Weird Space 2: Satan's Reach by Eric Brown Page A

to manufacture machines, starships and the like – and sent a fleet of ships into Vetch- and human-space.
    “These ship were loaded, for want of a better word, with Weird mind-parasites, which could infect humans and the Vetch, lying dormant until they decided to take control of the individual. We have no idea how many humans in the Expansion have been infected over the decades. We assumed a worst case scenario of tens of thousands – and of course we have no idea who or where these people are. You see, they don’t even know they are infected themselves. We assume that by now the parasites have infiltrated their hosts into positions of power in the Expansion...” He fell silent.
    She stared at him. “Holy. Fucking. Shit.”
    “Quite,” he said.
    “So...” she said at last, “there’s absolutely fuck all we can do.”
    He shook his head. “That’s where you’re wrong, thankfully. You see, these mind-parasites are detectable... by telepaths. There is no hiding from the probe of a telepath, and already we have a psionic team working to root out the infected. We’re recruiting more individuals who test psi-positive, and fast-tracking their operations. We are also tracking down rogue teleheads, those individuals who have absconded, for whatever reasons, down the years.”
    “Ah... so this is where I come in, right?”
    He nodded. “Five years ago a Grade I operative absconded from the Expansion, stealing a starship and heading for the Reach.”
    “Satan’s Reach?” she said.
    “Do you know any other Reach? Of course Satan’s Reach. We sent an operative after him, but word came out a little later that he’d killed the operative in a shoot-out on the border planet of Rhapsody.”
    “So you want me to go in after this killer telepath and bring the fucker back?”
    “That’s about the size of it, yes.”
    Satan’s Reach, the lawless, ungoverned drift of tightly packed stars beyond the jurisdiction of the Expansion... She had never ventured anywhere near the Reach before, never even met anyone who’d been there. She’d heard rumours, of course, that the Reach consisted of peaceable worlds just like any you might find in the Expansion, and also planets run by criminals, hell-holes settled by fleeing cults, and worlds inhabited by monstrous alien races.
    “Who is he?”
    Gorley touched the sensor again and the images of the Weird were replaced by the head-and-shoulders shot of a man she guessed to be in his early thirties. Dark, thin faced, with suspicious slit eyes and a wide mouth.
    “He goes under the name of Den Harper these days, according to word that’s reached us, and he works as a star trader with the ship he purloined from an Expansion Commander.”
    She grunted. “The bastard has chutzpah in bundles,” she said, “and then you sent someone after him and he killed the poor fucker? So it’ll be a walk in the park for me, right? A holiday in Satan’s Reach going after a homicidal telepath... Anything else you haven’t told me?”
    Gorley went on, “Word has reached us that he works out of a planet in the core of the Reach called Tarrasay. I suggest you check out the spaceport there, initially. We’ll give you all the data we have on Harper, as well as the spec on the ship he stole.”
    She sat back and smiled. “You talk as if all this is a fait accompli , Gorley. You assume I’m all for this escapade like a kid at the circus.”
    He smiled, thinly. “You have no choice, Janaker. Or rather you do. You trace Harper in the Reach, and bring him back, or face the firing squad.”
    She pointed a blaster made out of fingers at him. “That’s what I like about the Expansion, Gorley. Its humanity.”
    He opened a drawer in his desk and passed her a small, flat silver oval, which fitted snugly into the palm of her hand. She raised her eyebrows at him.
    “A shield,” he explained. “So that the telepath cannot read your mind.”
    She nodded, and slipped the device into her jacket