Deep Penetration; Alien Breeders I (45 page)

“
No talking!” one of the
guards barked. “We’ll move you if necessary.”

Quiet fell over the building except
for the occasional sounds of the soldiers as they shifted or
coughed or spoke between themselves. Emerald turned finally to
survey her cell and moved to the hard cot along one wall. After
examining it, she decided it was clean enough and sat down to
wait.

Hours passed. Despite her anxiety,
Emerald dozed off. She was roused a little later as food was
brought around. It was pretty horrible stuff, but she nibbled at it
and lay down again. The next time she woke, the artificial lights
were off and sunlight was filtering into her cell through the small
window in the door. Groggy, she wondered if it was the light that
had awoken her for a moment before she realized that the sounds she
heard were the rhythmic tramp of feet.

Realizing their escort had returned,
she rubbed her eyes, smoothed her hair the best she could with her
fingers and got up. A face appeared at the window of her cell. She
recognized him as the solder who’d been in charge the night before.
“The council has convened. We’re here to escort you and your
party.”

Emerald nodded and stood waiting while
the door was unlocked. She saw when she entered the corridor that
the others had also been removed from their cells. They’d been
placed in restraints and she felt her heart sink. Trying to tell
herself as she was fitted with a pair of cuffs that they were
merely being cautious, she fell in between Tariq and Koryn as they
were escorted out and loaded onto the same transport, or one just
like it.

She caught a glimpse of a crowd of
gawkers as she climbed into the transport. Most of them were gaping
at the Anunnaki, although she heard a woman’s voice speculate on
her presence among them.

There was another crowd waiting when
they were allowed out of the transport, larger than the first.
Despite everything, Emerald couldn’t help but feel her spirits rise
to see so many of her own people, all appearing strong and healthy
and prosperous. The building they were escorted into was a boon to
her spirits, as well. It was a large, well constructed building
that had clearly stood for some time. She managed to catch a
glimpse of the city as they reached the portico and pleasure filled
her at the sight of it. It could’ve been most any small city on the
Earth that she’d known. Her chest tightened with a sense of
homecoming she hadn’t expected.

The hearing room inside was hardly
vast, but it was a large room that also proclaimed Centaurian as a
colony that had been well established.

They were escorted to the front, just
beneath the dais where the council members sat.

She lifted her head to study them when
she’d been seated, trying to decide from their expressions just how
much trouble they were in.

The high councilor, a mature woman of
indeterminate age, spoke first. “Which of you wishes to speak for
your group?”

Tariq stood immediately.

Her brows rose almost to her hairline.
“Where are you from?”

“
Niribu.”

The woman stared at him hard for
several moments, almost as if she was trying to place the name.
“This isn’t one of the Earth colonies,” she said finally. “Not but
what it’s clear you aren’t one of us.”

“
We are called the
Anunnaki.”

“
And you are?”

“
Lord Tariq.”

Surprise flickered in her eyes again.
She leaned closer to one of the other councilors who spoke to her.
“Since you aren’t from one of our colonies and we’ve never heard of
Niribu, I’m assuming that you’ve traveled a great
distance?”

Tariq nodded. “We have, Lady. We hope
to become colonists of Centaurian.”

The councilor frowned. “I think we
need to have a few questions answered before we get to
that.”

“
I will be happy to answer
whatever I’m able to.”

“
Who is the woman and why
is she with you?” one of the other councilors asked abruptly. “She
isn’t Anunnaki.”

“
No. We took her from
Earth.”

“
And she led you here?”
another councilor demanded, clearly angry.

“
She did not. She didn’t
know of this place. We found the information within the computer of
one of those who attacked Earth.”

That caused a general commotion and
not just among the councilors. The high councilor banged her gavel
until the room quieted. “What attack?”

Tariq frowned. “It was long before we
arrived. We hadn’t determined when it happened when we left Earth
and returned to Niribu. All we know is that Earth was attacked and
there were few survivors.”

“
But the woman was one?”
the high councilor asked sharply, an odd hitch in her voice. “Stand
up and approach!”

Unnerved at the abrupt order, Emerald
stood up, glanced at Tariq uneasily and then strode purposefully
toward the dais.

The high councilor looked down at her,
slowly rising from her seat. She’d turned so pale Emerald wondered
for several moments if she was ill. “What’s your name?”

“
Emerald.”

The woman swallowed convulsively
several times. “Emerald?” she asked faintly.

“
I was Corporal Emerald
Johnson of the 11
^th
Earth reserves battalion.”

The woman’s chin wobbled.
“Mother?”

Emerald stared at the woman blankly
for several moments, feeling as if the floor had fallen out from
under her. She’d thought she was imagining things when she’d
noticed the woman seemed familiar. “Cara?”

“
Oh my god!” she
exclaimed. “It
is
you!”

She pushed her chair out abruptly and
raced toward the end of the council table. Emerald met her there,
flinging her arms around her daughter and hugging her tightly. Both
of them were sobbing so loudly that it wasn’t until they managed to
compose themselves a little that they thought about the room filled
with people.

Cara mopped her face with her hand and
glanced around and then addressed the rest of the council. “It’s my
mother! She was one of those who stayed behind to fight the
invaders!”

Glancing distractedly at the others,
she met Emerald’s gaze again. “Who are they?”

Emerald reddened. “Tariq and Koryn are
my men. They rescued me and brought me here. The others are … their
friends who helped us.”

Cara shook her head and turned to the
council members again. “I’ll speak with her in my
office.”

“
What about them?” Emerald
asked when Cara took her hand and tried to lead her
away.

Cara looked at the men. “They’ll wait
here until you’ve explained everything to me.” She hesitated.
“Remove their restraints.”

Emerald threw Tariq and Koryn a
reassuring glance as Cara led her from the hearing room through a
door at the back the councilors used to access the room. As they
made their way down the corridor outside, she studied Cara, as
appalled to see her daughter was older than her as her daughter no
doubt was.

It was unsettling, dismaying to think
of all the years they’d missed even while it thrilled her to see
her daughter when she’d never thought to see her again.

It was disturbing on another level, as
well, she realized when Cara had dragged her into her office and
caught her shoulders to study her face. “You look just like you did
when I last saw you,” she said after a moment, wariness in her eyes
now. “Tell me how that’s possible.”

Emerald swallowed with an effort, but
there was no point in trying to lie. “I died there, Cara. They
resurrected me.”

A look of horror crossed Cara’s
features and then anger and disappointment. “You aren’t my
mother!”

Emerald felt tears clog her throat. “I
am your mother.”

“
You’re a clone of my
mother!” she said angrily.

“
I know how everyone feels
about cloning, Cara, but I
am
your mother. I’m not just a copy. I remember
everything. I remember the way you looked the day I sent you away
to protect you. I remember before that when you and I talked about
coming here so long ago to become colonists. Please … don’t look at
me like that when I’ve waited so long to see you again. I would
never have had the chance if it wasn’t for them. The aliens overran
us. They killed everyone they could find.”

Doubt flickered in her eyes. “How
could you remember … any of those things?”

Emerald shook her head. “Don’t you
see? I couldn’t if I wasn’t your mother. They could’ve simply
cloned me and I would have been just a copy, but I’m not. I’m
Emerald. They resurrected me. I remember the day you were born. I
remember your first tooth—your first crush. I remember the terrible
argument we had when I told you I’d gotten a ticket for you. You
begged me to stay. You threatened to run away.” She swallowed with
an effort. “And I locked you in your room so you
couldn’t.”

“
I was so angry with you!”
Cara said. “And angry with myself that I’d warned you.”

Emerald opened her arms hopefully. “I
didn’t want to send you away, baby, but I wanted you to have a
chance at a life and you didn’t have one there.”

Cara hesitated and embraced her again,
weeping. “I want you to be my mother. I know you aren’t, but I want
it to be so.”

Emerald stroked her hair,
trying to sooth her as she had when she’d been little. “I feel like
me. I couldn’t remember much at first and I was so afraid, but then
the memories began to come back and … I felt them all. I didn’t
just remember them as if they’d happened to someone else.” She
leaned away after a moment to study her daughter’s face, saddened
that they’d missed so many years. “Did you meet a nice young man? I
never
dreamed
you’d become a high councilor! I had such hopes in sending
you here, but I didn’t know you’d do so well!”

Cara chuckled abruptly. “Neither of us
were terribly young by then. I kept waiting and hoping you’d come.
Finally, I accepted that you wouldn’t and I started my family
without you. I’ve got three children—and three grandchildren.” She
shook her head. “You know what? I’ve just realized that I’ve got
nothing to complain about! I’m glad they resurrected you and gave
me the chance to see you again. I don’t care how it was done. I
feel like I have my mother back and that’s all that
matters.”

Emerald was so relieved
she cried all over again. Finally, they both dried their eyes and
settled to talk. Cara had barely been in her teens when she’d sent
her away, though, and she was leery of how much her daughter might
have changed over the years, so she was careful in explaining what
had happened. Unfortunately, there was no way to avoid
explaining
why
she’d been resurrected. She glossed over the slavery issue,
however, and told her that a more powerful Anunnaki lord had
decided to claim her and that Tariq and Koryn had decided to flee
with her rather than lose her. It was close enough to the truth,
she decided. No one needed to know that the Anunnaki thought that
it was their right to enslave the human race and it wasn’t likely
to win friends for any of them if it
was
known.

She just hoped she would have the
chance to tell the others her slightly revised version of the
truth.

To her relief, she did. When her
mother decided she’d heard enough to make a decision, she escorted
her back to the hearing room and cleared it of spectators so that
she and the other council members could discuss their situation and
come to a decision. She was allowed to leave with the Anunnaki and
they were taken to a hotel near the council building to rest and
wait to hear their fate.

Koryn, she discovered, true to form
was more preoccupied with the ‘science’ of the development than
anything else. “Even considering that time is unpredictable from
one place to another in space, it doesn’t seem to me that your
daughter would still be alive after all this time. Of course, we
never did figure out how long it had been since the invasion, but
even so …. What is the typical lifespan of humans now?”

Emerald shook her head at him. “It’s
been a while—I don’t know what it is now. The average life
expectancy when I was alive before, though, was around two
hundred.”

Both Tariq and Koryn looked startled.
“That long?” Tariq echoed. “Humans didn’t live nearly that long the
last time we studied them.”

“
I guess that would
explain it then,” Koryn said thoughtfully. “They don’t extend by
resurrection I don’t suppose?”

“
I don’t think so.
Everyone was opposed to human cloning in my time, although they did
clone species of animals that were endangered, and Cara wasn’t
especially pleased when she realized I had been.”

“
Why the hell not?” Tariq
growled. “She seemed happy to see you—hysterically
happy.”

“
It’s just the way we look
at it,” Emerald said tiredly. “I think she’s still having a hard
time accepting that I’m really me.”