by S. L. Viehl
The nurse showed up with fresh garments, none of which I recognized. “Do you need assistance, Healer?”
“No, thanks.” I shook out the tunic and trousers, both of which were in a shade of ivory that I never wore. The material smelled of unfamiliar organics: transfer from a musky plant or herb. Maybe it was some sort of perfume the slave girl had worn to make herself smell nice.
Had she done it for Reever? What else had she done for him? Was that how she had stolen him from me? With some weird alien sex?
A complicated, strapped contraption fell to the floor, and I picked it up. It didn’t belong to me. “What’s this?”
“It was left folded atop your undergarments,” the nurse said. “I assumed it belonged to you.”
“Why would I need all these straps?” It must have been Jarn’s, but what kind of woman-hating culture had she come from, to have to bind herself up in something like this?
At second glance it didn’t appear to be a body rig; it was more like a harness to be strapped across the shoulders and chest. Odd pockets and flaps had been sewn in the straps, and when I opened one, I discovered it was a sheath for a small, smooth-hilted blade.
I took out the dagger and examined it. “This looks like a weapon.” I checked the other pockets, which held a variety of other knives—twenty in all. “Jesus Christ. What is this thing?”
The nurse smiled uneasily. “I would say it is a blade harness, Healer.”
“I’m a physician,” I pointed out. “We don’t use weapons. We clean up the mess they make.”
“The harness belonged to Jarn,” Reever said as he came into the room. He turned to the nurse. “Would you excuse us, please?”
“As you wish, Linguist. Healer.” The nurse practically ran out of the room.
“Hello, Duncan.” I took out one of the slave girl’s longer daggers and held it up to the light. “Omorrforged, perfectly balanced.” I didn’t have to test the edge, which bore marks indicating it had been honed down to a lethal sharpness that would cut like a lascalpel. “This looks like one of yours.”
“I gave it to Jarn when peace was declared.” He seemed more interested in me now than he had in the environome. “She attended the injured and dying on battlefields. She was trained to carry weapons to defend herself.”
“Considering what a lethal threat injured, dying rebels can be, that’s completely understandable.” I sheathed the dagger and dropped the contraption like the trash it was. “What do you want? Your knives back?” I kicked the harness across the deck to him. “There you go.”
He bent over to retrieve the harness and slung it over his shoulder. “I did not come here to provoke you.”
“Too late.” I showed him some teeth. “And I’m sorry to disappoint you, but Jarn’s still dead, and I’m not.” I turned my back on him. “You know your way out.”
He didn’t go. “We should talk.”
“Oh, now we should talk,” I said to the berth. “Not when I woke up out of a five-year walking coma. Not when I found out how long I’d been gone. Not when I went looking for my husband and he treated me like a Tingalean leper in active contagion- molt. Certainly not at any time over the past thirty-six hours that I spent alone in my new quarters waiting for him to drop by and reassure me that despite his behavior he was happy I’d come back. I can see how those would have been totally inappropriate moments to have a conversation.”
“I needed time to accept Jarn’s loss.” He moved a little closer. “But now I see that it was wrong of me to make you wait and suffer in solitude as I have. I apologize for my actions.”
Jarn’s loss. Not mine. Had he ever grieved like that for me? Why did he care now if I suffered or not?
Silently I counted to ten, thinking the entire time that it was a damn good thing he was holding that knife harness and not me.
“I am glad you have returned,” he continued. “I regret that we were not able to effect the reinstatement of your personality sooner than this. You must have a great many questions about the gaps in your memory.”
“Not really. While you were busy sobbing into your pillow and sulking, I broke into Xonea’s secured files and read up on everything that’s happened since we parted ways at Oenrall. Well, almost everything,” I amended as I remembered the scent from the garments I’d never worn. “There are still some minor details that I’m sketchy on. For example, did you have sex with the Akkabarran?”
“I do not think—”
“Don’t think, darling,” I said, very softly, so that he would understand just how angry I was. “Just answer the question.”
“Yes,” he said. “Jarn and I made love. She was as much my wife as you were.”
Were. I was still dead to him. Having that confirmed extinguished the last, tiny flicker of hope in my heart. All that remained for me to do was to make arrangements for an appropriate burial.
Here lies Cherijo’s true love, the grave marker would read. Stolen by an alien, slowly strangled, and left alone to rot in solitude. Also known as the definition of living hell.
A cold little voice in my head reminded me that I’d done this before, with Kao Torin. I survived that; I’d get over this. Maybe I’d visit Omorr and see if any of their single males were interested in an offworld mate. They wrote up legal contracts before they got into permanent relationships, and if they tried to leave a spouse for an alien entity, said spouse could have all their assets seized.
“Cherijo?” He sounded uneasy now.
“They’re having a party for me on Joren,” I said, stripping off the gown. “The usual overblown endless all-day, all-night revelry thing, I imagine. My nine-year-old daughter is there, and Squilyp says there are some Hsktskt waiting to see me, too. I’m sure I’m going to be very busy for the next several weeks.” I pulled the tunic over my head and tugged it into place. “So when we land, you should really go.”
“Go where?”
“Anywhere. Another province, planet, quadrant, galaxy, dimension, take your pick.” I turned on him. “It doesn’t matter, as long as it’s away from me.”
His eyes changed colors with his moods, and at that moment they were a bleak, dark gray. “You would have me leave you now?”
“You left me two years ago, Reever, when you and your little alien girlfriend decided to fall in love and use my body as a hotel.” I pulled on my trousers. “This will simply make it official.”
The new lines around his mouth tightened. “You forget that we have a daughter, Cherijo.”
“Oh, no, I haven’t forgotten anything,” I said. “Once I file for legal separation, our counselors can get together and work out an amicable split-parenting agreement.” I fastened the waistband before pulling down my tunic and adjusting the hem. “I believe the standard Terran arrangement for shared custody is three to four days per week and every other holiday on a rotational basis.”
His hands knotted into fists. “Acting on your anger with me will not resolve anything.”
“Acting on your infidelity will.” I gathered up my hair, twisting and folding it, and secured the coil to the back of my head with a clip. “Adultery is still lawful justification for dissolution of marriage on quite a few planets, including the one we’ll be orbiting in a half hour.” I pretended to think. “In fact, I’m pretty sure that the Jorenian bondmate who cheats on his Chosen is expected to commit ritual suicide in front of the entire HouseClan to restore honor to his ex. So is his illicit lover, but, oh, right.” I eyed him. “You don’t have to worry about that part.”
A muscle flicked in his jaw. “I was not unfaithful to you in the legal sense of the term.”
“You know, you find out the most fascinating tidbits when you illegally access confidential command files,” I advised him. “For example, did you know that Jarn resigned my position from the Jorenian Ruling Council? She cited her mental condition as making her unfit to serve. The council accepted her resignation, and referred to her as Jarn in all of the documentation, some of which was video, and all
of which I am sure they etched on crystal. That qualifies her as a unique being, recognized as independent and completely separate from me.” I turned on him. “So yes, sweetheart. Legally speaking, you were unfaithful to me.”
“I have told you the truth, and I have apologized for my behavior,” he said through his teeth. “What more do you want?”
Five years. “From you?” I uttered a chuckle. “Nothing, thanks.”
He grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. “Stop this foolishness. You are not leaving me, nor I you. We have a child. We have a life together.”
I wanted to punch him in the face. I wanted to scream. I wanted to drop on my knees and hug his legs and beg him to tell me that this was all some sort of horrible mistake. That there had never been a Jarn. That this was some sort of bizarre medical test or psychological assessment being done to determine only if I was the real Cherijo.
None of that happened. It never would. My anger dissipated abruptly, and the despair it left behind swelled. If I didn’t finish this, it was going to crush me from the inside out.
“Do you love me, Duncan? Or are you still in love with her? No.” As he tried to turn his head away, I caught his jaw. “Look me in the eyes and tell me.”
“Over time, I came to care for her. I cannot tell you when it happened, or why, only that it did. I never felt such a thing for another. It seemed as if she were truly the other half of my . . .” He stopped and cleared his throat. “It is of no consequence now. She is gone. You came first in my life. You are here again, and in time I believe that we can be together as we once were.”
“Sorry.” Because Reever understood so little about human emotion, he had convinced himself that we still had a shot at this. Somewhere under the flattening weight of my own heartbreak, I felt for him. “Not going to happen.”
“Why not?”
“When you lose someone you love, they take part of you with them. You’re never the same again. You never get it back.” I went to the door panel, stopped, and glanced back at him. “I understand how you feel much better than you think.”
“You speak of losing Kao Torin.” He nodded, still oblivious to what I was saying. “Yes. That is how it has been for me.”
“I’m not talking about Kao.” For a moment I let him see my sorrow. “I know how you feel about losing Jarn because I’ve lost you.”
I didn’t glance back as I left Medical and headed for launch bay.
Joren looked exactly as I remembered it: big, wide-open, beautiful, and dazzling with color. All the colors of the rainbow streamed across the sky in the form of prismatic cloud streaks; the immense fields of silver yiborra grass stretched out in every direction around HouseClan Torin’s Main Transport facility. The air smelled of flowers, which bloomed everywhere in countless varieties and shades.
While Main Transport was a busy place, with ships landing and launching all around us, even the sight of Jorenians in their flight gear made me feel a little better. These were my people, the only species to take me in and accept what I was and still care for me like one of their own. Joren and its HouseClans were the home and kin of my soul.
I didn’t realize there was going to be an official welcoming committee until Xonea and a detachment of guards in dress uniform surrounded me.
“Cherijo.” My ClanBrother frowned at the ordinary garments I was wearing. “Where are your robes?”
“I left them on the ship.” Along with Reever, who hadn’t tried to disembark with the rest of us. Maybe he was planning to go out the back way. I glanced over at the passenger reception and departure building, and the hundreds of dark blue faces looking out from the view panels. “Can’t I skip this and go see what the lizards want?”
“Not after so long an absence,” he said in a firm voice, and put one big hand against my back. “Nor will you avoid the celebrations planned to honor your return.”
“No, of course we can’t miss all the eating and laughing and touching,” I said, feeling glum.
“One might claim to be weary and in need of rest after so long a journey,” Xonea suggested.
“I didn’t go anywhere.” I gave him a suspicious look. “Why are you being so helpful? You always liked parties. You certainly dragged me to enough of them.”
“I have not felt in the celebratory mood for some time,” was all he would say.
Something had changed about Xonea, although I couldn’t quite decide what it was. He’d been all sunshine and happiness around me, but even that was different than it had been. Before I’d gotten booted out of my own body, Xonea had been like a brother to me. Now he was acting more like my parent: seeing to my rooms, holding my arm, ushering me around as if I couldn’t be trusted alone.
“Did Jarn do something to upset or offend you?” I asked him. He didn’t reply, so I stopped. “You might as well tell me.”
“She did nothing to me.”
“Nothing being like trying to take your command away from you?” I offered him a guileless look. “Oops. Someone must have let that slip.”
“Indeed.” He glowered down at me. “Now is not the time to discuss my interactions with the Akkabarran.”
It was interesting, how he avoided using her name. “You didn’t like her? I’m shocked. Everyone else did.”
“If I could have declared her my ClanKill without harming your form,” he assured me through his lovely, clenched white teeth, “she would never have stepped foot on my ship.”
Whoa, that wasn’t dislike; that was pure hatred. Another reason to love my adopted sibling. I slipped my hand into his and gave it a squeeze. “You’re right, we’ll talk about it later. Your pardon, Captain.”
He laced his fingers through mine. “No pardon is required, Lady.”
As we walked toward the building, I saw a small, ivory-skinned figure rush out toward us. She was blond and smiling and so grown-up I forgot to breathe.
“Jesus.” I dragged in some air and clutched Xonea’s hand so tight his knuckles popped. “Is that little girl my baby?”
He smiled. “That is our Marel.”
My daughter avoided the two Jorenians trotting after her and ran all the way to us, flinging herself into my arms. “Mama. You came back.”
I picked her up and held her tight, burying my face in her golden curls. “Sweetheart.” She still smelled the same. “God, you’re so big. Did you miss me?”
My daughter lifted her face and looked into my eyes, her little face scrunching into a frown. “Mama? Did Daddy teach you to speak our kind of Terran while you were gone?”
“No, but I remembered it,” I said carefully. “I remembered everything I forgot, baby. Including who I was.”
She squirmed until I put her down on her feet, and looked at Xonea. Her face was so solemn, I felt tears sting my eyes. “Did it hurt her?” Marel asked Xonea.
The captain knelt before her. “Your ClanMother is not injured, Marel.”
“No, I mean my other mama. My mama Jarn.” She made a little choking sound. “Did it hurt her when she embraced the stars?”
Xonea exchanged a look with me before he said, “No, little one. She went with joy.”
Marel swallowed and knuckled her eyes before she looked at me again, this time not so happy. “You are my birth mama. ClanMother Cherijo.”
“Yes, I am.” I wasn’t going to lie to her, although if Jarn had been there, I would have gutted her with my bare hands. “Do you remember me?”
“A little.” Marel sounded uncertain. “Will my real mama be coming back?”
I’m your real mother, I wanted to shriek, but I knew that wouldn’t do anything but hurt my daughter. “Jarn didn’t want to leave you, baby, but she had to go. She left so that you and I could be together again, the way we were before she came.”
“I don’t know you,” Marel said slowly. “You look like my mama, but you don’t feel like her. You sound different. You sound sad.”
“If you were gone for a long time, and everyone forgot about you, and then you came bac
k, would you feel sad?” She nodded. “That’s why I sound that way.”
“You could help me remember.” Cautiously she took my hand, as if I were a stranger she wasn’t sure she trusted entirely. “Then I think I would like you.”
I wanted to hug her and never let her go, but I settled for a bright smile. “That sounds like a very good idea.” And I’d also make sure she forgot all about the husband- and child-stealing slave girl who had done this to her.
Marel’s face lit up, but not for me. “Daddy,” she said, and ran past us into her father’s arms.
Reever picked her up and held her close, but watched me over her head. He opened his mouth as if to call to me, and then closed it. As he kept looking at me, his eyes darkened.
He expects you to go running over to him. That’s probably what she did every time he snapped his fingers.
I turned my back on him and said to Xonea, “Are the Hsktskt here at the pavilion?” I needed to focus on something more dangerous than my current emotional state. The lizards were the only thing that scared me more.
“No, they remain guests of the Adan in the capital,” he said. “You need not meet with them until after the celebration has concluded.”
“You people party for weeks,” I reminded him as I started for the passenger terminal. “And as I remember, the Faction isn’t that patient.”
“Much has changed since TssVar became Hanar,” Xonea said. “But that is a discussion for another hour. Come, my ClanParents await.”
It hurt to walk away from my daughter and meet the Torin welcoming mob, but I had no intention of putting up a pretense or encouraging my soon- to-be ex-husband. I could be civil to him for Marel’s sake, but that was all. It was typical of Reever not to realize how upsetting this situation was for me; he had only a rudimentary understanding of human emotion, and whatever he felt now was for Jarn, not me.
If he wants to hang around me while he pretends I’m her, I thought as I plastered a smile on my face for the Torins, I’ll declare him ClanKill myself.
My adopted family didn’t wait for me to enter the terminal, but came out in a flood of towering bodies and grinning dark faces. Dozens of hands danced around me as I was greeted and welcomed and passed through an almost-continuous gauntlet of affectionate voices speaking my name and blessings and prayers to the Mother. At the center of the crowd was Xonea’s father and the Torin ClanLeader, Xonal, who touched his brow to mine before enveloping me in his arms.