by Lisa Lace
Klowix’s face was blank and smooth, but she knew him too well. She could see under the surface that he was in pain too. She tried not to cry. She didn’t want to make a scene.
“Klowix, isn’t there anything else we can try?”
The question hit him like a blow and he took it stoically. “I’m so sorry. I have failed. There is no other action to take. You are not safe on this planet.”
Bethany nodded. She’d known what the answer would be. If there was anything else Klowix could have done, he would have done it.
He wasn’t finished, though. “I shouldn’t come with you. Seeing a human and Evion together would just inflame the protesters more – they are watching. You will be safer going alone. There are guards standing by at all the evacuation shuttles. You will be fine.”
No, she wouldn’t be fine. Bethany forced herself to nod again.
Snia, Trili, Beoli, and Culip suddenly surrounded her.
Trili whispered, even though there was no reason to. “We won’t stop trying. The intergalactic council won’t stand for this.”
Bethany accepted this token of hope; it was all that was going to sustain her.
Klowix pushed a T-screen into Bethany’s hands. “Take this. Stay in touch with your friends.”
He didn’t say to stay in touch with him, but Bethany understood. How could she stand the pain of talking to Klowix, of seeing his face on a screen from millions of miles away? It would be easier to forget and try to heal.
Bethany looked at the group. “Knowing you all has been the best experience of my life.”
She hugged her friends one last time, and reached for Klowix. Their kiss was hot and desperate and so sad that Bethany couldn’t help but let out a sob. She pulled away, not wanting Klowix’s last sight of her to be crying. She smiled at them, holding back the words on the tip of her tongue.
Klowix was firm now. “Go. Be safe. Live.”
Bethany may be safe, but she didn’t think she’d ever live again – not truly.
“Goodbye.”
She turned and slipped out the door, closing it behind her. She wanted to turn around, to run back. She wanted to beg Klowix not to let her go, but it wasn’t his choice to make.
A guard gestured for her to follow him. “This way, ma’am.”
Bethany went hesitantly to the square outside. The shuttle was huge; she hadn’t realized how many humans there were on Telion. How many of them were being ripped from their lives, leaving a great gaping hole in the lives of those they left behind?
Bethany shuffled into the back of the queue. It was moving slowly as the officers noted and recorded everyone entering, ticking them off a long list.
The line got shorter and shorter. Bethany looked around, trying to memorize every last glimpse of the planet that had become her home.
The queue was very short now. There were fewer than a dozen people ahead of her.
Bethany couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t.
She found a nearby guard. “I need to go to the bathroom.”
“There’s a bathroom on the shuttle, ma’am.”
“No, I need to go now. Please, I’ve got an upset stomach.”
He appraised her. “All right, you can use the guards’ bathroom. This way.”
He led Bethany a short distance to a squat, utilitarian building. She stepped inside the door and quickly made her way to the bathroom. With trembling fingers, she dialed Klowix’s number on her T-screen.
He answered almost at once. “Bethany –”
“Klowix, I can’t!” She was sobbing now, unable to hold her tears back any longer. “Please, don’t let me go. I choose you. I’ll always choose you. I don’t care if I’ll be in danger here. I’m not leaving you! Please, come and get me? Please?”
Klowix’s face was torn as he watched her anguish.
“You can’t want me to leave any more than I do. You want me to stay, don’t you?”
“Of course I do, but…”
“Then fight for me! We can make a plan; I don’t care what. Please, just come and get me?”
The uncertainty was replaced with iron determination. “Where are you?”
“In the guards’ bathroom near the shuttle.”
“I’m on my way. Wait there.”
Bethany had never heard such beautiful words in her life. “Thank you, Klowix.”
She shut off the T-screen and waited. She wondered how long she had until the guards came to see what was taking her so long. The minutes dragged by. Where was Klowix? When she’d sent the distress call when she was kidnapped, he got there in minutes, and that was from a lot further away. Where was he? Had he changed his mind?
Bethany wondered if she should go outside. No, Klowix said to stay put. She clenched her shaking hands into fists.
The building shuddered very slightly, as though there had been an earth tremor. At a noise behind her, Bethany spun around and only avoided screaming by clapping her hand over her mouth. The back end of the small bathroom stall was opening like a door. She could see the seams snapping as they were pulled with great force.
Klowix stepped through. She felt like she hadn’t seen him in years. Bethany flung herself into his arms, her hands clinging to him.
“I love you.” She was finally letting out the words that had been burning her throat. “I love you, Klowix.”
“I love you.” His voice was soft as he stroked her hair. For a moment, they stood there, simply looking into each other’s eyes. Though Bethany knew they were about to be in a whole lot of trouble, she’d never been happier than in this moment.
The moment ended, and Klowix quickly took her shoulders and held her at arm’s length. “Be very quiet.”
Bethany nodded, and to her surprise, Culip stepped into the back entrance Klowix had made.
“Culip? What are you doing here?”
“What do you think?” Culip grinned. “We told you we wouldn’t give up.”
She grunted as she pulled some huge kind of plastic device behind her, making it a very tight squeeze inside the tiny cubicle.
“What…?”
Klowix explained. “The soldiers will notice if you don’t get on the shuttle. Many are loyal to me over the king, but I can’t be sure of all of them. Someone may report it. We need to make them think you have left Telion.”
“How are we going to do that?”
“Like this.” Culip tapped the hulking metal device with her fist.
“Are you sure you can operate that, Culip?” Klowix looked worried. “It can go really wrong if you don’t know what you’re doing, and I’ve never worked with one of them before.”
“I’ve read the manual, I’ll be fine. Hold still, Bethany. I need to concentrate.”
Bethany had no idea what Culip was up to, but she kept still just the same. Culip began pressing buttons, pulling levers, and typing what looked like complex formulas onto the screen of the device.
A bright white light shone onto Culip’s face, moving up and down her body. Bethany gasped as her friend began to change in front of her. Culip’s skin stretched as the bones in her face rearranged themselves. Her hair grew longer and darkened. Her eyes changed to match Bethany’s.
Within minutes, Bethany was looking at herself.
“How did you do that?” She reached out to touch Culip’s face – her face.
“Access to these things is still very restricted; no one will guess. Most people won’t touch them anyway, it can be very risky. I’ve done everything right. I’ll go off-planet as you. Klowix will have another machine waiting for me when I land. I’ll use it to turn back into myself, then come back on-planet as me.”
Culip’s voice was Bethany’s voice. It was bizarre listening to herself speak.
“But won’t they know? In human society, they strictly monitor interplanetary travel. They’d have no record of you leaving Telion, so how could you come back?”
“Evions are the same, but Klowix has connections. He can pull some strings to make sure I g
et back in. Though I’m not even sure I’ll be returning here. I don’t want to be on a planet that doesn’t accept humans.”
Klowix nodded. “I’ve set up everything for you and the other girls. You’ve all got your activation codes, so you can access everything I owe you at any time. I’ve hired each of you a travel assistant to help if I’m not available. Culip, yours has connections to bend the law when needed, and he knows all my contacts. You will all be fine.”
Culip looked at him. “What are you going to do?”
“It’ll be difficult. Bethany and I will have to go underground, at least temporarily, until we figure out what to do. Trili knows what to do to cover for me. She should be able to cloak my absence for at least a week.”
Bethany didn’t ask what they were going to do after that week. All she cared about right now was that she was with Klowix and she wasn’t leaving him.
She threw her arms around Culip. “Thank you for everything.”
“Any time.” Culip returned the hug.
“Hey! Are you about done in there?”
Klowix looked at them. “Go. We’ll clean up here.”
“Quick, Bethany, give me your dress.”
Bethany shimmied out of it and handed it to Culip, who threw it on and slipped out of the bathroom, closing the door quickly behind her. “So sorry, I’m feeling much better now.”
Bethany could hear Culip tell the guard in her voice that she was feeling better. It was beyond bizarre.
“Put on Culip’s clothes, then let’s go.”
“Why didn’t she make me look like her?”
“Even I can’t operate one of these. We don’t know when Culip will make it back, or if she even will. You wouldn’t have anyone to turn you back into yourself.”
That was a chilling thought. Bethany touched her face, realizing she’d always taken it for granted.
“Come on. Be quiet and quick.”
She let Klowix push her out in front of him. The back of the guards’ quarters was facing the forest. It was close, but not close enough that they wouldn’t be exposed for a few seconds as they ran.
Klowix used some kind of torch to weld the back of the bathroom back on, pulling the machine Culip had used behind him. “I’ll carry this. When I tell you to run, run for those trees. Keep going until you reach the large rock by the stream, and wait there for me.”
“You’re not coming with me?”
“I need to drop this off somewhere safe and get our supplies. We had to come here as fast as we could. There are a few things I still need to do. Wait for me at the rock.”
Bethany was terrified and didn’t want Klowix to leave her again, but he didn’t give her a chance to protest. He was looking at something she couldn’t see next to all the guards.
“Now! Go!”
Her eyes on the trees, Bethany broke into a sprint. Though it wasn’t far, the distance seemed to stretch out forever. She expected at any moment for there to be shouts behind her, but she heard nothing.
She sighed in relief when trees started flashing past her, but kept running. Glancing over her shoulder and seeing that she was now completely obscured, Bethany slowed from her wild sprint to a steady jog. In about five minutes, she reached the rock.
She felt exposed and didn’t like it. Any moment, she felt like the guards would come for her. Of course, they wouldn’t. Culip had seen to that; she was probably on the shuttle now. Bethany’s name would be ticked off the list. Still, she worried.
Sinking down with her back against the rock, Bethany watched the forest around her for any movement. She glanced at her T-screen to check the time. Klowix had been gone barely ten minutes, but it felt like hours.
Finally, the sound of footsteps made her jump. Klowix had a large backpack on and had changed out of his military clothing. She’d never seen him in Evion civilian garb; it looked strange.
He motioned for her to follow. “This way.”
Bethany followed him away from the shuttle toward the opposite end of the small forest. Klowix stopped at another rock. Bethany watched as he tapped it four times with his fist. It made a strange hollow noise.
A voice grunted. “Code.” Bethany couldn’t see where it was coming from.
“Fourteen, eight, ninety, seventeen.”
The rock began to move, opening so that it had a wide split down the middle. Bethany realized it wasn’t a rock, but a cunningly disguised entrance. Klowix put a hand on Bethany’s back to steady her as she made her way down the long, rickety flight of stairs. It seemed to go down forever. Finally, they reached a small room with one desk that had a grubby-looking Evion stationed at it. He looked bored.
He grunted again. “Fee.”
Without a word, Klowix pulled out a handful of what Bethany recognized as Telion currency and handed it over.
“One week?”
“That’s right.”
“We don’t want no trouble.”
“Neither do we.”
He grunted again and gestured for them to go on. Klowix led Bethany to the door behind the desk and ushered her through.
Bethany stepped into a different world.
The space was huge, lit with hundreds of lanterns. Crowded streets were bordered by small stalls, and little hover carts zipped up and down. Tall, shabby buildings reached right up to the roof, which Bethany realized was the bottom of the street below. She recognized soundproof panels. No one below had any way to know that this place existed.
“This way.” Klowix put an arm around her waist and pulled her along. He seemed nervous; his eyes watched everyone. Here and there, people appeared out of the darkness, leering at her or offering to sell her a variety of things Bethany had never seen before.
Klowix went straight for one of the tall buildings, pulled Bethany inside, and crisply addressed a woman just inside the door. “One room for two, one week, top standard.”
She handed over a key, and he handed over more money.
There was no hover lift here; they had to climb.
Going down the hundreds of stairs had been bad enough, but going up was awful. Bethany was soon panting. Klowix offered to carry her, but she shook her head.
Eventually, Klowix opened the door to a small, simple room. It wasn’t much, but it was certainly better than the building looked from the outside. There was a bed, a tiny bathroom, a dresser, and a small cooking area. Klowix dumped his backpack on the bed and locked the door, double bolting it and even going so far as to push a chair up against it.
“Klowix, where are we?”
He gave her a sideways grin. “Welcome to the Telion underworld.”
Chapter Sixteen
“Telion has an underworld?”
“Of course. On all planets, there are those who need to avoid the eyes of the law.”
“Avoid the eyes of the law? Klowix! You’re the Commander of the Telion army.”
Klowix shrugged. “No man is perfect, even a king. This isn’t the first time Sirin has made a bad decision, though this is by far the most catastrophic of them all. In order to truly serve the people, I must know the channels to take when the king’s law is contrary to their well-being.”
Bethany burst out laughing. “I never would have guessed.”
“Let’s hope the king feels the same way.”
“I’m sure he does.”
“We should also hope the king too busy evicting the rest of the humans to worry about me for the next week.”
That sobered Bethany up. “What are we going to do?”
Klowix sat down on the bed, thinking. “Well, we can’t stay here permanently, that’s for sure. I meant what I said when I told you Telion wouldn’t be safe for you after the last of the shuttles left. What if we went back to Earth? To your family?”
For a moment, Bethany could see it. She imagined seeing her parents again, telling them she was ok. Then she saw them recoiling in horror at the sight of Klowix.
Her voice sounded sad. “We can’t. Telion is actually a lot more adv
anced than earth – or at least, it was. Evions aren’t accepted there at all. Besides, doesn’t Earth have extradition agreements with Telion?”
“It does. All planets under the council are interlinked. If I desert Telion, the king will come after me. It won’t matter which planet we’re on. He’ll find me. There really is only one thing to do.”
“What’s that?”
“We’ll have to go somewhere else.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, go to another planet. Either an uninhabited one, or one far enough away that it’s outside the intergalactic alliance.”
Bethany’s eyes went wide. “That’s a death sentence. The outer planets have no law other than brute force. There’s no civilization, it’s a jungle.”
“Then we’ll find our own planet. With my connections, I can get us a travel ship. We’ll jump from solar system to solar system until we find somewhere safe that can support us. It’ll be hard work; we won’t have any of the technological support we do here. We’ll have to build everything ourselves, and stay under the radar, but we can do it.”
Bethany whispered now. “You’d do that for me? Give up everything, start a new life on an undeveloped planet light years away from everyone?”
“You are my secrena. Your choosing me over everything else confirmed your bond. My choosing you over everything else confirms mine.”
Bethany didn’t know what to say. She wrapped her arms around Klowix, and he held her protectively. In the end, there was only one thing she could say.
“Yes.”
“Then there is work to do. I must get to it.”
While Klowix made calls and sent multiple messages on his T-screen, Bethany picked through the bag he’d packed for them. To her surprise, she saw her own things there as well. She wanted to ask Klowix how he’d gotten them out of her suitcase by the shuttle without the guards noticing, but he was intently talking to one of his army connections.
She imagined Beoli had something to do with it. Beoli was scrupulously honest, but if she wanted to, she could steal the shoes off your feet without you noticing. Bethany had been astounded at some of her demonstrations. Those guards would have no idea what hit them.
