Galaxy's End: Book One by LeRoy Clary (pdf ebook reader txt) 📕

sleep there, I instantly understood. It was too dangerous to leave. We didn’t have enough trusted people to stand watches. Two more chairs were inside, the same kind as those in the dining room, where I assumed, they had come from. Fang occupied the same command seat as before, however, a pair of misters sprayed a thin film of water at him with a touch of his flipper.

Captain Stone sat in the other command chair. Bill had a drill in one hand. He was fastening the second of the chairs from the galley to the floor. He pointed at the one already bolted in place. He was taking the engineering/mechanical thing seriously.

I sat and waited.

Bill finished and climbed into the second chair as a tap on the hatch sounded. The camera showed the steward holding a small tray with a glass and a small pitcher. When Captain Stone glanced at me, I said, “I asked for it.”

She touched a button on her armrest and the hatch opened. The steward wordlessly strode to me, smiled, and placed the tray on a shelf at my side. She poured the glass and retreated.

The click of sound told me the hatch was locked again. Nobody had spoken. It was worse than I feared. All eyes were on me.

Captain Stone drew a breath and said, “That steward has been researched and approved by Bert. You can assume it is safe to drink. However, the person who injected the captain with poison is still aboard and unidentified. I suggest you use the water in the faucet in the corner.”

“I see.” My abrupt response was because of my dry throat and a feeling of separation as if my friends were all afraid of me and were pulling away. I took a sip without choking then changed my mind and poured the water down the drain and refilled it from the spout. Bert is smart but he is not all-knowing. There was a murderer at large.

The Captain continued, “Bert, how are your background checks coming?”

“Five people are eliminated. Working on the others.” His voice came over the speaker.

“Bert is in the Comm room?” I asked.

“Yes, with a vetted crewman, and a cargo handler is standing guard outside the locked door. I have a camera on the crewman, just in case he’s attacked.”

So much for Bert’s vetting. Even Captain Stone didn’t buy into it fully. I wouldn’t until Bert found the guilty one. I took a long drink and refilled the glass, feeling the eyes on me as if I were the featured stripper in a stim bar. I looked up and motioned with a wave of my hand for her to continue.

“We’ve been working while you rested,” she said carefully. “We feel it is time for a meeting of the five of us.”

Five? I counted on mental fingers. Yes, but only if Fang were included. I assumed he was now part of our little band. I said, “You want to know about me?”

Captain Stone sighed. “I have never heard of what happened. Neither has any of us. Not a hint nor whisper.”

I said nothing.

She went on, “I confess to suggesting the idea. I hoped that if they came within boarding range you might influence them. I never anticipated what happened.”

Bert’s voice came over the speaker directly over my head, “I can find nothing in my research that equates. There is little factual information to be located, so anything could have been suppressed.”

“You are not supposed to research that subject,” I growled. “They will come for you.”

“We have bigger worries than that,” Captain Stone said. “Bert is acting on my orders.”

She might not understand, but I held my tongue—for now. The damage, if there was any, had already been done.

Bert spoke again as if he knew my thoughts, “Kat, there is no record of what you did, so I approached the issue obliquely. There is no information I can find that either limit the distance an empath can affect others or limiting the same.”

“Nothing?” I muttered.

Bert replied, “That does not mean much. As I said, the information may have been purged, however removing all sources of information is almost impossible. There are data stored in the oddest places, not all of them on the usual networks. I’m still looking. It is also possible that your episode did nothing but scare those of us on this ship.”

“They fled from us.”

“They were not warships. Their crews were civilians. When we turned and “attacked” they might have turned without your help. When one broke formation, it would be reasonable that the others would also.”

“And if they come after you for researching the subject?” I snapped.

“Our captain has informed us, while you were napping, that not only will the Guardia be renamed and rebranded, but each of us will have the best possible new identities that universal credits can purchase.”

“I was not ‘napping,’” I snarled. “Besides, we’re talking about the government of an entire world and you think they can’t find us?”

Captain Stone spoke first. “There are thousands of worlds, each with their information banks. None can hold a small fraction of the total, even if the systems were compatible and could exchange information. My people will use remote identification that will have your history listed on backwater planets where part of the data have been destroyed by war or worse. In short, your new identities will hold up to scrutiny.”

“DNA?” I asked, thinking I had found the chink in her argument.

She spat a laugh before catching herself. “Kat, when and why have the governments of several planets isolated by dozens of lightyears, gathered your DNA?”

Okay, she was right. Bert may have allowed his DNA to be gathered because of his long life, but I saw no reason for Bill or me to have ever been recorded. Besides, she was