Being of the Field (42 page)

‘You’re right.’ Zeven stopped panicking and sat down to begin trying to move things with his mind.

When her communicator sounded, Jalila knew who the caller was. The timing was not convenient, as she was currently with a number of Valoureans in the royal vault of the queen’s craft, where they had been asked to place the crown of Phemoria.

‘Leave me,’ the viceroy demanded, ushering the guards out so she could answer the call, but one of the Valoureans remained obstinate. ‘Her majesty specified that no one was to be left alone—’

‘She did not mean me, you idiot. Now go, before I tell the queen that you have a crush on one of her new prisoners,’ Jalila threatened, and as the viceroy could have her discharged in a heartbeat, the Valourean turned and followed the others.

Jalila answered the call. ‘I’m alone,’ she advised, and hung up, swinging the vault door closed.

Khalid was with her in an instant. ‘Why has the queen withdrawn the arrest order? How am I going to disgrace Anselm without a charge against him?’

‘I don’t know what changed her mind. She’s been very secretive and is acting out of character.’

‘Does she suspect something?’ he quizzed. ‘We really don’t need her to wake from her self-absorbed coma right now.’

‘If she did suspect, I would have been arrested by now,’ Jalila reasoned, ‘and she certainly would not have given me the job of escorting her crown to the vault.’

Khalid looked around, only just noting where they were situated. ‘The crown of Phemoria is
here
.’ Khalid smiled with delight, as Jalila
directed him to a large silver-white metal case, tightly locked, with an electronic touch pad.

‘The case is made of osmium and the lock is DNA-activated,’ Jalila explained.

‘How nice,’ he said, wriggling his fingers with anticipation.

‘You’re not going to open it!’ Jalila was mortified at the thought. ‘It is said to be cursed to all bar the true Queen of Phemoria.’

‘And one day soon, my lovely, that will be you,’ he stated and Jalila smiled in anticipation.

‘We’ll just keep it in safe keeping until then, shall we?’ He placed a hand upon the case containing the royal treasure.

‘You cannot take it,’ Jalila objected. ‘I am alone in here. If they discover it missing, I’ll be the prime suspect!’

Khalid held up a hand and manifested a case that looked identical to the one he was intent on stealing. He swapped them over immediately. ‘That ought to confuse them for a bit. I intend to uphold the arrest order,’ he told her. Jalila went to object, but Khalid placed a finger to her lips to stop her speaking. ‘Hopefully, the little princess will get lost in the confusion.’

‘Ah,’ Jalila said, enlightened.

‘Just make sure they arrive at Heavensgate and I shall take care of the rest.’

‘But…’ Jalila began to query how he expected her to ensure such a thing, but he vanished, along with the case containing the crown of Phemoria.

Several hours passed before Zeven finally got a glass to fall over and smash in response to his will. ‘All right!’ he cheered as it shattered all over the marble floor.

‘
Starman,
’ Taren complained. ‘I’m barefoot?’

‘Uh…oh, sorry.’ He looked back at the scene of his offence; the shattered pieces of glass gathered together and appeared to jump onto the table. ‘I guess we’re good to go.’ He rose and reached for her, but Taren backed up.

It had been quite some time since they had passed through the inter-system gateway and she figured her parents’ meeting must be
imminent. ‘I can’t go. Nobody gets to choose their family and the universe knows no one in their right mind would pick my parents, but I’ve spent too long wishing I had family to walk away now that I’ve found mine.’

Zeven had to respect her reasoning, but he knew he had to go. ‘I’ll be back,’ he assured Taren, having decided it would be okay to part from her. There wasn’t a place in the known universe she could go that he could not find her with a thought. ‘If I find myself adrift in space, I’ll be back even sooner.’

‘They’re alive,’ Taren said, confident in her heart that it was true. ‘But be careful anyway.’

‘You be careful,’ Zeven said. ‘You have a lot more to contend with than I do!’

Taren nodded to convince him she’d be fine. Zeven closed his eyes and thought of Aurora.

Touchdown found Zeven in the corridor where the bio-containment labs were located, between the launch bay and AMIE’s bridge, and he breathed a great sigh of relief to be in familiar surroundings.

A woman sobbing drew his attention to Aurora on the floor beside him, curled up in a ball, crying her eyes out. ‘Why are you crying?’ he asked, squatting down in front of her and gently gripping her shoulders.

‘Because I am not brave enough to do what Kalayna did,’ she wept, completely oblivious to who it was she was talking to as she wouldn’t look up.

‘What did Kalayna do?’ he asked, crouching lower. He finally gained her attention, whereupon she ceased crying and burst into a huge smile. ‘Starman!’ She launched herself into his embrace and kissed him repeatedly. ‘I was so worried,’ she said, hugging him in between her kisses. ‘I’ve missed you so much.’ She kissed him again and began ripping the clothes from his body.

Zeven couldn’t have been happier, but having his wits a little more about him he decided the corridor was really not the place. He swung open the door of the bio-containment lab observation room and they stumbled inside, panting and shedding layers as they went.

‘Unbelievable,’ Kalayna uttered, looking over the proof in her hand, yet she still couldn’t accept what she’d done. ‘This is a miracle.’

She’d built a prototype weapon from the bits and pieces of spy equipment she still had, plus the spare parts she’d found in the hangar storeroom. ‘This has to be my Power,’ Kalayna reasoned. She’d always had a good grasp of engineering and perhaps, given a few years to draw blueprints and fiddle with construction, she might have been able to create the same device that she’d just thrown together…overnight! It was a handheld weapon that sent out pulses from the rounded nose, pulses which scrambled a psychic’s electromagnetic field for a short period. At least, that’s what Kalayna expected the device to do, but of course she needed to test it.

As she left the launch bay, Kalayna headed towards the bridge in hopes of finding Leal there. She was polishing up the silvery outer casing of her new toy when, out of the corner of her eye, she noted shadowy movement through the window of one of the darkened bio-containment labs and she moved to take a closer look.

Starman was ravishing Aurora on the floor of the lab and Kalayna’s heart sank. Her first reaction was to feel hurt and left out, and she briefly entertained the thought of testing her new weapon on Starman, but she had learned that blind rage was not the way to handle heartbreak.

The sheer bliss she saw on their faces filled her heart with joy. She really did care for them both very deeply and she knew they cared about her. She could walk right in there and join them and neither would have objected, but Kalayna would feel like she was intruding…and that’s what she’d been doing all along, she suddenly realised.

Since meeting Aurora, Kalayna felt she’d really discovered herself; she had her own fascinating life to lead and was no longer controlled by anyone else. She had to admit that a good part of her attraction to Aurora was the AMIE project, and Aurora had been more distant since discovering that Kalayna was a sleeper agent for the secret service. Kalayna may have had no conscious knowledge of being a spy, but Aurora now felt that Kalayna had only targeted and seduced her
for secret service purposes. The fact that Kalayna had dared to enter the bio-containment area without permission had infuriated Aurora all over again. The relationship with Aurora was definitely over this time, and Kalayna didn’t blame her for a second. Aurora had been pining for Zeven the entire time he’d been missing and obviously Starman had been pining for Rory too.

It had been a lovely tryst, but now that Kalayna knew the truth about herself, it was clear to her she had no claim on either Aurora or Starman.

They got each other. I got a Power and a really cool job…pretty sweet deal.

She reined in her emotions, backed away quietly and continued along her own desired course of action. She still needed to test her prototype.

When Anselm arrived to collect Taren for the meeting, he was naturally curious about where Zeven Gudrun had gone and how he’d escaped.

Taren just smiled broadly. ‘Just goes to show, you don’t know everything about me.’

‘He didn’t attempt to find AMIE, surely,’ Anselm asked, distressed, as he’d had plans for the pilot. ‘Not without a spacesuit? I told you there was an explosion—’

‘You worry too much. Starman is fine.’ Taren waved off his concerns.

‘Starman?’ Anselm was set at ease by her certainty. ‘Is that what you call him?’

Taren nodded. ‘And he sure does live up to the name. Shall we go?’

As Anselm led her to the conference chamber, Taren noted how handsome and how fit her father was for a man of his years. ‘I hear you are very popular with the ladies, Father.’

Anselm suppressed a smile. ‘I hear you’re having an affair with Captain Gervaise.’

‘Mother doesn’t approve,’ Taren grinned, and then frowned. ‘Do you think she ordered the attack on AMIE that caused the explosion?’

Anselm went to answer, but they’d reached the conference room
and his guard pressed the switch that opened the doors for them. The politician waited until they were inside and the doors had been closed before he replied. ‘The truth is…I was the one who had the explosives planted.’

‘What!’ Taren backed up.

‘I needed to ensure Gudrun’s cooperation in your rescue, but I never intended for the device to be detonated. I did not give that command.’

‘Then who did?’ Taren challenged, just as the doors opened and a guard entered to announce the queen’s arrival.

‘Khalid Mansur,’ he uttered in an aside, then stood up straight to prepare for the arrival of the queen.

In the light of this new information, Taren feared that Lucian might actually be dead along with all of AMIE’s crew…and she had her parents to thank for it. She raised her woeful face to tell the pair of them exactly what she thought of them, and was shocked to the core to see Lucian and Ringbalin escort the veiled Qusay-Sabah Clarona into the room.

‘Lucian!’ Taren flew to embrace him and he caught her up and swung her around. As the lovers kissed, everyone else in the room was notably uncomfortable.

‘Leave us,’ the queen commanded her Valoureans.

‘Wait outside,’ Anselm directed his men.

‘Jabez,’ the queen said, informally greeting him as she had not done since she’d taken up her office. ‘I appreciate you seeing us so discreetly.’

‘By “us” do you mean you and your witches?’ Anselm asked warily, although her demeanour was not as cold and unemotional as he remembered.

‘These men released me from the curse that bound me to the will of the Phemoray. Now I am my own ruler,’ she told him.

Anselm looked at the tiny blond man standing beside the queen, rather than to the captain who was still preoccupied kissing his daughter. ‘Then we are greatly indebted to you…I think?’ He looked back to the queen whose nature was now something of an unknown. Would she be back to the wonderful, idealistic woman he’d once
known and been fascinated with, or would she be someone entirely different again?

‘Could we speak alone?’ the queen asked, obviously uncomfortable having to make the request.

‘More alone than this?’ Anselm was intrigued.

‘We can leave.’ Taren had heard, and considering this meeting was proceeding somewhat faster and better than she’d expected, she took hold of Lucian’s hand and led him to the door. Ringbalin bowed out also.

Once the door had closed, Anselm motioned about them with his palms upturned. ‘We are alone, majesty,’ he smiled, curious. He also wondered if he should have brought a weapon to the meeting.

Qusay-Sabah Clarona raised a hand to touch his cheek. ‘I have missed that smile,’ she confessed, to his great surprise, but he determined not to be seduced by her again.

‘Really?’ He backed up a few paces. ‘I have not given you a second thought.’

‘Of course. I was so completely forgettable,’ she said in a sarcastic tone.

‘There was nothing to remember,’ he retorted. ‘You drugged me and stole my DNA.’

‘I drugged you?’ the queen recoiled, offended. ‘You got yourself drunk and completely forgot the most wonderful night of my life!’ The pent-up emotions of fifty years came flooding forth in a burst of tears, although she realised she really couldn’t recall him being drunk that long-ago evening.

Anselm was bemused, as she seemed so passionate about what she was saying. ‘You told me you stole my DNA and that we were never lovers.’

‘I lied!’ she confessed. ‘When you woke with no memory of that
spectacular
night, I was so angry I didn’t want you to know you’d had me at all. Soon after that I was crowned Queen of Phemoria and the Phemoray took control of my affairs…until today.’ Qusay-Sabah Clarona pulled the veil from her head so that he might see in her face that she meant what she said.

Anselm was overwhelmed to see how beautiful she was…to his eyes she had barely aged a day. Her lips were still the most rosy and
luscious he’d ever seen. Her long, dark hair was pulled back into an ornate arrangement at the crown of her head and shimmered in the light as it cascaded over one shoulder and fell to her waist. Her large pale violet eyes were awash with tears and yet she appeared serene and dignified.

‘I truly loved you, Jabez, and I am sorry for all the pain my curse has caused you and our daughter.’ She fell to her knees before him and Anselm’s reserve melted away. ‘Please, forgive me.’

‘We have both been deceived, I fear.’ Anselm knelt also—if she was so upset about his forgetting their night of passion then she had not arranged for his memory loss, and something, or someone, else was responsible. The secret services had the capability, even back then, so perhaps one of his own people had erased the memory.

‘Khalid Mansur…’ The queen startled Anselm with the name, as Khalid was Anselm’s first suspect as the saboteur. ‘…wishes to kidnap our daughter and use her to blackmail us.’