The ship’s medic who had arrived late on the scene rushed to his side, pushing him to the floor and planting a breather over his face.
People circled around him and he lay, drawing in the good air from the breather, and hoping he didn’t suffer the humiliation of passing out while all his friends watched.
“Good Lord, Jamie, don’t go dying on us now.” He recognized Karen’s voice and her typical rather brusque form of concern.
Faces wavered above him. He focused on the long, slim face of Mack and Karen’s Charlie. “You weren’t one of the kids taken then,” he said, his gaze sliding on to the dusky, round-faced David who looked so much like Mack. “Either one of you,” he said with relief.
It was a matter of the first priority. “I heard two kids were stolen, a boy and a girl. We’ve got to get them back. Who are they?”
Isaiah knelt at his side, his face strained with emotion. “A boy named Jon Malone,” he said, “his parents work in the plant nurseries.”
“And?” He waited, knowing something even worse was coming.
“Alice,” Isaiah choked out the words. “My little Alice.”
He managed to grasp his friend’s hand, holding on tight. His daughter was all Isaiah had in the way of family. The girl he’d married had died giving birth to the child in a medical emergency beyond their abilities in those early days. “We’ll get her back.”
Isaiah nodded. “That’s why we took the ship. We thought it might help. Maybe they might trade the kids for the cruiser.”
“Hell, we’ll do better than that,” Mack said, slapping Isaiah on the shoulder. “We’ll use it to go and take them back.”
“Not my ship you want,” Claire snapped. Isaiah stood and Mack turned to look at her.
“Not your ship anymore, sweetie,” Karen informed the woman who was now the Gare empress in exile. Jamie grinned.
“We’re on the same side now. Claire and her daughters have brought the cruiser and its crew to us. We will make common cause against the empire.”
He thought Adaeze would stomp on him as she came running over. “Mother!” she said.
The imperial guard, including Captain Thereon remained in the background, obviously feeling there was no eminent threat to either Claire or her daughters, but Jamie managed to raise himself slightly with Charlie’s help.
“Meet the princesses Adaeze and Lillianne. The Gare want them even more badly than they want us.”
The people of New London didn’t exactly welcome them back with open arms. Claire had never entirely been one of them; she’d been kidnapped shortly after landing, but somehow she’d thought she might be something of a heroine having sacrificed herself as wife to the emperor to save their skins.
Now she watched as her daughters sat alone at a table near the end of the communal dining room where most of the residents ate their meals.
She had come in ahead of them and seated herself with Isaiah, Mack, Karen, George and Jamie. The two boys, Charlie and David, were at a table with their friends, close to the one occupied by her girls. At least they could have invited Adaeze and Lillianne to join them.
This was not a good start for the princesses in adapting to their new life.
The Princess Adaeze crew had chosen to remain on board their ship now that their royal charges were among friends.
Friends! Claire thought glumly. It wasn’t as if she’d expected trumpets to blow and a red carpet to be rolled out for her to walk on, but a few friendly greetings here and there would have been nice.
She dipped a spoon into her porridge, the first she’d tasted in years, and found that the food she’d once disliked didn’t taste so bad. But Adaeze and Lillianne would hate it. Hot cereal wasn’t what they expected for breakfast.
They’d entered after she was already seated and ignored Jamie’s invitation to join the table. She had no doubt that if she could overhear the conversation between them, her ears would burn.
Without appearing to do so, she surveyed the room and its people. There were faces she recognized. Through the years she’d retained the images of the of young people. They could have been one large sophomore class back in Chicago. And now they were all prematurely grown up. The ones who looked like the kids she’d left behind were their kids; the oldest of which were approaching the age they’d all been when she had been taken away.
She didn’t have to be a telepath to know that most of them were casting long glances at her and at the princesses. She expected no less. They had to be the most interesting people in the room.
“Good to have you back,” Isaiah who looked tragic but was trying his best to assume a cheerful aspect, told her. “It must be quite an adjustment.”
“I can do without the pomp and circumstance,” she told him. “I’m really sorry about your daughter and will do what I can to help get her back.”
She hadn’t meant to say that, not out loud. The others went silent around her and she felt she’d spoken the wrong words. It was as though she’d told a funny story about the recently deceased.
Mack nodded solemn agreement. “We can’t let them keep our little Alice,” he agreed grimly. “So what’s the plan?”
“We have to talk privately,” Karen told them, her eyes on Claire.
This had to be confronted directly. “I was part of this group before you were,” she told the other woman. “And I’m included in.”
“And me. I’m in too.” They’d all been so focused on what went on among them that they hadn’t noticed Kevin Hartley approaching. He reached past Karen to grab Claire’s hand and give it a hearty shake. “Welcome back, pretty girl. Nobody’s probably told you, but I’m the elected mayor here and the one you should be talking to.”
Jamie stiffened and Mack frowned. Karen was more direct. “Get lost, Kevin.”
A lot of time had passed since anyone dared to approach her so directly. Claire had become accustomed to adoring crowds kept at a distance from her. Certainly nobody would have been rash enough to even lightly touch her person or shake her hand.
They bowed low before the empress of Aremia and felt privileged just to be in her presence. And now this chubby little man who held an unimportant job was acting like she was his personal guest.
Before she could put him in his place, she saw Mack’s wink and knew this was a new world, a new life. She was back to being Claire from Chicago again. She managed a smile and said, “Good to see you again, Kevin.”
“I thought you would remember me,” he said with considerable satisfaction. “Now I hear you and your lovely daughters are planning on making your home with us.”
She wondered that he had so little sense of danger. Couldn’t he see that he was like a mouse playing with a cat? If she chose, she could flash her claws and squash him flat. She was used to playing political games at a level he couldn’t possible imagine.
“That’s what she seems to have in mind, Kevin,” Karen, who was too bright to be unaware of the danger in the other woman, said. “Hell, she might even challenge you at the next election.”
Kevin’s round face turned slightly pale, than he seemed to decide Karen was joking and managed a little laugh. “I’ve already given orders that one of our best houses be restored for your use. In the meantime, you and the princesses will be welcome guests in my home. My wife has already gone to arrange for your accommodation.”
Claire allowed her dark lashes to hood her eyes as she thought how best to answer him. She had absolutely no intention of allowing herself to be cut off from her friends this way, nor could she imagine spending more than a few minutes in the honorable Kevin’s company without barfing.
Jamie came to the rescue. “Claire and the girls will be staying with me,” he announced, as if there was no more to be said.
Kevin protested, saying something about how things weren’t the way they used to be and Jamie needn’t think he could speak for the rest of them. Claire barely heard him because she had noticed that Adaeze and Lillianne, as well as the two Russell boys had disappeared.<
br />
Ignoring the others, she searched the room visually. The princesses were well trained in security; they wouldn’t have just taken off without saying something to her.
Rising to her feet, she demanded, “My daughters aren’t here. What’s become of them?”
“Come on, Claire,” Mack protested lazily, grinning at her. “They’re not two-year-olds. They deserve a little freedom.”
“Your boys are gone as well.”
“I’m not surprised. They’re probably out showing two pretty girls the town. You should be flattered.”
“I’m not. Adaeze and Lillianne are Gare princesses under the threat of violence and you think they’ve gone for a little stroll with two boys they just met? And in a town where two youngsters are already missing?” She sounded assured, not hysterical, but it wasn’t what she was feeling right now.
She grabbed the so-called mayor by the arm. “Find my daughters immediately,” she commanded.
Kevin began to give orders and assemble volunteers for a search while Claire rushed from the building, too impatient to wait.
SIXTEEN
Jamie ignored the protests of his over-worked body as he hurried after Claire, barely sensing that Isaiah was running to keep up with his longer stride.
She was over-reacting, that was evident, but he couldn’t much blame her. Both those little girls of hers might as while have targets painted on their slender forms. By their very existence they had broken the traditions of the Gare and there were probably lots of people who would like to see them captured or even killed.
He even felt a little anxious about Charlie and David. The two Russell boys were daring to a fault. It was a wonder they’d survived to live this long.
When he got outside it was to find Claire staring up at the sky to the east where the cruiser Princess Adaeze was rising slowly into the air. “Wait! Come back,” she called. “You can’t do this.”
This was a disaster. He didn’t know if the kids were on board, but just losing the ship would be devastating. The possession of the imperial cruiser would have strengthened their resources immensely.
“We shouldn’t have trusted the crew,” Isaiah told him. “We should have left our own guards.”
He’d rarely seen Claire at such a loss. She stood as though frozen, silent tears running down her face.
“It’s not the crew,” she finally said. “It’s Adaeze and Lillianne. The crew would obey whatever instructions they gave.”
Isaiah put his arm around her. “They aren’t rising to leave the atmosphere,” he pointed out. “They’re flying low, heading toward the mountains.”
“Terrainaine?” Jamie suggested.
He and Isaiah exchanged gazes. “Do you think?” Isaiah stumbled over his question. “Is it possible? Charlie and David knew the boy who was taken and they were really upset over Alice. . .”
It would be just like the two of them to set off on their own rescue mission. They’d been furious at the lack of immediate adult response to the kidnapping.
“They’re only kids,” he argued, “and how could they persuade the princesses to go along with them.”
He watched as Claire closed her eyes. “If Adaeze and Lillianne are with them it isn’t because anybody talked them into anything. Adaeze would be running the show.”
Search teams moved quickly across the town, reporting by radio back to the city hall. None of the four were found and two other youngsters, both boys, could not be located.
Karen confirmed that those boys had been seated at the breakfast table with Charlie and David.
“I’m sure the young ladies only wanted to show our boys how their ship works,” Kevin told the relatives gathered in front of the central building. Booing calls came from the edge of the crowd.
“Maybe we should send out a rescue team,” Jamie suggested quietly.
Claire nodded vigorously. “Before they leave the planet, if they haven’t already taken off.”
“Surely your daughters wouldn’t leave you behind,” Kevin said in disbelief. He might have been talking about kids who’d packed a knapsack and headed for the woods outside of town, Claire thought angrily.
“We need new leadership here,” she called in a loud voice that could be heard to the edge of the crowd. “Someone who will take action.” She tried to nudge Jamie forward, but he only scowled and grabbed his arm and she realized her elbow had hit in the area near where he’d been injured. “Sorry,” she whispered.
“We now have eight children missing,” Isaiah said so quietly that only those closest heard his voice. “I volunteer to go on a search mission.”
“So do we,” announced Karen, lightly touching her husband’s hand.
Jamie nodded. Hurt or not he was ready to go. “Starting with Terrainaine and maybe the old castle.”
Claire didn’t have to ask what castle he was talking about. He meant the shiny metal castle out on an oasis in the plains on the other side of the city of Terrainaine, the seat of the Gare warlord who governed the planet they called Blood. It was where she and her friends had been held prisoners in the bad old days when they had been meant to become blood donors for the Gare.
“Now people, aren’t we jumping the gun a bit?” Kevin asked in his most condescending tone, turning to address the crowd rather than the parents of the missing children who were clustered closest to him.”
Mutterings arose and even a few shouts, but they weren’t scared to action yet. They’d been spoiled by years of peace, taken care of by the Gare like animals in a stockyard, and as long as their children weren’t taken, they wanted to keep on believing they were safe.
“We’ll do what we can, send a visiting party to Terrainaine to ask for assistance in locating the runaways.”
“I’ll go,” Jamie volunteered quickly. “Mack and I are the only ones who can fly and we need to get there as soon as possible.”
“I’m going,” Isaiah said in his usual calm voice, but his face was tortured. Jamie nodded. There would be room for only one more in the car.
“And me,” Karen said as though there would be no further argument about the passenger list.
Claire stamped on the taller woman’s foot. “Unless one of you thinks you can control a far speaking princess of the Gare, then you’d better make room for me.”
Nobody volunteered to allow her a place.
“Two princesses and a crusier crew responsive only to a member of the imperial family,” Claire elaborated.
Mack piloted the little flyer through the tricky wind currents above the mountains and straight across the barren plain to the shining city of Terrainaine. He and Jamie had often traveled there before during their years as traders. In fact the aircar itself was the product of giving the city dwellers most of the excess fruits of a year’s crop.
When the Gare prepared the planet for habitation, they had extended most of their resources to making an Eden-like habitation for their Earth imports, much, Jamie thought, as his grandfather back in Oklahoma always saw to it that his cattle had the best pastures and watering holes available.
For themselves they’d done little to the land, preferring to hide in tall, metallic, window-less cooled and heated buildings while the wind swept desert was shut outside. They did not depend on the land for sustenance. The Aremians who lived here had only one task, to see to the care and management of the Earth settlers. The rotating back to their home worlds as often as possible and brought in all necessities.
Midday lay across glittering buildings as they came into a landing near the middle of the city, the harsh sun brightening the unforgiving landscape to a glare. Claire hadn’t said much throughout the flight, but now she subsided into silence and Jamie guessed she was thinking back to that other time when she’d been brought here by flyer and lodged in the little transparent dwelling in the city’s downtown as a prisoner intended for the use of the Gare aristos.
They were accustomed these days to being ignored when they came to Terrainaine whether by flyer or in t
he little truck, but Jamie thought that preferable to the days when they’d been cooed over and admired as though they were pretty pets brought into entertain the populace.
They weren’t so popular among the residents these days. The other worlds of the Aremians hadn’t learned this lesson yet, but here on Sanctuary it was becoming well known that the little pets could have quite a bite.
Before they became accepted as traders, New London raiders had paid frequent visits to the city, taking what they needed and couldn’t produce in their little town: medicine, weapons, supplies.
Their sting had been worse than their bite. Those stationed at Terrainaine had orders not to harm the youngsters from New London, but the youngsters had no such restrictions. They’d found a successful kind of guerrilla warfare, led by a newly fierce Jamie, angered by what had happened to him and Claire and the others on Aremia.
After a time, a kind of peace settled in, and instead of warfare they had begun to trade in goods. But now with the death of Mathiah the tenth, the old stability was gone.
Jamie hadn’t come to barter for help; he’d come to make New London’s position clear. And Kevin Hartley and his friends back at home wouldn’t get to put in a single word.
Tall, shining buildings surrounded them as they climbed from the flyer. Even Claire carried one of the small but potent guns they’d acquired on that last trading expedition.
But it was not at Claire, but to Isaiah that Jamie looked, seeing his friend’s vulnerable face turned to that little clear-walled buildings that had stood empty for the last fifteen years. He feared—and hoped—to see his daughter there.
Alice or any other prisoner would have been visible in that strange little prison, but it was as empty as it had been for all the years since the last prisoners had been removed. Neither Alice or the missing boy, Jamie couldn’t quite remember his name at the moment, were inside.
But the eyes of a father saw more clearly than his own. Jamie gave a low cry and ran over to a spot on the sand near the little building and picked up something from the ground. When Jamie caught up with him, he saw that he had a silken pink scarf in his hands.
Nightmare Kingdom: A Romance of the Future Page 11