Defender

  “Lucas and Rothan were caught in the fire,” I said. “Lucas only suffered from mild smoke inhalation, and he’s completely better now, but Rothan’s lungs were badly damaged so he’s still having treatment.”

  My mother gasped. “Rothan is the quiet, polite boy who likes blueberry crunch cakes. He is going to be all right, isn’t he?”

  I smiled. It was usually Adika, Rothan, and Eli who acted as my bodyguards when I visited my parents, and I could understand my mother thinking of Rothan as being the quiet one in comparison to Eli.

  “Yes. Rothan’s doctors say that he should make a full recovery and be back with us very soon. We’re still chasing one of the enemy agents though, so Lucas and I won’t be able to come to Gregas’s birthday celebrations.”

  “Gregas has cancelled the birthday celebrations anyway,” said my father. “He called a few minutes ago to say that he’s having a party with his teen friends instead.”

  I laughed. “I’m not sure if I should be offended Gregas puts his friends ahead of his family, or just relieved that he has friends.”

  “Given how unhappy Gregas was when he first moved to Teen Level, I’m definitely relieved he has friends,” said my mother.

  My father spoke in heavily confidential tones. “We suspect there may be a particular friend that is a girl.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t believe that Gregas has a girlfriend.”

  “Not a girlfriend as yet,” said my mother. “Merely a friend that is a girl. We have to wait and see if it progresses further.”

  There must be about half a million girls of Gregas’s age in the Hive. I made a noise to express my disbelief that any of them would agree to be the girlfriend of someone like Gregas.

  I chatted with my parents a little longer before ending the call. I was on my way to the living room when I saw Lucas come in the front door. I raised my eyebrows at him.

  “I thought you’d be busy for the rest of the day.”

  “I’ll probably be busy for the rest of the day and most of the night as well,” said Lucas, “but I need you to help me with something.”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t want to put you under any pressure, but I’ve asked someone to come to our unit. She should arrive shortly. I just need you to do a brief check of her thoughts when I talk to her.”

  I gave him a startled look. “This person is female and you think she may be Mars? I’m sure from Mercury’s thoughts that Mars is male.”

  “I have to allow for the possibility that Mars has persuaded someone to help him. I’m as certain as I possibly can be that our visitor has no connection with either Mars or Jupiter. We must be absolutely sure about it though, so I need you to confirm that her mind has none of the characteristics of a wild bee. Do you think you can cope with doing that?”

  “I think so.”

  “Our conversation may include references to Mars’s mission. Please do your best to ignore those. I have to put some plans in place to deal with Mars, but there’s no need for you to worry about them yet.”

  I pulled a face and answered the words Lucas was avoiding saying. “I agree that I need to sort out my own problems before I start worrying about Mars.”

  Lucas led the way to the community room where I’d talked to Buzz. We sat down and Lucas checked his dataview. “Our visitor is on her way up in the lift.”

  A couple of minutes later, Adika opened the door and came in. He had an odd, awed expression on his face. “Your visitor is in the next room waiting for you, Lucas.”

  Lucas stood up. “Please stay here with Amber. She’s going to do a quick check on our visitor’s mind. In the unlikely event that she finds a problem, you should come and tell me at once.”

  “Finds a problem,” Adika repeated. “You think there’s a possibility that …?”

  “I think it’s a vanishingly small possibility, but I have to ask Amber to check. Making a mistake about this would be disastrous.”

  Lucas went out of the room. I closed my eyes, linked to his familiar mind, and saw the view through his eyes as he went into the room next door. A woman in a Hive Defence uniform was standing there.

  I was quite small and slightly built, but I had to be at least a head taller than this woman. I wasn’t sure of her age. I could see there were faint lines on her face, but they looked more like the lines of strain and illness than of age, and there was something youthful about the way her fair hair hung in a single, long plait down her back.

  As Lucas started speaking to her, I moved from his mind to hers, and was shocked. I was used to the brilliance of Lucas’s mind outshining that of others, but this woman’s mind was as dazzling as his.

  I hovered on its threshold, saw the level upon level of thoughts were the same as those of Lucas too, but then was hit by the differences. The levels of Lucas’s mind glittered like a Carnival crowd, but those in this woman’s head rang with strands of music. It took me a moment to adjust to that, and separate the thoughts from the rippling notes.

  … interesting to meet Tactical Commander Lucas at last. He’s not what I was expecting, more diffident and …

  … obvious that he’s deliberately delaying telling me the reason for this conversation. He must be aware …

  There was a peculiar hiatus in the thought level I was reading, and then it suddenly flashed brighter.

  … Is the man seriously getting his telepath to check my thoughts and make sure that I’m trustworthy?

  All the thought levels in the woman’s mind broke up in amusement. I heard what she was hearing – the sound of her own laughter. I saw what she was seeing – Lucas’s disconcerted face.

  The thought levels started moving again, focused down to less of them than before, and all concentrated on the same words. It was the telepathic equivalent of shouting at the top of her voice.

  … Hello, Amber. I’m Melisande. I know that you’re reading my mind. Please come and tell your Tactical Commander that I’m not a threat to the Hive.

  I hesitated.

  Don’t worry, Amber. I’m not angry with you. If I was angry with anyone, it would be your Tactical Commander, but I’m not. At least, I won’t be if he has a good reason for doing this.

  I reluctantly opened my eyes and stood up. Adika looked at me in alarm. “There’s a problem?”

  “No. Melisande appears to be a loyal member of the Hive. She wants me to join her and Lucas.”

  I went out of the door, took a deep breath, and entered the next room. Melisande smiled at me.

  “I don’t believe that I’m a threat to the Hive, Amber, but I’ve heard of cases where people were not aware of their own actions. Therefore it’s possible I’m a danger and don’t know it. Please reassure your Tactical Commander and myself that I have a perfectly ordinary mind.”

  I glanced at Lucas, and saw him make a helpless gesture with his hands. I faced the woman again. “Umm, you certainly aren’t a threat to the Hive. Your mind isn’t ordinary though, it’s stunning, and filled with musical notes.”

  “Really?” Melisande seemed intrigued. “My music has to be just a hobby now, but I sometimes pine for the career Lottery denied me.”

  Lucas must have noticed my puzzled face. “Amber, you remember me explaining the optimization phase of Lottery to you, how it matches people to work that will make them happy and fulfilled?”

  “Yes.”

  “I also explained that Lottery discovers about one in a million people with an ability so crucial to the Hive that they never enter the optimization phase. As a telepath, you were one of those people. Melisande is also one of those people. She is Hive Gold Commander, with authority over both Hive Defence and Law Enforcement.”

  I had only the vaguest idea what that meant, but Melisande was clearly staggeringly important to the Hive.

  “Do you ever pine for the career you’d have had if you weren’t a telepath, Amber?” asked Melisande.

  “I didn’t discover I had any special talents when I was on Teen Level, so I’m not pini
ng for anything in particular, but I sometimes wish I was an ordinary person with ordinary work.”

  “You’ve ended up with more responsibility and pressure than you expected or wanted,” said Melisande. “We have a lot in common.”

  “Perhaps,” I said doubtfully.

  “I get regular status reports from the Hive Telepath Units. I know you are at a critical point in your telepathic development, Amber. I hope you will soon resolve your problems. Not just because telepaths are vitally needed protectors of our Hive, but because I like you.”

  “Thank you.”

  Melisande turned to face Lucas. “Tactical Commander, if you are satisfied I’m not a danger to the Hive, then perhaps you will explain to me exactly what is going on.”

  “My apologies that I needed to establish your innocence, Gold Commander,” said Lucas. “Our unit’s current case involves the recent Security Unit fire. We’ve established that a destructive echo personality has achieved dominance over the telepath, Olivia, and recruited several people to inflict serious damage on the Hive. The Security Unit fire was started by one of those recruits.”

  “You’re sure about this?” demanded Melisande.

  “Tactical Commander Penelope has spent this afternoon interviewing Olivia. The echo personality, calling itself Jupiter, has openly admitted recruiting three people. The first, a bitter ex-member of our unit, turned against her fellow conspirators and was murdered. The second, a firebug, fell to his death while attempting to escape capture. There is the remaining threat of an unknown third recruit, who is hiding his true identity behind the name Mars.”

  Lucas paused. “The echo personality, Jupiter, has access to all Olivia’s knowledge. I believe Jupiter has ordered the third recruit to attack Operation Rainbow Cascade.”

  Melisande’s face tensed. “Olivia has been a telepath for eight years. She could have read any amount of information about Operation Rainbow Cascade in people’s minds during that time. We have to assume that Jupiter has passed all that information to Mars.”

  “The situation is even worse than that, Gold Commander. Jupiter appears worryingly confident that Mars will succeed in his mission. I believe Jupiter chose to recruit Mars because he plays a significant role in Operation Rainbow Cascade.”

  Melisande nodded. “Hence your need to check that I myself am not associated with Mars. I assume Tactical Commander Penelope has tried all possible methods of getting more information from Jupiter.”

  “Jupiter still wants Mars’s mission to succeed, so won’t voluntarily give us information about him. Olivia herself is too deeply lost in fragmentation to help us, and we obviously can’t get another true telepath to read her mind. Tactical Commander Penelope asked a borderline telepath to try to get an insight from Olivia, but that failed.”

  “What about drugs and psychological techniques?” asked Melisande.

  Lucas sighed. “Tactical Commander Penelope has tried both, but they’re useless. All that happens is that Jupiter temporarily withdraws, allowing another echo personality to take control of Olivia. Those echo personalities seem to have access to Olivia’s memories, but know nothing about Jupiter’s actions.”

  “If my understanding of fragmentation is correct, then this Jupiter personality is merely an echo of a real mind that was once read by Olivia. Could you learn something useful by finding that real person?”

  “We have already found that person, or at least who that person was. Jupiter spoke freely about how her original was an expert in reset psychology, and even told us an unnecessarily gruesome story about taking revenge on someone by resetting their mind back to the status of a newborn baby.”

  Lucas paused. “There is only one such case on record, it was dealt with by Olivia’s unit a few months ago, and ended in the death of the reset psychologist. We’re therefore left with no clue to which of the many tens of thousands of people involved in Operation Rainbow Cascade is Mars.”

  “It’s impractical to get telepaths to read so many minds that are scattered across the length of the Hive,” said Melisande. “You settled for getting Amber to read my mind, since my role as Gold Commander includes co-ordinating Operation Rainbow Cascade. I therefore assume you have a plan to stop Mars, it is essential he does not learn of it, and you are about to give me the details.”

  “Yes, Gold Commander. I’m confident Mars isn’t in our unit, and none of our people are supplying him with information, because Amber would have noticed any aberrant mind. I just needed to have your mind checked before I handed you full details of both our investigation and our plan to deal with Mars.”

  Lucas took a data chip from his pocket and handed it to Melisande. “I’m hoping we’ll be able to use the first plan, which involves Amber helping us, but I’ve included two alternative plans as well.”

  I couldn’t resist reading Lucas’s thoughts at this point. The first of his alternative plans was to hand the case to another unit.

  … had to include my honest assessment that Sapphire is the only other telepath with the mental and physical capabilities to handle this. The problem is that her unit has been hit hard by the deaths of Soren and his daughter. If they took on this case, we could have Sapphire’s entire Strike team running wild during the chase, desperate for revenge rather than protecting the Hive. After what Penelope confided in me, I wouldn’t be surprised if Sapphire ran wild herself. The death of one of her lovers is bound to …

  … could argue that we’re keen for revenge too, but there’s the key difference that Rothan is alive and recovering. If …

  … will be clear to Melisande that my second alternative, sending out Strike teams without the support of a telepath, is total desperation. We must know Mars’s moves before he makes them, or …

  I pulled out of Lucas’s head. Now that Mercury was dead, there was no reason for fire to feature in our case. I’d been reassuring myself that if I needed time to recover from my fragmentation, I had the option to hand the case to Sapphire. Her Beta Strike team was bound to be in utter disarray after Soren’s death, but she could use her Alpha Strike team to hunt Mars.

  Now that I knew Sapphire and Soren had been lovers, I had to agree with Lucas’s assessment of the situation. Handing our case to Sapphire could mean the chase after Mars degenerated into the same sort of wild hunt for vengeance that led to Soren’s death.

  I was in a weirdly similar situation to that of Lucas when he was having his crisis of confidence. If I handed this case to Sapphire, and people died as a result, then those deaths would be my fault, while Lucas’s desperation alternative of sending out Strike teams without a telepath’s support was unthinkable.

  I couldn’t hand this case to another telepath, and I couldn’t let my Strike team go out to risk their lives without my protection. This trip to Hive Futura must help me recover from my fragmentation, because I had to hunt down Mars myself, and I couldn’t do that when Mercury was inside my own mind and working against me.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  The next morning, we set off for Hive Futura. When Lucas said that everyone in the unit would be going with us, he really meant it. I picked up from his thoughts that this was partly because of his plan to deal with Mars, but mostly because of my reaction to Adika’s story about Mira’s unit members being sent away.

  Lucas felt that I needed to be a long distance from the Hive mind to cleanse myself of the invading echo personalities, but the presence of the supportive minds of my unit members would help me, and he was desperate to give me every possible help.

  There were only a very few exceptions being left behind. Emili wanted to keep visiting Rothan at the Fire Casualty Centre. The park staff had to stay to care for the park. Two of the Liaison team remained to coordinate our communications with the main Hive.

  Everyone else, even including the maintenance and cleaning staff, made the journey to the nearest aircraft hangar. That was on Industry 1, the same level as our unit, but nearly half the zone away. We rode along an express belt, in a lengthy line of
nervously chattering groups, everyone heavily burdened with bags or backpacks except me. The precious telepath only had to carry her padded jacket.

  I had an embarrassing moment of realization. I’d grown so accustomed to people doing jobs for me, that I hadn’t thought of packing a bag myself. I wondered if Hannah would have done that, or if I’d arrive in Hive Futura to discover I didn’t even have a change of clothes.

  No, of course that would never happen. Hannah was too conscientious. Megan was too efficient. My entire unit watched over me with paranoid care. If I fell asleep in the park, I’d wake up the next morning to find the park keeper had turned off the rain. Somewhere among the bags on this express belt, or already waiting at the aircraft hangar, was an entire wardrobe of my clothes.

  “Why are you frowning?” asked Lucas. “I hope you aren’t worrying about Operation Rainbow Cascade.”

  “No. It’s obvious that Mars will try to destroy something crucial to the Hive, and we have to stop him, but I’ve got too many other worries to want more details at the moment. I’m actually far more curious about Melisande. Her mind is very like yours, high-speed and multi-levelled. If these Gold Commander positions are so essential to the Hive, why didn’t Lottery assign you to one of them?”

  Lucas looked startled by my question. “Because the Hive only has one Gold Commander position, and I’m psychologically incapable of filling it. Melisande was born with health conditions that meant she wasn’t expected to live beyond her seventh birthday. She spent her childhood having a series of operations, fighting for her life every day, with the result that she is immeasurably tougher mentally than I am.”

  He paused. “I might conceivably be in the situation where two different groups of people are in danger, and I have to give the order to the Strike team to save one group and leave the other to die. I hope that never happens, I’d find it terribly difficult, but it’s nothing compared to the choices Melisande could face. If the Hive ever suffered devastating damage, if it was necessary to abandon one zone of people to die in order for the rest to survive, the Gold Commander would have to give the order to sacrifice ten million lives. I couldn’t do that, but Melisande could and would. She knows everything there is to know about paying the price for survival.”