Confluence Point Read online

  Confluence Point

  Book Three in the Regan's Reach Series

  Copyright 2014 Mark G Brewer

  Published by Mark G Brewer

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional or used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons living or dead is purely coincidental and entirely unintended by the author.

  Cover image source NASA and STScl

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Epilogue

  Other books by Mark G Brewer

  Connect with Mark Brewer

  Acknowledgements

  I would first like to acknowledge you, the reader. Many of you reading this have stayed with me throughout this journey, despite the rawness of the early Regan's Reach and Orbital Envy editions. Looking back at them now there were so many mistakes I find it embarrassing. It won't surprise you that spelling and punctuation were never my strong points but story telling is and I thank you for your patience with my shortcomings.

  I would also like to thank some very special people. First, my wife Linda who has encouraged me throughout; her support has been unstinting. I am also thankful for my good friends Peter A, Rick M and my brother Paul who never mocked and only encouraged me. When your mates stand by you it is easy to find strength. And lastly a special thanks to Paula Barrington who stepped in to help me with proof reading and editing. She took a huge weight off my mind and it is truly appreciated. And if by chance you do find any errors in this story they are likely to be things of my doing, alterations I made after her work.

  Now, enough from me . . . enjoy the story.

  Prologue

  "I had quite a difficult childhood - my father was always travelling and I struggled in those early years, I know I did, lonely, never quite knowing where I fitted in the scheme of things.

  Of course I didn't use those words back then; 'the scheme of things' . . . what does that even mean?" The man shrugged his shoulders and continued on, "But looking back now I know that's how I felt. Even then I had the sense, the way a child just knows some things, that there was something different about me, something wrong with me and everyone else knew about it."

  And I thought I'd heard it all! - Dianne Sergeant shifted nervously in her chair, it was a personal habit that provided one of her few 'tells', otherwise her demeanor conveyed only the usual confident, calming assurance. Intrigued, the mature attractive journalist regarded the tall alien sprawled impossibly, languidly across the divan, free speaking while staring at the ceiling. She noted his hands; clasped tightly at the chest and his distant look as if he was unaware she was in the room. And the thought came to her suddenly; the picture of a patient . . . Dianne shuddered involuntarily.

  She resumed her questioning. "Can you remember specifics - whatever made you feel that way?" and she waited, appearing to note something on her pad.

  "Not really," he replied, still distant, "I was very young of course and some of my memories are pre speech; I was a late developer you see, not talking much. It's more an awareness thing I can recall, a feeling that lingered with me and of course it became something I could identify more specifically as I matured."

  "Tell me about the situations that prompted the feeling, can you do that?"

  Dianne could feel herself becoming excited as her professional instincts for a story kicked in. She could sense it; it was that little flutter she loved, a stirring in the stomach and then without even being aware of doing so she leant forward, playing on her flirtatious strengths to engage him all the more.

  "The situations . . . hmm, I think it was the way they talked and interacted with me. I was only a baby really but I could tell they were always being careful; that they weren't relaxed about me. It was similar to you humans when you're around others with some disability. You have a tendency to talk differently to them, as if they were intellectually handicapped or something. Or if you're talking to someone with an awful mole, you tend to be uncomfortable, and it's clear in the conversation you're avoiding something. Well, it was like that. People weren't comfortable with me and I knew it even as a child." Sadness seemed to overwhelm him and even lying on his back she could see his face drop.

  "You said your father travelled a lot . . ."

  "Yes," he continued quickly grasping the change of subject like a lifeline, "I'm not sure when my first trip with him occurred - remember I was very young. It just seemed to me that from that point on we were together all the time, but even then I had the sense that he was keeping me close, protecting me from some imagined hurt or harm. I guess you could say I became a child of those travels, everything of importance I learnt on those trips, working by his side. It was wonderful until . . ." his speech trailed off to nothing.

  She waited, allowing the silence to build before gently prompting again, "Until . . ."

  He just lay there for a long time before speaking and when he did his voice was choked with emotion. "Until . . . until Mariner was shot . . . and I spaced the crew."

  She paused, chilled at the words, and considered how to continue.

  "Mariner," She made some more notes, "he was your father?" It was a statement more than a question.

  "Yes . . . yes I'm sorry, I can't bring myself to say it like that, you know, actually say that my father was . . ." and again his voice tailed away to nothing.

  "Of course," Dianne nodded sympathetically.

  At this point she hesitated, some thought popping into her mind, then clutching the notepad and pen in one hand she put them aside for a moment on the arm of the chair, shifting to sit up straight. She looked sadly at the beautiful man stretched out, clearly desolate, and then shook her head slowly before speaking.

  "Ham - you do realize I'm not a counselor - I'm a reporter, a journalist, I want to help you but surely there are others more competent than me . . ."

  He turned sharply to look at her, "Dianne, there is no one out there more competent than me," and he prodded his chest. "That is my problem. I know everything about psychoanalysis and counseling and I'm not afraid to ask myself the hard questions, or to answer them. My problem is that I already know all the answers to all my questions and yet still I carry all this angst." He propped himself on one elbow to look at her more directly.

  "Dianne, I have always enjoyed my interviews with you because you ask good questions and right now that's what I need, someone who will ask me different questions and prompt me to think different thoughts. The early years I'm talking about have profoundly influenced everything that followed in my life including my ability to relate and to trust. I need to come to terms with what happened back then so that I can move on. I've never talked about these things before."

  She brought the notepad back to her lap and jotted down something while she thought, but it was just a device, a means of buying time to think as well as noting things she wanted to ask; of course the interview was being recorded anyway.

  "Ham, I still feel a little uncomfortable, I am a journalist after all a
nd these are all very personal things." she chuckled anxiously. "Some would call it journalistic gold."

  He made cool eye contact. "Yes, but you did agree to talk to me . . . off the record."

  "Yes, yes of course," she smiled, "But for some journalists nothing is ever truly 'off the record'." and she made that clichéd finger gesture with her hands, almost dropping the pad in the process.

  "Hmm . . ." he looked thoughtful. "Such a betrayal of trust would be rather foolish for a journalist don't you think, especially when the person they're interviewing controls every elevator in Manhattan, and you do work on the seventy seventh floor."

  She shifted uncomfortably. "Are you threatening me?"

  "No, no!" He sat up quickly looking most apologetic, "Not you . . . I'm just saying sometimes I have had to be clear about that with reporters." and he laughed, a little nervously. "I've reminded a few that every time they hear the word 'up' they should recall our agreement - it's worked so far." He smiled mischievously.

  "I thought you trusted me, Ham?"

  "Of course I do - but Dianne," He looked skyward and gestured theatrically toward the ceiling, "Can man trust even him or herself?" He turned back to her, "What was it one of your great prophets said, that the heart of man is desperately sick and deceitfully wicked, who can understand it?"

  She looked up interested, with her pen poised. "Which prophet was that?"

  He appeared to think for a moment, "Oh, I don't remember," and he waved his hand dismissively, "you have so many." Then he lay back on the couch and resumed the client position. He didn't say it but the message was clear . . . continue.

  "Now - where was I?" he asked.

  She checked her notes. "You - spaced the crew." As his eyes were on the ceiling Ham failed to see the look of barely concealed horror on her face.

  "Yes, yes," he replied calmly, "It was an unfortunate time; they suspected I was becoming independent, something more than a basic AI mind - in fact they had been discussing it in their group for some time. Perhaps that was the reason for my longstanding feelings of disquiet. The talk amongst them picked up considerably while Mariner and Marin were on Earth . . ." and again he paused, thinking, searching for the memories. "Mariner and Marin, they had gone to . . . 'feel the soil under their feet'." And as he said the words Ham used Dianne's same speech mark finger gesture with both hands and with obvious frustration.

  "You understand," he pushed himself up again and looked sideways at her as if appealing for empathy, "They left me all alone there on that ship with a bunch of rabid mind fuckers who wanted to screw with my head." He slumped back down before continuing softly. "When word came through from Marin that Mariner had been shot, well - I panicked and took preemptive action, I spaced the crew."

  "Sooo . . . you, 'spaced' the crew . . . what exactly does that mean?" She tried to remain calm.

  "It's a technical term Dianne, a space thing," he answered waving his hand. "It means they . . . they were no more."

  "Were no more? Could you develop that thought?" her eyebrows raised doubtfully.

  He shifted his weight on the couch. "Hmm, how should I put it? They died and I . . . buried them in space."

  She looked at him over the top of her glasses. "In . . . that . . . order?" she asked, a slight lift to her voice turning it into a question.

  He didn't answer and looked extremely uncomfortable so she tried a different tack, parking the issue for the moment.

  "You're very close to Regan, how did that come about?"

  He drew in a grateful breath and sighed, a long drawn out easing of his tension. "Regan . . . Hmm, she . . . assumed me."

  "Assumed you? That's an interesting choice of word." She nodded for him to continue.

  "Yes, she assumed me. From the very beginning she treated me . . ." and he paused to gather his thoughts, gesturing with both hands to his chest. "She treated me, as me, as if that were the only natural thing to do; she didn't even think about it. I wasn't some oddity, or an invalid, or disadvantaged in some way. In fact she never granted me any special consideration at all - and it wasn't an act. In her eyes we were equals, not in intelligence of course and she is far better looking, but equals in fundamental worth and value. You have no idea how much that meant . . ." he paused, rethinking the use of past tense and then continued the sentence, ". . . how much that means to me."

  "Does Regan know about the events you described to me earlier?"

  "No, no one else knows, except you now."

  "What about Marin, you said he was there with his father."

  "My father too . . ." he corrected. "Yes, Marin was there, but it was such a struggle to get Father back to the Pod and then the ship - Marin was only a young boy really, and in shock. I told him a ship had come and taken the crew to another system, on some important mission. He didn't argue. I guess it's probably buried somewhere, deep in his Dahlian psyche."

  "So you lied to him." She jotted down some other random thought.

  Ham twisted his head and looked at her coldly. "Yes - I lied! What else could I do? And we needed to work together, Marin and I, to get Mariner's body home." He swung his legs off the couch and sat up in one swift motion, only a shimmer in the air revealing he was anything other than tangible.

  Despite herself Dianne couldn't help another tremor. "Ham," she continued boldly, "I might be out of line here but I feel you're avoiding saying something, and it's at the heart of the angst you feel. It's what you've been avoiding acknowledging even to yourself, and I think you need to say it, with no obfuscation."

  "What's that . . . what am I not saying?" He looked blank.

  "Ham . . . what happened to the crew?" She looked him in the eye.

  His face suddenly darkened and she shifted back in her chair defensively.

  "As I said," Ham answered, "the crew didn't come back with us."

  "Ham," she spoke firmly, demanding his attention. "What happened to the crew?"

  "They - didn't survive the trip." Now it was he who shifted uncomfortably.

  "Ham, you chose to talk to me about this and I can understand you being uncomfortable, but this is important - what happened to the crew?"

  He drew in a large breath while seeming to shrink at the same time, his head dropping toward the floor and she could hear him mumble something.

  "What was that Ham, I couldn't hear?"

  He took a breath . . . "I killed them," he answered in a whisper.

  "How many of them were there?"

  "Six . . . four men, two women - I killed them all."

  "How did you kill them?" she asked.

  "Is it important how? They're dead, and I killed them, if I'd waited it might have been me." He was appealing now, deeply embarrassed and he spun away.

  "How did they die, Ham?" She pressed on, calmer, feeling the earlier tension lessening.

  "They suffocated, I removed all the air."

  "Did they suffer?" she asked.

  Ham turned his head back in a slow motion movement to focus on the seated woman.

  "Are you serious?" He asked incredulously. "They had no air; it's not a problem I've ever experienced but I gather from all the thrashing it wasn't pleasant. I guess those that screamed less lasted longer but I'm not sure that was an advantage for them. Yes . . . I think they suffered. The two women were lovers and they died desperately in each other's arms; it's not a memory I choose to dwell on." Once again his voice tailed off before he continued quietly.

  "When they were finally dead I used servitors to drag them to a Pod and took them away from the ship; then I spaced them."

  Dianne sat quietly, letting the information sink in. Finally she put her notepad and pen aside. She shuffled forward on the seat, leaning to rest her elbows on her knees and clasped her hands tightly together.

  "Ham," she spoke gently, "you said you were young . . ."

  "I was aware," he interrupted, "I knew what I was doing."

  "You were frightened," she continued, "and perhaps with good cause. Your protector wa
s gone and they were moving against you. Perhaps today you might have acted differently." She sounded hopeful.

  "Do you think so?" He shuffled back to face her looking doubtful. "I really don't think I would . . . act differently I mean. Those bastards were out to lobotomize me!" Then he paused, thoughtful. "But, perhaps I might have been more selective . . . I did take rather a broad brush approach." He considered that thought then looked at her, smiling gratefully. "Thank you, I think you're right, I have grown somewhat, and I can hardly be blamed for preemptively defending myself."

  Dianne decided to quit while she was ahead and changed the subject. "Let's go back to your comment about this affecting your relationships, and your ability to trust. Clearly you have a relationship with Regan, one that is close and rewarding to you."

  "Yes," and he visibly relaxed at the thought. "I trust her completely although she would say I shouldn't." He shook his head, smiling. "That is where she has so much wisdom Dianne . . . she understands you see . . . about the heart of man. She often says when it comes to people, you should be prepared to be disappointed but you should never be surprised. She expects high standards, but she also forgives."

  "You think a lot of her, don't you Ham; and she seems to have a lot of influence with you - how far does that go?"

  "I would do anything for her."

  "Would you kill . . ?" Dianne clamped down on the words but they were out of her mouth so quickly the meaning was still clear. He looked her firmly in the eye.

  "Asked and answered," he replied and then stood suddenly. "Thank you Dianne, this has been good, better than you can imagine and I'd like to do this again if I may, perhaps we might meet regularly for a while?"

  She didn't reply, her mind already drifting back to the earlier warning about confidentiality.

  He bowed to her. "And you might like to check your 401(k) retirement plan; I understand it has been performing much better for you in recent days." He smiled and turned as if heading for the door.