“I don’t know if we will succeed.” Tessa’s brows drew together. “I’ve never grown crops. I don’t even know how to assemble the equipment, but Dora said she can teach us. I believe her.”
Kahn looked to Miri. “Will the women help?”
“Some will.”
“We’ll have to gather the women together.” Tessa looked from Miri to Kahn. “Is there a place large enough to hold all of us?”
Etru shoved his plate back. “You’re allowing them—”
“To try.” Kahn understood the risks, hoped he wasn’t making a huge mistake. “Etru, two generations ago, we had to adjust to the suits, a change without which we might not have survived. Now, we must adapt again. I want your child to grow up with food in its belly. I want our people to have enough energy to fight the Endekians when the time comes. Make no mistake, they want our planet. They know glow stones can be placed into projectiles and the extreme impact turns them into nuclear weapons. We will have to fight them off, and men do not fight well with muscles starved for meat and bellies growling with hunger.”
Tessa bowed her head to him. “Thank you.”
“No.” Kahn took her hand. “We thank you.”
At his words, she lifted her eyes to meet his, and her psi reached out and wrapped him in a warm embrace, sharing a moment he’d never forget. They had come together as strangers, married under the most dire of circumstances, yet they’d formed more than a workable alliance. Always, he’d feared that giving in to her would weaken him, but he couldn’t have been more wrong. Bonds of mutual respect were forging and making them stronger together than either would have been separately. Although he had no idea where the future would take him, he was pleased that Tessa would be with him.
TESSA SHOULD have known organizing the efforts of over a thousand women would be a task of masdon proportions. And without the help of Kahn, who’d taken the hunters with him while leaving only perimeter guards, Dora who had sensors everywhere, Miri’s common sense, Shaloma’s enthusiasm, and Helera, Rian’s wise woman’s support, they wouldn’t have even gotten to this point.
Tessa had called the women together in the chamber Rob One and Rob Two had dug out. From her position on a raised ridge of rock inside a rust-colored cavern that flickered with glow stone lighting, Tessa had told the women and children that Kahn had given his blessing to the massive undertaking of establishing a farm inside Rian. She explained how they’d brought equipment and supplies from Zenon Prime. How with Dora’s help they could help feed their people.
Questions from the audience came fast and furious, the women speaking up as if they’d attended town meetings all their lives. “My husband,” complained a woman in the second row, “expects to come home from a long hunt to a good meal, a glowing hearth, and a clean household. If I work for you, how will I keep my husband happy?”
The women in the audience murmured agreements. Many had the same questions.
Tessa raised her hand for silence, so she could be heard. She’d chosen to wear a traditional Rystani dress, cropped short to show leggings beneath. Even in her clothing, she’d wanted to portray a merging of customs both old and new. “We have also brought cleaning and cooking machines.”
“Enough for all?” asked another woman.
“Enough so that we can make do.” Tessa lowered her voice so the audience would have to subside their murmuring to hear her. The acoustics inside the huge cavern were surprisingly good and carried far. “We will have a communal feast for our men when they return. Some of us will prepare that meal. Others will watch the children of those who work on the farm. We will each do what we do best.”
“What we do best is stay home and take care of our families.”
“We don’t want to adopt alien ways.”
“Would you prefer to go hungry?” Tessa countered, hands on her hips. She didn’t want the debate to become confrontational, but it appeared she would have no choice. So far Dora had remained silent, but Tessa had her eavesdropping to find the natural leaders to put them in charge of different areas. She also had her noting the trouble makers, to send them home or at least isolate them from one another once they broke into groups.
At her strong words, Tessa heard many protests but no clear voice rose up from the audience. Helera floated next to Tessa on her right side, and the women quieted again. The wise woman was their unofficial leader and spokeswoman. The many lines of her face drew respectful silence; once again the women quieted.
“When I was a small girl, there was plenty to eat in Rian. The winters were not so long or so harsh. The men came back from the hunts triumphant, and the women took traditional roles of caring for hearth, home, and children. That was our way for generations and it served us well.”
“And so it shall always be,” said another elderly woman in the audience.
“I will not give my child to another to watch,” shouted a woman up front.
Helera speared her with a chilling look that would have frozen a glow stone. “Now our children go hungry. They may not grow properly. Worse, what will happen in another generation if we go on as we have? Suppose the weather worsens?”
Grumbles and whispers of fear washed over the crowd. Tessa had known she needed support. She’d expected to find it among the women just a few years older than Shaloma, since younger people usually embraced new ideas more easily. Instead, the oldest and wisest of them had embraced her alien idea and had made her feel that these people might eventually accept her.
“This might be the best opportunity we ever have to intervene in our fates.” Helera spoke slowly, giving the women time to calm their emotions and think. “We can go the way of the licaseum to extinction or we can act to save ourselves. Change is never easy. But Rystani women are strong people, and we can make changes.”
Cheers and applause came sporadically from the audience. Tessa estimated maybe one third of the women might be convinced. Not enough.
“I will not follow that abomination.” A thin woman pointed at Tessa. “My husband says that she fights like a man.”
Tessa was about to defend herself, but Miri came to float by her left side. “Tessa is different from us. She comes from another world with customs that permit a woman to work and fight or to stay at home and raise children. On her world, her job was to protect a great leader. And because of her skills, she saved the life of my Etru, as well as Kahn, Xander, Zical, Mogan, and Nasser.” Miri placed her hands on her extended belly. “Because of Tessa’s alien skills, my child shall grow up with his father. Yes, her talents are different from what I know, but that does not mean we should fear what she can offer.”
More murmurs grew. Heated arguments sprang up in several areas, including several shouting matches.
Tessa stepped forward and held up her hands for silence. “No one will be forced to do anything that makes them uncomfortable. And if our grand experiment fails, you can return to the old ways. I ask that you take a chance for a better future for yourselves, your husbands, and your children. Those who want to try, please stay. Those that don’t wish to participate are free to leave.”
Tessa expected very few people to stay. But only a few dozen out of maybe a thousand women left the chamber. However, she saw doubts, fears, and much hesitation on the faces of the ladies who remained. “I thank you for your support. More important, I hope the entire community will thank you when we succeed. Those who wish to work on the farm, please move to the right. Those who want to cook for the workers, go to the left. And those who will watch the children please step to the back.”
As the women picked and chose where they wanted to be, Tessa saw they’d actually divided into thirds. She had too many cooks and child care workers, not enough people to labor on the hydroponics, but it was a start. And they would make do.
KAHN PLANNED to hunt for four full days. He figured Tessa could use a break from her training. He didn’t want her to go stale, and more importantly, he intended to keep the men out of the women’s way until they worked
out a system to tend to the children, the cooking, and the hydroponics. So the men broke into three large groups with a plan to converge at a preappointed place to clean their kill.
Unfortunately, one group ran into Endekians almost immediately. They escaped through a mountain pass. The second group met up with hunters from a neighboring village who had wandered into Rian’s hunting territory due to their own lack of game. Threats were shouted, but no blood spilled. Kahn’s group found several octar, barely enough to feed the hunters and keep them going, with little left over to bring home.
At camp for the night, discouraged men sat around glow stones discussing their options, protected from the wind by their suits and their sleeping masdons which surrounded them. Mogan and Xander pressed their argument to go farther south. Etru and Zical, fearing an Endekian attack, wanted to head back to Rian to protect the women. Kahn remained undecided until a psi shriek, unlike any he’d known, had him leaping to his feet. The shrill cry had broken into his mind with a thunderous blow and a hammer strike that made his ears ring and his heart pound.
Etru stood also. “What’s wrong?”
“Tessa’s in trouble.” Kahn prodded his masdon awake.
Zical exchanged a long glance with Etru, then angled his head in disbelief. “Kahn, how do you know?”
“She called out to me with her psi.”
Nasser shook his head. “That’s impossible. We are two day’s ride from Rian.”
“I heard her,” Kahn insisted, floating onto his masdon. It mattered not if his men followed. It mattered not that it was night. Or that Endekians might stand between him and Tessa. Not for one minute did he doubt that she needed him. Knowing her spirit as well as he did, he knew she would not have called unless a life was in danger.
With an urgent psi command to his masdon, he prodded the beast to top speed. He sensed men following, their voices pleading with him to slow down, but he didn’t heed their words to take cover, to avoid leading the Endekians straight to Rian. At the journey’s end, he would hide his approach, but not yet.
With every lumbering step, he could only think that Tessa needed him. He must hurry.
When a shuttle dropped out of orbit and landed in front of his masdon, Kahn wondered if the Endekians had found him. And if they already had Tessa. But he had no time to consider the merit of that idea before the hatch popped open.
Kahn reached for a stunner. As did his men who guarded his flanks and rear. He was just about to order his men to circle the ship, when Dora’s familiar voice called out to him. “Kahn, is that you?”
“What’s wrong?” Without hesitation, he floated off the masdon toward the shuttle’s hatch.
“I need to get you to Rian,” Dora told him. “Fast. I’ll explain on the way.”
Etru and Zical came with him. Kahn left Nasser in charge of the remainder of the hunting party and headed inside the shuttle. The moment Kahn, Etru, and Zical entered, the hatch closed behind them and the craft soared into the sky.
“Dora, is Tessa still alive?” Kahn asked the question that burned like a painful brand.
“She’s in a coma.”
He stiffened but didn’t lose hope or he would fall into a panic and would be no use to anyone—especially his wife. Lael’s death had torn him apart with grief, but losing Tessa wouldn’t just have devastating personal consequences. If she died all of Rystan would mourn . . . and suffer. “What happened?”
“Tessa went through the ice into a water pocket. She struck her head and couldn’t protect herself from the frigid cold. Helera is unsure if she will recover.”
Dora flew the shuttle straight to the cave and popped the hatch. “Go. Go. Helera thinks only a healing circle can bring her back.”
Kahn raced out of the shuttle, his heart thudding, his mind silently screaming. He didn’t know where the shuttle had come from. He didn’t know how Dora could be on it. Right now he didn’t care. His thoughts were on Tessa. She would not die. She could not leave him. She meant too much to him and to both Rystan and Earth.
Kahn sprinted to his quarters, shocked to find the hallways lined with dozens upon dozens of weeping women. They parted, their eyes brimming with tears, their sobs ringing in his ears as he rushed inside to find Tessa lying on a tapestry before the hearth. Helera, Shaloma, and Miri had their hands locked in a healing circle around Tessa.
Kahn, Etru, and Zical joined the circle, adding their heat and their psi to the women’s. Tessa still breathed, but her pink skin was tinged with blue, her lips purple. She didn’t shiver. Her breathing was light, her chest rising and falling with a shallowness that frightened him. He ached to take her into his arms, but knew that if she were to recover, her chance was best inside the healing circle. Kahn fought to keep his voice steady. “What happened?”
Helera spoke softly as the four of them shot psi healing to Tessa. “One of the children fell through the ice into a water pocket. Tessa dived in after him.”
Stunned that she would risk her precious life in such a foolish way, Kahn almost broke the circle. “What! She tried to kill herself?”
Shaloma shook her head. “She floated through the water with skill and purpose—like we float through air. She scooped the boy into her arms and brought him back to the surface. Her skin turned blue, and we tugged both her and the boy to safety.”
“Then she collapsed?” Etru asked.
“Not right away.” Miri spoke sadly. “The boy didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. He was dead.”
Shaloma continued the story. “Tessa shoved the boy’s wailing mother aside, struck his chest with her fist. Then she breathed into his mouth. He coughed and spit out water. She saved his life.”
“And then?” Kahn sensed the women didn’t want to tell him what occurred next. Something horrible had happened. He sensed it from their psi, saw it in the shadow of disgust and sadness in their expressions.
“Several women claimed that Tessa was . . . unnatural. Evil.” Helera sounded tired and exhausted as if the years weighed heavily on her thin shoulders. “Those hostile women panicked and shoved Tessa back onto the thin ice. Your wife wasn’t even scared. She tried to explain, to reason with them. Although she was somewhat cold and shivering, she was handling her suit’s control well enough to avoid serious hypothermia. The women were too afraid to listen to her words. Then the ice broke under Tessa’s weight. Again she fell through the surface. For a long time she didn’t come up. When she did, she was . . . like this.”
Miri filled in the gap. “We think she hit her head and was unconscious while under the water. I saw blood on the ice after she disappeared and heard a terrible thud as her head smacked. Perhaps she was too cold to use her shield. But she fought through it, came back to the surface and climbed into Miri’s arms before she again collapsed.”
Was that when she’d fired off that psi scream? When she was cold and frightened and alone? When she’d been slipping from consciousness?
Kahn should never have left her. With her aptitude for stirring discord, he should have known better than to let her out of his sight. And he was sick with grief over such an avoidable accident.
“Kahn, she called out to you.” Helera drew him from his thoughts. “I heard her psi scream your name. Now you must find a way to bring her back,” Helera directed, “or it may be the end of all our people.”
“What must I do?” he asked.
“The two of you share a rare connection that is older than Rystani history. You must find a way to ease a path for her back into the light.”
Kahn sent out his psi. “She’s closed to me.”
“Find a way to slip through or she dies,” Helera warned in a voice fierce and ferocious. “She’s fading.”
“Tell me how to do more,” Kahn pleaded, having no idea how to reach her.
“I cannot tell what I do not know. I’ve only heard the legends that say a psi mate must be willing to risk all to bring back the other.” Helera’s eyes found his across the healing ring. “You may have to stretch yoursel
f so thin that we lose you, too.”
“I’m not important,” Kahn told them. “Tessa is. She must win the Challenge.”
“Kahn, we will be here for you,” Shaloma promised. “Use our strength to add to your own.”
“We could all die?” Kahn asked Helera for clarification and read the answer in her eyes. As much as he wanted to save Tessa, each person must take that risk of their own free choice.
Kahn’s gaze sought out the men and the women who meant so much to him. “Are you sure, my friends?”
Each of them nodded in turn. That Tessa was Earth’s champion and Rystan’s only hope of a final Challenge win outweighed all other considerations, but it didn’t hurt that in the short time she’d been with them she’d touched their lives in manners both significant and small.
Dora chimed in, her tone somber. “I will add my psi, too. Let us begin.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
KAHN HAD tried once already to penetrate Tessa’s psi. His initial thrust had been countered by a dense shield that had bounced him out. This time he edged toward her psi with much more care, hoping he could sneak up on her. He’d never seen anything like her mind barrier.
“Suggestions?” he asked.
“It’s as if she’s encased her psi inside a protective shield,” Etru muttered.
Kahn tested the barrier, seeking an opening. “Her mind shield is like a ball of yarn, except the threads are made of steel.”
“There’s not time to follow one thread to the core,” Dora warned. “Body functions are weakening.”
Shaloma spoke up, but hesitantly. “Kahn, the threads only look solid because Tessa is spinning the shield. It’s probably some kind of automatic self-defense mechanism.”
“She’s right,” Miri added excitedly. “Kahn, if you can match the rate of rotation, perhaps you can slip inside.”
“I’ll try.” Kahn had never imagined such a thing, but he spun his psi around hers, matching the rate of rotation. Sure enough, he could now see tiny holes between the thicker threads. “I’m going in now.”
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