The Light-Field (37 page)

‘If Maiara could know all this in advance, don't you think she knows everything you ever wanted to say?' Ringbalin smiled in conclusion and stepped away, leaving Mythric feeling like he'd taken a happy pill.

‘I am completely in your debt, good sir —'

Ringbalin waved off his thanks. ‘Your Grace, no, I have a debt to your family —'

‘
Please
Ringbalin, will you stop with the “your grace” stuff?' Mythric insisted. ‘You
are
family to us,' he told him and Satomi nodded in firm agreement.

‘I am … very touched.' So much so, Ringbalin was finding it difficult to talk. ‘And honoured —' He choked up completely.

Mythric cocked an eyebrow to make light of how overwhelmed the lad obviously was. ‘
Really?
You have met my family?'

Ringbalin cracked a smile at the comment.

‘We're a pretty
weird
bunch,' Mythric said and Ringbalin laughed out loud.

‘I believe that
weird
bunch are waiting anxiously on the other side of that door to see you, so I really should be going.' He waved and backed up to the door.

 

‘What a medical team we have! Thanks, kiddo.' Kassa winked at Ringbalin on his way out of her recovery room. ‘You saved me hours in surgery, and the princess months of recovery.'

‘This crew is so full of good, positive intention.' Ringbalin shrugged off the feat. ‘It makes healing them a breeze, and my pleasure.' He pressed the key pad to open the door and Thurayya passed him, followed closely by Zeven, Aurora and Taren.

‘Grandma!' Thurraya threw herself into Satomi's open arms and they hugged within Mythric's embrace.

Zeven was a complete mess. ‘Mother, I am so sorry about all the bad things I said about you when you were dead —'

‘Bah!' She waved off his regret and motioned him closer, so she could hold him too.

‘Wait until my mother gets a load of this.' Taren stood back with Kassa, as the family got reacquainted. ‘This ought to lift a little of that guilt.'

‘There's a whole lot of love in this room,' Kassa decided, and as honoured as she was to bear witness to the scene, she headed for the door.

Taren also decided to come back later and caught her up.

‘That was a good day's work today, boss.' Kassa gave her a chug on the shoulder, after she closed the recovery room door behind them.

‘Our awesome crew does help.' Taren smiled.

‘But what a visionary you are to have brought us all together as you have,' Kassa said as they headed for the mess. ‘I wish I remembered that other time line as you do … were we good friends then, too?'

‘Thick as thieves,' Taren assured her with a smile.

Kassa was pleased to hear it. She was about to suggest they grab some food, when they were both startled by Lucian's voice coming through the ship's intercom system.

‘
Dr Lennox report to the captain's office, there's been a few developments
.'

Taren and Kassa looked at each other curiously, before Taren turned around and headed back the other way.

When Taren entered Lucian's office he was sitting behind his large work station screen looking worried. ‘They got the gate open,' he explained, as Taren came around to view the news report.

‘But they're not supposed to have it open for months yet?' She objected to history changing course.

‘I guess whoever they sent to fix it last time around was not as smart as Telmo and Kalayna.' He motioned to the screen — the sound was very low, but footage of ships emerging through the once-dormant gateway into Maladaan's neighbouring star system filled the screen. ‘Apparently there's been a bit of a media bidding war going on with the Inter-system Gateway Group to be the first to get a film crew through the newly opened gate and interview the two young hotshot technicians who did it.'

There were four systems, four planets, millions of cities and countless networks who would kill to cover such a story. ‘Who won?'

Lucian cringed. ‘The EBN.'

‘The Esponisa Broadcast Network!' Taren freaked. ‘You can't get more fricking anti-psychic than that lot!'

‘Fortunately they are not going to interview psychics, they're going
to interview a couple of bright young stars,' Lucian reasoned, but Taren was not feeling good about this.

‘I shouldn't have left them out there unprotected.' Taren had not given either one of them a Juju stone to veil their aura from the photon-cameras of the MSS. ‘Shit, we have to do something!'

‘It's too late now,' Lucian said, pumping up the volume. ‘They're already on camera.'

‘This is Belfore Truberman, reporting for the EBN, live from inside the control room of the newly reopened Inter-system Gateway Five!' the reporter announce, wearing a spacesuit that looked vastly newer than those worn by his two guests, who were covered in grime. ‘With me I have space program graduate, Kalayna Zuri, and Esponisa University physics major, Telmo Dacre, who bravely took on the challenge of trying to solve what so many technicians and scientists before them failed to do — get the damaged gateway through to Maladaan's neighbouring star back up and running. Which it certainly is. There have been station crew and supplies arriving ever since we got here, and there's a sense of real excitement that finally we have a new frontier within reach to explore!'

The camera switched angles so that Kalayna and Telmo were no longer in the background, but alongside the reporter.

‘Tell us, Miss Zuri, was the gateway damaged, or was it, like so many have theorised through the ages, closed on purpose?'

‘I would definitely say the latter,' Kalayna stated and Telmo nodded firmly in agreement. ‘This gate is older than the other four and its design differs, as does its system and system components. There was a unique and vital component missing from the drive system, which had been very purposefully chosen to be removed, we believe … as without prior knowledge of the system, it would have been easy to miss and difficult to fashion.'

‘We had a lucky break finding some old blueprints,' said Telmo, casting a sneaky look in Kalayna's direction, and she broke into a sly grin.

They had a secret, Taren could tell; she just hoped nobody else could.

‘Well why do you think someone would sabotage the oldest gate in the system?' Belfore asked.

‘Without knowing what is out there, or who shut the gate at this end, we can only speculate,' Kalayna said. ‘But if anyone is going to find some of those answers for us, it will be the newly launched AMIE project. Hi Kale and BA, if you're watching.' She waved straight to camera.

‘Oh shit.' Taren uttered horrified — they were trying to keep a low profile!

 

‘Shit!' Khalid was fuming as he watched the live broadcast from his cell. Just the mention of that project was like a lightning bolt up the arse!

In solitary psychic confinement there had been plenty of time for Khalid to think. Even though, in the first few years, much of his free time was wasted locking wills with his father over who had control of his body. More recently they had started taking shifts; they both still had to sleep so one assumed wilful control whilst the other checked out. It was only when one returned to waking consciousness early that they had the opportunity to fight. Khalid liked arguing about pointless rubbish, as it kept his thoughts diverted and hard for his father to read. Only once his father's consciousness was sleeping would Khalid plot his future exploits. He knew when Chironjivi was unconscious because he felt his father's heavy spirit lift clean out of his body.

Anselm's interest in the AMIE project had prompted Khalid to plant a sleeper agent within the crew. The last time Khalid had seen Amie Gervaise, he'd been struck mysteriously ill in her presence. Much as he'd also been struck ill by Anselm's light-filled agents — was Amie was one of them? He strongly suspected that she was.

When Khalid first heard the report about the two little geniuses who had opened the old inter-system gateway a few days ago, he'd been thinking that he could really exploit a couple of bright young minds like that.

Of course, Chironjivi disagreed; he wanted to fuck both of them and torture the life out of the girl, although he felt the male was so pretty he could barely tell which one was more effeminate.

Khalid knew Chironjivi thought he was driving him into submission with his endless jerking off and hateful inner ranting, but Khalid had just been waiting for the right moment to break free of Chironjivi's influence for good. Now the young hotshots on the broadcast clearly had connections to AMIE, Khalid wanted control of them all the more — and he knew exactly what they looked like and where to find them. Anselm's light-filled buddies had actually done Khalid a huge service when they had publicly outed him as a psychic and an outlaw. Once he'd been forced to play by society's rules, but now he was free to use his Power whenever and however he chose. With a clear objective at last, it was time to shed his restraints. In theory, all Khalid had to do to be rid of his meddling father was to remove the protective charm Chironjivi had embedded in his hand at birth. Khalid intended to strike his own deal with the crew at Dead Man Downs — he didn't need the old nutbag anymore. In solitary, sharp pointy implements were not easy to come by, but Khalid had been given some nail clippers. He snapped them apart and, using the newly formed raw metal edge, he began digging into the palm of his right hand. As Khalid was on round-the-clock surveillance, it would not take long for his act to raise a response from his captors, who already believed he'd lost his mind.

It only took two good hacks to return his father's sleeping consciousness to the scene. ‘What are you playing at?' Chironjivi assumed partial control and closed the right hand, which was dripping blood.

‘Getting us out of here.' Khalid gritted his teeth and sliced through the nerve endings in his right wrist, whereupon both he and Chironjivi lost control of the limb and it fell open. Then Khalid was forced to do battle for control of the attacking hand, as blood spurted from the right.

If you think removing my protective amulet is going to free you from my influence, think again
, Chironjivi told Khalid.
Your soul is beholden to the crew at Dead Man Downs. If you drive me from this body, I will join my crew and we will have more control over you.

I am thinking
, Khalid repeated over in his head, so as not to give his plans away. As soon as he heard the cell door unlock, he began stumbling toward it.

When the door parted and the guards saw Khalid coming at them, they shot a dart in his direction and closed the door to wait for it to take effect. Khalid had tried to rush the guards several times in the past five years, just to gauge their procedure. This time Khalid was quick to ensure he dropped to avoid the dart and slid his left ankle into the doorway, whereupon the door slammed into his restraint.

Khalid wailed as his ankle was crushed inside the damaged device and as the door retracted he pretended to black out.

Aren't you the clever one?
thought his father.

Just fucking cooperate
, Khalid thought back.

So you can get your PK back and banish me? Not on your life.

The battle of wills was on; Khalid tensed his jaw to prevent his father trying to speak through him, whilst on the outside he faked a coma. He battled to prevent his father tossing his limbs around, whilst on the outside he was as floppy as a rag doll. What's more, nobody actually checked that the dart had hit Khalid. As they expected the anaesthetic effect of it to last for hours, no painkillers were administered before they moved him. The agony of being transported to the prison hospital nearly forced Khalid to pass out anyway. Even his father felt the pain so bad he stopped struggling and making it worse.

Once the doctors had slowed the bleeding of his injuries, they pumped him full of blood once more. They X-rayed the damaged hand and ankle on which they were to perform surgery, and then left to prepare.

‘
F … u … c … k!
' Khalid hissed in a whisper as he looked at the clock, which indicated that he'd been writhing in agony for a little under an
hour. This was also, approximately, how long it took to shake the effects of a psychic neutraliser. He locked his focus on the piece of twisted metal gadgetry mangling his ankle, imagining it gone and his foot restored. Beads of sweat formed on his brow, but his will did not eventuate.

Something wrong, son?
Chironjivi jeered.
You know they're going to come back in here, pump you full of drugs and you're going to wake up back where we started.

There was no going back — Khalid focused on the task with renewed enthusiasm. If he feared what his father was saying was true then Chironjivi would win, for fear was his lifeblood. Instead, he focused harder on his own aim, as he heard the sound of several people heading down the corridor in his direction.

Hear that?
Chironjivi taunted from within.
That's the sound of me winning.

In that moment, Khalid had the ultimate lever to fear or focus. Despite the outer pain and inner torment, he snapped the twisted device off his ankle, which in itself brought a flood of relief. As his foot repaired, his father went very quiet.

When the two doctors entered, Khalid was standing, free of all medical attachments. ‘You.' He pointed to the male doctor, directing him to a wall; the doctor flew into it and fell unconscious. ‘You.' He pointed to the terrified female doctor, who had the look of an animal caught in headlights. ‘Show me the X-ray you took of my hand.'

The doctor looked through her file and handed him the film, which he held up to the light. ‘There you are.' He smiled, spotting the piece of metal resting in his palm between his index and middle fingers. ‘Which side of the bone is it?'

‘It's on the inner side,' she replied, whereupon he handed the X-ray back to her.

Don't do it, boy, you'll be sorry
, Chironjivi objected.
Forget this madness, there's a lady present. How long since we've had the pleasure of indulging in one of those, hey?

I won't prolong this.
Khalid placed the fingers of his left hand upon the spot indicated on his right palm on the X-ray.

His father fought his intention, but Khalid had PK — Chironjivi was a remote viewer and no competition in this instance.

Goodbye, Father, and good riddance.
Khalid drew blood and the small metal amulet from within himself. As it slipped out, the chatter of his father's protests ceased. ‘Ah,' he sighed, relaxed by the silence in his mind, which felt complete once his hand repaired and stopped throbbing. ‘Good work, Doctor.' He looked to the woman who was wary of him, but not fearful. ‘I've never felt better.' He took her in hand and kissed her for the hell of it. He then cast her off and vanished back to Dead Man Downs.

 

In what had once been the officers' lounge and his father's favourite killing chamber, Khalid appeared and issued a psychic command.
Every last fragment of Chironjivi's remains rise
. He motioned with his hands and the collection of scattered bones lifted into the air.
Poof!
he thought as the remains simultaneously combusted, disintegrating into ash, which swirled into a whirlwind and deposited itself into a metal container that Khalid held out. He dropped the amulet from his hand inside and locked the container closed, sealing his father within. ‘There's a new captain on board, boys,' he alerted the remaining crew. ‘So … support, protect and serve me, or you can share Chironjovi's fate.'

The atmosphere in the room became disturbed and things began moving about on their own, flying toward Khalid in revolt.

‘Well … do what you like, but I'm taking the ship.'

Khalid thought himself to the edge of the desert canyon that contained the remains of the ill-fated fleet of his forefathers.

 

It was twilight on the edge of the red sunken abyss, from where Khalid focused his will on the mother ship deep in the canyon below. To the sound of metal buckling, rock cracking and falling into a dust cloud,
the crumpled wreck of the old spacecraft drifted up out of the deep canyon, to float in the evening sky. With his next thought the vessel restored itself to mint condition, and the exterior turned black as night. The name of the craft, the
Insurrecto
, which in the US universal language meant ‘the firebrand', was written across her hull in silver.

‘What's an outlaw without a pirate ship?' He grinned, satisfied with the upgrade. The interior, he decided, was now not only pristine, but had a state-of-the-art technological upgrade. All the remains of his father's killing sprees were left behind in the pit that was Dead Man Downs.

‘Well, Father.' Khalid looked at the metal canister in his hands. ‘It doesn't look like you will be joining your crew after all … I have a feeling they would rather come on a space adventure with me, than stay in the stifling limbo of this rotting hole. Still, if you do ever manage to escape your containment, you'll have all the women and girls you ever screwed to keep you company.' Khalid tossed the canister out into the canyon and it was gobbled up by the receding dust storm.