sedona files 06 - enemy mine

by Christine Pope

  “But we are,” I added. “I think it’s probably time to get out of here, right?”

  “Yes. The sooner the better, I think.” He turned toward the door. “Unfortunately, the conveyor device won’t work to transport all three of us from the base. We’ll have to walk.”

  I gave Kelsey’s heels a dubious glance. “Okay.”

  “I can go barefoot,” she offered, slipping off one sparkly sandal, then the other. They dangled from her hand, incongruous in that strange setting.

  Barefoot wouldn’t be much of an improvement once we got outside and she had to walk over sharp rocks and weeds, but I decided not to argue. We needed to get out of there.

  Even as I went to meet Gideon by the door, Kelsey tagging along behind, it whooshed open. Standing in the hallway immediately outside were at least ten Reptilians, their eyes glaring red fire at us.

  Shit.

  I raised my hands, even though I really wasn’t sure what I could do on my own without being linked to Gideon.

  To my surprise, Gideon didn’t attack, only stepped out of the way. The Reptilian in the lead, who was a slightly darker gold than Lir Shalan, came into the room, then bent next to his fallen leader. One long-fingered hand rested on the commander’s chest, and then the stranger said something in the Reptilian tongue to Gideon, who shook his head and answered in the same language.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Gideon in an undertone. “Why aren’t they trying to capture us or something?”

  “This is Sal Galen,” Gideon said. “I think I mentioned him to you. He was my tutor. Since that time, however, he was promoted to Lir Shalan’s second-in-command. For his service.”

  “And because I would do as I was told,” Sal Galen said in surprisingly good English as he straightened and faced us. “We will take Lir Shalan to the medical bay, but it does not look good. I cannot feel the touch of his mind.”

  Which meant that his control over the Reptilians under his command was now gone. Was he permanently brain-damaged?

  All Gideon did was nod slightly. I couldn’t really feel anything from him right then except an overwhelming weariness. “So you are in charge now?”

  “It would seem so.” Although I hadn’t seen him give any commands, the Reptilians accompanying Sal Galen moved past and gathered up the fallen form of their leader, carrying him out of the room briskly and with no apparent show of emotion.

  “But…what does that mean?” I asked.

  Sal Galen’s lipless mouth stretched into a smile. For some reason, though, it didn’t give me the creeps in the same way that Lir Shalan’s smile had. “It means that a great many things will change.”

  The Reptilians loaned Kelsey a pair of oversized boots. Where they got them, I wasn’t sure, although I guessed they must have come from the uniform cache used to supply their hybrid soldiers. Gideon and Sal Galen exchanged a few words in the Reptilian language, and then we were allowed to make our exit from the narrow little box canyon that hid the “back door” to the base.

  Feeling both overwhelmed and confused, I followed Gideon down to a barely perceptible trail that would lead us back to the parking area. Kelsey struggled along behind us in her oversized boots, her own expression nearly as perplexed as the one I knew I wore.

  “I still don’t understand why they would let us go,” I said.

  “Sal Galen is not Lir Shalan,” Gideon told me.

  “Yeah, I kind of gathered that. But still — ”

  “I told Sal Galen of the power you and I commanded, the power that had struck down his commander. Being a wise man, he decided it was better to allow us our freedom. He will have enough to manage in the coming days, I think.”

  I could understand that. The incapacitation of Lir Shalan had to have left an enormous power vacuum. Would Sal Galen be enough to fill it?

  “So what does this mean?” I asked then. “Will they leave us alone now? What about the women they’ve taken?”

  Gideon held out a hand to help me over a particularly rough patch of ground, then thoughtfully waited in place so he could do the same for Kelsey. She’d been struggling along bravely, but I knew she had to be suffering in those too-big boots Sal Galen had provided for her.

  It wasn’t until we’d walked a little further that Gideon finally replied.

  “As with most things, we’ll just have to see.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I’d never been so glad to see anything as my parents’ SUV when we came over the final rise and began to descend to the parking area at the trailhead. Well, scratch that. I was glad to see everyone gathered there, and smiled tiredly as I watched Kara’s hand go to her mouth when she caught sight of Kelsey, safe and sound and trudging along behind us.

  That tired smile turned into a grin when I saw my brother Michael surge ahead of everyone else, hurrying up the trail so he could rush past us and gather Kelsey in his arms. She let out a surprised little squeak, then happily allowed him to lift her from the path and carry her down to the parking area. When he set her down, my father raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. The unspoken question hung in the air.

  “Well, I could tell her feet were hurting,” Michael said, quite reasonably.

  And everyone burst out laughing.

  Not wanting to linger, we piled into the cars. Lance had looked at my brother, then at Kelsey, and said, “You can ride with us.”

  So Gideon and I sat in the back seat of my parents’ SUV as my father drove away from the trailhead, following Lance’s lead and going a good twenty miles an hour over the speed limit. All I could do was pray that we wouldn’t get pulled over. Gideon’s long robes might be cause for comment, especially since we were still a long way off from Halloween.

  “What happened back there?” my mother finally asked.

  “Lir Shalan will no longer be a problem,” Gideon replied. He held my hand as we sat close to one another, his fingers wrapped around mine so tightly I wondered if he ever intended to let go.

  Not that I minded.

  “He’s….” she began, then paused delicately.

  “Still alive,” I said, “but not a threat. At least, that’s what Sal Galen appeared to indicate.”

  “Who’s Sal Galen?”

  “My fa — Lir Shalan’s second-in-command,” Gideon replied.

  “He seems like a good guy,” I added.

  My mother twisted in her seat so she could shoot me a disbelieving look over her shoulder. “Did I hear that right? Did you just call a Reptilian a ‘good guy’?”

  I shrugged. “He let us go.”

  She was silent for a moment, digesting that comment. Her gaze flicked to Gideon. “Is he a good guy?”

  Gideon was silent for a long moment. Then he nodded. “Yes. Better than — well, better than those who came before him.”

  No one said anything after that. And I didn’t mind, because all I wanted to do was lay my head on Gideon’s shoulder and know that he hadn’t betrayed me, had been there for me when I needed him most — and by doing so, might have saved us all.

  My parents dropped us off at the cottage, and, after retrieving the spare key from underneath the hose basket on the side of the house, I hurried Gideon inside. Even in Sedona, his current appearance would be sure to raise eyebrows.

  “Kara’s in an hour,” my mother called out as they drove off.

  I gave her the thumbs-up just before I shut the door. As soon as we were alone, Gideon rushed toward me, his arms pulling me close so he could press his lips to mine. I opened my mouth to his, eagerly tasting him, reveling in the sensation of our bodies clinging to one another.

  After we pulled apart, though, I gave him a reproving look. “You scared the crap out of me back there.”

  He pushed a curly lock of hair away from my face. “I am sorry, Taryn. I had to resort to that subterfuge because it was the only means I had of making Lir Shalan believe that I was siding firmly with him. Luckily, he always had a difficult time understanding that the entire galaxy didn’t t
hink the same way he did.”

  “And now?”

  “I truly don’t know.” Gideon’s fingers worked at the fastening of the robes he wore, and I wondered exactly what he had planned. If we were supposed to be at Kara’s house in less than an hour, that didn’t leave much time for falling into bed.

  Then again, I didn’t think I’d mind being late.

  That wasn’t what Gideon had in mind, though. Underneath the robes he had on a tight-fitting unitard, which made him look like he was going to participate in the luge at the Olympics or something. With the robes slung over one arm, he went into his borrowed room and began to dig out some clean clothes.

  As he stripped out of the unitard, I could see that he still wore the leather wristband that functioned as his mobile camouflage. A little sigh of relief escaped my lips. Yes, I liked him as he was, and never would ask him to disguise himself when we were alone together, but that unobtrusive device would make it much easier for him to function in the regular world.

  “So you were able to hang on to that,” I said, my gaze moving to the wristband.

  Gideon finished pulling a T-shirt over his head and gave me a sideways look. “I thought it might make our lives run a little more smoothly.”

  Well, I couldn’t argue with that. “Probably, yes.” An emotion I couldn’t quite identify flickered in his eyes, so I hurried to add, “I love you, Gideon. I love everything about you, and that includes the way you look. But I’m not going to lie and tell you that it won’t be easier for you to have that protective camouflage whenever we go outside the house.”

  He came to me then and pulled me close, his arms warm and strong around me. “I can’t fault you for that. I understand. It’s much better that the world has no idea what I am, that I can blend in as easily as Martin and Raphael do.”

  I gave a small chuckle. “I hate to break it to you, Gideon, but with your looks, you don’t exactly ‘blend in.’ You’re freakin’ gorgeous.”

  Shaking his head, he let go of me then and brought my hand to his lips. Just the brush of his mouth against my skin was enough to send those delicious shivers all through my body, right down to my toes, and again I wished we had the time to reconfirm our connection by doing something a bit more involved than merely kissing.

  But still….

  I looked up at him, at the sensuous lines of his mouth and the deep-set eyes in their fringe of black lashes. Right then I couldn’t see anything in his face except relief, and a low-key kind of joy that we were back together.

  I didn’t want to destroy that, but I had to know. “Gideon, what about your father?”

  He expelled a breath. “Sal Galen will take care of him. If the medical facilities at the base aren’t sufficient, Lir Shalan will be taken back to the Eclipse to be treated there. He will be kept comfortable.”

  “That’s not what I meant. Can you live with it, even if the worst happens?”

  “Taryn, I….” He took a step back so he could gaze down at me. In a way I wished he would have kept holding my hands, although I thought I understood why he needed to put a little distance between us. “This may be difficult for you to understand, but while Lir Shalan might have contributed to my genetic makeup, he was not what you could call a father, not in the way you think of the relationship. When I was young, I didn’t see him very often. After my mother died, when I was older…well, he was somewhat more interested, but only as an asset that could be trained, not because I was his son. All that mattered to him was the continuation of his bloodline, and I served that purpose. But if he should die?” An eloquent lift of his shoulders. “I will feel no guilt. He does not deserve to be mourned.”

  Harsh words, but I wasn’t about to argue with them. How awful it must be to pass from this world and have no one grieve for you, but Lir Shalan had brought that fate upon himself.

  It was those whose lives he’d touched that we needed to worry about now.

  I went on my tiptoes and kissed Gideon very gently on the cheek. “Let’s go to Kara’s.”

  The extended family was there — even Grace and Logan, who must have hurriedly driven down from Flagstaff. We could all barely fit in Kara and Lance’s family room, even though it was the biggest space in the house. Chairs had been stolen from the dining room so everyone would have a place to sit.

  I caught sight of Michael and Kelsey snugged into one corner of the couch, his arm around her as she laid her head on his shoulder. That very public display of affection might have surprised me, except I couldn’t miss the way she was smiling. She was going to milk this abduction thing for all it was worth, and I couldn’t really blame her. After all, she’d waited a good long time for Michael to man up. His expression was a little sheepish, but I just grinned at him as Gideon and I entered the room, hoping he’d understand that he had absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about.

  Everyone quieted at the sight of Gideon, and I could feel myself tense. While he’d worn his disguise on the drive over here, I’d asked him to deactivate it once we were standing on the front doorstep. My extended family needed to accept him as he was, even if he would have to use the camouflaging device whenever he was out in public.

  We’d walked into the family room hand in hand, and his fingers tightened on mine, even as I sensed a flare of unease coming from him. If they made this difficult, I wasn’t sure what I would do. I loved them all — they were my family, whether blood relations or not. But I loved Gideon, too, with an intensity I still was having some difficulty understanding. It would break my heart to have to make a choice between them.

  But then my father came up to us, hand outstretched. “Thank you, Gideon,” he said. “Thank you for saving our girls.”

  The darker green of a flush spread across his cheeks. “It was nothing, Mr. Oliver.”

  “Paul.” My father’s gaze shifted to me. “That was a very brave thing both of you did.”

  It was my turn to blush. I hadn’t recalled being brave, just doing what had to be done. Actually, I’d mostly been scared shitless. “I’m just glad everyone is safe.”

  “Well, not everyone,” Lance remarked. “There’s still the little matter of all those missing women.”

  “I’m hopeful,” Gideon said. “Sal Galen has no reason to carry on as my father did. He is a very different person. My best guess is that he will report the mission here on Earth was a failure, and that his people will need to focus their efforts elsewhere.”

  Lance raised an eyebrow and appeared remarkably unconvinced. No doubt he had no reason to think favorably of any Reptilian, no matter what Gideon might have to say on the subject. “That so?”

  Raphael spoke up then, before Gideon could reply. He and Callista sat on the love seat, their hands knotted together. Both of them wore worried expressions, which seemed to indicate to me they’d discussed the matter a good bit before coming over here. “You speak of this Sal Galen with a good deal of confidence, Gideon, but I’m not sure we can be that optimistic. Do you truly believe that the Reptilians will not send someone else to pick up where Lir Shalan left off?”

  A low murmur swept the room, but Gideon just shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. This world is valuable to them, true, but it is not the only one where they are attempting to find a promising genetic match. They’ve suffered enough defeats now that they’ll think twice about trying here on Earth again.”

  “And this world doesn’t want them,” I added. “The vortexes are sort of like its immune system, always giving us the boost we need to fight them off. If Sal Galen really is the voice of reason that Gideon says he is, he’ll go back to their home world and report that there’s no use in wasting any more resources here.”

  “That sounds overly optimistic,” Lance said.

  “Just because something is optimistic doesn’t mean it’s not true,” I replied.

  “Sal Galen told us that things were about to change,” Gideon said. “I can only take such a statement to mean that he doesn’t intend to continue Lir Shalan’s polic
ies. Even if he’s recalled and someone else is sent here — ”

  “We fight again,” Logan broke in. His gray eyes were fierce, and he sat up very straight next to Grace. “As much as we have to, for as long as is necessary.”

  God, I hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Twenty-five years had elapsed between the time Kirsten Jones drove the aliens away and their return this spring. Would we be granted that much of a reprieve? Or would the Reptilians be made even more desperate now that the very future of their race was at stake?

  I sent a worried glance up at Gideon, but his expression didn’t change. Voice calm, he said, “I don’t foresee that happening.”

  Just as he finished speaking, a small chiming beep came from his pocket. He pulled out the conveyor, which sparkled with little flashing green and yellow lights. “That is Sal Galen. He wants to speak with me.”

  Was that a good thing or a bad thing? I couldn’t begin to guess.

  “And you, Taryn,” he added.

  “It’s a trick,” Lance said.

  My parents looked at each other, some of the light in my mother’s eyes beginning to dim.

  “It is not a trick,” Gideon said. “We will go and talk to him. If that’s all right with you, Taryn.”

  I didn’t know if it was all right or not. What I did know was that we couldn’t refuse Sal Galen’s request, not when we might have a chance of ending all this peacefully.

  “It’s fine,” I replied. “Let’s go see what he wants.”

  We drove farther up the canyon, up to the spot along the ridge line where we emerged from Oak Creek’s gorge and were following 89A through the pine forests that surrounded Flagstaff. The alien device would work better up here, away from the influence of the creek, or at least that was what Gideon told me.

  “Why not have us drive out to the base?” I asked as the road wound its way through ponderosa forests. “We could have just parked at the trailhead and walked the rest of the way if the conveyor was having trouble with the vortex energies.”