by Chogan Swan
Tiana’s warm breath caressed his shoulder, her sleep undisturbed.
“How can she sleep straight through that when they start up at night?” Amber whispered from the far side of the bed. “It always wakes me up for at least a few minutes.”
“You don’t have to whisper,” Jonah said in a low voice. “She’ll sleep through any noise she recognizes as harmless, and she can tell the difference as easily as she can when she’s awake. Humans take longer to develop the ability to recognize new night sounds as a threat or not. Now if a puma was outside the window, she’d be awake.”
“Nice to know,” said Amber. “Would it wake her if I unwrapped her tail from my leg so I could go to the bathroom?”
Jonah chuckled as Tiana’s tail moved from Amber’s leg to his own. Tiana’s even breathing didn’t change.
“Answer your question?”
“Damn!” Amber said as she slid out of bed. When she came back a few minutes later, she closed the door, went to the window and looked out at the moonlight on the desert. The ghostly light of the full moon spilled across her face, shoulders and bare breasts. The shadows below the window hinted at the long, graceful curve of her body.
“Thinking about your new babies on the way?” said Jonah.
“It’s a lot to take in,” Amber said. “I always thought about having them myself if this time ever came, and now three other women are carrying them. Yeah, it makes it easier on my schedule for the next nine months, but I still want to carry some of them myself next time.”
“It was a nice thing you did for Jerry and Wendy, letting them adopt and carry two.”
“I like them” Amber said. “Jerry makes me laugh. They’ll be good parents, and you were right, having two families with something in common is a good dynamic. Wendy bearing my twins…”
“Our twins,” Jonah corrected.
"Okay, I said you could be involved with them. You don't have to get all territorial." Amber waved her hand, dismissing his interruption. “Well, it’ll still be a challenge for them, considering the babies' mixed ancestry. They’ll have to put up with some racist bullshit.”
Amber paused for a minute, holding her ear closer to the window, listening. “The windows to my room are open. I can hear them in there. The coyotes must’ve woken them too. Wait! They are doing it… Jerry and Wendy are doing the dirty in my bed,” she said with mock horror. “And my fantasies of a ménage à trois tonight are all coming to nothing.”
“You could always walk in on them,” Jonah suggested. “Maybe you could stir something up. I’ll do video,” he added helpfully.
Amber turned to him, her eyes wide. She looked as though she was trying to think of something more outrageous to top him, but instead she giggled. Jonah tried to keep a straight face, but the more he fought for control, the harder it got. When the sounds from the next room grew louder, Amber lost it. She dove on the bed to bury her face in her pillow, but still her gales of laughter shook the bed.
Jonah covered his face with his own pillow, crying with laughter. As the sounds of sex in the next room intensified, another pack of coyotes broke out in accompaniment. Amber and Jonah pulled their heads out of the pillows to avoid suffocating as the sounds rose to a crescendo.
Jonah sat up, trying to catch his breath; Amber crawled to her elbows and knees, both of them giggling.
Amber pointed at Tiana, sleeping peacefully, and broke out again, laughing even harder. Jonah pulled a handkerchief from the bedside drawer to blow his nose. At last, their spasms stopped, and they both lay still, breathing deeply together, watching Tiana as she slept. The racket from the coyotes died down and the sounds of frogs and crickets from the creek down the hill took its place.
Amber sighed. “God, I’m horny,” she said.
At the same time, the sounds of a pair of coyotes mating started up outside, and Amber started laughing again. Jonah couldn’t help joining in. Stomach aching, he shook Tiana awake and begged her to put him to sleep. Amber clamored for a goodnight kiss as well.
Jonah woke in a tangle of warm, soft limbs. Something tickled his cheek. He opened his eyes. Amber’s head was tucked into his shoulder; her hair brushed his face. Her leg and arm draped across his body. Tiana was gone. As he took inventory, Jonah realized he wasn’t wearing boxer shorts anymore.
What?
He’d put them on last night. Amber had teased him for being the only one in bed over-dressed.
Jonah slid his arm from under Amber’s head and eased out of bed. She rolled over, continuing her steady breathing.
Jonah found his sarong draped over a chair and eased the bedroom door shut behind him. His inner connection to Tiana pointed him outside; he slid his feet into his sandals and followed it.
The female cactus wren stuck her head out of the nest as he walked down the hill. The air was crisp, and the thin clouds to the east caught the early rays of the sun, though it still hid behind the mountains.
Tiana sat on a flat rock beneath a large honey mesquite tree, slowly eating the seeds from a pile of seedpods. Jonah folded his sarong into a cushion and sat next to her.
“What was your plan leaving us like that, Tiana?”
Jonah selected a pod from the pile, opened it and tasted a seed, but spat it out. He put the pod back in her lap. The seed was from a Chilean mesquite, not the one above them. To him the flavor was chalky and bitter.
Tiana finished chewing and swallowing the seed in her mouth. “Amber is lonely, and it’s my fault,” she said. “She’s attracted to you and you to her. I knew you’d understand that I . . . wanted you to go ahead and do something about it.”
Jonah sighed. “Of course I’m attracted to her. I’m a man, and she’s beautiful, but some people are more complex than their sex drives and their loneliness. Amber respects you and follows your lead partly because she’s already a lot like you in some ways, but also because people emulate the ones they want to follow. So, she follows her natural personality with me and flirts. She teases me—the way you do. But, if she thought you didn’t trust her, or that I couldn’t be trusted with it, she’d back off. She’d be horrified if she felt she’d overstepped. Amber wouldn’t create a rift in our—clearly monogamous—relationship, and speaking for myself, I can’t navigate the treacherous waters of multiple intimate relationships.”
Tiana rubbed her face with both hands. “I warned you that you’d need to be patient with me. Was Amber upset?”
“She was asleep when I left.” Jonah put his hand on Tiana’s back.
“So no more inviting her to bed with us?”
Jonah pulled Tiana onto his lap. “Just stay between us if you do,” he said.
Tiana rubbed her face against his. “Sorry,” she said.
Jonah kissed her, soft. She returned it harder.
An hour later, they walked back up the hill to the house. Amber came out of the garden shower drying her hair and met them on the patio. “I got a call from Max. Maryland is a go for tomorrow. The chopper will be here in thirty minutes. Breakfast is on the table.”
Amber grinned. “That was a great party last night. I had no idea you two were so much fun in bed,” she said as they walked into the eating area together.
Jerry and Wendy were already at the table. Jerry, who’d obviously heard the last remark, sat frozen in the middle of scooping scrambled eggs onto his plate. Wendy’s eyes crinkled as she giggled.
Amber wrapped her towel around her body and walked to the hall. “Yes, you two were loud,” she said to Jerry and Wendy. “And I was tempted to come join you, but I was talking to them.” She jerked her thumb at Tiana and Jonah and headed down the hall.
Jerry goggled at her. It looked as though he hadn’t figured out Amber either, but Wendy snorted with laughter. Luckily, she hadn’t been eating or drinking anything.
Jonah sat. “Are you going to bogart those eggs all day?” he said to Jerry.
Chapter 27 (Best Laid Plans)
The night mist and drizzle hissed on the leaves, and water
collected and plopped on the ground outside the cabin. Jonah was close behind Tiana as she drifted through the woods. Amber—flanked by Jacksie and Austin—kept station ten feet behind Jonah.
Except for Tiana, all of them navigated the trail with night vision eyepieces, avoiding the attention flashlights might cause from campers or game wardens.
Tiana walked to the cabin door and opened it. Jonah chided himself for expecting her to knock. Her mother, Symbiana, would have known they were coming for some time. After all, the breeze had been at their backs as they’d approached.
Jonah followed her inside, remembering the layout from the last time he’d been here. He hoped they wouldn’t have to face another challenge to Tiana’s leadership. Tiana had assured him it was settled, but he couldn’t help the thought. They filed in, hanging their rain gear by the door. To the left, the big room—where the challenge fight had been—now held tables covered with stacks of photographs and computers. Maps hung from the wall with several large monthly calendars marked with notes.
“We’re in the kitchen,” Edward’s voice called from the other room. “If anyone wants coffee, there’s a fresh pot here.”
Tiana, Jonah and Amber walked down the short hall to the kitchen. Jacksie and Austin stationed themselves to cover the door.
“Can I get you two coffee?” said Jonah, turning his head back.
“Just him,” Jacksie said, nodding at Austin. “I need both hands for the first shift.” He flipped his bullpup’s barrel up then back to demonstrate his priorities.
Jonah nodded. It was nice to have dedicated talent protecting them. He stepped into the kitchen, nodded to Max, Edward and Symbiana and got a cup for Austin, black no sugar.
When Jonah returned to the kitchen, he took the open chair between Tiana and Amber. One of them had brought coffee to the table for him.
Amber sipped her coffee, eyes moving between Tiana and Symbiana. Jonah had filled her in on the details of the relationships and their timelines, but it would likely take her time to digest.
Symbiana turned to Amber and smiled. “I feel somehow I should know you,” she said. “Do I know your family, perhaps?”
Amber nodded. “My name is Amber Rodriguez al Bahari de Cordoba y Casablanca. My grandfather told me you were his friend, but you chose to keep his family out of your struggle when you moved to the Americas. He taught me to pray for you every day when I was growing up. I am his only surviving descendant.”
“May we talk later? I missed your grandfathers terribly after we parted. I’d like to know more about his life.”
“Tiana told me the story of your time together,” Amber replied. “I’ll be glad to tell you.”
“Thank you, Amber,” said Symbiana. Her expression seemed almost haunted.
Amber put her cup down and leaned forward. “How sure are you that the bad guys will be in the building when we move?” she said to Symbiana.
“Jonah should be the one to answer your question. His idea solved the puzzle,” Symbiana said.
Jonah adjusted his chair. “I had the idea, but Max’s team did the analysis.” Jonah put down his coffee cup.
Story time
“I used to go fishing every summer with my cousin Jerry when I was a kid. When you’re fishing for bass, you learn to put your lure near where the minnows are jumping out of the water, because that’s where the predator fish are.”
Jonah motioned to Symbiana. “Now Symbiana proved that the bad guys were in the building at least on one occasion, and the strength of the signal indicated they frequented the location. We know the niiaH rule their slaves through fear. So, Max’s team measured the markers for fear with listening devices, IR cameras and other cool tricks for: heart rate, respiration, sweating and smell as people left or entered the building. We used straightforward data analytic techniques and soon deciphered the patterns well enough to tell when they actually were in the building and from there to predicting their schedules. We also have some notions about which people deal with them most.”
“So you tracked them by the noise of the fear they broadcast,” said Amber. “That’s good. So, why does everybody call you stupid?”
“Just got lucky this time, I guess.” Jonah said. He noted Edward’s puzzled expression and grinned.
“Anyway,” Max said. “We’re pretty sure the niiaH have been in the building every Tuesday since we started the study. In addition to their normal arrivals via the parking in the sub-basement, We’ve managed to find two other entrances they use. One connects through a stair from an underground section of the Metro. The other is in a warehouse to the south.” He pushed his chair back from the table. “Let’s move to the situation room.”
Chapter 28 (Enemy Camp)
In general, the method for employing the military is this. Preserving the enemy’s state capital is best, destroying their state capital second best. Preserving their army is best, destroying their army second best. Preserving their battalions is best, destroying their battalions second best. Preserving their squads is best, destroying their squads second best. — Sun Tzu
The passage along the Metro tracks seemed gloomier today as ShwydH followed his bodyguards down the narrow walk to the stronghold near the Baltimore industrial district. ShwydH suspected one of his guards, the one in the lead today, had aligned with DuGwaedH last week.
DuGwaedH made a practice of seeking out ShwydH’s most competent slaves and turning them, forcing ShwydH to kill them himself. For years, this caused a reduction in competency in ShwydH’s slaves and made it harder to control them. Three years ago, however, after the nii tracker female and her young male nii companion surfaced, ShwydH implemented a new strategy. Now, he protected his most talented subordinates by withholding promotions from them—never going further than hinting to them they would be better off not making targets of themselves. Instead, he promoted flawed tools by bringing up the topic of advancement and elevating the fools eager for it. This allowed him to keep the ones wise enough to react with fear.
ShwydH contemplated this path for decades, but had held back, knowing it was just a matter of time before DuGwaedH discovered the ploy. It was a dangerous gambit, sacrificing millennia of tradition forbidding alliance with slaves.
Now it didn't matter. Over a century ago, ShwydH had realized something—he too was a slave, but for him there was no escape.
ShwydH was young for a niiaH, only four hundred years old. To extend their lifespan, older niiaH selected embryos from their own young—produced under contract for desirable genetic traits. The offspring, raised under sedation for ten years, never attained full consciousness until the end. Machines stimulated their muscles and intravenous tubes administered nutrients.
When the adult was ready to jump, it inserted filaments through precisely drilled holes in the young skull and attached them to key nodes in the brain. The sedative flow would shut off, and the first and last awareness their offspring attained was of annihilation.
ShwydH was still four hundred years from the time he'd be expected to jump his consciousness to a new body. He’d heard rumors that the nii used more sophisticated methods to extend their lives, but that had seemed a small thing until he’d landed on this benighted planet.
Today was probably the last day of his life. The chances of surviving once DuGwaedH discovered the truth were vanishingly small.
DuGwaedH had worked two hundred years to produce eggs. But ShwydH had worked for one hundred on sabotaging his own genetic code. Not just his sperm, but every cell in his body that could be adapted to fertilize an egg. There would be no going back. It was easier to tear your genetic code down than to repair it. ShwydH was young, and his skills for genetic manipulation were crude, nowhere near DuGwaedH’s ability that had allowed hir to change from male to hermaphrodite.
ShwydH touched the plastic vial in his pocket. In a few minutes, he would deposit sperm there and hand the vial to DuGwaedH. When ze looked at the sample in the microscope, ShwydH would be dead soon after—unless he could kil
l DuGwaedH first.
Even if ShwydH killed DuGwaedH, he still estimated he would only live another three hundred years. The damage he’d wrought to his own genes would start punishing him badly in two hundred. Three hundred years running from the nii… ShwydH grimaced at the thought.
If he failed, at least DuGwaedH would be forced to capture one of the nii for useable genetic material for hir empire. ShwydH had made it easier for the nii.... Why should he care about the NiiaH Empire? What had it given him but misery?
The lead guard unlocked the outer door with a key code. ShwydH followed him through and removed the scent-masking gloves and facemask, handing them to the guard behind him. He touched a finger to the sensor pad on the inner lock and ran his filaments through the code. The door opened, and they filed up the stairs.
It seemed ages since he’d joined the niiaH military. When ShwydH joined, he’d continued the habits from his earliest years: power sharing and brokering. The strategy human’s called rational selfishness. He’d been adept at negotiating the pitfalls of political life, so he rose quickly in the ranks. But, the war with the nii had not gone well. ShwydH doubted a spark of the empire survived anywhere else in the galaxy. And when DuGwaedH’s ship disintegrated in the Earth’s atmosphere, ShwydH soon found out how little rational selfishness helped when you had no allies. ShwydH was only a pawn to sacrifice. DuGwaedH kept him alive for his genetic material and as a buffer against the nii. ShwydH had come to understand that once DuGwaedH had hir army of niiaH children and a new body, ShwydH would die.
It changed the way he looked at humans. ShwydH stopped seeing them as chattel. They were just like him, pawns and slaves.
Though he must act out the lie that he was one of the masters, ShwydH knew better. No matter what he did, he would only live another three hundred years at most, but unless he acted now, he would die sooner. This was his only chance to take down DuGwaedH before ze discovered the damage ShwydH had already done to hir plans.