Whispers on the Wind (16 page)

“I,” he reminded her, “am not a dream, Lenore. I am real.” She made no comment, and in a moment, he went on. “Do you think perhaps the woman—or the child—could also be real?”

Again, she tossed her hair back as she swung her head to look at him. “No,” she said. “Of course not. Why should they be?”

“Why should I be?”

The expression on her face was one of mingled confusion, frustration, and anger. “I’m still not convinced you are.”

“Then,” he said, “I shall have to convince you.”

Her eyes glistened, so deep a brown he felt he could almost swim in their depths as he had in a dark mineral pool on Mount Sarrila. She licked her lips. “How?” It was less a word than a breath.

“You know how,” he said, tightening his arm around her as the trail emerged from the forest into full sunlight pouring warm and golden over a grassy meadow that sloped down toward a snug-looking dwelling.

Lenore broke free of his hold, and again slid from the horse’s back, making haste to put distance between them.

“That,” she informed him loftily, “is not going to happen.”

Yes it is, Lenore.

Lenore heard the words, but Jon’s lips had not moved from the faint smile in which they were set.

Before she could accuse him of breaking his promise and invading her mind, there was a rush of wings and a Stellar’s jay alit on the longest branch of a clump of red osier, bouncing slightly. “Yes, it is, Lenore,” the bird said again, its beak moving in perfect timing with the words. “You can count on it. It’s going to happen because you want it to.”

Lenore closed her eyes to block the sight of what she knew she really wasn’t seeing, the memory of what she really hadn’t heard. The damn bird’s thoughts had not, absolutely not, penetrated her mind; nor had it been lip-synching something Jon said. On the contrary. The thought the jay had broadcast had come straight from her own mind—and in her own voice.

Had Jon heard it? Did he recognize it as hers? She tried to speak, but could find no words, could only stand there, mouth half agape, staring at Jon, who had dismounted, Jon, who had invaded her most private places, and whom she, for reasons she couldn’t quite plumb, had forgiven.

As if her standing there like that was an invitation, Jon cupped the back of her head in one hand and drew her closer with the other. Her eyes popped open, then fell shut again as his mouth took hers in a kiss that left her blood all but sizzling, stole her breath, and finally, fully, convinced her mind he was there, this was happening, and there was nothing she could do to change it.

Nor anything she wanted to do to change it.

Under her hands, his warm, bare shoulders felt like steel covered in satin. As her arms encircled his back, her palms smoothed over rippling muscles, her fingertips bent and pressed, testing the depth and strength she felt there. She glided her touch down his sides, found not a hint of a scar from the injury that had bled onto the rocks of the cave. His hard buttocks, as they had in her dreams, flexed under her hands and she moaned softly. Her head rested in the curve of his shoulder, her cheek against the heat of his chest, when he finally broke the kiss.

He cupped her chin in his hand, whispered, “Open you eyes,
letise
, look at me.”

She looked, gazed long and deep until she felt herself sliding away to some place she was afraid to go, and swiftly dropped her head. And blinked. She could have sworn that during their kiss he had felt as naked as he’d been in her dreams. She’d stroked her hands over his shoulders, his arms, his back. She’d clenched her fingers into the tautness of his bottom, rubbed her face against the sleekness of his chest and shoulder—and there hadn’t been a stitch of fabric between her hands and his body. She knew she had touched his bare skin. And yet...there he stood, as fully clothed as she was, complete with knit hat now inexplicably decorated by a brilliant blue feather from the jay’s tail.

His eyes, though, when she risked another confused glance into them, looked as bewildered, as disconcerted as she felt. Before she could stop herself, she cupped his face in both hands, drew him down to her and initiated another of those indescribable kisses.

Clinging to Mystery’s back for support, knees weak not, Jon assured himself, from the effects of those kisses, but from the trek down the mountainside, he crossed the meadow with Lenore. In the shed where the horse lived, he watched silently as she gave him food and replenished his water. She rubbed the animal’s coat, then brushed it, offered it something from a bin that was out of its reach, and patted its nose.

She was a kind woman. She treated other beings well. He liked that. His studies of Earth had told him that, as on most worlds, truly good-hearted people did exist in the majority, but there were also those who only pretended to care for others as long as there was personal reward in it for them.

The power of a mental projection caught Jon just as he crossed over the threshold of the dwelling in which he had first seen Lenore.

Zenna! Letise, I will find you!

It was Minton! Jon stumbled and caught at the doorframe. Minton was near, seeking not him, but Zenna. He felt Lenore stagger as the broadcast caught her, too, and sensed her mind fading to black. He flung a protective shield around her mind and drew her close, held her, one hand supporting himself, the other pressing her to his chest, as if he could protect her, guard her from harm, though he knew Minton meant none.

Jon cast forth a narrowly focused beam, seeking only Minton. For an instant, something flickered on the edge of his consciousness, but then it was gone.

“Jon? Jon!” He became aware that Lenore had spoken, was shaking his arm. “Come inside. Sit down. You’re still weak. You’re shaking. You can hardly stand.”

“Yes.” He was still weak. Even the effort of trying to buffer Lenore’s mind while sending out that small probe had depleted much of what strength he had regained. He needed more rest. More food. More warmth. And he needed something which he did not have—time. This window through which they had risked their translation was small. In another six weeks it would be closed entirely, not to open again for another ten years.

It was imperative he succeed in this mission! And to do so he needed a complete Octad. And Zenna.

Still unsteady, astounded at Lenore’s swift ability to recover from what must have felt like a body-blow to her, he allowed her to assist him across the room. Maybe he had captured Minton’s probe before it penetrated too deeply into Lenore’s mind. Indeed, he thought as he lowered himself into a soft, moderately comfortable chair, she seemed completely unaware this time that Minton had once more used her as a conduit.

The chair failed to cradle him and conform to his body, but it was softer than either the rock ledge where he had regained himself or the back of the horse upon which he had been transported down the mountain. He leaned back and closed his eyes. He had occupied worse seating on other worlds, and endured much less captivating company. He liked Lenore’s home. It smelled of delicious food, wood-smoke and forest, all blended with her delicate scent and he breathed it in, finding strength even in that.

“You’re not going to disappear again, are you?” she asked.

He opened his eyes and smiled at her nervous tone. “I am not. I have ample strength to maintain my corporeal form. Thanks to you. I do, however, need food and drink.”

“What kind of drink? Tea? Coffee? I have no alcohol.”

Carefully, he sought knowledge of those from one of the mildly receptive minds he had sensed before. Alcohol, he knew, was a deadly poison, one he cared not to try. It was as dangerous as the drugs Rankin and B’tar were busily extracting from Earthly plants.

Tea? Coffee? He projected both words out a very small, and he hoped, safe distance. An image came to him of a woman, shorter than Lenore, much the same age, with yellow hair curled all over her head. Yes. The one who had wanted a ship and a blue ocean and a man dressed all in white with shining gold bands on his sleeves and on the brim of his white cap. He probed gently and saw that she was now content with a man named Peter, who wore dark blue clothing and a hat with the words John Deere on it, and was telling her about his new calves.

He placed into her mind the names of the two beverages Lenore had offered him and felt the woman breathe in an aroma while her mind said coffee. She sipped, and her cerebral cortex experienced mild stimulation.

“Coffee,” he said to Lenore. “Coffee would be very nice. Thank you.” He closed his eyes again as she left the room. As warmth began to penetrate his body, he let the jacket and boots go. He would have preferred to divest himself of all covering, but knew it was best that he disturb Lenore’s sensibilities as little as possible.

Moments later, the scent he had lifted from the yellow-haired woman’s mind drifted to him in reality. “How do you like it?” Lenore called. “Black, or with sugar and milk?”

Once more, he dipped into the consciousness of the other mind, wishing for the convenience of merely tapping into Lenore’s for knowledge of different tastes and sensations. “Black, if you please,” he said.

She returned, carrying steaming drinking vessels on a flat rectangle which she set on a low table before him. She lifted one of the vessels, took a seat at right angles to him, and sipped. He sat watching her, waiting for his turn. It did not come. She tilted her head to one side and looked at him inquiringly. “Please,” she said. “Drink your coffee before it gets cold.”

“You will not feed it to me?” he asked.

“What?”

He knew very well she had heard his words, yet her facial expression told him she had not understood. “Are you really too weak to lift your own coffee cup?”

“No, no, of course not, but...” And then he remembered what he would have remembered long before had he not been injured. On Earth, that kind of sharing was uncommon.

With Lenore, though, it was what he wanted. How strange. He never had difficulty adapting to the customs of other worlds, adopting them as his own while he was there, trying to blend in as he investigated a crime. But here, while he was certainly hoping to bring to justice two criminals, there was a deeply personal element to his time on Earth. Maybe that explained his strong desire to have her join him in the ritual of bestowing sustenance, one to the other.

Dropping to his knees before her, he gently took her cup from her hand and, holding it in both of his, tilted it to her lips, showing her how it should be. “Drink,” he said.

Her eyes wide, startled, and confused, gazed at him over the rim of the cup, but she drank. He then set the it on the table and waited.

With a frown, she picked up, not her own, for real sharing, but his, as if they were strangers, holding it as he had, in two hands. She lifted it to his lips. The beverage flooded his mouth as contentment flooded his senses. Because he yearned so strongly to share the full emotion of this gracious participation with her, and knew he could not, unless she agreed, he gently tilted the vessel upright after only one sip. “Thank you,” he said. He would make himself be satisfied with even such a small beginning.

No! He negated the thought even as it was born. Not a beginning. The word suggested there would be a continuation, which there would not be. Could not be. He had six Earth weeks, no longer, and even waiting that long would entail great risk.

“I...uh...thank you,” she repeated, and offered him the cup again. Once more, he sipped, then lifted his head. She watched him almost warily, but when he lifted her cup and held it to her lips, she drank. Pleasure filled him. Ah, but she was swift when it came to accepting new habits! Pride in her glowed through him. He beamed it at her with only his eyes.

She blinked, as if even that contact was too powerful for her to sustain, and turned her head away from the drink he offered. She jumped to her feet.

“Food,” she said. “You told me you needed food. And I forgot. I’m sorry. I’ll get you...something.”

He caught her hand. “You will get us both something,” he corrected her. “And we will share. Yes?”

He watched her face pale, then color delicately. Slowly, she nodded. “Yes.” It was little more than a whisper. “We will share.”

He didn’t even have to dip into her subconscious to know all of what she wanted to share with him. He read it in her eyes, saw it in the graphic projection her mind flung outward. It was all he could do to remain there on his knees. Not until she had left the room again did he rise and return to his chair.

Lenore...Lenore...who are you? Did my
Kahinya
lead me to you, specifically?

H
YSTERIA ROSE IN LENORE’S
throat as she stumbled from the living room into the kitchen. What kind of food did a woman serve to an alien? When she had fed him stew, she’d had no idea of what he was. But...did she, even now, know for sure? Of course not!

Despite all evidence to the contrary, it was impossible to fully accept Jon as an alien. He looked too human. He felt too human. He kissed too human.

She gripped the edge of the counter and stared into the polished bottom of the antique stainless steel sink. Wrong, Lenore! The man does not kiss like a human. He kisses like an angel.

To distract herself, she waved on the kitchen receiver. Responding to her chip, it activated. It was tuned, as it usually was, to a twenty-four hour newsie, which she picked up in mid-sentence, scarcely glancing at the holo-image forming in the corner of the room. She wanted only the sound to block out those wild and ever wilder thoughts crowding into her mind like the avalanche.

An avalanche—she had never experienced one, so how could she have known so intensely the suffocating sensation, the cold, the weight, as the snow tumbled her end over end, rolled her from side to side, ricocheted her off tree trunks? Though it had been dark under the depths of snow, she had sensed large boulders narrowly missing her, had the feeling they were being repelled by some force she did not understand. How? How could she know the flood of relief to see daylight when at last her scrabbling hands broke through the surface when it had not been her hands at all, but those of someone—something?—in yet another waking dream?