Devotion

by Harmony Raines

  “So, let’s make some tole and then you can tell me how exactly you and Okil came to be an item,” Elissa said, taking cups from the cupboard and showing Tikki how to make the coffeelike drink. “It’s easy; you just have to make sure you don’t put in too much of the powder.”

  “While you do that, would you excuse me, I just have to go to the bathroom,” Tikki said, taking the opportunity to go and check on Charlie.

  “Sure. It takes a couple of minutes to brew.” Elissa made herself busy, while Tikki went back to the bedroom and shut the door.

  Going to the bathroom, she opened the door quietly and was thankful to see Charlie still where she had left him. “Come on. It’s only my sister, so I think you will be safe on the bed. Wait there quietly, and as soon as she has gone, we can go and look in the garden. Is that OK?”

  Charlie nodded. He showed no sign of wanting to speak, and dived under the covers as soon as he could, pulling them up over his head. Tikki was pleased that she couldn’t tell he was there, but felt a pang of guilt for not sharing this with her sister. Then she thought of Harri and knew her sister had kept personal stuff to herself. It was what you did to protect people, she was realising that now.

  Still, she had to find out what Elissa knew about Sienna.

  “So, tell.” Elissa passed a cup of tole to Tikki.

  “Well, after you left, Okil came to visit. He wanted to make sure I was OK and to let me know that you were happy with Marin. You know, not having contact with you was hard. So I was extremely grateful, especially when it was my fault you were here.”

  “I must admit I got lucky. It was scary at first, being the only human on Karal, and knowing that I was chosen on purpose.” Elissa let her eyes drift up to Tikki’s. “I don’t know if Okil told you that they thought I was a threat to them?”

  “No. He didn’t.” It wasn’t a lie, Darl had told her about Elissa’s involvement with the resistance.

  “I never knew how much he knew. Lytril, the Hier Ruler, keeps a lot to himself.” She sipped her tole. “I was involved with the resistance.”

  “Why?” Tikki had never expected the conversation to get to this point so quickly.

  “I got caught up in with a group of people who thought the Karal had come to Earth to enslave us. When I realised I was just being used, I left. The whole thing was stupid, and I should have told you, but I wanted to forget about it. I was ashamed.” Elissa wiped a tear away. “Pregnancy hormones, they make me a blubbering fool.”

  “No. I’m glad you told me. Although some of it, I did know. But not from anyone here.”

  Elissa looked up at Tikki. “Then who told you?”

  “I … I had a visit.” Tikki was still trying to gauge how much to tell Elissa.

  Elissa’s face went pale. “A visit from who?”

  “Harri.”

  Her sister put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, Tikki, I am sorry. He came to see me at the hospital, tried to get me to be a spy for them. He even gave me a stim, poison, in case I wanted to end my life. I swear I never thought he would drag you into all of this.”

  “He didn’t. But he is the reason I am here.”

  “I don’t understand, I thought Okil was the reason you are here.” Elissa’s face was serious now.

  “He is.” Tikki put her face in her hands. The whole story was bubbling up inside her, and she needed to share it with Elissa to get some answers.

  “What is it?” Elissa asked softly.

  “Harri came to see me the day before I came here. He was looking for something.” This was it: did she tell her sister about Charlie, or not? “It had to do with Sienna.”

  “Sienna? I haven’t spoken to her since before … well, she knew of my involvement with the resistance and didn’t agree.”

  “She left the city. I still saw her periodically, even after you left. She told me she was living with a pent, I think … I thought she was a prostitute.”

  “Sienna? No.” Elissa shook her head in disbelief. “She would never sink that low.”

  “I know that now.” Tikki’s pulse was hammering in her head. Did she tell Elissa everything? She flip-flopped, with each breath, between her choices.

  “And you know this because of what Harri told you?” Elissa sounded confused, as though she were trying to fit it all together.

  “No. Although I think what he was looking for has something to do with why Sienna is dead.” Tikki watched the shock on her sister’s face.

  “Dead!” Pure shock hit Elissa and her face paled. “How?”

  “The story is she fell into the canal.”

  “Story?”

  “Yes. Well, I think she was murdered.”

  “Who would kill her?” Elissa asked, but already the pieces were fitting together. “Harri?”

  “If he wasn’t the hand that pushed her in, I think he most definitely knew whose it was.” Tikki had skirted around the truth for long enough. “Before she died, she asked me to look after something. I don’t know why she came to me. But she did.”

  “And somehow Harri knew,” Elissa asked.

  “Yes.”

  “What was it? Information?”

  “Of a kind,” Tikki said. And left it there: she couldn’t bring herself to put her sister in jeopardy. “I’m not even sure if what he left is of any use. All I know is that he insinuated that there was a plot to take over Karal.”

  “The planet?” Elissa asked, shocked.

  “I believe so. I know from Okil that the President has been pushing for space cruisers to be given to Earth, on the pretence that they can begin their search for a new home. It seems they don’t trust the Karal to help them, or maybe they just want to speed it up. But you know how governments work, Elissa. What if they think they can come here and take the planet? The wormhole is already open. It would be easy.”

  “Except for the thousands of Karalians who will be here, ready to fight. And I have no idea what weapons they might have hidden under the tower. They use the technology they garner from other species and use it as their own.”

  “I know. It seems like suicide, to go up against the Karal. Which makes me think they have some kind of plan. Maybe inside information. This is not the resistance. This is the President. He would not be stupid enough to start a war he has no way of finishing.”

  “No Karalian would give him information. And no human has ever visited Karal and returned to Earth. They have very strict laws.” Elissa’s brow creased in thought. But it appeared she had no further light to shed on the problem.

  “Then I don’t understand why they would risk everything.”

  “Especially the President; he has always been for the aliens. And Harri? He was simply a small cog in a big network. The resistance was made up of conspiracy theorists. I was stupid enough to get caught up in it. Then I saw Harri for what he was. He exploded a bomb, which killed people. Killed the Karal. I never wanted that.” The memories this had dredged up made Elissa sob, and Tikki went to her and hugged her sister tightly.

  “I am sorry to bring this all back to you. You looked so happy with Marin.”

  “We are happy. But I am grateful you have told me. If trouble is coming, we need to be ready to act.”

  “There’s something else…” Tikki’s voice trailed off, and Elissa jumped as there was a knock on the door.

  “It’s Marin.” Elissa put her hands to her cheeks, and Tikki could see how flushed and agitated she was.

  “Listen, just tell Marin you are excited to see me; don’t tell him any of this.”

  “I trust him, Tikki.”

  “I know. But I think it’s better that we try to find out more before we involve too many people. This may be nothing, just Harri talking.” Tikki didn’t believe that. It went deeper; she was sure. “I don’t want to risk turning the Karal against humans. We need them to go and find a new planet; we need them to trust us.”

  “OK. For now. But I’ll come back in a day or two. I’ll get Marin to drop me off when he has an errand to run
. Then I want to know what Harri wanted. OK?”

  Tikki nodded. “OK.”

  Then her sister left, and she waited by the door, watching them drive into the distance before she went back to Charlie. He was still buried under the covers, and she lay down next to him and pulled him into her arms, feeling very alone and wishing Okil was there with her.

  Chapter Nineteen – Okil

  Okil stood before the sim, ready to access the information he needed. No one would come in here; the room was private. Mainly because it was the place where Karalians could come to learn about the way humans procreated. The simulator could create a kind of hologram that they could interact with, and touch. Not that Okil had spent time in here for that reason. He had no need; instead, he had spent endless hours with Tikki, exploring what she liked, how she enjoyed being touched, and how to make her come.

  Those thoughts needed to be ignored. He had work to do. If he wanted Tikki to be able to stay, he needed to find out about the threat to her and Charlie, and the one to Karal, if it did indeed exist.

  However, the meeting with the President had left him with deep concerns. He was glad he hadn’t been questioned about that this morning, instead he was expected to compile it into a written report. Each council member would receive a copy and read at their leisure; then the council would meet and discuss their views. Finally, Okil would be called to clarify anything they didn’t understand or agree with. Okil wanted extra time to make his own investigation into the President.

  Going to the console, he pressed a button, to wake the sim, but chose not to enable speech mode. Instead, he wanted to pull up surveillance data. The sim held all the information gathered by the probes dotted around Earth; like satellites, they watched everything that happened, and the Karal had the technology to pinpoint any person at any time, thanks to the data. Now he was going to concentrate on Tikki’s apartment.

  Inputting the date, he went back to the day Harri visited her. Watching, he saw Tikki leave for work, and then about an hour later, a man came to the door and knocked. There was no answer and so he went away again. Two hours later, he returned. Still no answer.

  This carried on throughout the day, until Tikki came home. When the man came again to knock on the door, this time he got an answer. Tikki opened the door and he went in, the door standing ajar. Okil watched them talking and then the man, who he now knew was Harri, came back towards the door. He was surprised, but proud of Tikki, when she pushed him out of her apartment, slamming the door shut in his face.

  From further down the corridor another man appeared, shouting at Harri. After a few minutes, Harri left. The corridor was empty for a few minutes and then Tikki appeared with Charlie, only her purse and a small bag in her hands. She shut the door and left. Now he watched.

  Tikki hadn’t been gone long before two men came, one of them Harri, and another bigger man, who knocked on the door. When there was no answer, he used something to open it. Okil stared, looking closer at the screen; it looked similar to the technology Karal had. But he couldn’t be sure. No, it wasn’t sophisticated. It looked like a lock pick he had seen in old movies. Okil felt relief: if Karalian technology had found its way into the hands of humans, they were in more danger than he thought.

  The two men entered the apartment, shutting the door behind them. He asked the sim to fast-forward the video feed until the men came out. The time stamp told him they were inside her apartment for around half an hour. As the two men came out, he froze the screen on Harri and took a face print of him. The sim was instructed to pull all feeds of him. A light flashed up. Classified.

  Several files were accessible, but there were others he didn’t have clearance for. Okil knew that the Hier Commander must have pulled up the same files and stored them. What were they?

  Going over the dates of the files, he realised some were from the day Elissa had won the lottery, the day that she had gone to the hospital. Something nagged his memory. He tried to access the data another way. Configuring the data stream, he pulled up an image of himself outside the hospital room where he had stood guard over Elissa. Sure enough, the man who went in to her room was Harri.

  So the Hierarchy already knew about Harri.

  He switched back to real time and asked the sim to find Harri now. The sim did not respond. He asked again. No face recognition. Okil checked the files. No data feed containing Harri had been logged since the day Tikki had left Earth.

  Going back to the feeds, he pulled up the one with the latest time stamp. It showed Harri and the man who had entered Tikki’s apartment going into a bar. It was one of the more upmarket areas of the city, where the pents liked to go. He noted the name, and was about to shut off the feed when he saw a figure he recognised walking in, two men flanking him.

  “Well, hello, Mr. President.”

  “Okil.” His communicator flashed and Darl’s voice came to him. “I would like to speak to you, please. If you could come to my office at your earliest convenience.”

  “Darl, I’m in the middle of something,” he replied. “Is everything all right?”

  “Yes. I just have some paperwork for you.” He could tell there was an edge to Darl’s usual light tone. Shutting the sim down, he replied, “I’ll be right there.”

  Checking that the last results couldn’t be pulled up, he shut the sim down and made his way up to the doctor’s lab, trying not to draw attention to himself as he hurried along.

  “Well, there you are,” Elissa’s voice called out as he went up the stairs. She was walking down with a happy-looking Marin.

  “Elissa. You look so well. How is the baby?” Okil asked, unable to ignore Elissa and Marin without it appearing rude and out of character.

  “The baby is fine, very healthy, Darl said. Although I must admit the doctor looks a little frazzled. I think he has had a bit of an education at the hands of Reja overnight.”

  “Elissa,” Marin said, sounding shocked.

  “Sorry. I’m just so excited to have my friend and my sister on Karal. You certainly kept that quiet, Okil.” She beamed happily at him and he wished it were all so easy.

  “I didn’t want to tell you in case it didn’t happen, Elissa. Tikki only agreed to come with me at the last minute,” he said, knowing he had to stick to that story and hoping she wouldn’t ask any further questions.

  “Well, I am glad she is here and safe,” Elissa said, placing her hand on his bare arm and letting her emotions flow through her hands. It always seemed strange to him that the skin on her arms had taken on this part of the Karalian physiology. When Elissa had been chosen for the lottery, she had spilt hot coffee on her hands and Marin had programmed the decon’ computer to heal it. She had ended up with some Karal DNA in her system, predominantly in the new skin on her hands and forearms. Right now, through her hands, he could feel her overwhelming gratitude towards him.

  “It was for purely selfish reasons. I love your sister more than you could ever know,” he said honestly.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t be too sure about that. I love Marin more than I thought ever possible.” She turned to put her arm around Marin, who hugged her close.

  “And with the birth of our child, our family will be complete,” Marin said, his hand over her stomach protectively.

  “And you will give new hope to Karal.” Okil smiled, longing for Tikki to have his child in her womb, to know his son was growing inside her.

  “Ahh, Okil.” Darl appeared behind them, coming out of his office and looking agitated.

  “I’m sorry, I’m coming now, Darl.” He kissed Elissa lightly on the cheek. “I will look after Tikki. No matter what the cost.”

  Her eyes met his and then looked down to where her hands touched his skin. She could feel his concerns, and although he didn’t want to worry her too much, he wanted her to be forewarned of the trouble ahead.

  But she already knew some of it, the sensations along her hands turning to agitation. “I spoke to Tikki briefly this morning. I trust you with her life, Okil.
As I would trust all of Earth in your hands.”

  “Okil,” Darl called, and Okil went away from Elissa, who was now deep in conversation with Marin.

  “What is so urgent, Darl? Have you any news about Charlie? I have found out little from the sim.”

  “In my office.” He led Okil into the lab and then straight into the small room Darl used as an office. “Sit here.”

  Okil sat down in a chair by Darl’s desk. He still wasn’t sure what was going on with the normally calm doctor. “What happened, Darl? Did someone come and talk to you about Tikki? Or is it Reja?”

  Darl looked at Okil, frowning as if trying to think what he was talking about. Okil grew even more concerned; nothing flustered Darl. “No. No. This has nothing to do with that problem.”

  “Then what?” Okil asked, unable to stand the tension in Darl. He thought the doctor was going to explode, or implode.

  The doctor sat down heavily, his mouth firmly shut. Then he tried to speak before falling silent again. Okil placed his hand on the doctor’s arm. “Take your time. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “I don’t know that it is wrong.” He frowned. His brow deep grooves as he fought to try to put things into words. “But I also don’t know that it can be right.”

  “You aren’t making sense. You need to be clearer, Darl.”

  “Very well. To put it simply, Elissa is going to have a baby girl.”

  Chapter Twenty – Tikki

  Once Elissa had gone, they had explored the small house, Tikki admiring the light and airy rooms, and the simple natural furnishings. Then they were hungry again, so they had eaten some fruit and drank the cool, pure water from a bottle in Okil’s cold box, which must work like a refrigerator. Now, Tikki sat out in the warm sunshine. It was just after midday, and the weather was beautiful.

  It had taken hours to summon up the courage to venture outside; she felt too exposed. However, once they had taken the first step outside into the garden with its wooden fence, high enough to keep most animals out, there had been no going back. Now Charlie, with teddy firmly in tow, was working his way around the garden, talking to himself and flying his toy plane, one hand holding it high in the air as he ran. He looked like any other young child; the only startling difference between him and a child playing on Earth was the abundance of flora and fauna in the garden.