Chapter 19

Departures

SNOW LOOKED FROM Ja’Prith to the waiting ship and back again. The heaviness she felt in her heart showed in her face.

Your fellow knights await you, my young friend. You must go.

Her father’s mind-mate stood before her in the odd M-shaped posture of his kind. His narrow eyes held a sadness too. But the voice Snow heard in her mind was calm and resolute.

Even the best armour in the universe cannot stop some things hurting. Parting brings pain, but it will pass.

Salt had put the freighter down on the planet’s rocky surface as soon as he had realized that the creature pursuing them was carrying Snow. Ja’Prith had swooped down to settle beside the ship. All four knights had hurriedly disembarked to greet Snow – and her remarkable companion. It wasn’t every day you got to meet a real-life alien, after all. Salt too had come to pay his respects to the giant beast.

Tea-Leaf, Rake and the others had wanted to hear all about Snow’s narrow escape from the besieged research station. Snow had pointed out that, for a while at least, they had been in far greater peril than her.

‘Ja’Prith’s comrades were destroying every Corporation escape craft that tried to make a run for it back there. If he hadn’t sent a mind-message to tell them your ship carried friends, not foes, they’d have knocked you out of the sky too.’

Talk of ‘mind-messages’ had provoked more questions. But Snow was reluctant to discuss her new-found abilities. She had not yet had time to come to terms with them herself.

Now the others were back on board the vessel, preparing it for the start of its journey back to Earth.

But Snow was finding it difficult to leave. She had only known her father’s mind-mate for a short space of time, but the bond between them was already remarkably strong. Telepathic connections ran deep, she was beginning to realize. And there was still so much she wanted to ask about her father.

A sudden desperate thought flashed into Snow’s mind – triggering an instant response from Ja’Prith.

No. You should not stay.

The giant creature turned his elongated head to look at the columns of fire and smoke rising from the research centre in the distance.

Look! urged Ja’Prith’s mind-voice. The Corporation is finished here. Kasteesh is free once more. I and my brothers and sisters will labour to return our great city to its former glory. The Chairman will not chain us again!

The creature turned his gaze back to Snow.

To see out my days with you in your father’s place, on my back, would thrill my heart. But your home world has great need of your unique powers. It is up to you and your order to fight the Corporation’s evil at its heart – on Earth.

Snow hung her head. The voice in her mind became more tender.

For many cycles I have lived in the hope that Hoshiko was only beyond the range of my thoughts, not beyond the grave. But I am at peace now. Your father may no longer survive in body, but his spirit lives in you, brave Alida.

You have rescued me from a prison cell. And you have freed me from something far worse – my grief. For both, I am for ever in your debt.

Ja’Prith bowed his alien head low to the ground, in a gesture of respect. When he lifted it again, his eyes were sparkling.

I look forward to the next time we fly together, daughter of Hoshiko.

Sensing that this was his parting thought, Snow forced a smile and formed her own farewell mind-message.

As do I. Take care, Ja’Prith.

She watched as the noble creature extended his huge wings and launched himself powerfully into the air.

Before long, he was a dark speck against the sky, then gone altogether.

Snow turned and made her way slowly up the freighter’s boarding ramp.

Salt’s desire to make a swift departure was understandable. Their four-day time limit – the period over which they were supposedly visiting the out-of-town smelting plant – was fast running out. Time was of the essence.

Although the freight ship had a stardrive and would serve to get them home, it would take time to manoeuvre the sluggish vessel out of Kasteesh’s orbit before they could safely make the spatial jump.

Then there was more time to allow for the tricky last stage of their journey, once back on Earth – their return to the Academy itself. Salt’s plan was to ditch the freighter half a day’s hike from the smelting complex, then make their way to the complex on foot. He was confident his friend Rajsim could arrange for them to return to Nu-Topia by shuttle – as though having completed their ‘field trip’ – without raising anyone’s suspicions.

It was only after Salt had piloted the ship out of Kasteesh’s atmosphere that Snow had an opportunity to speak to him privately. As the vessel thrummed its way steadily towards the point where they could safely engage its stardrive, she approached her old mentor, a little nervously. The others were busy goggling at the amazing views of the planet below – this was only their second experience of space travel and they had spent the whole of their first journey shut in a dark cargo pod.

‘Master.’ Snow tried her best not to sound accusing. ‘Why did you never tell me the truth about my parents?’

Salt hit a flashing control button, then turned slowly in his pilot’s chair to give Snow his full attention. The gruff old armourer’s eyes shone with uncharacteristic tenderness.

‘I’m sorry for being less than honest with you, believe me,’ he rumbled. ‘I gave your father my word. I hope you can forgive me.’

Snow nodded silently.

‘If there is anything you wish to know about your parents, I will be do my best to answer any questions,’ continued Salt. ‘I have honoured my promise. Now is no longer the time for half-truths.’

Snow looked down for a moment, then lifted her gaze to meet his. ‘Then  . . . what really happened to them?’

Salt drew a long, slow breath. ‘You were less than four months old when your father brought you to me,’ he began. ‘At the Academy, under cover of night. We had never met before, but Hoshiko had sought me out as a fellow Armouron – the only person he believed he could trust.

‘He told me of his life with the Mshanga; of his capture by the Corporation; and of the torment he suffered at their hands – but I imagine your friend Ja’Prith has already recounted that part of your father’s tale?’

Snow nodded. ‘But Ja’Prith never knew what happened to him after he was taken to Earth,’ she said quietly.

‘He escaped,’ said Salt. ‘He wanted dearly to return to Kasteesh to free Ja’Prith – he suffered greatly from their separation. But he was terrified of falling into the Corporation’s hands again. Not because he feared for his own life, you understand. He was no coward. But he realized that the advanced mental powers he was developing were something the Chairman would do anything to duplicate – so that he could use them for his own corrupt ends.

‘So your father went into hiding. The White Knights sought him relentlessly. For some time, he managed to evade them. He even met and fell in love with your mother. You were born two years after his escape. But only months later, his luck ran out. The Corporation located your family home somehow. A team of White Knights staged a night raid. Your father only just managed to get you away safely.’

‘My mother?’ pressed Snow.

‘She was killed in the attack on your home,’ Salt said gently. ‘Your father was a broken man when he left you in my care. That night in the Old School, he made me swear two things: to do everything in my power to keep you safe; and that when you were old enough to ask after him, I should tell you he was dead. He feared that otherwise you would attempt to seek him out and put yourself in danger. And he was quite certain that his death was imminent. He left his medallion with me – the one which you now bear in your breastplate. An Armouron Knight only surrenders their medallion on their deathbed.’

Salt reached out to take one of Snow’s neat hands in his own massive palm.

‘I spent only a few hours in your father’s company. But it was enough to recognize him as a brave, noble man. He would be as proud of what you achieved back there on Kasteesh as I am.’ He smiled warmly. ‘You have the same fearless spirit I saw in your father that night.’

His spirit lives in you.

Snow suppressed a sudden swell of emotions as she recalled Ja’Prith's farewell.

‘Thank you, master,’ she said simply. ‘I just needed to know.’

She turned away and crossed slowly to one of the large viewports in the ship’s side. She stared blankly out at the shrinking sphere of Kasteesh.

She knew that she, like Ja’Prith, must seek to accept her father’s death. But her adventure on Kasteesh had brought buried feelings of loss to the surface again. All too briefly, it had seemed that her heart’s desire – that her parents would someday miraculously return to her life – had been about to come true.

She must recognize that desire for the fantasy it was and let it go. She must find a way to be at peace with her father’s death, as his beloved mind-mate had done.

But it was hard.