Rawn wandered along a deserted street, glancing into gloomy corners, his hand never far from his weapon. Since his encounter with the slavers, he had increased his vigilance. He no longer allowed his constant worry about Rayne's welfare to distract him, although it nibbled at his mind like a rat gnawing in the ceiling. Hunger gnawed at him too. He had not eaten since this morning, when his food had run out. He stopped for water at a tap in a building, then walked on until dark, when he found a safe place and built a fire.
As the night chill settled through the air, he went to a nearby drapery and searched amongst the rubbish and dust for blankets and curtains. Returning to his fire, he settled down for the night.
Rayne built a fire, but her leather jacket could not cope with the bitter cold. Although she huddled over it, her back remained cold while her front cooked. Her supply of combustible material dwindled rapidly, for cardboard burnt quickly and wood was in short supply. Curling into a ball, she strived to conserve her warmth as the fire died. Her stomach rumbled, and she longed for her brother's comforting warmth. She clenched her teeth to stop them chattering, but her shivers grew more violent as the night air cooled. Nevertheless, she closed her eyes and tried to sleep.
Every little noise woke her from her uneasy doze, mostly rats scuttling in the garbage, and she knew she would have a restless night.
Tallyn stood in the gloom at the back of the ship's bridge and watched the girl with growing concern. The officer who monitored the surface conditions informed him that the temperature approached freezing point, since the thick clouds dispersed at dusk to release the heat trapped under them. This planet's peculiar weather grew stranger every day, and the changing atmospheric conditions led to some pretty weird aberrations, such as hail storms on a warm day or heat waves on a cold one.
The girl suffered from the cold, and he considered the various ways in which he might help her. He could transfer a blanket down to her, but, with her suspicious nature, she would probably not use it. The same would apply to a heating unit, so the only real option was to bring her aboard. As yet, he had not informed anyone that she was their target, but the surveillance and concern for her welfare should have made that obvious by now. He glanced at Marcon, who stood nearby, an ear cocked for orders.
"Deploy the transfer Net. Put her into the quarantine section under deep sleep inducement."
Marcon nodded and took his station to send orders to the various crew members who would be required to perform their particular function. Crystals twinkled in the gloom as the locator beam was sent out. Using the spy-cam as a guide, the particle beam locked onto its living cargo and sent back her precise location. The Net deployed next, surrounding the girl in a nimbus of golden light as it coalesced into a shell of pure energy.
The transfer Net's technology had always fascinated Tallyn, although its use was limited by the amount of power it devoured when the ship was not linked to the energy dimension, like now. This single transfer would use enough power to run the star ship for a month. The transfer Net worked in a similar fashion to the way in which the ship moved through space, but its ability to work at a distance complicated it. The ovoid of energy, once formed into a tangible shell, changed the frequency of its wave form, and by doing so, side slipped through time and space.
Essentially, the shell transferred itself into a dimension of pure energy, where distance, matter and time did not exist. Without these laws, all that remained was to force the energy shell to re-emerge at a predetermined point, in this case, the ship's hospital. To do this, the programmed instructions of the initial beam forced the shell to change its wave form again, whereupon the energy dimension ejected it, and it emerged at the time and place contained in its original instructions. Within the energy shell, the cargo, even when awake, was unaware of anything other than the golden glow, followed by a change of venue.
Many scientists had argued against the Net's safety, challenging its inventors to prove that living cargo could not be destroyed, should the shell break down in the energy dimension. The ensuing experiments had gone on for years, but the closest anyone had come to losing a cargo was a small animal that vanished into the energy dimension for seven years, but re-emerged unharmed at its point of origin. This had caused serious consternation, since the laboratory had, in the meantime, been torn down, and the Net had returned in an office block.
The animal, when caught, had proven to be in excellent health, since no time had passed for it. After that, the Net was deemed to be safe, although by then it had already been in use for several years. Essentially, the conclusion was that the shell could not break down in the energy dimension simply because it was kept intact by the one thing that abounded there. Energy. The beast's loss had been due only to its sender failing to encode any return instructions into the initial beam, and even then it had eventually returned, unharmed.
The wave form of the Net changed, and the shell and its cargo vanished from the spy-cam’s screen. The spy-cam, confused, spun as it searched for its target, but a new set of instructions halted its frantic revolutions.
Tallyn left the bridge and walked along the corridors that led to the ship's hospital, his feet silent on the thick moss carpet. Going over to the shimmering stress field that surrounded the bed where she lay, he gazed down at her. The doctor, clad in a sealed suit, tended the wounds in her legs. He glanced up and waved before returning to his work.
Tallyn studied the girl, his conviction that she was his quarry growing stronger. Her perfection cried out for notice, almost impossible in the revolting atmosphere in which she lived. Her skin had no sun blemishes at all, which, even if she had lived all her life in a cave, was amazing. His hair stood up as he moved closer to the stress screen, and he stepped back, unwilling to be touched by its unpleasant aura.
The screen, unlike the Net, used hardly any energy at all, but created a barrier by changing the polarity of the air molecules in a series of alternating layers. This created a tangible barrier through which air could not circulate, for the stressed molecules were static, held in position by the field's slight energy. Its effect on flesh was startling and violent, deadly if a person tried to penetrate it. Fortunately, its hair-raising properties and the shimmer of its stressed particles were warning enough to keep most people away.
The agony it imparted upon entry would also enforce a speedy withdrawal. Stress screens were used in prison ships and bank vaults, and as yet, no one had found a way through one without a door stasis switch. The screen's effect on metal armour was even more dramatic than flesh, resulting in atomisation and the instant death of its occupant. An air-cleaning unit stood beside the girl's bed, providing her with fresh air. The doctor, his task finished, switched off a door in the screen and exited, approaching Tallyn.
"She's the one, isn't she? I would never have thought that such health could thrive in that putrid environment."
"Yes." Tallyn gazed at her, then turned to the doctor. "Keep her asleep until morning, then I'll have her returned."
The doctor looked perplexed. "Returned? But surely…?" He caught himself. "Yes, sir."
Rayne woke with a gasp, opened her eyes and sat up. All her senses tingled and her head spun from the speed of her movements before her metabolism had speeded up from its sleeping state. Her breath condensed before her face in the cold air, yet she was warm, the chill nipping at her fingers and nose. She had slept through the night, with no dreams or sudden awakenings caused by rats or other noises.
The dull throbbing ache in her legs was gone, and when she poked the wounds she found hard scabs where yesterday there had been bleeding sores. She was refreshed and invigorated, and a metallic taste lingered on her tongue. The peculiarities were alarming, yet harmless, and made her wonder afresh at the strong sensation of being watched. She glanced around at the dank, gloomy room in which she had spent the night, her gaze flitting over peeling walls and mildewed floor to come to rest on the ashes of her fire.
Hunger lived as a dull pain in her belly, and today she must find food. Dismissing the inexplicable oddities for the moment, she pulled her jacket closer and rose, going over to the door to peer out. Rain had fallen during the night, and she was surprised that she had slept through it, since rain was so dangerous, it usually woke her. Puddles in the road hissed as they ate into the tar, and acrid steam stung her nostrils. Leaving the room's safety, she walked down the deserted street, avoiding puddles. Finding a tap, she drank and washed her face, keeping a sharp lookout for danger. The only place she would find food was at an autocrat's store, and, although the prospect chilled her, hunger drove her on.
Rayne set off to find one, sprinting across roads and staying close to walls, where she could duck out of sight if necessary. Even vagrants were a threat to her now. Her only defence was to act like a raider, so they would think she was armed. She flitted through the city until she found a food store, but the number of guards patrolling its entrance dismayed her. The autocrat must have been raided recently, for there were four guards instead of the usual two.
Rayne considered finding a less well-guarded store, but the prospect of continuing her dangerous journey on an empty stomach did not appeal to her. Like most food stores, it was an old shop with all the doors save one bricked up. In the early days, raiders had used explosives to blow open food store doors, and some autocrats had given up repairing the damage. This store was one that possessed no doors, its owner having opted to use more guards instead.
This meant that raiders were sometimes killed, which pleased the autocrats. The rivalry between store guards and raiders had become something of a deadly game, which was why guards did not merely stand outside the doors, or wait inside in ambush. To even the odds, they patrolled in front of the store, giving raiders a chance to get in if they had the guts to try.
Watching them, she noticed that there was about a minute when both pairs had their backs to the door. This gave her a slim chance, but it was risky. If they caught her, they would give her to an autocrat, a prospect grim enough to make her hesitate. Then her stomach rumbled, reminding her of why she was there.
Rayne waited for the right moment, missing two before she plucked up enough courage to make her dash. Leaving the safety of the doorway, she sprinted across the road and ghosted through the door. She held her breath as she waited for the shouts and the pounding of feet that would tell her that she was now trapped. Her heart's hammering was the only sound in the vast, dilapidated room, however, and she turned to survey her surroundings.
Mountains of boxes were stacked against the walls, and she went to tear open the nearest cardboard lid and look inside. Plastic-wrapped food bars, nutritious but, in this case, tasteless. She gathered some, then looked in another box, finding tinned stuff, too heavy to carry. A third box yielded protein and vitamin pills, and she filled her pockets with these and more food bars of different flavours and nutritional values.
Once she had as much as she could carry, she returned to the door. It was dangerous to stay inside too long, since the guards sometimes checked for intruders. She peered out and jerked back. The guards faced the door, and she waited, then looked again just as they turned away.
With her heart lodged in her throat, she sprinted for the doorway she had hidden in earlier. Shouts rang out behind her, followed by the clatter of running feet, and she veered off. Clutching her stolen booty, she raced down the street, the guards pounding in pursuit. She lengthened her strides, her muscles stretching, her hair flying like a banner. For a while, she revelled in her speed, but all too soon the burning of fatigue invaded her legs. Sprinting required a great deal of effort, and was not something that she could sustain for too long, especially while carrying an armload of food.
Scarcely a block passed before the extra weight and her weakened condition took their toll. The guards kept up, their wild shots ricocheting off the walls on either side of her, alarmingly close. They did not seem to be aiming to kill, only to frighten her, for now. She dived into an alley, hoping to lose them in the shadows and garbage, but they were too close, and followed.
The men stopped firing and whooped with triumph as they closed with their quarry, certain of their success. Dropping the food, she sprinted again, intent only on escape. Her legs were lumps of burning lead and her lungs seemed to have shrunk. The guards gained, and she leapt over a pile of old cardboard and stumbled, sobbing with terror and exhaustion. The alley ended a few metres further on in a high wall. She slowed, her mind numb with horror, unwilling to look back at her triumphant pursuers.
A golden light appeared in the dingy alley ahead, forming a nimbus that brightened to blinding intensity, forcing her to squint and avert her eyes. She stumbled to a halt, panting. The light vanished, and a man, clad mostly in black, with a grey, knee-length coat, stood there. She gaped at him. Although he remained immobile, in this hostile place she could only assume he was an enemy. His appearance from the golden light made her wonder if he was another alien, or if the autocrats had discovered this odd mode of travel.
If he was an alien, Earth was becoming rife with them. His appearance did not change her situation, however. The guards would reach her momentarily. Letting her aching legs fold, she sank down gasping and waited for the guards' rough hands to drag her to her feet. Instead, the unmistakable hum of a laser bolt blazed over her, filling the alley with shimmering blue light. Shouts came from behind her, and she glanced back. Two guards lay still on the ground. Another brilliant beam crisped the air overhead, and a third man collapsed with a strangled cry. The last guard tried to aim his weapon as yet another vicious buzz and flash of blue light passed over her. He crumpled with a hoarse cough, and a tense silence fell.
Rayne stared at the sprawled bodies, hardly daring to breathe, then turned to face the man who had killed them. He stood there still, his grey coat flaring in the breeze that stirred scraps of paper and made them dance along the grimy tar. He holstered his laser, the soft click loud in the stillness.
Rayne stared at him with deep trepidation. If he came after her, she did not have the strength to run. He was too far away for her to make out any details, and the gloom made him little more than a shadow. His black clothes did not have the cheap shine of an autocrat's garments, nor did he act like a raider.
Considering the startling way in which he had arrived, she did not think he was either. His strange method of travel and odd inaction mystified her. She was usually good at sensing people's moods, but he appeared neither impatient nor hesitant; he seemed to merely study her. He glanced up, and she glimpsed the alien profile of what appeared to be a black mask, then golden light engulfed him, forcing her to avert her eyes. When she looked again, he had vanished.
Scrambling to her feet, she glanced around with deep suspicion, but only papers scuttled past in the breeze. She took a moment to recover from the shock while her heart slowed and her breathing became less painful, swallowing to ease her throat's dry rawness. Then she headed back up the alley and collected the guards' weapons before stepping over the bodies to pick up her food.
A few blocks away, she sat down to eat, glancing around with fearful, hunted eyes. These mysterious beings or people who appeared and vanished were becoming unnerving, and, even though they had helped her twice, she wished they would leave her alone. Perhaps they would when she found Rawn. When strength returned to her limbs, she set off once more in search of her brother, hoping she found him before hunger forced her to raid another food store.
Rawn woke shivering and crawled out of the musty blankets to sit in the sun's feeble warmth. He cursed the many abuses this cruel world heaped upon his head daily, adding one more to the list. Now he was not only hungry, dirty, cold and weary, but lonely as well. He watched a group of vagrants trying to catch a rat in the filth. The mutated rodents were the size of rabbits, but still slim pickings for four people. Three ragged, skinny men and a woman, brown with dirt, chased the rat with starved desperation. The woman gave a thin cackle of delight as she caught it, which turned into a squeal of pain when it bit her. She dropped it, and the men groaned in despair as it dived into a storm drain. One cuffed her, growling something unintelligible.
Rawn's lips twisted in disgust as he looked away. It turned his stomach to watch them. They were human, or at least they used to be; now they were worse than animals. Would he end up like them when the food stores emptied? The group shuffled off down the street, kicking the piles of rubbish heaped against the walls in search of another rat. A sudden urge to quit the city took hold of him, and he jumped up. He would go to the meeting place. Rayne was bound to go there eventually, if she was not already there, waiting for him. Either that or the autocrats had captured her, in which case he would never see her again. He set off at a run.
Rayne headed across the city, unsure of where she was going. As she walked through a building, a crash nearby made her jump and sprint out of the nearest door, where she collided with someone. She recoiled, preparing to flee, then recognised Rawn with a rush of relief and joy.
He shouted in delight and swept her into his arms, squeezing her until her ribs creaked. She gasped and pounded on his back until he held her away to study her.
"Thank God you're all right. I've been looking everywhere for you."
"Me too! What happened to you?"
Rawn laughed. "What happened to me? I went to the grove to meet you, but you never came! What happened to you?"
"I was attacked…" She broke off as Rawn glanced around. "Let's get out off the street, huh? We'll find a spot where we can talk. Do you have any food? I'm starved."
She gave him a food bar as they entered a building.
When the girl bumped into a man, it surprised Tallyn. The spy-cam, following her, did not spot the stranger until it exited the building behind her, by which time she was already enfolded in the man's arms. Tallyn opened his mouth to order his weapons' officer to protect her, then shut it when it became apparent that they knew each other, and she was pleased to meet him.
After the previous incident, when the officer assigned to watch her had been distracted and missed the store guards' chase, only returning to the screen in time to see her stepping over four corpses, Tallyn had taken to watching her himself. How she had killed the guards remained a mystery, for she did not have a weapon, as far as he knew. Yet she must have acquired one since her confrontation with the mutants. How else had she killed the men?
He studied the man and turned to his lieutenant. "Our girl's guardian? What do you think?"
Marcon nodded. "Looks like her brother, sir."
"Yes, he does, doesn't he? I wonder if he is."
Tallyn scrutinised the new man, who was another excellent specimen of humanity with no signs of disease, but most importantly, someone she knew. Now he knew that this was what he had been waiting for. All his instincts told him that now it was time to bring her aboard. He turned to Marcon.
"Deploy the transfer Net. Put them straight into the isolation cell in sick bay, full quarantine. Use a mild tranquilliser gas and start decontamination. We don't want to give them too many shocks at once."
Marcon nodded, signalling to a crewman, who touched the crystals on his console. The spy-cam’s screen went blank as the tiny floating camera was recalled, and moments later the main screen filled with an image from one of the ship's on-board cameras.
The energy shell's golden glow faded as the Net dispersed to reveal two confused humans in a pale room. They clung to each other with wide eyes, then relaxed as the tranquilliser gas took effect.
Tallyn glanced at Marcon. "We'll let them recover for a while, I think."
On his way to his quarters, he wondered how they would react to their translocation. The tranquilliser gas would calm the male's aggression, so his primitive projectile weapon did not pose a threat. Tallyn was more concerned that the transfer's shock would make the girl overwrought.