Cadfan entered first, so as to do the introductions. ‘Professor Kestler, I’d like you to meet our governor.’
‘Goodness —’ Kestler was amazed, ‘— not a representative, but the governor, no less … and with no bodyguards!’ Kestler shook Rhun’s hand, rather amazed. ‘You should be very proud of what you have here, good sir,’ he said rather jovially, ‘it is the most civilised place that I have ever come across … and I’ve seen them all. You are all so young and beautiful … where are all your old folk?’
Rhun was amused by this. ‘We’re right here.’ Rhun opened his arms wide to imply he was an elder. ‘I’ve seen a good four hundred years more than you, and Cadfan here would be about my age too, although we followed different time-tracks to be here.’
Kestler was wide-eyed as he looked Rhun and Cadfan over. ‘Fascinating … it almost makes me wish I majored in genetics.’
‘We could probably arrange that for you,’ Cadfan offered, ‘our universities are second to none.’
‘I am sure they are.’ Kestler grinned, very disposed towards the idea.
‘But the Professor must miss his home planet?’ Rhun was about to assure him that they would get him home.
‘No …’ Kestler said emphatically. ‘Not one iota. My people seem barbaric in comparison with you good people. We discovered the secret service on my home planet had me brainwashed into doing their bidding.’ He looked to Cadfan, who nodded to assure Rhun it was quite true.
‘I recorded the entire episode.’ Cadfan handed Rhun a thought band recorder so he could view the thought transference for himself. ‘Something interesting of note —’ the physician thought to warn the governor, ‘— the captain of the project that employed the professor bore a very great resemblance to your father.’
Rhun was shocked and heartened; this did seem to support what Avery claimed the Grigori had told him. ‘What was this captain’s name?’
‘Professor Lucian Gervaise,’ Kestler replied proudly. ‘He didn’t have anything to do with this nasty brainwashing business; it was his wife who was the treacherous one.’
Rhun was shocked again and looked to Cadfan, who smiled to assure him. ‘From my perception of Kestler’s recollection, the woman in question was an incarnation of Vanora and not your mother.’
Rhun gave a great sigh of relief, as Vanora had proven treacherous to his father in the past. The woman who was his father’s twin-soul would never betray him. ‘So how does my mother fit into all this?’
Cadfan was surprised by the question. ‘What makes you think she does?’
‘Where one soul is, the other is sure to be before long.’ Rhun shrugged.
‘I saw nothing of her in Kestler’s memories, but I did see some other souls I recognised,’ Cadfan stated.
‘Brian Alexander?’ Rhun guessed with all certainty — their previous governor had been his father’s right-hand man in many a lifetime.
Cadfan nodded surely. ‘His name is Zeven Gudrun.’
‘Starman,’ Kestler confirmed, ‘that’s what the flight crews called him. He was something of a hot-shot pilot, and a bit of a legend from what I heard.’
‘He always was.’ Rhun grinned as he recalled some of his uncle’s escapades. His thoughts then turned to who else would have incarnated with his father. ‘En Noah,’ Rhun guessed, and again Cadfan nodded.
En Noah was the most wise and knowledgeable soul among the Chosen still incarnate. He was the compiler of histories and a pioneer in cosmology, and as such he was Rhun’s most trusted and respected advisor — En Noah had been a close confidant to his parents, particularly Rhun’s mother.
Rhun was perplexed. ‘What was it that your secret service forced you to do, Professor?’
Kestler told all he recalled of receiving the sample of gas from his captain’s treacherous wife. He spoke of running tests on the sample and discovering that each particle of the sample appeared to emit infinite amounts of energy. His other theory had been that perhaps the particles were remotely linked to some greater reservoir of energy and thus their emission only appeared to be infinite — a theory that proved unpopular with the secret service agent controlling his will. ‘That’s all I remember. I was put into stasis the next day to return to my home planet of Maladaan, and then I awoke here.’
Robin appeared beside Rhun and shocked Kestler out of his wits.
‘He has the Powers?’ Kestler sounded fearful for a second and then explained, ‘The people on my planet fear such psychics and they are restrained, imprisoned or disposed of at all cost.’
‘So I’ve noticed.’ Robin turned his attention to Rhun. ‘So sorry to disturb but I need to discuss an urgent matter of national security.’
‘It’s one of those days,’ Rhun informed Robin.
‘This will not wait,’ Robin assured apologetically.
‘My apologies to you, Professor, for having to cut our discussion short.’ Rhun held up the thought band recorder. ‘I thank you very much for this, in advance.’
Kestler appeared happy with his lot. ‘I thank your wonderful medical staff for aiding me to remember.’
On Maladaan power had been restored but chaos reigned supreme.
It hadn’t taken Zelimir Ronan long to figure out that Maladaan was not where it used to be — the trouble their astronomers were having was discovering where their planet was situated now!
As far as they knew, there was no force in the universe — nor any psychic — powerful enough to have displaced an entire planet. They had considered whether the gas that had exploded just prior to the displacement had caused some kind of mass hallucination, or whether it had been the cause of the displacement. Whatever the truth was, they could only roll with the situation as they saw it. There had been surprisingly few injured people on the surface of Maladaan after the catastrophe, which seemed a miracle. The government had the defence forces out calming the people, and the MSS had agents out chasing up psychics to ensure that their restraints were still intact and operational.
The three undesirables who had escaped were also being hunted down. MSS agents had taken to space in pursuit of the escapees — in a manual chase as their pilots could not rely on any of the existing star charts, but their systems were having no trouble tracking the rogue vessel. Ronan was expecting word of their capture any time now as his agents had reported pursuing them towards an uninhabited virgin planet on the far side of the sun.
This report was most interesting as the Astro-Marine Institute Explorer — the AMIE project — had been searching space to find just such a planet since Maladaan had long ago used up all its natural resources. In fact, there wasn’t one living plant in Ronan’s office — they were all synthetic. To his way of thinking the fake plants were far superior to the real thing as they required no tending, didn’t give anyone hay fever, would never die or need replacing.
Ronan suddenly awoke, sprawled across his desk. The first question that sprang to mind was, ‘How long have I been asleep?’ He looked at his watch, noting that his hands appeared to be glowing. ‘I’m still half asleep.’ He rubbed his eyes, but could not make the annoying anomaly go away. It bothered the chief enough for him to go look in a mirror.
What Ronan expected to see in his reflection was a middle-aged rounding man, rather shorter than average, whose strawberry blond hair, beard, and eyebrows had more grey than his youthful colour. But today, to his great horror, his reflection was swathed in a brightly glowing mist that had patches of colour and shadow mixed in.
‘More hallucinations?’ he uttered, bewildered, when his door chimed to alert him to company, and then opened.
It was Norward who entered. ‘It seems that virgin planet is not uninhabited after all: our agents are under attack.’
It took a second for Ronan to comprehend the words, for he noted his 2IC was glowing also, but in different hues than he was and without so many shadowy patches. Ronan was completely distracted by the fact and feared that his 2IC would notice how he glowed, but he made no mention o
f it. ‘Under attack … from whom?’
‘We are uncertain … but Kestler’s pod has also begun transmitting a signal again.’
Ronan held his head, weary.
‘We need you in communications, Chief.’ Norward was tiring too and could sympathise.
Ronan looked up at himself in the mirror and he still looked as pretty as a solar shower dancing upon the atmosphere. ‘Am I glowing?’ Until he knew he was imagining things, he couldn’t focus on anything else, so he just came right out and asked.
‘You look in fine form, sir.’ Norward completely mistook his meaning and smiled accommodatingly.
From his response Ronan could only assume Norward was not seeing what he was seeing, and his gut churned. He’d heard psychics describe this phenomenon many times; they called it ‘seeing auras’ or ‘auric sight’.
‘Chief?’ Norward implored him. ‘We really should go; our president is awaiting an updated report.’
Ronan took a deep breath before accompanying Norward to the communications centre.
The visual on their screen showed their pilots in a dogfight with some impossibly swift craft that were firing a steady light beam at one of their vessels.
‘Are we winning?’ Ronan could not tell, for his communications boys were in a frenzy — and as their auras were as apparent to Ronan as his own, it was difficult to focus on the problems at hand.
‘Not really, Chief,’ replied the head technician. ‘We’ve lost contact with one craft altogether. From the visual of our second craft we can see that the first one hasn’t been shot down. But that beam that’s holding it fast seems to have relinquished control of the vessel to our foe.’
‘I’m hit!’ cried the second pilot as the screen went blank and all communications were lost.
‘Fuck me.’ Ronan mouthed the words, barely believing what he was seeing. Whomever those craft belonged to had technology far more advanced than their own. ‘We’re in more trouble than I thought.’
‘Hey, we’re not the ones with some of the most grievous psychics known to man loose on our planet,’ Norward pointed out, hoping to make the chief feel better.
The chief gave half a laugh at this and then sobered. ‘I’d best go speak with the president.’ Ronan was not looking forward to outlining their long list of woes, but all he could do was be honest and give them his most educated guess as to what had happened — if they fired him, or even arrested him, at this stage it would be a relief.
Jahan had been left to watch Jazmay and Fari in the private conclave that was attached to the governor’s council chambers, and Fari was delighting in swishing his feet in the fountain that was the central feature in the garden courtyard.
Jazmay seemed delighted with the vibrant garden, too. ‘It’s a long, long time since we saw a day so fine as this,’ Jazmay commented as they watched the boy frolic. ‘And I feel sure he has never seen anything more stunningly beautiful than this place.’
‘But he’s been with you,’ Jahan refuted her claim. His praise caused the smile to slip from her face and she folded her arms.
‘You fancy yourself as very charming, don’t you?’ Jahan opened his mouth to respond but Jazmay held a hand high to prevent it. ‘The question was rhetorical,’ she advised, walking off to join Fari.
‘Would you prefer I was loathsome?’ he asked.
‘To me, you are,’ she clarified. ‘So, save your charm for a more gullible victim.’
Jahan was offended that she thought he was insincere, and was about to appeal his case when Robin exited the governor’s chambers to advise Jazmay that the governor would see her now.
Jahan moved to follow her inside, but Robin stalled him. ‘The governor asks that you mind Fari.’
‘But —’
‘This is council business, you understand.’ Robin closed the door in his face.
Jahan wandered back over to where Fari had now laid himself out on a sun lounge. Obviously the lad knew Jazmay better than anyone — maybe he could learn something about her hatred of men?
‘She’s Phemorian,’ the lad stressed as if Jahan were some kind of idiot.
Vadik Corentin had said the same thing of her. ‘What does that mean?’ Jahan had to know.
‘Phemoria is a planet of women who expelled all their menfolk eons ago to be rid of their oppressive domination,’ Fari explained. ‘So a Phemorian woman, especially an ex-Valourean like Jazmay, would rather take your head off than flirt with you. But if she ever does bother to flirt, you can pretty well guarantee that your moments on Earth are numbered.’
‘They kill their mates?’ Jahan was intrigued, but by no means worried, as he was immortal. If Jazmay killed him then that would just save him the trouble and he could sure think of worse ways to go.
‘There are many strange stories about Phemorians, as very few people who are not Phemorian know much about them.’ Fari squinted and covered his eyes to look over at Jahan. ‘Why are you so interested anyhow?’
‘It all makes for better diplomatic relations, to learn about the cultures you are dealing with,’ said Jahan.
The lad grinned, seeing straight through his excuse. ‘Then why haven’t you asked me about where I am from?’
Obviously this kid had reasoning capabilities way beyond the average ten-year-old. ‘You got me there,’ Jahan admitted freely. ‘Tell me, Fari Doon, where do you hail from?’
‘I’m not too sure, really … I remember bits about my mother. The MSS killed her for trying to hide and defend me when I was about five years old. She’d sought the help of Valoureans to get us off Maladaan quietly, but the plan backfired and all but Jazmay and myself were killed in the attempt.’ Fari shrugged, his deep green eyes void of emotion. ‘Jazmay told the MSS I was her child, so that they would not split us up.’
Jahan nodded, seeing that this would be believable as Fari had even darker hair than Jazmay, although his skin colour was far paler than the deep olive complexion of his female companion.
‘I’m sure the MSS figured out long ago that our kinship was a lie, but as Jaz is the only person who can control me, they went along with it.’ The boy stared at Jahan as if to advise him to do the same.
‘My governor will not rule against your wishes,’ Jahan assured. ‘If you and Miss Cardea —’
‘Miss Cardea.’ The lad chuckled, he’d never heard anyone call her that.
‘What?’ Jahan asked. Clearly he was being mocked. ‘Then what should I call her? What can I do to gain her favour? Help me out here … you know her better than anyone.’
‘Nothing can help you.’ The boy waved off Jahan’s desire to make a good impression. ‘That’s a lost cause. I reckon I have a better chance of winning her heart than you do, and when I’m old enough, I intend to.’ The lad folded his arms and tightened his lips, defiant.
‘Competition, hey?’ Jahan noted without mocking the lad — in all probability the kid was right to be confident.
‘I have no rival for her affection,’ the boy pointed out, ‘so there is no competition.’
5
ALLEGIANCE
By the time the tall foreigner was led into the governor’s office, Rhun, Rhiannon and Avery had been briefed by Robin about the violent incident that had transpired during KEPA’s rescue attempt. So far the governor had to admit that circumstance was not painting a very good impression of their new neighbours.
‘Ah … Miss Cardea.’ Rhun rose from his seat behind his desk to acknowledge her entry; he had been warned that she was easy on the eye, but her extraordinary beauty was heart stopping! He had already been advised against shaking her hand and so did not approach, but rather motioned her to the free seat facing his desk, next to those occupied by Rhiannon and Avery, who had also risen to greet their guest.
Rhiannon noted that the new arrival appeared rather taken aback when she looked their way, and turning about she saw Avery was still sporting his wings. ‘My Lord.’ She nudged him and indicated to the point of contention between his shoulder blades.
/> ‘Whoops.’ Avery immediately assumed a fully human form. ‘Sorry, I forgot I had them out.’
Jazmay cracked a smile, she couldn’t help it; she’d never walked freely among so many psychics at once, nor been regarded so politely — it was liberating. ‘Don’t apologise,’ Jazmay replied — as a shape-shifter she was full of admiration. ‘I have always wanted to see if I could sprout wings and fly.’
‘You can, and so much more!’ Avery assured before they’d even been introduced.
‘How do you know?’ She was confused by the positive energy these men exuded.
‘Because I am the Lord of the Otherworld —’ Avery bowed to her, ‘— and I know everything.’
‘Otherworld?’ she queried, having never heard of such a place.
‘It is the realm of super nature, where elementals reside,’ Avery explained.
‘Whoa.’ Jazmay was wide-eyed, she’d never thought to be intrigued by life again, but she felt like a child among real adults — for a change.
‘Jazmay.’ Robin used first names to make this meeting as informal and relaxed as possible, and merely motioned to those present, who nodded in greeting. ‘This is our Governor, Rhun. His sister and head of our environmental protection agency, Rhiannon, and their brother, Avery, whom, as already stated, sees to Otherworldly affairs —’
‘— such as the mysterious appearance of your planet in our universe,’ Avery concluded, and Jazmay gasped.
‘You know about Maladaan?’ she asked, and then wanted to hit herself. ‘Of course you do, you —’
‘— know everything,’ Avery echoed his prior claim with a grin.
‘That was a very hostile attack your people made on you this morning.’ Rhun took a seat, and motioned for everyone to do the same.
Normally Jazmay would have insisted on standing to defend herself, but she lowered herself to a seat to be polite — she’d never been polite! ‘Maladaan is not my home planet and therefore they are not my people. I was captured by the MSS while on a covert mission for my government and have been imprisoned on Maladaan for four years. I escaped during a power outage and stole an MSS aircraft to fly Fari and myself out of there … Vadik invited himself along. I had planned on heading straight to Phemoria but … surprise, surprise, there was no inter-system gateway, no anything that I recognised. So I headed off around the sun, hoping to find a deep space vessel or a port —’