Stardust Dreams (40 page)

"I don't get it,
Gallant," Cherry said the next morning as she daubed the black dye into
his white streaks. "You told me you didn't want to do any sightseeing, so
why would we go to Outerworld today? Bessima isn't supposed to show until the
day after tomorrow."

"I just want to be
ready ahead of time. This is not the way my mother used to tint my hair. Are
you sure it will come out?"

"After a couple of
washings… with shampoo and water, that is. Your ship's sanitizing beam won't
have any effect on it. Which reminds me, you really ought to figure out some
way to put a real shower on board."

"We'll see."

Cherry smiled at his usual
response. "You might consider wearing a hat and tucking your hair up in it
even though the streaks are hidden. Also, you definitely need to wear
sunglasses, whether you have the patch on or not, and a less conspicuous outfit
is a must. From what Rom and Aster said last night, Bessima has really managed
to create a major disturbance with her illusions. It doesn't sound like there's
a person on the whole planet who hasn't seen your face."

Gallant frowned. "She
accomplished exactly what the princess expected her to by this time. It's quite
amazing actually. I wouldn't have thought Terrans were so gullible."

"Just because they're
all talking about God's arrival doesn't mean they believe it will really
happen. If you showed up in front of the horde that has collected around the
White House, the chances of you being stoned to death are probably equal to
your being worshiped. In fact, some newspaper undoubtedly did a poll on that
issue already."

"I could always have a
little surgical rearrangement of my features—"

"Don't you dare!"
Cherry said, meeting his gaze in the mirror. "I like your face just the
way it is."

He grinned at her. "You
could make me feel really good and say you
lave
my face."

"I could. But I won't.
You're too cocky as it is. Someone has to keep you humble, and at the moment,
I'm the only one volunteering for the job. I see you got one of those special
rings from Rom."

He held up his left hand
and moved it back and forth so that the ornate gold ring with its fire opal
setting picked up glints of light. A portable extension of Innerworld's central
computer, the ring had innumerable capabilities. "Rom gave me enough
instruction that I should have no problem using it to transport us from place
to place and back into Innerworld when the time comes. Using it as a
communication device would take a lot more practice than I have time for
though."

"Why would we need to
go from place to place?"

Gallant raised his eyebrows
and shrugged his shoulders. "We don't. Are you about finished with my
hair?"

She made a face to let him
know she suspected he was evading, but she let it go for the moment. "Leave
the dye on for five more minutes, then go rinse it off in the shower. I'm going
to start packing some clothes and toiletries for each of us. They don't have
computerized supply stations and recyclable clothing out there, you know. Thank
the stars it's summer, otherwise we'd have to take a whole wardrobe along with
us."

By midday they were in the
transmigrator cell, dressed in typical American jeans and shirts, with Gallant
carrying one satchel for the two of them. They were about to be dispatched to
Outerworld, and Cherry's feeling that he was hiding something was stronger than
ever.

Her suspicions were
justified the moment they materialized on the corner of a busy city
intersection bearing street signs with the names Broadway and 47th Street. A
quick scan of the neighborhood confirmed that they were in New York City, not
Washington, D.C. "Either the transmigrator technician got the signals
seriously crossed, or this is part of the secret you've been pretending not to
have."

"Who, me? Have a
secret from you?" He gave her a kiss on the nose. "I refuse to reveal
any information one second before it's absolutely necessary." Placing his
arm around her shoulders, he urged her to walk with him. "It should be
right down here."

"What
should? Come
on, you're driving me crazy." His sexy grin didn't help her bewilderment
at all. Here we are.

He had brought her to the
ticket window of a theater. While he picked up matinee tickets that had
miraculously been reserved for him, Cherry glanced at the advertising poster
for the show.

"Dear God," she
whispered as her eyes focused on one line: starring rose cochran. Words escaped
her as she gaped at the poster then at Gallant.

With his index finger under
her chin, he closed her mouth and gave her a light kiss. "She's expecting
special,
nameless
guests backstage after the performance and no one
else will be with her. But the decision is yours."

Her eyes filled with
moisture as she threw her arms around his neck. "You dear, sweet man! I
can't believe you tracked her down, and… and…" Again she was rendered mute
by emotion and settled for hugging him as hard as she could.

"I gather you like my
surprise," Gallant said with a satisfied smile. "Let's go see if
she's as good as you."

Cherry knew that Innerworld
had Noronian emissaries that lived quietly in Outerworld, keeping their eyes
and ears open for problems. These men and women were placed in strategic
locations and careers so that they might be able to accomplish a va-riety of
things without any Terran being aware of alien interference. But reserving
center front seats for a big Broadway show on a moment's notice and arranging a
private appointment with its leading lady were not the sort of things Cherry
imagined they usually did.

The play may or may not
have been wonderful. Cherry had no idea. She only had eyes for her baby sister,
Rose. The physical likeness to herself was incredible, but she felt the younger
woman's stage presence completely outshone her own, and it made her proud enough
to burst. As the curtain closed for the final time, Cherry's hands started
shaking. What if Rose never forgave her for abandoning her? What if she didn't
even remember her? What if—

"Ready?" Gallant
asked gently, squeezing her hand.

She took a deep breath and
stood up. "It's good you didn't warn me ahead of time. I'd have been a
basket case before we got here."

A stagehand escorted them
to Rose's dressing room, knocked, and announced the arrival of her guests. Rose
opened the door with a bright smile… then turned ghostly pale.

The stagehand was about to
press the panic button, but she quickly assured him that everything was fine
and stepped back for her guests to enter. When she closed the door behind her,
she slumped against it, saying, "I don't believe my eyes. You're going to
have to convince me that I'm not hallucinating."

Cherry was paralyzed with
the fear that she would not be welcome or that she would say the wrong thing,
until Gallant gave her a nudge toward Rose. "When's the last time y'all
played in the mud with a passel of piglets, baby girl?"

Rose's eyes widened and
tears made them sparkle. "It's really you? My big sister?"

Cherry nodded as tears of
her own ran down her face. "Would you object to a hug from a virtual
stranger?"

Rose opened her arms and
they met each other halfway.

Gallant smiled as the
women's first minutes together were filled with nonsensical noises and
unfin-ished sentences. He could see they were happy to see each other, but he
himself had never felt so good about something that had nothing to do with him
personally. Instantly he corrected that thought. Anything involving Cherry
personally affected him as well.

Eventually, the
explanations began and Gallant was amazed at Rose's automatic acceptance. She
believed every word she heard simply because Cherry had uttered it.

"I have always known
something freaky had to have happened to you," Rose said. "Otherwise
you would have come back or at least written for me."

Cherry's expression
revealed her relief. "You honestly never thought I forgot about you all
these years?"

"Hell, no. I can't
explain it, but I just held on to the thought that you weren't dead, only
detoured somewhere in your life. All the time my career was progressing, I kept
thinking that wherever you were, you'd hear about me, and if at all possible,
you'd come see me, since I didn't know how to find you."

"Thank you, baby, for
not giving up on me, and especially for making such a success of your life. You
couldn't have turned out any better if I had been there every step of the
way."

"But, Cherry, you
were
with me every step, in my heart. How else would I have made it this far?"

Gallant swallowed down the
lump in his throat as he watched the two women break into tears and hugs again.

They went out to dinner and
spent the night in Rose's apartment in Greenwich Village. Though Cherry was
determined not to ask, Rose insisted on talking about the rest of their family.

"Tully's wife writes
me a card every Christmas, but the rest of our kin has abided by Pa's
declaration that I was cut out of the family the day I left Georgia. Like with
you, he told them the devil had possessed my soul and it would be fatal to make
contact with me."

"I'm sorry to hear
that," Cherry said.

"Don't be. All that
hate and Bible-thumping was damn depressing, but apparently you and I were the
only ones who thought that way. The rest of them have little rug-rats of their
own to dominate now and, from what I've read between the few lines I've
received, Tully's the only one of our brothers who hasn't followed precisely in
Pa's tyrannical footsteps."

Cherry would have enjoyed
hearing a fairy tale about how everyone had ended up living happily ever after,
but she knew real life didn't usually work that way. Besides, if Rose had said
they'd all changed, she might have been tempted to go back and visit them, too.
This way, she didn't need to feel the least bit guilty about not seeing them.

When Gallant awoke the next
morning, the ladies were still talking, but at least the tears had been
replaced by sporadic fits of giggles. Rose insisted on playing tour guide for
the remainder of the day, letting her stand-in cover for the matinee and
evening performances of her show.

Despite the endless hours
of talking, however, they were still catching up when it was time for Gallant
to get back to work the following day.

"You can stay if you'd
like," he offered, making it clear that he meant either for another day or
forever.

Cherry was terribly torn,
but she knew she couldn't give up her career, Innerworld, or her friends there,
nor would she break her promise to Rom and Aster to return as soon as the
mission was over. She understood the reasoning behind the law that prohibited
transplanted Terrans from returning to the surface. There was always the risk
of discovery. Although she had broken the law by telling Rose everything, she
was certain it would go no further.

"Thank you, Captain,
but I think that would constitute shirking my responsibility as your
partner." She held up her robotic hand. "This mechanical wonder still
has an important job to do, and where it goes, I go."

"Will you ever be
back?" Rose asked, the waterworks threatening to start all over again.

Cherry wanted to make her a
promise, but it took her eighteen years to fulfill the last one. She glanced at
Gallant for help with her answer.

"We'll see," he
muttered.

Cherry's face lit up into a
smile as she told Rose, "He always says that when he doesn't want to say
yes but he knows I'll get my way sooner or later. I can't say when, but I'll be
back someday."

It took a while longer to
say all the things they wanted each other to remember. Then Gallant programmed
his Innerworld ring for a location a few blocks away from the White House in
Washington, D.C., and he and Cherry were off.

Where their arrival in
Manhattan had been smooth and completely unnoticed, this migration landed them
in the center of a shoving match, which their abruptly added presence
escalated.

"Watch it, bud!"

"Where the hell do you
think you're goin'?"

"Gimme a break! I've
been standing in this same spot since yesterday."

"Excuse us,"
Gallant said, and used his larger frame and the satchel to make a wedge through
the crowd with Cherry in tow.

"Holy stars!"
Cherry exclaimed as they headed away from the White House and toward the edge
of the throng. "There must be ten thousand people gathered here. When I
said a crowd was a possibility, I had no idea what we were going to
encounter."

"Apparently everyone
is hoping to be a witness to the greatest event in the history of this
planet."

"Or to the greatest
hoax. Finding Bessima is going to be like hunting the proverbial needle in a
hay-stack. Your robotic hands sensitivity to her Illusian body chemistry isn't
going to do us any good if you can't move around to search for her. Listen,
it's only noon now. There's plenty of time to go to the room Rom arranged for
us, drop off that bag, and get some lunch before we have to fight our way to
the front gates."