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  "No, thanks." Gael didn't mention that the substance was illegal anywhere off the planet since half of the system drank it. The effects of any alcohol would be spectacular in her system with the Try-sting. Fargan rum would knock her dead.

  "The Rian." Amato traced her finger along the edge of her glass; the green tinged liquid glinting in the light. "Is he special?"

  "Special?"

  "To you. Do you travel together? Are you companions?"

  Gael nearly laughed. "Kalatri Astri and I had never even seen each other before this mission. We only travel together because our leaders command us to. Duty."

  Amato smiled, satisfied. "That's as well. The Rian and I have become very close."

  "I'm going to log these entries from the planet's surface before I go down, Captain." Gael went slowly to the door. "I appreciate you letting me see them. As for you and Officer Astri, that's your affair."

  "How gracious of you," Amato responded. "I'll order those signals compiled as well."

  Gael started out the door again, feeling their conversation had ended.

  "You know we aren't so different." Amato stopped her. "You have your ENDO reds and your honor but we're both the same in many ways, Lieutenant."

  "I can't imagine what those ways could be." Gael half turned towards her, wanting to leave.

  "We're both ambitious. Both driven to want more. We aren't afraid to use our power to get it. We demand the universe, don't we? We aren't so different."

  Gael turned back to the doorway and left her there with the Fargan rum.

  Chapter Nine

  There was one thing Gael had to do before going to the cruiser and disembarking for the world they were nearing. She had made a promise to Toine and she meant to keep it. There was every possibility that she could find a place for him at ENDO. If he couldn't qualify for the corps itself, he could hold a staff position like Menor. If she had to, she would buy him from the captain.

  She scoured the freighter for him but his rough-cut brown head was nowhere to be found. Refusing to be bested into going to Kat for help, she took a deep breath and approached the chef in the dirty galley.

  He held up his knife, one eye completely swollen closed. His right arm was tied uselessly to his chest.

  "I want the boy," Gael said in ragged Fargan.

  "Too late."

  "Where is he? I'll pay you for him."

  "He is with the captain. You understand? You cannot have him for your own. Amato takes her pleasure with him."

  Gael wanted to break into the captain's private quarters and take the boy away but she knew that Toine technically belonged to Amato. She'd have to wait for her moment, no matter how it galled her. Anything else would lose him, defeating her purpose.

  Kat was already in the cruiser when Gael arrived a short time later. The planet was in scanner range. It was time to do her job.

  "Guardsman's team with Denby's assistant is already on their way to the planet," he told her briskly.

  "They won't have enough time ahead of us to set anything up."

  "Unless something is already set up."

  "Do you sense something?" She glanced at him, instantly feeling the delicate beating of wings in her mind.

  He smiled. "Do you?"

  "You're the telepath." She faced the view screen again.

  The small cruiser moved slowly and surely away from the larger vessel. The planet was just below them, their side just entering into its daylight cycle.

  Kat sighed, pushing himself for patience. "None of the crew aboard the Explorer seem to know anything about any deceit. Denby's assistant is an honest person who would like to come out of the mission with Denby's job permanently."

  "That could be dangerous." She laid in a course for the planet. "I know Guardsman wants to protect their interests even if they don't discredit Bonding."

  "But accomplishing both would be a credit to any agent."

  Gael agreed. The sight of the brown-black planet coming up quickly on the screen made her uneasy. Echoes of the dreams she'd had about the place still haunted her. The only way to cure the problems she'd encountered since the beginning of the mission seemed to be there before her on the screen.

  She recalled again the tapestry that had disturbed her in the museum. It was almost the same angle of the planet that they were seeing at that moment. That wasn't possible, of course, since the early inhabitants of the planet hadn't really had a civilization at all, much less space travel. Their information about the planet was limited but they did know that the world was primitive.

  That vacation time she'd promised herself at the end of the mission was beginning to look better and better. She was spending too much time worrying about Fargan children and tapestries.

  "They estimate repair time at three to four quarters," Kat told her, taking a message from the planet's surface. "That should be more than enough time to prove or disprove the Bonding sabotage theory."

  "It can't be too soon for me." She was brain tired, though the Try-sting held up her body.

  "It could be that your problems will just be starting when this is over."

  "It could be." She yawned, shaking herself awake. "Or it could be that when I put you and all of this behind me that I'll never feel that way again."

  "That way?" He leaned a little closer, encouraging. "What are you feeling, Sadah?"

  "I'm tired." She tried not to sound irritable. "That's all."

  "And have you been tired this way before?"

  She turned to him, eyes blazing, ready to tell him to mind his own business but the intense blue of his eyes caught at her. It pulled her closer, telling her that she could relax, that it was safe. She could tell him anything. Nothing should be between them. Kat was a friend. Someone she could trust. Kat.

  She fought him. He increased the mesh between their psi, taking her hand, completing the link, urging her gently. "Tell me."

  "It's like a fluttering." Gael could barely get the words out of her throat but she felt compelled to speak. "Like a caged thing inside of me. It's not trying to get out, though. It's trying to get in."

  "It frightens you, this feeling?"

  "Yes!" She gasped at the admission. "Yes! I don't want this. I can't allow." She blinked her eyes and looked at him. He was very close to her. Her hand was clenched on his.

  "It's simple." He took her other hand to reassure her. "Your life hasn't been so simple as this thing is going to be. All you must do is reach for it. If you fight, it will destroy you."

  She blinked her eyes and wrenched her hands away from him. "What are you doing to me?"

  "I'm only trying to help you, Sadah. You're like a small child trying to find her way. Lost, but not wanting to admit that you can't find the path."

  His words felt so right, like a warm balm to her soul, flowing to her brain.

  She shook her head violently. "I don't want your help. Don't you understand? I don't want this thing that you're offering."

  "You have no choice ultimately. You can avoid sleeping for a time so that you don't dream. You can avoid me. But the spark has already caught inside of you and like it or not; want it or not, it will burn until it flares out of your control."

  "I can control it if it exists. Didn't you say that I hid it all these years? I've controlled it this long. I can control it now and when you're gone, Sadoh."

  "This isn't about control, Gael." His blue eyes caught her again and his words demanded her attention. "This is about acceptance."

  His voice reverberated through her, touching a feeling inside of her that made her tremble. "I-I can't, Kat -- "

  The computer warned. "Coming up fast on planetary entry."

  Gael turned back to control the cruiser, trying to put the mission back into her thoughts. The conversation effectively ended.

  "The atmosphere is very clear for an ore operation," Kat declared, looking at the instruments, noting the temperature and other vital statistics, giving Gael a chance to clear her thoughts.

  "It's on
ly been two weeks. It's not possible for all the gas to be gone." She glanced at him slowly. "Thanks, Kat."

  "Don't thank me, Sadah. We must speak before this mission is over, before we go any further. It isn't going to be easy for you unless you accept it." He turned back to the panel. "It may not be possible for the gas to be gone but there isn't so much as a trace."

  Gael frowned. "Between you and this mission, Kat." She lowered the cruiser's nose. "I don't know if anything is going to be easy again."

  They came down smoothly. The Guardsman ship was stationed to the right of the huge ore container. Fog was rising from the ground, obscuring everything but the biggest structures and the area just before them. There was one man posted at the ship but the others had already gone into the structure.

  It was obvious that Gael wasn't alone in her wish to get the mission over with. She was at the door when she noticed that Kat was not with her. "Are you coming?"

  He followed slowly, stopping as he stepped off the platform. His mind was suddenly clouded, strangely slow. "How long has it been?" He stood on the warm, moist ground. His voice was muffled, muted in the total silence of this strange, dead place.

  Gael stopped. "How long has what been?"

  "How long has it been since life forms were recorded here?"

  "You know as well as I do." She turned back to him impatiently, ready to follow the Guardsman people.

  Kat stood just outside the cruiser exit, bewildered. He stared off at the far horizon where only brown-black rock formations met the drab gray sky. Not a single blade of grass or a small green shoot survived the ore processing's acrid fumes and burning temperatures. Not a bird called or an insect moved on that entire dark world. The emptiness was complete and forlorn.

  "That there should be nothing here on all this bright world," he whispered raggedly, drawing a breath. Tears streamed down his face.

  Gael watched him push back his hair, the striking gold and blue of his uniform the only color on the place. "Kat?"

  He looked down at her through a mist of his own tears and a haze veiled his mind. "Why did we come here? Everything is dead. There is nothing here."

  Gael couldn't believe his words but the expression on his lean face was enough. This was no joke. He was falling apart.

  He wiped his eyes on his sleeve, gulping huge sobs that racked his body. "I have to go. Now. Gael. I can't stay here. I can't." He ran back into the cruiser and closed the exit door.

  Chapter Ten

  Gael looked around herself at the desolation. What had happened? She knew that he was sensitive but he was also a professional. He had seen worse. The planet was sadly barren but that was to be expected. Something else was wrong.

  "Kat?" She pounded on the door when she found it locked against her. "Open up the door." There was no reply from inside the cruiser. She would have to go on without him, hoping that he would be able to pull himself together. She was glad that the cruiser was encoded to her so that he couldn't leave without her. She called to him again, wondering if she should force her way inside. What was wrong with him?

  Finally, deciding that he might just need time alone, she turned back towards the building a few hundred meters away, obscured in the mist. A Guardsman security man had avidly watched the entire scene. "Officer Astri is indisposed right now. Call me if he leaves the ship. I'll be in the processor."

  "Sure, Lieutenant." The man laughed. "Sure he won't get scared if I talk to him?"

  "Keep your remarks to yourself. I saw a Rian make a man pull out his own tongue with a nod of his head. And he cried afterward, too."

  The man looked a little more carefully at the cruiser exit as Gael left him, passing the big Guardsman ship. She smiled as he held his weapon a little higher. Good. It would give him something to think about.

  The ore processor covered an area larger than the whole Guardsman freighter. Higher than most structures, it blotted out the sky as she neared it. It was dark and dirty and smelled of scorched ore. It could process a billion tons of ore a year and it had been there since ENDO and ECHO were in their infancy, founded by Central.

  No living creatures had ever worked there and probably few had set foot inside. The ore was picked up every forty-five days. The primary ore base was mined from the inner core of the planet, then synthesized into fuel that powered most of the known worlds. All of the work was accomplished by robotic mining equipment employed once Central had found that no living organism could survive in the environment created by the process. If the plant had still been operating, they would have all been forced to wear life suits.

  The planet's air had cleaned up so rapidly. Gael stopped, using a hand scanner to analyze the air. Almost miraculously so, considering the level of damage the land showed and the short time the plant had been shut down. She walked in through the huge open doors, completely engulfed by the structure. Following the sound of voices towards the working group in the plant, she made a mental note to check previous time scans on other operations.

  It could just be that the world had a better than average natural filtration system. Or could it be that the operation had been down longer than they'd thought? It was vital to remember that Guardsman was doing its best to make the scene something more than natural. Could they have filtered the gas out?

  "Senfald." She joined the group around the main computer station. Handheld lights were everywhere in the darkness.

  "Lt. Klarke." Denby's assistant walked towards her. His face was illuminated briefly by the lights coming up, then shutting abruptly back down as they tried to restart the power. "It seems to be a very simple solution."

  "Really?"

  "The main power link was fried and shorted out everything else along its path. The links are routinely checked but there was a batch of bad links from a few years back. One of them might have ended up here. I've got them working at it."

  The lights came on again, to a cheer from the group, only to dim down to near darkness.

  "That would be welcome news," she agreed with enthusiasm. "No sign of sabotage?"

  Senfald's face blushed faintly red. "Look, Lieutenant. I don't know anything about that stuff. I know how things are supposed to run and how to make them run again. You and Officer Astri will have to decide about any sabotage."

  Gael randomly scanned the area and saw a thin, iridescent pile of what looked like leaves. She touched them where they lay on the computer console, noticing that an even bigger pile had been swept on the floor. They felt like gauze in her hands and crumbled at her touch leaving nearly transparent dust that shimmered in the brief light. She flashed her own hand light on them. "What are these?"

  "I don't know." Senfald walked away to supervise an intensive search of a cable line, then returned. "They're everywhere. Might be some kind of residue."

  "Residue?"

  "You know. From the ore production. Like the powder they found on that operation on Delta's dead planet. You guys shut us down for three years only to find out that it was residue from the combination of the dust and the ore phasing."

  "This isn't powder." She picked up another handful of the substance. "We're going to have to have this analyzed before we start production up again."

  Senfald swore softly. "A delay here, Lieutenant, will cost billions more than it's already cost. No one is going to be very happy about that."

  "I won't be very happy if it starts back up again until I know what this stuff is."

  "We can test on the freighter," he suggested. "Or we can have the equipment brought down here."

  "That's fine. I want to have this over as much as you." Maybe more. She thought back to the strangeness of the whole mission. Kat's sudden bout of weird empathy made a quick solution even more desirable.

  That seemed to pick Senfald up. He actually smiled at her. "It's been one helluva trip."

  "So let's get this stuff identified and get back to our lives as quickly as possible." She returned his smile.

  "You got it." He signaled to a woman over her sh
oulder. "Where's Officer Astri?"

  "He's doing background on the cruiser." Gael didn't feel up to trying to explain a situation that she wasn't sure she understood herself. "I'm going to take a look around the area outside."

  "I could have someone go with you."

  The lights came up brightly again then went totally black. Senfald groaned.

  "You need all your people here to get this done. I just want to look around."

  Gael went back out into the gray mist, adjusting her vision from the dark interior of the plant. Everything was so flat, so dark. It seemed likely to her that anything out of the ordinary would stand out flagrantly. How hard could it be?

  She started out by checking through the few smaller outbuildings. They were mostly full of tools and old batteries. There was nothing unusual. She dusted off her hands after securing the doors. Peering through the heavy mist, she could make out the few remaining pieces of odd machinery just outside the processor. They looked as though they'd been there since the plant was built and were retrieved. Museum pieces. She touched one of the hulks thoughtfully.

  The distance beckoned and she started walking along the exterior wall of the processor. None of the sounds from the interior permeated the thick wall that was damp and cool under her hand where she touched it.It was a strange, eerie emptiness, one that cried out for sound and life but would possess neither for another hundred years or so while the ore operation was working. Kat was right. It was unnerving. Was this world ever the lush green of the tapestries?

  It was impossible not to think about those life forms that had existed there so long before. She wondered what they would have thought about their once beautiful world being used in that way. It was impossible, standing there on that world, not to wonder what had happened to them. It was a question historians had asked for the past five hundred years.

  Gael heard a sound and turned sharply, her hand at her side for her weapon. She suddenly realized that she was a long way from the plant entrance. She'd walked farther than she'd intended. Not keeping her mind on the job. She checked herself and took out her hand scanner to measure the amount of particles in the air. She wished there was a natural body of water but those quickly evaporated on ore worlds. The stark brown walls of the processor rose to obscure the sky from her sight. Her eyes were drawn to the distance. Mountains formed the grim sky drop crumbling down to black pits that looked a little like caves from the distance.