Whispers in the Dawn (20 page)

“Now then, Harley, or should I say
Agent
Harley? You had me neatly fooled until she came,” Pardua said, nodding in Odessa’s direction. “That is the one mistake you made. Seeking her out. At first, I thought you were infatuated with her but after I sent Ralph to take a few potshots at you, I realised it had to be something more than that. Something that very well might have jeopardised what I’d taken so much time and care to build. Of course, you know I won’t allow you to ruin that.”

Harley’s heart sank. He was no better off now than he had been when the bomb had exploded in the warehouse. He’d thought he didn’t have a chance then. Did he have one this time? He held his hands up in the air as a sign of surrender. How long had Pardua known he was GDA? Maybe hours, he ventured to guess.

He prayed for time to think of a way to escape. Four soldiers stood directly behind the Murrach, their shokkguns drawn. Maybe there would be no walking away from this mission. Not this time.

“If you have me killed, the GDA won’t allow you to rule anywhere but this station, and that not for long.”

“I am not the GDA’s minion and have not, and will not, follow their dictates. I will rule what I want.”

“Pretty ambitious plan,” Harley said, wondering how much pain Odessa was in. She lay still and made no sound. “But one man against the whole universe? How were you going to achieve that among so many species?”

Pardua’s evil grin made him shudder. “I gave you credit for being a lot more intelligent than the average man. Apparently, I overestimated you.”

Harley allowed his anger to simmer, but not enough to blind his judgement. He had to come up with a plan quickly, or else he took the risk Odessa would die in front of his eyes. He couldn’t bear the thought of living his life without her. She had done what no woman, not even his wife, had ever done—placed herself in the line of fire to save his life. She deserved better than to die on a space station, which should have been relegated to the status of ‘space junk’ years ago.

Strangely enough, she started humming the old, but still much loved,
Star Spangled Banner
. He knew she was up to something. Again. He distracted Pardua from his keen observation of the woman. Did the Murrach recognise the tune? “I’m sorry to hear that. I believed I could outwit you, but I was mistaken, like so many other agents before me.”

Pardua laughed, probably flattered by Harley’s words. “When the Gr’iis has taken full effect, no one will know, much less care, that I’ve taken over the universe.”

“What’s the point in ruling drugged people?” The man was definitely conceited.

“That’s the beauty of it. While the people who use the Gr’iis die off, I will be perfecting the means to manipulate genes to make all people more like the Deloricans, who are half human, if you will, and half metal. And they will all do my bidding without question. Soon the universe will be filled with people who owe allegiance only to me since I brought them to life. And can keep them alive.”

Harley felt bile rise in his throat. Pardua would take away the freedom of the people he had slyly introduced to Gr’iis.

He heard the slightest scraping sound coming from beside his right foot, but dared not look down at Odessa. If he did he might distract Pardua, who was absorbed in delusions of his own greatness.

Odessa listened to the rise and fall of Pardua’s voice. He was insane, she concluded, as she slowly slid her fingers towards the helmet. Each fraction of a movement sent excruciating pain along her spine, but she had to test her theory. If she was wrong, she had nothing more to lose. If she was right, Pardua would have made his last great speech.

The tips of her fingers connected with the netting inside the crown of the helmet. She started to pray. Her lips moved soundlessly in a plea for help as she began to focus on the world inside the helmet.

Chapter Eighteen

The crowd’s soaring crescendo swamped Odessa’s senses. She struggled through the oppressive mist as she listened to Pardua’s voice, a dissonance against so many others. If she made herself known above all the other voices, perhaps they could become a collective consciousness through the virtual reality that, unknown to her, had become a part of her on the
Drifter
.

In some instances, virtual reality became the reality one lived in, much like alternate universes become the reality if a person managed to cross the thread-thin line between two universes. She needed to call for help. The collective consciousness that lived within the helmet would come to her aid if she explained. After all, the universe would be greatly affected if Pardua instituted his plan on a larger scale than he already had. He could easily wipe out whole civilisations and replace them with Gr’iis users.

In her mind, Odessa had to shout to make her voice heard. The cacophony continued unabated for an interminably long time before silence descended. She spoke eloquently, outlining to her listeners exactly what was at stake. Before she knew what was happening, the power of the collective’s anger began to surge through her high-strung nerves. She couldn’t stop the flow of energy barrelling into her.

The sensation built into a stream of living, pain-filled anger and hatred at the injustice. She cried out for the people to stop, but the flow of energy continued unabated. Odessa could bear it no longer. She screamed in agony.

Harley fought back his overriding fear as Pardua delayed the inevitable and talked like the madman he was. When Odessa had pulled the helmet onto her head, Pardua had laughed manically. “See? She prefers virtual reality to the one she lives in. How gratifying to see my plan working with a woman I perceived as a threat.”

The GDA agent didn’t think that was the whole truth, but what if Pardua was right, and Odessa had fled the terrible awareness of her pain by donning the helmet?

Pardua droned on and on about his greatness, oblivious to the fact Harley was no longer listening. In the distance, a noise that reminded Harley of a vast troop of soldiers marching forward reverberated through the corridor. As the sound got louder, he heard what sounded like a million phone lines connecting at the same time.

Pardua forced him to his knees, preparing to shoot him in the head. The end was near. How could a man fight a rushing bullet? Harley waited, figuring he could tackle the large man the same way Odessa had Baylon. He discarded the hasty plan. By the time his head smacked into Pardua’s legs, Harley’s brains would be all over the floor. Then who would help Odessa—if she wasn’t dead already?

The voices rose to a fever pitch.

“I’m going to make sure you never trouble me again,” Pardua said with finality.

Any second now, the Murrach would pull the trigger and Harley was guaranteed his life would end.

The sounds rose higher and higher. Shrieks of indignation, of raging anger.

“What is going on?” Harley heard Pardua question.

His heart raced. An enormous, pearl grey cloud headed straight towards Pardua’s head. Pardua shouted, “Stop at once!” before he crumpled to his knees, his hands clamped over his ears. “Stop! Stop!”

Harley watched Pardua scream as the belligerent cloud moved forward, wrapping itself around Pardua like a spider weaving a web around a black insect. When the maddened spiralling stopped, Pardua was nothing more than a pile of ashes.

His only concern for Odessa, Harley checked her pulse. She was barely alive.

Chapter Nineteen

After Pardua died, Harley had been lauded as a hero, but he refused to accept the accolades. Only Odessa deserved them. She was the one who had brought Pardua’s reign to an end. But she lay in a coma, hovering between life and death.

Hoping with every part of his being that Odessa would recover, and that she might want to set eyes on the trees and mountains she loved so much, he had spent the last three months on a private spaceship, flying her home to Earth. Baylon was dead and Pardua’s empire had crumbled as soon as word got out that he had been killed. The GDA had prevented shipments of Gr’iis from being loaded on ships to other parts of the galaxy, and had confiscated supplies and destroyed the manufacturing centre within the space station.

For the first time in the station’s history, a woman governed the residents and travellers with a firm but considerate hand. With Zorm’s help, Violette had raised a small SWAT team of teenagers and women who’d tackled the station guards even as Pardua breathed his last. None had been injured, but each was satisfied they had finally rid the station of evil.

All of the women on Romaydia had been given the option of returning home. Most had chosen to do so. Others, like Violette, believed their destiny was to create a safe haven where men and women alike could seek refuge from the bone-wearying effects of galactic travel.

Harley blinked back tears, as he so often had in the last few months. Odessa was only a shadow of her former self. She hadn’t moved once since the helmet she had donned had channelled a mysterious energy from her hand to Pardua, in a deadly arc of what had appeared to be shokkgun fire.

Newly arrived in Wenatchee, Harley knelt beside the hospital bed and held her petite hand in his, praying she would rise from the coma and be her vibrant self again. His misery knew no bounds, and he made no attempt to hide his tears as a nurse arrived silently and checked Odessa’s vital information for the umpteenth time that day.

He looked up at the woman in white with questioning eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “There’s no change.” She walked out, shaking her head.

Harley rested his head against Odessa’s hand and sobbed, feeling the pulse beat gently in her wrist. “Please, Odessa, wake up. I promise I’ll love you until eternity ends.”

He scrutinised her face for any sign she had heard him. There was nothing but the soft rise and fall of her breasts as she breathed. Her hair had grown longer and fanned out on the pillow, golden strands against white cotton. How much longer would he be able to stand the hospital’s antiseptic smell, which was not quite able to cover the scent of lingering death?

He glanced at his wristwatch. Odessa was now in the private hospital with a grand view of the orchards, wreathed in the russet and tan colours of full-blown autumn, and her beloved mountains hovering in the distance.

The soft tread of rubber-soled shoes invaded his wretched desolation. The man who stood in the doorway had hair identical to Odessa’s spun gold, and equalled Harley in height. “Dakoda?” the man asked.

Harley nodded, got to his feet and shook Odessa’s brother’s hand. The man could easily have qualified for GDA admission. His bulk alone would have deterred criminal activity.

“How is she?”

“There’s no change,” Harley echoed the nurse’s dismal words.

Another man, who appeared to be a carbon copy of the man, strolled in. “My brother, Jason,” Brody said, by way of introduction.

After a round of handshakes, Jason said, “You told us she has other injuries.” Both brothers hovered over the bed, examining Odessa as if they were afraid to touch her.

Harley grimaced, reluctant to admit the truth to himself, but having been forced to face the facts several times. “She had severe burns along her right arm and down the side of her neck, which are still healing but the doctor said she’ll be okay if she comes out of the coma.”

The brothers nodded in unison. “We’d love to have you stay with us.”

“Yeah, we would. We even cleaned up the kitchen.”

Brody elbowed his twin. “Along with the rest of the house. Took us three months, but we managed.”

Despite the sorrow and worry he felt, Harley smiled at their liveliness. “I’d like that, but I’d better warn you. This might take some time.”

“We’re not going anywhere in a hurry, although we better warn you, Uncle Peter might enlist you for KP duty.”

“Odessa mentioned him many times.”

“Just wait until he sees her. It will break his heart,” Brody said.

“Maybe send him to an early grave,” Jason added.

Before Harley could state how much he wanted to meet the old man, a piercing voice interrupted. “Don’t push me along so fast, son.”

A white-haired man entered the room at a brisk pace, with a matronly nurse speeding after him. “You can’t smoke a pipe in here, sir. It’s against hospital policy.”

The old man abruptly stopped in his tracks and faced her. The nurse collided with him. “I’ll be damned if anyone tells me—at my age—what I can or cannot do, lady.”

The nurse’s outrage turned into a scowl and she strode away, quite possibly to get the hospital’s security staff.

“That’s Uncle Peter,” Brody said with a chuckle.

“
This
is Uncle Peter,” the old man corrected.

“Instilling the fear of God in everyone,” Jason said with a flourish of his hand.

Uncle Peter didn’t acknowledge Harley in any way. He no longer seemed to hear his chattering nephews, but bent down by the side of Odessa’s bed and took her hand in his. Her small hand was swallowed up by his hefty one. “Odessa. You’ve got to come home. If I told you I was dyin’, I’d be lying, so I won’t pull that stunt, but you gotta come home.”

“Yeah, don’t let him pull that stunt on you. He’s madly in love with Joanna Petrocheeni,” Brody offered.

“Yeah, he’s as old as the hills but he’s never going to die,” Jason put in.

Harley suddenly wished he had a supportive family, the way Odessa apparently had. Their banter soothed his nerves and allowed him to think that better days might lie ahead. The past few months of worrying about whether Odessa would come around had taken their toll. He’d slept very little and knew he had lost a lot of weight. Often he’d had to force himself to eat, fearing there would be no one around for Odessa when she needed someone.

“Son,” Uncle Peter said, looking up Brody, “why don’t you take your brother and find a coffee shop, and get me some of that new fangled fruit coffee while I talk to your sister?”

Brody didn’t move. He folded his arms across his chest.