Being of the Field (13 page)

‘No need.’ The agent smiled. ‘We know the sample is on board and intact. We’ll take it from here.’

Swithin was the only person who knew the substance was volatile, but as time was short to escape the consequences his brother had warned him about, he wasn’t going to argue.

‘Where will you go…the Maratosh system?’ the agent inquired as Swithin made for the vehicle.

‘A tropical environment could be real nice for a while.’ Swithin didn’t commit.

‘It’s a shame your lovely partner in crime was so unexpected taken out of the equation, Swithin,’ the agent commented. ‘Who will share paradise with you now?’

Swithin forced a grin at the implication that he’d had Amie killed. ‘I’m sure I’ll find somebody.’ He hopped into the driver’s seat and closed the door.

‘Don’t count on it.’ The agent watched the vehicle speed out of the hangar doors.

As soon as he was in the open car park, Swithin stopped the hovercar, grabbed the briefcase of money and bolted for cover inside a neighbouring hangar that was not currently in use. The MSS vehicle exploded behind him, hurling Swithin into his hiding place. He looked back to find that there was nothing left of the luxury hovercar. ‘Fucking bastards.’ He got himself to a seated position and, pulling a handset from his pocket, called for his own pilot to pick him up at their designated meeting spot in ten minutes.

In a dark corner of the hangar he uncovered a hoverbike, helmet and
a backpack containing a change of clothes that he’d organised the night before. A quick change, helmet on, and out the gate on a guest pass—no one was any the wiser that he’d left the premises. After all, how could he have left? Swithin Gervaise was now officially a dead man.

Early the next morning Taren was eating breakfast while skimming through the report Frank had sent through, when Kassa entered the cafeteria. Taren waved to her, wishing to have a word.

The doctor picked out a small breakfast and then headed over with her tray to take a seat at Taren’s table.

‘How are you doing?’ Taren hadn’t bumped into Kassa since she’d had her collapse. ‘I heard you were out for a couple of days!’ Taren had kept a check on her progress, but she’d been asleep at the time Kassa had finally come around.

‘I’m fine.’ Kassa waved off any concern, and then whispered, ‘The biggest problem I had was trying to explain it.’

‘Obviously, Lucian now knows,’ Taren wondered what had gone on whilst she’d been stuck on Oceane.

Kassa nodded. ‘I couldn’t leave you stranded there,’ she shrugged. ‘But Lucian has left it to my discretion who knows and who doesn’t.’

‘Well, thank you,’ Taren said.

Kassa forced a smile. ‘He believes I should tell Leal.’

‘Lucian said that?’ Taren was surprised as he didn’t seem the type to interfere in other people’s personal affairs.

‘He didn’t have to,’ Kassa said, sounding disappointed in herself for being such a coward about it.

Taren’s pager went off, startling them both. It was Lucian, requesting that Taren come to his office as soon as possible.

‘I’ve got to go.’ She stood up. ‘But I need you to give me a physical today, if possible.’

Kassa nodded. ‘Sure, just page me with a time.’

‘We’ll talk then.’ Taren knew Kassa wanted help with her moral dilemma and Kassa nodded gratefully.

‘Dr Lennox.’ Ringbalin caught Taren on her way out the door.

‘Call me Taren, please…we’re practically living together,’ she joked.

Ringbalin was very pleased, but it was not her sense of humour that had him so excited. ‘I need to speak with you about our tundrell. I think I’ve discovered something amazing—’

Taren’s beeper went off, alerting her to the fact that the monitor satellites on Oceane had detected a change in the anomaly. ‘Damn it! Not now, sorry,’ Taren hurriedly said to Ringbalin. ‘I’m sure it’s incredible, but the captain has summoned me and our being is getting ready to depart Oceane.’

‘Excellent, I’ll get back to my workstation. I want to see this.’ He rubbed his hands together.

‘Tape it for me, just in case,’ Taren requested, as she backed up the corridor.

‘Sure,’ Ringbalin said. Although obviously bursting to tell someone about his discovery, he accepted the delay with a smile.

‘Thanks a million. I’ll catch up with you later.’

‘Do I need to make an appointment?’

‘Not usually.’ Taren gave a laugh, thinking she had been exceptionally busy since her arrival on AMIE.

‘You haven’t seen my greenhouse yet,’ Ringbalin chided.

‘Today, I swear!’ Taren held up a palm to seal her vow, before she waved and turned to resume her course to the captain’s office.

In retrospect, she felt she had been rude not to ask Ringbalin what he was so excited about and now wished she had, as he had made her curious. She was just nervous about being summoned to Lucian’s office; it usually meant that either she, or the project, was in trouble.

‘Good morning, Aurora. You look lovely today.’ Taren smiled as she approached, and received a smile in return.

‘How did it go?’ Aurora whispered.

‘We are still friends and nothing more,’ Taren was pleased to say and Aurora squealed with delight until they heard Lucian clear his throat.

‘Sorry to interrupt, but this is rather urgent.’ Lucian beckoned Taren into his office. Intrigued by the serious look on his face she complied with the greatest of haste.

‘What has happened?’ she asked, remembering that this was the
morning that Kestler’s pod was due on Maladaan. ‘Is something amiss with the sample? The being is preparing to leave, you realise?’

Lucian pointed to a spare monitor displaying the event, and Taren immediately moved in to take a closer look.

The bright mass of coloured electromagnetic gas had detached itself from Oceane and was now floating well apart from the planet it had nurtured. The being had formed into a sphere, leaving a large continent of green amid the oceans of blue on Oceane. The new landmass could only been seen in part, due to the dense cloud forming from large-scale volcanic activity that had erupted on the planet’s surface in the wake of the entity’s departure.

‘Wow,’ Taren uttered, spellbound.

‘Indeed.’ Lucian agreed. ‘I’d love to be able to tell you what is happening with the sample in Kestler’s pod on Maladaan, but my brother won’t answer his phone and it’s been too early in the morning to catch anyone in the office.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘We are attempting to get a living body in front of a monitor as we speak.’ Lucian glanced sideways and was shocked to see Taren’s horrified face.

‘You entrusted Swithin with releasing the sample?’ Taren gasped.

‘I have no proof of Swithin’s involvement in this beyond sending you to us, which he freely confessed to me,’ Lucian explained, rather put out that she would question his judgment. ‘Swithin’s first conclusion was that you had killed Amie.’

Now Taren was insulted, but held her tongue. It seemed Lucian changed his mind about her as often as he changed his clothes. ‘Have you spoken with anyone at the pod bay? Has Kestler landed?’

Lucian shook his head, but just then Aurora advised from his workstation screen, ‘Patching you through to pod bay seven, homeside, Captain.’ Lucian smiled at Taren and took a seat. She strolled around the desk to view the screen.

‘Pod bay seven, Cato Paley speaking.’ The engineer seemed rather overwhelmed when he discovered who the caller was. ‘Professor Gervaise, sir.’ He looked around him, obviously searching for a superior he could fetch to speak with the professor.

‘I am wanting to confirm that Eleazar Kestler’s pod has landed,’ Lucian queried.

‘Yes, professor, it did land.’

‘Was my brother, Swithin, there to meet the capsule?’

‘He was here,’ the engineer confirmed, while seeming reluctant to continue. ‘But…there was an incident…I’m going to patch you through to the office—’

‘No—’ But before Lucian could delay him, the engineer was gone. The next thing they knew, Swithin’s secretary was on screen wiping tears from her face.

‘Professor Gervaise.’ She collected herself to address him. ‘I am so sorry to be the one to inform you…but your brother has reportedly been involved in a freak car accident.’

‘What!’ Lucian was shocked, Taren was not.

The MSS would not leave anyone alive who had had any contact with the sample they had stolen—if nobody knew about it, then it never existed. That meant her life was probably in danger, and the thought of going to Maladaan was a little daunting. She could only hope that they’d rooted out all the MSS sleeper agents on board AMIE.

‘The hovercar Mr Gervaise was driving exploded in the car park outside of pod bay—’ The woman collapsed into tears and one of her male colleagues was forced to take over the transmission.

‘The authorities are investigating,’ the man advised, ‘but to tell you the truth, Professor, there is not a whole lot left to investigate.’

The news was awful and Taren wanted to place a friendly hand on Lucian’s shoulder, but she felt the gesture would be of little comfort to him if he still suspected that she was in some way involved.

‘They are also looking into why Kestler’s pod misfired soon after it had docked…before the occupant was even extracted!’ ‘A recovery vessel is being launched to fetch the pod, as it has barely enough fuel left to clear the atmosphere.’

Another dead agent with no stories to tell.
Taren’s heart swelled with sorrow at the thought of such a great scientific mind as Kestler’s being allowed to slip into obscurity at the whim of some government agency with a money-making agenda. Her eyes drifted from the monitor link-up with Maladaan, to the one monitoring Oceane and her heart skipped a beat.

‘Captain.’ Taren warily directed his attention to the monitor displaying images from Oceane. ‘We’re running out of time.’

The sphere of rainbow electric light had now shed all its colour. Only the bright electrical blue-white activity remained and intensified. In a brilliant flash the sphere of energy vanished from sight completely and their satellite image went static.

Lucian was becoming more disillusioned by the minute, and looked back to the fellow on Maladaan. ‘Can you patch me through to the investigating officer?’

‘I sure—’ The screen went static and then blank.

‘Not now!’ Lucian whined, as he pushed Aurora’s intercom number. ‘The line has dropped out. Can you get them back?’

‘One moment,’ Aurora said.

Lucian looked at Taren, concerned.

‘A coincidence?’ he asked rhetorically and in a sarcastic tone. ‘You think Swithin failed to release the sample in time?’ He attempted to think it through to keep from falling to pieces, but it seemed Taren had beaten him to the mark, for she wiped a tear from her cheek and took a seat. ‘I am surprised my brother’s death would upset you like this?’

‘Not your brother,’ she explained. ‘Kestler.’ She forced a grin to stop herself from bursting into tears. ‘The man was a legend.’

‘He still is,’ Lucian was surprised by her needless concern. ‘They will retrieve his pod—’

Taren shook her head, just as certain. ‘No, they won’t.’

Lucian didn’t seem to know how to respond, so Taren helped out.

‘I am very sorry for your loss, captain. Would you prefer that I leave?’

‘I don’t know,’ Lucian answered honestly. ‘What am I supposed to feel right now?’ he appealed to her. ‘Was my brother loyal to me? Should I grieve his loss, or be thanking the heavens to have another traitor exposed and expunged?’

Taren felt a little awkward as she was not a telepath, nor did she know much of the history of the project beyond what had been documented by the institute. ‘I believe Kassa is really the only person who may be able to give you those answers.’

Lucian nodded. ‘That has occurred to me. I guess I have been avoiding that conversation…if you don’t want to know the answer, then…’

‘…don’t ask the question,’ Taren concluded, understanding completely.

Aurora knocked and entered. ‘Sorry to barge in, but all the feeds to Maladaan are completely dead.’

‘Is it our equipment?’ Lucian was wondering if they’d been sabotaged from the inside.

‘I can get a line through to the Maratosh colonies, and those on Sermetica, Frujia too. It’s just Maladaan,’ she advised. ‘It’s like the entire communications network down there has just been shut down.’

‘An event of such magnitude could only have been caused by an unprecedented electromagnetic occurrence.’ Lucian looked at Taren.

‘Did I mention I don’t believe in coincidence? If it was the sample that has caused the telecommunications breakdown, I doubt the sample was also the cause of Swithin’s death, as he was reported dead before our entity had altered its state of being.’

‘Swithin is dead!’ Aurora had never known anyone who had died, and now two colleagues had died in the same month! ‘How?’

‘A freak accident,’ Lucian explained in an attempt to calm her, but Taren scoffed, and the captain didn’t need to be a mind-reader to know her mind. ‘You think the MSS had him killed, don’t you?’

‘I don’t think they did.’ Taren made it perfectly clear. ‘I
know
they did.’

After an hour of trying and failing to re-establish communication with their home planet, Lucian truly felt the weight of the world upon his shoulders. For the sake of everyone on Maladaan he had to know the extent of the covert operation inside his project and he needed answers by the time they arrived home at the institute in Esponisa.

Aurora advised through the intercom that Kassa was waiting to see him, and Lucian asked Aurora to send her in.

The doctor didn’t need telepathy to sense the ominous mood that hung heavily around the captain. ‘Lucian?’ She took a seat, knowing
this was going to be the conversation that she’d hoped they would never have.

‘You have been telepathic all your life, yes?’ Lucian asked and Kassa nodded warily. ‘And you have been on this project practically from its inception…’

Kassa drew a deep breath for strength, knowing where this line of questioning was leading.

‘Were you aware then, or at any time, of my brother having ties to the MSS?’ Lucian asked her outright.

‘I believe that you should ask Swithin that question. I can only spec—’