His eyes lit up. They were now back to their normal reddish color, since he had no need of a disguise around me. “Neither would I.” He paused then, shifting in his chair so he could look past me, in the direction of the creek. “I still don’t know exactly what to do next, but I know that wherever my path leads, it won’t be back there.” A flicker of his eyes upward, as if to indicate the Eclipse, silently circling the Earth, undetected by any human instruments.
“No, your place is here with us now,” I said, my tone fairly emphatic, although inside I couldn’t keep myself from wondering if Lir Shalan himself intended to descend upon us in search of his wayward son. The creek was protecting us now, but we couldn’t stay in the cottage forever. The alien leader wouldn’t even have to come here himself; if he had the power to force our government to look the other way as his people helped themselves to the women they thought they needed, then he probably also had the power to send human agents after us, or at least request that they be sent.
I shivered.
“He frightens you.” It wasn’t a question.
“Doesn’t he frighten you?”
A shrug. Gideon’s fingers were resting against the stem of his water goblet, although he made no move to pick it up and drink. “Sometimes. Although before I couldn’t fear him too much, because I knew I was too valuable to him. His efforts to produce more children with my mother were unsuccessful, but he had the thing he wanted — a son to take his name, to carry on his line. He knew I was irreplaceable, or at least he thought I was. Now, though….” The words drifted into the silence; I’d forgotten to put on any music to accompany our dinner. Not that I would have had the foggiest idea what Gideon might have liked to hear.
“Now?” I prompted.
Another lift of the shoulders. He drank some of his water before replying. “Now he has access to human women. He can write me off as a failed experiment, and start over.”
I stared at Gideon, aghast. “Do you really think he would do that?”
“Of course. From his point of view, it would be the logical thing for him to do. It is possible that he might attempt to convince me that I have made a foolish decision in rebelling against him. It is also very possible that he has already decided I am not worth the effort.”
How could he speak so calmly of these things? Once Gideon had delivered that particular speech, he went back to eating shawarma as if we hadn’t been discussing anything more important than the weather.
A question had been niggling at the back of my mind for a while, ever since I’d learned who Gideon’s mother actually was. The time hadn’t been right for me to ask it, and maybe it still wasn’t right now. But I had to know.
“Are…are Reptilians capable of experiencing love?”
Gideon shrugged and finished chewing a mouthful of rice. “How do you define love?”
Well, there was a question. I certainly didn’t think I was up to the task of quantifying love, particularly because it could wear so many different faces. However, everything Gideon had told me so far made it seem as all his father’s actions had been dictated by a driving need for power, or control, or even plain old survival.
“I think that particular task is beyond me,” I began, speaking slowly as I tried to sort through my thoughts. “Generally, though, there’s an element of selflessness involved, or at the very least a desire not to see harm come to the person you care about. But you’re talking about your father as if he’s capable of tossing you aside like a used candy wrapper or something.”
“Are there not fathers here on your world who don’t particularly love their children, who abuse them or neglect them?”
“Okay, yes, but — ”
“So even though men like that exist, would you ever ask if the human race is incapable of love?”
“Of course not,” I said, somewhat offended.
“Well, then.” Gideon picked up his water glass and drained half its contents before setting it back down on the table.
“That’s not the same thing, and you know it,” I added, feeling the need to defend all humanity.
“Maybe it isn’t.” He shifted on his chair so he could face me a little better. “To clarify, no, the Reptilian race isn’t known for outward shows of emotion. That doesn’t mean that they have no feelings.”
I was probably pushing into an area Gideon would prefer to avoid, but I desperately wanted to know more about his mother, what her life had been like after Lir Shalan claimed her. Maybe that was only because I wanted to believe that it hadn’t all been misery. How else could she have been so loving toward her half-alien son? Gideon hadn’t said much about her, but I was able to read something into those areas he’d left blank. Also, I couldn’t understand how he could be so unexpectedly gentle and insightful if he hadn’t learned such things from Elizabeth D’Onofrio.
“Did he love your mother?”
Silence. Since I was watching him closely, I could see a muscle twitch in his cheek, see the hard lines of his throat as he tensed, then forced down a swallow of water.
“Why do you want to know that? What does it matter?”
“It matters because it must have mattered to you.”
Another long pause. His fingers tapped against the base of his water glass, and I noticed that he wouldn’t look at me. Not directly, anyway. I was able to catch a sidelong flicker of those deep-set garnet eyes before he returned to playing with his glass.
At last he let out a breath. “I don’t know about ‘love.’ That is a strong word. I think he had some affection for her.”
Not the answer I wanted to hear, but I supposed it could have been worse. “How so?”
“If he’d been truly indifferent, he would have had no reason to interact with her at all, except those times when he was trying to conceive another child. But he would come to our quarters and spend time with us, and ask her how I was faring.”
“So he allowed her to raise you?”
“I lived with her, yes.” This time Gideon did meet my gaze fully. He looked dry-eyed and sober enough, but the tension I’d seen earlier was still obvious in the way he sat almost too straight in his chair, in the carefully controlled timbre of his voice. “He had many concerns which claimed his attention, you understand. I was tutored by his science officer, Sal Galen — who is now is second-in-command — and Lir Shalan also spent an hour or so with me each day, so he could ask me about my lessons and assure himself I was making adequate progress. As for my mother….”
“Did he ever see her, other than the times he came to check on you?”
“Occasionally. It was a treat to be invited to his quarters, because he had one of those observation windows there. I looked forward to those visits, since they gave me a chance to look out at the stars, or at whichever new planet we were orbiting. Usually my mother would bring me, and the two of them would talk.”
“About?”
A faint smile touched Gideon’s lips. “I don’t really recall. I think I was so busy looking out the window, or playing with some of the gadgets he had lying around, that I didn’t pay much attention. I usually had a good deal of restless energy stored up after being kept in our suite for so much of the time.”
Considering I’d spent a good chunk of time myself locked up on a Reptilian ship, I could sympathize, and I wasn’t a young boy, someone who should have been able to go outside and run and play to work out his wiggles. I nodded, and he went on,
“But I remember them sitting down and talking quietly. And once — ” He stopped then, and I gave him an inquiring look. “Once I remember her sitting fairly close to him. I think she was upset, although I don’t know about what. Then Lir Shalan pointed at me, and she smiled at him. And he put an arm around her and held her close for some time.”
Offering comfort, I supposed, although the Reptilian leader seemed about the least comforting person I could think of. Had he shown her even that small measure of affection because he truly felt it, or only because he’d analyzed the situation and d
etermined that she would best react to a show of compassion, whether feigned or not?
Based on what I’d seen from Lir Shalan so far, I was inclined to lean toward the latter option. I didn’t say that to Gideon, though. If it felt better for him to think that his father had cared for Elizabeth, even a little, then I wasn’t going to speak up and try to change his mind. What point would that serve? Gideon had already decided to side with his human half…or at least gave every indication of doing so.
“That sounds…nice,” I said, then wanted to wince at the banal words. But I really didn’t know how else to comment without sounding skeptical.
“More surprising than anything else, I think. It was the only time I’d ever seen him do anything like that.”
“But he did do it. That must have meant something.”
Another of those half-smiles. I didn’t know Gideon well enough to understand for sure what that expression meant, whether he was attempting to smile for my sake, or whether he couldn’t muster the enthusiasm for anything more than that meager gesture. “Possibly. She was already ill then, although she did her best to keep her condition from me. I remember how she would be sick in the mornings for weeks, and then she would disappear for a few days and be brought back to our suite, thin and white and with very little energy.”
“Gideon — ” My voice broke on the syllables of his name.
He shook his head, that slight motion telling me that he needed to go on. “At the time, I wasn’t sure exactly what was wrong with her. It was only later that I realized she was with child and then would lose it, over and over again.”
I hated to ask. I shouldn’t ask. But somehow the question came out in the barest whisper anyway. “How many times?”
“Eight, I think. And after the last one….” Gideon’s gaze was fixed somewhere off in the distance, as if he couldn’t bear to see the pity in my eyes. “Well, at least Lir Shalan allowed me the opportunity to say goodbye to her.”
We both were quiet after that. I knew somehow he didn’t want to hear any useless words of condolence from me. She was long dead, and nothing I said now could change that fact. My appetite had fled, but he finished what was on his plate, clearly not wanting to be wasteful.
Afterward, he helped me take the dirty plates out to the kitchen. I could tell he wanted to change the mood of the evening, because he watched with some fascination as I rinsed them off and put them in the dishwasher.
“That seems rather inefficient,” he remarked. “To use so much water.”
“What do you do?” I asked, slightly irritated on behalf of Earth’s technology. After all, it was a very new dishwasher, with the latest water-saving design. Kara and Kirsten were nothing if not environmentally conscious.
“Put our used plates and utensils in the recycler. They’re broken down into their component atoms and then reconstituted when we have need of them again.”
Slick, but as advanced as I generally tended to think my planet was, I knew we hadn’t quite reached that level of technology. Rather than trying to defend planet Earth, I instead held one of the plates in my hand and turned it over, watching the way the overhead lights brought out a subtle iridescence in the glaze before I bent and put the plate in the dishwasher. “Well, I could never do that. Someone made these by hand. They deserve to be taken care of and used over and over again so they know they’re loved.”
Gideon didn’t reply at first. One of the serving bowls was still sitting on the counter; he picked it up and ran a finger over the gleaming surface, seeming to trace the slight irregularities in its contours. Then he set it down again and turned toward me. “Yes, I think I can appreciate the idea of showing love for something so beautiful.”
Our eyes met. Even though my hands were wet from holding them under the faucet, he reached out and took them, pulling me toward him. In the next instant, he was kissing me, mouth insistent on mine. Not that I minded. I wanted this, wanted to taste him again, press my body to his and feel the strength in his arms as they wrapped around me. Once again that delicious, insidious heat worked its way through me, telling me that this was all right, that I should be with him completely. Who had I been saving myself for, if not for him?
But somehow I managed to pull away, although my breaths came far too fast and I could feel the way my hands shook. “Gideon, I — ”
“What’s the matter?” His expression became all concern, his eyes scanning my face to see what he’d done wrong.
“Nothing’s the matter. It’s only….” I had to let the words fade away, because I truly wasn’t sure if I would be able to adequately communicate my concerns to him. “It’s just that this feels so very important to me. I don’t want to rush it. Does that made any sense at all?”
At first I was fairly certain it didn’t, because his brows pulled together, and the puzzled light in his eyes didn’t go away. But then he nodded. “Yes, it does. I understand that whatever it is we share, it’s something that should be savored. I just wanted to make sure that you didn’t think I was trying to pressure you because of — well, because of what happened up there.” His gaze flicked upward and back to me.
So he was worried that I thought he was still trying to carry out his father’s wishes? “Oh, no, I wasn’t thinking that at all,” I said quickly, and some of the tension went out of his body. “It’s more that I’m having a hard time putting on the brakes myself, so to speak. I want to be with you, Gideon. But at the same time, something is telling me that it would be better to wait, if only for a little bit longer.”
Those last words seemed to cheer him, because an actual smile touched his mouth this time. “I can wait for as long as you need me to, Taryn.”
I took his hand then. Not to pull him close to me again, but to hold and feel its very human shape, feel the strength and comfort in even that small touch. It was good.
And for right then, it would have to be enough.
We finished the clean-up — what there was of it — and headed to the living room. I’d never been that much of a TV-watcher, preferring to read, but watching television seemed to be the safest thing to do right then, since it was way too early to even think about going to sleep. And I figured that whatever we did settle on to watch, it would be educational for Gideon, and might help to take his mind off the dark memories our dinner conversation had awakened.
Luckily, I was able to locate a somewhat silly but entertaining space opera, complete with improbable light-speed and laser guns and everything else. Gideon watched with his brows drawn together in concentration, although I saw him shake his head from time to time when the action got completely hyperbolic.
“Can you stop this for a moment?” he asked me partway through the proceedings.
“Sure,” I said, then picked up the remote and hit “pause.” “What is it?”
“People who watch this don’t believe any of it, do they? The science is completely fabricated.”
“Of course not. It’s just for entertainment.” I set the remote in my lap and gave him a closer look. Wisely, he’d sat down in the accent chair to the left of the couch. I think it would have been too much for either of us to handle if we’d been sitting next to each other on the sofa. “I would have thought your people would study our movies and television to gain a better insight into how we think.”
“We do, somewhat.” His gaze shifted to the screen where a fighter ship was frozen, flashy magenta bolts of energy firing from its guns. “But I must confess that I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“Not even in real life?” I asked, teasing him just a little. “You mean real outer space isn’t like that?”
“No,” he said, his expression quite serious. “The worlds of the Assembly are peaceful, for the most part. In fact, what conflicts do exist — ” He stopped there, looking slightly shamefaced.
“Let me guess. It’s the Reptilians who stir up most of the trouble?”
“They would never admit to that, but an impartial analysis would suggest that they te
nd to be the instigators more often than not. Of course, they’ll always claim that they were the wronged parties, but….” He gave a shrug, although I noticed how he looked away from me, as if even that small admission had been too much of a betrayal. “Anyway, I will try to look at this as pure entertainment.”
“Good idea,” I said, unpausing the show so it could continue to play.
However, when I stole a glance at him later, his expression had turned brooding, and I noticed that his gaze was not fixed on the television screen, but on the window. The curtains had been drawn, so there was really nothing to see.
And yet he still kept watch, as if he worried that someone — or something — might be coming for us at any moment.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Sleep apparently did not want to be my friend that night. I tossed and turned, moving from one position to another as I tried to find the one that would magically send me off to slumber-land. That wasn’t like me, as I usually had no problem falling asleep. Actually, as my mother liked to point out, getting up in the morning was my problem, not getting to sleep.
At last I lay on my back, eyes wide open, as I stared at the ceiling. Was it simply knowing that Gideon was right across the hall that had me so wakeful? He’d been quiet and subdued after we finished watching the show, and had been quick enough in the bathroom before slipping into the guest bedroom. A quiet “good night,” and then he was gone, the door shut behind him.
Shut, but not locked. I knew I could get up and go in there, and….
No way. Not after all that talk about how important it was to wait. In that moment, I was having a hard time determining exactly why my forbearance was so important. I could still feel his lips against mine, his arms around me. I wanted more than that. I wanted all of him.
That was a huge step to take, though. Going to bed with Gideon wasn’t exactly the same as sleeping with one of my high school boyfriends. There was no one else like him in the world — in the galaxy, I supposed. He’d turned his back on Lir Shalan, but I had to be sure of him. No, wait…I was sure.
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