Rystani Warrior 02 - The Dare (14 page)

“Shannon. How’s that hyperlink call to Etru coming?” Zical frowned at Kirek. “I’m not taking you anywhere without your father’s permission.”

Kirek didn’t argue. Instead, he stood too still for a child, his expression serene, his chubby cheeks set, his demeanor calm.

When his father’s face finally appeared on the vidscreen, Kirek’s expression filled with love. “Hi, Dad. Told you they wouldn’t find me.”

“You knew this child intended to stow away aboard my ship?” Zical’s tone rose in astonishment.

It was two days before they heard Etru’s reply, and in those two days they’d traveled a third of the way to their final destination. Ranth reconstructed the conversation with questions and answers in real time so it seemed like a normal conversation. But in reality, one side spoke asking question after question in an initial message. Much later, Etru answered those questions in one long reply.

“I knew Kirek intended to try and sneak aboard,” Etru admitted. “I thought the sensors would catch him and he’d learn a good lesson.” Proud and sad, Etru spoke with Zical, but his gaze focused hungrily on his son. Etru and Miri had conceived the child late in life, and Kirek would likely be their only offspring.

Zical shrugged. “As you can see, he’s learned how to fool Ranth’s sensors. We haven’t yet discerned how.”

“Dad, I must stay. They need me.” Kirek repeated his words, and they sounded no less a prophecy this time than the last.

Zical spoke to Etru. “We’re exploring unknown territory and may not return for centuries.” He paused, and everyone on the bridge heard the words the captain didn’t speak. That they might not ever come back. “Your son will miss his schooling—”

“I’ve already passed the required courses,” Kirek told him.

Dora knew that Kirek was being modest. The kid was way beyond the university level in physics and math. But it wasn’t his vast store of knowledge that impressed her, but the connections he could draw with a limited amount of facts. As Tessa would say, the kid could think outside the box—a trait both precious and unique.

Ranth piped in. “I will instruct him with his studies during his time aboard the
Verazen
.”

“We don’t have other children here.” Zical protested with a deep frown. “Without playmates, his social skills will not be adequate.”

Kirek shook his head. “Kids my age still play in the sandlot. We don’t have much in common except physical size.”

“I’ll watch out for him,” Dora offered, knowing of all the crew, she had the most time to spare. Although Kirek didn’t need parents, he needed someone to love him, and she thought maybe she could do that.

Shannon spoke with the voice of experience, “Boys his age aren’t any trouble if you keep them busy.”

Zical’s scowl said that Kirek was already trouble, but to his credit he didn’t disagree. His gaze swept across to Dora as if asking her opinion on whether or not it was a good decision to let him stay. They exchanged a long glance, and she nodded yes, pleased she could figure out his silent question, pleased the rapport she’d often shared with Zical when she’d been a computer hadn’t completely vanished with her humanity. When Kirek had proclaimed they needed him, an answering chord inside her agreed. Something she couldn’t verbalize with logic. Was this a hunch? She didn’t know, but her gut agreed with her head, even if she couldn’t give a logical reason.

Vax offered. “I’ll teach him to fight.”

Zical was wavering. “Etru, he’s your child. It’s your decision.”

Already their speed was so great that even if they slowed, stopped, and turned around using their regular hyperdrive, Kirek would likely be an adult long before they could return.

A tear escaped Etru’s eye. “I love you, son. Your mother and I will miss you.”

“Thanks. You’re going to be proud of me.”

“I already am.” Etru’s wrinkled face was now shiny with tears that he didn’t attempt to hide. “Be careful and come back safe.” Etru ended the communication and the screen went blank.

“Hold on.” Zical scowled at the little boy. “If you’re joining this crew, you must agree to take orders from me.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I want your promise that you won’t hide from Ranth unless you’re working with him to figure out how you cloak from his sensors.”

“Agreed.”

“If you have ideas how to accomplish this mission, you’ll talk them over with one of my officers or me and get permission before you proceed.”

“Sure.”

“All right. You can bunk down with—”

“Me,” Dora volunteered. She’d always enjoyed Kirek, and she needed a distraction from thinking about Zical. Besides Ranth, she had the best all-around education and could help the boy along in his studies better than anyone. She was the logical choice to be a substitute mom and actually looked forward to the challenge.

“Do you know anything about children?” Zical asked, his eyes lasering in on her with sudden intensity.

Was he questioning her capability or her humanity? Either way, she didn’t appreciate his hesitation, sure that he wouldn’t have interrogated anyone else in the crew with such doubt. Raising her chin, she dared him to contradict her. “What I don’t know, I can learn.”

Dora wanted to rub her pounding temple, close her eyes against the streaking stars, and let her stomach settle. As if her body didn’t have enough to deal with adjusting to hyperspace, her arm spasmed and to stop the spasm, she had to grab her wrist with her other hand. All the while, she held Zical’s fierce glare.

She suspected he had more to say to her, but he didn’t get the chance. They were supposed to remain in hyperspace much longer, but suddenly the drive cut out, the ship lurched and shuddered, dumping them into normal space.

When Dora regained her balance, she motioned for Kirek to join her. Zical’s attention turned to his crew and instrumentation. “What happened?”

“The engine’s fail-safe device overreacted to the hull’s external heat,” Cyn reported.

“Where are we?”

“Near Rigel Five.”

“Preparing to jump back into hyperspace,” Vax said. Webbing dropped, and this time Dora made sure that Kirek was webbed in before she secured herself.

“Get us back in the groove,” Zical ordered. The drive hummed, and normal space once again disappeared. “How much velocity did we lose?” Zical asked.

Before he received an answer, the
Verazen
again plopped into normal space.

“Stars!” Zical checked the monitors. “Now what’s wrong?”

“We’re undergoing spatial interference that our scanners cannot identify,” Ranth said. “I’m working to modify our deflector shields.”

“Are we under attack?” Zical asked.

“Sensor readings aren’t picking up any ships within weapons’ range.”

But they didn’t know much about the races who lived in this part of the galaxy or what kind of technology they might have. Perhaps they had powerful weapons that covered much larger distances. Every second of delay was serious. As the ship traveled through normal space, they lost critical speed that they could never make up again, adding time to their journey.

“We’re at a crossroads,” Kirek told them, his face scrunched up, his little body trembling with eery intensity. “If we attempt to return to hyperspace, we’ll fail.”

“If we stay in normal space, we’ll fail.” Zical disagreed with the child, but not unkindly. “Unless we use the ship’s hyperdrive, it’ll take centuries to reach the galaxy’s rim.”

“There is another … path. You will find it.”

“Can you be a little more specific?” Zical asked, but the boy’s eyes rolled up into his head, and he collapsed.

The webbing held him in place until Dora rushed over to untangle him. She gathered him into her arms and carried him off the bridge, wondering what Zical would choose to do, but confident in his abilities. “I’ll take him to the medical bay.”

Dora didn’t bother to ask Ranth to tap her into the discussion on the bridge. Her head ached, and she was worried over Kirek. For the moment they remained in normal space, and she was glad.

The child’s statement couldn’t be ignored, even if they didn’t understand his meaning. The circumstances of his birth and his development were unique. Before they risked their lives in hyperspace again, she wanted to speak to Kirek, but when the child returned to consciousness, he insisted on going to her quarters, claiming he only needed to rest instead of visiting the medical bay.

“Ranth?” Dora used her psi to float down a level to her quarters.

“All Kirek’s vital signs have returned to normal.”

“Okay.” She carried the boy into her cabin. While space on a starship was always at a premium, her quarters had a small living area with a food materializer and a sleep room. However, she was reluctant to put him down. She’d never held a child before and marveled at the protective feelings that touching him brought out. His skin was softer than an adult’s, and he smelled sweet. His breath on her neck and his arms over her shoulders made her want to hold him tight; however, he was already squirming for her to let him loose.

She placed Kirek near a viewscreen, figuring the starscape might comfort the boy. “Kirek, those things you said on the bridge—”

His big blue eyes looked at her sadly. “You don’t believe me?”

“How do you know that we mustn’t return to hyperspace? Not that I’m complaining. It gave me a terrible headache.”

“My mom says to drink extra liquids for a headache. Water is best.”

Kirek sounded as if he missed his mother already. Dora stroked his forehead and cuddled him. “I’ll get a drink in a minute.” Then she waited for him to answer her question.

“Sometimes our future comes to me.”

Was Kirek clairvoyant? Throughout history people had claimed to see the future. On Earth, over a thousand years before World War II and Hitler, Nostradamus had claimed a man called Hisler would start a great war. He was off by one letter. On Zenon, a Zenonite by the name Yulandros predicted the rise of the Federation before the Zenonites had rocketed to their moon. Others had correctly foretold great disasters, predicted inventions that others wouldn’t create for hundreds of years. But did that make them prophets or good guessers?

“Do the visions come to you in a dream?” Dora asked.

He shook his head. “Never when I’m sleeping. Things just pop into my head when I’m awake—like a holovid, but I rarely get the beginning or the ending, only a small piece.”

“What kinds of things do you see?”

Kirek crossed his legs under him and floated by the starscape, staring at the unfamiliar view, but she had the feeling he was looking inside himself, rather than outward. “I see an alternate future.”

“You don’t see our future, but an alternate one?”

He sighed, his eyes closing with weariness. “That depends on the choices we make.”

She didn’t like pressing him when he was so exhausted, but she knew Zical would want answers. “Can you be a little more specific?”

“I saw what would happen if we stayed on our original course, but not what will happen if we take a different turn.”

“And if we go back into hyperspace?”

“We will all die.”

“How do you know that this will happen now and not in the future?”

“It’s a … feeling.”

“These feelings are always correct?”

“I don’t know. If we turn from the path and avert disaster, how do I know what would have happened if we stayed the other course?”

“How certain are you of these feelings?”

“When you are hungry, you know it, yes?”

She nodded, pleased that she understood the concept of hunger on more than an intellectual level. If she forgot to eat, a hollowness in her belly reminded her and if she ignored her body’s need for nourishment, the ache turned into severe discomfort. Tasty foods had always been close by, so she thought of the hunger/feeding cycle as one of the pleasures of being human.