Daughter of Destiny (5 page)

While Naia started
breakfast, Katarina set to brewing a pot of strong aromatic coffee.
Once fortified with caffeine, she assisted Naia with the food
preparation, relying on non-verbal communication until she downed
her second cup of coffee. By the time she had a third cup in hand
at the breakfast table, she'd polished off half her eggs and a
biscuit, and found the energy to communicate without revealing how
snappy and on-edge she felt.

"Sleep well?"

"Very, but I did miss
curling up with Robert."

Katarina winced into her
coffee cup as she picked up a far too vivid image of Naia and
Robert. Lack of sleep and her body's rebellion screwed with her
usually solid telepathic walls. "Understandable. It seems marriage
agrees with you. I'm glad."

Naia gazed into the
distance with a dreamy unfocused look. "Me too."

Before she inadvertently
glimpsed more naked daydreams, Katarina blurted, "The telepath
contacted me again last night."

"What!? Why didn’t you wake
me up? What happened? Did you find anything out?"

Katarina laughed at the
speed with which Naia fired her questions. "You’ll never know if
you don’t let me get a word in." Naia mimed zipping her lips.
Katarina grinned. "First of all, I didn’t wake you because I wanted
to go back to sleep afterwards. You would have kept me up the rest
of the night nagging me with questions."

"I do not nag people. I’m a
sleuth. I uncover the facts."

"Yeah, you’re Sherlock
Holmes reincarnated."

"So spill it,
Watson."

Katarina rolled her eyes
and then sobered. She shoved every ounce of emotion behind the
strongest walls she knew how to build. "His name is
Zane."

"And?"

"He wants something from
me, so I'll have to figure out what that is. I sense that he can be
dangerous, but he has the personality indicators of a protector. I
don't think he's a threat."

"All men can be dangerous
because they all want one thing."

Katarina forced a laugh. He
wasn’t the one obsessed with sex. After last night, she worried she
might jump him the minute they met.

"Is he nearby?" Naia
asked.

"I have a vague feeling
he’s far away but traveling in our direction. He wants to meet. So,
I told him my name, city, state, and email address."

"How much do you think he
got from you?"

"Other than what I said,
not much."

"You sure?"

"Definitely. Besides, I'm
the stronger telepath." Katarina allowed herself a satisfied smile.
"It surprised the hell out of him he couldn’t read me."

"Are you sure that you’re
not just more skilled? Maybe he hasn’t been around other
telepaths?"

"It's possible, but I'm
confident I can hold my own against anything he tries."

"Does he realize
that?"

"If he does, he's probably
ignoring the little voice in his head telling him I’m way out of
his league."

"Sister, every guy is out
of your league." Naia grinned and tossed back her last swig of
orange juice. She set her glass down and pushed her empty plate
aside. "I think you should agree to meet him. Find out what he
wants. It'll be good for you to meet someone else who has a few
extra talents."

"Mmm." Katarina said, not
trusting herself to say anything else.

Naia stood up and grinned,
"Now, we go shop!"

Katarina frowned. "I need
to go over the data again."

"Kat, there hasn't been an
outbreak of
Reaper i
n a year. The vaccine has stopped it in
its tracks. You can stop pushing yourself."

Katarina shook her head.
"No, the vaccine just slowed it down until it mutates again. It's a
race against time."

"You aren't solely
responsible for curing this thing, Kat. Give yourself a
break."

She sighed as she pushed
away from the table. "I'll go shopping with you, but only to make
sure you don't replace my furniture while I’m at the lab. Maybe the
break will help me figure out what the hell I'm missing in that
darn gene sequence."

"You know, I never thought
of that." She rubbed her palms together. "New blackmail
fodder."

Katarina shook her head as
Naia gathered up dishes and laughed all the way to the kitchen
sink. She stood, but then froze in the act of reaching for her
coffee mug. A whisper of energy breezed across her senses,
triggering a sense of being watched. The privacy screen on the
windows blinked a green light on the control panel, so no one in an
adjacent building or low flying traffic could see in, but she knew
that the spy did not use such mundane methods. A normal person
might brush off the sensation but, for years she sensed her watcher
from time to time.

"You know, this is getting
old. Show yourself already." She kept her voice pitched low so as
not to alert Naia. No one answered; they never did. Sometimes years
could pass in between one feeling and the next, but it always
happened, eventually. Katarina scowled and attempted to study the
sensation to determine the source. As usual, she could not pinpoint
the voyeur’s location or identity.

"Screw this. I'm not here
for your amusement. Go find someone else to watch." She let just a
hint of her powers surface and imagined a shield blocking her
apartment. A warding spell her Mage friend, Delaney, once taught
her leaped into her mind. She chanted the spell, letting power flow
out, surrounding her. She smiled in satisfaction as the sensation
vanished. Using the energy left her feeling peaceful and calm, a
state she rarely reached. She considered Naia's suggestion on
channeling the energy in small ways instead of driving herself to
exhaustion.
It might work.
Katarina pushed the thought to
the back of her mind to mull over.

Naia came back into the
living room. "Ready to go?"

Katarina glanced down at
her pajamas. "What do you think?"

Zane's conversation with
Katarina replayed in his head. He blew out a breath, resigned
himself to a constant state of partial arousal, and channeled his
thoughts into a more productive area, like hoping Coran knew what
in blazes an email was.

He climbed down from his
narrow bunk, stretched his long limbs, and walked over to the
lavatory. Zane looked in the mirror at the shadow of a beard on his
face. He retrieved the hair growth repressor from a drawer and
flicked it on. He passed the round end over his face in steady
strokes, removing the beard growth and painlessly injecting a
follicular growth inhibitor all at once. Once finished, he turned
the repressor off, returned it to the drawer, and then ran a hand
over his now smooth face.

"Much better."

He stripped off his uniform
and stepped into the small sanitation stall. A fine cleansing mist
blasted him from head to toenails. He had three minutes of tepid
water to work the sanitizer through his hair and rinse.

After the water shut off,
he stepped under the dryer and warm air swept over him. His
thoughts roamed to Katarina. Why did such brief contact with an
alien woman affect him so strongly? Why did it even matter? The
mission was supposed to take precedence.

He sighed. The passion he
once felt for serving in IGCF no longer burned inside him. He went
through the motions, but his life was empty. Zane grew tired of
zipping from planet to planet, killing and cleaning up the carnage
of wars and violence. He closed his eyes and forced himself to
picture the worst scenario of the mission at hand; Katarina's blood
on his hands. His stomach heaved and he doubled over.
Malea
omea, I can't do this anymore.

The drier shut off and Zane
stepped out. He said a prayer to the gods his mother used to
worship. If they existed, he hoped they cared enough for Katarina
to keep her ignorant of his identity so that he did not have to
kill her at the end of the mission.

***

Zane guided the ship toward
the coordinates Coran entered into the computer. Through breaks in
the cloud cover stretched expanses of green forests broken up with
symmetrical fields, which he assumed were farmland. Zane tried to
remember the last time he saw an actual farm and couldn’t recall.
Much of their food came from genetically engineered tissues
incubated in giant vats and the vegetation grew in hydroponics
factories. Aside from rim worlds hosting colonies of transplanted
civilizations, most planets didn’t have the space necessary for
farming anymore. It was strange not seeing the typical glinting
towers of cities rising into the stratosphere. He smiled, pleased
that Earth remained somewhat natural.

The ship descended into a
small clearing and landed in a valley in which no human life signs
registered on the sensors. Zane powered down the engines and other
unnecessary systems. He pushed away from the pilot's console,
retrieving his pack in the process.

"I’ll check in every twelve
hours, Earth time, or sooner if anything important
develops."

Coran followed him down the
corridor to the airlock. "Are you are sure you’ll be able to manage
by yourself? As much as I hate to leave the computers, I can come
with you."

"I’ll be fine. Computers
are your specialty. Covert ops are mine. Besides, you know the
mission directives as well as I do. You're to download, translate,
and file as much information as feasible and I'm to get a human
perspective by passing as one of them."

"Okay, but call me the
second you need anything." Coran hit the button to release the
airlock. It cycled while the computer analyzed the atmosphere
outside.

"I will."

"I’ll forward the meeting
location to you when I get a response from the email." Coran put a
hand on Zane's shoulder. "Be careful, Zane."

He grinned, knowing his
reply would annoy Coran. "Aren't I always?"

***

Zane sighed and shoved his
hands inside his pockets to warm them as he walked. The sounds of
foreign night animals and insects filled the air. He wondered what
they looked like in the light of day. Not long after the stars came
out, Zane reached a road that he followed west. When his hands were
warm, he took out his computer again and searched for information
on the woman he would soon meet. It took more effort to read
English than speak it. Still, with effort, he managed to find bits
and pieces of Katarina’s life.

Coran's search of public
records revealed Katarina's position as molecular biologist
specializing in immunology and that she old had one living
relative, an adopted sister, one Naia Sheffield, recently married.
Zane, however dug deeper. He discovered a trip to a country called
Ireland when she was nine, her father served in the military, and
both parents succumbed to the
Reaper v
irus ten years ago.
Katarina held a number of renowned accomplishments in the
scientific arena. Her banking information told him she spent her
money wisely. All the contacts in her email cross referenced to
scientists she either worked or collaborated with. What he found
painted a picture of a woman living a life focused on work with
minimal social interaction. It occurred to him her digital
footprint mirrored his after a fashion, which meant she was
expendable. In the event she discovered his identity, her death
would cause few ripples. That observation left him feeling sick to
his stomach rather than satisfied.

After following the road
for about an hour, an ancient looking ground vehicle rumbled down
the road. The driver slowed the vehicle to a stop near Zane. An
older man with a weather worn, sun-tanned face, a mop of springy
gray hair, and kind gray eyes hollered out the window, "Need a
lift, sonny? I’m goin’ far as Chattanooga."

It took Zane a few seconds
to register what the old man offered. "Thank you, sir. I would be
grateful for the ride." Zane climbed into the cab of the truck, set
his pack at his feet, and concealed his computer inside his
pocket.

"Name's Geoffrey." The man
held out a wrinkled hand, so Zane did the same and the man took it
in a firm grip and then let go.

"Zane."

"Nice to meet
ya."

"What's in Chattanooga?"
Zane asked. Experience taught him that getting others to talk about
themselves kept attention off of him.

"Meh grankids. The lil'
tykes are growin' like weeds."

"How old are
they?"

Geoffrey watched the road
with a smile on his face as he told Zane all about his
grandchildren. The occasional remark from Zane to spur further
conversation about the man's life kept him from asking any awkward
questions. Puzzling out words through the man’s accent and tortured
grammar gave Zane a headache, but the alien language flowed more
freely as the vehicle trucked along.

Hours passed and a sliver
of moon hung high in the sky when they arrived in Chattanooga.
Geoffrey dropped Zane off at the shuttle station.

"Now don’t linger in the
street, son. They don’t have a curfew or nothin’ like they done up
near ol’ New York afore
Reaper h
it, but it ain’t safe to be
by yo’self."