The Light-Field (44 page)

‘They'll come for us,' Taren assured him and he nodded in accord, masking his doubt as badly as she was. ‘They need to wait until the very last second to ensure Khalid has fled,' she reasoned further, as they watched the countdown drop to eighteen, seventeen, sixteen …

‘I think,' Zeven piped up, ‘that under the circumstances —'

‘If you suggest sex —' Taren threatened to hit him, but he disarmed her with his sincere smile.

‘— a hug might be in order.' The look on his face seemed to convey everything he wanted to say in that instant.

‘It's been far too awesome to end like this.' Taren was glad to hug him and await their fate.

Nine, eight, seven …

‘I agree.' Mythric startled them with his appearance, and wasted no time grabbing hold of them both.

Three, two, one …

 

When Taren found herself back in the boardroom with all their crew, she gave a sigh of relief. ‘Thank you, Mythric.'

He accepted her gratitude with a nod.

She then swiftly moved away to expend her anger — they'd lost Khalid and she wanted to kick herself. ‘Idiot!' she cursed, and thumped her foot.

‘I don't know how you could have played that any better?' Zeven reasoned.

‘I should have blown it from here, he nearly killed us!' she protested. ‘And now we've lost him!'

‘We would have lost him anyway!' Zeven pointed out, appealing for her to give herself a break; she was exhausted and freaked out, so Zeven turned to Lucian for help. The look he got back from the captain was peculiar — Lucian knew that Zeven had something to do with his wife unexpectedly giving Telmo the kiss of enlightenment. ‘Okay, I told her about the kiss, it was my fault entirely!'

‘He was supposed to tell her,' Telmo fronted up in Zeven's defence. ‘I knew, or at least my super-conscious knew, that Starman being Starman, wouldn't be able to keep the vow he made to me back on Kila.'

‘Hey —' Zeven took offence, but then choked. ‘You remember Kila?' Taren, Lucian and Jazmay were surprised as well.

‘Yes,' he said, ‘but my link to Akasha was very weak then. Yet my super-conscious still knew that in this future we were about to create, Dr Lennox, ah, sorry, Gervaise, would acquire the power to awaken my connection to my Grigori, who has the knowledge to help you deal with your spook problem.'

‘Whoa.' Taren was amazed.

‘Sorry if the directive caused any tension,' Telmo took responsibility, ‘but just giving me the Juju would not have been fast enough, we might have lost our redeemer.' He motioned to Zeven, and the pilot was surprised by Telmo's title for him. Telmo then looked to Taren. ‘Your PK, directing me to remember who I was, had a quickening effect.'

‘I was really hoping it would.' She smiled, as it was comforting to hear someone else talking about occult matters with confidence for a change. Still something else was playing on Taren's mind. She diverted her attention to Aurora and noticed that their other remote seer, Ayliscia Portus had also been called in to assist with their retrieval — quick thinking on Lucian's behalf. ‘Did Khalid take the technology?'

‘No.' Aurora stood. ‘I saw it go up with the ship,' she advised and then ran to hug Zeven, so pleased that had not been his fate.

‘Well, at least Khalid will have to start again.' Taren was thankful to have caused Khalid some inconvenience.

‘He knows who you both are now.' Aurora was concerned about that.

‘He cannot find us any easier than we can find him,' Taren argued.

‘But he just did?' Aurora didn't understand.

‘No, Khalid found his ship, not us,' Taren clarified. ‘AMIE has protection now, so he cannot find us here. Khalid's protective source is now mobile, so we cannot find him either.'

‘Even though we know what the vat now looks like?' Zeven queried.

‘Khalid knows what our ship looks like but the Juju blinds him from finding it. In the same fashion his vat of ghosts cast his whereabouts into shadow … thus, stalemate.'

‘Then for the moment we are at an impasse.'

‘Not quite,' Taren was sorry to say. ‘Once Khalid gets that big photon-camera up and running, he will start searching for the source of our Juju.' She looked to Kalayna and Telmo. ‘Shutting down that gateway will considerably lessen his chances of finding it.'

‘I know exactly what needs to be done,' Kalayna said, volunteering her services. ‘It's going to make me look like a
complete
flake, but hey … fame is fleeting. I'd much rather work for you guys.' She raised both brows and gave a cheeky grin, and Telmo grinned to concur.

‘You're hired,' Lucian decreed, pleased they were eager to join the crew and did not need recruiting. ‘Your first assignment —

‘— shut down that gateway,' Kalayna and Telmo chimed in at once.

‘I think with the crew you have, captain …' Kalayna looked them over. ‘We will not even need to leave his room to achieve our objective.'

‘Tomorrow,' Lucian insisted. ‘It will take Khalid years, if ever, to find what he is looking for, so for the next ten hours this entire crew is on R&R.'

Everyone gave a cheer to second that motion.

‘Mr Dacre, Miss Zuri,' Lucian addressed his newest crew members. ‘We have crew quarters assigned for you, Aurora will show you to them.'

‘A shower without ghosts …
heaven
,' Kalayna proclaimed in her utter delight.

‘A little sleep wouldn't go astray,' Telmo agreed, his eyelids beginning to droop now that all the action was over.

‘You can catch up with our father tomorrow,' Yasper suggested, slapping an arm over Telmo's shoulder.

‘Follow me.' Aurora led off and turned back to Kalayna to express how excited she was to have them on board.

Yasper accompanied Telmo out, introducing his brother to his wife.

‘You married a Phemorian!' Telmo didn't think that happened, ever!

‘She was a Valourean too,' Yasper boasted, and Jazmay rolled her eyes. ‘Wait until you meet your nephew!' he said excitedly, and Telmo appeared overwhelmed as they disappeared out of view.

‘Good job and dismissed.' Lucian excused the rest of them, and everyone headed back to their respective post or hang-out, until only Taren remained.

‘Sorry if Aurora reporting that I was kissing Telmo Dacre put you in an embarrassing position.' Taren ventured a look at Lucian.

‘You could have mentioned your intent.' Lucian's arms were folded, but his voice was very civil.

‘Well, prophecy is a strange thing,' Taren defended. ‘I didn't intend to comply with it, but then circumstances demanded that I did comply or risk missing an opportunity I'd been warned to watch out for.'

‘I get it.' Lucian unfolded his arms and moved closer.

‘Really?' Taren queried. ‘Because if the situation was reversed, I'd be furious!'

‘Then I guess you are the one with jealousy issues, not me.' He pulled her closer. ‘So please, don't leave me out of the loop in future?' He raised both eyebrows in appeal.

‘I've misjudged so many things this day —' Taren wanted to kick herself again, but Lucian placed a finger over her lips and kissed her. He hugged her to him — she'd really given him a scare; their rescue must have been a closer call than she'd imagined.

‘Do you really think I care about anything beyond the fact that I didn't just lose you in an explosion?' he asked in all sincerity. ‘We got all our crew back safe, all our mission directives have been met, and after running missions for days with very little rest, I think that's pretty damn good.'

Taren just had to grin; his concern filled her with a sudden burst of gratitude herself. ‘You're right, that is pretty damn good.' She moved in for another kiss, when it dawned on her. ‘Actually there is one loose end I need to tie up.'

‘You're exhausting, you know that?' Lucian wasn't a huge sleeper, but even he was getting tired.

‘Has it been an hour since I got blasted by Khalid?' Taren was feeling stronger, as the vital force of her Juju was flowing through her once again.

Lucian checked his watch. ‘Affirmative.'

Taren looked to the boardroom table and imagined the pen laying there flying into her grasp, whereupon the pen immediately complied to her will. ‘Thank heavens.' She held her hand out before her and brought to mind Kalayna's weapon, which, moments later, appeared in her hand. ‘If he thinks he's keeping this, he's seriously mistaken.' She threw it up into the air and it fractured into molecules and dispersed in a blast of light. ‘Good luck finding a blueprint for that one, arsehole.' Her angst was aimed at Khalid. ‘Pity that I cannot destroy his soul-vat as easily.'

‘All in good time,' Lucian said, and Taren nodded. She eyed off the canister containing the remains of Chironjivi. ‘What shall we do with that?'

‘Well, if I dispose of it in the same manner as Kalayna's weapon, I'll only set the monster free. I suggest we store it in bio-containment until
Telmo can advise us how to put him to rest for good.' She smiled when she thought about Telmo. ‘It's comforting to have Taliesin back … well, his super-conscious memory, anyway.'

It was difficult for Lucian to be as excited about that as Taren was. He too had viewed many of the historical orbs on Kila and he'd had, not so much a love/hate relationship with the soul in question, but one that had had a plentiful supply of tough love. Taliesin had never steered him wrong, even though many times it seemed that he had. Still, in another incarnation Taliesin had been Teo, and something of a rival for his wife's affections. He wondered if the kiss of enlightenment was a little payback for that. Lucian had to admit that he'd rather liked Telmo Dacre when they'd met on Kila, and the kid did seem rather sweet on Kalayna these days. ‘Well, his presence has always served to be an education in the past, and I'm sure this revisit will be no different.'

‘It's a little strange to hear all that knowledge sprouting out of one so young, isn't it?' Taren considered.

‘No,' Lucian replied, gazing at her with a smile upon his face. ‘Not for me.'

 

Aurora had seen Kalayna to her quarters, which were right next door to Telmo's, but as Yasper had insisted on showing him around, Telmo had got tied up talking with his brother and hadn't really had a chance to say boo to Kalayna since they'd been rescued. By the time Yasper left, Telmo felt Kalayna would be resting and he shouldn't disturb her.

Instead he took the shower he was badly in need of; he'd not liked leaving Kalayna alone for any great length of time on board the
Insurrecto
and although he would have loved to suggest that they shower together, he'd not had the guts before they were kidnapped and he'd feared inciting dormant passions in ghosts thereafter. What if she didn't feel the same way about him after today? She had mentioned that he'd changed, and he had! But his feelings for Kalayna hadn't changed — had her feelings dulled?

Under the jets of the shower, with steamy hot water pelting on his head, Telmo allowed his thoughts to drift back to before this current lifetime, to those lives and memories Taren had stirred in him. In life after life he'd coupled with many different incarnations of the same woman, just as all the others now living on board AMIE had. He recognised Kalayna as that soul-mind, which in that other universe they would have called his soul mate. The information was a little overwhelming, and Telmo felt suddenly quite ill and nervous. He'd had a pretty good run with the ladies before he'd been sent on assignment with Kalayna. Until then, Telmo had never really met a woman smarter than he was and couldn't help but find that attractive, disarming and best left alone. Until that fateful interview with Belfore Truberman for the EBN …

There was a bleeping sound coming from somewhere, so Telmo shut off the shower and grabbed a towel on his way to investigate.

It was the crew communicator Aurora had given him. When he read that the caller was Kalayna, he got so excited he almost dropped the gadget. It took a second to find the button to accept the call. ‘Hello? Kalayna?'

‘I was just about to hang up. I'm real sorry if I woke you —'

‘You didn't,' he was way too quick to assure her. ‘Yasper only just left, so I just took a shower.' Telmo could have sworn he heard a muffled groan of pleasure, but decided he was imagining things.

‘I know you're probably tired, and this will sound really dumb —'

‘I'm not. It won't.' Telmo's heart was doing back flips suddenly; he couldn't think straight.

‘I haven't said anything yet?' she chuckled.

‘Do you want to come over?' he asked.

‘Yes. On my way.' She disconnected the call, and when his door chimed immediately Telmo was turning circles, looking for his clothes. When the chime was heard again, he opted to stick with his towel and fastened it around his waist more securely.

The door slid aside to reveal Kalayna, wearing sexy pale pink pyjamas, and she quickly ducked inside. ‘What took you so long?'

‘I was looking for some clothes,' he explained, closing the door.

Kalayna looked him over, still wet and naked from the hips up. ‘I'd rather you didn't.' She grinned.

‘Well, your choice of attire is very easy on the eye also,' he granted.

‘You like?' She did a little turn for him and he noted her high-cut knickers were very nice. ‘Aurora gave them to me.'

‘Then her taste is to be commended. Zeven's a
very
lucky man.'

‘I guess you're wondering why I'm here?' Kalayna was a little more awkward now and so moved into the kitchenette to check it out.

‘I think I can guess.' Telmo followed, and she looked back at him suddenly. ‘But I wouldn't want to assume … anything —'