The Light From Other Suns (The Others Book 1)

by V. E. Lemp

  “Deceive others if you must, but not yourself, Dr. Vance. You’ve only done what would benefit you.” She turned and ran for the front door.

  She didn’t know if he would follow, but he did not, nor did he send anyone after her. He was so confident—she climbed into her car—so sure she’d eventually return. She spun the car around in the cobbled lot and took off down the driveway. The gates opened automatically, and she sped away, out of Ian Vance’s privileged community and onto the highway.

  A few miles down the road, the shaking took hold, and Karen pulled into the parking lot of the first motel she could find. She signed in at the desk, barely hearing the desk clerk’s questions over the roaring in her ears. She ignored the clerk’s inquiry after her luggage and fled. In the bland environs of the motel room, with its generic paintings of flowers and unnaturally lit landscapes, Karen fell across the bed and rolled over onto her back. Her cell buzzed in her pocket, but she didn’t answer the repeated calls. She lay awake all night, staring at the ceiling and counting the holes in the tiles. So many. Too many to number, like stars.

  NINETEEN

  Karen returned to her condo the following day. When she stepped into the hall the familiar space felt changed. She walked to the sofa without turning on any lights and sat down, staring blankly around the room. All of her memories had to be rearranged. Everything she thought she knew had been blasted by Vance’s icy revelation. Over the previous night, she’d questioned her perception of reality in the light of Vance’s statements. Although she’d fought against his words with the combined strength of her emotions and intellect, she’d finally, abjectly, accepted the truth.

  Alex had left her, abandoned her to follow his own desires. He’d walked away with no explanation and no farewell. He’d disappeared and allowed her to think him dead. He’d made a lie out of her grief. For ten years she’d kept faith with him, and yet he’d been, through all those years, utterly faithless.

  Karen buried her face in her hands and allowed sorrow to swamp her heart. She wept for some time, then stood and walked into the bathroom to wash her face. Her reflection stared at her from the toothpaste-flecked mirror. “What a fool you are,” she said. “What an absolute, oblivious fool.” The reflection nodded in acceptance of this judgment.

  When she walked back into the living room her first action was to take down the watercolor of the falls and shove the painting into the coat closet, behind the extra leaf for the dining table. She raised her arms to take off her necklace, but her fingers clutched the star pendant instead. After a moment she lowered her hands to her sides.

  She wandered over to a chair and sat down, curling her legs under her and huddling in the depths of the cushions. Her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. She pulled it out and stared at the messages illuminating the screen. Most were from Mark, but there were several from Thea, one from Myron Tarrow, and one, she saw, as tears filled her eyes, from David Cole. She held the phone to her heart for a moment before formulating a text to send to Mark, Thea, and Tarrow. “I am fine,” it said. “I am safe. Please do not contact me.”

  She sent no message to David Cole.

  When the texts were delivered, Karen turned off the phone and tossed it across the room.

  Karen holed up in her condo, never changing out of her pajamas. She showered infrequently, scarcely bothered to brush her hair, and ate whatever she could find. This wasn’t really a problem as she wasn’t hungry and only ate to keep from passing out. Of more concern was the depletion of her wine rack. When only three bottles remained she decided to ration her drinks. She didn’t want to go anywhere or see anyone, not even to replenish her wine supply.

  After several days, a loud banging on her front door woke her from a fitful sleep on the sofa. Karen crossed the room and placed her hand on the doorknob.

  “Karen,” Thea said, “I know you’re in there. I walked through the garage, and your car’s in your assigned space. Open this door and let me in.”

  “Go away, Thea.” Karen’s voice was hoarse from sporadic bouts of weeping.

  “Let me in, or I’ll call the building manager.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “The hell you are,” her old friend said. “Please let me in, Karen. I’m not leaving until you open this door.”

  Karen pressed her forehead against the door. “I don’t want to talk to anyone right now.”

  “So you said.” Thea’s voice was sharp with concern. “But you will talk to me, eventually. And I’m willing to camp out here until you do.”

  Karen sighed deeply and opened the door. Thea marched past her and sat in the chair facing the sofa. Karen slowly followed but stayed on her feet, bracing one hand against the end table.

  “Sit down, Karen,” Thea commanded. “I won’t ask you to get us anything to drink, because it looks like you’ve been doing plenty of that already.”

  Karen glanced at the empty bottles lined up on the coffee table. “I’ve had to cut back, actually.” She slumped onto the sofa. “Running out.”

  “Probably a blessing. You look like hell, Karen.”

  Karen ran her fingers through her tangled hair. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Really? Well, what does matter? That Aaron and I have been worried sick about you? That your parents called me because they couldn’t get in touch with you? I had to lie and tell them I’d talked to you, by the way. Does it matter that Mark’s beside himself with worry and drove to our house to beg me to come talk to you? Yes, he knows you’re here, and he’d have come, but for some reason he thinks he should allow you to make an absolute fool of yourself if that’s what you want.”

  “I am an absolute fool. A blind, stupid, idiotic fool. And I have been for ten years. So many years.” Karen swallowed a sob.

  Thea stared at her. “What happened, Karen? No one understands. You disappear one day, and no one hears from you again, except for some bogus text. What in God’s name has happened?”

  Karen told her everything. Thea, who’d not yet been informed of the full import of the Morpheus Project or heard the truth about the Oneiroi or their avatars, sat quite still during Karen’s succinct recitation of the facts.

  “Do you,” Thea asked faintly when Karen finished speaking, “have any wine left at all? Because I think I may need some.”

  “In the kitchen. Help yourself. Think I’ll take a pass. As you said, I’ve been rather indulgent over the last several days.”

  When Thea settled back into the armchair with a full glass of wine, she eyed Karen carefully. “So … about Alex …”

  “What about him?”

  “You said he’s still alive, somewhere. Do you think he can ever return?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve thought of that, of course. I certainly don’t know how I’d feel if that happened.”

  “He betrayed you, Karen.”

  “Yes.” Karen’s fingers strayed up to her necklace. “I suppose he did.”

  “Then what about Mark? You need to talk to him.”

  Karen sighed and closed her eyes. “I don’t think I can do that right now. I don’t know how I feel. Not sure what I could say to him.”

  “You could tell him the truth,” Thea said. “He deserves that much.”

  “He deserves more. Perhaps more than I can give him.” Karen turned her head and buried her face in the sofa. “I just want to go away,” she said, her voice muffled by the cushions, “somewhere far away.”

  “Like Alex did?” Thea’s voice was firm. “Walk away without a farewell? Is that what you want to do, Karen? Because if you do that to Mark—if you leave him without granting him an explanation, without any goodbye—then you are no better than Alex. Would you do to him what Alex did to you?”

  Karen sat up. “Damn you, Thea, how can you say that to me?”

  “How can you do this to Mark?” her friend replied calmly. “Or me or Aaron or anyone else who cares about you?”

  “It isn’t the same.”

  “Isn’t it? Tell you what—clean yo
urself up and get dressed and have a decent meal, then sit down and think about what you’re doing. I have a suspicion,” Thea said with a gentle smile, “you’re going to see things very differently.”

  Karen examined her friend’s concerned face. Thea was right, as she usually was. There had been enough tears shed, enough pain suffered alone. She had to pull herself together and deal with this new reality, no matter how difficult it was. If not for her own sake, for her family and friends.

  For Mark.

  “Okay.” Karen stood, wavering slightly on legs that felt like cooked spaghetti. “I’ll start now. I’ll shower and put on some real clothes, and you can sit there and drink my wine.”

  “I think I’d rather go buy some food. Then I’ll clean up this mess, and we can sit down like the old friends we are and have a good talk.”

  Karen studied Thea for a moment. “I agree, if you’ll promise not to mention Alex for the rest of the evening.”

  “I can do that.” Thea stood up. “What do you want for dinner?”

  Karen thought for a moment. “Chinese,” she said, her voice steadier than it had been for some time. “I think I want Chinese.”

  Thea left the next morning, exacting a promise from Karen to contact Mark as soon as possible.

  “But there’s one thing I must do first.” Karen rubbed at her eyes. She’d sat up thinking for most of the night.

  “Okay, as long as I can tell Mark you’ll get in touch with him within the next few days.”

  “You can tell him that.” Karen walked Thea to the door. “And one more thing.”

  “Yeah, what’s that?” Thea asked as she stepped out into the hall.

  “Tell him not to worry.”

  TWENTY

  Later that day Karen dressed carefully, tossing aside several outfits before choosing a pale-green blouse to wear with black jeans. Driving to the Indigo Building, she parked on a side street. She sat in the car for several minutes before taking a deep breath and heading into the building.

  “I’ve been here before,” Karen told the receptionist. “Remember? I visit one of the Exocorp researchers from time to time.”

  “Oh yes,” the receptionist replied. “You’re a friend of Mr. Cole, aren’t you? You’re welcome to go on up. Do you want me to buzz him?”

  “No.”

  Karen found him in his office. He was standing over the counter-height table, his back to the door.

  “Alex,” she said.

  He turned slowly. His face—that wrong face—was perfectly composed, but he leaned back and placed one hand against the table as if bracing for a storm.

  “So,” he said at last, “Ian plays his queen.”

  “I should’ve guessed,” Karen said, “but living in a false reality makes it difficult to see the truth.”

  “Karen, I am sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize.” Karen had the satisfaction of seeing his face flush. “You know, Alex, I thought I knew you. Oh, obviously not everything about you, but enough to make informed decisions. But apparently I was wrong. I had no idea who you really are. I didn’t know what a cold-hearted bastard you could be.”

  “I never meant to harm you.”

  “You made a fine job of it, meaning to or not.” Karen’s voice cracked like badly fired pottery. “The thing is, I almost died. Twice. Or didn’t you hear?”

  “I heard,” he said quietly. “But not until I made contact with people on Earth again, and that was much later.”

  “Oh really? How much later? Two weeks? Two months?”

  “Three years.”

  She unclenched her fists. “You had no communication with … with this world for three years? Did they hold you hostage? Or didn’t you care?”

  “It took a long time, Karen, to arrange things. To create this.” Alex waved his hand in front of his avatar’s body. “For me to learn to manipulate the technology. To become acclimated.”

  “And now you’re, what did you say, acclimated? Feeling comfortable, even feeling at home?”

  “No. That isn’t possible.”

  “So what is possible?” She took a deep breath. “Can you leave? Can you ever come back?”

  “I don’t know. I’m certain Vance would try to stop me, as well as some of the Oneiroi, but there are others who might assist me. If I ever chose to return, it might be possible.”

  Alice. She’d help him, of course. She and those who followed her. Karen narrowed her eyes. “But you don’t choose to, do you, Alex? Or at least you haven’t thus far. Not even after that first three years, not even when you heard what happened to me? Oh, never mind, it’s of no importance. What am I thinking? The man who walked away without a backward glance.”

  “That’s not true, Karen.”

  “Really? It’s supported by the facts. I’ve been accumulating information, and it all points one way.”

  “You and Mark Hallam,” Alex said flatly.

  “Leave Mark out of it,” Karen warned. “Don’t you speak his name.”

  “I see. I guessed correctly then. I suppose it was bound to happen, sooner or later.”

  “Don’t feel so misused, Alex. I did wait ten years. All those years. Do you have any idea what I gave up for the sake of your memory? Ten years of living a half life, living alone. Ten years of laying my life on the altar of my lost love.” Rage rose like a tide. “It’s ironic, isn’t it? Because you weren’t lost, and I … I never had any love, did I? Not really.”

  He moved toward her, but she held up her hand, palm out. “Don’t you come near me. Don’t you take another step.”

  “Karen.” His eyes were filled with desperation, like an animal in a trap.

  “So when did this all begin? The night we met? Was that meteor really a meteor, or something else?”

  Alex sighed. “It was one of their smaller drone ships. Unmanned, of course. I knew it was scheduled to land, hidden amid the meteor shower. But it crashed, destroying the technical samples it carried.”

  “Had you already picked me out for the Morpheus Project? Even then?”

  “No. Perhaps Ian knew something, from his contacts, but I swear I did not. Honestly, meeting you was as serendipitous as it seemed, Karen. Until I saw your drawing, then I immediately knew you were receiving dream messages for the Oneiroi. That’s why I encouraged you to apply, and that’s why your acceptance was a done deal, even before your interview.”

  “Would Dr. Vance have come after me if I’d refused to apply? Oh, never mind, I suppose he trusted you to convince me, one way or the other.”

  “I wouldn’t have forced you.”

  “But he might have. Still, all that aside, my real question is when you decided to leave. When you were so frayed and worn, that spring and summer? Or before that?”

  “Earlier.”

  “Before Christmas then? Or before I moved in with you?”

  He didn’t answer. She took a deep breath.

  “Before you even met me? I see. So you knew you were going on this little … expedition and decided to get involved with me anyway. What was I, your final fling? Your last hurrah?”

  “It wasn’t like that. I didn’t plan—”

  “You who always have a plan.”

  “Yes, well, sometimes I fail. I make bad decisions, and I fall and fail, like everyone else.”

  “But unlike everyone else, you do so in such a spectacular fashion. Fake your death. Pop off to an alien spacecraft. Extraordinary, really. Of course you never did like to do things halfway.”

  “Now listen to me, Karen,” Alex said, a measure of strength returning to his voice. “I do want to explain one thing to you.”

  “I’m listening.” Her voice was taut with anger.

  He turned away slightly, so she could only view his profile. An unfamiliar profile that belonged to someone, or something, named David Cole. “I agreed to be a part of this project long before I met you. A few years earlier, as a matter of fact. And yes, I did volunteer. I was working with Vance, and the opportunity arose, an
d I decided to go. To go somewhere no one had ever gone before, to see what had never been seen, to gain knowledge hidden from us for centuries, to finally experience …”

  “All those worlds. All those other suns.”

  “Yes. And I’ve done it. I don’t regret that. But what I do regret is getting you involved. I didn’t plan that. I did not plan”—he glanced at her—“to fall in love with you.”

  Karen clenched her hands into fists. “Don’t do that, Alex. Don’t you dare do that.”

  He continued as if she’d not spoken. “Please understand, I had nothing to tie me to this world. Nothing had a hold on me, nothing could make me regret my decision. Until I met you. Until I met you, and even then I thought I’d simply enjoy your company for as long as possible. Maybe, as you say, in the beginning I thought of it as a fling. But then I made a mistake, a terrible mistake. I got to know you, truly know you—your artist’s soul, your unique, searching, mind, and that heart of yours. That heart that gave me … everything you could give. I should’ve left, as soon as I knew. But I was selfish. I didn’t want to give you up, even though I knew I had to, eventually.”

  “How very noble you make it sound. You could’ve told me, Alex. If nothing else, you could’ve talked to me. We talked about everything else. Everything”—Karen clasped her hands together to still their shaking—“but this one, important little detail. That you were always going to leave me.”

  “In the end I didn’t want to. I’m telling you the truth, although I can see you don’t believe me. I wanted to change my mind, but it was too late. I had no choice. I had to complete my end of the bargain.”

  “Bargain?” Karen took a few steps toward him. She stopped when she could see his eyes. “You spoke of bargains before. You told me Vance let me go, left me alone because of a bargain.”

  “Yes, that’s true,” Alex’s avatar said.