Free Galactic Vigilante (Vigilante Series 3) by T. Jackson King Page A

putting its tip into her right palm. The mind image nodded slowly. “Will do. And two weeks will give me time to integrate the simple minds of the Bogean devices into the awareness network maintained by myself, BattleMind and you.”
    “Good.” Matt mind-watched as various parts of starship Mata Hari activated in preparation for returning to Translation and their entry into a small space-time modulus that allowed each starship to travel FTL within the confines of its own artificial space-time. They could communicate by tachlink with each other while in Translation. However, synchronizing each ship’s internal timeline was not easy. Although atomic timekeepers on each ship had been synchronized with the one aboard his ship. And as their arrival here within hours of each other showed, they could reliably arrive in a similar space-time locality so long as each ship transitioned at the same time. A sudden ache in his knees, elbows and wrists made him moan out loud.
    “Matthew? Are you functional?” asked Mata Hari, her mind image switching instantly to the Summer Girl persona.
    No secrets were possible while in mindlink. “Yes. But the slow virus has changed again and hit me with some kind of arthritis. Maybe Eliana can research a cure for me after we arrive in home galaxy.”
    His love’s image materialized in his mind, her albino white skin shinning in the light of her own Interlock Pit as she, like Matt, sat naked for optical neurolinking via low power laser beams, in addition to the fiber optic neck socket mindlink she now used to speak to him, mind to mind.
    “Matthew, I felt that. As I’m sure Suzanne did too.”
    The ache in his joints made him feel slow and aged. “You did? How? And why would Suzanne felt my aches?”
    She smiled at him, her jade green eyes carrying deep empathy for his bouts of pain and strain that were caused by the slow virus. “My psychic mindlink with you. It does not need tachyons to cross space and time. Recall what the T’Chak AI Love Eternal said about female T’Chak? And the question she asked me? We human women have the genes for psychic abilities. We just have not exercised them much. Until now.” The mind image of Eliana showed her relaxing in her glass Pit chair, one elbow on its armrest while her chin rested on her right hand. “Matthew, I felt your bouts of pain even during Translation. After Suzanne, George and I transferred to our own ships. You are always with me, my love.”
    He blinked, ignoring a separate part of his mind where Mata Hari’s Summer Girl persona had chosen to sit cross-legged on a grassy meadow, chin on hand in a duplicate of Eliana’s pose, her expression thoughtful. “Eliana, that is wonderful news. And terrible news. I did not wish to burden you with this slow virus stuff.”
    “Burden? Maybe no longer.” Her mind image shifted to her Molecular Geneticist look, the look of a young woman gifted in biological sciences far beyond his own rudimentary knowledge that he’d picked up from studying datacubes. “Mata Hari? Please enter this mindlink.”
    Matt’s mind felt nicely crowded with the mental person as, and fast mindflows, of two women who loved him and whom he loved in different ways. Mata Hari nodded from her grassy meadow. “Proceed, Eliana. I find it fascinating that your psychic abilities can cross the Translation space-time barrier.”
    His Eliana tossed her shoulder-length hair. “Well, it surprised me at first. Then I was able to feel Suzanne’s mind too as we left the Large Magellanic Cloud and entered the Magellanic Stream of hot gases. We discussed it during our refueling stops. And our link got stronger. As did my mindlink with Matthew.” Her green eyes shifted to include both of them. “But beyond the ability to mentally feel Matthew, I found that I have developed a . . . a kind of precognition. The ability to anticipate where someone or something will be, or will happen.”
    “Remarkable,” Matt said in synchrony with