Salene's Secrets (14 page)

“I don’t much care how they got into us at the moment,” Talus said.  “I’m just glad they’re gone.”

“You said you’ve known about them from the time they got full control over you,” Tani said. 

“That’s right,” Talus replied.  “We remember almost nothing from before that, and the memories we do have are sketchy and unclear.  Once they had full control, we were aware of everything they said and did.  We could even communicate with each other when the Controllers were idle.  The worst thing they did was send Salene away.  I can’t bring myself to repeat the things they said to her, or how badly she was hurt.  Knowing that she’s aware of the Controllers gives me hope that she may one day forgive us.”

“Salene knows what Controllers are, Talus, and she’ll understand that whatever you did while under their control wasn’t your fault,” Tani said.  “Do you know what they planned to do once you left Garza?”

“At first they intended to go directly to a Doftle space station after leaving here with us, our ship and our crew,” Jon replied.  “Since the
Aegl
is the newest ship outfitted with our latest technology, it would’ve been a good haul for the Doftles.  Then the Controllers got orders to return to Jasan under cover of the Blind Sight Khurda just installed and collect Salene.  We don’t know what the Doftles would have done once they had us, but we had lots of time to guess.  We did everything we could think of to fight them, but nothing worked.”

“You should contact Uncle Olaf when you get back to your ship,” Tani said.  “He knows a lot more than I do about all of this.  I’ll send him a message as soon as we get home so he’ll know you guys are clear now.  Do you want me to send a message to Salene, too, or do you want to do that?” 

“We’d like to do that, if you don’t mind,” Talus said. 

“Of course I don’t mind.” 

“I assume she’s home at Dracon Ranch, is that right?”

“I suppose,” Tani said.  “I didn’t check the origin of the message but I don’t know where else she’d be.”  She looked at her husband and reached for his hand.  “I can only imagine what she must be going through right now.  Please contact her soon.”

“We will, I promise,” Talus said as he rose to his feet.   “We’ve taken enough of your time, Tani, Steel.  Thank you again, both of you.”

“You’re welcome, of course,” Steel said, helping Tani up from her chair.  “Come on,
Khalute
, it’s time to get you home so you can rest.”  They watched Steel and Tani leave, then turned to thank Khurda again.  He was holding a hand terminal and staring at the screen with a frown on his face.

“Is something wrong?” Kar asked.

“I just got an odd, partial signal that I can’t identify,” he replied, then shook his head.  “Probably a malfunction on some ship.”

“It happens,” Jon said.  Khurda nodded and put his hand terminal away.  A few minutes later, after another round of thanks, the Gryphons transported up to the
Aegl.

“Excuse me, Commander,” Captain Royce said as soon as they appeared in the
Aegl’s
transport room. 

“Yes, Captain?” Talus asked, burying his impatience.  Captain Royce was a good man, very solid and steadfast.  He wouldn’t be waiting anxiously for their arrival in the transport room if he didn’t have a very good reason for it.

“We picked up a strange signal that we couldn’t identify.  I put our Comms Section on it.  They classify the signal as a truncated distress call.”

“Any idea what ship sent it?”

“Based on the ID code in the subcarrier, we believe it to be the Dracon’s yacht, the
Ember
,” he replied soberly. 

That certainly explains his anxiety
, Talus thought.  “Did you get a source location?”

“Yes, that was encoded in the subcarrier, as well,” Captain Royce replied.  “We can reach it in about forty-eight hours at best speed.”

“Give the order to get underway,” Talus said, leaving the transport room beside Captain Royce with Jon and Kar behind them.  “Then we’ll take a look at the signal.”

Half an hour later, after examining the Comm Section’s work and attempting to hail the
Ember
on all the standard frequencies, Talus, Jon, and Kar agreed that, while it was possible they were misinterpreting the data, it definitely needed to be looked into. 

“Why are you so worried about this, Talus?” Jon asked once they were alone in one of the
Aegl’s
conference rooms. 

“Why am I worried about the
Ember
being in distress?”

“No, why are you
this
worried about it?” Jon replied. “The Dracons went to the LMC for a couple of months.  Since they took the
Ugaztun
, they can’t possibly be on their yacht, and the young princes are in school.”

“I know, but I still have a bad feeling about it.”

“Do you think Salene might be aboard?” Jon asked doubtfully.

“I don’t
think
it so much as I
fear
it,” Talus said.  “We need to send a message to Uncle Olaf asking for information on the
Ember
, particularly her passenger manifest.  I’d like to know more about what they discovered in that gel, too.”

“Above all things, we need to contact Salene,” Jon said.

“Yes, you’re right, Jon.  We’ll message her first.”

***

Nearly twenty very long and sleepless hours later Kar entered the
Aegl’s
map room where Talus and Jon sat staring at nothing.  “A message just came in from Uncle Olaf,” he said.

It had taken longer than expected for them to agree on what to say to Salene, but in the end they kept it simple, saying only that they were fine, and asking her to contact them.  Then they’d compiled a lengthy message to Olaf Gryphon.  It took several hours for the messages to reach Jasan from their current position, which meant they reached the planet in the middle of the night.  The brothers waited impatiently for the hours to pass, unable to sleep or eat, or even carry on a conversation with each other.  By the time a response came in from Olaf they were so tense they could barely put one coherent thought in front of another.

As glad as Jon and Talus were to learn that they’d finally received a response, the tone of Kar’s voice was enough to warn them that it was bad news.  They gave him their full attention and waited. 

“Salene planned to leave Jasan on the
Ember
to pick up Saxton, Pax, and Marx from school on EDU-11 in about a week from now,” he began, glancing at the screen of his hand terminal as he spoke.  “On the spur of the moment she decided to leave early so she could visit Tani on Garza first.  That was seven days ago,” Kar paused, checked the time, and corrected himself.  “Almost eight days, now.  As far as Uncle Olaf’s been able to determine, no one has heard from the
Ember
in three days.  They didn’t even receive the truncated distress call we picked up.  He asks that we continue on course to the source of the signal and let him know what we find.  He doesn’t want to cause a panic, so he’s keeping this to himself until he hears from us.”

“That’s wise, I think,” Talus said as he stood up and began pacing quickly from one end of the room to the other.  “We know the real reason Salene was going to Garza.  What I don’t understand is why in the seven hells would anyone even
suggest
that she leave Jasan,
alone
, knowing what the Doftles are capable of?  Why would Salene agree to it?  And why would she leave Jasan for Garza when a message was clearly all that was needed?”  Talus took a deep breath when he realized he was shouting toward the end.  “I’m sorry, Brothers,” he said when he’d calmed a bit. 

“No need,” Jon said.  “I too would like answers to those questions.”

“We’ll be there soon,” Kar said.  “Wherever
there
is.  Then we can ask Salene those questions ourselves.”

Talus forced himself to stop pacing and took a seat at the table.  “Did Uncle Olaf say anything else?”

“Yes,” Kar said with obvious reluctance.  “He said that he was relieved to know we hadn’t truly broken faith with Salene.”

Talus winced.  “I doubt Salene told him that.  Aunt Ash must have figured it out somehow.”

“Why Aunt Ash?” Jon asked. 

On the heels of his question Kar asked one of his own.  “Why do you doubt Salene told him?”

“I think Aunt Ash figured it out because we caught Salene’s scent all over their house the night before we left Jasan, and because Aunt Ash and Salene have always been close, and because Aunt Ash is as sharp as they come.”  Talus shifted his gaze to Kar.  “I doubt Salene told Uncle Olaf, or anyone for that matter, because we lived long enough to leave Jasan.  If she told Uncle Olaf that we broke faith with her, there is no possible way he would have kept it secret despite how much he cares about us.  Nor would I blame him since I wouldn’t keep a secret such as that either.”  He shook his head.  “After what we did to her, long before she suspected we had Controllers, Salene still protected us.  She’s amazing.”

“Talus, it wasn’t us who did that,” Jon said.  “We didn’t speak those words.  We didn’t send her away.”

“I know that, Jon,” Talus said.  “And Salene knows it, too. 
Now
.  But she still suffered for weeks, and there is nothing we can do to change that.”

“I know,” Jon said softly.

“Was there anything else?”

“Yes,” Kar replied.  “They’re still looking into the nano-bots in the tank gel and will keep us updated but, as Tani mentioned, they are much different than those that have been seen before.”  Talus nodded.  “There’s one last thing that I don’t really understand.  He says that if we happen to run into any Doftles, we should know that one of the tests being run on the Doftle arm indicate that their cells go into complete metabolic shutdown at 280.4 degrees Kelvin—that’s 7.2 degrees Celsius.”

“Doftle arm?” Talus asked in surprise.  “What arm?”

“As Salene would say,
Not a clue in the cosmos
,” Kar replied. 

Talus smiled at the familiar phrase.  Then he thought about the rest of what Kar had said.  “Did I hear that right?  7.2 degrees Celsius?”

“You did,” Kar said.  “Obviously that’s just a chilly autumn day for us.  The Council suspects that on flesh actually connected to a living Doftle, that number will rise somewhat.  But it’s still an interesting bit of data.”

“It certainly is,” Talus said.  “We just need to find a way to exploit it to our advantage.”

“That shouldn’t be too difficult,” Jon said.  “I’ve got four or five decent ideas already.”

Talus smiled sardonically.  “At least something can be easily solved.”

Chapter
9

Since there is no atmosphere in space, an object set in motion remains in motion unless and until an opposing force is applied.  Therefore, the life pod containing Salene and Jinjie continued to tumble through space at a much higher rate of speed than was normal or expected.  The onboard computer’s sensors kept watch for anything that might impede it but, detecting only empty space along its current path, it made no attempt to slow or alter its course. 

Only when it became caught in a planet’s gravity well did the onboard computer reevaluate its status and position.  It stuck for a fraction of a second on the puzzle of why it hadn’t registered the planet sooner, then discarded the question as irrelevant.  Its primary directive was to preserve the life of its occupant at all costs.  It took just a few more seconds to determine the best and most certain means of successful compliance with that directive.

It calculated to the microsecond how long its thrusters would have to fire in order to adjust its orientation so that the blunt ablative heat shield on the bottom of the life pod could do its job, then calculated to the drop how much of its limited fuel stores it could spare for the task.  The computer projected its path through the atmosphere and found that the pod was headed for a landing in an ocean, more than a hundred miles from shore.  After weighing the competing considerations of landing at the optimum speed and landing on dry land, the computer fired the thrusters to cause the pod to land more than 200 miles further downrange, on dry land, making the best of the bad terrain choices available to it with the fuel available, even though doing so meant landing at a higher velocity than its software told it was ideal.

Having adjusted the pod’s orientation and trajectory to increase the occupants’ chances of surviving atmosphere entry and planetary landing, the computer now turned its attention to the secondary directive central to its programming: summoning help.  The pod had been transmitting an automated locator signal—a simple radio and metaspacial beacon containing a straightforward digital code identifying the signal as coming from a life pod launched from the
Ember
.  Before the normal ionization black out prevented further communications almost until landing, the computer sought to change this signal to include an SOS/MAYDAY, but was unable to do so because the entire transmitter assembly had been destroyed by collision with debris from the
Ember’s
destruction.  So, with nothing else to do, the computer turned its cybernetic attention to the pod’s laser altimeter to monitor its rate of descent and altitude so that it could fire its landing thrusters at the optimal moment, and burn its fuel at maximum efficiency so that it was exhausted just a few feet above the ground.

***

“Bless the Creators,” Kar said softly as the
Aegl
took a slow turn around the mangled mass of metal drifting through space, giving them an almost too clear image of the wreckage through the viewport.  It was obvious that a yacht, probably the
Ember
though that wasn’t confirmed yet, had penetrated straight through a space station, stopping with just its nose protruding on one side.

“It’s the
Ember
,” Jon confirmed hoarsely, one hand to the vox in his ear, his eyes fixed on the small explorer they’d sent in to get a closer look.  “The initial scan indicates no life signs at all, Talus.”

Talus heard the horror in Jon’s voice but refused to give in to it himself.  “Kar, we need to search for life pod signals.  If they were going slowly enough not to turn themselves and the space station into atoms, they must have had some warning.  Maybe enough to get out before the collision.”

“Of course,” Kar said with new hope in his voice.  He hurried to the nearest vid terminal and went to work.

“They’re cutting into the launch bay now,” Jon said. 

“According to Uncle Olaf, Jake Connell came out of retirement to Captain the
Ember
for Salene at Prince Garen’s request,” Talus said.  “Jake Connell is a talented and skilled captain.  He would have shoved Salene into a life pod at the first sign of trouble, and since they had time to slow down, he probably had time to launch it.”

“I agree,” Jon said with relief after a moment.  “What do you want to do with this wreckage?”

“I have a very strong feeling that space station is Doftle, and if I’m right, it has to go to Jasan,” Talus said.  “I just don’t know how to take it there and search for Salene at the same time.”  He caught Jon’s sideways look.  “She’s not in that mess,” he said sharply, gesturing toward the viewport.  “She got out.  I
know
it.”

Jon nodded, doing his best to copy Talus’s conviction.  Since that wasn’t working too well, he turned his mind to the logistical problem Talus had just given him instead.  “We tell Uncle Olaf what we found and ask him to send the largest available interstellar tug as soon as possible,” he said.  “It’ll take a tug about ten days to reach us, but we should ask him to send a couple of our fastest battleships ahead to guard the wreckage until it arrives.  Figure four to five days for them to get here.  In the meantime we’ll claim the wreckage and put a tractor beam on it.  We’ll have to tow it around while we search, but a life pod wouldn’t have gone very far.”

“Good plan, Jon,” Talus approved.  “That’s what we’ll do.”

“One thing though,” Jon said.  “Our Blind Sight isn’t big enough to encompass both the
Aegl
and the wreckage.”

“We’ll keep it on the
Aegl
anyway,” Talus said.  “If that thing is Doftle, it’s important to all of us in terms of resource material.  But we are
not
losing another ship.  Kar?”

“Sorry, Talus, so far I’m not picking up anything at all.”

Talus rubbed his hands over his face.  “Why don’t I feel it?”

“Feel what?” Jon asked.

“If Salene is…,” he broke off, swallowed hard, then tried again.  “If Salene is no longer on the plane of the living, why don’t I feel it?  Why don’t I feel like she’s gone?  Do either of you feel like she’s no longer…here?”

“No,” Kar said.  “I don’t.”

“Neither do I,” Jon said, “but I don’t know if that means anything or not.  We don’t even have an emotional bond with her anymore.”

“I know, but I still think we’d feel it if she was…gone,” Talus insisted.  Jon raised his hand to his vox again, then listened.

“They’re inside the launch bay.”  He listened for another moment, then his eyes widened.  “All seven life pods have been launched.  It looks like Salene, Captain Jake, and all five of the crew got out.” 

Talus’s relief was so strong that he had to lock his knees to remain upright.  “Now we just have to find them.”

“Going by the event counter coded in the distress signal, it’s been a bit less than forty nine hours since this happened, give or take,” Kar said.  “We need to trace the path of the wreckage back to the point of the collision, figure out how far the explosion will have pushed the pods, and then run our search pattern in that area.”

“Good idea,” Talus said.  “While you do that, I’ll prepare a message for Uncle Olaf.”

***

Salene was startled to feel something cold and wet dripping onto her face.  She opened her eyes, then blinked rapidly as she attempted to decipher what she was seeing.  After a moment her mind cleared enough for her to realize that she was looking up at a dark gray sky, and that small white flakes were falling from it.  Why was she laying outside in the snow?  And why was the sky gray instead of dark lavender?  No answers came immediately to mind, which increased her confusion.  She tried to sit up, and was startled to find that she couldn’t.  Panic crept toward her, but she shoved it away and forced herself to calmly evaluate her current circumstances. 

It took only a few moments to discover that couldn’t move her head, arms, legs, or even her feet, but she could move the fingers of her right hand.  Not her left, though.  How odd.  She spread her fingers wide and encountered the strangely textured material that was holding her in place.  There was something familiar about it.  Feeling around further, she paused when her forefinger touched something smooth and round. 

It was a button, obviously.  But what would it do?  She tried to shake her head when a snowflake landed on one eyelid, forgetting that she couldn’t move.  Her options were limited and simple.  Either push the button, or lie there while the snow covered her.  She held her breath and pushed her finger firmly against the hard plastic. 

The material holding her in its grip immediately retracted and she let out a small sigh of relief.  She sat up slowly, wincing at a throbbing pain that she’d barely noticed before.  She reached up to touch her forehead, startled to feel something hard and metallic.  Her fingertips traced the V-shaped filigreed metal from her temples to a cool, round stone.  The moment her fingers touched the diamond she remembered why she wore it, and let out a slow sigh of relief to have at least one question answered.  She felt around a little more until she touched a painful swelling just below the hairline in the center of her forehead, right above the diamond.  There was no blood on her fingers when she checked, and the knot itself wasn’t very big.  Dismissing it as a minor injury, she completed a quick check of herself, relieved to find that the bump was her only injury.

While she sat there, her memory began to return, slowly at first, then faster the more she remembered.  She looked around again, this time with the understanding that she was sitting in what was left of a life pod that had surely saved her life, though she couldn’t imagine why it had landed to begin with.  Why the front of the pod had come off was also a mystery, and one she doubted she’d find the answer for since it was nowhere in sight.  The atmosphere was breathable, obviously.  Otherwise, she’d already be dead.

She thought about the Gryphons for a moment, wondering if Tani had gotten her message, if she’d been able to force them to shift, and if so, whether it had proven they had Controllers, or that they didn’t.  She gave her head an impatient shake.  This was not the time to continue the internal debate she’d been struggling with since leaving Jasan.  There were a few more immediate concerns for her to deal with at the moment.  Like where in the seven hells was she?

After climbing to her feet, she turned around with a small gasp when she suddenly remembered Jinjie.  She was relieved to see him still lying just above where her shoulder had been.  She went back down on her knees and touched him lightly on the shoulder.  “Jinjie?”

His eyes opened slowly, and for a long moment he remained utterly still.  Then he sighed softly, sat up, and looked around just as she had.  She got back to her feet, letting him have a bit of time to come to grips with their current situation.

According to her wrist device only two days had passed since they’d left the
Ember,
which was a relief.  Unfortunately, the device flashed the word UNKNOWN in the place where it was supposed to display their current whereabouts.  An uncharted world. 
Wonderful
.

Turning around in a slow circle, she found that they were in the middle of a small rocky valley on the side of what appeared to be a truly enormous mountain.  A mile or so uphill the valley ended abruptly, giving way to a deep green forest.  There was nothing other than dark gray clouds and snow in the sky.  If there was intelligent life on this planet she was unable to see any sign of it from where she stood. 

Frowning, she wondered why the life pod’s computer hadn’t selected a better landing spot.  The answer came to her almost before she finished asking herself the question.  “This planet must be hidden by Blind Sight, Jinjie.”

“Why you do be saying that?”

“Because life pods aren’t supposed to land.  They’re supposed to float around waiting for someone to respond to their location signal.  They have just enough fuel to steer themselves away from planets and other obstacles long before they get close to one.”

Jinjie nodded his understanding.  “It do being good job to save us.”

“Yes, it certainly did,” she agreed, noticing that the snow had begun to fall a bit more quickly and a slight wind was kicking up.  Jinjie leapt up to her shoulder as she stepped out of the life pod.  “I know you’re probably wishing you hadn’t come with me on this trip, Jinjie, but for the record, I’m really
really
grateful that you’re here with me.”

“Me do be grateful too, Highness,” Jinjie said. 

“Please call me Salene.”

Jinjie’s eyes widened and he nodded quickly.  “Princess Salene do be correct.  It do be not wise to reveal true rank.”

Salene started to explain that she just preferred to be called
Salene
, but let it go.  She walked around the pod, then knelt down beside the useless mangle of wires and circuitry that had been the comm panel.  “At least this life pod isn’t giving our position away while we stand here.”

“Yes, Blind Sight do be meaning Doftle.”  He paused.  “How long do be we here?”

“My guess is not long at all,” she said.  “There’s no door on the pod, as you can see.  The moment it came off, the pod was flooded with fresh air.  It takes fifteen to twenty minutes for hyper-sleep gas to wear off, so I’d say that’s about how long we’ve been here.”