Alawahea

by Sara L Daigle

  Tamara went pale. “Oh God. If that’s what he was arrested for, he didn’t do it, Dad. I’m sure he didn’t.” Rape? Justern has been arrested for rape? she thought, trying to wrap her brain around it. He doesn’t need to force himself on anyone. Justern is good-looking enough to get any woman he wants. And there’s no way Merran would have allowed a rapist to come to Earth, is there?

  Peter Carrington watched the emotions play across her face. “Was this the friend you were referring to?”

  Tamara suddenly realized she shouldn’t have known the Azellian students, much less express friendship with them. She could imagine his reaction if he knew where she woke up this morning, but she ignored the implications and pretended she hadn’t said anything out of the ordinary. “I’m sure he didn’t do it, Dad. The ambassador went over there this morning to work through it.”

  Peter raised an eyebrow. “The embassy has attorneys, Tammy, dear. Very good ones, as a matter of fact. I’m sure they’ll be able to handle this case quite well on their own.”

  She shook her head. “They have a corporate attorney, not a criminal attorney. You know as well as I do it’s completely different law. I know you wouldn’t want to defend him, but do you know someone who could? Who wouldn’t care that he isn’t human?”

  Peter stared out the window for a moment, then turned to look at her again. “It’s going to be ugly, sweetheart. You know that. Any rape is the man’s word against the woman’s, unless there’s physical evidence or witnesses to the contrary. If there was consensual sex and it becomes a date rape case, it usually goes to the one who gives a better show in court. Anyone taking a case against a woman in a rape case had better be a damned good attorney. The courts tend to be rather overprotective. It also depends on the judge you get. In a case against a non-human, when fear’s involved, he’ll be lucky to just get deportation if he’s found guilty.”

  Tamara didn’t know how he felt about the Azellian arrival, not really. She looked down at his desk, unable to hold his gaze anymore.

  Peter turned his chair and jumped out of it, pacing back and forth restlessly. “This is going to be a political show too. Anyone who defends him is going to become a media star.” He stopped at the window and stared out once again, then his shoulders straightened. He seemed to come to some internal decision and turned to face Tamara. “Let’s hope your grandmother is struck deaf. What’s this young man’s name?”

  “J—Justern Memaxthal.”

  “Memaxthal?” A strange expression crossed Peter’s face.

  “Do you know him?”

  Peter shook his head. “No, no. It’s nothing. Just a thought. You said the ambassador’s there?”

  Tamara nodded.

  “Defending his project, eh?”

  “Yeah, probably.”

  Peter didn’t seem to have heard her. “The political ramifications are going to be overwhelming, you can be sure of that. Especially when a Memaxthal is involved.”

  Tamara bit her tongue. She was sure her father’s behavior was more than just politically motivated, but if she wanted to be included, she knew she’d better keep quiet.

  Peter returned to his chair. “If you’re wrapped up enough in the Azellian happenings to know that the ambassador is helping this young man out of his difficulties, I suppose you have contacts at the embassy?”

  Tamara blushed and looked down at her hands. “I’m an intern there. I work for the embassy.”

  Peter looked less surprised than she’d expected, but he did shake his head. “When you declared a diplomatic studies major, I was rather expecting this.” He sighed. “I’d hoped—but there isn’t much I can do about it. You’re an adult, quite capable of declaring yourself and making decisions on your own. You do realize it will be open war when we go down to the station?”

  Tamara knew what he meant. “Grandmother.”

  “There’s more to it than that,” Peter told her. “There are things you don’t know about, honey. Things that will come out if we do this. Things that might ruin your chance to go to Azelle, if that is indeed in your plans.”

  Tamara stared at her father. What was he talking about? She decided to leave his comments alone for the moment and focus on Justern. “We can’t leave him in there, Dad. Not if we can do something about it. No matter the consequences.”

  Peter got to his feet again. “I just wanted to be sure you were committed.” He waved her on. “After you. Let’s go beard the lion in its den.”

  They didn’t say much on their way out. Peter told his mother that they were on their way to work and asked if she could watch Jeanine for a while. She grumbled and scowled but gave in, probably secretly thrilled at the chance to have them indebted to her. Tamara and Peter were at the police precinct within ten minutes.

  Merran and Greg were nowhere to be seen when Tamara and Peter arrived. As they entered, Peter motioned to a bank of chairs. “Wait here, Tammy. I’ll find out what’s happening.” Only one duty officer sat at the front desk—everyone else who normally should have been sitting at desks working on cases was gone.

  Tamara sat on the benches in front of the desk. Peter went up to the desk, said something to the officer behind it, and was allowed into the back area. She wished suddenly that her psi was active and she could have communicated with Merran and Greg, wherever they were. The quiet hum of the fans rotating overhead made the room seem oddly hushed, as if the room were holding its breath. Or maybe the lack of people created the unnatural hush. She wondered what was going on.

  Merran appeared at the low door leading to the bench area. Even without being Awakened, Tamara could see that he was agitated. She jumped to her feet and went up to him. “Merran, is everything all right? What’s wrong? Where’s Greg?”

  Merran lifted his hand and ran it through his hair. He glanced at the duty officer and went over to sit on the bench. Tamara settled near him as he spoke in a very low voice, using presumably the same sheltering he had in the cab. “Greg’s working on Justy and has been since I managed to get through to them that if they didn’t let us back there to take care of him they were going to precipitate an interplanetary incident.”

  She stared at him. “Is he all right?” Her voice went up and Merran hushed her.

  “I can’t shield us if you aren’t quiet. He’ll live. The police, especially here in Denver, know how to keep us chained up. It takes drugs because there are no human prisons that can hold one of us. But we metabolize drugs very quickly. There are only a few sedatives that work at all to block our abilities, and those have to be given in massive doses. They were keeping him unconscious, and it depressed his physical functions so badly he started to go into respiratory failure and cardiac arrest. Greg got him breathing again and has managed to burn the drugs out of his system enough so that his autonomous functions are working again.” He shook his head. “There may be permanent damage—we don’t know yet whether the sedatives and oxygen deprivation harmed his psi or his higher brain function.”

  Tamara gaped at him. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Weren’t they even going to call an ambulance? What if there hadn’t been a Healer here?”

  “They would have called an ambulance,” Merran replied grimly, “but he would have been in critical condition for a long, long time, until he could manage to fight off the sedatives himself. He might have died, depending on his will to fight and how quickly they noticed his distress. He certainly had enough sedatives in him to knock out a horse. Greg and I could sense him starting to fail before he showed physical signs of it, which is when I threatened the police. They let us in, finally.”

  “Where is everyone? It’s the middle of the day.”

  “Those who are not out on the street are watching Greg work. Not that there’s much to see, but it’s giving everyone quite a show. And more ammunition against us.” Merran sounded terribly tired. “I have to get a major PR campaign going. I suppose my effort to get Azellians and humans more comfortable with each other was going to cause a clash like this at some point. I
do wish Healers weren’t the ones who were the focus of attention, though.”

  “Healers are the ones who have the least threatening and the most beneficial abilities.” Tamara longed to reach out to comfort him, but she didn’t dare. Not in public, and especially not with her father in the next room. He seemed to be handling her internship and interest in Azelle really well, but she didn’t want to know how he’d react to her having a relationship with an Azellian. Especially not this particular Azellian. “You probably will want to focus on their ethical code too. Are you going to work through the media?”

  Merran nodded, his dark eyes distant. “I will have to come up with a method to help Justern and talk about our softer abilities at the same time.”

  “What’s he been arrested for?” She was afraid she already knew that answer.

  “Rape.” Merran rubbed his cheek. “The girl is quite hysterical, I’m told. Also happens to be the daughter of a trustee.”

  Her stomach sank. “Does Justern know what happened?”

  Merran shook his head. “He’s too far gone right now. Greg’s completely focused on saving his life, not anything else right now. I just hope his memory is still intact when he recovers, or we’re going to have one fine time trying to prove anything at all. Especially without forcing the girl to tell the truth … and that probably wouldn’t be allowed in a courtroom.”

  A weird sort of relief washed through her. She didn’t think he’d done it, but she didn’t know Justern that well. “You don’t think he did it.”

  “No. He’s not violent, he doesn’t have any particular issues with dominance, and he’s never forced himself on any woman in his entire life. He may be sarcastic and childish, but he’s a telepath and not sadistic. I can’t imagine maintaining desire, much less forcing someone when their pain and fear is rebounding back on you, unless you get off on that sort of thing.”

  “What do you think happened? Why would someone claim rape when it really wasn’t?”

  “I don’t know what happened. I just know Justern. I can’t see him raping anyone.”

  “Could you find out from her what really happened?”

  “If she were maliciously accusing Justern of rape, we’d be able to tell she was lying. But finding out what really happened? Alarin could literally force her to tell the truth, or any one of us could read her memories. But that’s not admissible in court and won’t help Justern in the court case. That’s if she’s being malicious. If she seriously thinks she was raped, either because she regretted her decision to sleep with Justern or because she was drunk at the time, there isn’t much we can do either.”

  “Could you get her to drop the case? If someone went and talked to her? She doesn’t know what you can and can’t do.”

  Merran smiled at her. “I appreciate the effort, Tamara, but I think we’ll take the advice of counsel on this one. This is going to go political, so we have to be squeaky clean in how we react to this.”

  “Do you have rapes on Azelle?”

  “No date rape, no.” Merran shook his head. “It’s all pretty clearcut, mainly because we don’t have the issues with sexuality that humans do. The rape that does occur can be worse, far worse than the sexual assault humans call rape, though. There are criminals who use their minds to strip people of anything resembling sanity. Sometimes sex is involved, sometimes not. It’s hard to hide when your aura leaves a visible trail on your victim, though, and their aura marks yours. It doesn’t happen very often. The person doing it is usually pretty sick and our justice system tends to react quickly and harshly.”

  Just then, Peter stepped out of the back with Greg beside him. The Healer looked exhausted, grey-skinned, and cadaverous. Dark circles ringed his bloodshot amber eyes, making them look like black pits in his face. He shook like he had palsy. It seemed as if he might pass out at any moment. Merran leaped to his feet but did not touch Greg. Tamara could not sense what was going on between the Healer and the ambassador, but she knew something was.

  He’ll live, Greg’s thought barely reached Merran in response to Merran’s query. I have no idea if there’ll be anything left when he wakes up, but he’ll live. I need to sleep.

  I’ll get you home. When will he regain consciousness? Merran asked, supporting Greg with his telekinesis. Greg sagged, then caught himself with an effort.

  In about three hours. Get them to let him out of here. He’s not going to run away. He’s probably barely going to be able to walk when he wakes up. Or do anything else for a long time. Greg sounded disgusted, his indignation the only thing fueling his ability to walk. Behind Greg and Peter stood a knot of more than twenty people who stared at Greg in a combination of fear and fascination.

  I’ll work on it. Merran helped him to the embassy car that waited outside. “Take the Healer back to the embassy and put him in my office,” he told the driver in Azellian. “I want him in a shielded environment until he wakes up.” He sent a brief mental call to Janille, who returned an immediate confirmation.

  The driver stood at attention. “Yes, Ambassador. Shall I come back?”

  “No, if I need you I’ll call. I’m going to be with the attorney for a while.”

  “Very good, sir.” The driver started the car and drove off.

  Merran watched the car drive away and turned to Tamara and her father, his eyes sweeping over the two of them. She certainly looked like Peter Carrington’s daughter in the shape of her jaw and chin and the cant of her face. Peter’s eyes were an ice blue, not the softer grey-blue of Tamara’s, with a dark ring around the edges of his pupils. Although his hair was peppered with gray, Tamara did resemble her father enough to tell they were related. He stepped forward to speak to Peter, his hand outstretched.

  As Merran extended a hand in a traditional human greeting, Peter offered a low, formalized bow instead. Tamara stared at her father. “Ambassador Corina. It is an honor to meet you,” he said in clear, fluid Azellian.

  “I thank you for the honor you accord me, Mr. Carrington, but I assure you, you do not need to offer me that level of respect,” Merran replied in the same language, eyebrows high. “You are not Azellian, not that any Azellian would offer me that particular bow either.”

  Peter smiled as he straightened. “I have not seen a Healer at work in twenty years. It was an honor to watch.” He continued in Azellian, proving that he did indeed speak the language quite fluently. “Will the Healer be all right?”

  “After he gets some sleep, he should be fine.” Merran switched back to English. Tamara was grateful for the shift. She had been having a hard time keeping up with the Azellian.

  Peter did the same. “And how is Justern? I have my car around the corner. Shall we go to my office? I think we’ve got some talking to do.”

  Merran followed Tamara and her father toward Peter’s car. “Justern will be awake in a few hours. Whether or not he is able to answer any questions, we will have to wait and see.”

  Peter frowned at him as he got into the car. “What do you mean?”

  Tamara climbed into the back seat, listening intently.

  Merran didn’t answer until they were in the car with the doors closed. “The police had him drugged enough that he almost died. What kind of brain damage there might be, we don’t know yet.”

  “Do—does he have a family to fight for compensation?” Did her father sound odd?

  Merran shrugged. “His mother died in an accident and his father disowned him. Right now, he’s living with my sister and her husband, his uncle. If I choose to pursue something, they’ll probably join me, but I don’t know if they will be willing to contribute anything more than moral support.”

  The odd note in her father’s voice suddenly made itself very apparent. “Would his mother’s family be willing to do anything? They are High Council, aren’t they?”

  Merran didn’t seem to notice anything amiss. “Yes. Uzorantxl Dorvath, actually. No, since Jasmian Mennak Dorvath died, they really haven’t had anything to do with Justern either.”
<
br />   Peter choked and settled into a fit of coughing as they stopped at the entrance to the parking lot of the large house that served as his law offices.

  Tamara leaned forward. “All you all right, Dad? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I just swallowed the wrong way. I’m fine, I’m fine.” He recovered, pulled the car into a parking stall, and cleared his throat. “All right, Ambassador. Let’s go inside and figure out what we’re going to do.” He seemed to pull himself together, leaving Tamara to trail along behind him in confusion. Her father’s odd behavior had something to do with the fact that he could speak Azellian and seemed to know more about Azelle than she did. It had to be related, didn’t it? She’d never thought her father was particularly fond of Azellians. She’d thought the whole family shared her grandmother’s vociferous, vicious opinions about them. To find that her father spoke Azellian—better than she—was a shock. There had to be a reason. She followed Merran and her father into his offices and wondered what he was going to say.

  Chapter Eight

  AS THEY STEPPED into the office, Peter motioned for Merran to sit across from him. Tamara settled into a chair next to Merran. “Before anything else, I think we should discuss my fee.”

  Merran leaned back to pull a thin wallet out of his front pocket. He pulled out a card and handed it to Peter. “I am prepared to cover whatever’s necessary for Justern’s defense. As I mentioned in the car, I’m probably the only one of Justern’s relatives and acquaintances who is willing to contribute to his defense.”

  Peter stared at the card on his desk. “It will be from your private pocket. If I remember correctly, Azelle does not provide for its off-planet citizens should they get in trouble with the law.”

  Merran smiled. “That hasn’t changed.”

  Peter sniffed and slid the card back at Merran. “Well, I’m willing to take Justern’s case for one-quarter my normal fee.”

  Merran stared at Peter, momentarily speechless. “I can cover whatever is required.”