“Any idea what we’re waiting for?” Loki asked. They had been sitting at the entrance to the transfer airlock for several minutes, waiting for clearance to depart.
“No clue, mate,” Josh answered. “Maybe the door’s stuck,” he joked.
Loki looked out the port window and saw Jessica approaching, wearing a pair of heavy, padded headsets that ground crew might normally wear in the noisy operating environment of the hangar bay. “I think we’re about to find out,” he said, pointing to Jessica as she approached.
Jessica walked up to the nose of the ship, opened a small access panel and plugged in her headset.
“What the hell is she doing?” Josh asked, sitting up as tall in his seat as possible to try and see her.
Jessica pointed to her headset, then held up three fingers.
“I think she wants to talk to us on channel three,” Loki said, switching their headsets to the appropriate channel on the side console. “We’re here,” Loki stated over the comms.
“Anyone on the line other than you two?” Jessica asked over the comms from outside the shuttle.
“Nope, just us two. You want everyone on?”
“No. Are your passengers within earshot?”
“Uh, no,” Loki answered. “They’re at the back, with all the ore between us and them. Marcus is back there with them.”
“Can you put Marcus on the same line without them?”
“Yeah. Stand by.”
Josh switched Marcus’s headset to the same channel, making sure that Tug and Jalea remained on the primary channel. “Don’t say anything, Marcus,” Josh told him in a hushed tone. “We don’t want them to know we’re talking to you.”
“Cough once if you understand,” Jessica told him. A moment later they heard Marcus cough.
“What’s goin’ on?” Josh asked. “Why all the cloak and dagger?”
“I don’t much like the idea of sending those two down to Corinair unescorted. There’s no telling what they’re up to. So you guys keep your eyes open. Got it?”
“No worries, love,” Josh promised.
“And one more thing. We already got jumped once by a shuttle full of bad guys. We don’t want it to happen again. So if you’re coming in under duress, you need to give us some kind of signal.”
“Like what? You want me to flash my running lights or something?”
“No, something vocal. Something you wouldn’t normally say, yet still seems appropriate.”
“How about if Josh talks like a real pilot?” Loki teased.
“Yeah, and Loki doesn’t. Oh, I know, he can start talkin’ like me.”
“Oh, using love, and mate every other word?”
“And let’s not forget, no worries, eh?”
“Yeah, that’ll work fine. What about for Marcus?”
“Oh, how about if he just stops swearing?” Loki suggested.
“I don’t think he can,” Josh joked.
Suddenly, several loud, hacking coughs came from Marcus.
“I think he just did,” Loki laughed.
“I know,” Josh interrupted. “He can just use the word please. That’ll make you do a double take, eh?”
“Fine,” Jessica said, just wanting to shut the two clowns up. “Please it is. Does that work for you Marcus?” A single cough confirmed his understanding. “Have a good flight, guys,” she said as she unplugged her headset.
“I believe we’re both going to get our heads firmly thumped later,” Josh declared.
As Loki reached down to change their comms back to the primary channel, a single cough came across the comms to confirm Josh’s declaration.
Nathan poked his head into the auxiliary systems support room just down the corridor from the bridge. The room had been converted into a makeshift signals intelligence office. Naralena, Enrique, and a few of the other refugees from the harvesting crew were busy poring over audio and video recordings that had been gathered over the last few hours.
As he entered the room, he noticed stacks of a few dozen data cores on one of the tables. There were at least four separate workstations setup, as well as a large, wall-mounted view screen on the wall.
“What are you watching?” Nathan asked as he entered the room.
“Nothing too interesting, sir,” Enrique explained as he kept skipping ahead in the video as if looking for something. “Just skimming through news broadcasts and marking anything that looks promising for translation.”
“Is this stuff live?”
“Naw, this is all the stuff we collected before we jumped into the system. So it’s all at least a day old. We picked up stuff that was just a few hours old while we were orbiting the gas-giant though. But for now we’re dark.”
“Why is that?”
“We can’t pick anything up while we’re inside this rock. At least not until they patch us into the facilities external comm-array. Vlad’s people are working on it with Allet, but until he gets the boarding ramp to secure properly to the ship, the only way over there is by EVA, so it’s slow going.”
“When does he expect to be finished?”
“Vlad’s working on the boarding ramp while Allet works on the comm-array. Last I heard, a few hours at least.”
“What’s with the data modules?” Nathan asked, pointing at the stacks of the black and silver components.
“Vlad pulled them from the damaged mainframe cores. Since they’re not being used, we’ve been swapping them out when one of ours gets full. Gives us a bit more storage capacity.”
Nathan nodded. “Good idea. If you want, I can scan through some of this stuff as well…if you could use the help, that is.”
“Sure. Take as many as you want. Just mark the file and location of anything that looks promising.”
“Okay. Carry on,” he ordered as he picked up a few data modules on his way out.
Josh and Loki gazed out the windows at the city below. It stretched out in all directions as far as they could see. Tall buildings, most of which came to points up high in the sky, surrounded by lush green parks and crystal white walkways. There were overhead monorail systems running on what seemed like impossibly thin rails. Even the more congested parts of the city appeared pristine by Haven standards.
“I don’t much care for this auto-landing crap,” Josh complained.
“They probably already heard how you fly and are just playing it safe. Just relax and enjoy the scenery,” Loki told him.
“Listen to you two,” Marcus teased over the comms from the rear of the shuttle. “You sound like you’ve never been to a core world before.”
“I ain’t been off Haven since I was what, four or something?” Josh reminded him.
“I’ve been a few places besides Haven,” Loki admitted, “but never any place like this.”
“How many people do you suppose live here?” Josh wondered.
“Over 4 billion was the last estimate,” Tug reported over the comms. “Most of them are clustered on the main island nations in the upper and lower oceans.”
“How much of this planet is covered with water?” Loki asked.
“More than ninety percent,” Tug explained. “Most of their exports are water based commodities.”
“How come nobody lives in the equatorial regions?” Loki asked.
“This planet has no axial tilt, and its orbit is nearly a perfect circle; hence it has almost no seasonal changes. The equatorial regions are just too dry to support life.”
“How can any place on a planet that’s ninety percent water be too dry?” Josh wondered aloud.
The shuttle continued on its gradual descent over the city as it approached the local spaceport. The closer they came to the port, the more ships they saw coming and going. There was an incredible amount of air traffic, ships of every conceivable shape, size, and purpose.
“Jesus, no wonder they require ships to use the auto-landing system. Look at this!” Loki exclaimed.
“It reminds me of when you go into the kitchen at night, and turn on the lights, and all the bugs go running for cover,” Josh commented.
Outside, another larger shuttle appeared to be coming straight at them. “Uh, Loki?” Josh said, a slight bit of concern in his voice. “Is that guy coming right at us?”
Loki looked down at his scanner display. “I’m not sure.”
“Whattaya mean, you’re not sure?” Josh’s concern was beginning to show signs of panic as well.
“There are so many tracks on here, I can’t make out who’s who.”
“Well, are any of them coming right at us or not?”
“They all look like they’re coming right at us, Josh!”
Josh began to frantically try to disengage the auto-flight system. “How the hell do you shut off this crap?!” Josh was really starting to panic as the approaching ship drew nearer at an alarming rate.
“We’re going to collide!” Josh yelled as he ducked down, holding his arms up over his head to protect himself.
The massive shuttle skimmed over the top of them, missing by no more than a few meters. The jet wash from the larger ship’s engines shook the smaller shuttle for several seconds after passing overhead. By the time the roar of the passing ship’s engines subsided, all that was left was the sound of Loki’s laughter.
“What are you laughing at?” Josh demanded.
“I thought you never flinched?”
“Real funny, that was. Real funny.”
Ten minutes later, the shuttle was on the ground and had rolled to a stop at one of the countless cargo terminals. Tug and Jalea came down the boarding ramp almost before it had completely deployed.
“We’ll secure a transport for the ore and return,” Tug advised Marcus as they walked away.
Marcus watched as the two Karuzari walked across the tarmac until they reached the terminal building, where Tug went to the left towards the transportation office and Jalea went into the terminal building. Jessica had told him to keep an eye on the two of them. He didn’t know why she didn’t trust them, but as trusting people wasn’t in his nature any more than it seemed to be in hers, he had no problem obliging her request.
Jalea took a moment to let her eyes adjust to the interior lighting after coming in from the harsh afternoon sun of Corinair. After looking around to get her bearings, she spotted a communications service counter and headed toward it.
“Can I help you, Miss?” the clerk at the counter asked in the local language of Corinairi.
“I need to purchase five comm-units, please.”
“Of course. Will those be local, global, or interplanetary?”
“Two local, one global, and two interplanetary units.”
“No problem, just give me a few minutes to activate them for you.”
Jalea waited calmly as the clerk activated each unit. After paying for the comm-sets, the clerk placed them all into a clear plastic bag and handed it to her.
Jalea left without delay, heading for the exit. She stopped short of the doors, pausing to take the global comm-set out of the bag and put it into her jacket pocket before heading through the doors.
As she stepped out, Tug pulled up in a large, flatbed cargo skimmer. Jalea stepped into the open cab and took a seat next to him, the skimmer sinking slightly lower to the ground temporarily as it adjusted to the additional weight of another passenger. Tug immediately sped off across the tarmac on his way back to the shuttle.
“What do you suppose she was doing in there?” Marcus wondered aloud.
“Using the bathroom?” Josh offered.
Marcus just glared at him. He continued watching their skimmer as it hurtled across the tarmac, adjusting its speed and course to avoid ships and other skimmers sharing the tarmac with them. After a few minutes, the skimmer finally arrived and Tug backed it into position as close to the rear of the shuttle as possible.
As the skimmer backed up, Marcus raised the ramp so it was level with the tarmac. Tug adjusted the hover height of the skimmer until it was level with the shuttle’s boarding ramp, and backed it up until it was flush with the boarding ramps leading edge. A moment later, four legs extended from the skimmer and made contact with the tarmac below, after which Tug shut the skimmer down.
Marcus wheeled the crates of ore out of the back of the shuttle and onto the bed of the cargo skimmer, carefully positioning the crates in order to fit all of them onto the vehicle. The entire off-load took only fifteen minutes.
Jalea climbed down out of the skimmer’s cab and walked over to Marcus. “You may use this to contact us should the need arise. It will work anywhere within the Darvano system, even inside the asteroid base.”
“This thing will work inside a rock?” Marcus challenged.
“The external comm-array will relay the signal to the interior of the facility. It will work just fine. Unless instructed otherwise, you may meet us here tomorrow morning, between nine and ten, local time.”
“And what will you two be doing while we’re gone?” Marcus asked, trying, but failing to not appear abnormally inquisitive.
“Our instructions were to sell the ore and use the money to purchase supplies for the Aurora, which you will haul back to the ship tomorrow.”
“That shouldn’t take too long. Maybe we should just wait around.”
“That will not be necessary. We are also going to attempt to locate any friends on this world that might lend assistance.”
“Uh huh. What kind of friends?”
“I do not believe that is any of your concern,” she said as she turned and walked away.
Marcus looked down at the comm-set she had handed him, and then back at her as she climbed into the cab of the skimmer. Tug climbed in the other side of the cab, powered the vehicle back up, and retracted the legs before pulling away.
“That is one icy bitch,” Marcus muttered.
“So, time to blast off?” Josh asked.
“Soon,” Marcus told him. “First, let’s go and get us some real food.” A big grin came across his face. “I’m buying.”
It had been relatively easy to dispose of the Aurora’s shipment of raw ore as Tug had asked for a price that left the buyer with plenty of room for profit. Now that they had concluded the first task of their visit to Corinair, they were more than ready to depart the dirty, industrial part of the capital city.
“We must go to the market and purchase supplies,” Tug announced.
“Perhaps it would be more efficient if we were to separate. You go to the market and procure the supplies the captain requested. I will secure us lodging for the night and place discreet ads on the net that only our friends will recognize. This will provide additional time for them to contact us.”
Tug did not like the idea of separating. Not only was the capital city a large and heavily populated city, it also had its dangerous side. He had no doubt that Jalea could handle herself and would not take any undue risks, but he was yet unsure how much he could trust her. Jalea had normally been a master at self-control and emotional discipline, despite some of the more passionate moments they had shared in the distant past, long before his third marriage to Ranni. But her recent behavior, including her sudden violent outburst in the Aurora’s interrogation room, had him a bit concerned-not only for her well being, but also as to her true intentions.
“Are you sure?” He did not want to come right out and announce his misgivings. “There is yet sufficient time.”
“I will be fine,” she assured him. “It is not my first time on this world. Besides, I wish to seek counsel from a member of the Order.”
“You still cling to such superstitions, even in the light of our new reality?”
“It still provides me strength,” she told him. “Do not judge-”
“Of course. But we must first purchase comm-units,” he insisted, “so that we may stay in contact.”
“I have already taken the liberty,” she informed him, pulling one of the local comm-units from her shoulder bag.
Tug tried unsuccessfully to hide his surprise. “How did you pay for these?” he asked, worried that she might have left a financial marker that a watchful Ta’Akar intelligence operative might notice.
“Do not concern yourself. I used standard universal credits. And I reprogrammed my ident-chip prior to departure, as I am sure you did as well.” Jalea smiled to reassure him. “You forget that I am not new to subterfuge. I also purchased a pair of interplanetary comm-units and gave one to the Havenite in case we need to communicate with him later. We can also list one of the numbers as the contact in our advertisement, in case one of our friends tries to contact us after we return to the ship.”
“Ah, Jalea. You have always been good at thinking on your feet,” he commended.
“You trained me well,” she told him, touching his arm. “Call me once you have secured our cargo at the spaceport and I will let you know of our lodging arrangements.”
Tug watched her walk away. She seemed as normal as ever, but there was still something about her demeanor that bothered him. But there was little he could do about it at the moment, and he had business to conclude before the day ended on Corinair.
Nathan sat in his ready room behind his desk, skimming through video footage on the large view screen on the forward bulkhead over the couch.
“Captain?” Cameron asked as she stuck her head in the open hatchway.
“How many times do I have to tell you, Cam?”
“Sorry, Nathan.” She stepped over the hatchway threshold into the ready room, looking at the images on the view screen as she approached his desk. “What are you doing?”
“Skimming through video recordings from Corinair.”
“What for?”
“Just marking anything that looks important enough to warrant the time of our only translator.”
“You don’t have anything better to do?”
“Not really. Apparently, being in command of a broken down starship with a skeleton crew hiding out inside an asteroid doesn’t require much effort” he joked. “Besides, our sig-int team can use the help.”
“Okay.”
“You know,” he said, as he stopped to make a note of the file and location of the current finding, “you can actually learn a lot about a civilization by watching this stuff.”
“But you don’t even understand what they’re saying,” Cameron pointed out.
“Hell, I don’t even have the sound on. But the images themselves tell you a lot. Like I can already tell that Tug and Jalea’s claims about the brutality of the regime of Caius are not exaggerations.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
“You’re telling me. I was hoping they were just blowing smoke up our butts. It would’ve made it a lot easier to jump the hell out of here after we got ourselves patched up.”
“What?” Cameron was confused.
“You didn’t really think I wanted to stick around and fight someone else’s war, did you?”
“Well, actually, I guess I did.”
“Jesus, Cam. Do you really think I’m that stupid?”
“Do you really want me to answer that?”
“Look, don’t get me wrong. If it turns out to be better for the Earth for us to stay here and help these people with their little rebellion, then that’s what we’ll do. But until I’m one hundred percent convinced of that, my plan is to start jumping home just as soon as the time is right.”
“But after that meeting, I was sure that you-”
“That was a negotiation, Cam. And all negotiations are basically just staged performances. That’s something I learned from my father. The best way to motivate someone to do what you want them to do is to make them think they have a chance of getting what they want.”
“It seems a bit dishonest.”
“There’s nothing dishonest about it, unless you never have any intention of giving them what they want, which in this instance is not the case. That decision is yet to be rendered. I’m simply allowing them to believe that I’m more inclined to help them than not.”
“I had no idea you could be this devious,” she admitted.
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“I’m not disappointed. Relieved, yes, but not disappointed.”
Nathan continued skipping through the images on the view screen. “So why did you come by?”
“Oh, yes. I wanted to let you know that Vladimir finally got the boarding tube to mate up and seal properly. We now have a direct pressurized passageway to the rebel base.”
“Well that’s good news.”
“Yeah. I’ve already got two teams exploring the facility. We should have a better idea of its capabilities within a few hours.”
“Great work.”
“Thanks,” she said as she rose to exit.
“Hey, how are Josh and Loki doing in the flight simulator?”
“Better than I expected,” she admitted. “Loki is actually a pretty good navigator as well. Josh, on the other hand… Well, if he can learn to take his hand off the stick once in awhile, he might make an adequate pilot someday. And I emphasize the word someday.” Cameron turned to exit, when a thought suddenly occurred to her. “Wait a minute. Before, when you were saying that you didn’t want to stay and fight someone else’s war, were you saying that just to make me believe that you were actually on my side?”
“Dismissed, Commander,” Nathan ordered with a smile. It was rare that he got the last word with his XO in private.
Jalea walked the crowded pedestrian paths that ran between the tall buildings of the downtown quarter of the city. As she had been taught, she regularly found ways to check behind her for any undue attention without being obvious about her intent. Looking perfectly innocent when one was far from it was a skill that required very little effort. One only had to pretend that one was innocent of any ill-intent, and one’s actions would belie that belief to all onlookers. It was a common adage among the Karuzari that had served her well for many years.
Although fully trained in the art of combat, Jalea had spent most of her time with the Karuzari as an intelligence operative. So much so that she felt she was able to blend in to just about any situation, and to seek out any advantage available at a moment’s notice. More than once, her talents had not only saved her own life, but had turned events in the Karuzari’s favor. However, no amount of subterfuge had been able to overcome the dying rebellion’s waning support, the result of years of brutal and aggressive counter-terrorism tactics used by the current commanders of the Ta’Akar military. But the recent string of failures at turning the tides of war had not discouraged her to the point of surrender. Not yet.
Jalea turned and entered a small cafe on the corner of one of the smaller buildings. The inside of the shop was warm and smelled of freshly baked pastries. There were a dozen or so small tables scattered about, with several stools at each of the counters running along the two main windows.
“Good afternoon. What can I get you?” the young man behind the counter inquired.
“Hot spiced tea and a sweet roll, please,” she told him, pulling out her small coin purse. A few moments later, the young man returned with her order and collected her payment. “Do you have any terminals?” she asked, holding up her comm-unit.
“They’re built into the window counters,” the man instructed. “Just drop your unit into the slot and the display will sync up to the net.”
“Thank you,” she said, flashing a smile at the young man. She moved to the counter on her right, taking the seat at the far end, making sure she was as removed from any of the other patrons as possible. It was mid afternoon on Corinair, and as expected, the cafe was not busy. So there were few prying eyes to be concerned about.
Jalea placed her tea and pastry on the glass counter as she took her seat. She pulled the interplanetary comm-unit from her bag and dropped it into the small slot just as the man behind the counter had instructed. The section of the glass counter directly in front of her lit up, displaying the logo of the Corinair data and communications network. She moved her tea and pastry aside in order to have a clear view of her screen.
She spent the next ten minutes casually sipping her tea and dining on her sweet roll in much the same manner as any other patron might have done on an afternoon break. Her fingers danced and drew lines across the glass counter as she manipulated the display underneath. She checked on the local weather forecast, caught up on the news, and even spent time checking for local dining sites and local taverns. After writing down on a napkin the address of a nearby tavern of interest, she removed the comm-unit and returned it to her bag.
After discretely checking for any undue attention, she pulled one of the local comm-unit from her jacket pocket and dropped it into the same slot. Again, the display lit up. She immediately called up the appropriate interface and composed a brief message that simply read ‘Karuzari Leader currently hiding on Corinair along with mysterious disappearing warship.’ and signed it ‘TM’. She addressed the message to the Ta’Akar Office of Military Intelligence on Corinair, encrypted it, and sent it off.
As quickly as possible, but without attracting attention to herself, she wiped her fingerprints off the glass counter, pulled her comm-unit out of the slot, wiped it down and place it into her jacket pocket, still wrapped in the napkin, as she picked up her bag and walked out of the cafe.
Once back on the pedestrian walkway, she quickly made her way to the nearest monorail station and ascended the stairs to the boarding platform. She waited patiently for the next car to arrive, which took no more than a few minutes. Stepping onto the crowded car, she moved into position, pulled the comm-unit from her jacket pocket, and immediately bumped into an older gentleman in a business suit carrying a shopping bag. As she bumped into him, she dropped the comm-unit into his bag.
“Oh, please excuse me,” she said, pretending to be embarrassed.
The gentleman turned toward her, prepared to reprimand her for her clumsiness, but immediately found his irritation diffused by Jalea’s beguiling green eyes and olive complexion.
“That’s quite all right,” he assured her.
She moved away and slipped out the next exit and back onto the platform just before the doors closed and the car sped away. Within moments she was back downstairs on the pedestrian walkway, moving along with the foot traffic at a pace and manner as everyone else.
“How can you be tired of this already?” Vladimir asked.
“This is my fourth meal made of molo in two days,” Nathan argued, “as is yours. Are you telling me you’re not tired of molo yet?”
“Do you want to eat the escape pod meal kits again?”
“Not really; at least not yet.”
“You know what your problem is? You always worry. You worry too much, Nathan.”
“I’m the captain, remember? I’m pretty sure it’s in my job description.”
“My grandfather always said, ‘Worry only about the things you can change, let someone else worry about the things you cannot change.’ He was a very wise man.”
Nathan stared at him, trying to decipher the deeper meaning of the phrase. After a few moments, he decided there was none and continued eating. “So what was it like over there?”
“It is quite impressive. I mean, it is obviously slapped together with bits and pieces from many different places, but they have created quite a facility in the process. Machine shops, fabrication shops, component printers: I believe we can fix nearly everything here.”
“I’ll be happy if we just patch up the hole in the hull,” Nathan admitted.
“This we can definitely do here. We just need some material for the fabricators.”
“What else do they have?” Nathan wondered.
“Living quarters, agricultural rooms for growing food. They even have a small hospital.”
“Does Doctor Chen know about this?”
“Yes, she is going over there tomorrow to see if this facility can be of any use to us.”
“How is Deliza doing with the computers for Abby?”
“They are running simulations to verify that the shuttle’s computers can process our machine code. So far, everything seems to be going fine.”
“That’s good news. Between you and I, the jump drive worries me the most. If that thing breaks down, we’re pretty much screwed.”
“Do not worry, Nathan. My people have been checking all of her circuits and controls. So far, everything looks good.”
“Do you think- I mean, if we manage to get our hands on that zero-point device, do you think we could make it work with our jump drive?”
“It should be possible. The power lines and the emitters will need to be beefed up in order to handle the additional power loads. It would be helpful if we could find a better conductor for power distribution, something with less resistance, perhaps. Yes, that would help a lot, I believe.”
“I sure hope you’re right.”
“See? Again, you worry. Listen, Nathan. I admit that I do not begin to understand how the jump drive works. But from what I have seen, she was not kidding when she said that they overbuilt the system. It is very robust. And believe me, Russians know robust. Everything we build is robust.”
Nathan sat there picking at his food as he watched Vladimir clean his plate and signal for seconds. He only hoped that his friend’s assessment of the jump drive was correct. He had still not quite gotten used to the idea of instantly jumping up to ten light years. Jumping hundreds or even thousands of light years? He didn’t think he’d ever get his mind to wrap around that one.
Jalea knew the moment she entered the tavern that she had chosen the correct establishment. It had all the telltale signs of a front for the Order of Origin. One only had to know what those signs were.
As she entered the poorly lit establishment, she unzipped her jacket and pulled the collar of her shirt open farther to reveal more of her cleavage. She knew from experience that it was an effective way to get men to honor her requests. As she took a seat at the bar, she could tell by the look on the bartender’s face that this man was no exception to the rule.
“Can I get you something to drink?” the bartender asked.
“A light ale, cold,” she said. The bartender returned a moment later with a crystal mug of a pale, yellowish liquid with a slight bit of white foam on top.
“Four credits,” he announced, setting her drink on the bar in front of her. She placed a one hundred credit chip on the bar and slid it toward him.
The bartender looked down at the significant overpayment, and with one eyebrow raised he asked, “Is that the smallest you’ve got?”
“Consider it a tip,” she said with a smile.
“For what?” he asked, his eyebrow still raised.
“I seek only counsel, to get my affairs in order.”
The bartender looked her over, lingering longer than necessary on her cleavage before responding. “I’ll see what I can do.” He picked up the credit chip and left the bar, disappearing through a doorway at one end.
Jalea picked up her mug of ale and took a sip. She had never truly acquired a taste for such intoxicants, but had learned to tolerate it as operations often called for their use. She was sure that the bartender had gone to confer with others who were probably watching her through a hidden video monitoring device at this very moment.
A few minutes later, the bartender returned, placing her change on the counter. He leaned forward and whispered in her ear. “Down the hall, third door, downstairs. Now, slap me like I just propositioned you.”
Without hesitation, Jalea leaned back and slapped him hard with her open hand, followed by tossing the remainder of her ale in his face. “Pig!” she yelled as she rose from her barstool and stormed off down the hallway.
The bartender laughed in the face of the onlookers. “Worth it,” he chuckled.
Jalea strode indignantly into the hallway, going right past both the men’s and then the women’s restrooms, instead entering the third door just as instructed. The room was dark, lit only by a bit of light coming through a crack in the curtain that covered the small, high window. She found a light control by the door and activated the overhead light panel. The room was small with many storage shelves on one wall and a large wash basin on the other. She felt around the storage shelves until she found what she was looking for. On the side of the shelving unit was a small catch. She grabbed it and pulled, causing the shelving unit to swing forward slightly. She pulled harder and swung the unit open to reveal a staircase that led down to a lower level.
Jalea carefully stepped into the dim staircase, pulling the shelving unit back behind her until she felt it lock back into place. She descended the staircase slowly, her footsteps echoing down the long corridor at the bottom of the stairs.
Once at the bottom of the stairs, she followed the long hallway. She was sure it was going under the pedestrian walkway outside, possibly even over to another building on the opposite side. At the end of the hall, she reached a door, which she opened.
The next room was only a few meters square and was decorated with tapestries depicting the Legend of Origin. She had seen such artworks many times as a child, her father having served as a priest of the Order. His service to the Order had been the inadvertent cause of her mother’s death when she was still young, and it had been the direct cause of his own death much later. But despite these tragic memories, she had made herself remember all the trappings and rituals involved in the Order, knowing that the knowledge would someday come in handy.
To her left, there was a table full of candles and artifacts. In front of the table was a kneeling pillow. She stepped up to the pillow and knelt down. She picked up one of the unlit candles and held the tip to the flame of the main candle in the middle of the table. Once lit, she placed her burning candle on the table at the end of the row of already burning candles that had been placed by previous visitors that day. She crossed her hands in front of her chest, bowed her head down, and began to mumble an almost inaudible prayer. When she was finished, she drew a cross over her chest and rose. To her right were two small doors, each decorated in much the same fashion, although the symbols on the doors were obviously different. There was another door in the wall behind her directly adjacent to the table full of candles, but she already knew that the purpose of that door held no interest for her.
She entered one of the two doors and stepped into a small confessional booth. After closing the door, she turned, sat down, and waited for someone to come. After waiting for several minutes, a bright blue beam of light washed across her, traveling from her head to her toes in less than a minute. She knew instantly that she had been scanned. It was not an uncommon precaution, considering how deep into the Ta’Akar controlled Pentaurus cluster the Darvano system was located. The Legend of Origins was still a forbidden practice under the order of Caius, and all caught in its practice were summarily executed.
Once the scan completed, she heard the sound of the third door in the room as it opened and closed, followed by the sounds of footsteps as someone-a man by the weight of his footfalls-made his way across the small outer room, opened the door to the adjacent booth, and closed it behind him.
A moment later, the opaque screen on the wall between them began to glow, the silhouette of the occupant in the next booth showing on its surface.
“Why do you seek counsel?” a benevolent male voice came from the adjacent booth. The screen was nothing more than a piece of cloth casting a shadow of the occupant; hence the man’s voice came through quite clearly.
“I’ve had a dream,” she began.
“We all have dreams, child.”
“Perhaps dream is not the right word.”
“What word might better describe what you experienced?”
Jalea paused for a moment, feigning hesitation for an unknown emotional reason. “I’m not sure,” she lied.
“Are you unsure, or unwilling to admit the truth?” the man prompted.
“A bit of both, I suppose.”
“Do not worry, for you are not judged, at least not by me.”
“It was not a dream, really. I want to call it… a vision, but I’ve never had such and have no way to tell if that description might be any more accurate.”
“What makes you think it was not a dream?”
“I was not asleep at the time,” she admitted softly.
“I see,” the man said. “Perhaps, if you tell me of this experience, I might be better able to help you identify it, to understand its meaning.”
“It was a voice,” she told him, “a man’s voice. An old man, I believe. I’m not sure.”
“And what did this voice say to you?”
“He told me to look to the sky on this night. To the level of the first moon, but a quarter rotation to the north. At twenty-eight thirty, on this night,” she told him. Jalea was pouring all her emotion into her performance, playing the tortured and confused soul for all she could muster.
“What is it that you are supposed to see?” the man asked.
Jalea could tell that the priest’s curiosity was peaked. “He said a sign would be given. And that on the next day, a gift would be bestowed upon us all, a gift that would save us all from evil,” she told him, almost in tears. “Oh, father, do you think me insane?”
“Of course not, child.”
“But father. I think the voice… I think it was God, father.” There was no response from the man after that, and for a moment, Jalea feared she had overplayed her hand.
“I’m curious,” the man asked. Jalea could hear the doubt in his voice. She was probably not the first person to tell him that God had spoken to them. “Why do you tell this to me?”
“I do not wish this burden,” Jalea told him as she sniffed. “I am not a strong woman. I am a nobody. I fear persecution. Someone else must deliver the message.”
“Deliver it to whom?”
Jalea pretended to think for a moment, as if she had not considered that possible question until now. “I’m not sure,” she told him, making it sound like an admission. “Other believers, maybe? People who believe in the Legend of Origin?”
“And to what end?” he challenged.
“If something bad is about to happen, or something good for that matter, shouldn’t the people know?”
“Perhaps,” he agreed.
After another moment of silence, interrupted only by her occasional sniffle, Jalea spoke up once more. “Father? Do you think me insane?”
The man felt pity for the woman. If she was telling the truth, she was obviously upset by this revelation. Perhaps it challenged her beliefs, or perhaps it confirmed them, even after she had long suppressed them out of fear of reprisals by the Ta’Akar. If she was lying, then he simply pitied her for her foolishness.
“Who is to say that God does not speak to people such as you and me?” he told her.
“Thank you,” she sniffled one last time before she quickly exited the booth and ran out of the room.
The man sat in his booth for several minutes after she had left. He had counseled many during his service to the order, and many had claimed to have visions, to have received messages from their Savior. They were almost always simply the tortured souls of ordinary people that were seeking some sort of forgiveness, some sort of redemption, at least in their own minds. He had never begrudged any of them that which they sought. But none of those that had made such claims before had spoken of impending signs, and never of signs that were to occur at such an exact time and in such a precise location. It gave him cause for thought.