Pariah (Donovan, Band 3) - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

W. Michael Gear is the author or co-author with his beloved wife, Kathleen O’Neal Gear, of fifty-seven published novels.  He is a New York Times, USA Today, and international bestselling author whose work has been translated into 29 languages and has over 17 million copies in print world wide. Both and anthropologist and archaeologist, he brings extraordinary depth and complexity to his characters and settings.  Gear lives on a back country buffalo ranch in Wyoming where he raises outstanding bison, indulges in his passion for large-caliber rifles, and pets his two shelties: Jake and Shannon. Michael can be found at gear-gear.com.

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1

7 July 2102

Off Neptune transfer point

Tamarland Benteen had never been on the run like this. Sure, he'd been chased. Hunted like an animal through back alleys and sewers. Some of the finest security teams in Solar System had been hot on his tail with orders to kill on sight. But never like this. Not with the stakes this high.

No safe haven awaited him at the end of this flight. No sanctuary with fine wine, succulent food, or luxurious beds, immaculate rooms, and sparkling female companionship.

This was the end of the chase. Here, on this ship. The last chance. And he was so close to escape. He'd made it to Vixen. Assumed his identity of Corporate Advisor/Observer.

Tam watched the clock ticking down from where he sat in one of the conforming chairs in the small astrogation control. Second by second, hope built that he would actually make it before Radcek's agents stopped the countdown and surrounded the ship.

Scrolls of holographic data-projected in various colors meaningful to Vixen's officers-unreeled in the air before each station. The tension continued to build as the survey and exploration ship's field generators came online.

I'm going to make it.

Words couldn't describe the sudden surge of joy that burst through him. Euphoric. Possessed of the urge to laugh. And cry. Escape now lay but heartbeats away.

In his central command chair, Captain Tayrell Torgussen addressed the photonic com. "Neptune Control, this is Vixen. We're one minute from inversion. All systems go."

"Roger that, Vixen. You are cleared for inversion. We'll see you in another four years or so. Godspeed. Good luck. Happy spacing."

Inverting symmetry required the control and focus of energy that squeezed a vessel out of time-space, out of the universe. Benteen didn't understand how the generated fields created an interdimensional bubble. He'd been told that the fields were so incompatible with the laws of physics, the universe itself spat the ship out of

time-space.

Even the physicists weren't sure they had much of a hypothetical handle on where a ship went. As long as Vixen's reactors generated a field that inverted symmetry, the vessel would remain "outside."

The moment the reactors were shut down, symmetry reverted to "normal." According to the hypothesis, the ship's matter, "our" physics, could no longer exist in that dimension, and like a bubble of air that had been forced underwater, it rose and "popped" back into our reality.

Symmetry? Multiple universes? Travel based on descriptive and probability statistics? As far as he could tell, the difference between interdimensional physics and black magic was that one started with a P and the other with a B.

Chairman of the Board Radcek had the entire Solar System alerted, searching for Tam. Even as Benteen ran that unpleasant thought around the inside of his head, his implant sent a chime through his thoughts. Message? From whom?

Fear returned in an instant, tensing his nerves, pumping through his veins.

Benteen flicked on the photonic com that channeled through his implant. The image projected before his eyes was a news shot: Artollia Shayne as she was paraded into a Corporate board of inquiry at the Hall of Justice, her hands cuffed behind her. Artollia was accompanied by a phalanx of lawyers. Not that it would do her any good. Chairman Radcek and his henchmen would orchestrate the entire proceeding. The depth of Artollia's machinations had been discovered; she'd been flanked, ambushed at the last moment, and set up for the fall.

Corporate politics wasn't a game for the timid. Those who lost considered themselves lucky if their only censure turned out to be exile or incarceration. Benteen suspected that Artollia-having come as close as she had to unseating Radcek-would pay with her life.

"Tamarland? Hope you're getting this," Artollia's head counsel's voice accompanied the images of the courtroom. "Whatever you do, under no circumstances should you return to Solar System. I'm sending a short-burst photonic encryption, starting now."

A red dot flashed in his holo, indicating that the compressed photonic code had been received by his implant and placed in memory.

The red dot flashed off. The image faded.

Benteen tilted his head back into the astrogation chair's cushion and closed his eyes. She'd already risked more for him than she should have. Had somehow wrangled at the last instant to assign him to Vixen when she could have used his life as a bargaining chip. That bit of loyalty had been above and beyond call despite the intimate aspects of their relationship.

"She knew they were onto us," Benteen whispered as the countdown continued.

The miracle was that he'd made it this far. And, in only minutes now, he might make it all the way.

Escape.

For the last couple of days it had seemed impossible. Yet here he was.

It had been too good to be true when a reservation under a false identity placed him on an express flight to Neptune where Corporate marines had met him at the shuttle hatch and escorted him to Vixen's airlock.

By the time he'd been directed to his quarters aboard the exploration ship, word had broken of Artollia's arrest on charges of corruption, sedition, extortion, and murder.

By removing him, facilitating his escape, she'd ensured that no one could interrogate Tamarland Benteen about his actions on her behalf. All that blood, all that murder and death. He might have been Artollia Shayne's most potent weapon, but with Callypso Radcek's victory, Tam Benteen would now become Solar System's most hunted and feared criminal.

Tam had no trouble imagining that familiar and mocking smile as it curled Artollia's delicate lips.

Yes, you won again, didn't you, my love?

"Vixen, do we have a go?" Torgussen asked the ship.

"All systems are go," the ship's AI replied in its reasonable voice.

Benteen glanced around the astrogation center with its controls, workstations, and the holos displaying endless data. Once this would have been called the bridge. Now it accommodated Captain Torgussen, Engineer Wang Chung Ho, and First Officer Seesil Vacquillas. Each sat at his or her station, eyes fixed on the scrolling data and tuned into their implants.

Second Officer Valencia Seguro was down below, monitoring the ship's physical plant where water, hydroponics, and atmosphere were located. The scientific and survey team should be another two decks down, watching in the lounge monitors that gave them the last glimpse of Neptune and the distant sun as Vixen's reactors began spinning energy fields around the globular ship.

For the next two years Vixen would be Tamarland Benteen's home, his entire universe. At the other end of the monotony, processed food, and claustrophobia, lay Capella III-commonly called Donovan's planet for the man who'd died there. Vixen's mission consisted of comprehensive mapping, survey, analysis, and sample collection before initiating the two-year voyage home. Her scientific team was to determine if the planet's resources justified the cost of exploitation, and, critically, if human habitation was even possible.

Figure, all in all, that Tam had maybe five years before he had to face Corporate justice-assuming they even still cared by that time. Surely Radcek couldn't stay in power that...