Riley's Paradox, page 29
part #9 of Hearts of ICARUS Series
“Wait, please,” Win said. “Why does one part sound like Rose, the other Riley?”
“As the eldest, Riley is protective of Rose and me. It’s more likely that Rose would be urging me to do something that might be dangerous, and Riley would be trying to keep me safe regardless of her own needs. That doesn’t mean I think Rose wouldn’t care if I got hurt. She just wouldn’t think of it in the same way Riley would.”
“I understand, Rikki. Thank you.”
Rikki nodded, then picked up where she’d left off. “The dream I had tonight was different from the others. My Rami and Charley were all right there with me in the dream, relaxed and playing on the grass, so I didn’t panic as I’d done before.”
“When did you panic before?” Jackson asked.
“I’m still in the process of remembering things, and this is one thing I just remembered. I don’t know why, but every single time Riley or Rose reached out to me in my dreams, I panicked at some point. I either pulled my own memories in along with whatever they were trying to tell me and turned them into nightmares, or I was already having a nightmare and their message just got mixed up with it. I don’t know which, and it may be both.
“Tonight, I didn’t panic until near the end. I’m sure it’s because Charley, Kyrus, Kash and Kasper were all there beside me in my dream, safe and happy. That allowed me to speak with the voice in a way I’ve never done before.
“When the voice begged me to find the baby, I replied that Charley was safe because she was right next to me. The voice said the baby’s name wasn’t Charley, but Layla. I told her I didn’t know a baby named Layla. Then she told me she’d felt me and thought I was coming to help, and wanted to know why I didn’t.
“That’s when I asked her who she was. It was only then, when I asked for her name, that I recognized the voice as Riley’s, but not.”
“Not?” Hope asked, frowning.
“I think it was either a combination of Rose’s and Riley’s voices, or maybe they were each saying different things. I’m just not sure.”
“When you asked who it was, what answer did you get?” Hope asked.
“Riley,” Rikki replied. “But I think it was also Rose…,” Rikki trailed off and bit her lip hard without realizing it. She felt Kyrus’s hand on the back of her neck, rubbing his thumb lightly over her skin. She looked at him and relaxed a little before turning back to her mother. “That’s when I really panicked, and I’m not sure why just yet. I’m sorry.”
“Mikró, you have nothing to be sorry for,” Hope said. “I think you’ve done well, all things considered.”
“So, you know that Riley and Rose are being held, and…what else?” Jackson asked gently.
“I know that Rose and Riley are being held in the same sort of place I was in, for the same reason. The main difference is that the women aren’t in cells. They’re all unconscious. Oh…,” she paused a moment, then turned to the Katre-Laus. “My view out the window of the lab on Argon was of barren brown hills for as far as I could see. I just remembered that it’s the same in the dreams, except that the ground was flat. No hills at all, but just as barren. And there were Imperial Ravens there, too. Layla is also real, though I think I said that already. But that part is also very confusing.”
“Confusing how?” Rob asked.
“Well, Wilder, Win, and West dreamt about a fetus just last night. In my dream tonight, the baby had a name. I heard a baby crying and screaming a lot in every dream. Some of that was part of my nightmare, but not all of it.”
“How do you know that?” Jackson asked. “That not all of it was part of your nightmare?”
“Because the baby’s voice was different,” Rikki said, not wanting to mention her daughter’s name. Jackson nodded his understanding and she continued.
“What I don’t understand is, why would a baby have a name if she’s in a tank? Why would they want me to hurry up and rescue a baby that’s still in a tank? How would a baby cry if she’s in a tank?”
“As much as I hate to say this, I feel that I must,” Hope said hesitantly.
“Niha?” Jackson asked, grasping one of her icy hands between his own.
“I’m okay,” Hope said, though her hand gripped his tightly. “Since it seems that there are two different stages of development, isn’t it possible that there are two babies?”
“Gamó,” Rikki swore hoarsely, then blushed. “Sorry, Mom.”
“It’s all right,” Hope said. “I was about to say the same thing myself.”
Rikki nodded, then shook her head. “I didn’t even think of there being two babies, but it’s the obvious explanation.”
“Was there anything in your dreams that was specifically about Rose?” Hope asked.
Rikki shook her head. “Nothing I can remember right now. I felt her, and I heard her in many of the things that Riley said. But there was nothing directly from her, alone. But then, Rose has as little talent with dreams as I do.” She frowned. “I assumed that the fetus in the Katre-Lau’s dreams is Riley’s since she’s their berezi, but now I’m not so sure.”
She fell silent as she went over the Katre-Lau’s dreams, what she remembered of her own dreams, and what she knew of her sisters. It felt like a puzzle with too many pieces. She needed to figure out which ones to eliminate.
“I think we need to work with what we know, or at least believe to be true,” Jackson said. “The answers to all of our questions will most likely become clear at some point, but we can’t sit and wait for that to happen.”
“I agree, Jackson,” Wilder said. “The Pharaoh is fully provisioned, fueled, crewed, and ready to leave at a moment’s notice. All we need to know is what direction to head in. Any help you can give us on that subject will be greatly appreciated.”
“There was nothing in your dreams to indicate where Riley is?” Jackson asked.
“No, nothing,” Wilder replied. “We’ve gone over them many times in search of solid information, but we’ve never seen a single thing that would help us find her.”
“I think both Riley and Rose are on Rogan,” Rikki said almost absently, still attempting to fit everything together.
“That’s the sister planet to Argon, right?” Clark asked.
Rikki blinked, then looked up. “That’s right, Dede.”
“Why do you think they’re on Rogan?” Hope asked.
“For one thing, there were Imperial Ravens in my dreams. Mrs. Carlson told me that they exist only on Argon and Rogan. Also, and I only remembered this when Ata asked, but just before I woke up tonight I was standing in a skyport. I was wearing the cardigan Mrs. Carlson gave me, and Charley’s hair was red.”
All of the men looked at her blankly, the Katre-Laus more than any of them, but Hope got it right away. “You took the cardigan off before you left the Rogan skyport, didn’t you?”
“Neh, I did,” Rikki replied, nodding. “And I didn’t put it back on again. In fact, I’ve never put it back on again.”
“Rogan was your second skyport though,” Rob pointed out. “Couldn’t you have been on Argon’s skyport in the dream?”
“Possibly, but I really don’t think so, Popi.”
“Why not?” Hope asked.
“Because within my dream, while I stood on the skyport wearing that cardigan, I knew I was on the Rogan skyport. That’s also when I heard either Riley or Rose tell me she’d felt me, and thought I was coming to help. She wanted to know why I didn’t stop.” Her eyes widened. “Oh. That’s why I panicked. I was horrified when I realized that I’d been so close to them without knowing how much they needed me.”
Rikki blinked rapidly to prevent the tears that blurred her eyes from falling. After a moment she cleared her throat and took a deep breath just as a new idea hit her. She reached for her glass of water and drank it quickly as she turned the idea over in her mind.
She put the glass back down. “I think that my escape, Riley’s and Rose’s abductions, and the two and a half month delay in my dreams are all about timing rather than planning. If I’m right, it explains why we can’t put things in a logical sequence.”
“Timing?” Rob asked.
“I don’t know how long it takes to reach Argon from wherever Rose and Riley were when they were abducted, but I know it took ten days for Suzen and me to reach Argon from our school.
“We know that Riley was taken around the same time that Charley and I escaped the lab. Unless she was taken from a location relatively close to Argon, the kidnappers must have still been on their way back to Argon when the lab got raided.”
“You’re correct,” Clark said. “It would take about two weeks to reach Argon from where Riley was taken. A few days longer for Rose.”
Rikki nodded her thanks. “Even though the lab on Argon was raided and a total loss, the Doftles and all their little minions didn’t turn tail and run. They were still turning Argon upside down in search of me and Charley two months later. They monitored outgoing messages planet wide, and were still watching all of the roads, the spaceport, and all of the skyports throughout the entire system. I know that for fact because Charley and I saw them in every skyport until we got out of the system.”
“You think they stayed on Argon,” Jackson said, surprised. “That they just waited until things settled down a bit before setting up another lab and starting over.”
“I think that’s what they planned to do, yes.”
“I understand them staying there to search for you,” Clark said. “But why do you think they intended to remain there?”
“When law enforcement entered the lab the morning after my escape, there were no people there except for a number of young women locked in cells. The news service agencies all said that they were fine and returned to their homes. That’s it. Nothing else was said about the lab, the women, or even the people killed by the ravens outside the lab.
“Why would they bother to suppress information regarding the rescued women if they weren’t planning to remain there? For all I know they already had other labs on Argon. Everything was going their way until they somehow discovered that Charley and I were here, on Jasan.
“When Owens grabbed me and Charley at the Garrison last week, she said that I almost got her killed, and that I was going to pay for it. That tells me that the Doftles were not at all happy with her and her team. I think they were alive only because they’d had the first and only success with me and Charley. The fact that Owen and the other scientists were personally sent down to retrieve me, and whoever else they could grab, was a sign of how precarious her position was.
"Then the scientists got caught trying to take Rayne’s daughters. The next morning another team attempted to take Bean’s daughters, as well as Charley and me. They were all caught, of course. That’s when their faces, and their crimes, became publicly known both here, and on Argon, including the Nomen who had infiltrated their government and law enforcement agencies.
“Seems to me like several good reasons to throw plans for remaining on Argon out the window and go a little farther away. To Rogan.”
“You’re right, of course,” Clark said proudly. “I’d forgotten that the young women rescued from the lab were ignored by the news agencies. That’s obviously an important point from which the rest flows logically.”
“That sounds right to me, Rikki,” West said. “Except for one thing. Why would they set up a new lab so close to the one that was discovered?”
“Because it makes the most sense,” Rikki answered, earning herself a few surprised looks. Kyrus, Kash, and Kasper smiled at her in full agreement. When she nodded to Kyrus, he explained.
“Right now the people of Argon are satisfied that those responsible for the kidnappings, and the horrors that took place in that lab, are either dead or in custody. They believe it’s over. In fact, we learned earlier today that they’ve already held a trial based on the security vids found in the lab’s vault, which recorded everything that happened in that building from day one. All they’re waiting for now is the ship carrying a few of the senior scientists to arrive so they can get on with the punishment that’s already been decided on.
“With the lab on Argon shut down, the people who ran it arrested and dealt with, attention is now on the other planets who’ve reported an increased number of missing women.
“It makes no sense that anyone would dare set up another lab on Argon, or any other planet in their system. Which means it makes perfect sense. Especially since labs on the other planets Rikki identified are also being shut down. So long as they never take another female from any of the planets where they’ve already had labs, they’re as safe, or safer there than anywhere else in the Thousand Worlds.”
“There’s an odd sort of logic in that, Kyrus,” Win said. “But at the same time, it would require an enormous amount of audacity and arrogance to risk setting up another lab under the noses of people who aren’t only aware of them, but had already caught them.”
“That’s just it,” Rikki said. “They weren’t caught. Charley and I escaped, and Mrs. Carlson called the local police that same night. Anonymously. Up until then, they had a perfect operation going right under everyone’s noses and they knew it.
“As far as arrogance and audacity go, we’re talking about people who blithely kidnapped and then murdered more than four thousand young women from Argon alone without a second thought. I listened as two of those women were killed simply because they were crying, and three others were killed because they were angry about it.”
“Your logic is sound, Rikki,” Jackson said. “But it still doesn’t explain why your dreams only go back two and a half weeks.”
“This is where timing comes into it rather than planning,” Rikki said. “Since the only lab to successfully create what the Doftles wanted was the one on Argon, I imagine that’s where they planned to take both Riley and Rose. A plan which had to be changed when the lab was raided.
“With things falling down around their ears on Argon, I think the Doftles put whatever women they already had in hibernation. Storing people is something Doftles do all the time, and it’s a lot easier than trying to feed and water any number of female captives.”
“I think you’re on the right track, Rikki,” Jackson said when Rikki paused. “Keep going.”
“Am I correct in thinking that people don’t dream in hibernation tanks?” Rikki asked.
“Yes, you’re correct,” Jackson replied.
“What about life pods?”
“No, they don’t dream in life pods either,” he said, nodding slowly as he began to see where she was going. “The two are essentially the same.”
“But people in comas dream, don’t they?”
“They can, yes,” Jackson replied.
Rikki smiled. “So, if they removed Riley from hibernation three weeks ago and put her into a comatose state like the other women in the Katre-Lau’s dreams, it would explain why I didn’t have any dreams about her sooner. Since the Katre-Laus weren’t rescued until two weeks ago, they obviously couldn’t have had any dreams before that anyway.”
“The Tigrens dreamt while they were in hibernation tanks,” Kasper pointed out.
“Not exactly,” Clark argued. “Glory pulled them into her dreams and she’s a powerful Dream Walker. After she’d done that, they were able to use their own abilities, weak as they were, to recreate what she’d done. The situations aren’t the same.”
“I don’t understand why they’d bother to take them out of hibernation and put them into comas or whatever it is they’ve done,” Win said. “ Why not just leave them in hibernation?”
“Because dreams aren’t the only things that don’t occur in hibernation,” Rikki replied. “People don’t grow old, their hair and nails don’t grow. Nothing about them changes, right?”
“That’s right, Rikki,” Rob said. “I’m not sure we follow though.”
“Don’t forget why the Doftles are doing all of this in the first place. We know how to kill them now, and between us and the Basulor Doftles, their numbers are dropping rapidly. They need to create more Doftles.
“A woman in hibernation cannot develop eggs, so they’d be limited to whatever was already there. I don’t think the Doftles would be satisfied with that. This is too important to them. I think they’d want the women out of hibernation and their bodies functioning normally before starting anything.”
“Again, I can’t find any fault in your reasoning,” Clark said, nodding.
“Our dreams are so different from yours,” Wilder said. “Unlike you, we haven’t gotten any messages at all. Nor is Bastet aware of us.”
“Have you felt Riley, or anyone else, in your dreams?” Hope asked.
“No, not at all,” Wilder replied. “We do feel Bastet. In a way.”
“In a way?” Hope asked.
“We usually know what she’s feeling and thinking within the dream. We don’t read her mind, though. It’s more like we overhear some of her thoughts in the same way you might overhear a conversation.
“The biggest difference is that, unlike Rikki, we aren’t participants in any way. Bastet is totally unaware of us. It’s a lot like watching an entertainment vid over and over again.”
“Your dreams aren’t true dreams, nor are they accidents,” Rikki insisted. “They’re events in and of themselves, whereas I’ve been getting bits and pieces of messages inserted into nightmares I was already having.”
“I think you’re right, Rikki,” Wilder said. “But without some talent in Dream Walking, how is such a thing even possible?”
“I don’t know the answer to that,” Rikki said. “But, as Riley’s Rami, I think you three are a lot more receptive to receiving dreams from her than I could ever be.
“The important question isn’t how it’s being done. It’s the dreams themselves that are the true mystery.”
“How so?” West asked.
“Well, for one thing, you’re dreaming of things Riley is doing in Bastet’s form. But you didn’t know anything about Bastet or Riley’s ability to astral project until tonight, so the dreams didn’t come from your subconscious minds. They had to have come from an external source. Also, she’s your berezi, but as Wilder observed, there’re no personal messages for you. That’s very strange. Then there’s the fact that they repeat over and over again down to the last detail which, to be honest, feels like Rose to me. Like something she’d do, I mean.”
