A Stellar Affair (5 page)

Chapter Five

Roimiran compound, several weeks later

Sunlight spilled into Ardra’s holding cell from a long, narrow window set high in the wall to her right. A chair in the far corner by the door was the only other furniture, but unlike her bed, it was not welded to the floor. She had lost track of exactly how long she had been here. Her time on board the
Oberon
was turning into a distant memory, and it worried her that she was getting used to this place.

She sat on the bed and wiped the sweat from her upper lip. This morning, she was scheduled to see Jack again. He sent for her every other day, and she could only assume he interrogated other prisoners in between. In the beginning, she had felt confident that she could handle anything he might do to her, but now she wasn’t so sure. Her last confrontation with him had taught her to be scared of his abilities.

It had started out much like their previous meetings. He offered her a glass of tea and made small talk as if they were old friends. Then she started to feel sort of lightheaded or lethargic—what she had learned was a sign that he was using telepathy on her. Try as she might, she couldn’t shake it, and then it happened.

She didn’t really notice the transition or understand how it occurred, but suddenly she was back on Nintu V, and it was her second week of work with GEHD PD. The worst part of this mental shift was that she didn’t sense anything odd. She felt as if she were really there and didn’t question it.

Ardra was sitting across from Sonja Ward in the lab, just as she had her second week on the job. But as they talked, Sonja started saying things she had never said the first time.

“What made you come here to Nintu V?” Sonja asked.

“I saw this job as a great opportunity,” Ardra told her. “I hope to be able to settle here permanently. I’m sick of moving around so much.”

“Oh?” Sonja tossed her dark ponytail over her shoulder. “Have you moved around a lot in the past?”

Ardra continued jotting down her lab notes. “Yes, though I don’t remember most of it. My family moved almost constantly when I was a kid. Actually, my mother had it worse. It sounds like she followed my father around their whole married life. By the time I was born, it was a tradition. Wherever his job took him, we uprooted and went with him.”

“That must have been hard,” Sonja said.

“Sometimes it was.” She rubbed her forehead. “I’ll tell you one thing, though. After I went off to school, it was a whole different story. Shortly after I left, my father decided to break into the mineral business out of Dirdurak, but my mother put her foot down. She wanted to stay on Nintu III, and she wasn’t about to go chasing his silly hide across the universe anymore. Unfortunately, by then my father was so used to taking her for granted that he got stubborn. He packed up and left on his own, and he was shocked when she didn’t run after him.”

Sonja tilted her head. “So where are they now? Is your mom still on Nintu III?”

Ardra tried not to let her sadness show. “Sort of. My mother died in one of the terrorist attacks on Nintu III—the one where the Roimirans blew up Bio-Tech. I was still in school at the time.”

“And your father?”

“Killed in an asteroid mining accident not long after he left my mother. One of the hazards of the job, I guess.”

Ardra gave up on finishing her lab notes. She squeezed her eyes shut to see if that would dispel the strange feeling of lightheadedness, but it didn’t work.

“I’m so sorry,” Sonja told her. “Do you at least have a lot of memories of them?”

That’s when Ardra woke up. Whatever Jack had done wore off or broke down or something. With a jolt, her senses returned to the immediacy of the precept’s house, and she discovered she was sitting on the sofa, leaning forward with her forehead against Jack’s shoulder. He sat opposite her on a chair he had pulled close. He was sort of hugging her with his hand on the back of her head, and he got really worried when he realized she was awake.

“It’s okay,” he said quickly. “You’re all right.”

She was groggy enough that it took her a moment to push him away. “What the hell?”

“It’s all right,” he kept repeating. “Don’t be startled. You don’t have anything to worry about.”

She didn’t believe him. Her whole body trembled as she realized what had happened to her. This was what the precepts did. This was the kind of mind game Jack could play with her. How many times had he done this to her? Every day since she had first gotten here? Could he do this without her realizing it? The sinking feeling in her gut told her he could.

And now she was going to have to face him again.

Things were progressing more slowly than Jack would have liked, but he could tell Nash had finally come through for him when his friend showed up at his house early.

“I found them,” Nash announced. “I’m a genius.”

Jack smirked. “You can never be too sure.”

“What?”

“Never mind. Go ahead.”

Nash plopped down on the living room sofa. “Basner Slade is a retired machinist and a staunch supporter of our opposition’s biomedical initiatives. He’ll be ninety-seven next month, and he’s living with an artificial heart, kidney and eyes engineered to see 20-10. His wife, Ester, died five years ago. It looks like he blew most of his credits once she was gone.”

Nash glanced up before he continued.

“Private Tarrin Thales lost his parents when they died on a debtors’ colony when he was seven years old. They were in the asteroid mines. Thales was sent to the Saros Children’s Center, an orphanage on one of the Outer Belts run by neo-religious comet worshippers. He stayed there until he met the minimum age requirement, at which point he joined the Tetch military, presumably to see the system and earn some credits. Then we come to Rosemary Warner.”

“Alias of the woman we have here,” Jack said.

“Wrong,” Nash told him. “I’m talking about the real Rosemary Warner, our missing fourth.”

“What?”

“It turns out the real Rosemary Warner was supposed to get picked up at Simos, but she was afraid to fly. She never got on the transport ship. The lady we have here is Ardra Kelly.”

“Ardra.” Jack liked that name. “So Ardra Kelly met Rosemary Warner for the first time on Simos, and then she gave us the other woman’s name when we captured her?”

“It gets better, or maybe I should say worse,” Nash said. “Who is Ardra Kelly? I used almost every source I have to find out, but all I could uncover was that she works as some kind of botanist at GEHD PD. There’s no record of family, place of birth, schooling—nothing. It’s like she showed up out of nowhere a year ago. Records indicate that she received a transfer order and was on her way to Algoron to start her new job. I’m guessing that was the document she tore up.”

Jack sighed. “They sure picked a great crowd. These people have no connections, no real background and no trace. They’re the perfect instruments.”

This was going to be difficult.

“You must have some idea of who the carrier is by now,” Nash said.

Jack hated to disappoint him. “The old man, Basner Slade, is the obvious candidate. He’s the most typically Tetch, and they would view him as especially expendable because of his age. However, Thales is in the military, and they might have found it easier to use one of their own. Obviously, Ardra is the shrewdest and the one with the hidden past. I’m not even sure she is who
she
thinks she is.

“It could be that all three of them know a piece of the message, or perhaps we’re looking at three different messages. We have no idea what the Tetch planned for them once they arrived on Algoron. They might have been shipped to different points across the galaxy from there.”

“All right,” Nash agreed. “What do you want me to do?”

“Keep digging,” Jack told him. “Despite Private Thales’s presence, none of this strikes me as an official operation. If these people are really carrying what we think they are, there had to have been some major credits transferred. I want to know who was involved in the deal. Who was selling, and who on Algoron was buying? There has to be a trail.”

“If there is, I’ll follow it. Anything else?”

“Yes,” Jack said. “I want to know exactly who Ardra Kelly is. I’ll learn what I can on my end, but any details you can give me will help.”

Nash nodded and left to get to work.

The door had barely closed behind him before Gabriella Bastian, one of the security officers, arrived. She entered with Ardra, who he was happy to see no longer had her hands bound.

“Go on,” Gabriella told her. “You’ll be fine. He doesn’t bite.”

Ardra sat on the sofa and waited, though it was clear she wanted to be anywhere in the universe but here.

“Thanks, Gabriella,” Jack said. “We’ll be all right.”

The guard nodded and walked out.

He sat in the chair opposite Ardra and noticed how pale and tense she looked. Although she hadn’t exactly been relaxed with him before, she had never reacted this strongly. Could she have remembered their last session? She had shocked him when she had become conscious in the middle of an altered memory, but he thought he had finally soothed her and made her forget. Touching her thoughts now, he realized he had been mistaken.

Jack gave her a light mental push—not a thought, but a feeling of peacefulness. He wanted her to feel safe. “I’m sorry if I upset you the other day. I never meant to scare you. This could be a very easy, relaxed process if you’d cooperate. I think I can really help you.”

“Help me?” she scoffed.

“Help you uncover the truth about who you are,” he said.
Please, Ardra. Don’t be afraid of me.

Jack only thought the last part in his head, but she narrowed her eyes. “You know my real name.”

“Yes, Ardra.” He tried not to appear too surprised, but he was beginning to have some suspicions about her.

She sank deeper into the couch. “How did you know?”

He realized she was trying to figure out how much he had gotten out of her mind. “I understand your concern. If it makes you feel better, one of our research guys dug up your record. That’s how I learned your real name. Not from in here.” He pointed at his temple.

Contrary to what he’d hoped, she breathed even more shallowly. “What do you want?”

“Ardra.” He curled as much telepathic influence as he could into the name. “I already told you what I want. I want to find out what you know. There may be a very important number in your head.”

“Number?”

“Yes, a coordinate. All you have to do is relax and let me see if you’re carrying it. Then you’ll be free, and you can go wherever you want.”

She mouthed the word
free
but didn’t move.

“Come on. Stop fighting me.” He deepened his voice. “I can see you’re tired.”

Slipping into her consciousness, he seized control and put her under before she could resist.

Later that evening, Jack headed over to Walter’s house to give him an update. He found the superintendent sitting in his living room with half-a-dozen reports spread out in front of him on the table. Jack had to give the man credit. He did work hard.

“Can I fix you something to drink?” Walter rattled his glass, which still held a few sips of imported whiskey.

Jack shook his head. He was pretty exhausted as it was, and a drink would put him to sleep.

Walter’s living room was a dark but comfortable space. A red patterned carpet covered the floor, and two large brown sofas were stationed across from each other with a coffee table in the middle.

“So what do you have for me?” Walter asked. “How’s it going?”

Feeling a headache coming on, Jack rubbed his right eye with the heel of his hand. “Not very well. This is a lot harder than I thought it would be. I’m making the most progress with Tarrin, the young soldier, but he’s putting up a fight. The old man isn’t difficult, except I have to be careful not to overtax him. I’m still not sure which one is the carrier. They all fit the profile, and they all seem to have some pretty awful memories they’re trying to hide.”

If Terrah hadn’t been so opposed to using her skills for the military, he would have asked her for help. Damek was still in training, and this sort of work was too much for an apprentice, even if the young man had been inclined to assist. There were other precepts on the planet, of course, but the war kept all of them busy. They’d been especially inundated since the last campaign. Even if someone did become available, Jack wasn’t sure he would turn over any of the prisoners at this point. Some precepts used more mental force than others. At least he could ensure the three under his care were well treated.

Walter leaned forward and skimmed through one of the tablets on the table. “What about Ardra Kelly? Nash says we can’t find any further trace of her in the main databases.”

“Ardra? Ardra’s my toughest case of all,” Jack admitted. “I don’t even think she’s originally Tetch.”

“What makes you think that?”

“There are too many missing pieces. Even if she did get snatched by some black market intel dealer, the Tetch should have better records on her. If the government seized her, then what made them choose her in the first place? I mean, why her? It doesn’t make sense.” He hesitated a moment. “And there’s something else. She’s a precept. Low or mid-level by my estimation.”

“What?” Walter practically jumped to his feet. “She’s a precept? The Tetch are using precepts for carriers now?”

“No,” Jack said. “The Tetch couldn’t have known. What I’m trying to say is that I don’t think she’s Tetch. If she is a carrier, then the Tetch kidnapped and programmed a precept just by chance. Unfortunately, it happens to work in their favor.”

Walter scowled. “How so? If she’s a precept, doesn’t that help you in the exchange?”

Jack shook his head and kept his patience. “The connection between us is stronger, but it gives me more of a struggle to keep her under. She blocks me from what I need to know, and she’s already becoming conscious of my probes more quickly. This makes my intrusions all the more damaging.” He felt a small pang of guilt. “You should see her. The stress is wearing on her, and I don’t want her to suffer a mental break.”