“I have no idea. I haven’t seen him since we got back from the embassy last night. Don’t worry about it. You’ll get a call if he’s not feeling up to par.” She looked at Tamara. “How are you feeling this morning?”
“Good, thanks,” Tamara said. It surprised her to realize that was the truth. The residue from her nightmare was gone and she felt much better. “Thanks for seeing me up to my room last night. I don’t think I would have made it there myself.”
“Oh, you’re so welcome! It was no trouble, really.”
“Do you want me to show you around campus today? I have to work at one, but I’m available until then.”
“Sure, that would be great!” Mellis replied. “Let’s do it right after breakfast. Hey, Alari,” she said, glancing up at the tall redhead as he placed his tray down on the table next to hers and across from Tamara. “Morning.”
“Good morning, all,” Alarin said, folding his long legs under the bench. His short cropped hair was darkened at the tips, dripping water down the back of his neck, his cheeks reddened from shaving. “Sleep well?” he asked Greg.
“Very well, thank you. How about you?”
“Slept the night through, although Merran woke me up at the crack of dawn this morning.”
“Crack of dawn? What was he doing up that early?” Greg asked.
“Dropping Tamara’s car off.” Alarin leaned back, pulling the key out of his pocket. He reached across the table to Tamara, dropping it on the tabletop. “Here you go.”
“The ambassador dropped my car off this morning?” Tamara stared at the long shape of her car key, looking odd all by itself without her other keys to keep it company. “Himself? I mean, he didn’t send someone to drop it off?”
“Well, I don’t know who else was with him, but it was certainly Merran who handed me the key and asked me to get it to you the next time I saw you. Well,” he amended, “he actually told me to give your key to Greg to give to you, but since you’re sitting right here I figure I’ll skip a step. Your car is in the lot behind the Sports Center, by the way.”
“Thanks,” Tamara replied, pulling her key off the table and tucking it into a pocket.
“I’m surprised he didn’t wake me up,” Greg said thoughtfully.
“He tried. Said you were dead to the world so he woke me instead. Since you can sleep through anything unless there’s a Call involved.”
Greg grinned. “That’s true enough. And I was exhausted last night.”
Tamara looked at the Healer. “A call? What does that mean?”
“Healers can hear people who are in distress. They give off … a certain vibration we’re sensitive to,” Greg explained. “We can’t ignore it. And Alari’s right. I can sleep through anything except that.”
“Actually, I’m surprised you’re up this early,” Alarin agreed. “You were extremely difficult to rouse after we’d spent the night at the oasis back home.”
Greg’s grin widened. “I’m not impossible to wake. Merran managed to get me up this morning … checking to see if we’d gotten signed up for phones yet.”
Tamara could feel a blush crawl up her cheeks. She hadn’t meant to wake him up when she’d called the ambassador looking for phone numbers.
“Damn, that’s something else I’ve got to do.” Alarin made a face. “So many details.”
Mellis gave him a nudge. “You’d think details would come easily for you, Mr. Precision Chemical Engineer. Ida’s going to be furious. A day without talking to her? She’s probably having a nervous breakdown.”
There was a peculiar stiffness to him as he answered. “She’ll be fine.”
“You sure? You did leave her to come to Earth.”
“I didn’t leave her. We’re still together.”
“With you here on Earth and her on Azelle?” Mellis raised her eyebrows. “How long do you think that’s going to last?”
“As long as it needs to.” Alarin stabbed his fork into a piece of bacon and chewed on it. He turned to Greg and pointedly ignored Mellis. “You want to go sign up for a phone later today?”
“We’ve got some first year seminar intro thing this afternoon, but we can go after,” Greg replied, seemingly unconcerned with the tension in Alarin.
Mellis didn’t seem to notice she was being ignored, or at least it didn’t seem to bother her. “I’ll go with you too, if you don’t mind.” She pushed away her tray. “Meanwhile, Tamara’s going to show me around campus. You ready?” she asked Tamara.
Tamara nodded. “Sure.” She got up and picked up her tray. “See you later?” she said to Alarin and Greg.
“Absolutely. Maybe we can all get together for dinner tonight?” Greg suggested.
“Okay,” Tamara said. “See you tonight then.”
“See you tonight,” Alarin echoed, and she and Mellis walked away to drop off their trays.
As they walked out of the cafeteria toward the double doors at the front of the cafeteria entrance, Tamara glanced at Mellis. “Where do you want to start?”
“How about the World Center? Our seminar is there this afternoon, and it might be nice to know where it is.”
Tamara smiled and pushed the doors open. “This way, then.”
Mellis smiled back, her expression bright. “Let’s go.” As they walked down the steps of the cafeteria building, heading to the other side of campus, Mellis studied Tamara curiously, with a frank openness that was a little startling but not unpleasant. “So are you from Denver, then?” she asked.
“Yes, I was born here. My parents are both from here too. I’m sorry, but I don’t remember what town on Azelle you’re from.”
“We’re all from Azorantxl,” Mellis said. “It’s Azelle’s capital city and the location of the main spaceport.”
“Greg said you guys were all friends at home. What made you come here to study?”
“Merran. He came to us a few months ago and said he wanted us to participate in the first ever exchange between humans and Azellians. His niece Charina and Greg’s sister Ida decided to stay on Azelle, but the rest of us jumped at the chance to explore a new planet.”
“Ida? Is this the Ida you were just talking about with Alarin? His … girlfriend?”
Mellis nodded. “Yes. They’ve been engaged since they were babies.”
“Engaged? As in going to be married?”
“Yes, it’s a family thing. His mother arranged it. Alari doesn’t want to marry Ida, so he came to Earth. Though he’s usually pretty relaxed, Alari’s a Raderth. They don’t take orders all that well. Since his mother is almost as stubborn as he is, they have had some huge battles, the most recent revolving around him leaving Ida to come to Earth. I’m sure that’s why he didn’t formally break up with her, or she and his mother would be here on Earth chasing him down, and he really doesn’t want that.”
Tamara blinked, trying to sort through the implications of the tangled relationship Mellis was describing. “He doesn’t want to marry her so he came here?”
“He says it’s because he wants to study chemical engineering. But I mean, if you were engaged to someone and wanted to be around them, would you have come all alone? Ida was willing to come, but Alari was quite insistent that she stay on Azelle. Why would you insist your sex partner stay on another planet unless you wanted to get away from them?”
Tamara shook her head, faintly scandalized by the fact they were discussing someone’s personal life, but Mellis had a relaxed ease about it that made it seem complelely normal. “Wait a minute. They’re engaged but Alarin doesn’t want to be and they’re still sleeping together?”
“Sleeping together?”
“I mean, having sex.”
Her expression cleared. “Oh, yes, of course they do.”
“But he doesn’t want to marry her. Wouldn’t that confuse the issue?”
“No, why would it? We all have sex with each other, except for those who are related to others in the group. Like Merran and Charina and Greg and Ida.”
Tamara
blinked, feeling as though she were speaking a foreign language. Which she supposed she was. It only sounded like English but was really Azellian. “I don’t think I quite understand the dynamic of Azellian friendships.” She tried to remember what word Greg had used. “Don’t you form pair bonds? I mean, there is such a thing as marriage, right?” Mellis did say Alarin is engaged, didn’t she?
“Oh yes,” Mellis replied. “Of course. After we’re done with the experimenting, we might choose someone to settle down with. None of Merran’s misfits are nearly ready for that, which is probably one of the reasons why Alari is so resistant to marrying Ida. That and because his mother wants it.”
Tamara’s mind flitted on to the next implication of what Mellis was saying. “So wait a minute. You mean you’ve all had sex with each other? All of you?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t we? That’s what it’s for, isn’t it? Playing and seeing who might be a good long-term fit? And we’re friends, so who better to experiment with than those you already care about?”
Having trouble processing the Azellians’ sexual attitude, which was obviously quite different from the human perspective, Tamara stared at Mellis. “But I thought Greg liked men.”
“So?”
“So you’ve …. had sex with him?”
“Sure. Before we settle into our long-term preferences, all Azellians experiment with both sexes.” Mellis looked at Tamara. “Don’t you?”
“Uh, no.” Tamara took a breath, feeling dizzy. “No, it’s not like that at all. At all. Wow. Azellians are really different.” She wasn’t sure she could process the scope of that difference. Did Mellis mean that Greg and Alarin … Her brain shied away from the idea, and she suddenly realized she had a whole host of prejudices she hadn’t known she possessed.
Mellis gave her a look not unlike the one Greg had given Tamara earlier when she’d confused him over human sexuality mores. “So how do humans explore their sexuality?”
Tamara could feel the blush burning on her cheeks. She lifted her head and tried to pretend she wasn’t having difficulty with the conversation. “Uh, in private, actually. It’s really not talked about much, unless there’s a problem. And people who like the same sex or both sexes get … discriminated against … unless they conform to what’s considered ‘normal.’ It’s not so bad in a city like Denver, but people can get pretty violent about what they think is right and wrong, and quite a few still think anything that’s not straight man-woman interaction is … well … wrong. It’s changing in some places, but in others … not so much.”
Mellis frowned, obviously having as much trouble with the concept as Tamara had with Azellian attitudes. “That doesn’t make any sense to me. Why would anyone go against their natural inclinations?”
Tamara shrugged. “I’m just saying what it’s like. I don’t make the rules.”
Mellis shook her head. “I had no idea. Well, I’ll have to be careful then. I didn’t realize how touchy humans can be about sex.”
“It’s pretty complicated,” Tamara agreed. Then she frowned. “Wait a minute. I thought you and Justern were a couple?”
Mellis laughed. “Oh goodness no. Neither of us has any interest in anything exclusive.”
“So you do have the concept of exclusivity?”
“Once we form a pair bond, we do tend to stick with our partner. Alari, for all his lack of interest in marrying Ida, probably will stay celibate while they’re apart, at least until he formally ends it. But then, he’s a Raderth and they tend to be a little more old-fashioned than the rest of the families on Azelle.”
Hence the arranged marriages, Tamara thought, but she didn’t verbalize the comment. Yet, they’re fine with open sex in adolescence. Wow, I just can’t quite wrap my brain around it. No wonder my grandmother comes unglued about them. If my grandfather … She didn’t really want to think about her grandfather being unfaithful, but the open, relaxed attitudes implied in Mellis’s comments would be hard to resist, especially during the long stretches when her grandfather had been stationed on Azelle. It made her suddenly feel a little more charitable toward her grandmother. She cleared her throat. “This is the World Center,” she said, changing the subject as they came up to a large stone building. “Your first-year seminar will be in here.”
“This is a beautiful building.” Mellis studied the architecture of the imposing structure designed to look like a huge cathedral. “We don’t really have anything this ornate.”
“There’s a hall displaying flags from around the Earth inside. Do you want to go in?”
“Oh yes, please!” Mellis said, and Tamara held the door for her. Mellis’s childlike wonder and awe as she walked into the building and stared around inside was alluring and sweet.
By the end of their tour, Tamara had formed a much stronger bond with Mellis than she would have expected. There was an instant connection, much as there had been with Greg, as if she’d found people she could look to for support and trust. Even Alarin and Justern, who were a little more intimidating to her, were relaxed and friendly. She had two weeks to get to know them before the continuing students and her friends arrived back on campus, and she suspected it was going to be a very interesting couple of weeks.
Chapter Four
ALMOST A FULL WEEK LATER, in his office not far away from campus, Merran studied the new trade agreement between Azelle and Earth, wondering how his friends were settling in. Although he had full confidence in their abilities to adjust, he also knew well the cultural differences that he’d tripped over when he first arrived. Sometimes he still did. Despite his daily mental contact call with Greg, he could remember the sense of distance and isolation he’d had before he got the job at the embassy.
Greg had said they were all settling in fine, the university keeping them too busy with their first-year seminars and events to notice anything like culture clash or homesickness, but it would hit them at some point—he was sure of that. Maybe I should take a little more active role than I originally planned, he thought, making a note with the electric stylus in the margin of the electronic pad. Spend time with them socially, help them feel comfortable. And then there was Tamara Carrington, the human showing flashes of psi. Greg was still feeling out that situation, getting a sense of what was going on. Their conversations about the young human had been brief this past week, Greg updating him on the progress—or lack thereof. Although Tamara had accepted the invitation to spend whatever free time they all had together with the closeknit group of Azellian friends, not much had been happening. Even though she’d been open to learning more about the Azellians and their psi, she’d been heavily shielded since the episode at the embassy party, so there was little Greg could do to tell how her psi would develop, or what they could do to help it along. That meant Merran still wasn’t sure what helping her would involve, but he was rather looking forward to it. He’d never met a human psi before but had long suspected humans were as sensitive as Azellians, just in different ways. Mingling socially with his friends would be a good way to see for himself what was happening, especially if Tamara spent time with them, too.
Just as he’d made the decision to reach out to Greg to set a time to meet, the phone beeped. He reached over and touched the button. “Yes, Janille?”
“Greg Tenricth would like to meet with you, Ambassador. Do you want me to schedule him in?”
Merran glanced at the computer screen and the calendar on it. “Yes, please, that sounds great. What times do I have today?”
“You’re booked until five,” Janille told him after a short pause. “Tomorrow you have the lunchhour free.”
“It’s Friday night, isn’t it? Tell him I’ll meet him for drinks after work tonight. You know, you might as well invite the others too. I’d like to touch base with all of them and see how their first week has gone.”
“You have an early meeting in the morning tomorrow with the Dorbin Ambassador, sir,” Janille kept her tone calm, but he could hear the warning in it anyway.
; A grin tugged at the edges of his lips. After six years, Janille knew him well. “I’ll be in, Janille.”
“Very well, sir,” Janille responded and cut off the link. Merran turned to concentrate on his work again.
A few moments later, the phone beeped again. Merran answered it. “Yes?”
“You have a phone call from Azelle, Ambassador. Idara Tenricth. Are you available to take the call?”
Merran jumped a little. Why was Alarin’s fiancée calling him? There was no love lost between himself and the elegant, usually arrogant, beauty. “I’ll take the call.”
The video phone showed him a picture of the dark-haired woman who looked ragged. It appeared she’d been crying. He blinked. Although they usually struck sparks off each other, he had known her for as long as he’d known Alarin and Greg. “What’s wrong, Ida?”
“I—I’m sorry to have called you, Merran, but I didn’t know what else to do. I can’t reach my brother or Alarin and … well, I’m something of a mess,” Idara sniffled.
Even though he knew Idara well enough to suspect she was very likely playing up the emotional aspects to make herself look worse than she probably really felt, it was also highly unusual for her to call him over anything. “What’s the matter?”
“It’s Alari. I’m afraid I’ve lost him.” Her voice caught. “He hasn’t called yet—”
“Calm down, Ida. They may not even have phones yet, as the first-year seminars are designed to keep them pretty busy from the time they wake to when they go to bed. As for whether you’ve lost him, I have a sneaking hunch all you need to do is let him go. If he cares about you, he’ll come back. Let him call you when he’s ready. Present him a strong front and above all, don’t pressure him. You know what he’s like.”
Idara sniffed and dabbed her nose. “I do and that’s the problem. I’m afraid I’ve pressured him too much already.”
Merran shook his head. The conversation had edged into the surreal. “I doubt that, Ida. He’s here, isn’t he? You didn’t keep him from coming.”
“No, but did I have much choice, really? If his mother couldn’t stop him from going to Earth, I had no chance at all. Could you get me a visa to come to Earth?”
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