Broken Vision

by J. A. Clarke

  Morgon, himself, had no concerns about an audience. "Too cautious and slow to respond, perhaps," he said. "But not unaware."

  "Blood of Cor!" Sharm halted his pacing. "You're saying the Council knows and has done nothing." His agitation was rising in direct opposition to Morgon's extraordinary calm.

  "A few, very few, key members know. The Vision had to be preserved and given a chance."

  An uncomfortable awareness prickled across Alerik's nape. Who was this man? His uncle by marriage. Founder of Janas Corporation. A commander in the Second Fleet whose Coalition credentials held up to the toughest scrutiny. Rebel architect of a network which regularly kidnapped children. A man who had committed treason and allowed--no, encouraged--his niece to do the same?

  But had he?

  What should have been certain suddenly wasn't.

  Morgon implied knowledge he shouldn't have. What was his access to the Council?

  "If this is true, who did they think would stop the priests?"

  "There are Taragon clans whose elders are committed to the Vision. We were counting on them. We didn't understand until recently that the loyalties of some were compromised by the fate of their children. The hope was that a nation could devise its own solution."

  Morgon had used "we". He was becoming less careful in his speech. Deliberately so? Alerik didn't think Morgon Trion made many mistakes.

  "If it's true, and I'm not saying I'm convinced, their failure and our lack of action has brought the galaxy back to the brink of war." Sharm swung around and strode off across the control room. He acknowledged no one. At the end of the room past the consoles, he began to pace in a small tight circle, his head bowed, hands locked behind his back.

  Tempted to do the same, Alerik forced himself to stand with Morgon. Sharm was fighting a savage internal battle. The post-Conflict beliefs on which they'd been raised were being put to severe test. The Coalition Council had seemingly failed a key challenge and, worse, turned a blind eye.

  The Vision was crumbling.

  Bound to duty and, by nature, loyal to his core, Sharm would resist acknowledging these apparent failures with everything in him. Part of Alerik desperately wanted to stand guard over the same beliefs, reluctant to relinquish the convictions of a lifetime and the future his parents had worked so hard to help build for a galaxy.

  But a part of him was increasingly persuaded. When had he crossed over from skepticism to this budding acceptance? When had the first doubt even set in?

  Maegan, of course, had shaken those beliefs ever since he had arrived on Grogon. But if he were truthful with himself, the doubts had surfaced long before his assignment as governor. And been firmly repressed. His training, position, and charted future demanded it.

  "He's a good man," Morgon said. "With understanding, he'll accept the right choice."

  "There is no choice. I cannot leave Maegan at their mercy. I see only one option."

  Morgon nodded, an almost imperceptible movement. He stood two steps closer to Alerik.

  Alerik hadn't been aware of him moving.

  "Commander Foster is right. Their demand is unacceptable and, without question, will set us on a path to war. The children have become irrelevant to them and perhaps always have been. It's possible they sought something else when they came here. What do you know of the Taragon priests?"

  Suddenly impatient, Alerik shook his head and turned away. "Very little. Does anyone really have knowledge of them? Their origins are obscure. What is known is that they controlled the Taragon armies during the Great Conflict."

  A stray memory suddenly blotted out other thought. Priests had taken his mother once, a long time ago. Before he was even born. They had almost destroyed her. But they hadn't been Taragon. They had been from a rogue clan of Soron.

  A chill chased down his spine. Why had that memory surfaced now? There was no connection. Soron and Taragon had been enemies in the Great Conflict. Taragon had stood alone. They had had no alliances.

  He forced the memory aside, and stared through the plexiwall at the Taragon vessel, trying to convince himself that Maegan was faring well enough, because he couldn't bear to imagine anything else.

  "She's right." He felt as if an enormous weight bore down on him, crushed the breath out of him, and shattered the beliefs of a lifetime. "Maegan's right and you're right. They don't want to be integrated, do they?"

  "Not the priests, no. I believe they have psychic abilities, Alerik, beyond anything we recognize. They're symbiotic. Their power feeds on power. And that is why Commander Foster is right. Give them an heir to the Mariltar nation, and war not only is inevitable, but I fear the impact on their abilities."

  It was an outrageous theory and one that Alerik couldn't force his mind around. "I want her out of there now," he snapped. "I don't care how it's done, as long as it's done with no harm to her."

  "Then negotiate. They're not ready for war. Their armies aren't ready. Let's see if they'll settle for something less than a Mariltar heir."

  * * * *

  It felt like someone had taken a jaghammer to her skull. Maegan cracked open her eyes, but even the dim light in the room was too much to take and she closed them again before she could make out where she was.

  Someone murmured, "Sleep". She felt a pinch beneath her ear and then, blessedly, the pain began to recede.

  She awoke gasping for breath. Her heart pounded. Some part of her consciousness screamed at her to run, but couldn't tell her why; shrieked at her to escape, but couldn't identify from what.

  She jerked upright. A shard of pain pierced her skull, but it wasn't nearly as bad as before. The room was pitch dark. She threw off the light cover that was tangled around her legs. She was naked.

  Something moved beside her. Panicked, she rolled, desperate to get away. A hand clamped down on her thigh.

  "Maegan."

  She knew that voice. It penetrated through fear and desperation and made her pause, although every instinct still clamored for her to run.

  "I can't see," she whispered.

  "The light hurt your head. One moment." A hoarseness roughened the familiarity of the voice. The hand on her thigh was warm and heavy and somehow soothing.

  The thudding of her heart calmed. The rushing in her ears diminished. A low glow appeared and gradually brightened.

  "That's enough for now. How's the pain?"

  She turned her head. "Alerik?"

  He sat behind her, just visible in the low light, large, solid, a haven from fears she couldn't quite grasp or understand. She flung herself at him.

  His strong arms closed around her and she pressed her face into the crease of his neck. His scent, the scent that was uniquely him, tiug leaf and a light musk, enveloped her.

  "Shh, my love, it's all right. I have you. You're safe," he whispered in her ear. His hand stroked her back and he pulled her more tightly against him.

  She realized she was sobbing, great gasping sounds, but shedding no tears. Her body shook uncontrollably. His hand continued to stroke and he murmured nonsense in her ear.

  "Where am I?" she choked out. "What happened to me?"

  "We're on Pallas Five. You're safe in our habitat."

  "Alerik." She pushed away from him slightly, and it seemed to take all her strength, but she wanted to see his face. "What happened to me?"

  His eyes gleamed in the low light. He brought a hand up to lightly stroke her cheek. "Do you remember the Taragon priests?"

  "They came for the children," she whispered, and the terrible panic beset her again, rushing in like a bellian wind from nowhere. Pain stabbed through her head again. "Where are they? Are they safe?"

  "The children are safe," he said. "The priests don't have--"

  "Why...why am I like this?" she asked. She held up her hand and tried in vain to hold it still against the tremors that shook it. "I've never, never felt such a terrible...fear before."

  Alerik growled deep in his throat. He covered her hand with his and gathered her back agains
t his chest. "The priests took you for a very short time, love. But you're safe now. I have you."

  "What did they do to me?"

  "They used a form of psych control. They--"

  "Mind control? Why? What did they make me do?"

  "We don't know. Perhaps nothing. They didn't have you for very long before we negotiated your release."

  Maegan closed her eyes and tried to relax against Alerik's warm body, tried to absorb his strength and calm. But an urgent, throbbing sensation shouted something was wrong, horribly wrong.

  And even more disturbing was the great gap in her memory. She remembered nothing of which he spoke, yet she knew something was missing. Her last memory was of her habitat on Pallas Four and Makiee's concerned face as he watched her...do what? What had she been trying to do?

  Alerik's hand stroked through her hair and massaged her nape, bringing a too brief spurt of pleasure.

  "How's the pain?"

  She sighed and rubbed her cheek against the soft hair of his chest. "It comes and goes. It's not constant."

  "The medtech said it might take a few days before it's completely gone." His hand tightened on her nape briefly. "Something that would please me greatly is that you try to stay out of clinics for a while."

  "I don't do it on purpose," she protested.

  "That's a matter of debate."

  He shifted his body underneath her, and she realized with a tiny thrill that he was as bare as she.

  "Let me rephrase that. Try to avoid doing the things that keep putting you under a medtech's care. How about that?"

  "Sounds like a very boring life." A huge yawn took her by surprise. Her tremors had subsided. The urgent, hammering fear had calmed but, although the sharpest edges had been blunted, a sense of dread still lurked. A sudden exhaustion swept like a wave through her body.

  "Got to sleep," she murmured.

  "And here I was hoping for a round of hot, uninhibited sex."

  Another thrill shot through her, but her body was without energy, drifting rapidly toward oblivion.

  "Later."

  * * * *

  When she awoke again, natural light filtered through the partially open screens at the plexiwall. She recognized instantly that she was in the governor's habitat on Pallas Five.

  She was alone.

  She sat up with slow care, the memory of the awful stabbing pain all too clear. Her body felt rested. The pain was absent, but from the recesses of her mind crowded the sense of something not right, a simmering fear, an indefinable threat.

  It sent a shudder through her body. She pushed herself off the sleeping platform and hurried into the bathing chamber. Only when she was in there did she pause. What did she have to do today? Alerik was no doubt off performing his governorly duties. It was equally likely she was confined in the habitat.

  A wave of paralyzing terror left her gasping for breath, reeling and leaning against the wall for support. The fear was all-consuming. It invaded every pore of her body and raised the tiny hairs on her skin. It screamed for her to run to the safe room and barricade herself in.

  Gritting her teeth, she pushed away from the wall and marched into the cleansing unit instead. She would not be afraid of something she couldn't even remember. Fear would not defeat her! She slapped at the control panel without checking and was hit by an ice-cold deluge.

  Her shriek was answered by a deep chuckle. Alerik's hard body pressed behind her and prevented her escape, but his hand made quick adjustments to the controls to replace the icy stream with a soothing flow. He curved his arm around her waist and drew her back against his nude body. Fear was vanquished in an instant by a rush of pure, heated lust.

  But she wasn't ready to give in that easily. She stiffened her body. "What kind of masochist," she stuttered, "uses ice water to bathe?"

  He nuzzled her ear and slid his hand up her torso to curve it around her breast. Her knees struggled to maintain their stiffness.

  "The kind," he murmured, as he tweaked her nipple gently, "who had to wait hours for you to wake up."

  Her head tilted back against his shoulder of its own accord. She couldn't force it away. "I thought you were off doing governor stuff."

  "Governor stuff? Governors don't do stuff." His fingers were working the hard nub of her nipple and sending streaks of fire throughout her body. He slid his other hand down to the vee of her thighs. "We make important life-altering decisions. We direct our universe. We arbitrate our neighbors' squabbles. People look up to us." He slid his finger into her.

  Her legs buckled and she collapsed into him. "I didn't realize you were that important," she gasped.

  He bit the side of her neck. The small pain speared straight to her groin. "That's been your problem all along," he complained. "You don't look up to me."

  "That's not true." She tilted her head and slitted her eyes open. Warm water caressed her face in a gentle shower. "I'm looking up--oh!"

  A second finger had joined the first. Her entire body shuddered. It would be so easy to give in, to go along with whatever he wanted to do, but a tiny voice of sanity kept banging around inside her head. Part of her wanted to slap it away, but the part of her that made the logical decisions was more persistent.

  He could have read her mind, or perhaps her body language changed because his fingers withdrew from her body, although his other arm stayed locked around her rib cage. He reached for the control panel. A bench slid out from the wall.

  "Sit," he urged. "Let me take care of you."

  Logic and sanity vanished. She couldn't fight this. She sat, lifted, opened, bent, turned at his soft commands. Her inhibitions seemed to have vanished. Her body did what he requested without hesitation. Her skin absorbed the pure pleasure of his touch and demanded more.

  And he gave it. He seemed to know exactly where she wanted his touch, when she needed it. As his strong fingers massaged gel into her scalp, she closed her eyes against the exquisite sensation.

  Firm lips feathered across hers, and sent spikes of ecstasy racing through her body. She moaned deep in her throat. He cradled her head with one hand while, with the other, he urged her to her feet and turned them both into the full spray of water. The scent of sweet plumani swirled around them in the steam-laden warmth as the gel washed away. Her knees had no strength.

  He demanded entrance to her mouth. She opened and shivered as his tongue slid along hers and then back along the sensitive roof. She could feel the rigid length of his penis against her belly. Suddenly desperate to have him inside of her, she clung to his arms and pushed and rubbed herself against his water-slickened hardness.

  He growled, a long, low, primitive sound and clamped a hand on her bottom, not to stop, but to help her. The added friction was exciting and she spread her legs to gain even more contact. It wasn't enough, not nearly enough. She flung her arms around his neck to pull herself higher against him and lifted a leg to hook it around his hip. Without hesitation, his hands, both of them now on her bottom, helped to support her.

  The tender, sensitive flesh between her legs reacted with a burning jolt of pleasure. She whimpered into his mouth and dug her nails into his shoulders, as she squirmed and sought even more. But she couldn't leverage herself high enough against his body to achieve her ultimate goal and he wasn't giving her the boost she needed.

  As her desperation began to turn to frustration, he took control again and she found herself, both feet on the floor, turned to face the wall.

  "Bend," he commanded, his voice hoarse, and his hand on her nape urged her over. She placed both her hands flat on the bench to brace herself. He grasped her hip with one hand and slid the other between her legs, over the sensitive flesh. He rubbed the small bundle of nerves, which almost made her collapse, then pressed a finger into her vagina, before pulling out and trailing it up along her crease to rub it over the equally sensitive ring of anal flesh.

  Everything in her stilled and, for an instant, she was poised on an edge of uncertainty, not sure of his intent, n
ot sure if she wanted to walk down an untried path. But again, he must have read something in her body language, because the pressure on that sensitive place vanished, and he bent over her and slid an arm around her to cup her breast and thumb her nipple. His knee urged her legs further apart and she felt his penis slide against her.

  "Some things," he murmured in her ear, "are to be taken slowly, but should be tried at least once."

  The dark promise in his voice sent a deep shudder through her body, and then she shuddered again in anticipation as she felt him reach to adjust himself at her entrance. The thick head of him stretched her opening. His hands held her hips steady when she would have squirmed against him in impatient demand.

  Then he hammered forward and seated himself in one hard thrust. She cried out at the searing explosion of sensation. He cradled her upper body and uttered nonsense in her ear as her body adjusted to his invasion. Discomfort faded and she began to squirm again, hampered by her position and his hold.

  "Impatient," he growled. He pushed aside the wet weight of her hair and licked her nape, and she couldn't believe how sensitive it was. If he hadn't had a firm grip on her torso, she might have collapsed over the bench. He began to move in short little thrusts, each one not enough, but every one sending exquisite prickles racing through her body. Then he reared back and plunged. His hips slammed against her bottom again and again, and her restrained whimpers became cries that she couldn't control.

  And nothing mattered, nothing but what he did to her and made her feel, nothing but this building, expanding wave of all-consuming ecstasy that tore through her and pushed her over the edge.

  As her body succumbed to pleasure, and the orgasm rolled through her, Alerik's hands clamped more tightly around her hips. He pistoned into her. Guttural groans joined her own dying cries. His hips slowed and then stopped and he bent over once more, panting heavily. But when he touched his lips to her nape, her body still reacted with a shiver and she mewled. He pulled from her body and guided her gently upright. Turning her to him, he drew her into his arms.

  She knew she was safe. And she knew there was no place else she wanted to be.