Baswin Read online

  BASWIN

  Taxyon Space, Book 5

  By

  Aurora Springer

  Can a young psychic woman from Earth find a home among the alien Warrish?

  Psychic sensitives, Holly Moon and her sister Rosie, are chosen as candidates for Warrish training as hyperspace navigators. The sisters are eager to promote humanity’s advance into space. Will they win success? They must pass a series of rigorous tests and adapt to the alien neuro-implants.

  Alien merman, Baswin Kenton Tallis, Second of his Triad, lives on Earth disguised as a human. When Earth agents discover the secret identity of his older brother, Bas must flee to the Warrish embassy in the Pacific Ocean.

  Holly and Baswin are swept together on an island in the Pacific Ocean, but their destiny lies farther away and many obstacles threaten to drive them apart.

  Follow the adventures of the three brothers of the Flaming Comets Triad in Baswin, Book 5 in Taxyon Space.

  Copyright © 2021 Aurora Springer

  All rights reserved.

  Disclaimer

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 1

  IN THE QUIET VILLAGE of Hampton in the Wold on the western fringes of the Indo Eurasian Union, Holly Moon placed her scrying mirror on the table next to the teddy bear. Opening the hinged copper lid, she gazed into the mirror. The reflective glass blurred into swirling ripples. The iridescent ripples widened, leaving a small transparent circle in the center.

  Tensing in anticipation, Holly bent over the mirror and focused her psychic senses on the expanding circle. The vision strengthened until she distinguished her target in a tumble of rocks at base of a sheer slope. The girl’s small body was pinned in the crack between two boulders. Judging by the position of the tangled blonde hair, she lay face down and motionless.

  Thirty minutes earlier, Detective Sergeant Powell had called Holly to ask her to scry for the missing girl. He had dropped off her picture and favorite teddy bear to guide the search. Holly’s life had become much more exciting since the detective had recognized her talent for finding lost objects and missing people. The Sergeant was prone to plead for her services on difficult or urgent cases in his jurisdiction.

  This one looked nasty.

  The girl’s faded shirt almost matched the yellowed hues of the earth-encrusted boulders and her body was partially buried in the middle of the rock pile. She would be difficult to spot from a distance. Was she dead or just unconscious? Anguish gushed into Holly’s mind.

  Tamping down her emotional response, Holly examined the girl as closely as possible with her remote senses. One pale arm stretched up, the fingers curled as if she had tried to claw to safety. Her blonde hair was damp and matted. A thin ribbon of wet blood stained the rock below her head. A bad sign.

  Spurred into action, Holly rapidly assimilated the physical details of the girl’s location and broke her trance. The crumbling walls of the pit might be the remains of a quarry or one of the bomb craters left in the wooded hills. The big cities had been rebuilt in the years after the war’s destruction, but nobody had bothered to repair the damage in small rural communities.

  She grabbed her com, related what she had seen and punched the message over to Sergeant Powell. Her task was done. With luck, her description would enable him to pinpoint the site and recover the girl. Dead or alive.

  Renewed anger and sadness at the girl’s dire predicament seeped into her thoughts. Leaning back in the chair, she shut her eyes and performed the mental exercises designed to sweep away the unpleasant emotions before they became overwhelming. She envisioned a favorite landscape, a beach of pristine white sand washed by sparkling waves.

  As she relaxed, her thoughts drifted. In some ways, she was fortunate in her psychic talent. The requests for her services were usually more benign like seeking for an item of lost jewelry or a stray pet. In contrast, her younger sister had a talent for healing. Rosie worked at the hospital in the nearby town where she was exposed to sick people every day. After tending to a difficult patient, Rosie often had to rest at home for several hours to restore her usual cheerfulness.

  A few minutes sufficed to dispel Holly’s negative emotions. She swiveled around to gaze though the window at the verdant landscape. This room at the rear of the cottage overlooked the village allotments. Beyond the garden beds of vegetables and flowers, sheep grazed on grassy slopes at the edge of the woods. The soothing influence of the peaceful scene restored her normal serenity. She and Rosie often sat in this room for that very reason. Yet, sometimes she wondered if they had become too settled in this secluded village when the world had so many beautiful places. If only they had the credits, she yearned to travel and explore different regions of the planet.

  Holly withdrew her gaze from the window. Her scrying mirror lay open on the table. She picked up the mirror, intending to restore it on the shelf.

  Her senses pricked. A premonition?

  She glanced at the mirror.

  Colors swirled over the reflective surface and a face appeared. A strange face with chiseled features and an extraordinary sweep of vibrant orange hair curling like a wave over the top of his partly shaved head. A male face, she guessed, despite his unearthly appearance. His eyelids were closed and his expression as calm as if he were asleep. As she watched, his eyes flicked open to reveal startling irises of a golden amber hue. His pupils widened and he smiled at her.

  Who was he? Could he really see her or was he looking at something else?

  “Holly. Holly.”

  Her sister’s strident call broke into her focused mind. She blinked and the mysterious vision faded from the mirror.

  Rosie burst into the room, waving a beige envelope. Her face glowed with excitement as she cried, “Holly, this letter just arrived. It’s from the Ministry for International Affairs.”

  Folding the mirror into its case, Holly shook her head in disbelief. “Why on earth would the Foreign Ministry send us a letter?”

  “I know. Isn’t it weird? But weird is what we do.” Rosie giggled. “Anyway, the letter’s from the Regional Minister, Mr. Braithwaite.”

  “It must be important,” Holly said slowly, holding out her hand for the letter.
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  “Here.” Rosie thrust the envelope into her fingers. “Read it.”

  She unsealed the envelope and removed a sheet of cream-colored paper. The gold crown and sunburst emblem of the Indo Eurasian Union were embossed on the top of the letter. She had never seen such a posh letterhead. The sunburst glistened and the midnight blue of the territorial name created a vivid contrast on the pale colored paper.

  “Wow. It’s fancy.” She skimmed through the words and read the letter aloud,

  “Dear Misses Holly and Rosyline Moon,

  You are invited to an interview at our Regional Office to undergo a critical assessment of your paranormal abilities. Your employers have been informed that you will be absent for important international business.

  A driver will arrive at the eighth hour on the morning of the fifteenth day of August to escort you from Hampton in the Wold to our offices at the New London Spaceport. Please bring any device you employ in your craft. The assessment is expected to last for the entire morning. Transport will be available for you to return home after the interview. You have the option of visiting New London in the afternoon.

  We look forward to your attendance at this important interview.

  Yours truly, Augustus Braithwaite, Senior Minister

  International Affairs Division of Indo Eurasian Union

  Office for International Affairs, New London.”

  Wrinkling her forehead, Holly looked at her sister. “It’s a strange letter.”

  Rosie cocked her head and murmured, “What do you think?”

  Holly stared at the neatly printed lines of the letter. “It’s phrased as a polite invitation for some unspecified important international business. But we haven’t been offered a choice. There’s no request for a reply. No com code given for any questions.”

  “Sure. It’s a puzzle. Should we go?” Rosie’s eyes brightened in anticipation. “We’ve never had a chance to visit New London in the last few years. We haven’t traveled far from home since Dad’s death.”

  “I don’t know.” Holly frowned at the letter. “How on earth did this Braithwaite find out about our psychic abilities? Only a handful of people believe in our talents. Even our neighbors in the village are skeptical. They joke about our quaint notions.”

  “Not all of them,” Rosie said. “Dr. Greene believes my healing touch helps her patients to recover. And Sergeant Powell trusts you to find missing people.”

  Checking the date on her com, Holly said, “We’ll soon find out. Tomorrow’s the fifteenth.”

  Rosie scrunched up her lips in disapproval. “They didn’t give us much time to prepare.”

  “No time to scarper,” Holly joked.

  “Well, I’m going for the interview,” Rosie said in a decisive tone. “I’d love to have a free trip to the city.”

  Holly shrugged. “Okay. We might as well go. If only to learn why the guys at the Ministry for International Affairs are so keen to assess our paranormal skills.”

  “Right.” Rosie grimaced at the clock on the wall. “I’d better hurry to the transport station. My shift at the surgery begins in twenty-five minutes.”

  The sisters parted for their regular jobs. Rosie worked with patients in the regional medical center in the nearby town, while Holly had a parttime job in the village post office with the mundane task of routing packages for World Parcel Services.

  Chapter 2

  BASWIN KENTON TALLIS, Second of the Flaming Comets Triad, flew the rover over the undulating slopes of the forest toward the peaks. Checking on the map, he located a passage between the mountains and gained altitude for the crossing. After programming the route, he flipped the controls to auto and leaned back against the headrest of the seat. He could relax, perhaps hook a little sleep, while the rover flew on a westward course.

  He dozed. Life in the warm, salty waves of Rishalt saturated his dreams.

  Alerted by a tickling on the underside of his left wrist, Baswin woke with a start and glanced at his com. He had incorporated a secret quantum communicator in the standard Earther device. The qtel registered a signal coming from one of his personal monitors. Its alarm was designed to warn him of intrusions and potential threats to his mission of infiltrating Earther society.

  Anticipating trouble, he checked in the rover’s external viewers. He was flying on his programmed route above a highway through the mountain pass. The road below was almost empty of traffic. A cargo truck rumbled past in the opposite direction, another vehicle was visible far ahead, and nothing behind him. His special sensors detected no police drones nearby.

  He tapped on his qtel to locate the origin of the alarm. The signal came from the super bug he had given Alarik to override the monitors in his apartment in the city. The extra precaution seemed warranted after his brother had warned him about the discovery of his hideout in a rented room. Alarik had swiftly abandoned his seedy rental and dropped his secondary alias in favor of his primary identity as wealthy Rick Kent, the mining magnate.

  Baswin synched the rover’s display with the viewer on the remote monitor, being careful to select his secret channel and bypass the vehicle’s black box memory. He flipped through the monitors in the upscale apartment.

  Two men were standing inside the door. Obviously on illicit business, their faces were concealed by masks and they wore gloves to avoid making fingerprints. Their dark suits gave no clue to their origin. Were they government agents or independent operators? Whoever had sent the intruders, they represented another threat to his brother’s career as a covert agent on Earth.

  The men made a cautious circle of the open living area. They did not speak. At an unspoken signal, they separated. One man went to check the bedroom and adjacent washroom, while the other scoured the furniture in the main room. Each man searched the cabinets, shelves and drawers, removing individual articles and replacing them methodically. They ran their gloved fingers along the window frames and edges of the doors, feeling for hidden bugs.

  Efficient and careful. Professionals, Baswin guessed.

  Within a few minutes, the two men reunited by the sofa. Exchanging nods, but no words, they departed. The door lock clicked into place.

  He had to warn his brother.

  This intrusion into Alarik’s apartment only intensified his worries. Their mysterious enemies had penetrated his brother’s primary residence and likely compromised his alias as Rick Kent. Pondering the sequence of events, Baswin drummed his fingers on the rover’s control bar. By this date, Alarik ought to have arrived on Mars. He might be safer on that planet, beyond the jurisdiction of any searchers, assuming their bosses were based on Earth.

  He keyed the code for his brother’s qtel.

  After a minute, Alarik’s face appeared on the screen.

  “Bas?” He rubbed his eyes as if he had just been roused from sleep. It might be nighttime in his location on the red planet.

  Baswin mouthed in their native language, “Are you secure?”

  “No bugs here.” Alarik covered a yawn. “What’s the problem, Bas?”

  “Didn’t you get the alert? Your apartment’s been rifled.”

  “I must have been asleep. What did they hook?”

  “Two men entered at night. Searched the whole place. Professional job.”

  “I left nothing to indicate my true identity.” Alarik fingered the scar over the triad mark on his left cheekbone. “Did they find your super bug?”

  Proud of his miniature device, Baswin grinned. “No.”

  “Take anything?” Alarik asked.

  “Not that I saw.” He added a caveat, “But, they weren’t always in view. You blocked the bug in your wash room.”

  “Tantra’s teeth,” Alarik swore. “If they were looking for DNA samples, they’ll pin me as Warrish.”

  “Just as we feared.” Baswin placed forefinger across his lips to emphasize his warning. “You’d better swim clear of Earth.”

  “My escape route is still open. I’m booked on the ferry to the Asteroid Belt.�
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  Exasperated with his brother’s blithe unconcern, Baswin shook his head. “How does that help? You can’t survive for long among the asteroids even if you steal a ship.”

  Offering a confident smile, Alarik said, “Assuming the captain isn’t sent an order to net me, I’ll change my destination to Europa. Explain I’m planning to sell ores to the mermen.”

  “Urish. Might flow smoothly.” After a short pause, Baswin said, “I’ve already dived into cover.”

  His First invoked the usual good wishes, “May you swim in calm seas.”

  Hiding his fears behind a smile, Baswin said, “You also. Call from the Belt if you’re free.”

  “I’ll transmit in code first. It’s safer.”

  “Urish.” Baswin flattened the palm of his hand on his cheek in a farewell gesture.

  His brother echoed the gesture and shut the connection.

  Baswin frowned at the blank screen. His brother risked discovery if the searchers found DNA evidence of his alien origin. But, Alarik hadn’t seemed overly concerned. As First of their Triad, his brother was always optimistic, even overconfident to the point of plunging impetuously into dangerous whirlpools.

  He gave a mental shrug. He could not control his brother’s actions. Alarik might be diving into trouble by taking the space ferry to the Asteroid Belt. Whichever direction his brother chose to swim, he must take precautions to protect himself.

  He steered the rover away from the highway and over the forested wilderness. It was time to switch to his secondary alias as he had planned.

  Baswin stared through the side window at the bare mountain peaks. His First’s departure had left him as the sole covert agent on Earth, an unhappy, risky and lonely state. If Earthers discovered his brother’s alien origin, the same suspicions would soon flow to him. Beyond the threat of imprisonment, or possibly torture, the discovery of alien spies on Earth might jeopardize the Warrish treaty with Earther governments.

  Alarik and he had arrived together on Earth, ostensibly two Belter brothers grown rich on the proceeds of the rare earth elements they had discovered in the asteroids. Alarik, as suited his extroverted nature, had assumed a role in the spotlight as the wealthy mining magnate, Rick Kent. In that role, he gained high level contacts in Taxyon Space Enterprises and in the upper echelons of several governments. Meanwhile, Baswin had employed the alias of Basil Kent to move into middle class society. He had used his fake riches to establish a business and Secure Communications had become a successful venture. He had developed a reputation for reliability and credible expertise in installing coms and various types of surveillance systems. Under this cover, he introduced bugs in their security systems and relayed sensor data to the Watchers on Europa.