Halcyon Nights (Star Sojourner Book 2) Read Online Free Page A

“What do you want from me?”
    Within that great sadness, an unraveling of time, rolling back to the beginnings of things organic. I take a shuddering breath as the being envelops me. A pulsing limb extends to my head. Light suddenly blazes behind my eyes. An explosion of energy within my brain. A sense of tel power I've never known.
    Halcyon!
he whispers in a voice formed from sea waves.
Halcyon.
Where you will destroy the Terran ravager.
He fades out of the dream, leaving me breathing hard, with a bitter smell in my throat.
    “What ravager?” I whisper. “How can I destroy him if I don't even know – “
    Gone.
    “What he is,” I finish.
    The dream wanes, overlaps with April's dim room. “Like hell I'll go to Halcyon!” I throw after him…it.
    I rubbed my forehead as I lay shivering on sweat-soaked sheets. The machinery wound down and violet lights faded in the visor. April was sprawled beside me, very still.
    “April?” She didn't respond. I threw off my headgear and wondered if a dream could kill. “April!” I shook her.
    She moaned and turned her head. Her hand slid off the terminal.
    “Jesus, I thought you were dead!” I felt weak and nauseated as I lifted myself up. “Glad that was just a dream.” I smirked. “Right?”
    She opened her eyes and drew in a shaky breath. “Goddamn you,” she croaked, “why didn't you tell me you're a telepath? I needed to know that. Why didn't you tell me you're in contact with some goddamn alien creature?” She threw off her headgear. “You could've killed me. Get out!”
    “I'm not in contact with any alien. I mean I wasn't until now.” I ran a hand through my hair. “It was all just a dream. You told me that yourself!”
    She glared at me. “It was as real as your tel-brain.”
    I rubbed my throbbing temples. I'd sent and received from Loranths, but they're a telepathic species. It was this alien's own skill that had opened channels in my mind. “I'm sorry,” I said. “I told you to get me out.”
    April rolled toward the bed's edge. Her back heaved as she vomited on the floor. She coughed and wiped her mouth. “Just get the hell out of my room!”
    “Sure.” My knees trembled as I swung off the bed. “And thanks loads for hanging in there when the dream turned bad. Where's your autocount?”
    “Never mind. Just go find a mind exorcist who needs the creds bad enough to take your case.”
    “You know a good one?” I retorted. I saw her autocount unit behind hanging beads and went to it. “You must've sent him some customers by now.”
    “Get out!” she cried shrilly and picked up her shoe, “before I call my husband.”
    “Your…” I took out my wallet. “The skinny pimp in the bar?” Suddenly I felt fear. Not my own, I knew. I looked around. What the hell was going on? Human tels are rarer than mercy on the Flats. I had retained tel abilities from Kor's mindlinks. But now, a greater power had been awakened by this silver alien's probe with that blast of mind energy.
    A pencil of ice found my stomach and scribbled graffiti there. In what star system was the planet Halcyon? I knew it was a pristine Earth-type world that had been staked and settled by a colony of eco- minded Terran tags whose mantra was: We will not desecrate Halcyon as Terrans have desecrated Earth!
    More to the point, why couldn't this powerful, probably indigenous telepath destroy a Terran ravager himself?
    He read my thought.
If I unleash my tel power,
he suddenly sent,
it will destroy the nervous system of every Terran on Halcyon. In the end, if I must do it to save my people, I will.
    April was pale and wide-eyed. But I think I might have been paler.
    You can do that?
I sent.
    Only if you fail.
    April swung off the bed as I opened my wallet. My hand shook when I realized that my compcard was gone. I heard a buzzer, looked up and saw her pushing a button on the IQ terminal.
    “I warned you,” she said. “Don't say I didn't.”
    “There were seventy thousand creds in