“I’m thinking we might need to take a trip to Roswell, New Mexico,” Chris stated with certainty as a huge grin spread across his face.
“Dad, I don’t understand.” Amanda looked from her mother to her father waiting for one of them to explain.
“Back in 1947, a UFO was found on a ranch outside of Roswell. Of course, the media had a heyday claiming that a UFO had been found as well as a couple of aliens. Then the military jumped in, and suddenly, the story was changed from a UFO crash to debris from an experimental high-altitude surveillance balloon belonging to a classified program called ‘Mogul.’
“Nobody believed the military statements and people started comparing their stories. Eventually, they opened a museum in Roswell to honor the crash. I think,” he paused to make sure Amanda was paying attention, “maybe the key to getting back to Tuala will be in or near Roswell.”
Amanda gasped at the concept but was eager to see if the idea had any merit. Anything that would get her girls back was worth the try. “That’s brilliant, Dad! When can we go?”
“I’ll call a travel agent and make the arrangements,” he answered. He turned to his wife and asked, “Do you want to come, too?”
“Chris, how can you even ask that? Of course I’m coming!” She scoffed while scowling at her husband.
“Just making sure,” he replied innocently. He took the book back from Amanda’s lap and stared at it more closely. “Wow,” he said and looked up again at his daughter, “You really flew in one of these?”
“Several times, actually,” she replied with a huge grin on her face, “Dad, it was amazing and scary all at the same time. I wish you could try it, too.”
“Me, too, honey. Me, too,” Chris said wistfully. They hugged each other in their excitement.
Chapter Two
PETRE WAS EXCITED about the new information he had received from his contact in Kirma. Ever since he had sold his shipment of crystals and thought he had seen Jesisca in the marketplace, he was unable to concentrate on much of anything. With his pockets full of the taj he had received for those crystals from Bryon, the distribution manager in Kirma, he was able to spend some leisurely time in contemplation of how he could get the information he needed without letting anyone know what he was doing.
Three weeks had passed since he had left Kirma and he was still no closer to finding out if the woman he had seen really had been Jesisca. His obsession to get her back was taking over every aspect of his life, including his dreams. As fate would have it, the solution to his dilemma presented itself in the tavern at the Port of Cresdon.
Petre was sitting at the bar contemplating his next steps for getting Jesisca back when he noticed a good-looking man in his late twenties enter the building. The man sat down next to Petre and started talking about his rotten luck with Captain Issyn.
“I’ve had some dealings with Captain Issyn. He’s a hard man to work with, that’s for sure.”
“Yeah, he’s okay. It’s just that business is slow, and I had the least seniority so I was the first one to be let go.”
“That’s rough,” Petre drawled, “What’s your name?”
“Ninan.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Ninan,” Petre replied as he took a sip from his bruskin. “Let me buy you another drink.” He looked at the man and realized he had not been on the sea so long as to age him prematurely. He had short, sun-bleached hair, hazel eyes, and a couple of days’ growth of beard, but he might just be able to do Petre a favor. With the idea growing in his mind regarding the unemployed seaman, Petre asked, “Do you have any experience operating a telepod?”
“Sure thing,” was his quick reply.
“So are you looking for a job right now, or do you have something else lined up?”
“I might be persuaded to look into something else,” Ninan replied and then hastily added, “if the money was right.”
“Of course, of course.” Petre shifted gears and asked, “Are you married?”
“Oh, no,” Ninan replied with a low chuckle, “I never could convince a woman to stay with me while I was at sea eight mesans out of the anon.” He picked up the second bruskin which Petre had bought for him and drank deeply savoring the full-bodied flavor of the amber liquid.
“Speaking of women,” Petre began, glad for the easy opening to his subject, “I’m looking for my wife.”
“How’d you lose her?” Ninan asked with interest.
“She fell overboard while we were sailing, but I don’t believe she drowned. You see, the problem I have is that the people around here don’t like me much, and nobody will tell me if they’ve seen her. I need someone to be my eyes and ears for me,” Petre spoke reasonably as he folded his hands on the bar to wait for Ninan’s reaction.
Ninan’s glance happened to look at Petre’s hands where he noticed Petre’s silver ring set with an onyx stone. He instantly looked away and contemplated leaving the tavern and the master deceptor behind, but the idea of making some easy money kept him in his seat. “What would I have to do?” He was naturally wary.
“Nothing too difficult,” he replied easily, not missing Ninan’s discovery of his ring. “I need someone to get a job in Kirma and watch for any signs of my wife.”
“Why would I need to be able to operate a telepod?” Ninan inquired.
“I just thought you might be able to get a job at the distribution center there in Kirma,” he replied.
“How much are you going to pay?”
Petre thought about it for a minute and replied, “I’ll pay ten taj for any information which will lead me to get my wife back.”
Ninan gulped at the offered price. It was more than he had imagined. If the price had been lower, he would have had to think about it more, but this amount was impossible to refuse. He was about to accept when his eyes rested once again on Petre’s master deceptor ring, and he decided to get some assurance first. “How can I be sure you’ll pay me?”
“Well, I could pay you five shills a week until you find out what I need to know, and then I’ll pay you the remainder. Does that sound fair?” Petre said with a pleasant smile on his face.
“Sure,” Ninan replied and then said, “When do you want me to start?”
“Let’s go over to that booth and I’ll tell you all about my wife.” Petre stood up and gestured toward the booth furthest away from the nosy ears of the bartender.
Ninan picked up another mug of bruskin, for which Petre had nodded to the bartender, and followed Petre to the specified booth. He sat down and sipped his third bruskin while Petre began his tale of losing his wife.
“Nine and a half mesans ago Jesisca injured her head when she fell on our water craft. She lost her memory and didn’t even remember her name for a while. We were just on the verge of getting back to normal when I ate something bad, and it made me pass out. I think Jesisca must have panicked and jumped overboard to get help for me, but she’s not a good swimmer, you see.
“Anyway, when I came to, she was missing, and I’ve been searching for her ever since. About three weeks ago, I thought I saw her in Kirma, but I lost her in the crowds of the marketplace.” Petre paused in his storytelling to reach into the breast pocket of his jacket. He pulled out a folded sheet of paper and spread it open on the table between them. “I had this picture of her drawn from my description so the person I hired would know what she looked like.”
“Why don’t you just go back to the marketplace and show the vendors this picture?” Ninan asked and then felt like kicking himself for giving Petre an option which would not include getting himself paid.
“Like I said, the people there don’t like me much and are very uncooperative. I need someone whom they don’t know to do the asking for me, but you’ll have to be very discreet, or they won’t trust you either,” Petre cautioned.
“I can be discreet,” Ninan assured him as he picked up the drawing and admired the fine features of the young woman.
“Now you can’t just start asking around for her
. You’ll need to look for her at the market or maybe in the surrounding neighborhoods since I saw her walking with her groceries,” Petre instructed as Ninan continued to admire the drawing of Jesisca. Petre was getting frustrated with Ninan’s lack of attention and asked, “Do you understand?”
“Sure, sure,” Ninan replied offhandedly. He could easily see himself getting along just fine with Jesisca. He may not even need to get the ten taj from Petre if he had a good job and the beautiful Jesisca with whom to spend his time. “Okay, I’ll do it,” he said suddenly and then added, “but I’ll need one taj up front to give me transportation, room, and board until I can get a job at the shipping warehouse.”
“That’s fair,” Petre replied as he fished a taj from his pants pocket. He passed it across the surface of the table with his index finger and said, “I’ll expect weekly updates from you. When I receive an update, I’ll forward the five shills to whatever address you give me.”
“Perfect. I’ll leave tonight then,” he said with a broad smile.
“One more thing,” Petre said as he stood up from the bench, “If you try to cheat me, I’ll know. Trust me, you don’t want to find out what I can do to you. Do I make myself clear?”
Ninan’s smile lost some of its eagerness, but he held up his hands and replied, “You won’t need to worry. I’ve got you covered.”
“Good, good. Here’s an address where you can send your first update next week.” Petre pulled a small card from the back pocket of his pants and a pen from his breast pocket and hastily wrote down the address of the brothel where he would be staying for the next week. “Remember, the sooner you find my wife, the sooner you’ll have your remaining nine taj.”
“No problem, I’ll start tomorrow,” he said with renewed confidence.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Good to his word, Ninan found a transport telepod to take him to Kirma later that same night. After asking the telepod operator for suggestions for a place to eat and sleep, he made arrangements with a boarding house in Kirma to stay for the next two weeks. Ninan figured two weeks would either give him enough time to find a job and a more permanent place to live, or find Jesisca and then he could return to Cresdon and collect his finder’s fee.
Early the next morning, Ninan walked out of the boarding house with the plan to locate both the market and the distribution warehouse. He decided to get the lay of the land under his belt before he started looking for Jesisca. This time would also help him decide if he really wanted to help Petre find this woman, maybe there was a good reason she had not come back to him.
Maybe she had decided to leave him, but he was forcing her to stay with him. As much as he wanted the other nine taj, Ninan respected women, and he really did not trust Petre’s story to be fully accurate based on the evidence of Petre being a master deceptor.
Ninan walked along the business district where the boarding house was located. He continued on through a deserted park given the early hour. Before long, he found himself outside of the shipping warehouse where Petre had told him he would be able to get a job. The place looked like it was neat and orderly, not at all a bad place to work. Being as the day was Sabtu, the place was deserted, so he was able to look around pretty extensively which suited his needs perfectly. Ninan decided he would come back on Senin to seek employment, which would give him today and tomorrow to investigate before he got tied down to a job.
Ninan pulled out the drawing of Jesisca from his coat pocket and stared at it as he meandered away from the warehouse district. He wondered about her side of the story. She did not appear to be the type of person who would want to be with Petre. For one, she looked entirely too young for Petre; she could not possibly be any older than eighteen anons.
Her long hair cascading over her shoulders did not seem consistent with other women who liked to sail, they usually opted for short hair on the windy sea. The picture showed her smiling with full lips and perfectly straight teeth, also quite the opposite of Petre. Ninan wondered what color her large, almond-shaped eyes were since the drawing was in black and white and then he chastised himself for not having thought to ask Petre about her hair color either.
That ought to make things a little more difficult, he thought to himself. Now that Jesisca’s image was fresh in his mind, he folded the drawing up and put it back into his pocket. He started to pay more attention to where he was walking and realized he was now in the middle of the market district. It, too, was empty since no business was ever conducted on Sabtu.
He took note of where the different types of wares were located and tried to decide what would be most regularly needed for a household. His ideas were to watch those vendors’ stalls the most and maybe ask them some pointed questions about Jesisca or show them her picture.
I could tell them I’m her brother and that our parents are worried sick about her, he thought to himself with inspiration. That idea pleased him greatly. With his plan set in his mind, he decided to go back to the boarding house and try out his ideas the next day when there would be people around to talk to and to look for Jesisca.
The next morning, Ninan ate breakfast at the boarding house before venturing out to the market. He figured people would not be out shopping until after they had eaten anyway. Ninan decided to wander through the crowds until lunchtime and then he would buy something from one of the vendors.
I might as well start building rapport with these people to get them to help me find Jesisca. Maybe I should find somewhere in the open to eat and then I can stare at Jesisca’s picture as though I were sad that she’s missing. Luck might be on my side; someone might ask me about it and know where I can find her.
Ninan did as he had planned but he ate in solitude without any interruptions. So much for luck, he thought to himself as he gathered his lunch trash and his jacket. He had garnered no new knowledge about Jesisca, but he had heard many people talking about the shipping warehouse being a great place to work. He was actually looking forward to going in to see if he could get a job the next day.
He spent the rest of the day walking up and down the sidewalks of the neighborhoods near the marketplace. He had not realized there were just that many housing developments in Kirma. This wouldn’t be a bad place to settle down and make a living, he thought as he admired the rows of large houses and the children playing in the yards.
He paused to watch two young boys and one small girl play with a couple of babies on a blanket in their front yard, smiling at them playing house. The girl was bossing around the two little boys while she spent all her time watching over the babies. That’s definitely a typical woman’s role, he said to himself as he started walking again to the boarding house.
Early the next morning, Ninan arrived at the distribution warehouse before any of the workers. He sat outside of the main entrance and watched as the employees started to trickle into the facility. Ninan was surprised to see that most of them were smiling and appeared to be happy about coming to work on a Senin. He was more accustomed to seeing people dragging their feet because their weekend was over. This must be a good place to work, he thought.
A tall, older man with graying hair and a slender, young woman came toward the office entrance where Ninan was sitting. Ninan decided to ask, “I’m looking for the manager. Do you know when he or she’ll be in?”
The woman replied, “The manager’s name is Bryon, and he should be here within the next ten minutes or so. The warehouse doesn’t open for another half an hour. Is there something we can help you with?”
“I was told I might be able to get a job here,” Ninan said offhandedly with a shrug of his shoulders.
“You’ll definitely need to talk to Bryon about that.”
The man spoke for the first time, “Do you want to wait in the office? The weather’s not as nice today as it was this weekend.”
“Sure, if I won’t be in the way,” Ninan responded hastily, glad for the opportunity to look around the office before seeing Bryon. Ninan followed the couple inside and prompt
ly situated himself in one of the waiting chairs. Upon observation, he took note of the sparse decorations and the complete lack of anything of a personal nature.
A few minutes later, Bryon walked into the office and noticed a younger man sitting in the waiting area. He walked over to Frasnia, the receptionist, with a questioning expression. As she leaned forward, Bryon mimicked her and did so as well.
“He’s looking for a job,” she whispered.
Bryon mouthed the word, “Ah,” and turned around with a smile on his face. He walked purposefully toward the shabbily dressed gentleman in the chair and extended his hand as he said, “Hi, my name’s Bryon Kesh. I’m the manager here at the warehouse.”
Ninan hastily stood, grasped Bryon’s hand in a firm grip, and replied, “Hello, Mr. Kesh. It’s nice to meet you. My name’s Ninan Tigua.”
Surprised at the strength of Ninan’s grip, Bryon reassessed the gentleman before him. Getting straight to the point, Bryon asked, “I hear you’re looking for a job. Is that right?”
“Yes,” he replied simply and nodded.
“Why don’t you come into my office and we’ll see if there’s anything we have here that’ll suit your talents.” He gestured for Ninan to follow him as he made his way across the lobby and into his private domain. He closed the door behind Ninan, went around his desk, and then sat down in his chair as he leaned forward with his elbows on the table in front of him. “In what line of work do you specialize?”
“Well, mostly I’ve been a crew member at sea up until recently,” he began and then thought he had better shift away from that for fear of answering uncomfortable questions. “I’ve also worked at the distribution centers at the Port of Cresdon. Captain Ahn would probably remember me if you needed to ask someone about my work.”
“How long ago did you work with Captain Ahn?”
“Well, I didn’t actually work with him,” he said slowly. “When I was fifteen anons old, I apprenticed under Ceren as a clerk. I eventually worked my way out into the dock warehouse until my work caught the eye of one of the captains.”
Ascension Discovery Page 29
