Turning Point Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  KUSAC HAD TO FIND HIS CREW MATES—

  He didn’t know how much exposure his companions had had to the Valtegans since their scout ship had crashed on this planet, but it was obvious to him that this was the species for whom his people had been searching. And now it was even more vital that he reach the rest of his team because he’d just found out that their computer crystal was in Valtegan hands.

  The only thing he was certain of was that his fellow Sholans were heading for the life pod left by a survey ship years before for just such an emergency as they now found themselves in. And he knew that they’d tracked the pod as far as the large forested region which began not far from the settlement where he had found shelter with the Human called Carrie.

  Though he had not been listening closely to the conversation between Carrie and the town doctor, his attention was abruptly pulled back to it as he realized Carrie was about to tell the doctor of the Telepathic bond between them. Icy fear washed through him, and, with no time for subtlety, he sent a negative command to her.

  Carrie suddenly found herself unable to talk or move. Kusac’s fear began to resonate along with hers and sheer terror gripped her....

  DAW Books

  is proud to present

  LISANNE NORMAN’S

  SHOLAN ALLIANCE Series!

  TURNING POINT

  FORTUNE’S WHEEL

  FIRE MARGINS

  RAZOR’S EDGE

  DARK NADIR

  STRONGHOLD RISING

  Copyright © 1993 by Lisanne Norman.

  All Rights Reserved.

  Interior map by Michael Gilbert.

  DAW Book Collectors No. 936.

  First Printing, December 1993

  89

  eISBN : 978-1-101-17415-9

  S.A.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For Mum and Dad, who taught me to love words and paint pictures.

  For the members of ASTRA, too numerous to mention, but still appreciated.

  For the many friends who pushed and supported me into finishing this, including An-drew Stephenson, Ken Slater, Anne Page, and Marsha Jones.

  Thank you all.

  Prelude

  Carrie slept lightly, on the edge of wakefulness as always when Elise was working at Geshader, the Alien Pleasure City. Despite the sleeping pill and her sister’s mental block, vague images from Elise drifted through her sleeping mind, interweaving themselves with her dreams.

  Once more dwarfed by the size of her parents, she tossed and turned in a sweat-soaked bed, moaning in agony as they and the doctor probed and pressed the livid bruises on her back and arm, looking for a more serious injury that didn’t exist ... for her. Then they thought to check her twin.

  They found Elise sitting placidly with her right arm at an impossible angle and blood from the lacerations on her back slowly seeping through her clothes into the sofa. She had been the one who had fallen out of a tree.

  Carrie had hardly felt the sting of the hypodermic amidst the fire in her back and arm.

  “It’s the damnedest thing. Her sister has no sense of pain,” she’d heard the doctor’s voice boom as she began to slip into unconsciousness.

  “It hurts,” she whimpered, stirring fretfully in her bed.

  Monsters lurked in the fever dream, lizards of gray-green on two legs, lumbering slowly after her with a ponderous determination as, utterly terrified, she fled down echoing corridors.

  “Stop!” The voice was low and sibilant, the English distorted by a tongue not made to form the words.

  She hesitated, every muscle still poised for flight, staring back to where her pursuers waited for her.

  “Tell us where they are hiding,” one demanded.

  An invisible hand closed viciously on Carrie’s wrist, nonretractable claws pressing into her flesh. She jerked free, her other hand pressed to her mouth as the scene blurred.

  “Valtegans,” she moaned, drops of blood pearling on her wrist and dropping to the coverlet.

  She dreamed again of standing shivering in her underwear as she stowed her clothes in the small locker beside the coffin-shaped sleep pod, the chill caused by more than the lack of heating in the cryo level. Then lying down on the form-shaped interior, waiting for the medic to come and attach her to the life-support and cryogenic systems.

  Carrie glanced at her brother Richard before turning to grin nervously at Elise through the clear perspex sides as sensor pads were attached. Their parents hovered at the ends of their pods, anxiously waiting until all three children were safely asleep.

  She jumped as a hand touched her.

  “Don’t worry. It’s only a sedative to help you relax,” smiled the crew woman, fixing the small adhesive patch to her arm. “Next thing you know, you’ll be waking up in orbit around our new home.

  “Just to remind you, the system is automatic so there is very little you have to do. If you turn your head to the right, you’ll see it’s printed on the plaque there.

  “The main thing to remember when you wake up is to press that red button to release the pod cover, then take off the sensors. After that, you’ll hear the instructions on the speakers.”

  Already she could barely make out the woman’s voice.

  “Sleep soundly, children. I love you,” was the last thing she heard her mother say.

  The cover slid into place over her and she began to drift gently, imagining herself surrounded by a soft, warm, gray mist.

  Suddenly she was jolted to awareness by the sting of the hypo on her sister’s arm.

  The drug swept through Carrie’s system, burning its way along her nerves, setting them on fire until her whole body was convulsed with spasms. She tried to fight it, to open her eyes, but all she could see were colors swirling around her until her stomach was heaving with vertigo. She felt herself slipping ... slipping....

  “Mother!” she had screamed, her mind and body trapped in the slow time cold hell of cryogenics, unable to do anything as she felt at last her mother’s blind terror at waking too soon.

  She could sense her beating futilely at the walls of the cryo pod, trapped like a butterfly transfixed by a pin as she tried desperately to activate the release mechanisms that were locked in stasis.

  Her mother’s movements quickly grew sluggish, finally stopping as the limited air supply in the pod ran out.

  “Mother! Don’t leave me!” Carrie screamed, desperately fighting the effects of the drug that this time dragged her down into darkness.

  Carrie felt herself pushed and pulled in every direction. Scaled faces loomed at her out of the dim light, clawed hands grasped at her, pawed at her, making her flesh recoil from their sharp, cool touch. She stumbled against bodies that thrust her away to fall to the ground, only to be dragged to her feet again. Noise surrounded her, loud, sibilant voices shouting. Like the images, the sounds faded in and out with her consciousness.

  “We have to fight them, Carrie. I can’t do it passively like Dad. I’m leaving to join the guerrillas. The Valtegans are soldiers, not civilians, and they’re Alien. We can’t appeal to their better nature because they haven’t got one.

  “I’m leaving now, tonight, for Geshader.”

  “Geshader? But ...”

  “Don’t try to change my mind, Carrie,” Elise warned quickly, “it’s made up. As one of the women in their pleasure city, I can get close t
o the officers, a thing no man can do. And once I’m with them, I’m sure I can get access to all sorts of useful information.”

  “But to become one of the prostitutes ... and with them! How could you?”

  Elise gave her a wry grin. “Come off it, Carrie. It’s the oldest profession going, and the women from Geshader that I’ve talked to say it isn’t that bad.

  “It isn’t as if we can’t keep in touch. There’s our link after all.”

  “You just take care, for both our sakes!”

  “Do you mind too much? You know the risks we face, don’t you?”

  “I know,” Carrie nodded, “but you’re the one taking the real risks. I’ll cope somehow. Jack Reynolds is used to us by now.”

  “At least you didn’t pick up much when I was with that lad from Seaport this spring,” her twin grinned, “so with any luck you’ll be spared my ‘working experiences.’ ”

  Her voice faded, leaving only the impression of the grin behind.

  “It’s the only way I could fight them, Carrie.”

  Figures jostled her again, dark red light on pallid skins, rough claws digging into her arms, drawing blood. Again, every nerve flared with excruciating pain and she tried to arch her body away from it, but she only succeeded in cracking her head against the wall. Stunned, she heard her own scream as if from far away as her hands tried to grasp for something concrete—anything—to help her hold onto reality. She was aware of a sudden warmth running down her right arm. Blood.

  Shock and fear brought her briefly out of her twin’s world of pain. Blood. Dear God, there had never been blood before!

  Footsteps pounded along the landing and her door burst open. Dimly she saw her father and brother standing there, their faces blanching when they saw the state she was in.

  She lifted her head up from the floor and tried to disentangle herself from her bedding but only succeeded in slipping in her own blood.

  “They’ve got Elise,” she said, her voice made blurry by drugs and pain.

  While the pain continued, she knew that Elise was still alive. When that stopped, her sister would probably be dead. Carrie began to whimper again, a low-pitched animal sound. Pain flickered through her body, but it no longer seemed to burn so fiercely. She lay there unthinking for the moment, thankful for the brief respite, while knowing the worst was not yet over.

  Two days before, the Valtegans had seized Elise; two days and nights of torment for Carrie. Her one comfort had been the knowledge that nothing they could do would make her sister reveal anything about the Terrans’ resistance movement on Keiss.

  Elise was not particularly brave, it was more that she possessed no sense of pain. Born the stronger of the two, she had never had to suffer the hurts of childhood. Instead, in some strange way, it was Carrie who had suffered the agonies of her twin’s broken arm, or the fever of some illness. As in the past, Carrie was the one suffering now.

  She could feel Elise, a faint but unmistakable presence in the depths of her mind.

  If I want to survive, I must remain detached, Carrie thought. Blank. I must keep my mind blank.

  Slowly, she tried to edge out the consciousness that was Elise, pushing her sister down from the surface of her own thoughts. The response was immediate. Waves of fear began spreading upward, catching her unaware and pulling her back into that other life.

  She cried out, flinging herself from side to side in an effort to escape the welter of pain that began to course through her fever-wracked body. Would they never stop questioning Elise?

  Strong hands grasped her, pressing her down, but still she thrashed from side to side.

  “My God, she’s got some strength!”

  “I’m afraid we might lose her, Peter. Even if she doesn’t go catatonic as she did after the death of her mother, her system can’t take much more.”

  The voice sounded faint and far away, receding farther until all the reality she knew was the awful shriek that echoed inside her head.

  Abruptly, it stopped, and the terrible emptiness rushed in. That part of her mind where Elise lived was a void. There was no more pain or fear, just emptiness. Total panic overwhelmed her and she began to scream.

  “She’s dead! Elise is dead!”

  All reason left her. She ignored the feelings of disintegration as mentally she stretched herself thinly in every direction, searching frantically for something to hold on to. Never since the moment of her birth had her mind been hers alone. Elise had always been there. Racing through every part of her mind, she checked over and over again, unable to believe her sister was gone, but there was nothing. Not a trace remained.

  She opened her mouth to scream her disbelief—then stopped in astonishment. Like a faint glow from a dying candle, she could feel something in the comer of her mind. She reached for it, nursing it carefully, hardly daring to hope, but the thoughts were totally alien to her. Mentally she drew back, feeling the blind terror surging in once more, but the new personality clung to her, refusing to be ignored. Against her will, she felt herself being held and examined. In return, she could sense its surprise at the contact.

  As if it understood her fears and terror, it began to reassure her, sending only thoughts of comfort and friendship.

  Exhausted, Carrie began to relax, letting a sweet lassitude steal over her. Within moments she was asleep.

  Chapter 1

  A shaft of sunlight pierced the dirty broken window and crept along the rubble-strewn floor until it reached him.

  In the sunbeam, motes of pollen and dust flickered and danced along its length. At first, from the depths of sleep, he was only aware of a vague discomfort around his face. This feeling grew until finally, brought to the threshold of wakefulness, he sneezed violently. Now fully aroused, he breathed deeply and began to stretch every muscle, trying to rid himself of the stiffness and tension caused by several days of living rough. He winced, almost crying out with pain as he tried to move his wounded leg.

  Extending his fingers, he began to explore the injured flank. Several pieces of metal from the explosion had ploughed a deep furrow in his flesh, and the surrounding skin was angry and swollen. Gingerly he touched it, feeling the heat of the swelling. He knew the wound needed to be properly cleaned because despite his ministrations he could see bits of black fur sticking out of the congealed blood. He was also fairly certain that there was some metal still lodged within, but there was nothing he could do about it. Without anything to use as a bandage, he dare not even attempt to clean away the dried blood. At least it gave him some protection against any new infection.

  Clenching his teeth, he sat up and began to work the leg gently, praying that the wound would not start to bleed again. Moving it loosened the stiff muscles and soon he was ready to try standing. He decided to play it safe and went down into a four-legged stance first, cautiously easing his hindquarters off the ground. The leg held, and he took a few tentative steps. Each one was agony, but after persevering for several minutes the pain became bearable. Light-headed and panting, he sank to the ground again. There was no way that he could travel upright, but perhaps that was all to the good.

  There were several indigenous feline species on this planet and, moving four-legged like them, he was less likely to attract any undue attention. Normally he would make better speed that way, but with his wounded leg, speed was out of the question: it was endurance that counted now. He had to reach the girl before the fever took hold of him. Surely she would help him now that she had recovered.

  His stomach began to rumble emptily, reminding him of more immediate problems. He needed to find food. For the past four days he had stayed in the ruined hut, hiding from the Aliens who had shot down his craft. Only five of them had survived the crash and subsequent explosion. Five out of a crew of eight!

  He sighed and turned his mind back to the problem of food, trying to remember all that he had been taught about living off the land. A wise person, his father: he tried to see that his son was prepared for the worst conting
encies of life.

  By birthright you are a hunter, never forget that. Have pride in yourself and that fact. Only in extreme emergency, when you are too weak to hunt, should you beg or scavenge for food. No one should have to rely on charity or theft to keep alive. Either you survive on your own hunting, or you work for your food. Never use your Talent; it would be a misuse of a sacred gift.

  Sound principles, but not very useful at the present time. Even if he had wanted to use his Talent, there had been no opportunity to do so. It was autumn here, a mild one so far, with plenty of berries and nuts for the wild creatures. Consequently they were taking no risks for stray tidbits. When he had been free of his vigil over the girl for any length of time the only food he had been able to find had been the occasional birds’ eggs and edible berries that were readily available.

  Squinting at the gleaming yellow orb in the sky, he determined it was not far past dawn. Slowly he got to his feet and limped carefully through the jumble of broken glass, earthenware, and bricks to the doorway of the cottage. Once outside, the air was chilly despite the bright sunshine. He shivered slightly, sweeping the surrounding area with his gaze, searching not only for any sign of the Aliens but also for the slightest movement of any animals suitable for breakfast.

  Today the landscape looked even more dismal. The grass was low and sparse, growing in clumps among the springy heather. The moorland stretched for kilometers in every direction, offering him no cover at all. Overhead, the sky was a sharp blue, with the clarity that only a cold day can give. Clouds were gathering in the north, clouds dark with snow.