Chapter 11: Leaving Odenworld

Roy returned to the hotel to find Cara in the sitting room of their shared suite. She was lounging in a comfortable chair with her legs up gathered in a feminine fashion. A field screen displaying apparently local news floated before her.

Cara had her long silvery hair open and wore something soft caressing her curves. To Roy, she had always been an exceptional beauty of exotic grace, but now his mind compared her to his Tanya, and in his mind, no female could compare to her.

Just as he was thinking that a sudden pang of pride flushed his mind and he consciously and silently repeating the words ‘my Tanya’.

Cara looked up, as she heard Roy and Partner pop into existence and her lips parted to an impish, knowing smile. “You stayed out of trouble this time?”

He nodded. “Pretty much.”

Her impish smile remained as she said. “We will leave Odenworld tomorrow night.”

Roy rolled his eyes. “And where will we go next? Are we still on the run from spies and assassins?”

“We will travel to Xanadu by Space-Bus and from there to Ulta-Hub, Then it’s all the way to Sares and our journey comes to an end.”

Roy crossed his arms. “I still don’t understand all this, we are in Union Space, I am a Pre-Citizen and not a criminal. Why can’t we simply travel to Sares on that Saresii ship we used before?”

“We are at war, Roy and if you like it or not you are a person of great interest to the enemy for not only one, but two utmost important reasons. That enemy is not impotent. Gaining the Wurgus as a Union member would be very bad for them and gaining access to the Leedei Tele Listener technology might even give them a tool to win that war.”

“Why me? I am not a Leedei, I know nothing about that thing. There must be millions of Leedei the enemy could capture.”

“The Leedei have guarded the true extent of their Psi technology with the same level as the Union guards Translocator tech. Most of us know it exists but that is the extent.”

She had completely lost her smile and sat up, after wiping the field screen out of existence and kept talking. “Union membership does not require or demand the sharing of secrets. We Saresii still keep things and knowledge to ourselves, and a small number of us guard over the mostly lost or believed to be lost technology of the First Age of Knowledge. The elusive Narth may very well have developed even past Tech Level Twelve and have so far shared-nothing at all. The Ariglou may be just as developed as the Leedei in terms of PSI tech, yet I know of no Ariglou tech that has been shared. The Terrans, more or less represented by SII keeps many technological developments secret. Who do you know that can explain the detailed functionality and principle of Space Train technology or the secret behind Trans Matter Tunnels?”

She dialed for a drink using the lounge seat, tactile sensor field and gestured to a seat across her inviting him to sit down and kept speaking.”It takes years and sometimes centuries before a member society has developed enough trust in the common society shares aspects, including those of technical or scientific nature with the rest. There are Saresii tech solutions like the legendary and officially lost technology to perform a complete Brain-dump. Technology, that allows downloading the entire content, memories and all from the mind of any known living being. Imagine such a device ends up in the hands of a Thauran noble lord or a ruthless criminal?”

Roy had to concede to that point and nodded.”I am not as educated as I should be, but I can understand that. Still what has all this to do with a Greenie that hasn’t even heard about Leedei until recently?”

“The Leedei are proud Union Citizens that is certain and there are more and more Leedei who want to openly share more of their tech. Your friend Knunging did not only serve as a PSI Corps agent or teach Union kids with great love and passion, we know he has connections to the Old Three, a powerful governing body within the Leedei society. We don’t know why they agreed to help you and in such a way, other than the openly expressed reasons.

My superiors think they want to open their society and tech to the rest of this, our society and you just came at the right time with a novel idea.”

Again Roy nodded and he accepted that. “Alright, I buy that. All that does not explain why we have to run around like that.”

“I told you, Roy. We are at war. This is not the first conflict between us and the Kermac, the events on your planet were an escalation of hostilities that have been brewing long before you and my grandparents were alive.

The highest office of our government was compromised by a deep-cover agent. You and everyone heard about the scandal where Pandar Strong was exposed as a Kermac operative. Do you think he could have attained such a high-level position all by himself? Fooling everyone, including the PSI Corps agents protecting him?”

Roy kept quiet, she was about to reveal a sizeable piece of the puzzle that kept bugging him.

Cara nodded. “The Union and every aspect of it is humongous, organizations and departments of every kind. The Union by nature is not a police state, we don’t have a Thought Police. Our laws are based on trust. We trust our fellow citizens to do the right thing, our laws are not based on fear and oppression, Roy.”

She sipped on the tea she had dialed for only now and sighed. “The Kermac is an old civilization and they control many other societies and species; some we know nothing about and they consider us their greatest enemy. They almost managed to topple and destroy the Union from within. The so-called Peace Hawk debacle was very real, very dangerous and almost forgotten by most. Yet they managed to arrest Admiral Stahl, executed many thousand Union officers and soldiers. Roy, they never gave up and working on a thousand schemes and a million plans to restore Kermac supremacy over the Milkyway galaxy.”

Cara put the cup down.” Alright, Roy, I tell you more than I intended to reveal to you at this point. It was decided to keep some of this from you, simply because we thought you might be not as prepared and old enough for it, but the enemy managed to infiltrate a military stockade and abduct me aboard a military station inside the home system of a Union member species. They stole a Union destroyer and they replaced me with a person able to fool almost everyone.”

Roy knew of this already and he was sure there were even more frightening details. “If they can operate with such impunity are we losing that war?”

“Warlike life never comes with guarantees, Roy. The Union is not helpless or even close to being defeated, but there is always someone who can be bought, blackmailed or tricked into doing bad things,” She added quietly. “We are not certain the Kermac is behind all this., there are voices in my world suggesting there is another yet unknown entity behind the abduction attempt.”

Roy rubbed his chin.”And we are traveling like this, to draw them out. Being aboard a Saresii ship we could never be followed or abducted right?”

Cara dismissed that with a gesture, but her eyes and face told him another story. It was as if she had nodded in a very subtle way. “Why don’t we find some sleep? I am quite tired and you have been up all night as well.”

--””—

Paul Masters had long lost any hope. He had stopped counting the days, they were all the same to him.

The days started with the first daylight, when the bright light of the local sun replaced the sporadic artificial lights of the slave pens and the cruel guards supervised the dispersion of the foul-tasting, lukewarm gruel served in simple earthware bowls.

Once in awhile, other slave gangs exchanged the feces and urine soiled straw-like stuff that thinly covered the slave pen chambers.

Occasionally the slaves were herded in a big fenced-in area and put on display. Shrouded and hooded beings, not all that many having human shape would then select and buy.

Martha, his wife had been sold and was gone for quite a while. For some reason, he had been overlooked or not sold at all.

There was a steady stream of new slaves arriving, most weren’t of any Union species. He had learned that some came off the so-called Seventy Independent societies others were of regions and origins completely unknown to him and perhaps to the Union in general.

It appeared he had no skills or features that made slaves desirable as merchandise. The constant change in the slave population did not allow for friendships to develop. Not that Paul was very good at developing any social ties with others. His academic background was apparently of little interest to buyers and other slaves alike.

But someone urged him to obey and do whatever chores he was given as good as he could. Because as long as his keepers saw some use for him, that justified the cost of straw and gruel they would keep him around. Useless that weren’t sold even to the Togar for meat, found their way into the gruel.

None of the original survivors of the Zengh He was still around, he was as far as he knew the last one.

After the food had been consumed, they were assigned to various chores. He was usually picked to be one of the scat scoopers.

Paul knew by now that he was on Alvor’s Cove. A dry dustball deep in Freespace and far beyond Union borders. Most of the planet’s population lived inside a canyon system. He knew about the reportedly endless desert east of the canyon community and was told it was certain suicide to run away in that direction. There was no water, a scorching sun, and dangerous lizards.

Strangely enough, while Martha was still here she tried to catalog the lizards she saw. Perhaps in an attempt to remain sane. The locals used lizards of various sizes as beasts of burden and these beasts dropped their feces just about everywhere.

In a community that dwelled inside a canyon system, and used lizards as transport animals, their poop was everywhere.

The local businesses paid the slave keepers to gather the revolting droppings constantly. The gathered mess was composted and used as fertilizer.

Paul was never a very big man, never really participated in any physical activity or sport. The insufficient nourishment and the hard labor had thinned his appearance even more. He knew it was only a matter of time now when he was simply too weak to continue and then his usefulness to the slave keepers ended. He had lost his will to continue anyway. There was no hope.

He had stopped wondering whatever happened to Martha and in all this, he never really wasted a thought on Roy, his son.

Now the sun was about to disappear behind the canyon walls, the shadows already turned the canyon bottom into nightlike darkness.