The Challenge (47 page)

“Tree.”

Tessa pointed to the creature. And didn’t say a word. She waited, curious to see what it would do.

“Zar.”

She pointed to it again. “Zar?”

“Zar.”

Okay, it was intelligent, trying to communicate. Now what? Tessa stood up and walked. “Walking.” She halted. “Stopping.”

Each time she said the word, Zar repeated. She had no idea if he understood. However, when she stopped, he said, “Zar stopping.”

Zar had obviously come out of the sea. She wondered if the creature might be amenable to giving her a ride. Tessa walked down to the water until it was waist high. Then she walked parallel to the creature. “Tessa swim.”

Zar backed his massive body into the water. “Zar swim.”

Tessa slowly approached the huge beast. “Zar. Tessa. Swim.” And she pointed to the Obelisk.

Zar nodded his head. She didn’t take that for a yes. A nod could mean yes, no, or I don’t understand.

Tessa held up one hand and said, “Zar.” She held up her other hand and said, “Tessa.” Then she clasped her hands together. “Zar. Tessa. Swim.”

Zar turned in the water, and the tentacles signaled to her in an unmistakable gesture to climb onto its back. Since the island held no viable options, Tessa didn’t hesitate. Either the creature would eat her, or it wouldn’t. Either Zar would give her a ride or drown her at sea.

When she neared close enough to Zar’s body, his tentacles grabbed her. She didn’t struggle, allowing the appendages to advance her until she sat right behind Zar’s neck. She pointed toward the golden obelisk. Zar headed out to sea, aiming for the next island instead.

Tessa sighed. She supposed having the creature swim straight to her final destination would have been too easy. And she was beginning to appreciate the cunning of whoever had set up this Challenge. Each problem that she’d had to overcome required different skills, both physical and mental. The lack of food and water were survival skills. Swimming after the boat stopped proved she could use her psi well enough to reach the next island. This time she’d had to conclude that Zar wouldn’t hurt her, that she should make use of him instead of attacking or fleeing. Each task seemed more complex, requiring increasingly intricate mental processes.

She was wondering what awaited her on the next island when Zar spoke. “You must find two keys to open the door to the obelisk.”

So the creature
could
speak. Her pantomiming had simply been another test. “Where will I find the keys?”

“One in your head. The other in your heart.”

That was real helpful. “Can you be any more specific?”

Zar didn’t answer. He didn’t speak again during the journey.

But Tessa spoke to him. “Thank you, Zar. I appreciate the ride and the information.”

Zar swam onto the beach. Before she could slip off his back, the tentacles gently deposited her on her feet.

She patted the creature. “I hope we see one another again.”

“If we meet again, one of us must die.” Zar began to back toward the water.

Tessa followed. “I don’t understand.”

“Find the keys.”

Tessa liked straight-forward problems. Put a hostile subject in front of her, and she’d fight. Give her a business to run, and she’d assess and analyze. But she didn’t understand what Zar had told her. She was supposed to find two keys, one in her heart, one in her head. And why if she met Zar again, did one of them have to die? What the hell did that mean?

She watched Zar disappear under the dark green waters with a sinking clench of her gut. The high cirrus clouds she’d noted earlier had burned away with the setting sun. So she had no difficulty spotting a white exhaust trailing through the troposphere.

No one was supposed to be here.

Was something wrong? Or was this another test?

While friends might be coming to this island, Tessa wasn’t taking any chances. She walked backward from the water to the palm trees so that it appeared from her footprints that she’d walked
into
the sea. After using null-grav to disguise her weight distribution, only an expert tracker would read what she’d done from the signs on the beach.

The shuttlecraft hit the sound barrier with one echoing boom that startled the wildlife. Tessa headed into the island’s interior, stopping at a pool of water, drinking and refilling her canteen after the liquid tested potable. Her rumbling stomach reminded her that one piece of fruit wouldn’t keep her body sufficiently fueled, but she had no time to hunt for food, not with the shuttle roaring down.

She needed a place to hide and wished for the cover of darkness or the dense underbrush on the last island. She had no time to bury herself in the sand. The shuttle landed all too quickly, dead center on the island.

Tessa used null-grav to lift herself into a palm tree. She didn’t have to wait long for the hatch to pop open. Endekians ran out, three groups of three in different directions.

Damn! The Endekians had broken the Challenge rules. Complications ran through her head. If the Endekians killed her, the Federation would assume she’d failed the Challenge. No way could she allow this new wrinkle to ruin her efforts. Before she finished assessing the situation a group of men rushed directly her way, their feet stomping the underbrush. Heart thudding, knife drawn, Tessa held her breath, remaining absolutely quiet in the tree.

“Tessa?” Dora spoke to her through the earrings, picking one hell of a time to talk.

“Shh.” She didn’t dare say a word about privacy mode, not with the Endekians thirty feet below her precarious perch.

“Endekians have landed on Laptiva,” Dora whispered in privacy mode.

“Duh.”

Tessa waited until the first group passed under her palm tree before speaking again. “Why are we talking?”

“We just got the communications up.”

“Aren’t we breaking Challenge rules?”

“Since the Endekians broke the rules, Kahn said we could break them too.”

“Okay. Come rescue me.”

“We’re working on it.

“What’s wrong?”

“The Endekians attacked us.”

Damn. Tessa hated being down here when Kahn and her family were in danger up there. “Anyone hurt?”

“Just minor stuff. But they fused our flight bay doors. We can’t—”

Kahn’s voice came through loud and strong. “Tessa, I want you to hide.”

“Hello to you, too.”

“There’s no time for pleasantries. You’re being hunted.”

“No kidding.” Slowly and silently, she lowered herself to the ground. If she remained in the tree, sooner or later the Endekians would find her. If Kahn wanted her to hide, she had to find a better place.

“Just stay out of sight,” Kahn ordered.

“Look, it’s getting dark. I don’t know the terrain. With Endekians overrunning the island, I figure the safest place for me to go is inside their shuttle.”

“She asked me to make a wager for her,” Osari informed Kahn.

“She’s gambling?” Etru frowned.

“I’m going to kill her,” Kahn muttered.

“You may have to wait your turn.” Zical glanced at the screen. Three Endekians had returned to the shuttle and the odds against Tessa were now four to one.

“I told her to hide, but no. She had to go and beat the
krek
out of . . . Yes. That’s the way.” Kahn’s emotions heightened with her every attack and block. Watching her fight for her life while he stood in safety, violated his every protective instinct and was making him insane with frustration. The odds were back to three-to-one. If he were a betting man, he’d wager on his wife. The woman had moves, great moves, and the Endekians didn’t want to use their stunners in close quarters for fear of hitting one another or damaging their ship.

Osari waited patiently for Kahn to continue their conversation, but Kahn fumed. No matter what his wife had done, she didn’t deserve to die, and he couldn’t pull his gaze from the screen until she’d dispatched the last three men and was once again relatively safe.

When he could again breathe, Kahn turned to Tessa’s partner. “What did she wager?”

“She bet that she would win the Challenge,” Osari explained in a tone as flat and dry as the Laptiva desert.

“And?” Kahn prodded.

“The Endekians took the bet. At four hundred to one odds in their favor, they can’t afford to lose. Paying off the debt would bankrupt them.”

“So why would they take a bet like that?” Miri asked.

“Because they intended to make sure that they would win.” Kahn’s temper came back full force.

“Where did she get credits to wager?” Etru asked.

Kahn sighed. “You don’t want to know.”

“I want to know,” Shaloma insisted. “I want to study economics and be like—”

“Not now, child,” Azrel took Shaloma aside.

Osari’s tentacles waved as if agitated. “I fear the Endekians will not stop until Tessa is dead. I have asked my people to send ships, but they will not arrive in time.”

“So that’s why Jypeg has yet to finish off a prime target like us.” Azrel’s green skin darkened to deep emerald in anger. “Tessa’s death is far more important to them.”

“Exactly so,” Osari agreed.

Dora interrupted the conversation. “Another shuttle from the Endekian ship is heading to Laptiva. I’m picking up transmissions between the shuttle under attack on the planet, the one on the way, and the mothership. Jypeg‘s going down there himself to kill her. He’s furious that his underlings haven’t yet completed their assignments.”

Shaloma eyed Kahn, her voice high with distress. “Tessa is a good fighter, but Jypeg is one of the Federation’s best. Tessa needs you down there. You have to do something to help her.”

“Dora,” Kahn asked, “how long until we can use the shuttle?”

“Another three hours.”

Jypeg would be on Laptiva within minutes. Kahn’s adrenaline surged, his head pounded and he sought to contain a primal scream. He had no way to reach the planet’s surface. No way to help Tessa. And one of the Federation’s most skilled fighters was on his way down there to kill her.

TESSA SHUT the Endekian shuttle’s hatch against more intruders and took a well-earned rest, thinking that spending the night here might not be so bad. She helped herself to a high-protein meal from the Endekian’s emergency stores and replaced the fluids she’d lost while she’d perspired during the fight. She’d improved her situation considerably. She now had three fully charged stunners, a shuttle to fly to the obelisk, but neither of the keys needed to open the obelisk door and complete the Challenge.

“You’ve got another problem,” Dora informed her.

“I’m listening.”

“Jypeg is on the way down there to kill you.”

“Okay.”

Kahn took over the communications. “Tessa, he’s not like the other Endekians. He’s skilled. I barely defeated him during our last match. And as good as you are, you haven’t master null-grav. You cannot beat him.”

“Okay.” Tessa swallowed the last of her food. “Time to fly this baby out of here.”

“No,” he told her. “It’s likely that the shuttle is booby-trapped. If anyone but an Endekian flies her, she may auto destruct.”