Nightmare Kingdom: A Romance of the Future (12 page)

Jamie ignored the protests of his over-worked body as he hurried after Claire, barely sensing that Isaiah was running to keep up with his longer stride.

She was over-reacting, that was evident, but he couldn’t much blame her. Both those little girls of hers might as while have targets painted on their slender forms. By their very existence they had broken the traditions of the Gare and there were probably lots of people who would like to see them captured or even killed.

He even
felt a little anxious about Charlie and David. The two Russell boys were daring to a fault. It was a wonder they’d survived to live this long.

When he got outside it was to find Claire staring up at the sky to the east where the cruiser Princess Adaeze was rising slowly into the air. “Wait! Come back,” she called. “You can’t do this.”

This was a disaster. He didn’t know if the kids were on board, but just losing the ship would be devastating. The possession of the imperial cruiser would have strengthened their resources immensely.

“We shouldn’t have trusted the crew,” Isaiah told him. “We should have left ou
r own guards.”

He’d rarely seen Claire at such a loss. She stood as though frozen, silent tears running down her face.

“It’s not the crew,” she finally said. “It’s Adaeze and Lillianne. The crew would obey whatever instructions they gave.”

Isaiah put his arm around her. “They aren’t rising to leave the atmosphere,” he pointed out. “They’re flying low, heading toward the mountains.”

“Terrainaine?” Jamie suggested.

He and Isaiah exchanged gazes.
“Do you think?” Isaiah stumbled over his question. “Is it possible? Charlie and David knew the boy who was taken and they were really upset over Alice. . .”

It would be just like the two of them to set off on their own rescue mission. They’d been furious at the lack of immediate adult response to the kidnapping.

“They’re only kids,” he argued, “and how could they persuade the princesses to go along with them.”

He watched as
Claire closed her eyes. “If Adaeze and Lillianne are with them it isn’t because anybody talked them into anything. Adaeze would be running the show.”

Search teams moved quickly across the town, reporting by radio back to the city hall. None of the four were
found and two other youngsters, both boys, could not be located.

Karen confirmed that those boys had been seated at the breakfast table
with Charlie and David.

“I’m sure the young ladies only wanted to show our boys how their ship works,” Kevin told the
relatives gathered in front of the central building. Booing calls came from the edge of the crowd.

“Maybe we should send out a rescue team,” Jamie suggested quietly.

Claire nodded vigorously. “Before they leave the planet, if they haven’t already taken off.”

“Surely your daughters wouldn’t leave you behind,” Kevin said in disbelief. He might have
been talking about kids who’d packed a knapsack and headed for the woods outside of town, Claire thought angrily.

“We need new leadership here,” she called in a loud voice that could be heard to the edge of the crowd. “Someone who will take action.” She tried to nudge Jamie forward, but he only scowled and grabbed his arm and she realized her elbow had hit in the area
near where he’d been injured. “Sorry,” she whispered.

“We now have eight children missing,” Isaiah said so quietly that only those closest heard his voice. “I volunteer to go on a search mission.”

“So do we,” announced Karen, lightly touching her husband’s hand.

Jamie nodded. Hurt or not he was ready to go. “Starting with Terrainaine and maybe the old castle.”

Claire didn’t have to ask what castle he was talking about. He meant the shiny metal castle out on an oasis in the plains on the other side of the city of Terrainaine, the seat of the Gare warlord who governed the planet they called Blood. It was where she and her friends had been held prisoners in the bad old days when they had been meant to become blood donors for the Gare.

“Now people, aren’t we jumping the gun a bit?” Kevin asked in his most condescending tone, turning to address the crowd rather than the parents of the missing children who were clustered closest to him.”

Mutterings arose and even a few shouts, but they weren’t scared to action yet. They’d been spoiled by years of peace, taken care of by the Gare like animals in a stockyard, and as long as their children weren’t taken, they wanted to keep on believing they were safe.

“We’ll do what we can, send a visiting party to Terrainaine to ask for assistance in locating the
runaways.”

“I’ll go,” Jamie volunteered quickly. “Mack and
I are the only ones who can fly and we need to get there as soon as possible.”

“I’m going,” Isaiah said in his usual calm voice, but his face was tortured. Jamie nodded. There would be room for only one more in the car.

“And me,” Karen said as though there would be no further argument about the passenger list.

Claire stamped on the taller woman’s foot. “Unless one of you thinks you can control a far speaking princess of the Gare, then you’d better make room for me.”

Nobody volunteered to allow her a place.

“Two princesses and a
crusier crew responsive only to a member of the imperial family,” Claire elaborated.

Mack piloted the little flyer through the tricky wind currents above the mountains and straight across the barren plain to the shining city of Terrainaine. He and Jamie had often traveled there before during their years as traders. In fact the aircar itself was the product of giving the city dwellers most of the excess fruits of a year’s crop.

When the Gare prepared the planet for habitation, they had extended most of their resources to making an
Eden-like habitation for their Earth imports, much, Jamie thought, as his grandfather back in Oklahoma always saw to it that his cattle had the best pastures and watering holes available.

For themselves they’d done little to the land, preferring to hide in tall, metallic, window-less cooled and heated buildings while the wind swept desert was shut outside. They did not depend on the land for sustenance. The Aremians who lived here had only one task, to see to the care and management of the Earth settlers. The rotating back to their home worlds as often as possible and brought in all necessities.

Midday lay across glittering buildings as they came into a landing near the middle of the city, the harsh sun brightening the unforgiving landscape to a glare. Claire hadn’t said much throughout the flight, but now she subsided into silence and Jamie guessed she was thinking back to that other time when she’d been brought here by flyer and lodged in the little transparent dwelling in the city’s downtown as a prisoner intended for the use of the Gare aristos.

They were accustomed these days to being ignored when they came to Terrainaine whether by flyer or in the little truck, but Jamie thought that preferabl
e to the days when they’d been cooed over and admired as though they were pretty pets brought into entertain the populace.

They weren’t so popular among the residents these days. The other worlds of the Aremians hadn’t learned this lesson yet, but here on Sanctuary it was becoming well known that the little pets could have quite a bite.

Before they became accepted as traders, New London raiders had paid frequent visits to the city, taking what they needed and couldn’t produce in their little town: medicine, weapons, supplies.

Their sting had been worse than their bite. Those stationed at Terrainaine had orders not to harm the youngsters from New London, but the youngsters had no such restrictions. They’d found a successful kind of guerrilla warfare, led by a newly fierce Jamie, angered by what had happened to him and Claire and the others on Aremia.

After a time, a kind of peace settled in, and instead of warfare they had begun to trade in goods. But now with the death of Mathiah the tenth, the old stability was gone.

Jamie hadn’t come to barter for help; he’d come to make New London’s position clear. And Kevin Hartley and his friends back at home wouldn’t get to put in a single word.

Tall, shining buildings surrounded them as they climbed from the flyer. Even Claire carried one of the small but potent guns they’d acquired on that last trading expedition.

But it was not at Claire, but to Isaiah that Jamie looked, seeing his friend’s vulnerable face turned to that little clear-walled buildings that had stood empty for the last fifteen years. He feared—and hoped—to see his daughter there.

Alice or any other prisoner would have been visible in that strange little prison, but it was as empty as it had been for all the years since the last prisoners had been removed. Neither Alice or the missing boy, Jamie couldn’t quite remember his name at the moment, were inside.

But the eyes of a father saw more clearly th
an his own. Jamie gave a low cry and ran over to a spot on the sand near the little building and picked up something from the ground. When Jamie caught up with him, he saw that he had a silken pink scarf in his hands.

“I gave it to her last Christmas,” Isaiah said
, his voice tremulous.

“She’s been here then,” Claire said.

Mack nodded. “What now?” he asked, looking to Jamie.

His head ached, his shoulder throbbed
; he was tired and hungry. None of that matters. They had to find the kids before they were taken away from Sanctuary. Once they were in the stronghold of the home planet, it would be virtually impossible to recover them.

And there were no Gare aristos on this planet so as long as they were here they would not be tortured for their blood. He didn’t allow himself to look again at the pink scarf Isaiah held so tenderly in his hands. He didn’t want to face the possibility that they were already too late.

Claire felt like her head would pop with impatience at the way the three men
just stood around. She wanted to get back into the flyer and search for the Princess Adaeze. After all, it would be hard to hide even a small space traveling ship on this thinly occupied world.

But instead Jamie led the way as they walked toward one of the tall buildings, saying there was someone he needed to talk to there. If it had been anybody but Jamie, she would have argued. But even now, after all these years, she still had an instinctive trust in him.

The place they eventually entered was a marketplace for fresh produce, having the appearance of an open air market back on Earth, but lying within one of the tall, look-alike buildings.

The sunlight that shone down on the glossy looking fruits and vegetables, the delicate slices of meat and carefully prepared exotic dishes, all properly cooled or heated for preservation, was artificial.

This place only looked natural, Claire decided. What it actually displayed was the high art form of an advanced civilization.

She tried not to be impatient as Jamie introduced her to the proprietor, a
n Aremian of advanced age called Sage, who greeted the other three by name, looking only slightly anxious about the identity of his visitors. He kept glancing toward the wide doorway as if expecting the cops at any minute.

Jamie had only said she was his friend Claire, but the vendor bowed so deeply his head almost touched the floor and said
in well-accented Aremian, “Welcome to my humble establishment, Lady Empress.”

It was, in fact, the correct way to address an empress who had been widowed, but was still treated with great reverence. This was one well educated outlander.

She nodded graciously, but didn’t deign to speak to one of such low estate, wondering what kind of game this Sage and her Jamie were playing.

“We have nothing to trade today,” Jamie said, his Oklahoma drawl emphasizing a calculated kind of charm. “Except info.”

“My good friend, I will do what I can to help you and will be interested in what you have to say in exchange.” Still gazing nervously between Claire and the doorway, he showed them to seats, remaining standing himself until his empress gave him permission to sit down even though in her presence.

Mack and Isaiah left the chair closest to Sage for Jamie in what seemed to be a customary situation. Jamie was the one to barter, whether it was for advanced Aremian weapons or, as now, for information about the whereabouts of the New London youngsters.

And two princesses, Claire thought urgently. Maybe her daughters had already been captured and surrendered to central authority.

Wanting desperately to start questioning this man who she was already certain was a spy for the Aremian government, she barely managed to keep quiet and follow Mack and Isaiah’s example by letting Jamie take the lead.

Mugs of hot coffee, a luxury from Earth rarely seen outside the Palace de Gare itself, was served to guests while Claire fretted inside at the slow pace of the meeting.

Terrible things could be happen
ing to her girls while they were sitting here playing at politics. Seeing Isaiah’s tired and worried face, she was reminded that she was not the only one who had a child at stake in this game. Isaiah was longing for his little Alice and no doubt, Mack had his own concerns about his venturesome young sons.