The Dream Voyagers Read online

  © 1999 by T. Davis Bunn

  Published by Bethany House Publishers

  11400 Hampshire Avenue South

  Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

  www.bethanyhouse.com

  Bethany House Publishers is a division of

  Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan

  www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

  Ebook edition created 2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher and copyright owners. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  ISBN 978-1-4412-7081-8

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

  Cover illustration by Michael Carroll and Joe Nordstrom

  Cover design by Dan Thornberg

  THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO:

  Colin & Lia Bruce

  Joseph & Jean-Claire Peltier

  Mason & Brent Williams

  Never stop dreaming

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Part I

  The Dream Voyager

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Part II

  Path Finder

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Part III

  Heart Chaser

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Other Books by Author

  Back Cover

  Part I

  The Dream Voyager

  Chapter One

  Consuela was delighted when Rick could not come to pick her up, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with his reputation. She was happy because it meant he would not be able to see where she lived, or how she lived, or with whom. Consuela did everything she could to separate her school-life from her home-life.

  Not even the girls on the cheerleading squad had ever visited her home. This was very odd, because the girls took turns inviting the squad over for Wednesday night meals. When it was Consuela’s turn, she treated the group to dinner at the local hangout, saying her mother was down with the flu—though the extravagance cost her a month’s wages. Which was another odd thing about Consuela—some afternoons and Saturdays she worked for the most expensive women’s boutique in town. One of the girls discovered it only because her parents took her there for a sixteenth birthday ball gown, and who should wait on them but Consuela. When the other girls asked her about it, Consuela played it very casual and grown-up, saying it was easy work, she met a lot of interesting people, and it gave her money to buy clothes. Which was a strange thing for her to say, since Consuela had only a few outfits that any of them had ever seen, but she mixed and matched them so cleverly that it was really hard to tell. And none of the clothes looked expensive enough to have been bought where she worked.

  Had Consuela been less attractive or friendly, it would have been easy to make her an outsider. Not that she was beautiful. Consuela’s features were too strong for her to fit the modern view of beauty. Her black hair hung long and full and simple, without any of the curls or flounces or frosted layers that were popular with the other girls. She wore no jewelry and little makeup. But there was a mystique to Consuela, a sense of strength and depth that drew people to her.

  “I feel like I can tell her anything,” her best friend Sally told the others one lunchtime. “I mean, anything. I don’t know why, but I bet if I told her I was hooked on drugs or moving to Morocco, she wouldn’t bat an eye.”

  “She’s seventeen going on ninety-seven,” somebody else agreed.

  “She is the most unshakable person I’ve ever met,” Sally went on, trying to put into words what she really couldn’t understand herself. “She just listens to whatever I want to tell her, like she’s taking it all really deep inside. I never get the feeling she’s out to put me down.”

  “I know what it is,” another of the girls declared. “She has this mysterious past. She’s been all around the world, seen it all, done everything, and she’s just too modest to talk about it.”

  “I like her,” someone else declared. Then she realized what she had just said and covered it with a laugh.

  Had Consuela heard what they said about her, she would not have believed it. Her own feelings about herself were very different. To Consuela’s mind, her life at school was one big lie.

  But she didn’t want to think about those things now. Not when she was rushing from the bus stop to the carnival entrance, where she was to meet Rick Reynolds, captain of the football team and the best-looking guy at school. Consuela turned the corner; up ahead the road was lit by the garish carnival lighting. Under the flickering sign stood Rick, and she felt a little thrill of excitement at the thought that he was waiting there for her. For her.

  Now was certainly not a time to be worrying about all the stuff she kept hidden from the world. Consuela put on her very best smile and hoped he would look happy to see her. Then he turned and spotted her, and his own face lit up with a satisfied smile. Yes, things were certainly looking up.

  ****

  Wander climbed down the bank as carefully as he could. He was still unused to wearing the scout’s robe of pale blue and wished he could return to his everyday clothing. But scouts were required to wear their robes at all times, on and off duty. So Wander gathered up the folds, tucked them into his belt, and tried hard not to slip on the icy embankment.

  The tree trunk brought back a flood of memories. So many hours he had sat there, looking across the floodlit expanse at the great vessels resting in their gravity nets, eager to be released to fly up, up, up and away. Since his childhood, Wander had known only one dream, to
fly with them.

  He checked his chronolog, a habit that was useful because it masked his burgeoning abilities from those who did not share his sensitivity. But here in the splendid isolation of a frozen forest, he had no need to check the time. He could hear the pilot’s droning count as clearly as if he were still in the instruction hall, his headpiece plugged into the amplification system.

  The pilot gave the captain the formal two-minute warning. Wander brushed snow from the trunk and seated himself just as the first glimmer emanated from the ship’s circular base. Four other ships awaited their place on the thruster shield, all freighters bound for the Outer Rim. Passenger vessels used daytime departure slots while the port was fully active. At night things slowed down, and the port’s two shields were given over to freight and private vessels unwilling to pay for daytime slots.

  A thrilling hum lifted the hairs on the nape of Wander’s neck as the ship’s thrusters built up power. The charged smell of ionized air lifted over the energy fence and sent Wander spinning back to earlier times, but not for long. At the one-minute count, the power-up reached quarter thrust, and the first faint shimmers of the gravity net came into view. This was the part Wander loved best. The air became so charged that faint blue tendrils of disconnected power drifted behind each movement of his hand, while around him the frozen tree limbs glowed like living sapphires.

  Thirty seconds, half thrust. The energy net shone all about the ship, like interconnected weavings of light. The strain of holding the ship earthbound caused the net to shoot off brilliant silver fire. Fifteen seconds, three-quarters thrust. The fire-net was now so fierce that Wander had to squint to hold it in focus. His robe had become charged to the point that it billowed slightly from his body. About him the entire landscape shone with an eerie luminosity. The humming grew so intense that his chest vibrated. The final countdown began.

  Seconds flowed more slowly through his mind. He remained connected to the pilot as the ship’s power was extended outward, outward, outward, and the heavens split open, a great whirling seam just above the ship, revealing the nothingness into which the ship would leap. Two seconds remaining now and the pilot’s voice was as slow as the thrumming ship’s chronographer, one second and the final destination was brought into tight focus. Time slowed to an almost frozen moment as the energy net was released and the ship began the stretching, reaching, flowing motion that extended it upward and into the seamed opening, through the void and to its destination.

  Then it was over. One moment there, the next gone. To the world the time required was less than a second. To Wander it was a moment beyond time, his body registering earthbound time, his mind connected to the pilot and his search through the known universe for the destination, until the moment came for the stretching, reaching climb. Then his mind snapped back to earthbound focus, and he breathed for what felt like the first time in days.

  He never grew tired of this experience.

  Wander rose to his feet, brushed the snow from his robes, and struggled back up the slope. His control-tower watch began in less than an hour, and he had to make his way around the energy fence.

  Still, there was an excellent vantage point by the water reservoir. If he hurried, he could stop and see one more freighter depart.

  ****

  “Hey, Consuela, great, you made it!” Rick’s smile was legendary, as were his looks and his accomplishments.

  And his reputation.

  Consuela found her resistance melting under the power of his smile and eyes. Earlier that week, after Rick had sauntered up to where Consuela sat studying in the school library and asked her out, Sally had described his reputation in detail. Rick had the habit of coming on strong, charming a girl, taking what he wanted, then dumping her. The story was, Sally told her, that Rick had fallen head over heels for a girl the year before. She had dropped him hard. Since then, Rick had played it cool and tough with every girl in reach.

  “Hello, Rick.” Her neatly pressed khaki trousers and stripped knit top had seemed fine earlier. But now, as she noted his expensive clothes and Italian loafers and gold watch, she wasn’t so certain. “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting.”

  “No problem. Come on, what do you want to try first?”

  She laughed as his arm slipped possessively around her waist and drew her close. All the warnings were swiftly evaporating in the excitement of the moment. She could hardly believe it was happening to her. A date with Rick. Maybe it would be different with her. Maybe he would decide that they made a great couple. Maybe . . .

  If only she could keep him from finding out the truth.

  Rick took her laughter as a signal to draw her closer still. “You like roller coasters?”

  “Sure.” She had never been on a roller coaster in her life. She had hardly been anywhere or done anything. The depth that other girls noticed in her did not come from incredible experience—at least, not the kind of experience they imagined. Her strength came from simply having to cope.

  Her mother was an alcoholic. Her father had left home so soon after she was born that Consuela had no memory of him at all. The social worker responsible for her case had come within a hair’s breadth of taking her away and sticking her into foster care a dozen times or more. Consuela had survived because Consuela was a survivor. But inside, where only she could see, Consuela felt ashamed about her home-life and terrified that someday somebody would discover who she really was.

  Her gaze caught sight of another young man who emerged from one of the dusty side lanes. Though his smile was as warm as his gaze, Consuela did not like this other man at all. There was too much challenge in that smile. Too much awareness of who she truly was.

  Daniel waved, and the simple action was enough to make her stumble. Rick’s grasp of her waist tightened. “You all right?”

  “Yes.” Consuela looked away. Maybe Daniel would not say anything. Maybe he would get the message.

  But Daniel walked over and said, “Consuela, one of my favorite people. How are you?”

  “Fine.” But she was not fine. Not any more. She kept her gaze down. She felt as though the whole world could hear her heart beating, even over the carnival’s tumult. Daniel knew too much. One sentence, one knowing look, and all her carefully constructed myths would come tumbling down.

  Instead, Daniel turned to Rick and offered a hand. “Hi. I’m Daniel Mitchum. You’re Rick, am I right?”

  “The one and only.” Rick’s easy tone said he was very accustomed to having strangers know who he was.

  “I’m youth pastor at First Community Church.”

  “Sure, across the street from school.” Rick’s arm started to steer them around. “Nice meeting you.”

  “Nice to see you again, Consuela,” Daniel called after them. “Have a great time tonight.”

  Consuela waited until they were further down the causeway before she relaxed and took a deeper breath. Rick noticed the movement and said, “You go to his church?”

  “No.” Consuela hesitated, then added, “I’ve seen him around.”

  Rick led her down the midway towards where the roller coaster rose glittering and whooshing in the distance. “What’s a preacher doing around here on a Friday night?”

  “Daniel goes everywhere.” Even to her apartment. She had met Daniel two years earlier, when she had arrived home from school one day and there he was. He had been sitting in the living room, smiling and nodding as her mother slurred through a discussion only she could understand. Daniel had walked into the kitchen with her, and explained that he had received her name from the social worker responsible for her case. Consuela had been absolutely mortified when Daniel had said where his church was, so close to the school that all he had to do was walk across the street and open his mouth, and her house of cards would come tumbling down. She had never even set foot in his church, yet once every few weeks he still stopped by.

  Rick shouted a hello to some friends and stopped to trade insults. Consuela was content to stand and watch and
listen, her habitual small smile hiding everything inside. To others, she appeared incredibly mature. To herself, she seemed the loneliest person on earth.

  Rick refused their pleas to join the others and pulled away, but not before one of the other girls gave Consuela a knowing smirk. In that instant the thin veneer of calm that shielded her shattered. Once more Consuela faltered, and she was simply a scared young girl walking through the tawdry garishness of a cheap carnival.

  “Hey, listen, if you want to go with them, it’s fine with me,” Rick said, misunderstanding her grave expression. “I just thought, you know, it’d be more fun to be alone.”

  “It’s fine,” she said, struggling hard to recapture the moment. “I’m glad you asked me out.”

  “Likewise.” Rick Reynolds, senior class president, captain of the football team, and student most likely to succeed at whatever he decided to do with his life, smiled down at her. “I mean, when I saw you trying out for the cheerleading squad, I thought this was one babe I had to get to know.”

  Babe. It was the first time anybody had ever called her a babe. She wasn’t sure she liked it, even from Rick. But before she could say anything, he stopped at the end of the line waiting turns on the roller coaster and said, “Wait right here. I’ll go get us tickets.”

  She watched as another group stopped to talk with him. He turned and pointed back in her direction. She gave them the smile and wave they expected, although she knew none of them. But everybody knew Rick and wanted to be seen with him. Rick’s dad ran some big company. He drove an almost-new Corvette. He dressed like an ad in one of the magazines Consuela saw around the shop—Armani jeans, Doc Marten’s shoes, silk-and-cotton knit shirt, a bomber jacket slung casually across one shoulder. Last week his picture had been in the city paper with an article about his acceptance of a full football scholarship to the best university in the state. No question about it, Rick was a guy on his way to the top.

  He came trotting back, all eagerness and charm. “Hey, I’m really sorry about not being able to pick you up. But like I said, the coach always keeps us late on Fridays.”

  “It was no problem, really,” Consuela replied. “I got a ride.” Right. With her friendly bus.

  “Good. Where is it that you live, anyway?”