The Marann Read online

  THE MARANN

  Christie Meierz

  Sky Warrior Book Publishing, LLC

  Smashwords Edition

  © 2013 by Christie Meierz.

  Second Edition.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by an electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  Published by Sky Warrior Book Publishing, LLC.

  PO Box 99

  Clinton, MT 59825

  www.skywarriorbooks.com

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people is purely coincidental.

  Editor: Phyllis Irene Radford.

  Cover by Laura Shinn.

  Publisher: M. H. Bonham.

  Printed in the United States of America

  9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For my beloved

  Certain things catch your eye,

  But pursue only those that capture your heart.

  Native American proverb

  Chapter One

  Marianne Woolsey never wanted to leave Earth. For that matter, she never wanted to leave her hometown of Casey, Iowa, where she taught young minds how to wrap their mouths around foreign languages most of them would never speak again.

  Now she stepped into the business-class seating compartment of an Interstellar Spaceways passenger liner and searched for a seat. Of the flight information displayed on her tablet—Interstellar 4421—Tau Ceti—Gate B08—06:35/25/DEC/2543—4B, only the seat number at the end was important. In two days, even the date wouldn’t matter anymore, not where she was going.

  She settled into her place, body yearning for the comfort of her bed but mind abuzz from the coffee she’d drunk to get herself moving after waking at an ungodly o’clock. While she waited for the ship to finish boarding and leave Earth orbit, she flipped through the Tolari language vocabulary lists on her tablet, searching for fresh terms to memorize, but found her thoughts wandering off into distraction. Annoyed, she brought her mind back on task, only to meander into fruitless speculation as to how her six large, fancy goldfish fared at her friend Susan’s house. Leaving them behind on Earth stabbed at her heart, even if they were just fish.

  She shoved the tablet back into her carryall and shifted in her seat, seeking a position to make sleep possible. For this first leg of the trip, Marianne had declined a berth, though the government had offered one. A late Christmas Eve party and an early flight to the Chicago spaceport to catch the station shuttle had collided to result in about four hours of sleep. Now she faced an eighteen hour flight through K-space to Tau Ceti, where she would board an Earth Fleet vessel bound for the Beta Hydri system and the world its inhabitants called Tolar. She wished she hadn’t turned down the berth.

  A man she didn’t recognize stepped over her to get to the window seat, then turned to offer her a large travel cup. The steam drifting from its spout filled the air with the scent of mocha.

  “Compliments of Central Command,” he said with a wink and a smile. He wiggled a government identification card with his picture on it, gripped against a smaller travel cup in his other hand. “Double mochaccino with a hint of peppermint. Happy Christmas.”

  Marianne groaned. She’d had enough coffee for one day, but chocolate and mint tempted her too much to pass up. She took the cup and sipped at it, closing her eyes in bliss. Then she realized what the man must be doing here, and flipped them open again to glare at him.

  The man’s gaze fixed onto hers. Her annoyance at the situation throttled the usual amusement she felt when strangers riveted their attention on her eyes. Susan, her best friend, envied the athletic figure daily running gave her, and her friends said she was pretty enough, with even features and wavy light brown hair that reached the middle of her back. Her eyes, though, were a shade of crystalline sky blue that startled everyone and never failed to attract notice.

  She preferred it that way.

  “Merry Christmas,” she muttered. “Are you here to make sure I arrive at my destination?”

  “I’m here to make sure you’re safe, ma’am.”

  “I don’t need a babysitter. Where am I going to go? Out the airlock for a nice breathtaking walk? You should be home with your family. It’s Christmas.”

  He laughed. It was a nice laugh, too. He was a man no one would look at twice—she’d bet real money his forgettable face got him this job—but she would remember his laugh. The rich rumble seemed to emanate from his entire chest. He stuck out a hand.

  “Garrison Harding,” he offered. “Call me Garry.”

  She shook the hand and plastered what she hoped was a sincere smile on her face. “Marianne Woolsey. But I bet you already know that.”

  He chuckled.

  “You’re entirely too cheerful, Garry.” Marianne took several swallows of the minty mochaccino.

  His eyes twinkled as he sipped at his own coffee. It was black and had the rich aroma of a dark roast. “I wasn’t up late at a Christmas Eve party,” he said.

  Marianne frowned. Was there anyone in Central Command who hadn’t kept track of her every move since she got this assignment? “It was my last chance to see my friends for a very long time,” she pointed out.

  Garry cleared his throat and turned to look out the viewport at the docking ring of Earth Station Hawking, but not before she caught a glimpse of sheepish expression. “Right, sorry.”

  “So why are you here, Garry? It can’t be just to make sure I don’t run away, when I have every intention of arriving at my destination.”

  He turned back to her. “Are you quite sure about that?”

  “Which, that you’re here for some other reason, or that I intend to reach my destination?”

  There was that cheerful twinkle again. “The latter.”

  “I’ve spent the last three weeks getting used to the idea of being sent to another planet to teach half a dozen Earth languages to an alien monarch’s daughter. I’m okay with it.”

  “Three entire weeks. My, that does comfort one.”

  She gave him a look. “Why is everyone so suspicious? I never threatened to run away.” She took another long drink.

  “You should slow down on the mochaccino,” he said, ignoring her comment. “It’s high top. You might buzz yourself into an alternate dimension.”

  “I already have. I come from a dimension where I’m cheerfully passing out Christmas presents to lonely old people with no families.”

  Garry’s response was lost to an announcement that passengers were now free to move about the public areas of the ship. He unbuckled himself and got to his feet. Marianne stared at the seat he’d just vacated, wondering what use a seatbelt could have on a spaceship.

  “I didn’t feel the jump into K-space,” she said with a frown.

  “It’s played up in flicks. You actually can’t feel it.” He offered her a hand up. “Come along.”

  She glanced at the hand without moving. “Where?”

  “Your berth.”

  “I don’t have a berth.”

  He chuckled. “Yes, you do.” He held up an Interstellar Spaceways keycard.

  She squinted. “And you think I’ll go there with you?”

  Garry tapped a foot. “Oh really, Miss Woolsey, I can’t bloody well brief you out here. I planned to impart the information my superiors want you to know until you’re too knackered to absorb another fact, then read a good book in the observation lounge while you nap off your Christmas party. Does that meet with your approval?”

  “Anything your superiors wanted me to know, th
ey could have imparted to me yesterday, without any risk of innocent or not-so-innocent bystanders overhearing.”

  Garry’s eyebrows lifted. He grinned. “Very good. You’ve learned a few things over the past three weeks.”

  Marianne allowed herself a small smile. “Thank you,” she said. “I think.”

  “The dining room then,” Garry decided. “Are you hungry?”

  She let Garry escort her to the business class dining room. It resembled an oversized train car, with booths sporting tablecloths, breadbaskets, and fresh flowers rather than rows of seats. A viewport graced the wall beside each table, giving diners a stunning view of… the featurelessness of K-space, so black it seemed to pull the soul right out of the observer. Marianne glanced out the nearest viewport and looked away, shivering.

  Garry declined to let the maître d’ seat them, instead brushing past him to the booth at the end of the dining compartment, as far from other passengers as possible. He ordered both their breakfasts before the man could escape. It didn’t surprise her when he ordered her usual without prompting.

  “You’re quite the cranky traveler, Miss Woolsey,” Garry said, helping himself to a chocolate muffin in the breadbasket. “Your file indicates you’re even-tempered.”

  “I didn’t get much sleep last night.” She watched in horror as Garry spread butter on the muffin. “Butter? On a chocolate muffin?” She shuddered.

  Garry shrugged and took a bite, nodding with pleasure.

  “What do you mean, ‘my file’?”

  He smiled and didn’t explain. Instead, he pulled a small tablet from his left coat pocket and fiddled with it.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Making sure anyone who tries to listen gets an earful of white noise.” He shoved the tablet back in its pocket and turned his attention back to Marianne. “How much do you know about the Trade Alliance?”

  “Um, they’re a bunch of weird alien races we trade with?” She shrugged. “There are thirteen now, I think, including us. The Terosha look like giant walking sticks, the Kekrax resemble upright geckos with four legs, four arms, and two tails, and it just gets stranger from there.”

  Garry laughed. “Fair enough. What if I tell you they all warned us to leave the Tolari alone?”

  Marianne blinked. “Why would they do that? It’s not as if we’re going to hurt them.”

  “They aren’t concerned about the Tolari. They don’t want us blundering around.”

  “Blundering around what?”

  “We’re not sure, but we want you to keep your eyes and ears open. Some of our associates in the Trade Alliance think there’s more going on in Tolari space than meets the eye. None will say what.”

  “But the Tolari haven’t even invented air travel yet.”

  “Yes well.” Garry paused while a waiter delivered their breakfasts. When they were alone again, he continued. “We have no doubt Tolari technology is backward, though the culture is quite civilized. We want you to find out if there’s something else going on, or if our space-faring friends are simply skittish.”

  “I’m not a spook.” Marianne stabbed her poached egg on toast, took a bite, and smothered her fruit with yogurt.

  “No, and we don’t want you to be. If the Sural is astute, he’ll expect anyone we send to be watching him and reporting what they see, but we didn’t train you because it would cause changes in your behavior he would notice. Instantly. The Tolari are keen observers. They can almost read your mind from your body language, and they know if you’re lying or hiding something.”

  Marianne grimaced.

  “Yes, we know what a private person you are. Just be yourself. That’s all they want.”

  She heaved a sigh. “That I can do.”

  <<>>

  A bump woke Marianne from a dream about… about... She yawned and stretched—what was that dream?—but didn’t reach for her tablet to check the time. Garry had talked for hours, pumping her for what she knew and filling her with new information. Her head felt like an overstuffed pillow.

  A voice came over the comms. “Ladies and gentlemen, Interstellar Spaceways Flight 4421 to Chi Orionis, with service to Tau Ceti station and Epsilon Eridani, has just docked. Passengers continuing on to Epsilon Eridani and points in Terosha space are requested to remain in the ship at this time. If this is your final destination, please gather your personal belongings and proceed to the nearest airlock. Enjoy your stay, and thank you for choosing Interstellar.”

  That answered what time it was.

  Personal belongings, she thought with a wry grin as she climbed out of the bunk. The only personal belongings Central Command had allowed her to bring were her clothing and a tablet. The tablet contained her personal library along with the entire collection of the Casey Public Library—minus anything to do with technology—and minus music, much to her dismay. The bags with her clothing had been sent ahead to the Earth Fleet ship scheduled to take her the rest of the way to Tolar. She had only a small, worn carryall containing her identification card, the tablet, and a dental hygiene kit. On Tolar there’d be no music, no hobbies, no Tuesday night bowling. She hoped she would be busy enough not to get bored.

  She went to the berth’s sink and cleaned her teeth, then splashed some cool water on her face. Yawning and stretching again, she gathered up her carryall, left the berth’s keycard in a slot behind the door, and entered the sleeper compartment’s narrow hallway.

  Garry was nowhere to be seen. Marianne made her way to the airlock in the next cabin. As she exited, the riot of color decorating Tau Ceti station’s outer ring assailed her eyes—and air that had passed through too many lungs tickled her nose—a uniformed escort greeted her by standing in the way. He resembled every other Central Command serviceman she’d ever seen: indistinct features, crew cut hair, no neck. That was the point, she supposed. They were interchangeable. She sighed and gave this one her attention.

  “Citizen Woolsey,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes?” She gazed past him, eyes drawn to the colorful array of shops and many viewports crowding the outer ring. She couldn’t see any aliens—that disappointed her—and she could hear only the busy crowd’s echoing, multilingual chatter. The shops bustled with activity and bristled with day-after-Christmas sale signs. She wanted to see the alien wares and buy a souvenir, even if the price was outrageous.

  “Please come with me, ma’am.” He jerked his head toward a tunnel to the central hub.

  “All right.” Eyes still on the shops, she fell into step beside him. “Where are we going?”

  “Sickbay.”

  She squinted at him. “Why?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say, ma’am.” He smiled. It didn’t extend to his eyes. She fell silent and let him lead her past all the tantalizing stalls and kiosks crammed with colorful items. One stall was little more than a booth containing a life-sized model of a Terosha. A grinning teenaged boy draped himself around it, making kissy-faces while the proprietor recorded the images. The next kiosk held jewelry displays claiming to be A’aan’. Whether or not the kiosk signs told the truth, the bangles and baubles looked exotic. She slowed and peered at three matched filigree earrings in peacock colors. Three?

  “Citizen.” Her escort’s voice was flat. He stood a few meters down the ring, a frown etched on his face. Marianne hiccupped a nervous laugh and scurried to catch up with him. He turned on a heel to enter the walkway between the station’s rings.

  When they reached the inner ring, he peeled left off the walkway and paused to let her precede him into the sickbay waiting room. Leaving her to a brisk, middle-aged man in dark blue scrubs, he took up a position near the door and stared straight ahead, hands clasped at the small of his back. Marianne bit a lip to keep from laughing at his resemblance to the stereotype of the featureless, brain-numb Central Command conscript.

  The nurse rolled his eyes. “You must be Marianne Woolsey,” he said, his face brightening into a pleasant smile. His smile reached his eyes, an
d she warmed to him.

  “That’s me,” she replied.

  “Right this way, hun.” He beckoned her to follow him down a hall and stopped at a door featuring a red sign with bold white letters saying PHASE LAB. He opened the door to usher her in.

  “Why am I here?” Marianne asked.

  The nurse was more forthcoming than her escort had been. “I was told you’re going down to an alien planet. Anyone we send down to the surface gets a locater chip, so we can pull them out if we have to. It’s for your own safety.”

  “I see,” she said, and then she shook her head. “No, I don’t see. I thought the Sural guaranteed my personal safety?”

  “I wouldn’t know about that,” answered the nurse, “but this is standard procedure. It won’t hurt a bit.”

  “Can I say no?”

  The nurse pursed his lips. “You can if you want to turn around and go home. I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  Marianne took a deep breath. The nurse gave a shake of his head so slight she almost didn’t see it. She shrugged and sighed. “All right. What do I do?”

  His holiday cheer returned. “Lie down here,” he indicated a bed with one end pointed at a featureless metal doughnut of medical machinery, “and let me immobilize your head.”

  She scooted onto the bed and wiggled until she was comfortable, while he positioned her head in the doughnut hole by adjusting the bed.

  “I’m sure you’re familiar with phase tech. This machine will use it to place a locater chip directly onto your brainstem. It will only take a moment. Some people say they feel a sort of mild tingle in their heads, but most don’t feel a thing.” A pillow of air wrapped her from the shoulders up. “Can you move your head, dear?”

  She tried. “Not even slightly.”

  “Good.” He paused. A hum filled the air, followed by a soft click. “We’re done.”

  “Already? I didn’t feel a thing.”

  “Exactly.” The nurse smiled as he reached for a switch over her head, and the field holding her head in place dissipated. She sat up.

  “Not so fast,” he said, putting a hand on one shoulder before she could slide off the bed. “Any dizziness?”