Spears of the Sun (Star Sojourner Book 3) Read online

  I stared out the open door and found myself smiling. When Willa had decided that we were in love, I'd searched my feelings and had to agree. “She's smart, too, in a way I never was. You know, perceptive and focused.”

  “Yeah, I know. Don't screw it up this time.”

  I bit my lip. “I'm trying real hard not to, Mister Hatch.”

  “Joe! In case you're interested in something besides your specimen, W-CIA's got an internal security breach that could affect Earth and her colonies.”

  “Sounds serious. What about their special agents? They're trained to deal with internal affairs.” I went to the co-pilot's seat and sat down.

  “And they do a fine job, but they can't read minds.”

  Below us, the root forest disappeared as we climbed between blue peaks. I looked away from them. I didn't like the memories those peaks evoked. My kid sister Ginny was killed on a Colorado mountain peak when I'd crashed a hornet cub there as a teenager. A friendly Loranth of Syl' Terria in the geth state, what we humans call the afterlife, told me that she was happy. Her kwaii, or spirit, had been born into an alien body on a planet a human couldn't visit because of the crushing atmosphere. It helped to relieve some of the guilt I lived with, but the images of her death would always be with me.

  “I've got a good life here, Joe. I think I did my turn at helping humanity, more than once.”

  “I think so too. But then, so have I.”

  “There are other human telepaths. OK, they're rare, but – “

  “But they're unproven, and this is not the job for gaining field experience.”

  “You make it sound more and more exciting.”

  “Oh, it's exciting.”

  “Have you met Willa?” I asked.

  “In passing. She was riding back from Laurel. Said she'd been shopping. She told me you were out studying the root forest. When I got to the ranch I left the rented ground car next to her vehicle, so she'd know I took your hovair and it wasn't stolen. Just in time, too.”

  “You were sent.”

  “Oh?

  “I contacted Spirit and told him I needed help. Fast.”

  “I don't recall getting the message.”

  “No, you wouldn't. He's a powerful, subliminal telepath. Actually, he's much more than that.” I looked back at the metal toolbox where I'd left the blackroot stem. It was secure.

  There was a sudden ache in my forehead. I rubbed my temples. Someone was invading my thoughts. I knew it wasn't Spirit. This link had a desperate quality.

  We were past the mountains when an acrid hint of smoke permeated the cabin. It was coming from outside the craft.

  “Do you smell smoke?” I asked Joe.

  He nodded and peered through the windshield. The air above the tree line west of Willa's ranch was a gray smudge in the sky.

  “We'd better skirt it,” he said grimly and banked the hovair.

  “Her ranch is just beyond those trees!” I tried to ignore the tightening in my throat.

  “It's a wildfire, Jules. Could be anywhere in these forests.”

  I realized that I had instinctively thrown up mind shields against the agonized thoughts invading my brain. I lowered them and probed.

  It came as a tormented cry across a mental chasm. Jules. Help me! Oh God! I'm trapped. Help me. Please! I'm trapped! I can't –

  “Willa!” I screamed. I leaned across Joe and clutched the wheel. “It's Willa. She's trapped! Give me the controls!”

  Joe relinquished them and slid out of the pilot's seat as I took it. I plunged the craft above the trees, blinded by smoke, and toward the ranch. The smoke thickened as I approached. I gasped in a shuddering breath when I saw flames spew out through smashed walls of the house. “Oh, no. No! Spirit!”

  I am truly sorry, Jules, he sent. There is nothing I can do to help her now. Perhaps if I had been in contact earlier…

  “Oh God!” I'm coming, Willa. I'm coming, baby, I sent soothingly, though she's not a tel and can't receive. Hold on. I'll be there in two minutes.

  Jules! she cried in agony. God! Help me! The mindlink weakened. Help me! Please! She screamed within my mind.

  “This can't be happening!” Willa? Hold on, I sent, though I knew she couldn't read it. I'm coming!

  I lowered the craft to the ground. It bounced and flung up dirt as I slammed on brakes and skidded to a stop. The house was a skeleton of blazing fibrin, as though dying in the arms of fire.

  “I'm here, Willa,” I yelled. I threw open the cabin door and leaped down.

  “Jules!” Joe followed me. “What the hell are you doing?”

  I ran toward the house, but Joe threw himself at me. My knees buckled and we both went down.

  “Get off me!” I shouted as he straddled my back and pinned my wrists to the ground. I struggled, but Joe, even at sixty-seven, was a moose of a man. “I have to save her. Get off me!”

  He just tightened his grip and leaned harder. “I'm sorry, kid. There's no saving her.”

  The house was a crumbling skeleton. Heated air exploded. The fire flashed over and the structure burst and collapsed. Pieces of blackened fibrin and shards of the roof spun through smoky air.

  “Willa!” I screamed.

  Joe stood up. “You would've gotten killed too.”

  I rested my cheek on the cool grass and felt tears slide across my face. “Oh, Willa,” I mumbled, “It should have been me instead of you.” To ease my agony, I closed my eyes and pictured her the way she'd been…

  Two months ago she'd told me she would love to have a patch of Earth grass. I'd ordered the expensive seeds and planted them without telling her it was real Earth grass. I nurtured the patch daily. One day Willa walked over with her boyish gait and studied the furrowed earth.

  “So what are you growing, hon?” she asked. “Is it a secret?”

  “Oh, no. Just weeds.” I'd wiped a grimy hand across my sweaty forehead.

  “Weeds?”

  “Weeds.”

  Her hazel eyes had widened. “Don't we have enough weeds, dear?” The smile became a smirk.

  “Oh, I dunno.” I stood up. “You can never have enough weeds. Anyway, these are special weeds.

  “You biologists.” A frown crossed her smooth forehead. “OK. Then more weeds.” She hugged me and ran her hand through my hair. She loved to do that. I loved to let her.

  “It's so blonde and soft,” she said.

  “I bleach it just for you.” I kissed her forehead.

  “Do you also bleach your eyes to my favorite shade of blue?”

  “It hurts like hell, love, but I take the pain to please my Willa.”

  “And did you stretch your bones on a rack to get so tall and lean, my honey?”

  “That one was a killer. I started out short and fat, you know. But I yelled 'More! More! Turn the wheel harder. My Willa likes tall skinny men'.”

  “Why don't you come into the house and I'll give you a haircut.”

  “Ah, shucks. I was hoping for more than a haircut.”

  The day the first green shoots broke through the ground, she ran to me, her broad smile lighting her face, and threw her arms around my neck.

  “I guess you like my weeds?” I said.

  “I guess I like you.” She stood on her toes and kissed me. “You're so beautiful.”

  “That's handsome, my lady. You're beautiful.”

  We had gone to this patch together and held hands as we laid side by side in the soft green grass of Earth.

  I opened my eyes. Now my tears watered the grass. Now the sweet scent was covered by the acrid odor of burning fibrin.

  I sat up and stared at the smoldering ruins of our house. Small fires still snapped and died. Heated fibrin exploded in puffs. The two vehicles parked near the house were covered with soot and debris. Our plans and our dreams for a future together lay broken.

  Willa…

  Jules. My love.

  It was her kwaii, as Loranths would tell you, her soul, leaving her body.

  She co
uldn't stay, but I wanted her presence as I wanted breath.

  Stay for a while, baby. Just for a little while. I love you so much. My Willa. Tears flowed down my cheeks. My life.

  I cannot, my love. Her spirit was drifting away. I'm being called.

  I know. Just for a while. I don't know what to do without you.

  Live your life, Jules. Please, you have to let me go.

  I don't know how.

  Jules! It was Spirit. If you love the Terran woman, release her. Willa, go to your Lord, to Great Mind, and have no fears. Your pain is over.

  Goodbye, my love, she sent.

  Then she was gone.

  She left behind a void in my chest that I couldn't fill. A hollow place where my heart had been, and took it with her. I lowered my head and cried like a baby.

  I felt Joe's hand on my shoulder.

  In the distance, the growing wail of fire trucks.

  “It's my fault!” I slammed a fist on the ground. “I ruin everything I touch!”

  “Not this time. Whoever did this followed me here. When they saw my rented ground car parked next to her hovar they figured we were inside the house together.”

  “She's gone.” I wiped an arm across my wet eyes. “I'll never see her again, Joe.” Suddenly I felt tired. Weary as a spent day. “They killed the most innocent one among us.”

  Joe sighed. “We'd better leave.” He scanned the sky. “If the bastards come back and see this hovair undamaged, they'll figure they missed me and come in for another strike. They want you alive.” He gestured toward the approaching trucks. “But there are more innocent lives at stake now. Come on, kid.”

  I got up, looked back once at the blackened ruins, then followed Joe to the hovair and boarded. I watched smoke roil around us as he lifted the craft into the blue sky. “I want to go after them, Joe. I want to find them.”

  “So you can bring them in for interrogation, right?” He studied me. “Our intelligence reports tell us that General Ki Rowdinth hired rogue W-CIA agents. We need whatever information they possess to break this ring. There's a lot at stake.”

  “Interrogation?” I said softly and rubbed the grass stains on my hands. “Sure.” If you can interrogate the dead, I thought.

  Chapter Three

  Willa's ranch was sold to a wealthy, retired tag.

  I rubbed my hands. The green stains had long ago disappeared. The horses had been rounded up and herded back to the corral. Willa's dog Buck returned on his own and stayed with the new owner.

  I never went back to the ranch. Willa's body had been consumed by a fire so hot only a few remnants of bones were found among the fibrin ashes.

  “Jules?”

  I realized Joe had been talking to me.

  “Oh, sorry. What?”

  “It's all right. I said a native of the gold mining planet Fartherland, a crote who calls himself General Rowdinth, and two disgruntled NASA scientists teamed up…” He glanced around the restaurant. It was past lunchtime and most of Laurel's workforce was back on the job. The few remaining customers, three women and their children, sat at a far table, engaged in conversations.

  “The scientists stole classified documents,” Joe continued, “on a project that was designed to harness dark energy.”

  “Dark – How in hell do you harness dark energy when we don't know what it is?”

  “You'll have to ask the rocket scientists about that one.”

  “What do these crotes want?”

  Joe chewed the stem of his unlit pipe and stared out the window, but I knew he was looking inward. We sat in a dark corner. The slimes who killed Willa could still be hunting for Joe, and maybe me, too, if they knew that Interstel wanted my services to nail them. To the wall! I thought grimly.

  “The general contacted the Worlds Bank on planet Alpha,” Joe said, “and told the officials to unlock the depository vault, tell the military base to pack their duffel bags and get the hell off-planet or…” He scratched his bristly cheek.

  “Or what?”

  “Or stay for the coming Fourth of July and watch Earth burn up like a barbecue coal.”

  I hunched forward on the table. “How does Interstel know this isn't just a bluff?”

  “After NASA's project documents were stolen, a senior physicist and his son, both on the project, never showed up for work again.”

  “Then NASA believes that this…what? A weapon, can actually burn up Earth?”

  “The Dark Energy Project wasn't conceived as a weapon.” He put down his pipe and sipped coffee. “NASA figures these crotes could use it as a means to an end.”

  “What sort of means?”

  “The tags at NASA have some theories about that, but – “He looked up as a slim, blonde teenage waitress with freckles approached. She wore a frilly white apron against her short black dress that swayed with her hips as she walked. Sexy. Then I remembered how young she was and I felt guilty.

  She smiled and set two dishes in front us.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled.

  She winked at me and walked away.

  “But?” I asked Joe.

  “Nothing solid yet. That's where you come in.”

  Three Terran men entered the restaurant and sat at a table across from us. Something about their demeanor set off alarm bells. I lowered my mental shields and probed. They were more interested in the menus they studied than in observing us. But then, if they were sent by General Rowdinth, they'd know I was a tel and they'd guard their thoughts.

  The waitress came out from the back room and blocked my sight of them as she took their orders.

  “Joe?” I nodded discreetly in their direction.

  “Stay alert,” he said. “I don't like their looks either. Just act normal…for you.”

  “I'll try,” I told him. This was no time for sarcasm. “Where does this alien rogue general fit into the scheme?”

  “All we know about him is that he was indicted for rape and first-degree murder of a Terran woman.” Joe fumbled as he put away his unlit pipe but I saw him slide a call unit from his pants pocket and press a button. A green light blinked on.

  “I chewed a fingernail. “What the hell are we dealing with here?” I whispered. “This slime raped the woman and then murdered her too?”

  “She was from a mining camp, and it was the other way around.”

  “Jesus and Vishnu.”

  The smell of frying fish wafted out from the kitchen and did nothing to settle my queasy stomach.

  “Keep talking,” Joe said and glanced at the men. He speared a piece of stew meat in his dish and chewed. “These crotes at the table might just be workers and nothing more.”

  I tried to pick up the cup of coffee but my hand shook.

  Joe noticed. “Put it down.”

  I did. “I can't be the only undercover agent on an operation this important. Who are my colleagues?”

  “One way we protect our W-CIA agents,” he said around a mouthful, “is to keep all your identities secret, from each other, too.”

  I pictured secret handshakes, clandestine meetings, safe houses, and a cyanide pill tucked inside my cheek.

  I spit out the chewed fingernail. “I want Lisa off Earth!”

  “Keep your voice down. She already is. We figured that was your prerequisite for this work. Mine too.”

  “Don't tell me where she is, Joe. If my mission is uncovered by General Rowdinth, I don't want to know where Lisa is.”

  “I wasn't about to tell you. Then I take this as a yes on the mission?”

  I rubbed my eyes and sighed. “Next thing, they'll ask me to save the galaxy. Then maybe Great Mind will hire me to straighten out things in Nirvana.”

  “Who the hell's Great Mind?”

  “The tag who runs it all. You call Him Christ-Buddha.”

  “You got a direct line?”

  “Party line.”

  “You'll have to tell me about that when this mess is over.”

  “You'll have to ask Spirit. He's the authority
on God.”

  “Spirit?” He put down his fork and wiped his mouth with the napkin. “Great Mind. Spirit. I don't think you inhabit the same universe as the rest of us.”

  I thought of Willa and wondered if her kwaii had reincarnated yet. And where? There was no use talking about it with Joe. He wouldn't understand. I drummed my fingers on the table. “Telepathy does that for you.” Speaking of which… I glanced at the three tags as they studied dessert menus.

  “Stop looking at them.” Joe gestured toward my plate. “You going to eat, or just let it collect dust?”

  I stared at my dish. “I'm not hungry.”

  “Eat anyway. People don't come to restaurants when they're not hungry.”

  I chewed an undercooked asparagus spear.

  “You know,” Joe said, “I lost my partner five months before he retired.

  Here comes the Dutch-uncle talk, I thought.

  “Tag was blown away by pirates stalking the trade lanes between Earth and Titian. Curt and I worked together for eighteen years.”

  “But life goes on, right?”

  “Unless you figure the people you care about are immortal.”

  “Why don't you smoke your pipe while I try for a mindprobe on one of those three tags.”

  “Abby made me give up the pipe couple of months back.” He sipped coffee. “I found another hobby.”

  “Oh?” I waited. Joe likes pregnant pauses.

  “The fine art of getting old with grace.” His hand went inside his jacket and gripped something. A weapon, I assumed.

  “I hope we both make it to old age,” I said. I closed my eyes, exhaled a breath and relaxed, trying for an alpha brain rhythm, the most conducive for telepathy. I pictured the red ball coalescing within my mind, forced it to grow with my energy, and threw it at the most sinister-looking of the three tags, a big guy with fleshy, tattooed arms and a black leather vest over his blue checkered shirt.

  I got trouble with my truck. He formed the thought, then said it aloud.

  “Oh, yeah?” another burly tag answered. This guy was bald and wore a tattoo that announced: Bald Eagle! Don't Mess With Me! His mustache and beard were dark and thick, and I got the silly idea that his head was on upside down.

  “You always have trouble with that beast,” a thin hawk-nosed tag with glasses said. He was young, and I think he just hadn't had enough time to pack on the pounds. “What's the problem this time?” he asked.