Mind of the Neví - Chapter 9 - A'mara Books

9

(Terraday)

Hailu, X’lea

.
Loti Savint hadn’t believed his luck. His brother, Siji, was still busy with the city surveillance system. On a whim, Loti decided to check out the old factory surveillance cameras which he had replaced a couple of weeks ago – to keep an eye on the family assets, he had justified despite the fact that the site was completely off limits to anyone including property owners. His father had already complained bitterly about the fact he was prohibited from starting to make improvements on the site.

The infrared-enhanced video of his eldest brother with the fiancée was hot indeed. Out of habit, he kept a copy in case he needed blackmail material someday.

“Have you found anything?” Siji asked his brother.

Loti used his mind to put the boring city cams back on his screen. “Nothing,” he lied.

“Do you want to go to bed?” Siji asked kindly.

“No. You go ahead, you look beat. I’ll sleep later,” Loti replied.

Siji nodded and left the room.

Loti returned to the footage from the factory. Before they’d fallen downstairs, they had been looking around quite investigatively. Melia had looked at the scorch marks on the pillars. Yuri had been looking critically too. They could be a problem.

He plugged a PCS code into his personal device on his wrist. Then he watched the footage of his brother’s passion again while waiting for the answer. He needed to find a woman as well, Loti reminded himself.

“Why did you waken me?” Mirach replied irritably.

“We may have a problem,” Loti said. “Yuri and his fiancée are in the factory. They may be looking for evidence.”

“Okay, this is bad, but why is it a middle-of-the-night emergency?”

“They are still in there. They fell through the floor. They’re trapped downstairs.”

“My question remains.”

“They fell 20 feet onto concrete and were still well enough to give me video footage that any company would pay big money for. I don’t think they can get out though.”

“They can stay there for awhile. Even the hottest passion doesn’t fill the belly.”

“It might in her case!” Loti retorted. “All the same, I don’t want to kill them.”

“They should have thought about that before they went into the factory. No one is supposed to be on the site, no one could accuse you in their deaths.”

“For all my brother’s faults, I like having him around.”

Mirach sighed. “Then someone will have to rescue them, I suppose. We’ll have to find a way to do it without exposing anything. We also need a cover story for everything that went wrong there. Why did you have those chemicals standing around in the middle of the building like that without proper care?”

“We have a day or two to figure that one out,” Loti realized.

“I’ll let you do the thinking while I catch up on my sleep – Jarly will undoubtedly want to meet with us in the morning,” the man replied, cutting the connection.

Loti thought about how annoying it would be to meet with Jarly. Mirach was bad enough.

The house PCS unit was buzzing now. “Have you found anything?” his father asked.

“No. I’ve sent Siji to bed so that he can help more in the day.”

“Good thinking. We are coming back now. Keep searching all the city surveillance – something must show something. Otherwise, we’re going to have to involve the police.”

“That would be unfortunate. We won’t be able to keep it out of the media then,” Loti replied, thinking of how publicity could be a bad thing. “Well, good night, Dad. I hope you can get some sleep.”

“Me too. Good night, Loti.”

♥

Irola – A’mara Complex

.
<Explosives! Get out!> the voice in Marosio’s head ordered loudly. The smoky, half-flooded boat listed horribly as he tried to get out of the trap. An angelic figure appeared, took his hand and led him out of the vessel. She helped push the A’mara vessel away from the doomed craft. Then it exploded. The figure guided the boat safely away from the disaster.

<Who are you?> Marosio asked.

<I am yours and you are mine,> the voice replied.

Suddenly, he recognized the preteen he’d met in Felida, Atrua.

“Tarja!” Marosio cried out as he awoke.

“Are you okay?” his maqla asked from his door.

“Yes, Yewan. Bad dream, that’s all.” Marosio wondered whether Yewan had heard the name he’d said. He put it aside as a nice awakening from the nightmare of the burning ship he and Lucao had escaped from last night.

“Get more sleep if you can. You guys were out late last night.”

“No. I need to get up anyway. I want to spend some time training this morning before we have to go down to the Understory.”

Yewan gave him a mental nod of understanding.

♥

Hailu, X’lea

.
The blast of a ship horn let all the passengers know that they would be docking momentarily.

Neeca Belatta had grown up in the small port town of Soundside, Çtaráña, overlooking the Sound. It now seemed strange that she’d spent so much time across the water. This morning, she and Fashi Wolfkin were approaching X’lea’s capital city from the south, nearly across the Bay of Hailu as the crew began making preparations for the ship’s arrival.

Fashi joined her at the rail. They were both eager to begin their new assignment. Neeca was also quite keen to meet this Jasper Jarly who was to meet them. Apparently, he was even some cousin of hers, but she’d never heard of him before. She figured that X’lea was probably full of distant cousins.

“Thank you for last night,” Fashi whispered into Neeca’s ear. “I hope there will be plenty more just like it in our future!”

Neeca felt her face burning, making a liar out of her A’mara training. She had always been so independent. She hated that a man could get under her skin like that – enough to willingly share his bed as she had last night. Not just willingly, but eagerly, she had to admit if she was honest with herself. She wasn’t sure what that meant, not sure if she wanted it to mean anything at all. It was too scary – and nothing ever scared her!

Fashi squeezed her hand as if he had felt everything she’d been thinking just now. She blushed again.

Finally, the gangplank was secured and the passengers were allowed off, to join the various queues to get through customs as quickly as possible. Some passengers took the expedited queues, while Fashi and Neeca took one of the others, aiming for someone who was slightly smarter than the average.

Neeca was mistaken.

The person took a look at her documents. “Welcome to X’lea, Ms. Belmara.”

“Belatta,” Neeca tried to correct, but it was already done – incorrectly and the man was already looking at Fashi’s documents.

“Welcome to X’lea, Mr. Wolfkin.”

“Ms. Belmara,” Fashi echoed as he joined her. “I rather like it!”

“Fashi! Neeca!” came the greeting from the dock waiting area.

”Mr. Jarly, I presume?” Fashi asked as they reached the older man, already graying in places.

“Please just call me Jasper,” he replied. “I am to show you to your quarters. We will discuss plans with the Curator after breakfast.”

♥♥♥

NEXT CHAPTER

If you have enjoyed this book, I would be grateful if you could put your thoughts as a review on [Goodreads](coming soon) for me.
Buy at: (coming soon to Books2Read, Scribl, LBRY and Lulu - paperback.)

Other Chapters of this set

Birth of the Neví - coming soon on Whaleshares - otherwise, scroll way back on Steem (like summer 2018.)

Name of the Neví - Chapter 1

Mind of the Neví - Chapter 1

Maps and Guides

Terrenden Atlas Page - Hailu, X'lea, Kranisis
Terrenden Atlas Pages (six maps of Almara and Kranisis.)
Character Guide and Image Credits
Calendar and Glossary - for Name of the Neví but these two parts are true throughout.

Asking @popcornexpress to bring popcorn!

Lori Svensen
author/designer at A'mara Books
photographer/graphic artist for Viking Visual
verified author on Goodreads
find me on Twitter
blogging on: Steem, Whaleshares, WeKu, Hyperspace, Publish0x

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