Spears of the Sun (Star Sojourner Book 3) (14 page)

Huff lowered Shannon to one of the cots and seat-belted her in.

“Which direction to the citadel?” I asked him as I started the craft and lifted it into the sky.

“That way lies the citadel.” Huff pointed northwest. “Jules?”

“Yeah, I know, Huff. Don't go there. Sometimes we just don't have a choice.” I rubbed my eyes to clear my vision.

That way lies the citadel, and torture or death
. Maybe both. I could walk away from this. I had no responsibility for the lives of Shannon's people. But how many of the hundred or so had Rowdinth already murdered as he waited for her to bring me in? I felt a mental shiver and rubbed my arms.

I could walk into Rowdinth's lair and probe his sick mind for the location of the dwarf community. I could let him think my tel powers were for hire to discover Alpha's plans to destroy his project. If I could squeeze the community's location from his deranged mind, I might be able to relay the information to Shannon and Huff, who could be waiting, hidden on the surface nearby.

The Shaka teams, probably already on their way here, might agree to save the community if they already knew the location. It was the longest of shots. Then there was that little problem of a bomb planted inside my head. I touched the sore spot behind my right ear as I turned the craft northwest, toward Rowdinth's lair.

“My comrades in arms,” Rowdinth addressed the six nervous military officers at the conference table in his great room, “may I present to you a Terran telepath.” He gestured broadly toward me with his walking stick as I stood, my wrists and ankles shackled in irons and chains, flanked by two of his Elite Guards. “Jules Rammis by name.” His whiskered snout twitched into a smile.

The officers nodded at me as though I were a guest, and glanced nervously at each other. Holos of Earth, Alpha, and the colonies' star systems hovered above the table, with a red tag on Earth. The Vermakt flag was draped across a wall, with the bronze statue of Rowdinth on that high, Greek column. A plaque beside it with a protruding claw was probably the Soldier's Oath of Loyalty. The two sharks circled their tight quarters so they could breathe, but they crowded the tank's far side when Rowdinth walked by and tapped the glass with his stick.

“I kept my part of the agreement, General,” I told him. “Now, as the honorable leader of the great Vermakt race, I expect you'll keep your part and free the dwarfs.”
Eat that,
I thought,
in front of your officers, you murdering bastard
. I would never forget that it was by Rowdinth's orders that Willa had also been killed when he sent his police after Joe and me back on Halcyon.

He strolled around me and raised the pointed walking stick to touch my throat. “But I already have you!” He turned and chuckled to his officers. The crote was playing to the crowd. I sighed as I watched him fish out the detonator from his uniform and finger the red button. He wouldn't push it. The nuclear device was powerful enough to blow him and his citadel into the next dimension.

The room was too hot, with the fire blazing. Too stuffy, with the sour smell of Vermakts. Pale Drackin lay curled before the fireplace, his wings folded, his hooded white eyes fixed on me, like Death waiting for permission to strike.

“I told you before, General,” I started, “I have no ties or sympathy for Earth or Alpha. No one there ever treated me right!” I figured he was familiar with paranoia.

I lifted a hand to rub my eyes. A Guard gripped the chain and yanked down my wrist. Where the hell did they think I was going? Oh, I get it! They're afraid of my tel power. “Release the dwarfs, General. Tell me what you want, and we'll do business.”

I knew full well what he wanted. Discover Alpha's plans to counter his threat. Sure, rat-face. Why not? Only it's way too late. If only he knew that his days as the worshipped messiah of the Vermakt race were numbered. I wished I could tell him.

“I'll tell
you
what I want.” His tone was strident, as usual. How did his vocal chords cope? I wondered. But then, he was all mouth. “When I'm ready to tell you what I want!” He jabbed my chest with the walking stick and spoke to his officers in their native tongue. They chuckled stiffly. A few murmured an answer.

I closed my eyes, but I swayed and blinked them open again. I was so weary, my knees trembled. My body ached for sleep. I pictured a meal of mock steak, mashed potatoes, and a salad. My favorite fare. Neither food nor sleep were in the offing. The geth state, that pleasant pause between lives, sans body or troubles, seemed welcome. If I knew for certain that Great Mind would allow me to reunite with Willa, I would've lunged at the rat bag, made a grab for the detonator and blown us all to that comfortable state. But Spirit had told me, rather adamantly, that the Great Creator of it all did not take kindly to suicide as a way out of troubles. Too much like walking away from lessons needed toward that degree called Nirvana. And He/She/It set the rules. The rest of us have limited control over the vagaries of our lifebinds.

I had left Shannon and Huff with Joe's rented hovair before walking toward the general direction of Rowdinth's lair. That was the limit of my control over the vagaries. An automated hovar had burst out of a dune and stopped beside me while I climbed inside. The windows were black. The doors were locked as it drove me into a citadel vehicle entrance.

I lowered my head and tried not to think about the consequences past freeing Shannon's people.

After that, the chips would fall, all right. I wouldn't be surprised if an assassin accompanied the Shaka teams to execute me before this “loose cannon” could do more harm. It would be a
coup de grace
, with the surety that Rowdinth would do it himself when he was finished with me, and not as gently as a hot beam to the head. I glanced at the sharks and wondered if they were kept hungry?

I gathered my tel powers yet again, an exhausting task that had helped to drain me, and probed Rowdinth's sick mind for the location of the dwarf community.

Here lies the path to madness!
I thought.

I encountered a mindscape so heavily linked to the primal core that the gentler emotions could not take hold. Here lived mistrust and a rage for power and exaggerated praise. A demented child who could not tolerate criticism. But something more made me shiver in the heated room. Sexual desire, so twisted it could only be satisfied through pain and death, even his own.

I closed my eyes and threaded carefully past this tortured hell of emotional fire and ice, and latched onto an image of the dwarfs. Ripped walls of gray-streaked granite canyons. Stark shadows in a sunless valley. A stream that rushed toward the sea.

And there!

A gathering of diminutive Terrans huddled within cold shade. Vermakt soldiers with rifles.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” Rowdinth asked and tapped the floor near my boot with his walking stick.

I was not surprised. I knew he was a sensitive. “Can you blame me for wanting to know what this is all about?”

“How did you find the entrance to my citadel?”

“Shannon told me generally where to look.”

His voice rose. “Then why isn't she here with you?”

“That wasn't part of the deal. You've got me, and my tel powers. Now let's talk business. What is it you want me to do?”

He walked quietly around me and whacked my knee from behind with his stick. My leg collapsed. I fell to the stone floor with a clang of metal, and shuddered in a breath against the sharp sting. The disturbed sharks swam faster. Through tears of pain I saw Drackin lick his lips. Was that to be my fate when Rowdinth was done with me? Drackin savaging me to death while my hands and legs were held in irons?

I got to my feet sluggishly with the help of a Guard and felt sweat trickle down my hairline.

“I'll tell
you
when I'm ready to do business,” Rowdinth shouted near my face. His bristly hair fell over his eyes. I stared at the unit in his hand. His thumb was on the red button.

Drackin got to his feet and padded out of the room through a back door. The six officers also shuffled toward the door en masse.

“Where are you cowards going?” Rowdinth demanded, his voice a screech.

The officers stopped and crouched down in a submissive stance.

I stared at the detonator.

I can't remember ever feeling such raw hatred for a living creature. I don't argue with nature, but this abomination needed killing. If he were dead and cold, would his small army disband, their Oath of Loyalty no longer relevant? Would the Terran rogue scientists abandon their project with no means of recompense? Would the soldiers who guarded the dwarf community abandon their posts? This sacrifice on my part, and Fartherland might return to a peaceful planet, finally ready to become a member of the interstellar community.

There was about a foot of chain between my wrists.
Enough space,
I thought, took a breath,
perhaps my last,
and threw myself at Rowdinth, intent on grabbing the unit and pushing the button.

It was the leg irons that tripped me up. I fell into him and we both went down. He screamed something in his native tongue as I clawed for the unit. A Guard scooped it from his outstretched hand. The sudden weight of the other Guard as he threw himself on me squeezed the air from my lungs. Rowdinth was back on his feet. I saw him lift the walking stick above me. I shut my eyes and tried to cover my head, but the chain was held under a Guard's boot.

The stick came down like a brick wall crashing into the side of my head. I screamed, as much from fear, and moaned as I waited for the blow to set off the device. It didn't. I opened my eyes. The room was shrinking to a darkening tunnel. I felt thick sweet liquid seep across my lips. I blinked and saw the raised stick. My head lay on cold stone as my muscles refused to respond. The second blow came as though from afar. I was glad when the tunnel closed down like a shield between me and this world of agony. I had done what I could and as my thoughts faded, I hoped I was drifting into geth state.

No such luck
.

I moaned as the pounding in my head told me I was still attached to this mortal coil. Someone was stroking my hair. I rolled my head and blinked up into Rowdinth's snout. He stood over the cot I lay on and ran his knuckles gently down my cheek, my chest. I felt my pants being unzipped. The shackles were gone. I tried to lift my hand, to sit up, but couldn't. He probed where no one should probe without the probee's permission.

“What do you want?” I croaked.

“You're completely male,” he said in a high voice as he fondled me.

The dark room was a blur, but I thought it was my old cell. “And you're a freak!” I mumbled as he pulled off my pants. “Get the hell away from me!” I tried to kick him but my leg wouldn't lift.

The weakness deepened as he took off my shorts, and I couldn't stop him. “I'll kill you!” I muttered.

“I don't think so, dear. This isn't going to hurt you as much as it will hurt me. I am female now.”

I managed to lift a hand to his throat. I squeezed, but there was no strength behind my stranglehold.

He laughed and pulled my hand away as he straddled my hips and lowered himself. I felt pressure on my penis.
Good luck,
I thought as night thickened again to utter darkness and all sensation went with it.
Thank you, Great Mind,
was my last thought as I welcomed the loss of consciousness.

Something happened while I lay in that state. Besides Rowdinth using my body for his amusement park. Something I'd never experienced before.

I dreamed I left my body behind and lifted into a night sky of our resplendent galaxy. I had no fear of falling. The stars were singing in vibrations of colors. There was a sense of love such as I'd never known with Althea or Willa, or even with my own daughter Lisa. Ahead was a light, the source of the great love. And I, along with crowds of other spirits, was moving toward it. Most of them entered the light, but a few, including myself, turned back.

I rushed past nebulas where new star systems were forming with the promise of life. Past novae, the death of stars, and those enigmatic black holes that drink light, and eat whole star systems.
Destroyer and Preserver, hear, Oh, hear!
my heart cried out.

Then Fartherland rushed up as though to embrace me in its gravity well, and the dream ended in blackness as my brain tried to cope with the trauma of the head injury.

“Jules?” a feminine voice called in a whisper.

“Fuck off, you miscreant.”

“What?”

I sat up gingerly. Particles of dust swirled in shafts of sunshine that streamed through the bars of a window above my head. The door, too, was barred. Rowdinth was gone. My clothes lay in a heap on the floor next to the blanket. I looked down at my crotch and felt dirty. “You miserable slimebag.”

“Jules, is it ye, lad?”

“Shannon?” I eased my legs over the cot and stumbled to my feet. “Shannon!” I wrapped the blanket around my waist. My head throbbed, but not nearly as bad as the night before. I touched it and felt a lump and scrapes on my left temple. I climbed on the cot and clutched the bars. “Shannon.” Her face was pressed against the bars. “Are you all right?” I asked her. “Where's Huff? Have you been in touch with Joe?” I looked around. “This cell must be bugged. Now listen to me. Your people are being held at the bottom of a dark canyon with a stream, between high granite walls. Rowdinth's soldiers are guarding it. Do you know where it is?”

“Aye. Tis not far!”

I heard the deep whine of Joe's rented hovair behind her. “Is Huff at the controls?”

There were tears in her eyes as she nodded.

“Now go!” I told her. “Tell Huff to get in touch with Joe.”

She slipped an arm between the bars and touched my left temple. “What did they do to ye, lad?”

“I'm all right.”

“Here.” She pushed a white paper bag through the bars.

I took it. “What's this?”

A meal. The hovair camper is stocked for long voyages.”

“Thanks.”

She smiled, then stared at the sky. “There's a Shayl circling above.”

“Drackin! He's Rowdinth's lackey. Now
go.”

I watched her turn and run, until she was out of sight. The hovair wailed into the sky full throttle.

The sound faded to only the drip of water in the old sink. I rested my forehead on the bars. Stone walls do not a prison make, but they sure help.

I sat down and took out a large plastic container from the bag. When I opened it, the heat filament snapped on. A mock steak sizzled. Mashed potatoes bubbled and butter melted. A chunk of bread turned crispy brown. Only the salad remained cold. I brought the dish to the small table, sat down, my hands trembling, and began to eat. When had I told Shannon that this was my favorite meal? The food was delicious, but it did nothing to melt the fear in my chest.

After breakfast I washed myself at the tiny stained sink, brushed my teeth with soap on a finger, and ran wet fingers through my hair. My old escape route, through the meal slot, had been barred from the outside. I got into my clothes, laid down on the cot, and tried to make sense of the patterns of cracks in the ceiling. As with most of life, they were random and unfathomable.

Wait a minute. I sat up. Something had happened last night while I lay unconscious, something that just now came back as I remembered the dream, if dream it were.