Chapter 43

Zeke voiced his thoughts to the entity.

‘The more people like me that I surround myself with, the greater the availability of energy we can draw in and use.’

He felt happiness come from his entity.

‘Did Ptah know this?’

He got a feeling from the entity he had learned to interpret as, ‘maybe’.

Over the years they have been together, they have worked out a way to communicate. The entity could flash images and feelings at Zeke so it could be understood. It wasn’t always perfect, but it was better than nothing.

The entity then gave Zeke the feelings and impressions of greed and wanting power. This was followed by fear and paranoia. The last feeling from the entity was loneliness.

Zeke took that to mean that Ptah began to fear other magic users taking his power, and he had cut himself off from them. He had always suspected that Ptah wasn’t a very nice person towards the end, if he ever had been.

“Did he exile himself, or was he forced?”

Zeke felt as if he was restrained, then shoved and then the loneliness again.

He had always felt that Ptah had been forced to go to Mars that last time. Ptah’s journals did not mention what had happened other than he needed time for people to forget him. That he had done something bad.

Another entry said that Ptah got the last laugh before he left Earth. The others were doomed without access to the crystals on Earth. He had skited that he had blocked the transporter from working, so they couldn’t have his crystals on Mars, either.

Later, he wrote that he couldn’t get the transporter to function again. He had opened more pits, thinking he needed more crystals. His last few entries were indecipherable. Zeke suspected he had gone mad with loneliness and had run out of food in the end. Not a nice way to die.

‘Will that happen to me?’

Again, he got the maybe feeling and then the feelings of being loved, happy and being protected. Images of Lee and Dusty, friends he had given magical items to, and his family smiling at him came into his mind.

‘So, if I surround myself with magical people and people who love me, I’ll stay sane and on the right path.’

The entity seemed content, so Zeke decided it was time to do the job he was contemplating.

Zeke formed a haze shield around him and the ship.

While he trusted Freya, the shield would make anyone who could still see the ship, think it had broken up and dispersed. He then started performing the spells to gather the materials he needed from the space around him.

The tumbling ship’s outline blurred as it underwent its metamorphosis. Zeke had little trouble channelling the magic required as he worked. Being exposed to the universe as he was, just seemed to make it easier. He could even draw energy from the sun to provide the energy required for his transmogrification spells.

After several hours of intense conjuring, the ship had stopped its erratic course. It now sailed along serenely as it led the procession of ships orbiting Earth. Its gleaming, ochre red hull now bore the white markings, Z. SALVAGE & RESCUE.

Zeke chuckled as he was quite sure some people wouldn’t be happy that his operation now had its own, armed, patrol ship. They would become even more upset when they checked his contract to learn that he had every right to own several of them.

The government of Mars had assured him that even if the other governments pulled out, they would continue to employ his company. It was his people who had insisted that he had the right to protect his personnel, ships, and himself.

Zeke turned his attention to his other ships and completed the modifications and additions he wanted for each ship while he still felt full of energy. He had the designs in his head to copy and place any item, and the resources at hand. Each spell seemed easier than the last.

He even processed the materials he still had on board his ship. He pulled in more matter from the surrounding space to fill Freya’s and Louisa’s holds with pallets of Pedz and Padz, plus a few more handy and saleable items like his shield and scoop kits to give to Burnie.

Finally, he was exhausted yet pleased with his efforts, so he blinked back to Freya.

Zeke awoke to find he wasn’t alone in bed.

He blinked several times as he remembered finding a stunning redhead asleep in his bed. It had certainly not been his intention to entice her there. Sleeping with an employee had not turned out so well the first time.

Admittedly, Kira had been a friend and colleague at the start of their relationship. He had also been rather naïve at seventeen, while she was two years older and more experienced. At the time, puberty, lust, and sexual relief from using magic overruled looking for love.

Over the three years they were intimate, Kira became increasingly unhappy with his long absences. She finally realised that while he loved her on some level, Zeke was not committed to her alone.

Learning of his long-term sexual relationship with their friend, Wayne, had confused and angered her. Kira believed in white picket fences, and a marriage consisting of one male and one female. A lot of people still did.

While Zeke’s explanation and demonstration of his magical abilities helped explain his needs when he confessed to having them to her. His lack of commitment to just her, eventually drove her from his bed.