Halcyon Nights (Star Sojourner Book 2) Read online

  “April?” She didn't respond. I threw off my headgear and wondered if a dream could kill. “April!” I shook her.

  She moaned and turned her head. Her hand slid off the terminal.

  “Jesus, I thought you were dead!” I felt weak and nauseated as I lifted myself up. “Glad that was just a dream.” I smirked. “Right?”

  She opened her eyes and drew in a shaky breath. “Goddamn you,” she croaked, “why didn't you tell me you're a telepath? I needed to know that. Why didn't you tell me you're in contact with some goddamn alien creature?” She threw off her headgear. “You could've killed me. Get out!”

  “I'm not in contact with any alien. I mean I wasn't until now.” I ran a hand through my hair. “It was all just a dream. You told me that yourself!”

  She glared at me. “It was as real as your tel-brain.”

  I rubbed my throbbing temples. I'd sent and received from Loranths, but they're a telepathic species. It was this alien's own skill that had opened channels in my mind. “I'm sorry,” I said. “I told you to get me out.”

  April rolled toward the bed's edge. Her back heaved as she vomited on the floor. She coughed and wiped her mouth. “Just get the hell out of my room!”

  “Sure.” My knees trembled as I swung off the bed. “And thanks loads for hanging in there when the dream turned bad. Where's your autocount?”

  “Never mind. Just go find a mind exorcist who needs the creds bad enough to take your case.”

  “You know a good one?” I retorted. I saw her autocount unit behind hanging beads and went to it. “You must've sent him some customers by now.”

  “Get out!” she cried shrilly and picked up her shoe, “before I call my husband.”

  “Your…” I took out my wallet. “The skinny pimp in the bar?” Suddenly I felt fear. Not my own, I knew. I looked around. What the hell was going on? Human tels are rarer than mercy on the Flats. I had retained tel abilities from Kor's mindlinks. But now, a greater power had been awakened by this silver alien's probe with that blast of mind energy.

  A pencil of ice found my stomach and scribbled graffiti there. In what star system was the planet Halcyon? I knew it was a pristine Earth-type world that had been staked and settled by a colony of eco- minded Terran tags whose mantra was: We will not desecrate Halcyon as Terrans have desecrated Earth!

  More to the point, why couldn't this powerful, probably indigenous telepath destroy a Terran ravager himself?

  He read my thought. If I unleash my tel power, he suddenly sent, it will destroy the nervous system of every Terran on Halcyon. In the end, if I must do it to save my people, I will.

  April was pale and wide-eyed. But I think I might have been paler.

  You can do that? I sent.

  Only if you fail.

  April swung off the bed as I opened my wallet. My hand shook when I realized that my compcard was gone. I heard a buzzer, looked up and saw her pushing a button on the IQ terminal.

  “I warned you,” she said. “Don't say I didn't.”

  “There were seventy thousand creds in my account last time I looked. Your prices are a bit steep.” I started toward her. “How are you going to explain this when I tell the dons you're hustling customers?”

  Fear! Again. Stronger this time.

  It stopped me. A door had been thrown open between my mind and the outside world and I was powerless to shut it.

  A large wall mirror rumbled back, exposed a camera and the sickly pimp from the bar. Behind him a brawny tag with a naked paunch hanging over his fur pants leaned forward to peer at me.

  “Where the hell were you, you two dumb fucks?” April shouted. “I was caught in that dream!”

  “Hey,” the fur-clad tag responded, “you shoulda told us you needed help.”

  “You should've anticipated it!” she shot back.

  Pushy bitch!

  It was not my thought. I glanced at the furred tag.

  He was glowering at April. “You're the one said you could handle two like him. An easy vinewrap, remember? Only he's going to the dons, so now what?”

  I backed to the door. I didn't see how they could use my personal card. It still needed my retinal scan as a backup. Still, if they wanted it that badly, they must have found a way to forge it for a withdrawal. I could stop payment from a sidewalk autocomp, providing I made it to a sidewalk. But I couldn't resist asking as I opened the door. “Just one thing, April.”

  She stared at me, hair clinging to her sweaty cheeks.

  “Which loser's your husband?”

  “Both!” She spat as I went out the door. “Get him, you dumb grassmoles, before he gibbers to the dons!”

  Heavy footsteps behind me. I stumbled down the stairs with a hand on the banister, still shaky from that alien dream…encounter. I decided against the lobby, sprinted to the fire door and threw it open.

  The bastards were cranking up the drawbridge!

  I felt like a holostage swashbuckler as I ran up the rattling bridge, leaped, cleared the moat and rolled onto grass with an eyeball-jarring thud.

  Someone shouted “Stop!” from behind me. If I wanted to stop, I wouldn't be running. Shots! A flash of hot light seared a low rock wall as I vaulted it. I ventured a quick look back and saw a rad at a window lift his stingler and fire again. I threw up an arm as grass and dirt flamed to my right, and raced for my hovair.

  My hand shook as I thumbprinted the vehicle's lock and realized I'd left the window open. I threw open the door and tried to jump in. Tickbag, the dog from the bar, was curled comfortably on the driver's seat. “Move, you dumb son of a bitch!”

  He yelped as I shoved him off the seat. I prayed as I started the motor and taxied across bumpy ground. If that rad managed to hit the vehicle's batteries with his stingler –

  Tickbag scurried to the rear of the craft. The fur-clad tag jogged across the lowered bridge. In the moonlight I caught the glint of something long and heavy over his shoulder. A missile launcher! April and the pimp followed.

  I hit boosters, lunged skyward. Beneath me the trio set up their weapon. ”Shit!” I exclaimed as an explosion rocked the hovair. Below me, a boulder on a hill did a million years of eroding in a second that was very split. Tickbag whined and slid across the metal floor, his claws trying to dig in as we tore into the night sky. I felt his fear as another layer of my own. The comp corrected for buffeting winds as I made a dash for the other side of a hill. I flicked on my console screen and saw people swarm to their air vehicles on the Flats below. Six sets of headlights lifted and followed me as I headed for the hills. I switched my screen to nightvis, scanned, found a tight box canyon and dived into it. Too bad the ship's sensors couldn't see around corners! Too bad it wasn't equipped with a satellite tracking link. I checked rear visuals. The lights swooped down behind me. Those rads had the oysters for this box canyon, all right!

  “Follow this!” I muttered, flew a nape-of-the-earth line inside the canyon, saw moon-silvered boulders and pine trees rush by like a stream. “Hang on, Tickbag!” I banked, headed for a cliff wall and yanked back hard on the stick.

  My stomach caved against my backbone as the sheer ridge dropped away and the hovair streaked skyward in a shuddering climb that pinned me to the seat. Tickbag whined. I heard his claws scrape as he tried to get a grip. With my teeth clamped I hung onto the stick and watched a windscreen of stars. Through my port window, I saw the pursuing craft rise to follow.

  “Here we go!” I muttered, slowing, and threw on full reverse thrusters. The hovair lurched over its right wing in a sickening dive. Tickbag howled. I sympathized as we plummeted. “And here we go again, son of a bitch,” I warned the frightened dog, tugged back on the stick and forced the sport craft into a pull-up that seemed to defy Einstein's laws of gravitational wells.

  Hemorrhoid time!

  I leveled, forced out a breath and bored toward my pursuers. Lights parted from the pack as two craft separated and left me a hole. When you act crazy, even your enemies give you some space. R
ed flashes from the leader's wing stingers went wide.

  A burn of hatred in my mind. There it was again! A tel-link. I felt the leader's anger, his determination. He'd have to take me or lose face.

  Then I was past them. They'd be a long time doubling back. Shit! The leader's craft rose to follow me in that wingover maneuver. He's scared, though. I can't block out his desperate attempt to fight panic. He concentrates hard on guiding his ship. But he hasn't grown up with hornet cubs, as I have. Didn't spend months with nothing better to do than push the limits of his skill in self-destructive despondency up there in the sky. A cold grip of fear in my stomach as his hand freezes on the stick. He's too close to –

  The cliff! I project to him. Pull her up! I moan as his silent scream rips through me and his craft explodes into the rock face. Terror! Inside my chest. Terror as the great void opens. Alone. I try to shake the link as he drifts into geth, the Loranths' name for that state between lives. Alone through a black chasm. A scream without a voice. Jesus and Vishnu! I'm locked with his spirit. I bank the hovair, circle above the blazing ruin of his ship, and project soothing thoughts to the poor bastard. Geth state's peaceful, I send. And fun. You'll like it there. I kept an eye on the returning pack of hovairs.

  A light from within the well of the leader's death. His kwaii, soul in Terran, drifts toward it, hungers for it.

  See you in the next life, brother, I send before his final break with this life, and try to cut the link, afraid he'll take my own spirit with him. I bank the hovair away.

  Gone now. His kwaii. Where I can't follow. Not yet, anyway.

  My ears still rang from the roar of the tag's exploding ship. In the eerie red glow I glanced back at Tickbag. His bulging eyes caught fire points of light and he whined pitifully. Did he wish he were back in the bar, being kicked by the grizzled drunk? Couldn't blame –

  “Cull!” A woman's voice came through my radio. I maintained silence as I climbed. ”You've won the night and we salute your skill and courage. We're prepared to make you an offer you can't refuse. Join us. The pay is good, the rewards are many. It's important to have family.”

  “Already have family,” I lied.

  “Then have a nice life, superstar.”

  “You too, rad. Keep your Geiger charged and don't take any hot creds.”

  I sighed and sat back in the cushioned seat. My knees were shaking as I punched a course for Denver. Fair of them though. Still, I waited till they were off my screen and I knew I was off theirs, then I set a course for Boulder, and my apartment. I'd find a street comp and put a clamp on my account.

  I thought of that silver creature. It was a dream, I told myself and sighed. Just a dream.

  Did it have something to do with the crystals? The tel-link was real enough. Halcyon. The entity had spoken of the planet Halcyon. And April's words haunted me: This is no dream. You're on your own, tag!

  “Aren't I always?

  “Do you wish to go to auto?” the hovair's comp asked after my last course change. ”No. Steady as she goes.” God, I hate these talking electronics. Halcyon… I closed my eyes and held my breath as I opened my mind to tel contact and hoped it didn't come.

  It didn't.

  “Tickbag?”

  In the rear light I saw him there beneath the seat, panting. We'd make friends later. Right now I had other things on my mind. Lisa was staying with her grandparents while Al and Charles what's-his-name were on their honeymoon. I always liked Joe Hatch and his wife Abby. We'd had some fascinating conversations over fresh-baked cookies, and good times together. But that was before five years spent on Syl' Tyrria, alias Tartarus. Now, Al had told me, Joe had no use for me. OK. I could accept that. But neither my tough former father-in- law nor hell or high water was going to stop me from seeing my daughter! I turned the hovair toward Denver.

  Chapter Three

  “Croteshit!” There it was again. A buzz of thoughts invading my mind as I entered ground traffic. An argument, somewhere ahead, I think, between a husband and wife. It was an old wound, and they were both of them weary of the verbal duel. A boy, somewhere close, daydreaming about being the Sunwind champion of all time. An old man with fears of dying.

  I sighed when things quieted for a while, then I passed a hospital, a gray hulking building that loomed behind lesser structures. God! A cacophony of misery. I moaned, picked up speed, and pictured a lifetime of soaking up all the terror and agony this world has to offer. “I can't live like this!” I muttered.

  Had the silver being given me this gift just to watch me sink into babbling insanity? Shields! I told myself as I pulled out of the lanes and braked to a stop on a quiet side street. I squeezed my temples, imagined shields rising around my head, locking together to form an impenetrable barrier. It hadn't worked with the Loranth Sye Kor, but my human brethren were mostly non-tels. I felt the barrier begin to fade and I willed it to strengthen again, to take form, until I almost heard the grate of metal walls closing. I held my breath as the voices slowly faded and the mind chatter disappeared. Carefully I relaxed the image and mentally listened.

  Nothing!

  “Thank you, Great Mind, Christ, Vishnu, Yahweh, Buddha, Quetzalcoatl, or Whoever.” Apparently I'd succeeded in installing a mental program. To check it, I imaged the shields sinking. A babble of voices flowed over them like waves breaching a storm wall. I lifted the shields, sat back and relished the silence. Hell, that hadn't been too hard.

  It was Sunday night and tags were cruising the boulevards. I cruised too, wings retracted, then swerved to avoid a weaving car whose driver's brain was probably scalded on talc, and found myself careening down a narrow street, scaring perhaps two years' growth from a brainstimmed bum lying between garbage chutes. His fear cut into me as though it were my own. “Goddamn,” I muttered. Back to the drawing board and the redesign of shields!

  I reported my stolen card at an auto bank, fed in my code number, and thanked the recording for my new card, which still showed a balance of seventy thousand creds. So all of April's troubles had been for naught. “I told you it was showers, April.”

  I closed my account, opened a new one and deposited thirty thousand creds in Jack Cole's name and code. He'd let me use his credcard back on Tartarus, I mean Syl' Tyrria, when I was broke, which was most of the time. When Jack checks his account, he's going to think a rich uncle died.

  I smiled sadly, remembering all sorts of memories. He'd been loyal to the bitter end, and the end had held much bitterness, compliments of Sye Kor. One of Jack's children, young heather, had died of Kor's plague, and his wife Annie had a miscarriage when she contracted it.

  I scanned the night sky for moving lights from the direction of lost Vegas, and breathed a sigh of relief. No way April and her entourage could follow me here.

  After stopping at Party Galore to buy presents for Lisa, I went to Speedy Gonzales Fast Food and bought hamburgers for Tickbag and myself. He gobbled them down and I gave him water in a crumble-cup. I threw the empty cup onto a lawn where it would dissolve and nourish grass and flowers. The owner of the house, out watering his lawn, waved to me and I waved back.

  I cruised the upper lanes, with their canopy of city lights below, to the exclusive neighborhood of Mile-High Knoll.

  My heart was knocking harder than my knuckles as I rapped on Joe and Abby Hatch's door. Joe has a mind tough enough to burn through doors, or keep them closed to you. But I was determined to see my daughter.

  The security monitor scanned me through humming floor sensors. I hummed myself to relax and smelled Joe's pipe through an open window before he opened the door.

  Light and the aroma of baking cookies flooded out from around his solid form as he squinted at me over reading glasses. Yeah, glasses. Joe refused to have his eyeballs massaged into 20-20 shape. His expression didn't change when he recognized me.

  “Hello, Mister Hatch.” I smiled.

  There'd been a time I'd called him Dad. I glanced at the presents under my arms. “I'm here to see Lisa.” />
  He removed the pipe. “Sort of figured that.” His tone was low, controlled as ever. “Thought you and Al had an agreement you wouldn't see her until after the honeymoon.” Fingernails scraped bristly stubs as he scratched his short-cropped gray beard.

  “That was Al's agreement, Joe, not mine. I'd like to see my daughter.”

  He just stared at me.

  “Who is it, Joseph?” Abby called from the kitchen in her airy southern drawl.

  “An acquaintance, Ab.” The crease between his brows deepened as he studied me. “We'll be on the porch,” he told her, took my arm and tried to guide me there.

  I tightened my grip on the presents and stood my ground. “I want to see her, Joe. I have a right to.”

  “You forfeited your rights years ago.” He replaced the pipe. His broad jaw hardened to bristly cement as he clamped down on the stem. He used pressure above my elbow to guide me to the porch. I put the presents down on a chair outside and remained standing when he sat. Joe had been a captain with the United Counter-Terrorist Force of W-CIA, mostly offworld, until he retired. I wondered what he thought of Charles, that pasty-faced smear on the church steps. I pictured the mental shields, lowered them a bit. There's a thin line between probing and just receiving. I'd learned that in Kor's den. The silver tag had given me the power to receive from a non-tel. Could I develop it into an ability to probe? I tried it on Joe.

  Nothing.

  Perhaps he'd been trained to block, though he showed no reaction. I knew he'd dealt with telepaths in his work, both alien and human. I lifted the mental shields and pictured bolts quietly sliding into place.

  He sat back. “There were times I was glad for my daughter's sake that you didn't show up.” He chewed the pipe stem. “I'm not sure what I would have done to you on those days.”

  I nodded.

  “Was it worth the search for mammals?”

  “It was more than that, Joe.” I had always wanted to explain this to him, to redeem myself, I guess, and I said it almost compulsively. “I was, uh, out to prove that mammals evolve naturally from more primitive forms on other planets as well as on Earth. You see it would prove that certain evolutionary laws hold throughout the galaxy, maybe even our entire universe. Maybe other universes, too.” I licked my lips. “I found the animal, Joe. I did prove it. I think the patterns exist before life itself.” I took a breath. “But, well, the animal got away.”