Pay the Piper: Hathe Book Two

by Mary Brock Jones

  She looked long at him then nodded, A little only and very slowly, yet still a pledge.

  And so, over the next days and weeks, he led her into his world. Small trips at first, to the woods and forest surrounding this isolated house. The trees were familiar to her from childhood stories yet also utterly strange. She was brought up with the lifeforms of Hathe. The large plants of her home world might possess the same sense of solidness as these trees, but the rustling of leaves as the wind played symphonies over her head, their ever changing forms in sun or heavy rain or stark and ghostly in the evening light, were a revelation. Hathian trees did show a misleading similarity, but their so-called leaves were not like these of Earth, each independent and moving, yet part of the whole. Hathian leaves were but branch extensions, each turning in response to the tree’s needs, not wildly dancing with any light air that chose to stray within the canopy.

  The colors, too, were a surprising delight. Green in all its myriad shades, far more than she could ever have imagined. There were hints of the blue, yellow and browns of her home world, but always caught in a green kaleidoscope. They had strong, glossy blue-greens at home, but not the silver whisper of light on this tree, nor the mottled stripes of that. They walked past trees densely shrouded in dark foliage, through glades where the sun splashed and trickled through sparse branches and leaves, and onwards to a sharp tang and the spice of conifers, their scent vibrating through the moisture dripping on the sharp needles and leaving her hair damp and coated with the life of their fragrance.

  Farther still he took her. To high mountain tops where small, hardy plants clung grimly to sun-baked gravel slides only to be plunged into glacial cold by night. Down again, to wide grasslands with hints of the golden plains of Hathe but for the alien species heavy with nodding seed heads, while above, small feather-covered birds hovered and flew. Their movements lacked the wild zings of her native flitters, more akin as they were to the ancient airborne reptiles seen in Hamon’s library. Terran flying animals hovered, soared, fluttered; but they did not zip.

  Hamon had been right. There were parts of his Earth that were very, very beautiful. Something deep within her even recognized a sense of homecoming … but only a small part. The rest yearned for her own land, the strangeness of this world forever clanging against the protective shell she’d erected around her. And always, wherever they went, she took Riardan with her. She’d seen the looks on those Terran faces. Always, fear for her child walked with her.

  As did confusion at the paradoxes of this world. Hamon also showed her the Earth of her expectations: the desolated fields of over-polluted, farmed-out wastes; the vast, echoing chambers of underground cities, long abandoned in favor of the haphazard towers above ground. The demands of the services necessary to subterranean life—lighting, heat and ventilation—had been too much for an energy-depleted world. She saw, too, the hunger and deprivation etched into the faces of so many Terrans, felt the essential sterility in them. Yet she now lived in a home engulfed in rich and vibrant life. Early on, she tackled Hamon.

  “Why?” she demanded. “All this untouched beauty, yet you let people starve?”

  “The beauty is a safeguard, too,” he said. “Your world is too young to have to worry, your population too small. We long ago realized we were reaching a critical loss of biomass. We know, to the last kilogram, the exact amount of flora and fauna needed to maintain the balance of the atmosphere.” He caught her puzzled look. “Clean air, with sufficient oxygen content; clear, drinkable water; and a planetary temperature range within which we can survive. The absolute basics of life,” he reiterated in grim irony. “So now we regulate. Our biomass is never allowed to fall below a given minimum. We keep to the limits by setting aside areas under appointed guardians. My family has had the responsibility for this bioreserve for hundreds of years. In the cities, too, we cultivate every available space.

  “Hence the greenery on all the buildings, that beautiful park?”

  “Yes, there so that we can have air to breathe. The penalty for destruction of such gardens is decidedly draconian, so the population treats them with care and leaves well enough alone.”

  “Yet they don’t see the beauty.” It was a statement, Marthe’s voice tinged with sadness.

  “No, not many,” he agreed, rising from the rock on which they sat, to stand and stare across the glacier lake they were visiting this day. She saw his gaze travel over the wind-carved wavelets stirred up by the passing breeze, ignoring the heady challenge of the shining turquoise water to the storm-threatening clouds above.

  She let him stand alone. He was busy with thoughts that, even yet, he couldn’t share with her, maybe never would if they concerned his care of Earth. Quietly she watched him, saw the tension in the straight back, stared as the evening breeze grabbed at the stray locks curling into his nape. Lost in contemplation of broad shoulders rising to a sturdy neck and fine head, she almost didn’t hear him when he turned and said lightly.

  “Some old friends are calling in tomorrow night. Is that okay with you?”

  His tone might be casual, but his eyes said that he knew what he was asking. Caught unawares, Marthe bent her head in retreat. She’d known the day must come when their isolation ended. Was she ready for it, he was asking. Probably not. Would she ever be ready? Probably not, jeered the monologue in her head. Her hands fisted on the rock as she looked up.

  “That’s fine,” she said to him in quiet promise.

  Swiftly, he came and crouched before her. “It may not be so bad,” he said in a whisper. “And they are only friends.”

  “Do they know about me?”

  “Only that you’re Hathian. The allies controlled outside news almost completely. Nothing of your trial got through, and you’ve never met any of them. None were on Hathe, ever.”

  His voice changed, heavy with desperation. “If we’re to make any kind of life here, you have to meet people sometime.”

  She could only nod in grim reply. He was right. He had already absented himself a number of times over the past weeks. Some occasions were social, some, she knew, to do with his own affairs; but she’d always known that this moment must come, that their private world must once more embrace the everyday one. She heartily wished it otherwise.

  She swallowed. “Old friends, you say. How old?”

  She’d pinned a small smile to her face. He kissed her once, tenderly, then retreated to the polite inanity she needed. “Very old, I’ve known them since earliest childhood.” He sat down beside her and pulled her gently into his shoulder. “There’ll be about ten or so—those readily available of a group who used to knock around together in my school days. Some I’ve known since we were dragged along to the same crèches as babies.” He smiled, a teasing self-mockery. “Don’t worry, if the presence of Terrans en masse becomes too much, you can always plead the boredom of listening to too many old reminiscences and slip away.”

  “Thank you,” she said dryly, “I’ll try to endure it, but that kind of thing can be rather heavy going.”

  She had smiled in jest at the time, but on the next evening, her smile was stretched to its diplomatic limits. The first shock of walking into a room full of her enemies was bad enough. Automatically, she checked the exits and reached for her ear patch, until she caught Hamon’s eye on her and blushed in confusion. At least it gave an impression of shyness to their guests, causing them to refrain from crowding her with conversation and allowing her to sit on the sidelines most of the evening. Fortunately, they really did appear ignorant of most of what had happened on Hathe and unaware of her connections with the current Alliance governors of Earth.

  And they did chatter over silly childhood memories, alien yet utterly fascinating to her. For the first time, she saw Hamon in the whole, with friends, family and a background. It was a precious revelation. She could almost have liked these friends of his. Until a careless ‘Where’s Ferdo tonight?’ brought a bland reply from Hamon and the gates crashing down inside Marthe. Soon after
, she excused herself, shamelessly plying Riardan with an unexpected late feed to cover her early retirement.

  There were other such evenings, initially much like the first—friends only, who knew little of her past and who she could come to accept at her own pace, a few even with whom she could feel a sense of ease. Slowly, she grew able to walk into a room full of Terrans without automatically tensing. Increasing her surveillance of Riardan and the house helped. Hamon knew of it, was aware of the sophisticated nature of the Hathian technology she employed, but had so far refrained from commenting. It hadn’t taken him long to realize the significance of her new habit of rubbing the back of her neck, but he only teased her lightly. He understood how hard was the road she walked, and she had a feeling he was grateful for the security her additions afforded them, as grateful as she for the double protection from Hamon’s monitors, constantly guarding the estate and everything in it, including Riardan and herself.

  His vigilance wasn’t broken by his increasingly frequent absences either. He knew too many of Riardan’s growing adventures to have not been recording while away. She tasked him with it, letting him know by her laugh that she knew of and accepted his care. Her own surveillance didn’t follow him, though she was certain his trips were concerned with whatever direction he’d chosen to follow on his return. She’d told an Truro she wouldn’t spy on Hamon, nor would she, but, equally, she could not allow him to harm Hathe again so, reluctantly, she advised the allies of his departures. After the first few times, she chose to openly signal Alliance HQ. He watched, amusement chief in his face.

  “Is that a challenge, or have you really never let your people know my movements before?”

  “Of course I have,” she replied gruffly. “It just didn’t feel right to keep it from you.”

  “Well, thank you for that at least.” He smiled, moving over to gently hold her. “You think that I haven’t taken your surveillance of my activities into account?”

  “I don’t follow you once you leave the estate. The Alliance can manage that for themselves, but I did tell you I wouldn’t let you harm Hathe again. Anything else you choose to do is your own business—as long as you don’t ask me to help you.” She looked up at him, glaring and beseeching at once.

  “You assume, then, that I don’t favor allied control?” he asked in surprise.

  “It seems unlikely … not with the way you feel about Hathe. I can’t imagine you enjoy foreign control of your home.”

  “I don’t. Particularly by some of the more ignorant members of the Alliance—the ones who think they know the answers to all our problems; but that doesn’t mean I favor resistance either.”

  “So you haven’t made up your mind?”

  “No.” He smiled at the relief she couldn’t hide from him “Don’t be too pleased. Maybe I just haven’t found the right resistance movement yet.” Then the smile was gone. “Whatever I decide, you two will be safe.”

  “And together with you?” she couldn’t help asking.

  He caught her closer at that, so tightly enfolded that she couldn’t see his face, could only hear the word, “Together”, not his silently mouthed, ‘the stars willing’, that followed.

  His body was a blessed refuge, and she drank fully of it, taking comfort in the smell and warmth of him, and it was only as he was about to leave that the sense of his words penetrated. “What do you mean, the right resistance movement?”

  “Why, my dearest enemy, only that there are as many movements as there are people opposed to Alliance control.” The special smile he gave her took any sting from his words.

  Soon, too, he let her see the truth of it. Bit by bit, the gatherings changed to include those who were of use to Hamon politically as well as socially. He hadn’t announced it, yet the careful tenor of any conversation within her hearing made it all too obvious. Next, he began to invite her to join him on his visits.

  Her first impulse was to refuse—both from a fear of leaving Riardan unguarded and from a deep-seated reluctance to embroil herself again in the world of intrigue. The social visitors, she could manage, viewing them as a part of the building process her small family must go through. For that to succeed, she was ready to endure much.

  Earth had given her one very special gift: a time at last for the three of them. Safe and secure in their wilderness home and free of the sense of doom that had always accompanied them on Hathe, she and Hamon could talk openly for the first time. Talk and laugh and love and slowly, little by little, a family was growing.

  Now he was asking her to go back, to let in the doom again.

  It was late one night that he first chose to introduce the idea to her. It had been a special evening. Riardan had crawled right across the room before pulling himself hand over hand to a shaky stand. His two little fists were clutched rigidly to a cube, but the sturdy legs were undeniably upright and supporting him for the first time. He’d looked across to his parents with such a look of triumph that Marthe had felt her whole chest swelling with delight. Beside her, Hamon chuckled.

  “That young man is going to turn out as bloody-minded as both of us combined.”

  Then, later, flushed with this latest sign of their success as parents, not to mention having succeeded in actually getting their small tyrant to bed and asleep at a reasonable hour, Hamon had taken the chance to show her just how beautiful, desirable and precious he still found her to be.

  Now, Marthe lay replete, head turned into his broad shoulder, her leg still in possession of his lower body. Hamon’s arm held her to him, the fingers of one hand gently whispering his contentment on her skin. Their movement paused as he reached down to slowly place a kiss on her turned-up forehead, then the slow strokes began again. Only this time, they held a hint of tension. She looked up enquiringly.

  “You do know how much I love you?” he asked softly. She nodded her reply and reached up with her lips in promise. He took them, suddenly releasing his passion again as his lips and hands possessed her in what could almost be desperation.

  Drawing back moments later, he moved to prop himself on one elbow and look seriously down at her. Nonplussed, she suddenly felt the languor of their loving vanish in a rush. She, too, sat up, drawing the cover about her as if it were a shield.

  “There is a dinner tomorrow at one of my brothers’. I will have to attend,” he began. “I was hoping you would come with me.”

  “Why,” she asked baldly.

  “Mostly, because I want you to.”

  She knew that wasn’t all of it and waited for the rest, hating the cynicism that welled up inside her and the recognition of it on his face.

  “Oh, hell. That was actually true. Can’t you trust me even yet?”

  She shook her head in distress. “You did say mostly.”

  He looked away for a moment—shifting, uncomfortable—then sat even straighter. “There will be some people there I want to meet. All of my family are political animals, and they attract a fairly diverse range of the groups I told you about.”

  “That would seem a reason not to include me.”

  “No,” he almost shouted. Then quieter, “No. I will not repeat our situation on Hathe. I want you to know if I’m planning something. Maybe not exactly what, but I will not live that double life again.”

  “Yet you know I will not let you harm Hathe. What if you decide to take a course opposed to me?”

  “I don’t know. Can’t we face that when and if it occurs? By the stars, if the truth be known I couldn’t hide such a thing from you anyway. Even on Hathe, we both always knew something of what the other was about, if not the details. You think that’s changed? No. Only by parting could I keep such knowledge from you, and that I cannot do,” he added in a whisper.

  Her arm came swiftly across to his outstretched hand.

  “No, never again.”

  He was silent for a time then began again. “I want you to meet the factions. Whatever I decide must affect you, so I need your assessment of the various parties.”
<
br />   “What? Help you to decide which group will most effectively rid you of the allies? No! It’s too soon to even begin to ask such a thing.

  Her hand was suddenly clamped, halting her urge to retract.

  “So you mean to condemn Earth to an eternity of servitude?”

  “How dare you say such a thing! You, who almost succeeded in doing exactly that to my home!”

  He let go of her hand then, drawing his own raggedly through his hair. “I apologize. That was out of line.”

  “It was.” She grimaced, her sudden anger cooling. “Hamon, even the thought of an Earth free of Alliance control fills me with dread. You say you don’t want to repeat the situation on Hathe. Well, I cannot. I just cannot go through those five years again and I tell you, I will do almost anything to prevent it.” For an instant, she let him see the full cost to her of those years. “I will not help your cause, not if it is in any way opposed to mine, and I don’t understand how you can ask such a thing.”

  “Because I don’t know any other way to make us work. Should I divide my life into segments, let you share only the acceptable pieces? Such a lie is doomed to failure. What I said first is still true. I want you to be with me … even though, I might add, it will cost me too. After all, I am literally handing you entry to the inner world of Earth’s dissidents. The allies could never hope to penetrate it otherwise.”

  “Thank you for permission to spy on you,” she snapped. “What a pity I already told an Truro I wouldn’t do so.”

  Hamon really looked at her now, seeing the anger, and the fear hiding beneath it. He could guess the cause too well. “Oh my love,” he whispered, pulling her into his arms. “Can you not come? We have to make a life here. Your world is closed to us, and I cannot give you only half of me. Just come. No promises, no demands, just see what you make of it.”

  “But there’s Riardan,” she began. “How can I keep him safe?”

  “My mother will jump at the chance to babysit, and for all I care, you can flood the place with allied militia. There’s nothing for them to find. Please?”