Triangle

by Sara L Daigle

  “Should I not go to Azelle? Do you think it will be dangerous for me? Alarin said we will have to, to register the baby with the Temple.”

  Peter’s eyebrows went up. “I’d forgotten about that. Yes, he’s probably right. All Azellian babies are required to be recognized by the Temple and the aarya who live there. Jasmian and I registered you just before you were born, too. I’m not sure how you’re going to get a visa, though. Kendrick will block it with everything he has.”

  “Justy thinks Merran’s going to play the political angles and get a visa out of it.”

  Peter looked thoughtful. “Merran’s talented enough. He might just do it.” He took a breath and extended his fingers to touch the back of her hand. “I’m so sorry my youthful carelessness put you in this position, honey.”

  Tamara looked at him and turned her fingers to squeeze his. “It’s not your fault, Dad, and don’t you dare take responsibility for it. You aren’t responsible for the years of prejudice or Kendrick Raderth’s behavior, nor are you responsible for my or Alarin’s choices. I just want you to be a part of your grandchild’s life.”

  Peter took a shaky breath. “Well, I wasn’t quite ready to be a grandfather yet,” he winced as he said the words, “but I will be.”

  Tamara smiled, and they finished out a lunch that ended much more pleasantly than it had begun. She went home after that feeling much better about everything—her future, her pregnancy, and the impending changes in her current life. There was so much to look forward to, and she found herself thinking about it positively for the first time since she’d discovered her pregnancy. Her father had taken it well, and it gave her the courage to face the other people, like the Raderths and her own grandmother, who might not.

  Chapter 8

  “So the media got a whiff of the fact that I was in the mountains skiing and are blowing it way out of proportion.” Merran frowned at the computer Ketiana laid in front of him. “Is that all?” He leaned back in the heavy leather office chair that he’d reclaimed following his and Tamara’s reconciliation a few days earlier. He still didn’t know what he was going to do in the long-term about working his life to include a daughter, as unacknowledged as she might be, but that was a problem for a later time.

  Ketiana motioned with her hand and the page on the tablet changed. “You’ve assigned Jamie to go to Dorbin, and he’s going next week,” she said. “Ambassador Ki’i and he came up with an agreement, and he’s going to see if he can manage not to kill those psi-sensitive Dorbin plants, to the point the Dorbin are willing to release them to us. I have no idea how you managed to get the Dorbin to agree to that, Mer, but it’s impressive. Even if I’m not sure why we need those plants so badly.”

  Merran made a sound between a chuckle and a sigh. “Those plants have some very powerful properties that help in healing. The Healer enclave on Azelle is truly drooling to get their hands on them.”

  “But there’s an Azellian ambassador to Dorbin, isn’t there? An Azellian assigned to Dorbin?”

  Merran shook his head. “No, there isn’t. Corporeal beings don’t do well on Dorbin. Jamie is a former Keeper who used to spend large amounts of time with the aarya. Non-corporeal races don’t have the same perspective as those of us with a physical body, Kate, and sometimes that can be really unpleasant for those of us with a physical body. Jamie’s training with the aarya will help him bridge that gap.”

  “We’re lucky we have Jamie and that you have a good relationship with the Dorbin ambassador, then.”

  Merran’s success at getting the plants had come from his willingness to play host to the Dorbin, and he suspected Jamian was going to be required to do many things that a normal umanaarya would find distasteful, but he didn’t tell Ketiana that part. “We are.” The intercom interrupted him, and he leaned over to acknowledge it. “Yes, Janille?”

  “Justern Memaxthal on line two,” Janille said, her voice only slightly altered by the electronic media that filtered it. “Did you want me to take a message?”

  “No, I’ll take the call. Tell him I’ll be with him in a moment.”

  Ketiana got to her feet. “I’ll go back to my office. Let me know if you need anything else.” She left the office as Merran answered the phone.

  “Corina,” he said briskly, clicking on his computer and revealing his friend’s face. “Hey Justy. I haven’t talked to you in a while. How have you been?”

  “Fine. Better than what’s been happening to you, apparently. Congratulations, or would sympathy be better?”

  “Congrat—” Merran halted mid-word. He controlled his flush firmly and took a deep breath. “Congratulations for what?” He knew he sounded stiff, but he didn’t try to mitigate his tone.

  Justern cocked his head. “When I talked to Tam last night, she told me that things have shifted course rather dramatically for her and that she and Alarin are getting married.”

  Merran made sure he had on his best ambassadorial face. “Yes, I knew that. What does that have to do with me?”

  Justern gave him a look. “Maybe because she told me there was a reason she and Alari are getting married so soon.”

  “What did she tell you?” Merran asked coolly, feeling suddenly irritated at Tamara. Hadn’t they worked this out? How were they supposed to say the child was Alarin’s if she told everyone the opposite?

  “She didn’t tell me anything at all, but I pretty much figured it out myself.” Justern corrected the impression immediately. He paused, then frowned. “I’m not stupid or blind, Mer, and I knew more about your little complications than you thought I did. She and I talk frequently.” He sounded almost belligerent as he continued, a misplaced effort to be a protective brother. “How could you get so careless? She doesn’t need that complication in her life.”

  Merran’s eyebrows shot up. He put his hands up. “I got care—wait a minute, Justy. I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.” He took a deep breath to control the automatic defensive reaction. “Mainly because I know you didn’t mean it, and because people who live in glass houses need to watch the stone throwing.” He made sure he enunciated his words, crushing his desire to lash back at Justern. Of all the people on Earth and Azelle, Justern shouldn’t be the one complaining about carelessness. “I assume your motivations for berating me about carelessness are because you want to make sure I’m taking care of my responsibilities. Well, you can be sure I am. Now that we have that settled, why else are you calling?”

  Some of the belligerence faded, and Justern managed to look sheepish. “I’m sorry, Mer. I just …”

  “Got all brotherly on me,” Merran finished for him. He softened his tone a little. “It’s fine, done, over with. Did you need something else?”

  Justern took a deep breath. “I talked to Peter Carrington.”

  Merran waited, letting Justern take his time.

  “The president wants to talk to me personally.”

  “Did Peter tell you what the president wants?” Merran asked, keeping his voice level and neutral. He knew President Jerry Foster well enough to expect that the president wasn’t going to make it easy on either Merran or Justern, and he wished that he’d taken the time to research what was going on before he’d taken Justern’s call.

  Justern nodded. “If I’m willing to offer a public apology for the carelessness,” he swallowed hard, and Merran suddenly understood the comment moments earlier, “that ended me up where I ended up, he will offer me a full pardon that will put a stop to years of endless appeals processes and the constant pressures to pay up.”

  Merran blinked. What was Jerry thinking? The whole thing had been a major embarrassment to a government administration that had agreed to allow alien exchange students. Why would he want Justern to go so public regarding his behavior? Merran was suddenly wary about what the president was going to ask for in exchange from Azelle. “He wants you to apologize?”

  “And he wants me to apologize to that shiia Joely—” the words stuck in his throat and he had to stop
to clear it. “Peter says it’s to end this nonsense for good. As badly as I want to come back for Tamara and Alarin’s wedding, I don’t know if I can apologize, Mer. I didn’t do anything wrong except be at the wrong place at the wrong time. But at the same time, I’m going to be an uncle. I don’t want to be forbidden from visiting my niece just because I’m being stubborn. Who knows when the Council will unbend enough to let Tamara come here?”

  “Let me contact the president before you agree to anything. I need to find out what’s going through his head before I recommend that you do anything. It may not be necessary for you to talk to the president at all.”

  “Thank you. Peter didn’t really recommend anything one way or another. He said I should contact you directly.”

  “And I will take care of it. Right now.” Merran jotted a note on the computer pad in front of him. “I’ll call you back later.”

  “Until later then.”

  The intercom beeped immediately afterwards, before Merran could dial out. “Idara Tenricth here to see you,” Janille announced, her voice absolutely neutral as always. “Shall I send her in or schedule an appointment for her later?”

  Merran twitched. Idara? Why is she here? “Send her in, Janille.” Might as well get it over with.

  The door opened and Idara walked in. Merran blinked. She looked somehow different from the Idara he remembered on Azelle. She was still tall, elegant, and stylish, her clothes and hair perfect, but she lacked the arrogant confidence she’d had on Azelle. As a matter of fact, she seemed almost shy. “Hi, Merran,” she said in Azellian, looking down at the floor and glancing up from under her eyelashes. “Thank you for agreeing to see me. I … didn’t expect you would be willing to, after …” She trailed off, thinning her shields politely, waiting quietly for him to take her invitation.

  Merran got to his feet, reaching out to touch her mind lightly with his. She was well shielded, her personal thoughts behind a thick screen, with only carefully controlled surface thoughts available. “It’s good to see you, Idara. Come in, sit. How’s the semester going?” he asked, as he walked over to the deep brown leather couch and sat down. He could have put the desk between them, but despite her sometimes annoying habits, she was one of Merran’s misfits, and a friend by extension whom he’d known for years. During their several conversations last semester, when she’d contacted him because Alarin wouldn’t communicate with her, she’d shown him she had changed, that Alarin’s departure had brought a few things home to her. Apparently, her stay on Earth—something Merran had never thought he’d see in his lifetime—was changing her even more.

  Idara drew a thin screen over her public thoughts, too, thin enough for him to read the truth in her mind, but not so thin that he was bombarded by unpleasant emotions. She sat on the matching armchair across from the couch, her restless fingers the only things that betrayed her nervousness. Her surface mental state reflected nothing but polite calm, not a peep leaking through heavy inner shields, not even to one with Merran’s sensitivity. “Good, really good. I’m learning so much. They do things so differently here.” She gave him a rueful little smile.

  He rested his arm across the back of the couch, setting his left ankle on his right knee. “What have you noticed?” There was definitely something different about her—what was it? She was a blank wall, unreadable, but there was something that wasn’t typical. He normally didn’t project at fellow Azellians, but he let some of his goodwill toward her leak, relaxing his shields just slightly, silently encouraging her to do the same.

  She smiled at him, and some of her defensive tenseness relaxed. “Although they don’t have our abilities, I’ve been amazed at the depth of knowledge these people have. I can’t believe how much there is to learn from them.”

  “So you’ve been spending some time with humans?” he asked, enjoying what he heard in her voice.

  “Oh yes. Part of that is because I’ve had to. The five of us who came weren’t friends, and I find …” She shrugged, lifting her hands up. “All Francyne seems to do is worry about things like how she is High Council and Malinna is not, so how could she be doing better than Francyne is, or how is it that she’s more popular than Francyne is … ” She didn’t quite flush, but Merran caught the whiff of embarrassment off her anyway. “I mean, here it just seems so meaningless, those family politics we think are so important. They just seem so … arbitrary…” She stumbled over her meaning and trailed off at the end.

  Merran rescued her. His own non-High Council, urro-ken mother’s legacy was one of the reasons he liked living on Earth, away from the Azellian obsession with family names and bloodlines. “It is arbitrary. I’m glad you think so, too. What about the other Azellians?”

  Her smile this time wasn’t entirely genuine. Her eyes didn’t reflect it at all. “Rory’s nice, but he’s a Healer, and that means even with Greg back, he’s spending all his time at the hospitals. Now that Greg’s back, I’m going to spend what time I can with him, of course, as much as he has to spare, but he’s a Healer too. Damiar’s got a new relationship, which means he’s got his hands full, and Sharynn, well, she and I have spent some time together, but we just have such different tastes,” Idara said, rubbing at the grain on the chair, making a soft swishing sound. “I miss our group. It’s so awkward between Alarin and me. He was so angry about me coming here. I even tried to be really nice to Tamara when I first met her, and he just got so upset. I didn’t mean to offend her or him, but he took it the wrong way, so I I just figured it would be better to ignore him and leave them alone.”

  That showed a level of maturity Merran did not expect Idara to have. “Probably a good idea. He’s got quite a bit on his mind.” Ruthlessly, he suppressed his own momentary guilt about his role in just why Alarin had a lot on his mind. Idara did not need to pick up on that little complication between the three of them.

  “That leaves you,” Idara said, glancing down at her fingers again, twisting them in her lap. “I … I was hoping y-you might have some time to spend with me. I mean, I know you’re busy,” she added hastily as he stared at her in shock. “Maybe too busy, but once in a while maybe could we go out or something? Do something just for fun?”

  She was afraid he’d say no, that he’d push her away. Merran could taste her fear and the loneliness that leaked from the edges of her shields. It struck an answering chord in him, a chime of consonance that had never been there between them, that frankly, he’d never in a thousand years expected would be. Idara was beautiful, yes, but she had never attracted him and never found him attractive. What had changed? She sat in the depths of the armchair in his office, looking so lost, and so extremely vulnerable. They had known each other for just about twenty years, and he’d never in that entire time considered that he would ever be in the position where Idara asked him out on a date, even a friends-type date. It had always been Mellis with whom he’d shared a bed off and on, never Idara. But Idara had been as much a part of his life as Mellis, if in a totally different way, and he couldn’t callously turn her away. He vacillated, and in the end the silence went on too long.

  Idara flushed. “I’m sorry,” she said, getting to her feet and almost stumbling over her own legs as she went for the door. “I have no right to ask you … I’m … I’m really sorry. I’ll leave you alone.”

  “Ida, wait,” Merran said, sensing that if he turned her away now, it would damage something permanently between them, and he couldn’t do that. Maybe it was his own weakness for the past he’d tried so hard to fight off, but he couldn’t just slam the door in her face. He reached out and held the door shut with his mind. “Wait.” He came around the couch. She faced the door, refusing to turn around, staring at the door handle as he came up behind her. “You just took me by surprise, that’s all. I am really busy, but I can make time for friends, if you’re flexible.”

  She turned to place her back against the door but kept her eyes downcast. She was nearly as tall as he was, he noticed with that part of his mind that never s
topped monitoring his surroundings. When they had been younger, in Merran’s misfits, Idara had always been Alarin’s girlfriend. She’d been part of the group, but by extension. He’d never been physically close to her, like this. Right now, she stood so close their auras almost brushed. “Friends?” she asked faintly and lifted her dark eyes to his.

  Merran went breathless for a moment, the consonance between them humming so strongly he could almost feel her against him. One step, one tiny step and he’d be able to brush his aura against hers—how long had it been since he’d slept with an Azellian woman other than the human-raised Tamara? A very long time. Years maybe. There weren’t many Azellians on Earth who weren’t embassy workers, and despite his aberration with Tamara, he didn’t sleep with his employees. He didn’t sleep with friends who remembered things about him he’d rather forget, either, he told himself sternly, firmly thickening his shields. Especially not when he’d just broken up with a woman because he didn’t have time to spend with her—and when he had a secret daughter on the way. “Of course,” he said briskly, stepping back and quite deliberately breaking the tension between them. “We’ve known each other for twenty years, Ida. There are things we’d both rather forget about our histories, so let’s make an agreement. We’ll let the past go, all right?”

  Idara smiled. “Deal. You didn’t answer my question,” she reminded him, not quite flirtatiously.

  “Which one?” Merran asked warily, pulling on years of training to maintain a neutral posture.

  “What do you do for fun? If you don’t tell me, I’ll just have to come up with something on my own.”

  “Fine. I ski,” he said curtly, already beginning to regret his somewhat impulsive decision to accept her offer.

  “Hmmm, sounds promising. I haven’t been skiing up north in the mountains around Nemorantxl in years, but I used to love it as a kid. Before my family decided it wasn’t appropriate for me. I’m sure it won’t take me long to get it back. How about this? We go up to the mountains and go skiing. Could you get away this weekend?”