The Dragon Circle (5 page)

“Scaramouch, replace bubble. Since I've got to get creative, let's go for the whole thing.” Martin memorized the number in the center of his field and blanked the screen. “Scaramouch, boot up BigMoney program.”

Martin spent the next hour moving figures around the program. He bought some high risk stock with his available allowance and sold it almost immediately at a slight profit. He bought a confiscated cargo sitting in the police warehouse and sold it through the port authorities. That brought him closer to his goal.

Then something in the port records caught his eye. The entry was listed in bright red and displayed in letters three times the normal size.

“M. Konner O'Hara, ship
Sirius
. No entry under any circumstances on or before above date.”

Martin looked closer. The “above date” was his birthday. Why had the port—and therefore his mother—banned Martin's summer camp counselor from the planet on his birthday?

Melinda sent Martin away for three AMs every year for “education and socialization opportunities.” In other words, she wanted her son out of sight and out of mind. Konner O'Hara had been his counselor for four years. Except this year. Melinda had kept Martin home with no explanation other than a new tutor with loads of homework assignments.

Martin skipped back to his mother's day-planner. The judge to be bribed that day also included a court time handwritten in tiny letters rather than computer generated. An unusual entry. Electronic pencil markings could not be changed easily and Martin had yet to discover a program to hack them. The computer had difficulty reading the print and kept blanking it out.

Martin enhanced that portion of the schedule and set it on decode mode in case Melinda had gotten creative with her private entries. She did that every once in a while, as if she feared industrial espionage. She should.

“Final custody hearing. Make certain Martin has a new suit.”

“I don't believe it. Melinda is actually going to go through the motions of obeying a law that is good for the masses but not necessarily good for her. She's going to let me choose my custodial parent. That myth she's been telling me, and everyone else, that she chose artificial insemination to gain an heir is a big fat lie! But why outlaw Konner. Maybe he knows my father. He could get my dad here in time for me to legally choose him instead of Melinda.”

In order to maintain good standing with the GTE, Melinda Fortesque had to make a show of a republican government for the people who lived on Aurora—all of them her employees. Anything that she disliked or found inconvenient was taken care of with a bribe of money or influence. At some time in the past, she had allowed a law to pass that in cases of contested custody, the child had the right to choose his/her final custodial parent at the age of fourteen.

The fact that a hearing had been scheduled meant that Martin's father—whoever he might be—had challenged Melinda. He hadn't totally abandoned Martin.

“I wonder who my dad is?”

He zoomed back to the port authority and moved the order banning Konner O'Hara from Aurora to the previous year. No mention of banning him on or after the birthday and crucial court date. “Konner went out of his way to become a counselor at my summer camp. Maybe he's my dad.”

Martin hoped so. The three Aurora months each summer that he spent with Konner represented more time than the accumulated amount Melinda allotted him on a daily basis.

“If he is my dad, then his name is on the custody suit.” Martin hesitated. Did he dare hack into the official court records? The GTE maintained those records, not the local judicial system. If he got caught, even Melinda would have a hard time bailing him out.

He called up the message center of his computer. Sure enough, Bruce Geralds, his cabin mate at summer camp had left three messages. Martin opened them. All three were innocuous greetings and gossip about other friends.

Martin opened a mailbox and dashed off a hurried message for a conference. He needed the help of all of his friends to hack into the court records—especially Bruce whose father was a freelance bounty agent.

“Martin!” Melinda appeared in the center of his screen, life-sized and in three dimensions, as if she actually stood there. Her lustrous brown hair was sculpted into the latest fashion of the sleek professional woman. Her suit had cost the annual income of several small worlds. And anger blazed from her amber-brown eyes.

“What do you think you are doing with this money program?” she demanded.

“Just shopping for my birthday present, like you asked me to,” he answered innocently. Hopefully she wouldn't find out until too late exactly what he planned to get for his birthday.

“Konner, grab the beacon with your mind,” Kim called out to his brother even as he ran after the thief. They had to destroy the device before the IMPs found the jump point. Before Kim was forced to leave Coronnan and Hestiia.

Hestiia. A gaping hole opened in his gut at the thought of leaving her. Of never coming back.

Because once the GTE found this planet, nothing would be the same. The life they had built here would vanish as ashes from an evening campfire scattered, trampled, and drowned by invaders.

He and his brothers would not be allowed to return.

The black-clad figure darted through the maze of caverns. He stopped and looked at Kim from the depths of his hood.

“Show yourself, bastard!” Loki called from right behind Kim. “Are you afraid to show your face?”

The intruder giggled, high-pitched, hysterical. Insane. And took off again in a new direction. He danced and leaped and cavorted as if leading a festival celebration, all the while making certain Kim and Loki followed.

“He's toying with us,” Kim panted. He put on a burst of speed.

“St. Bridget, and Mary, and all of God's little angels help me!” Loki cried as he took a flying leap.

Loki landed hard, fingers entwined in their quarry's cloak.

“Eeeeppp!” the man squealed. He flailed.

Loki tugged on the sturdy cloth. Not black. The ubiquitous rust color of the local shaggy cattle.

Kim grabbed the man's shoulders. Must be male by the breadth and musculature. He wore soft boots made of deer hide, the same as the footprint Loki had seen earlier.

And then the thief wiggled once and slid out of their grasp.

The intruder left Kim holding the cloak as he disappeared into the shadows.

Loki pounded the ground with his fist. He remained prone, shoulders slack in disappointment.

“I can't . . . get . . . it,” Konner panted coming up behind them. “I can't find the beacon with my mind. And I don't have any Tambootie to augment my powers.”

A hum began in the back of Kim's neck. His teeth itched and his feet did not want to remain still.

“The dragongate,” he breathed. “It's opening.”

“By St. Bridget, does this ghost know how to use the gate?” Loki looked up. Horror dawned in his eyes.

“If anyone but us knows . . .” Kim did not dare finish that thought. Instant transportation to almost anywhere on the planet offered near-limitless power. Another unscrupulous megalomaniac like Hanassa. . . .

“Hestiia knows,” Konner reminded him.

“So does Taneeo,” Loki added. “Hanassa sent him through the gate dozens of times while he was enslaved.”

“We can trust them. Hestiia is my wife. Taneeo is a friend. He presided at my wedding. They understand why this must be kept secret,” Kim insisted.

“Then who?” Loki asked. “Sure, we all want to trust everyone. But who else did Hanassa show this to?”

“There he is.” Konner dashed after the flicker of movement at the edge of the light.

Kim and Loki stayed at his heels. They had to catch the man now. Before the IMPs locked onto the beacon and everything he held dear crashed around him. They ran full out. Kim's lungs began to strain in the heat. His thighs ached and his heart thundered in his ears.

The hum in the back of his neck set his teeth on edge. “He's headed for the dragongate!” he called out.

Big Bertha loomed ahead of them. The eerie red light from the lava grew brighter; took on tones of gray and pale green.

“Stop him before . . .”

Their quarry darted into the tunnel, little more than a silhouette. Did he have only two dimensions?

Kim blinked his eyes several times, trying to focus on the figure, find some point of familiarity, or substance in him.

“Good-bye, my friends. Even the dragons can't catch me.” The stranger's voice deepened and rang through the tunnels. The soaring caverns took up the cry, twisted it, amplified the reverberating tones, and sent it back to them.

The hair on Kim's nape stood on end. Chill touched his heart.

Loki made the sign of the cross without breaking stride.

The light shifted again, going red and dark.

Konner came to a skidding halt at the lip of the volcanic crater.

A stream of lava flared upward coming within a thousand feet of the precipice where they stood. The heat threatened to scorch exposed skin.

“He's gone,” Konner whispered.

“Where?” Kim asked. “Did you see where the dragongate took him.”

“No place I recognized. Gray-green soil, rocks jutting through like broken bones in a compound fracture, scant plant life. Deep ravines revealing black rock beneath the soil.”

“We have to find him.”

“How?”

K
AT TALBOT yanked her safety harness across her shoulders and fastened it between her legs. All around her, the bridge crew copied her movements. All except Lucinda Baines, the diplomatic attaché. That august personage, not much older than herself, continued to brace herself behind Kat's chair, staring eagerly at the sensor readings.

“Are we truly on the trail of the infamous O'Hara brothers,” Ms. Baines breathed.

“You won't be unless you find a place to strap in,” Kat warned her. The woman's beauty and pedigree did not grant her special dispensation from the laws of physics. Scientists had yet to figure out how jump points worked. They only knew that they opened holes in space to distant places and that they were dangerous.

“Strap in, Ms. Baines, or get off my bridge,” Commander Leonard ordered.

Ms. Baines flashed the ship's captain a resentful glare. Then she flounced over to a jump seat with a harness.

Kat slapped the jump alarm. A loud klaxon resounded throughout the ship three times, followed by the captain's prerecorded voice. “Prepare for jump. All personnel, prepare for jump.” Thirty long seconds later, each section of the ship reported in; med bay, judiciary, anthropology, Marines, engineering, and all the other smaller departments that kept the judiciary cruiser running. If anyone aboard was out of position and injured in the coming minutes, they had only themselves to blame.

“I certainly hope this means we have finished this wild-goose chase and can proceed toward civilization,” Judge Balinakas intoned from the hatchway. His stout body filled the portal, his black judicial robes draped about him with majesty, reflecting the glossy black of his hair. His swarthy skin had higher color on cheekbones and nose than usual.

“Strap in, Judge,” Leonard ordered. She gripped the arms of her chair until her knuckles turned white. “I am taking this ship in pursuit of criminals wherever I must follow them. That is, of course, our mission.”

“We are well overdue for our rendezvous, Commander Leonard. Not even the infamous O'Hara brothers are worth yet another fruitless side trip.” The judge looked down his beakish nose at the captain of the ship.

“Take a seat, Judge, or suffer the consequences of jump.” She turned her head back to the screens, clearly dismissing the man who represented a rival authority aboard ship.

“I shall report you, Commander, for this deviation.” The judge did not seek the jump seat on the opposite side of the hatch from Ms. Baines.

“Your conduct goes into my official report. Need I remind you
again
that I am in command of this vessel? You command only the judiciary process for any criminals we apprehend.” Leonard's voice gained intensity and volume.

“Need I remind you that I have absolute authority over this mission?” The judge remained calm.

“Bridge personnel secure, Lieutenant Talbot,” Commander Leonard reported. “Take us into jump.”

Kat slapped the final alarm.

Judge Balinakas remained standing.

Kat took a deep breath and began the sequence of commands transferring control to the central computer. No human could react fast enough during the sensory overloads of jump to navigate. Three hundred lives depended upon the computer's judgment.