WOLF DAWN: Science Fiction Thriller/ Romance (Forsaken Worlds) (24 page)

A
dmiral Neopol Jones sat still, looking at the empty chairs of the strategy room. An Icom holovid was still up, detailing complex graphic information. Janson sat straight-backed, eyes on his master. An array of leftover food and drinks remained on plates and glasses casually scattered, evidence that the people who had inhabited this room had spent some time here.

Despite all their efforts they had not found Larren Forseth nor had they discovered the remains of the courier vessel he had stolen. There was no evidence that
Assurance
had ever landed on Kalar either. All leads were dead. Extensive searches had resulted in nothing.
Nothing.

The Admiral looked defeated and melancholy. It was at odds with his normally energetic, determined demeanor. Neopol sighed deeply, and stood up. Janson, quick and quiet as usual, stood as well.

Neopol had resorted to comprehensive espionage tactics. Spies had been recruited, current assets were informed and some were placed more favorably. If any of his targets were on Kalar they would be discovered.

Admiral Neopol frowned and clasped his hands behind his back. He was an artist, and like many artists, he wanted to be admired. His skill was in the knowledge of the human mind, and his ability to drive the human animal to its breaking point. Few could appreciate the beauty of his chosen canvas, much less his artistic brilliance. He would never bother to explain what he knew to the common throng. Only Lord Andros truly appreciated his work, so he lived for the moments he spent with his direct superior.

Andros would never say a word to chastise him for his failure, but it would be a long time before he allowed him audience. Andros ruled Neopol effectively with a subtle hand. His discipline was understood. Initially it had been difficult for Neopol to admit, but there was no doubt that Lord Andros was his superior not only in his position, but in his intelligence. Neopol would love to really understand Lord Jon Andros — to have him under the probe. Yet to even think such a thing was dangerous indeed.

Conqueror
had been recalled. There was some sort of natural disaster occurring on Enso, and a number of fleet vessels had been reallocated from their current missions to assist. As Admiral of
Conqueror
he had to go. Neopol hated to leave with his last mission incomplete. His list of things left undone echoed in his mind: Find and kill the Queen of Delian and her son. Find and kill the escaped ex-policeman, Forseth. Find
Assurance
and acquire the Testimonials and the King’s Mirror.

How had Forseth done it?
Assurance
had to have been
en route
to Kalar — the lie detector had shown green. The man had received mindtap confirmation. But where was he? Had Forseth been killed or somehow lost in Omni? The mystery was an irritating unscratchable itch to his logical brain. Had he somehow been tricked by a simpleton like Forseth? Impossible. No matter what he was involved with in the future, he knew that this incomplete assignment would constantly interrupt his thinking processes and intrude on any project he was engaged in.

Neopol knew how it would be. There would be another mission, and another … each requiring a man of his experience and ability, not to mention
Conqueror
. There would be distractions, yes, and fulfillment. He would still be allowed his own pursuits into the study of the human animal. But this mission’s priority had been lowered. He couldn’t justify searching every world
Assurance
could possibly have escaped to. With Omni they could be on any United Freeworld by now. No, he would have to continue his search as occasion allowed. He would have to wait for new information or extrapolate other possibilities. He had no idea what had gone wrong, but High Command could not justify using
Conqueror
as a full-time search vessel when there were no definite leads.

The Admiral was not a patient man and he would be forced to wait.
So infuriating.
Yet every asset at High Command’s disposal would be looking. There was nothing else to be done.

Admiral Neopol Jones would have been in a rage if he actually knew the future. For despite all his efforts he was in the same position as Captain Larren Forseth. It would be five long years before he found out what happened to the Lady Sartha and her son.

It was a strange little triangle and the fates were laughing out loud.

Ash wanted Forseth: he planned to kill him.

Forseth wanted Ash: he wanted to befriend him.

Neopol wanted Forseth and Ash both. He planned to utterly break them body and mind through his extensive knowledge of torture. Then he would kill them slowly, one at a time.

Fortune, ever capricious, had already decreed when all three would meet.

What was coming was inevitable and the mythical fates were spinning their threads and weaving an amazing tapestry of chance and destiny.

The future was written: the young prince would be a grown man of eighteen when the stars aligned and the single orbits of each individual collided. Neopol, Forseth and Ash: all three would meet in five years time. And the outcome of such a collision would change the course of the universe forever.

I went to the mountains and lived alone, and it was then that the madness came upon me. It began with fevered dreams. These turned to nightmares. I did not sleep. I felt no desire to eat. I felt anxious; I had an impending sense of doom. Within one year, darkness and evil fell upon me. I quite lost my mind: guilt, desperation, rage, and pain. I became empty, my soul black and heavy: it was the Dark Sankomin. No Delian can be in this universe without healing mind-touch. A Delian alone will surely die — or at least they will most certainly want to.

— Cleric Trevor Hinton,
The Interpretations

T
he sky was the light green of spring. A cold breeze lightly fanned through the trees, gently moving leaves and branches, bringing a myriad of scents, the smell of damp earth and animals and the rich scent of growing things. Climbing up to the top of a steep knoll, Ash heard a windchime trill, while another answered from some distance away. The bird was an older male, the vibrating bell of its voice deep and hollow. The female had a higher-pitched ring. Ash held his breath, listening.

Ash had experienced both male and female bird through mind-touch. He knew the sensation of making his throat vibrate fast or slow, moving up and down the harmonics, using distinctive tone and pitch. Each song was unique, each feathered creature a master composer. Closer now, both sounded together, ringing in symphony. He took a moment, savoring each note.
Beautiful.

It had been more than four years since
Assurance
had crash landed on Opan. Deathly ill and injured, Ash had barely survived a snowstorm. He had been saved by the wolves, having been dragged for kilometers to their den. Ash still searched for the resting place of
Assurance,
yet had never found where the vessel lay. For some inexplicable reason the wolves had resolved to keep its location secret.

The blue-gray and violet trees and bushes thinned and he began to move faster, at a much higher altitude, his breath leaving foggy wisps of mist in the brisk mountain air. He climbed around a gray-yellow boulder, grasping its rough edges, skidding and sliding, while stones rattled underfoot. He paused to look down the rocky summit and found he wasn’t even out of breath.

Somehow, on this world he had achieved that impossible childhood dream. Six months shy of eighteen, Ash now had the physical size and strength of someone much older. His hips were narrow, his long legs hardened through running, while his chest, arms and shoulders were strong from carrying heavy loads. The priceless Delian talisman, the King’s Mirror now fit perfectly as a beautiful blue armguard that circled his muscular biceps. Ash thrived. He had been physically well ever since he had begun drinking wolf milk.

Scanning the woods he sighted Seeta, who now had another cub. Long Fang had never driven Ash from the family group. He was still, in some ways, considered an inexperienced pup.

“This way,” he called cheerfully. With renewed energy, he continued to climb up the steep mountain pass.

Seeta gave a short snuff of affirmation and followed him, while Long Fang and the new cub, Teella, bound ahead. Teella had recently been weaned. This was one of her first adventures in the perpetual quest for fresh meat. Ash stopped for a moment to get his bearings, reaching out for a fleeting touch. Mentally contacting the boar he felt a sharp, piercing pain. He winced and broke contact. Just past this crevice was a well-fleshed boar, enough meat for a number of days. The animal had fallen from a rocky ledge and had suffered a broken leg.

Ash sighed with relief. He would only locate sick or wounded animals through mind-touch. If the wolves wanted healthy fare, they would have to find it without his assistance. It was wrong to give unfair advantage, and he had no desire to taint his power.

“There,” he shouted to his friends, sighting the stricken creature and pointing in its direction. The three wolves sped toward it.

An immense blue-skinned boar stood favoring its injured leg, backed defensively against an ochre red rocky crevice. Facing outward it anticipated attack: its four, long, vicious pink tusks swayed back and forth as if seeking a target. Injured or not, it was still extremely dangerous.

Bodies crouched and eyes narrowed, instinctively searching out the maximum point of vulnerability, the wolves closed in for the kill. Ash forced himself to watch as the wolves brought the boar down. The struggle was short, for the wretched creature was exhausted through dehydration as well as prolonged pain. The wolves dispatched it within moments.

Seeta and Long Fang politely looked up, their yellow eyes rose in silent question.

“No, thanks.” He waved them on. “I’m not hungry.”

Ash sat down on the ledge, resting his hands on his knees, regarding his friends who were nose deep in blood and entrails. A tremor of revulsion went through him. After what happened he still couldn’t watch them feed without a physical reaction.

Over the years Ash had considerable practice contacting the animals on Opan. There was no animal that he couldn’t contact provided he wasn’t distracted, in pain, or afraid. He added that last almost as an afterthought. The wolves were the best animal to touch, he decided loyally. They were playful and caring, strong and sensible. Mind-touch with a wolf made one forget.

Of course, that was the danger.

A pale mauve leaf fell down on him, disturbing his thoughts. Ash frowned and looked up at the offending tree with its soft blue trunk and its violet-purple array of leaves. Curiously, he scanned the emerald green sky. It was well into spring now … almost mating season.

Ash swallowed, remembering the problems that mating season presented.

The wolves mated two times per year and the romance was always fiery with plenty of howling, courting … and love. For the last few seasons Ash had been unable to resist mind-touching the wolves during mating. It had started with natural curiosity. What were they howling for? But with the discovery, it had become an addiction. He simply wasn’t able to stop. Being with them felt good. But it was wrong, a mental and physical intrusion … like that time with his mother.

Flushed with sudden heat, Ash licked his lips. This time, he would sleep through it, he decided. He would control his desire.

He had been studying one of Enso’s renowned philosophers, S.M. Sanderson. Her comments had impressed and amused him: “Religions of the past were often connected to three dangerous dietary routines: solitude, fasting and sexual abstinence.”

Ash agreed. He certainly felt like he had been living like a monk. Unfortunately, as an off-worlder he was forced into solitude — but not complete solitude. He had mental contact with the fringe dwellers and he had experienced it all: prejudice, envy, selfishness, kindness, indifference, intelligence, ignorance, cruelty. Ash had spent many hours in mind-touch with people. The problem was that he was a spectator living outside the real world, when he wanted to participate.

Yep, solitude, fasting and sexual abstinence — that was his life. Not really fasting, just a mostly unvaried diet with lots and
lots
of meat. He seemed to be having the most difficulty coming to terms with sexual abstinence. He supposed all seventeen-year-old boys had the same problem, except he had such vivid memories combined with carnal knowledge.

His brows drew down as he frowned. He had had sex just once, and that was with his mother, and in another man’s body! No doubt that put him in a whole category of his own. Still, he had to face the truth: he had lost his virginity to his mother, kind of. He couldn’t feel guilty about that forever. Except for some reason he did.

Sex through mind-touch with the wolves was fantastic but afterwards it felt so wrong. As spectacular and fantastically uplifting as it was, mind-touch could also be quite dangerous. In fact, mind-touch could kill him. He had discovered this when he had been on a normal hunt with Seeta and Long Fang, well before Teella was born.

Ash began to stare, finding himself back at that time. He had touched a white deer. The animal was large, healthy and alone. For some unexplainable reason it had not remained with the herd. Like a hundred times before Ash had told his friends where the deer was through mental communication with Seeta. Then, without realizing it, he found he had made a terrible mistake.

Ash’s eyes were round and he could feel his heart pounding as his fear returned. He had been in mind-touch with the deer when Seeta and Long Fang had felled it. Seeta had crippled the deer, her powerful jaws instantly breaking a hind leg. Directly after, Long Fang had sunk his sharp teeth into the deer’s shoulder.

The pain had been acute, and Ash had screamed with agony — only the sound never reached his lips. He and the deer cried out simultaneously, their screams resounding through his mind like an echo. He fought to break contact but to his horror he found he was trapped; unable to escape the stricken mind. He was going to die with the deer.

“No! Don’t kill me!”

First came tearing pain, and then a frenzy of panic and dread when he discovered that he was trapped. The crushing terror of death pushed Ash into an exhausting, agonizing struggle to live, to survive. The deer on its own would have given up sooner, encountering a clean and simple death; but Ash was within the deer, giving the animal life and an even stronger will to fight.

The deer bleated with pain, screaming like a rabbit in a trap. The sight, smell and velvet warmth of her newborn fawn filled Ash’s mind.

The deer’s despair overwhelmed him, cutting as sharply as Long Fang’s teeth, leaving him emotionally torn. Everything become frighteningly clear: the deer had left the herd to give birth, intending to return when her offspring was steadily able to gain its feet. She was a mother, nursing her fawn, and the sweet wholesome smell of deer milk mixed with the copper-iron smell of fresh blood as the wolves tore into her flesh. Ash had unknowingly killed them all. The image of the little gray and yellow striped fawn, hidden among the leaves, penetrated his thoughts like a shaft of ice.

Ash swallowed, his face set. Soon the pain lessened to a dull numbing ache. It was clear that the struggle was hopeless: he and the mother deer were both going to die and the fawn as well. Ash felt grief and failure, then the desire to get it over with, to at least be a source of survival for the wolves. After that there was no awareness. There was nothing.

Somehow he lived through the deer’s terrible death. Ash regained consciousness, to find he had returned to his own body. Hot tears streamed down his face and his hands were bleeding; his fingernails had cut into them, so tightly had his fists been clenched.

He had come out of the shock of death to find that he could no longer mind-touch. He had abused his gift and the power had left him.

Deep in his own misery, the Dark Sankomin blocking the river of his mind, Ash was still aware that there was one horrible action yet to attend to. Unable to mind-touch, he was forced to physically take Seeta and Long Fang to the hidden place that the mother deer had left her newborn fawn. And then, because he didn’t want the animal to starve to death or to die for nothing, he left them to slay and consume it.

To Ash it felt as if Long Fang and Seeta were killing his own child.

It had been three long months before he regained his power.

Almost as penance, in addition to two hours of study he had taken up repeating the Testimonials on a daily basis. Many of the precepts, after that horrific ordeal, seemed to make more sense, especially:
“Evil thought and deed shall burn and fester. These poisoned arrows, uncleansed by healing mind-touch, shall cause thy certain grave. Poor wretch. The Dark Sankomin will block thy mind and burden thy soul. Through guilt and self-destruction, you have the power not.”

The experience taught him three important lessons. First, never remain in mind-touch with an animal that was going to die. Second, his power must be used for good or it would cease to exist. Finally, he learned the law of the animals: the strong and healthy should live, the weak will perish. The hope and purpose of all living things was to survive. Even the simple twill bird, incredibly ignorant as it was, could still very well understand death.

Ash stood up, dusted off his soft hide pants and looked toward his wolf family. He shook his head. He still couldn’t watch his friends eat without irrationally feeling that it was his own flesh being torn.

The wolves had had enough. There was little left on the carcass. Let the scavengers have the rest. Ash touched them.
“So, are you gluttons finished?”
He asked with droll good humor.

Long Fang looked up, his deep yellow eyes flashing.
“I eat more than you, two-legs. I am twice your weight and must sustain myself.”

Ash grinned at the insult. In wolf terms, being small and light was synonymous with being weak. Traditionally it was always the biggest and strongest that would lead the pack.
“As you say, four-legs. But I challenge you to a race. I wager you cannot beat even my two-legs to the crest of this mountain.”

“You are only half the way there,”
Long Fang rejoined, unperturbed by the competition, his attitude vastly superior.
“You need more advantage.”
Long Fang had little regard for the capabilities of a human man. Men were soft and slow … and they only had two legs.