“Exactly.” Jensen smiled at him and patted his shoulder. “We’ll make a physicist out of you yet. We’ll recharge in New Seattle and send it back already charged.”
“So how is it progress?”
“If we can make it work, inside-out fields are more efficient at lower field strengths; that’s why the portable unit was designed around it. With larger fields, with more power available, like on Eden or in the HAT, it made sense to go with an outside-in field generation.”
“You lost me again, Doc.”
“If we implement an outside-in field modality on the phone booth, we would gain the ability to use the phone booth in either modality. It could in effect become a permanent portal site by itself – in addition to how it operates now.”
Kyle nodded to himself. “Sounds great for the future, especially when it comes to supporting Audy and Jake’s group.”
“Give me time on Eden with my whole team, and I think Tomas’s idea will bear fruit. We could have a portal device that can both transport itself and also act as a stationary unit, depending on the requirement. It would make the supply line to Jake and Audy a lot more manageable.”
“It would still need to be able to recharge itself remotely, though?” He was beginning to grasp the scope of Jensen’s problem.
“Give me the time. We’ll make it work.”
Kyle wasn’t worried about supplies; he and Jeff and whoever stayed behind with them were well set up in that regard. What worried him was being discovered, and the device coming back for them and winding up in the lap of the government. Then there was Audy and Jake’s team. How long could they hold out and survive on what they’d taken with them? The look on his face must have betrayed what he was thinking.
“We might be delayed linking up with Audy’s team on Chandra, but when we do, we’ll be in a much better position, logistically speaking.”
He nodded in understanding. “Got it, Doc. Thanks.”
He shouldn’t be worried about his friends. He pictured Jake spending most of his time fishing while Audy and his Jema contingent were feeling out the locals. Audy was smart enough to keep Jake on a short leash.
*
Chapter 15
Baltic Coast, Chandra
“This is stupid.” Lupe was giving him that look again. The same one that conveyed just a tad too much concern.
“Maybe,” Jake admitted. Though, as far as he could figure, it was worth the risk.
Had he wanted to, the Hatwa Gemendi A’tor could have had them all roasting on spits in one of the city squares by now; or turned them over to the Kaerin for whatever party games those assholes deemed appropriate. He silently wondered what the Kaerin would do to off world invaders looking to overthrow them. His vivid imagination didn’t end anywhere pleasant.
“You do know we’ve been walking in circles?” Lupe’s question brought him back to the here and now.
They’d been walking through the city for an hour, following a path that spiraled in towards the building that A’tor had said to meet them at. Arsolis, before taking the rest of their party back to his ship, had walked him by the location on their way to the harbor. Jake had left it in Hyrika’s hands to explain to Audy what he was doing. That had been a difficult task. The woman hadn’t limited her feelings on the issue to strange looks. The Jema warrior had almost caused a scene at the boat as they parted company. Jake gave his head a shake and smiled at the memory of what she had done to the Strema trader. That woman had serious impulse control issues.
He shrugged mentally; every commander he’d ever had, Elisabeth, her mom, his dad, his junior high basketball coach, Kyle—hell, pretty much everyone he’d ever dealt with, had always said the same thing about him.
“Seriously, we’ve been this way . . . twice.” Lupe was speaking in Chandrian, but they’d both learned that their Edenite accent sounded strange to the locals. “And why the hell are you smiling?” Lupe was doing his best to whisper.
“You need to relax. I’m just making sure we aren’t being followed.”
Lupe stopped in his tracks and looked around them. The busy street was full of foot traffic and wagons being hauled by men and horses alike. The din of barkers advertising their wares and the smells coming off the street vendors reminded Jake of Zanzibar or Bangkok.
“You’re kidding, right?” Lupe’s eyebrows arched halfway up his forehead. “You looking for license plates?”
“Relax, amigo; I think we’re good. Haven’t you ever heard the famous saying ‘Fortune favors the brave?’”
Lupe’s face screwed up, and he gave his head a frustrated shake. He stepped in closer, whispering in English, “Sounds like something said by dumbass gringos who went places they shouldn’t have, and got lucky. I’ve never been that lucky.”
“Come on,” he said and pointed with his chin down the street. “We’re already late.”
Lupe fell back alongside him after a moment. “Because we’ve been walking in circles.”
The building had the look of what went for an upscale medieval townhouse, nestled in between similar structures to either side. They all had stone foundation walls that reached as high as the bottoms of the window frames on the first floor, but they were entirely constructed of wood from there on up. The roofs were mostly thatch, although A’tor’s home had a slate roof.
There was a surly-looking Hatwa warrior, missing an ear, standing just behind the wrought iron gate at parade rest, with a hand on the pommel of his short sword belted around his waist.
“You are expected,” the man said to them before he could think of something to say.
“We are,” he agreed. So far, so good.
The man unlatched the gate and pushed it open for them.
“I got a bad feeling about this,” Lupe voiced in English at just above a whisper.
Once inside the gate, the guard, doorman, majordomo, or whatever the wide- shouldered troglodyte was, led the way down a short, graveled walkway. The uniform architecture reminded Jake once again of a dirty, unorganized mash-up of medieval Europe and Japan. Like the samurais had all been on a centuries-long bender and no longer cared about the mounds of horseshit raked into piles on every street corner.
Their escort stopped at the heavy oak door hung with thick cast-iron hinges and turned back to face them. “I’ve been ordered to take your weapons.”
Jake was almost certain he heard Lupe growl deep in his throat.
“Of course,” Jake answered, unbuckling his short sword without complaint and handing it over. He gave Lupe his best command glare until the former poacher shrugged and did the same.
The Hatwa accepted the scabbarded blades with a small bow of his head and turned to pound on the door. It could have been natural, but Jake thought the knock sounded a lot like a signal; there had been a little too long a pause between the second and third knocks.
He glanced at Lupe and touched his own waist, where he had his Glock 17’s holster hanging off the inside of his belt under his tunic. Lupe gave him a “no-shit” look in return. He was really starting to like the guy. They followed their guard into a dark interior parlor or mudroom just inside the door; the flickering lantern light was so dim he couldn’t tell. The entire house seemed walled in some sort of wood, stained in a deep dark brown. In juxtaposition with the appearance of the exterior and the city in general, the interior was almost elegant, if very spartan. He reminded himself that this A’tor was a prelate, head of the Gemendi Order for the entire Hatwa clan. Their host was probably rolling in whatever passed for graft or kickbacks in this shithole.
The corridor leading through the middle of the house was lit by glass lanterns hanging from hooks. The smoky light revealed a pair of Hatwa standing on either side of another door at the end of the corridor. These weren’t house servants; he would have labeled them pipe-hitters in any cultural setting. He regarded them a moment, certain they weren’t doing anything other than standing guard. Their guide turned to him and bowed his head again.
“You
will wait here.”
Lupe waited until the man was just out of earshot, headed down the hallway. “I got a bad feeling about this . . .”
“So you mentioned; stop worrying. It’ll be—what it will be.”
“Seriously?”
“You have a round chambered?” he asked.
“Hell, yes.”
“Just stay calm. Don’t pull unless I do. If I do . . .” He felt himself shrug. “Shoot everything that doesn’t look like me.”
“Right.” Lupe nodded in relief as if it was the first sensible thing he had heard in a long time.
The majordomo reappeared after a moment from the door at the end at the hallway and beckoned them forward, almost smiling.
“See, nothing to worry about.”
“You’re nuts.”
But Lupe put one foot in front of the other and started walking; he fell in a few steps behind, using Lupe’s body to hide the fact he was walking with his right-hand inches away from the hidden Glock.
The guards flanking the door at the end of the hall came to attention as they neared; Jake was sure of it. No one got ready to start shit by pulling their heels together and standing straight up. He nodded, and almost gave them a “Gentlemen” in response, but he figured it would just confuse them. Besides, for his part, he was very much on the balls of his feet, ready to start some shit. No need to bring attention to himself.
Their escort remained still as they passed. Jake had the sudden thought that what he was about to do should be done by Audy. Audy wasn’t here, though, he reminded himself. There was a reason for that. The Jema weren’t exactly well thought of in this neighborhood, or in any neighborhood on Chandra. It wasn’t their fault, but the Kaerin had basically fixed the score in that particular arena of public opinion.
He glared at the house servant for a short moment wondering if what he took as a polite nod had been the Hatwa gesture for “you’re fucked.” Two steps into a wide room dominated by a large table, he bumped into Lupe, who had come to a complete stop.
Seated at the far end of the table was the Gemendi from their “trial”. Next to the Gemendi was a much younger man who didn’t look at all pleased to be there. Jake focused in on the fact the young man looked a lot more like one of the pipe-hitters on the other side of the door than a Gemendi science geek.
The Gemendi waved his hand over the table.
“Please sit, and be welcome in my home.”
Jake understood Jema culture as well as any Edenite. He thought he recognized the formality in the welcoming gesture of their host. This was a formal sit-down. They might take them into custody afterwards for a good old-fashioned skin peeling, but they’d be nothing but polite in the meantime. At least that was how the Jema operated. These weren’t Jema, he reminded himself.
He put a hand on Lupe’s shoulder and felt the man jerk like an electric shock had passed through him. “Friends for now,” he whispered in English. “You keep your eyes on that door.”
“I thank you for your hospitality,” he said in Chandrian, and moved to take a seat of his own.
He saw the look of surprise on the younger man’s face as he spoke their tongue.
“It is as you said,” the warrior spoke to the elder Gemendi.
The Gemendi nodded towards him. “You speak the words well, but your tongue betrays you. You are no Jema.”
He gave a nod of his own. “I thought you had already figured that part out.”
“I speak for my son’s benefit. This is Cal’as.”
“Your son?”
The young warrior looked nothing like his father. The kid was much taller, leaner, and, not to put too fine a point on it, didn’t have much of the Bulgarian powerlifter appearance so prevalent in the Hatwa. The surprise must have shown on his face.
“My wife is not Hatwa.”
He figured A’tor thanked his lucky stars for that particular blessing.
The Gemendi signaled for his son to pour them all wine from a flagon on a side table. He and Lupe both accepted the cups and nodded their thanks, but didn’t take a sip per their pre-agreed plan. The Gemendi were all world-class pharmacists. Kyle’s horror story of enduring the Jema “heartspeak” was not one he ever wanted to duplicate.
Jake rapped his fist on the table once. “You said you would tell me how you learned of us.” They needed to know why the Gemendi hadn’t turned them in.
“It is a long story, and a very old one. One that has been forgotten by all, save a select few in every subject clan, always a Gemendi. You are aware of the Gemendi’s role?”
“I am.” He nodded. “I’ve come to know the Jema and their ways well.”
“We Gemendi are nothing,” A’tor continued, “if not the keepers of knowledge allowed us by the Kaerin. The secret I speak of now is our own; kept from the Kaerin. Some small number of subject clan Gemendi belong to a group . . . the Hijala.” A’tor said the last with some pride that gave him a bit of hope.
“If the Jema had not been sundered these many years ago, there would now be Gemendi elders among them who would know of the Hijala.”
“The Hijala?” Jake felt his head shake. “I do not know this word.”
“You could not.” A’tor almost smiled. “It is not a word that came to us from the Kaerin, who gave us the tongue that we are now speaking. It would not be known to any Jema alive today, nor to anyone outside the Hijala. We do not know the language from which it came, at least I do not. I was taught only what the word signifies. It is through the Hijala network, and the passage of messages through others like myself in distant clans, that I came to learn the story of the Strema defeat at your hands. It is how I learned of the Kaerin knowledge of your world and your people.”
Jake stopped A’tor with an upheld hand. “You guys have a . . .” There wasn’t a word in Chandrian that he knew of, for resistance. He settled on the description; “A group across clans that resist the Kaerin?”
The sad smile and short burst of laughter from A’tor that resulted was not the reaction he had been hoping for.
“No.” A’tor shook his head. “We have individuals, usually one or perhaps a few senior Gemendi in most clans that are members of the Hijala. In some clans, we do not even have that. We do not resist. We keep the Kaerin knowledge for ourselves, until such a time that we are in a position to turn it against them and free ourselves.”
Jake just looked at the older Gemendi and felt a little sorry for him. It had been more than a thousand years since the Kaerin had come to Chandra.
“I don’t think this Hijala worked out the way its founders thought it would.”
“Nor do I.” A’tor rubbed at his face. “Until this afternoon, I could not even conceive of a different way. Yet I saw the proof; the Jema survive and are your loyal subjects. I saw your strange weapon which was capable of striking down a Strema host.”
“No.” Jake shook his head. “The Jema do survive, but you don’t know them; not if you believe they would ever submit to be subject to anyone, ever.”
“All we know of the Jema,” Cal’as spoke for the first time, “is they angered the Kaerin and were destroyed for it. They were kept separate from other clans before their surviving children, few in number, were sent to your world.” The young man sounded like he didn’t believe anything he was hearing.
“They aren’t children anymore.” Jake shook his head. “Nor do they live as slaves.”
A’tor held both his hands up, and sent his son a look of admonishment.
“Forgive my son; he has only this day learned of the Hijala from me. He is seeing his world is not what he thought it was.”
“We can understand that.” Lupe, up to now, had been sitting quietly, one hand under the tabletop near his gun.
Jake smiled and shared a “no-shit” grin with Lupe.
“I spoke true earlier,” A’tor said. “My position on the Hatwa Council is not something I can ignore, nor abandon. I would send Cal’as with you. He can be my eyes, and weigh your words and perhaps
your intentions.”
“And when he learns I speak the truth?” Jake asked. “What then?”
“We will see. If the Kaerin do not learn of you and destroy you, then I will write my own message to the Hijala, and perhaps an ancient dream will become more than a forgotten word in a dead language.”
In other words, Jake thought, not a damn thing. At least not yet.
He glanced back and forth between father and son. The younger Hatwa did not seem at all pleased with the plan. “You want us to take your son? With us?”
“He is my only son.” A’tor nodded. “Is there some gesture of trust for you people that would weigh more?”
Jake glanced at Lupe, more to get out from under the questioning gaze of A’tor than for any form of approval. For his part, the look on Lupe’s face wasn’t hiding the fact he thought this was a bad idea.
“We aren’t even sure how to get out of the city.”
“Cal’as can assist in that.” A’tor pursed his lips, and glanced to his son. “He would see your strange weapon, as proof that you are who you say you are. The one you threatened me with.”
Jake regarded the young warrior, who looked to be nineteen or twenty years old. A kid whose world had been turned upside down. He wasn’t a happy camper and had the look of someone who thought he was the toughest guy in the room.
He pulled his Glock out from under the table and thumbed the magazine release, catching it as it fell free. He racked the slide, caught the ejected round, and slid the gun across the table towards Cal’as.
He glanced over at Lupe, who blinked slowly and gave his head an almost imperceptible shake in disgust.
“What?” he asked in English.
He watched as Cal’as eyed the firearm before gingerly picking it up and turning it over with a practiced eye. This was one kid who had not followed in his father’s Gemendi egghead footsteps.
“How many times will it fire?”
“Until my finger gets tired,” he lied. He figured he might as well get a bluff in while he could.
“And you have armed the Jema with such as this?”
New Shores: The Eden Chronicles - Book Three Page 22
