"The Stars Beneath Me", 1

This is a rough first chapter of a SF novel. You may've seen the early version that was a solo RPG session. This is a rewrite done almost without looking at the old text.

From here, the plan is to completely drop that "terrorists on a space station" storyline and go straight to the school, where the hero trains while laying low and shows that data chip to the leaders, who decipher it and ask if he wants to go on a space adventure. Yes please! The final scene here helps explain why he's not totally new to dangerous work.

I have a short story to finish before proceeding with this, and possibly another, and there's "Rising World" to pay attention to again. So this novel may not get updated much for a while.

In other news, that Thousand Tales short story collection is finally out! Features another short story that I added at the last minute after repeatedly deciding to stop adding stuff. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09RDQD3R8

Without further ado, here is: "The Stars Beneath Me".

------

Mephis guided the _Venture II_ down through clouds, into a snowy port littered with debris. The town of Safran huddled underground and had only a few towers and pipes breaking the rock and ice of the landscape. One building had obviously shattered. He glanced at it but focused on his assigned landing path. He settled his flying brick of a transport onto a pad with a tunnel extending to meet him halfway. Mephis ran his hands over the control panel making final checks, then let himself relax and radio for cargo pickup.

"Negative, _Venture II_. Your cargo transfer papers are outdated."

He stopped himself from speaking. Instead he brought up the paperwork he'd just filed while in transit, and rechecked it before saying, "Port control, I used the latest form."

"You'll have to take it up with them."

Mephis found out right away who the port official meant, when a squad of five soldiers hustled out to the launchpad.

He froze, looking the controls over. What was this? He was carrying tropical food and miscellaneous packages, nothing illicit. "Port control, am I being arrested?"

No answer, until a new voice broke in over the radio. "Pilot, you and all other crew will exit ship."

He had certain options for getting away from whatever this was. Fleeing was _always_ an option for him. So despite his thudding heart he sent an acknowledgment and opened the aft cargo hatch.

Icy wind cut into the ship. Mephis grabbed a heavy coat and came warily down the ramp to greet the troops.

These were men and women of the Eastpeak Republic, sharp-eyed and violet-haired. Their officer told him over the wind, "Ship is impounded."

"Why?"

"An ongoing investigation into port activities. You will remain in Safran until it's resolved. Suggest you get inside and warm."

Mephis stood in a cloud of mingled breath. He took a step back and nobody stopped him. "Unless your orders say otherwise, I'm locking the hull."

"I have no conflicting order."

Mephis went to the external control panel, making no sudden moves, and with a handprint and code told the ship to lock up. He gazed longingly at his cargo as it vanished behind metal. He thought, _I'll figure something out_, and retreated into the gate tunnel. As both his parents and his specialized instructors had taught him, there was usually a way around any barrier.

#

Port Safran had gardens of hardy plants in the upper underground levels, and murals of sunny skies and beaches. Mephis dressed in shades of firey orange and yellow to blend in, though he felt ridiculous. Dyes were a good purchase here what with the massive toxic waste dump providing all sorts of interesting chemicals to experiment with. The whole planet sent its less recyclable, nastier trash here and to a similar town in his own country.

Mephis browsed the port levels that were the only part of town accessible to foreigners without a pass. The tiles underfoot were made to feel like natural dirt. This underground space held a casino, some shops for clothing and locally made souvenirs of strange plastic compounds, and places to sleep and drink. Mephis rented a minimal sleeping-pod where he could slide in and lay down. He had none of his luggage but at least could sit in something like privacy and pause to think. He had a computer tablet on him, anyway.

In a few minutes he'd done the research and made two calls. The port authority itself had no clear idea what was going on, with conflicting orders about his ship. He fumed but took the next step: finding a local lawyer. Right away one of them heeded his call and agreed to meet nearby.

The office was one of several rooms available for rent for business meetings. Mephis had been to this sterile little complex before for face-to-face negotiations. Now, the lawyer was waiting for him with his feet up on the desk and a glass of something that smelled of nail polish in his hand. "Hey there. Cargo trouble, right? The whole port's screwed up right now; there's some spat going on between the military and the civvies."

Mephis considered looking for somebody else, but this man already had more local info than he did. "Mister Agrippa?"

"Call me Tony."

"Okay. Is this not about me, then? I haven't knowingly done anything illegal, though I can't say I inspected all of the packages I picked up."

"I checked into the situation. It's your _ship_ that's impounded, not your cargo. So go fetch your stuff and sell it or whatever, and you can worry about departure later. I can work on that part."

The situation was better than he'd feared, then. "Is my ship currently locked down so I can't get in?"

"Didn't check on that yet." He shook his head and took a drink. "Got some other things going on. In fact, why don't you go check while I work on another client? Won't count it against your time."

Mephis nodded and excused himself. He rented a small luggage cart, retrieved his coat, and went outside to the landing pads.

A soldier huddled against the cold, a rifle in his gloved hands. Beside him stood an Armiger, a basic security robot with four legs and a turret. Mephis approached cautiously and called out over the wind while holding his ID card. "I'm the owner of this ship. I'm looking to get in and unload it."

"Nobody boards until the ship is free and clear," said the uniformed man.

"But the cargo isn't under restriction."

"These doors stay closed. I don't care who you are."

Mephis apologized and backed off. He was thinking, _Fine, then. If you know nothing about me then it's to my advantage._

He looked around as much as the guard would allow, getting a feel for the layout of the chilly landing pad. Then he returned to the lawyer's borrowed office and shut the door.

"No luck?"

"Not enough skill." Mephis held up a glittering credit chip. "I haven't paid your consulting fee yet. Once I do, I get confidentiality, right?"

"Yeah, sure." Tony had finished his drink and was slouching in his chair, where he'd just pushed his computer aside. He took the chip and read it with that tablet, then nodded. "Something to say?"

"I may not be able to cut through the bureaucracy, but I have an idea about the cargo."

Mephis snapped his fingers, and the world rippled. He felt that he was falling through the void, surrounded by stars. An instant later, he was behind the desk.

Tony fell out of his chair. "What the...? Oh, oh! You're one of those."

Mephis helped him up. "Sorry. Right, I'm a registered psi."

"What the hell are you doing playing trucker, then?"

"I'm not very powerful. What I can do is, say, enter a locked ship that I've been in before."

The lawyer paced. "I can work with that. What stops you from unloading your cargo that way, right now?"

"I need to get within about ten meters, a hundred if I push. And I can only take about what I can lift. So that's half a plan." He looked to Tony for ideas.

"That changes things. I'm gonna make some inquiries and see how intent the military is on keeping a constant guard. The one you saw was at the main hatch, right? And then I'll dig more into the paperwork situation about the ship. It might be that legally, there's nothing stopping you from leaving except guards with confused orders."

Mephis nodded. "If I'm lucky. What do I do in the meantime?"

"Enjoy our lovely city. Don't do any freaky psychic stuff to put people onto you."

"And your fee?"

Tony took a deep breath and blew the air out slowly. "I'll waive it. In return, I want a ride out."

"That's it? I'm going home to Westshine across the border, not off planet or anything."

"Perfect. I'll arrange a pickup spot outside the port."

Mephis' eyes narrowed. "Why do you want a ride on a random small freighter?"

"In my line of work we have a saying: don't ask the witness one question too many. I'm a passenger. I can get your ship in the air; I just want to be on it."

In _Mephis_' business the goal was to keep flying and stack up profit. Traders varied in whether they had any principles beyond that. Mephis had been raised right and trained well, but a rule among his psi trainers was to adapt, flow, flex. You could burn holes in your brain by failing at that. Since he seemed to be caught in a bureaucratic problem not of his own making, he wanted to get his deals done, keep his head down, and get out. He had no obligation to the exact local rules and he _did_ have an obligation to his customers.

Mephis shook Tony's hand. "Let's get the goods moving."

Tony smiled. "Great."

"By the way, what broke on the port complex? I saw rubble on the way in." He tried to recall the layout; he'd only been here once before. "Was that the traffic-control tower?"

"Yeah. From what I gather, the money to maintain it vanished somewhere. Civilian or military pockets, I don't know."

Mephis eyed the man but saw no sign of him being that skilled a criminal. At times like this Mephis wished he'd spent more years learning to read people. What settled his worries well enough was that Tony had brought the corruption up at all.

Mephis told him, "I'm heading out for now. Need to contact some clients."

#

He arranged for a buyer for his main cargo, the food, pending his ability to unload it. But he also had packages to deliver, which meant sending a friendly warning of delay to every recipient. Mephis sat in a restaurant, picking at a plate of meatloaf and turnip stew and trying to ignore the annoying warble of the local music.

This trouble with the control tower and the apparent spat between port authorities wasn't the first problem he'd run into, since starting his merchant career in earnest. It was hard to gauge how much of it was normal, except through his parents' stories of how much better everything was in their day. He browsed the news and got little insight or even coverage of what was going on here.

Distant thumping noises reached him. Construction, he figured. But then there came a bizarre chime, and he sat bolt upright.

_The air shimmered violet above an older boy named Leo as rocks rained down. "I can't hold it!"_

_Mephis came running, not that he had the right powers to handle the earthquake. Another chunk of the ceiling collapsed while their fellow students fled. Mephis stopped short, mind racing and muscles paralyzed at the thought of being buried alive any moment. Then the force barrier Leo was maintaining gave a chime like a bell ringing, and the surreal shield cracked._

_Mephis willed himself to be there. For the first time ever, the trick he'd been studying worked. He fell through glittering space for an instant and arrived right next to Leo. Mephis yanked him along the tunnel in the same direction everyone else had fled. The fact that he'd just teleported barely registered. He didn't know how he'd made it work. He pulled the other student with him, running the normal way. The violet barrier bent in an impossible direction and finally shattered. Tons of jagged rock reclaimed their right to fall._

_Leo wobbled and they both tripped, but they missed the ground. A third student had shouted and held out her hands so that they got flung forward. The delayed impact gashed Mephis' hands and knees and he rolled to a painful stop at her feet. The other boy was just behind. The broken ceiling had pummeled the floor right where they'd been. But the quake was subsiding, and now one of their professors appeared in a starry flash. Thank Zagreus, they were safe for now._

It was the same noise of phantom matter cracking. Mephis jumped up, knocking over his chair, and with a whoosh he was out the door without passing the space in between.

He gasped. He'd instinctively begun setting up a second jump forward, but the space ahead didn't feel open and stable like it should. He ran instead. Other people fled past him in the other direction.

A man in scarlet lay battered and dazed, mouth open, in a pile of smashed concrete. A chunk of steel rebar pressed against his throat like a sword and a block had crushed one leg. The ceiling and wall were open to the cold wind and to the light of a burning starship outside.

Mephis looked around, grabbed the head-sized block, and tried to topple it aside. The wounded man screamed but his leg got free. The rod was attached to a heavy beam, though. "Sir, can you wriggle out? Don't know if your spine is hurt."

The man twitched one hand and beckoned for Mephis to lean close. Then he dug into his pockets and pulled something out, with a look of relief. He pressed a smooth plastic object into Mephis' hands and put a finger to his lips.

Mephis said, "Okay, but --"

A shout echoed from farther up the ruined hall. Men in uniform were coming, shouting, "Clear out!"

Mephis gave the man in red one more look and a nod, then ran off.

#

He returned to his tiny hotel pod to calm down. The disaster was dealt with, but what was going on? The port news site had a blackout on all but the most basic information: "A security incident at Launchpad 8 is under control, with all affected persons receiving medical aid."

The people who'd come to the blast site had looked like civilian emergency personnel. Looked like a ship had blown up! He needed to get out of here before anything worse happened.

He got a call from Tony. "Hey, you all right? I heard something exploded."

Mephis said, "Yeah. What happened?"

"I don't know. Hopefully the news will tell us half the truth before long. So. Remember, we were talking about clearing out your apartment. The movers are working late and I'm told they'll be coming by at ten tonight. But they'll probably be late by ten minutes, what with the confusion. Will you be standing by to let them in or whatever?"

Mephis squinted. Tony was being paranoid enough to speak in riddles, so... _Change of guards at ten, with a lazy gap expected in their coverage._ He said, "That works. Any progress on other stuff?"

"Working on it."

That was a no. Mephis thanked him and hung up. He had time for a nap, anyway. He stretched out and slept while he could.

Or tried to. The data chip given to him by the accident victim was a tiny weight in his pocket, but too big a mystery to ignore. Mephis used his personal tablet rather than the hotel pod's to plug it in.

The chip came up as encrypted. He grunted, disappointed. But he'd been given the thing for a reason. Maybe to hang onto, for now, and give back later. It was an explanation that only raised more questions.

But he had the data, whatever it was. Not even a large set of files. Mephis saved a copy under an encryption layer of his own. Best he could do for now.

#

That night, he rented a luggage cart. His planet built starships, but the carts _still_ had errant twisty wheels.

He worked out the location of his ship and walked around beneath it, in a loading area with a cargo elevator for medium-sized loads. His senses couldn't give him much of a feel for what was above him until he tried jumping. Risky. But this part of the hallway was empty at this late hour, and he had customers to serve. He took a deep breath, shut his eyes, and fell out of reality.

The blind jump was jarring. He found himself in the cold, directly under the bulk of his ship and surrounded by its landing legs. Nobody seemed to notice the _whump_ of displaced air. Mephis got his bearings and warped again, this time into the ship.

The _Venture II_ looked intact. He stood in the dark cockpit and touched the cold wall to steady himself. The chair had been turned around since he left. That detail got him to look around some more, and glare. Someone had been in here despite the locks. There was a scent of bad cologne, too. He crept along the ship's narrow central hall and flung open the door to the head and to his bedroom.

There was a drawer slightly open, a bottle askew. His fists clenched. He checked a computer panel on the wall and it showed a recent reset. He had to assume somebody had rifled through his data, stealing both business data and personal files. Nothing incriminating, but he'd been served no search warrant, accused of no crime. Apparently that was how they did things here in the east. He worried now about the little data chip he carried. Rather than keeping it in his pocket, he taped it to the edge of a control panel where nobody would notice short of a full ransacking. Good enough for now.

He had no ability to fight back against annoying officials right now. What he did have was cargo to unload -- hopefully. The hall led him to the hold that filled most of the ship. He let out a breath as he looked on the intact crates of fruit and vegetables from the equator, where this chilly world was temperate. Feeling paranoid, he tapped out a code on one of these boxes and slid it open, revealing well-refrigerated food. Nodding in approval, he shut the box again and turned to the stacks of mail.

He could teleport roughly what he could lift easily. So, he grabbed a big armload of random packages in white and grey, braced his feet, and dropped back down into the terminal.

And cursed, because he'd come out a meter above the floor. He crashed the rest of the way and dropped half his load. Quickly he loaded up his luggage cart with everything, and went more carefully back up. One jump up from the underground hall to the surface and a second to get into the ship. He could've made it in one trip, but he had a limited pool of "effort" as his school termed it, and he didn't want to dip into that by pushing himself.

So, that meant slightly more patience. He fetched more of the mail, brought it down in two hops, went back and did it again. This last time he startled a woman who was walking by.

She fled several steps and yelped in alarm. Mephis nearly dropped everything. He said, "Sorry, sorry!"

"Oh Zag, you snuck up... no, did you just _teleport_?"

Sheepishly he said, "You caught me, yes. I'm just unloading mail while we deal with whatever's causing the port troubles."

She looked his luggage cart over, and laughed nervously. Her accent was a westland one like his own, marking her as a traveler too. "You're running errands with your gift?"

"Serving customers who're waiting for things, while I work my way up to bigger deals." He forced a smile while thinking of an ongoing argument over his future.

"I shouldn't interfere, then," she said. She held up three fingers in a religious gesture, and started to walk away.

He returned the trident-sign with one hand. "Wait. Do you have any idea what the problem here is? There was a ship that exploded, but something was going on before that."

She said, "I was here two weeks ago on a business trip and the place was having the Colors Rite." She lowered her voice. "I hadn't known to expect a bunch of drug-addled idiots blundering around, but apparently that's how they celebrate it here. Maybe that's really what happened to the control tower. Probably this is stlll the aftermath."

"What a mess. Say, do you want to take over the sleeping pod I rented? I need to get a bigger room for myself to hold these." He jiggled his luggage cart.

"I have a room already, but thanks. Good luck getting back home in one piece." She made it sound like a joke, so Mephis tried to laugh.

They parted ways. Mephis rented a room in the guest levels that had room enough for all his mail and himself, barely, and slept until the post office opened in the morning. There'd been no way to grab the big food crates, but he'd made progress on the sale contract and had lined up a delivery of several tons of dyes and plastics to take home. Now he was just waiting on the rest of the port bureaucracy to get out of his way.

#

Early the next morning he dropped off all of the mail, so he'd imposed no more than a day's delay on many individual customers. He dusted off his hands and moved on to the next problem. After breakfast.

On the phone, Tony the lawyer sounded hung over. Tony said, "Yeah, hi. How did it go at the casino last night?"

"I'm up a bit," Mephis said, playing along. "So where are we on the paperwork?"

A sigh. "I've been bounced back and forth between departments. The military is flexing its muscles here. But now attention is focused on whatever the hell is going on with that ship. I heard they arrested a guy who put up a freaky magic barrier."

"It's not magic," Mephis began explaining, for the hundredth time in his life.

"Whatever. Anyway I've heard nothing about other crew, and it was just a little scout ship. While the authorities are dealing with that I might be able to get you a departure pass. But be ready to scoot as soon as the papers come through, before anybody tries to countermand them."

"Progress! Thanks, Tony. How about my cargo, though? You said it's not officially impounded but I've got no way to move it."

Tony paused. Maybe he assumed Mephis had been able to unload the whole ship. "Oh. In that case, I have something in progress already, so let me get back to you today."

"By lunch?"

"Fine."

Mephis had hours to wait. He spent them trying the casino for real, wagering just a little money. While he was there he asked around about the news. The scantily clad woman dealing out colorful dice at a velvet table told him, "I think the authorities are just trying to get someone besides themselves in trouble. There's _definitely_ no corruption here, you know."

He snorted, and placed his next bet.

He got out of there with enough profit to pay for last night's hotel stay. Nice. He got a message from Tony containing a passenger pickup destination in the city outskirts, as though Mephis were running a taxi service. And finally, a formal cargo-import approval. A note with it said that pickup would be within an hour, and named an unfamiliar "dock fee" nearly equal to his casino winnings.

Mephis was a provider of goods. He'd heard many stories from his parents and lived through one himself, about needing to adapt to local rules. Including unspoken rules, and where "adapting" sometimes meant something different from "complying". The interstellar economy would go into another Death Crash by mankind's own hand this time, if merchants didn't do whatever it took to keep goods flowing.

In short, yes he would pay the obvious bribe.

Trying to tell himself he was doing his sacred duty to trade, he made some final calls and went outside to the cold once more.

On the tarmac road next to the landing pad stood a chilly squad of four stevedores, no robots. They had a truck hovering just above the road and they had the authorization code that Tony had provided, so Mephis took a tablet from them and started in on the final transfer paperwork. He glanced back to his ship. Two soldiers and a bot were watching.

One of the troops said, "What are you doing? This ship is impounded."

"So I hear. Right now I'm just trying to get tons of fresh food to your grocery stores, and pay for materials from your factories."

"We need specific authorization for that."

Mephis thought quickly. Who was really in charge here, after all the wrangling he and Tony had done? He didn't want to try bullying the men with the guns. He said, "Do your orders specify the cargo? I think it's just the ship."

"Even so, we need direction from higher up before we let you interfere."

"If I don't take anything out, can I at least show them the goods?"

The pair scowled at him, and then the older-looking one said, "Fine. Under supervision."

Mephis opened the hold. It had begun snowing and scattered flakes blew into the metal bay. Mephis ushered the transport guys inside and let them poke around, verifying the contents. Mephis made sure the soldier watching them got a good look at the food he was trying to put on local shelves.

Back outside, the men said, "You want us to come back later, or what?"

Mephis looked at the borrowed tablet again and smiled. These helpful workmen had formally approved the goods. He tapped out a code and signed with a flourish on the last page. He said to the transport men, "The crates are now officially in your hands." Which should trigger automatic payment, though with a common 30-day delay allowing for disputes. He was at least closer to the goal.

Mephis explained, "So now, Greenway Grocers just needs to convince these military gentlemen to let you carry their property away."

One of the workmen laughed. Another didn't find it so funny. "But we didn't get the stuff!"

Mephis used his own tablet to set up a credit chip, including the promised "fee" and a little extra. "Why don't you guys get out of the cold and get a drink while we finish sorting this out."

They grumbed and left. Mephis locked up _Venture II_ again and shrugged at the soldiers.

There were another few phone calls between him and Tony and some corporate reps, but within minutes Tony had broken the dam. A Greenway Grocers rep with obviously restrained frustration in her voice asked to be put on the line with the soldiers. Mephis handed the pad to them personally and stepped back. Even from several steps away in the muffling snowfall he could hear yelling. Whatever that was about, it worked. One of the troops ushered Mephis closer, returned the pad, and said, "Fine. Get your junk unloaded."

The buyer was the number one food importer in Safran. It probably had pull.

Mephis summoned the cargo men again and they finally slid the crates out of storage, and loaded the ship up again with the pallets of plastic and dyes. He took the opportunity to change clothes, too. Now there was just the one last step of getting out. That and getting paid, but that _probably_ wasn't going to be a problem now. Everybody was happy, right?

In fact, he managed to convince the guards that since it was his ship and only forbidden to leave yet, he should be able to stay the night on board. One more foot in the door.

#

Mephis grabbed food and spent the rest of the day in his ship, with the heater in his cabin cranked up. The local network had a few other ships complaining of being stranded too. Seemed like it was small-time travelers and traders getting harassed. Mephis posted something about his experience with the food company in case that'd help anybody else wiggle free. Other than that, he sent off an update to his parents to say he expected a modest profit despite the trouble. Then there was a little routine maintenance: walking the one hall, running a sterilizer over the head, sweeping out the cargo bay that still smelled faintly of fruit. No need for crew at his scale of operations. His boots echoed on the metal floor.

He lay back on his cot and reminisced. To live and trade on planet Aquila was usually comfortable. He hadn't yet proven himself able to land a big score, that mix of luck and skill that made families like his into true merchant houses. That was... it was all right, for now, but he'd taken years out of his practical education for the training of his very limited powers. It might have been better to stay for only that first month, for the minimal training that protected him from frying his own brain. Now he had a career to get back to and he felt he'd indulged himself learning a few party tricks instead of focusing on the real work ahead. He sighed; Zagreus had at least found ways to use what skills His inspired madness had given to Mephis.

During his dreams of distant worlds, a clink of metal caught his attention. Mephis opened one eye and heard a footstep just outside his cabin. Shivering, he tried to make no noise himself as he stood up and grabbed the pistol locked in a keypad safe. The latch was already open, left by careless searchers. The weapon? Untouched, loaded. He might have to surrender right away if the intruder pulled military rank, but it'd be best to have more options. Mephis knew his ship's layout, so he made the jump easily.

He stood in the main hall, pulling back the hammer of the old-fashioned gunpowder weapon. Cold wind blew from behind him. Ahead, a man froze in the dim pinpoint lights of the dark ship. He wore a leather jacket and several knives, tough but non-military.

"Hands up!" said Mephis.

"How'd you get there?"

"You first. Your hands!"

With a muttered curse the intruder raised his hands, while still facing away. "I'm just looking for loot. Obviously picked the wrong ship, so no harm done."

"There are soldiers watching outside. How'd you pass them?"

"Trade secret."

"Maybe we should go ask them, then."

"Fine. You got me."

But the man had a hint of a smirk on his face as he turned his head to see Mephis. Had the guards been bribed?

So Mephis dropped out of the ship, right down through space to land on the concrete pad. Nearby lay two soldiers and a trail of blood, next to a smashed robot. An upright man with a gun kept watch on the stern, where someone had opened the hatch without lowering the noisy ramp. Then, hearing the whoosh of air, he ducked and spotted Mephis.

Mephis fired. The bullet ricocheted off _Venture II_'s underside, striking sparks. A beam of light lanced out and missed Mephis by inches. He dashed for cover behind some empty crates. He wanted no part of whatever this was! Now the second invader hustled down a rope from the stern. Mephis took a shot and missed, only making the man drop the last meter. The real way to deal with this was to get behind them again, execution style.

Or, just leave like a sane person.

Mephis willed himself free of the space where he crouched. He was suddenly back inside his ship. In the cargo bay. He hurried toward the door controls and slapped them. A laser pulse ripped into the hull, making metal sizzle. That was fine; he could deal with a little hull damage from these pea-shooters.

The knife-wielding criminal rushed up the rope and stood in the slowly shutting doorway, perfectly framed. Mephis leveled the gun at him and said, "I don't like dead weight. Get out."

The goon backed off and hustled back down the rope rather than take his chances. Mephis warped forward into the hallway and glanced back to make sure the man was really out. Then he hopped into the cockpit and hurried through takeoff procedures.

Meanwhile, he radioed for help, not to traffic control but to the same port staff he'd been dealing with for days. "I'm under attack, repeat, under attack! Someone's shooting at my ship and I saw two dead soldiers! Men down at my launchpad, two attackers on the loose."

Something noisy thunked on the other end, like furniture being shoved aside. "We'll send emergency personnel." Then there was cursing and argument over the live microphone.

Mephis lifted off and radioed for Tony. "Taxi's coming. I hope my passenger's near the pickup point right now -- I just got shot at!"

Tony barely hesitated. "Okay."

ATC came on the line. "_Venture II_, you do not have departure permission!"

"It's an emergency. Requesting emergency route at --" He rattled off the wrong heading, then corrected it to stall for time. He was airborne, heading out of the port's immediate airspace.

"Negative! Touch down if you have an emergency."

"Where?" Mephis said, speeding away. "I need medical and police help at my launchpad."

He let multiple agencies squawk at him and probably at each other. His smirk faded as he thought of the guards laying there in the cold. Whatever they'd been hit with, it'd put a lot more blood on the concrete than either the one man's laser or Mephis' gunpowder weapon would do. Was this a random attempt to rob a cargo ship?

His mind seized on the location of that little data chip, stashed in his room, and his blood ran cold.

Yet another call came, this one from Tony. "Here!"

The pickup point was an open field, but now that Mephis checked the cameras he saw tanks and power lines. "Can't land here. Got a flier?"

Tony was in luck. He was in a cheap air taxi with a hight ceiling of fifty meters or so. Mephis gingerly lowered his ship to just above a two-story building and steadied it in a hover, then overrode a safety control and opened the hatch, lowered the ramp.

The lawyer staggered out of the cab, onto the rooftop of the brick building. Workers stepped out to stare. The cab beeped angrily at him for payment. Tony reached for his wallet and Mephis said over the ship's speakers, "Really? You're taking time for this?"

"Just a sec! There." Tony ran up the ramp and into the ship. "I'm in."

Mephis shut the door and lifted off again, leaving bureaucratic confusion in his wake. "I don't know what's going on back there, but it's escalating. I'm leaving this whole continent before I have to explain to the locals that I didn't shoot the men cooling on the launchpad."

Tony whistled. "As your attorney I suggest you not tell me the story. At least till I can buy you a drink."

Chapter 2

[flashback, all italics]

"Mister Velera? I'm with the police. Congratulations on your work at Trident Academy. Your records say you're a teleporter?"

Mephis nodded. "A novice, but I can do it."

The cop leaned closer at the bar. "We'd really appreciate it if you could do us a little favor."

And so, Mephis was on the inside of a warehouse door and staring at a grenade tied to a fragile string. Just as he'd been warned in a crash course on infiltration. He shivered and considered just leaving again. But supposedly, there were kidnappers upstairs.

He took a picture, warped back out and explained the trap to the six heavily armed men waiting in the dark. The chief said, "Probably a short fuse. And you can't just make it go away?"

"No, sir."

They conferred. Mephis gulped and nodded, and then went in again, bypassing the door. The little bomb hung there...

[I'm told that even a simple trap like this might be so nasty it's best to cut through the wall rather than mess with it! Not sure if he yanks it and insta-teleports outside or what.]