The Alejandra Variations (19 page)

All of the Clantrams behind them in the convoy had also been brought to a halt. The Unit had shut every craft down.

When his eyes adjusted to the dark night, Nick could see a row of lights off in the distance. The string of tiny dots, like luminous points on a centipede, made their sluggish way across the terrain. A long cone of light forged out ahead of the Clantram in the lead.

"They must not know that we are here," the pilot said. She seemed to be watching them through the device which covered her right eye.

Cesya's breathing increased ever so slightly. Nicholas couldn't figure out what the problem was.

She said softly, "If there is a Keeper nearby, there will be two less Clans upon the earth."

The Clantrams moving silently along the starry horizon gave no indication that they had seen the Tejadas.

The pilot turned away from the window and pressed a button on a console to her left. She spoke to the Unit itself. "Are we in Violation of the Law? Speak."

The Unit responded in a flat, uninspired voice. "There is no Violation recorded."

Cesya pressed the Unit's input button. "Can you identify the Clan?"

The Unit responded instantly. It seemed there was no need for deliberation. "It is the Seibert Clan," it said. "Heading south southwest. I recommend proceeding without attempting contact."

"It's better that they don't know we're here," the pilot said in a low voice. There was no fear in her speech, merely professional judgment.

Cesya nodded, heeding the computer's sage council. She pressed the button once again. "Are there any Keepers in the vicinity?" Her voice was somewhat steadier now that the Seibert Clan was moving on without any sign that they had spotted the Tejadas.

"None," the Unit said.

Ariuzu, who had been standing in the doorway behind them, turned and walked back to her chambers. Cesya stood up in the thick darkness of the cockpit.

"Good," she breathed. "Very good." She kept her eyes on the horizon, and put her hand on the pilot's shoulder. "Proceed without lights, half-speed. Watch the Seiberts. When they have passed out of range give us half an hour, and then return lights to the Clan. The night air is clear tonight; our running lights might be seen from over the hills. We don't want that. They might turn and follow."

"Yes, mistress," the pilot said.

With a deft twitch of a lever, the Clantram's engines once again started up, and the wheels began easing the huge vehicle along as silently as they could manage.

On the way back to their chambers, Nicholas pulled Cesya aside. Even in the darkness, it was a gesture the bronze leader didn't like.

"What was that all about?" He gestured with his thumb over his shoulder.

She stood close to him. The windows seemed to let in an ethereal light that allowed Nicholas to make out her face and form. The stars were very bright.

Cesya's expression was weighted with grief and responsibility—and not a little fear. She lowered her head and walked back with him to her chambers. The night seemed to shroud her with all the mysterious problems of her mysterious world.

For the first time, she led him to her large bed. The perfumes of the springtime world outside drifted in through the open windows.

"Heart, had you not been there beside me just then," she whispered, "I would have died from grieving."

"Why?"

"The Clans are not allowed to meet until mating time. It is strictly forbidden. Had there been a Keeper nearby tonight, it would have destroyed both Clans, even though our encounter was totally accidental." Cesya walked around the bed.

Nicholas watched her shadow as she removed her kilt, her feet making small sounds on the cool floor. She said, "I would not have lived knowing that the Seiberts were so close, if you had not been with me. My own mating time is running out." Nicholas sat down on the edge of the bed as Cesya climbed in beneath the covers. There was a soft hissing as she slid between the silken sheets.

"I don't get it," he said. "Why can't you contact the other Clans? Who's to stop you?" It was the American in him speaking: Do what you want, any time you want, wherever you want. But he realized that America had long since vanished, cast down to join the trilobites and the brittle bones of Pliocene horses.

Cesya spoke from the curves of her pillow. "The Keepers of the Law prevent us."

Beyond the window, the Milky Way glistened iridescently, as it had for millions of years. To Nicholas, the world had seemed pure and innocent, redeemed. But the somber tone in Cesya's voice was beginning to alter that naive assumption.

"Population control," he muttered.

"Something like that," she said sadly. "That is why we segregate the men in our Clantrams. They are in the last Clantram."

That was the answer to one of his many questions.

"It was the Judgment that followed the years of Blossoming centuries past. The Law says that there shall be no more war."

"I can understand that," he said. "But, damn it, look at the world, Cesya. It's completely healed. You have a whole new planet to enjoy. My God, you could start all over."

He had told them of his own world, and the world he'd miraculously awoken to at DefCon. No one in the Clans knew how much time had passed since then. Half a million years? A million? He explained what nuclear war was all about: Extinction. Nothing less. Now that they had a second chance, they could atone for all the mistakes of the past.

Cesya turned on her pillow, lowering the silken sheet past her breasts. "My man from the past," she breathed. He could see her smile even in the darkness. "So full of energy. So full of aggressions."

"I wasn't born into this world," he told her. "I can't accept the Judgment."

"Men cause war, not women," Cesya said, sitting up. "Matings must be kept to a minimum. There are enough Clans upon the earth to ensure our overall survival. The gene pool is diverse and healthy. Unless the Law is broken by a great many Clans, there is no need to worry."

Nicholas could smell the natural scents of the golden woman's hair. "You'll understand if I
do
worry. I don't like being told what to do and what not to do."

"Heart," Cesya breathed low, bending toward him. "Sleep and be at peace. This DefCon of which you speak was only one of many civilizations which rose and fell to the touch of nuclear fires. We do not allow ourselves the luxury of ambition anymore."

"It's not a luxury," he protested. "It's a necessity. It's what makes a man keep going."

Cesya met his mouth with a warm, passionate kiss.

"You are my Heart," she whispered. "That is all that matters now. I could have found a mate with the Seiberts, or with any of the other Clans, but the prophecies have delivered you to me. When we arrive at a Blossom site and can celebrate on the very skin of the earth, you will see that all is not as bad as you would make it. The wars are thousands upon thousands of years behind us. The underground civilizations are long gone. Leave them where they belong, Heart. Leave them where time has buried them."

He took her into his arms and kissed her. Everything moved around him at its own inexorable pace. Being with her seemed so right. She made it so easy to forget.

It was a nearly perfect world out there—but only because someone had long ago decided to keep it that way.

Such was the spectre that haunted their love-making.

Chapter Four

THE DRUG WAS called
gohhe
. The people of the Clan consumed it in just about everything they ate or drank. It was also their chief medication, and Ariuzu administered it freely. It took away much of Nick's anxieties about his relationship with Cesya and with the rest of the Clan.

His nights with Cesya only exacerbated his guilt. He knew that he was special to the Clan, but his brief stay in DefCon had taught him the disadvantages of being special. But none of these women seemed to mind. Perhaps the
gohhe
placated them—perhaps they needed it, like his former hosts needed
genna
, in order to make their lives bearable. Life in the Clantrams could be dull.

Because of the ever-present drug, Nick had begun to have doubts about his new life, although he didn't quite know what could be done about it. He didn't like the idea of being master of the Tejada Clan, even if the title was only honorary. Cesya was the true leader, and his role was to impregnate her—when the Law stipulated.

On this, everyone seemed in silent agreement. It wasn't so much a conspiracy among the women as a general sense of concord and purpose. Cesya's regard for Nicholas was sacrosanct and dear. But he couldn't escape his own feelings of moral outrage, knowing the men of the Clan were sitting in the back of the bus. Despite what Cesya and the other women thought of him, he knew he wasn't
that
special.

The
gohhe
kept him in a state of light-headedness during his waking hours. All of the food and water came from the Unit on each tram, and
gohhe
flavored everything. Still, nothing tasted artificial, and it only took a little bit of effort on his part to forget that everything was entirely manufactured.

He was constantly amazed by the capacities of the Unit and of the qualities of
gohhe
. Unfortunately or not, he could escape neither, and he found it difficult to think of the future because of the comfort they gave.

A few days after the encounter with the Seibert Clan, late in the afternoon, Nicholas found himself in Cesya's bower, watching an exotic bird carve his name in the sky. The bird was of fantastic proportions, condorlike, with a golden bill and frilly golden wings. It had an unusual territorial call that sounded to him like "Wake up! Wake up!"

The tapestry of the sky swelled with a delightful orange as the Clantram finally came to a halt. It took several minutes for this to register, but eventually Nicholas rose and looked out at an unchanging landscape. The family of Clantrams had come around a bend in a wide meadow that was surrounded by a forest of rich maples and pines which covered a ring of low hills. The meadow, the forest, everything about the landscape, resonated with life.

At first he thought they had encountered another Clan, but when Cesya returned from the pilot's compartment, it was evident that nothing so potentially dangerous as that had happened.

"Heart!" she said. "Wonderful news! We have stumbled upon a Blossom, and I've just sent word to the other Clantrams. Tonight we are going to celebrate!" She pulled him onto the bed with a squeal of delight. "We shall have great fun!" Her eyes glowed with a pagan sexuality.

She hugged him warmly, and the firmness of her breasts against his chest excited him. "And," she continued, "it is long past time for you to meet the full Clan. Come!"

There was by then a great deal of commotion inside the various compartments of the tram as the servant girls moved about. The Clantram was being unloaded.

He and Cesya stood at the open portal, several feet off the ground, watching the girls run across the eternally green meadow in their short kilts. They screamed with laughter; their sandals kicked up the shorn heads of flowers.

All of the individual Clantrams were unloading. Ladders had extended from various openings along the hulls of the peculiar crafts, and women were stepping down into the meadow.

Nicholas lowered himself into the meadow, feeling tingly and light-headed. Above him, Cesya smiled. Ariuzu stood beside her, gazing out over the pristine world.

Nicholas knelt and ran his hand through the strange blades of grass. It was cool to the touch, and while it was different from any kind of sage he'd known in his own time, it was nonetheless real.

He heard the chuckling waters of a stream in the distance. A bird—a different one this time—rose on an unseen gust of air and kited over them dreamily. Slender and sleek, it let out a marvelous twitter. The clouds, abstract and bizarre, were marble-white. Never in his life had he known a landscape as perfect as this. Even the ancient sun floated at the sky's rim with a peace and majesty that seemed to have transcended the agony that mankind had suffered for thousands of years. The meadow was a place where the dreams of Eden could come true.

"A very great day," Cesya heartily breathed, stepping down from the extended ladder. "A great day for us all!" She walked past him, out into the meadow. The servant girls followed at a respectful distance.

The Clantrams were there to stay—for a while. Portable cranes unloaded objects from the vehicles, and servants ferried them out into the meadow on small, wheeled carts. The light of sunset glowed orange on the gleaming hulls of the Clantrams.

Nicholas glanced back at the lead Clantram and saw that his name was stenciled distinctly across its prow: TEJADA. It seemed weathered, but looked as if it were meant to last.

He turned his attention toward the last Clantram, which was nearly half a mile away, sunk down somewhat in the grassy contours of the meadow. Forest flanked it, and standing there the vehicle looked rather isolated.

The men of the Clan began climbing out of it. He found it curious that they did not—as some of the women had—come over to check him out. They had to have known that their Heart had awakened.

Instead, they all headed off into the woods.

He was constantly interrupted while he stood marveling at the wonders of the world around him. Various women and servant girls came up to him for the first time. All were shy and polite. They told him their names and made some small comment, and he nodded and smiled in response.

It made him feel a little uneasy. He hoped that after a while either he would get used to the attention or they would stop making such a fuss over him.

Cesya was instructing a young girl in the proper way of going about setting up a royal buffet. Nicholas stepped over a very small creek and walked up beside her. Two men had emerged from the forest and came up to the small group.

"Good afternoon, Holte," Cesya said to the first man.

Holte was quite tall and looked like a hero out of a Scandinavian song cycle. His blond hair flowed to the small of his back, and his stride across the grasses was long and assured.