“I’m going to the stars.” She rubbed Harold’s beak with a finger. “We are going to the stars.” It was a vague breathy voice she barely recognized as her own. Another tree slid out of the sky and flipped like a ballerina in the powerful claws of the six handlers.
SJ nodded. Knowing that a joke hadn’t been spoken, but rather a truth. She always knew.
“Are you coming with us?”
Robbie now knew her well enough to recognize the tilt of her head that slid hair over half her face.
“No, SJ. Don’t think about it. You must come.”
The hair hid her face almost entirely. Without her sparkling blue eyes shining out at the world, it was as if she wasn’t there at all.
“I haven’t thought about it really. It isn’t my place.”
“Not your place?!” Harold squawked at her shout almost loudly enough to pierce her eardrum. He grabbed her hair with his beak to stabilize himself as Robbie slid off the rock and grabbed SJ’s shoulders, brushing handfuls of the silky hair aside.
“You built the damn thing! Not me. Not Harold. Not Jaron, as much as he’d like to take credit for it. Not even that Mr. Davidson of yours. You did it.”
SJ slowly raised her face to look at Robbie. Those blue eyes glittered in the bright jungle light. The first shadows of the trees flickered across her face on the machine-generated breezes.
“I guess I did. But there’s so much left to do on Earth. I’m trapped, Robbie. I can’t stop now. Look at what people are doing for…” Her words faltered.
“For you.” Robbie insisted in her sternest tone.
“For me.” The smile came back despite the continued stream of tears down the woman’s delicate face. “How can I justify turning from them simply because I wish for the stars?”
Robbie pulled her into a hug. If SJ didn’t come, she would be losing a friend. But that was not what tore at her as the woman wrapped her arms around her waist and wept upon her breast, as Jaron had that one night in the trees so long ago.
If she didn’t come, SJ would be leaving herself behind.
Maybe she didn’t have a choice, but that didn’t make it right.
Harold launched himself upward as another tree plunged down from the sky. He had learned quickly not to fly into the ceiling. He soared round and round the mighty trees, ducking in and out of the branches just as she’d seen him do a hundred times in the real jungle. She thought of calling Jaron to look, but he was so stressed that he’d probably fall out the open hatch trying to see. Jaron just had no sense.
If only SJ could fly free.
If only they could both learn a little from the bird.
Chapter 12
Suz wrapped a leg across Davidson’s hips and rested her head on his shoulder. He brushed a hand gently through her hair. She rolled her head in and breathed in his smell.
It wasn’t sexy, well it was, but not the way she’d always thought of it. He was like the stars viewed from a warm, cozy fire crackling on a cool summer night. Funny, because here they were inside a spacecraft destined for the stars, using a few stolen hours in a transient suite. She inhaled again and snuggled down against him until their bodies were no longer separated by such artificial lines as skin or self. They flowed together without moving.
His chest hair soothed her fingers as she idly traced little rings in it only to have it fluff back into place.
“Hey, that tickles.”
She continued her tracery. He wasn’t tall, handsome, broad-shouldered, smooth-chested. He was all the things that her previous lovers weren’t. Gentle but playful, sweet yet eager, and totally focused on her rather than on himself. She had done her best to return the gift and his utterly limp body was her reward. Slipping a hand over her own leg, she cupped him in her hand. Utterly.
A soft moan whispered in her ear as she held him. He leaned his cheek on the top of her head.
They were content. She’d never known that was a part of sex, Richard Davidson had taught her that.
By the evenness of his breathing, she knew he was falling asleep. Funny how different men and women were. He had passed far more than a bit of fluid to her. He was exhausted and she was wide awake. He’d sent a blast of male energy which echoed and rattled about her body in a most satisfying fashion that had nothing to do with sleep. Perhaps she should massage him back to life, his maleness so solid and powerful inside her was now the very softest part of his body.
But the man needed his rest. She’d best simply settle her nerves and be content to hold him.
A high whistle cut through the air. The emergency signal sliced through the room and brought them both upright in bed. The viser on the wall flickered to life and projected its message in the air before them: All Systems Announcement. That meant every viser on the planet, day or night, turned off or not, had just blasted out its call. She’d experienced less than a half dozen of these in her years.
With a flash, her father was staring out at them from the viser. She scrabbled for the sheets and pulled them over their bare bodies. A hot flush of embarrassment roared into her cheeks. She knew intellectually that he couldn’t see her. Her nudity. The man in her bed. But still, the desire to hide rippled through her as alternating waves of hot revulsion and cold fear.
She was scrabbling for her clothes when Davidson wrapped his arms about her and held her still until her rational mind caught up. Her father was speaking, had been speaking. And once she calmed enough, her mind caught up with what her ears had been hearing.
“Citizens of humanity. There is momentous news in which I hope we will all share equal joy. The Wanderer, the asteroid which we have all followed with bated breath these last two years, has been unanimously confirmed by the best scientists on Earth to have given us safe passage. This time.
“Some of you may know of our rush to build an ark, not unlike Noah’s, to take humanity to the stars so that our survival can never again be threatened by such an event.”
The image of his face was replaced by a glittering close-up of Stellar One. Some irrational part of Suz’s mind was waiting for him to zoom right in, through the wall, and show his daughter in bed with the mission controller. Again she cowered and strove to hide; again Davidson’s strong arms prevented her despite her struggles.
“He’s not here. He probably doesn’t know we are either.”
He was right. The man didn’t care enough about her to humiliate her, but he did nonetheless. Davidson just didn’t understand. He hadn’t survived that consciously cruel house. The announcement continued.
“While we no longer need an ark, no longer need a Noah to guide us, it is time that humankind reached for the stars. This great craft is but the first of many that shall carry our people to the sky. Selection of the crew is about to begin. In six months the most elite team of colonists ever collected, the very finest that humanity has to offer, will be our first settlers upon other worlds.
“This flight is open to all with the necessary specialties. You must submit your applications in person through the Settle-the-Stars offices that will be opening in the following weeks.
“I wish us all the greatest success. I am proud to be the first voice of such a people. Good evening.”
The viser blinked out.
Davidson turned to her. “But I thought you already had most of the colonists?”
Suz couldn’t speak. Couldn’t answer. Her father, the Old Bastard, had just declared Stellar One to be his own personal ark for the expansion of Homo superior to the stars. He was going to hand-pick every person. There would be no over-sized Robbie Enlara, no neurotic parrot-man, no diminutive daughters or even Richard Davidsons. They would all be in his image. Strapping, healthy, young people with perfect education and perfect credentials to match, whether or not the skills were backed with experience. Worse, whether or not the skills were backed by heart.
Or had he perfected
the cloning that had produced Brycie. Was he sending himself to the stars in ten thousand images?
No, she’d have heard that. Her network would not have missed something so large. Brycie’s defection from the shadow of his parent had been enough to sour Bryce Sr. on cloning, at least for now. He didn’t want followers with such independence. If he couldn’t clone them, he’d selectively breed them.
But how to stop the World Premier’s whim? How did she stop the most powerful man in the world from ruining the future?
Even just this once?
# # #
Suz slammed awake and banged her shoulder against the bulkhead. She shook her head trying to open her eyes, but the darkness did not ease. She flailed about but only struck walls. Curved walls. Bulkheads. Either side within arm’s reach. Kidnapped. Trapped in a flitter.
No. She’d chosen to stow away in the rear storage compartment of the flitter. She groped about and managed to find the release for the hatch. It swung open and admitted her to the main cabin. At the far end of the aisle, Ri was exactly where she should be, hunched over the controls. The vehicle wasn’t moving, but Suz hung on anyway, in case there was another jarring shift.
A glance out a window revealed nothing but darkness. And a string of quiet curses revealed they must be lost somewhere over Nara. She allowed a yawn to have a voice of its own to announce her presence.
Midway through, her mouth stretched wide, the cabin lights flashed on, blinding her for a moment. While she blinked against the brightness, she had a stroboscopic view of Ri shifting about. Pilot’s chair turning. Arm reaching back. Flashing forward. A widening of eyes. A twitch in the arcing arm. A knife not there in one moment, a hand’s-breadth from Suz’s ear in the next. A bright ringing tone as it pounded against the hatch she’d just closed.
“Angel-lady?”
Suz remained in mid-stretch, frozen and wholly unable to turn and see how close she had just come to death. She was awake now. Wide awake.
Ri hit station-holding on the command console and moved down the aisle toward her. It was a gait she’d seen far too often in the mirror, head low, sidling a little sideways down the aisle.
“The finest fighter Levan has ever trained, should be cowed by no one, man or woman.”
“Yes, Angel-lady.”
Suz sighed, only now registering the whistle of the blade that had cut the air so close to her ear; a small scream that would be in her dreams for a long time to come. That and the blink-image of a blade so close she could smell the steel. She had tried to break Ri of using “Angel-lady,” but it had worked no better than her efforts to break Robbie of “SJ”.
“Are you okay?”
Suz nodded, though she wasn’t sure. It was the closest she’d ever been to death. Is that how it happened for all of her father’s victims? One instant you’re alive, the next you see your death, and then, oops, too late? No time to relive your life? No eye-blink of time in which to beg for mercy? There and then gone? Alive then dead?
She nodded again, more for Ri’s sake than hers.
“What are you doing here?” The girl’s rare anger flashed alive in her narrow eyes.
Suz stumbled back before the force of it until she leaned once more against the hatch and the shining blade quivered by her ear.
“I came to help,” was all she managed to croak forth.
Ri stalked past her and retrieved her blade and for an instant, Suz thought Ri just might use it on her, but instead, it disappeared somewhere in a deft twist she wasn’t able to follow, perhaps up the sleeve of her dark jacket. Ri remained staring at the scar she’d made in the wall for a long moment before speaking.
“It has taken me two years to find a craft that could return to Nara, and then to steal it. You have no idea how hard it was to steal the codes to Levan’s personal flitter. I will never have such a chance again. And now you’ve ruined it. Ruined it!” Ri faced her from so close that Suz could distinguish the black pupils from the charcoal irises for the first time.
If Suz had thought there was anger before, she was mistaken. There was no longer any trace of submissiveness in the stance of this lethal fighter. Levan had trained some of the most elite warriors in the WEC, the very best on the planet had gotten better under his tutelage. And this was the one that even Levan would no longer spar with. “Too fast,” he’d told her. “Too lethal.”
Should she fear this woman? Even if she shouldn’t, she did. This was not the quiet, ever serious student she’d come to respect and then adore as her second child. Now, her death stood before her in the anger of a woman she’d saved from the horrors of starvation and violence in Japan.
Saved or kidnapped, that was an issue they’d never resolved between them, though at this moment she finally understood Ri’s insistence on the latter. Suz had taken away her home. Removed her from her family. And it was a family like none Suz had ever known. One where they could always, always rely on one another. Always treated each other with respect.
She herself had respect, but none of it was for abilities or achievements. They all danced about her as if she were a fragile little thing. Levan treated her like a porcelain doll to be obeyed and protected against the world. Bryce Sr. chose to ignore her, despite her work on the starship.
Robbie could still barely speak in her presence despite the closeness they’d had. Even Davidson had some kind of awe-thing going on, though he managed not to bring it to bed with him. Bryce Jr. still called her Suzie, like some little milquetoast, good-for-nothing girlie-girl. And ‘Angel-lady?’ She’d had enough of this shit.
“I’ve ruined it?” She moved toe-to-toe with the girl and leaned in until their noses were almost touching. “Am I too important? More precious than your Tinnai? Than your cadre?”
“Yes!… No… I…”
“No!” Suz shouted. It felt oddly liberating to raise her voice. “I’m sick to death of this. I’ve trained damn hard too. I’ve worked out with Levan’s troops whenever I had time. I can do this, Ri. I’m not a hindrance. I’m here to help. Now use me like a person, damn it.” This was good stuff. She should be writing this down.
Ri rocked back on her heels at the blast, but the narrow eyes studied her carefully.
“Look at yourself. I am going into the city of the night and you are dressed for tea.”
Suz glanced down. She was still wearing the white slacks and blazer from the trip to save Stellar One’s jungle. She’d barely had time to duck aboard the shuttle before Ri was on her way.
She pulled at the blazer, tearing loose the buttons and tossed it over a chair. In moments, the sun-yellow silk blouse covered it like a shroud and the pants crumpled on top, legs dangling over into the aisle with the bonelessness of the freshly deceased. With a wrench, she jerked her gym duffle from beneath the seat where she’d stowed it and began fishing out the black clothes Levan insisted she wear during training.
“Angel-lady.” Ri’s voice was little more than a gasp.
“What now?” But there wasn’t another accusation waiting in the girl’s eyes. Instead Ri’s eyes were as wide as she’d ever seen them. And they were not looking at her face. The girl’s gaze was directed at Suz’s lacy black silk panties and camisole.
They riveted her attention.
Suz felt the heat on her own cheeks. Here she was claiming to be ready for a fight in Levan’s flitter hovering over Nara, Japan, and she was dressed for the bedroom. Which Davidson had distinctly appreciated only the night before.
“In a strange, roundabout way, it was my son’s idea.” Bryce had set her free in many ways on that day four years ago. Of course, as Robbie had pointed out, she’d set a number of traps for herself since then.
“You have a son? You don’t have a son.” Ri looked about the floor as if a toddler would appear any second and add to her woes.
“You didn’t know? I suppose not. I never mention him in that house.
It isn’t healthy for either of us. Yes, I have a son. A grown son. Three, maybe four years older than you are. Grown and gone.”
Suz pulled on the leggings and top to have an excuse to look away. She hadn’t seen Brycie since Indonesia and it left a vast hollow in her heart. But tracking him down might well alert her father’s watchdogs. She tucked her hair up into a woolen cap that rolled down onto her forehead. Black running shoes with good tread completed the outfit.
She could feel the tougher, woman-about-the-world slide over her with the clothes. She was ready for another of Levan’s brutal training sessions. She was ready to help Ri extract her family. They’d deal with twenty uneducated Japanese and their impact upon world society once they were out of this place.
“Let’s go.”
Ri still hesitated.
“Or do I have to fly this myself.”
Ri twitched like she’d just been slapped awake from a dream. She flung her arms around Suz and knocked the breath out of her body.
“I love you, Angel-lady.”
She held the girl tightly. Funny to have two adoptive daughters who were so different. Earth-mother Robbie with her bountiful body and even larger heart. And this diminutive warrior, just her own height, who had never carried an ounce of flesh that wasn’t muscle, had never smiled, never taken anyone to her bed that Suz had known of, and who rarely spoke more than three words at a time.
With a final squeeze, no less powerful than one of Robbie’s bear hugs, the woman broke free and ran the few steps to the forward part of the cabin. Once again her head was down to hide the flush of embarrassment that colored her dark cheeks even further. Suz followed and slid into the co-pilot’s seat, carefully looking forward into the darkness to give the girl time to recover. But there was nothing to see. Nothing but a vast darkness.
“Why did you come at night? Wouldn’t the day have been easier? You had to steal the flitter in broad daylight.” She smiled at the audacity of stealing Levan’s personal transport. That should tweak her commander’s nose rather nicely. Even now he was probably raging through the imperial household trying to find out who had taken it and where his personal charge, the Premier’s daughter, had gotten to.
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