Jenni spoke the access code, submitted to a retinal scan, entered the cubicle, and seated herself at the camera’s optimal spot. “Agent Samuels reporting.”
The whir was probably her imagination as the cubicle sealed itself around her, setting up barriers to every known form of snooping and making an electronic handshake with the scrambler in Federation headquarters.
“Samuels,” the Head of Internal Security appeared on the screen. “Did you get any vision of the meeting?”
“No, sir. They must have some barrier set up. The digital signal was corrupted, both from the fixed cameras and my button lens.”
“Typical.” His face gave no indication whether the source of his dissatisfaction was the Alliance or her performance. “Did the ambassador expect the meeting?”
“She seemed surprised.” Jenni wouldn’t venture beyond that. Rachael was an ex-field agent, experienced in deep cover operations.
“I asked for your opinion, not your observation. Did she expect the meeting?” His tone left her no place to hide.
“No. It was a surprise.” Jenni crossed her fingers out of the camera’s range.
“My opinion too. These people are weaving a net to draw her in. Give her time. She may resist.”
“If she doesn’t?” Jenni didn’t want to ask.
“We’ll make her a double. Her family’s a good lever. There are enough of them. We’ll make an example of two to show what we can do—reward one and destroy the other.”
“How will she know it’s us?” Jenni knew what was coming.
“You’ll tell her. We’ll provide vision of both events.”
It was a standard Internal Security approach. Jenni had carried out similar operations in the past, but this one compromised her primary mission to discover the secret of the undetectable portals.
“Questions?” He’d noted her hesitation.
“This is the Alliance.” She must not break security with this man and reveal her real mission. His ruthlessness was legendary.
“Are you afraid?”
“Yes,” she said truthfully.
“Good. It will make you cautious. This is no ordinary operation.” He nodded approvingly. It had been a test.
Emboldened by the apparent vote of confidence, Jenni followed the thread supplied by the security man, Dick Smith. “The President?” she made it a question.
“…was not born on Trygon. He is either a family member or a close associate,” the head of security confirmed.
“He is known to be fond of the ambassador.” Jenni tried to make the implied criticism gentle.
“She is in his room. They are lovers in the physical sense, but make no assumptions from that. The Alliance is ruthless when it comes to normal humans. They use them without compunction,” he warned.
Jenni nodded. No other response was acceptable. “Proof he is not what he claims could be useful. He may have lied to her.”
“A courier will deliver it.”
“Thank you.”
“No other questions?” He paused long enough for Jenni to shake her head. “These are your instructions….”
Jenni listened in silence until he finished, asked three questions, and nodded her understanding when he expanded the points. “Making an example of her is our last option,” she confirmed. “Only if all else fails.”
He nodded and broke the comms link, the screen going dark.
Jenni sat in the darkness for a while, her mind following the plan from beginning to end, searching for flaws. Internal Security rarely confronted external enemies and this was her only brush with the Alliance. It would have to be perfect if she were not to share the fate of Prometheus when he tried to steal fire from the gods.
A touch of a button deactivated the cubicle’s shielding and the door opened automatically.
“Finished?” The comms operator was waiting when she emerged.
She nodded. “This never happened.”
“What?” The comms operator understood. Internal Security had a long arm, as he was in a position to know.
“Keep it that way.” She didn’t need to reinforce the message, but her doubts were troubling and this made her feel a small fraction better.
* * * *
Peter stepped back from the portal. Jenni clarified the puzzle of the Federation’s lack of reaction to the escape of the Pontiff. Internal Security had kept the secrets of Rachael’s debriefing to themselves. They lusted after the power revealed by the existence of undetectable portals. Once the secret was theirs, they could penetrate any security screen and they had the manpower to do what the Alliance couldn’t.
It meant Rachael was safe for the moment, one less ball to keep in the air. He’d already checked the response of the Federation’s governing council. Feodar’s world was off their immediate acquisition list. Jack and Rachael would have their time together. He’d brief Jack and let him get on with it.
Peter was tempted to set aside time to watch his interment in Arlington. He had a soft spot for the ritual, having seen so many of his comrades go before him. The military did these things so well. Were there any others like him? Did they watch their funerals from a place like this? Listen to the orations? Flinch at the crack of rifles firing the volley?
He shrugged. It didn’t matter one way or the other. This was his reality and its people depended on him managing it in their best interest.
The people of Internal Security weren’t the only parasites in the monolithic structure of the Federation. There were others and he fostered them all whenever he could. They formed his fifth column, limiting the Federation’s effectiveness. Keeping them below the point where they’d trigger the Federation’s self-protective response was hard. The organization could not have survived this long without an internal means of limiting the growth of power factions, but setting it in motion caused such a violent upheaval the response became unpredictable. To protect Rachael’s family, he could push Internal Security into over-reaching its purpose and triggering its own destruction, but it would be his last resort. One he must avoid if he could.
He had to choose his battlefields with care, his lack of resources limited the actions he could take against the Federation. The deal done to transfer Gabrielle across time had forced Feodar’s world on him, but it had stretched his organization to the limit and had taken preparation and cunning to win. Rachael would be a valuable addition, once integrated into the family. It was time to give Jack a nudge in the right direction.
* * * *
“Wake up, sleepy head. It’s time to go home.”
Rachael tried to ignore the voice, snuggling closer to Jack. She didn’t want to wake, nor go to her bed in the compound.
“Come on.” He was unmoved. “Wake up.”
She gave in and opened her eyes. “You’re a cruel man.”
“I know.”
“If Anneke is right, Jenni will have reported the meeting in the pavilion. They’ll assume I’m compromised already.” She looked for any weakening of his resolve.
“Let’s not rub their noses in it.”
“A kiss first.” Time to change tack.
“You think you’re going to get around me, don’t you?” He laughed at her.
Time for another change of tack. “You don’t love me?”
She was shameless. He was right. She did have to go, but making it easy for him wasn’t any part of the deal. Rachael was bubbly with a strange intoxication. She’d spent the evening with a unique group of people, been welcomed by them as an equal, shared their laughter, and felt the warmth of their regard. Then a remarkable man had loved her well. She felt free, cut loose of cares and responsibilities, years of suspicious watchfulness forgotten. Jack would hold her safe, no matter what. Yet, this was no surrender. She stood at his side, both outside the pale of the ordinary.
Jack laughed, surprising her. “You’re a vixen, my love.”
“Am I?” She knew what she was asking, but would he?
“You’re both.” He’d guessed.<
br />
“I’ll forgive you then.”
His hand traced a familiar path down her spine, pausing to delight her in spots extraordinarily sensitive, while his lips divided her attention; touching hers so gently it was like a phantom kiss and slipping away when she tried to engage them. They brushed her closed eyelids, tantalized the lobe of her left ear and caressed the column of her throat, the tip of his tongue touching the hollow at its base. A pause, then he explored the upper slope of her breast and, finally, the nipple. A thought crystallized, diverting Rachael from the physical sensations Jack was causing long enough to emerge full-blown.
I want his child!
Motherhood had never appealed to her, the monthly reminder a mere inconvenience effectively softened by modern medicine, but the combination of the Alliance’s warmth and his exploitation of her nipple was a witches’ brew triggering a new reality. She wanted to share their warmth completely and there was only one route.
* * * *
Jenni watched the hologram form in mid-air and recognized the beach pavilion. The disk had arrived unannounced by courier and there was no accompanying message. The angle of the projection suggested a satellite camera, but the Federation had officially withdrawn all spy satellites from Feodar’s World. Her guess was an illicit camera in one of the weather satellites maintained under the Treaty. It was a gross breach which, taken to the courts, would mean challenge the Federation’s trading concession to this sector, affecting thirty planets. Her superiors were playing a high stakes game to get the undetectable portals. The risks of showing this to Rachael were enormous.
The only sound accompanying the hologram was a commentary identifying the participants and Jenni’s fear grew as she was informed Rachael’s companions were the Alliance leaders themselves. It was logical, she supposed. They’d rescued Rachael twice, once from the debacle on Thanatos and the second time from the Pontiff, and their manner toward her in the pavilion suggested she was one of them, or soon would be.
She studied each individual.
Peter, the male head of the Alliance, was said to have been a soldier and doubly dangerous because of it. He subtly dominated. All faces turned when his lips moved and every speaker commonly glanced at him with their first words, even in private conversation, as if seeking his approval. Without the distraction of sound, the movements seemed exaggerated, but Jenni knew the individuals were unaware of their homage. Peter wasn’t. Jenni zoomed in on his face and saw the sadness it provoked when the others were preoccupied. This was a rare individual, totally aware of his environment. A very dangerous opponent.
Dael, Peter’s wife, was magnificent. Possessing an ageless beauty at its peak, she drew the others like a magnet. Peter, they respected, perhaps even feared a little, but Dael they loved unreservedly. He watched them with compassion; she took them into herself, healed their wounds, and soothed their pain, a great healer.
Karrel, the elder son, was comfortable in his loyalty to his father and not lessened by it. In any other company, he would lead by unchallengeable right, but even his relationship to his wife, Gabrielle, was modeled on his father’s attitude to Dael. His was the truest flattery of all. He imitated what he most admired.
Gabrielle radiated beauty animated by intelligence. Jenni could almost believe her to be the legendary commander of the scout ship discovering non-physical instantaneous travel to revolutionize the universe thirty-five thousand years ago. There were no images of that Gabrielle, Cedric Brown had seen them all destroyed, but Jenni could imagine her as this Gabrielle, a figure to follow into danger and survive.
Anneke, the daughter, was the joker. A disciplined rebel with a sense of fun, her operational record was of snatching some form of victory from the jaws of disaster. She enjoyed the chaos of immediate action and instant results, impatient with the steady progress that ensured unobtrusive gains—a devastating enemy.
Jean-Paul, the younger son, was a mystery. They knew little of him, even if his kinship to the others was obvious. There were no operational records of his involvement in the Alliance; indeed, no records at all of his movements, inside or outside the Federation and facial scans had recorded no hits in any security footage on any planet.
Jack was the quiet achiever and the security man, Dick Smith, had only touched the surface of his activities. Son to Karrel and Gabrielle, he’d been unknown until his rise to prominence of Feodar’s World, just another spacer going about his business on the edge of the law. Since then, his face had shown him involved in more than fifty Alliance operations and probably more. Never in the forefront of the action until his voyage back to the Treaty Port, he’d been as effective an agent as he was proving a president. No wonder the Federation had moved Feodar’s World off the immediate acquisition list. A direct confrontation with the Alliance had a devastating effect of profits and this world was marginal at best.
That brought her to Rachael, the easiest to read, all the classic signs of a woman in love on display. Her body focused on the man at her side, responding intimately to his movements, gaze darting back to him even in the middle of responding to a question. Rachael was smitten.
Jenni bit her lip. She’d intended using sexual passion as her excuse for the botched job of following Rachael, knowing the woman was straight, yet trusting to her sympathy. It was a convincing explanation for everything, including her decision to become PA to a fledgling ambassador, but she knew herself far too well to court this disaster now. Like most Internal Security agents, she was consciously bi-sexual; it was almost a pre-requisite. Rachael had a vulnerability she found attractive. To feign passion convincingly, she would have to allow herself to believe it, and it would be too easy to blur the line between duty and reality with Rachael. She must find another way.
* * * *
Jack walked back from the compound in a daze, having delivered a reluctant Rachael to her door. He’d shared her discovery of motherhood and found it attractive, but it focused all his difficulties into an impossible imperative. He wasn’t surprised when Peter joined him. “Life just got complicated,” he said. “She wants to have my child.”
“What did you expect? We’ve just played happy families in front of someone who endured two years of deep cover and then had her brain picked over by Federation psychologists. We represent idealized normality and security to someone who’s starving for it.”
Jack, who’d never heard Peter speak so harshly before, turned to him, unintentionally probing and finding the older man’s mind closed.
“Don’t mind me.” Peter gave him a lop-sided grin. “I’ve just been eaves-dropping on the Federation. Their stupidity always puts me in a bad mood.” He walked a few steps in silence. “I like Rachael. If you decide to marry her, there’d be no objection.”
“Lots of problems though,” Jack was unconvinced.
“Nothing you can’t handle if you play it smart.” Peter’s tone held no sympathy. “Feodar is a better example than I intended.” He was gone before Jack could reply.
“Thanks.” The sarcasm made Jack feel better, even if Peter couldn’t hear. He wished his grandfather’s advice wasn’t so Delphic.
Karrel said it was because Peter saw so clearly and having to state the obvious embarrassed him. “He assumes we’re his equals, forgetting how special he is,” Karrel’s explained, and Jack believed it. He’d looked back at the end of too many missions and understood Peter’s planning at last. It seemed impossible that any one man could juggle so many variables into a coherent outcome, yet Peter did it repeatedly, a skill Jack had not appreciated fully until he became president. It became a comfort, knowing Peter was somewhere in the background, watching.
“Feodar is a better example than he intended.” He repeated Peter’s words, searching for their relevance. “In what?”
His first problem was deceptively simple. He’d passed the point where he could step away from Rachael. This evening’s moment of panic at the thought of a fully telepathic Rachael had disappeared. He loved her and wanted her to sha
re his life and bear his children, but he had too many secrets. Jesse had known all about Anneke and had loved her in spite of it. Rachael knew a little, but was too smart not to discover the rest, even if she never became telepathic. Therefore, he must get in first and present it in a way she could accept. Once it was out in the open, they could discuss the other problems.
Anneke and Jesse had chosen not to have children, a decision he’d never questioned before. She would have discussed it with Dael. He must do the same.
Jack smiled at the thought. Conversations with his grandmother were always easier than those with Peter.
“Dael.” Jack sent his request carefully, trying to balance its urgency and not alarm his grandmother. “I need you.”
“You do,” she agreed, materializing at his side.
To save time, he shared his moments when Rachael seemed on the brink of sensing his thoughts, not omitting his selfish reaction, and Peter’s advice to look at it from the outside.
“Perhaps this will explain.” Dael drew him in to share a memory and he was inside Rachael’s mind.
She was dreaming, a half nightmare of a formless menace circling just beyond sight, threatening, not her, but him. He saw other fears in her mind. The Pontiff, the flames of an auto-da-fe, and phantoms from her childhood, but her fear for him dwarfed them all.
“Come back a little.” Dael suggested, and he felt her at his side. “See when this happened.” She guided him outwards to sense Rachael’s environment.
It was the inner circle building where they’d first met. Rachael was in her undercover role as a temple maiden, a prisoner-at-large in the temple compound. He reached further, sensing the time frame and was astounded. It was the night he’d crossed the channel to the main island and the shark had just chomped six feet of the end of his make-shift raft. Rachael shared his fear, the emotion strong enough to bridge the distance between them.
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