The Alliance

by David Andrews

  Jean-Paul laughed. “You know what Peter says.”

  “Giving a woman a choice raises the time taken to decide by the power of the number of choices.” Jack joined in. “I notice he never says it when Dael can hear.”

  “My father understands survival better than any of us.”

  “Are you two coming in for lunch or are asinine jokes more important?” Rachael had joined them.

  “Coming,” they said together, exiting the cabin by the portal into Limbo. Jack would come back and pilot the ship home later.

  Rachael waited for them on the broad patio above the inn Jack still used as his presidential home. They’d shifted handmade table and chairs from the forecourt and added other chairs for guests, making it a regular stopping place for family members. Today was no exception. Gabrielle and Karrel lounged in the autumn sunlight, wine glasses in their hands.

  “When do you intend to bring Kayelle?” his sister-in-law asked.

  “I’m not sure she’s ready,” Jean-Paul braced himself for an argument.

  “I wasn’t either, but it didn’t stop your brother and you won’t be battling a time shift.” Gabrielle referred to the time Karrel brought her thirty-five millennia into her future to dine at the beach camp with his parents and Anneke.

  “Being easier doesn’t make it right.” Jean-Paul kept his mind closed. “I’ll bring her when the time’s right.”

  “I think the beach camp would be a better choice,” Peter said, appearing at the head of the table. “Less cultural shock.”

  Jean-Paul braced himself. He could close his mind against the others, but not Peter.

  “You’ve spent too much time on your own.” Peter’s voice sounded gentle. “You need to spend more time with the family.” He smiled. “I think Kayelle would liven things up considerably. She reminds me of Samara. Dael agrees.”

  The breath gusted out of Jean-Paul. He should have known better. Distress one of the family and Peter knew of it instantly. He’d made his judgment and pronounced absolution. More, he’d involved Dael in the certainty she would give guidance and love to both Kayelle and Jean-Paul.

  “I’m ashamed,” Jean-Paul began, but Peter interrupted.

  “I think you should discuss it with the lady in question,” he decreed. “I find her view more reliable. New love surprises us all.”

  Jean-Paul could feel the fascination of the others, but no one inquired further, especially when Dael materialized beside her husband and asked Rachael how she felt. A sympathetic glance from Karrel and a more considered one from Gabrielle closed the subject.

  “You’ve started without me.” Anneke announced her arrival. “Hi, Jean-Paul. You look a bit down.”

  He smiled. His sister had that affect. Ten years his senior, the accumulation of centuries had never changed their relationship. He would always be ‘her little brother,’ someone to care for. She’d healed his scrapes and bruises until he could do it alone, then monitored his first uncertain ventures with the opposite sex before pronouncing him competent to proceed on his own.

  “I feel better now you’re here to protect me.” He intended it as a piece of light humor, but Anneke was the veteran of too many covert operations.

  “What have you been up to?”

  “He’s fallen in love.” Dael answered for him.

  “About time. Who is she?”

  Jean-Paul felt the communication between mother and daughter without sensing the details, but Anneke’s mischievous grin told him more than he wanted to know.

  “Wow,” she said. “You don’t do things by half. It’s going to be a rare balancing act to bring this one into the family without upsetting the applecart. I don’t suppose counseling patience would be any good.” She struggled not to laugh. “We should have realized immediately when you volunteered to interfere in another world’s affairs.”

  Jean-Paul looked down to hide his chagrin. He’d once expressed his reservations about Peter’s sense of responsibility for others, taking his mother’s more parochial view and neither Karrel nor Anneke had ever forgotten. He knew Peter’s view. His father had taken him aside, “I can’t turn aside, but you have the right to see things your way.” He’d never asked Jean-Paul to do anything other than explore and observe, never involved him in any operation beyond looking for proof this reality was more than just Peter’s creation. Knowing how deeply Peter feared it wasn’t, Jean-Paul had never thought of refusing.

  Peter repaid him. “Anneke.”

  A single word was enough. Anneke fell silent. Jean-Paul might be in for a hard time when they were alone, but Anneke knew better than oppose Peter when he used that tone.

  “Lunch,” Gabrielle announced as the innkeeper and two servants appeared at the top of the stairs.

  * * * *

  “I don’t know why he left.” Kayelle kept her mind open, hiding only what happened in the ship. It was private and had implications she needed to consider before sharing.

  The Tetrarch wasn’t convinced. “An Adept thought you boarded the ship.”

  “The ship didn’t return and I’m here.” It wasn’t quite lying.

  “True,” he continued. His mind pressed against hers, seeking a weakness.

  “What did he say?” She sought to divert him by turning his mind to Jean-Paul.

  “That access to the iron ore was repayment for the intrusion by uninvited guests and the rest was up to us. I caught a sense of assurance it was unlikely to happen again soon, but I could be mistaken.” The Tetrarch’s uncertainty was palpable. Jean-Paul bothered him.

  Kayelle’s heart sank at the prospect of Jean-Paul’s prolonged absence. Immortality didn’t remove the urgency and she hadn’t lived long enough to learn patience. There had to be a way to bring him back.

  “I’d thought there was a connection between you and the stranger.” The Tetrarch never thought of Jean-Paul as anything else than ‘The Stranger’, a measure of his fear.

  “I valued his knowledge,” she said. “Without him Non-Adepts would still be dying. I sensed his goodwill from the beginning and saw nothing to contradict the impression. I believe his is our friend.”

  “A man of power.” The Tetrarch’s expression looked grave. “His mind held many secrets.”

  Kayelle nodded. A mischievous corner of her mind threw up a memory she didn’t want to share. The Tetrarch might misunderstand. She disciplined her body, keeping its reaction to a restless shifting of her feet as she stood before him.

  “Are you tired, child?”

  “A little,” she conceded, weakness was a better excuse than the truth.

  “Come. We will sit together on the balcony. The Square seems empty without his ship.”

  “Too true,” she agreed. “How quickly we became used to the unthinkable, contact from beyond the stars.”

  She took the seat he indicated and watched him lower himself onto the bench opposite. He’d learned the art of ‘imprinting’ late in life and had no way to reverse the aging process.

  “I’m worried, child. The stranger seemed a better man than those who came earlier, but there are too many mysteries in him. How can I trust his gifts? He gave and sought nothing in return. I mistrust altruism. When he seemed to favor you, I hoped it was his manhood driving him, for you are very beautiful,” he paused, considering, “but you say he left without a message….” He left the sentence hanging, an unspoken question.

  “Perhaps he thought me too young?” It was like probing the empty socket of a missing tooth, sure to be painful, but she couldn’t resist.

  “True. You are young.” Kayelle decided she hated the old man. “Only an honorable man would consider that a hindrance. There’s hope to be seen in this.” He nodded. “It could be the explanation. He might choose to wait fifty years or so to give you time to mature.”

  Kayelle was about to explode when she sensed his amusement. “Don’t tease me Great-grandfather. It’s not fair.”

  “Where else can old men get their pleasure with beautiful young women?”
He smiled broadly. “I believe there’s a phrase about wearing your heart on your sleeve. I’ve seen you with the stranger.” He chuckled. “Thank you, child. You’ve done much to settle my fears.”

  Kayelle wondered how much she’d managed to hide. The Tetrarch looked younger, relieved, and she saw a suspicious twinkle in his eyes.

  “Sit here while I discuss the situation with my fellow rulers. We must progress the things he’s started.” He closed his eyes and she sensed the communication as an observer.

  The initial exchange of assurances gave way to discussion of the stranger’s suggested program for combining the resources of the four tetrarchies and sharing the benefits.

  “He’s right,” the Northern Tetrarch contributed. “We have common laws, the same administrative structure. The Adepts act as magistrates and mayors and the Non-Adept are comfortable with the arrangement. The Trade Guilds are a distant memory. We must revitalize their teachings, create centers for the manufacture of the materials we need, and mobilize our diminished population quickly. The vastness of space may protect us from others, but we can’t depend on it. If he found us, others can.”

  The other Tetrarchs agreed and the discussion became detailed, boring Kayelle. She allowed her mind to drift, building pictures from the clouds above.

  Why could she hide some things from the Tetrarch and not others? Her tutor had insisted mind-to-mind communication made hiding things impossible, yet Jean-Paul did it routinely and she mistrusted his explanation about different mind languages. Was it merely a mind set? Did total clarity demand it only because they believed it must? Were the limitations purely the product of their limited understanding? Her great grandfather, the first full adept, came late to his ability and later still to his ‘imprinting,’ yet he was considered the ultimate authority on the subject.

  Was he?

  Jean-Paul had demonstrated his superiority repeatedly and he’d come from afar to help when they needed it. How had he known? If she accepted the vastness of space and the myriad worlds he pictured, Jean-Paul couldn’t have just happened along at the right moment. Had he sent the first ship and came to mop up the damage when it failed its purpose?

  She shook her head. It didn’t fit.

  The Tetrarch thought him honorable because her youth disturbed him. She’d agreed initially, but now the presumption infuriated her, although she suspected some of her fury came from the suspicion he might be right. That aside, she remained convinced Jean-Paul was a good man with the interests of Viridia at heart. His plans for her world might be different to what the Tetrarchs anticipated, but his revelation of the obligations he felt imposed by power gave them value.

  She sat thinking about this. It was odd. She could recall every moment they’d spent together, every nuance, just by thinking. This was true of no other person.

  Infatuation?

  The thought made her uncomfortable. Perhaps Jean-Paul was right.

  “Kayelle.” The Tetrarch looked at her strangely. “Your mind was closed to me, but I felt its pain.”

  “Just the thoughts of a silly young girl.” The bitterness escaped.

  “It was a woman’s pain I felt.”

  “Thank you, Great-grandfather. You are kind. May I leave now?”

  “Of course.” He smiled. “You need to think.”

  “True,” she agreed. “I need to think.”

  “I am an old man, child, perhaps too old to help because I have lived too long as an old man. I can only tell you how special you are. The stranger chose you from all the people on this planet and gave you a task to daunt the best of us because he knew you were the only one equal to its demands. He chose a woman, not a child. Don’t disappoint him.”

  “I stand rebuked, Great-grandfather. I will think on it.” She fled to hide her tears.

  * * * *

  “Can these people make it on their own?”

  Jean-Paul had been dreading Peter’s question. The lunch had ended and he walked with his father along the shore. Jack had left to retrieve the ship from orbit and the others to their tasks.

  “Yes,” he said, mentally crossing his fingers.

  Peter smiled, suggesting he’d noted the gesture. “I approved your first plan because it was good. Is this new one better?”

  “It is for me.” Jean-Paul felt stubborn. Let the others make judgments if they will.

  “Were I not three hundred plus years old, I might be tempted to respond very rudely to that,” Peter warned. “I was asking a man, not a child. Perhaps you are closer to her age than you think. Can we take the risk they will develop far enough before the next lot drop in on them?”

  “There’s not enough of us to baby-sit every world at risk.” Jean-Paul hated the sulky edge to his voice.

  “Viridia is not every world. Their telepathic development alone makes them different and you are in love with Kayelle. Would you leave her at risk?”

  “You’re trying to blackmail me.” Jean-Paul grew angry because he had no answers.

  Peter grinned at his son. “I’m succeeding as well.”

  “It’s pointless arguing with you.”

  “I know. I have the same problem with your mother. She always wins and we both know it.” Peter put his arm around Jean-Paul’s shoulders. “We can’t choose who we fall in love with. I’d thought myself past it until Dael.”

  “Are you sure I’m in love?”

  Peter’s laughter sounded genuine. Jean-Paul could feel it.

  “Don’t ask me to give you absolution on that.” He gave Jean-Paul’s shoulders an extra squeeze. “It looks like love. It feels like love to the rest of us, but what would we know? Love is the ultimate individual, different for everyone. You’ll just have to find out for yourself.”

  Jean-Paul laughed. As always, his father had left him no option. “What do you suggest?”

  “Go back and finish the job.”

  Jean-Paul had to make one last try. “What if I get it wrong?”

  “Don’t.” There was never any give in Peter when it came to their duty.

  “I’ll stop Jack.” Jean-Paul accepted the inevitable.

  “He’s waiting for you.” Peter’s grin looked fond.

  * * * *

  Kayelle had no memory of how she came to be at the vacant land the Tetrarch had given to Jean-Paul, just of walking and walking until her tears ceased. On the other side, she saw her parent’s home, the hand-made bricks rendered and painted white. The red tiles looked fresh and new. They’d recoated them recently, probably while she was busy with the sick. She’d neglected her parents. Her proof was her mother’s need to chat. It was time to make it up to them.

  Someone had cleared the field, cropping the grass ankle high, probably at the Tetrarch’s orders. She took the shortest route to her home, forsaking the path running around the boundary. She was in the middle when the distant rumble penetrated her abstraction and she looked up, recognizing the sound, and saw the batwing shape approaching.

  It couldn’t be Jean-Paul. He wouldn’t come back this quickly, no matter how much she wished it. It had to be more strangers. She began to run. They might choose this field as a landing place.

  Her fears were realized when the ship came to hover directly above and then began to descend.

  “You can take your time. I’ll wait.” The familiar presence filled her mind and she heard his chuckle in her mind.

  “Bastard!” The Non-Adept swear word expressed only a fraction of her feelings.

  “Tut-tut.” He still chuckled, reading her mind too easily for comfort. “Anyone would think you weren’t wishing me back.”

  “Get that thing on the ground, right now, and I’ll show you what I think.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  The landing took forever and she danced with impatience by the time the ramp descended.

  “Coming in?” She felt his welcome and her doubts fled.

  “Try to stop me.” She ran toward the ramp.

  He met her at the entrance to the cabin, his
arms open. She flung herself the final few feet, knocking him back several steps and spoiling their first kiss in her desperation.

  “Steady, love. We have all the time in the world.”

  “Talk afterwards. You have something to prove.” She smothered his chuckle with her lips.

  There was no time to undress—it could come later. Mentally they thrust their clothes aside and joined their bodies, fusing them into one. The phantom embrace had prepared the way, bringing Kayelle to instant arousal and her first climax came hard on its heels, shaking her to the core of her being. The second followed before the echoes of the first had died and she felt as if she must burst from a skin packed too tight with ecstasy when the third arrived. She rode the fourth on the echoes of his release and lay exhausted with his weight pressing her down on the pilot’s couch.

  “You cheated,” she said, once conversation became possible again.

  “I thought of it as using my full faculties to pleasure my love.” He sounded smug.

  “Can you retract the ramp from here?”

  “Already done.” He was definitely smug.

  “Good. You have some serious loving to do.”

  “Let’s get rid of these clothes first. I don’t want to be hampered by anything.” He grinned, as his eyes challenged her.

  “Are all old men this fussy?” She tried to look solicitous.

  “Just pedophiles like me.”

  She reached down and grasped a vulnerable appendage. “What was that about pedophiles?”

  “Go easy down there, or I’ll be a eunuch,” he gasped.

  “Then watch your mouth. I am your one true love, a very impatient woman,” she warned.

  His lips descended on a rampant nipple and his tongue tantalized it until she relinquished her grip to tangle her fingers in his hair to hold him to his task.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The next morning they emerged, having dined on ship’s rations and an ancient bottle of wine covered in raffia.

  “One of Torred’s,” Jean-Paul boasted. “I had to twist my father’s arm to get it. There are only ten dozen left, but I convinced him this was a special occasion.” He shared a mind picture of a stocky, dark-haired man with a merry grin. “He was our friend.”