Chapter Fifteen
STANDING IN THE AUXILIARY CONTROL room, Jade thought it seemed strange to be there without Tally. She started to send him a message then thought better of it. He didn’t need her interrupting his concentration like that.
She didn’t know what all was involved in helping someone boost their telepathic link but she was pretty sure that getting outside messages wouldn’t be helpful. And she was a little worried for him.
He had helped the Elvwists before with being a link booster, sending messages to a distant enclave, but she knew there was always a chance - however slim - of being burned out doing that sort of thing. She had heard of it happening before - not recently, and never to a Cat - but this was much, much farther - all the way to another Galaxy, for Earth’s sake!
Well, Dots was helping too, and Sparrow must think they could do it safely, otherwise it wouldn’t have asked them, right? she thought.
“Hey,” said Alex, interrupting her thoughts and startling her.
She looked up at him raising an eyebrow.
“Don’t look so down in the mouth, Sis,” he said, smiling that lop-sided smile that reminded her so much of their father. “Tally will be fine and, no doubt, will be joining us this afternoon.”
He had one arm around Ro’s shoulder, now he draped the other around Jade. “Come on, let’s see what Aunt Rachel and Uncle Morgan wants us to do first.” He steered them both over to where Rachel and Morgan had seated themselves at the computer console.
Rachel had booted up the ancient system and was watching the screen. Morgan had his head next to hers watching with her. They looked up as the three young people came over.
“We’re trying to see where a good place to start looking would be,” said Morgan, leaning back.
He turned to Jade. “What Sparrow said about your esa: do you think you might actually be able to find the USCOMS that way?”
“Don’t get your hopes up, Uncle Morgan. I don’t know if I can. I’ve never consciously gone looking for an item using it, and I don’t know how this esa works for doing that.” She glanced at the computer screen and saw they had pulled up various locations within the ship.
It was odd looking at a flat screen. She was used to looking at three dimensional holograms, a lot of them interactive, and this flat screen was like having one eye blindfolded or something. Plus the thing didn’t even vocalize, let alone respond to mind-speak.
She didn’t know how her ancestors had managed.
“Give us some locations to start with,” said Alex. “We’ll each take a section. If Jade gets a hit on something she’ll let us know.”
Rachel nodded in agreement. “Sounds good to me.”
She depressed a button, and a machine in the panel on the left of the computer lit up and quietly started spitting out sheets of paper into a tray that dropped down as soon as its lights went on.
Morgan walked over and as soon as it stopped, he picked the pages up and started handing them out. Each person got two sheets, including himself.
Jade got an odd, distracted expression on her face when he handed the papers to her.
“Here we go,” he said. He explained how to read the print-outs. “I want everyone to be careful and don’t get lost…” he shook his head and grinned, looking at Jade again, wondering what the look on her face meant. “Well,” he amended, “stay in contact with Jade and even if we get lost from each other, I believe she can find us all.”
He went on, “I want us to search for a couple of hours - sing out if you find anything of interest - then let’s meet in the canteen for a break.”
Everyone headed out to the catwalk. Jade was walking slowly, and frowning. She was still leery of being too close to the rail so she decided she would just stay as close to the wall as she could until she could reach the stairs. She looked down at her sheets. All of her locations were three levels down from the control room. She turned to Alex and Ro.
“Where do you start?” she asked, trying to see the pages in Ro’s hand. She was trying to ignore this really strange sensation she was feeling in her head.
Ro studied her sheets. “Looks like I have ta go ‘cross one of those bridges ta th’ other side of th' ship,” she said, showing the papers to them.
She looked out across the way, squinting, trying to see over to the other side. “Gods! I don’ believe I realized jus’ how big this ship is!” she exclaimed. “It’s one thing to see it from a distance or in th’ images we had in history books but it’s altogether different ta actually stand on this catwalk and see it.” She sounded awed.
Alex was watching Ro’s face thinking again that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever met. He felt extremely fortunate to have found her. He thought of last night.
She had come to his tent after Jade fell asleep, and they’d made love - again. He hadn’t wanted her to leave afterwards but she’d gone back to make sure Jade was okay and because she had promised Kendis she would watch out for her. He knew he more than just liked her. He loved her. And he wanted her for more than just a “sleep buddy”.
He didn’t want to be apart from her but knew they would be able to search faster and cover more areas if they split up. He looked at his pages and saw he was going to have to go up twenty levels. He noticed one particular symbol on one of his pages with relief. It was a lift. At least he wouldn’t have to climb all the way up. He pointed this out to Jade and watched the relief wash over her face also.
She had not been looking forward to going down those stairs without Kendis by her side. She took the sheet from his hand to get a better look - her pages weren’t showing the lifts - and got the strangest sensation in her fingers.
Surprised, she stopped still. The sensation that had started in her head when Morgan handed her the papers grew stronger and she felt as if something that had been slightly askew suddenly snapped into place.
Ro was watching her. “What’s th’ problem, Jade?” she asked warily.
“Um, not a problem, I think,” she said slowly.
Alex noticed she had a distracted look on her face.
“This page feels…different from mine,” she said. “Let me have one of yours, Ro. I want to see if it feels any different.”
Alex and Ro exchanged mystified looks as Ro handed Jade a page.
“Shards! This one feels different too!” she exclaimed. Something was building in her mind, images forming and lining up. She considered what this meant.
She abruptly turned and strode back into the control room where Morgan and Rachel were just getting ready to step out on the catwalk to start their search.
Alex and Ro followed her in. They didn’t know what she had seen but they could tell it was important.
“Uncle Morgan, Aunt Rachel, I don’t know where the USCOMS is but I can tell you that it’s not in any of the location on these sheets Alex, Ro, and I have,” she announced with confidence.
Rachel peered closely at Jade taking in the certainty she saw on her face, the firm tone in her voice. She glanced at Morgan who tilted his head at Jade.
“Tell us what you feel with these, Jade,” he said quietly, handing her his sheets.
She took the sheets from him and held them for a moment, then looked up at Morgan. “No, sir, not there either.”
She took the pages Rachel handed her and made the same judgment about them, shaking her head almost as soon as she touched them.
“I think we need to test this - no offense, Jade,” said Morgan. “Do you happen to know what is in one of these locations?”
Jade was not offended. She’d known she’d have to prove it the moment she’d realized what was happening, and was prepared.
“Yes, I do.” She closed her eyes briefly. It was like riffling through an internal folder of images. She found what she was looking for. It was an item in a room on this same level, that everyone knew she hadn’t visited before.
Morgan sent Alex to get it.
Alex came bac
k in a few minutes grinning broadly and holding up the screwdriver Jade had seen in a tool box stuck in a recess in the wall of the room.
“Exactly where she said it was, Uncle Morgan!” he marveled. He looked at his little sister with appreciation.
No one wanted to do useless searching. Morgan went back over to the computer and stood thinking.
He turned to them and said, “Those were the most likely places for the device to be according to the computer.” He looked at Rachel who had sat down at the computer.
She lifted a brow and he nodded. She typed in a line, depressed the print button, and waited for the printer to stop. She removed the thick stack of paper from the tray and laid it on the desk. She looked up at Jade, who was still standing silently beside Alex.
“Okay, finder-girl,” she said with a grin. “I think that esa of yours is going to turn out to be very useful this morning. I want you to touch each one of these pages and tell us what you think.”
Jade looked at the sizable stack. She lifted a brow.
“Is that all of it? If not, print the rest.” She sighed. “I might as well work my way through all of them and get it over with. The sooner I do this, the sooner I get to do something more fun.”
Man! she thought, glumly. I hate paper-work.
Rachel chuckled, but shook her head. “This is more than enough for now, dear. Once you get through this stack, I’ll print out more.”
They left Jade parked at the computer console leafing through stacks of printouts, wearing a resigned expression on her face. They were going to the engine room.
According to the records, the main booster engines had been removed by the colonists to provide power for their original base but the secondary engines were left aboard to provide power for the USCOMS, lights, etc., along with other machinery.
The fact that the ship had come awake when they entered yesterday, indicated at least those parts of the records were correct. Morgan and Rachel wanted to see what equipment remained. Alex and Ro went with them. Since they were no longer searching for a particular item, they decided to stay together.
They would meet Jade in the canteen in about an hour and a half.
Jade didn’t think there were enough pages to keep her occupied that long, but she figured once she finished with them, she could just play with the computer until time to meet up with the others. Besides, she’d not had a chance to be alone since they started this trip, and she needed to do some thinking.
Mostly, she wanted to think about Kendis. She pictured him as he’d looked this morning - dressed in a blue tee and denims, green eyes watching her - and had to catch her breath just as she had when she first saw him yesterday morning. Gods he’d looked good!
But it wasn’t just his good looks, though, she thought, those are enough to fuzz any female’s mind! No, there was something else about him, a connection that, to her felt like…she could only think: it feels like coming home. As if he was where she was supposed to be.
She shivered. She wasn’t sure she wanted to feel this way about any guy. Especially one she’d just met, and besides, she had only gotten interested in them in just the past year and hadn’t dated that many. Reece had been the one she’d gone out with the longest, and up until their last disastrous date he’d been fun to be with. She had gone on some group dates and they’d been a lot of fun too, but she had never felt anything like what she was feeling for Kendis, for any other guy.
She wasn’t sure what she should do about it.
As far as she could see, in spite of what Ro had said last night about him looking at her with more than “brotherly” eyes, to her, he just seemed to be trying to be nice to her because she was his friend’s sister.
Maybe I should just ask him, she mused. Then: nah, that would probably just embarrass the socks off of him, and I wouldn’t want to put him on the spot like that. Besides, how do you come right out and ask a thing like that?
She smiled as she imagined herself going up to Kendis and blurting out something along the lines of: “Hey! Are you watching me with more than brotherly eyes?”
She chuckled and shook her head. Uh-uh. Wasn’t gonna happen.
She was getting to the bottom of her stack of papers and so far, nothing. She knew now, though, where a great deal of things were on the ship, none of them being what they were looking for. She hadn’t thought about being able to find other stuff by going through the locations like this but apparently she had unconsciously done just that.
Her esa appeared to be getting stronger with use, more refined. She knew there were canteens on every five levels, that the hiber-sleep chambers were all in that huge column going up the middle of the ship - and they were, as expected, empty.
She knew where every toilet facility on the ship was - a pretty handy thing to know, she thought, smiling.
She knew some seeds had gotten left behind and were down in a section above the engine room, though she didn’t know what was in the engine room because Morgan had taken that page with them, and she knew there were several small aircraft stored in a hangar on the far side of the ship, and they were fueled up and ready to fly.
She blinked, startled. She hadn’t known any aircraft had been left aboard the ship, and wondered if the others knew.
She saw with surprise that the hour and a half was almost up, so she hurriedly restacked and straightened the papers she had spread out over the desk, and proceeded to the canteen.