“Hang on and close your eyes.” With his longer than average arm he reached up and smacked the toe of the boot against the brackets. A burst of energy shot from the boot and exploded against the framework. A shower of rust and metal parts rained down and revealed a shoulder-width opening.
“Give me a second,” he said, his voice dull in his ringing ears. He slipped the boot back on and tapped his brother to go first, holding his clasped hands low enough to give him a step up.
The moonless Gleezhian night was not entirely dark. The clouds were gone and an extraordinary display of stars took away the breath of each one as they emerged.
Alex gave a series of short, dry snorts while Henry pulled A.J. through. They sat on the roof and strained to see the land, the abandoned cities, the desert and any signs of troops.
***
I TRIED TO follow the convoluted plan with a blank expression on my face. So … there was a fake purlass capsule, a fake peace treaty, a fake wedding—I hoped—and half my family was en route to Earth. First Commander Gzeter was a traitor, but not First Commanders Cotay, Vokil or Taw, who had equipped the Parallaxers with nano-technology from Earth. Marcum was a double agent and—slap me in the face—so was Coreg!
This strange little building in the middle of a former Gleezhian metropolis was a safe house with a beaconing system that would attract the homing device on a functioning thumb ring. I checked mine. Yup, tiny purple light.
Jason prattled on in a voice like the intermittent whine of a mosquito. Annoying. I almost missed it when he announced we should expect immediate visitors.
The door opened suddenly and men began leaping over the threshold. Marcum jumped up like he was afraid of something and so did I. I had no more than a glimpse of the last one through the door before I shot across the room and was into Alex’s arms. I was vaguely aware that I should be concerned by the blood on his face and hands, but with my eyes closed it didn’t matter.
This was not a good time to have an episode; I fought against the blackness that loomed above my head, opened my eyes and stepped back. Alex’s cocoa brown hair tumbled over his forehead and his beaming face fixed on me with intense unspoken concern, but I couldn’t possibly look as bad as he did.
“Are you okay?” I said. He rasped out an unconvincing “yeah” so I turned to his father. “Mr. Rimmon, what happened to Alex?”
“He’ll be all right. He had a reaction to the red dust since his uniform isn’t functioning. The biomaterials are overwhelmed.” Then he winked at me. “Couldn’t hurt if you wrapped your arms around him and let your suit soak up some of the toxins.” He turned his attention to Jason and Marcum and asked them questions in fluent Klaqin.
I hugged Alex, wiped my sleeve across both his cheeks and cleaned his face to the best of my ability including flaking off bits of dried blood around his nose with my green-tipped fingernail. He didn’t object to my attention. In fact, he croaked out an inappropriate tune. Good to hear he hadn’t lost his musical sense of humor.
“Feeling better?”
“Yes,” he said. “I hope I’m not making you sick.”
“A little thirsty, but what do you expect on a planet with no water.”
Jason must have heard me because their conference paused and he offered all of us water packets. “Drink up or splash it on your chests,” he said. “Water is in very short supply here.”
We all drank the old fashioned way though Marcum sprinkled the last few drops on the front of his uniform. Alex sat down in one of the chairs and pulled me onto his lap. We had never, ever been this, uh, familiar before and I was definitely uncomfortable with his dad right there and A.J., Henry, and Jason too—not to mention Marcum—but Alex made a wisecrack about my weight then added that the back of my uniform ought to finish the job of detoxification. I glanced at Marcum who looked more uncomfortable than I felt. I began to get that icky, prickly feeling that the ceiling was going to cave in, metaphorically speaking.
Two strides and Marcum was front and center. “She is mine. Release her.”
“I’m not yours,” I said over Alex’s three word protest that included “back off” and a negative Klaqin label.
“Whoa, fellas—” Mr. Rimmon stepped closer. “Marcum, she’s just using her uniform—”
I didn’t hear what he said next. I was too busy squirming and trying to keep my spot on Alex’s lap while Alex was trying to get me off so he could stand up.
“We are mated,” Marcum announced.
That stopped Mr. Rimmon’s explanation and my squirming but not Alex’s attempt to rise. I slipped off and moved nearer the wall and he took a martial arts stance. A.J. and Henry found the situation funny, judging from the twitching of their mouths.
“At Prince Stetl-glet’s insistence Selina has been joined to me,” Marcum proclaimed.
The way he stated it sounded dirty. Alex stayed poised, but looked at me. “Is that true, Selina?”
“Well, technically yes, but—”
For a recent almost-corpse he moved quickly, picked up a chair with one hand and thrust it at the wall with violent intent. Then he stormed out the door. I gasped at the thought that he might blow himself up stepping on the threshold, but that didn’t happen. Mr. Rimmon gave me a funny look and, of all things, another wink.
“He’ll get over it.” To Jason he said, “Thanks for that information. We’ll hurry to the ship and finish readying that part of the plan.” He nodded at Marcum and left, followed by the brothers. The room fell suddenly silent and was, in my opinion, too warm. And still too full of males.
I stared at the broken chair pieces. Why did I answer Alex like that? Mated? Joined? Crap, I’d said technically yes. What else would he think?
I took a few steps toward the door. I had to catch Alex; I had to explain. But Marcum blocked my way.
“I’m sorry; I am so, so sorry. We cannot leave yet.”
I may be little and prone to avoid confrontations, but I growled at Marcum and he moved aside. I swung the door open and froze. A search light beamed across the ruins from a low-flying Gleezhian craft.
CHAPTER 19
#Seizures
I PROBABLY SHOULD have slammed the door shut. There was a low rumble I could barely hear, but I felt it in my bones. The vibration traveled up my legs and through my middle and chest, disturbing every nerve ending I had. The beam of light rocked side to side, but missed illuminating the four running figures: Alex, his dad, A.J. and Henry.
My heart stopped. They needed a diversion and I could make one. Surely an exploding threshold would draw the attention of the patrol. I lifted my knee and aimed my foot, but Marcum grabbed me around my waist and pulled me back, kicking the door shut with one swift move. Why his boot didn’t blast it I had no idea.
“Let me go.” Okay, so my voice was loud and my eyes were watering and my shaking fingers were scratching wildly at Marcum’s arms, not to mention I was choking on a hiccup.
“They will be all right,” Marcum said, loosening his grip. “I understand your compassion. It is a gift I have too.” He completely let me go and I whirled to face him, biting back an ill-mannered exclamation. He softly said, “Bending would not help them. Nate and his son are pacers. The patrol will never catch them.”
I fixated on how he wouldn’t say Alex’s name, but called his dad Nate. He’d lived with him on Earth for eight months. He probably knew Mr. Rimmon better than I did. Hmm, he had a point about the pacing and I knew something he didn’t: A.J. and Henry were pacers too. Quadrupled pacing ought to keep them invisible.
With that bit of relief canceling the panic, I calmed a bit. Whew, I nearly ruined everything. Compassion, huh? I heard my breath wheeze through my teeth. Was I time-bending now or was this awkward moment normal? Jason stood frozen behind the table … probably he’d never seen a hysterical girl attempt to blow up a safe house. It jarred me when he spoke.
“You’d better get back. It’s almost dawn.”
Marcum took my arm and opened the door slowly.
The sun was nearly up; they must have all paced and we were within their boundaries. Shadows pooled next to dismal, crumbling walls and the night had faded from the air. The few colors revealed were dull and leaden, fugitive grays and reds from a discontinued line of crayons. The distant objects were gaining depth and form. The royal residence, in the image of a crater, was closer than I thought.
“This won’t be easy,” Marcum said in Klaqin. “Can you run?”
“Of course I can run.”
“Can you do it if the ground moves?”
***
I FAILED AT running once the sun rose and the ground began to sway. After my fourth fall Marcum offered to give me a piggy-back ride. I didn’t ask how he knew what that was.
The guards may have been the same ones, maybe not. Marcum carried me past them with minimal conversation.
There was a sinister air of stillness within the place. No sounds of scurrying servants, no food scents, no clangs or bangs. I wondered if the Gleezhians required lengthy stretches of sleep, like people on Earth.
“I will take you to my room while I release my parents,” he said as I slipped off his incredibly strong back.
I had no answer for that. The fact that he had in his power to get them out of their cells and hadn’t done it yet was appalling. I traipsed behind him through the quiet labyrinth and balked at the doorway to his mushroom-floored lodging.
“What am I supposed to do in there? I’m not going to get poked and prodded again, am I?”
He shook his head in a most American way. I let my breath out.
We entered the room and Marcum started to say something, but stopped.
He sank to the ground and his whole body shuddered in spasms. I recognized the seizure as very much like the kind I’d had all my life. He was still upright, on his knees, but swaying. I knelt too and shook his shoulders gently, then harder. He struggled, I could feel it. He must have been somewhere under the level of consciousness, a place I’d been lots of times. You had to fight to break through the oblivion.
I knew he must be blind and deaf and unaware of me, in the middle of nothingness and completely lacking control. I succumbed to bending time a little, but if I could have paced like Alex that would have been better. I closed my eyes and tried to match Marcum’s breathing. I felt like an autumn leaf floating down from the tallest oak, catching an upward draft, then snagging on a branch before flitting and swooping to earth.
Easy. Calm. I opened my eyes, forced a hiccup out and squeezed Marcum’s shoulders. His eyes opened suddenly, but they were empty. The irises looked murky and he stared through me like he was trying to remember my name or which language to use. Or maybe he was trying to remember his own name.
I put my arms around him and hugged him, knee to knee, chest to chest, cheek to cheek. If he came back to consciousness now I had a chance to find out a few more truths because if this episode was anything like what I experienced he’d think he was close to dying. I was pretty sure it was impossible for someone on the verge of death to lie.
“Marcum, Marcum.” I also tried to hum a few comforting notes like Alex would do for me, not too loudly since my lips were next to his ear. “Hm, mmm, maa, hmm.”
His arms encircled me and hugged me back, a convincing indication that he was fully aware again and taking advantage in a very Earthly way: hands moving lower.
“Better?” I asked, breaking the embrace and sitting back on my heels. My toes sank in between the red mushroom heads, but I didn’t give that any notice. I was more focused on putting some distance between my lips and any part of him.
The look he gave me was one of curiosity and deep thought and not an actual smile.
“I don’t know what happened. Did you time-bend?”
“Yes, a little. You had a seizure. Stop, drop and flop.” I twitched my eyebrows upward. “Has that happened before?”
“Never.”
He stared at me and I waited for his next comment. When he didn’t say anything else I prompted him, “Do you think you can stand up?”
Emoji: revolving hearts. That’s what I thought of when he mirrored me, dropping back on his heels and opening his hands in his lap. I’ve watched enough Hallmark movies to recognize that I’d-do-anything-for-you look of undying love.
He was talking volumes with his eyes and making my pulse go into roller coaster mode. A tired muscle at the outside corner of my left eye began to twitch. Apparently he wasn’t going to try to stand up. I badly needed to say something to change the unspoken subject.
“Uh, why is this your room?” I patted the red fungal tops that squished around my knees. “Why is the floor like this?”
He closed his fingers into fists and pressed against the mushrooms. “This was a medical room. A birthing room, but with their drop in population, like on Klaqin, it was no longer used.” He tore a mushroom top off and crumbled it in his fingers. “Stetl-glet brought me here first to stop time. The room is sound proof and he asked me to do a space specific stoppage to prove my skill. Right after I came out of decontamination.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Ya got me.”
His casual use of English slang made me want to laugh. I snuffled a grunt of agreement instead. “These mushrooms make for a weird floor.”
“They sprouted during the stoppage. The floors of the royal residence were all polished gems or smooth rock, but this is what happened in here. In other places the gems erupted or the rocks turned to dust.”
“You made thorns on Earth,” I said, suddenly remembering. “And I saw something like thorns on Azoss and Klaqin too.” I no longer wanted to be sitting directly on this red stuff, product of his inexplicable ability to stop time. I rose and so did Marcum.
He started to reach a hand toward me, but stopped. “What happens when you time-bend, Selina? What does your bending produce?”
“Mostly it produces hiccups.” I made a few hiccup sounds and laughed. Then I thought of something else. “And I get visions, sometimes. Stuff that has happened. Far away. And sometimes stuff that hasn’t happened yet.”
Marcum wanted to know more and so I told him almost everything, from the first vision I had of him and Coreg coming to abduct me to the ones about the pain club on Klaqin, this Gleezhian castle, the black-clad figure in the purlass capsule—to which his black eyebrows drew his face upward—and others, but not my more recent and disturbing ones with him kissing me. When I finished he had the strangest look on his face.
“You are mine,” he said. “You really are mine.”
I, naturally, took a step back.
“Weren’t you going to go get your parents released or something?” I raced through a review of what I had told him and I didn’t remember anything that could be interpreted that I belonged to him. Sheesh.
“Yes. Come with me. We will demand it of Stetl-glet. All will be released.”
“About time,” I mumbled. Reluctantly I let him take my hand. “And, hey,” I said, “I thought of something else besides mushrooms and thorns that your stoppages make. Here on Gleezhe, outside, between where we landed and here there are seed pods. Lots of seed pods, like the ones stuck between the red mushrooms.”
***
IT WAS HENRY’S suggestion that they all pace until they touched the bio-metals of the camouflaged ship. Alex recovered as they ran in a zig zag through the abandoned city ruins and beyond. As the Gleezhian day dawned their shadows began as trailing strings, but shortened as they reached the hidden spaceship. They stopped their pacing and boarded.
Manned by two Klaqin Third Commanders in fresh green uniforms the interior of the large ship was lined with weapons, trade goods such as food, liquids and robes, and the genuine purlass capsule, shrouded in a multi-colored drape.
The quick passage of time had done nothing to temper Alex’s feelings. If anything he was more riled than when he’d heard Selina proclaim that “technically” she was wed to Marcum. He slapped at his arms, chest, and legs. A fine sifting of red dust plumed
from his uniform and settled onto the floor. The bio-metals sucked in the particles. With his jaw clenched tight and his eyes focused on nothing inside the craft, he continued to brush off the Gleezhian filth until one of the Third Commanders offered him a plain black uniform from the storage bay. Alex stripped immediately in an effort to free himself from the faulty attire. He wished he could free himself as easily from the feeling of complete and unpardonable betrayal. He rubbed at his nose.
“Feel better?” his father asked. Accepting the head nod as truth, Nate motioned Alex to follow him into the capsule. A.J. and Henry were seated at the back with enough space for Alex and Nate and twenty females.
“Was this always the plan?” Alex stood with his hands on his hips. “Were we always going to use pacers in the capsule with Selina?”
Nate nodded. “Sit down, Alex. Certain First Commanders could not be trusted. Gzeter was one. False information was fed to various people, him included.”
“And you couldn’t tell me or Selina because … what? We’re too young? Couldn’t trust us?”
“Of course we can trust you. Authenticity, deniability, and, uh, ishmanaqa. That’s Klaqin for—”
“I know, dad. I read the archives. I suppose if this all fails ishmanaqa will just be an ancient Klaqin battle cry.”
“And we’ll all be extinct.”
“Oh, that makes me feel better.” Alex sat down.
“Son, don’t worry about Selina. Everything will work out. And we do need her. We need the power of pacing and bending combined. Like we practiced.”
Alex grunted, looked back at A.J. and Henry and asked, “When do the rest of the brides get here?”
***
“THERE WAS MUCH rejoicing on Gleezhe when the seed pods appeared,” Marcum said as we made our way through the empty passageways. “They thought there would be a rebirth on the planet. But the seeds are sterile. There was healing in my stoppages on the other planets. The same thing was happening here because most had lost their humps. But a back hump and an extra finger are not necessarily things to be healed. Now I wonder …”
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