Alsea Rising: The Seventh Star (Chronicles of Alsea Book 10)

by Fletcher DeLancey

  That earned a rueful chuckle. “Points taken. Here’s another. Do I have the right to bring a child into my life when that life is starting over? I won’t have much stability.”

  “That’s relevant,” Rahel agreed. “But Colonel Micah’s life is very stable.”

  Dr. Wells stared at her, realization billowing off her skin. “Oh.”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t think of that. I’m not used to the Alsean—oh, shek. I won’t be the mother, he will. I’ll be the father.” She laughed unsteadily. “I need to rewrite my brain.”

  “No, you’ll be the mother. He’ll be the father. The only things you need to rewrite are your definitions. You still think a father can’t give birth or nurse his child.” She grinned at the vision of Colonel Micah holding a tiny baby against his broad chest. “Any child would be lucky to have him for a father. And you’d both have a lot of help. Imagine him trying to keep his new baby out of Salomen’s hands.”

  The humor fell flat.

  “His baby,” Dr. Wells repeated. “That’s the biggest one. Where would I fit in? I don’t know how to be a mother who isn’t a mother. He’d have the physical, biological, and chemical connections with that baby, and I wouldn’t even be a sperm donor. Some other woman would. Or some other man. For the love of flight, even that’s not a given. Maybe I’m not as open-minded as I like to tell myself, because I cringe every time I think of a stranger having a connection to my child that I never will.”

  Though Rahel thought that was patently ridiculous, she knew better than to say so.

  “Don’t choose a stranger,” she suggested. “Choose someone you know. Someone you have a connection to.”

  “Oh, of course,” Dr. Wells said with cutting sarcasm. “Among the many Alseans I know so well. Who would—” She stopped, her eyes going wide.

  Rahel waited for a count of ten before deciding that Dr. Wells was not going to speak it aloud.

  “Yes, I’m offering.”

  “Rahel.” Her feet slid off the stool’s footrest. “Are you serious? You don’t even know what’s involved!”

  “Five injections, I hear.”

  Her shock would have been amusing in any other situation. “You’re on heavy medication. Probably euphoric from surviving. You can’t be held—”

  “Oh, stop. I’ll say the same thing when you let me out of here. You’ve saved me twice now, and you think I’d hesitate to give you a gift that would mean so much to you? Something that’s in my power to give? It would be an honor.”

  “But you’d be a parent. You’ve never given any indication that you want a family of your own.”

  “Being sansara doesn’t mean I don’t want a family. Maybe someday I’ll meet the person I want to raise a child with, who knows? But in the meantime . . .” She shrugged, the movement setting off a wave of acute discomfort. “Ouch. Remind me not to do that.”

  “Don’t do that.”

  “Helpful, thanks.”

  “I’ll remind you if you need it. You may seem healed, but your body has been through a severe trauma. As we start dialing down the medication, you’ll feel as though you’ve been hit by a shuttle. Which is a fairly close approximation of what happened.”

  “Thanks for the warning.” She lifted a hand to rub her chest, remembered in time, and rested it on the covers. “I doubt I’d think of myself as a parent. An aunt, perhaps. Someone who visits and brings gifts.”

  Dr. Wells made no answer. Her emotional signature churned with a kaleidoscope of tumbling emotions, none staying ascendant for long—until a smile curved her lips. Leaning forward, she dropped a gentle kiss on Rahel’s forehead.

  “Thank you,” she murmured, gratitude and love warming the air between them. “I don’t know if I’ll accept. But you’ve changed the equation. I need to think about it from this new angle.”

  “Take your time. I’ll be here.”

  “Not for long, I hope.” She quirked an eyebrow at Rahel’s confusion. “You really do have short-term memory loss, don’t you? There’s a reason you weren’t supposed to come back.”

  “Shek,” Rahel groaned. “Greve.”

  “Yes. Greve.”

  24

  Negotiation II

  Micah stayed for two hanticks, sharing first a meal and then several cups of shannel. Though Tal delighted in his company, she nevertheless spent the first tentick feeling awkward about speaking with him when Salomen and Lhyn slept a few paces away. He was family, but this was an entry into the innermost part of her life—and theirs.

  Then she realized that he had chosen the seat facing away from the beds, giving the sleeping pair privacy while simultaneously allowing her to keep an eye on them. It was a typical Micah gesture, one that filled her to overflowing with affection. She teased him about it, he hit back in kind, and before she knew it, they had fallen back into their old roles.

  She couldn’t remember the last time they had sat and conversed like this, as if nothing were more important than sharing their stories and talking over the implications. It felt easy and right, healing in its own way, though she would never admit it. That would mean admitting he was right to enforce her unwilling day off. She still could not believe they were talking about their lives rather than the critically important situation in orbit. He had even confiscated her earcuff, wristcom, and reader card.

  “Do I get them back now?” she asked when he rose to leave.

  “Get what back? Ah, you mean these?” He pulled the earcuff and wristcom from a jacket pocket and examined them as if seeing them for the first time. “I think not. I’ve left orders that you’re not to be disturbed, but I don’t trust certain members of this administration to keep your best interests in mind.” The hardware vanished back into his pocket.

  “At least give me my reader card.”

  “There are five books sitting on that table,” he observed.

  “Micah!”

  “Salomen said the book on top is riveting. She wanted you to read it so she could discuss it with you.”

  “That is hitting low,” she grumbled. “I thought you were above emotional manipulation.”

  “When it comes to your health, I’m not above anything.”

  While she fumbled for an adequate answer to such unexpected honesty, he smiled and walked out the door.

  “Asshead,” she said in Common, then laughed at herself. For all her annoyance with his high-handedness, she had to admit it felt good. Micah may have been preoccupied and distant for a few moons, but his care for her was unchanged. This was proof.

  She picked up the top book, sat on the bed next to Salomen, and began to read.

  One hantick later, she was deep into the story and enjoying both the tale and the light buzz of emotions that tickled her senses. Salomen was either in a dreaming phase of sleep, or she was rising to the surface.

  A tap on the door startled her. Frowning, she set the book aside and crossed the room.

  Healer Wellernal waited in the corridor. “Well met, Lancer Tal. I’m glad to see you up and about. May I check on Bondlancer Opah and Dr. Rivers?”

  “Yes, of course.” She followed him to Lhyn’s bed. “Do you have news of Captain Serrado?”

  “I spoke with Dr. Wells half a hantick ago. Unfortunately, there has been no change.”

  “Meaning she still isn’t resting properly?”

  “Not as well as we could wish.” He turned Lhyn’s arm to expose the underside of her wrist and held a scanner against it. “We’ve considered chemical intervention, but this is such an unknown situation that we felt it best to let her body recover without interference.”

  The scanner’s four readouts came alive, scrolling through numbers before settling on final results. With a satisfied nod, he clicked it off, rested his other hand on Lhyn’s forehead, and closed his eyes.

  “Good,” he murmured.

  Tal stepped back, giving him room to move to the head of the two adjoined beds. When he leaned over to pick up Salomen’s wrist, she understoo
d why the beds were pushed away from the wall. Given her position in the center, he had no other way to reach her short of clambering onto the mattress.

  Apparently pleased with this scan as well, he pocketed the small device and touched his palm to her forehead. “Ah! She feels much better. This is a normal resting sleep, rather than recovery.”

  “And Lhyn?”

  “Should be waking in the next hantick or so. Bondlancer Opah might sleep the rest of the day.” He rejoined her on the other side of the bed. “May I speak with you? It has nothing to do with their health. It’s a question of future applications.”

  Wary, she sat in one chair and waved him to the other. “Future applications of what?”

  “Bondlancer Opah’s extraordinary powers.”

  “I already know I won’t like what you’re about to say.”

  “What she did yesterday was unprecedented. The potential—”

  “Stop there. Have you spoken to anyone else about this?”

  He looked as if he had bitten into an unripe panfruit. “Colonel Razine required me to sign an Honor and Discretion form before she allowed me to leave Blacksun Base yesterday.”

  Thank you, Razine, she thought. That might have saved them all a great deal of trouble.

  “She was right to do so. We cannot have the truth making its way to the Protectorate or worse, the Voloth Empire. If they knew our planetary defense hinged on a handful of individuals and one in particular—”

  “Of course I understand that! I don’t question the strategic necessities, not at all. But surely we could reveal Bondlancer Opah’s healing capabilities without touching on the rest? Only to the healer community, obviously, and only for the worst of cases.”

  “No.”

  His mouth dropped open. “But—”

  “You cannot possibly think she should be asked to give so much of herself again.” Tal pointed toward the beds. “She still hasn’t recovered from this effort.”

  “With respect, her exhaustion is from a combination of factors.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “An orbital jump, extended use of empathic force, holding that link longer than any other before now—all of those must be considered as well as the healing.”

  “She was exhausted before the healing began, yes, but not to the point of losing consciousness. That was what put her over the edge.”

  “I’m quite certain the physical effort could be managed—”

  “No!” She glanced at Salomen and lowered her voice. “Twenty-five hanticks and she’s still not awake. And you say she might sleep the rest of the day. I don’t care how much of that is from all the rest. That healing taxed her to the limit, and you would put her on a call list for your worst cases? Would you make her a virtual slave, existing only to help others?”

  His head went back, betraying the anger his perfect front concealed. “I know you’re recovering from a traumatic event, so I won’t take offense at that. But I must tell you it’s difficult when you cast such an aspersion. I am a healer.”

  “And one of our very best, which is why I asked for your assistance yesterday.”

  That smoothed his feathers. “Thank you. I was honored with your trust.”

  “Then let me trust you with a small insight into Salomen. She is no warrior, yet she fought like one yesterday. She is no healer either, yet she did the impossible with you. We ask and she gives, which makes it too easy to forget what she is.”

  “A producer? I know you don’t believe her caste should limit her potential.”

  “Quite the opposite. Her caste defines her. There was a time when I thought she should have been a scholar, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. Salomen is happiest when her hands are in the soil. She gave up too much of that when she accepted the title that came with our bonding. I will not ask her to give up more.”

  “I understand—”

  “No, I don’t believe you do. You look at your healing center and see terrible cases that you cannot save, and now you look at Salomen and see a resource straight from the hand of Fahla, and you think it cannot go to waste.”

  By his expression, she had voiced his exact line of thinking.

  “You tell yourself that you’ll only ask for her assistance once every other moon, or once per moon at the absolute limit. She would never refuse. Never. Tell her it’s a child, or a parent with young children, or an elder who still has much wisdom to share, and she would not be able to live with herself if she said no. Word would travel, because even with Honor and Discretion agreements, knowledge of multiple miracles could not be contained. Now once per moon is once or twice per nineday. Every healer who hears of it will think the same thing you do—they would never ask such a favor except in the most deserving and difficult of cases. They will all have the best of intentions, and they will kill her with them. Slowly, without meaning to, but the result will be the same. Her life will consist of giving everything she has to help others, and sleeping like the dead to recover her strength before she’s asked to give again. She will never say no, and they will never stop asking.”

  Wellernal looked horror-struck at the picture she painted. “Lancer Tal—”

  “I know you speak from a place of caring,” she said, gentling her tone. “But you are also imagining an ideal situation in which we retain perfect control of the information. Unfortunately, we don’t live in that world.”

  He slumped back in the chair. “Then it’s all or nothing, and so it’s nothing.”

  “I’m afraid so. If Salomen chooses to aid someone she loves, that would be different. But I will not allow anyone else to ask.”

  A sigh escaped as he glanced at Salomen, motionless in the bed. “You defend your bondmate well.”

  “Because I’ve already asked too much of her.” At least she could assuage her guilt by making sure no one else committed the same fault.

  “Did you ask her to save Rahel Sayana?”

  “No, but I asked her to fight a battle.”

  “Would Alsea still be intact if you hadn’t?”

  “I don’t know. It’s possible that Captain Serrado would have stopped the flagship by ramming it.”

  He nodded gravely. “Killing herself and her crew, and severing two tyree bonds, one of them divine. Dr. Rivers would never have been the same. Neither would you. And because of that, neither would Bondlancer Opah.”

  Neither would Micah, she thought.

  “Thus the picture changes. You didn’t ask too much of her. You gave her a way to save everything she holds dear.” He smiled, correctly reading her surprise. “You’re not the only one who can think through a hypothetical situation.”

  “Apparently not. Thank you,” she said sincerely. “I appreciate your care and insight.”

  “Thank you for listening.” Though disappointed with the outcome of his proposal, pride in her regard seemed to bring some consolation.

  She showed him out and stopped in the doorway, startled by the familiar figure striding down the corridor. “Aldirk! How did you get past the wall of security? I assumed Micah would put your name at the top of the blacklist.”

  Chief Counselor Aldirk gave a disdainful sniff. “He knows better. You’ve had a call from Director Sholokhov. He wishes to reopen negotiations given the changed situation.”

  “Oh, he does, does he? This might be the best part of my day.” She held out a hand.

  Aldirk pulled a Gaian pad from his inside jacket pocket and laid it in her palm. “I’m afraid this is only a loan. I’ll be here while you make the call.”

  “You, too?”

  “It’s not a betrayal, Lancer Tal. We are all concerned for your health.”

  “Yes, I’ve noticed.” She closed the door.

  Resuming her seat, she set up the pad’s virtual screen and put the call through. Bless Aldirk’s efficiency; he had already activated the translator program.

  Her call was answered quickly.

  “Lancer Tal, a pleasure.” Sholokhov adjusted the knot of his purple scarf of office and reste
d his hands on his desk. “We both have crowded agendas at the moment, so I won’t take much of your time. Our funding situation has changed, thanks to a late vote in the Assembly. I’m pleased to say I am now able to offer you a Pulsar-class ship in exchange for ten years of service from ten high empaths.”

  “We appreciate the offer,” she said. “But I’m afraid that window of opportunity has closed. We no longer have need of a Pulsar-class warship, given our recent acquisition of a Voloth heavy cruiser and four destroyers.”

  The lack of reaction meant he had expected her response. “Yes, I’ve heard all about your victory. Forgive me, I should have opened with my congratulations. You’ve struck quite a blow against the Voloth.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Of course, that blow was struck with the considerable assistance of the Protectorate.”

  “In accordance with our treaty, yes. We are grateful that the Protectorate kept its promises.”

  Thinned lips telegraphed his annoyance. “I begin to have a better idea of why that treaty is so advantageous to Alsea. Yet here you are, turning down another, equally advantageous agreement.”

  “I wouldn’t have turned it down two days ago,” she said, twisting the knife. “But one must adapt to changing circumstances.”

  “Yes, one must. It seems both of us have experienced a change in circumstances. I have something to offer besides a ship.”

  She waited.

  “I’ve been reading some fascinating reports. First Guard Sayana made quite a name for herself, starting by assaulting a Fleet admiral.” His bushy gray eyebrows rose theatrically. “She followed that performance by saving Alsea from a bioforce missile and nearly dying in the process. Now she’s recovering on the Phoenix thanks to the skills of a Fleet healer and blood donations from half the Alsean fighter fleet.”

  Shek, she knew this was going to be the biggest headache of the battle.

  “You surprised me with your lack of concern for Captain Serrado’s career,” he continued. “But I don’t imagine Alseans would favor a Lancer who turned her back on their greatest hero of the battle. The warrior caste in particular would not be impressed, and I understand their support is critical to your position.”