Stardust Dreams (4 page)

"First, allow me to
introduce you to my navigator. Cherry Cochran, this is Mar-Dot."

"Actually," the
woman said with a grin, "I am Dot." She turned around, as if to
present her back, but what Cherry saw was another front.

"And I am Mar."

Cherry gaped at the man in
front of her. The hair, eyes, nose, and voice were the same as the woman's, but
his lower face was covered by a kinky, close-trimmed, chartreuse beard. The
snug bodysuit that had clearly displayed a woman's figure a moment ago, now
showed that of a man, and a very well-endowed man at that.

Never one to let her
curiosity go unsatisfied, Cherry circled Mar-Dot, her eyes filled with
fascination. The creature had one body with two legs, but the booted feet
extended in both directions, like pedestals. The male half and the female half
each had its own pair of arms and hands, and Cherry thought she could have
identified the gender of each pair even if Dot's fingernails weren't an inch
long and painted lime green.

"Pardon me for
staring," Cherry said as she came back around to Mar. "But I've never
seen anything, or rather anyone, like you."

"Not many people
have," he told her with a smile. "For all we know, we may be the only
he-she in existence."

In the blink of an eye, the
he-she turned and Cherry was facing Dot. "I tell this story better than he
does. We were sold to a traveling circus as a baby. Unfortunately, no questions
were asked at the time, so no one was ever able to tell us where we had come
from. If it was not for the captain—"

"I believe you asked
me for an explanation, Cherry," Gallant said, effectively cutting off
Dot's story.

The fact that he didn't
want her to hear whatever Dot was going to say automatically made Cherry more
curious. But first there was the matter of her abduction. "I'm all ears. Why
don't you start by telling me what the hell gives you the right to knock me out
and kidnap me? Then work your way up to how you got me on this ship and out of
Innerworld without a travel visa."

"I'm an agent for
hire, currently on assignment for the Consociation of Planets, of which Norona
is a primary member. My mission grants me… certain privileges."

Cherry narrowed her eyes at
him. She still couldn't decide if he was the good or the bad guy in this
scenario, and she was determined not to let his rakish appearance influence her
one way or the other. "I've lived among Noronians for ten years, and there
is no way they would condone what you've done to me for any reason. When Aster
and Romulus hear about this, they'll cart you off for repro-gramming so fast,
you won't know what hit you."

"I've already sent
them a message. Romulus knew of my presence in Innerworld, and by now he knows
I've taken you into my protective custody."

"Your
what?"
Cherry demanded, taking a threatening step toward him again.

Gallant stood his ground,
but looked prepared to move out of her way in a heartbeat. "Protective
custody. That's when—"

"I
know
what
it means. I also know the only thing I've needed protection from lately is
you."

"Wrong," he answered.
"The moment the Weebort spoke to you, he put your life in danger."

"That's ridiculous. I
don't even know what he said."

Gallant shook his head. "Irrelevant.
If Frezlo got wind of it, he'd be back for you. And believe me, he wouldn't
settle for tuning into your subconscious— which is all I asked of you—he'd
simply incinerate you on sight."

Cherry frowned, trying to
come up with a way to debate what he was telling her. "But you were the
only one who saw the Weebort say anything to me."

Raising an eyebrow, he
asked, "Would you be willing to risk your life on that?"

"All right, let's say
there's a slim possibility my life could be in danger. There are plenty of ways
I could have been
protected
in Innerworld. I could have hired a
tracker to watch over me." Immediately Cherry thought of her friend,
Falcon, the empathic man whose unusual psychic abilities had helped Aster and
Romulus out of several crises in the past. Although Falcon now lived in
Outerworld, she was certain another similarly talented detective could be found
in Innerworld to help her.

Before Gallant could refute
her logic, she pushed further. "And another thing, if you were so anxious
to tap into my subconscious, why didn't you just do it yourself, then take
off?"

"I don't have any
telepathic ability. Mar-Dot does. I told you I couldn't afford to waste the
time. It was imperative I pick up Frezlo's trail before it dissipated. If you
had cooperated with me to begin with, none of this would have been necessary. I
would have left you in Innerworld after I found out what the Weebort said, if
that had been your wish, but Mar-Dot had a problem with your untrained Terran
mind." He shot them a glance that suggested he held them accountable.

Dot raised her chin
defensively. "If you had not stunned the poor woman into oblivion, there
would not have been a problem."

The he-she revolved a quick
half-circle and Mar countered, "Your action was entirely justified,
Captain."

"At any rate,"
Gallant continued, without responding to either comment. "Mar-Dot couldn't
find out what I needed to know without your conscious par-ticipation. There was
no way of telling how long it would take for you to come around, so we had to
take off with you still on board."

"And just how long ago
was that?" Cherry asked warily.

When Gallant didn't answer
right away, Dot did. "About twenty-four hours. The paralyzer was
set—"

"A whole day?
Holy
stars!" Cherry walked quickly back and forth in the confined area, her
hands gesturing wildly as she spoke. "This is even worse than I thought. You've
got to understand. Aster's having her first baby, and she'll be frantic with
worry about me. A message from you about protective custody is only going to
make her more nervous."

She stopped her pacing and
took a deep breath. Nothing she'd been told so far changed the fact that she
had been kidnapped and couldn't get home without Captain Voyagers assistance. "Let
me see if I've got this straight. You need my conscious participation to get
the information you want, which I assume means I have to agree to let Mar-Dot
touch my mind. Right?"

Gallant nodded slowly.

"Fine. You take me
back to Innerworld and I'll let them have a free tour through my feeble Terran
brain."

"Not good enough. You
could refuse again once I got you there and, in the meantime, I would have lost
Frezlo also. He's the only lead I have left now. I'm not at liberty to give you
details of my mission, but it is of universal importance. I had been on the
Weebort's trail for months before I found him in

Innerworld. The information
he had was vital. Unfortunately, Frezlo was on to him also, and
his
mission was to prevent the Weebort from passing on anything he might
know."

Cherry had more or less
figured that much out. "You and that Frezlo creature are both
agents
for hire?"

Gallant nodded slowly. "Working
on opposite sides at the moment, however. And, I might add, with distinctly
different methods of operation."

"So why didn't you
stop Frezlo before he escaped?"

"Any attempt I might
have made to intervene would have increased the chances of others being hurt. Frezlo
has no conscience when it comes to eliminating anything or anyone in his way. Besides,
I knew I could pick up his ion trail if I just got off-planet fast
enough."

"His what?"

"Ion trail—charged
particles emitted by the drive unit of his ship."

"Oh. Like a car's
exhaust system. But I'd still like to know how you got me on board without
anyone stopping you." Gallant hesitated long enough for her to grow
suspicious.

"I hid you in a
trunk," he said with a warning glance at Mar-Dot.

Cherry had a strong feeling
that he was lying, but since she knew Noronians lived by a code of honesty, she
let it pass. She also came to the conclusion that they were at a standoff, and
he was not going to budge an inch. However, she was more or less con-vinced
that, between him and Frezlo, Voyager was the lesser of the two evils. "Okay.
If you'll promise to take me right back to Innerworld afterward, I'll cooperate
with Mar-Dot."

"Granted," he
said, then nodding at his navigator, stepped out of the way.

Dot held a manicured hand
out to Cherry and led her to the Captain's chair. "Please try to
relax," she said after Cherry was seated. "I will try not to invade
your privacy any more than absolutely necessary. I need you to help me by
concentrating on the moment when the Weebort spoke to you." Gently she
pressed the first two fingers of each of her hands against Cherry's temples. "Now,
close your eyes and picture the Weebort in front of you. His mouth opens and he
says…"

Cherry recalled the narrow
forked tongue flicking in and out like that of a snake, but she was still quite
certain she had heard no words.

Without removing her
fingers, Dot said, "Computer, record and translate the following sounds
from the Weebort language." Dot did her best to imitate the garbled noises
stored in Cherry's memory, but without a forked tongue, the pronunciation could
not be duplicated precisely. After she analyzed the problem, Dot said,
"Apparently, there was too much external noise for her universal
translator to pick up the Weebort's speech, so she was never given a
translation. Thus, she has no memory of such."

She tried again and this
time the computer of-fered an interpretation for one of the sounds:
counterfeit.

"Counterfeit?"
Gallant asked, to be certain he'd heard correctly. "What the
drek
is counterfeit?" When neither the computer nor Mar-Dot answered him, he
ordered, "Try it again. There has to be more than one word out of all that
babble."

Mar-Dot made two more
attempts to obtain a further translation, to no avail. "Sorry,
Captain," Mar said with a grimace. "That is the best we can do. Perhaps
he was referring to—"

A slight movement of
Gallants hand instantly silenced Mar. "Why don't you show Cherry the
facilities? I'm sure she'd like to freshen up."