“So what happens if they find me guilty?” I asked as I handed the phone over to Raphael. He didn’t even look down at the screen, only placed his hand over it, as if he could transmit my message that way. For all I knew, that was exactly what he had planned.
“I doubt they will.” His voice was so calm, he sounded as if he was discussing the weather forecast.
“But if they do?”
“I will be there to provide an eyewitness account. It was clearly an act of self-defense, or at least defense of others in your party. While we abhor violence — which is why the mindset of the Reptilians is especially foreign to us — we do recognize that sometimes it is necessary to defend oneself. You truly have nothing to worry about.”
His words should have reassured me. But I could still feel my stomach twisting itself into a nervous knot, and I wasn’t sure I liked the way Raphael had responded. It was probably just my nerves talking, but right then he’d sounded a lot more like Otto, the overly clinical asshole, than Raphael, the impassioned lover, the man who swore I was the match of his soul. And he still hadn’t answered my question.
Something of my worry must have shown in my face, because he set the phone down on the table next to us, then pulled me into his arms. He stroked my hair. His next words sounded in my mind, using the mental communication that those who were soul-bonded could share. My love, you will be fine. I promise you this. I was there. And the Assembly trusts my judgment.
All of a sudden, the nervous knot in my midsection loosened, and I let myself fall under the spell of his touch, his voice. I had to trust him. After all, he knew this Assembly, knew what they would expect to hear. I couldn’t let myself fall into despair.
If I did, the Reptilians would win.
* * *
True to his word, Raphael did have everything I needed. All the toiletries a girl could want, even the hair serum, and, more importantly, a change of clothes. Well, as many changes as I might require, since it seemed that the ship could manufacture pretty much anything I asked for, although Raphael did gently suggest that I adopt Pleiadian styles for my court appearance.
I wouldn’t argue with his advice, since I doubted that jeans, a sweater, and a leather jacket comprised the best ensemble to appear before that august assembly. Much better to show up wearing a dress just as flowy as Raphael’s robes, but which hugged my body exactly where it should. The fabric didn’t feel exactly like cotton or silk or anything else, but it was the same cloudy blue-gray as my eyes, shot through with silver threads, and I felt like a princess in it.
Somehow, though, I managed to resist the urge to twirl. “You’re sure it’s not too much?”
The heat in Raphael’s eyes told me that he didn’t think it was over the top. “No, it’s lovely, as are you. The Assembly will appreciate that you have chosen to appear before them in a manner that reflects your heritage, even if you were raised on Earth.”
Yes, there might be that one-quarter of my blood which was Swenson, purely terrestrial, but far more of me had its origins in the system we traveled to now, and where I would have to face judgment. I’d tried my best to ignore that fact for most of my life, since I’d never thought I would have anything other than an earthly existence, but I needed to remember now that I was nearly as much a citizen of the galaxy as any of the people I’d be facing.
And Raphael loved me. That mattered more than any of the rest of it.
I’d slept in his arms the night before as the ship brought us closer and closer to our destination. No reply from my parents — not that I’d been expecting one. I was sure Raphael wouldn’t allow a message from them to get through, for the simple reason that I needed to focus on presenting my arguments to the Assembly instead of wasting my energy on back-and-forth debates with my parents in text format.
Being around Raphael did help to calm me. Knowing he was there and had no intention of letting me face this ordeal alone quelled the panic in the back of my mind. Well, mostly. After all, even having to show up in court to argue a traffic ticket could be stressful, and this situation was several orders of magnitude beyond that. However, getting my wardrobe sorted out helped to distract me, as did the long shower I took. Something about letting the water flow over me, just this side of too hot, so it felt like a massage, kept me from being entirely too wretched. Raphael had explained that the ship’s synthesizing units could create as much water as we needed, so I didn’t have to worry about rationing it.
I guess I hadn’t been too far off the mark when I’d compared his ship to a resort and spa. All I needed was someone to do my nails and hand me a glass of nicely chilled white wine, and I should be set. With all its amenities, however, those two luxuries were something the ship didn’t have.
Traveling this way was strange, though. I supposed I’d been expecting the streaky star lines of hyperspace the way they were depicted in the Star Wars movies, or maybe some strange psychedelic colors and shapes as the drive dropped us out of realspace altogether. What I saw outside the view-screens, however, was even stranger than that. The stars looked normal, but they kept shifting their positions almost every second, as if the ship was performing thousands of micro-jumps as it brought us closer and closer to the star cluster Raphael’s people called home. I couldn’t feel any movement — the ship was as solid and silent as a house — but I knew we must be moving at unimaginable speeds to be able to reach a destination more than four hundred light-years away in less than twenty-four hours.
As far as I was concerned, I would have been happier if the journey had taken just a little while longer. Yes, I was more a “get it over with” kind of person, but even I had my limits.
“What’s it like?” I asked as I fussed with my hair one last time. Raphael had informed me that we would be reaching orbit in approximately twenty minutes, which had sent me into a frenzy of last-minute primping. He’d looked on, his expression half amused and half befuddled, although he hadn’t told me to step away from the mirror. We might not have been together for very long, but already he seemed to realize that this kind of fussing was my coping mechanism for too much stress.
He looked much as he had the first time I’d ever laid eyes on him, his carefully tailored suit replaced by those flowing white robes with their strange opalescent cast. The ensemble did make him look almost impossibly handsome and otherworldly, but I thought I liked the suit better. Those robes hide way too much of the shape of his body. “The Assembly?” he responded.
“Well, that, but also…your world. Just everything.”
“I fear that ‘just everything’ is a bit too much to pack into a single conversation. You’ll see for yourself soon enough.”
I supposed I would, but a little bit of mental preparation never hurt anyone. Holding back a sigh, I set down the brush I was holding and went back out into the bedroom. The bed was now pristine and smooth, revealing no sign of the activities it had hosted the night before, although I hadn’t seen Raphael make it. More Pleiadian magic, I supposed.
Right then I did feel just the slightest tremor of the ship beneath my feet. I sent a questioning glance toward Raphael, and he nodded. “We’re there. Come, you should see it from this vantage point before we go down.”
He held out his hand, and I took it. Our garments made soft, whispery sounds against the polished floor as he led me to the lounge, whose view-screens were even larger than those on the bridge. And what a view they revealed.
I was certainly no astronomer, but even I knew that the Pleiades were part of a star cluster, its individual suns all bright enough that they were visible to the naked eye on Earth. Now the ship orbited a planet that circled one of those suns, the light pouring over its surface hot and intensely blue-white, very different from the warm yellow radiation of my own solar system’s sun.
And the planet below — it was blue in tinge as well, obviously as blessed with oceans as the Earth, although I could make out the shapes of unfamiliar continents as well. It had at least three small moons that I could se
e, but they weren’t the only objects revolving around the unfamiliar world. The space above it also glittered with constructs that were clearly manmade, delicate spires and discs and elongated rectangles.
“Are those all space stations?” I asked.
“Yes. We have many visitors here, some of whom are not adapted to the conditions on the planet’s surface. Those stations were put there for their use.”
I thought about that for a few seconds. “Aliens, you mean.”
He smiled, but then he shook his head. “We would prefer not to use that term, for are we not all alien to one another? But yes, as I told you, the Assembled Worlds encompass many races, some of whom are like us, and some of whom…are not.”
“Like the Reptilians.”
“Actually, the Reptilians are not so very different from those of us who belong to the human-appearing races. At least they are humanoid — two arms, two legs, two eyes, and so forth.”
My unease only increased after that revelation. Yes, Raphael had told me there would be more than just the Pleiadians in attendance at my hearing, but for some reason I’d thought the other aliens would still be humanoid. If he was counting the Reptilians as more like us humans than not…. I swallowed. This could be interesting. I had to pray that I wouldn’t act too startled by the appearance of these new aliens. The last thing I wanted was to, well, alienate anyone.
Ready, my love?
I managed not to startle at the sound of Raphael’s voice in my head. We’d shared only a little of that nonvocal communication the night before, just so I could begin to get used to it, but I was far from adept. Still, I understood why he was speaking to me in such a way now. It would be useful for the two of us to communicate with each other without anyone else being able to hear us.
Truthfully, I wasn’t ready at all, but I knew I couldn’t delay. That would only make me look guilty, as if I was trying to avoid punishment rather than being eager at having a chance to clear the air.
Ready, I told him. I hesitated, then asked, How in the world am I going to understand anything of what’s going on? It’s not like they’re going to be speaking English, right?
No, they will be speaking the common language the worlds of the Assembly use to communicate with one another. But there’s no need to worry. As long as you keep hold of my hand, you’ll be able to hear and understand everything just as I understand it. We do have translators, but they’re not as accurate as this method.
His reply did relieve me somewhat. Not only that I wouldn’t be standing around and listening to a babel of languages I couldn’t comprehend, but also that I’d be able to hold his hand throughout the entire ordeal. All of a sudden, the upcoming trial didn’t seem quite as frightening.
Of course, the thought of heading down to an alien planet was scary enough all on its own. Clearly, I didn’t need to worry about the atmosphere or the gravity or any of those things, just because my ancestors had come from this world, but there would still be plenty to see and absorb.
And plenty of chances to make yourself look like an idiot, I thought. So it’s probably best if you keep your mouth shut as much as possible.
Raphael came to me and took my hand in his. He must have felt my tension right through my fingertips, because he said gently, “It will be fine.” And then he reached down to touch the jewel hanging from the belt at his hip.
CHAPTER TWELVE
By then I was almost used to the flash of white light and the abrupt change in scenery that it heralded. What I couldn’t have possibly been prepared for was the world we emerged in this time.
We stood in the open air, in a large outdoor space with two stately rows of white columns that marched their way toward a tall building with multiple domes, all with some sort of metallic finish that echoed the same pale, blue-white hue of the sunlight streaming around us. On either side of the columns were narrow ribbons of still, blue-green water, framing a walkway that led directly to the tall doors in the front of the building. The air was soft against my skin, not cool, not warm, but some ideal balance that probably would have put it around seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit. And it smelled good, too, of something clean and aromatic. Not flowers; the scent reminded me more of the junipers back in Sedona, and of the spicy scent they would give off when the sun warmed them.
All around us were — well, people who looked like regular humans, albeit humans who seemed to be in the peak of physical perfection. And those whose appearance was close enough to human, except with coloring you’d never see appear naturally — dark blue hair, or hair red as a fire engine, someone else whose skin was a gorgeous shimmering copper color. But then there were those who could still be classified as humanoid but didn’t look anything like humans, as if their ancestors might have been cats, or bears, or mammals I couldn’t even identify, while I caught glimpses of others who appeared to only be a shimmer in the air, or a glowing blob of protoplasm that floated a few feet off the ground.
I tried not to stare. In a way, I didn’t really want to, because my first glance at my surroundings hadn’t revealed any Reptilians in the immediate vicinity, and that was just fine by me.
This way.
Raphael guided me toward the building with all the gleaming domes and over to its tall doors, three stories high, made of that same shimmering pale blue metal as the building’s domes. No one seemed to pay us any particular attention, and I uttered a silent thank-you to the universe for the apparent indifference of the people around us. This was difficult enough without having to walk a gauntlet of staring onlookers all the way up to the front doors of that imposing building.
Is this the Assembly? I asked Raphael.
It is the place they use, he replied. The actual Assembly is the group of people who oversee our corner of the galaxy.
I supposed that made sense. How many of them are there?
Five hundred.
Five hundred? I repeated, aghast. For some reason, I’d been expecting something like a Supreme Court setup, with a manageable number of around nine or ten. This was going to be like stating my case in front of the United Nations.
I swallowed, and Raphael brushed his thumb over the back of my hand. It will be all right. Most of them will only listen. The Secretary will ask most of the questions.
Even more like the United Nations. I couldn’t exactly be relieved, not when I was expected to speak my piece in front of such a throng, but I did feel slightly better that I wouldn’t have to be fielding questions from hundreds of people, none of whom I would have been able to understand on my own. I had to remember to hold on to Raphael’s hand, no matter what happened. Thank God he was there with me. I couldn’t imagine having to go through this on my own.
We entered the building. I couldn’t see any guards, although I did have a feeling of being watched. No doubt they had some kind of highly sophisticated surveillance system, one that tracked our every move.
The corridor we walked through was also three stories tall to match the doors, filled with light and air, the stone or whatever the building was constructed from carved into gentle fluted patterns that crossed overhead, rather like the branches of a tree. It was a beautiful place, but I couldn’t allow myself to enjoy it.
The same bewildering variety of humanoids and aliens filled the corridor. One or two of them seemed to recognize Raphael, and inclined their heads, or waved a tentacle, but they didn’t speak, and he remained silent as well. Maybe they could tell we were here on official business.
At the far end of the hallway was another set of doors, although these ones were only about fifteen feet high. They swung open as we approached, although no one seemed to be operating them. I thought then of the fluid metal “doors” on Raphael’s ship, and how they came and went as they were needed. A different kind of technology seemed to be at work here, because the architecture, while unfamiliar, was still not that far off from something I might have seen back on Earth. Maybe it was far, far older than the ship that had brought us to the Pleiades cluster.
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br /> Raphael and I went through the doors, our fingers still twined tightly around one another. This space was cavernous — and cacophonous, because it sounded as if all the beings assembled there were talking all at once. Even with Raphael supposedly helping me to understand what was being said, I couldn’t make out any of it. All of those in the Assembly were seated in ascending rows of chairs in a semicircular layout, not unlike some movie theaters I’d been in, although each of the Assemblypeople also had a small desk in front of them, presumably so they could lay out any devices they needed to take notes or possibly record the proceedings.
As Raphael and I entered, the crowd quieted. Now I could feel the impact of five hundred sets of eyes — at least half of them not anything close to human — focused directly on me, and I had to force myself to keep walking at my companion’s side, rather than give in to my sudden urge to bolt back in the direction from which we’d come.
He led me to a table of pale blue stone-like material. Three chairs had been placed directly behind it. Well, that looked familiar enough. I’d seen plenty of similar setups on crime dramas…only this time I was the accused. But Raphael couldn’t be my lawyer, because he’d said I would be assigned my own counsel.
A door I hadn’t noticed previously opened off to one side, and a tall female alien entered the room. She was clearly one of the humanoid but not exactly like us races — she had to be almost seven feet tall, and her hair was a shocking cobalt blue. With her high, sharp cheekbones and full mouth, though, she was also impressively beautiful.
“I am Anda Bilar,” she said. “I have been assigned as your counsel. You are Callista Marie Jones, correct?”
I nodded, my mouth dry. Right then I was just glad that Raphael had been right; as long as I held on to his hand, I seemed to be able to understand whatever was said to me.
“Do not worry,” Anda told me. “I have reviewed the facts of your case. This will be no problem.”
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