Righteous Anger (Okal Rel Saga #2)

5.6: Trading Prisoners

Di Mon was not in time to stop the Nesak going through the jump with the Reetion pilot but he was in time to see three Demish pursuers balk shy of a jump they did not know.

Maybe I should signal them to follow me, Di Mon thought, and then rejected the idea. The Demish set like concrete once they took over anything, and however little they wanted to do with the Reetions right now, Di Mon feared to put temptation in their path.

He took the jump alone and emerged on the Reetion side in clear space, in the Reach of Paradise.

Nothing but a faint flicker of skim activity registered between Di Mon and the station named Second Contact, the original base of Ranar's mission. There were no ward ships visible, but Ranar had assured him that Reetions didn't use them. They used a medical technology related to the one used to extract memories from Amel, which was able to ensure that all pilots were trustworthy before they got into a rel-ship. The idea raised hairs on the back of Di Mon's neck, but according to Ranar it worked.

No ward ships, however, meant no outlying ships to communicate with via shimmer dances, and no way to know what to do next. And where were the Nesak and the Reetion pilot he had hitchhiked through with? It was situations like this that could make reality skimming situations so maddening.

Di Mon was fairly sure he had not time slipped. So he decided the Reetion and his Nesak hitchhiker must have, and would shortly emerge. Unless they were lost. The problem was how long to wait. And what to do while he did.

Two dim rel-ships appeared after a few minutes, coming towards him from Second Contact Station. Their faint wake signatures tallied with them being commoners, probably sent out to investigate.

Brave, Di Mon thought with grudging respect. Or stupid.

Probably both, he decided, thinking of Ranar.

He forgot the Reetions the next instant, as the Nesak and his prey tumbled out of the jump together. The Reetion pilot promptly dropped out of sight on rel telemetry. Di Mon went for the Nesak.

He caught him with a fly-by before the hitchhiker got oriented, then coiled around and went for a wake-lock with his next pass.

The resulting soul touch was illuminating. The Nesak was a zer and a strong pilot, but he had been entirely unprepared to experience soul touch with a commoner. His faith was perturbed, and with it his self-possession.

Di Mon took control of both their vessels, through the wake-lock, and hit the Nesak with as much gap as he felt his own convictions could weather without leaving him too badly stunned.

To Di Mon's elation, the Nesak dropped out of skim like a wounded squirrel dropped by an avian predator of native Monatese origins upon discovering it did not like the taste of Earth-derived blood.

What to do next was a problem. Fishing for ships in real space under skim was like trying to find a dropped coin in an ocean. If the Nesak wasn't dead, he was out of Di Mon's reach for the moment. But he couldn't go anywhere without betraying himself, either, and if Di Mon got lucky he might wipe him out with a close fly-by without even knowing it. Colliding with the becalmed Nesak during in-phase manifestation would be a whole lot uglier, but Di Mon would have to be astronomically unlucky to do that, even if he criss-crossed the area trying to pick up the tiny point of mass during in-phase sampling.

Di Mon was circling, watching for his prey to bolt, when he realized the Reetions from Second Contact Station had their own ideas.

Fascinated, but unable to communicate without shared shimmer codes, Di Mon watched as the Reetions came on steadily.