GABRIEL (The Innerworld Affairs Series, Book 4) (20 page)

The act did not take long and Shara managed to keep her mind elsewhere while her body received what it required. As before, the fever cooled once it was fed. She had gotten exactly what she asked for.

And it was more repulsive than when he had unknowingly raped her.

As soon as he was finished, Gabriel moved away.

For a while he just sat there with his back to her, taking deep, slow breaths. Then he rose and put on his tunic and sandals. "I was told there's a small lake on the other side of the west ridge. I'm going to rinse off. I suddenly feel extremely unclean."

As he started to walk in that direction, Shara had the irrational yet frightening thought that he might not come back. "Gabriel."

"What?" he asked without turning around to her.

"I won't ask you to do that again."

His shoulders relaxed slightly. "Good. Because I would refuse."

She watched him walk away, knowing he was hurt and angry with her, but certain he would return. His mention of the lake and rinsing off had her swiftly dressed and heading for the showers behind the cookhouse. Lanterns had been lit inside the lodge and multiple conversations could be heard through the open windows. It would be a while before everyone was asleep and she could begin her tests.

Feeling somewhat better after the shower, she walked back to the sleeping pouch on the hillside. Gabriel hadn't returned, but he had had much farther to walk and probably needed more time to cool down than she did.

Considering the task she wanted to perform later that night, she decided to take a short nap while she could. She got undressed, crawled into the pouch and dozed off seconds later.

She awoke as Gabriel slid into the bag beside her but she pretended to remain asleep. All she had to do now was wait for him to drift off then go back down to the lodge and obtain her samples. If all went well, she would return before he missed her.

She was wondering how long he would remain angry with her when he tucked her against him with his arm around her waist. Relief that he seemed to have forgiven her caused her to nestle more comfortably in his embrace. But she was careful not to relax too much. She had work to do—work that he didn't approve of.

She waited until his breathing became shallow and the arm around her went slack. Then she began easing her way out of the pouch. She almost made it.

Gabriel's hand closed around her ankle the moment she stood up.

"Going somewhere?"

"Uh, yes, to relieve myself."

He tightened his grasp. "Lean down and give me a kiss first so I can go back to sleep."

Since that was what she wanted him to do, she knelt down to comply. He exchanged his hold on her ankle for a fistful of her hair.

"Olive," Gabriel stated flatly as soon as she was close enough for him to see her eyes. He was still stinging from their mechanical encounter and this didn't improve his disposition. She tried to back away but only succeeded in having her hair tugged. "You know better than to lie to me and I've warned you about how lightly I sleep. I also warned you that I wouldn't allow you to do anything that might alter history, and no matter what is happening between us, I won't change my mind about that!"

Shara attempted to reclaim her hair but his grip was too secure. "And I told you I didn't care if I had to accomplish my mission over your unconscious body. I
have
to do this!"

It occurred to him that he may have underestimated how strongly she felt about her self-assigned mission. "Fine," he said, releasing her hair and sitting up. "Let's debate the issue calmly, like two
reasonable
adults. Convince me that you're right and I'm wrong."

She wondered if there was any way she could win a straightforward debate with him. Though she doubted it, at least she had to try. "I've already told you what Lantana warned us about. The only sure way to prevent that from happening is to stop Khameira's ancestor from going to Terra."

"The Ruling Tribunal of Norona didn't agree with you," Gabriel countered.

"They didn't see him or hear him. If they had... if
you
had, you would understand. Lantana was a desperate man. Rather than pass away peacefully, he used the last breath in his frail body to try to save Innerworld from disaster. He spent years working on the only solution he could come up with. If I don't follow through with this, all his efforts were futile."

Gabriel rubbed his chin. "There are some pieces that simply don't fit here. You're not a coward but you don't strike me as a brave, lone crusader either. You've never had any desire to leave your home to go adventuring before this and I'd bet you never opposed your parents in your life. Suddenly you're breaking laws and defying the Ruling Tribunal itself to set off on a journey with practically no experience. It would make more sense to me if you had found someone who shared your opinion to go for you—someone more seasoned and less noticeable when he or she disappeared. Why take such an enormous risk yourself?"

"I had to. It's my equipment and my theories being tested."

"You could have taught someone what was needed."

"No! That wouldn't be the same. You just don't understand how important this is to me."

"Hmmm," Gabriel said, nodding slowly. "I think we're making progress now. You said, 'how important this is to me,' not to us, or to Innerworld, or Terra. Why is this mission important to you
personally
? Is it the prestige you'll earn if your theories are proven?"

She frowned at him and briefly considered lying or refusing to answer at all but every minute he delayed her was one less minute she had to run tests. "All right. I'll tell you. While I'm searching for Khameira's ancestor, I'm hoping to find my own as well."

"It's really that important to you?" he asked, already guessing her answer.

Her eyes pleaded for his understanding. "I've existed under a cloud of doubt my whole life. This is my opportunity to learn the truth."

"And what if the truth is that you have no Noronian ancestor among the rebels? Wouldn't it be better to leave it unconfirmed?"

She shook her head. "It couldn't be worse than it's been. I want to know, one way or the other." She could see by the concerned expression on his face that she had scored a point in this debate of theirs and quickly pressed her slight advantage. "What possible harm can my testing the rebels do?"

"I have no objection to the testing you want to do, only to your plan to interfere with events already past. The smallest change now could have horrendous repercussions thousands of years in the future. Like tossing a tiny pebble into a pond, it makes a minuscule splash, but the ripples circling out from it grow larger and larger."

She was about to argue with his theory when she realized it wasn't necessary.

As long as he didn't prevent her from testing the subjects, she didn't need to change his mind about anything else until she found the right rebel. When she did... well, she'd worry about dealing with Gabriel and his theories then. "I see what you mean," she told him, careful not to actually lie while he was watching her eyes so closely. "If I promise to be very careful not to cause any ripples, will you at least agree not to interfere with my testing?"

He had the strangest feeling his idea to debate the matter had somehow backfired but he couldn't put his finger on exactly what felt wrong. His intuition told him to keep a very close eye on her. "I will do better than agree not to interfere. I'll help you. The faster you test everyone, the sooner we can go home. The fever has tied us together for the moment and although you may not be worried about it escalating, I am."

"I'm as worried as you are. I'm just not going to let it stop me from doing what I need to do. I accept your offer to help. The hardest thing is going to be identifying everyone, but maybe between the two of us we'll remember the names of most of the people we met or were told about."

"Beauty can help with that. Remember, she was taking pictures as we were being introduced."

"Great. There are still several hours left before dawn. If we're lucky, we could be gone before their big meeting begins."

As they donned their tunics, Gabriel said, "I know I said I'm in a hurry to get back, but since we're here and it would only be a few more hours..."

Shara smiled. "It would be a real shame not to get a recording of such an historic event." In fact, Shara thought, it could work out perfectly. If they identified both people she was looking for, she could easily find her way to the Ruling Tribunal's headquarters, while Gabriel was absorbed in the proceedings of the meeting. Once the triumvirate heard her story, they would surely detain the one rebel to prevent a future disaster.

They were ready to go when Shara placed her hand on Gabriel's arm. "Wait, I..." His eyes met hers in question. With a sigh, she made herself do the proper thing. "I really am sorry. About... before. It was irrational."

Gabriel brought her hand to his lips and kissed the palm. "We're both suffering from irrationality. I don't know how to make this easier for you—"

She touched his lips with her fingertips. "Just accept my apology."

He smiled and enveloped the fingers that had hushed him. "Accepted." He kept her hand in his as they began walking back to the lodge.

Shara used the time to explain how her microputer worked. Once inside, they wouldn't speak for fear of waking someone. Gabriel instructed Beauty to review the recordings and print out the name of each person he directed the mirror toward. Then if that name was on Shara's list of rebels that were exiled, she would run the test.

There was a boy in the tree where they had first seen Artemis but since his name was not on the list, Shara didn't need a hair sample from him. They waved at the young sentry, told him they'd decided to spend the rest of the night indoors and continued on. Only a few lanterns remained lit inside the lodge and the silence let them know their timing was good.

As they entered, it was immediately evident from the amount of floor space now vacant that a fair number of adults and children had chosen to sleep outdoors. But there were still enough in residence to put a dent in Shara's list.

She tiptoed around the edge of the room to where their bags had been left to fetch her microputer and a tiny pair of scissors. Slightly larger than her hand, the microputer would be difficult to conceal and it would be impossible to pretend that it was something other than a technologically advanced piece of equipment. Possession of such a device could cause suspicion among the Friends even if she weren't sneaking around in the middle of the night. Soft snores and gentle rustlings had her gaze darting from side to side as she expected to be caught any second.

Gabriel pointed to the individual cells up in the loft and Shara nodded. It was logical to assume that was where Zeus and his immediate family would be found and all of them went to Terra. Shara and Gabriel climbed the ladder in one corner and began their search.

Shara bolstered her nerve and peeked into the first draped cell but it was too dark to see. Gabriel stepped forward and extracted his paralyzer rod from inside the top of his tunic. Shara's eyes widened with confusion until she saw him change the setting and a beam of soft white light brightened the interior.

When she recognized the single occupant, she touched the key on her microputer that brought up the list of names and scrolled down to Hestia. Another key checked off the name and prepared the device for input. Holding her breath, she approached the sleeping woman, snipped off a single hair and hurried out.

Her hands were shaking a bit as she fed the hair into a slot at one end of the microputer. The unit analyzed the cell structure and recorded the memory molecule's combination of genetic codes under Hestia's name. A third key instructed the microputer to compare the codes with those of Khameira's and a fourth triggered a comparison with Shara's.

She did not tell Gabriel which was which, for if a match to hers came up, he would undoubtedly insist they stop the search and she had no intention of stopping until she found Khameira's match as well.

When no match occurred for Hestia, Shara went on to the next cell. Beauty was needed to identify the young couple inside but only the woman required testing.

Shara got braver as they moved along the row of sleepers, though she found herself flustered by some of the situations she witnessed. It was soon clear why
love
was part of their traditional greeting.

It was also obvious that they believed in freedom from any moral strictures. Although the average Innerworlder's attitude toward sexual relations was much freer than what Shara's mother had been raised with on Outerworld, they drew the line of acceptability at incest and using children.

Artemis slept with her head on Athena's bared breast. Apollo shared his cell with a pretty, preadolescent boy named Hyacinthus. Isis and her two brothers were intimately entwined as if they had all fallen asleep in the midst of foreplay. Very few people slept alone and several cells were occupied by more than two.

Shara and Gabriel were three-quarters of the way around the loft when they found Zeus's cell. They had not located a match among any of Zeus's children, but Shara still wanted to test him to be completely certain.

The huge man was sprawled on his back, embracing a woman on each side of him. Shara had been slipping in and out of the cubicles, trying not to look at anything but faces and hair, but she couldn't help but notice Zeus's manhood. Even at rest it was abnormally large. She felt a shiver of fear at the thought of the pain he could cause if he wasn't in a gentle mood.