by TylerRose.
He tried not to stare at her while she showered, though he could only see her feet and her head. His attention went to the back door of the house, to the old woman leaning heavily on her cane and the tall man accompanying her.
“The water boils,” Shestna called to her as she was coming out of the stall in different clothes.
A blue sundress that formed to her chest and waist and hung straight to her knees, embroidered with yellow flowers, and bare feet that walked fearlessly across the open ground.
“You made good time,” she smiled up to the tall man coming down the steps.
“It’s not often you ask me to come, Wildflower,” he replied, taking her in for a big hug and a kiss to her cheek. “Who is this?”
“Shestna, this is my uncle Radames. He was there when Jerome defeated Adamantine, and helped him escape. Radames, this is my first and very brief husband Shestna. Now a former husband.”
Radames laughed and extended his hand to shake Shestna’s. “That is a story I must hear!”
“Take the crawdads to the table and we’ll tell it,” she promised.
Radames took the side handles to lift the heavy basket, letting the boiling water drain out in its own time. Into the waiting empty pot and he carried it to the porch while she scooped out the potatoes into a waiting bowl. She arrived in time to watch her uncle pour the pot out onto the shallow metal pan on the table. Crawdads that had been brown were now bright red. One bucket between Addie and Radames and the other between Tyler and Shestna, glasses of iced tea at the ready, they started the steaming feast.
Shestna watched first while Tyler pulled the back end off a crawdad and cracked the shell with her fingers. Shell peeled away and dropped into the bucket, she ate the meat. Next she sucked the contents out of the head and discarded it into the bucket. She didn’t bother with the claws but Addie did, relishing in every slurp of the tiny shells. With a fork, Tyler crushed a potato inside the pan in front of her and ate from it as she wanted.
Shestna copied all of this and gave the first one a try. Letting the spices fill his mouth, he had a taste experience like nothing on any planet he’d visited. The spicy warmth of the boil, the juiciness of the meat infused with those spices. Within a few minutes, he was keeping pace with the family while telling the story of how they came to be married for a week. Tyler put in her perspectives in a couple places, including admitting aloud for the first time that she’d been the one to finish off his opponent…and her stepfather.
“I killed that fucker just like I killed mother’s husband,” she said, eyes narrowed as she looked her grandmother in the eye.
“Good. He deserved to die,” Addie replied, and plucked up another crawdad.
“The family will start to gather tomorrow,” Radames spoke up to change the subject.
“We’ll get into the garden in the morning and harvest everything we can,” Tyler replied, having stopped eating. “When you’re ready to talk?”
She got up to leave the table, washing her hands in the kitchen before walking down to the tree to lean against it and fire up a cigarette.
“If you want to give her a very special surprise later, wash your hands well, but then dip your first two fingers into the boil water here in the pan,” Radames said, and slapped the back of Shestna’s shoulders as he followed his niece.
“Two fingers?” Shestna questioned.
“Hot spices and wet female flesh,” Addie grinned at him. “She’ll make noises you’ve not heard from her yet.”
He got the idea, smiling to be given sex advice from the aged grandmother. “I see.”
“Voranians are very formal with outsiders. They prefer to keep their distance from off-worlders. Yet you took up the Outdare and took her to your bed as though she was a native. Why is she different from any other off-worlder you’ve ever met?”
Shestna’s mind halted. How would she know what Voranians were like with off-worlders? How did she know the challenge was called the Outdare?
He knew he stared at her, words momentarily failing him. Her eyes went to the shadowy figures talking by the tree, then landed on him with a sharpness that could have cut skin.
“I know a great many things my granddaughter does not. I see things as easily as she does. She is not to know what I know. Ever. Why are you so fascinated with her?”
“Madam, she is no other woman I’ve ever met. Even if I did not know what she is, I would love her.”
“Hmmm? What is she?” Addie tested his knowledge.
“If you know specifically about Voranians, then you are not of Earth. Are you?” he asked in return. “How long have you been on Earth?”
“I came here from Sistair as part of the leadership of the nursery team. I am half-sister to Kronos. Aunt of Zeus and Hades. They are all dead and I am the last. Tiberius is the native who has the crystal power she needs to go forward, unless someone else takes it from him or finds a viable crystal elsewhere and tempers it for her.”
“What about the Emperor’s crystal?” he asked. “She could have that, if she must. It’s sitting right there out in the open and I have access.”
“It might work. But she cannot ever absorb the energy directly from a crystal. That will stop her progression. There must be a conduit to regulate the energy. She must trust him implicitly, in all things. He must have her back and catch her when she falls. He must stand with her regardless the situation, regardless the enemy. When the time comes, he must be able to nourish her from that same energy.”
“I’m prepared to do this,” Shestna said.
“You don’t know how the feeding is done. You cannot do it. You can be an Apogee but not a Conduit. He must be the same type of humanoid that she is.”
“Why?” he demanded.
“Could you stand to have her mouth on your exposed cock, latched on and suckling for five hours straight?” Addie asked in return.
Shestna was silenced. No, that wouldn’t be a good thing.
“The team has five men,” she continued. “The Apogee, who leads and decides. He might be a lover, but not always. The Conduit, who has the crystal power, and his counterpart the Conservator, who should also have the crystal energy for balance. Both of them are closest to the Immaculate and are sometimes referred to as the Keepers. They are her most devoted lovers but she will naturally be more drawn to the Conduit. Their bond is unbreakable, completely instinctive. Below them are the two Chaperones. They are subordinates. Protectors, companions, may be lovers but not necessarily. While they may have the crystal power temporarily, it is not usually bonded with them. The Chaperones will change over the years. The ones who have bonded with the crystal power will be as long-lived as she. The Apogee may also change over time; but whoever he is, he must be a very strong personality in order to maintain control over —or at least the cooperation of —the other four. If the Pentagon is in discord, she will know and she will not progress. She’s had one Widening. You have time to figure it all out before the next, especially since she does not currently have a Conduit.”
“Assuming we get nowhere with Jerome, how will I know a man is the right one?” Shestna asked.
“She won’t be able to refuse him. Not in the ‘no, I don’t want popcorn’ sort of way, but intimately. He will reach and she won’t pull away. Ever. He will have a way with her, an ability to diffuse her, to stop her when she’s out of control. He’ll accept her and she will accept him, exactly as they are, and neither will try to change the other. They will indulge and understand each other in ways no one else will understand.”
Shestna tried to think if anyone he already knew fit that bill, unable to come up with anyone. She had refused him rightly enough, and Mankell. She beat the hell out of Solomon when he showed up. She had refused a marriage proposal from her gentleman in California. No one fulfilled those requirements. Only Jerome came close, but she had refused him in the end. She’d left Toledo and gone to California.
“How do you know all of this when there has only been one Immaculate?�
� Shestna had to ask.
“There have been other nursery teams, and others who tried to be the Immaculate. It was my job to understand how it works, to study how it works and help the nursery teams be in place and prepared for her when she needed them. We did not know it would take so long. She has been a very long time in coming. The team has all but fallen apart and must be rebuilt. Again. There is no team on standby anymore because Earnol put a stop to helping her as soon as he got into office. We have been in hiding.”
“Are there others already trying to be her team and Apogee?”
“There is one who was named Apogee after Zeus and the others died during the invasion of Imnytep,” Addie told him. “But he stays on Earth. Until she recognizes him, which she must do entirely on her own, he cannot accompany her around the galaxy. Now I ask you one time, Prince Shestna, first son of Emperor Encito, are you prepared to be what she requires of you? I don’t want an answer. Your answer wouldn’t be for me anyway. Now you know more, you need to think long and hard about what you are really getting yourself into.”
“How much of your Earth family knows about this?” he asked.
“Radames knows everything. I told him about it in case something happened to me. If he needs to, he will bring in someone else in to replace himself. After I am gone, he will have some of the answers. If she ever asks the right questions. She’s never asked the right questions. Not of me, at least. She is still afraid of the answers. Help her work through her fear and discard it. And her anger. Anger helps to keep her strong but sometimes it blinds her to sincerity in others. You must not tell her anything about me.”
“I won’t. Much of this she has to figure out in her own time. I see that. She has to accept what she learns in her own time. She’s just yesterday finally accepted what she is and what she could be. I have already fought for her twice, physically, to protect her. I will not hesitate to do so again.”
“I will tell you what she has been told. You must be prepared to give up everything and everyone you know. Everything you have or might have. You must be all-in, every minute. Or you are out.”
She stood, sighing with the fatigue of a body that was over three thousand years old. “I’m going inside. My show will be starting.”
“How may I help you this time, Wildflower?” Radames asked when he reached the tree.
“Where did you take Jerome?”
“I accompanied him and the woman from Washington DC down to Baton Rouge and across to Laredo, Texas. I watched them cross the border and saw my friends take them up. From there, I do not know where they went.”
“How was he?” she asked.
“Hurt. Physically. He slept most of the way. When he woke up, he was no longer hurt. Not in any way. But he was changed. Whoever he was when you first met him, he’s not that man anymore,” he warned.
“I’m sure. Was there really no warning of the invasion?”
“None. One minute nothing. The next, it was all over the news that Toledo was being invaded by air and the refineries and nuclear plant had exploded. When we saw the weapons firing, and the robots flying, we knew it was not an invasion by any human force. The first fighting lasted about twenty minutes before Jerome withdrew. He’d been hurt badly then as well. The invaders started their march south, with all the humanoid males raping every woman of breeding age. Women were gang-raped in the streets, in their houses, wherever they were found. Any who were over 35 years old or could not breed were killed on the spot.”
She saw what he’d seen, saw through his mind and eyes the horror of the day.
“Some younger ones were taken into shuttle-type vessels and taken up to the big ship with him. Any man who opposed or tried to fight was killed. Thousands were rounded up and turned into more of those flying robots. The US Army was destroyed wherever it tried to engage. British and Canadian troops flew in to help. They were destroyed. The space ship or the flying robots shot down every fighter plane that got within range, blew up every tank that shot a missile. They started blowing up every plane in the sky and every ground vehicle that moved.”
“Did they state any demands to make it stop?” she asked.
“The leader, Adamantine, wanted the holder of the power source, as he put it, to come to him and surrender. That was the only term. When they reached DC, Jerome was there to take the leader on again. They fought on the White House lawn.”
“And Jerome won,” she finished.
“Barely. A sniper killed the little man who seemed to be controlling the robots. All the robots self-destructed. The ship in the sky exploded also, not long after it was all done. Jerome finally killed Adamantine and crawled into the car. I was already in the car. I had snuck into it during the worst of the fighting. I already had the escape route planned with safe houses ready if needed. We made the drive in one shot. Took about 28 hours to get to Laredo, Texas. I had to take more of the back roads rather than the highway.”
“What was the woman’s name?”
“He called her Touch, but she introduced herself to me as L’Roc-ai. She’s a leader on her planet, came following the crystal to stop the invasion if they could. She is completely stranded here now.”
“I have heard of the planet she’s from. I’ve met the machine that was with them,” she said.
“You can’t fix this, Tyler. Or have you learned how to go back in time all by yourself?” Radames prodded her.
“No, not yet. I haven’t figured out exactly how I will fix it. I just know it’s not right. I can feel in my bones that it’s just…not…right. I don’t know if I can go forward without fixing it first. I don’t know if fixing it first is necessary to going forward.”
She looked over her shoulder to see her grandmother shuffling into the house.
“What do you see when you look at her?” Radames asked.
“There was a small demon sitting at her feet when I arrived earlier today. It couldn’t run away fast enough when it saw me. She’s going to die in the next couple days.”
“Maybe that is what has been calling you back, and not trying to fix anything,” he suggested. “What I do know is that you should not rush to any action. Sit a moment and think. Take a breath. Ask an opinion or five. Sleep on it. Decide the next day, when you are removed from the hotness of immediate emotion. Don’t be rash. You will lose the love of your people if you are rash and harsh in your judgments of simple mistakes.”
“The love of my people?” she asked with no small skepticism. “I don’t have any people.”
“Write it in your journal. You’ll remember it when the time comes,” he said. “We should go in. Your lover is waiting patiently to be alone with you.”
“I should clean up the table.”
“I’ll do it,” Radames said. “You would need three more women to clear it off and move it.”
“You’re used to women who have to use their hands,” she teased, but left him with the crawdad mess and joined Gramma Addie and Shestna in the living room.
Gramma was watching In the Heat of the Night, which meant today was Wednesday.
“I’m going to go write in my journal for a while,” Tyler told Shestna.
She showered first, the rinse earlier not enough to make her feel clean after being in the stream, and sat with headphones on to write what Radames had said. Several pages in, the Gravity’s Rainbow album started and her pen stopped. She sat like a stone listening to Pictures of a Gone World, Everybody Lay Down, Ties That Bind, Disconnected, Kingdom Key and Sanctuary. Listening to Sanctuary, she realized what she needed.
A reason to believe in now. No one had given her one yet and she’d not found it herself.
She set the song Kingdom Key to repeat over and over, listening and thinking. A hand on her shoulder startled her back to the present and she realized tears were rolling down her cheeks. She snatched a tissue with one hand, stopping the music with the other.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you,” Shestna said in Voranian. “Are you unwell?”
“Going back in time to alter an outcome is specifically a crime, Tyler. You must know that.”
“A crime according to whom? Earnol? The one who makes the laws to keep things exactly how he likes them? Why isn’t that a crime?” she demanded hotly.
“I think it may be smart to not try to fix the past but to go forward and make your future. He can’t prosecute you for that. He can’t do anything about it now you’ve removed yourself from the employment of the Congress. Create a future rather than trying to recreate the past.”
“Maybe. Somehow, that’s just not as satisfactory.”
He had to smile. “I understand. There have been many things in my past I would like to go back and change. I have had access to the appropriate technology; but changing those things would change other things. Completely and irrevocably. If you go back in time to be there for the invasion, you may change something else you didn’t intend to. That might disrupt other things around the planet. You have to consider this, Femina. You must look at a larger picture than just the invasion. You could mess up something very good for someone. Many someones.”
“I know,” she pleaded. “I can’t think about anything else anymore. I wish I’d had more guidance and education in this stuff.”
“You are being educated now,” he pointed out. “You can learn more when we return to Voran. You can learn anything you want. I will see to it. Will you get ready for bed?”
“After I see you wash your hands with warm water and lots of soap. Don’t even think you’ll be touching me with cayenne pepper on your fingers. I hate that.”
He laughed. No, he could not be her conduit. She could refuse him before he’d even made suggestions. “You’ve already had it done?”
