from the attack?” Jelena pointed toward the ceiling, toward the wrecked ships.
“Yes.” Dominguez started toward the man who had groaned. “These two will survive, but we lost three others when the ceiling caved in over there.” He pointed toward some deeper basement room that she couldn’t see. “We’re fortunate that half of our team had gone off looking for Thor, but at the same time, it would have been easier to repel the Alliance strike team if they had been here to help.”
“Put away your bag and let her attend us, Alejandro,” the man on the couch said, the one with white hair. Though he appeared to be in his sixties, one of his voluminous sleeves had fallen back, revealing a thick, muscular arm. He was clearly fit under that robe. When he turned his bruised face toward her, she noticed old scars on his jaw and across his nose. His brown eyes were pained but faintly amused too. Was he the one who’d spoken to her on the stairs?
Dominguez frowned. “I think her specialty is horses.”
“Actually, Grandpa has taught me to heal bones and seal cuts,” Jelena offered, though she was less certain that she could fix internal injuries. With his face an unhealthy blend of purple and yellow bruises, he looked like he had been caught in a rock fall.
“I don’t care if her specialty is paramecium. She’s far prettier than you, Doctor.”
“I don’t think you’re supposed to leer at women young enough to be your grandchildren, Vlad. The Alliance has laws about that kind of thing.”
“That’s why we’re trying to overthrow them, right?”
“The empire had laws about it too.”
“Ah, how unfortunate.” The man—Vlad—settled his head back on the cushion. “Perhaps we should be fighting for anarchy then.”
“That seems to be the tactic Thorian has chosen,” Dominguez said darkly.
“What happened to him?” Jelena asked. “Is he really . . . is what the news is reporting true?”
“Who knows?” Dominguez grumbled. “He sneaked away when the supply shuttle departed and didn’t leave so much as a note.”
“His fight with Huan surely precipitated it,” Vlad murmured. “I suppose that was a long time coming. We just chose not to read the signs.”
“What signs?” Jelena knew the men had things on their minds other than answering her questions, but she felt impatient and wanted to pull Dominguez aside for an interrogation. These people had the answers to everything she wanted to know.
Vlad opened his mouth to answer, but Dominguez spoke first, frowning at Jelena. “Did Leonidas send you? Or your mother?”
Jelena hadn’t prepared an answer for questions as to why they had come, and she stared back at him, not sure which way would be best to answer. If he found out she had come of her own volition, without permission from either parent, would he refuse to respond to her questions?
He’s suspicious of you, Erick whispered into her mind. Of us.
What? Why? Jelena kept herself from looking at him, not wanting to alert Dominguez to their silent conversation.
Your mother is loyal to the Alliance, and he’s not sure if you’re with them or not.
“I came because Thor was—he is—my friend,” Jelena said, afraid Dominguez would find her long pause even more suspicious, “and when we saw the news, we figured he was in trouble.”
Vlad snorted. “Him and everyone around him, thanks to his premature impetuousness.”
“Is there ever a time when impetuousness is mature?” Dominguez asked with a sigh.
“When your allies are prepared for it. And your enemies aren’t.”
“I’m not sure he considers us allies, despite all we’ve done for him. We’ve driven him too hard. But we had to, didn’t we, Vlad? It was what Markus wanted.”
“It was what he wanted,” Vlad agreed quietly. “But Markus has been dead more than ten years. Perhaps we should have adjusted our expectations and been more realistic about what is possible these days. Much to our chagrin, the Alliance has grown balls and a prick and figured out what to do with them.” He waved a couple of fingers toward Jelena. “Pardon my language, my lady.”
Dominguez grunted. “That’s far milder language than you use with Thorian.”
“Now now, I called him your imperial highness every time I discussed balls and pricks with him. I know how to be respectful.”
Do you know where Thor went? Jelena silently asked Vlad, thinking he might be more open with her than Dominguez. We want to warn him that the Alliance is after him.
He knows. There’s no way he cannot.
Then we want to help him.
Vlad turned his head toward her again. You have not grown up with a promise to serve the old empire, to see it reborn. It would be foolish of you to get involved in a battle that isn’t yours. Besides, Thorian has made it clear that he wishes no help. Vlad winced. He has turned his back on those who would be allies.
Why?
Who can know the minds of young men? He has been guarding his thoughts from us since he was a boy.
Do you at least know how to contact him? He no longer responds to his old sys-net address.
He has been off the grid for years. We’ve wished it that way.
Aware of Dominguez’s gaze on her, Jelena met his eyes. “Doctor, my parents don’t know that I’m here. I came to see Thor because I was worried about him. And I dragged Erick along because—”
“Because he made the mistake of saying yes when Leonidas asked him to be the engineer for Jelena’s maiden voyage,” Erick grumbled. “A maiden voyage that was only supposed to be a simple freight run, mind you.”
“Yes, and he’s very much enjoying his time with me. I knew it was unlikely that Thor would still be h
ere, but I thought you might tell me where he went.”
“We don’t know. Our people are looking for him, hoping to find him and stop him before he destroys everything we’ve worked for. If it’s not already too late.”
Jelena looked at Vlad, and he nodded once. Dominguez frowned, as if irritated by the conversations he must sense were going on around him. If he’d been working with Starseers for the last ten years, he ought to be used to that.
“You should also know that Leonidas is on the way to Arkadius,” Jelena told Dominguez. “Something happened to him. Mom said it was a heart attack, and that he may need a replacement heart.”
Dominguez blinked.
“I know you’re friends, so I thought you should know,” Jelena said. “We’re on our way there ourselves.” Especially if she couldn’t find out where Thor was, she thought glumly. Diverting here had been a waste of time.
“I see. I’ll check in on him as soon as I’m able.” Dominguez looked down at the blood dried on his hands, and Jelena regretted bringing him more bad news.
“We should go,” Erick murmured, “unless there’s something we can do to help.” He lifted his brows toward Dominguez.
“No. We’ll be as well as can be expected. But tell Leonidas I’ll come visit him soon.” Dominguez scowled. “And tell him not to die. He’s survived too many people trying to kill him to die on some surgeon’s table.”
“Maybe you should come do the surgery,” Erick said.
Dominguez grunted. “Maybe I should. But no, I’m out of practice. Marchenko will find someone good on Arkadius, I’m sure.” His mouth twisted with bitterness. “She knows enough Alliance people with sway to make certain of it.”
The bitterness surprised Jelena. After all these years, was he still angry that the empire had fallen and that people had moved on with their lives? Or was it just that her mom had been one of those who fought to topple the empire?
Erick touched her elbow. “We should go.”
“Yeah,” Jelena said, but she didn’t move. They had come all the way down here. To leave with nothing would be so fruitless, and if the people who had worked with Thor these last years didn’t know where he was, how would she ever find him? “Wait.” She lifted her hand, a thought coming to mind. “Can we see his room? Did he leave any of his things here?”
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