Being of the Field (17 page)

He entered the lab containing his darkroom and Zeven followed. ‘So…is that strategy getting you anywhere?’

Ringbalin was amused as he fired up his equipment and took a seat at the workstation. ‘Strategy is for the art of war, not love.’

Zeven considered the reply to be avoiding the question. ‘But you know she’s hot, right?’

‘Hot,’ Ringbalin considered the word. ‘Hot is a word I would use to describe the weather, or a beverage, or food perhaps, but it is not a word that immediately springs to mind when I think of Dr Portus.’

Zeven was amused. ‘Oh, I get it…you’re one of those gentleman types, who never tells.’

Ringbalin was desperately trying not to laugh. ‘Dr Portus, do come in,’ the scientist said.

‘You’re kidding.’ Zeven turned to see her in the doorway and wanted to die.

‘Are you hot?’ she queried rather coolly. ‘I’ll check.’ She placed a hand on his forehead for a moment. ‘No,’ she decided, ‘I do not think so.’ Ayliscia left him to speak with Ringbalin.

Zeven, totally out of sorts now, watched how intimately Dr Portus spoke with the green-thumbed genius and she touched him often, whereas with everyone else she kept her distance. Zeven would have assumed they were lovers already, but as Ringbalin did not respond to her touch in like fashion, his restraint cast doubt on Zeven’s assumption. Maybe that was Ringbalin’s secret to success with the ladies? He played hard to get.

When Dr Portus departed, Ringbalin showed Zeven into the darkroom and asked him to sit.

‘She’s totally hot for you. You know that, don’t you?’ Zeven blurted out, as Ringbalin seemed completely oblivious.

‘There’s that term again, “hot”.’ Balin positioned the pilot for the reading and then stood, hands on hips. ‘Why don’t we just focus on you for the moment? I’m going to leave you in the dark,’ he said, turning and heading for the door. ‘I’ll see you in a bit.’

Zeven nodded, not to agree but because Ringbalin’s attitude was
showing the pilot a way forward. ‘I am beginning to see what you mean when you say I must learn to control my emotions. I could learn a thing or two from you, Malachi.’

Ringbalin chuckled, not sure if he was flattered or not. ‘Then heaven help womankind.’ He closed the door behind him on the way out, blacked-out the room and waited for the scream.

‘Malachi! I’m pulsing green!’

The scientist made quickly for the intercom link to reassure his subject. ‘I believe I did mention that earlier.’

‘But I look like a fucking deep-space beacon! Why haven’t I noticed this before now?’

Ringbalin had to suppress his amusement before responding. ‘It’s most noticeable in complete darkness. Just sit still, like I asked. This won’t hurt a bit.’

‘How long does this reading take?’

‘About an hour or so.’

‘An hour!
What am I supposed to do for all that time?
’

Ringbalin did not reply. He was watching his readouts.

‘Is it true that Dr Portus is Phemorian?’

The scientist rolled his eyes when the conversation returned to women. Zeven had a one-track mind. ‘I’m sure I don’t know,’ he lied.

‘They say Phemorian women remain virgins all their lives. That would be a crying shame, especially if they all look like Dr Portus, don’t you think?’

‘As over fifty per cent of the citizens of Phemoria are not conceived via in-vitro fertilisation, that seems to debunk your planet-of-virgin fantasy…sorry to spoil any aspirations you might have had to remedy that.’

Zeven was heard to chuckle.
‘It’s good news for you though.’

‘Can we please change the subject?’ Ringbalin was getting annoyed. ‘Why the hell are you so interested in my love life anyway?’

‘All the chicks seem to dig you, and I want to know what the big attraction is?’

‘Mr hotshot pilot wants to know why women are attracted to me? That’s rich.’ Balin couldn’t help laughing.

‘No, seriously, Malachi. Are you cooking up some love potion in these labs that I should know about?’

Ringbalin shook his head, surprised to be finding the show-off rather likeable. ‘Your sexual fantasies are distracting, disturbing and exhausting, Gudrun. Don’t you think about anything else?’

‘Like?’

‘Like why you’re here, in existence at this time?’ Ringbalin remarked.

‘To have sex.’

The scientist rolled his eyes and tried again. ‘Do you ever wonder about where humans, as a species, came from…how we developed?’

‘We came from people having sex,’
replied Zeven.
‘You’re a nature boy. Surely you’ve observed that the entire meaning of life, so far as your natural world is concerned, is to have
sex,
so why waste time thinking about anything else?’

‘What a revelation?’ Ringbalin mocked. ‘Why have I been wasting my time all these years pondering how the molecular structure of the universe communicates?’

‘Okay, so there might be one or two other things worth pondering,’
Zeven admitted,
‘but I am certainly not the one to be pondering them. Right now, I’m the biggest mystery in my universe. So, if we do confirm I have the Powers, what then? I get reported to the PMD, they take away my licence and I never fly again!’

‘Settle, petal,’ Ringbalin said, noting Zeven’s rising panic. ‘Taren seems to be doing just fine—’

‘She’d be the only one on that database who has managed to overcome the stigma, and that’s probably only because of her MSS connections!’

‘We’ll think positive,’ the scientist suggested. ‘Maybe Maladaan has been overrun by aliens and the database has been destroyed.’

‘Thanks, Malachi.’
Zeven was even more depressed.
‘I feel so much better now.’

Once Ringbalin had the photon count, he reported to the captain’s office. Zeven was asked to wait in reception and the scientist was shown through to speak with Lucian.

Zeven was not in the mood to chat, and the idea of being stuck in reception with Aurora was not very appealing. He was pleasantly surprised when she returned to her workstation without so much as a
word, only a brisk smile to acknowledge his presence. Then it dawned on him that maybe she thought he was guilty of attacking Dr Lennox. ‘It was an accident,’ he assured her.

‘I know,’ she said, and returned to her typing.

‘How could you know?’ He wondered how much confidential information she got access to. Did she know about his psychic skill already and was no longer interested in knowing him?

‘I know you, Starman,’ she said, looking at him briefly. ‘You break hearts, not heads.’

She said this with such detachment that Zeven realised her adoration of him had come to an end. She had given up on him, just as he’d suggested. He marked that the change had done her good. Rory seemed to have toned down her appearance and personality to a point where she wasn’t so draining to have around. She appeared far more mature now, but she still lacked some indefinable womanly quality that he found attractive.

‘
Aurora, you can send Zeven in,
’ Lucian requested via her intercom. She motioned Zeven to the door courteously without saying a word.

‘Thanks,’ Zeven said to Rory as he rose to face the music.

‘What for?’ Aurora wondered.

‘Not hitting me with twenty questions.’

‘What you do is your own business,’ she said sincerely. ‘Good luck.’

Zeven wandered into the office with a sinking feeling in his gut. Aurora’s detachment hurt a little more than expected. He regretted that losing her infatuation meant that their friendship had to go down the gurgler as well.

‘Zeven,’ Lucian acknowledged, and motioned him to a seat.

‘I’d rather stand,’ he said, eager to know the results of the test.

‘Do you want the good news or the bad news?’

‘Better give me the good news,’ the pilot replied. ‘I could sure use some right now.’

‘The good news is that your photon count is only slightly higher than Dr Lennox’s.’

‘Meaning that you are only slightly less evolved psychically than she is,’ Ringbalin clarified.

‘That’s the good news!’ Zeven freaked, shattering a few glass items on Lucian’s desk.

‘Calm down,’ Ringbalin suggested.

Zeven needed no cautioning—with the show of his own power he’d scared himself into a calm state. ‘Sorry, Captain. It’s just a bit of a shock…there goes my career!’ He threw his hands up in despair.

‘Provided Dr Lennox agrees, I do not intend to report this incident, or you, to the PMD.’

‘What?’ With the captain’s reassurance relief swept over Zeven in waves. ‘Why not? I’m a security risk like this!’

‘That is why you are going to report to Kassa Madri, who is going to help you get a grip on your little…’

Zeven expected the captain to say ‘problem’, as Lucian was eyeing the shattered glass over his desk.

‘…attribute,’ the captain concluded with a grin.

‘Why send me to Kassa?’ Zeven frowned. ‘Do you plan to sedate me?’

‘Hardly. Now, here’s the bad news. The station on the far side of the inter-system gateway has lost touch with the scouts that were sent to Maladaan. Before losing contact the scouts reported being unable to target their destination due to their instrumentation going haywire.’

The pilot finally opted to take a seat.

‘Every other craft that has tried to approach Maladaan has reported the same malfunctions and is now missing,’ Lucian continued. ‘The United Council of Free Worlds has declared our entire system a no-go zone. Any vessels heading that way, or in the vicinity, are being advised to detour to another system.’

‘So, no one has any idea what has transpired on Maladaan.’ Zeven glanced out Lucian’s window to the inter-system gateway that now loomed in plain view. ‘Let me go.’

‘No.’ Lucian flatly refused.

‘With this talent I have, maybe I’ll fare better than the pilots they sent in ahead of me,’ Zeven argued.

‘A talent you cannot control, Zeven. I’m sorry, but I can’t let you do it, and, quite apart from me, the USS armed forces are not going to let you in there either.’

‘But they are not there yet, are they? We have a unique window of
opportunity to get some answers before the USS and the MSS quarantine the entire system, and spin some story of their own concoction that won’t even vaguely resemble the truth of what has happened to our planet!’

Zeven could see by the look in Lucian’s eyes that he wanted answers more than anyone, but he was not prepared to put anyone’s life at risk to get them. At last he shook his head. ‘The answer is no, Zeven. The mission is too perilous. I can’t authorise it.’

Zeven nodded to assure Lucian he understood. The captain may have been saying ‘no’ but he was thinking ‘go for it’.

Lucian appeared to be happier than Taren had ever seen him before. Horizontal beside her and draped with a white linen sheet, he smiled broadly as he toyed with her hair. ‘
You never talk about your parents,
’ he said, ‘
tell me about where you grew up.
’ Her heart sank, for she could only recall tiny fragments of her childhood, thanks to her MSS conditioning.

Her consciousness was torn from the warm, intimate moment, and flew through a bright light into clouds, which parted to reveal a city below laid out in tidy street blocks, abuzz with traffic and fairly unremarkable in every way. Then another city, an etheric city, began to materialise before her very eyes. It rose high above the first city, interpenetrating it, and was far more impressive and remarkable than the city that concealed it. In a flash, Taren was propelled into one of the tower rooms of the ghostly city. A beautiful tall woman, elegantly clad all in white, was there.
A Phemorian
, Taren noted, trying to hone in on what the woman was saying to her.

‘…you know in your heart it is the truth. Why do you think you have managed to remain immune to the discrimination of the PMD?’

‘The MSS service wiped my record,’
Taren replied.

‘But why did the MSS choose to believe in your Power, whilst they chastise all others with the same abilities?’
The woman’s questions caused panic to arise in Taren.

Another flash, and Taren was adrift in space, looking down upon Maladaan. The scene was awe-inspiring and peaceful and she was set at ease to look upon her home planet. She could see the capital city,
Esponisa, lit brightly on the morning side of the planet, and was alarmed when a blue-white electrical anomaly erupted and spread quickly across the face of the planet, plunging cities on the night side into darkness. The activity of the all-consuming electrical web intensified to a point where the planet’s surface could no longer be seen due to the blinding energy engulfing the globe. A great crack—louder than any thunder, earthquake or landslide Taren had ever heard—sent her into a state of utter terror.
It’s a space-quake.
She had never heard of such a phenomenon, but she knew in her soul that was what she was witnessing. In a blinding flash the entire planet vanished, along with its orbiting satellites, space stations and off-world resorts, sucked into the gaping black void that was left in the planet’s wake where they too vanished.

Taren woke with a start, her headache all-consuming and demanding her attention. Her mouth was drier than the deserts of Sermetica—she was so parched, she couldn’t speak.

‘Here, drink.’

Taren smiled to hear Kassa’s velvety tones, and as a straw was stuck in her mouth, she drank her fill of cool water. She slowly opened her eyes. ‘That’s so much better. What happened to me?’

‘You were hit in the head by a flying wrench,’ Kassa informed her. ‘It seems Zeven Gudrun has had his Powers enhanced by your little stopover on Oceane.’

It was all coming back to her now. ‘Thank heavens. So you know that this wasn’t deliberate.’ Taren held her head, relieved, and Kassa nodded. ‘Can I see him?’

‘Ah, no,’ Kassa replied, ‘he’s busy at present.’

‘Please tell me he hasn’t been sent on a mission.’ Taren sat up in a panic.

‘No,’ said Kassa, having difficulty lying, ‘not sent.’

‘Zeven
is
in danger.’ Taren could sense the truth behind Kassa’s silence.