“You sent me. You said you would tell Jape yourself.” Velia was still furious, but horror was creeping in at the edges. And revulsion. She stared at Ehar as most would a Monsudan.
She’s not acting. I don’t know what’s happening here, but Velia believes the head elder has wronged her.
Grasping at any straw that would bring the situation into the realm of sanity, Jape said, “Perhaps there’s been an error. A misunderstanding? Tagging her, as our enemies would—”
Ehar shook her head at him, as if he was a stubborn child and not a full-grown man. “These creatures cannot be trusted, Jape Ihucas Bolep. You of all people understand the destruction they cause. Do not make the mistake of doing so again. Your errors have cost us enough. Obey my order or resign your position and leave Cas.”
With that stinging rebuke and final judgment, Ehar glided out of the room.
Exile? She would strip him of his identity as Cas’s lead protector and exile him from the only life he knew?
He stood stock-still, barely able to breathe. Several seconds ticked past before he remembered Velia.
She remained frozen in place, tears rolling down her face, her shoulders slumped. He didn’t miss that she didn’t turn to him with an appeal. It was as if Velia realized she was without a prayer of hope from him.
The rebellious part of his mind repeated the unfathomable, over and over. Ehar lied. Ehar lied.
* * *
Dispirited, numb, Velia followed Jape from Ehar’s chamber. She didn’t pay attention to their route, didn’t resist going to the medical place where she would be tagged like an animal so they could track her.
Velia had returned to Risnar as a peacemaker, the link between two worlds. Now she was no more than a criminal.
Ehar had banged the gavel. Her duplicity, the fact she’d straight-up lied about sending Velia to Earth, would have been staggering, but what had truly rocked Velia’s faith was that Jape would execute the sentence.
I mean nothing to him. I believed that we’d found common ground. I thought he felt something for me—maybe that he cared about me.
God, had she ever thought wrong.
Even when they stepped outside, the warmth of the sun on her shoulders couldn’t shake off the malaise that had filled her. Jape’s fierce whisper for her to get into the dartwing with him roused her enough to awkwardly climb in, to sit half on, half between his massive thighs. Then she sank into the deadened stupor as they lifted off and the breeze of their passage buffeted her body.
When they landed, Velia raised her head and blinked at the familiar surroundings she’d not expected. “This is your dome.”
“Damned right, it is.”
A tiny glimmer of light shown in the darkness gathering in Velia’s soul. More miraculous, Arga and Retav waited for them next to the enforcer’s dartwing. They advanced the moment Velia struggled out of the cockpit, Jape assisting her.
The questions that rose died as Retav’s worried face broke into a welcoming smile. The kindness shining from his creased, striped visage magnified Ehar’s injustice a thousandfold. All at once, it avalanched over her.
Velia twisted aside and ran around the dome instead. She ran from them, unable to cope with the confusion of seeming rescue after being so sure that Jape would betray her. She raced to the rear of the dome, to a small pool lined with veined red marble and surrounded by Jape’s carvings. There, she crumpled. She crouched by the pool, her arms wrapped around her knees, rocking to and fro as she sobbed.
Arms surrounded her, gripping her tight. Velia struggled against him, her emotions rioting. “Go away! I don’t trust you, Jape! I don’t know what you’re planning to do with me!”
Retav’s voice droned comfortingly in her ear. “Hush, child. Hush. Let it out and then tell me what happened with the head elder.”
Retav’s compassion only drove the spike of pain deeper into her heart. It made no sense for kindness to hurt her worse than Ehar’s cold treachery, but it did. She bawled in misery.
After some time, Velia bled out enough hurt to answer Retav’s gentle questions. She told him everything from the moment Ehar had arrived on the doorstep until Jape took her to his dartwing and brought them home.
Little by little, she realized he showed no disapproval of her going to Earth as the others had. She did detect flashes of anger, but none of it was directed at her. Retav kept careful control over the veneer of his emotions, offering comfort rather than censure.
He was similar to a caring father on a television show. Nothing like a real father, of course. Her father did not indulge tears. Retav was the fantasy dad, the idealized creature that solved the family’s problems within a half-hour block between commercials.
It had to be a sham. Everything else was: Ehar sending her to Earth to open talks between their peoples, the connection Velia had assumed she’d forged with Jape—all lies.
She finally burst out, “Why are you being so nice to me? Why aren’t you treating me as if I’m a criminal too?”
“Because you’re not. You believed you could do some good, and so you tried to. There is nothing wrong with that.” Kindly, while firm.
Cue the closing credits.
Velia wouldn’t allow any Risnarish to yank the rug out from under her again. “Ehar made me out to be a liar and a villain. She behaved as if I was an animal to be penned up. And the way Jape treated me when I returned—but then he brought me here instead of the medical dome. What is he? Is he my friend? Enemy? I don’t know!”
She had enjoyed a few seconds of hating Jape as they’d left the portal chamber. Enjoyed it, because it was such a pure, simple emotion. It hadn’t lasted long. That sweet aversion had fled, letting in the jumbled sensations of betrayal and disappointment, wrapped up in all-consuming uncertainty.
I want to hate him. It would be so much easier if I could.
It hurt too much to think about Jape. Velia focused on a lesser humiliation. “I led General Thomas to believe I had won Risnar’s trust. That I could bring us together.”
“Your intent was pure. You took a chance on making the situation better.”
Retav was unwavering in his determination to pardon her. Her father would have called her twenty times the fool. She could see him in her mind’s eye, turning his back on her failure as a person. “I never get anything right. All I do is disappoint others.”
“Who have you disappointed?” Retav’s voice came from afar.
“My father, mostly. He’d be ashamed of how I let myself be drawn in by Ehar.” And Jape. Mostly Jape. But Jape changed his mind and didn’t obey Ehar, even though she told him he’d lose his job and have to move from Cas. What the hell is up with Jape?
“Somehow I doubt your father would find any fault with you.”
“Don’t doubt it. It was his favorite thing to say. ‘I’m disappointed in you, Velia. You could do so much better.’” The mantra of her life. She’d never done better. If her feelings were any indication, she never would.
“Hmm. He sounds strict.”
“Of course. He expected me and my sister to represent ourselves at our finest.”
“And him as well?”
“He was an important officer. He had to be above reproach.” He’d been ruthless with himself. Always strong, always dutiful to his military, to his country.
“How did your mother react to your father’s insistence on perfection?”
Her mother. That long-ago, shadowy soul, barely discerned beyond the spotlight of her father’s presence. Velia’s memories of her mother consisted of a woman scrubbing floors, cleaning the house, a worried collection of features hovering over her as she attempted to dress Velia just so, attempting to stave off any reproach. “They fought, late at night after we were supposed to be asleep. She said he was relentless when it came to picking her apart. He said she needed to hold herself to a higher standard,
that anything less was slovenly.” During her parents’ arguments, the shadow woman sounded real, someone who’d remembered having dreams and hope.
“It does not sound like the happiest of unions.” The soft voice was relentless, but too gentle to cause concern.
“Sometimes I wonder if she died from the stress of trying to meet his expectations. That he drove her to the stroke that killed her.” Shadow woman, barely missed after she was gone. A few old photographs that didn’t resemble her, because Velia couldn’t remember her ever smiling.
I didn’t know her, and not because she died when I was so young. It wasn’t the first time that guilt accompanied the notion.
“What of your sister? Was she able to meet your father’s standards?”
Velia barked a harsh laugh. “She’s a lesbian.” When the translator asked for a definition, she added, “She preferred women to men.”
Velia swam to the present to see Retav tilt his head quizzically. “This was a problem for your father?”
In a culture in which men and women lived separately, such a scenario wouldn’t be a concern. Points to Risnar. “You’d better believe my father had a problem with it. The moment she came out, he was finished with her. He cut her out of our lives and pretended she hadn’t existed in the first place.”
She had to give Retav credit. He showed no judgment toward either her father or her sister. Instead, he maintained that accepting demeanor as he said, “My, my. Do you share his feelings in that regard? That your sister needed to be taken out of the family?”
“Me? Not at all. But I couldn’t have told him that. He never tolerated an instant of disloyalty.”
“Ah. He prized loyalty from you no matter what he did.” A hint of sorrow flickered over Retav’s face.
“Naturally. I was his daughter.”
“Even though you did not agree with his actions toward your sister. You still had to display unwavering loyalty. Interesting.”
His words reminded Velia of Jape’s accusations that she was blindly faithful to her people. As she had been with her father, who’d given her no choice.
She defended herself as if it had been Jape who’d spoken. “I hated Father for what he did to Jane. Hated him. But I was too young to leave. I had to live with him. I had to obey or—or—”
Or never win the acceptance of the one person who filled my life. The only person who mattered, because he made it so he was the only one who mattered. When Father was around, everyone else faded into the background.
I was loyal whether he deserved it from me or not. Even that stray thought brought a wave of guilt. Her father had molded her, all right. Then he’d channeled her unwavering devotion to the military he’d served, to General Thomas, with that same dedication.
Maybe Jape had a point. When had any of them earned her loyalty?
Jeez, Stripes. Now a point to you.
At least she could point out one thing in her own favor. “My father wasn’t perfect by any means, and maybe I didn’t earn his respect before he died, but he loved me.” A harsh love, but love, nonetheless. That much, she was sure of.
“I hesitate to tell you this, but I don’t believe you would have ever earned his respect. Even if you’d been flawless, he would have found something lacking.” The sorrow returned in full force.
“You never met him. How can you say that?”
“I had such a guardian myself, Velia. He was a fine man, but uncompromising. No matter how well I did, he always found fault.” Retav sighed. “So it sounds to be the case with your father. He found fault even when your mother died and your sister disappeared from your lives.”
“He held himself to as high a standard, though.”
“And he loved you. I do not doubt that, as I have no doubt my guardian loved me. Unfortunately, your father could not appreciate what he’d been blessed with. He lived in fear of discovering something in his family that reflected poorly on him. He was afraid of his own inadequacies, and so he had to eliminate any he saw in those he should have celebrated, rather than berated.”
Velia wanted to refute him, but the years of being unable to please her father, of never being good enough to earn praise instead of the steady criticism—they weighed on her with a crushing power.
Retav hugged her tighter. “I have not known you long, yet it is clear to me you are smart and kind and conscientious. Driven to help us all avoid a terrible fate. The All-Spirit is strong within you, Velia. You shine with it.”
Fresh tears slid down her cheeks. “You think so?”
“Stop trying to live up to impossible expectations. Do what you feel is best and be content with that. Your father’s, Jape’s, even my opinion—not as important as feeling pride in your efforts. And you should feel proud about those attempts, child. If you trust me for nothing else, trust me about that.”
She wished she could. With all her heart, she wanted to believe she’d done well for once.
* * *
After Retav followed Velia behind the dome, Arga demanded Jape recount all that had happened. Guilt opened the head enforcer’s mouth, and he shared the meeting they’d had with Ehar and her order to tag Velia.
Arga’s aghast reaction verified Jape’s worst fears. “Ehar ordered a tracker to be implanted? Is she insane?”
“She’s the head elder. If it were for Cas’s welfare, she must have believed it justified. But I couldn’t do it. I—I felt she was wrong.” To his own ears, Jape sounded like a frightened child. My work. My life. She’ll take it all from me.
“Of course she’s wrong! If Velia goes back to Earth with one of those implants, the Monsuda can find her. Take her. Experiment on her.”
Jape couldn’t concentrate on that, not when he was staring at exile. And not when Velia had raced off as soon as he’d brought her to his home. She’s run away to hide. From me. What have I done?
He couldn’t think about Velia. That path held too much pain, pain Jape didn’t understand. Why did it hurt that she’d run from him? Why was it more unsettling than the threat to his job and home?
Better to consider the other issues, issues he could hope to comprehend. He made himself focus. “Ehar sent her to Earth. The head elder didn’t just brush aside Velia’s accusations. She outright lied about that. As impossible as it should be, I’m sure of it.”
Arga didn’t question his assessment for an instant. “The question is, why?”
“Ehar doesn’t want Earthlings on Risnar. Most especially, she’s determined to keep them out of Cas. They disturb her peace.”
“Her peace?”
“Ehar is pursuing absolute oneness with the All-Spirit while still mortal. She’s renowned for her dedication to spiritual perfection.”
“At the cost of people’s freedoms? Their lives? Doesn’t sound so perfect to me.” Arga snorted. “If I had to guess, I’d say she’s scared of the changes that have been happening since Jeannie showed up.”
“Some here in Cas prefer to ignore the Monsuda’s plans to colonize Earth. They act as if it’s not our problem.” Jape could see where fear of a future war would make some wish for the way things had been.
But that is the coward’s way. Arga is right—Ehar is scared. She’d have Cas turn its back on all else just to keep her own life secure.
He called it. She’s not so perfect after all. Not even close.
Arga interrupted his thoughts. “It doesn’t make sense. Sending that pod to Earth opened up the opportunity for more of its people to come here. Surely Ehar saw that.”
“Salno or any of her team could have called it back. I’m certain that’s what Ehar had in mind.”
“It was still a gamble that doesn’t fit in with Ehar trying to keep Earthlings from Risnar at any price.”
Jape had a flash of inspiration. All at once, it seemed clear to him what the head elder had plotted. “But she had considered it. I
f more Earthlings had come, it would have given her valid reason to order the portal destroyed. If they had arrived with aggression, forcing us to fight them, it would have been the ideal opportunity to convince others, maybe even the Assembly, that we should leave Earth to its fate. Ehar would have gotten what she wanted, in the end.” And more of my men might have died. Pointless deaths, no less, because they would have been fighting for an unworthy cause.
“But that would have put Cas in danger. Ehar could have lost everything in that scenario.”
“Not everything.” Jape smiled grimly. Yes, he saw the situation with amazing, stunning clarity. “Ehar has bought into her own legend. She cannot see herself as succumbing to fear or any error in judgment, like the rest of us would.”
“I’m not following.”
“It goes beyond salvaging her perfect existence. She’s reached the point where she’s willing to sacrifice herself and others to prove her position, to show the Assembly was wrong to censure her. Ehar is determined to be right.”
Even as unenlightened as Jape knew himself to be, he understood the trap of that mindset. He’d indulged in it far too much lately.
Arga’s lip wrinkled in a horrified snarl. “Jape, the Assembly needs to be told what’s happening here. Ehar and her followers in the Elders Council must be removed.”
“I’ll tell them that myself.” Ehar had declared war on him and those he’d sworn to protect. She’d tried to get him to victimize Velia in a way too abhorrent to comprehend.
He was Cas’s head enforcer. He was in charge of Velia’s welfare while she was on Risnar. Time for me to step it up, be the warrior I am.
The arrival of a large, nonemergency dartwing ended their conversation. Jape was surprised when Salno climbed out. Her realms were the hive, the science lab, and her berth at the women’s dorm. She’d never visited his home before.
Her expression was mild as she approached, with her hand to her flat breast. “From my spirit to yours. I hope the day has gotten better for all?”
Jape hurried to meet her. “What’s wrong? The only time we can pry you from your research at the hive is when it’s under attack.”
Worlds Collide Page 17