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25: The Ghost
"'What do you have to report?" His superior's voice echoed through the night, somehow able to make him shiver even now that they weren't physically here. He knew better than to think that he could not be punished for failure from a distance. The Spirit of Guardiana knew no physical boundaries. It could be here in half an instant to do what it willed to him.
"I... have not completed the task yet..." he replied, fearful of what his commander-in-chief would say, but knowing that lying came at a steeper price than reporting the unpleasant truth.
There was chilling silence for a moment. Then, the reply. "You've two weeks to find and convince the marked one to join me."
He trembled as he listened to that strange voice with its black undertones, its multiple meanings, its implied threats.
His superior continued, seemingly fueled by his fear, "The other one – he is... promising... but stubborn. He believes my power is his to do with as he pleases." the commander grinned in evil pleasure. "He is wrong. How wrong, he doesn't yet understand, but he will soon."
The last words almost drove the man off the precipice of terror he was even now teetering on, but he caught himself just before the plunge into hysteria. "Yes... he will. Shall I bring him to you as well?"
His superior laughed, then said condescendingly, "No, my little sycophant. Leave him out of this. He has not yet proven himself worthy of my attention. The other – the marked one – has."
"What if... he knows?" the man asked, hesitantly, unsure of what his superior would say to such a notion.
"Then he is smarter than I had first thought and he is even more worthy of what I have for him." the commander smiled strangely. "Now go. Turn him to me if you can. And if you can't... Then bring him... and I shall turn him."
"As you wish." he bowed, and was about to end the call when his superior stopped him.
"He... has not turned to the Enemy?"
"No." he said. "He has not. Though he has reportedly had a number of chances to do so. The Enemy seems to have some special interest in him."
The commander huffed, "I should think so. To have him would be... universe-changing. I have glimpsed what could be if the Enemy ever... acquired... him. It is not a future I relish. Do not fail me – do not fail us and you will be rewarded."
"I will not." he bowed again and started to leave once more.
"Oh, and Fiske, do be more careful in the future. I can only spare so much help getting you out of unpleasant situations."
"Yes commander." and with that, the bounty hunter finally cut the transmission.
"Why will it take so long?!" Starsha thought to herself desperately as she paced the length of her quarters' main room. "What would have prevented him from sending the message directly? Or using a video feed to speak with me...?" the last question stung a little. The strange young man had said he would return. And he had. Now he had said the same thing again and she had no reason to think that he would not keep his word this second time as well, but it truly disturbed her that she had not been able to get a good look at him.
There was something... He reminded her too much of Deun in some ways. But he was also completely opposite of the Leader. The mysterious young man was a paradox in her mind. There were so many questions she wanted to unravel before her inevitable death within the span of two ever-shortening years. Hopefully he would speak with her again soon.
She turned her thoughts to her world and its coming fate.
Astra had taken to spending even more time in the garden than she had in the past. Sasha wasn't moping around – but then again, she never did. Instead, the eleven-year-old had taken to helping her parents with a more scientific search. Kara and Alexander were out looking for answers to the strange disease that had been unleashed on them.
Together with Inyesayna and some of the other younger physicians on Iscandar, the monarchs had pulled together a panel of the best consultants – both medical and political – that they knew. Even Israel Kotlar was to be contacted about making an appearance via conference call – that is, until their communications with off-world sources had also been cut off not long after their channels to Gamilon had been shut down, effectively silencing them.
Starsha hadn't told her parents about the secret of the Interface-enabled communications. She really didn't know how to tell them.
"What can I say?" she thought, "Mother, Father, I've been talking to a complete stranger on Gamilon and I've told him everything that's going on here and now he's going to tell Admiral Talan about it." The princess almost laughed at that thought. "No, they won't be ready to hear that... Not yet at least... But maybe there is someone I can tell now."
She stood and left her apartment, heading to where she knew Lazarus would most likely be since she too had been called back from her far corner of Iscandar to aid in the search for useful information to combat this "virus".
It didn't take Starsha long to find her old friend. In fact, it was down in the vaults below the palace that she finally found the Historian, pouring over some antique books that had been stored there for some centuries.
"What are you looking for?"
The princess's voice startled the middle-aged woman and she jumped, nearly dropping the volume she cradled in her arms.
"Starsha?!" she exclaimed, looking up at the girl as Starsha approached her from across the vast, glass chamber. "I hadn't expected to see you." she closed the book she held, "I've been digging into Iscandar's past to see if there has ever been anything at all similar to our present crisis that might aid us. What brings you here again?"
The princess smiled sadly. "I thought I should talk with you about something... Something I don't think I can tell my mother and father just yet – at least not everything at once."
Lazarus looked quizzically at the young woman and beckoned her to sit down beside her on the long bench she occupied. "Tell me."
Starsha searched her former teacher's face, testing the wisdom of revealing too much even to Lazarus.
After a moment of silence on Starsha's part, the older woman patted her shoulder, "You don't know if you can trust me." she said, "I know you, child. You don't want to reveal too much – you feel as though you'll be exposing too much of yourself to someone you don't know think can understand you completely... You don't want to be hurt."
Starsha looked down and swallowed hard, feeling tears rising in her eyes. She bit her lip and hesitantly nodded.
"Starsha..." Lazarus stood, set the book on the bench, and then sat on the floor in front of the princess, giving the girl the higher ground – making her feel a bit more in control of this revelation, then, gently, she urged, "Speak."
"I don't understand this!" an exhausted Kara said, frustrated at her inability to find anything of significance in any of the physicians' reports or lab work. She had rerun several tests that Inyesayna herself had done and came to the same conclusions as the physician. Every single man and woman who had died so far had done so because their bodies had simply worn out.
She could see that every victim's body cells were aging much faster than normal, but she could not, for anything, find what was causing the rapid rate of decay. She had tried conventional methods of artificially slowing the cells' aging, but all to no avail. She had consulted with numerous doctors planet-side and none of them could find the answer either. It remained an enormous question mark in all of their minds – at least for now. Kara was determined that the answer would be found – if not by her than by someone else.
She rubbed her tired eyes and looked out at the darkening sky. It was almost dusk already. Had she really been in here all day? Again?
She gave up on her work for the meantime and left the slip-shod lab she had cobbled together in one of the unused rooms of the palace. Her days studying biology and biochemistry in her younger years had served her well these past few days as she had begun her own search for answers to what ailed her and her people.
Alexander had been conducting research of his own down in the library and out among the people with occasional stops to look in on his wife's progress or to come and help her when she needed a second pair of hands to conduct a test. He had taken Sasha with him when she had insisted on helping as well. After all, as the child had reminded them, if some of the children didn't know what was going on and how to try to help, what would become of them once the adults were gone?
It was a sobering thought to Kara and she and Alexander had agreed to let Sasha pull her weight in this way.
Sasha was the most vocal of Kara's three children, with Astra being the second and Starsha the obvious third. She could never quite tell what was going on in her middle child's mind. Starsha often seemed to find solace in things that Kara never quite grasped. It was as though the girl could escape to another world all her own. The Spirit of Yahweh seemed to touch her in ways that no one else could really fully understand.
Astra was like this as well to a certain extent. She spent a lot of time by herself, but unlike her sister, she would often talk about the things she thought and experienced during her solitude.
Kara could remember the day that things seemed to change for Starsha. It had been almost six years ago now... Such a thing would have been a traumatic event for anyone, much more an eight year old child who didn't understand all the politics behind what was going on, but sensed very vividly the spiritual evil that was trying to overcome her newly-redeemed soul.
Ever since that strange and fateful day, the girl had been more introspective – more reserved – at least publicly. Kara had no doubt though that her middle child could still be quite charismatic if she chose to be, but such expressions would no doubt be conducted in private before an audience of One Who would understand completely the meaning behind them.
Kara shook her head, leaving the thoughts of that terrible day so long ago now. The Iscandari Queen trekked back to her and her husband's quarters. When she finally reached them, she slipped inside quietly and fell into bed, exhausted from her efforts.
"You did what?" Lazarus asked, eyes wide.
"I spoke with the Historian on Gamilon. At least, I asked him if he was the Historian and he didn't deny it..." said Starsha.
Lazarus eyed the princess for a moment, "But you don't really think that's who he is, do you."
"Not really... No." Starsha admitted, shaking her head slowly and looking away again.
"Then who do you think he is?" the woman asked.
"I don't know the answer to that... But. I have one suspicion – with little evidence to support it thus far."
"And what might that be?"
Starsha was silent for a bit, not sure if she should reveal this particular piece of information just yet. Then she said, "I don't think I should say... yet."
The Historian thought about this answer then replied, "Very well... But be sure you don't wait too long to reveal it. By the look on your face, I can see it could be quite important if you turn out to be right about whatever you suspect."
"Indeed..." the princess sighed, the burden of unshared knowledge suddenly heavy on her heart, but she stuck to her decision to keep this thought to herself for the time being. "Thank you, Lazarus..."
"For what?" the Historian asked.
"Understanding that sometimes I just have to keep some things to myself for a while."
Desslok stood, frozen in place, feeling as if he would die of both terror and joy at the same instant. His eyes saw what was before him, but his brain couldn't digest it.
"Sir...?" came the familiar almost-bass voice.
"Masterson...?" The prince whispered, his face devoid of all emotion.
"You look at though you've seen a ghost." Talan said, "And you've no doubt given me a nasty set of bruises."
The prince nodded, eyes open wide, mouth slightly open, dazed.
Suddenly, not far away there was a sudden cessation of the other fight between Krenshaw and the one he had taken down.
"Garen?!" Frakken's voice carried to the prince and Masterson on the night air.
"Wolf!" Krenshaw exclaimed back, "What in all the shamayim are you doing out here?"
Desslok didn't hear the answer. Instead, he finally regained control of his limbs and, without another word, turned and ran, leaving Masterson alone, awash in the moonlit circle he had just entered.
Masterson stood stunned, but he knew better than to go after his friend. Instead, he waited, listening to the happy reunion between Frakken and the man who had been with Desslok – Garen Krenshaw. Then it dawned on him that this must be the Krenshaw – the renowned scientist that Deun had been hunting for.
Talan said a quick prayer of thanks to Adonai that the prince had found the man first.
"Turov!?" came the call from Frakken, "You there?"
"I am." Masterson called back, still staring after the absent prince.
"Good." Frakken appeared, leaning on the other man who had just bowled him over not two minutes ago. "Because you have to meet an old friend of mine. Masterson Turov, this is Lieutenant Garen Krenshaw. Garen, this is Masterson."
Masterson's brow furrowed, "You know him? How?"
Wolf took a breath and let it out slowly, seemingly reluctant to answer. "Rea Atid forged our friendship – the two of us and Dommel became fast friends during that massacre. We... were on special assignment with one another."
"I suppose trying not to die together is a pretty powerful experience." Krenshaw said, only half in jest. "We were the best of friends after that..." the lieutenant's face became sad as he seemed to relive a small piece of that awful day in his mind. "Shared horror kept us and other other survivors of... that day... together." Garen was just starting to look a little spooked when Talan spoke again, scattering the shadows of the past.
"Indeed." Masterson nodded soberly.
"Where's Deuel?" the Lieutenant asked suddenly aware that his traveling companion had disappeared.
"He had... something he had to do." Masterson replied vaguely. "He'll be back."
"He does a lot of that, doesn't he?" Krenshaw said, a bit puzzled, but seemingly unconcerned. "I'm quite glad to have run into you two." he continued. "We came across some of 'Leader' Deun's troops yesterday, but Deuel saw to it that they couldn't follow us. Tell me, Turov, has he always been this... strange?"
Masterson chuckled, hiding his concern over his friend's sudden disappearance, "I'm afraid so."
"I have to get back to our ship." Krenshaw suddenly announced, his face registering alarm. "They'll be wondering what's happened."
"Ship?" Frakken asked at the same time Masterson said, "'They'?"
"Yes, 'ship,' and 'they.'" replied Krenshaw, having miraculously caught both inquiries at once. "We – or rather – Deuel – stole one of the scout ships the soldiers had. And the 'they' I mentioned are two friends of mine who I met on my way back here to Gamilon."
Garen looked at Wolf thoughtfully. "I doubt you'll be able to get back to where the ship is parked."
"As much as I hate to admit it, I think you've got me there." Frakken agreed, "But Turov's in fine shape to –"
"Thank you, Frakken, but I can't leave – not until Deuel returns." Masterson interrupted.
"All right..." Frakken looked at Talan strangely, but dropped the suggestion.
"I can go alone." Krenshaw said, "I'll be back as soon as I can."
The lieutenant helped his old fellow-soldier sit down on a fallen tree, gave Masterson a final nod, and set off back the way he'd come, promising to return.
Frakken and Masterson waited in silence, Talan staring off in the direction the prince had fled. Twenty minutes passed and still there was no sign of Desslok's return. Masterson quietly paced the moonlit clearing the prince had led him into, then, on a whim, he walked all the way over to the other edge of the grassy spot and stared into the darkness of the trees that encompassed the small area.
He had only been standing there for a minute when he heard his name whispered from not far away.
"Masterson..."
Talan peered into the darkness and watched as the prince's face reappeared before him. Without warning Masterson found himself the recipient of a very uncharacteristic hug from the young man he had come to know as the brother he never had.
"Sir...?" Masterson finally asked as the prince stepped back again, grasping Talan's shoulders in his gloved hands. But there he stopped as he saw the damp shine in his friend's eyes.
"You," the prince took one hand off of Masterson's shoulder to jab Talan's chest with one index finger, "are never to go off on your own again."
"Yes, Sir." Masterson said, a bit of a smile spreading over his face and a prayer of thanks for his friend's safe return echoing in his heart.