by Cindy Dees
“It appears that way,” Tessa said in a small voice.
Beverly burst out, “With an alien child.”
“She’s half-human,” Tessa protested.
“And half Centaurian.”
“Well…yes,” she conceded.
Rustam interjected, “And fully a star navigator. Humans have no ability to train this child. But my people can. My people will. I promise you that.”
“We need to talk again,” Athena said abruptly. “Out, you two.”
Tessa followed Rustam outside yet again, her head spinning with the possibility of being the first human ever to move to another planet, to another civilization. Not to mention the prospect of getting to be with Rustam, after all!
“Do you think they’ll go for it?” she asked him anxiously.
He shrugged. “Who knows?” Do you still have your cuff on?
Yes. Why?
Between the two of us, we can generate enough power to make a break for it.
This lab’s shielded. Unless we’re in the booth, we couldn’t get out of here.
He sent her a word she didn’t recognize.
“Is that my first Centaurian language lesson?” she asked wryly.
He chuckled. “Yes. And never repeat it in polite company.”
“Duly noted.”
The door behind her popped open. The two women stepped out.
Athena announced, “We’ve made a decision.”
Chapter 24
R ustam held his breath. Everything depended on this. His life, his love, his future happiness. He eyed the time-travel booth and calculated the odds of getting there with Tessa before they were seized. Not good, curse it.
“We will let her go…”
His heart surged in his chest until he thought it might explode right out from behind his ribs.
“But we have a few conditions.”
He bottled up his exultation to hear their conditions, nodding cautiously. “And those might be?”
Athena held up one finger. “First, I implant a crystal under Tessa’s skin where it cannot be removed. She must always have the option of returning here at her discretion.”
The professor held up a second finger. “The child must be allowed to return to Earth to learn of his or her human heritage. You must swear not to prejudice the child against humans in any way prior to his or her return.”
Tessa swallowed hard beside him, as if it was just starting to hit her what all he was asking her to leave behind.
Athena held up another finger. “Third, Tessa must be fully trained as a star navigator…and she must be allowed to visit Earth to bring that knowledge to us.”
His first impulse was to roar in outrage. He couldn’t give away his people’s monopoly on star travel just like that! It wasn’t within his power to give, and even if he could, he wouldn’t.
Athena’s hard voice intruded upon his anger. “Think before you say no, Lord Commander. Mankind hovers on the brink of discovering it for ourselves, anyway. Your people have failed to erase the star navigator gene from our race. It’s too prevalent in human females for you to ever obliterate it completely, shy of eradicating our whole race. And if you were to do that, you know as well as I do that the entire Centaurian race would be annihilated in punishment.”
He snapped, “You do not need to quote galactic law at me, madam. I am well aware of the penalty for genocide.”
The professor stared him down, as uncowed as Tessa would have been in the same situation. Gods, these human women were something else. Reluctant admiration filled him for all of them.
“Fourth, you will give us your most solemn vow never to reveal the time-place of this lab or any of the nature of our work or scientific progress to anyone outside this room. Tessa will be responsible for enforcing your promise.”
“If I give you my word, nobody will need to enforce it,” he snapped, aggravated.
“Do you agree to these conditions?” Athena demanded implacably.
He didn’t bother to ask what the alternative was. He already knew. He’d be imprisoned and experimented upon until he died because of their ignorance, or illness or else old age claimed him.
“I agree to your conditions. But the real question is, does Tessa agree?”
He turned to face her and said gently, “You will be leaving behind everything and everyone you’ve ever known. My culture is vastly different from yours and not particularly friendly to women in general. You will be a star navigator, which will grant you a certain special status among my people. But you will be an oddity at best and an outcast at worst.”
She turned over his words, obviously weighing them carefully. Out of respect for her, he did not probe her mind to see what she was thinking. Besides, knowing her, she’d tell him soon enough.
She blurted out, “Will you stop sleeping with other women? I don’t want to share you.”
A crack of laughter escaped him. She never did or said what he expected. But that was part of why he loved her. He replied honestly, “I haven’t thought about another woman since I first laid eyes on you, let alone bedded one, and I have no desire to do so. There has never been another female even remotely like you in my life, and I highly doubt there will be another. And besides, with all our children guaranteed to be star navigators, I’m certain my government will give the two of us strict orders to…how does your kind say it…multiply and be fruitful with one another.”
A blush climbed her cheeks. “That would be how we say it, yes.”
He looked around the room. “Any other conditions any of you would like to set upon this venture?”
Tessa turned to her superiors and surprised him by asking outright, “Do you expect me to spy on the Centaurians for you?”
Beverly Ashton answered frankly, “Anything we can learn of them would be immensely helpful to mankind. We will not ask you to betray your lov—Lord Commander Rustam. But if he will agree to let you report back to us, that would be outstanding.”
“My government will want to review any official reports she sends.”
He and the general traded knowing looks. The Ashton woman had caught the nuance in his words. He hadn’t put a limit on any unofficial reports Tessa might send back.
Beverly Ashton replied with a tight smile, “Understood. Do you think they might be open to some sort of diplomatic communication at some point?”
He turned the idea over in his head, then answered regretfully, “My kind are a long way from accepting the idea of humans in the galactic community. They still subscribe firmly to the theory that all human females with star navigator talent must be eliminated. I am hopeful that Tessa can begin to change their point of view.”
She gulped beside him. “I’m not sure I’m up to something like that, Rustam.”
“Of course you are. You won me over, did you not?”
“Yes, but I was able to…”
Sleep with me?
You’re a bad man—stop making me blush!
That is what you were going to say, isn’t it?
Well, yes.
Aloud he said, “I have complete confidence in you, my dear. You’ll do fine.”
Athena Carswell looked back and forth between them. “Although this lab is shielded, I am not entirely certain that it is proof against your race’s mental powers. The two of you should probably leave as soon as possible. Before more of your kind track this place down by tracking you.”
He caught the faint frown that passed over Tessa’s brow and probed her aura questioningly with his mind. Ahh. Goodbyes. She wanted to say a few before she zoomed off across the galaxy.
He murmured, “Dr. Carswell, I’ll need to align the new set of crystals to my vibrational field before we leave. That will take me a little while.” He turned to Tessa. “Perhaps you would like to take care of a few last-minute matters while the professor and I see to the crystals?”
Tessa shot him a grateful look. His own heart swelled in response.
“Are you sure you want to make t
his journey with me?” he asked gently.
She nodded without hesitation. “Absolutely. I just need to make a few phone calls and then I’ll be ready to go.”
Worried by the wistfulness in her voice, he commented lightly, “If I make you mad enough, you can always activate your crystal and come back home.”
She sent back silently, Must be the baby hormones kicking in. I’m just feeling a little weepy at the idea of leaving behind my friends and family.
You can still come back to visit.
True.
But not for too long. I’ll never let you go, you know. You’re mine forever.
I love you, too.
They exchanged affectionate glances that were heating up fast toward him excusing himself and his consort for a few minutes of privacy when Professor Carswell cleared her throat pointedly and shooed Tessa out of the lab.
He spent the next several hours refining the rather crude crystals the humans were using to better fit his specifications. He hated to think of how many years he was advancing their time- and space-travel program by showing them how to align the vibrational frequencies of the crystals more precisely. But he damn well wasn’t risking his family’s lives with substandard crystals in the first cross-galaxy jump where their bodies came along for the ride.
Tessa announced that she had one last phone call to make from the lab’s conference room—to a woman named Alexandra Patton, a friend who, Tessa casually informed him, was also a powerful psychic. He bit back an impulse to ask for more information on how to locate this Alexandra person, who no doubt also carried the star navigator gene, so his kind could find and destroy her. Tessa didn’t understand yet how strongly committed the Centaurian Federation was to stopping humans from acquiring space travel. But she’d learn soon enough once they got to Centauri Prime.
The road ahead was going to be hard for both of them. Were it not for the fact that their children were guaranteed to be star navigators, he’d never dream of taking Tessa back to Centauri Prime with him. She would have been dead before she set foot on the Centaurian home world. But with the double protection of being his consort and their ability to turn out lots of little star navigators, they’d be all right. They had to be.
At the end of the day, he believed in the power of their love. He and Tessa were meant to be together, and neither time nor space was enough to keep them apart. Surely a little thing like politics couldn’t destroy them.
He waited impatiently while Tessa completed the call to her friend.
And then it was time.
They stepped into the time-travel booth. As the door closed behind them, Athena asked, “Do you two need a power boost from me?”
He laughed. “Are you kidding? Between the two of us, we can leap across the galaxy and back and hardly be fatigued. A single jump to Centauri Prime will be child’s play for us.”
He wrapped his arms around Tessa, and she did the same, her warm palms caressing his ribs lovingly.
He murmured, “Ahh, my love, this is going to be a grand adventure.”
She smiled up at him with all the love in both of their worlds shining in her gaze. “I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”
And the familiar indigo vortex began to whirl around them, lifting them and their unborn child up and out of themselves and flinging them forward into their future. Together…
ISBN: 978-1-4268-3937-5
TIME RAIDERS: THE SLAYER
Copyright © 2009 by Cynthia M. Dees, Lindsay McKenna and Merline Lovelace
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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