Being of the Field

  Before he had time to wonder what he was going to do to rectify the situation, reality came to a standstill and he was right in front of the slumbering form of Taren Lennox.

  ‘Who are you?’

  Zeven did an about-face to find a tall, veiled, regal-looking woman. ‘Me? I’m no one.’ He backed up toward Taren.

  ‘No man has ever set foot in the Phemorian Royal Palace,’ the woman said, her anger building.

  ‘Is that where I am?’ Zeven played cute and stupid. ‘I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere.’ He crouched down and took hold of Taren.

  ‘Don’t you touch her,’ the woman warned him. ‘It won’t do any good to take her body. Her spirit is elsewhere.’

  Don’t listen to her, Zeven heard an internal voice advise, and was not given the option to query it before he was whipped off against his will to the next unknown destination.

  When his world stood still, Zeven was in a dirt clearing in a dying forest. ‘Stop doing that!’ He drew a few deep breaths. ‘Can we please just stop.’ He suddenly felt the weight of Taren in his arms and dropped to his knees.

  Taren was still sleeping like a baby, so Zeven raised his head to look around. He didn’t consider himself particularly sensitive, but he felt that this place had the vibe of a bad nightmare. ‘Where the fuck am I?’

  You’re always right where you need to be, said the voice inside his mind, as clearly as his own inner voice, but altogether more sure of itself.

  ‘Am I possessed?’ Zeven placed Toren aside and stood up. ‘I’m certainly not pulling my own strings here, so what’s the story?’ he yelled, frustrated.

  There was a crack of bark, as if every branch of every dying tree in the surrounding forest suddenly stretched. There was another such crack and another, as the dying forest re-formed into towering trees before his eyes. Horror and then wonder filled his eyes with tears as the trees moulded themselves into a cathedral-like structure, lush with vegetation and colossal in stature.

  Zeven thought to wake Taren to witness the event and was shocked to find her missing.

  Zeven!

  He heard Taren call.

  Where are you? He took a few steps in the direction of her voice and she appeared in a space between one of the tree-archways.

  The question is more, where are you? She laughed, and it was good to see her conscious and carefree. You’re astral travelling!

  I am? He felt a pang of surprise and fear rush through him.

  Who is your grigori friend? she asked, pointing behind Zeven.

  My what? He turned to see a large celestial being trailing him and nearly had a fit! I knew it! I was possessed, Zeven accused the entity, who appeared remarkably like himself.

  Well, of course you are possessed by your own soul-mind. The grigorian greeted Taren. I am Sammael, he said, bowing.

  Another large grigori was trailing Taren. This being had Lucian’s appearance. Go now, quickly, away from this planet, the glowing being advised Taren and she nodded to concur that she understood.

  Are they aliens? Zeven was bemused and felt incredibly left out of the conversation.

  Follow him…Sammael pointed to Zeven, whereupon Taren moved towards him, a huge smile on her face as she reached out to touch him.

  ‘Zeven…wake up. Zeven!’

  ‘What!’ The pilot was startled back to consciousness but was pleasantly surprised to find Taren’s smiling face awaiting him there also.

  ‘How are you doing, champ?’ She kissed his cheek, thankful she had awakened with her body and psyche reunited and in friendly company.

  ‘What just happened?’ Zeven sat up and was a little disappointed to note he was in the dead forest. ‘You did see those glowing guys, right?’

  Taren nodded with a grin. ‘Yes, I most certainly did.’

  ‘Well, who were they?’

  ‘Spirits.’ Taren’s eyes glazed over as she replied and an expression of great affection lingered on her face. ‘I believe they just saved me from doing something very stupid.’

  A decaying branch dropped from a tree nearby and they leapt up, startled.

  ‘We should go,’ Taren suggested. Although it was broad daylight, she wasn’t going to bank on the fact that the Phemoray could only frequent this place in the twilight hours.

  ‘Yeah, well, I have a bit of a dilemma with where to take you.’ Zeven briefed Taren on the situation and she was thrown into turmoil also.

  ‘You’ve spoken with Anselm about me?’ Taren struggled to remain calm and keep an open mind.

  ‘You’re all he talks about,’ Zeven emphasised. ‘He seemed genuinely desperate to speak with you…but then I’m no great judge of character.’

  ‘Sure you are,’ Taren said, encouraging him to go easier on himself. ‘And if you stay with me, what harm could it do to hear his side of the story.’

  ‘It’s a pretty strange love story Anselm has to tell,’ Zeven warned.

  ‘Have you met my mother?’ Taren wasn’t surprised in the least. ‘Take me to him.’

  Zeven took hold of her outstretched hands and then hesitated. ‘Please don’t do this on my say-so. I quite like the guy, but he could be a complete arsehole for all I know.’

  ‘You commented before that he’s like me,’ she countered and Zeven had to laugh.

  ‘Um, yeah.’

  ‘Then I want to meet him,’ Taren replied, and Zeven was then able to comply with her wish.

  On arrival in the secure room, Taren and Zeven were confronted by Anselm and several of his armed operatives.

  Zeven was immediately shot with a dart filled with sedative, and he dropped to the ground. ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart,’ Anselm said apologetically to Taren. ‘Sorry again,’ and raised his eyebrows in rueful sympathy. She felt a stinging sensation in the top of her arm and then numbness which spread rapidly throughout her body. She dropped like a stone beside Zeven. I should have let him return us to AMIE, she thought regretfully. Her eyes felt heavy and closed, but her hearing was the last sense to go.

  ‘Get us off this damn planet,’ ordered Anselm, as she was swept up by several men. ‘Restrain her friend and bring him.’

  ‘What about AMIE?’ asked a subordinate.

  ‘What about AMIE?’ Anselm replied.

  ‘Should we detonate the device on board?’

  The query was almost enough to shock Taren from her sedation and she struggled to remain focused on the response.

  ‘Once we are away…’

  Taren could not hold out any longer as her present was engulfed in a fitful blur.

  PART 4

  SERMETICA—

  DESERT PLANET

  CHAPTER 23

  PROVOCATION

  Lucian felt he should have stayed in space—now Taren was missing again. What was worse, even with all the technology at his disposal, he was at a complete loss to do anything about it. If his brother and deceased wife—two mere mortals—managed to pull the wool over his eyes so completely, then what chance did he have against a planet of psychic man-haters and the combined secret service agencies of every other planet in the USS? Lucian hated that he had to leave Taren’s rescue to Zeven, who may already have been tainted by secret service conditioning.

  One thing was plainly obvious: Anselm didn’t want Lucian in Taren’s life any more than the Phemorians did, and Lucian resented these people’s belief that he was a pushover and could be so easily disposed of and ignored.

  The communicator on his hip sounded and broke into his mood as he gazed out the large porthole window in his office. ‘Yes, Kalayna,’ he responded, looking back at the planet they were fleeing.

  ‘When I was flying us back,’ she explained in a flurry, ‘the handling of the craft felt imbalanced. It kept pulling off to one side. So I checked it out and,’ she took a breath, ‘there is an explosive device planted in one of the engines of the USS craft!’

  ‘On my way!’ Lucian raced up to the launch bay, his exasperation and anger mounting. When he arrived on the scene, Leal w
as already present.

  ‘We can launch it on autopilot,’ Leal advised and pulled Kalayna away from the entry hatch. ‘I’ll set it up, you ready the launch bay.’

  Kalayna nodded, forcing a smile to acknowledge his bravery, and ran to the safety of the launch bay control room.

  ‘Does it have a detonation timer?’

  Leal shook his head. ‘Only in the movies…it’s a remote detonator, which means it can go off—’

  ‘—at any time.’ Lucian understood well enough.

  ‘So I’d appreciate it if you retreated to a safe distance, Captain. Actually…’ Leal had a brainwave. ‘This might be the perfect opportunity to get those two dead Valoureans off our vessel.’

  ‘Good call.’ Lucian retraced his steps to quarantine, where the bodies were being stored, and Leal readied the vessel for launch.

  Upon Khalid Mansur’s return to his private quarters inside the Sermetican deep-space cruiser—his absence unnoticed by all on board—he moved to resume his post at the helm.

  He’d been rather perturbed that the Phemorians had lost track of the crew who had been giving them so much trouble of late. However, thanks to his Phemorian lover’s telepathic expertise, he now knew that Taren Lennox had fallen in with other psychically talented individuals. Their combined talents had enabled them to keep one step ahead of the game. Not for much longer. The viceroy grinned with satisfaction. He’d just been informed that Anselm was on his way back to the deep-space cruiser. Anselm had also had an explosive device planted on board the shuttle that had returned AMIE’s captain to his institute in space.

  The lengths that Anselm had gone to over the years to keep his bastard daughter hidden from her insane femme fatale royal lineage made her the most well-funded and resource-exhaustive operative that the secret services had ever had! Very few people knew about her connection to Anselm and nobody knew what she looked like, bar Anselm himself, just as nobody knew about Khalid’s PK ability—that was their arrangement and it had been to both their benefit in the past. But Khalid Mansur had no intention of living in Anselm’s shadow for the next fifty years.

  There was an ancient prophecy that came into being around the time of the female uprising on Phemoria. The general belief was that it arose from a need to explain to children of that dire time why their families were being torn apart. The prophecy told of the ultimate being, the Zagriata, which in the old tongue of the Phemorians meant ‘the restorer of love and balance’, who would bring peace, not only to the desendants of the sexual revolution on Phemoria, but the entire universe. The prophecy was the secret hope of a divided people, that perhaps one day they, Sermetica and Phemoria, would repair the great divide caused by the horrid war. No one knew whether the prophecy was originally Phemorian or Sermetic, as both planets claimed ownership and that the ultimate being would be born of their people.

  Khalid Mansur felt the prophecy was little more than a children’s bedtime story that had been embellished with optimism over the years. If there was an ultimate being in this universe it was himself, as he had more power in his little finger than Taren Lennox would ever have. Still, the belief that Taren was the Zagriata had driven both Anselm and Qusay-Sabah Clarona to extreme lengths. Each of them wanted Taren allied to their people and planet. This made the little princess such a highly prized commodity that, if she was in his possession, he could hold two entire planets to ransom.

  Khalid had been unable to will himself to the princess, because to do so he had to know what she looked like. And now he did—a vision his telepathic lover had been able to give him this day.

  But first, get rid of the boyfriend and his psychic teamsters. The viceroy looked at his agent, who was still awaiting his response to the update.

  ‘Detonate on my word.’

  Anselm was furious when the communications officer on his vessel advised him that the viceroy was readying to detonate the bomb on AMIE—and attempts to communicate with the bridge on the deep spacer cruiser Khalid had been left in command of proved unsuccessful.

  He’s out of control. For the umpteenth time, Anselm cursed the day he’d taken Khalid into his confidence.

  The politician arrived on the bridge of his vessel just in time to hear the cheer go up and see the dot that represented AMIE on their monitoring screen disappear.

  ‘Clear the bridge,’ Anselm ordered. The celebration dulled to confusion and the crew departed. Khalid stayed put—arms folded.

  ‘I had no intention of detonating that device,’ Anselm said once they were alone. ‘I didn’t want the Phemorians to know we were here!’

  ‘It could have been an accident,’ Khalid shrugged.

  ‘I think you want to get rid of any evidence that might link you to the disappearance of Maladaan,’ Anselm suggested, and Khalid broke into the crooked smile that always betrayed his guilt, something he never tried to hide from Anselm. They had so much dirt on each other neither dared blow the whistle on the other. ‘Swithin Gervaise was answering to you and your operatives on Maladaan,’ Anselm stated accusingly.

  ‘That sample was an immeasurable energy source…and it was contained in a canister that you can hold in your hand! Extraordinary! Our solar arrays on Sermetica are sustainable, but other planets need power and this appeared to be another resource which could be mined and sold off,’ he explained rationally. ‘I wasn’t to know the whole damn planet was going to vanish when the substance touched down.’

  Anselm was disbelieving. ‘Why lead me to believe that AMIE’s crew were to blame? If you’d told me the truth in the first place, we could have covered it up and all this could have been resolved on Frujia.’

  ‘That is what I had planned,’ Khalid lied, ‘but I didn’t realise these scientists were going to prove so elusive. If you ask me, they were a bunch of unregistered undesirables and I’ve just done the USS a big favour in blowing them up.’

  Although Anselm knew of his Power, Khalid was still careful to never let down his guard; if he ever felt any sympathy for those with the Powers that he exposed, recruited or disposed of it never showed.

  Needless to say, Anselm had not exposed his secret talent to his viceroy and went out of his way to ensure the PK adept would not discover Taren’s identity.

  ‘The mystery of what happened to AMIE will keep the Valoureans occupied whilst we get out of the Phemorian system…you might remember, we have no official authorisation to be here.’

  Anselm backed off from any further confrontation. They had breached USS law in order to execute this rescue; if word got out, it would not bode well for his political career.

  ‘How fortunate that your vessel was so close to this system right when I needed access,’ Anselm said thoughtfully.

  ‘We both have secrets we want to keep hidden,’ Khalid replied, ‘and that is our insurance that they will stay hidden.’

  Anselm had no reason to doubt his viceroy’s allegiance. Khalid’s auric body appeared to be free of any disease—cloudy patches being one of the first signs of a traitor. There was one very dark patch on his right hand—perhaps an embedded piece of shrapnel—but as this spot was not located over any of Khalid’s light centres, Anselm felt it was of no great concern. The man was a cold, sometimes callous, ally, but he had always been reliable.

  Lately, however, Khalid had been pushing the boundaries of his authority, and that made Anselm uncomfortable.

  ‘If your mission is accomplished, I suggest you call the crew to their stations,’ Khalid suggested. ‘We should depart with all due haste before anyone confirms our presence. I shall take a more stealthy craft’—which meant he’d teleport himself—‘and meet you back on Sermetica.’

  Anselm nodded, happy to have Khalid well away from the ship while he had his daughter and the pilot of AMIE on board. ‘Keep me posted.’

  ‘Naturally.’

  As Khalid faded from sight, his vexing grin seemed to be the last part of him to vanish…or perhaps it was just that it held Anselm’s attention.

  AMIE’s l
oss was most distressing, as Anselm no longer had a safe haven for his daughter. He’d never slept better than during Taren’s time on board the astro-marine institute when it was in some distant galaxy. With Maladaan gone, and now AMIE, his selection of hiding places was more limited. It was not going to be easy to break the news to her that yet another of her lovers had died because they became caught up in her destiny.

  Taren didn’t remember the sad deaths of the men she’d loved before Lucian. She’d been programmed to remember them all as bastards, so she would not have the stress of feeling responsible for their deaths. If she knew the truth, Anselm thought his daughter would probably never even attempt a relationship. He wanted her to know what it was to lead a happy, normal life; a desire that became increasingly hard to fulfil with every year that passed.

  The explosion of the USS shuttle craft, only minutes after its launch from AMIE, set the entire ship shaking.

  ‘That’s it…I’ve had enough!’ Lucian decided as he dashed from the launch bay up to the bridge with Leal in hot pursuit.

  ‘Shields. Shut everything down,’ the captain instructed the co-pilot. ‘We vanished off USS scopes once. We’ll do it again.’

  Leal was keen to do just that, although he had reservations. ‘But how are we to escape the Phemorians if our systems are shut down?’

  ‘One disaster at a time, please,’ Lucian cautioned. ‘With any luck some debris from the USS transporter will fall to the surface of Phemoria. When they discover the vessel is Sermetic, they’ll have bigger fish to fry than us.’

  The exterior shields blocked out the view, and then the interior of the ship dimmed as they reverted to minimal power.

  ‘We could really use Zeven about now,’ Leal commented.

  ‘I fear the secret service is using him at present,’ Lucian informed him sadly.

  Leal suspected that with Taren and their pilot still missing, the captain was not going to be content to sit in the dark for very long. ‘What do you plan to do?’