by Dan Glover
She knew her husband well enough to invite him along even though she had another destination in mind. He trusted her implicitly which only fed her sense of remorse at deceiving him, at taking another lover, though in truth she had never stopped loving Kāne.
She told herself that she was doing it all for Nate, not herself. She had seen his destiny and it wasn’t intended that he be bound up with a sterile woman from Lake Baikal. His purpose was to help repopulate the world with his descendants... the best of both species.
She couldn’t stand in the path of that journey even should she desire it, and she didn’t. Lily wanted more out of life than endless days meandering around a slowly deteriorating castle while waiting for the seas to eventually swamp them all and force a move either inland or to another area of the world.
"You should take time to get to know those men better, darling Lily. They aren’t the stuffed shirts you take them for. Pete tells me how he was once a pilot."
The way he said it with a snort and a quick chortle told her that he was of course miffed by her reticence at interacting with the men they had rescued from old America. She had tried, though, and found them wanting not only physically but intellectually. If these men were an example of the brightest minds human beings had produced, she fully understood their demise.
She sighed as she answered him the only way she knew how, hoping that he didn’t catch the subtle inflection in her voice that might tell him how much more she appreciated the men of her species to those human beings who called themselves males.
"I'd rather hoped you were finished with those dreams of flying, my love. You know how I worry."
Driving east to Edinburgh Castle she considered the ramifications of Nate discovering her liaisons with Kāne. Though he accepted her trysts with Lauren and Natalia, she knew he was intensely jealous of another man touching her, especially a man like Kāne.
It had been the dreams that kick-started the affair. Each night she woke to his tender kisses feeling how he caressed her body without a touch and how it was always some time before she recognized their lovemaking for the dream it was.
Mindy returned to Orchardton Hall in the spring, right after their trip to Lake Baikal was completed, bearing tales of drunkenness and cruelty. Lily knew the woman was a liar, however, and tended not to believe a word she said.
With Kāne she had no need of words.
They spoke with their minds. Their thoughts flowed like tides rushing out to sea and back again carrying the detritus of longing that had never eroded despite the years they’d spent apart.
On a whim Lily visited Edinburgh Castle on the pretense of checking on his well-being. Kāne was nowhere to be found. She walked through deserted hallways entering countless chambers before finally exiting the building to walk around back.
He was sitting cross-legged by the seaside watching the roiling waves pound the shoreline. She saw his thoughts—two great fighters seeking to subdue each other and yet who neither cannot find an opening, a weakness with which to take advantage of the other.
He knew she was here yet made no move to greet her.
She sat beside him mimicking his pose watching as the sun quenched her fires in the sea and the stars began poking their bright holes in the firmament that served as their ceiling. As the night descended Kāne wordlessly kindled a fire. The flames shot up to mingle with the stars overhead. Every once in a while a great crackle would sound as sparks leaped out like tiny meteors.
Going into the castle he returned with a plaid blanket which he wrapped around her shoulders to chase away the chill. She told herself nothing would happen. Kāne was simply a friend now; those days of love had faded away like the new moon, invisible and yet ever-present. She fell asleep on the beach waking with a start in the middle of the night to find him still there staring out at the breaking surface of the sea.
"Did you miss me?"
She spoke the words more to break the oppressive silence than in hopes of hearing an answer. He was never one for words. Beneath the waves of Lake Baikal they communicated with a kind of electrical impulse—something like echolocation—and body movements conveyed meaning much like the animated arm waving the People often resorted to while speaking.
A kind of humble tenderness began to envelope her body and even though the night was chill she felt protected from its onslaught. A light rain began falling. She had no inclination to seek shelter even as the drizzle turned into a steady downpour.
Finally he rose.
Taking her hand in his he led her into Edinburgh Castle where he handed her both a towel and a robe. While she removed her soaked clothing he kindled a blaze in the gigantic fireplace that dominated the great room. The sweet aroma of apple wood permeated the room along with precious warmth.
When he kissed her the world stopped spinning and she became whole again. Even while ensconced in Kāne's incredibly strong arms, Lily knew the moment wouldn’t last. The males of her species were fickly creatures with a memory like paper which quickly burned up in the fires of time.
A vision of Nate swept across her mind's eye. He was surrounded by dozens of children all of them who resembled him in such a remarkable way that she knew he was their father.
The vision faded as quickly as it arose but in its wake came a feeling that her dalliance here would allow her husband free reign to bear the children who were patiently awaiting their birth. If she was to stay with him, he would never achieve the destiny foretold by her dreams and the reason she had enticed her friends into doing that which was abhorrent: perpetuating the human race.
She loved Nate dearly but he was but a boy compared to this man. She talked Karen into engineering the fetus and Natalia into becoming Nate's mother. She had seen his birth as the first stepping stone toward rebuilding both species and avoiding certain extinction.
At the same time she had no illusions of making a life with Kāne. He would use her if she allowed it and promptly forget he ever knew her. The thought of being his plaything again even for a brief while filled Lily with intense anticipation and a feral kind of longing like no one had done even once in her life. Finally he turned to her to speak, filling her with anticipation and excitement.
"Who are you again?"
Chapter 10—The Lady Speaks
"I think I'm pregnant."
Amanda was no longer her assistant. She had become a full-fledged doctor in her own right. Karen wanted someone to verify her condition... someone she trusted. Amanda was her first and only choice.
"So who is the lucky man, Karen? Is it Pete?"
Karen still felt like an ugly duckling even though her mirror told her how she'd blossomed into a beauty over the passing of the centuries. She was so used to hiding her feelings that she felt embarrassed to share details of her affair.
"Why do you think it's Pete? Has someone been spreading gossip about us?"
"Oh no, Karen, nothing like that. I see you two and the way you look at each other. I think it's wonderful. I hope you know I would never talk about you to anyone."
"I'm sorry, Amanda. I guess I'm still a little insecure about myself. Yes, Pete is the father... I mean if I'm pregnant. I want to be sure before I tell him."
The three scientists from old America were somewhat of an anomaly. Being isolated from the Ladies, Karen suspected they might be capable of fathering male offspring although they too were exposed to the Lake parasite during the Great Dying.
The nanobots they carried within their bodies were another unknown. Though all three showed no signs of the side effects that had formerly wracked their bodies, Karen was certain if they were to become separated from the Lake people, they would immediately begin to revert to their old forms. She wondered if death would be preferable.
"I don't remember much about those days, Karen. It seems as if I was in a long and wicked dream. My body felt like it might explode. My senses were all jumbled together. I could see sounds and feel images. Numbers had smells; words each carried distinct tastes.
> "When you arrived, we knew something strange was happening to us. I woke up one day—maybe a week after you arrived—and my sense of hearing had returned. I could hear people talking outside the building. I thought I was back in the old world again. But when I looked out a window, I realized the city was gone.
"I heard you talking to Micah, begging him to go with you. I wanted to approach you then and ask if I could come along but I was afraid of what he would do when he saw how I was reverting to my old self. I imagined him upping the dosage of nanobots to keep me in thrall to him and his insanity.
"When you left the building, I knew that would be our only chance to get away. I convinced Ronald and Freddi to come away with me. I could hear Micah in his laboratory. It sounded as if he was talking to someone but I knew no one was in there with him. I wanted to go to him to try and convince him to leave with us but I was scared.
"Now I feel guilty that I didn’t at least try to say goodbye to him and to maybe talk him into going with us. He saved my life. If not for Micah I would be long dead. I ran out on him, Karen. We three were his only real contacts in this world."
"You're a good man, Pete. Micah took advantage of that. He held you prisoner for a century. Yes, he saved your life, but can you honestly say it was a life worth living?"
"Now it is."
Karen had never felt this way about anyone.
As a girl, her mother made sure Karen knew what an ugly face she had and how ungainly her body was. Mother was a tall slender woman who fell just short of beauty and who seemed ashamed of the awful girl child she had produced. She blamed Karen's father.
To placate her mother or perhaps to gain her approval, Karen threw herself into her schoolwork. She wanted to prove that even though she was an ugly child, her intelligence outshined all that. But no matter how well she did in school, her mother always seemed disappointed in her.
For a time, father sought to lessen the psychological blows dealt out by her mother by coddling her, by spoiling her. Eventually her mother discovered these little deceptions, however, and threatened to leave father if it did not stop. From that time on, father became non-existent in her life.
Even when she graduated from college and later from medical school, there was no one there watching as she received her diplomas. In her naïveté she believed she could earn her parents' love by becoming the best doctor in England, perhaps in the world.
She had achieved her goals but her parents had both turned to dust long ago. She was bothered at times by the visage of her parents dying horrible deaths after becoming infected by the very disease she was charged with stopping. Instead, she had run off to Russia and then Scotland to find Lily, to save herself. All those years of medical training came to naught in the face of the Great Dying.
She ran away instead of trying to stop it.
The thing with Pete began innocuously enough. She remembered their long talks during the journey back to Orchardton Hall and how they would sometimes stay up all night discussing every manner of thing. The enforced isolation of the long ocean voyage brought them together in a way that no other method of traveling could have done.
Once they arrived home, Pete disappeared. She told herself that was to be expected; he was merely being polite aboard the Nautilus. Of course he had no romantic interest in her. Why should he? She was the oldest of old maids. She had allowed herself to be used her whole life and the minute she actually met someone who she'd give herself to for the asking, heart and soul, he evaporated like a thin mist over the blue open water in the early morning sunshine.
When he showed up at her door a week later, she wasn’t sure how to take it. There he was with a big smile on his face and a handful of roses. Though she desired more than anything to knock the flowers out of his hands and leap into his arms, she wordlessly slammed the door shut in his face.
Much to her surprise, he didn’t give up, however.
The next morning she opened her door to find a signed copy of The Origins of Species by Charles Darwin lying on the floor. She was not only amused but impressed that Pete remembered how she once told him that the book was one of her favorites.
The next day she opened her door to discover an ancient Chinese bronze statuette of a Han-era horse in full gallop. She minored in art during her college days. Before making the decision to go into medicine she had once entertained the notion of becoming an art dealer and following her father into business.
On the third day she opened her door to stumble on a yellow brick with a note under it that said: follow me. She noticed another brick down the path and walking to it, she saw a third one and then a forth. As she followed the bricks she found herself on the edge of the sea where a table was set with one place and a candle in the middle and no one in sight.
At first she felt the rumble rather than heard it. A few seconds later a gigantic diesel truck pulled to a stop next to her. Pete was behind the wheel. As he stepped from the cab of the truck she noticed he was wearing a chef's outfit including a toque that made her giggle despite wanting to ignore him.
With nary a word or even acknowledging her presence he began unloading covered platters from the back of the truck. A delicious aroma of pancakes and sausage permeated the morning air making her mouth water. After setting each platter onto the table he paused to light the candle.
"Madam is served."
He pulled out a chair waiting for Karen to sit before pushing it forward, tying a napkin around her neck, and serving her a tiny morsel of food from each dish. As she raised her fork to her mouth he waits expectantly as if desirous of knowing if she was enjoying her food. He stood off to one side bending forward slightly with one arm behind his back and the other bent across his stomach.
"Sit down, silly. You're making me nervous."
"Ah! The lady speaks!"
Chapter 1 1—Sailing Away
He knew he wasn’t welcome there.
He reverted to his old ways since he left Edinburgh Castle as he learned long ago he had no need of companionship. He never felt comfortable around the People... even his lovers—Ginger, Mindy, and a host of others—continually sought to mold him into what they desired rather that appreciating him for what he was.
He could find no words to say goodbye so one day he simply left, sailing away in a ship he discovered in the boat house that lurked behind the castle. His boat had no motor but the trip aboard the Nautilus from old France to Orchardton Hall served to provide him with the experience of furling the sail and plotting a course along the coast until they made it back to old Scotland.
The day he left Edinburgh Castle he had finished the last of his sculptures. It stood beautifully silent and sullen. The castle was empty and quiet as everyone had gone back to Orchardton Hall. He supposed his attention span was so limited to his work that the women in his life gave up at ever garnering his interest.
He had a faded memory of Ginger and how much in love she was with him. Though he wished to return her affections, the compulsion to create art overrode any feelings brewing in his heart ultimately driving her away. Though the mother Mindy thought to usurp the love he felt for her daughter, she too soon tired of his eternal broodings.
He liked it better alone.
"This is called a fork."
Though it irked him to think Ginger thought so little of him as to make an attempt at shaming his manners, he kept silent. He knew what a fork was. He had walked the earth when her ancestors were little more than chimpanzees... and she is going to chide him for eating with his fingers?
When Lily showed up, he didn’t remember who she was. She seemed miffed and though she cried easily he sought to keep his distance. Discovering her in his arms late one night as they sat on the beach watching the tide roll in with the rising of the full and bloated moon, he kissed her.
Spain seemed clean and healing. He lingered along the coast amid the deserted cities and bleached bones crumbling back to the dust from which everything emerged. He had few needs. He ate when he was hungry a
nd drank when thirst overtook him.
Coming to the Straits of Gibraltar he considered sailing into the Mediterranean to pay a visit to Toulon Castle where he heard a new colony had been established. But he knew Nate lived there. For some reason, they had never become friends even though Kāne knew the man was an artist too.
"Your presence is unsettling for other male members of your species, my son."
He noticed a gathering on the dock one morning as the sky was just turning purple and pink and drawing closer he saw six members of the Orchardton Hall clan were on the deck of the very same ship that had come to rescue him. They were waving goodbye to a crowd who stood waving back.
"Where are they sailing to, mother?"
"Though I advised them to go to Lake Baikal, instead they are traveling to old America, my son. I fear they will discover only trouble there, and worse, perhaps their own deaths."
Mother Lauren seemed unduly troubled that morning and though he was loath to leave her, Kāne nonetheless made his solitary way back to the small cabin where he made his abode.
He would rather forget such memories.
The continent of old Africa beckoned to him so he did sail through the Straits of Gibraltar but he did not stop in old France. He spent weeks sailing along the northern coast of the dark continent stopping daily in decrepit ports searching for food and water among the decaying ruins. Coming to an enormous river he sailed south into the sand of the desert.
After three days he spotted enormous pyramids hunkered to his right. Stopping he journeyed into the desert to visit the remarkable structures. The buildings seemed to show no signs of wear as did the cities and towns through which he passed.
Standing in front of the pyramids he caught a snatch of memory arising from the days of old. Though details did not surface a feeling of comfort and home dominated his thoughts for the next few days.