“How many people are you set up for now?” Gina asked.
“We could hold fifty, maybe,” the professor said and Benny nodded his agreement. “We’re ready for that now.”
But with fifty, Benny knew that would make it critical to go out regularly searching for more food.
“That’s a pretty good number,” Gina said, nodding.
From what Benny could tell, she was impressed.
David and the professor then asked Gina some basic questions and she had told them she had been in the subway when everything happened, had holed up down there for a time, but decided she didn’t like that and it felt dangerous. Plus she said it smelled bad down there, with the moisture and all. So she came up to see if she could find anyone alive.
Benny had just listened to her cover story, nodding. It was sound and had no places for any real questions.
“Where you from originally?” the professor asked.
“My family moved around a lot,” she said. “And I just kept on moving when I got older. So nowhere, really. But I sure love New York.”
Benny smiled and nodded. Again a great cover story that didn’t pin her to any one place. There was absolutely nothing at all suspicious about her story and if he didn’t remember meeting her on a huge spaceship in orbit, he would have been completely buying the story as well.
“You can see your lights from all over the city,” Gina said. “So as more discover they are not in a good place, they will try to get here, I’m sure. So I agree with Benny that setting up more living quarters would be a good idea. But fifty is a great start.”
“You think we should track some of their lights as well and try to offer them a room here?” the professor asked.
“I don’t think it would hurt,” Benny said, putting the sandwiches in front of everyone and handing Gina a plate. Then he took Freddy a plate with a sandwich on it and a small bag of potato chips.
The professor nodded. “I agree. After Candice wakes up, I’ll start really looking at more spaces in the building we could convert easily.”
Benny nodded. “Gina and I will be upstairs. I want her to fill me in on what she’s seen around the city. Let us know when Candice wakes.”
“We will,” the professor said, nodding.
When they got into the stairwell and started the climb, both carrying their plates of food, Gina looked over at Benny. “Those are some very good people you have there.”
“I know,” he said. “And all three of them are as smart as a whip.”
She laughed. “Never heard that expression before.”
“I’m not surprised,” Benny said. “It’s an old one.”
And he wasn’t surprised. No way anyone just studying the planet could learn all the language. So he figured that the walk up the stairs was as good a time as any to ask the first of what he figured would be a thousand or more questions.
“How long did you have to study this planet, anyway?”
“Basic preparations I did on the way here three weeks ago,” she said. “But almost all of what I studied was in the last ten days.”
“Wow, you really didn’t have any time, did you?”
She sighed beside him and he looked over at her pained face.
“I think if the powers that be out there in the big universe had learned of this tragedy sooner,” she said, softly, “they would have saved a lot more people than just the two million from the last wave.”
She was actually pained by what had happened here. This planet, this city, wasn’t just her job. These were real people to her and to those she worked for.
That was very clear.
And at that moment he realized just how important saving lives was to Gina and her people. And that eased about a thousand of his fears.
There were still a few thousand more he could think of, but his feelings for her eased a lot of them as well.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
GINA COULDN’T REMEMBER when she enjoyed a lunch more than that first one with Benny. They sat at his table in his apartment near the windows looking out over the city. The air-conditioning was running softly in the background and she could faintly hear the generator on the balcony outside.
The city spread out around them still looked fresh and almost alive. From where they were, they couldn’t see any of the streets and that was fine with her. She didn’t need a constant reminder of what was below them.
They talked about everything as they ate, from Benny’s degrees in college, which didn’t really surprise her that he was that smart, to her home planet and how she had grown up and been recruited into the Seeders.
And the sandwich had been amazing. She ended up devouring it and then telling him how much she liked it.
“Don’t get used to it,” he said, looking sad. “Not a lot of that beef left and there won’t be more for a very long time.”
She only nodded to that.
He finished his sandwich and pushed his plate away, then leaned back. “Shall we get to some of the hard questions we’ve both been avoiding?”
She laughed and he just smiled. Damn he was smart and she loved that about him.
And that look in his eye told her that he loved when she laughed as well.
“So ask away,” she said. “I promise I’ll tell you the truth no matter what.”
He nodded. “The boys seemed to be stunned at how far away your home world is. How long did it take you to get here?”
“I didn’t come from my home world directly here,” she said. “I was working on another planet in this area of this galaxy, so the trip didn’t take that long. A week or so to get into position. But if I was on a fast ship directly from my home world to here, it would take about a half year.”
He nodded to that and seemed to file it away.
“Explain to me how humans have spread so far in space? I remember a little of what you said on the ship, but my attention was elsewhere.”
“Fair enough,” she said, taking a sip of a soda and then sitting back so she could look at him directly.
“A very long time ago,” she said, “from a planet so distant from here that no one I know of even knows where it might be, the first humans evolved and jumped into space.”
“How long ago?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Some say only hundreds of thousands of years ago, others say millions and millions of years ago. I tend to go to the millions of years ago number.”
He nodded. “Can’t say I understand that kind of number, but go on.”
“After the first humans spread out to the stars, they discovered that they were alone. There are no alien cultures out there that anyone knows about. None in this galaxy, my galaxy, or any galaxy close to here.”
“So humans really are alone in the cosmos,” he said.
“As far as anyone has found so far, yes,” she said. Then she went on. “Those early humans figured out a way to seed humanity on planets that could support life. They also seeded all plant and animal life from the original first human home, so every planet with humans on it has the same plants and animals around them.”
“Wow, that’s a job,” Benny said, shaking his head.
“It is,” she said. “The Seeders, as we are called, are very good at this now after all this time.”
“So you help with this seeding?” Benny asked.
“No,” she said. “The front line of the seeding ships has already left this galaxy. They are working in the Andromeda galaxy. My job as a Seeder is to help the cultures start to mature. I get involved in one fashion or another in the growing cultures to help them get past certain disaster points and grow. I embed in cultures, as I am doing now, to help with what I can help with.”
“How often have you done that?” he asked.
She took a deep breath. This was the first major problem point and from here on out she might lose this man. And that scared her to death.
“I promised I would tell you the complete truth, remember?” she said.
He nodded,
looking very serious.
“This is my tenth time embedding in a culture on ten different planets.”
A frown crossed his face. “So tell me what you are worried about in how that is possible for you to do that and still look as good as you do.”
She smiled at that and nodded. “Thank you.”
“Just truth,” he said, smiling at her and her stomach twisted even harder. She was deathly afraid she was about to have Benny start hating her.
“I like this feeling between us,” she said. “And I don’t want to lose that, so I’m afraid of telling you a lot of this.”
“Trust me to deal with what you are saying,” he said.
She nodded.
“Seeders are picked to be sort of the guiding hands of cultures for thousands of years as they grow and develop and jump into space. We do not get sick, nor do we age, and we have memories that can remember just about anything. We can also do this.”
She teleported to a place thirty steps from him and he damn near went over backwards.
She teleported back into her chair.
She had to show him that she wasn’t a normal woman and that was one of the quickest ways she could think to do it.
“That’s got to come in real handy,” he said, his voice only cracking once as he adjusted his chair.
“So to answer your question truthfully and directly,” she said. “I was born just over 200 years ago. And there is no upper limit on how long I can live barring accidents. I have heard of some Seeders being thousands of years old. Maybe older for all I know.”
He sat there staring at her for the longest time while her heart almost beat out of her chest with worry. Then he said, “You look damn good for an old broad.”
For a moment she didn’t completely understand, then he smiled slightly and she laughed.
“Well, thank you,” she said. “I guess.”
He looked hard at her and then said, “Why do I get the sense you aren’t telling me something really important.”
She leaned forward and reached her hand across the table, offering it to Benny.
After a moment’s hesitation, he took it.
She could feel the incredible attraction of the man pulling at her. His strong, work-worn hand rested in her hand and she kept her gaze locked on his dark, intense eyes.
“The reason you remember the ship,” she said, “is because you have the Seeder gene as well. You could be a Seeder as well if you wanted.”
He actually jerked at that, but didn’t let go of her hand.
She squeezed his hand and then sat back, pulling away from touching him so he could just think.
“Besides living a long time,” he said after a moment, “what does being a Seeder really mean?”
“It means that your life mission becomes to help all humans and humanity,” she said, “no matter what planet they are on.”
“And how many planets is that?” he asked.
“Do you have any idea how many people were in this city before the disaster?” she asked.
“Millions and millions,” he said, “if you count all the boroughs across the rivers.”
“There are more seeded human planets in just this galaxy than humans who used to be in this city.”
“Oh,” was all he said.
She let him sit in silence. At least he wasn’t storming off. She wasn’t sure what she would have been doing if the situations were reversed.
“And how many Seeders are there?” he asked.
“Not enough,” she said. “Never enough, which is why I hope you’ll join us.”
“I’m not much of a joiner,” he said.
“You don’t join Seeders like joining some lodge,” she said. “This is all a job and we all get paid for it.”
“You get paid for helping people and living a long time?” he asked, looking directly at her.
“I do,” she said, nodding. “And to be honest, I can’t imagine a better job.”
He nodded to that and sat back.
She just sat there, trying not to hold her breath in worry.
Finally he spoke again. “And after all this time you aren’t married or have a boyfriend?”
“Never married,” she said, “but I had some boyfriends along the way, but never one that was a Seeder, so I always had to leave them after a decade or so.”
“Because you didn’t age,” he said.
She nodded. “And my job moved me on. So no, I have no boyfriend now.”
“And you are telling me the complete truth on everything?” he asked.
“I am,” she said.
He looked at her. “So tell me the truth on this question. Are you attracted to me?”
She laughed and then stared him right in the eye. “More than I want to let myself believe. It’s every damn thing I can do to not drag you into that bedroom.”
“Oh, great,” he said, smiling at her. “A woman with self-restraint.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
HE HAD ENJOYED the lunch and the conversation with Gina more than he wanted to admit. She was smart and attractive and funny.
And clearly she was attracted to him as much as he was to her.
But then when she started really telling him about herself, including how old she really was, he felt just stunned.
And when she just vanished from her chair and appeared across the room, then appeared back in her chair, he had damn near gone over backwards.
He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting from a woman from space, but that had shocked him.
And her age, for a moment had shocked him as well.
But what had shocked him more than anything was her telling him that he had a special gene that allowed him to join her organization if he wanted. And that was why he had remembered her and the spaceship.
He really didn’t understand everything she had told him. But he did understand when she said she could barely keep from taking him into the bedroom.
That he liked and understood completely, because he felt the same way about her.
After she said that he stood, indicating that she should remain where she was.
He moved over to the stairway door and bolted it closed as she watched.
Then he came back over to her and took her hand and helped her to her feet.
Then he kissed her.
For an instant she seemed shocked, then she melted against him, her perfect body pushing into his as her lips matched his.
He had kissed his share of women over the years, but that felt like a combination of a first kiss with a first girlfriend and kissing someone who he had kissed forever.
It was both perfect and exciting at the same time.
They fit together.
The kiss seemed to last for a very long time, then finally he pulled back and she looked at him. They were both almost the same height, so she looked him right in the eye, which he liked.
Her face was red and flushed and he had a hunch his was as well.
“Sorry,” he said, smiling, “I just don’t have as much self-restraint as you do.”
She laughed, then said, “Well, you killed mine with that kiss, that’s for sure.”
With that, she took his hand and led the way into his bedroom. She kissed him again as they stood beside the bed. Then she pushed back and started unbuttoning her shirt.
He stood there, staring, more than likely his mouth open.
She pulled off her shirt and tossed it to one side, leaving her in jeans and a sports bra.
Wow.
She smiled at him. “You’re falling behind.”
Then she unzipped her jeans and slid them down over her hips, showing him her black panties.
She had to be the most attractive and in-shape woman he had ever seen or met.
He pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it to one side, then took off his pants as well as she slipped her sports bra over her head and then took off her underwear, exposing a small area of dark hair.
He took his pants off
, showing her that he was about as aroused as a man could get.
She stared at him for a moment, then went into his arms, putting his penis between her legs and kissing him, pressing against him.
And he kissed back.
He pushed back into her strong arms, enjoying the feel of her breasts smashed into his chest, her legs holding his penis.
Finally, he pulled away, picked her up and put her on the bed.
She pulled him down on top of her and he was inside her.
Then he lost all track of time and emotions and everything as he made love to the woman of his dreams.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
GINA LAY WRAPPED in Benny’s strong arms, her head on his shoulder, her right leg over him.
She was still breathing hard and trembling from the number of orgasms she had had.
Benny’s chest was raising and falling as he too worked to recover. His skin felt hot and wonderful to her.
Everything about this man felt right.
And making love to him had felt perfect, as if they belonged together.
One part of her mind wondered how that was even possible while another part didn’t care. She just wanted to enjoy being with him more and more.
She pressed against him, not wanting to move.
“It seems,” he said, “that when we’re together, self-restraint might be a problem.”
She laughed. “Trust me, what we just did will never be a problem for me.”
“Me either,” he said, turning his head to her and kissing her again, just long enough to make it clear he cared, but not long enough to get things started again.
“I got to ask another question,” he said, staring up at the ceiling. “A serious one.”
“Go ahead,” she said.
“If I joined on to being a Seeder,” he said, “would we leave here?”
“No,” she said. “When I discovered you had the Seeder gene, I asked Chairman Carson if I could recruit you to help. I figure the two of us here could get a lot more done together than if I was trying to hide from you.”
“Chairman Carson?” Benny asked.
“The man who gave the speech on the ship. Seeder ships, and most human spaceships from other planets, are all businesses. And everyone on board is hired to do a job. So instead of having captains, the person who runs a Seeder ship is called a chairman.”
High Edge: A Seeders Universe Novel Page 9
