Chapter Sixteen
WHY, ZENNA BERATED HERSELF, had she not taken the time to glove her hand, to mask her face and snatch up the amplifier when she had the chance? Sick with the knowledge that in her own impulsive flight, with her panic-driven lack of forethought, she had missed a chance, she briefly considered leaving Glesta and returning the Pacific Coast camp, hoping the two men would still be incapacitated by the blow from Jon’s mind.
But no. It would be too late. A whole night had passed. They could be awakening even now, searching for her. She kept a tight cloak around herself and her child.
“The Other...” Glesta frowned as if trying to remember something. “Someone...something hurt her. Maybe Rankin.”
“You reached her?” Zenna asked, trying not to allow Glesta to sense the urgency of her need to know. “Did you talk to her?”
“I found her again, Mama. I guess she wasn’t lost,” Glesta said, her small face reflecting both glee and confusion. “I told her I had missed her. I asked her where she had gone. I said I wanted her to play. She was laughing, Mama. She was happy to be with me, too, and kept trying to find me. Then a different Other One came.”
She frowned. “When he came, I couldn’t hear our Other anymore. I could only hear him.” She looked puzzled. “Mama, his name is Jonallo. He thought your name at me. He told me to show myself.”
Zenna went cold as her suspicions were confirmed. “And did you?”
“No, Mama. I hid, not to tease like I do with The Other, but because he made me...” Her nose wrinkled.
“He made you what, letise? Afraid?”
“No-o.” Glesta sounded very unsure. “Not afraid. It was like I knew him, but he didn’t know me. He was looking for you. And then Rankin was there all angry and wild and scary, trying to kill The Other and Jonallo, and Jonallo pushed very, very hard, pushed me right out and then came the big hurt and I went to where you told me was safe. I stayed there until you came to get me. Did Jonallo want to hurt me? Jonallo is in here,”—She touched her Kahinya—“but he is never like that, Mama. Why was he angry with me?”
“He was not angry with you, my love.”
How could she explain to her daughter who had been raised on stories of Jonallo, her mother’s wonderful birth-mate, that he had just tried to wipe them all out, Glesta, Zenna, Rankin and B’tar? And why?
If Jon had followed Glesta’s mind back to Rankin’s camp, he must know who was there. He had not tempered his power, not aimed it in a fine but lethal manner at the true enemy, but had used it indiscriminately in a broad sweep against all in Rankin’s vicinity. Now all doubts were gone: Jon was not here on a rescue mission. He had come to kill.
And he had brought Minton! Of that, she was certain. It had not been coincidence she had sensed her bond-mate’s signature. But why was he on Earth with Jon? Because Minton had finally overcome the difficulties he had detected with the amplifier she had devised? Did he have the other prototype operational? Had that enabled him and Jon to travel without an Octad? Or, did Jon have an Octad, one into which he had blended Minton?
That made no sense. Minton, like she, was a scientist. He did not concentrate his talents on translating through time and space and between worlds. She wasn’t even certain he was capable of that. Nor was she, which was why she had set out to build the amplifier in the first place.
Did Jon hope her love for Minton, Minton’s for her, might force her to give away her position? Had he told Minton the truth behind his coming to find her?
No. Surely not. Yet, she was forced to fight down uncertainty and despair about her own bond-mate’s motives in joining Jon’s Octad—or perhaps just Jon—amplified.
“I do not know why Jonallo hurt you, Glesta, but I’m certain it was not his intention,” she said presently, once her flying thoughts had calmed to a degree where she was capable of speech. “Besides telling you to show yourself, what did he say?”
“I can’t remember. It was all so...big, what happened. I was very frightened. He is not a gentle mind, Mama.”
But he was, he always was, with me, Zenna wanted to protest. Only with criminals was he harsh. Except...now he saw her as a criminal, so his time of being gentle with her was done.
Zenna wanted to weep with despair.
Instead, she soothed her daughter. “Now, you must let me in to where I can see what you saw, feel what you felt. I believe because you were open to her, since you sensed The Other before you sensed Jonallo, the two might be together. I must know where they are.” So she could translate herself and Glesta, as soon as they were both strong enough, far, far from this desert camp.
She must also wipe all knowledge of Jon and Minton from Glesta’s mind and Kahinya, take away those Aleeas, though it went against every instinct to do so, lest the child need to hide again, and did so in a memory her mother had given her that contained either of them. Jon and Minton had now become the enemy just as much as Rankin and B’tar. Remaining cloaked from them until she could somehow, she did not know how, find a way to get Glesta to The Other, was mandatory—unless Jon was in control of The Other. If that were the case, then all hope of ever finding a home for her daughter was gone. Unless she could create a safe place for the two of them—somewhere here on Earth.
Hiding Glesta from her brother and her mate was the only way to keep her daughter secure.
But, though she tried, Glesta’s understanding of the events just past was too fractured and immature to be of use. All Zenna could evoke was a faint echo of that massive surge of power that had sent her flying, that had nearly killed them all.
Sudden panic struck. Even if Jon could not find her, he could, again, find Rankin. Rankin, who would surely be searching each of their camps in swift succession, looking for her and Glesta. She must leave here at once! She must translate, blind, to a place she had never been, to which Rankin had never been.
Gathering herself, holding Glesta, she drew a deep breath and—was knocked flat on her back as Rankin materialized, landing right beside her, naked, his nose, ears and mouth still showing traces of dried blood, the amplifier in his hand—and with fury blazing from his eyes, behind him, looking dazed and just as blood-caked, swayed B’tar.
She flung her daughter’s mind into a safe place and shielded herself as best she could from the mental pummeling Rankin began to deliver.
With three other minds entwined with hers, the newcomers questioning her, learning from her about what she was doing, Lenore prepared a meal mostly from the meats and vegetables she had left in protective casings, refreshing them quickly simply by opening the bags and exposing their various contents to the air.
While she did so, Minton, who seemed to be the most adept with that particular talent, sent empty dishes from the kitchen to the living room, then those she had filled. She watched from the corner of her eye as they sailed serenely though the air and, turning the corner, disappeared from view. Where, she wondered, were they going?
To a place of comfort. Jon answered her unspoken question while he made coffee, giving Minton and Fricka a sense of what it tasted like, the way it affected the cerebral cortex. Both stood near the machine, drawing in the aroma, Fricka eagerly, Minton less so. Feeling self-conscious, Lenore offered Minton a selection of herbal teas merely by allowing him access to the way they tasted to her. He chose a peppermint-rose-hip blend, and she made it for him.
As the food and drinks became ready, all went waltzing away through the air. Following them, leading her guests, Lenore found dinner arranged neatly on the roughly circular maple burl coffee table in the living room, around which was strewn a veritable rainbow of large, stacked silk-covered cushions with long, dangling tassels, none of which she had ever seen before.
The three Aazoni joined hands, Jon and Fricka reaching out to link Lenore into the ring. Gracefully, after encircling the table three times, they sank to the pillows, reclining. After one stiff moment, Lenore leaned back, too. Jon plumped a pillow behind her back, making her even more comfortable.
It was only later she realized that while a lively conversation had accompanied the meal, not a single word had been spoken aloud.
Presently, Jon stood, drawing Lenore up with him. “I am ready for sleep. Lenore, where do you wish Minton and Fricka to be?”
Aazonia would have been her first choice, but beyond that, Lenore didn’t care. She knew only that she was not about to relinquish Jon before she had to. She showed Fricka the room Jon had occupied on his first night in the cabin, and Minton one of the others upstairs. She would have made up the beds, but Jon indicated it was not necessary. She watched in awe as Minton took care of the task, sending sheets, blankets, pillows, whatever was needed, from the linen closet to the room. She had no doubt at all that the linens would land exactly in the right order, in the right positions, fully tucked with hospital corners.
Minton just seemed like that kind of person.
In her room, Jon parted her lips with deep kiss that he held for an inestimable time before lifting himself away from her. “Today has been a difficult one for you. And for me. I will not permit my impatience to endanger you or our cause. Tomorrow, we must continue our search. Tonight we both must rest.”
She smiled as she slid her arms around his neck. “But before we rest...How impenetrable is that shield of privacy you have created for us?”
He laughed. “As strong as we need it to be. Come to me, Lenore. Come...”
“Can Fricka keep us in a surround if we return to my condo in Port Orchard?” Lenore asked the next morning when all had assembled in the kitchen, in response to the aroma of the fresh coffee she had brewed. Breakfast was nearly ready.
Jon nodded. “Not yet. But in a few days. Why?”
Lenore began to place prepared food, plates and cutlery on a tray, only to have them float from her grasp and wend their way into the living room. Obediently, carrying her own mug of coffee, she followed them, sinking to the silken cushions that had appeared there the night before.
“Since it is from there that you sent out your call for the others of your Octad, if they heard, won’t they come there?”
“I think not,” he said. “They sensed me, of that there can be no question.” He looked rueful. “No living Aazoni on Earth—or maybe even nearby worlds—could have missed my mental bellowing. Those not of my Octad or family might not have recognized it as having come from me, specifically, but they would have known someone was here and in extremes of anger and distress. But now the Octad members also know Rankin was not far from there, I think they will avoid that place.”
“So how will we connect up with them? And how,” Lenore asked, as the thought occurred, much later than it should have, “did Rankin know you were there?”
“I followed you into your dream,” he explained.
“I don’t remember having a dream that night.” Night before last. Had it really been so recently she had been ‘killed’ by the force of Rankin’s malevolence, had met Fricka and Minton, had ended up back here? “Did I dream of the child, or the woman?”
“Your dream of the child Zenna once was,” Jon explained. “She was inside your mind, letise. She had been searching for you, and could not find you until you were back in the place where she first contacted you. I suspect she—and undoubtedly Rankin—are not physically distant from Sector Seattle. She was happy to find you again. Her delight, and yours, were unmistakable.”
His eyes closed for a moment. “As was mine, to find her. I bade her show herself, and she did. I saw her, merely a glimpse, just enough for me to recognize her, but in doing so, I exposed myself, and you, to Rankin.”
His voice cracked. “That precipitated his attack, which forced me to beat him back, to thrust him away from us. In doing so, I may have caused irreparable harm to anyone in his vicinity. His power was much stronger than I had anticipated.”
“That is possibly an effect of the amplifier, if he was connected to it when you sensed the child in Lenore’s mind and, in following the signature, allowed him to glimpse you,” Minton explained, his face drawn and pale as if he had not rested well. “We will need to take great care that he doesn’t find us again.”
“Then how will we find him?” Lenore asked. “And Zenna?”
Jon and Minton exchanged a glance. Minton squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. Lenore sensed his great agony. “I think,” he said, “we will not find Zenna again.”
Lenore stared at him as he opened his dark, suffering eyes. “Hold on! Are you saying you think Zenna could be dead?” she asked, astounded. “What possible reason do you have for that belief?”
It was Jon who answered, Minton seeming incapable of speech, even thought, so deep was his gloom. “Since no Aazoni could have missed that projection of mine, Zenna, in whatever place or time she was, would have heard it. Even from a safe-place in childhood, she would have come to me—if she were able. That she did not, has not... He didn’t finish, didn’t have to.
Fricka, however, did. “It is unlikely, Lenore, that a child, even a child in safe-hiding, could have survived the conflict Jon and Rankin projected. If she did, if she resumed her adult state, Rankin, knowing Jon is here, has probably killed her by now so Jon couldn’t find him through her again.”
“What would have driven her into hiding in childhood? Could it have been our arrival? Is she afraid of us?” Minton asked, clearly aghast. “Is it possible that, if her essence still lives on that level, she’s afraid to come out?”
Jon reached a hand to his birth-mate’s husband, gripping the other man’s shoulder. “I do not know.”
He swallowed visibly and added softly, “But I do not think it’s possible her essence lives...anywhere. As Fricka said, no child-mind would be capable of enduring what Rankin and I sent forth. Our Kahinyas will keep seeking hers, of course. We will, at least, have that of her.” His voice broke.
“That is all we can do,” Minton agreed.
Lenore placed a hand on Jon’s chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart, much slower than her own, feeling, too, the despair emitted by the others.
“Lighten up, people.” She stared at them in disbelief of their manner “My supposed child-mind survived the onslaught,” she reminded them. “I can’t believe you would have come so far, and suffered so much, only to fail. I don’t like your defeatist attitude, talking about your Kahinyas finding hers and recovering it. It’s almost as if you want to fail!”
“We do not want to fail,” Minton said. “But if all we can recover of Zenna is her Kahinya we will have to be content with that. With it, she will never truly die for us, and it becomes clearer and clearer that when Rankin knew we were both here to rescue her, he killed her.”
“That would have been when the avalanche happened?”
Minton nodded.
“But it was after that I had the dream of the child, the one Jon followed me into, the one that alerted Rankin to our whereabouts in Port Orchard. If, indeed, it was the child Zenna who has been reaching out to me, she was alive following the avalanche.”
Jon looked sorrowful. “We know that, Letise. We know she still lived then, Lenore, at the time of the avalanche, because Minton sensed her adult presence in the moment of his connection with Rankin. But now...” He shook his head sadly.
“But now...what?” Lenore demanded. “Why are you so sure she has to be dead now?”
“Because there is no sense of her—for me or for Minton, the two closest to her. Her Kahinya and mine are intertwined. I cannot find her hidden in
any of her memories. Not so much as a hint. There are very few, if any, that the two of us do not share.”
“And my Kahinya knows hers intimately, too,” Minton said. “We have baloka. After that initial contact, our Kahinyas should have kept us within reach of each other if not actually in touch.”
He fingered his, as if searching. “But they did not,” he said, dropping his hand from its play over his beads. “There is a huge void where Zenna should be. What Jon saw, in your dream, was likely nothing more that an echo from her Kahinya. It will live on for some time unless Rankin destroys it.”
“He will not,” Jon decreed heavily. “He will use it to draw us in.”
“Dammit, I still think she’s alive. I...sense it somehow,” Lenore insisted.
“If she lived, why would she cloak herself from me, her bond-mate?”
“Or from me, her birth-mate?”
“I can’t answer that for either of you. All I can say is I feel, somewhere deep inside me, that she is alive. Alive and waiting for you to help her. Maybe she’s stuck somewhere in that childhood where she went to hide and needs one or both of you to pull her out of it. It is almost as if I can...see the three of you, reunited.”
She sighed and smiled weakly. “My father would say it is just wishful thinking.” But...deep down, she knew that since her deepest wish was for Jon to somehow be able to stay with her forever, his finding Zenna and the rest of his Octad would make that impossible. So...how could it be wishful thinking?
Jon stroked her brow with his fingertips. “I wish I had the means to see in there without frightening or hurting you. If you have the gift of prescience, you may be right. But as Minton says, why would she hide from us?”
Lenore couldn’t answer that. Nor, it seemed, could anyone else.
She drew a deep, steadying breath and held Jon’s free hand tightly. What if she did she have a special gift that was only now unfolding, like a butterfly from its chrysalis? She had never noticed herself having hints or feeling omens of things to come. But did she, on some level that was only now beginning to blossom, have the ability to sense the future?
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