“No, can’t say that I have,” Pike said distractedly. Something—a splash of color, or was it light or sound?—drew his glance toward the far side of the room. It was as if the crowd had parted momentarily to provide him a glimpse of something incredibly enticing, then closed again, tantalizing him. He only half heard what Tyler was carrying on about. “Recently cleared for shore leave. Have I got that right?”
“You do,” Tyler burbled, swaying slightly on his feet. Pike half considered taking the drink out of Tyler’s hand and steering him toward some black coffee, but he remembered Tyler’s temper and decided he was a big boy now and could take care of himself. “And while it ain’t exactly Tahiti, the women are—shall we say—accommodating? Unless they’re married, but sometimes even then. The advice from here, though, is always make sure you ask first.”
Pike laughed tightly, but the sound didn’t change the expression on his face, which was frowning. What was it he had just seen over there near the fountain—on the way toward the courtyard where he could still hear the string quartet, and where he would have been heading anyway—and why did he have an overwhelming desire to brush past Tyler and go there?
“I’ll keep that in mind, José,” he said, clapping Tyler absently on the shoulder, already moving past him. He held up his empty glass as an alibi. “Excuse me…”
“Sure thing!” Tyler managed, the brief impact of Pike’s hand on his shoulder almost enough to tip him over. The last Pike saw of him, he was weaving toward the buffet, almost spilling what was left of his drink on the Tellarite attaché’s wife. Pike winced and turned away. If there was going to be an incident, he wanted to be far away from it.
He set down his empty glass—he’d only wanted Tyler to think he was going for a refill—and homed in on whatever it was that had disturbed his concentration, drawing him like a siren song to the other side of the room. He found it. Her. A woman, of course.
As he watched her, her face mirrored the emotions of everyone who spoke to her. Not mockery or even mimicry, but a silent empathy, as if their emotions became hers merely by being listened to. And not just the emotions, but suggestions of the very shapes of the faces of those speaking, regardless of age, gender, species.
There were four of them, all male, two Starfleet officers and two civilians, forming a loose little circle. Her back was to Pike, and yet she seemed to sense him, turning as if she’d heard him approach, despite the thick carpet and the voices, the crescendo of the string quartet just beyond in the garden. She looked at him and smiled, though her eyebrows, despite their delicate shape, drew down in exact replica of his.
For a moment her face reminded him of Willa’s, and Pike had to stop himself from recoiling. Something made him laugh instead, and for the first time that night the merriment encompassed his entire face. He stopped frowning, and that ready white-toothed smile which had dazzled many a woman was mirrored on this one’s face. Then he looked puzzled, and so did she. Somehow the other four males faded into the crowd as if on cue, and the two of them, he and the woman, were a little island of quietude unto themselves in a sea of laughing, chattering strangers, and he realized he had to say something, anything, to assure himself he hadn’t imagined her.
“I—I was admiring your hair,” he said, stuttering like a schoolboy. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
It was extraordinary, a single curtain of blue-black silk flowing to her waist, shimmering when she moved. He thought at first that the blue highlights must be artifice, but he would come to find out that they were natural. A streak of pure white like a lightning bolt began at her high pale brow and zigzagged up over the crown of her head, blending into the darker hair at about shoulder length. The effect was so alluring he almost forgot to take in the rest of her.
Neither tall nor short, neither thin nor voluptuous, she had only to tilt her head slightly to meet his eyes. A high-cheekboned face, a sensual mouth and, from what the filmy, multi-layered garments and graceful movements suggested, a lithe and pleasing figure. He detected a slight fragrance of sandalwood that, like her hair, was natural, the innate scent of her skin. Whatever else he was thinking or feeling, this was lust at first sight.
She offered him a smile and one long-fingered hand and said only, “Christopher.”
“H-how do you know my name?”
He was frowning again, though he didn’t want to.
Her face stopped mirroring his then, and her eyes took on a cloudy cast so that he couldn’t discern their color even though he was looking right into them.
“You’re the only fleet captain in the room,” she said lightly, but they both knew that wasn’t it. Maybe someone had pointed him out to her. Maybe—“I am Siddhe. It’s spelled as if it should be ‘Sid,’ but it’s pronounced ‘She.’ As in She-who-must-be-
obeyed, as another human once told me. If I were from Earth, I’d be an elf.”
“Sh-shee,” Pike tried, still stuttering. He had no idea what she was talking about. If he caught himself blushing, he was going to turn on his heel and walk out right now! To cover his embarrassment, he kissed the proffered hand, hoping the gesture was acceptable on her world, wherever that was. When he straightened up again, her eyes had lost their clouded look. Now they were the color of quicksilver, crystal clear but changeable.
Her voice was a smoky contralto, with an accent he couldn’t place, though he assumed from the way she was dressed, all flowing bright garments in a variety of shades of blue and green, that she was Argelian. His gesture seemed to have pleased her, but she withdrew her hand gracefully and asked quite seriously, “Do you still dream of her?”
For a moment Pike was startled. Were Argelians telepaths? If so, he’d have to end this conversation now. He was heartily sick of telepaths and of secrets, and the vague sense of dread he had brought back with him from space still followed him like a cloud. He couldn’t allow anyone ever again—not family, not friends, certainly not a stranger, however enticing—to see into his soul.
Now, wait a minute, he thought, collecting his wits. That’s an old fortune-teller’s trick. Do I still dream of her? Which “her”? My mother, Vina, or some girl who smiled at me when I was in high school, even Silk or Maia? This—Shee—finds me as attractive as I do her, and if this is how people get to know each other on her world, that’s all it is, a trick, and I’ll play along.
“I mean you no harm,” her smoky voice was saying. Her hand was on his arm. “You may walk away if you wish and, unlike your Earth women, I will not be insulted. Or perhaps we can go somewhere where we can talk.”
I need to make it an early night, he wanted to say. I have to get up early to mend some fences…
But the excuse sounded silly even in his mind, so he didn’t speak. Instead, for once, he stopped looking for explanations and followed his heart.
“So what are you?” he asked her the next morning, propped up on one elbow, marveling at the silken fan of her hair spread out on the pillow like an aura.
“Why, an Argelian, of course.”
He ran a strand of her hair through his fingers, holding the ends like a paintbrush with which he gently stroked her cheekbones, her brow, the tip of her nose. Her eyes danced, and her smile was sunshine.
“I know that!” he laughed. “I mean, what are you in the delegation? I didn’t see you in the receiving line—I would have noticed—so I’m guessing you’re not the ambassador…” He tried to look serious, but he couldn’t stop smiling. “…or the ambassador’s wife. So what are you? Cultural attaché, official observer, translator, security chief, sous-chef?”
Siddhe stretched her long arms above her head, arching her back and yawning. Not for the first time, Chris wondered if the Argelian spine was differently articulated than a human’s, given its remarkable flexibility. Distracted by a particularly pleasant memory from the night before, he tried to concentrate on what Siddhe was saying.
“We Argelians don’t put ourselves into boxes the way you humans do.” With a lithe movement she
was sitting on the edge of the bed, searching for her shoes. “I am a little of all of those things, except perhaps security chief…though I would know how to snap your neck with two fingers if I needed to…”
More than a little startled, Chris wondered if she was joking, but she had her back to him, retrieving her clothes from among his where they’d scattered them the night before, and he couldn’t see her face. She disappeared into the shower, and he half sat, half lay in bed, wanting breakfast, but too lazy to get up just yet. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this relaxed.
Siddhe emerged from the bathroom, dressed and brushing her hair. “I can be cultural attaché in the morning, art historian in the afternoon, a linguist over dinner, and a courtesan at night,” she said, taking up the conversation as if no time had passed.
“How do I know you’re not a spy?” Chris asked when she was sitting on the bed beside him.
Her laugh was deep and rich. “You don’t. Though I easily could be. I am, for weal or for woe, one of the Gifted Ones.”
“One of the what?”
She ran her fingers lightly through the waves of dark hair above his left ear. He’d started to go gray at the temples in recent years, just as Willa had. “Do you know of the Argelian Empathic Contact?”
He shook his head. “Until a few days ago, I’d never even heard of Argelius.”
She explained. “It is an ancient art, usually hereditary, passed down through the female line to the descendants of an ancient priestess caste, though in my case it emerged as a kind of mutation. Mine was a merchant family for generations, with no trace of the Gift until I came along.”
Her face clouded with her own emotions for a moment, then cleared. “It isn’t telepathy or clairvoyance in the strictest sense, but something somewhere in between.”
Pike sat up now, tucking the sheet around his waist, leaning back against the headboard with his hands clasped behind his head, all attention. “So you can’t predict the future?”
She shook her head. “No. My greatest gift is for the past. But sometimes I can feel the touch of the future.”
“Feel it? What does that mean?”
She studied her hands in her lap, her silken hair falling about her face like a curtain, hiding it from him. “I’m still learning your language. Perhaps that’s not the right word. But sometimes I can touch someone, or even something belonging to them—something important and personal—and get a sense of…something. If I spend enough time with you, I can tell you what forces went into making you the person you are. From that I can—surmise—how you will face your future.
“Someone at the reception last night said I’d make a good psychiatrist—another of your human boxes. On Argelius, almost everyone can sense another’s past in their actions.”
Now Chris was shaking his head. “I don’t understand.”
She caressed his face. Was her expression sad because she was mirroring his? He couldn’t tell.
“You will, in time. But speaking of time, you have work to do, and I must leave you to it.”
Had he told her his plans for the day? They’d talked about so much last night—and not only talked—his mind was awhirl with memories and he couldn’t seem to grab hold of any of them.
“Somehow that doesn’t seem so important this morning. There’s always time to mend fences.”
He reached for her hand, intending to pull her toward him, but for once she resisted.
“No, there isn’t,” she said. “Not always.”
Looking back, of course, Chris Pike would understand exactly what she meant. For the moment, however long that moment might be, he would simply follow wherever she led.
He asked her how long she would be on Earth. Her answer was “as long as you need me to be.” He told her he was leaving on an inspection tour in a few weeks and would be out in space for a month or more after that. She said, “I can be here when you return, if you wish.”
“Don’t you have diplomatic duties?” he wondered, not eager to get rid of her, but puzzled at her freedom to come and go without a schedule, or some superior barking at her on comm.
“Naturally,” she said, and would not elaborate.
“Then you must have appointments, a schedule, someone to answer to,” he insisted. “As easygoing as your people seem to be, you must operate under some rule of law.”
“The law of Argelius,” she said, caressing him, “is love.”
He scowled at that. “That’s an oversimplification, I’m sure. The Federation has very strict entry criteria for new members. I don’t think—”
Siddhe smiled. “The Federation wants Argelius for its strategic location, and as a shore leave planet. Nothing complicated about it at all. But enough about that. Tell me about your dreams.”
That phrase of all phrases bore the onus of bad memory. “No, thanks. Too many others have tried that already. I’d rather show you my world instead.”
For the rest of Pike’s leave time, Siddhe dutifully accompanied him to the places he thought she needed to see. She peered down into the Grand Canyon, gazed up at three-thousand-year-old redwoods, went cross-country skiing across the snowfields of Kilimanjaro, sailed tranquil Tasman seas. They talked, ate luxuriously, stayed in the best hotels a fleet captain’s salary could afford, talked some more. She didn’t pry, she simply took him by the hand, and by the time he realized he had told her almost everything there was to know, except of course what lay behind him on Talos IV, it didn’t seem so terrible.
“What about you?” he asked when, off in the Mutara Sector on that inspection tour he’d told her about, he had some time to send personal subspace messages back to Earth. “When do you get to tell me about your life?”
“When you pass this way again,” was her answer.
For the greater part of the next year it was like that, though eventually he realized she only wanted to see his world through his eyes, and the travelogue wound down. She did accompany him to official functions, and they were both so striking and so well suited to each other that heads turned the moment they entered a room, but they spent most nights when he was home gazing into the flames in one of the several fireplaces in the ranch house, keeping each other’s counsel.
What did she tell him about herself? Surprisingly little, yet when he pressed her he felt as if he was prying. What was the hurry, after all? If he chose, he could spend the rest of his life discovering the mystery of her.
That thought startled him. He hadn’t thought about spending his life with a woman since Janeese. No, that’s not true, he reminded himself sternly. Since Vina.
Vina. A now long-ago memory of a dream of a woman who was real and not real, and who was forever out of his reach. Was it only Siddhe’s warm, immediate presence that made Vina seem suddenly nothing more than a pale vision?
“You’ll tell me about her when you’re ready,” Siddhe spoke to his thoughts, startling him.
“I can’t,” he said adamantly.
“Starfleet secrets?” Siddhe murmured, her head on his shoulder, their hands clasped between them on the broad sofa facing the big stone fireplace in the main room. “You’ve told me about Willa. Are Starfleet secrets that much more sacrosanct?”
Pike studied the top of her head, the sleek blue-black hair with the sharp delineation of white down the center. Would all her hair turn white with age? A flash of Vina’s spun-sugar blond intruded. He shook it away.
Yes, he’d told Siddhe about Willa. It had been less painful than he’d expected. She’d made some chance remark—or was it? Was anything about her by chance?—wondering why he’d built a house with so many fireplaces but never used them. He’d given her some uneasy explanation about having been burned once when he was a child, but the question got him thinking.
Why had he built the fireplaces? Some arcane notion about roughing it in the wild? That would have been nonsense. Traditional adobe houses in this part of the world had used wood, rare as it was, sparingly. The early builders hadn’t put a fire
place in almost every room. And he’d taken the trouble to install special flues to be environmentally friendly and not clog the local atmosphere with woodsmoke, then never used the fireplaces until Siddhe asked.
So he told her about Willa, and a loss inside him that nothing could fill, and instead of palliative words about how someday he would meet a woman who would fill that loss and replace his mother (and perhaps, a less wise woman would have suggested, she was in fact sitting even now beside him), she’d said:
“No one can replace a mother, Christopher. That loss will always be there, be a part of you. But you have to decide whether you wish it to be only a scar, or an open wound.”
“You think I have a choice?” he’d demanded angrily, and she hadn’t soothed him, had waited while he stormed around the room with his fists clenched, perhaps tempted to drive one into the unforgiving adobe wall. When he said nothing further, she added quietly:
“We all have scars, Christopher. But a scar is stronger than the original tissue it replaces. A wound only saps you, makes you more vulnerable to further injury.”
He was a man of action, not of metaphors, but he was smart enough to understand what she was saying. He opened his mouth to reject it, but before he could speak he felt something release inside him, a knot of grief he’d carried away from Elysium until this moment. He would never forget Willa, but she would no longer haunt him now.
It’s not your fault she died, Chris.
Charlie’s words. What was he going to do about Charlie?
He was holding Siddhe’s hand as they got out of the aircar in front of Charlie and Hobelia’s ranch. Hobelia had heard the ’car and was waiting in the open doorway, shading her eyes against the sun.
“Hobe, I’d like you to meet someone…” Chris began, but his stepmother waved him to silence, her eyes meeting Siddhe’s.
“You come into the kitchen with me, chica,” she said, extending her hand to a guest she’d never met as if she’d known her all her life. And Siddhe, a head taller and half as wide, followed Hobelia as if from old familiarity.
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