The Seer (Tellaran Series) (3 page)

He came around the desk and led them through double doors into the main part of the medical building. The place was like a shiny white labyrinth, the lift, the doors,
everything
required the medtech to use his security pass to open.

How could she get out again?

Would
she ever get out again?

The medtech led them into a cold, antiseptic-smelling room. Medical equipment was neatly laid out beside the exam table. The sharp lines of the well-lit military base below were visible through the room’s one-way windows.

“All right,” the man began. “Let’s get a look at your records then we can—”

Arissa darted back, twisting away to cover her face as he brought the scanner up.

Jolar instantly moved to stand in front of her. “Doctor de’Sar will treat this patient. You’re dismissed.”

“Sir, if you let me get a scan then the young woman can change into—”

“You’re
dismissed!
”

The medtech’s face tightened. “Yes,
sir!
” He tossed the scanner back on the table then turned on his heel and left, the door sliding shut behind him.

Jolar blew his breath out and ran his hand through his hair. He glanced back at her. “You can sit down now.”

Arissa shifted her feet. Standing made her feel safer.

“Suit yourself.” He dropped into a chair and rubbed his hand over his eyes. “What a day.” He looked at her, his anger sharp and hot, his fear like cold spikes. “Guess I don’t have to tell you about it, do I? You already
know
.”

“I can’t read your thoughts,” Arissa flared.

Anger darkened his face. “You said you were a—”

“It’s not like that!”

He glared at her for a long moment then a puzzled frown replaced the scowl. “You didn’t hear any of that, did you?”

“You were trying to
think
at me? I just told you I can’t do that.”

There was a pulse of surprise from him.
“I just thought—”

“What?” she demanded. “That I was lying?”

“Well, what
can
you do, damn it?”

She folded her arms. “You’re angry, embarrassed, suspicious, probably wondering if I’m just crazy. When you were staring down that man’s blaster, you were afraid but more outraged at the unfairness of it, that you were going to die without knowing
why
. When you shoved that money in my hand, you were angry at yourself because you wanted very badly to fuck me, knew you shouldn’t, and knew you were going to anyway.”

His lips were colorless. “Gods,” he breathed. “You are really are a—”

The door slid open and Jolar shot to his feet.

The white haired woman took a surprised half step back, catching the edge of the doorway. “Good evening, Jolar.” She tilted her head. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“No, I’m—” Jolar cleared his throat. “Good evening, Jensah.”

She offered Arissa a warm smile. “Well, now, is this my patient?” she asked, shrugging out of her jacket and laying it over the back of a chair. She raised the light level over the exam table.

“Yes.” Jolar wet his lips. “This is Tianna. She’s uh—hurt.”

“I can see that lump from here.” Jensah ran sanitizing cleanser over her hands and dried them. “Come sit down, Tianna. Let me take a look at you.”

The woman’s compassion, her patient curiosity, was like a balm. Arissa edged closer and perched on the edge of the exam table.

She started when the woman’s gentle fingers went under her chin to tilt her face up.

“I just want to see a little better,” Jensah soothed. “Well, that
is
quite a lump, young lady. Did you black out?”

Arissa shook her head.

“Any nausea? Dizziness? No? Headache? Yes, indeed,” she smiled kindly at Arissa’s nod. “I’m not surprised. Well, let me take a quick look at your records while you go change into an exam gown and—”

Arissa flinched away as Jensah brought the scanner up and Jolar took a quick step forward.

“Jensah,” he said. “You have to treat her without an ID scan, without any record made.”

Jensah frowned a little, lowering the ID scanner, her curiosity rising in pitch. “Ah, well, I’m sure you know that whatever happens here is confidential.” She glanced at Arissa. “Jolar, whatever your relationship with this young woman, you can rely on my discret—”

Jolar colored. “No, she’s not—You can’t scan Tianna.”

Jensah shifted her weight. “Jolar, it would be irresponsible to me not to access available medical records before I treat her.”

Jolar wet his lips. “You owe me, Jensah. You owe my family a great deal.”

“Yes, Jolar.” Jensah’s sense cooled. “I haven’t forgotten.”

He glanced at Arissa. “Well, this is enough to wipe out that debt and put me firmly in yours.”

There was a pulse of surprise and her interest reverberated. “I see. What exactly are you asking here?”

“That you treat her but make no record of it. If you have to access her ID—” He held his hand up to cut off Arissa’s protest. “You do it in such a way that the request is encrypted. There can’t be any record she was here.”

“What you just asked me to do is highly suspect.” Jensah folded her arms. “I’m beginning to wonder if this will cross into illegal.”

Jolar nodded. “Yes, it will. Very, very illegal.”

“Goodness, Tianna.” Jensah looked round at her. “What have you done?”

“It’s Arissa,” she whispered. At his surprise and hurt she met Jolar’s eyes. “My name is Arissa.”

Three

“Oh, my
gods
,” Jensah breathed as the results of the full scan displayed on the screen.

"It's true then?" Jolar asked tightly. “She’s a Seer?”

"If I hadn't . . . Look there, the activity in the pineal gland, the development in the front portion of the corpus callosum. Yes. Yes, it's true."

Arissa shrank back. They were looking at her like a bug under a microscope.

Jensah shook her head, tapping at her datapad. "I've got to show this to Doctor Gardi in Neurobiology! Gods, when
he
sees—"

"No!” Jolar grabbed her wrist. “You can't show this to anyone."

Her head came up. "Jolar, I don't think you realize—I mean, the opportunity to study one of them— a
live
subject, not a postmortem or preserved brain!"

Arissa caught her breath.

"She's a person not a specimen!” Jolar flared.

"But the opportunity to—" Jensah shook her head. "I know a number of others in the scientific community would welcome this chance. I'm sure an exception could be made for just
one
to kept alive for research purposes. I'm sure there's a way . . . Navik Station. Yes, the sealed research facility orbiting the outpost at Rusco. Surely if we can keep blood plague samples sealed there, we could certainly contain a Seer!"

Arissa gripped the edge of the table to keep upright.

“Are you even listening to yourself?” Jolar demanded. “What kind of life would she have?"

"She would
have
a life," Jensah said sharply. "Look at her now, in tattered summer weight clothes and suffering from malnutrition. Wouldn't you—
Arissa
—rather live in a comfortable, safe facility where all your needs were seen to? Where you would be fed and cared for?"

"Like a lab animal?" Arissa cried. "No, I festering well
wouldn't!
I’d rather service strangers in the back alleys of the marketplace!"

Jensah’s mouth thinned. "Well, I don't think you are being very sensible." She scowled up at Jolar. "Or you either. What do you intend to do with her now? Give her some money and throw her back into the street? Sooner or later TelSec is going to pick her up, you know. And what do you think
they'll
do to her?"

"I don't know what I’ll do,” Jolar said tightly. “But I’m not going to let them execute her and I didn't bring her here so you could turn her into a science experiment." He glanced at the clock. "I need to see Dacel. I'm already late."

"Dacel?" Jensah frowned. "You're not thinking of sending her to Zartan?"

"I just said, I don't know yet.” He glanced at Arissa. "Give us a minute, Jensah, okay?"

The unhappy doctor left, letting the door of her adjacent office slide shut behind her.

Arissa tucked her hair behind her ears. The doctor had already treated her head injury, and her bruises and scrapes. They had given her some jinja juice and a protein bar but she insisted on changing back into her own clothes.

"I have to go for a little while, Arissa," Jolar said gently.

Arissa rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I heard you and really, you don't have to use such small words, Jolar. I'm telepathic, not stupid."

His face flushed. "Sorry. Gods, I really don't know how to talk to you." His blue eyes were anxious. "I
do
have to go now. Will you be okay here till I get back?"

"Sure. Maybe I'll make Doctor de’Sar happy and run some mazes for her."

He gave a short laugh then brushed a ringlet away from her face with surprising tenderness. "I won't be long. We'll figure this out, I promise. Okay?"

He was so concerned, so worried about leaving her, so serious about calming her fears. His fingers lingered on her cheek and she realized at some point her resentment of him—his easy, secure existence—had simply wisped away to nothingness.

But she couldn’t trust him.

She couldn’t trust anyone.

Arissa looked away. "Sure."

"You look tired." He lifted a folded blanket from the shelf. "Why don’t you lie down for a while? I’ve got a house not far from here. I have to—But maybe we'll go there just for tonight."

"I dropped your money," Arissa said sharply. "Back in the alley.”       

His mouth twitched. "Don't worry about it. I’ve got more.”

Arissa toed her shoes off while Jolar shook out the blanket. It smelled faintly of sanitizing soap. She spread it over her legs, then scooted back on the exam table and pulled the blanket up.

He lowered the light levels, self-conscious and awkward as he tucked the blanket around her. He laid his hand on her shoulder for a moment. "Get some rest, Arissa. I’ll be back for you as soon as I can."

"Jolar?"

He stopped in the doorway, his hair a brilliant gold in the light streaming in from the hall.

"Thanks," Arissa said. "You know, for helping me."

He gave a quick smile, dazzling in its genuine warmth. "Jensah is right next door if you need anything. I'll wake you when I get back."

Arissa curled up on the exam table and closed her eyes. She heard the door slide shut behind him.

She focused on Jolar, felt him pause to speak with the doctor, followed as the crackles and spikes of his worried rushing grew distant
. . .

Arissa's eyes snapped open.

She slid off the table and in quick order had her feet back in her slippers.

With her concussion treated and food in her stomach she was thinking clearly again.

She’d bet a princess's jewels she couldn't break
into
this place in a hundred years. But getting out should be easy. Fire, gas leak, attack on the base, they wouldn't risk locking people in the medcenter. The lift needed a pass but the stairs would probably have to stay unlocked for emergencies.

But just in case…

Arissa pulled the security pass from her pocket. Her lip curled. Easy enough, slipping it from the jacket Jensah had tossed aside while they argued about locking her up on a space station with the fucking blood plague . . .

Dacel’s gray eyes were pained. “Do you have any idea what you’re asking of me, Jolar?”

At least he hasn’t said no.             

From where he stood before the Zartani Councilor’s desk, Jolar looked out the window of the office at the lights of the Fleet base below.

“I owe her a life debt,” Jolar said. “You’re Zartani, you know what this means to me, what my obligation is to her.”

“And you’re sure she’s a Seer? I don’t think there’s been one detected in almost sixty years. If there’s any chance she isn’t . . .”

Jolar’s thoughts flashed to her, her frightened eyes, her thin, worn clothes. She was too delicate, too innocent looking to be—

What she is.

“I was there when Jensah read the test results. There’s no doubt. She’s a telepath.”

Dacel rubbed his hand over his face and Jolar felt a stab of guilt at adding to Dacel’s many burdens. He couldn’t help but notice his friend’s hair had gone all silver in the last few months. He showed every one of his sixty odd years tonight and his dark, formal shirt was too loose, as if his worries were affecting his appetite as well.

Jolar closed his eyes briefly. “I gave her my word. It’s a matter of honor.”

“Perhaps if you provided her with some money,” Dacel suggested, spreading his hands. “I might be able to arrange to have her taken quietly off-world . . .”

Jolar could almost see her, apprehended, sobbing, her eyes squeezing shut in terror as a TelSec placed the muzzle of his blaster against her forehead to fire.

“There’s nowhere in Tellaran space she’ll ever be safe,” Jolar said hoarsely. “Money, sending her off-world—it’ll just delay her inevitable execution. And you know it doesn’t satisfy my debt, Dacel, not by a long shot.”

Dacel tapped his fingers on the top of his desk, like he always did whenever he was weighing something carefully.

“This mission to Sertar—this is vital, Jolar. Your cover has been established, the house on Aylor has been purchased, all the pieces painstakingly put in place to make your role convincing. I don’t have to tell you what’s at stake.”

“Someone tried to kill me tonight,” Jolar reminded. “This wasn’t a robbery, this wasn’t some biter scrambling for money to get his next sartac measure—this was an assassin. I was up against a wall with a blaster pointed at my chest before I even knew he was there.” He met his friend’s eyes, willing him to understand. “She came into that alley
after
we did. She could have kept going, even slipped back out and left me to die, but she didn’t. A Seer, subject to termination on discovery, and she still didn’t walk away. She almost got herself killed in that alley tonight—for
my
sake. She’s the only reason I’m standing here now. She saved me, Dacel, and risked her life twice over to do it.”

“This man, the Utavian, he knew you by name?”

“And I can’t remember the last time I went to that section of Xan-Tellar. Which also means he knew where I would be and when.”

Dacel’s mouth tightened. “Who else knew you would be there?”

“Half the staff near my office knew I was meeting Tasan for a drink tonight before he shipped out,” Jolar said shortly. “That’s not counting anyone who could have sliced in to my files and checked my calendar.”

Dacel shook his head. “I hope Tasan didn’t have a hand in it. I know he’s a friend.”

“Tasan’s not that careless,” Jolar said dryly. “Once he has a job to do, he follows through. Tasan would double check to make
sure
I was dead and, if I wasn’t, he’d take care of it personally.”

“Maybe sending you to Sertar is too dangerous now,” Dacel murmured. “If someone knows where I’m sending you and why . . .”

“She can help me.” Jolar leaned forward, his hands splayed on the surface of the desk. “She’s a godsdamned
Seer
, Dacel! If Kav had her with him he might still be alive. Think of the advantage I’ll have!”

Dacel raised his eyebrows. “You sure she’ll be willing to help you?”

“She doesn’t have much choice, does she?” Jolar wet his lips. “If I can offer her an ID, a non-telepath one in exchange . . .”

Dacel slumped back in his chair. “I’m having trouble keeping track of just how many laws we’d be breaking. Concealing a Seer from the proper authorities, forging an ID, deleting official records . . . I’m not even sure I have the resources to make this happen.”

“I can help with that,” Jolar said grimly, straightening. “I’ll pull in every favor I’m owed to put this together.” His stomach wrenched as he regarded the Zartani Councilor. Dacel was more than a mentor; the man was almost a second father to him. “I know asking this of you strains the limits of friendship.”

Dacel waved it away. “Our friendship isn’t on the line here. But I wouldn’t
be
a friend if I didn’t remind you of the very real danger to you.”

Jolar gave a short laugh. “That she’ll fuck with my brain, scramble me so I don’t know what’s what.”

“It’s not a joke.”

His life debt to her made it an imperative he help her. Tradition—and sacred honor—demanded her life for his and his debt wouldn’t be satisfied till he knew for certain she was safe. Everything in him was screaming at him to protect her.