The floor buckling under his feet, Jason crushed against the wall, unable to move, struggling against the power of the blonde woman on the ledge, seeing Jeff standing on the floor as it cracked and shattered, looking about with panicked indecision-- where to run? where was safe? Jason reaching out with his own meager powers, trying to pull the blonde woman down, but she had too much sheer force, he couldn't budge her-- and then the floor cracking, splitting, and Jeff standing, stumbling, falling, terrified expression frozen hanging in space and Jason lunging forward, thrown back against the wall, as the world filled with Jeff's scream...
Jason sat up in bed, heart thudding. The vision of Jeff's terrified face faded as his eyes adjusted to his starlit bedroom, but the scream still echoed in his ears. As it had for the past six months...
He spoke to dispel it. "Just another nightmare," he told himself shakily. "Ought to be used to them by now." He threw the tangled sheets off and swung out of bed, slipping into his trax. His clothes were rumpled and sweaty from his habit of sleeping in them, but he couldn't be bothered changing.
The effects of the dream's terror hadn't yet worn off. Jason was still trembling with reaction. "Stop that," he told his quivering hands. They didn't. "Great. Just great. I may never get a decent night's sleep again in my life." He turned the doorknob, opened the door, leaning on it to keep it from creaking, and stepped out onto the carpeted hall floor.
Night was a dangerous time on Laestra. But right now, with the need to forget driving him, Jason couldn't care less. As he passed the rows of doors, he was quiet more out of habit than desire-- if any of the others heard him and tried to stop him, it would just be too bad for them. He descended the stairs silently and opened the hostel door.
Black night loomed before him, wafting onto him with the scents of the chilly breeze. Stars and occasional window lights provided the only luminosity there was-- Laestra had no moon. But the dark gave an advantage to the only people out of doors at this time. Catpeople, wolfpeople, batpeople, infraseers-- they were the people of the night, and this was their world. Ordinary people would be insane to brave them.
Jason, however, was no ordinary. Laestra had no monopoly on nightpeople; Jason's homeworld Iatra had had them, and Jason had been one of them, a catboy. He had learned to use his superior vision and slightly greater strength when he could, to rely on his agility and the sound and smell and touch of the breeze when he couldn't. Usually the nightpeople sensed this about him and left him alone. They preferred easier prey.
Once, he'd lived the way they did. Prowling about through the night streets of the city, always searching for an unwary ordinary who'd ventured out of safety. Then making them pay for their stupidity, and� living on the price.
It had not been a good life.
Now he had money, he was educated, he had friends. Life was better, much better, now-- in most ways. But not all. Back then, he'd cared about no one but himself. He'd had no friends-- so he couldn't be hurt when a friend died...
Jason plunged into the darkness of the city, wandering aimlessly, trying to blot away his mind. Introspection was new to him, and he didn't enjoy it. The old skills took over his mind as he moved. No thought, only sensation and reaction. Nothing but the dark world he'd grown up in.
Time meant nothing to him now; but it was probably very late when he realized, startled, that he was at the airport. He'd been following some dimly remembered scent, but it was lost now, buried under the smell of ancient and dirty fuels. Jason wrinkled his nose without surprise. He was used to Laestra's lack of modernization by now, but he still didn't like it. He circled around the airfield and headed for the terminal building, trying to recapture the faint scent.
It measured something about Laestra, that the terminal was mostly closed. A single booth, outside the building proper, glowed with light. There was a dark shape blotting some of that light. Jason wondered who was buying tickets at this hour-- and caught the scent again, strong enough to recognize. Chad Maxen?
He moved closer, got the breeze in his face. Yes, it was. Excitement grew in Jason, a feeling he hadn't known since Jeff's death. Could they be on the trail again? He caught bits of the conversation, his catlike hearing picking up the sounds much farther out than an ordinary could have managed. "Don't care how late...yes, Gringid...don't give me your...I...break you...tell you twice..."
Jason strained his hearing to the utmost, shutting out all else. That, more than anything else, was why he didn't know about the wolfman behind him until a thick arm wrapped around his neck.
Morning in Kavarre, the capital city of Laestra. Sunlight, yellow like the star of his birth, streamed in through the dusty hotel window and danced on Sean's face.
"Mornin', sunshine," Sean muttered. "Give a guy a break, willya?" Experimentally he lifted his head away from his cocoon of blankets, testing the temperature. Bit too cool, and pointless to get up so early anyhow. Not here on Laestra, at any rate. Nothin' to do even when the day's roarin'. This early, not even the birds're awake.
He lay back down on the pillow, about to pull the sheets over his head again. Then he remembered that Melissa had called an early morning meeting to discuss Sarah's return. With an effort of will, he threw off the blankets and shouted, "Keith, wake up! The sun's on fire!"
"Wha--?" Keith gasped, hurling himself out of bed. Sean grinned, and Keith stared uncomprehendingly. "Didn't-- someone say-- something was on fire?"
"Sure, I did. Said the sun's on fire."
"Very very funny," Keith growled.
"I had t'say somethin' to wake you, Keith. Otherwise, we'd have Sarah trumpeting in our ears. Better me than she, right?"
"Shut up, Sean," Keith muttered sleepily. "I'm not in the mood."
"Ah, Keith, Keith. Mood is a matter of mind over matter. Now, get yourself a cup of coffee and mood yourself."
"I don't drink coffee."
"You should. Drag yourself out of bed and face the mornin' like a human being."
"Human beings don't get up this early," Keith moaned.
The door opened. "They do if I have anything to say about it," Sarah said briskly, toting her trumpet. She had a taste for dramatic pomposity. "Wake up, or you shall hear my wrath!"
"Hear your wrath? Gettin' Biblical, Sar?"
"We're awake," Keith mumbled.
"Don't mind him, he'll be up and around in a bit. Now, Sarah, it's time for a tiny quiz. What little thing did you neglect to do when you came in?" ��
"I'm sure I have no idea."
"Well, then, I'll tell you. You could have knocked. We might have been indecent for all you knew."
"So? You don't have anything that would surprise me."
"How do you know? You've never seen."
"Go away and let me wake up in peace," Keith mumbled.
"If I didn't get you up, you'd sleep till noon," Sarah replied. She yanked the covers off him. "Up!"
"I'm getting up." Keith made an attempt to grab the covers back around his underwear-clad body, then gave up and pulled himself into an upright fetal position, hugging his knees, dark hair spilling over his face. "It's too cold to get up yet."
"Well, Keith m'boy, that's most likely because you have this habit of sleeping in your undies. I know you want to show off your manly physique, but I'm not interested in it. Now if you wore pajamas, like me--"
"Pajamas like you? I think I'd rather walk nude through City Center."
"Which is not a good idea," Sarah said. "Sean, you too. Drag your carcass into the bathroom and get dressed."
"So heartless. None of you can appreciate beauty when you see it," Sean complained. "Sar, can you give us a tip ahead of time about this meeting we're having?"
"You know that's against the rules. Everyone has to hear the data at the same time, so there's no misunderstandings."
Keith walked over to his closet, shivering. "Fine. We understand. Now could you get out of here, so we can get dressed?"
"We'll meet in Melissa's room," Sarah said. "Be there in ten minutes. All right?"
They nodded, and Sarah left.
As usual, Erin was dressed in the height of fashion, or at least what passed for fashion here on Laestra. An off-white gown swirled around her body, setting off her chocolate skin and making her look considerably older than 16, especially with the breast pads and high heels. Here on Laestra, usually only the�rich could afford to dress well. Erin wasn't rich-- not anymore-- but she was great at borrowing and forgetting to return.
She was applying a thick aquamarine liquid to her eyes when the door opened and Sarah entered like a torpedo in trax. Erin turned from the mirror, annoyed. "Don't you knock?"
"He's not here?" Sarah asked.
"Who's not here?"
"Jason. Have you seen him?"
"No, I haven't seen him. Honestly, Sarah. What do you think he'd be doing in here?"
"Well, he isn't anywhere else. And everyone else is already in Melissa's room. Get a move on it, Erin."
Erin turned back to the mirror. "I'll be there in a moment." "You're going to hold everything up so you can put gunk on your eyelids?" Sarah demanded. "Erin, I've got important information to give everyone and none of us Dagocs care what your face looks like anyway."
"Oh, all right," Erin sighed theatrically. She screwed the brush back into the aquamarine bottle. "I can wait till later to put the rest on, I suppose. But Melissa won't want to hold a meeting without Jason, anyway."
"That doesn't cut any ice with you when you've got a report to give. I'd rather he be here but if he's gone, he's gone, and he'll be back when he feels like it."
"That's true." Erin adjusted her belt.
"So we'll have the meeting now." Sarah practically ran out of the room and into Melissa's, way ahead of Erin. The meeting was to discuss information she'd found, and she was bursting with the desire to tell it.
Melissa sat on the bed, her jeans and sweatshirt oddly incongruous on her tiny, delicate frame. "Jason's not here?" she asked softly.
"You know him," Erin said, snorting. "Probably took off in the middle of the night and forgot all about this." �
Melissa sighed deeply. "I hate to start without him, but there's no telling when he'll be back," she said. "All right. Sarah?"
"Well, you all know I went to Marra Spaceport," Sarah began. I was out at night, trying to estimate the number of Thought Hounds. It seemed as if there were suddenly a lot more of them, both here and there, and I thought they might be coming from offworld. Well, like a fool, I got myself mugged."
There was a collective intake of breath. No one was supposed to talk during a correlation session, but Erin couldn't resist an acid, "That was remarkably bright of you."
"And that, Erin m'girl, was a remarkably unnecessary comment," Sean said with some sharpness.
"Quiet, both of you," Keith said. "Save it until after the session." �� "Anyway, I woke up in the hospital. I wasn't hurt, I'd just been stunned. It was one of those open wards, like human garbage disposal bins. There wasn't even a nurse on duty, and forget med-scanners-- you all know Laestra. I got up, got what was left of my stuff out of the lcker, and decided to explore. After all, I'd never been in a Laestran hospital before.
"Most of it wasn't interesting. I'll write up a full report on it later, but I want to get to the important part. On the top floor there was a Restricted Access area. Well, you know how much attention I paid to that. I got a lab coat out of one of the closets and walked in. Most Laestran doctors are middle-aged men, and not even I can pass for middle-aged, or male--"
"Don't be too sure of that," Erin murmured.
Sarah shot her a look, but went on. "But no one challenged me. They spoke this weird pidgin of about seven different off- world languages. Sounded like an insane linguists' convention. I could understand all the languages, of course, but it was a little hard to follow. I do wonder why they didn't challenge me-- maybe, if they were telepaths, they honestly didn't see me, or maybe they figured that if I was there, I was supposed to be. After all, we know how curious the average Laestran is.
"The first thing I realized is that they were using offworld technology. The second thing I discovered was... what they were doing in there."
She paused for an expectant second, waiting for someone to comment, but no one, not even Erin, did. Taking a deep breath, she resumed speaking.
"Experiments on people."
That got a reaction. "What?" Keith cried, and the others looked suitably shocked.
"They were dissecting human beings. Mostly biomixes, like Jason. A few normals. One man-- they-- they'd removed his chest and I could see his intestines and lungs, squirming inside him."
"Oh, please," Erin said. There were repressed groans of horror from the two boys, and Melissa winced.
In the name of science, Sarah showed no mercy. She carefully described the atrocities she'd seen, in gruesome detail, as several of her teammates fought valiantly against the urge to throw up.
Finally the horrifying litany ended. "Then somebody finally grabbed me and asked for ID," Sarah continued. "I didn't have any, of course, so I kayoed him and ran out of there. It wasn't until I left that I realized. I was thinking about the machines, nd it suddenly occurred to me that they were ORR tech. That wing was full of, not just offworld technology, but ORR classified� stuff. I'd need Sean to verify that it was still classified, so..." She began describing the machines she'd seen. ���
When she finished at last, there was a long pause. Then Erin blurted, "That's disgusting! How could even Laestrans cut up people like that?"
"And how could they have ORR tech?" Keith asked. "Even if that stuff was released to the public domain in the past six months, how did it get to Laestra at all? This is a deliberately backward planet."
"Remember Maxen's car," Sean said. "He's not backward. And 'Liss, you remember the scannin' units we found in those computers? The day that-- uh--"
"That Jeff died," Erin supplied.
"Yes," Melissa said. "We know that the people we seek make use of offworld technology when it pleases them. But ORR tech-- Sean, is it possible that the things Sarah describes could have been declassified?"
"Anythin's possible, but it's about as likely as Sar here takin' off all her clothes and doin' a bump'n'grind."
"In other words, it's impossible," Sarah interjected, glaring at Sean.
"Then I think that we should go to-- Jason?!"
The door was thrown open and Jason staggered in, ragged and bloody. "Water," he rasped, and collapsed in a heap on the carpet.
Melissa ran to the bathroom to get him a drink, while Keith and Sarah lifted him onto the bed. "Get a bucket of it, too!"
Sarah yelled. "And some washcloths!" Erin pulled Jason's trax off his feet, while Sean stood back and felt useless, as usual.
Melissa returned with a bucket of warm water and a tall glass of cold water. "Here you go," she said. Jason gulped half the glass, his hands shaking and water spilling down his chin. Sarah, who since Jeff's death was the closest thing they had to a medic, began washing and bandaging the injuries. Jason stiffened at her touch, then pulled himself into a sitting position against the pillows and let his head fall back.
"Jason, what the hell happened to you?" Sarah asked.
"That's a good question," Jason said. His voice wasn't as raspy now, and it improved more after his second deep drink. "I went out walking last night, and I ended up at the airfield. Guess who was buying a ticket there, in the middle of the night."
"Lynnelly?" Sean asked innocently.
"Funny," Jason said, glaring. "No. It was Chad Maxen."
"Seriously?" Erin asked. "Or are you being sarcastic again?" �� "Oh, I'm serious, all right. I heard enough to figure out that he was going to Gringid Island. Then this wolfman grabbed me from behind-- do not ask me how he got there without my noticing, because I have no idea-- and dragged me over to meet Maxen. Then I found out that I was going to Gringid too, and that someone or something named Altis there was going to make me into a Thought Hound there, just like lots of other snoopy nightpeople, and wouldn't that be fun?"
"But the Thought Hounds are all telepaths," Keith said.
"No, they're not," Sarah said. "A lot of them are biomixes now. The telepathic Hounds've become the elite."
"Well, don't keep us in such suspense," Sean said. "How'd you get away?"
"With a lot of difficulty," Jason said. "I-- aah! Sarah, watch it!-- I used my TK. And I still ended up getting chased all over Kavarre. I finally lost them in the warrens, and spent the rest of the time getting back here."
Melissa took a deep breath. "Gringid Island. That's much farther than Marra."
"I can make it," Sarah said.
"Yeah? That's a long way to walk, Sar," Sean said.
"I'm planning on taking a plane, actually," she replied tartly.
"One would hope so," Melissa said, barely restrained amusement in her voice.
"Dream on, fair lady," Sean said. "When was the last time you looked at air fare?"
"A month ago. I flew to Orzig."
"How many years did it take you to get there?" Jason asked, his pain making his voice ragged.
"Point zero zero one zero two seven four."
"What?" Erin asked.
"Nine hours," Melissa translated.
"Where will you get the money?" Keith asked.
"My credit card."
Sean clapped a hand to his forehead in an expression of stunned awe. "You-- you mean to say-- you still have money on that thing?" He knelt. "I bow to the master of finance."
Sarah smiled reluctantly, fighting her face the whole way. "Actually, it was easy," she replied, getting control of her face again. "A long time ago I came to the conclusion that there's nothing worth buying here on Laestra. The food tastes terrible, the clothes are ridiculous, and the entertainments are utterly boring."
"You can say that again," Jason muttered.
"So, unlike you spendthrifts, I save my money, and I get to travel all over the planet. Not that any one place on Laestra is a whole lot better than any other place, but I get my job done that way."
"Oh, you're so wonderful, Sarah," Erin said sarcastically. ��
"Don't humor us poor mortals," Sean said, tugging at her pant leg in supplication. "You're the master, that's all, pure an' simple."
"So I'm the master. That's no reason for you to hang onto my pant leg."
"My apologies! Oh, Master, a thousand apologies, I was just carried away by your grace and beauty and masterfulness, I beg you to make my death merciful--"
Erin snorted. Jason rolled his eyes. Melissa was laughing silently, so hard she was doubled over. Keith grinned, but said sharply, "Enough, Sean," as Sarah pulled her leg away.
At last Melissa got control of herself, straightened up and wiped her eyes. "So, Sarah, you'll go to Gringid?"
"I'm going too," Jason said.
"No," Melissa said. "Jason, Gringid Island has no biomixes."
"If somebody's kidnapping nightpeople and bringing them to Gringid, then there's going to be nightpeople on Gringid."
"Oh, and I bet you'd just love to have your innards cut out," Erin said.
Keith glared at her. "No, Jason, Melissa's right. From all the reading I've done, the Gringids are a clannish kind of people, less unified with the rest of Laestra. With your eyes, you'd stand out like a sore thumb, and probably someone would do something unpleasant about it. They'd assume that you were one of the kidnapped nightpeople, and that you'd escaped-- and they'd probably have a stake in making sure you didn't get off Gringid. No, it'd be like walking into the lion's den, Jase."
"I don't suppose anyone here ever heard of sunglasses."
"Jase, you're a catboy no matter what you cover your eyes with," Sean said.
"Mm-hm," Erin seconded. "Jason, I don't think even I could disguise you well enough. Everything about you just screams, 'catperson!'"
"So what am I supposed to do, then? Sit on my butt and vegetate like the rest of you?"
"Works wonders for me," Sean said.
Several pairs of eyes glared at Sean. "The rest of us are going to Marra Spaceport," Erin said. "Catch the boat, Jason."
"I'm not," Keith said. "I'm going into City Center."
Sarah made an irritated noise. "City Center again? What do you want to go there for? Maxen's gone!"
"That's why now's the perfect opportunity to break into his apartment and search it," Keith said. "I tried several times before--"
"Keith, you bad boy. Didn't your teacher tell you that breaking into apartments is not a nice thing to do?"
"Sean, honestly. You're not helping matters any," Erin said.
"He was always there, before," Keith continued, ignoring Sean. "But I know, if I could just get in there, I could get information to crack this open."
"One of your `feelings' again?" Sarah asked, somewhat contemptuously.
"Keith's talent is quite valuable to us," Melissa said, forestalling Keith's angry retort. "So please, let's not have any belittling."
"If you're going, I'm coming with you," Jason said to Keith. "You're hurt."
"I'm beginning to think nobody in this team wants me to do anything," Jason complained. "I'm not hurt, just tired. And you're an artist, not a burglar. You'd botch it up."
"I've broken into buildings before," Keith said, rather annoyed. "I'm not exactly a rank amateur, Jason. But if you really want to come--"
"He should anyway," Sarah said. "When the same person keeps seeing the same things, their perception gets dulled. You know that. He's got a fresher pair of eyes than you do, at least in City Center."
"So Jason and Keith will search Maxen's apartment, for anything that might prove useful," Melissa said, closing the discussion. "You will be careful for automatic defenses, I trust?"
"No, we'll look right for the electrified doorwires and walk deliberately into them," Jason said.
"We'll be careful," Keith said, looking askance at Jason.
"Sarah, you will leave for Gringid then? And the rest of us will set up a new base in Marra Spaceport. I don't know if there's any reason to come back to Kavarre. Jason and Keith, rejoin us when you can. Does anyone have any questions?"
"Why exactly are we moving now?" Erin asked. "I mean, I'm as eager as everyone else to get off this godforsaken planet, but isn't this a bit sudden? I mean, we haven't got any substantial information since Jeff died."
"Today, we've received quite a bit of information," Melissa said. "I think-- I hope-- this is the breakthrough we need. To learn who these hidden manipulators are, finally, and to see their secrecy broken."
There were no more questions. Melissa stood. "I'll get the tickets. We should be packed and prepared by noon. Jason, Keith, whenever you wish to leave will be fine."
"Then let's go now," Jason said. He started to get up.
"Uh-uh," Keith said, putting out a hand to hold him back. "Think it through, Jason. You didn't get any sleep last night, you were running all night, you're hurt-- and I don't feel very alert myself. Why don't we both rest, catch up on our sleep? You never know when you're going to need to be at your peak."
Jason hated to admit it, but he could feel the pull of exhaustion in his muscles, and he knew Keith was right. "All right then," he said. "I'll go rest in my room. Wake me up when you're ready."
As he left, Sarah looked around the room, the taskmaster light coming to life in her eyes. "Well?" she demanded. "We've got packing to do!"
Melissa slipped out.
It was Melissa's job to see what no one else could. Correlators were picked, not for leadership ability, although they were the official leaders of every Dagoc team, but for the ability to synthesize information into patterns. Melissa had been doing it all fifteen years of her life. Lynelly told her that she was one of the most skilled Correlators in the ORR.
Not even the best of Correlators could work in a vacuum, however. Since Jeff's death six months ago, the Dread Demons of Data (stupid name, that, but no one had come up with a better one) hadn't uncovered a single useful piece of data. For the past month, Melissa had been seriously considering giving up and going home.
But she had more data now, and her mind was dancing around the edge of a pattern. There was a connection between Gringid and Marra. She wasn't sure what-- the obvious connection was the biomixes, but there was something else, Melissa felt sure. And whatever it was, it involved Chad Maxen.
She moved like a wraith through the crowd at the airport. The aircraft were nearly a thousand years out of date, by the standards of the Core Worlds, and there was very little computer technology. Melissa was positive it was deliberate, this backwardness, to keep travel slow and inconvenient. The ticket seller was a human being, a gray man. His hair was gray, his clothes were gray, his expression was gray. Melissa had seen hundreds like him here on Laestra, as if the planet sucked color out of life.
"Round-trip three for Marra," Melissa said in soft Laestran.
"59.31 lulus, cash or credit?"
"Cash." Melissa was covering all the bases, more out of habit than any other reason-- not only paying in cash, but paying for three return trips she would in all likelihood never use. It was easy to do that here-- the lack of computer coordination prevented any sort of travel in advance, so getting onto any flight was a matter of signing up early that day. Melissa took the tickets and went to sign up for an afternoon flight. Then she located another ticket seller and bought Sarah's ticket. � The day was growing warm. Most civilized planets had roofed, airconditioned terminals. Laestra's weren't even roofed. Although it was autumn, and this was a fairly high latitude, it was still warmer than Melissa's homeworld. She signed Sarah up as quickly as she could and headed home, leaving the listless crowd behind.
Crowds thronged through the streets of City Center, the core of Kavarre. They wore a range of clothes from rags to autumnal finery-- this close to the palace it was usually the finery, but even here, nobles mixed elbows with the lowest street rats. It was the only sort of equality that existed on Laestra.
Several months ago, most of these nobles had been carried in litters, or rode above the crowd in chaises borne by birds. Keith had seen the gradual change in transportation, had watched as litters became rarer and rarer and bird chariots had actually been outlawed. But he didn't understand it. All the other changes he had seen had been for the worse.
He mentioned this to Jason. "It's almost as if something is democratizing Kavarre. But why? We haven't seen any other beneficial changes."
"So who says it's beneficial?" Jason said practically. "Losing all your money's a great democratizing influence."
"Well, if the nobles are losing all their money, who are they losing it to?"
Jason snorted. "Not the poor people. That's for sure."
"Maybe that's how to track down our evil council," Keith said. "Check up on people's bank balances." He took Jason's hand and pulled him around a corner. The buildings here were very lavish old structures, covered with stonework designs. "Down there," he said, pointing at a rose building with a carriage beside it. A blonde woman in a mulitcolored cloak was getting out of the carriage. Keith felt Jason stiffen and pull away from him.
"Jason? What's wrong?"
"That woman in the striped cloak. Going into the building."
"I see her. What about her?"
Jason's voice was harsh with hatred. "That's the woman that killed Jeff."
"Are you sure?"
Image: the face of the blonde woman twisted with bitter triumph as Jeff fell shrieking to his death... "Yeah," Jason said, shaking his head to clear away the memory. "I'm sure."
"All right," Keith said, sounding surprisingly calm to himself. "Jeff died while you were tailing Maxen. Logically, then, that woman is part of the same thing. Can we tail her?"
"I don't know. But I'm going to anyway." Jason's fists clenched, and he ran down the street. Keith followed, catching up as Jason lifted the cover to the carriage trunk.
"Do you want me to come with you?"
Keith realized that he wanted Jason to say no, very badly. Jason had described Jeff's killer as a powerful telekinetic, and Keith had no defense against that power. He was terrified of tangling with her, of dying the way Jeff had. Immediately he was ashamed and disgusted with himself, that he wanted Jason to go risk his life but didn't have the guts to risk his own. If Jason said yes, Keith determined to go with him without hesitation--
"Better not," Jason said, only a moment after Keith had offered. He was afraid, too, and he didn't want Keith to know it. But there were other reasons. "If we got caught, you wouldn't stand a chance in hell of surviving. I only lived because I went into a beserker rage when Jeff fell, and my TK amplified enough to push her off the ledge. I'd hoped she was dead."
"If she fell, the same way Jeff did--"
"She had TK. Probably used it to save herself. I may fix that, later on." He climbed into the trunk. "You'll have to burglarize the apartment without me."
What if Jason never returns? What do I tell Melissa? "Take care of yourself, Jase," Keith said.
"I always do," Jason said, and pulled the trunk cover down. Keith stepped away, sat down on a stoop. The blonde woman came out hurriedly, with a half-open briefcase cradled in both arms, filled to overflowing with papers. Sheets kept scooting off, to spin onto the sidewalk, and kept magically floating back into the briefcase. It wasn't magic, of course; it was telekinesis. She got into the car and drove off, silently-- probably propelling herself with TK. That was powerful, all right-- Keith had known his share of teekers, Jason among them, but none had been able to propel so much as a bicycle, let alone a heavy Laestran carriage. It wasn't until the vehicle was out of sight that Keith realized he was holding his breath. He let it out in a sigh and went around into the alley.
Half an hour later, after climbing up into the building, Keith was in Maxen's apartment. It was empty.
Oh, the bed was there, and the sofa, and the kitchen table. Things like that. But Keith got vibes from things, psionic emanations, and what they translated to was that the apartment had been abandoned. None of the things he'd come to look for would be here.
Keith made a search, just in case. His suspicions were confirmed. There was not a piece of paper in the whole opulent showpiece of an apartment. There were a lot of modern offworld conveniences, which said something about Chad Maxen, but it was something Keith had known already. The important things, notes, books, papers, letters-- all gone. Taken by the blonde woman, of course. Damn. If he'd only gone when Jason first suggested it... but no use wasting time on regrets now.
He didn't feel like leaving the way he'd come, so he opened the door-- and saw a slip of white paper on the floor, in the hall. If the woman had dropped it, out of the briefcase, it was easy to see how she'd missed picking it up again-- it lay in the center of a white starburst on the carpet. Keith lifted it and read it carefully. It was in no language he knew, or no one language, at least. "Chad-- askah par Vaughn pei'a jag? Emath pi'avri. Zha." There was a translating computer back in their rooms-- he was supposed to pack and bring it, the others hadn't had time. Maybe it could make sense of this. Keith shoved the note into his pocket and started down to the street.