Cameron turned to greet Pavel and Zussman.
Pavel undertook a more complete introduction, explaining Zussman’s urgent need of protection from the Chancellor.
Cameron frowned at Zussman for several minutes, crossing her large arms and looking him over carefully.
“Ye say ye were a butler, then?” asked the clan head.
“I was, formerly, Madam,” replied Zussman.
Cameron guffawed and then regained her composure. “What, with white gloves and silver trays and the rest of it?”
“Something like that, Madam,” replied the butler.
“Well then, ye’re hired,” said Cameron.
Pavel’s eyebrows shot up sharply and he glanced at his friend. “I’m not sure Zuss is looking for work at the moment.”
“No, sir,” Zussman said to Pavel. “It would be perfectly acceptable to me to be properly interviewed for the position.”
“A proper interview?” asked Cameron. She shuffled from one foot to the other. “Well, I’ll see what I can manage.” She leaned in towards Zussman. “Never had a butler before, mind. Always thought I’d like one, though. Someone to bring a bit of order in the wake of me chaos, don’t ye see? Do ye know a good whiskey from a middling one?”
Jessamyn smiled as the pair of them preceded everyone else into the great hall. An impromptu feast had been organized, and Jess found her appetite had grown enormous somewhere in the airspace above the Madeira highlands.
Cameron apologized repeatedly to Zussman, hollering out such things as, “I suppose ye’re used to grander affairs in the capitol, then?” and, “With a proper butler, I’d manage rather better, do ye not think?”
After much feasting and a handful of toasts to friendships between the worlds, Cameron dismissed all but the Marsians, Dr. Zaifa, and Pavel.
“Ye’re safe here. As safe as ye can be so far from home, that is.” Cameron’s voice softened. “Please, consider this home, for as long as ye stand in need of one.”
As Cameron called for an aide to sort everyone into rooms, Jessamyn hung back. She knew she couldn’t sleep right now. There were too many things inside her, all clamoring for her attention. From within the imaginary fortress which held her fears and her losses, Jess now heard rumblings and rustlings. It was time for her to open the chambers where all that was softest and most vulnerable about her lay hidden.
So Jess stood to one side and waited for a quiet moment to make a request of the Clan Chieftain. At last Cameron seemed to be alone, and Jess approached with her question. “Would it be a problem if I took my flier out?”
“What, are ye thinking of leaving so soon?”
“No,” Jess replied. “I just need … I just want …”
“You’re a pilot,” said Cameron, placing a large hand gently on Jessamyn’s shoulder. “I understand. Mind ye keep within two kilometers of the island’s surfaces. Ye’ll be protected that far out by our defenses. Can I trust ye to venture no farther?”
Jessamyn smiled. “You could ask me to fly circles over the castle right now and I’d agree to it.”
“Porto Moniz will be lovely tonight,” Cameron said thoughtfully. “The moon’s near full. Ye can even stop for a swim if ye’re not afraid of a wee bit of cold. There’s a large vehicle park beside the volcanic pools. Ye cannot miss it. No one will trouble ye this time of night.”
Jessamyn nodded her thanks and stepped quietly along one side of the great hall toward the front entrance to the castle. Moonlight spilled into the courtyard, lighting the polished surfaces of the vessel. It was a lovely night to fly.
Hearing quiet steps behind her, Jess turned. She hoped Cameron hadn’t changed her mind. But it was Pavel.
“Hey,” he said softly. “Mind if I come along?”
She looked at the long shadow falling behind him. The Terran moon, so much brighter than her world’s moons combined, cast part of Pavel’s face in darkness, part of it in light.
“I don’t mind,” said Jess, smiling softly.
54
COMING HOME
The two settled into the flier, side by side.
Jessamyn pulled the ship swiftly upward, reveling in the sense of weight that told her she was in ascent. The castle and then the island fell behind them, and two kilometers came far too quickly.
Reluctantly, Jess brought the ship back around, skimming the outline of the island instead. The moon had risen sufficiently to be visible from most parts of the island. The bright orb reflecting on the water, the shimmer and gleam of it: it was a beauty no one now alive on Mars would ever know, Jessamyn thought sadly.
At her side, Pavel kept silent.
Several times Jess had to remind herself to stay low to the island. She felt as though she might as well be creeping upon the planet’s surface, as though her ability to see the place had been taken from her. She yearned for outlines, edges, the surging lines of mountains or craters seen from on high. She felt as if she were groping forward as a blind soul, insect-like in her inability to discover the shape of the horizon.
She felt the same way about Pavel, she realized, as though her ability to read the prospect of the boy beside her had been swallowed up by the grind of run, hide, flee. She needed altitude; she needed to push out to where she could find the shape of Pavel again and see if it fit the shape of her or if she’d only imagined their love, taken a false reading with inaccurate instruments.
Pavel interrupted the long silence at last. “I hear there’s a place you can swim in these pools made by volcanic rock.”
“Porto Moniz,” Jess replied. “Cameron told me to stop there.”
“You game?” asked Pavel, white teeth flashing in the dark of the cockpit.
“Sure,” said Jessamyn. She brought the craft down in a large parking lot. It was, as Cameron had promised, empty.
“Place is awfully quiet,” said Pavel as he swung out the hatch and jumped outside. “On such a nice night, too.” Hands on his hips, he gazed about and then held out a hand to Jessamyn.
She looked at his hand and took it firmly in her own, releasing it once she’d hopped from the craft.
The two walked side by side toward the sea.
“It looks so violent,” she said as waves collided above the hollows of exposed volcanic rock.
“The ocean?” asked Pavel. “We don’t have to go in.”
But as they neared the pools, they were able to determine that while some of the volcanic hollows took the brunt of the ocean’s attack, others remained calm.
Their hands brushing together, the two descended sets of stairs to a series of pools outlined in the dark rock that had once been molten lava. Ocean waves crashed violently beside the pools, sending white spray into the dark of night. It seemed to Jessamyn yet another and different ocean from the one she had known aboard the escape pod. She shivered.
“A bit of a change from the desert,” murmured Pavel, shifting closer to Jessamyn.
Where his frame sheltered hers, she felt a whisper of warmth.
He shifted until his head faced hers. “I’m so sorry for what I did back in Yucca. For destroying your ship.” He paused and turned his eyes away from hers. “I know words aren’t enough. What I did was unforgivable.”
Jessamyn felt a tingle run along her spine. One part of her wanted to reply that it was okay. But was it? She was alive. She was safe. She was with Pavel. Was that okay? Perhaps. But if Pavel hadn’t shot out the hover boosters, they might have been laying plans to leave for Mars within the year.
Swallowing against the sorrow constricting her throat, Jess turned away from Pavel. It was his fault. She wanted it to be his fault. Once again, she was homeless and without a craft to steer through the stars. She needed it to be someone else’s fault and not her own.
But she knew better.
And you can admit it, she told herself.
“It’s not your fault,” she found herself saying. “I ought to have trusted you.”
Tears squeezed through her tight-shut eyes. She
took one of his hands in one of hers and held tight.
“I owe you an apology,” said Jessamyn, when she was able to speak. “For not trusting you when you saw through your aunt’s spy.”
Pavel stared off into the distant horizon. “I guess he’s probably dead, the real Renard.”
Jessamyn nodded. “That’s what I figured.”
“I’m glad he didn’t see the destruction of Yucca. He loved that place like I can’t begin to imagine loving any place.” He shook his head in sorrow.
Jessamyn swallowed back the ache of another loss, and the two stood quietly again.
At last, Jess spoke, acknowledging the wild beauty before them. “This is amazing,” she said.
“I’ve never seen pools that looked anything like this before,” Pavel said, pulling his shirt over his head.
“Really?” asked Jessamyn. “I’d have thought …” She turned to face him and saw the moonlight striking his face and chest. Whatever she’d been about to say disappeared. Marsians did not often see one another without thick layers of clothing, and the sight of Pavel’s bare chest took words from her entirely. He was so … beautiful.
His own gaze still fixed on the water, Pavel slipped a hand into hers.
A breeze blew past, cool with night air and the tang of the ocean. Pavel’s hand against hers felt warm, comforting. Jessamyn wondered what his chest would feel like, if she placed her palm over his beating heart. The thought brought a flush of warmth to her face, and she warned herself sternly: you’re too impulsive, Jaarda—show some restraint.
But then she glanced back at Pavel, shirtless and vulnerable, and suddenly, she wasn’t thinking about restraint any more.
“I came back for you,” she whispered. “To Earth, I mean.” The words tumbled out. “It was wrong, and I knew it, and I did it anyway.”
A confession. An admission.
She couldn’t meet his gaze, but she felt his grip tighten upon her hand. She continued.
“I tried to make it about Mars Colonial, about setting things straight for Mei Lo, and it’s true I wanted to do something for my home world, but mostly I came back because I wanted to see you again. It was selfish and wrong-headed.” She paused to take a shallow breath.
“Jess,” whispered Pavel.
She placed two fingers on his mouth, shaking her head. She had to say it all now or she would never find the courage. “And you and I don’t even know one another. Not really. I’d known you for, what, a day, when I left for Mars? So what does that make me, for flying all the way back here to find you? The biggest fool in the history of Mars Colonial?”
Pavel took her hand from where it rested on his lips. He kissed her fingertips, and then murmured, “You might qualify for ‘Most Determined Girl’ in the history of Mars Colonial.” He smiled. “And as far as knowing each other? Of course we don’t know each other very well. Not yet. But I know this, girl from Mars—” Here his voice dropped to a whisper. “I can’t bear the thought of a life without you.”
And then he took her face in his hands, tracing the outline of her jaw, running a thumb across her First Wrinkle.
“Every time I see that worry line on your forehead, I want to say how sorry I am.”
Jessamyn smiled. “That’s my First Wrinkle. It’s a sign of distinction, Earth-boy.”
“I would’ve ended up with a lot more than one lousy wrinkle if I’d been stuck in a transport alone for two months,” he murmured.
Heat hummed between them, and Jess leaned in, placing her palm just over his heart. She felt the double-thump of it as it beat under her hand. Strong. Steady. Unswerving. For better or worse, this, she felt with certainty, this was what had called her back to Earth.
“It belongs to you,” Pavel murmured. “Ever since the first night when I saw you in that orange sari.”
Jessamyn closed the gap between their bodies. And then, slowly, tentatively, between their lips. In the warmth of that kiss, it didn’t feel so wrong to have crossed a sea of stars to find Pavel.
They pulled apart at last, standing in quiet awe of the moonlight washing over them, the ocean thundering just beyond them.
“We’ll find a way,” he whispered. “A way to get you home.”
To Jessamyn, it felt as if the chambers of her imagined fortress were slowly dissolving. She felt the heaviness of each of her griefs, but as she turned her gaze from the churning water to the still pools and at last to the boy beside her, she found her sorrows no longer overwhelmed her. Sighing, Jess released her grip upon all she had lost. She allowed her losses to drift out to sea, borne away upon the tide.
Pavel took her hand and brought it to his lips once more, his breath warm upon her fingers, her palm, her wrist. “So what do you say we get to know one another? Seeing as you came a hundred million kilometers or whatever it was.”
Jessamyn smiled, flushing once more.
“Come on,” said Pavel. “You up for a swim?”
“I don’t know how,” she admitted. “But the one thing all Marsian kids dream of? It’s definitely swimming.”
The water felt cold, bracing, and tasted of salt tears, but Jess laughed as she pushed off from the bottom of one of the pools. “Under the water, it feels like Mars,” she said. “The gravity’s not Earth-gravity at all!”
Pavel tilted his head to one side. “Huh. Yeah. This is probably as close as you can get to your Mars-weight.”
“We’re coming here every day,” declared Jess. “Until I learn to swim.”
Pavel smiled. “Coming here every night would be more fun.”
Jess splashed him and then pushed through the water to kiss the boy she’d journeyed so far to find again.
And kissing Pavel felt like coming home.
End of Book Three
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Acknowledgements
What is it about Mars that calls to some of us so loudly? I don’t know, and when I try to explain it to others, I trip all over myself, usually ending in some blushy–faced version of NVM. Which, I suppose, is why I write these stories about Mars: because I need a way to explain why the images sent back from Curiosity have the power to reduce me to teary speechlessness.
So, for those of you who enjoy these stories, thank you. I am so humbled by the thought that someone else is reading and enjoying what I cobble together for the love of Mars.
Special thanks are due to those who make my books better: editor Alexis at Word Vagabond, Danielle for the concept for the series cover art, Jacob for this book’s cover, and Chris for pulling it all together so that it can sit on a shelf (or inside an e–reader!) Thanks, as well, to my writer buddies who push me to sprint, and to my agent Michael Carr, who reminds me it’s a marathon. (Or was that a sprint?)
Author’s Note
Would you like to see humans on Mars? Or journey there yourself? You many find the following organizations of interest:
www.planetary.org
www.nss.org
www.spacefrontier.org
www.marssociety.org
www.nasa.gov
www.spacex.com
mars-one.com
Table of Contents
LOSING MARS
A SINGLE RED HAIR
MERRY MORN
TRAIL OF TELLURIUM
IRREGULARITIES
ANOMALOUS PATTERNS
UNDER THE RADAR
WHISTLE-WORTHY
FOND OF PIZZA
ENTREPRENEURIAL SOULS
ALL THE DIFFERENCE
ADDED TO THE STRAND
OU
GHT TO HAVE LISTENED
FLY ON THE WALL
STUCK ON EARTH
THERE’S THE RUB
OBSEQUIOUS
ACTING THE PART
SOMEONE WHO GETS ME
LAST WISH
FOURBODY
CANDY TO CHILDREN
LOVELIEST NAME
WORST JOB IN THE WORLD
PROTOCOL
NOTHING PERSONAL
NO ONE SPEAKS MARSPERANTO
SCOTLAND THE BRAVE
HOPE
I DON’T CRASH EVERYTHING I FLY
MELANCHOLY
WOULD KNOW THE DIFFERENCE
NOT MY PROBLEM
MAKE A LOUSY MARSIAN
INTELLIGENCE
NEVER REALLY KNOW
IF YOU MUST EAT WORMS
NO HUGS IN HIS EYES
A SLIGHT MODIFICATION
THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT
REPEATED PATTERN
JUST LIKE YOUR AUNT
HARBINGER
EQUIDIMA
ONCE CALLED HOME
NO LONGER A BOY
COLD FIRE
CARROT OR STICK
WHAT A WASTE IT WOULD BE
A SMOOTH TRANSITION
WHITE LILIES
WE HAVE A SITUATION
ZUSSMAN
SHELTER
COMING HOME
Losing Mars (Saving Mars Series-3) Page 25