The Alliance (37 page)

“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.

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.”

Kayelle suspected, she’d just shared an epitaph to a very special man. “I want to meet your family,” she reminded him.

“Soon. We have work to do here first.”

The Tetrarch’s aide was waiting. “Welcome, sir,” he said, stepping forward as Jean-Paul reached the bottom of the ramp.

“Sorry to keep you waiting.” Jean-Paul made no mention of the cause for the delay, but the aide’s eyes strayed to Kayelle radiating happiness like a beacon. She felt it in his mind and his assumptions raised the color in her cheeks even more.

“The Tetrarch would be pleased to discuss your return.”

Jean-Paul smiled. “I expect he would.”

“Is it convenient now?” The aide had difficulty keeping his eyes from straying to Kayelle, who was making faces to mock his seriousness, a petty revenge, but still effective.

“Of course. We’ll come with you immediately.” Jean-Paul ignored Kayelle’s behavior and matched the aide’s serious mien.

The Adept turned and fled, almost running in his desire to be away. Jean-Paul followed more leisurely, his hand in Kayelle’s to moderate her pace.

“Behave yourself.”
His admonition was indulgent. “
You’ve made your point.”

She poked her tongue at him. “
He has a gutter mind.”

Jean-Paul smiled at her. “
I saw nothing in his mind we hadn’t done. I thought his imagination somewhat limited.”
He shared some mind pictures to make Kayelle’s breathing difficult.

“Don’t stop now,”
she warned. “
It will take us twenty minutes to reach the Square.”

* * * *

The Tetrarch greeted them at the head of the stairs leading up from the Square, a beaming smile banishing any semblance of formality. “You won me my wager,” he said, extending his hand to Jean-Paul. “I told the others you’d be back.”

“Thank you for your confidence,” Jean-Paul smiled too as they shook hands.

“I suspect Kayelle has already made you welcome,” the Tetrarch inclined his head toward her. “Her expression suggests you have reciprocated.” Her great-grandfather looked young. “Marriage would allow us to confer Adept status sooner and ease your work here.”

Kayelle’s face felt aflame and she closed her mind in embarrassment, trying to hide her surge of joy lest it compromise Jean-Paul’s response.

“I thing that’s a question for Kayelle,” Jean-Paul surrounded her with warmth and reassurance. “She may not be ready for so large a step.”

“Oh, you still think her too young.” The Tetrarch enjoyed the care Jean-Paul displayed. He grinned broadly, almost daring Kayelle to comment.

“She is young,” Jean-Paul had joined the fun, but his warmth cushioned Kayelle.