Chapter 4

Ian got comfortable in the chair facing the display panel and inhaled deeply and slowly. He'd been over this data a hundred times, but until they had new scans to add to the information, it was all he had to go on. He exhaled and forced out all thoughts not necessary to the task at hand. Instinct allowed him to remain aware of his Keeper's whereabouts and the security of their ship without interfering with his concentration. When he was ready, he flipped on the display and watched as a small version of the Pendulum Nebula appeared holographically in front of him. The ship they were traveling on was closer now than when these scans were taken, so he hoped for new information any day. But for now, this would have to suffice.

He looked at the nebula hovering before him, then touched his index fingers to either temple and concentrated on the source of Mari's desire - the anomaly in the nebula. Just as before, he felt the slight tingle in each palm, but when he laid both hands open, palms up, the feeling failed to intensify. Still too far away. Frustrated, he quit and flipped off the display. They needed data more current to their position in order for him to even come close to pinpointing the location.

But the anomaly was out there, whatever it might be. Of that he was certain. It was there and for Mari, he would find it. Maybe that would be enough.

"Still no luck?" Mari looked up from her studies and leaned back in her chair.

Ian shook his head, glancing at the stack of printouts his Keeper was working with.

"Well don't fret, it's old data." She tapped the stylus she was holding against some of the plastic sheets. "As long as it's still out there."

"Yes, it is still in the nebula somewhere. But without better probe data, I can't get any closer than that." He was frustrated by the distance they were forced to cover and the lack of new information along the way.

"If we don't get something new soon, I'll ask Captain Marcase when he'll be sending a probe out." She stretched both arms out in front of her, narrowing her eyes slightly with cat-like enjoyment. "You knew it would be a long trip."

"Yes, I did." Ian sighed quietly and looked at the printouts. His Keeper was translating the language samples from the report filed when the Ascalon returned from its discovery voyage. Luckily Mari had something to keep her busy, and wasn't bothered by the wait herself. Her temper tended to shorten in direct proportion to her level of boredom. "Are you making progress?"

"Yes, I am!" Mari's attention turned to the data sheets. She lifted a few of the printouts and pointed to the distinctive mark. "This anomaly of Captain Marcase's is definitely a ship, and decidedly alien. Granted, I'm not an expert. But those people from the Nogalis Consortium made great strides enhancing his original scans, then not much trouble at all locating it again, further out."

"You're as close to expert as they come." Ian walked to the galley to prepare the noon meal. Mari was the best there was when it came to researching her goals, regardless of what they were. But more importantly, she was expert at using his skills. It was both a source of pride and a constant challenge for him. Pride that his Keeper knew how to use every tool at her disposal to its fullest -- including him -- and challenging for him to always live up to her highest expectations. Failure was never an option.

Mari stood and stretched, then walked to the galley. "This job is going to be the perfect end to a fabulous career." She retrieved a cup from its hanger and requested hot coffee from the dispensing unit.

Ian forced the knife through the meat he was slicing with more force than was needed, his thoughts momentarily clouded by the mention of Mari's impending retirement. She meant to sell him when they returned, most likely to another Locator, but that hardly mattered. Ian had been with David - Mari's late husband - since his delivery. Transitioning to her possession when David died was expected and relatively easy. The thought of being sold to a stranger was one he'd been dreading more than he could accept. It was her right, but he didn't have to like it! A thousand times he'd tried to discuss it with her - explain how he could be useful to her in her retirement instead of being sold off to the highest qualified bidder - but a thousand times he'd held his tongue, hoping she'd come to that realization herself.

Mari returned to her desk with the coffee. "I don't know who Evan's original Keeper was, but obviously he was ordered with interface capacity." She idly touched a finger to her palm. "You noticed?"

Ian nodded but continued his slicing and chopping. He knew Mari had researched every Sha'erah variation and possibility when she inherited him, to be sure in her own mind she'd taken ownership of the one talent most likely to serve her needs. The silver-palmed Sha'erah were the rarest, and some not as adept as others when it came to blending inside a computer. He wondered if Evan was the one priceless exception they'd heard rumors about.

"What does a deep space explorer want with a Sha'erah whose talent is computer infiltration? He couldn't possibly be living up to his potential here on this ship, working for Marcase." Mari sipped her coffee, then held up a hand when a thought struck. "Which reminds me, don't forget he can access our ship's computers just by brushing his hand up against any data port or terminal."

"I've been keeping a close eye out whenever he's onboard."

Mari nodded. "If Alex wanted a Sha'erah to further his ambitions, he'd do better trading Evan for you. I wonder how much Marcase will make claiming an entire planet?"

"I don't know that I could help him." Ian spoke a little too quickly and chastised himself for it. To cover his frustration, he stacked the food onto a serving plate. "I help you find specific things. This Marcase just flies around looking for new things."

"Oh I don't know. I understand he normally takes on jobs of finding certain marketable items." Mari moved the printouts and made a clear area on the desk for the food. "You'd still be a closer match than he has with Evan. I should discuss this with him."

Ian set the plates down and returned to the galley for utensils, hiding the sudden flush of redness to his face. He knew her rights as a Keeper. And she knew them all too well.

"There's never been a Keeper with two Sha'erah before." He gathered the utensils and walked a bit more slowly back to the table, steeling his expression with trained practice. "He would have to sell Evan."

Mari shrugged. "Perhaps a trade would be in order. I could always sell Evan to someone when I returned to Scotian."

Ian sat in the chair with a sudden sinking feeling and handed over the fork and a knife. His mouth begged for permission to speak his mind, ask her not to sell him, to at least consider the possibility that he could stay with her regardless of what she was doing with her life. So strong was the urge to break Sha'erah protocol he had to clench his jaw painfully tight to prevent it.

Mari continued her casual study of the printouts, completely oblivious to Ian's inner struggle. She stabbed some meat with a fork. "If these Nogalis scientists are correct, we're about to confirm the existence of alien sentient life. That data alone will fetch any price I choose to ask. And if I could actually bring one back for study, I'll have secured my place in Locator history."

Ian finally allowed himself a sigh, but said nothing. He knew Mari had every right to sell him, and when she did he wouldn't argue. How could he? He was Sha'erah! Even these thoughts weren't proper, but no one heard his thinking so he could see no reason to feel repentant. Only -- since his first delivery to David as a child of eight years -- he'd never once been sold.

If he could find this ship, and safely retrieve it for his Keeper, she would indeed retire on the top of her career and have her name remembered throughout history. Perhaps then she would reconsider. She would already have wealth beyond her dreams . . . How much money did it take to secure a human's happiness?

Mari shook her head and set the film down. "Marcase is so concerned about everyone reading his reports thoroughly, he's paid no attention to reading those of the scientists studying the information or the new discoveries they'd made."

Ian shrugged. "Neither would you, once you'd found what you were paid to find and turned it in."

"True." Mari returned her attention to her meal. "When something is no longer of use, there's no sense keeping it."

The rush of heat again filled Ian's face at her implication. He wet his lips and stared at the plate in front of him, weighing the risks of speaking up. There was nothing to lose by trying, even if it wasn't his place to ask. He'd often assumed as a child that all the things humans could do that Sha'erah weren't allowed to were physically impossible for him to try. That if speaking one's mind wasn't allowed, he simply wouldn't be capable of opening his mouth.

Again he wet lips suddenly dried to the point of cracking and cleared his throat as quietly as possible. One of Mari's eyebrows arched - a sign she was listening - while her main focus remained on the printout she was looking at.

"You know, retirement doesn't mean you're required to sell me. I could still be of use to you."

Mari looked up, both eyebrows knitting together as she looked at Ian.

He held his breath and wondered at his own ability to say those words, half expecting a bolt of energy to come bursting out from above and strike him down for having spoken. When the lightening failed to arrive, Mari shook her head.

"Don't be ridiculous, Ian. I'll have no use for you when I'm not working. I plan to buy a nice plot of land on some quiet planet, have a modest house built for me there, and sit on the front entry watching the sun set every night." She huffed slightly as if laughing at the silliness of his idea, the way a parent scoffs gently at a foolish notion voiced by a child. "What would I need with a Sha'erah there?"

Ian felt his face trying to heat up again and immediately forced his features into the calm mask of unfeeling every Sha'erah could achieve without effort. But it was a wall to hide behind, not the cold, inhuman reaction most people thought it was.

"This business with someone destroying the factory - if that's true - will have shot the price for your kind right through the sky!" She smiled slightly at the thought. "I've valued your talents, Ian, to be sure. But." Her fork was raised and pointed at him for emphasis. "You're a tool. A very useful and valuable one, but a tool nevertheless. I won't tolerate putting you on a shelf when I could sell you and make both a handsome profit and another Locator successful." She lowered the fork and set it down on the plate. "I owe that to my comrades in the business."

Ian nodded slightly and busied himself gathering the empty plates and carrying them back to the galley. He felt numb and a little confused, but resigned to his fate. He'd spoken his mind - at least put a small voice to his concerns in as cautious a manner as he'd been able - for the first time in his life. And look at the good it had done!

I am Sha'erah. He knew that word meant invaluable tool and treasured possession, but those words held meanings of their own. And the one thing they held in common was a price.

"Do you suppose Marcase and Evan had anything to do with that?"

"What?" Ian blinked and tried to force his attention back on his Keeper.

"The whole thing about the source being destroyed."

"He seemed shocked when I first mentioned it, and he's been evasive ever since. Like he has no desire to even consider the implications or discuss the rumors." Mari was leaning forward, her back to Ian, casually tapping the stylus against the printouts again. "I can't believe he wouldn't be more interested in discussing it with me, a fellow Keeper."

Ian cleared his throat and let the dishes drop into the cleaning unit. Any hopes he might have dared entertain disappeared along with them. With a sigh, he returned to the table. "Maybe he just doesn't believe the rumors."

Mari shrugged. "Perhaps." She set the stylus down and returned to her deep studies of the scans.

Ian lowered his eyelids slightly and mentally walked himself through a cleansing ritual. It was designed to aid all Sha'erah in the complete flushing out of their minds irrelevant thoughts and ideas, and help them focus on the necessary. When he felt he could concentrate again, he turned his attention to the printouts and tried to regain some interest in them.

A sound from the upper level alerted Ian they had company moments before Mari heard the chime. He reached under the table and activated the view screen.

"It's Evan." Mari stood and stretched. "I'll go see what he's been sent for."

Ian nodded, but kept watch on the view screen as his Keeper ascended the stairs and greeted their visitor. He'd not been told to listen in, so he didn't turn up the volume, but he watched their short conversation and kept a close watch on the hand of his fellow Sha'erah. If he was the one and only true adept, he could make contact with their ship's computers with just a touch. After a moment, Mari smiled and rested a hand on Evan's arm. She wants him. Ian wondered if the captain was in the habit of granting permission to women who wanted to spend time with Evan physically.

He flipped off the screen when his Keeper returned.

"Well, speak of the devil." Mari was still smiling as if Evan was still in the room. "It seems Captain Marcase has just received some new data from a satellite."

"And?"

"And he's invited us to his quarters this evening to study it on his holographic display."

Ian blinked, his eyebrows creasing slightly. "He wants us to study it with him? Why?"

Mari shrugged. "I assume he's just trying to be social. Evan promised us copies of the data for our own use as soon as he can process it." She crossed the room and stopped in the galley for more coffee. "I'd hazard a guess Marcase wants to know if you can locate a planet or something for him, in payment for the ride, no doubt."

Ian frowned. "I don't work for him." Suddenly he felt the urge to be angry with someone, and Marcase and his Sha'erah would fit the bill as easily as anyone.

"No, of course you don't." Mari filled her cup and returned to the table. "But we can make him work for us." She put her cup down and sat, resting both elbows on the table as she looked at Ian. "If he wants us to find a planet that's gone unseen so far, something he can slip into the nebula and fly directly toward, who's to say that planet can't be in the vicinity of our little alien ship? You're sure it's inside, and no other ship has reported even a glimpse or sign of it yet, so . . . " She allowed her sentence to trail as she watched Ian.

"So the vessel is in a section of the nebula no other ship has entered yet." Ian caught his Keeper's train of thought immediately. "And if that's the case, steering the captain in our direction would serve both our needs."

"Exactly." She raised her cup in a salute. "You find our alien vessel, tell the captain it's his new, unclaimed planet - make no mention of our creatures since that would just frighten the man - and we'll both find what we're looking for. There has to be a planet close by anyway, so where's the harm?"

# # #

Several hours later Ian was staring at an impressive display hovering in three-dimensional relief above a large round table in Captain Marcase's quarters. The captain and Mari stood behind the large couch that ran in a semi-circle around the table, facing an equally impressive but heavily shielded glass window, while Ian sat in the center of the couch with a full view of the display. It was larger than the one on their own ship, and seemed to display in finer detail, no doubt thanks to Evan's ability to manipulate data and the machinery built to analyze it.

The other Sha'erah was seated a few feet to the side, with one hand on the control panel ready to manipulate the view as Ian requested. He glanced at Mari's reflection in the huge window and saw her slight nod, then brought both legs up on the couch and folded them comfortably underneath him. After a few deep breaths to clear his mind, Ian closed his eyes and touched his temples, waiting for the sensations to begin.

This new information was much more detailed, and as recent as that morning. Planets that had been mere mathematical data before were now solid, round shapes clouded by purple and green gases that flowed and moved on the winds of a thousand suns, twisting and turning in every direction as gravity and solar energy bounced off each other in a maze of turmoil labeled the Pendulum Nebula.

The tingling, burning sensation filled Ian's palms almost immediately and with much more force and intensity than before. He lowered both hands, palms up, until they rested on his knees, then opened his eyes. The warmth and tickling feeling flowed up both arms and gathered in the center of his black eyes, directing them where to look.

"Left."

As he spoke, the display he was watching moved slowly, revealing a different angle as Evan altered the holograph. A planet lightly clouded in purple and barely within the nebula came into view. It was brown and blue in color, uninteresting as far as planets went, but seen through Ian's eyes the round chunk of rock shimmered with a halo of silver. His eyes and hands burned almost uncomfortably hot as he stared at the planet. The alien vessel was in the nebula, it was on the planet.

Ian swallowed, running through a certainty exercise in his mind. He had to be sure it was still there, and not just recently left.

"Close in on that one."

He watched the planet zoom in and saw the nebula's gasses swirl around the modest bulk. Magnetic forces at either pole pulled at the purple and green particles until a slight halo of clarity formed over the planet's surface. There would be a relatively clear sky, void of clouds completely, and an aurora of massive proportions at the north and south poles year-round that would make for a spectacular show in the night sky. The nearest sun was close enough to provide some warmth, and presumably life, but far enough away to keep things from achieving the heat that Scotian often experienced in her summer months.

But most important of all, this planet contained the very anomaly Mari was in search of.

Ian blinked and shook off the sensations as he unfolded his legs. He stood and turned to his Keeper, giving her the barely perceptible nod he knew she would interpret correctly.

"Captain," Ian turned to Marcase. "That's the planet you're looking for."

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