Waking Dream

    Wiyra Kwinto settled into her pod. “Do we have the sites that you want me to check out?”

    Her cousin Stennar nodded and grinned. “They are loaded. Feel free to check on them, cuz.”

    “I will. I hate it when you use me to surprise other folks on the mining colony.”

    He chortled and put her drips into her arms and thighs. “You spoil all my fun.”

    “And you like to use me to give people heart attacks. We all have our burdens to bear.” She exhaled and let the gel lining of the pod take her weight. It would keep her hydrated, fed and breathing while her mind went for a walk without her body attached.

    She carefully gave Stennar a thumbs up as she used the keys under her left hand to get her locations. Her mind automatically corrected for drift and propulsion, and the next moment, she was out of her body and standing on a slowly rotating asteroid.

    She did her standard mineral check. Several hours of walking through the rock layers later, she was confident that it was a viable site. She moved onto the next rock and the one after that.

    Six hours out of her body was enough for one day, she returned her astral form to the drifted locale where it should be and ran into a slight problem. The mother-platform was gone. All the surrounding asteroids were in the proper alignment, but the platform where her family and her body were was gone.

    Son-of-a-bitch.

    “Wake up, Master Tracker Burin, I need your help.” She carried on the conversation with her hand inside his skull. It was the only way she could transmit her thoughts into something he would understand.

    It had been hard to force her way into Citadel Reevish. The tower and the Masters’ quarters were fully lined against psychic spillage. Apparently, she qualified, but she was also very determined.

    He opened his blue-green eyes and jolted in surprise. “I have had this dream, but you were in your body at the time.”

    “That is my problem. Someone has stolen my body and my family platform.” She really didn’t want to be here. The last time she had spoken to Burin, he had offered her an amazing amount of money to join Citadel Reevish. She had rudely turned him down and told him where to stuff his offer. Now, she was sitting in his bedroom with her hand inside his skull. Life was unpredictable.

    He chuckled. “You are joking.”

    He sat up and she moved with him, trying to ignore the muscular nudity of his form. “Could you put some clothes on?”

    Out of her body and lost in space, Wiyra finds solace and help in the form of a tracker who has his own designs on her physical self.

    Wiyra is an astral investigator. She can leave her body and search any specific point in space that she wishes. She merely has to know its location before she leaves herself. A problem arises when she leaves to examine some mineral deposits and returns to the place her body should be, only to find it missing.

    Her entire home is missing. Her cousins, grandfather and brothers are all gone with no trace. There is only one person she can turn to, and while it makes her grit her astral teeth, she heads to Citadel Reevish.

    Master Tracker Burin is woken from a sound sleep by an astral hand in his head, and while he is startled, delight soon follows. Wiyra has come to him for help and the Citadel does nothing for free. He has her right where he wants her…as soon as he finds her.