"There wouldn't have been anything wrong with them flying with me if we kept our clothes on."
"It's not done. Only the male mate flies with the female. It's our way."
That was it in a nutshell. Sheleigh couldn't understand because it was an Averan taboo, and she wasn't Averan.
Chapter Thirty
"Avatier, may I speak with you?" Captain Tinae's deep voice rumbled in Kleet's office. Captain Clanga's replacement was a solidly thick man with a single bushy eyebrow covering both eyes.
Kleet put down his stylus as the Captain entered. "Yes, what is it, Captain?"
"May I close the door? It's a private matter."
Kleet cocked an eyebrow. "Certainly." Tinae shut the door and came forward to Kleet's desk. "Please sit down." He gestured to the chairs in front of the desk.
"No, I'd prefer to stand." Tinae cleared his throat and adjusted his tunic. "It regards my lady."
Kleet stilled. "Yes?"
"Something odd is going on. Captain Steller reports that almost every day she send her guards away."
Kleet studied his finger nails. "She told me she's working on a special project."
"She keeps one guard with her. Always the same guard. His name is Bateleur. He's young and good-looking."
Kleet surged to his feet. "What are you suggesting, Captain? She's mated to me."
"Captain Steller reports that lately when they rejoin her both she and Bateleur are disheveled. He doesn't know how they get that way. Steller is concerned for your situation, concerned about disloyalty and worse."
Kleet ran a hand through his hair. Without his cape to hold them down, his wings mantled. There was very little worse than disloyalty to a mate. It wasn't done, couldn't be done in most cases. He sucked in breath that tangled in his throat and lungs. His and Sheleigh's relationship wasn't most cases. Even before he was crippled, their partnership defied Averan rules. Now Sheleigh wanted more than he could give ...
"Captain Tinae, you say this happens frequently?"
"Yes, Avatier, almost every day."
"Tell Captain Steller to contact me the next time it happens. Then be ready to go with me, no matter what time of day it is."
"Yes, Avatier." Tinae turned to leave.
"Captain?" Tinae turned back and raised an eyebrow. "Say nothing to anyone except Captain Steller about this."
"Yes, Avatier."
When Kleet was alone again, he stood for a moment searching his office. He moved to the shelves where pieces of Avera's history were displayed. He took down a small chunk of black granite, generations old and gaining a patina with age and handling. He weighed it in one hand, then rubbed his other hand over its smooth, cool surface. His father had held this chunk whenever he'd had to make a hard decision. Kleet pictured his father in his mind rubbing the granite just as he was doing now.
This chunk was from when Averans first blasted caves out of the mountainsides using their new alien technology. More Averans could obtain housing in a shorter period of time. And residences could be bigger. The Avatier of that time period had thought enough of the advancement to save a memento.
Kleet's fist clenched around it. If it were limestone, he would be able to feel the satisfying crunch in his hand. But granite was hard. Like my heart. Only it didn't feel hard at the moment. Sheleigh wouldn't betray him. Only the statement lacked conviction. How could he know what a woman who wanted more than he could give would do?
He was going to find out the truth soon enough.
* * * *
That night at dinner Sheleigh drooped like a wilted flower. There were lines of fatigue around her eyes and mouth. Why was she so tired?
"Sheleigh, what did you do today?" She started when he said her name.
"The envoy visited a farm cooperative, a mine and the transport manufacturing facility. We learned a lot about hiring practices and which industries employ more non-winged. Some of the employers come right out and ask if applicants are non-winged. That sort of discrimination is illegal in USP."
Always the comparison to USP, where Averans came out looking bad. And the more she saw of Averan civilization, the unhappier she became with it. Maybe it had been wrong to assign her as liaison. Someone else wouldn't be affected as deeply as she was.
His mother spoke up, looking no worse for her outing yesterday with the envoy. "Sheleigh, they don't know that what they're doing is wrong. We have to teach them."
Sheleigh laid her silverware beside her plate and looked at Lefair. "That's a massive undertaking, Lefair. Avera's population is smaller than many planets, but we're still talking about educating millions of people. It will take years for every Averan to understand what they're doing is wrong. It will probably take generations to effect a change in behavior, and even then some people will refuse to change."
"Averans will change. I talked to the envoy yesterday about Avera's future. Strangers will come here if the Avatier allows it. They'll want to trade with us and we have to know what products we have that can be trade goods."
Kleet's eyes narrowed. "Mother, is it not the Avatier's responsibility to discuss trade options? Did the envoy initiate this conversation?"
"Kleet," Sheleigh protested.
Lefair straightened in her seat. "I initiated it. As Avera's ambassador, I represent your wishes in talks with foreigners. I have a vested interest in this planet and seeing it advance."
"I'm sorry, Mother. I'm not used to thinking of you as a politician."
Lefair's face gentled. She picked up her fork. "We all face changes in the months and years ahead."
Kleet faced a change when he went to bed that night. For the second night in a row, Sheleigh was sound asleep. His body ached with unfulfilled needs. She was the one who'd insisted on continuing their physical relationship. Now even that was denied him.
He would find out the truth of what she was doing and make it stop. There were changes in his life he would not accept.
* * * *
Kleet feigned sleep when Sheleigh slid from his arms the next morning at 0500. When she slipped from the room he contacted Tinae.
"Yes, Avatier?"
"Come get me. Watch for whoever picks up Sheleigh."
"Yes, Avatier. I'll be there soon."
Kleet dressed hurriedly, and then strode down the hall to the stairs. He didn't choose the hydrolift because that would alert her to his presence. He stood in the shadow of the hydrolift alcove and glanced over the rooftop. Sheleigh stood in the pool of light from the landing pad.
Kleet's chest burned. There was only one activity he knew of that took place before dawn. His fist clenched as he fought the impulse to confront her now. He had to have proof.
In minutes a transport touched down. When Sheleigh opened the co-pilot's door, Kleet saw the pilot was Bateleur. He'd gone through the guard's file and seen his picture. Sheleigh laughed as she closed the door and the sound blazed through Kleet like the day he'd been shot. Betrayal.
The transport lifted and was swallowed into the inky dark of the night. He thought it turned west. His private transport dropped onto the landing pad and he sprinted to it. He opened the co-pilot's door to see Tinae looking soberly fierce. The dark unibrow was drawn down in a frown. No sooner had Kleet closed the door than the transport lifted off and banked in a westerly direction.
"You won't lose track of them?" he asked Tinae.
"No. There's very little traffic, especially on this heading, and I've got them pinpointed on the scope."
"We run the greatest risk of exposure when we land."
"I'll land as quietly as I can, as far away as I safely can. You should have let me put the guards on stand-by. We may need them."
"I prefer privacy for what I think we're going to find. But if I'm wrong, you'll be there to back me up."
Tinae's lips compressed, but if Kleet was flying to a romantic rendezvous, then the fewer witnesses the better. Acid burned in his empty stomach. He didn't want to prove Sheleigh's personal betrayal. He'd prefer she was a r
adical sympathizer. Gods, yes, even that was preferable to being disloyal to a crippled mate.
In twenty minutes, Tinae spoke again. "They've landed. I'll get as close as I dare."
Kleet's body stiffened as though in readiness for a blow. In moments he would know.
The transport hovered as Tinae studied his instruments. The Captain maneuvered a little to the left and down, then the engine stopped and the transport sat with a thump.
Kleet took his hand off the co-pilot's control panel. "They probably heard our landing," he accused.
"Felt it, maybe. Heard it, no. Once the engine was off there was no sound." Tinae gave Kleet a hand light.
Kleet turned on the light and climbed out of the transport. Tinae came around the nose of the transport and pointed ahead of them with his hand light.
"That way," Tinae said.
Kleet led in that direction. In half a minute they reached the other transport. They doused their hand lights and listened. When Kleet heard nothing, they moved forward. Tinae shined his light into the transport. It was empty.
Kleet continued forward along a curving path where the cliff rose steeply on his right side. He kept a hand on the smooth rock face as he walked. In a few minutes he heard voices rising and falling in the cadence of speech. One voice was male, one female, but he couldn't understand what they were saying. He inched forward cautiously, ready to douse the light if they came upon Sheleigh and the guard.
He rounded a bend and suddenly the words became distinguishable.
Sheleigh was talking. "This is so much easier in the daylight."
"Yeah, but in the daylight up this high we run the risk of being sighted." It was a young man's voice.
"I hate all this secrecy. Kleet suspects something."
That sounded like the perfect opening to Kleet. He stepped around the bend, shining his light on the speakers. He didn't know who was more surprised, them or him.
The young guard flung up his weapon to defend Sheleigh and just as quickly dropped it with a horrified expression on his face.
"Avatier!"
"Kleet!"
Kleet took another step forward, unable to fathom what his and the other lights displayed. For there were a number of lights and three unfamiliar young people. They were working on a contraption made of fabric and metal.
"What's going on here?" he thundered.
"What are you doing here?" Sheleigh cried. Her eyes were huge.
"I thought I was finding answers, but instead there are only questions." He moved forward and looked more closely at the people on the cliff. There was a black-haired young woman; a skinny, dark-haired young man; and amazingly, a very young woman almost as pregnant as Sheleigh. Their expressions were fearful, eager and proud, depending on whom he looked at. The young guard stood stiffly at attention, all respectful and professional. This was not a sordid betrayal, but what was it? He'd never seen the contraption before and it reminded him of nothing he knew, so he dismissed it.
"I want to know what's going on here," he demanded again.
Sheleigh pointed her finger at him. "You followed me." Her cheeks were ruddy with anger.
"Of course I did. I needed to know what you were doing."
"You didn't trust me," she accused.
He felt his face flush. "You have no right to keep secrets from me as a man or as Avatier."
Her eyes narrowed. "What did you think I was doing here?"
He flushed again, which only made him angrier. "My actions aren't the ones in question." He was unable to control a glance at Bateleur.
Sheleigh's glance followed his to Bateleur. When she looked back at Kleet he recognized the look of burning anger in her eyes. "You thought I was meeting a man?" Her words scored across him like sharp glass.
Bateleur paled, apparently realizing he was the subject of a dreadful accusation. "No, Avatier, it's not true!"
Sheleigh advanced on Kleet, her red hair bristling. "How dare you accuse me? How dare you think such foul thoughts about me? How dare you disparage me and this man in front of witnesses? That's despicable."
"What was I to think when you send all the guards except one away, and that one young and good-looking? What could I think when you sneak off in the pre-dawn to meet him ..."
She shrieked, "Bastard!" She flung the word at him like a knife. He was glad he was the only one present who knew the meaning of that word. Her anger blasted him like the heat of a glass forge. "I'm your mate. Your wife. I sleep with you every night ..."
"Not for two days."
"And that was your proof?" Her voice scaled the soprano heights. "I was tired."
"From doing what? You still haven't told me what's going on here."
She stepped to the side and gestured to the contraption. "We're testing a hang glider. It's for you to help you fly again." Her words were terse.
His body jerked and went cold all over. "That's not funny, Sheleigh."
"It's not supposed to be a joke. It's the truth. You want to fly again and we've made the glider to help you."
"You got these people to help you humiliate me? Now whose actions are despicable?" His lips twisted.
"Humiliate you? No. One can't humiliate a man who feels nothing, and you don't. Not since you lost the ability to fly. You're a shell of the vital man you were before you were shot. You breathe and your heart beats, but you're not truly alive. In your mind your life ended with the loss of flight.
"I'm surprised you cared enough to come here and confront me. But even if you don't care, I do. I cared enough to think that if you could fly again you'd come alive again. I cared enough to ask these loyal people to work for weeks on a project to get you airborne again. I cared enough to squeeze extra hours out of my already crowded schedule to oversee the project personally so that it would succeed and you would regain the power to fly. I cared ..." She choked and couldn't go on.
"You don't love me, Sheleigh. You never did." The words contained months of emotional loneliness.
"I've loved you since the day you were wounded! I loved you while you lay broken and bleeding in my arms. But you don't believe me, won't believe me. All my actions since then have been to make your home, your life, and your planet a better place for you to live. Sure, some of my motives had nothing to do with you but with helping all Averans. But isn't the end result of bettering their lives to better yours? Isn't it easier to lead in a time of peace and prosperity than to lead in a time of war and hatred?
"Do you like being surrounded by guards whose vigilance is the only thing standing between you and death? Hasn't your own body already suffered in this undeclared war?"
He took a deep breath. "What's that got to do with love?"
She threw up her hands. "Everything! I did it for you. You made it clear you wouldn't accept my word that I loved you. So I saw what you needed and I worked hard so you'd have it."
He flung his hand in the direction of the hang glider. "I don't need that."
"You damn well do! You're such a stubborn man. Is it only you who throws away love when he receives it?" He stiffened at the remembered words from the day they were mated. "Or is it just my love you reject, because I'm non-winged. Because I'm not Averan?"
A shock shook through him like an earthquake. It wasn't true, couldn't be true.
"When you reject my gift you also reject the love of your people." She gestured to the goggling young people and his eyes followed the movement of her hand. The black-haired girl's face was flushed with anger directed at him. The young man looked crestfallen. The pregnant girl beamed with hope, like a flower to the sun. Even the guard seemed to be pleading. His people.
"If you keep rejecting their love, how long do you think they'll keep giving it? If and when you ever accept that you're not diminished just because you can't fly and you turn to your people again, will you expect them to still love you? You're a bitter man, wallowing in your loss. And yet we love you.
"We loved you enough to work hard to give you the gift of flight again ..."<
br />
Kleet made a disparaging noise.
Sheleigh's hair almost bristled. He could feel the heat of her anger. "Would you reject the mechanical means to walk if you lost a leg? Would you reject hearing assistance if you became deaf?" Again his body felt a jolt like it had on the day he was shot. "This glider is a labor of love to make you a better man, instead of a bitter man. Why do you reject it? Are you that selfish, that small a man?" Her voice was disdainful and he winced.
"You're blessed with so many things, Kleet. You have money, possessions, a mate, children on the way, relatives who love you, a population who honors your leadership, your health. Why do you concentrate on the one thing you don't have? If the doctors could heal you, you'd do whatever they asked no matter how painful.
"We offer you the same opportunity, to fly again. A great man would take a great gift like that and thank the givers. Only a small man would reject the gift and the givers. Are you a small man, Kleet?"
Kleet's chest was too tight. Was he that petty and selfish? He'd lost what Averans treasured most, so he had every right to feel cheated. Sheleigh's flushed face was in front of him, challenging him and offering him something unbelievable. The others were on his left, accusing, hoping and urging him towards faith.
He was crippled. What they'd done mocked him. Yet they wanted him to be whole again. This contraption was their offering to make him whole. He couldn't do it--it was humiliating, absurd, ridiculous. It couldn't possibly work.
Sheleigh walked over to the metal thing and slid between the metal and the cloth. The black-haired girl moved to Sheleigh's side, still giving him an accusatory look. She snapped a hook to the frame, squeezed Sheleigh's arm, then stepped back. Sheleigh gripped the metal triangle, lifted it and began to move forward.
Frustration burned in him. "Sheleigh, what are you doing?"
"I can fly, Kleet. Can you?"
His cheeks heated. How dare she insult him in front of witnesses? The rising sun glinted off the metal frame. The fabric made a flapping sound. She took another step. She wouldn't!
Mating Flight Page 27