This was my first mystery story -- a science fiction mystery set in the Slave Race world, some five years after the ending of Slave Race, itself. In the case of this one, I wrote the plot and the first draft, and my sister took it afterwards, revised it and added her ideas. Then, I took it back, added and subtracted a few more things, revised and edited it again. Just for the information of those who read Slave Race, if we didn't make it clear in the story, science has extended the human lifespan to around 200 years (another point of jealousy on the part of the Jils, as theirs is only around 130 human years).
For anyone wishing a background on the setting for this story, go here: http://www.lcficmbs.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=4;t=000002
and read the introduction. That should give you all the information you need.
Psychic Killer
By Nancy Smith and Linda Garrick
Copyright statement: This is an original work by the authors and all copyrights and relevant laws apply. Copyright 1992
Prologue:
It was raining. The wind chimes jingled and clashed as a customer entered Ching's Market, bringing with her a fine mist and a gust of chilly air. The loud patter of rain on the pavement was cut off abruptly as the door swung shut once more.
Harvey Ching guided his antigrav cart through the double door of the storeroom, paused before a shelf and began to stack cans into a pyramid. Spring on Riskell was famous for its rainstorms and, during Harvey's years at the little market, this section of town had experienced more than one spring flood. The store itself, however, had the advantage of standing on a steep hill and so far had escaped with all but the most minor of damage.
Thunder boomed, shaking the building slightly. The customer pulled an antigrav cart from the stack near the door and started down the first aisle.
"Hello, Mr. Ching," she said, as she went by.
"Good day, Mrs. Tang." Harvey continued to stack cans. Lightning flashed brilliantly and thunder boomed again. Harvey winced. That was a close one! Ten years on Riskell, now, and he still hadn't gotten used to the spring storms. His own native world of Bellian had such gentle weather in comparison.
He started a second pyramid. The product was a new one: sugared quaf plums. The label showed a male Terran on one knee, presenting a tray to a blond Jilectan Lady, coifed and robed in the style of the middle class, who reclined in state on a divan.
The picture vaguely annoyed Harvey -- an understandable emotion, considering his species and origin. Bellian was a world of the Terran Confederation, a democracy. No one bowed to anyone there, except of his own free will. It was different in the Jilectan Autonomy. He wondered briefly if the Morell Corporation had changed the label before importing the plums into the Confederation. Maybe ... but more likely not, considering the situation.
The Jilectan Autonomy was huge. It covered so much territory that the Jilectan Warlord employed a Viceroy to rule each of the seven outlying sectors of his domain. The Jilectans were a territory-hungry species, and every independent nation in the Rovalli Sector eyed the huge empire with suspicion, each aware that their worlds could fall victim next to the Autonomy's insatiable hunger for planets to colonize.
Only one thing held them back. Wars destroyed planets. Their weapons were more subtle: trickery, propaganda, economic warfare -- hundreds of ways developed over three hundred-plus Terran years of stellar expansion. But no species, once absorbed by the Autonomy, retained even a semblance of rights or freedom. Slavery was their only position -- slavery before the Jilectan masters.
Even now, many Terrans served the Jilectans. Harvey made a face as he stacked the cans bearing that offensive label. The Terran kneeling before the Lady was a symbol of that to him. She was typical of her species: humanoid, six-fingered, blond, fair-skinned and larger than a human. Jilectan males averaged between two and three meters in height, females between 1.8 and 2.5 meters. The Lady, typically left-handed, had extended a graceful arm toward her kneeling vassal in a gesture of benevolent superiority but the gesture didn't suggest benevolence to Harvey.
Except for their size and the number and length of their digits, Jilectans could have passed for Terrans and that was a circumstance that grated on their feelings. It didn't suit their consequence that a lower species should resemble them so closely. Other things suited them even less, for Jilectans were certified, functioning and very powerful psychics, possessing a wide scattering of talents among the individuals of the species. Not all Jilectans had the same abilities, but all possessed some and it was this trait that had made them so successful. They had been the only ones with the powers -- until they met the Terrans. It had appalled them to discover that some of their upstart lookalikes also possessed the talents that had made them the rulers. And that had been the start of their persecution of Terran psychics. Terran psychics were under an automatic sentence of death if the Jilectans caught them. Harvey lived with that knowledge every day of his life.
A clatter of footsteps interrupted his ruminations and Ching glanced up as his youngest child, Kimi, came running down the aisle. She giggled, stumbling with typical fifteen-month coordination, half-falling twice before she reached him. Behind her, cans toppled from a shelf, followed by half a dozen bags of rice. A yelp issued from the back room and his eldest son, John, appeared. The boy glanced quickly around and dashed forward to grab the little girl.
"Sorry, Dad! She got away. Andrea was supposed to be watching her."
"I told *you* to watch her, young man!" Ching steadied the cans that had been jarred by the child's collision with them.
"Andrea *said* she'd do it. I was ... busy." The boy glared at his twelve-year-old sister, who had just appeared at the rear door, a book in her hand.
"It was *your* job," she said, righteously. "I was reading. Dad, you've got to read this book! It's about this sixteen-year-old girl who meets this boy who's being chased by these crooks. Well, after she saves him from certain death, the crooks come after her, too, and then she --"
"Later, Andrea. I'm very busy, right now. John, take Kimi out of here --"
John picked up his small sister and carried her toward the back room. Andrea started after him.
"It's a great book, Dad. You've *got* to read it. After the crooks come after Elsie, too, she --"
"Harvey --"
Ching's wife had emerged from the storeroom, where she had been helping to unload the latest delivery. "Would you come back here for a moment?"
Harvey knew a moment of sheer futility. He sighed deeply. "I'm about finished. Can't it wait?"
"No." The tone of her voice banished irritation instantly, with a thrill of alarm. His heart gave a leap and tried to climb into his throat as he followed her into the back room.
"What's wrong, Mary?"
She pulled Andrea after him and shut the door. "We'd better go. Now."
"You're sure?" Harvey was already moving. Mary's only psychic talents were empathy, pyrogenesis and precognition, but her pre-cogs were not to be ignored. He had never once known her to be wrong. "Okay, kids. John, hang onto Kimi. I'll go get the car. Andrea --"
"I'll get Snuggles!" She started to run for the doorway into the family's small living quarters.
"Forget the damned cat! Telepath your brothers and sisters. Hurry. And wait right here for me!" Andrea and the other kids were telepaths -- one of the interesting things that were always turning up with psychic powers, especially since neither of her parents had the gift. He glanced at his wife. "See that the kids don't fool around -- and be ready for me."
"Hurry, Harvey." Mary's voice was sharp with tension.
He didn't answer, but turned and ran out the side door.
Rain slapped him in the face as he manhandled the rickety garage door open to reveal an ancient airvan with battered fenders and a dirty windshield. He ran to the driver's side, jerked the door open and jumped behind the controls.
The motor came to life with a smooth purr, which belied the vehicle's seedy appearance. Ching eased the van backwards out of the narrow garage and onto the broken surface of the driveway.
His six children, herded by Mary, appeared at the side entrance to their little store and splashed through ankle-deep water to the van. As always during a bad rainstorm, the driveway was full of water as was the street, and chunks of broken pavement, plant matter and trash swirled by in the current.
He punched a control to open the van's door as the group arrived at the vehicle, and there was an immediate, if short, conflict in the opening as each child strove to be the first to enter and contested in the usual manner for the best seats. With a scrabbling of claws, the family dog, barking unrestrainedly, bolted past them into the van, his weight rocking the conveyance to one side. Mary jumped into the seat beside him as he jabbed the button that closed and locked all the van doors.
"Let's get out of here, Harvey!"
From behind Harvey, there came an agonized wail. Harvey swore. "Damn it, Andrea! I said to forget the bloody cat!"
"I didn't bring her!" Andrea protested instantly. "Kin had her in his lap. He brought her when he -- "
"Dear!" Mary's voice was shrill. "Please!"
Harvey slapped the controls and the van lifted into the air. He guided them over the back fence and dropped, unnoticed, to the littered surface of the alley that ran between two ancient tenements beyond. The car's ground wheels were up to their axles in dirty water.
With the studied casualness of long practice, he eased them forward, out onto the street surface.
Traffic was bumper to bumper in the heavy rain. They inched forward slowly, heading for the lift point. The dog ran across the children's laps to one side of the car, rocking them vigorously sideways, then back the other way to peer out the opposite window, and the vehicle lurched that way, too. John's voice protested.
"Hey, Teeny, cool it!"
The dog barked joyously and shook himself, spraying water about the cabin. The cat yowled, the discordant, echoing wail of the Siamese, and there was another scrabble of claws. John yelled, hoarsely. Harvey heard the sound of fabric tearing.
"Ow!" John's voice again, and a swear word. "The damned cat stuck her claws in my leg!"
"John!" Mary shouted, over the din. "I won't have you using that kind of language!"
"Dad uses it," the boy retorted. "And I -- "
"Quiet!" Harvey snapped, abruptly. They were inching past the front of their store, now, just one more car amid all the others. In front of the little market sat two aircars, marked with the ominous black and scarlet insignia of the Viceregal Patrol. Terrans in the familiar uniforms were crouched behind them, while two men edged up to the doors.
"Patrol!" Andrea whispered.
"Oh, man!" Kin yelled. "Here comes another one! Somebody's found us out!"
"Holy --" John began.
"John!" Harvey snapped automatically.
John shut up. Mary's hand shot out to grasp the radio control knob. She turned it counterclockwise, an action that would serve two purposes -- to flip over the ident plates on the front and rear of their vehicle and tune the car radio automatically into the Patrol frequency.
Andrea was sobbing softly in the rear. Harvey gripped the controls, knuckles white, listening and trying to keep his eyes on the car ahead of him, indistinct in the blinding rain, and at the same time trying to watch the scene at the store, now a little to his rear. The lift point was only a few meters ahead. He hoped that no one would think to set up roadblocks or checkpoints before it was too late.
The radio had been giving out the usual Patrol code. Mary did something to the tuning buttons and abruptly the words came through in clear.
"-- Gone, sir. Nobody but a couple of customers. Looks like they dropped everything and left in a hurry."
"Precog," another voice said, resignedly. "Looks like the tip might have been right. We'll put out an APB on the car right away." Static for a moment, then: "Attention all units. Be on the lookout for a '57 Mathes airvan, green in color, ident plate number 469B8322. Occupants are suspected Terran psychics. Approach with caution -- "
"How did they know?" Andrea sobbed. "How did they know?" Her sobs grew louder.
They reached the lift point. Harvey waited for the signal and touched the control. Their vehicle vaulted into the air. Harvey glanced in his rear scanner. The store was invisible now. Rain hammered against the windshield. Andrea continued to sob.
"Quit your blubbering!" Harvey heard himself in the voice of his son. "It's not helping things a bit!"
"You shut up!" Andrea's voice held an edge of hysteria. There was the sound of a blow. Then another.
"Mom, John hit me!" Their daughter's voice had lost its hysterical edge. Righteous wrath replaced it. Harvey was relieved to hear it. A glance in the mirror showed Eddie, Maya and Misa staring out the rear window, pop-eyed, obviously regarding the whole event as a great adventure. Fifteen-month-old Kimi sucked placidly on a bottle, utterly unimpressed with all the excitement. Kids, Harvey thought, and wished for a moment that he could once again be a child and look upon things like this as a romantic story instead of a life-and-death flight.
Teeny licked him moistly on one ear and over the sounds of John and Andrea's escalating battle came another -- a shrill chittering that rose quickly to wild, maniacal laughter. Harvey swore under his breath.
"Eddie, did you bring along that damned slok, too?"
"Dear, please!" Mary protested.
The sound of a blow punctuated his wife's words. John swore. "Damn you Andrea -- "
A shriek of outrage from Andrea. "You keep your hands to yourself, you big nerdo!"
Mary turned in the seat. "Sit *down* and shut up -- all of you! Things are bad enough!"
Silence fell, broken only by the yapping of the dog, the occasional yowls of the cat and the chittering of the slok. Rain slapped at the windshield.
**********
Chapter One
Terran Military Intelligence was an institution that received no publicity to speak of -- utterly disproportionate, in fact, to the number of things it influenced in the Terran Confederation and elsewhere around the Rovalli Sector.
If the Director wished to know, for instance, which nobles of the Procyon Matriarchy were the ones to influence the Matriarch and which were simply court dressing, his people could tell him. If he wished to know the favorite dish of the First Speaker of the Arcturian Republic, they would know. It the Viceregal Patrol adopted a new communications code, they would know within hours and within a day or two, the key would be in their hands.
One special branch of Military Intelligence was directed and controlled by a man the Director respected deeply. This man had conceived and built that arm of his Service that was designed to counteract and eventually defeat the Jilectan Autonomy in its drive to dominate the Terran Confederation. That man was retired Space Corps Vice Admiral Michael Weaver, Chief of Special Operations -- otherwise known as the Terran Underground.
Weaver was a tall, slender man somewhere in the middle of his second century. His hair was long since silver, but his lean, wiry frame showed few signs of aging. His dark eyes and hawk nose spoke eloquently of his character. Years before, he had recognized the danger which the Jilectans posed for Terra and had devised a strategy by which Terrans could resist the encroaching empire and yet protect their government from retribution. Thus came into existence the Terran Underground, a group of radicals denounced as loudly by the Terran government as by the Jilectans, themselves. It's true function and purpose was more obscure.
Michael Weaver placed the flimsy back on his desk and reached for the coffee cup on the side table, frowning. Lieutenant Colonel Harvey Ching of Riffel had been betrayed to the Jilectans. He had escaped only because his wife, Mary, was a powerful precog, who had sensed the approach of the Viceregal Patrol nearly ten minutes before its arrival. The incident would have been disturbing enough alone, but it was not the only such. It was the fourth similar occurrence within a week on Riskell. One of the others had not ended so happily and the other two, like this latest, had been narrow escapes, saved only by the presence of a precog at the station.
Weaver sipped his lukewarm coffee and considered.
All the incidents were disturbingly similar: a family that had been in the same location for ten years or more, whose members were one hundred percent psychics. The families that had escaped reported APBs broadcast over the Patrol frequencies. All had said basically the same thing -- a psychic family was attempting to escape. Colonel Ching reported the mention of a "tip". No one had said anything of the Terran Underground; the connection had apparently been missed. Colonel Terence of Frazeen Station on Riskell suspected a security leak. Colonel Dean of the Riffel Station suspected the same thing. But, if there *was* an informer, then why didn't their enemies know more than they apparently did? Besides, their various agents in the Patrol had reported nothing.
Who had tipped off the Patrol about the Ching family? A suspicious customer after the reward? If so, how about the others? Coincidence?
He drained the coffee cup. The whole affair left him feeling uneasy. Should he call off the training conference, scheduled for next week on New Hawaii? Even if a security leak had occurred, it didn't seem likely that the conference could be at risk. No one but the base commanders, themselves, would know the location and even they wouldn't know until the last minute.
Dismissing that, there was certainly a flavor to this business that he didn't like.
Well, he would issue a general warning to all their people on Riskell, and their plants in the Patrol would be alert for anything to give them a handle on the situation. They would have the answer very soon. Of that, he was confident.
**********
Chapter Two
Major General Walter Kaley of Nova Luna Station glanced up as the intercom beeped.
"Yes, Ruby?"
"Message for you, sir. Triple flagged."
Kaley sat up straight. "Bring it in."
The door opened and Ruby Ottarson entered, a sealed packet in her hand. She placed it on his desk and went out again, leaving him alone. Kaley broke the seal and spread the single sheet out on his desk.
The Bi-Annual Update and Training Conference for the Base Commanders in Riskell's Southern Hemisphere was apparently being held on New Hawaii this year, and the message was from the conference's Chief of Security. He read it slowly, and then re-read it. He rose from his desk chair and paced the room, studying it. The message still said what it said. An Armageddon Team was requested. Emergency.
He sighed. Now what? Armageddon Teams were at a premium, as always.
Ordinary psychic Teams could be procured without difficulty, but Armageddon Teams -- a psychic paired with a psychic power pack -- were generally backlogged on assignments. This wasn't a surprising fact, considering that there were only sixteen such Teams in the entire Terran Underground and most of them were on assignment at present.
Kaley turned to his desktop computer and pulled up a list of the Teams and their assignments. Perhaps one of the less urgent could be temporarily delayed. The problem with that was that assignments for Armageddon Teams were *all* urgent. But a triple-flagged emergency ...
The screen lit up and he studied it with a sinking feeling.
Ten of the Teams were on crucial jobs that could not be interrupted. One of the remaining six was aboard the Terran Light Cruiser Valkyrie as the Captain and Chief Medical Officer -- not available. The remaining five were here at base. Of those, Colonel Jefferson Parnell and his wife, Loretta, were out of the question. Loretta was expecting a baby within two weeks, the couple's fourth child in as many years. A similar objection applied to Edwin White and his wife and power pack, Loreen, whose baby was due in two months. There was, of course, the base's latest acquisition, Fushiro Suzuki and Tommy Mishamoto, ages fourteen and thirteen respectively.
Kaley sighed. They were healthy, resourceful kids, cocky with the unwarranted confidence of youth, and not to be trusted with crucial assignments for some time. And, of course there was four-year-old Marie Parnell and her newly discovered partner, five-year-old Jamie Stevens, an option not even under consideration. That left his star Team, Mark Linley and Alan Westover.
Kaley swore to himself. Westover and Linley had been going practically non-stop for months. They had gotten back two days ago from their latest assignment and he'd promised them the much-needed vacations that neither had had time to take for the past two years. He knew exactly how much they were going to appreciate this, but triple-flagged emergencies weren't ignored.
He pressed the tab on his intercom. "Ruby, get me General Westover and Colonel Linley at once, please."
**********
(tbc)
