Psychic Killer: 2/?
by Nancy Smith and Linda Garrick
"Man -- " Mark Linley reached out lazily and picked up an apple, taking a huge bite. Around them lay the remains of a magnificent picnic. His wife, Julia, lay on her stomach, patting one of their offspring on his back, while the other little boy sat next to his father, the mangled remains of a brownie clutched in one small, fat hand. Lyn Westover, Alan's wife, held her own youngest in her lap, and the child was half-asleep, her dark, curly head drooping forward. Lyn tried to put her down, then desisted as little Kate voiced a squawk of protest and wiggled herself awake.
Alan Westover lay on his stomach, his youngest son straddling his back and bouncing energetically. Alan groaned.
"Don't, Matthew! I'm too full! Go play with the others! Jill, come get Matthew and take him over there."
Nova Luna Station was located on the moon of a gas giant. The station was a series of dome-covered cities which extended well underground; the surface part was park-like; greenery covered the area as far as the eye could see and the air was the freshest that any of them had ever smelled. Lights far above on the dome illuminated the landscape and tiny streams ran here and there; the product of some planetary engineer's art.
The place where the two families were picnicking was known as Central Park, hardly an original name, but descriptive, as it was located in the exact center of Alpha Dome.
Mark Linley sprawled lazily back against a tree, watching as his twin daughters came pelting across the grass toward them. Jill and Jennifer were blond and blue-eyed and resembled their mother closely. Even now, he sometimes had trouble telling them apart, although Julia did not share his difficulty.
The two little girls seized Matthew by the arms.
"Come on, Matt!" the one he thought was Jennifer shrilled. "You can be the baby! We're playing Jils. Markie's Lord Halthzor, I'm Lady Chanthzill and Jill's Lady Travinthzill. You can be Lord Talthzar."
"'Kay," Matthew agreed amiably and trotted off with the two girls.
"Good li'l guy," Linley remarked, finishing his apple. "Bet you were somethin' like that when you were his age, buddy. Easy t'please."
"I don't remember," Alan said, closing his eyes.
"You were always great with the ladies, too -- " He stopped, feeling a phantom poke in his ribs. "Hey!"
"Don't try to embarrass me," his partner said, without opening his eyes. "I'm too weak to fight."
"Feisty, too. That business where he set the rug on fire reminds me of you, too."
"Alan couldn't set the rug on fire," Lyn said, trying once more to lower her baby to the picnic blanket. "He's not the pyro. I am." Lyn was not referring to a compulsion to set fires, Linley knew, but to the ability to do so, mentally.
Linley stretched, luxuriously. "Man, this is the life. After freezin' t'death on Ravellus, then swelterin' in 40 degrees on Shallock, this is like a piece of heaven."
"That's for sure," Alan said, still not opening his eyes. "Watch your trousers, Mark. Butch is using you for a pull-bar." Mitchell and Andrew, nicknamed Mitch and Butch, were the youngest Linleys, twin boys, just short of a year old.
Linley grabbed for Andrew's smeared hand, which was clutching his pantleg. "Oh, damn!"
Forgotten shreds of brownie oozed between the little boy's fingers. Mark pried the tiny hand loose. Andrew gurgled at him, drooling brownie-stained saliva between two budding lower teeth. "Hey, Jul! Gimme a napkin!"
Julia tossed him one. The breeze caught it and whipped it away. A second later, it paused, held for a moment in the draft then floated back to settle gently in Mark's hand.
"Thanks, kid," Linley said. He dabbed first at his pants, then at the toddler's hand.
"Lyn did it," Alan said, his eyes still closed.
"Thanks, sweetie." Mark made another ineffective swipe at his pants. "Oh, well -- "
"This is a picnic, Mark," Julia said. "No one expects you to come in squeaky clean from a picnic with eight kids."
The Linley family had contributed five of the kids. Mark, a psychic power pack, and his wife, Julia, a non-psychic but with Mark's missing control factor in abundance, had produced five psychic children, while Alan and Lyn had produced three. Nova Luna was what the Terran Underground had designated a Sanctuary World, where psychics were taken when they were found, to live in safety and -- most importantly -- to multiply. That was the main purpose of most of the psychics on Nova Luna, Shanandra and Kri'il: to produce psychic children; lots of psychic children. They were doing pretty well, too. The base was swarming with kids.
He grinned faintly. Wouldn't his old bosses, back during his days in the Viceregal Patrol, have kittens if they could know that?
But, of course, they didn't know. The existence of psychic power packs was one of the hottest secrets going. Even Terran psychic scientists didn't know everything about them. That was why he and Alan were constantly being tapped by the research boys. Speaking of which ...
"Heard anythin' about that last set of tests they ran on us?" he inquired, idly.
Alan turned lazily onto his side. "Now that you mention it," he admitted, "Dr. Brown gave me a call this morning. Wanted to know if we could be available for more tests this afternoon. Naturally, I told him you'd be happy to oblige him --"
Mark threw the apple core at him. The item braked to a stop in mid-air, turned and flipped neatly into the discard bag. Alan laughed. "Okay, okay. I told him we were on R and R and not to bother us. I did mention that Jeff was available. He and Loretta aren't going anywhere for a while."
"Bet he appreciates that," Linley remarked, unsympathetically. Jeff Parnell, a power pack like Linley, was Alan's father-in-law. "He'll disown you."
"Not likely," Lyn said. "Who would he get to baby-sit the kids when Loretta goes into labor? So, did Harry have anything else to say?"
"You mean, after he stopped whining? He said he's itching to test out a few things. They did measurements the last time -- how strong a psychic I was with Mark compared to myself alone. How much difference did distance make -- that sort of thing. It's never really been scientifically studied before, you know. We only knew that I was a much better psychic with Mark than without him."
"And?" Lyn prodded.
Alan propped himself on one elbow. "Pretty much what Mark and I had already guessed. With Mark touching me, I'm a little over three times as strong as I am alone. It's some kind of synergistic effect, according to Harry, but it does explain why two psychics working together can't open psychic-resistant locks when a psychic with a power pack can."
"How about three psychics?" Julia asked, curiously. "Why can't three good telekinetics together manage it?"
Alan grimaced. "I asked that, too. Harry says that when you get more than two psychics working together, they produce 'an oscillatory feedback of power'--"
"A *what*?'
"Psychic static. They get in each other's way and foul each other up."
"I never heard of such a thing," Lyn said.
"I hadn't, either. The Jils knew it a long time before we did, of course, and designed their locks accordingly to handle their own criminals. Harry said they tried it in the lab not long after we learned to train Terran psychics. That was why they got so excited when they discovered Mark and me."
"I can see that," Lyn said. "I've always sort of wished I had a power pack."
Alan raised an eyebrow. "Just make sure she's female, honey."
Lyn made a face at her husband. "You don't need to worry, General Westover, sir."
Alan chuckled. "Anyhow, Harry's settled one question, but he's still got a bunch more, which is why he's drooling over the idea that we're nearby. We'd better do our best to stay out of his reach for the next couple of weeks. This is our vacation, not a lab session."
"I'll say!" Linley endorsed, feelingly.
"What questions?" Julia asked, curiously. Of the four of them, she was the only true non-psychic, and, thereby knew the least about psychic powers.
"Several," Alan said. "They're pretty certain by now that the mechanism for psychic bonding is the same for psychic to psychic and psychic to power pack, but they're still trying to explain the differences."
"What differences?"
"For instance," Alan said, "why a psychic can communicate with his power pack when one of them is in hyperspace or light years apart when ordinary psychic partners can't. I gathered -- " He grinned. "I gathered that the lab boys are practically having open warfare over all the conflicting theories. Ever since Worley's stuff turned Mark into a psychic back on Trachum, they've had to revise most of what they thought they knew about psychic\power pack links because it turned out to be wrong. Of course, having us tell them differently, years back, didn't make a difference. They're the experts."
Linley whistled. "You're right. We *better* be unavailable for the next two weeks. Anybody consider a campin' trip t'Bellian? We could get ourselves good an' lost so they couldn't track us down 'til vacation's over."
"Not a bad idea," Alan mused, thoughtfully. "I'll put in a request to Kaley. It isn't that I don't like to advance the cause of science, but -- "
"That's okay for you," Linley grumbled. "You get to *do* stuff. I just sit there fat, dumb and happy and supply power for you -- an' I can't even bring a magazine to read."
Lyn giggled. "You're not fat, Mark."
"Thanks a heap, Lieutenant Colonel Westover. How about some respect for my superior rank, huh?"
He saw Alan hide a smile. Linley was a full colonel in their organization. Alan, eight years younger than he, was a brigadier general, but then, Alan was the psychic member of their Armageddon Team and promotions tended to come fast and young during wartime conditions -- which this was, even if the majority of the Confederation didn't know it.
Lyn snorted and Alan laughed. "She bosses a general around, pal. That puts her above you, too."
"You got a point there," he admitted, winking at Julia. "I guess I could say the same about Jul, too."
"You better believe it," his wife told him, tartly. "I bossed you around when I was still a major!"
"You should have seen that one coming, pal," Alan said.
He laughed. "You know what they say. Somebody or other is without honor in his own home."
"A prophet," Alan filled in. "Besides, you're dealing with a department head these days." He winked at Lyn. "How does it feel being the local chief of psy-ops, Julia?"
"Kind of strange," Julia said. "I'm still feeling out the job. Still, it's sort of satisfying, dreaming up new ways to get under the Jils' skins."
"I'll bet," Linley said. "You were the perfect pick for the job, too -- the Giant Killer in more ways than one."
"It helps to carry a grudge," Julia said. "Of course, most of the people in the department have reasons to carry grudges against the Jils, one way or another."
"That goes without saying," Alan said. He flopped onto his back again and closed his eyes. The baby, too, had given up, Linley noted, and now lay face down on the blanket, bottom up and snoring faintly. The cries of the children playing sounded in the distance. Linley slouched comfortably against the trunk of one of the trees imported from Riskell to grace their domed city world.
He was ready for a little break. In fact, he hadn't realized how ready he was. Kaley had guaranteed them two solid weeks and, by the stars, he was going to make the most of it!
Alan sat up, his expression going blank. Lyn straightened up.
"Oh, no," she whispered.
"What?" Linley knew a sense of foreboding.
"Message," Lyn said.
"Kaley wants us," Alan said, sounding resigned. "We're to come to his office right away."
"No!" Mark came to his feet. "Tell him I won't! I'm not goin' on any more damned assignments until my two weeks vacation is officially over!"
Alan sighed. "Ruby says it's urgent."
"It's *always* urgent! What the blazes does he want out of us -- blood?"
The babies began to cry. Mark swore between his teeth. "Sorry, Jul. Sorry, Lyn." He extended a hand to Alan. "Come on, kid. Let's go find out what General Tyrant wants this time."
Two hours later, the psychic Team of Westover, Westover and Linley were on their way to New Hawaii. Mark Linley glowered at the bulkhead.
"An' here we go again," he commented morosely. "Happy vacation all."
"Take it easy, Mark," Lyn said. "I'd rather be here than back at the base waiting for you. Poor Julia!"
"They'll send her help," Alan said, consolingly. "And the kids are in day care part of the time."
"I'd still rather be here." Lyn poured a cup of coffee and brought it to him.
"Yeah. Thanks, baby." Mark took the cup. "If my wife's a mental case by the time we get back, I'm gonna have Kaley's hide. Takin' care o' eight kids!"
"I wonder what the emergency is," Alan said, thoughtfully.
"Probably some bloody bureaucrat found a mouse in his soup," Linley muttered.
Lyn patted him on the shoulder. "It'll be all right, Mark. Kaley said we could start the vacation as soon as we got back. I don't think he'll dare turn down a request to go camping on Bellian after this."
"There's that," Mark agreed, slightly mollified. "Who's at this damned conference, anyway?"
Alan answered. "It's the Bi-Annual Conference for the Base Commanders of the Southern Hemisphere of Riskell," he replied. "So, all of them should be there."
"I'll bet you practiced saying that," Linley accused.
Alan grinned, but went on speaking. "At least one other person of interest will be there," he continued. "The Commander-in-Chief of the Terran Underground is attending."
That caught Linley's attention. The mysterious leader of their organization who had, according to rumor, conceived the idea of the Terran Underground to protect the Terran government from retribution by the Jils -- the wily old fox whose leadership had developed their organization from a minor nuisance to a thundering headache for the Jilectan aggressors -- would be there. Whatever the emergency was, it must be fairly serious if the unknown leader of the Terran Underground was calling for their assistance.
He shrugged suddenly. "Oh, well, like they say, wait 'til the boss is watchin', then do somethin' spectacular. With our luck, we'll probably fall flat on our faces ... "
**********
Chapter Three
Thirty hours later, they reached the Confederation world of New Hawaii.
Spaceport Island was just that. Nearly circular, with a diameter of approximately eighty kilometers, it was one, vast spaceport for the arriving and departing interstellar traffic. There were other spaceports on various islands of the water world, but this one served the Kauai Archipelago, the largest island chain on the planet, and, at the moment, the one closest to the current position of the Maui.
The island was ringed with sled docks, and, after they cleared Customs, the three travelers followed helpful signs to the Maui Pier, where sleds departed every hour on the hour for the Maui while it was in these waters.
The dock would have been hard to miss even if they hadn't been looking for it. An enormous holographic billboard flashed its name above a well-maintained marina, from which extended an incongruously rustic-looking pier. The image of a brown-skinned girl in a grass skirt beckoned invitingly, flashing a white-toothed smile at all passersby.
"COME TO THE MAUI!" the sign flashed. "SEE THE AUTHENTIC DANCES OF OLD HAWAII! TASTE THE EXOTIC ISLAND CUISINE! PARTICIPATE IN THE ANCIENT HAWAIIAN RITUALS! COME TO THE MAUI FOR THE EXPERIENCE OF A LIFETIME!" Again, a grass-skirted damsel beckoned and waved.
There was a sled waiting at the pier, but across the pier at the entrance was a businesslike wooden barrier with the word: "Quarantine" in large, red letters. A guard stood beside it.
Mark, Alan and Lyn walked straight to the barrier and Linley pulled it aside. The guard stepped forward.
"I'm sorry, sir. The Maui is under strict quarantine. No one is allowed on or off the island."
Mark produced his identification, supplied before they had left Nova Luna, and displayed it for the guard.
"We know all about it," he assured the man. "Shallockian fire itch fever's nasty stuff. We're the medical team they sent for. Martin Langley, MD, Alfred Westley, MD and this is my infection control specialist, Dr. Linda Paul."
The guard straightened up, quickly. "We had word about you, Doctor. The sled's all set to take you over. They're isolated from the rest of the islands. Nobody wants fire itch to spread."
"Don't I know it!" Linley made a face. "The quicker we get it under control, the better. We'll get everybody vaccinated and make sure there's no new cases. We ought to be in the clear in a week."
The guard swung the barrier wider, to let them through. "That's good. The Maui's our biggest tourist attraction. We're losing a lot of business over this."
"Better than a planet wide epidemic," Linley said, dryly. "I was in the Epidemic of '61 on Shallock. Had a real light case o' the thing, or I wouldn't be here to tell about it. Believe me, you don't want it."
"But the inoculations should keep us from having an epidemic, won't they?" the man asked, anxiously. "I was on the Maui three days ago. They reported the outbreak day before yesterday."
"If you'd been exposed, you'd have it by now," Mark told him out of the fullness of personal experience. "Incubation period of seven hours from exposure to rash. Quit worryin'. But try'n get vaccinated in the next couple o' days. The immunity lasts six months, but that'll be plenty." He reflected that all that stuff about fire itch that he'd read in the ship hadn't been useless, after all. He was coming across as very knowledgeable on the subject. His experience at the age of ten with five miserable days of fire itch, helped, too.
The man looked relieved. "Thanks, Doc. Go on through."
The ocean-going sled really looked, at least superficially, like an enormous bobsled. Long and low-slung, the water sleds skimmed swiftly and gracefully over the oceans of their water world, but their construction wasn't simply a matter of artistic design. The sleds were a very necessary adaptation to New Hawaii. The planet boasted violent tropical storms that made aircar travel extremely hazardous, for the storms often blew up suddenly and unexpectedly, while the hapless aircar travelers were too far from an island for safety. Before the introduction of the sleds, there had been plenty of missing people who vanished without a trace, victims of a killer storm.
The sled waiting for them floated, bobbing lightly on the aquamarine water. There appeared to be no sign of life as they approached and the gangplank wasn't down. Linley wondered briefly how they were supposed to get aboard, but as they reached the end of the pier, a man appeared as if by magic and a gangplank extended from the sled toward them. A moment later, it paused at their feet. Mark gestured Alan and Lyn ahead of him.
The man was waiting for them as they stepped onto the sled and the gangplank drew in silently behind them. He smiled, brightly. "Doctors Langley, Westley and Paul? I'm your pilot; follow me, please. You got the whole sled to yourselves."
They followed him down a carpeted flight of stairs, each gripping the varnished safety rail. The carpet was thick and expensive, Mark noted, and the furnishings of the passenger cabin they entered were the same.
It was obviously a recreational room of some sort. A videoreceiver on one wall, higher than Mark's head, was turned on, the sound muted, showing an advertisement for some sort of tropical drink. A pool table graced one side of the room and facilities for other games stood here and there. To his left was a lavish bar, now untended. The walls were decorated with tropical and ocean scenes.
Mark whistled softly. "Classy," he remarked.
"Not exactly like Shallock, eh?" The pilot chuckled. "Ben Stokely, pilot of the 'Bird of Paradise' -- part of the Maui's fleet of sleds." He thrust out a hand.
Linley shook hands. The grip was distinctive. It wasn't totally unexpected, however. Ben Stokely was a member of the Terran Underground.
He returned the grip. Stokely turned and repeated the gesture with Alan and Lyn. Recognition signals exchanged, the man waved them to seats.
"I've got some preliminary information for you," he said, briefly. "The situation is as follows on the Maui. They're jamming all messages going out -- claiming sunspots, I believe. No one is currently allowed to leave the island, nor do they know they're relatively close to an island chain. Colonel Blake has also temporarily closed down the departing sleds. The excuse is unstable weather conditions that could create a killer storm at any time. That was the easy part."
"So, no messages or tourists in or out," Alan said. "Do you know why, Mr.--Uh..."
"Lieutenant Stokely, sir. I only know the bare facts. Colonel Blake and Colonel Kambuku will give you the details. There's been an attempted murder at the conference."
Linley stared at the pilot in mild shock. Attempted murder!
"Murder?" Lyn sounded as astonished as he.
"Attempted, Colonel." Stokely obviously knew who she was. "I don't know the details. They'll tell you all about it at the Lanai Hotel, I guess. In the meantime, make yourselves comfortable. Enjoy the place. It's an hour's trip by sled to the Maui."
When the pilot had gone, they stared at each other in astonishment. A murder attempt at the conference could mean anything, but it certainly suggested plenty, too. If it was one of their own people ... Mark broke off the thought. Too many different possibilities. It could be anything from a personal feud to a security leak, but with all the different people, the solution wasn't going to be easy.
Of course, if Alan could just read everybody's minds ...
No, it couldn't be as easy as that, he knew. The Island's Security force must have at least one telepath on it. If it were a simple matter of reading minds, they'd have the answer already.
Alan hadn't said a word. Mark knew his partner well enough to know he was undoubtedly thinking a great deal, but if Alan had learned anything well in their years together, it was discretion. He wouldn't talk until he had learned more.
The trip to the Maui took slightly under an hour, by Linley's reckoning. They were standing on deck as the fabled floating city appeared over the horizon and drew slowly closer.
The term "city" was actually a misnomer. Certainly there were buildings; the Maui was for tourists, after all, but what met the eye of approaching visitors was the fact that the city seemed to climb the sides of a massive volcano.
Modeled after Diamond Head on distant Terra, the structure was impressive. The sides were swathed in lush, tropical foliage. Trees and greenery grew throughout the city and, slanting down from the outermost buildings toward the sea, lay beaches of white, gleaming sand. Linley had been to the Maui once or twice on business, but he always felt a small tug of incredulity every time he viewed it from a distance, at the thought that the whole island, volcano and all, was a piece of human engineering; a giant ship that unceasingly sailed the worldwide ocean of New Hawaii, and was home to a stable population of a hundred thousand persons and uncounted tourists.
The city drew nearer. Perhaps two kilometers from the dock, their sled drew to a stop and lay, bobbing in the water, her engines barely turning over to hold them in place. After a few moments, Stokely appeared.
"This is as far as I go," he informed them. "You take the skiff from here." He hesitated, then sketched a salute. "Good luck."
Alan flashed him a smile. "Thanks."
The little skiff was barely twenty meters from the sled when the great vessel began to move away, slowly at first but accelerating rapidly. They looked after it for a moment, then turned to look at the city, now awash in the red and gold colors of sunset. The sun lay a little to its left, at true west, only about a third of its disk showing above the horizon. To the south, black thunderheads were massing.
Mark cast a glance at them. "Looks like we might be in for a storm."
"Could be," Alan said. "Wouldn't be exactly uncommon here."
The little skiff, Alan at the tiller, moved smoothly toward the pier extending outward from the shoreline. Linley had no idea how such an engineering feat was managed, and didn't waste time wondering. Alan cut the engine and they floated to a neat stop by the dock. Linley jumped to the pier, caught the rope that Alan threw him, secured it and extended a hand to Lyn.
A rattle of footsteps on the wooden planks sounded behind him as he lifted Lyn effortlessly onto the pier. Alan jumped up beside him, just as Linley was nearly run down by a portly individual in a dark business suit, who brushed past him without even slowing down.
"Wait!" he shouted after the departing sled, already on its way back toward the Kauai Archipelago. "Stop!"
Lyn and Alan leaped aside, but the man's bulk caught Lyn and sent her staggering sideways. Alan grabbed her elbow, just in time to save her from an unexpected bath. The portly man paid no attention to them, but leaped into the motorboat, almost overturning it, and began to undo the rope with frantic haste.
"Hey!" Linley jumped back into the boat and caught his arm. He had no idea what all this was about, but the Maui was under quarantine until he and the other two straightened out whatever the problem was. This guy couldn't be allowed to leave.
Two men in uniform were charging down the pier toward them. Linley's prisoner yanked, trying to break free and the boat lurched dangerously. Mark clutched the seat, trying to keep a grip on the fellow, and dodged a clumsy punch. The boat rocked dangerously to port. Linley compensated instinctively. The other man flung himself frantically sideways. Propelled by both their weights, the boat tilted far to starboard, hesitated for an instant, and capsized. The water closed over Linley's head.
Mark surfaced at once, spat out ocean and seized the handle of his suitcase, which was bobbing beside him in the water. Alan's bag and Lyn's floated nearby. The cause of the accident floundered and thrashed about wildly, no more than a meter from him, and it took no extraordinary perception to realize that the man could not swim. Mark pushed his bag disgustedly at the other.
"Here, grab on," he commanded.
The floundering man did so. Mark kicked himself over to the other floating luggage and retrieved it. The motorboat floated upside down, a few meters away.
Alan was kneeling, reaching for him. Linley shoved one of the bags at him.
By now, the two uniformed men -- security guards, Linley realized -- had reached them and were hauling the portly individual back to the dock. A couple of dock workers wearing coveralls marked with the logo of the Maui Corporation, now arrived and in a few moments, Linley and the dripping baggage were standing on a solid surface once more.
The portly individual was anything but grateful.
"You fools!" he cried, despairingly. "You don't understand! I *must* get off the island! If I don't attend my quarterly business meeting, I stand to lose a million credits!"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Fiske." The security man's voice was expressionless. "You know all the sleds are grounded."
Mark glanced after the departing sled, now no more than a speck on the horizon. Mr. Fiske swore again and pulled himself free of the security men. He stomped furiously back up the pier, fragmentary sentences including such words as "lawsuit" and "lawyers" drifting back to the party by the motorboat. Mark wrung out the tail of his shirt.
"Whew!" Alan said. "That's one upset guy! Are you okay, Mark?"
Linley grunted and pulled off a shoe, pouring a little stream of water onto the pier. Lyn giggled.
"He wasn't much of a gentleman, was he?"
"Oh well," Alan said, peaceably, "if he loses a million credits, I expect he'll be punished enough." He laughed, suddenly. "Enter the heroes, dripping."
The security guard nearest him snorted. "You're the VIPs they're expecting at the Lanai?" he asked.
Alan nodded. "Westley, Langley and Paul."
The man's eyes rested on his face for several seconds and widened slightly. His gaze shifted to Mark, then he grinned and sketched the slightest of salutes. "Whatever you say, sir. They didn't tell us which Team was coming -- just to watch for Westley, Langley and Paul. Your car's waiting for you." He cleared his throat. "Uh, sir...?"
Alan paused. "Yes?"
"My name's John Winston. You don't know me, but my kid sister was one of the psychics on that Jil ship a few years back -- one of the kids they picked up on Bellian. You and your partner saved her life."
Linley glanced sharply at the man. Winston was perhaps twenty, tall, blond, blue-eyed and looked as if he worked out with weights. It seemed oddly incongruous for him to be trying diffidently to express his thanks to a slender little man a head shorter, but his respect, bordering on awe, was palpable.
"We never got a chance to say thanks," Winston continued. "I owe you one -- both of you. If I can ever be of help --" His voice trailed off.
Alan had turned a little pink, but he replied with perfect grace. "Thanks, John. I'll remember." He started to pick up his suitcase.
Winston forestalled him, hefting both his and Lyn's. The other guard, a tall, thin, befreckled redhead of about nineteen, Linley judged, hastened to grab Mark's. He hadn't said anything, but his blue eyes were wide. Naturally, Linley realized, as he followed them along the pier, the island's security force -- or some of them, anyway -- would be members of the Terran Underground. The Morell Corporation, of which the Maui Corporation was a subsidiary, had many employees who were not, but the ones in the sensitive positions always were.
As a matter of fact, this operation would be one of the few they'd been involved in where they had the cooperation of the local authorities. Quite a refreshing change, he reflected, dryly. The Morell Corporation was run by the Terran Underground, which gave their agents the perfect cover to move about the Jilectan Autonomy on business for the huge trading conglomerate.
A limousine, sleek and black, with darkened windows, was drawn up before the dock. The driver's door opened as they approached and a tall, slim Asian man in a chauffeur's uniform, stepped out. John Winston set down their bags and approached the man.
"The people expected by the Lanai are here." He indicated their group. "Westley, Langley and Paul."
The chauffeur looked them over. His eyebrows rose at the sight of Linley's clothing. The security man smiled. "Mr. --uh--"
"Langley," Mark supplied.
"Mr. Langley was pushed into the water by a man trying to grab his boat. Better get him to his hotel where he can dry off before he catches his death." He turned to Alan, again. "Goodbye, sir -- and good luck."
"Thanks, John." Alan smiled at the young man, then turned to the chauffeur. The man's face was expressionless and correct. He might not have heard Winston's explanation.
"Step in sirs --ma'am. You're expected." He opened the rear door of the limousine as he spoke.
Linley stood back with Alan to allow Lyn to enter first. She did so, followed by Alan, then Mark. The chauffeur closed the door behind them.
There were two persons already in the car. One was a lean, muscular black man whose height could not be concealed by his sitting position. He was clad in an obviously expensive, understated business suit. His finely tailored jacket was a deep maroon in color and the slacks were of the same hue, the pantlegs snug to the knee, then flaring outward. Maroon colored boots that probably cost a month's salary for most wage earners, completed the ensemble.
The other person in the car was an attractive woman, also black. Linley recalled from his briefing that New Hawaii's population was almost 70% Black, Hispanic and Asian, due to its tropical nature. The woman, in contrast with her companion, was tiny, not much larger than Lyn. She wore a trim, yellow pantsuit and sat primly in one corner of the limousine. Was it his imagination, or did her expression relax slightly at the sight of Alan?
The man smiled at them, a flash of white teeth in his ebony face. Linley thought he had rarely seen a more impressive individual. In spite of the expensive clothing, he looked as if he could handle himself in just about any situation. Those shoulders in the snug jacket hadn't been developed in m'lady's drawing room, that was for certain.
"General Westover, Colonel Linley and ...?"
"My wife and psychic partner," Alan filled in, quickly. "Colonel Lyn Westover."
"My pleasure, Colonel Westover." He added, "I am Jared Kambuku, the Assistant Chairman of the board of the Maui Corporation, at your service. This is Colonel Wanda Blake, the Security officer for the Bi-annual Conference at the Lanai." He added, as if in afterthought, "Colonel Blake is ordinarily the Assistant to the Chief of the Homicide Division, here on the Maui."
There it was again; a Terran Underground member in a sensitive position in the Maui Corporation, Linley thought. All the high officials here would be their people. If they couldn't solve this problem with the whole-hearted cooperation of everybody, they were in trouble.
The chauffeur finished stowing their luggage in the trunk and got behind the controls. Colonel Kambuku touched a button and a security screen slid down between the front seat and the rear, enclosing them in a little private room.
"We can talk now, he told them. "We're relieved you're here, General Westover. We have a big problem."
"So the pilot of the sled told us," Alan said. He frowned. "Kambuku. I know a Henry Kambuku. He's a psychic on Nova Luna. Any relation?"
"My son," Kambuku said. "The Terran Underground pulled him out of a public execution several years ago. That's why I'm here. I was a pretty successful businessman before. The Underground was able to use my talents on the Maui."
"The Underground never wastes good men," Alan said. "Tell us about the situation."
The limousine moved forward with ponderous grace. Mark hardly noticed, for Colonel Blake had begun to speak.
**********
(tbc)
