The Alliance (42 page)

“I think Peter is the best one to explain.” Jean-Paul opted out. “They’re waiting to meet you.”

“Then I suggest we don’t keep them waiting any longer.” She wasn’t worried now. His mind sharing had carried both his sense of despair when he’d thought her gone and his family’s reactions.

Four weeks after her return from Xanadu, Kayelle woke just at the sun lipped the eastern horizon. It was her wedding day. The end of a period of activity so intense she’d hoped for peace afterwards, but she was prey to doubts there’d ever be peace.

It wasn’t entirely her mother’s fault.

Dael, Gabrielle, and Rachael had returned with her and Anneke had joined them ten days later. These four, plus her mother, equaled chaos, for they rejected no idea, no matter how far-fetched and the modest affair her mother had originally planned had grown to resemble a lively night at the Pleasure Dome.

A huge marquee took up the vacant land next to her parent’s home and the three Ships of State lay alongside the harbor wall.

She had to accept some responsibility.

Explaining what had happened to her had required some tact and not a few temporary lies. One of them, more a diversion than a lie, had emphasized the similarities between Viridia and Xanadu. This had captured the Tetrarch’s imagination and he’d communicated his enthusiasm to his fellow rulers. They’d assembled immediately and Jean-Paul had called Peter, Karrel, and Jack to join them in a conference lasting thirty hours. At its end, Viridia’s future had changed and a special relationship forged between it and Feodar’s World. Off-World construction companies drew up elaborate plans for a Pleasure Dome to rival the one on Xanadu.

Dakar oversaw this project.

Kayelle laughed aloud at the memory.

He’d arrived victorious on Feodar’s World, to have the President, Jack, Jean-Paul’s nephew, confront him with the view that sleeping with the president’s aunt placed him under an obligation to serve his home planet. She would have loved being present when Jack flimflammed the wily gambler into coming to Viridia as the overall authority on the gambling concessions, even as Anneke sweetened it with an invitation to her brother’s wedding.

* * * *

Dakar’s triumphal return fizzled into nothing. His parents, both members of the underground resistance to the Pontiff, were now busy provincial administrators assisting the president to modernize every aspect of Feodar’s World and the latter had kept them advised of his activities. They’d greeted him warmly and were politely impressed with his new won wealth, but had turned back to their responsibilities more quickly than he’d liked. Even Anneke, who’d shared his defeat of Rohan, had quickly shifted her focus to the future when the president called.

Jack impressed him. There was no cant or pretence in his plans. He saw his goals clearly and knew how to engage other in their pursuit. His approach had been blunt.

“Have you come back to help or preen?”

Anneke, watching from the other side of the room, had been amused, smiling like a proud parent.

“If I can help, I will,” Dakar had been wary.

“Good. This is what I want done…” Jack had gone on to list the steps in setting up the gambling franchise on Viridia, ending with…“We’ll use this world as a portal initially. It will give us time to secure the area before the location becomes known and we have to set up a space port.”

The Tetrarchs had welcomed him, apparently well informed by Kayelle and her soon-to-be husband, Jean-Paul. He’d been amazed by the tempo of events, no day long enough to equal the demands on his time. Anneke had been a god-send, seeming to read his mind before he was even fully aware of his needs and turning his nights tempestuous.

He’d never seen her like. She could have shown most pleasure girls a dozen tricks or more, challenging him to keep up with her if he could, while still working as many hours as he did. She stood beside him now in an outfit from the top Xanadu fashion house, a stunning creation that barely did her justice.

“Keep your mind on the business in hand,” she warned. “The wedding guests might be shocked.”

His expression had given him away. Anneke could read him like a book. It was just as well she’d never taken up gambling. There was a daunting intelligence behind that beautiful face.

Peter, the father of the groom, strolled toward them, chatting with a pair of the guests, a husband and wife from Thanatos, rulers there apparently.

“Hullo, Helene,” Anneke greeted them. “Kamran behaving himself?”

The man answered, “Greetings, Traveler Girl, I spoke to Red earlier and expected to see you. Are you still causing trouble?”

These people were friends. They’d shared dangerous times and trusted each other.

“How are the children?” Anneke ignored the question.

“Kayelle has taken charge of them.” The woman smiled at the interplay between Anneke and her husband. “Last I saw Roderick rode the Southern Tetrarch around the house while Lucy encouraged him with a carpet beater.”

Dakar shook his head. Kayelle’s great grandfather was old enough to know better.

“Kamran, this is Dakar. The man I told you about,” Peter made the introduction. “I’d suggest you talk to him later. Thanatos is equidistant from Viridia and Xanadu and provides a fine stopover with great scenery for tourists. You could make it part of the Grand Tour.”

Dakar sensed that these two had been fighting soldiers. Their experiences marked them apart from other men, their gaze direct, probing until his shoulders squared unconsciously.

“Stop it, you two,” Anneke warned. “He’s with me.”

“Does he know how dangerous that is?” Kamran smiled. “She put fear into men I would have said were immune to weakness.”

“That was me,” Peter spoke mildly.

Kamran turned to study his companion. “I can believe that.” He nodded thoughtfully, obviously remembering the incident.

“We can fight old battles another day,” Anneke put a stopper to the exchange. “This is my brother’s wedding day.”

“Where’s the groom?”

* * * *

Jean-Paul was meticulously clearing his system of alcohol. Drinking with Jack was a health hazard and Karrel was little better, his elder brother had been practicing. Kayelle had banished him when she started to dress. “It will be a surprise,” she promised. Something he could have accepted with more equanimity if he hadn’t heard Rachael’s delighted chortling in the background of his mind. Jack’s wife had a wicked sense of humor and Kayelle, coached by Anneke, was learning to shield her thoughts.

“Hi, Bro’” Karrel was already dressed in the kilt and sash of their mother’s home. “Having second thoughts? Jack has the shuttle on standby if you decide to cut and run.”

“If he does, we’d better go with him,” Jack had followed Karrel into the room. “It shouldn’t take more than a century or two for our wives to calm down enough for us to come home.” He grinned. “You two enjoyed my wedding. Now it’s my turn.”

“They’d come after us.” Jean-Paul surrendered to his nephew’s sense of fun.

“There’s a thought to daunt the boldest,” Karrel agreed. “Anneke would probably lead the charge.”

“When’s Peter going to do something about Dakar?” Jack’s mind followed the train of logic. “None of us will have any peace until she’s married off for good.”

“Patience,” Karrel counseled. “She knows he’s on the cusp of developing telepathy. Let her be sure it’s what they both want. Torred, Samara, and Jesse chose against it. Give Dakar the same privilege.”

“At least he’ll know that it will make him a near immortal.”

* * * *

Peter nodded. His continual awareness of the others was something he’d kept secret, even from Dael. It frightened him that none of the others could do it, not even Karrel.

Dael and his children seemed logical, but the others gave him pause. Gabrielle, Rachael, Kayelle, and now Dakar, came into his consciousness before his children met them…as if he had needed to create them before they could exist. It fuelled his fear that this reality was only the echoes of his dying consciousness on Earth.

Yet, he could remember every moment of the two centuries spent here and had met thousands who lingered only in his memory, not in his consciousness. Even Samara, Torred, and Jesse were in that category and he’d loved each of them intensely. Kamran and Helene, Lothar and the Pontiff, he could access and scan deliberately without having the constant awareness of their existence that made them easy to manipulate…as he’d done with Dakar, Rachael, and on Kayelle’s journey to Xanadu.

He’d prompted Dakar’s break with his father, Lothar, and set him on the path to becoming a gambler, modified the deep hypnosis therapy after Rachael’s mission to Thanatos so she remembered Anneke and the Alliance. He’d knocked over the vase in Kayelle’s bedroom, Jean Paul had just rocked it, and Kayelle had followed his projection of Jean-Paul in Limbo. He’d felt her sense him in the game room and eased back his presence, initially blaming carelessness rather than any special ability on her part. He wasn’t so sure now.

He paused, pondering this.
Could her special ability take his story beyond his fears
?

Peter felt a stir of excitement…and then smiled.

If his old German comrade, Karel, were here, he’d be laughing aloud. “You, my friend,” he’d say, and smile, “will always find a reason to go on. You’re too stubborn to die and too determined to fail.”