(Ch 19 - finis, a little shorted this time)
She regarded him suspiciously as he drifted over and entered my cockpit. “You would not… but no, you are stuck like a leech.”
I coughed back at her. “That’s a bit strong for someone offering you help, isn’t it? But you’re right, you’re stuck with me.”
She heaved a sigh. “Well… enough. Perhaps… we will talk, when we are free of this damned void.”
“That we will,” I said with one of my lopsided smiles. I had no idea how it would go with this petulant girl, but she was one big break I was hoping for, hopefully. I would manage something with her, somehow.
It didn’t take all that long, maybe twenty standard minutes, before Sparky emerged, declaring, “Ship systems are now connected to alien X-dimensional brane navigation element. Full functionality requires a test to be certain.”
That sent a chill through me at first, but I should have expected something similar. “Eh, I guess I can’t expect more than that.” I turned to Kailene, asking pointedly, “Well?”
She didn’t look too sure about this, grumbling, “He had better—” She pointed an accusing finger at him, shouting, “You honor my privacy!”
After a slight hesitation, he rasped back at her, “I will only perform the requested task, Miss Kailene.” So polite, but I found myself wishing he wouldn’t be so honorable.
“Better you do so,” she snarled at him as he drifted over to her ship, and I could swear he was looking over his shoulder at her. She could be quite a scary girl.
Fortunately, this seemed to go faster, and Kailene apparently found no reason to begin shooting up my friend. I thought it would be better to not toss any further humor her way, and puncually lifted off with her to the weird space of The Fade. But this time I gave a cheer as the starfield came up in the Galaxy Map with all the names of the stars with it. “God bless America! So, where do you want to go?”
“I wish you would not ask…” she said under her breath. “I… ohh… how far can your ship reach?”
I still wasn’t sure just how honest to be with her, yet, replying, “About… fifteen hundred light years.”
She exclaimed back, “Fifteen hundred…?” After she recovered, she continued, “I… see. There is… a Korvax system roughly… one thousand four hundred light years due ahead… the distance is uncertain on my map… named Lokovods. Do you see it?”
“Yeah, I do,” I replied, wondering what she would make of the link request I made to her ship.
“Good. Then… what are you doing!” Even in the small display, I could see how mad she was.
“Come on, hon, let me link up with you. I imagine we can jump out just fine, but I want to be sure we end up in the same spot.”
“You imagine…” she growled. “You trust me that little?”
“Well… some,” I admitted. “Besides, this is just insurance. I want to be with you in case something doesn’t go according to plan, for either one of us.”
“And you actually believe what that corrupted Sentinel of yours tells you?”
So, she scanned it. “Yeah. I wouldn’t be here with some of my achievements without him.”
“How you trust that thing…” she muttered, and the silence lingered for an uncomfortable moment. Finally, I got a confirmation beep. “Very well… I will allow your… company. And I will accept your gentleman’s agreement. For now.”
I gave her a half smile. “I guess I can’t ask for more than that.”
“Oh, but you have, and you will,” she remarked dryly. At least she was being good natured about it. “Since we are linked, I will initiate the jump.” She whispered something which must be like a prayer in her own language. “And you are sure this will go… according to plan?”
“I sure do. His work has the Sparky seal of approval.” I turned to him, asking, “Right? Right?”
He whirred at me, adjusting his optical focus. “I have performed my task with precision—”
“I’m just trying to impress the lady,” I muttered, which made her laugh. One more point for disarming humor.
“Right… well,” she murmured as she readied her systems, and both our ships powered up in harmony. Just before the jump, she whispered, “Sikerel jarshun isten aldasaval.”
“What does that—?” I began, when a strange disorientation overwhelmed me, and I gasped out a curse. I caught a badly distorted sound in my helmet, and worried that Kailene was going through some distress. “Honey, are you alright?” And then I became aware of the wormhole I was passing through, and was shocked at how it twisted and narrowed in places like the inside of a vortex. And it seemed to be an endless rollercoaster. “Sparky, is this normal?”
I was dismayed as he replied, “I am… shutting…” Then there was the clatter of his body as it dropped to the flooring behind me.
“Oh great, bail on me when I really need you. Kai, are you okay?” All I got in response was more static with what might be vocal qualities to it. “Dear Lord, please get us through this intact,” I murmured.
It might not have been one of the longest jumps I had been through, but it was sure the most intense. And then the glare of the end of the tunnel rushed up and I hissed, “Please don’t hurt.”
With a blaze of dazzling white and a resounding boom, it was over pretty much like normal. And I was okay. So was my ship, apparently, though it went through a reboot. I began to cheer, and then I remembered my companion. “Kai! Are you okay?” I shouted, but she exclaimed something over me.
“Hala isten!” she cried, laughing, and that was one sweet sound. “Yes, yes, I and my ship are intact. I assume you are too. Your corrupt friend most definitely did his job well, though I would have preferred a less frightening ride.”
“Oh, thank God,” I laughed out. “I was worried for you!”
“Were you now?” she chided. “I am not some young incapable girl.”
“No, no, you are very capable,” I chuckled, just as something whirred to life behind me. “Sparky! I could kiss…!” I began, then remembered how the last one went. “Pat your little head.”
“One moment as I finish reinitializing…” he buzzed, then lifted himself to his usual perch. “I assume that is a token of appreciation.”
That had us both laughing as I gave his casing several pats. “You assume correctly.”
“You two are… quite a pair,” she remarked. “Well… we are outside of the system, but it will be a short hop to pulse into it. Do you want to meet at the station? Go to a pleasant world, and… talk?”
“Ohh… a pretty girl should be talked to on a pretty world,” I told her shamelessly. “Let’s see if there is one.”
“Oh, you begin with flattery,” she remarked slyly. “There is such a world, Kimei IX. Follow me to it.” She severed our link which made me nervous, but she pulsed into the system rather than jump out, so it looked like our relationship was going to continue for a while, at least.
When we arrived at Kimei IX, she asked me, “Are you able to detect Planetary Archives? I would like a fresh meal.” She was surprised when I told her I could. “Truly! Most vessels have unreliable scanners.”
“Tell me about it,” I muttered. “I had to deal with that for… longer than I can remember.”
“Longer than…?” she started to say, adding, “I presume you are going to explain that strange remark, along with many other things.”
“I will, but I have questions of my own,” I reminded her.
“Don’t expect every answer.” I expected that too. She seemed to be sifting through a scan, and said at last, “There is an Archive below and eastward. Follow me down to it, if you do not see it. And I will wait for two pads to open up for us.”
“How courteous of you,” I said with a smile, and it felt like I got one in reply.
At the Archive, things were rather different. Kailene stared off into the distance after a quiet meal, and quite a big one, so she must still be eating for two million corpuscles. It seemed that she was having second thoughts, or hopefully, unsure of just what to say to the handsome young fellow Traveler that saved her life - courtesy of his friendly neighborhood Aeron. Sparky caused a small sensation, as far as Korvax could be sensationalized anyhow, as he drew a certain amount of attention. I hoped he was just seen by them as a unique corrupted Sentinel rather than an Aeron brought back from a millennia long imprisonment. She seemed oblivious to all that. I wondered how best to break this ice.
“Unit for—” I began, just as she started to speak. “Go ahead.”
“No… you first,” she said a bit shyly, and that was quite a change.
I shrugged to her. “It’s just a cute saying. Back on my homeworld, we would say to break a silence, ‘penny for your thoughts.’ It was the smallest currency from my country.”
“Your homewor…?” she began, then her eyes opened wide. “You mean… you remember your home planet?”
“Some things, yes. It’s very spotty. I remember about as much as I do in my life before a Reset a few months ago.”
She was much more alive now, and curious. “You have Reset Amnesia?”
I nodded. “It drives me crazy too. It’s part of the reason I’m on this journey. Resets make no sense. I want to know why they happen. Someone must know something.”
“If the Korvax know, they won’t say anything. At least…” she muttered, then shook her head. “But… this mission of yours, how can you hope to get anywhere? Alone? It is a fool’s quest.” Like I needed to hear that again.
“Well, I’m hoping that a new friend I made would help with that,” I said leadingly, which darkened her countenance.
“Nigel…” Her sentence dangled for a long moment, and she finally shook her head. “I am very busy with affairs of my own. I have no idea when I would be free to offer any help, or if I can. And my… employer allows me almost no freedom. You should just go on your way and… do your best.”
“I remember you saying something like that to the others,” I said absently. To my surprise, she was gaping at me in shock, and I realized my mental autopilot had steered me into trouble again. “Uhh… in your sleep?”
“As if I would believe… explain what you just said, in detail. And quietly.” She had the intense look of a predator, and I was genuinely afraid of what to say.
“Well… uhh… I came across a transmission—”
“What kind of a transmission?”
Wow, this was really hard. Had I been too honest? “With some… I think they were superiors.”
Now she was flabbergasted. “How do you know this!” she snarled in a low voice, her gaze deadly.
“Hey, that’s just how it sounded. And I told you I have my ways,” I said evasively.
“What ways…? Never mind, what did you hear? And say it quietly,” she repeated.
I pondered continuing to be open with her, but her almost savage demeanor put the kibosh on any dodging. Well, now to try more angles. “Are you some kind of spy?”
“More quietly,” she hissed. “How do you know this!”
I decided to confess some of it, just some, in case I could happen upon more stuff the same way later. “I stumbled into a transmission… and it’s really hard to explain. It was during some sort of guided… projection to break through my amnesia. A friend was helping me. We ended up out in space… my mind, soul or something, when we found ourselves in a communications stream. All kinds of stuff from a number of different transmissions were going at once, and yours sounded interesting.”
“What did you hear - what did your friend hear?”
I waved her off. “They couldn’t make any sense of it, so I didn’t even talk to them about it. But listen, this friend you’re looking for, I could help you with that. I own a freighter with even greater range—”
“No! No, no no no…” Her voice drifted to silence, and she stared out at nothing. “This… what do I do now? That was a secret channel. If you found it…”
“Listen, it was a complete accident, a one in a billion event. If anything, I think He allowed it because it was meant to be. After all, it brought us together when you needed help the most. You had me afraid for your life for a while.”
“He?” she asked uncertainly. “Surely you don’t mean ATLAS.”
I pointed to the heavens. “Someone with a lot more rank than a silly computer.”
She gazed at me in wonder for a moment. “The way you say things… is so persuay…” She shook her head again. “But… what do I do about you?”
“Take me with you. I mean, they want you to keep an eye on me, and what better way to do it?” She gaped at me again, and I added, “Well… I heard that too. And I can help you with your missions, maybe get them done sooner so you can have the freedom to find your friend, and you can help me with mine.”
“You know too much,” she grumbled lowly, then fixed me in a strange, intent look. “You do not know what you’re asking. I don’t want you to get involved with this - or the search for my friend. He was doing something like you want to do, so be warned on that. You’re… too nice to… disappear in these messes.”
I leaned forward, murmuring, “Look, I don’t want you to disappear either. And I don’t want you alone the next time you get waylaid by bad guys or stuck in some other impossible situation like the one on Pirellax. I did get you out of all that.” Sparky edged a bit closer and I amended, “Well, we did, in both cases.”
She gasped out, “Oh isten… I forgot about your toy…”
“Hey, he’s a really useful toy! See how much help he was? And he keeps secrets.” I gave him a jovial pat on his casing, which he buzzed at. “Come on, let us go with you. You could deputize me.”
She muttered, “We don’t do deputies.” She looked away for a moment while she sorted thoughts. “All right… you’re definitely coming with me. But… Nigel, you…” She looked a little sad as she continued, “You do not know what you’re asking. And I have no idea when I could even hope to be free. This isn’t the sort of life you can just walk from when you get tired.”
Yeah, she was a spy, or the nearest equivalent. “I’ve been through so many battles and nearly died so many times, I’d much rather do it with a friend.” I finished with my warmest smile.
“How can I resist you?” she joked, and joined in briefly with a laugh, but then she was serious again, mortally serious. “You must listen to me carefully. This world I travel in is at all times dangerous. If that were not all, there is trouble coming, bad trouble I am tasked to weaken. If you truly mean to come with me, you had better damned well be aware of which side the people you encounter are on, because some of them are very important, but they may well try to kill you. And it may be better for you to… die than to kill the wrong person, so flee when you can, wound rather than kill. Getting information from the dead is hard. Good instincts are of the greatest importance, so make them sharp. This is the price of continuing with me. I want you to understand. Do you truly want this?”
Not only was that unnerving on its own, I had seen this in the Sage’s vision… at least I was pretty sure. Lord, I had so many it was hard to keep track of them all.
I waited too long and she told me somberly, “If not… we must part now, and I’ll do everything I can to—”
“No, no… I understand. I just… had some really interesting experiences that brought back memories.” I gave her a smile, adding, “I bet you did too. Maybe we could swap stories sometime.”
She returned a thin smile of her own. “Perhaps, perhaps.” Then she told me something which sent a chill through me. “But now, after I find out where we are, I must get back to the job which nearly got me killed, and absorbed on a Hell planet. Prepare now, as we leave very soon.” I turned to Sparky, and saw that he was focusing his optics on me, as if assessing my reaction. I was feeling too many things at once to know for sure.
Damn… and no time to even change my shorts.