Shadow Hunters (5 page)

While Whittier always looked as if something was wrong, this time the distress on his face was more pronounced than usual. “Sir,” Whittier said, “it’s His Excellency. He wishes to speak with you at once.”

Valerian’s stomach tensed, but years of practice at hiding his emotions enabled him to respond calmly. “Thank you, Charles. Tell him I will be there in a moment.”

Whittier gulped. “Sir, he’s pretty impatient.”

Valerian turned cool gray eyes upon his assistant. “I will be there in a moment, Charles,” he repeated in a soft voice.

“Of course, sir.” Whittier closed the door.

Valerian wiped his face with a cloth, composing himself. After the debacle at Stewart’s compound, he’d known he’d be hearing from his father soon. Off
the beaten track the planet might have been, but word of zerg in terran space would have gotten to Arcturus at light speed. He finished his glass of water, changed his shirt, and went into Whittier’s office.

Whittier jumped at the sound of the opening door. Valerian sighed. Whittier was an extremely capable assistant and Valerian relied upon him a great deal, but the man had the constitution of a rabbit.

“Thank you, Charles, put him through,” Valerian said. He returned to his training room and went to the small vidsys that was set up in a curtained-off area. Steeling himself for the confrontation—for he knew such the conversation would be—he touched a button.

The visage of Arcturus Mengsk appeared. Mengsk was a big man, and managed to convey that even on a small screen. His hair was thick, if more salt than pepper these days, as was his mustache. Piercing gray eyes met those of his son.

“Four years with no sign of the zerg, and then all of a sudden they show up on a remote planet which happens to be where you’ve set up a former black marketer. I didn’t get where I am today by believing in coincidence. Anything you care to tell me?”

Valerian smiled. “And good afternoon to you too, Father.”

Arcturus waved a hand. “Rule number one for running an empire, son: When the zerg are a topic of conversation, the niceties go out the airlock.”

“I’ll remember that. The situation is under control, Father.”

“Define ‘under control,’ and tell me why the zerg are there in the first place.”

Valerian debated. He could remain silent, or lie, or tell the truth. It was too late to sweep everything completely under the rug. But the most important thing to Valerian was that Mengsk not know about Jake’s … unique situation. Valerian still held out hope that he and Jake could sit down as fellow lovers of archeology and discuss the wonders he had discovered. If Mengsk learned about it, Jake would be snatched from Valerian’s hands and his mind poked, prodded, scanned, and eventually rendered inert. What Arcturus wanted was an edge, some new technology, some new and better way to smear his enemies into paste. He cared nothing for the glories of a vanished civilization or unequaled cultural insights.

Quickly, Valerian tried to think what Arcturus would know already, and would likely know shortly. The emperor would know that three of Valerian’s ships had been there, and from their logs probably that three more had been recalled. Depending on the condition in which the zerg had left the hangar, he could possibly know that a ship had been stolen and others had been sent after it. Jacob Ramsey’s name might be in some log somewhere, but Valerian knew Ethan would not have left any traceable information about the archeologist or his discovery. Ethan would have kept that sort of thing carefully locked up in his head. Which, sadly, had likely been ripped from his
shoulders or dissolved in acid. No one had been left alive, either in the compound or in the ships in orbit above the planet.

“I spoke with my contact there before the zerg descended,” Valerian said, choosing his words carefully. “One of their ships was hijacked several hours before the zerg attacked. It could be that this was part of a personal grudge against Stewart. My sources indicate that the pilot was formerly romantically involved with him. Perhaps she led the zerg to him for some reason.”

Mengsk made an annoyed sound. “The zerg aren’t a wandering pack of wild dogs that just happen to catch your scent. They’re directed within an inch of their disgusting little lives.”

Valerian shrugged. “If they were directed, then they left immediately. They must have gotten what they came for.”

That much at least was true. He had feared, when word came of the attack, that somehow Kerrigan had gotten wind of what had happened with Jake and had sent her zerg to claim him. How, he had no idea. They had come, descended, wreaked the havoc that was synonymous with their name, and departed.

A thought occurred to him, one that bothered and pleased him in equal parts. Still seemingly casual, he said, “Stewart was indeed a former black marketer. I used him for my own ends, but it’s possible he was a double agent of sorts. I don’t suppose he was working for you in any sort of capacity?”

Mengsk’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. Few who didn’t know him as well as Valerian did would have noticed.

“It’s possible. I don’t know every single person in my employ.” Arcturus chuckled. “You have a mere handful, my boy. But don’t worry, I’ll soon give you more—maybe more than you can handle.”

Valerian smiled. He wasn’t certain he had guessed correctly, but it was, as Mengsk had just said, a possibility.

“I look forward to the challenge, Father. If he was not working for you, then perhaps for an enemy? I’m sure you have more than a handful of those.”

Now Mengsk did frown. “Also entirely possible. Humans have been in league with Kerrigan before now.” His gray eyes looked pensive. It was with difficulty that Valerian smothered a smile.

Maybe Ethan had indeed been playing both sides. It didn’t matter now. What mattered was that even in death, Ethan was serving Valerian well. He had distracted Arcturus from the real target, which was the escaping vessel.

“I assume your people are there?” he asked his father.

“Of course.”

“I will set mine to locating the hijacked ship then.”

“If you feel it necessary,” Mengsk said. “If anything else turns up, you are to notify me immediately. Anything that’s of sufficient interest to warrant a zerg incursion into my space, I want to know about.”

Valerian nodded. “Likewise. Stewart was my man. At least”—he smiled in what he hoped was a sufficiently self-deprecating manner—“I thought he was.”

Mengsk chuckled, then his face was replaced by the official insignia.

Valerian was both pleased and uncomfortable with how the exchange had gone. He did not like misdirecting his father, but he knew—he
knew
—that Ramsey would be destroyed if Mengsk had him. He hoped that soon he would have Ramsey safely in his hands and this would no longer be an issue.

“Sir?”

Valerian realized he’d been staring at the now-dark screen for some moments. He turned at the sound of Devon Starke’s melodious voice.

“Devon,” Valerian said warmly, indicating a chair. “It seems I pulled you out just in time.”

Starke nodded his thanks and took a chair. He smiled slightly.

“Not for the first time, sir. But yes, our recall was quite welcomed once we heard what had happened with the zerg.”

Valerian didn’t ask if Starke thought the zerg had come for Ramsey. That was his father’s problem, not his. He needed to find Jake and Rosemary before Mengsk did.

He posed this problem to Starke. “They can be tracked, sir. All of Stewart’s vessels have tracking devices hardwired into their navigation systems. I
have the sequence we need to look for.” The ghost tapped his temple.

Valerian smiled. “Excellent. Now. Tell me about this psychic … I’m not sure what to call it.”

Emotions flitted across Starke’s thin face. “I’ve never experienced anything like this, sir. I know what you told me—that Ramsey had been attacked by a protoss and that knowledge had been rather forcefully placed into his brain. But I shouldn’t have been able to sense that. Not at the distance I was from his vessel. It was … a sense of unity. Of dissolving barriers between people.”

“Linking minds?”

Starke considered. “That, yes, but that was almost secondary. I can link my thoughts to yours. I can read your thoughts. Theoretically, linking to a third is not such a leap. We can’t do it, not yet, although I’ve no doubt your father and others are hard at work on that.”

Valerian smiled dryly. “No doubt at all.”

“This was much more than that. Sir, I fear you’ll think I’m waxing overly poetic if I say it felt less like linking minds and more like … linking
souls.”

Starke spoke in a soft tone, his musical voice giving the words an extra resonance. The hairs rose on Valerian’s arms.

“No, Devon. I don’t think that’s overly poetic at all. But please continue—this is fascinating.”

Starke nodded. “I knew the thoughts and the feelings of everyone in all six of our vessels and everyone
in the compound. I … It’s as if I
was
everyone. All of

them, all at the same time.”

“All? Including Rosemary and Jake?”

Devon made an annoyed face. “Yes. But I fear I was unable to concentrate on Ramsey as hard as I should have. I was taken by surprise and rather overwhelmed by the entire thing. I can only imagine what it must have been like for nontelepaths to experience this. Sir, I felt their fears and their hopes, knew their worries and secrets. I almost became them.”

Here he hesitated. Then he added, “And … they became me.”

Valerian raised a blond eyebrow. “So. Ramsey now knows that I have a ghost on his trail.”

“If he didn’t suspect it already, then yes, sir, I expect that he does. Our only consolation is that Ramsey isn’t as comfortable holding this information as he might be. I can’t tell you for certain what I remember, and I’ve been undergoing training for such things since childhood.”

Valerian nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “And you think this was done as a delaying tactic? This … psi-burst?”

Starke hesitated. “Yes. But more than that. It was … I’m sorry, sir, but it was beautiful. Profoundly moving. If we could all stay in that space, really stay in it—there’d be no need for empires.”

Although it would be understandable and even expected for Starke to mutter against Mengsk, considering how close he had come to dying because of an
order from Valerian’s father, the ghost had never voiced such sentiments. He knew that his employer was struggling with the same issues that beset all children of great parents—how to step out of their shadow without knifing them in the back. He knew Valerian’s interests lay outside of conquest and more in cultural development. So Valerian was surprised to hear even this slight rebuke coming from Devon’s lips.

“Nor should it be used as a tool for such,” Valerian said mildly. Color blossomed in Starke’s cheeks, but he remained silent.

Valerian realized he’d been right not to tell his father about Jake. What Jake had accomplished had provided perhaps the most powerful mental and emotional experience humanity had ever known. And Arcturus Mengsk, so single-minded in his purpose as to be almost pure in it, would view this ability as a weapon. He would obtain peace with it, yes, but only under his terms.

“When you have time, I want you to write down everything you remember,” Valerian told Starke. “But first—we must find Jake and Rosemary.”

ROSEMARY’S SHORT-NAILED FINGERS FLEW OVER the console, setting in the coordinates immediately after they materialized in normal space. She leaned back, stretching, and finally it seemed as if she had relented enough to tell Jake and Zamara where they were headed.

“We need to replace the navigation system as well as some other parts that were damaged in the jump. That’s not as difficult as it might sound, because system runners are great little vessels. They’re not pretty, but boy are they functional, and they built thousands and thousands of them. They ended up being a sort of blueprint for most of the systems in place in any size ship today. So they don’t require special equipment—you can swap things in and out pretty easily and pretty quickly. They’re designed to keep going no matter how badly you have to patch them up. That’s why they’re so beloved by black marketers.”

“You sound like you’ve done this a lot,” Jake said.

“I have,” Rosemary answered. “Hell, Jake, I’ve done pretty much anything that’s dangerous, illegal, or fun.”

She offered a grin to Jake, still stretching in a fashion that brought a bit of color to his face. The grin was playful and uncomplicated, and he’d seen so precious little of either from her that he almost forgot to smile back. He realized that now that her anger at him had passed, she was starting to enjoy this. She was, as she had just said, in her element.

You were right to bring her along with us, Jake said. I have no idea how to even pilot a ship, let alone repair one or navigate. And as for—

His mind’s eye filled with the image of Rosemary blowing the face off a former colleague who’d turned traitor. Of her whirling precisely and calculatedly shooting someone who’d spat at Jake. And then he thought of what he’d done—or, rather, what Zamara had done, using his body—to one Phillip Randall, prized assassin of Ethan Stewart.

You could have learned how to fight and kill on your own. We did not need her for that.

I don’t want to learn to be like her in that way, Zamara. Or like you—not about that. I don’t want that at all.
The very thought seemed to make his headache return.

There are many things you do not want to do, Jacob Jefferson Ramsey, and yet you must do them.

There was a hint of sorrow emanating from Zamara, even while making this firm statement. Jake knew that the protoss disliked using him so, though
there was never any question that she would. This was a new development in their relationship; it had certainly not been present at the outset. She had been grimly determined to see her mission through, and her lack of concern about him had been as impersonal as it was implacable. That had changed over the last several days, as she had given him more and more information, more memories.