by Ashley West
Many of them ended up in jail after the authorities prosecuted them for their environmental crimes. On a planet that's nearly all water, we don't fool around with pollution. In general, there isn't any pollution at all. The people who had polluted Agua had been from off-planet.
What was the government thinking moving a refugee camp there?
"You're right, Freya. Meet me on Wai. We have to talk to him and give him a chance to stop this and turn everything around. We owe him that, at least. If he doesn't change, then we go to the authorities."
I heard her sigh heavily.
"Okay, Nat. We're about three hours away."
"Good, we're four hours away, but we can be there in three. I'll speed us up."
She laughed.
"Can you hurry the winds now, Nat? You're that powerful?"
"Turns out Ashlyn hadn't left," I told her, glancing at Ash, who smiled a tiny bit. "Speed won't be a problem."
"I can't wait to meet her."
"We'll be there in three hours, Freya. A big old family reunion."
"She's with you?" she said, surprised.
"She stowed away," I said. "Said she didn't want me to leave her behind."
"That gets her points with me right away. I like a woman who takes action."
"Freya, if I'm going to command the winds, then I have to go now."
"Can you get us to Wai Refugee Camp in three hours, Vess?" I asked.
"We'll do it."
"Come on, Ashlyn. Have you ever seen a ship at full speed? All sails out?"
She shook her head and had an excited look on her face.
"You're about to. Let's go up on deck."
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There is sailing. And there is sailing. On Vandwa, we had taken it to an art form. Experienced sailors know that by tweaking and paying attention, adjusting this and changing that, you can get 20% more speed out of the same amount of wind. Vess and I had won several sailing championships. It was a matter of efficiency and paying attention to details.
Ashlyn and I stood in the bow, holding hands. The wind rushed past us. I watched as Vess gave orders to one of the crew members to adjust the mainsail a couple degrees. He looked at me, and I pointed. He searched the sails for the one that wasn't at peak efficiency, found it, and nodded at me. I saw him speaking to Valaria, who swung up into the rigging and had it adjusted in minutes.
"Nathaniel?" Ashlyn said, pulling me closer. Her hair was wild from the wind, and she had an astonished look on her face. "I love you," she said. The wind was noisy, and I wondered if I had heard correctly.
"What did you say?"
She pulled my head down she spoke directly into my ear.
"I said that I love you."
"You're telling me this now?" I said, feeling so happy I thought I might float off the deck.
"I was looking at the ocean and the ship. With the wind in my hair and the sea rushing by, I felt free. I knew that without you being here, this experience would only be air, water, and a pile of boards. Your presence makes it remarkable. I'm in love with you, and I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner."
I cut off her words with a kiss that took our breath away. I knew I was kissing her in front of everyone, but I didn't care.
Ashlyn loved me.
The sea could overtake the land, and the government could descend into a dictatorship. My brother could go to jail, or the government could catch me and take my ship. All would still be right with the world because Ashlyn loved me.
________________________________________
Freya and I stood on the deck and watched as the rowboat approached. The crew had been given a few hours leave on shore, and everyone had gone. Ashlyn was below in my cabin. My sister and I wanted to talk to Jori alone but I wasn't about to send Ashlyn off to shore.
Jori climbed the rope ladder and hopped on to the deck. He was a handsome young man, dressed impeccably as usual. We might have looked like twins if he hadn't been four years younger than me. He smiled at us and came forward to give us hugs, but stopped short when he saw our posture and the looks on our faces.
He shoved his hands into his pocket and looked sullen like when he was a kid. He knew we weren't pleased with him.
"How could you?" I said. "People are going hungry and don't have what they need because of you. And relocating the Dlo camp? To Agua? You've been to Agua with me. You know it's not fit for dogs, never mind people."
"I don't know what you're talking about, Nat. I'm the one out of a home because of the rising sea levels. I'm the victim here. We just got a hundred more people here at Wai and we're elbow to elbow now. There's no room for anyone."
I stared at him.
"Jori, are you serious?" Freya said. "Shall we weigh anchor and take you to Dlo to see the conditions there? Damn Jor, I thought you were better than this. Where's your heart? Never mind that, where's your conscience?"
She was getting wound up. I put my hand on her arm to try to calm her down, but there was no stopping her at this point.
"We're doing everything we can to help these people, and you're working against us? Taking more than your fair share? Encouraging your vices and other people's? Stealing?"
Jori frowned.
"Nat's the one playing pirate, Freya, not me. Dad threw lots of money at me, but it didn't help and didn't replace a mother. You two were always thick as thieves, weren't you? With no room for a third — especially a little brother who could never quite measure up. A brother who was never good enough for you."
"Jori…" I said, reaching out towards him. But he stepped backwards.
"No, Nat. You were always doing the right thing, and I was always wrong." He stared at the deck, and he looked off into the distance, remembering past hurts.
"Jori, that's not true. I've messed up plenty of times in my life. I've been wrong, too." I stepped towards him but he didn't back up this time. I took a deep breath. "We wanted to give you a chance to let you show us the man you really are. We know that this isn't you. Selfish and self-centered."
"Yeah, Jori. We know you. We know you're better than this," Freya said. "Stay with me or Nat and stop diverting the supply ships. Help us save Vandwan, instead of bringing it down. If we don't come up with a solution soon, all of this will just be an empty sea. We're going to have to leave, Jori. It's not a game."
He looked from Freya to me and back again, not sure what to do. Then his eyes hardened.
"It's not a game to me either," he said. "This is my life, and I want it to stay the way it is. This is who I am. You guys are mistaken if you think that you can convince me to give it all up." He glared at us. He had always been stubborn.
Freya and I looked at each other. There was nothing else to do.
"Are you sure, Jori?" I said, one more time.
"Sure," he said.
"Then you leave us no choice. We have information that leads right back to you, showing that you are the one responsible for diverting the ships."
His face turned gray.
"You wouldn't."
"We didn't want to, Jori," Freya said. "You're giving us no choice."
"This needs to stop, Jor, one way or another," I said. "If you want to change your ways, we can work this out. One way or another, it's going to end today."
"You wouldn't do this to me."
"We don't want to, Jori, but sending those people to Agua is the last straw. We can't let you do that."
He looked back and forth at Freya and me.
"You can't stop me," he said, turning and flinging himself over the rail and down the rope ladder. The rowboat pulled away from the ship heading for shore. I ran to the edge, but Freya stopped me.
"Let him go, Nat. There's nowhere for him to run. We gave him his chance."
Ashlyn came up on deck. She must have watched what was happening. I stared at my brother and wished things had happened differently.
I stood beside Freya and watched Jori rowing away. His back was to us, and I couldn't help but f
eel that this might be the last time I would ever see him.
Next I thought about Miralee and Johnny, and how they would be getting what they needed now. No one would be trying to take it away from them. It didn't stop the pain I was feeling, but our decision seemed right.
It was bad that my brother would go to jail, but enough good would come that I couldn't regret it.
Ash hugged me, and I wrapped my arm around her. Now I could be the man she needed. I could leave the life of a pirate behind me and get to work on what mattered - saving our planet, with my wife.
Chapter Twenty-Four
ASHLYN (ONE YEAR LATER)
I stood in the back of Maura's shop, smoothing the dress with my fingers. We made it from the softest material, and it shimmered in the light.
I couldn't believe I was back here. Today was the day when we could dissolve our marriage. I sat down on my stool and took up my needle, fastening the last button.
Each button was carved with a jaunty little anchor in honor of my time on Vandwa. It was hard to believe that the year was over already. I sighed, remembering how I had wanted some prince to come in and sweep me out of here and take me to the ball. What a silly daydream that had been.
"Ashlyn!" Maura was shouting at me from the front. "You got that button on that dress yet?"
"Yeah, it's done," I called back.
She came bustling through the door and checked out my work. She smiled.
"Perfect, as always," she said. "Why don't you try on that dress? I'm pretty sure that it's about your size."
She winked at me.
"Just for fun. No one will know. I think it'll look beautiful on you."
"Right now?" I said.
I didn't think it was right, but I want to see what I would look like in one of these dresses, at least once in my life. I had sewed so many and never worn one.
"There's no time like the present. Let's see how it looks."
I took off my shirt and pants and pulled the beautiful garment over my head. The fabric was one of the softest alien materials I had ever felt. The most delicate dress I had ever worn was when I had almost drowned. That dress consisted of Vandwan fiber plant. It had been durable, too. Nathaniel couldn't tear it, and he had hardly been able to saw through it with a razor sharp shell.
My heart gave a little pang when I thought of him. Nathaniel. I wondered where he was right now.
Maura fixed the dress, and I turned, admiring myself. I twirled to make it swirl around me.
"It looks perfect," she said. "It'll be perfect."
"Perfect for who?" I said, frowning.
"Oops," she said, putting her hand over her mouth. "He said it was supposed to be a surprise."
The bell sounded in the front of the store, and she escaped to deal with the customer.
Nathaniel and I had been sailing on the Dream for the past six months, taking measurements, inspecting possible sites, and working on our designs.
After Jori and the people he'd been working with were captured and sentenced to three years in prison for their crimes, Nathaniel gave up his life of piracy and gone back to being a scientist.
He asked me to help him with his idea. He wanted to build artificial islands on every site where people had lost their homes.
The islands would be small concentric circles. Each circle would have a large boardwalk with houses coming off of it. The platforms would sink into the bottom of the sea. Providing for the housing needs of all the people of Vandwa on man-made bases would free up the actual land mass for the things that needed real land.
I agreed to help and presented him with my idea, which was to build housing under the sea. Because the Vandwans could breathe underwater, access wouldn't be a problem. All we needed to do was find suitable building materials.
He thought the idea was brilliant, and we worked with an architecture firm and an engineering team. Together we refined the plans into something that was realistic. With both types of housing, we hoped that the Vandwans could stay on their planet forever, no matter how much the tides rose.
We presented the ideas to the President, and he was thrilled. He was amassing the capital needed to put this into place, getting funds from the government budget and also from private citizens. Nathaniel and Freya together donated at least one-third of the money needed from the Lachlan fortune.
But many citizens, having heard the idea, were already designing and building their houses, not waiting for the government's help. A whole new world was opening on Vandwa, and I had been right there with Nathaniel at the forefront of the revolution.
But I wanted to return home to finish my degree in environmental science. I would never feel like a real scientist without a degree. Nathaniel, after all, had three. It annoyed me that there were crucial parts of my education that were missing. I had learned so much from Nathaniel, but we would be discussing something, and he would say — "Oh, but you haven't learned that yet, have you?"
I was getting tired of it.
I came back to Earth for the summer and fall terms. I was going do the three field placements I needed to do to finish my degree.
It would take about six months, and I missed Nathaniel already.
The boys were happy to have me back and to be able to show me how good at taking care of the house and themselves they were already. Tim was graduating, and I would be there to attend the ceremony. Jeremy had a new high-paying job. Marlin had overcome his addiction and was doing a college course part-time to become a counselor. He said he wanted to help other people the way they had helped him.
Sam was still working at the coffee shop and was mad at me. She was furious that she found out that I left from my brothers. She ended up talking to Marlin. Once the debts were paid, he told her the whole story and she understood.
I talked to her on and off through the year I was away. It wasn't until we were face to face that I could explain the whole situation and tell her that I was trying to protect her. I also told her about Nathaniel and she was excited to meet him. But that wouldn't be happening for another six months.
I was glad that she wasn't mad at me anymore. I had missed Sam's company.
After the first few days of sitting around at home, I came by to see Maura. She asked if I wanted to help out while I was here since the President's Ball was coming up. I agreed, not because I felt like sewing for eight hours a day again, but for old time's sake. I had been working for the past three days on the dress I was wearing.
She said some rich guy was buying it for his wife as an anniversary present. I smiled a little sadly at myself in the mirror. What a pleasant thought. Nathaniel would never do something like that for me. He was too busy now that he was back at work doing what he loved.
It wasn't that he didn't have time for me. Our physical relationship was as robust as ever, and I knew that he loved me. We worked together every day, and it was wonderful.
But big gestures like what this stranger was doing for his wife? Well, that wasn't something Nathaniel would do.
I was silly. Nathaniel loved me, and he was the best husband a woman could desire. It was wrong of me to wish for a grand gesture. I didn't need that sort of thing.
I was responsible, practical, feet-on-the-ground, Ashlyn.
Grand gestures were not a part of my life, even my new life aboard a sailing ship.
I began unbuttoning the dress sadly, thinking that the woman who wore it would be beautiful as she spun around the dance floor.
"As much as I'd like to see you finish what you've started, you'd better not undo that any more, or we won't make it to the dance at all."
I spun around so fast that my skirts twisted around me, and I had to untangle them from around my legs before I could run to him.
"Nathaniel!" I said, throwing myself into his arms.
He was wearing a black tuxedo, a black shirt and a bright turquoise tie with a matching handkerchief tucked into the pocket — both of which were the exact color of his eyes.
He looked into m
y face and then down at my cleavage, bursting out of the dress. He heaved a heavy sigh.
"Ashlyn, getting you out of this dress is going to have to wait. We have a ball to attend," he said, pulling out two tickets to the President's Ball.
"But this isn't my dress and even if it was, I don't have any shoes." I protested. "It's been tailor-made for a customer's wife."
He grinned holding up a lovely pair of ballet flats — my favorite — that exactly matched the dress.
"It's for someone's anniversary present." I trailed off, staring at him. That had been Nathaniel?
"You had me make my dress?" I asked questioningly.
"That wasn't part of the plan. I didn't know you would be helping Maura in the shop. I wanted our anniversary to be special for you, Ash," he said. He pulled me back into his arms and held me close for a long minute, and I soaked up the love from his embrace. I missed him. I felt something hard pressing into my chest, and I slipped my hand into his shirt, searching for what it was. He raised one eyebrow but let me feel around, his breath hitching a little as I brushed his nipple.
There.
I pulled out an amulet. "What's this?" I asked, staring at it.
"My grandmother gave it to me," he said. "Why?"
"It's a fish with a jewel in its mouth."
I stared at it and remembered the fortune teller from the spaceport.
"Nathaniel. Remember I told you about the fortune teller I had met before you picked me up at the spaceport? She said that I would know him by an amulet exactly like this one."
"Him?"
I swallowed.
"My soul mate. My true love."
"You're kidding, right?"
"I never saw you wearing this before."
We gazed into each other's eyes.
"Ashlyn?" he said, getting my attention by the seriousness of his tone. "This is a perfect lead-in to a question I have for you."
He took my hands, rubbing my ring with the Celtic love knot on it. I realized that something important was going on. As he began to speak, I saw that he was wearing the gold bracelet that I got for him when I stowed away on his ship. I hadn't thought ever to ask him if he had got the little present, and I felt terribly pleased that he was wearing it.