Being of the Field

  Zeven nodded more decisively, so Taren hit the release on the stopwatch.

  ‘Go.’

  Zeven looked at his victim. Die, you little weed, he thought, finding it incredibly hard to feel angry without Kalayna slipping into his thoughts. I hate and despise your very existence. You make me sick! At the same time, he instructed himself to focus only on the words, on the objective, and not to let anything from his own life enter into it.

  The plant began to wilt and die; the water in the vial became murky and began to turn brown.

  ‘Stop!’ Taren and Ringbalin chimed together.

  Zeven had been so focused on not screwing up that his conscious mind hadn’t even noted what he’d done to the plant. ‘Well, bugger me,’ Zeven commented as he viewed the devastation that one minute of his hate-focused intention could do.

  Ringbalin poured half the putrid water onto the wilted plant and it burned through the remains like acid. ‘Would you like to try a few drops on your skin?’ he asked the pilot.

  ‘No, thanks, I get the picture.’

  ‘Do you?’ Taren turned him about to view the plants in the previous two labs. The perfectly healthy specimens had also wilted. ‘The human body is ninety per cent water.’ She wondered if he was able to take this in yet.

  ‘Holy smoke!’ Zeven panicked, as did Ringbalin, who scurried out into the main greenhouse to find that everything in Module C had suffered.

  ‘Damn, Zeven. Your hatred is intense! I would never have held the experiment here had I known the result would be so catastrophic.’

  When Zeven saw the damage even he wanted to cry. ‘I’m so sorry, Ringbalin. I feel terrible.’

  ‘Ah,’ the botanist said, as he held up a finger, ‘that is a point worth noting.’

  ‘I can fix it,’ Zeven vowed.

  ‘I know…’ Ringbalin gave a weak smile of faith.

  ‘So, you also see that it is not just the target of your bad intention who suffers,’ Taren added to get the message across.

  Zeven backed up, feeling overwhelmed. ‘We need to get Kalayna away from here. I’m going to kill her and everyone!’

  ‘Or you can choose to send her your love and heal her—’ Taren began, but Zeven shook his head. He believed it was beyond his capability right now.

  ‘Zeven, you can’t do both!’ Taren reasoned. ‘You cannot hate and love at the same time and expect to be in control. Either you love unconditionally and choose not to judge people, knowing that those who are truly evil cause exactly this sort of devastation within themselves. Or, you choose to become one of those people who perpetuate evil, so that your hate inflicts this kind of damage on others…at the same time damaging yourself. I’ve shown you the evidence and now the choice is yours.’ Taren threw her hands up. ‘Here ends the lesson.’

  After his eye-opening experience in the lab Zeven was feeling very numb. It was as if his emotions could not decide which path to take, and thus had settled in a place of complete indifference. Ringbalin’s magic touch had helped Zeven to regain a positive and loving perspective, long enough for them to move through the greenhouse and right the damage his bad intentions had caused in Module C.

  Now the pilot was almost afraid to engage any emotion for fear of what it might do. He had work to do in any case—if he felt nothing, maybe he could focus and not cause any damage?

  On the way past the cafeteria, Zeven spied the captain and Leal reading through some printouts over lunch. Kalayna was nowhere to be seen, so the pilot decided it was safe to speak with them. ‘Are those the schematic readouts for the launch bay I asked for?’

  ‘The very ones,’ Leal confirmed, and Zeven took a seat to look them over. ‘But you don’t have to get a headache trying to read them, as the launch bay doors were fixed this morning.’

  ‘Sure they were,’ he laughed. ‘You couldn’t possibly have done the job on your own.’ Zeven realised what Leal was implying and his mood darkened. ‘You let Kalayna work on my ship.’

  ‘Actually, Zeven, I believe AMIE is technically my ship,’ Lucian corrected him. ‘Kalayna was the only one qualified to do the job.’

  ‘But she’s not qualified!’ the pilot argued.

  ‘Then why is the launch bay door now working?’ Lucian asked and Zeven lost the argument.

  ‘She did an excellent job,’ Leal reported, ‘and knew exactly what she was doing. The spacewalk made her a little woozy, but then it scared the shit out of me the first time I had to—’

  ‘Kalayna got sick?’ Zeven was a little disturbed by the news. ‘How long ago?’

  ‘About an hour,’ Leal replied, confused by Zeven’s sudden concern.

  Zeven stood and stepped away from the table, rather mortified by the news. ‘No,’ he protested, quite resolutely. ‘I don’t want to be responsible for this. You think I would have learned after what I went through with Taren—’

  ‘You’re not responsible. We sent her out there.’ Lucian didn’t understand the pilot’s rambling.

  Leal was confused too, and concentrated to assess his crewmate’s state of mind. ‘Kalayna will be fine—’

  ‘You are absolutely right about that,’ Zeven stated, all fired up, and made a hasty exit.

  Lucian looked at Leal in the wake of the confrontation. ‘Do you think I should be worried about that lad? He seems a little…confused.’

  ‘On the contrary, captain.’ Leal grinned and raised his eyebrows. ‘I do believe our young friend just had an epiphany.’

  Zeven buzzed at Kalayna’s door, but when there came no answer and he found the door was not locked, he entered.

  The main apartment was in darkness, the only light coming from the bathroom. ‘Kalayna?’ He turned on the lights, and seeing her nowhere in sight, he made quickly for the illuminated room.

  The young woman was in her underwear on the bathroom floor, lying unconscious in a pool of vomit. Her skin tone was looking decidedly yellow, all too reflective of the water he’d contaminated only an hour before.

  ‘Kalayna,’ he cried, scooping her up and shaking her. She coughed up more bile and skimmed the edge of consciousness. ‘Zeven…’ she mumbled, surprised to see him. ‘Help me.’ Her head rolled to one side and she passed out again.

  ‘No. Stay awake,’ he urged, already dragging her to the shower tube. ‘I’m so sorry…’ He turned on the cold water and, holding her up, he launched them both into the freezing stream.

  ‘Ah!’ Kalayna awoke with a start, and attempted to pull back from the ice water. She nearly escaped him, but he gripped her tightly.

  ‘It’s okay.’ Zeven triggered the hot water flow to stop her shivering, and she relaxed into his embrace. ‘Shhh.’

  ‘I feel like I’m dying,’ she moaned. ‘Please, take me to the doctor.’

  ‘No,’ he assured her calmly, ‘a doctor won’t help.’

  She choked, unsure of his intentions. Perhaps he wanted to see her dead?

  ‘I caused your disease and I can cure it,’ he claimed. ‘If you can trust me?’

  Kalayna managed a nod and Zeven pulled her near-naked form close to him once more and held her as tenderly as he might his dearest love. ‘I am so sorry I made you feel bad,’ he whispered to her through the water pouring down upon their heads and he noticed her body tremble. Was it fear, repulsion? Regardless, he conjured all the love Aurora had recently inspired in him and poured it into Kalayna. ‘You are beautiful, talented, intelligent and as deserving of love and trust as any.’

  Kalayna stopped shaking and started crying, whereupon she began to hug him back.

  ‘I had no right to judge you in the first place,’ Zeven added. ‘I want you to thrive, prosper and be happy. I forgive you, Kalayna…please, forgive me.’

  When she looked up at him, her skin tone had returned to normal. In fact, she looked positively radiant. ‘There is nothing to forgive you for,’ she said, smiling broadly through her tears. ‘I don’t understand how you did this.’ She stood firmly on her own two feet. ‘I suddenly feel rather…amazin
g!’

  She laughed nervously at the miracle and gazed up into Zeven’s eyes, her breasts heaving with elation as excitement and joy coursed through her being.

  There was a sudden pang of desire in his heart that was both exhilarating and disconcerting. ‘I should go.’ Zeven steadied Kalayna and stepped out of the shower. He really did try not to notice that the water had rendered her underwear see-through, nor how it clung to her tanned, athletic form.

  ‘You saved my life,’ she said, as the realisation only just hit home. ‘How did you do that, Starman?’

  ‘You don’t want to know.’ Zeven flatly refused to comment.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ she replied most sincerely, and they were held spellbound in each other’s gaze for a moment.

  ‘Sorry,’ Zeven blurted out. The attraction was intense and confusing. ‘Are you going to be okay?’ He noticed a towel on the wall, and without looking back passed it to her. ‘Do you want me to call Kassa?’

  ‘I can do it.’ Kalayna accepted the towel, sounding awkward as she had only that second realised her near naked state.

  ‘Be sure that you do.’ He headed for the door, needing to put some distance between them. ‘I’ll check up on you later.’

  ‘Starman…’ She wanted to say so many things to him, but with such heightened emotions running rampant through her being, she was lucky to string two words together. ‘Thank you.’

  The feeling in her voice thrummed on his heartstrings, just as it had last night during her toast. ‘Just restoring the balance,’ he replied.

  ‘It felt to me that you just gave back far more than you ever took.’

  Zeven wasn’t looking at her. He didn’t have to. The image of her all wet, trembling and smiling at him in adoration, was now burned into his memory. He felt it would be dangerous to loiter a second longer and hastened to leave the apartment.

  In the corridor, he gave a gigantic gasp of relief. It horrified him to now realise that he still found Kalayna as attractive as when he’d first seen her sitting at that bar. It was easier when he’d disliked her; the attraction could be ignored. And yet, Aurora made him feel better than any other woman ever had, so how could he find himself attracted to another?

  It seemed the path of love was just as precarious as the path of hatred.

  Zeven wiped all the water from his face and wanted to shout with frustration, but bearing in mind what Ringbalin had taught him only this morning, he took three deep breaths and managed to maintain his composure. ‘Damned if I’m negative, double-damned if I’m not. I’m completely screwed,’ he summarised.

  CHAPTER 20

  FEM-LIBERTINE

  It was concluded that the pod diversion had worked, when in the space-time equivalent of a week AMIE found herself approaching the outer moons of Phemoria without having experienced any USS interference.

  Aurora had yet to stir from her coma, but, unfortunately, Swithin had regained consciousness in the wake of his interrogation and was now being housed and sedated in a separate recovery room. Whilst he was in Kassa’s care, she took the liberty of quietly probing Swithin’s mind, and she was able to confirm that, as far as Swithin was aware, Anselm was indeed Taren’s father. It was also true that Swithin did not have the top-level security clearance that was required to have the knowledge of Taren’s secret code name within the secret services—but Anselm certainly did. Lucian had decided not to set his brother adrift in space, but in light of Swithin’s dislike of the Phemorians and his Sermetic sympathies Lucian had decided to hand Swithin over to the authorities on Phemoria for judgment.

  The captain and Taren had been locked away for days thrashing out a proposal for the Phemorians in the hope they would supply the funds and support needed for AMIE’s deep-space research to continue. Their time together had not been all work—Lucian and Taren were falling in love and had been making plans for their future life together. They did not envisage an extended stay on Phemoria, but hoped to gain political asylum and patronage swiftly.

  Their greatest wish was to return to space exploration as soon as possible so that they might seek the answers to Maladaan’s fate. Taren hoped to secure an audience with the guild of mystical women known as the Phemoray whilst on Phemoria, which would be a first for anyone as far as she knew.

  Most people maintained that the guild was just a myth promulgated by the Phemorians to incite fear in their enemies, but from the way Dr Portus spoke of the Phemoray they were still very much in existence. They were said to take physical form rarely, as they were a celestial breed in the main. That being the case, Taren imagined they might be able to tell her more about the entity she knew as Azazèl-mindos-coomra-dorchi.

  Module C had made a full recovery and Ringbalin had been doing guided meditation with Zeven every morning for a week. The pilot gave his total focus over to Ringbalin during the sessions and found the meditations to be a welcome distraction from his otherwise confused and tortured thoughts regarding Kalayna and Aurora.

  The pilot had still to eat a meal with the rest of the crew; he used the excuse of spending time with Rory to retreat from the gathering every evening. Despite his vigilance in avoiding the cause of his discontent, with every day that passed—and that Aurora remained asleep—his lustful thoughts about Kalayna intensified. Every evening he poured all the loving energy he could muster into willing Aurora to recover and wakeup, but still her condition did not change.

  What if she never woke up? That question had been plaguing him all week. What if he continued to ignore his feelings for Kalayna, waiting for a lover who would never wake up?

  Zeven shook off his fear and attempted to block both women out of his mind. AMIE was approaching Phemoria and he needed to service and fuel the smaller craft in the hangar bay in case they were required.

  When the pilot walked into the hangar bay to find Kalayna up a ladder with her head in the back end of the recon vessel he’d taken to rescue Aurora, he didn’t know how to react. His instincts told him to turn around and leave quietly, but his mind wished to object to Kalayna being so presumptuous. ‘Hey! Just because I made peace with you does not automatically give you the right to start mucking about with my stuff.’

  ‘Sorry. Were you planning on replacing and rewiring your entire propulsion system?’ she inquired sweetly.

  ‘No,’ Zeven replied, perplexed. ‘Why would I want to do that?’

  Kalayna’s jaw dropped in disbelief. ‘What…you didn’t notice when you landed this vessel that the propulsion system is completely burnt out?’

  ‘How could that have happened?’ Zeven climbed the ladder to stand beside her and take a closer look. ‘Holy shit,’ he cursed, as the damage was plain to see.

  ‘The only time I’ve seen this kind of damage to a craft was when a pilot forgot to shut off his system when caught in a tracker beam,’ Kalayna said. ‘I don’t understand how you could have failed to notice the lack of acceleration before you landed.’

  Zeven could give no explanation, as he’d used PK to return the vessel to AMIE, and he wasn’t about to tell Kalayna that. ‘Can you fix it?’

  Kalayna gave a sigh. ‘It will take a few days, but far as I can tell all the parts I need are in the hold. Although I may need a hand to move some of them.’

  ‘I’ll help,’ Zeven volunteered with a grin. Sensing a pleasant sentiment forming between them, he retreated down the ladder.

  ‘Okay!’ Kalayna jumped to the ground and returned his grin. ‘Let’s get started.’ She bounced off towards parts and storage.

  The grin fell from Zeven’s face…after doing his best to avoid the girl, he’d just agreed to work closely with her for several days. Idiot! But what choice did he have? He needed this fixed and he certainly wasn’t so technically savvy as to imagine he could do the job himself. Grease and fuel, sure, but high-level mechanics he’d always left to the experts.

  ‘Come on.’ Kalayna waved to him, her smile beaming.

  Clearly she was pleased that they seemed to be getting along and the
y now had a common goal to work towards. Zeven took a deep breath to suppress his doubts about working in close quarters with her and pursued Kalayna into the hold.

  By the time Kalayna had to depart to fix dinner for the crew, they had just about gutted the dead propulsion system, and Zeven worked on in her absence—as far as deconstruction went, he was perfectly qualified.

  Kalayna returned, bearing dinner for them both, which they sat about and ate whilst they discussed the initial steps of the reconstruction. This was the first night that Zeven had missed dinner with Aurora; not that he really noticed, as he was learning a great deal. Kalayna’s personality was very bloke-like—they’d been working away together all day without any hint of the situation getting emotionally out of control. In fact, Zeven hadn’t enjoyed himself so much—when he wasn’t having sex—in ages!

  After another six hours of hard labour, their enthusiasm for the job began to lessen. They started dropping things and bursting into fits of laughter for no good reason.

  ‘We gotta pack it in for the day, Starman…before I start welding the wrong wires together.’ She wiped tears of exhausted laughter from her eyes, so that she could see what she was doing.

  ‘Good call,’ Zeven said, taking the welder out of her hand before she hurt herself.

  She took the hint. ‘I’ll pick it up in the morning,’ she said, shoving one hand deep into her filthy overalls and wandering toward the exit doors. She spun about and gave him a wave with her free hand. ‘Catch you then?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he replied, smiling and wiping his hands on a rag. ‘I’ll be here.’

  ‘Cool. I’m beginning to see what Aurora saw in you…you’re pretty cool for a guy.’

  Zeven’s heart shot into his throat, as he was cast into panic. He didn’t want to encourage her affection, but he didn’t want to hurt her either. ‘Thanks. You’re pretty cool for…’