Laura Jo Phillips (9 page)

“Oh,” Slater said.  “What will happen if we do them together?”

“Let us see, shall we?” Magoa said with a low chuckle.

Slater nodded and moved so that he was standing beside Magoa.  At Magoa’s signal, they began making the complicated series of arm and leg motions that Magoa had taught to Slater a few days earlier.  Slater was relieved that he had, in truth, practiced the movements so he was able to keep up with Magoa.

As they reached the end of the series of movements, Slater felt an odd warmth infuse his body and he noticed a green glow surrounding his hands and arms.  He glanced sideways and was surprised to see that Magoa was surrounded by a strange reddish light.  After a moment, the light faded from both of them and Magoa chuckled.

“Good, good,” he said jovially, clapping Slater on the shoulder.  “You did very well, Slater, my boy.”

Slater smiled uncertainly.  He was glad that Magoa was pleased with him, but he didn’t really understand the reason for it.  He wasn’t sure how useful it would be to make himself glow, especially if he had to have Magoa there in order to make it work.  And it had taken an awful lot of time and effort to make it happen.  But, if the great Magoa was happy with him, then that was a good thing.

“Now that you have that part, it is time to learn the second part,” Magoa said, deflating Slater’s happy feelings. 

“Second part?” Slater asked.

“Of course, of course,” Magoa replied.  “You didn’t think all that work was just so you could light up a little, did you?”

Slater shook his head slowly.  What he really wanted to do was ask why they were doing this, but he didn’t quite dare.

“All right then, watch carefully,” Magoa said.  He then began a new set of movements that looked even more complicated than the first set had.  When he was finished, he looked expectantly at Slater who did his best to copy what Magoa had done.

Several hours later, Slater was fairly certain that he at least knew what the movements were, even if he couldn’t perform them all without lots of stops and starts.

“You keep practicing that, along with the first set,” Magoa said.  “I’ll be back in a few days to see how you’re doing.”

“Magoa, I must hunt,” Slater said.  “There is no game here.  I must go to the other side of Onddo.”

Magoa frowned.  But there was really no help for it.  Slater had to eat.  “Very well,” Magoa replied finally.  “But make it quick.  It is most important that you practice these movements and get them down as soon as possible.”

“I promise, I shall work hard,” Slater said. 

“Good boy, good boy,” Magoa said.  “Good hunting then, and practice, Slater, practice.”

Slater nodded, watching with admiration as Magoa stepped off the ledge as he transformed into his magnificent red sugea and flew away.

Slater watched until the sugea was gone, then he sat thinking for awhile.  No matter how hard or how long he thought, he could not imagine what good making himself glow could possibly be.  After a time he shook his head in defeat, transformed into his own green sugea, and leapt into the air.  He was hungry, and it was past time to hunt.

One month later.....

Chapter
10

Earth, Arlington, Virginia

Due to a few lucky jump slot assignments, Hope’s journey from Jasan to Earth took only twenty-nine days, which was far less than the usual thirty-nine days.  Hope was very grateful for the speedy journey as she was more than ready to get back to her old life and leave Jasan in the past.  It wasn’t easy, since she still kept getting that same feeling that she was
supposed
to be there.  Only now, instead of making her feel hopeful, she was annoyed by it. 

She had followed her feelings, spending a good chunk of her life savings in the process, and come away with nothing but a lot of wasted time and a sense of loss that she couldn’t seem to shake.  She just wanted to get home and restart her life.

She collected her luggage and left the Dulles Interstellar Spaceport with a sense of relief.  It was nice to look up and see the familiar blue skies of Earth and the green grass lining the walkways.  Even the scent of the air was different here.  Home, she thought.  It was so nice to be home. 

Even though she’d been certain when she left that she would not be returning to Earth, she had followed the suggestions in the Candy Bride brochures she had gotten from Bride House, and kept her home and belongings, just in case.  At the time it had felt like wasted effort, but now she was glad for it.

She hoped that the messages she had sent before leaving Jasan had been received and acted upon.  If they had, then she should be able to go home to her apartment and find all of her belongings in place, the kitchen stocked, the utilities on, and her bed made up as though she had never left.  She was really looking forward to that as she lugged her suitcases down to the corner and boarded a train into the city.  

A few hours later Hope was settled in her own home at last.  She’d been very pleased to find that the service had done everything promised.  It was almost as though she had never left.  She did have a few things in secure storage, mostly photographs, wall hangings, and keepsakes.  She would have to pick them up sometime in the next few days, but there was no rush.  There was nothing she really needed.  The one thing she had missed the most was her art supplies, and they were all here, set up in the extra bedroom she used as a studio. 

She had deliberately not taken any of her supplies with her to Jasan, not even a sketch pad.  When she was drawing or painting, she tended to bury herself in the creative process to the exclusion of everything around her.  She had been on Jasan for a purpose, and she knew herself well enough to know that if she started painting, she would shunt that purpose aside.  Now, she regretted not painting during her stay since she had come away without accomplishing anything else on her trip. 

After fixing herself a quick meal and taking a long, hot bath, Hope went into her studio.  The service had unpacked her supplies and set them up, which was nice, but everything needed to be rearranged.  She spent a relaxing couple of hours setting things up to her own liking. 

She had made a good living doing commissioned portraits by hand, a lost art that very few artists cared to be bothered with, but one which had gained in popularity over recent years, especially among the wealthy.  Hope didn’t mind catering to the rich because it provided her with enough money to pay the bills, and left her with enough time to do what she truly loved, which was creating art imbued with hope for those who needed it most. 

As Hope sorted through her paints, she thought of some of the murals she had done in hospitals, med-centers, orphanages and schools all over the continent.  There was something about them that gave people in their presence a feeling of hope and joy.  Hope had no idea why that was so, or even how she did it.  She knew only that it was real, and that it worked.  It didn’t seem to matter if the mural was of a playground filled with children, or of dolphins frolicking in the waves, or birds soaring through a sky dotted with fluffy clouds, the end result was always the same.  People loved them, and they uplifted people’s spirits in a way that was beyond explanation.

She did the murals for free, working on them at night or on weekends, whenever it could be arranged so that no one else was around while she did it.  All she asked in return was that her identity be kept secret, and so far no one had violated that agreement.  She signed each of her murals with a tiny owl like the ones tattooed on her wrist, so people had come to refer to the artist as
Athena
.  Hope was always a little amused by that.   

Once her paints and brushes were sorted, Hope turned to the stacks of canvases leaning against the wall and selected a few to hang while she decided which of her contacts to touch base with the next day.  She was eager to get back to work and put the past year behind her.

By the time she was finished in the studio she was tired, relaxed and ready for a good night’s sleep in her own bed.  She double locked the door, turned out the lights and climbed into bed, falling asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.

Two hours later Hope sat straight up in bed, going from a sound sleep to alert wakefulness in an instant.  She climbed out of bed, threw on a robe and went to her studio, even though a part of her mind was wondering why she was doing it.  It was the middle of the night, she was tired, and there was no logical reason for her actions.

She felt as though she were under a compulsion that she couldn’t fight.  She didn’t know where it had come from, but she had an image in her mind that she absolutely had to commit to paper right that very moment.  She grabbed a piece of charcoal and a sketch pad and began sketching.  Before long, she tossed the pad aside and began sifting through her blank canvases, searching for the largest.  She set it up on her easel and started sketching again.  This time she got further before realizing that wasn’t going to be big enough, either.  This had to be big.  Really big.  The subjects were larger than life in her mind, and she had to paint them that way.  She tossed the canvas aside in frustration and yawned, noticing for the first time that the sun was coming up. 

Feeling as though she was leaving something important unfinished, but too tired now to do anything else, she washed her hands and fell into bed.  She slept restlessly for several hours, and woke up feeling agitated and tense.  She sat up, trying to figure out what was wrong with her as she stared idly at the bare wall across from her. 

She’d had a tapestry hanging on that wall that had been handed down to her from her mother, but it was still in secure storage, so the bare wall looked strange to her.  She stared at it for a long moment before the idea came to her.  When it did, it was like a lightening bolt in her mind. 

She leapt out of bed and crossed the room to the wall, running her hands over it, testing the texture.  There were a few spots that needed to be smoothed out, but that wouldn’t take long.  She was very experienced at painting on walls and knew exactly what was needed to prepare the surface properly.  She stepped back and eyed the wall carefully, picturing it with the image in her mind.  She smiled.  It would do.

Chapter
11

Onddo

Slater stood beside Magoa, both of them moving in perfect unison as they performed the complicated patterns of steps and motions.  Slater wasn’t exactly sure if this was the fifth or the sixth set of movements that Magoa had taught him over the previous weeks, but he did know that this last set was the most complicated of them all.  It was also taking him much longer to learn than any of the others. 

Slater had been very afraid that Magoa would lose patience with him, and it was true that Magoa had become irritated at times.  But for the most part he had been understanding.  Slater had truly worked very hard to learn everything that Magoa had taught him, and he was sure that Magoa was aware of that. 

This time, as they finished the full set of movements, Slater watched with barely suppressed excitement as his green glow and Magoa’s red one moved slowly away from their own bodies and began intertwining with each other. 

He tried hard to contain his excitement and continue to focus, but the green light began to fade and he gave up.  He hung his head as the light went out and sighed with disappointment. 

Therefore, he was very surprised when Magoa clapped him on the shoulder and laughed.  “Good boy, good,” he said happily. 

Slater looked up in surprise, but Magoa just grinned.  “We must practice more, but we’re almost there.”

Slater nodded.  He would practice as much as Magoa wanted him to, especially if he wasn’t going to be mad at him for his failure. 

“There’s a bit of a catch though,” Magoa said, still grinning. 

“Catch?” Slater asked warily.  “What catch?”

“I want you to start practicing in your sugea form.”

Slater’s eyes widened.  “All of it?”

“Oh yes, all of it,” Magoa replied.  “Every movement, every step.  In sugea form.”

“All right,” Slater replied, trying to hide his uncertainty.

“Don’t worry my boy, you can do it,” Magoa said.  “The problem is, we are running out of time.  So we need to step things up a bit.”

“Time?” Slater asked blankly.

“We have some Narrasti cousins on another world that, with the help of the Xanti, we’re going to rescue,” Magoa explained.

Slater thought about that for a moment.  “I thought we wanted to get rid of the Xanti,” he said finally.

“Yes yes, I know, but with this new information, I think we need to keep them around just a bit longer,” Magoa replied. 

“Will they discover you are sugea?” Slater asked.

Magoa shrugged.  “I don’t see any way around it.  These new cousins are important to us.  They have direct line sugea DNA.”

Slater’s eyes widened at that.  He didn’t know a lot about such things, but he did know that the big problem that had always faced his people was their limited gene pool.  Their original ancestors were gilea, the weakest of the Narrasti, the lowest of the low.  That Magoa was a sugea was a fluke.  That Slater was a sugea was a slightly smaller fluke since Magoa was his father.  But they had never had new DNA to draw from.  They had never even had the hope of such a miracle.  Until now.