“Should we go to the libraries now?” Alana asked, after he’d relayed what the emperor said. “Now that we’ve seen some actual progress, maybe I can find something that’s restricted to the elite class that might help. At the very least, it’ll be interesting. I have a lot yet to learn about Crimea and its culture, after all.”
Ice agreed they could spend the day scouring through the libraries, but before they left her room, he put his hands on her shoulders. He wondered for a moment if he should ask her permission to kiss her, but she leaned in, understanding what he wanted.
His lips dragged across hers in a slow, heated kiss that thrilled Ice and made him want to postpone the library.
The future of my people is at stake. And we can spend only so many hours in the library. Tonight, when we’re finished, there will be time for this….
Ice was a little ashamed he had to remind himself of these things so firmly in order to pull away from Alana. He led her from her room toward the libraries.
As they walked along the path that took them through one of the few remaining flower gardens on Crimea that wasn’t for food purposes, Ice wondered if the colors had become brighter than before, or if he happened to be looking at them with a new perspective. Alana took in all the flowers and greenery, and her enjoyment seemed to enhance Ice’s appreciation of it. He’d only viewed all the greenery and the few flower gardens through the lens of science before—plants helped clean and oxygenate the air. Now he appreciated them on an aesthetic level for the pleasure they gave Alana.
“You know,” Alana said, “since the object is to promote love and relationships, we might as well set a good example.”
Alana’s hand slipped into his and held tight, her smile broad and…beautiful, Ice thought. It rivaled even the most delicate and colorful flowers in Crimea.
“Ice.” Commander Storm walked toward them on a side path and stopped, mouth slightly open, when he noticed their joined hands.
“Yes, Commander?” Ice said.
“Is everything all right?” Storm frowned at Alana. “Do you need assistance?”
Alana laughed sweetly. “I’m fine. He’s not holding me up, Storm. Just holding my hand.”
Storm still looked confused, and Ice felt for him. He’d have been confused if he saw someone else doing it. But Alana’s hand felt right in his, like it belonged there. He wanted Storm and other Crimeans to know what it was like.
“I’ve just been to see Emperor Chaos,” Storm said, still looking at their hands. “He told me of your breakthrough. I was coming to find you to see if I could help in any way, and to inform you that sabotage was confirmed by the investigators. The ship was crippled intentionally so our mission would fail.”
Ice wasn’t surprised, but it was still a disappointing outcome. Now they had to prove who did it and why, which was much harder than discovering the treachery in the first place.
“Where do we start?” Ice asked.
“I think we start with our suspicions, and once he’s ruled out, we’ll formulate a new plan.”
“You have a suspect?” Alana said, moving closer so they could speak softly.
Storm met Ice’s eyes. Clearly, he wasn’t sure how much of Crimean business Alana should know.
Ice said, “Prime Minister Hallow.” When Storm’s eyes narrowed, Ice was about to remind him that the emperor had given her the highest clearance. But Storm’s back straightened, his head snapped to the side, and he tackled both of them to the ground.
A plasma pulse crackled in the air above their heads. If Storm hadn’t thrown them down, it would have hit its mark—Alana.
“Stay down.” Storm bounced to his feet in one smooth move and smacked the com on his wrist. “Armed assistance to Botanical Enclave Four. Fatal attack attempted on Alana Watson….” Storm’s voice trailed off as he ran after the shooter. Ice covered Alana’s body with his own and tried to see who Storm ran after, but more soldiers swarmed the area so quickly, it was impossible to see who or what was happening.
“It’s clear,” someone shouted in their direction, so Ice helped Alana to her feet. He cupped her face and searched her eyes. “Are you hurt?”
Alana shook her head. “I’m fine.”
Ice stared at her, unconvinced.
“This isn’t the part where a woman says she’s fine but she’s not okay, like in the relationship thing you read. Different scenario. I’m really okay.”
He nodded. “I’m glad.”
They hurried to where the crowd had gathered. Storm, his fist twisted in a man’s tunic, turned to them. “Recognize him?” he asked Ice.
The man’s wrists were already bound behind him, and the side of his face was scraped, a thin line of blood running from his cheekbone to his jaw. Ice couldn’t name him, but he was sure he’d seen the man speaking to the prime minister once before, long ago.
Before Ice realized what he was doing, he lunged at the would-be assassin and struck him across the face with his closed fist. He wanted to tear the man’s head from his shoulders because he’d dared to hurt Alana.
“Ice!” Storm pulled the man away from him and glared.
Ice felt no need to apologize. He wished Storm would let him do worse. The rage inside him had only been quelled a little. “The prime minister should be able to identify him,” Ice said.
Storm nodded. “I thought the same. We’ll question him with the emperor present and get what information we can.”
A woman wearing a long, silver cape approached them so gracefully and quickly it was as if she was gliding above the ground instead of walking. She headed for Alana, but Ice took Alana’s hand and pulled her behind him. Storm noticed, and stood between them and the woman, who stopped a few feet from them.
“I’m here on behalf of the empress.”
Storm didn’t move. He shoved the man toward the half-circle of soldiers. “Take him to the emperor and wait for me.” When the soldiers had gone, Storm stepped aside, but just barely. Ice wasn’t going to let a potential threat get close to Alana, so he stood his ground.
“The empress wished for me to give this to Alana Watson.” She held up a message pod and turned it so Ice could see what it was. “I am Moonstone Pond, attaché to the empress. You may verify this if you wish. I’ll wait.”
Ice didn’t need to verify it. He knew of her. But Storm took the pod and examined it carefully before handing it to Ice.
Moonstone clicked her tongue. “The message is meant for Alana Watson. I must be sure she receives it.”
Ice stepped aside and placed the pod in Alana’s palm, then tapped the top. The reedy voice of the Dowager Empress rose from it. “Please meet with me as soon as possible, Alana Watson. Come to the palace, and this pod will guide you to my location. Moonstone, if you’re hearing this, you’re dismissed with my thanks.”
Moonstone nodded at them and left as quickly as she’d come.
“I’m coming with you,” Storm said. “I’ll follow at a distance where I can see any potential threats more easily.”
He wouldn’t get any argument from Ice. Alana had to be protected, and not just because their survival depended on her. Ice couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to her…for personal reasons.
“What do you think she wants?” Alana asked. Ice felt a strange sense of pride at how steady she seemed. An attempt had just been made on her life, and she was as curious and quick as she’d always been.
Ice and Storm exchanged a look. If it was a simple meeting, she could have summoned Alana to the palace without the need for her attaché to deliver a pod. A simple escort would do. The promise of the pod guiding Alana meant the empress wasn’t going to be where one might expect.
“I’m not sure, but you’re not going alone.” Ice took Alana’s hand and turned them in the direction of the Imperial palace.
Chapter Fourteen
“Why do you think the prime minister would sabotage the ship or try to have me killed?” Alana clung to Ice’s hand as he led her into the pal
ace. His frown had only grown deeper since they were attacked. Ice’s hands had been so gentle on her face as he’d asked if she was all right. And his relief had been palpable. But he still appeared tense and maybe even angry at what happened. His hand held hers fast, and Alana was grateful for it.
Ice had stressed repeatedly that all his hopes for Crimean survival were pinned on Alana. What possible reason could the prime minister have for wanting the mission to fail? Why would he want Crimeans to die out? It didn’t make any sense. “Doesn’t he want the population to grow?”
“He has always believed in Arcana. Some share his view that Arcana simply needed to be fixed, not destroyed. I think the idea that people would start falling in love again and feeling strong emotions goes against what he sees as the best course for the people of Crimea.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense. It’s better to feel nothing and watch the population shrink than to make a change?”
The pod in Alana’s hand vibrated and a digitized voice said, “Take the corridor to your right.”
Ice pulled her gently in that direction. “Some of the elite believe that complete intellect with no emotions or other concerns at all is the highest state of being achievable. For them, Arcana didn’t go far enough. Even people who continued to have wild emotional swings were executed as disruptors.”
Alana had thought it sounded like a dystopian nightmare when people were just “corrected.” Executions over emotions were a next-level kind of horror she didn’t even want to imagine. No wonder people suppressed their feelings and stopped connecting with each other.
The pod gave further directions. Soon they were descending a long, winding staircase, going even deeper into the bedrock. The stairs flowed into a large chamber with several tunnels leading away from it.
“I didn’t even know this was here,” Ice said, mystified. The Dowager Empress stepped out of the mouth of one of the tunnels.
“Hello, Alana Watson.” She nodded at each of them. “Minister Silverkiller. It’s nice to see Winter Silverkiller’s son up and about. You do have your mother’s eyes.”
Ice inclined his head in respect. “I was told she insisted on that feature when my parents submitted their request to the genetic designer.”
She laughed. Her voice sounded like a mellifluous song bird. The empress wore a long, flowing, silvery robe like her attaché had, clasped at her neck. Alana couldn’t decide if she looked like an icy superhero or a villain. Marvel would love her as their new character.
The prime minister stepped out of another tunnel, a weapon of some type in his hand. It was shiny metal but shaped more like a water pistol from earth than something threatening. When he fired it at the empress, barely missing her as she dropped and rolled, Alana realized it was the same kind of charge someone had fired at her earlier.
Ice rushed toward the prime minister, but Storm came from behind them and reached him first. The prime minister got off one more shot that glanced off Storm’s shoulder, taking a chunk of his uniform and what looked like a layer of skin with it. The panic on the prime minister’s face made it clear he hadn’t expected a soldier. As Storm slapped the weapon out of his hand, blood coursing down his arm from the shoulder wound, Prime Minister Hallow reached inside the closure on the front of his shirt and pulled out a short, wide blade.
Storm grabbed his wrist with one hand and the prime minister’s throat with the other. A few shakes, and the knife clattered to the ground.
Ice and Alana helped the empress to her feet. She was shaken, but lifted her chin and narrowed her already narrow eyes at the prime minister.
“You were warned,” she said cryptically.
Storm managed to get both the prime minister’s wrists behind his back to hold him firm. The prime minister laughed bitterly. “How can you condone this?” he asked. “Humans will destroy our culture, water down our bloodline. Crimeans will become as lazy, ignorant, and self-satisfied as those on the Old Earth. Our intellectual destiny will be thwarted. Think, Empress, of what we could achieve. We’ll figure out the population problem another way, through technology.”
His voice went from snide to pleading, and the empress looked at him with something like sadness.
“You’re wrong. We have been wrong. I’m remedying that now.” She turned to Alana and motioned for her to walk toward a blank wall between two tunnels. “My son has told me of your breakthrough. You and the Minister.”
Alana’s face heated up at the idea that the royals of this planet took such an interest in her sex life. It made sense, under the circumstances, but she’d never really considered that it would get discussed by so many other people. “I see,” she said simply.
She gestured for Ice to join them. “Minister, you told my son you were surprised at your reaction to Alana when you’ve never felt interest in a Crimean woman before.”
“Yes, Empress. I can find no explanation for it.”
“And you feel new things for Alana. Not just physical, but emotional.”
Alana swallowed hard as Ice turned to her and said, “Yes. Your happiness…pleases me. When you were attacked in the garden, I…was furious and frightened all at once. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to lose you. I would be utterly devastated.”
The prime minister groaned as if in pain. “You see, Empress? Anger. Fear. You’re about to push us into an age of barbarism the likes of which Crimea hasn’t seen since—” He stopped, as if he’d almost given something away.
The empress regarded him for a moment, then finished his sentence. “Since humans landed on this planet thousands of years ago and colonized it.”
Storm and Ice exchanged a look. Alana thought they both showed shock and disbelief. The prime minister hung his head. Obviously, it was true.
“I think I can help you figure out why you were so attracted to Alana but no one else,” the empress said. “Thanks to Arcana and a focus on intellectual pursuits, we evolved without the urge to feel emotions. It’s ingrained now, and was even when babies were still born naturally to couples. We drummed emotions out of the populace, and learned to live without them.” She lifted a hand toward Alana. “But she feels. Human emotion. The same emotions that Crimeans used to have. Alana, humans are our ancestors. You represent a primal version of Crimeans, and your feelings and urges have sparked an awakening in Ice of who we used to be.”
The empress touched the wall and a panel slid to the side. Glass or thick crystal blocked their entry, but visible behind it was what looked like a large book. It might not have been paper, but it was shaped the same and clearly very old. Most of the writing Alana had seen in Crimea looked like Egyptian hieroglyphics. The collar she wore allowed her to understand speech, but she hadn’t been able to read anything. The front of the book was the first thing she’d been able to read since arriving—a single number: Eighteen.
“Minister, this crystal wall was built and cured thousands of years ago to protect the historical relic that details the true history of our people. You won’t find this information in the libraries. I’m sure you can set your scientists and archaeologists on the task of excavating it so that its knowledge can be shared with the people of Crimea.”
“No,” the prime minister whispered.
“Yes,” she replied. “The people have a right to know where they came from and how their ruling class has led them astray.”
“Eighteen?” Alana asked. “What does that mean?”
The empress turned to speak directly to Alana. “In the year three thousand one hundred on earth, unpolluted resources were dwindling. The organization known as NASA sent a ship on an exploratory mission to find another planet where humans could survive. One hundred scientists and engineers were sent out on a ship. Eighteen survivors—great, great grandchildren of the scientists who originally set out—landed on this planet. From those eighteen humans, Crimea was born.”
Alana swore she could feel Ice and Storm resisting this information. One could cut the tension in the chamber with a d
ull knife. But as fantastic as the story was, it couldn’t be possible.
“We’re still a thousand years away from the year three thousand one hundred, Empress. You must be mistaken.”
“Oh, child,” she said. “At this moment, everything you know from earth is long gone by thousands of years. When the Campania traveled to earth on its mission, it was sent through a timeshift.” When Ice shook his head, the empress said, “A wormhole. I suspect it was part of the prime minister’s sabotage. He didn’t count on the wormhole remaining stable long enough for you to return through it.”
“We would have known,” Storm said. “How did we not know?”
Ice rubbed the bridge of his nose, and despite the circumstances, Alana was charmed by the gesture. “We were suspended when it happened,” he said. “The computers could have been programmed to erase all traces of the jump. That explains why the clothing and currency we’d been supplied had been so wrong. We were prepared for earth as it is now, not as it was.”
Alana felt dizzy at the idea that she was now several thousand years in the future from the year 2017, when she’d left earth. Everyone and everything she knew, gone.
“Is it still possible to go back to my time?”
Ice looked at her, an unreadable expression on his face. “The wormhole will decay eventually, but it may be stable enough for another trip through, maybe a few more. I take it you still want to be returned to your home, your time.” His voice tightened, and it was clear he wasn’t asking. He assumed he was right.
Alana realized she did, but only to say goodbye to the people who were probably panicked at where she’d gone. “To tie up loose ends, if it’s possible. But…I want to come back here to stay. With you.” The truth of it hit her as she said it. She wanted to be with Ice. “I think I might be…falling in love with you.”
Ice smiled at her. His face simply broke into a smile filled with so much happiness, it brought tears to her eyes to see it. She touched his face and laughed. “You’re smiling.”
Alien and the Wedding Planner Page 10
