Bedivere rubbed his knuckles and looked up. No one was running away anymore. No one was screaming.
Everyone was watching him, instead.
The entire galaxy is watching, he reminded himself.
Deliberately, he crossed the landing to where the others huddled as far away from the pair of them as they could get. No one flinched, or ran away.
He kept his gaze on Catherine, but he didn’t have to go to her. She met him, halfway across. Her arms went around his neck and she pressed herself against him. He bent his head toward hers slowly, his heart thundering, giving her time to move away if she wanted to.
She didn’t. Her lips met his and she clung to him. Her heart was beating as hard as his.
Bedivere buried his face in her hair and closed his eyes, his relief so strong he was shaking with it.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Charlton Space City, New Cathay (Ji Xiu Prime), Ji Xiu System, Perseus Arm. FY 10.187
The Varkan picked up Sarkisian’s body and carted him off. Bedivere and Catherine were being led down the stairs by the city mayors, everyone trying to talk at once. Lilly and Brant moved with them, so Connell picked up Yennifer’s hand and climbed the stairs to the top level, where there was barely anyone around and drew her to him.
Her eyes were no longer wide and innocent. She just looked at him, her guard up.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was wrong.”
“Wrong to want only a human for a lover?” she asked, shocking him. “Of course I knew,” she added when he struggled to find his voice once more. “Brant is your best friend and you practically worship Bedivere and he has a human lover. So does Brant.”
“It stopped me seeing you,” he said, forcing himself to say it. “Really seeing you, I mean. Nichol, what he did, changed that.” He swallowed. “Can you look past my blindness? Maybe start again?”
Her smile was small, but it was there. “Everyone has flaws. Isn’t that what Bedivere just said?”
Connell let out his breath, relief flooding him. “I learned mine from the worst examples in the universe,” he warned her and kissed her.
This time the heat and the sweetness weren’t just potential. They were a full-blown bouquet of sensual delights.
* * * * *
They dropped Devlin into the armchair by the piano, as all fourteen of the mayors filed into the suite. He was anchored by electronic restraints around his wrists and ankles and couldn’t harm anyone. Nor could he run away, for the restraints would drop him to the floor with the force of four gravities applied instantly to each limb, pinning him down.
Devlin didn’t look like he wanted to run anywhere. Any fight had been knocked out of him. There was blood on the corner of his mouth and no one offered to remove it for him.
Instead, Julijana Ouida turned to Bedivere. “Show me the video you played out there. All of it, this time. Unedited. I’ll know if it’s been tampered with.”
“I’d be happy to.” Bedivere looked at Zoey. “Would you mind? I think six displays will give everyone a good view.”
Zoey nodded and the six heads-up displays formed around the room. This time, he let the video start at the beginning and run to the end, when Akira was killed and they were forced to run.
No one said much while it played. Catherine thrust her hand into his as it went on and he could feel her shuddering in reaction to the naked bigotry Akira was displaying and her delight in how Devlin had manipulated Bedivere for decades.
No one spoke for moments after the displays dissolved. They were all absorbing the implications. And most of them were looking at Devlin, huddled in the armchair, avoiding their gazes.
“What are we going to do with him?” someone asked at last.
“Execute him,” Connell said shortly. He was sitting on the edge of the dining table, his arms around Yennifer while she leaned back against him. She was so small, she fitted under his chin, even with him propped on the table.
“You can’t kill him,” Bedivere said quickly. “He’s demonstrated he doesn’t have an ethical bone in his body. He’s manipulated records, expunged them, lied and killed to hide his real identity, so he could claw his way back into power once more. If you kill him this time, he’ll be free to pop up somewhere else and do it all over again.”
“Unethical is an understatement,” Brant added. “He used someone else’s body. He turned himself into a quasi-computer to do it. He’s everything that Glave warned us about. He’s transhuman and an abomination.”
“You think he should be executed, Brant? You?” Bedivere asked him, surprised.
Brant shook his head. “We can’t. Every corpuscle of my Ammonite trained brain thinks we should. Only he’ll just turn up like a weed in some other corner of the galaxy.”
“What do we do with him then?” Julijana asked.
Bedivere looked at the armchair where Devlin sat. “Why don’t we follow Brant’s lead? Ask Devlin what he thinks we should do with him.”
Everyone turned to look at Devlin. He lifted his head, meeting their gazes, until he saw Catherine. “I told you it wasn’t what it looked like.”
“You lied,” she replied. “You made everyone think you were Devlin Woodward, a human…a good man.”
“I wanted it to be true,” he said simply. “You have no idea what it is like to live with a history like mine. No one ever forgets. No one ever forgives. I wasn’t allowed to make amends. I wasn’t given the chance.”
“It is a history you made for yourself,” Brant pointed out.
“And when does my past get forgotten? When do I get to erase it all and move on?” Devlin asked. “We all live such long lives. If we make mistakes, are we never to be forgiven for them? They are to weigh us down, drown us in guilt for the rest of our lives?”
Everyone was staring at him now and some of them actually looked uncomfortable.
Catherine shook her head. “So you ditched your old identity as Kare Sarkisian, then came straight back and repeated those same mistakes all over again.”
“I told you, it didn’t start out that way,” he said tiredly. “It was a joy just to be…not me. Then I heard you had started up Charlton as a free city, for Varkan in particular. Peace and freedom sounded heavenly, so I moved here.”
“He’s conning you,” Bedivere said loudly.
Everyone jumped. Even Catherine looked at him, startled.
He shook his head. “Ask him why he destroyed the Last Gate. Why he failed to mention to a single soul that the Periglus would arrive in known space inside a century. Ask him why he worked so hard to become a friend to the Varkan, who would be forced to become the new transport providers when the jump gates had to be destroyed.”
Julijana sucked in a shocked breath and turned to look at Devlin accusingly. “You knew about the Periglus! Decades ago!”
Devlin sighed.
She threw her hands up. “If we can’t rid ourselves of such a…a…subhuman, then I don’t know what we can do.”
Brant touched Julijana’s arm, getting her attention. “I have a suggestion. Put him to work for humans and Varkan. Everyone knows who he is now. Everyone knows his history—he’s right, no one will ever forget who he is or what he has done, especially after today. Devlin is very, very good at influencing people, so make him work for us instead of for himself. He does our bidding. He promotes our agenda. We control his mule farm and his digital back-ups, so if he tries to do something stupid like getting himself killed, we know exactly where he will regenerate. We make his back-ups live stream, so he will never be able to forget anything, either. After a hundred years or more of service toward humans and Varkan, maybe we will feel more kindly toward him and be ready to forgive him…if that is what he really wants.”
Devlin stared at him.
“Or,” Brant added, “the Varkan can track down all his current mule farms and back-ups and destroy them, then disable any further backups so that he is forced to survive in the body he has, to age and to die, when no one will mourn his
passing and his name will move into history as one of the most despicable men ever to be born.”
Bedivere looked at Devlin. “What is it to be?”
Devlin dropped his head. “I would...make amends,” he said, his voice low.
Bedivere looked around, meeting the gazes of each of the mayors and reeves. They nodded agreement.
“Zoey, escort him to the Hana. Disable all communications there. You have the code to his restraints. Use it as you need to. Devlin, you are to stay in your room until we call for you,” Bedivere told him. “The restraints will tell us if you try to leave, at the same time they drop you to the ground and hold you there until someone arrives to collect you.”
Devlin got silently to his feet and followed the hologram out of the room.
When the door closed behind the pair, everyone turned to look at Bedivere instead.
Julijana put her hand on her slender hip. “Someone has to tell the planetary governors about this.”
“And someone is going to have to talk to the Periglus if and when we crack their language,” the Gantry reeve added. “Because there’s no way I’m going to let Devlin do it for us.”
Bedivere held up his hands. “All in good time,” he said.
“He would have had us launching nuclear particle beams at them, if he’d got his way,” Gantry growled. “He had us all thinking you were wrong.”
“I might still be wrong,” Bedivere said evenly. “Only it’s better to find out over a negotiation table than to be obliterated by an alien that can outshoot us because we had the nerve to swat at them first. We have that luxury now.”
“What luxury?” Julijana asked.
“Time,” Bedivere said. “Time to learn the Periglus language and time for humans and Varkan to figure out how our lives fit together now.”
Even Brant was frowning.
“You don’t see it?” Bedivere asked them. He spread his hands. “Without humans and their need for computers, the Varkan would never have awakened. Now, without the Varkan, humans will never be able to move beyond their own horizons. We’re symbionts now. Humans need us and we need humans, just to survive.”
More than one person smiled at the idea.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Charlton Space City, New Cathay (Ji Xiu Prime), Ji Xiu System, Perseus Arm. FY 10.187
Cat found him in the cold, sterile room, staring out the window at the park beyond. “Are you avoiding me, Bedivere?”
He turned to face her. “Not anymore. Just taking in a breath of silence. It’s been an intense night.”
She moved closer. Slowly. “A few days ago, I watched Devlin talk himself into becoming the king of the galaxy. He did it deliberately and ruthlessly, while I don’t think you’ve realized that’s exactly what you’ve done, tonight.”
“I’m not a leader,” Bedivere said. The idea was horrifying.
“You’re exactly the sort of leader we’re going to need and you’ll be a good leader,” she said. “You know you have weaknesses and that will keep you humble. Devlin never doubted he was right.”
Bedivere drew her closer, until he could feel the heat of her body next to his. “I’m more flawed than even I thought I could be. I’ve got used to that idea. I’ve got used to the fact that I’ll never be good enough for you.” He cupped her cheek, feeling that softness. His heart shifted. Ached. “No one is perfect, are they? Even you were drawn into his web of excellence.”
“I was.” She let out a breath that shook. “I’m sorry, Bedivere. I doubted you.”
“Devlin made you doubt. He kept you in a state of dilemma for years while he sold his virtues a day at a time. I have no virtues to sell you. All I have is me, scars and all. I have no hidden agenda. No secrets. You’ve been the center of my life for so long…forever, really. When you weren’t there, I sank like a rock. In the last few months I’ve learned how to live without you. I learned to swim.”
“That’s not a happy thought,” she said. Her voice shook.
“Yes, it is,” he told her. “It means that I will stay with you because I want to, not because I can’t do anything else. I love you, Cat. I always have. I always will. I intend to spend the rest of my life proving that to you.”
He kissed her and she pressed against him, soft and passionate and his. The room grew warm around them.
More Science Fiction Romance
by Tracy Cooper-Posey
Get 5,001, a short science fiction romance, free.
Master Engineer Caelen Williams is the most sought-after contractor aboard the closed-system marathon-class vessel Endurance, a generation ship at least four hundred light years away from its destination. Captain Lakewood, leader of the space-faring city, demands she resolve a life-threatening issue—the ship is losing water.
Caelen’s former lover, Devar, was wrongly persecuted by Lakewood’s people but for the sake of everyone aboard the Endurance, Caelen tries to solve the riddle of the draining water and learns that Devar is not the only one who may have been manipulated….
This is a short science fiction romance story, for fast reading and enjoyment.
___
Praise for 5,001:
Smashwords SFR Bestseller
I can't wait to see where this new world takes us!
It's a story about love, loss & redemption! Great read!
Just fabulous given as a gift and just loved it
Short, but long enough to have a surprise in it
Wow! This was a short story that packed a punch.
Great short that made me stop and reflect...love it when that happens.
____________
Sign up for Tracy’s Newsletter and get a free copy of 5,001.
Click here to get started.
About the Author
Tracy Cooper-Posey is an Amazon #1 Best Selling Author. She writes romantic suspense, paranormal, urban fantasy, futuristic and science fiction romances. She has published over 55 novels since 1999, been nominated for five CAPAs including Favourite Author, and won the Emma Darcy Award.
She turned to indie publishing in 2011. Her indie titles have been nominated four times for Book Of The Year and Byzantine Heartbreak was a 2012 winner. Faring Soul won a SFR Galaxy Award in 2015 for “Most Intriguing Philosophical/Social Science Questions in Galaxybuilding” She has been a national magazine editor and for a decade she taught romance writing at MacEwan University.
She is addicted to Irish Breakfast tea and chocolate, sometimes taken together. In her spare time she enjoys history, Sherlock Holmes, science fiction and ignoring her treadmill. An Australian, she lives in Edmonton, Canada with her husband, a former professional wrestler, where she moved in 1996 after meeting him on-line.
Other books by Tracy Cooper-Posey
* = Free!
Blood Knot Series (Urban Fantasy Paranormal Series)
Blood Knot *
Southampton Swindle
Broken Promise
Vale
Amor Meus
Blood Stone
Blood Unleashed
Blood Drive (Boxed Set, Bks 1-3)
Blood Revealed
Blood Ascendent (upcoming)
Beloved Bloody Time Series (Paranormal Futuristic Time Travel)
Bannockburn Binding *
Wait
Byzantine Heartbreak
Viennese Agreement
Romani Armada
Spartan Resistance
Kiss Across Time Series (Paranormal Time Travel)
Kiss Across Time*
Kiss Across Swords
Time Kissed Moments I
Kiss Across Chains
Kiss Across Deserts
Kiss Across Kingdoms
The Kine Prophecies (Epic Norse Fantasy Romance)
The Branded Rose Prophecy
The Stonebrood Saga(Gargoyle Paranormal Series)
Carson’s Night*
Beauty’s Beasts
Harvest of Holidays
Unbearable (May, 2016)
S
abrina’s Clan (June, 2016)
Destiny’s Trinities (Urban Fantasy Romance Series)
Beth’s Acceptance
Mia’s Return
Sera’s Gift
The First Trinity (Anth.)
Cora’s Secret
Interspace Origins (Science Fiction Romance Series)
Faring Soul
Varkan Rise
Cat and Company
Short Paranormals
Solstice Surrender
Eva’s Last Dance
The Vistaria Affair (Romantic Suspense)
Red Leopard*
Black Heart
Blue Knight
White Dawn
Go-get-‘em Women (Short Romantic Suspense Series)
The Royal Talisman
Delly’s Last Night
Vivian’s Return
Ningaloo Nights
Jewells of Tomorrow (Historical Romantic Suspense)
Diana By The Moon
Heart of Vengeance
Scandalous Sirens (Historical Romance Series)
Forbidden*
Dangerous Beauty
Perilous Princess
Romantic Thrillers Series
Fatal Wild Child
Dead Again
Dead Double
Terror Stash
Thrilling Affair (Boxed Set)
The Endurance (Science Fiction Romance Series)
Greyson’s Doom (June 2016)
5,001
Contemporary Romances
Lucifer’s Lover
An Inconvenient Lover
The Sherlock Holmes Series (Romantic Suspense/Mystery)
Chronicles of the Lost Years
The Case of the Reluctant Agent
For reviews, excerpts, and more about each title, visit Tracy’s site and click on each title in turn: http://tracycooperposey.com/books/tracys-trilogies-series/
Copyright Information
This is an original publication of Tracy Cooper-Posey
Cat and Company Page 28