The Alliance (36 page)

“I think I can do better.”

The sensation of another inhabiting her body felt strange. Her lips responded to the passion his phantom kiss and the more intimate stimulation he created internally, acting directly on her cortex. She writhed within the restraining straps of her harness. Her breath came in animal grunts of ecstasy as he drove her excitement to its peak and then took her beyond. Kayelle felt parts of her flying off into space, the bonds of her being unequal to the strain of containing such rapture. Her consciousness shrank to a tiny point of unadulterated pleasure. Jean-Paul’s mind opened and the breadth of his knowledge swamped her. Viridia shrank to an insignificant mote in the immensity of a galaxy beyond her comprehension. She soared with him, riding the solar winds of the myriad stars….

Then everything crashed and his mind closed, leaving only a glimpse of his self-disgust before there was nothing and she fell into a black void.

* * * *

When she opened her eyes, she was alone. She felt it and her sense of loss was total. Jean-Paul had not just closed his mind. He’d gone. She looked around, recognizing the familiar furnishing of her bedchamber at home and wondered how she’d arrived there. She felt her mother approaching and sat up in the bed.

“You’re awake,” her mother beamed her pleasure. “You must have been worn out. I didn’t see you come in, but you’ve slept the clock around. You missed all the excitement.”

“Did I?” Kayelle knew with the stone weight of certainty what her mother was going to say.

“Yes. The stranger left. Said the rest was up to us. Made one last visit to the mine to ensure all was going well and then flew off.”

“He made two visits to the mine.” Kayelle searched for an explanation of her presence in her bed.

“Only the one. Took off from the Square, flew there, stayed several hours, and then flew off.” Her mother’s smile was indulgent. She’d sensed Kayelle’s confusion.

“No one flew with him?”

“Who’d willingly go into his machine? It’s noisy, smelly and unnatural,” her mother dismissed the idea.

“You’re probably right.” Her mother’s attitude was common. Most of Viridia viewed Jean-Paul as an uncomfortable intrusion into their settled way of life, one to fear, not welcome.

“It’s good to have you home.” Her mother was determined to chat and Kayelle had to discipline herself to respond as if she were interested. Her mother deserved no less.

It took fifteen minutes before the Tetrarch rescued her. An Adept of his staff delivered his summons. “Come at once,” the man said. “His Eminence would see you immediately.”

“I’ll dress and follow,” Kayelle assured him. “Tell the Tetrarch I’m coming.”

The Adept accepted the dismissal and left. Her mother accompanied him out of the room.

Kayelle looked down at her nightgown. It was functional, utilitarian, and young, the sort of thing she hadn’t worn for years. Her last memory was the ultimate orgasm on Jean-Paul’s ship, so logic suggested he’d brought her home, removed her clothes, and dressed her in what he considered appropriate from her wardrobe, damn fool man that he was. She wanted more, not protection.

He’d been right to consider her previous sexual experiences sad. Compared to what he offered, they were pitiable. He’d swamped everything she knew, given her a glimpse of his world in the process, and then recoiled because she was too young. She must prove him wrong to share more.

The question was…how?

She stripped, throwing the nightgown into the corner, and dressed for her meeting with the Tetrarch, choosing a robe less utilitarian than normal. The time to stop being young was now. If Jean-Paul returned, she’d show him something.

* * * *

Jack stepped out of the portal at the rear of the cabin. “You didn’t have to bring it back. I’m comfortable using Limbo now.” The ship floated in orbit above Feodar’s World.

“I needed the practice,” Jean-Paul lied, closing off the part of his mind where Kayelle ruled. “I’ve set them on the right path. Nudged a few minds into new ways of thinking and given them access to the resources they lacked. A century or two will see them ready for further contact.” He made his tone casual.

“I suppose you’ll drop back there occasionally, just to check their progress.” Jack’s grin was wicked.

“Probably. I wouldn’t like to see my work go for nothing.” Jean-Paul probed to see how much Jack knew and was shocked to see Kayelle in his nephew’s mind.

“Rachael did a bit of scanning while I landed the ship for you and lingered long enough to feel the girl recognize you and your reaction.”
Jack confirmed. “
She’s become a confirmed romantic since the wedding. I had to pull her through the portal.”
He shared the moment with Jean-Paul.

“I suppose Dael and Gabrielle know by now.”

“Of course,” Jack reverted to speech and laughed aloud. “The topic had quite an airing while they checked the progress of our daughter. Another month and she’ll be sentient. Rachael’s like a cat on hot bricks waiting for her first thought.”

Jean-Paul welcomed the diversion. Jack might have lived two hundred years, but he was a typical expectant father, outwardly amused at his wife’s focus on the developing child, but secretly hugging himself with glee.

“Have you a name for her?”
A safe subject
.

“Rachael has several. She wants to discuss which one when the girl herself can decide.”

Jean-Paul laughed. “You know what Peter says.”

“Giving a woman a choice raises the time taken to decide by the power of the number of choices.” Jack joined in. “I notice he never says it when Dael can hear.”

“My father understands survival better than any of us.”

“Are you two coming in for lunch or are asinine jokes more important?”
Rachael had joined them.

“Coming,” they said together, exiting the cabin by the portal into Limbo. Jack would come back and pilot the ship home later.

Rachael waited for them on the broad patio above the inn Jack still used as his presidential home. They’d shifted handmade table and chairs from the forecourt and added other chairs for guests, making it a regular stopping place for family members. Today was no exception. Gabrielle and Karrel lounged in the autumn sunlight, wine glasses in their hands.

“When do you intend to bring Kayelle?” his sister-in-law asked.

“I’m not sure she’s ready,” Jean-Paul braced himself for an argument.

“I wasn’t either, but it didn’t stop your brother and you won’t be battling a time shift.” Gabrielle referred to the time Karrel brought her thirty-five millennia into her future to dine at the beach camp with his parents and Anneke.

“Being easier doesn’t make it right.” Jean-Paul kept his mind closed. “I’ll bring her when the time’s right.”

“I think the beach camp would be a better choice,” Peter said, appearing at the head of the table. “Less cultural shock.”

Jean-Paul braced himself. He could close his mind against the others, but not Peter.

“You’ve spent too much time on your own.” Peter’s voice sounded gentle. “You need to spend more time with the family.” He smiled. “I think Kayelle would liven things up considerably. She reminds me of Samara. Dael agrees.”

The breath gusted out of Jean-Paul. He should have known better. Distress one of the family and Peter knew of it instantly. He’d made his judgment and pronounced absolution. More, he’d involved Dael in the certainty she would give guidance and love to both Kayelle and Jean-Paul.

“I’m ashamed,” Jean-Paul began, but Peter interrupted.

“I think you should discuss it with the lady in question,” he decreed. “I find her view more reliable. New love surprises us all.”

Jean-Paul could feel the fascination of the others, but no one inquired further, especially when Dael materialized beside her husband and asked Rachael how she felt. A sympathetic glance from Karrel and a more considered one from Gabrielle closed the subject.

“You’ve started without me.” Anneke announced her arrival. “Hi, Jean-Paul. You look a bit down.”

He smiled. His sister had that affect. Ten years his senior, the accumulation of centuries had never changed their relationship. He would always be ‘her little brother,’ someone to care for. She’d healed his scrapes and bruises until he could do it alone, then monitored his first uncertain ventures with the opposite sex before pronouncing him competent to proceed on his own.

“I feel better now you’re here to protect me.” He intended it as a piece of light humor, but Anneke was the veteran of too many covert operations.

“What have you been up to?”

“He’s fallen in love.” Dael answered for him.

“About time. Who is she?”

Jean-Paul felt the communication between mother and daughter without sensing the details, but Anneke’s mischievous grin told him more than he wanted to know.

“Wow,” she said. “You don’t do things by half. It’s going to be a rare balancing act to bring this one into the family without upsetting the applecart. I don’t suppose counseling patience would be any good.” She struggled not to laugh. “We should have realized immediately when you volunteered to interfere in another world’s affairs.”

Jean-Paul looked down to hide his chagrin. He’d once expressed his reservations about Peter’s sense of responsibility for others, taking his mother’s more parochial view and neither Karrel nor Anneke had ever forgotten. He knew Peter’s view. His father had taken him aside, “
I can’t turn aside, but you have the right to see things your way.”
He’d never asked Jean-Paul to do anything other than explore and observe, never involved him in any operation beyond looking for proof this reality was more than just Peter’s creation. Knowing how deeply Peter feared it wasn’t, Jean-Paul had never thought of refusing.

Peter repaid him. “Anneke.”

A single word was enough. Anneke fell silent. Jean-Paul might be in for a hard time when they were alone, but Anneke knew better than oppose Peter when he used that tone.

“Lunch,” Gabrielle announced as the innkeeper and two servants appeared at the top of the stairs.

* * * *

“I don’t know why he left.” Kayelle kept her mind open, hiding only what happened in the ship. It was private and had implications she needed to consider before sharing.

The Tetrarch wasn’t convinced. “An Adept thought you boarded the ship.”

“The ship didn’t return and I’m here.” It wasn’t quite lying.

“True,” he continued. His mind pressed against hers, seeking a weakness.

“What did he say?” She sought to divert him by turning his mind to Jean-Paul.

“That access to the iron ore was repayment for the intrusion by uninvited guests and the rest was up to us. I caught a sense of assurance it was unlikely to happen again soon, but I could be mistaken.” The Tetrarch’s uncertainty was palpable. Jean-Paul bothered him.

Kayelle’s heart sank at the prospect of Jean-Paul’s prolonged absence. Immortality didn’t remove the urgency and she hadn’t lived long enough to learn patience. There had to be a way to bring him back.

“I’d thought there was a connection between you and the stranger.” The Tetrarch never thought of Jean-Paul as anything else than ‘The Stranger’, a measure of his fear.

“I valued his knowledge,” she said. “Without him Non-Adepts would still be dying. I sensed his goodwill from the beginning and saw nothing to contradict the impression. I believe his is our friend.”

“A man of power.” The Tetrarch’s expression looked grave. “His mind held many secrets.”

Kayelle nodded. A mischievous corner of her mind threw up a memory she didn’t want to share. The Tetrarch might misunderstand. She disciplined her body, keeping its reaction to a restless shifting of her feet as she stood before him.

“Are you tired, child?”

“A little,” she conceded, weakness was a better excuse than the truth.

“Come. We will sit together on the balcony. The Square seems empty without his ship.”

“Too true,” she agreed. “How quickly we became used to the unthinkable, contact from beyond the stars.”

She took the seat he indicated and watched him lower himself onto the bench opposite. He’d learned the art of ‘imprinting’ late in life and had no way to reverse the aging process.

“I’m worried, child. The stranger seemed a better man than those who came earlier, but there are too many mysteries in him. How can I trust his gifts? He gave and sought nothing in return. I mistrust altruism. When he seemed to favor you, I hoped it was his manhood driving him, for you are very beautiful,” he paused, considering, “but you say he left without a message….” He left the sentence hanging, an unspoken question.

“Perhaps he thought me too young?” It was like probing the empty socket of a missing tooth, sure to be painful, but she couldn’t resist.

“True. You are young.” Kayelle decided she hated the old man. “Only an honorable man would consider that a hindrance. There’s hope to be seen in this.” He nodded. “It could be the explanation. He might choose to wait fifty years or so to give you time to mature.”

Kayelle was about to explode when she sensed his amusement. “Don’t tease me Great-grandfather. It’s not fair.”