‘But surely a power failure of such magnitude would have brought down the planetary shield that creates our artificial atmosphere?’ Ronan couldn’t understand why the entire planet wasn’t dead.
‘Well, that’s the good news, sir,’ Norward replied. ‘The planet’s natural atmosphere seems to have mysteriously improved! So much so, that it is self-sustaining and our air is more breathable than it has been in centuries, so I haven’t re-engaged the shield as yet.’
‘So Maladaan is not under attack?’ Ronan asked, almost disappointed; he did not wish to learn that their experiments this day were the cause of the planetary disaster.
Norward’s deep steely blue eyes darted over to Dacre, wary of answering.
Ronan looked to the lad, who looked like a kid in a doctor’s costume.
His fine blond hair was too long and kept falling in his large grey eyes, which, along with his slight build, made him appear even younger than he was. His good looks had probably guaranteed that no one academic would take him seriously; he was just too pretty. Ronan could see why Dacre might have used his influence with the ladies to get ahead in his career. ‘Just how much of that system did you actually design?’
Dacre knew that to attempt to save his lover’s butt by lying could be fatal to himself. ‘I designed pretty much all of —’
‘Have you read Kestler’s report on this substance?’ Ronan interrupted.
‘Well, yes, I had to, in order to —’
‘Fine,’ Ronan concluded. ‘Agent Norward, meet Dacre.’
Norward stepped forward and shook the young man’s hand.
‘You’re top-level clearance now, Dacre.’ Ronan slapped the scientist’s shoulder hoping to expel some of his shock. ‘Follow me,’ he instructed more amiably.
‘I need medics and housekeeping down to Bio-containment, yesterday,’ Norward uttered into the mouthpiece of the slim-line headset he wore everywhere, and then moved the mouthpiece aside to speak with the chief. ‘As you can imagine, communication has been difficult, all our satellites are gone —’
‘What do you mean, gone?’ Ronan stopped still a moment to demand an answer. ‘Did the electromagnetic wave knock them out too?’
Norward appeared unsure. ‘They don’t appear to have fallen back onto the planet, but they are no longer in orbit either. Our radar system is no longer detecting their presence, nor any of our space resorts, stations or spacecraft that were in the air at the time of the … incident. We can no longer contact the other planets in the United Systems, or any of the intersystem gateway stations. But the most puzzling mystery of all is that Maladaan’s night sky no longer even vaguely resembles any of our star charts.’
Ronan’s heart pounding in panic caused a heated flush in his cheeks as he looked back to the demolished lab. ‘I told Viceroy Mansur that we were moving too fast, but no one ever listens to me!’ Ronan turned and made for his office with greater purpose; he needed to get some answers before they re-established communication with the United Systems Council, who would be looking his way for an explanation. ‘I could really use Kestler right now.’ Ronan now regretted having the scientist launched into the vast wilderness of space.
‘I already have scouts in the air, heading along the trajectory that the pod followed,’ Norward advised, ‘to see if we cannot fetch him back before he perishes.’
The chief forced a smile, to show his appreciation. ‘That’s why you’re my 2IC.’
‘Professor Kestler is in peril?’ Dacre had admired the physics legend all his life and felt concerned enough for his welfare to speak up in this instance.
‘Not for long,’ Norward assured him before his expression turned grave. ‘There is another, even more pressing concern.’
Again, Ronan paused to hear the news.
‘The power surge rendered all psychic restraining devices defunct, and the cells containing undesirables were unlocked during the power outage.’
‘But naturally the Detention Complex itself remained locked,’ Ronan stated.
‘The exit door was blown off its hinges,’ Norward briefed, whereupon the chief and his new recruit turned pale and were rendered speechless with fear.
‘Now, fortunately we got most of them restrained before they woke from the ordeal,’ Norward attempted some reassurance, ‘but two cells we found empty, and the restraining bands were left behind.’
‘That means all the non-hostile psychics will also have lost their restraints?’ Ronan commented, not too concerned as all of them were registered and could be hunted down again. ‘How many undesirables escaped?’
‘Three,’ Norward replied.
‘Which three?’ The chief was almost afraid to ask, for all of them despised him and the MSS.
‘Corentin, Cardea and Doon.’ Norward counted them off as Ronan’s gut churned — he shuddered to think what these three undesirables could accomplish together, unrestrained.
There was nothing the common people of Maladaan feared and despised more than psychics. Those who had ‘the Powers’ had an unfair advantage over the rest of society and had to be neutralised — that was United Systems Law. Thus, once psychics were identified they were hunted down, registered on a psychic database and required to wear an electronic shackle that attached to their right ankle. The device scrambled a psychic’s electromagnetic field and incapacitated their ability. Only those who attempted to defy the system and use their talent to the detriment of others were locked up.
‘Get our best bounty hunters —’ Ronan began, but Norward raised a hand to assure him.
‘It is already done.’
3
AGE BEFORE BEAUTY
It had been a quiet, relaxing day on Kila for the staff of the environmental protection agency. KEPA’s headquarters only required minimal staff these days as poaching had been all but eradicated — poachers had learnt better than to try and take on the psychically gifted residents of this planet.
The agency operated from a well-concealed headquarters inside a large mountain crevice, which was located on the opposite side of the planet to Chailida. The Shutura Crevice opened halfway down a sheer cliff face that disappeared into a large body of water. The pool had eroded a large subterranean cave beneath the waterline of the cliff — the perfect place for a submerged operations base for KEPA. Hence the name Shu-tura, which in the tongue of the ancients meant ‘most supreme mountain base’.
Rhiannon was the head of KEPA and although she was no longer required to do field work, she had volunteered to hang around and answer any call-outs today. KEPA had a new recruit and she wanted to observe him in action. Not only that, but a huge quake in the night had left everyone on Kila a little shaky, despite the fact that the Lady of the Otherworld had advised the governor that the disturbance was nothing to worry about. She didn’t really expect any great emergencies to arise — there had been nothing bar the odd natural disaster on this planet for well over a hundred years.
Rhiannon and her new recruit, Jahan, had spent most of their day swimming in the crystal waters of the Shutura pool, on top of which their recon vehicle was anchored, ready for action should they receive a call.
‘So why KEPA?’ Rhiannon asked Jahan, as he hauled himself out of the water and onto the nose of their craft, where she’d been sunning herself dry. ‘Why not deep space research, like your parents?’
The blond, curly-haired lad shook the water from his face. ‘No sun in space … no water …’ He eyed Rhiannon up and down, admiring her slender form and long dark hair. ‘… No bikinis,’ he concluded with a grin, shielding his brilliant blue eyes from the sun to get a better view. Rhiannon may have been hundreds of years older than him, but she didn’t look a day over thirty.
Rhiannon appreciated his reasons as she loved the great outdoors herself, but she pulled her uniform back on to cover up.
‘Aw,’ he protested.
‘I was warned that you’re a bigger flirt than both your parents put together once were, and I rather thought that impossible,’
Rhiannon chided the lad, whom she’d known since his birth just twenty-five short years ago. Cadwell and Neraida, who headed up the deep space research unit on Kila, had been firm friends of her husband, Cadwallon, and herself since the great Gathering of Kings on Earth — hundreds of years ago, before the Chosen had settled on Kila.
‘Surely I pose no great threat to our chief justice?’
The premise made her chuckle. ‘That’s Vice-Governor Cadwallon to you,’ Rhiannon reminded him of her husband’s recent promotion, ‘and no, you pose no threat to him whatsoever.’
‘You’ll undermine my confidence,’ Jahan appealed in good humour and Rhiannon could only laugh harder.
A rumbling-cum-whooshing sound stunned her to silence.
‘There.’ Jahan pointed to what appeared to be a meteorite arcing across the sky.
The pair watched the fireball pass overhead and disappear over the canyon.
‘Quick —’ Rhiannon snapped out of her surprised daze to shove her new recruit towards the craft’s entry hatch, ‘— before it impacts.’ She pushed Jahan inside and followed. As the hatch door closed, the ground shook and pieces of rock began to crumble from the walls of the canyon into the pool. The resulting waves tossed their craft about and it was a struggle to make it to the cockpit.
Jahan dived for the pilot seat, but Rhiannon grabbed his belt to waylay him. ‘Age before beauty, junior.’ She jumped into the hot seat ahead of him, but before she laid hands on the controls, their craft began rising off the surface of the water and immediately stabilised.
‘Sorry!’ Jenny, their team leader at Shutura Crevice base control, apologised through the cockpit intercom. ‘Nothing happens for eons, so I go get a cuppa and a meteorite sneaks across our scopes … you wouldn’t read about it!’
‘I’m surprised we didn’t see it coming!’ Rhiannon readied herself to take over control of their transport, as Jenny had seen to their mobilisation from base.
‘The object is not very big,’ Jenny advised. ‘I’m punching the coordinates of the impact site into your system now.’
‘We’re there,’ Rhiannon replied, hitting the manual override, thankful for a little excitement.
They didn’t have any trouble spotting the impact site from the air: the flaming object had left a charred path through the forest several miles away. Fortunately a fire-storm had moved through the area only a few years before, so there was not enough foliage to cause a full-blown fire to erupt. The object had passed through a clearing before sliding through a path of trees that finally brought it to a halt.
‘I’ll take us down in the clearing, the crash site is just a short hike from here,’ Rhiannon advised her co-pilot and base.
‘I’m reading zero for radiation,’ Jenny advised.
‘Nice to know that my face is not going to slide off during my first mission,’ commented Jahan.
‘And it’s such a pretty face too,’ Jenny chided, knowing Jahan had inherited his father’s vain gene.
‘I’m glad somebody notices.’ Jahan grinned broadly at her praise.
‘Please, Jen,’ Rhiannon appealed, as she hovered down to a landing. ‘I think he’s painfully aware of that already.’
As both women had a chuckle at his expense, Jahan stuck out his bottom lip to fake a sulk. ‘I’m going to get geared up.’ He unfastened himself and jumped in the back.
Jenny laughed again. ‘I didn’t think you owned a shirt!’
Rhiannon was even more amused, having noted her new recruit did rather enjoy flashing off the tanned muscular body he’d worked so hard to achieve.
‘Hey, ladies, have a little respect. My immortal gene hasn’t been activated yet, I have to work at looking this hot.’ He motioned to his perfect abs, ahead of pulling on a protective vest that still left his dreamy body mostly exposed.
Yes, he was acting the goat, but at the same time he was deadly serious. Jahan was so much like his father, Cadwell, that Rhiannon could hardly believe it. And like Cadwell, he just knew he was the greatest, especially in the looks department; anything disparaging said about him was water off a duck’s back.
Rhiannon wondered why Jahan cared what he looked like out here in the middle of nowhere. ‘Do you suspect we are going to find a beautiful alien at the crash site?’
‘Always pays to be prepared.’ He winked, and strapped on his equipment belt.
‘I think you’re going to need a little more protection than that,’ Rhiannon said, insisting that ‘the bod’ had to be covered. ‘I’m not having you passing out from smoke inhalation before we even reach the target.’
Jahan screwed up his nose, of a mind to protest.
‘Or you could stay here?’ Rhiannon suggested, whereupon Jahan reached for the suit voluntarily.
They made their way down the path of carnage, unaffected by the heat and smoke largely due to their suits, which were made from living organic fibre that adjusted to protect the wearer in any condition. Immortals didn’t have to breathe and so Rhiannon went without her protective helmet. But as Jahan had yet to die and have his immortal gene kick in, he was required to wear one.
‘I knew I should have suicided before I started with KEPA,’ Jahan complained, ‘this helmet is damn annoying.’
The suicide rate among the young was very high on Kila, although thankfully the death of a child among the Chosen Ones was not a sorrowful event.
‘You’re just pissed I made you put on a suit,’ Rhiannon bantered.
‘Well, what’s my beautiful alien going to make of me?’
The last rays of the sun were streaming through the gap in the trees behind them, hitting the object they approached, and it glistened silver in the light.
‘I don’t think that’s a meteor,’ Jahan voiced the obvious.
‘Your beautiful alien aspirations just took one step closer to being realised,’ Rhiannon teased with a slap on the back to get her now apprehensive novice moving.
They approached warily.
‘Looks like it might be an escape pod of sorts,’ Rhiannon reported back to base via her headset. ‘It’s not like any I’ve seen before, however.’
As they rounded the pod they were startled when the top of it began to open, revealing room for a single occupant. As they neared to peer inside, the occupant sat upright unexpectedly and startled them both.
Jahan was scared twice over once he got a good look at the wrinkled creature with long black tentacles extending from its body. It was wailing too, and muttering in a strange dialect.
He gasped in horror. ‘So much for my beautiful alien theory! Is it an alien?’
‘No.’ Rhiannon was amused by his conclusion. ‘I suspect he’s human.’
‘Human?’ Jahan frowned, unable to comprehend this. ‘But what’s happened to his skin?’
‘He’s aged,’ Rhiannon explained. ‘This is what an old person looks like.’
Jahan was fascinated; everyone he knew was immortal, so he’d never seen an old person before.
Rhiannon focused on the fellow to see if she could telepathically comprehend what he was saying.
‘Where am I? Is there anybody here?’ he said, but inside he was panicked for many other reasons. He’d expected to awaken to medical staff in a recovery room, and not in the great outdoors with the smell of smoke and flame on the breeze. The reason this was so alarming was that due to being in stasis for weeks on end, he would be blind for quite some time.
‘I have to get him out of here before he chokes to death!’ Rhiannon approached the pod. ‘Take our craft back to base.’
‘Where are you going?’ Jahan wished to know.
‘Floyd will know how to get him out of there,’ Rhiannon didn’t dare to try and detach any of the hoses that connected the occupant to the craft. She approached the red-hot surface of the vessel and without hesitation, placed her hands upon the craft to teleport it along with herself to the technologist’s labs in Chailida. The cry of pain she released as her skin seared and stuck to the vessel only increased her
will to reach Floyd’s laboratories quickly.
‘Ahhhhhhh!’ Rhiannon found herself in Floyd’s huge technology workroom and ripped her damaged hands off the pod, leaving burnt skin and tissue behind. She looked about for the cool relief of some water and seeing none, she willed a bucket full of iced water to manifest before her. She submerged her hands and sighed as they healed themselves and the pain ebbed. ‘Goddess, that smarts!’ Rhiannon looked for Floyd and found him already floating around the open hatch.
Although Floyd had not mastered the talent of levitation, he’d designed himself a body belt that aided him to hover which doubled as a tool holder. As usual the technologist was covered from head to toe in equipment and clothes permeated with grease and grime from his labours.
The passenger in the pod had calmed a little now that he was getting clean air in his lungs.
‘Can you get him out of there safely?’ Rhiannon asked the technologist.
‘I should think so,’ Floyd surmised from a brief glimpse at the control panel. ‘Summon Cadfan and his medics for me, will you?’ he requested. Walter Cadfan was the head of the healing arts on Kila.
Rhiannon was the most talented long-distance telepath on Kila and thus anywhere in the known universe; all the Chosen were telepathic to differing degrees, but usually needed to be in skin contact, or line-of-sight contact to employ this talent.
As Rhiannon complied with Floyd’s request, the technologist did his best to calm their patient as he detached him from his vessel.
‘I don’t know who you people are, but I thank you,’ their blind subject mumbled, as he was lifted out of the pod and laid to rest upon a lounge.
Rhiannon, having put out a request for Cadfan to join them as soon as possible, moved to reassure the old gentleman that he was fine, borrowing words from his memory to construct her sentences in his own language.
‘Am I on Maladaan?’ he asked, as soon as he heard the familiar dialect.
Maladaan? Rhiannon wondered, having expected that this fellow was from Earth — although his dialect was unlike any she recalled, she had thought that was the only planet left where some Homo sapiens had still not achieved an immortal state of being. ‘You are on Kila, and in very good hands.’