Jinjie nodded his head deeply. “Jinjie do be apologize for not looking for Controller, Talus Gryphon. Centuries on Doftle space station do be making magic weak, but me should do be thinking of it on Jasan.”
“No apology is necessary, Jinjie,” Talus said. “We’re just glad to know you have the ability to sense them. Do you know why we haven’t shifted for three days when it’s something we’ve done every day for our entire lives?”
“Me do be think on that, Talus Gryphon, but do be not know answer yet.” Jinjie tilted his head thoughtfully. “Salene do be saying shift do be make Controller puddle on ground.”
“That’s true,” Jon said. “Unfortunately, by the time we were able to shift back into our humanoid forms, we’d forgotten to check for that. It was careless on our parts but we will not repeat that mistake again.”
“Me do be helping to remember now.”
“Thank you, Jinjie,” Talus said. “We ask that you use your ability to sense Controllers on us as often as you deem necessary. And, if you don’t mind, we’d appreciate it very much if you’d see to it that we shift at least once each day.” He frowned. “Make that twice a day to be safe.”
“Me do be glad to help,” Jinjie said, then leapt off of Talus’s shoulder and onto the floor of the cave near the entrance.
Talus, Jon and Kar spread out in the middle of the cave and called their gryphons. While the Controllers had hold of their minds they hadn’t been able to summon their gryphons at all. Now, they felt their alter-forms straining toward them as they struggled to open themselves to the change. It was shocking to discover how difficult it was. Shifting was as natural to them as breathing, making this nearly as frightening as the Controllers had been.
They did not give up, however. They remained steadfast, refusing to pull back until, finally, their gryphons managed to answer their calls. The pain was not as bad as it had been on Garza, but it still knocked them to the ground. And, as Talus had warned Jinjie, their gryphons didn’t even try to hold back their screams of pain.
***
After the Gryphons left with Jinjie, Salene set her bowl down, giving up on breakfast for the time being. She was worried about the Controllers, but she knew that the Gryphons who’d just walked out of the cave were truly her men. She’d seen it in their eyes, felt it in their touch, and heard it in their voices. Every sense she had told her it was truly them. Too bad you didn’t notice that last time around, she chastised herself. Needing something to do with her hands, she removed the elastic on her long, wrist thick braid and began unraveling it.
“Are you really a princess?” Mali asked.
“Where’d you hear that?”
“Jinjie and Tonka called you Princess Salene.”
“Yes, I’m a princess,” Salene replied, using her fingers to comb through her hair since she didn’t have a hairbrush. “Don’t let it impress you though. Where I’m from, the royal family lives pretty much like everyone else.”
“What’s it like where you’re from?”
The last thing Salene felt like doing was smiling, but when she looked at Mali she couldn’t help herself. “Jasan…that’s the name of our planet, has lavender skies and blue grass. My parents own a ranch, a large area of land where they raise cows and horses. That’s where I grew up.”
“Lavender skies and blue grass,” Mali said softly with a distant, dreamy expression in her eyes. “I didn’t know that was a real place. I thought it was just a dream.”
“You dreamed of Jasan?” Salene asked in surprise.
“Lots of times,” Mali replied.
Salene pulled her hair over her shoulder, divided it into sections, then began braiding it while thinking about the implications of that. “Well, it’s a real place,” Salene said. “My Mom didn’t go to Jasan until she was an adult. Before that, when she was a little girl, she dreamed of lavender skies and blue grass too.” She finished her braid, put the elastic back on to hold it, and tossed it back over her shoulder. Then she gestured to Mali who got up and went to sit beside her. Salene urged her to turn around with gentle hands, removed the leather cord from her hair and went to work on the tangles with her fingers.
“I like knowing it’s a real place,” Mali said. “Do you have any brothers and sisters?”
“Yes, I do. I have two sisters, and three brothers.”
“Are your brothers and sisters older than you or younger?”
“Do you know what triplets are?” Mali shook her head. “Triplets is when three babies are born at the same time.”
“Oh, like twins?”
“Yes, that’s right. My people, Clan Jasani, are always born in threes. I was born first, then my sister Rayne, and then my other sister Tani. We look exactly alike except for the color of our eyes.” Salene bent over a particularly large snarl and worked through it patiently. “Our younger brothers, Saxton, Pax, and Marx are identical except for their eye color too.”
“Like those men,” Mali said. “They look alike except their hair is different colors. Does that mean they’re brothers?”
“Yes, it does,” Salene said.
“Is your Mom and Dad still alive?”
“I have one Mom and three Dads, which is also normal where I’m from. And yes, they’re alive.”
“You have three Dads?”
“Yes, I do,” Salene replied. She finished working through Mali’s tangles, then divided it into sections and began braiding it.
“You’re so lucky,” Mali said wistfully.
Salene blinked, startled for a moment. “Yes, Mali, in many ways I’m very lucky. Thank you for reminding me of that.” She reached into a pocket and removed three hair elastics, something she always carried with her. She chose the fuchsia one, used it to tie off Mali’s braid, then bent to look down in the little girl’s face. “How’s that?”
Mali pulled her braid over her shoulder so she could see it, then smiled. “How did you do this?”
“It’s not hard,” Salene said, returning the other elastics to her pocket. “I’ll show you one day.”
“This is so pretty,” Mali said, her fingers touching the elastic on her hair as though it were precious. “What color is this?”
“It’s called fuchsia,” Salene said.
“I’ve never seen this color before but I like it. I promise not to lose it.”
“You’re sweet, honey, but it’s just an elastic. If you lose it, or if it breaks, it doesn’t matter. I have more.”
“Thank you,” Mali said. She turned back around to face Salene with a little frown on her face.
“What is it?” Salene asked. Mali looked up at her, her light gray eyes searching. Salene didn’t know what she was looking for, and she didn’t ask. Instead, she waited patiently for Mali to make up her mind.
“Why are you going to the silo?” she asked, surprising Salene.
“You know that the silo is a bad place, don’t you?” Mali nodded. “There’s a lot of people still there, and I have to try to help them.”
“Why?” Mali asked. “You’re a princess. Can’t you just tell other people to do that for you?”
“No, honey, I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I was taught that being a princess means I have to always do what I can to help others in need. Even if I wasn’t a princess, I would never ask someone else to do something that I wouldn’t do myself. Do you understand?”
Mali’s eyes dropped to the floor. After a long moment, her voice small and reluctant, she said, “Yes, I understand. I just don’t want to.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m scared of what’ll happen to me and Tab if you die.”
Salene nodded. This was more along the lines of what she’d expected Mali to say to begin with. “Thank you, Mali, for being honest. I appreciate that very much.” Some of the tension went out of the little girls thin shoulders. “I understand why you’re scared Mali, and I don’t blame you for it. Tonka told me some of what you and Tab have been
through. I have an idea though. Would you like to hear it?”
“Yes,” Mali said, nodding quickly.
“I thought I’d ask Jinjie to take you, Tab, and Tonka too if he wants, back to Jasan if something happens to me. Would you agree to that?”
“I think so,” Mali said hesitantly. “But where would we live?”
“Would you like to live on the ranch where I grew up?”
Mali’s eyes widened in surprise. “Could we really?”
“Yes, you can, really,” Salene said, smiling. “My parents aren’t home right now, so I’ll ask Jinjie to take you to my sister, Rayne. She loves children very much, and she’ll enjoy taking care of you and Tab. When our parents get home, she’ll take you to the ranch to live. You can even have my bedroom if you want. My parents will be so happy to have children in the house again, and they’ll love you and Tab more than you can imagine.”
“That sounds like a story more than real life,” Mali said. “Is it all real?”
“Yes, it’s all real, I promise.”
“Okay,” Mali said, then looked up with pleading in her eyes. “But please don’t die, Salene. Please?”
“Don’t worry honey,” Salene said. “Killing me will be a much more difficult task than anyone expects.”
“That’s good,” Mali said with a big sigh of relief.
Salene started to smile again when the sound of screaming gryphons echoed through the tunnel and into the cave. She leapt to her feet, paused just long enough to tell Tonka to remain with the children, then ran out with sai in both hands. She reached the cave where the Gryphons laid writhing on the floor in pain with Jinjie looking on from the entrance. He looked up at her, then shook his head, warning her to go no further, so she stopped beside him, put the sai away, knelt down on the floor and watched.
“What’s happening?” she asked softly when she felt like she could speak around the lump in her throat.
“Controllers do be not give up without fight.”
“Will they be able to keep them from taking over again?”
“Yes,” Jinjie replied. “Shifting do be making start over.”
“Why doesn’t shifting reject the Controller?”
“Me do be not know.” He looked up at her. “You do be not need watching this, Salene.”
“I don’t agree, Jinjie,” she said tightly. “I think it’s the very least I can do.”
***
Talus, Jon, and Kar were unaware of time as they waited for the pain to ease, but they thought, rightly, that it was faster than before. When they were capable, they shifted back to their humanoid forms and struggled to their feet, only to find Salene on her knees in the entryway, her face wet with tears.
“We’re sorry, Salene,” Talus said wearily. Salene wiped her face with both hands and stood up. She waited silently until Jon and Kar were both standing near Talus. Then she turned around, and walked away.
“I don’t understand,” Jon said. “Why is she upset with us?”
“We probably just reminded her of how much we hurt her,” Talus said, his gut tightening painfully at the thought.
“It wasn’t us,” Jon argued quietly. “It was the Controllers. She knows that.”
“She knows it in her head, but maybe it’ll take a bit longer for her heart to catch up,” Kar suggested.
“There has to be a way for us to fix this,” Jon said. Jinjie shook his head and sighed, capturing Talus’s attention.
“What?” he asked.
Jinjie looked up and shook his head again. “You do be thinking this about hurt feelings? You do be thinking she broken toy what do be need fixing? Salene Dracon do be not stupid. She do be understand Controller. She do be understand sorry. She do be understand you. But you do be not understand her, and she do be knowing that, too.”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” Talus said.
“No, you do be not,” he agreed. “Tell me, why do be here?”
“To rescue Salene,” Talus said.
Jinjie’s round brown eyes narrowed. “And?”
“We love her, Jinjie,” Talus said. “She is meant to be our Arima. We love her, we miss her, and we want her to know that it wasn’t us that hurt her. We want to take her, and you, and Tonka and the children too if that’s what they want, up to our ship and get the hell away from this world. We want to go home to Jasan, make Salene our Arima, and get on with our lives.”
“That do be what you want. Did you be asking her what she do be want? What she do be need? How she do be feel?”
“You think we’re selfish,” Kar said in surprise.
“You do be think you not selfish?”
“You know full well that we had Controllers, Jinjie,” Talus said. “As much as I hate to admit this, we were completely powerless against them. Nothing we tried worked and we tried everything we could think of. We were victims.”
“Yes, that do be true,” Jinjie agreed. “Princess Salene also do be victim.”
Talus couldn’t argue with that. “What do you think we should do, Jinjie?”
“That do be decision you must do be make. But Gryphons do be not hurt Princess Salene more. Jinjie do be small, but magic do be strong now.”
“You’re threatening us?” Jon asked in surprise.
“Jinjie do be warn, not threatening. High Prince Garen Dracon do be ask Jinjie protecting Salene and me do be give promise. Jinjie do be not break promise. Ever.”
“Your warning isn’t necessary, Jinjie, and we certainly wouldn’t expect you to break your word,” Talus said. “We have no desire to hurt Salene.”
“Then do be not.” Jinjie turned around, and left them standing in the cave looking at each other in surprise.
***
When Salene returned and settled down in front of the fire again, Tonka took a moment to study her carefully. “You are well, Highness?”
“Yes, Tonka, I’m perfectly well, thank you, and please call me Salene,” she said. “You didn’t finish your stew.”
“I thought to wait for your return.”
“Shall I heat it up again?”
“No, thank you,” he said. Salene picked up her bowl and started eating the cold stew she no longer wanted, pausing to nod at Jinjie when he returned. The Gryphons followed him a few minutes later and sat back down.
“We thank you for your help, Jinjie,” Talus said. Jinjie nodded politely and Talus slid his eyes to Salene. “There are many things we must discuss,” he said. “Before anything else, we need to tell you about the Ember.” Salene’s stomach rolled sickeningly, but she was careful to give no sign of it as she nodded.
“She crashed into, and through, a Doftle space station,” he began. “She went in so deeply that only a bit of her nose section showed from the outside. We had to send a crew into the wreckage to identify the yacht.”
“Was anyone alive?”
“On the Doftle space station, no,” he said. “The Ember rammed straight through its core. We scanned for signs of life of course, but it seems even Doftles need an atmosphere to live.”
“I can’t say I’m sorry about that,” Salene said.
“I can’t say we are, either.”
“What about the crew of the Ember?”
“All alive,” Talus said, shocking her into looking up at him.
“Really? They all escaped?”
“Yes, they all escaped.”
Salene took a deep shuddering breath. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am. Is everyone all right?”
“Captain Jake has some shattered bones in his shoulder and hip. He’s in a healing tank and expected to make a full recovery. The rest of the crew is fine. A few bumps and bruises and one broken arm that’s already been healed. Nothing serious.” Talus smiled gently. “They credit you with saving their lives because you prepped all of the life pods ahead of time. And they’re right to do so.”
“What do you mean?”
“We retrieved the recorders from the Ember,” Jon said. “We watched them on ou
r way here, and saw everything that happened.”
“Tell me, please.”
Talus nodded, and decided to begin just before Salene and Jinjie entered their pod. “About twenty seconds after the pilot told Captain Jake you had one minute and thirty seconds before collision, the space station fired a missile at the Ember in what appears to have been an attempt to destroy it before impact. The missile struck a meteoroid that passed in front of the Ember’s nose at just the right moment. The explosion slowed the Ember down just a fraction, and sent Captain Jake flying across the launch bay and into the wall, breaking his hip and shoulder. He managed to crawl back and launch your pod before he passed out.
“A few seconds later the crew reached the launch bay and found Captain Jake unconscious on the floor. They tossed him into a pod, launched it, then self-launched themselves. Since they had to self-launch, they were conscious long enough to witness the Ember crashing through the center of the space station before their pods automatically put them into hyper-sleep. The collision ripped the yacht’s hull open from one end to the other less than three seconds after the last pod got clear.
“Life pods take precisely nine seconds to cycle through start up, but the crew had less than three seconds to spare. If you hadn’t prepped those pods, Salene, they’d all be dead now.”
“I’m so glad that they all survived,” Salene said, her hands trembling with the intensity of her feelings. “Thank you for finding them.”
“We didn’t do anything but pick up their pod signals,” Talus said. “We’d hoped to find you with them, but there were only six signals, and we never did pick up a seventh. We feared you dead.”
Salene heard the tension in his voice and automatically tried to ease it. “As you can see, I’m perfectly fine. Captain Jake had me and Jinjie in the launch bay at the first sign of trouble. After we crashed on this planet I discovered that the comm panel on the life pod had been damaged, though I don’t know how or when. How did you find me, anyway?”
“The tracking dot we put in your shoulder,” Talus replied.
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