‘But he might not be consciously aware of being party to the crime,’ Taren said. ‘It’s only because I have such extraordinary powers of subconscious recognition that I began to suspect I’d been involved in the burglary.’
Kassa nodded to concede the point. ‘That would also explain how a spy on board could conceal their intentions from me.’
‘And what of Eleazar Kestler? Could he too have been involved without conscious knowledge?’
Kassa had gone very pale. ‘It makes me sick to think that Lucian was diligent in keeping the corrupt away from our work but even all the way out here, covert operators have managed to infiltrate our tightknit crew.’
‘Yeah, and I’m the key member of the covert op.’ Taren hated that she’d been party to it all.
‘No, Taren.’ Kassa stopped, stressing her words. ‘Our enemies didn’t know how badly they would cut their own throat by sending you to us. You’re a very brave woman, one of the bravest I’ve ever known, and you will be this project’s saving grace, I know it.’
This was the nicest thing that anyone had ever said to Taren. ‘Thanks…but I don’t think Lucian is sharing that viewpoint right now.’
‘You’re fond of him, aren’t you?’ Kassa sounded a little sorry for her.
‘It’s just a schoolgirl crush really,’ Taren shrugged it off and punched in the code that opened the lab door. ‘I hardly know the man, bar that he is obviously and happily married.’
‘Perhaps.’ Kassa hated to think that Taren’s foreboding about Amie could prove to be valid but she had an awful feeling about it.
‘Do you sense something regarding Amie?’ Taren wondered aloud.
Kassa merely shook her head. ‘I just wish she’d bloody well make an appearance and put us all out of our misery!’
Lucian was clearly distraught when Taren and Kassa returned to his office. ‘What prompted you to ask after the whereabouts of my wife?’ He demanded an answer from Taren the second she set foot through his door.
‘Why?’ Taren didn’t like the note of panic in his voice.
‘No one has seen Amie for at least two shifts. She was headed to see me when she was last spotted this time yesterday.’ He was full of fear, which was highly out of character. ‘She never arrived.’
Taren didn’t want to tell Lucian what she’d seen in her vision and looked to Kassa for aid.
‘Kassa?’ Lucian understood that she’d been made privy to Taren’s reasons.
‘Taren had a prophetic vision regarding Amie at the same time that she had a vision of the theft,’ Kassa began diplomatically.
‘What did you see?’ Lucian directed the query at Taren, having lost all desire to be diplomatic. He did not doubt Taren’s abilities, as precognition had been a large part of Taren’s work with the MSS.
‘I could be wrong…’ Taren hesitated again.
‘I’ve read your MSS files, Dr Lennox. I know you have never been wrong.’
Lucian’s certainty stunned Taren a little; people weren’t usually eager believers. ‘To tell you what I saw would be to influence the outcome in this affair. Outcomes are influenced by what we all collectively believe, Lucian. I don’t want to direct energy into the wrong probability. I have not had the sight in a long time, so my senses may not be as attuned as they once were. Neglected for ten years, any talent is bound to suffer.’
Lucian could see what she was saying but it brought him no peace. ‘Your vision regarding the theft seems to be proving true enough.’
‘That event was most likely one that I witnessed first-hand, so I’m employing nothing more than subconscious recall to perceive the information. To know what has become of Amie would require ESP, unless I have taken up sleepwalking. In other words, there is a greater chance of me being wrong about Amie’s whereabouts.’
‘But the very fact that you knew she’d gone missing, when no one else has noticed! Please…’ Lucian appealed. ‘Your insight cannot be worse than all these terrible scenarios running through my mind.’
‘Give energy to the good scenarios you can imagine,’ Taren suggested. ‘Like, she’s bumped her head and passed out somewhere, or overslept like I did last night. I suspect our spy-cum-thief subliminally induced me into a deep slumber. Perhaps the same fate has befallen your wife?’
As Kassa felt some of the weight lift from the captain, she thought Taren’s attempt to comfort him was very wise. Kassa also believed that will could affect and even change the future.
‘You’re right.’ He backed away to take a seat at his desk. Every conscious soul on board was looking for his wife; someone was sure to locate her soon. ‘Did you find a solution to our pod problem?’
‘We believe we might have,’ Taren said, ‘as it seems that the pod cleared a trail through the anomaly as it fell. A small craft might be able to enter and retrieve it.’
Of course, this was a fabrication of the truth. In fact, Kassa and Taren had persuaded the anomaly to clear a path to the missing pod. Finding the missing craft was vital to solving the mystery surrounding the stolen part of the anomaly’s essence. The degree of electromagnetic activity surrounding this path through the anomaly did not allow for remote retrieval of the pod, but they had safe passage for their recovery craft to go to Oceane’s surface.
‘What!’ Lucian wondered how this possibility had escaped Zeven’s attention.
‘It was just a hunch that checked out.’ Taren was pushing her luck and, clearly, Lucian was sceptical.
‘You’ve been chatting with your sample again, haven’t you, Dr Lennox?’ Lucian still wasn’t sure he trusted Taren’s method of communication with the sample via the FFRD. ‘You expect me to put Zeven’s life at risk for what could be nothing more than a fault in your machinery.’
Taren noticed that Kassa was obviously in two minds about mentioning her involvement in Taren’s plans. Taren jumped in to save Kassa from having to expose herself just yet. ‘I have been in telepathic communication with the anomaly as well,’ she blurted out, having had a brainwave. She would simply get the computer to swap Kassa’s voice and her own on the recordings, then it would seem like Kassa was merely asking the questions on her behalf and that Taren was doing the channelling.
Lucian almost smiled at this. ‘You swore to me that telepathy wasn’t one of your attributes.’
‘You also knew I was lying,’ Taren ventured, and momentarily held her breath, hoping he was convinced.
‘All right,’ he conceded reluctantly. ‘I said I’d support your theories and I shall.’
‘I’d like to go with Zeven, if that’s okay,’ Taren volunteered. ‘This was my suggestion and if anything goes wrong—which it won’t—I want to be there.’ In truth, she was eager to get a look at what the entity was tending beneath its mists.
Lucian briefly dwelt on her request. With his wife missing, accusations flying around about his brother, and this theft from quarantine, Lucian didn’t like to risk the loss of Taren—the only link in all these mysteries. Then again, he knew he’d feel safer sending Zeven down if Taren was with him. ‘You may go,’ he decided in the end.
‘You are a total star!’ Zeven told Taren as they suited up for the trip. ‘Do you know how long I’ve been trying to persuade Lucian to let me fly into that mass?’
The man was clearly excited. His enthusiasm was catching and it tickled Taren’s heavy mood into retreat. ‘Starman, you’re a maniac, you know that, don’t you?’
He nodded proudly. ‘But you know what is really encouraging?’
Taren shook her head.
‘I’ve finally found someone who’s as big a psycho as I am when it comes to jumping right in.’ He bowed to give Taren her due.
‘I figured I owed you one for tracing that pod for me,’ she retorted, waving off the intended praise.
Zeven looked disappointed. ‘Is this trip payback for the trace? Damn, I was hoping that deed was going to score me a date.’
Well, at least he was honest. A flirt, but right up-front about it. T
aren knew he was trouble, but it was so long since she’d been pursued that she was rather flattered by the younger man’s attention.
‘Geez!’ She emphasised how ungrateful he was. ‘You’re getting to take me out, aren’t you?’
‘I’ll have Colbers pack a picnic brunch then, shall I?’ His cheeky grin grew.
‘Yo,’ Leal called, entering the suiting room to hurry them along. ‘Your target zone is entering daylight.’
Zeven motioned for Taren to lead the way. ‘Time to take one large step for mankind?’ He raised his brows, impressed with himself, and served Leal a smug smile on his way out.
The reconnaissance-carrier vessel they were using for this mission was larger than the tandem spacecraft they’d taken on their first flight together. Taren liked being able to sit alongside Zeven, and the front screen window of this transport awarded her a much better view of the planet they were approaching.
‘Will you look at that,’ Zeven mumbled, beholding a large tubular void disappearing into the cloud mass. The spectacular light show had been dimmed by the brightness of the twin suns above. ‘Science couldn’t hope to manufacture a better tunnel through an unstable mass!’ He looked at Taren and covered the microphone on his headset to speak with her on the quiet. ‘I know that passage wasn’t there when I scanned the anomaly earlier today.’
Taren didn’t bother covering her mouthpiece. She didn’t mind who knew what she’d been up to or whether they believed her explanations. She was sick of keeping secrets. ‘I have a new friend, it seems.’
Zeven stared in disbelief. ‘Are you telling me that the gas did this at your request?’
‘I don’t believe it is just a gas,’ Taren told him bluntly. ‘I believe what we have here is an entity that the ancients referred to as an arupa-deva—a formless being whose body is entirely composed of electricity. These beings were said to be the builders of all things in the universe, the architects of matter, and I believe this particular arupa-deva was drawn to this planet to tend to it after the explosion when that meteor hit Oceane a couple of hundred years back.’
Zeven was so stunned by her response that he simply scoffed, but no words were forthcoming.
‘You’re not getting all mystical on us, are you, doctor?’ Leal queried through the intercom, as this was the first he’d heard of this theory.
‘Looks that way,’ she retorted dryly, ‘and I have a couple of prophecies for you as well.’
‘Shoot.’ Leal played along.
‘I expect that we are about to find life on this lifeless planet,’ Taren stated. ‘Below this cloud mass, we’ll find a different atmosphere to the rest of the planet, maybe even oxygen.’
Leal and Starman both got a good laugh out of that.
‘This deva of yours would have to have sped up the evolution process by millions of years, in just a couple of hundred.’ Lucian explained his crew’s amusement.
‘Yes, I do realise that.’ Taren tried not to sound insulted. ‘However, if I am proven correct and I can establish the existence of such an entity, then that would explain many of the knowledge gaps about the creation of our own planet and its species, wouldn’t you say? It would establish the missing link between physics, chemistry and biology.’
There followed a long silence, which Lucian broke. ‘You said you had a couple of prophecies?’
‘Ah, yes,’ Taren recalled. ‘In two weeks, Oceane time, the deva will be moving to its next project.’
‘It told you so?’ Lucian guessed.
‘It did,’ Taren agreed, imagining Lucian rolling his eyes. ‘At the same time, it told me that we had to return its missing parts by then or face dire consequences.’
‘Now you’re scaring me,’ Starman stated flatly, unsure of what to make of all her statements.
‘I scare myself,’ she admitted and then shrugged. There wasn’t anything she could do about it. ‘Believe me, it is not by choice that I got landed in the middle of this shit storm.’
‘You’re doing a great job of keeping it contained,’ said Lucian, with as much conviction as he could muster in his still-frantic state.
While they’d waited for daylight in their target area, Lucian had had the spaceship searched from end to end, and found no trace of his wife. All AMIE’s smaller craft had been checked and accounted for; only this misfired pod was outstanding.
He noted Kassa standing in the shadows at the rear of the flight deck and moved to have a quiet word.
‘Won’t you give me some idea of the gravity of Taren’s vision concerning Amie?’ Lucian begged. ‘Did she foresee an accident, a death?’
‘Don’t give up hope, Lucian,’ Kassa pleaded. ‘You were never one for unfounded speculation, don’t change now.’
‘I feel like a child being kept in the dark for his own protection, which leads me to think the worst!’
Kassa shook her head slowly, which indicated he’d not yet imagined the worst.
‘How am I to know that Taren isn’t at the bottom of all of this? Perhaps my brother had nothing to do with the stolen sample. Maybe this self-confessed spy is playing us all for sport?’ He was suddenly worried that he’d sent Zeven on a mission with her.
‘Lucian…’ Kassa grabbed his arm to encourage him to disregard such thoughts. ‘If Taren was behind this theft, then why would she be so desperate to return the sample to its source? And why would she have alerted you to Amie’s absence if she had anything to do with it? If Taren was part of the problem, she would have been aboard that pod headed back to Maladaan, don’t you think?’
Lucian conceded the sense of this and calmed down.
‘We’re entering the tunnel now.’
Zeven’s report drew Lucian’s attention back to the flight deck.
‘This is just amazing.’ Zeven struggled to express the awe he was feeling. ‘There are great explosions of colour all through here.’
‘And lightning,’ Taren added. ‘It’s shooting through the anomaly like veins through an animal form. And yet, the electricity is contained beyond the tunnel. It’s not threatening our craft, but is lighting the way very nicely.’
‘The passage is arcing down at a low angle and the surface of the tunnel has been perfectly even around its circumference.’
‘What I think Starman is trying to say is that this passage is too perfect to be an accidental formation,’ Taren said and Zeven wasn’t heard to disagree. ‘There’s excessive turbulence beyond the tunnel, but inside the passage it is quite still…not a trace of wind, cloud or anything…just light.’
‘Conditions are beautiful, totally beautiful!’ Starman exclaimed, obviously enjoying himself. ‘Leal, you should be here, my friend…this is a pilot’s wet dream!’
‘Yeah, don’t rub it in…I’m already a bright shade of green,’ Leal retorted.
Zeven chuckled and went quiet for a bit. ‘The descent arc of the tunnel is increasing now.’
‘I read that.’ Leal cast an eye over the systems that were monitoring the flight path of the reconnaissance vessel. ‘You’re approaching the lower atmosphere and…’ Leal was surprised to note, ‘we’re picking up some trace elements of oxygen. Atmospheric pressure is much higher than that measured at the same distance from sea level on the rest of the planet. I’m reading methane, hydrogen and ammonia! It’s like you’ve just flown into a gigantic greenhouse!’
‘You might have hit the nail right on the head/’ Taren’s voice had a tinge of victory about it. ‘The readouts of the sample were much the same.’
‘The tunnel is expanding,’ Zeven related. ‘It looks like we’ve cleared the anomaly and are entering a steamy mist. Lightning is shooting down all around us,’ and he sounded a little concerned about it. ‘The anomaly appears much brighter from this side and is casting a good light. The pod is close…I’m slowing down to skim the surface. There are some shadowy patches below that are moving?’
‘Starman, watch out!’ Taren yelled a warning.
‘What the—’ Zeven’s sentence was cut
short by static, and every piece of equipment monitoring the craft went dead.
‘Starman!’ Leal endeavoured to restore contact, even though he suspected the craft was no longer transmitting and that probably meant the craft was destroyed or badly damaged.
‘Could it be interference?’ Lucian clung to their only hope.
‘I fear the disconnection was too quick and neat,’ Leal replied honestly. ‘An electromagnetic pulse could do it, but that would leave Starman’s craft dead in the air. Of course, he could reboot his systems, but we’d know if he got back online. None of AMIE’s sensors are picking up evidence of an EMG event and there’s nothing else I know of that would take out all the monitoring systems at once. Unless the tunnel through the anomaly collapsed?’
Lucian’s jaw clenched as he digested the news.
Kassa had never seen the good professor so close to losing his perspective.
‘Damn it!’ He turned away so his angry outburst wasn’t directed at Leal. ‘Damn it,’ Lucian repeated in a calmer, more accepting tone. He ran both hands hard through his hair, massaging his thoughts into a more reasonable order. ‘Run a trace—’
‘On it,’ Leal advised.
Only the lost pod was registering on the monitor at present. ‘NOT FOUND,’ advised AMIE’s computer.
Leal turned to Lucian, both of them looking gravely at each other.
Out of the corner of his eye Lucian noted Kassa making haste from the flight deck in the direction of the launch bay and the quarantine labs beyond.
‘Keep trying,’ he instructed Leal, striding off after Kassa.
As suspected, Lucian found Kassa inside Taren’s lab. ‘Lennox told you the entry code?’ Lucian was surprised, thinking of the theft and how guarded Taren had been about who had access.
‘I have my means,’ Kassa replied, figuring that Lucian would soon discover the extent of those means.
‘How do you plan to consult our friend here without the FFRD or the telepath?’ Lucian knew what Kassa was considering as the doctor had been supportive of Taren’s claims about the intelligence of the gas.