Yuen-Mong's Revenge (43 page)

 
     
She cut the transmission link and engaged the main engine. They were
pushed into their seats as the ship gained speed. She sensed Anouk’s renewed terror and smiled at her. "Everything will be fine, Anouk. Have
you never been in space?"

 
     
The girl only shook her head.

     
"Then look out the window. It’s exciting."

 
     
She did not go into an orbit, but once she had escaped gravity set
course for Palo and put the ship on automatic control.

     
"You can get out of your seat for a while, Anouk. Please, prepare
some food and drink for us. I’m both ravenous and thirsty. Aren’t you?"

 
     
The girl only shook her head. "How can you be so calm after what
happened? I’m still shaking."

 
     
"It comes with practice," she answered, smiling.

     
Next she contacted Andromatis’ galactic communications. She asked
to be connected to Syd Twan. It took several minutes before his face
appeared on her screen.

     
"Yuen-mong, where are you? What happened? Are you OK?"

 
     
"Why do men always ask several questions at the same time?" After
a small delay, she saw his smile. "I’m fine. I’m in space on course to
Palo, and this afternoon two guys manhandled Anouk in her apartment
and later five attacked Atun at the ship. The two of the apartment may
still be in the building’s staircase. One is dead. The five at the space port
are on the tarmac, unlikely to go anywhere fast. I left a bit of carnage
behind. Does that answer all three questions?"

 
     
"I’m glad you have not lost your wit. You know that you’re very dear
to me. But why were you attacked? What did they want?"

 
     
"Here you do it again. The short answer is that somebody wants to
know what we are up to, and we don’t want to let them. Look, Syd, I
lifted off without getting full clearance at the space port. Will you calm
their nerves, please? I don’t want the space police sent after me. Thanks.
See you hopefully in about two months. Take care. Bye."

 
     
She cut the connection. Then she probed Atun’s mind. He was still
unconscious. She took the drink Anouk offered her and helped the girl to
contact her mother. Her last task before getting too far away from
Androma was to inform her grandfather. She could not reach him and left
a message that unexpected events had forced them to go to Palo, that Syd
Twan knew more, and that she would be back in two months.

     
After eating the food Anouk had prepared, she ordered her back into
the seat. "We will now go into hypertransition. You will feel some
discomfort, but it’s nothing to worry about, OK? Just relax."

 
     
She initiated the command sequence and released the tension in her
own body. After a few seconds, she felt a tingle, followed by a slight
nausea. She answered Anouk’s startled look with a reassuring smile. Fifteen minutes later it was over.

     
"You are now free to roam the ship for the next eight days, Anouk."

 
     
While checking the control screens, she released her restraints. Then
she searched the ship pharmacy for pain killers and compresses that
would reduce swelling. She applied the compresses to Atun’s head,
sitting next to him, holding a hand, waiting for him to wake up which she
knew would be soon.

     
"Atun," she murmured when she sensed the stirring of his mind.

     
He opened his eyes and met hers. There was a childlike vulnerability
in his.

     
"Everything is fine. We are safe. Come, drink this." She helped him
sit and gave him the cup.

     
"Are we in space?"

 
     
"Yes, on a course to Palo."

 
     
"What happened?"

 
     
"Later, Atun, later. Sleep now." She gently pushed him down. Then
she lay at his side so that he would feel her warmth, caressing his cheek,
and waited for him to fall asleep.

     
Atun was up and about the next day. The swelling took several days
to disappear. Three days into the journey, he got down to assembling the
equipment with her help. By the time they reached Palo, everything was
ready for the tests.

* * *

"I said no violence, and now four people are dead. Why did you go
against my clear instructions?" Chen Young thundered at his son.

     
"I thought you meant that Yuen-mong should not be harmed."

 
     
"I said no violence, and no violence means exactly that. What was not
clear about it?"

     
"They only wanted to make the domestic talk and see what equipment
they had loaded into their ship. They had instructions not to harm
anybody. How could I know that she would cause such havoc?"

 
     
"I warned you not to underestimate her. Do you know if she was
hurt?"

 
     
"The lawyer who talked to the survivors thinks she was not. She lifted
off, so she must be OK, and she violated takeoff procedures too. She has
no respect for authority."

 
     
"Have you taken steps with the port authority that they will not prosecute her for that?"

 
     
"Syd Twan has already done so."

 
     
"What did she tell him?"

 
     
"All he told me, and I believe him, is that somebody wanted to know
what they were up to and that they had no intention of letting them
know."

 
     
"She did not name who?"

 
     
"No. I don’t think she knows."

 
     
"Don’t count on that. I would not be surprised she knew that they
were shadowed and suspected you to be behind it."

 
     
"But how? The guys were sure that they were never noticed."

 
     
"She is an empath. Didn’t you know? She probably knew it right away
when somebody was on their tail."

 
     
"But they didn’t touch the listening devices."

 
     
"That is because they are cleverer than you give them credit for. That
would have warned you. Did you ever find out anything useful?"

 
     
"No."

 
     
"That proves it."

 
     
"What are we going to do now?"

 
     
"Contact your people on Palo and have them be watched when they
arrive, but more discretely. Warn them that she is an empath and, if
threatened, ruthless. And absolutely no violence this time. You got that?"

 
     
"Yes."

 
     
Chen Young waved his hand in dismissal. He remained at the window
and let his gaze lose itself on the distant shore. He had no doubt that his
granddaughter was up to something that concerned the Young dynasty.
The proof of that was that she wanted to keep it a secret from them, and
it could hardly be gold mining on Aros. So what else could be of great
significance to them? The only thing he could think of was something
from her father’s research, something that she had held back from them,
something that they had even wiped from their ship’s AI system without
leaving any traces. Their technicians had not found anything, no traces
of deleted research files, only traces of other deleted files, personal ones
or of no interest. Had he underestimated her lover too? Maybe they
should have him killed in an accident. But would that make her abandon
whatever she planned? Somehow he could not believe she would, not
from what he had seen of her. She was the most formidable opponent he
had ever encountered and he loved her all the more for it. She had re-awoken his love for his daughter, and he had transferred it on her.

     
A smile fleetingly passed over his face.
She might beat me,
he mused
and it felt all right.

19

Rather than land on Palo, Atun suggested that they land on its colonized
moon. This would give them a few more days of breathing space before
the Youngs would catch up with them. They landed just outside one of
the four domes that provided a breathable atmosphere for its inhabitants
and set up quarters in its space hotel, transferring one set of the assembled equipment to their rooms. During their first few hours there they
enjoyed the spectacular vistas of Palo from its space view restaurant. The
food was surprisingly good, although Yuen-mong missed the wine. The
dry dinner beer was pleasant, but no match to a bottle of Sauvignon
Blanc or Pinot Gris from Old Earth. Anouk could hardly contain her
excitement, constantly pointing to new features of Palo appearing over
the horizon. After two hours, the rotation of the moon hid Palo and they
faced the vastness of space.

     
Yuen-mong also became aware that Anouk must have fallen in love
with Atun. Her gaze time and again came to rest on him and, whenever
he spoke to her, she blushed.
She’ll have to learn to cope with that.
Yuen-mong was certain of Atun’s love for her. But she decided to make
him aware of Anouk’s state of mind and hoped that it would not interfere
with their experiments.

     
After a good eight-hour sleep and a healthy breakfast, they set up their
initial test. Yuen-mong first explained to Anouk what they were trying
to achieve and the role she was going to play in it. She helped them set
up the equipment and rehearsed again with the girl of how to induce self-hypnoses. Then she went to Vishnu and prepared herself. She was convinced that she would be able to operate the equipment even while under
self-hypnoses.

     
The test consisted of Yuen-mong looking and leafing through the
poetry book ‘Whispers in the wind’, which Atun then was supposed to
see on the flat screen connected to Anouk’s helmet. Anouk’s vision of
Atun at work in turn should show on the flat screen connected to Yuen-mong’s helmet. That screen was placed just at the edge of her own
vision. If the test did not work, they would communicate by buzzing
signals using standard communication channels.

     
She received the signal that they were ready, focused on her favorite
poem in the book, and induced self-hypnoses. She directed all her
strength on Anouk’s mind and sensed her strong response. And then, at
the edge of her vision, she saw Atun’s face on her own screen. She heard
his cry, a mixture of relief and jubilation: "It works; it works!"
Yes, it
worked
, was her own silent triumphant cry.

     
Within a quarter hour she was back in their hotel quarters where she
fell into Atun’s extended arms and hugged him. "We did it, we did it."

 
     
"Yes, the first test worked. Now comes the serious testing over
space."

 
     
Atun and Anouk got immediately ready to depart from Palo’s moon,
going into an orbit around it. Standard communications would only be
delayed by one to two seconds, depending on where they were in the
orbit. They tested instantcom, while at the same time maintaining
standard communications which she was able to observe on the hotel’s
ICE comunit. Instantcom was always one to two seconds ahead. The
picture had though not the same clarity. Would it get even worse with
increased distance, she questioned herself. This thought somehow broke
her self-hypnoses, and to her amazement she continued receiving the
picture. In fact, it became clearer.

     
She reported this discovery to Atun who was as puzzled about it as
she. A repeat of the experiment confirmed the same result. They checked
if it also worked for Anouk, but no useful signals materialized.

     
With barely another twenty days until the start of the annual UniCom
Communication Convention in Androma, this left them only twelve days
for the long distance test. Atun took the ship four days into space. While
she waited for the appointed time, keeping largely to her room, she
contacted Syd Twan to find out whether he had been able to sort out her
takeoff violation. A day later she received his confirmation that all
charges had been dropped and that the three surviving attackers had
confessed to attempted robbery. He also reported that her notoriety had
shot up by another few decibels when it leaked out that she must have
single-handedly taken out all seven robbers.