Dreamspy. Jacqueline Lichtenberg
have unlimited resources to chase stray life pods. The closer they could get, the better their chances of survival. She had launched only one other pod without a certified pilot, and that one had had a boy who held an insystem yacht license.
Idom laughed first. Zuchmul joined and Kyllikki found her own hoarse voice wheezing along with them. “The last three ship’s officers, so careful in their duty to see the passengers safe, and what do we do? Pack ourselves into a pod without a pilot!”
CHAPTER TWO
“Only one thing to do,” announced Idom, turning toward the control console. “Find the instruction manuals.”
“In that compartment.” Zuchmul pointed.
“No, this one,” said Kyllikki. “That’s blueprints.”
Neither contained the manuals. “Well, has to be this one then,” said Kyllikki and opened the slim door placed symmetrically to the one she’d just opened. And there were the three gleaming manuals, each able to display data in the three main languages of the Metaji. Idom grabbed one and Kyllikki took another, set the display language, and settled into the only chair. The manual had its own power and memory, so it could be consulted no matter how ignorant the user was. “Pod pilot,” she muttered, “is only a two day course. We probably have that long before pickup. Maybe longer.”
But in a few moments, she abandoned the instructions, finding that the display controls were familiar enough. The pilot’s station was designed for one person to manage helm, environmental, communications, and basic course plotting.
Kyllikki’s head was pounding, her body felt pulverized, and her vision was blurring, but she had to know what was going on out there in the space around them.
The detectors on the pod produced displays that were like caricatures of the real thing, but she did locate the four remaining attackers on course for the Station. “I think those little blips there are Barkyr Defense ships,” she told Zuchmul, who was hanging over her shoulder, mesh mask fastened over his face. She filled in her companions on what she’d seen from the Window. “Defense may be able to handle those four now they’ve been warned and now that the jump-cannons are gone.” At the price of six lives, but they’re gone.
“How close are we to Prosperity?” asked Zuchmul.
She shifted the display and read the figures, feeling Zuchmul’s apprehension. He knew the pod’s hull wasn’t able to protect luren from all the sorts of radiation they were sensitive to. “But I’ve no idea what that means for you.”
Idom leaned over her other shoulder and poked at the helm controls. “I’ve figured out how to steer. Move.”
She traded places with him and leaned over his shoulder so she could see while he played with helm controls. “There they are!” she cried as the screen filled with tiny green flags. It was the cloud of pods ejected from Prosperity. A few had jockeyed clear and were driving toward Barkyr, but most were drifting, moving with the ship toward Barkyr while drifting away on ejection momentum. Not far enough away.
Zuchmul pulled out the third manual, muttering, “We must have a com-projector to reach other pods.” He broke off and clamped a hand onto Kyllikki’s shoulder. “You’re the Com Officer! Get Wiprin and get this mob organized! Wiprin’s probably with the Captain’s pod because he’s Com First—”
“Wiprin’s dead, I think. Crew’s quarters were holed and he was on sleep shift. Lee went off to pack the passengers into pods, and I never saw him again.”
“Well, find out where he is.”
She suppressed a convulsive shudder.
“Kyllikki?” The air around the luren throbbed with low-level Influence. Zuchmul was perhaps her oldest friend in the Metaji, close enough that they’d discussed their common resentment of the strictures placed on them by law, as well as their mutual fear and distrust of each other. “Kyllikki, if he’s dead, you won’t get anything. If he’s injured, he’ll be drugged, and you won’t feel his pain. But most likely he’s fine and as bewildered as the rest of us.”
His power carried his conviction through her defensive wall of silver bricks, setting them humming tunes of responsibility and duty. She felt her own perceptions aligning with his. Her uncontrolled reflex struck his hand from her shoulder and slapped his power from her mind.
Zuchmul gasped. Idom spun to stare up at her, then at Zuchmul, whose mesh-shrouded hands covered his masked face. She pulled his hands down and held them. “Did I hurt you?” Her eyes went to the base of his throat, where the mandatory Inhibitor was missing. “Zuchmul, are you all right?”
He pulled one hand free to finger the empty spot. His naturally chalk-white complexion paled. Even in the Metaji, use of luren Influence on others carried a death penalty, which wasn’t fair because, after all, it was a natural reflex.
“Listen, Zuchmul, living here in the Metaji, there’re things you might not know about the Eight Families. Don’t ever use Influence on me the way you just did. It triggers a defensive reflex as natural as yours. Understand?”
He licked dry lips. “Yes. I know. I’d forgotten I’d lost the—I was with the orl when the alarms—”
She nodded and broke eye contact. Yet even while feeding, he should have had the device secured on his person, not set aside to be lost in an emergency. Still, she really did understand how he felt soiled and unable to feed properly with the thing anywhere near him. Now that emotion might ultimately cost him his life. “You’ll just have to control yourself carefully, so that later we can testify for you.”
And if he can’t, it’s partly my doing. With the Inhibitor attenuating his power, she had tolerated his covert communication simply because she hungered so for more than the mental speech she was allowed. But that was one thing. Influencing her mind was something else.
His hands clutched themselves at his waist, and she could feel his power retreating into himself, leaving the space around her empty, almost as if he were telepathically barriered. Good. He has the discipline. She flashed him a smile and, turning back to the screens, she schooled herself to audio-analogue. //Lee? Are you clear?//
Her mental voice didn’t project beyond her silver brick wall. It should have gone right through it—or around it in another dimension—or however it worked.
She buried her face in her hands and scrubbed at the tension. It’s not possible. The two levels don’t mix like this! They were as incompatible as the Teleod and Metaji methods of using a space drive.
“Kyllikki?” It was Idom. Doesn’t she realize the ship’s going to blow up any minute now? Or is she hurt?
She flinched from his private thoughts. “I’m all right. I can do it.” She had to reach Lee, so she had to dismiss her barrier image and approach him in the pure audio analogue. I can do it. But the key image to the working realm glowed persistently, burned into her mind by the deaths of the linked telepaths. It seemed to have destroyed her selective barrier control, but Lee must not see that.
“Hey, look!” said Zuchmul, thrusting a display of directions under her nose and pointing with one long finger at a control, taking great care not to crowd her. “There! That should give us a channel to address all the other pods.”
She touched the switch. Sound roared through the pod. Idom, startled, dropped his manual and then swore.
Kyllikki thought she heard Captain Brev’s voice interspersed within the general babble. They’ll never get anywhere! Lips compressed, she put away the silver wall. //Lee? Are you clear?//
//Kyllikki? You made it.//
//You with the Captain?//
//No. And Wiprin’s dead.//
//I figured. Any telepaths among the passengers?//
There was a pause, and he answered, //Clerk here says no. Not registered, anyway.//
Hesitantly, she suggested,