by Eric Flint
The tendrilless craft's hot landing jets blasted up gravel in the debris-filled street. Jommy began to run, but he overcompensated. He didn't see a broken cinderblock at his feet and he tripped, sprawling into the sharp shards. He got to his knees, crawled along, then lurched up so he could run again. The tendrilless scout landed directly in front of him, blocking the street.
Jommy fell backward, turned about, and tried to scramble away in the other direction. The scout ship had weapons mounted in its nose. He was surprised the pilot didn't just open fire on him. Panic yammered through him as he heard the door open. Someone stepped out.
"Jommy," a woman's voice called. "Jommy Cross. I know that's you."
He recognized something in the timbre, the tone, though he could feel nothing, pick up no vibrations or thoughts. He turned to find a woman running down the ship's ramp, rushing toward him. Joanna Hillory.
When she reached him, her face was angry, relieved, anxious. "I've been looking for you! I drove away that mob in the palace, but then I lost you. I was just thrilled to know you were alive. I've been searching—"
He faced her, trying to look strong and brave. He thought he had already convinced her that true slans did not have to be the mortal enemies of the tendrilless, but she had been unable to stop the devastating attack. "What do you want, Joanna? Your tendrilless have followed through on their threats. Look what they've done. Look at what's happened to Earth. Are you proud?"
"I didn't want to be part of that, Jommy, and you know it." She took his arm, helped him forward. "I couldn't stop the initial attack, but we can still do something. We can still work together."
"Good," he said bitterly, bowing his head to show her the small bloody stumps on the back of his skull. "Because I'm one of you now. I'm a tendrilless."
* * *
She led him aboard her ship, where she cleaned and bandaged his wounds, gave him metabolism enhancers, and applied healing ointments so he could recover. From her expression and her movements, Jommy could tell that she was revolted by what the mob had done to him. Though the tendrilless were perfectly happy to kill slans, this sort of abominable torture was beyond her comprehension. "Jommy, I'm so sorry."
He lay on the cot in the tiny medical alcove of her scout craft. "There's nothing you can do." Her medical packs could not grow back his tendrils. "Why did you come here after me? You should have stayed on Mars, stopped their plans."
"The Tendrilless Authority sent me to search for you. They're afraid of you, Jommy. They say you're the most dangerous man alive."
"I don't have any powers, not any more."
"I was happy to accept the mission, Jommy. I knew I could track you down. I picked up a tiny slan signal from the area. I wasn't surprised that you came back to the ruins of the palace—otherwise I would never have found you."
"I should have stayed with my friends, helped the President."
"Do you know what they're planning? Kier Gray has requested a summit meeting, trying to put an end to the hostilities." She explained the message she had received en route. "The Authority is going to send a representative, and it's Jem Lorry. I don't trust him. He's going to set a trap, somehow."
"Lorry? I don't trust him, either," Jommy said.
Jommy sat up, deciding he had rested enough. Driving away the remnants of his shocked sadness, he reached a brave conclusion and looked at Joanna, wondering if he could count on her, if she would support his work. Even without his tendrils, he had his mind, he had his physical strength, he had his "normal" senses.
"I am still a true slan—and I have work to do."
CHAPTER 31
With her link to Jommy brutally severed, Kathleen felt as if she had fallen into a black hole. Grief was like tar all around her. Now she understood all too well how much pain and misery Jommy must have gone through after she'd been shot, after he had spent years believing she was dead.
Her whole body felt numb. She wasn't cold: just empty, lifeless, as if someone had cut a huge hole in her heart.
In Granny's ranch house, she sat at the kitchen table, and her father took a chair across from her, angry at what had happened, sympathizing with his daughter. With a clatter of dishes, the old woman rummaged in her cupboards and brought out a small china plate adorned with a goldenrod flower design. She scooped up a piece of the still-warm apple pie, added a dollop of ice cream from her icebox, and presented it to Kathleen.
Despite the delicious smells, she looked up at Granny. "I'm not hungry."
"Of course you're not. But this pie is soooo good, Granny knows you'll want to taste it. Be the first, and tell us if it's good enough to serve to those important dignitaries who are on their way."
"Jommy's dead. A piece of pie isn't going to solve my problems."
The old woman cackled. "Good food often makes things seem a whole lot better. Just like money does." She grinned. Her teeth were crooked.
Petty lounged against the kitchen wall, completely unsympathetic. "We're going to have to do another load of laundry if that girl keeps going through handkerchiefs." He sidled over, got himself a plate from the cupboard, and moved to the freshly cut pie.
Granny yanked it away from him. "Don't you dare." She put the pie on a high shelf.
Because her father was also a slan, even without tendrils, Kathleen could sense his thoughts and his presence, but the connection was not the same as what she'd shared with Jommy.
"I know how you feel, Kathleen. I lost my wife—your mother," he said. "Though we kept our relationship a secret. There's so much you don't know about me."
She blinked at him. "But you raised me. I know all about you. I've read your biography."
"That was just a manufactured biography. President Kier Gray had to have a completely clean slate, an untarnished reputation. The truth about me was the most classified secret in my government. I had to make sure people like him," he jabbed an elbow in the direction of Petty, "would never discover who you really were. If they used that information against me, everything I was secretly working toward would fail."
"If you were so good at covering up embarrassing details, Mr. Slan President, how come you didn't just hide your brat?" Petty said.
Gray ignored him, focusing only on Kathleen. He reached out to wipe the tears from her face. "I was born without tendrils, though my parents explained my heritage. I knew about the tendrilless, knew what they were, and they prepared me for the future. They taught me how to have an absolutely impenetrable mind shield. Not even another tendrilless could sense me, unless I wanted them to.
"But when I was thirteen, my mother and father disappeared—I assumed they'd been caught, so I ran. I changed my identity and made a new life for myself . . . exactly as they had taught me to do.
"Years later, when I was a young man, I met your mother. It was an accident, but for slans there are no real accidents. I'd spent my life covering up my identity, and so had your mother. She was a true slan, with many ways of using wigs and hats and scarves. The old days of shaved heads and the Human Purity League were far behind us, and slans could get away with it now."
"Obviously we've grown too lax," Petty said.
"I met her in a flower shop. Your mother loved flowers. Her name was Rose." He smiled wistfully. "She worked there, taking care of the blossoms, removing the wilted ones, watering the plants on the shelves, using a mister on the ferns. I came in to get some flowers . . . tulips, I think, or maybe daffodils. It was springtime, and I wanted to cheer up the old widow who lived in an apartment down the hall from me."
"How sweet," Granny said.
"Fortunately, there were no other customers. When I walked in through the door and the bell jangled, your mother looked up at me. It was like an electric current passed between us. She didn't have her mind shields in place, expecting nothing. I must have been careless, too. We . . . clicked."
"Love at first sight?" Though she didn't realize what she was doing, Kathleen took a bite of the apple pie, letting the spicy sweetness fill her mouth.<
br />
"More than that. You know what it was like when you first encountered Jommy. Even though I was normal in all external appearances, a slan can know another unshielded slan—even a tendrilless one—instantly and instinctively. Your mother and I recognized each other for what we were. I don't think either of us breathed for a full minute. She came around the counter, setting down the flowers she'd been arranging in a vase. She went to the door of the shop, turned the lock, and drew the shade." He took a long breath. "We were married two days later."
Slans rarely needed to go through a long courtship process; they clicked like a key in a lock. "Jommy and I should have gotten married," Kathleen said.
"Rose and I lived quietly together for several years, drawing no attention to ourselves. We taught each other many things, but we didn't have other slans to interact with. We were just by ourselves. She worked in her flower shop, and I took a position in the information archives in the Ministry of Communication.
"Those were the happiest times of my life. When Rose finally got pregnant with you, we were content and satisfied. Unfortunately, because we were both slans, we couldn't risk seeking medical attention. I could pass for a normal human, but not Rose. If she went to a doctor during her pregnancy, they might run some kind of test. They might discover that the baby had tendrils. They might find out that Rose was a slan."
"So you did it all yourselves?" Kathleen asked.
"These days, home delivery using a midwife is as common as a hospital birth, especially out in the country. Because my Rose was strong, we were sure we could handle it. We read everything we could. We were ready."
His shoulders slumped. "What I didn't know, though, was that my poor Rose had terminal cancer. In retrospect, I now see a thousand little signs that I should have noticed, but we were too focused on her pregnancy. She gave birth to you, a perfectly healthy little girl, but the delivery was difficult for Rose. She barely recovered, and that was when I realized something else was terribly wrong with her. But she wouldn't let me take her to a doctor. I tended her at home, and I took care of you."
"You must have been exhausted," Kathleen said.
"I needed every ounce of my slan strength. Poor Rose lasted longer than any human would have, considering the severity of the cancer. I knew from my own diagnosis and some medical equipment that I purchased through anonymous sources that her tumors were growing and that they were inoperable. Even bringing her to a hospital would have done no good at that point. Rose would have been exposed, and surgeons aren't inclined to do their best work with a slan patient—unless they're curious and wanted to do a few experiments." Bitterness edged his tone.
"You were eighteen months old by the time your mother was near death. I begged Rose to let me take her to the hospital. There had to be some chance, though I knew in my heart there wasn't anything we could do. Finally when the pain became unbearable, she acquiesced—but she forced me into a bargain first. I dropped her off at night in the emergency room. I never gave my name or hers. She was just a 'Jane Doe.' You weren't even with me, Kathleen. They had no reason to suspect that we had a little girl.
"Over the years, Rose and I had met many kind and wonderful humans. I prayed now that whoever tended my dying wife might be a kindly nurse or an altruistic doctor, someone who would recognize her pain and help her. Though I had to go, to stay out of sight, Rose remained connected to me through her tendrils. I could sense her with our special bond. I could feel what was happening to her, though she herself had dulled her mind and body with painkillers. When the medical professionals in the emergency room discovered that she was a slan, there was quite an uproar."
"I'll bet," Petty said. "They should have called my secret police right away."
"One doctor did," Gray continued, his voice like a razor. "They gave Rose a bed, realized there was nothing they could do for her except to alleviate her pain, and so that's what they did. The secret police came, prodding her, interrogating her, attempting to rip information from her brain in her last moments of life. But she clung to the promise I'd made, and she found her own sort of peace."
"What did she make you promise?" Kathleen asked.
Gray fell silent for a long moment and swallowed twice, gathering his thoughts. "I knew she didn't have long. I took you to a conservatory, a large greenhouse filled with flowers. That was what she wanted.
"Rose regained consciousness before she died. Even without tendrils, I could sense her in my mind. I held you in my arms, little girl, and we stood among the roses, the tropical plants, the beautiful orchids. She could see them through my eyes. Despite what the secret police were doing to her, she could share my thoughts. Those were her favorite things in all the world, and even though I longed to be with my darling in her last moments, I gave her something better. I smelled the flowers, the sweet perfume that she loved so much. It's the last thing she experienced. When Rose died, it felt like a cold wind passing through my soul, and I held onto you very tightly."
In the moment of openness, Kathleen could sense that her father had lowered part of his impenetrable shield, letting her inside for the very first time. She picked up on his emotions, his bright memories, his love for her. And some of the distant, blurred recollections overlapped with her own vague memories.
Kathleen was crying. "I remember that. I remember the flowers, but I wasn't sure what they meant. It was when I was just a baby."
"It wasn't until long after that I tracked down her body. I wanted to give her a proper funeral, but the secret police had already taken her for dissection. After that day, everything changed." Gray's voice became hard now. "I decided I had to make a difference. I couldn't just allow slans like Rose, like you, to live like rats in hiding.
"Since I had discovered Rose, I knew there must be more slans, though no one guessed where they might be hiding. After I lost my parents, I had no further connection with any of the organized tendrilless. So I went to work with grim determination, all by myself. With my job in the communications ministry and with full access to the informational archives, I built a detailed and impressive history for myself. It was masterful. No one could find any flaws or mistakes. And then I launched my political career.
"I did find other slans, eventually. We arranged meetings, extended our influence, and made our plans. Because I could pass so easily among the normals, they wanted me as their champion. I built my network, manipulating, strengthening, growing. Using slan skills, nudging the thoughts of certain followers, I built a campaign organization—but I kept my personal life intensely private. No one knew about you, Kathleen.
"I won my first three elections by landslides. My career was meteoric. When many of my supporters, and even several defeated rivals (whose minds I had manipulated), supported me as a dark-horse candidate to be the next President, I felt sure I could accomplish what I needed to do."
"But what about me?" Kathleen said. "I remember someone taking care of me, an . . . uncle?"
"A kindly blind man watched over you. I paid him well," Gray said. "Either he never knew you had tendrils, or he didn't mind. You were smart enough to take care of yourself. I thought everything was set.
"But on the day of the election, in my finest hour after I had won the office of President, secret police raided the old man's home. Someone had tipped them off that he had a slan girl there. The blind man couldn't defend himself. He didn't know very much about me, but he could probably have revealed enough. Fortunately for us, I suppose, the secret police thugs killed him before they could interrogate him. They captured you—and then I had to act. It risked my political career, my best chance for changing the whole world, but I had to find a way to do both. You are my daughter, Kathleen. I had to take the chance and save you.
"As the newly sworn President, I issued a decree, announcing that in order to understand the slans and whatever threat they might pose, we needed to study them, not just react with automatic fear. I insisted that you be kept in the palace with me, where you would be safe and where, unfortunat
ely, you would be scrutinized every moment of your life."
"Then why did you originally agree to let her be executed on her eleventh birthday?" Petty asked. "It makes no sense."
"That was a concession I had to make at the time. I had many years to work around that loophole, and as you can see, it didn't cause a problem, ultimately. But now look where we are. See how much has changed?" He reached over, picked up the fork, and took a bite of pie. Granny looked on, as if hoping for a compliment.
"I still miss my Rose. Sometimes I can hardly bear it. Even with my power as President, I'd gladly surrender it all just to have a quiet, normal life with my wife and daughter."
Petty, still pouting at the flaky pie that Granny had denied him, grumbled. "Sentimental crap."
With a swift movement, the old woman swatted him again on the back of his head.
CHAPTER 32
Alone inside the secret slan redoubt, Anthea counted eleven skeletons. Three were sprawled on the floor; others had collapsed into piles of bones beside desks and laboratory tables. Sensing her disappointment, confusion, and uneasiness, the baby boy squirmed and began to whimper.
