A Woman's Touch: 3/?
by Nancy Smith and Linda Garrick
3
The city of New London was surrounded by numerous little farms that slowly thinned out to wild country. The next nearest town, New Brunswick, was nearly two thousand kilometers away and was home to less than four thousand people. New Winchester, on the west coast, was farthest away and next largest to New London with ten thousand inhabitants. There were also a number of small villages across the continent with fewer than two thousand occupants apiece. The other six continents of the planet were uninhabited.
Angela found no difficulty in avoiding centers of civilization as she brought the skippership closer to New London. She had to constantly remind herself that this was a standard skippership: no souped up engines, no firepower, no extraordinary maneuverability -- none of the enhancements that she had come to regard as standard. The ship that she and Kevin had come in was docked at the New London Spaceport under Terran registry.
When she had worked the skippership in as close to the town as she dared, she settled the ship into a nearly dry riverbed and cut the engines.
"Now what?" Sue asked.
"Now we go in the rest of the way in the aircar." Angela unstrapped her webbing and stood up. "Want to help me smear up the license plates?"
Shortly, the license plates were well coated with mud, and the sides and trim were also generously bespattered. It should suffice, Angela thought, until they were able to acquire new plates. They headed for New London, meticulously obeying all the traffic laws. As they neared the areas of heavier population, they began to encounter traffic. Horses and carts ground their way across rutted mud tracks, disdained by the lordly air vehicles, but the sight didn't surprise Angela. On a frontier world, where farms were often built in areas of no power, live animals required no special fuel outside of the native vegetation in order to run.
As they drew closer to the city, the ratio of ground cars and air vehicles to horse-drawn carts began to increase. Angela flew carefully, doing nothing to draw attention to the car. It was late afternoon.
Angela glanced at her chronometer, now set for New Devonshire time. It was about two-thirty; about four hours until sunset. New Devonshire's day was only twenty-two hours and some odd minutes, Terran time. The inhabitants of the planet, accustomed to a twenty-four hour cycle had adjusted by making their hours correspondingly shorter and thus giving their world a "twenty-four hour" day. Angela found it confusing. Now, she pulled the car into a parking space and considered.
The best move that she could make at the moment was to let her contacts know that she was all right, and obtain what help she could from them. The nearest thing to an Underground station here was the home of Winston and Maria Holt, two blocks away, so that was their first stop. She pushed open the door.
"Come on, Sue."
"Where are we going?"
"To the new Underground station here. It isn't a real going concern yet, but we can get *some* help. Besides, I have to let them know I'm all right."
"Okay." Sue climbed out behind her and pulled her jacket more closely about her. "Brr!"
Angela hardly noticed the wind. She hurried down the street toward the Holt apartment, Sue trotting along beside her. They reached the building within a few minutes, and Angela led the way down a corridor and paused at a door. Deliberately, she knocked three times, then twice more in quick succession. The door slid open at once, revealing a young man with crisp black hair and dark eyes. "Yes?"
Angela knew he recognized her, and she could feel the relief emanating from his mind at the sight of her, but of course he could give no sign of recognition because of Sue's presence.
"It's all right," she said at once, entering the apartment as she spoke, and pulling Sue after her. "Close the door."
Winston Holt did, and turned quickly. "Thank heavens you're safe, Captain! We were worried."
Angela acknowledged the greeting with a faint smile. "We're all right, Lieutenant. This is Susannah Perkins. She's a psychic, and was the other hostage. I take it you heard about it."
"The news came in on the video about two hours ago," Holt said. "I notified the Nova Luna Base immediately. Luckily, Colonel Westover and Colonel Linley were in Dak on Wikrell. The station there notified them, since Colonel Westover is also Major Bronson's partner. They'll be here in about seven hours with a medical team. I was supposed to try to stall things until then. Now that you're here, it will be a lot easier," he added, with visible relief.
"I hope so," Angela said, a little grimly. "Better let the base know I'm all right. Oh, and I've got the aircar the police gave the bank robbers to get away in."
Holt looked curious. "I should have known you'd get away somehow. What happened to them?"
"Two are dead," Angela said. "The other two are on a deserted island, not far from the Antarctic circle. I hope they enjoy themselves. Now," she said, changing the subject abruptly, "I've been thinking about Kevin. I have a sort-of idea."
"Pardon me, Captain," Holt said, "but why don't you sit down a minute and have a cup of coffee and something to eat?"
"But I don't ..."
"Angie," Sue said, "he's right. You need to relax and pull yourself together before you come apart. Come on."
Holt smiled. "Just for a few minutes, Captain. I'll go take care of the car -- switch the plates and maybe change the trim a little bit. You relax for a minute. I'll be right back."
Angela nodded reluctantly, realizing that he was right. She was shaking, her hands trembling with reaction. Silently, she handed him the keys. "It's parked over on Green. The one with the mud on the plates."
He nodded and disappeared out the door. Angela went into the living room, followed by Sue, and sank down on the sofa. A moment later, Maria Holt entered, two steaming cups of coffee on a tray before her.
"Here, Captain." She set the tray on the coffee table and handed Angie one of the mugs. "Relax a minute. We're glad you're back safe and sound." She glanced at Sue. "And you too, Miss Perkins. Coffee?"
"Thank you." Sue took the mug and picked up a cookie from the plate on the tray. The woman sat down beside Angela and put an arm around her.
"Captain, are you all right?"
"How bad is he hurt?" Angela kept her voice low to conceal the tremor in it. "Do you know?"
Maria Holt shook her head. "The last we heard, he was in surgery, honey, but they thought he'd make it. Just keep your fingers crossed. He's a pretty tough fellow, you know."
Angela nodded, trying to blink back her tears. Sure, Kevin was tough physically, but he was surprisingly easy to hurt by someone he cared about, especially her. And she'd hurt him with her lack of trust -- but then, when she had needed him, he'd come unhesitatingly and perhaps gotten himself killed trying to help her ...
Sue touched her arm. "Stop it."
Angela jumped and glanced quickly at the black girl. "What?"
"You know what. Stop punishing yourself. It's obvious what happened, at least to me. You had a fight and now you're blaming yourself. It doesn't do any good, so stop it. Let's just figure out a way to get him out, now."
Maria's eyebrows went up. "A psychic, Captain?"
"Yes." Angela gulped and took a sip of coffee. She turned to Sue. "You're right, of course, and I *have* been thinking of what to do."
Maria straightened up. "What have you got in mind?"
Angela set down her mug. "The Jils are sending a battlecruiser -- the 'Orion' -- to transport him back to Corala. If they get him on board it, it's going to be a lot harder to rescue him, so the best chance will be while he's still here on New Devonshire. The first thing we have to do is make sure they can't transport him out of the hospital ..."
Three and a half hours later, a small, light green aircar with black trim drew up in a narrow alley behind the New London Central Hospital.
4
New London Central Hospital was the largest medical center on the planet. It consisted of three stories and four hundred beds, and included an underground parking lot for the ambulances, a three-story parking tier for hospital employees and patients, and an outpatient department next door.
Angela and her companions had been very busy in the last hours, making preparations for the arrival of the "Orion", under the command of Strike Commander Fong Lee, and Sprinthvar, the ship's resident Jil.
Angela had spent a certain amount of time researching Lord Sprinthvar. He was a young Jil who had not yet achieved full maturity, blond, blue-eyed, just over two meters in height. The "Orion" was his first assignment, unusual for so young a Jilectan. His prestigious position, however, was explained when Angela looked up his family tree. He was the son of Lord Revalthvor, younger brother of Revolthvor, and of Lady Tranthzill, one of His Highness Lord Halthzor's twenty full-blood sisters.
That was a stroke of good fortune, to say the least. Sprinthvar was the nephew of the Viceroy himself! That made the likelihood of success much higher.
One of the things she and Kevin had been involved in for the last two weeks was helping Winston Holt to set up his operations computer and to tie it undetectably into the Planetary Central Computer. Holt was the computer expert; their job had been that of entering supposedly secure establishments, and other cloak and dagger work. Now, at Angela's request, Holt had inserted into the personnel file of New London Central Hospital the information that one Wilma Purcell was a cleaning woman employed by the establishment; then he had acquired several videophone numbers for her. While he was engaged in this, Marie Holt and Sue made a number of unusual purchases. Finally, Winston Holt manufactured Angela an ID card.
Angela opened the car door and got out, smoothing her grey uniform with one hand. "All right; here I go. Wait here for my signal."
"All right." Sue slid behind the wheel. "Good luck."
"Thanks. I hope I don't have to depend much on luck, though." Angela ran a hand nervously over her hair, patting the dark, unruly curls into place, and turned to walk briskly toward the cleaning staff's entrance.
A familiar figure in a black and scarlet uniform, topped by the silver dome of a helmet, lounged at the door. The red of the setting sun reflected off the mirrored surface and gleamed slickly on his dark visor. A Viceregal patrolman -- doubtless one of the men brought in from the Patrol base on New Wilshire's moon to be certain that the Terran Underground didn't get near Kevin Bronson until Sprinthvar arrived.
Angela's heart stepped up its beat a little. Patrolmen frightened her. Her first encounter with them had been extremely unpleasant, but she had saved herself then, with Kevin's help, and now, as a trained psychic, she should be able to do much better -- especially with her own unusual psychic powers. For Angela Westover, cousin of the infamous Jil Killer, Alan Westover, had a power that her formidable cousin did not have. Angela was an illusionist -- a quality that was fairly uncommon among Terran psychics, and completely nonexistent among Jilectans.
She hobbled toward the entrance, projecting the illusion that she had selected for the benefit of the guard: that of a small, grey-haired woman.
It must be working, she thought a moment later, for the guard glanced at her without interest, and she read boredom in his emotional output. In his mind, she saw her own projected image.
"Your identification, ma'am," the man said, sounding as bored as he looked.
Angela fished in her handbag and produced the ID card provided by Winston Holt.
"Wilma Purcell, sonny," she wheezed. "What's all the to do?"
The guard examined the card. "We got an injured prisoner in the Critical Care unit, ma'am," he told her in heavily accented English. "Security'll be everywhere. Why're you late, anyway?"
"Dental appointment." Angela's image grinned, displaying a row of teeth with a missing front tooth. "Dentist couldn't get me in any other time."
"Okay, ma'am." The patrolman slipped her card into the identostamp machine, handed it back and waved her through. Angela entered the hospital.
Once inside, she headed directly for the elevator and ascended to the second level. Disembarking, she glanced around, recalling the floor plan supplied by Winston Holt. She turned left and worked her way toward the rear of the hospital where the doctors' offices were located.
It wasn't difficult to find the one that overlooked the spot where she had left Sue and the aircar. Silently, she unlocked the door with her telekinetic power, and entered the office.
Carefully, she shut and locked the door behind her. One level above her, she knew, Kevin was still in emergency surgery and fighting for his life. She mustn't think of that right now, however. His life depended on what she did in the next hours, and she couldn't afford to make a mistake.
Meticulously, she adjusted her blaster to needle beam and very carefully cut a huge circle of thick glass from the window overlooking the alley. Very gently, she set it flat on the floor beside her. No doubt the unfortunate owner of the office would be appalled tomorrow morning, but that was just too bad. It was amazing, the changes that could take place in a person in less than two years, she thought. Back when Alan, Mark and Kevin had rescued her family, she would never have dreamed of invading someone's office for the purpose of committing an illegal act. Now it was merely a necessary part of her plan -- something that she had to do to rescue her partner. And if she did get him free, she told herself furiously, she would treat him differently. Sometimes the important things in life got lost in the day to day living. If she failed ... well, the first thing she would do would be to return to that frigid island and roast those two characters that had gotten him into this, and then ...
Quickly, she broke off the thought. She couldn't afford to fail. She had to succeed, because how could she possibly live without Kevin in her life?
She leaned out the window, seeing below her the dim outline of the aircar, where Sue waited for her. She whistled softly.
The door of the aircar opened and Sue emerged, a coil of rope looped over one arm. She lifted a hand, then grasped the rope and tossed it upward.
Angela caught it on the fourth try. She hauled up a good thirty feet of rope and dragged it across the office to secure it tightly to the leg of a heavy desk. A moment later, she was over the windowsill and sliding down the length to join Sue.
Her companion had already removed their purchases from the trunk of the car. Angela helped her spread out a large fish net across the pavement. It was a net made of strong synthafiber, used by local fishermen to capture a large, strong native fish. She checked the fastenings, then tied the bag containing the rest of her equipment to the end of the rope. A few moments later, once more in the doctor's office, she pulled the bag up and emptied it on the floor, beginning to sort the items that she needed in order.
When she again glanced at her chronometer, the sky outside had lost the last trace of twilight and the stars were appearing in the patch visible to her beyond the window, dimmed somewhat by the town's lights. The face of her chronometer glowed softly in the dimness, informing her that she was right on schedule. If the Orion was, too, then it had landed at the spaceport ten minutes ago. Strike Commander Fong -- and Lord Sprinthvar -- would be here very soon.
Carefully, she leaned out the window and flashed her tiny handlight twice and then three times more. A moment later, she heard the door of the car open and close, and then the sound of the aircar's engine, but she didn't wait to see it pull away. Sue would now take the car out onto the main street, half a block down, and wait in a nice, inconspicuous spot for Angela's signal. The trap was set. It was up to Angela alone to bait it.
There was no point in thinking about what she must do. Dwelling over it would only make her nervous, and there was so little time. She turned and left the office, locking the door behind her.
There was no one in sight in the hallway, but faintly in the distance, she detected the mind of a Jilectan. Lord Sprinthvar was on his way.
She went quickly down the corridor to the elevator and instructed it to take her to the hospital lobby. A Viceregal Patrolman was standing against the back wall as she entered, and she could feel him watching her from behind the dark visor.
"Hey baby," he said. "Goin' off or comin' on?"
His Shallockian accent, so like Kevin's, made her want to burst into tears. She swallowed hard and gave him a watery smile. "Coming on, Patrolman."
The man flipped up his visor and winked at her. "Maybe I'll see you when you're headin' the other way, huh?"
Angela swallowed again. "Maybe."
The elevator came to a halt and she disembarked into the lobby. The presence of the Jilectan was very evident now, and approaching rapidly. For an instant, Angela knew a burst of panic. It was impossible! How could she, a small Terran female, hope to deceive one of the powerful aliens?
Because she *had* to. Kevin's life depended on it. The thought stiffened her spine with a surge of determination. She had heard of the phenomenon that seemed to be happening to her, now -- this irresistible need to save her partner no matter what the cost. A psychic defending his or her partner operated in a different mode, or so she had been told, almost like a force of nature, willing to do anything and everything, up to and including the sacrifice of his own life to save the other half of himself. Patrolmen hated to go up against a psychic with a partner to defend, she knew, because there was nothing more dangerous. Her gentle and compassionate cousin had fought like a demon to rescue Mark Linley from the hands of the Patrol, and against all odds had succeeded. During that episode, Alan had cemented his fearsome reputation in the minds of the Patrol from one end of the Sector to the other. Angela was beginning, finally, to understand how it had happened.
The Jilectans thought of themselves almost as gods, and that was their great weakness. This Jil was unlikely to expect trouble from Kevin's psychic partner, because the opposition didn't realize that he had one. Few Jils were likely to notice a Terran psychic unless they were actively scanning for one, and Sprinthvar wouldn't be scanning; at least not yet. His mind was going to be on something else entirely.
The main hospital corridor branched off to one side of the large, brightly-lighted room. Angela crossed to the hallway and found a spot against one wall where she could see anyone who entered through the main doors. The Jilectan's psychic aura was much stronger now. He might sense her, and if he did, he would certainly be able to pinpoint her location before she could get away. Still, it was the only chance she had to save Kevin, and if she gave M'lord something else to keep his attention, he might be somewhat less alert.
She withdrew a pack of cigarettes from her pocket. One puff should do the trick ...
**********
tbc
