“You want fifteen hundred credits. Smerth’n rip. These aren’t even popular issues.”
“Has Aus been in contact?” JC steps next to him.
Doug ignores his short, blonde-haired crewmate in order to complete his transaction.
JC places her gloved hands on the counter. Sweat beads from the shop owner’s hairline. “Doug?”
“Most communications in the outer section of the city aren’t functioning, or the comm traffic’s so thick no signal reaches off planet,” Doug explains to get the telepath to leave him alone.
“Have you tried the smerth’n spaceport?” She adds the annoying swear he always does.
“Signal quality won’t degrade and plenty of jacker ports.” Doug accepts her valid analysis.
“You’re a jacker? You’re…Osirian.” Panic overwhelms the man. “Give you special price. Twelve hundred credits and you leave my store.”
Doug scatters the credit chits over the counter and pockets the hermetically-sealed comic books into a leather pouch.
“People fear jackers.”
“Not as much as telepaths,” Doug says.
“Not as much as an Osirian jacker. They always go crazy.” JC smiles.
“I’m the only one who hasn’t.” Doug smiles
“Not if you ask Amye. Have you encountered her?”
“Not since you reported Reynard being taken by a Sandman,” Doug says.
“He’s alive.”
“Smerth’n he is. The few specks of literature there are on those creatures say they drink humanoid minds for breakfast,” Doug says.
“He’s alive. If they wanted him dead we’d be cremating his brainless corpse. Make contact with Aus and scan the Interplanetary Subspace Netscape for any scrap on the Sandmen.”
“You don’t even fit in the command rank of the crew,” Doug protests.
“I’m more qualified to locate Scott and Amye.”
••••••
PASSION—NOTHING ELSE overwhelms the mind like passion. Osirian sexual lust monopolizes the mind. Males don’t constantly think about sexual congress, but when they do their brains are consumed by such thoughts.
In certain instances, a mind engrossed in passion explodes with thoughts. Most are of the pleasure consumed, but random thoughts do surface. Some males even concentrate on insignificant tasks in order to prevent climax too soon. JC recognizes the radiant pleasure energy emanating from Scott. She’s felt it enough since joining the crew.
Working like a bloodhound following a scent, JC maneuvers through the hotel corridors, following Scott’s mental energies.
Surface thoughts are never safe around a telepath. Deception is second nature to most humanoids. Among cultures practicing monogamy by social convention, infidelities seem common practice and commonly feared of being revealed. Scott should have such a fear.
The key card clicks the door open. The clerk was all too willing to hand one over for fear of her learning his secret.
JC holds in a giggle, knowing that when humanoids try hard to hide a thought, it radiates to the surface, beaming like a lighthouse. Surface thoughts are not illegal to read, and why would she care if he partakes in a mind-altering substance when not at work?
Naked green-skinned women with prehensile tails cover a mass in the center of the bed. JC waves her arm, creating a physical manifestation to direct her thoughts. The three women scamper from the bed, frantically slapping at their bare skin, knocking away insects JC made their minds believe crawl on them. They race from the room more afraid of JC than the insects she made them think were wriggling on their naked flesh.
“You make it difficult, Scott.”
“If the Dragon’s not back, I want to sleep.”
“One day I’m going to creep up into your brain and twist until—”
“Despite your distaste of the Sisterhood, you still value your mandate.” He buries his face in the pillow.
“Do you care nothing for Australia?” JC asks.
“Is she back on-planet? It’s only cheating if we’re on the same planet.”
JC flings open the curtains, flooding the chamber with sunlight.
Scott moans as his pupils shrink.
JC opens the window, but the smell of charred metal and a thin haze of battle stink forces her to close it. She’ll just have to deal with the stench of animal sex coating the room.
“Doug’s contacting the Dragon now. We need to find Reynard.”
“I want the Commander back, but where do you suggest we search? Sandmen hop dimensions like we travel through space,” Scott says.
“How do you acquire such information? Sandmen have been fairy tales on many planets. Dark legends, but little factual information floats around.”
“Deductive reasoning. Start with what we know. Sandmen exist. They appear and disappear at will without a transporter. It’s some kind of phasic dimensional transfer, technology so advanced we have no manner in which to detect it. What primitives refer to as magic. They feed on brains. So they need something in the cerebral energy to sustain them. I’ve no idea what or why. I’m merely an engineer, not a neurobiologist.”
“Your guesses are sound. Any speculation on where they would take him?” JC inquires.
“The Mokarran don’t take prisoners, nor do Sandmen. The campfire story I remember claimed Sandmen stole the brains of disobedient children, leaving an empty husk. They remind me of the Osirian myth of Lilith…somewhat,” Scott says.
“Lilith?”
“The first woman ejected from Osirian paradise for wanting equality in sexual pleasure. Being spurned, her children haunted humankind. My mother wore a pendant of protection from these offspring known as the Lilim. It reminds me a lot of your necklace.” Scott points at her throat.
JC caresses the silver pendant dangling from the choker. “Cassandra. She was beautiful and granted the gift of prophecy.”
“Not quite a telepathic trait.”
“Her gifts were ignored, much like telepaths,” JC says.
“But the Eir Basilica temple is older than the Osirian Myth.”
JC ignores the implied question in Scott’s observation.
With the warmth of his companions gone, Scott rolls over, finally ready to leave the bed. “Determine a location to search for Reynard. Until then I need to refit the Dragon. The extensive damage has months of dry dock written all over it. If Reynard wants Mecat storage, I’ve got to rip out rooms to have deck space to install the automated support equipment. Might as well do it as I make repairs.”
“Since you don’t have engineering to do, Amye won’t answer comms.”
“She’s crawled into a hole,
