The Star King (19 page)

Rom shifted uncomfortably. “Perhaps I can tell you more after I examine that medallion.”

With a resigned expression on his face, his friend lifted the lid of the second box, withdrew a lumpy drawstring pouch, and handed it to Rom. “Whether or not the eight families decide to back you, I will. Rest assured, I will fight—”

“I am not here to recruit anyone,” Rom said stiffly. “Nor to investigate the possibility of another war. I came for personal reasons. The galaxy is no longer my responsibility.”

“Somehow I find it hard to believe you believe that.”

Rom let Drandon’s remark brush past him. All his life he’d shouldered the expectations of others. No more. He
was not the B’kah. He was a simple trader with his own interests at heart. He wouldn’t pretend to buoy Drandon’s hopes. He might be a hero in Jasmine’s eyes, but he didn’t care to raise anyone else’s expectations simply to end up dashing them.

“I’m here because of my own selfish interests,” Rom said briskly. “I don’t represent the eight families, or wish to. And the
Vash Nadah
are mired in complacency, so don’t look to them for help, either, should the Dark Years come upon us again. Continue to arm yourself and your family. Do whatever you need to keep your own interests safe. Better yet, search out a compatible planet and move there, as far away from the populated regions as you can.”

Drandon regarded him skeptically. “Run?”

“It is what
I
plan to do. There is a woman—I care about her a great deal. If your discovery proves to be the shadow of a larger threat, I intend to take her and her family to where they’ll be safe.” Tamping down on unwanted emotion, Rom untied the drawstring and emptied the purse’s contents into his palm. “The Family of the New Day used a depiction of clasped hands below a rising sun. This shows the hands below a nebula, or perhaps a plasma cloud or black hole.”

His friend’s relief was palpable. “So my picker was nothing more than some fanatic with an interesting bauble?”

“Perhaps.” Rom flipped over the medallion. “I suspect he belongs to a group that wants to reclaim the Family of the New Day’s former glory. The design is very similar.” Rom paused. “Unfortunately, if the
Vash Nadah
’s hold on the Trade Federation continues to deteriorate, I
fear we will see more and more individuals like your picker.”

He pressed the engraved golden disk between his palms, and a faint tingling sensation crept up his wrists. Startled, he released it. The discovery dismayed him. “This is cast from an empathic alloy, like the original medallions.”

“These alloys were banned after the Great War,” Drandon pointed out.

“They were.” Rom kept all expression from his face as horrific memories threatened to overtake him. “But Sharron had a knack for reengineering banned technologies. This indicates that not all of what he worked toward died with him.”

Drandon gestured to the necklace with his cigar. “Isn’t it true that empathic alloys were once used to alter brain function?”

Rom nodded.

“So if I were to wear that medallion, someone could make me do their bidding?”

“They might
influence
your behavior,” Rom answered. “But they could not control it. Sharron came the closest of all. He possessed some psychic ability—a twisted sense of empathy, you might say—and he used the medallion to enhance this ability. During the war, when we experimented in a similar way with confiscated medallions, we were able to relay suggestions to our subjects’ neurons. But actual mind control was never achieved.”

Drandon narrowed his eyes. “What
was
achieved?”

“We found that most could deflect the hints we sent, unless they were weakened from sickness or exhaustion. Animals were another matter entirely.” Rom slid the medallion
near where a Centaurian morning-fly was exploring the base of his glass. It hopped onto the medallion. Then, without warning, the insect rose sharply and slammed itself into the wall.

Stunned, the ex-smuggler contemplated the glittering splotch of moisture left on the stones. “Great Mother,” Drandon muttered. “That was quite a graphic demonstration.”

“Lesser creatures do not possess the strength of will we do.”

“In that, I hope you’re right. Just as I pray Sharron took the knowledge of the rest of the banned technology to his grave.”

“I suspect he did. From what my men found on his base, it appears he trusted few with his secrets. Only the elders of his sect even knew of the cloning, or far worse, his plans to resurrect antimatter weaponry.”

“Antimatter weaponry!” Drandon was uncharacteristically shaken. “During the Great War, the warlords used the like to obliterate entire planetary systems.”

“Sharron aspired to wipe out far more than mere systems, Drandon. Had we not stopped him, had we listened to the eight families and dismissed him as a harmless fanatic, he might have followed through with his goal. He wanted to detonate an immense antimatter explosion in the galaxy’s core, triggering, he hoped, its collapse. Whether or not that’s scientifically possible is debatable, but his group is a doomsday cult on a grand scale. Sharron believed we’d all be reborn into a ‘New Day.’”

“With him as God, no doubt,” Drandon remarked dryly.

“I must go,” Rom said, rising to his feet. Although Jas was safe within Muffin’s vigilant protection, in light
of what he’d learned today, he wouldn’t rest until he was back by her side.

Jas leaned against Beela. Her legs trembled with the adrenaline still pumping through her veins. “I…I thought that man was hurt.”

Beela sniffed. “I suppose you weren’t the first traveler to think so. And you certainly won’t be the last.” Her two companions, a man and a young woman, collected Jas’s scattered belongings and returned them to her muddy purse. Meekly, they handed it to her.

Jas grasped the strap gratefully. “Thank you. Thanks, all of you.”

“We were on our way home when we heard your cries,” Beela said, gathering her cloak around her. She took Jas by the arm. “It’s not wise to be alone after such trauma. Come back to the compound with us. We’ll share a light meal and some lalla-blossom tea.”

“I don’t want to impose,” Jas protested weakly.

Beela gave a motherly frown. “You are
not
an imposition. Spend this evening among friends.”

“I have to be at the terminal in a few hours. Is it far?”

“In the mountains. But it’s only a short transport ride.”

“You mean the mountains nobody ever sees?”

“Yes. Above this filthy smog. Close to the heavens, to the stars.” Beela smiled indulgently. “I find fresh air enhances creativity and well-being.”

Well, Jas thought, that was what Betty had always said. If nothing else, Beela shared her friend’s appreciate-the-simple-things attitude, something Jas needed right about now. “Take me,” she said. “I’m yours.”

Beela gave a curt nod to the others. “We have our own transport,” the woman said, steering her toward the
smallest of the Depot’s three transport terminals.

The young couple fell in behind them. Jas found it odd that Beela didn’t introduce them. Maybe they were assistants, apprentices, or possibly servants, below a successful artist’s notice. If Beela had her own transport, she was obviously doing well.

In fact, her ship was sleek and unmarked. As Jas strapped into one of the sixteen seats, the air locks closed with a hiss, and seconds later the craft lifted off. She sagged against the headrest, while Beela droned on about how much she would enjoy the visit. Jas hoped Muffin was in bed with his pleasure servant by now and not looking for her. Otherwise she’d suffer the big guy’s wrath when they met up later.

Not much more than fifteen minutes later, the transport landed with a resounding thump. Jas followed Beela out onto a windswept plateau on a craggy mountainside. Far below, the city glowed, multicolored and incandescent beneath a blanket of haze. The air was noticeably thinner and colder, lacking the cloying humidity of the Depot itself. Jas filled her lungs. “It’s beautiful up here,” she said.

“And inside, as well.” Beela waved elegantly toward an enormous opening in the rock and said, “Open.” The heavy metallic grate lifted on hydraulic pulleys, revealing the glittering interior of a cave carved from walls as shiny and black as obsidian. Jas walked inside, then turned slowly in a circle. Recessed lighting, pinpricks of light in the walls and ceiling, created the appearance of deep space. It was unsettling, making her feel as if she were floating.

Beela continued to sweep forward. Jas almost had to jog to keep up. Snapping her fingers and issuing curt
commands, the woman dispatched dozens of men and women on unknown errands. All of them wore similar plain gray tunics, and their eagerness to please Beela was disconcerting. Several cast furtive welcoming glances in Jas’s direction, pricking her curiosity. Had she not known better, she might have thought they were expecting her.

Beela ushered her through another door and into an enormous chamber. Taking up most of the space on the back wall was a huge painting of the piece Beela had shown her in the museum the day before. The depiction of the black hole was so vivid, so arresting, that Jas could almost hear within its depths space and time melding into something unimaginable. Then her gaze crept to the other works, and she saw all were replicas of the first. “Did you paint these?”

“Not all. Some were created by my brothers and sisters,” Beela said, waving her hand at the group of plainly dressed, bland-faced men and women gathering at the perimeter of the chamber. The hair on the back of Jas’s neck prickled.
Brothers and sisters?
These people didn’t look anymore like Beela than Janay had. Swallowing, Jas took a second glance at the crowd. It probably wasn’t the brightest move, having come here without her own way of getting back to the Depot.

“Please enjoy the paintings,” Beela said, pride evident in her voice.

Jas glowered at the nearest. Her unease slipped into exasperation, prodded by her bone-deep exhaustion. Normal, everyday company would have been nice. But no, she’d have to spend the evening with a bunch of zealots when she was tired, irritable, and impatient for Rom’s return. God help the first person who tried to
engage her in a discussion on politics or religion. She’d probably snap his head off.

“May I bring you some salve?”

Jas realized belatedly that Beela was standing next to her, just a little too close for comfort. Taking a step back, Jas opened her abraded palms. “They
are
sore,” she admitted, guilty for thinking badly of Beela when the woman was so accommodating.

The woman turned Jas’s hands this way and that. Then she brushed her cool fingertip over Jas’s wrist. “So beautiful,” she said in a soft, almost reverent tone. “So pale.”

Jas gave a nervous chuckle. “And here I am envying your year-around suntan.”

Beela continued to clasp Jas’s wrists. An awkward moment ticked by. Then she lifted a worshipful gaze to Jas’s hair. “Perfect. Black as the Maker’s heart.”

Jas snatched her hands away. “I beg your pardon?”

Beela blinked rapidly. She took several clumsy steps backward. “I’ll get the salve.”

Jas watched the tall woman hurry out of the chamber.
Great.
This was going to be one long evening, and she had no one to blame but herself. Since none of the others in the room appeared anxious to talk, she might as well view the artwork. If she was lucky, she’d find something other than the black hole, riveting as it was. Hands clasped behind her back, she wandered across the vast room. Beela’s “apprentices” parted for her like the Red Sea. They probably found her hair and skin color strange, too.

On impulse, Jas stepped into a corridor. The rock walls were bare of artwork. The passageway narrowed
and led to another, which ended in a wide balcony overlooking the dark, unpopulated side of the mountains. The thick glass doors were sealed shut. “Open,” she commanded, just for fun. They remained tightly closed. Apprehension trickled along her spine, and she hastened back the way she’d come. She’d recalled passing at least two comm boxes earlier. If she could remember where one was, she’d call the Romjha. They owned a fleet of transports; surely they’d dispatch one to rescue a stranded guest. That way she wouldn’t inconvenience Beela. Although the woman meant well, she was growing spookier by the minute.

Mounted on the wall just to the right of the entrance to the main chamber was a comm box. Jas rummaged through her waist pouch for the comm card she’d purchased for routine calls. Instead her fingers closed around the wafer-thin metal card Rom had given her. She cradled it in her scraped palm, and her heart constricted.
Call him.
Yes, just to hear his voice, to say how much she looked forward to seeing him in a few hours. And to hear him laugh his head off when she told him how she’d gotten herself trapped for the evening in a compound full of loony artists. Grinning, she dropped the card into the slot.

As the machine flicked on, a breeze swept around her ankles, bringing with it a whiff of the incense she’d smelled just before the thieves grabbed her. She whirled around. A body slammed into her, knocking her off balance.

Jas tumbled across the polished stone floor, skidding on her rear end. Sprawled on her back, she gaped at Beela, who was shrieking, “Get the card out! Get the comm call!”

Chaos erupted in the chamber. Apprentices ran toward her from all directions. One dug Rom’s card out of the comm box. Jas tried to get up, but someone grabbed her by the hair and wrenched her painfully backward. Her numbness and disbelief transmuted to panic. She flailed wildly, trying to break free, but whoever had grabbed her hair now pinned her arms behind her back.

“I wish you had not tried to do that,” Beela said.

Wide-eyed in horror, Jas watched the woman walk toward her, a cloth clutched in her outstretched hand.

Seconds after the
Quillie
broke free of the atmosphere, the comm call in Rom’s front pocket chimed. Relief hit his tense nerves like rain splattering on still-hot thrusters. “Thank the heavens,” he said, yanking the device out of his pocket. He lifted the card to his ear. “Jas, your timing is exquisite.”

Static hissed on the other end.

“Jasmine?” He tapped the gadget in annoyance. “Hello, Jas?” Silence on the other end resonated with the fear clanging inside him. He met Gann’s baffled gaze, then scanned the status page.

CALL TERMINATED AT SOURCE
.

Underneath was a twelve-digit alphanumeric code. Rom punched it into the flight computer. Gripping the console, arms braced, he stared at the display. Then he slowly raised his head. “To the Depot—maximum speed.”

“What’s going on?” Jas cried hoarsely, pumping her legs.

Beela’s lips thinned. “Keep her still!”

The apprentice who held her arms tightened his grip until Jas thought her bones might snap. Gasping in agony, Jas stopped struggling. “Why are you doing this?” she pleaded in an urgent whisper.

Beela crouched in front of her. The fanatical determination in her eyes was chilling. “He accepts so few of the treasures I offer him. But he wants you. And has ever since I first spoke of you.”

“Who does? What are you talking about?”

“But you made it difficult for me, because you did not wear your medallion. What, did you leave it in your lodgings? Foolish woman! It is for the faithful to wear, not to be left behind.” Beela settled the cool, damp fabric over Jas’s mouth and nose.

It smelled sweet.
A drug. Don’t inhale.
Jas wanted to scream, but somehow she had the presence of mind to hold her breath and press her lips together. Her heart slammed against her ribs, and her lungs burned. Tears stung her eyes. Then grayness tickled at the edge of her vision.

Light-headed, she locked gazes with Beela. The woman’s pale gold eyes, so similar to Rom’s, held none of his compassion, his humanity.

Jas’s lungs felt ready to explode.
Don’t breathe.
She knotted her hands into fists and scuffed her boots on the floor. But the elemental instinct to survive was too strong, and she couldn’t keep from sucking in a breath. The cloying odor of incense flooded her nostrils and
made her dizzy. She saw her mother’s face…her children’s. And then Rom’s.

A silent scream of outrage tore from her soul. She wasn’t ready to die. Not now, not on the threshold of happiness, of figuring out her life.

A rushing noise filled her ears, crushing her senses and obliterating all coherent thought. And then there was nothing left but darkness…

Consciousness drifted back. Her bruised body ached, and her mouth was dry. She was strapped upright into a seat. Voices filtered through her drugged haze, and in the background, engines rumbled. They were taking her off-planet. She tried to get up, but her wrists were bound. So were her ankles. Fear-laced panic dampened her relief at discovering she was still alive, and a sob escaped her—more to protest her utter helplessness than to broadcast her fear. The voices became louder, closer, more agitated. Someone wedged a tablet under her tongue and it snuffed out the light.

When she woke again, her head had cleared. Although her insides felt strangely empty, considering how brutally Beela’s assistants had handled her, nothing hurt. Regardless, she’d best play dead—or whatever state she was supposed to be in—until she understood into what kind of danger she’d stumbled. After being kidnapped, drugged, and transported somewhere, she cringed, thinking of what might happen next.

She kept her eyes closed and attempted to use her senses to investigate her surroundings, as Rom had shown her in the Bajha game. The air circulating around her was cool and dry. She was inside somewhere, sitting upright
and untied in a comfortable chair. Whatever she was wearing barely covered her buttocks, because she felt the silken cushion between her bare thighs, which meant—
oh, God
—that someone had removed her bra and panties.

She fought her rising panic. She heard a rustle of fabric, a breath. Apprehension trilled through her. Her stomach tightened with a surge of adrenaline, and her eyelids twitched.

“Ah, she awakens,” said a man’s raspy voice. Cool, dry fingertips brushed over her cheek. Jas recoiled at the unnerving sensation, then opened her eyes.

An older man crouched in front of her. A shimmering bronze tunic stretched across his broad shoulders, matching the flecks in his yellow-gold eyes. He was amber-skinned and blond, and handsome to the point of being artificial. Coupled with his soft, magnetic smile and hypnotizing eyes, it made him the most charismatic man she’d ever seen. It was just the two of them in a room that was, at most, twenty by twenty feet. Besides the cushion she sat on and the silken rug beneath her bare feet, there were no furnishings, no windows.

And no door.

Terror gripped her. “Where am I?”

“Brevdah Three.” An odd rumble marred his rich voice. “Don’t be alarmed. You’re safe here, my treasure,” he said, contemplating her with an insolent air of possession. “My lovely black-haired
gift.
”

For the thousandth time since leaving Earth, she wished she’d bleached her hair blond. “Listen, I don’t know what kind of arrangement you made with Beela, but it’s not going to work.” Just her luck the woman was a slave broker, and now this creep thought he owned her. “I’m from Earth.”

“So I’m told.”

“Keeping me here is in violation of the Treatise of Trade.”

His smile dimmed. “The Treatise of Trade: ramblings of power-hungry soldier-merchants. Worth little more than the paper it is written on.”

She lowered her voice. “Just let me go, and I’ll keep things quiet. We’ll call it a misunderstanding, all right?” Tugging her embarrassingly short tunic lower on her thighs, she stood. “I’d like my things, please. And my comm call, too. I’ll make my own shuttle arrangements back to the Depot, thank you.”

“Sit!” He grabbed her wrists, forcing her down.

Terror exploded in white light behind her eyes.

“I do not mean to frighten you,” he said.

She nodded, her heart slamming against her ribs.

“It is dangerous for you to be traveling on your own. For your own safety you must obey me.”

She took a shuddering breath. His tone, his expression, implored her to trust him. She wanted to—Lord, how she wanted to. But something was missing in his gaze, a quality she was used to seeing in others but could not define. Its absence left her cold. Eyes like this man’s would make the devil whimper. “Who are you?”

He appeared genuinely taken aback. “You honestly don’t know, do you?”

She regarded him sullenly.

He sighed. “It does not surprise me. You hail from a remote, barbaric frontier world. You would not have been introduced to my teachings. Trillions look to me for guidance.” He began to rock slowly back and forth. He was an odd sight, kneeling before her, his beautiful tunic casting bronze sparks on the marble-smooth white
walls. “I am the savior,” he intoned. “The savior. I am Sharron.”

Startled, she blinked. “Sharron’s dead.”

The man lifted his chin, revealing a crooked, puckered scar on his throat. His raspy chuckle was low and rich, and it went on a few uncomfortable seconds longer than what seemed normal. “I am very much alive, wouldn’t you agree? It is my would-be assassin who is as good as dead.”

He meant Rom. How dared he assume he was a broken man?

“I know who you are,” she said in a sneer, her voice quavering with repressed rage. “I know about the war you started. And the people you killed.”
How
she knew, she kept to herself. If she revealed her relationship with Rom, it might place him in danger, and she’d be damned if she’d allow this monster to attack him again. “The
Vash
put women on pedestals. But you see them as breeding machines. You choose which women bear children, and with whom.”

“Analytical procreation,” he replied. “To give society strength and purpose. It is not all that different from any other culture.”

Her voice was flat, cold. “I’ll never submit to you.”

Sharron snatched the heavy medallion she hadn’t realized was draped around her neck. It was identical to Beela’s gift. Holding the necklace in one hand, he settled back on his haunches and stroked the disk with his fingertips. Inexplicably, desire flooded her. Unable to block the baffling sensations, she went rigid.

“You feel it,” he said in a rich, husky whisper.

Jas made a small sound of dismay.

“You feel
me,
” he murmured. “Do not deny it. We
are intertwined, you and I. Our souls have known each other—have desired each other, have
sought
each other—since the birth of time.”

She shook her head. He raised one pale brow. “Tell me, then, why did you leave your frontier world, Earth?”

She gritted her teeth against the heat pooling low in her belly. “I don’t know.”

“Ah, but I think you do.” He smiled his enigmatic smile. “You came here in search of something, didn’t you? A quest to find, and define, what was missing in your life.”

She froze.

“You were empty, all used up, dissatisfied, but not understanding why. All you knew was that you were missing something, your other half…me.”

Jas tried to rail against his suggestions, but her words drained away before they streamed from her mind to her mouth.

“And so you journeyed to the stars because
I
called to you,” he continued softly. “Because I needed you.”

Nausea and disbelief clogged her throat. She swallowed hard to fight the tears stinging her eyes. He
couldn’t
be why she’d left home.

Or was he?

No.
It was a trick even the most amateur palm reader knew: making guesses about her past and then using her reactions to fine-tune them. But somehow the medallion was aiding him, and that frightened her. Frantically she tried to conjure Rom’s face, but all she saw was her handsome captor.

Sharron.

Doubt swamped her.

“With me, my treasure, you are complete.” He leaned
toward her. Her lips parted of their own accord. She moaned softly, stiffening when he brushed his mouth over hers. “You resist me,” he rasped, his breath warm against her. “Your will is strong.” Abruptly he let the necklace fall between her breasts. The fuzziness lifted from her mind, along with her disturbing, contradictory feelings.

“I must dissolve that will so that it does not keep us apart,” he muttered as if to himself. “Yes, the purification shall commence. By the second moon’s rise, you will be ready. Then you will welcome my seed and we shall bring the galaxy to a new day. A new beginning.”

Her face heated with anger. “Is that what you call murdering women in your cult after they give birth?”

In the space of a heartbeat, he grabbed the medallion she wore and yanked her face close to his. His feline eyes narrowed into ocher slits. “I don’t murder them. I give them
life.
Eternal life.”

To her horror, his indignation flowed into her. Her muscles refused to heed her urgency to push him away, while his thoughts mingled with hers, like tendrils of toxic smoke. She wanted to gag. His mind was fragile, diseased, yet keenly intelligent, humming with a predator’s single-minded purpose. She recoiled from its coldness, its utter absence of compassion.

“It is what I shall give you, my treasure,” he whispered against her lips, caressing the medallion, his knuckles grazing her breast. “Eternal life. You will be delivered to the galaxy’s beating heart, secured to an extraordinary and unjustly maligned little innovation called an antimatter bomb, and once there you will bring us
all
to the new day.”

Almost reverently, he brushed the back of his hand
over her cheek. “Let the purification begin!” he called to the far wall. The marblelike surface wavered like a sheet drying in the wind; then it split, revealing a darkened hallway outside.

Sharron’s cloak swirled around him as he strode to the rippling opening and stepped through. The wall snapped shut behind him, as featureless as it was before.

Jas bolted off the cushion, yanking on the hem of her microtunic that might make a hospital gown feel like full-body armor. She smoothed her hands over the wall’s slick surface. What was the trick? Hand recognition? A voice command? “Let the purification begin!” she repeated. Nothing. Her hunt for seams in the wall became feverish. “Hey! Let me out!” She pounded her fists on the cold, unyielding surface. Something thumped between her breasts. The necklace! Disgust tightened her insides. She grabbed the weighty ornament, felt a tingling worm its way up her arm. As she lifted the medallion over her head, an overwhelming sensation stopped her.

No, you must not…

She stared at the disk, confused. Then she tried again.

Must not…

Quivering, she tried to yank it over her head. This time her arms shot out to the sides. Bewildered and disoriented, she struggled to get rid of the medallion, but every time she did, her body rebelled. She felt like a marionette, except that the contradicting commands were coming from
inside
her. “What’s happening to me?” she demanded. A piercing alarm began to blare. It shrieked on and on, a knife slashing her sensitive eardrums, bringing pain beyond her imagination. She slapped her hands over her ears and screamed.

The volume rose with her hysteria, like dirt sucked into a tornado. She sagged to the floor, writhing and crying out until her voice had faded to a ragged whisper.

Three abreast, Rom, Muffin, and Gann walked briskly into the glassy-walled cave. The sound of their footfalls echoed off the obsidian walls.

“Hell and back.” Scouring Jas’s hotel room, they had found a medallion just like the one Drandon’s seedpicker had flaunted, that and a locater card that Rom hadn’t recognized. They had followed the directions on the card—of a person named Beela—directly to this compound. Rom had kept alive the hope that he’d finally find Jas here—or at least an individual who could be forced to reveal her whereabouts. Now his confidence faltered. The cavernous hall was littered with the signs of habitation—scraps of paper, books, a cloak. But it was eerily empty of people.