“Are they trying to comm us or get in?” Alisa asked.
“Both. They started out comming. We haven’t answered.”
“That’s antisocial of us.” Alisa grabbed her plate and stood. It looked like it was time to take off.
“Nobody wanted to share the lamb burgers.” Mica followed her into the mess hall.
“Last one out of the mess hall does the dishes,” Beck announced. He was cleaning his grill, but a stack of crumb-filled dishes sat on the table. Yumi and Leonidas had disappeared.
“I have to fly us somewhere,” Alisa said.
“Oh? Where?”
“Apparently, we’re going to visit a Starseer temple on Arkadius.”
“Well, that’s one place where the White Dragon thugs won’t likely find me.”
“I don’t think anyone finds you in a Starseer temple,” Mica muttered.
“You have reservations about going?” Alisa asked, assuming she had heard Yumi sharing her information earlier since she did not sound surprised by the announcement now.
“Many. Want a list?”
“Not really. I need to talk to any Starseers I can find.”
“What’s the point when they’ll just wipe your mind of the conversation later?”
“You sound like you have personal experience.”
Mica hesitated, then shook her head.
“I’m surprised we’re going,” Beck said. “Why would the doc believe Yumi could lead us to a Starseer temple? It’s not as if she’s been waving her hands and doing magic.”
“You didn’t see him take her napkin?” Mica asked.
“Huh?”
“The doctor was sly about it, but he slid it off her lap while she was eating. I wouldn’t be surprised if he went straight to sickbay to analyze her DNA.”
“We don’t have a gene sequencer in sickbay,” Alisa said. “You’re lucky if you can find bandages.”
“Maybe he has one in his cabin. He brought a big duffel aboard.”
“I assumed it was full of gray robes.”
“Either way, he came back a few minutes later and told Leonidas they were going to Arkadius,” Mica said.
Alisa grimaced, more at the idea of Leonidas going along with Alejandro than at the notion that Alejandro might have found Starseer genes in Yumi’s spit. She wanted him on her side, damn it, not on the side of the imperial lackey who kept implying that he wanted to get rid of her. Except when he decided he wanted her to fly him somewhere. Then Alejandro did not seem to mind her presence.
She supposed she would be safe as long as he could keep using her. After that, she would have to watch her back.
Chapter 14
The stars were muted, outshone by the city lights sprawling along the harbor. Alisa did not care. They would be much brighter soon. She’d taken off a few minutes earlier, leaving those two men banging at the hatch and ignoring a couple of comm messages flashing on the console. Maybe she would answer them once the Nomad had broken atmo and the chance of the authorities catching up to them dwindled. Maybe she wouldn’t.
She was relieved at the idea of escaping some of her problems by shooting off into space, but she did worry that Jelena was with Starseers here on Perun and that she would be taking an extra journey for no reason if she headed to Arkadius. Instead of rocketing straight up into the atmosphere, she cruised over the ocean, waiting for the person she wanted to question to join her before committing to this new route. Unless her passengers had their noses pressed to the portholes, they should not notice that she was flying mostly laterally for now.
Alisa tapped the internal comm. “How are things looking in engineering, Mica? We got enough gas to make it to Arkadius?”
“Gas? This is an RG-classic mobile fission reactor. It uses—”
A soft knock came at the open hatch to navigation, and Alisa cut the lesson short with a question of, “Well, we got enough of it?” She waved for her visitor to enter.
“We have enough, but don’t plan any side trips.”
“Who, me?” Alisa murmured, thinking of the research-lab-pirate-ship fiasco.
Yumi walked into NavCom and sat cross-legged in the co-pilot’s seat, arranging her dress over her knees and tucking her boots underneath her. “You wanted to see me, Captain?”
“Just wanted to have a chat with my unofficial science advisor.”
Yumi gave her a wary look.
“Who it now seems may potentially be an advisor on Starseers as well as chemistry and the metaphysical,” Alisa added.
“I know a few things,” Yumi said, that wariness creeping into her tone too. It was strange to hear from the bubbly and open woman. So far, she had been willing to talk about any topic.
“You heard me mention that four men in Starseer robes and with some interesting mental powers kidnapped my daughter from my sister-in-law.”
“You didn’t get into specifics when you were hollering at Leonidas, but yes.”
“I wasn’t hollering. I was arguing defensively.”
“Of course.”
“Can you think of any reason why the Starseers would take an eight-year-old girl?”
“Only if they wanted to train her as one of their own.” Yumi looked curiously at Alisa, scrutinizing her as if she could see through her skin and into her DNA to check for gene mutations.
“I don’t have any Starseer blood,” Alisa said. “I’m positive about that.”
“Your husband?”
Alisa hesitated, still not certain she could quite believe Sylvia's revelations on that matter. How could she have known Jonah for more than ten years and never have stumbled across that secret?
“The main order of Starseers has a government and laws they abide by,” Yumi said when she didn’t answer. “They’re not necessarily the same as imperial laws—or now, Alliance laws—but they aren’t without morality and structure.”
“Are you saying that my daughter shouldn’t have been kidnapped?”
“I’m saying that those may have been rogue operatives. Or they may have had permission to come get her.”
Alisa frowned. Permission? Surely, Jonah would not have given that. They had both signed legal documents before she shipped out to join the army. At the time, they had been more worried about assigning custody if she didn’t come back alive, but he’d also given her full custody of everything they had if something happened to him, and they had named Sylvia as Jelena’s guardian, should something happen to both of them. She was damned sure there hadn’t been anything in those documents about Starseers being given permission to tote their daughter away.
“I understand you told Alejandro that a Starseer temple on Arkadius would be the place to look for information, both for him and for me,” Alisa said.
“It’s where the seat of their government is, and there’s also a teaching academy there for youths.”
Alisa chewed on that. Did that mean it was the kind of place where a kidnapped girl would be taken to be trained?
The lights of an island passed below them, its population sprawling all the way up the side of an active volcano. If what Yumi said was true, would Alisa be safe in plotting a course to Arkadius now?
“There’s no such teaching academy here?” she asked.
“Not that I’m aware of. There are Starseers that live here—you can find them on any planet of sufficient population—but they’re likely spies watching over the government. It was the empire, after all, that was instrumental in rendering their world uninhabitable and killing thousands and thousands of them in the Order Wars.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that some of them hold a grudge, even centuries later.” Alisa gave Yumi a sidelong look, wondering where her passenger/science advisor fit into the Starseer community. She had already said more than was common knowledge.
“That is true,” Yumi said softly. “Even those who don’t hold grudges are often aloof with… the non-talented.” She gazed toward the view screen, watching the dark ocean sail past beneath them.
??
?Would you care to explain how you know so much about them?”
Yumi continued to watch the ocean, not speaking, her hands resting on her knees. If her eyes hadn’t been open, Alisa might have thought she had lapsed into one of her meditation sessions.
“Is it necessary?” Yumi finally asked. “Will you trust my guidance without knowing?”
Alisa snorted. Trust was in short supply around here right now, but she assumed that she was the one most people were questioning. Yumi hadn’t stolen anything from anyone.
“You seem to have given Alejandro enough that he’s convinced that you know what you’re talking about,” Alisa said.
“Is his opinion something that would sway yours?” Yumi smiled slightly, the blue, green, and white glow of the console buttons and displays highlighting her face. “I wouldn’t have guessed that.”
“At the moment, we both seem desperate to gain information that the Starseers may have, so I guess so.”
Alisa studied the controls for a minute, then pulled back on the flight stick. The ocean disappeared from view as they shot toward the starry night sky.
“You can go if you want,” Alisa said, flicking her fingers toward the hatchway. “Thanks for coming up to talk to me.”
Yumi looked toward the corridor, then back toward the view screen, and finally over to Alisa.
“My mother was—is—a Starseer,” she said quietly.
“But you’re not?” Alisa asked, not surprised by the revelation at this point.
“I never manifested the abilities, despite trying very, very hard as a girl. And later too.” Yumi’s expression grew wry, and sad as well. “My mother wasn’t around much when I was growing up—Father didn’t have powers, either. It’s not that uncommon for Starseers to have relationships with normal humans, since there are so few of their people left, but the powers often cause rifts and resentment, especially if the woman is more powerful than the man.”
“So your mother left when you were young?”
“She came around a lot until I was about ten. The records tell us that’s the latest age any children have come into their power. If they don’t display any abilities by then, it’s unlikely that they ever will. Some people have a bit of prescience and the like, but no telekinesis or mind manipulation abilities.”
Mind manipulation. Alisa shuddered, remembering the way those men had caused Sylvia to freeze in the hallway, to let Jelena be taken in front of her eyes.
“I thought my mother was a very glamorous and amazing person,” Yumi said, “so I tried very hard to develop those powers, hoping she would come back permanently, or that she would take me away to train me. My father was a good man, mind you, a scientist who taught me to love biology, chemistry, and the other branches, but I thought it would be incredible to join her and visit her world.”
“Have you ever been? To the temple you’re directing us to?”
“No. What I know is from the stories she told.”
Stories that would be at least twenty years out of date now, Alisa judged with a sinking feeling coming to her stomach.
As if guessing her thoughts, Yumi added, “My understanding is that the temples have been where they are for hundreds of years, so it’s not likely much has changed.”
“Ah,” Alisa said neutrally.
Yumi unfolded her legs and stood up. “Once you’ve allowed the computer pilot to take over, you should join me for some meditation. It could help you with your anxiety.”
“So would shooting the people who took Jelena.”
“Meditation is more easily achievable.”
“I don’t know about that.” Alisa remembered trying a guided meditation exercise after a class once. She had not been able to keep her mind from racing all over the place when she’d been supposedly focusing on her breath and stilling her thoughts. She glanced back as Yumi started toward the hatch. “Say, is that why you got into the mind stuff? To try and find some powers?”
Yumi turned back, that sad smile on her face again. “Yes. The meditation, the psychedelics. I thought that perhaps if I could alter my way of thinking, the power that lay untapped within my genes might be released.”
“Has it ever?”
“A few times I’ve thought…” Yumi shrugged. “Not in any significant way, no.”
“Maybe you should try fondling Alejandro’s orb. It oozes power when it’s not in its box.”
“I gather that he doesn’t want anyone touching that artifact. And I know—I can feel its power even when it’s in its box.” Yumi tilted her head. “Can’t you?”
Alisa remembered the way she’d felt it in his cabin, but only after closing her eyes and thinking about it, almost having to be in a meditative state herself. “A little bit. But it’s really noticeable when the lid on the box is open.”
“I should like to see it sometime.”
“Do you have any idea what it is?”
Yumi hesitated. “I have ideas. Nothing solid.”
Alisa opened her mouth, intending to ask Yumi to share if her ideas became more solid, but the proximity alarm went off, and she cursed, spinning back to the controls.
An imperial ship loomed up ahead of them in a high orbit. It looked like one of the ones she had played cat and mouse around on the way into Perun. She hoped its crew wasn’t holding a grudge.
She changed her course to take them past it at an angle. A casual angle. She didn’t want to screech off in another direction and draw attention, but she knew they would have grab beams, more powerful ones than that Fang had possessed. If the captain had heard about the orb and was also on the hunt, he could easily catch them.
Intent on the view screen and the sensors, Alisa barely noticed when Yumi slipped out. She sat tensely, sending glances at the comm, expecting to be hailed any moment. The sensors showed another imperial ship in orbit farther away. She wasn’t sure how many they kept up here, protecting the planet, but in a fight—or more accurately, a flight—the Star Nomad wouldn’t be a match for even one of them.
The closest ship continued along its path, not detouring as Alisa piloted her freighter past them. Only when it switched from being in her side cameras to her rear cameras did she let out the breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding. Either one hand wasn’t talking to the other in their fleet, or it was the night shift up there, and whoever was on the bridge had not gotten the message that clunky old freighters were trouble and should be detained.
As the blackness of space stretched ahead and the imperial ship grew smaller in her rear camera, Alisa allowed herself to slump back in her chair. They had made it off planet with less trouble than she had expected. Maybe her luck would hold, and they would make it to Arkadius without trouble too. They had to fly across the system first, since Arkadius orbited Opus instead of Novus Solis, but thanks to Mica, they had supplies. Maybe she would be able to relax and catch up on some sleep. Beck could stop wearing his armor around and take her up on the offer of turning the mess into a commercial kitchen for his sauce making. So far, everything he had created had been good, so she wouldn’t mind tasting the results of his experiments.
The proximity alarm beeped again, and Alisa sat upright.
“I knew it,” she grumbled. “I knew it couldn’t be that easy.”
She expected to find that one of the imperial ships had turned to pursue them, but the sensors detected another vessel up ahead, coming out of the shadow of Draco, Perun’s green moon. It was a big ship, larger than the imperial cruisers and even the dreadnought, and she thought of the mining craft that the pirates had taken over.
Alisa altered her course. On the unlikely chance that it was simply flying to Perun, she would give it a wide berth.
Her shoulders sagged when it altered its course. To cut her off.
She changed course again. Some of her sense of defeat vanished when it grew close enough for the sensors to identify. It wasn’t a mining ship; it was a big salvage tug. It would have the speed of a Perunese legless toad.
The comm flashed. Alisa highly doubted she wanted to talk to anyone hailing her, but she was bolstered by the knowledge that she should be able to outrun that vessel.
She answered it with a terse, “Captain Marchenko, commanding the Star Nomad.”
“Good evening, Captain,” a female voice replied. “This is Commander Bennington of the Alliance salvage tug Laertes.”
Alliance? Alisa wanted to feel relief, but after her dealings with Major Mladenovic, she wasn’t sure she could trust her own people, not with this orb nonsense.
“Nice to see you, Commander,” Alisa said, keeping her tone cordial in case these people might have good, or at least neutral, intentions. “Is there a reason you’re heading in my direction? We’re not in need of a tow, though I can see why you might think that, given the Nomad’s slightly advanced age.”
A chuckle came over the comm. “She does look like she could have brought the first colonists over from Earth.”
Alisa’s tone lost some of its cordialness when she said, “She’s not that old.”
“We’re not coming to tow you. Simply to be in position if you accept my offer to trade.”
“What kind of trade?” Alisa doubted she would like the answer, but found it slightly promising that the captain was offering to barter rather than simply demanding to take the orb. Bennington probably knew she couldn’t catch the Nomad, old ship or not.
“I’ve been informed by an operative on Perun that you have something the Alliance has been looking for.”
Yeah, she had something everyone had been looking for.
“Since you’re a former Alliance officer yourself,” Bennington went on, “I’m hoping you’ll be amenable to a fair trade. I have been authorized to barter. I can’t give you the entire price, of course, since I’ll be taking on the security risk of taking it back to Arkadius myself, but what would you say to a hundred thousand tindarks? In exchange for us relieving you of your burden?”
Alisa felt her mouth gape open. A hundred thousand tindarks for the orb?
With that much money, she could buy information on her daughter’s whereabouts. Well, maybe not. Would the Starseers care about money? With their mental powers, they could simply arrange to win at the casinos on Primus 7 if they needed coin. Besides, while money might make her life a little easier, it wasn’t exactly her heart’s desire. She wanted her daughter, and she wanted to keep the empire from rising again. If she gave up the orb to the Alliance, it would be to help with the latter. Still, she almost hated to lose the thing, having the notion that she might somehow barter it to the Starseers if necessary. And then there was the complication that she didn’t truly have it. It was back in Alejandro’s quarters, and she couldn’t turn it and Alejandro over without making an enemy of Leonidas. As it was, she was surprised Leonidas was still talking to her. She would hate to lose that forever.