Prince of Storms (43 page)

Anzi said, heart still racing from the turn of events, “He improves with time.”

As they continued through the commons, Titus said, “I thought Iritaj…someone like him…I thought he'd keep me honest.”

She said with all her heart, “You always were honest.”

He took her by the hand, off the path, finding a shaded place anchored by a very thick biot. Taking her by the shoulders, he leaned her against the trunk of the biot. “I want to find you again, Anzi. I want you to find
me
.”

She whispered, “I want that too.”

He nodded, as though that settled things. And perhaps it did.

He was still pressing her against the tree. She put her hand on his face and said, “Hold me, Titus.”

He put his arms around her, embracing her very tightly. As always, he
stirred her. At last she drew back, letting out some of the anxiety that had been massing in her over the long days of his absence. “I thought that you might have gone home.”

“This is home.”

“I can't go to the Ascendancy ever again,” he continued. “I hope you won't miss it.”

It was a mark of how new they were to each other that she didn't know whether this remark was serious or not. The draw of ultimate power still haunted him. But not for his own aggrandizement—she would never believe that was true—but because it would have allowed him to keep the Rose safe, and also the Entire. To prevent and protect. She would always believe that. But it still led to the same future: the worlds at peace; Titus corrupt. If staying away from the Ascendancy made that nightmare less real, she was happy to never go there again.

Titus said, “Sydney gave me permission to stay. In the Entire. Zhiya will help her. And Suzong and Ci Dehai. She'll have good councilors.”

He was looking into the shadows of the commons, past her shoulder.

A squeeze to his hand brought his gaze back to her. “Drifting,” he said, and shrugged. Then: “Anzi, if your lessons are ever done—”

“Our lessons.”

“If we're ever done, Sydney might…ask us for help.”

“Not the Ascendancy.”

“Sydney,” he mused. “I think I'm the only one that can call her that.”

“But you don't mean go to the Ascendancy.”

Again that look into the shadows. “No. But when the Jinda ceb contact the other places, the other realms beyond the seven—when their ships are ready, we might go along.”

Anzi's head was beginning to hurt. She really could not think beyond lessons. Beyond having her husband back.

He went on. “I suspect I wouldn't be much good at negotiation, but you would. I might be useful as a pilot.”

“If you want to do that, Titus, you must.”

“Right now, I'm done with journeys. And I wouldn't go without you. Ever again.”

He led her out of the grove. On the path, he took her hand in his strong left hand, the one that wasn't damaged from the gauntlet the Tarig had put him through before they lost the realm.

Walking along the path once again, they approached a group of Jinda ceb who looked up from working on a biot art form. Gossip flew into Manifest.

Mind your own business
, Anzi said gently.

The chatter evaporated. And though it was late in the ebb, she and Titus started the long walk down the minoral.

LOOKING OUT THE WINDOW OF HER PRIVATE RAMJET
, Caitlin watched as globular clouds sailed over the south Indian Ocean. Sitting next to her, Tai leaned in, saying in his not-yet-perfect English, “It quite excellent oceans.”

“Yes, quite excellent.”

Tai loved flying. He'd said he had flown a brightship once with Titus. Every time Caitlin thought of Titus she smiled to herself. He had remarried. And so had Caitlin. It had been nine years since Rob died, five years since her marriage. Lewis was a good man, and she did love him immensely.

But time was tricky. Although nearly a decade had passed here, in that same time, only a hundred days had passed in the Entire. Enough time, however, for Tai to arrive with the Jinda ceb delegation.

She glanced at Tai as he watched the ocean. Though she'd only known him a couple of months, he was becoming indispensable in all that she had undertaken.

As a member of Quinn's family, she had been given some consideration in taking a role with the delegates from the Entire. She had the means to establish a trust for all those who came here. They needn't depend on government bureaucracy or vested interests. All interchanges were to be free and transmitted to the public. Jinda ceb Horat technology would be open to all. No corporate deal making. Not even for Minerva, where it had all begun.

It wasn't as though Caitlin had pulled any of this off herself. Tai and the Jinda ceb had arrived with full knowledge of local politics. They came with the intention of working closely with Caitlin, to the consternation of the myriad officials who were trying to claim jurisdiction.

They also came with the goal of sharing their breathtaking knowledge. It was not completely magnanimous on their part. They were offering technology as a way of keeping people out of the Entire. No one need go there to learn coveted scientific secrets. It was a closed kingdom. They wanted to make sure it would stay that way.

The arrival of Tai and the Jinda ceb had so far unleashed weeks of chaotic news feeds, celebrations, and in some cases, panic.

And that was just the beginning. Changes were coming—very great, perhaps unimaginable ones. Pundits were talking about the end of poverty, of aging—even of humanity. The Jinda ceb seemed a bit aloof, however, from all the frenzy. One thing they had readily promised was access to the stars. They were also very keen on the Manifest project. It would be a next generation to the tideflow that now connected the world. It had the potential to take power from the hands of those whom Caitlin had ample cause to distrust and put it in a common repository.

Mateo took a special interest in the Manifest proposal and was already stranding his comments into the tideflow, arguing for it. His future and Emily's looked promising.

Neurons still mattered. The world was becoming more complex, not less so—and yet, a new technology held promise for leveling the playing field. The Jinda ceb had internal computing capability. Based upon their own genome.

If you were determined to be among the intellectual elite, you might well be able to....

Corporate games would still be played, but there were also the stars. Off-world colonies could proliferate safely for the first time. There would be, Caitlin believed, a role for ordinary people. Room for pilots and leaders and honest labor—on worlds that would be too busy building from scratch to care much about the pecking order. Anyone could go. Travel slits could work for parsecs as easily as for crosstown errands.

And there might be DNA computers for those determined to be
savvy
.

Tai leaned toward the window, watching the great land mass begin to fill the view. “Australia,” he said, eyes alight. “I so much wanting see Australia.”

Passing the gate to the property, they drove on an unpaved road, passing a grove of eucalyptus trees lining a dry wash. On the other side of the road stretched the immense grass-clad desert, dotted with cactus and brush in sage green and lavender.

At the top of the small rise just ahead, Caitlin could make out the prairie-style roof of Johanna's house.

She stopped the car while they were still shielded from view by the eucalyptus grove. It had taken her weeks to decide whether to act on Titus's request. In the end, she had relented, but it didn't mean she was sure.

She hadn't given any warning of her visit. What was there to say?
I'm the sister-in-law you used to have? And here is your ex-husband's ex-secretary? And by the way, you used to be Titus Quinn's wife?
Johanna wouldn't remember any of that.

In the middle of the road, car still turned off, Caitlin murmured. “It's so peaceful here.”

“Sadly disrupting lady's peace,” Tai said, as though reading her thoughts.

“She's beginning to find a new life. We've discovered that she has friends around here; she sells her paintings locally. Du Peng is still with her, handling financial matters. Everyone in town knows and likes him—and her.”

“But sometimes best for not having too peaceful.”

Caitlin bit down on her lip. “She's over Titus; that's what you said. Years went by over there, and she got used to life without him. But she may not be over the Tarig lord. They had feelings for each other. That's what you said.”

“I remembering what I saying. It truth. Master Quinn say, Lord Inweer say.”

She stared at the ranch house roof. “They wouldn't let her go back there. The kingdom is closed.”

“Maybe allow she? She only one?”

Caitlin couldn't imagine that Johanna would go. But Sydney was there. Wouldn't she at least want to see her daughter? “If the serum even works. If she can ever get her memories back…”

“Jinda ceb fine to know how to do.”

So Johanna would remember. If she chose to know. Caitlin touched her jacket pocket, feeling the packet of serum. “Tai. What good does knowing do?”

He looked down the road, his hair cropped very short, his profile handsome.

She went on, “Does it do any good, in the end, to bring back the past?”

“Master Quinn thinking it decision for she.”

The sun, setting behind them, glinted off the rearview mirror in a sliver of fire. Time to do it or not. Caitlin put her hand on the bulge of her pocket, suddenly hoping that Johanna would choose to remember. She hit the ignition.

As they drove out of the grove, she saw that their presence had not been so hidden, after all.

Johanna stood on the porch, a solitary figure, wearing a bright blue long skirt and white blouse. Her hair lifted in the breeze. Still quite long. Caitlin felt her throat constrict. She tried to gather her composure.

No good, it all came to her, all in one rolling wave: the old days, Titus and Johanna together, Titus alone, Titus gone to find his family. Titus never coming back. And Johanna, locked in a fortress, planning through infinite care to alert the Rose of what was coming. And in the midst of all that, finding what happiness there was. Maybe finding it truly.

They drove up to the front of the house. Caitlin paused for a moment before stepping out of the car.

Johanna lifted her hand to shade her eyes from the piercing sunset, curious as to who her visitor might be.

Caitlin put her hand to her jacket pocket. Then she climbed the porch stairs.

KAY
K
ENYON
, nominated for the Philip K. Dick and the John W. Campbell awards, began her writing career in Duluth, Minnesota, as a copywriter for radio and TV. She is the author of nine fantasy and science fiction novels, including
Bright of the Sky, A World Too Near,
and
City Without End.
Recent short stories appeared in
Fast Forward 2
and
The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume Two.
Her work has been translated into French, Russian, Spanish, and Czech. When not writing, she encourages newcomers to the field through workshops, a writing e-newsletter, and a conference in eastern Washington State, Write on the River, of which she is chair. She lives in Wenatchee, Washington, with her husband. Visit her online at
www.kaykenyon.com
.