Whispers on the Wind

by Judy Griffith Gill

  Even more important, from Angus he accessed a firm grasp of geography.

  Casting further, he sought out places nearby where avalanches could have occurred, where there would be dwellings similar to this one he was in, but smaller, such as he had sensed from Minton’s quick projection. Purposefully, he touched a particular bead on his Kahinya and focused on Minton’s image, meanwhile casting forth a narrow, laserlike query, waving it delicately from side to side, with frequent and random changes of pitch and intensity, hoping Minton’s presence would bounce it back to him, make the needed connection, but instead he was plunged suddenly, startlingly, into another mind.

  Lenore’s! He recognized it the minute it captured him, drew him in to a dream she was having where she was lost and alone and frightened. He knew it was wrong to be there and struggled to back out, but her need called to him and he soothed the fears she experienced, replaced them with peaceful thoughts and vivid, happy images until at last she stopped thrashing under her covers and lay quietly, breathing steady, a softness in her heart that made his ache with yearning to touch it.

  He did not, but drifted away into a deep slumber, awakening in a few hours fully refreshed.

  Lenore was amazed to follow the aroma of coffee downstairs in the morning and find Jon had prepared breakfast as well. Ham, hash browns, toast, eggs fried a perfect over-easy. As he was the last time she’d seen him, he was completely, comfortably naked. She hoped the ham hadn’t splattered, but said only, “This is a treat. I didn’t know you could cook.”

  Odd, how her anger and fear had dissipated during the night. She felt...wonderful. Rested. Whole. Ready to take on the world. Even a world that included an incredibly appealing alien.

  “I...borrowed,” he admitted. “The man who wanted gold ate a meal like this only minutes ago. His mate prepared it. I followed what he saw her do because she, I cannot read at all.”

  However he’d come up with the breakfast, it was delicious and Lenore scraped up every last vestige of it from her plate. After draining her second cup of coffee, she said, “I’d like to get an early start. How long will it take you to get ready to ride down to the valley?”

  He stood. “I am ready now.”

  She remained seated, but arched her brows.

  “No kidding! I strongly suggest you clothe yourself before we leave. Angus has a very old-fashioned wife who would never admit to appreciating the vision you present.”

  Despite herself, though, she had to grin. “I might, though, just because I like her, take you dressed the way you are now—in skin, to meet Nancy Worth. She’d be very appreciative.”

  Laughter bubbled up in her throat, escaped. “But then she’d be very appreciative whether you were clothed or not.”

  Dammit, she was appreciative and would just as soon have stayed in the cabin for several hours...days?...months?...slowly examining every inch of Jon and his beautiful body. And she did not want to share that experience with anyone.

  As if he had read the lust in her thoughts—or maybe in her face, since he had promised and she inexplicably believed in that promise—he chuckled and was suddenly dressed again as he had been for the trip down the mountain, complete with hat and hiking boots.

  Lenore gaped, then clacked her teeth shut. Really, she was going to have to start getting used to this. “You’ll roast in those clothes,” she warned him. “By the time we hit the valley floor, the temperature will have risen by at least 10 degrees. And when we reach the glideway, it’ll be up another fifteen or so. And I intend to use my car’s climate control to keep myself comfortable in these clothes.” She indicated her light jumpsuit and the jacket she had draped over the back of a chair for the ride down the mountain. She intended to shuck it the minute they were in the car.

  He looked down his nose at her. “I will compensate as needed.” Not only did he look arrogant, he sounded that way. Since she knew he had reason for both, she changed the subject while sliding their dishes into the sterilizer.

  “How are we going to get near your sister without alerting this Rankin guy?”

  “First, I must reassemble my team. One way to do that is to discover other incidents that have been seen as newsworthy.”

  He turned and faced the holo image of the newsie in the corner. She stood near him, watching too. It was always wise to know what lay ahead when one meant to travel. Even the glideways weren’t one hundred percent accident proof, though they came close.

  The holo showed the various patterns chosen by the Weather Control Bureau for the entire Western sector of North America—morning rain over much of the coastal Cascadia Corridor, to keep the evergreen forests at their best, but it would clear by noon to provide a pleasant remainder for the day; heat and sun farther south and in the central dry-belts would boost the fruit and vegetable crops. Southwesterly winds along the spine of the Great Divide would keep the turbines spinning, providing alternative power for the hydrogen separators when clouds rendered solar collectors less effective.

  As far as weather went, in places as remote as this mountain preserve, though, they pretty well got what was left over, or what Nature provided. Though urban populations complained bitterly if their civic leaders failed to persuade the Bureau to their way of thinking prior to celebrations, and parades got rained on, the entire system worked well, world-wide. With no more hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts and floods, typhoons and monsoons, the world population was a good deal safer and more stable. The geologists were still working on earthquake control, so far with little success.

  She pulled a skeptical face as the Weather Control advisory faded to be replaced by a panel discussion on the validity of sending yet another ship to Mars for further exploration. She wondered what kind of answer she’d get from Jon if she asked about Mars. Its history. Its potential. Its future...as it involved humanity, and decided she didn’t want to know—even if he did.

  “You’ll be looking for such oddities as men disappearing and leaving behind old denim coveralls?”

  “Exactly.”

  Lenore began clearing perishables from the refrigerator and sealing them into protective bags where they would store safely and perfectly in the cupboards until next time someone came to the cabin and refreshed them.

  “Jon...one thing you need to understand. A lot of what appears on the newsies, even the so-called ‘serious’ ones, and in other publications, is pure fiction. There are a great many people who find such fantasies entertaining. And nearly as many who actually believe them. I don’t know how we are going to separate fact from tabloid junk.”

  His perfect brows drew together over his perfect nose. “Can you not tell the difference?”

  “I always thought so. But...for instance, if I had heard that story about the man wearing the scarecrow clothes and the fancy necklace, and disappearing right before the woman’s eyes, I’d have put that down to someone’s fantasy, reported to titillate those who enjoy such speculation.”

  “You would not have believed it?”

  She shook her head. “Of course not.”

  “And if you had heard of a woman who had dreams of a man who begged her to come to his assistance, and did so, you would not have believed that, either.”

  She smiled at him over her shoulder. “What makes you so sure I believe it now?”

  His chuckle seemed to rumble from his very depths. His green eyes sparkled with amusement. “Your kisses told me you believe in me.” He sobered. “And your responses...in your dreams...told me so much more.”

  She whirled so fast she nearly fell. “Dammit! I told you to stay the hell out of my dreams!” No wonder she’d felt so...fulfilled this morning. A flash of frustration stabbed through her. If she’d had to have them, why couldn’t she remember last night’s dreams?

  “The dreams of before,” he said hurriedly. “When I was calling to you for assistance.”

  “Oh.” Feeling slightly ashamed, she stuffed a head of lettuce into a bag and held it until every vestige of air was gone and the seal
activated.

  “Can you not trust me when I say I will not enter your mind again, Lenore, unless invited? I did not give you dreams last night. You projected fear and grief, however, and I took those from you, replaced them with serenity. But I did not enter.”

  Some element in his voice compelled her to face him again. He had his hands linked together on the back of a chair, clenching them so tight his knuckles shone white through his skin. “Believe me, please.” His earnest face pleaded with her. “It is true, Lenore. I do not lie to you.”

  “I...All right.” She closed her eyes for a second to escape the stunning power of his gaze. It didn’t help. “I apologize for doubting you. It’s just that some of the feelings I have...about you, are so different from anything I’ve ever experienced. I’m not sure how to handle them.”

  His throat worked as he swallowed. “Lenore...I truly want to share those feelings with you.”

  She struggled against disappointment she knew she had no right to. “But, of course, you don’t share them. There is no way you can. We are, in the very true sense of the words, from different worlds. I understand, Jon. I’m sure you have...commitments wherever you come fr—where you live.” Where and when. A place not here, not now. It was a concept that still gave her great difficulty. “A relationship with someone. I know you were only making empty promises so I would help you.”

  “Lenore!” His hands on her shoulders transmitted urgency even more strongly than his voice. “You misunderstand me. I do not communicate well with only words. If you would but let me show you...my way, what I mean, you would know that I am asking you to, uh, sleep with me? That is what you say, is it not, when you mean mate—join minds and bodies? So we can share those feelings.”

  She had to laugh at the evident confusion in his tone, on his face. “That term—‘sleep with’— is a euphemism for having sex, which is a joining of bodies, not minds. You pulled that out of someone else’s brain, didn’t you?”

  He managed to look both haughty and guilty at the same time. “Yes, I did. Nancy Worth enjoys sleeping with the man in the blue hat. I needed a term you would understand.”

  “Oh, I understand, all right. You want to have sex with me.”

  He brightened. “May I?”

  Again, she laughed. “No!”

  Once more, he frowned. “You want the same thing. The same kind of sharing.”

  She wrapped her fingers around his wrists. “I want a whole lot more than that, Jon, and I don’t think that’s what you’re offering. So, what do you say we leave here, go to my home where I have greater access to information, find your people so you can rescue your sister and translate back wherever you came from? That strikes me as the most sensible plan.”

  He looked at her for a long moment, as if assessing her. For an instant she was afraid he might be taking a surreptitious peek inside her mind, that he might know just how badly she wanted to ‘have sex’ with him. She would greatly prefer that to leaving the cabin and going back to the city. “And you pride yourself on always doing the most sensible thing, don’t you?”

  She returned his steady gaze.

  “Yes, Jon. I do.”

  Why did admitting it seem so terribly...dishonest?

  At the foot of the trail, Lenore slipped from Mystery’s back. “You don’t have to,” she told Jon, when he followed suit. “It’s just that if someone should see us, they’d probably string me up from the nearest cottonwood for overburdening a poor, ancient horse. They’d have no way of knowing you were carrying most of the load.”

  He tilted his head to one side, lifting his brow. The sun spilled golden light over his head. “Now...I must ask: Have you been snooping into my mind?” His expression told her clearly he would not be the least bit offended to learn she had done so.

  “No. Of course not,” she said quickly, trying to hide even from herself the longing to be able to do just that. To know him. “To begin with, I wouldn’t know how. For another thing, I’d consider that an enormous invasion of privacy. But...I know this old horse. He couldn’t have carried us both down the mountain without some assistance and since I sure didn’t lend him any of my strength, guess who that leaves as the culprit?”

  He nodded. “Helping a poor, elderly horse turns me into a culprit, does it?”

  Lenore smiled, enjoying the smile he returned to her, admiring the way his teeth flashed white in the bronze of his face, the way small crinkles fanned out from the corners of his eyes, the deeper grooves that creased his cheeks, almost creating dimples. She was glad he didn’t have those. It would have been just too perfect. Odd, how, clothed and out in the open, fully healthy again, he no longer appeared to be in his mid-twenties. More like her own age, she thought. Possibly even a few years older, though there was no gray that she could see within the dark-honey thickness of his hair. There was just an indefinable sense of maturity about him that she found comforting. And extremely appealing.

  Angus’s tractor whirred to a stop as they crossed the road toward his fence. He shaded his eyes with one hand as he watched them approach, leading the horse. Lenore waved.

  “We’re heading out today, Angus,” she called. “I’ll put Mystery in the barn and stop in to say good-bye to Jane.”

  “Okay, Lenore,” he said from his high perch. “You didn’t stay long. Thought you were here for a month or more. Everything all right?” He rested a curious gaze on Jon, taking in every detail, Lenore knew. An expression of mild puzzlement crossed his face.

  “Just fine, Angus. This is my friend Jon.”

  “Jon,” he said, looking thoughtful. “I’ve met you somewhere, haven’t I? I sort of associate you with...gold. You done some prospecting in the area, maybe?”

  “No.” Jon’s tone was pleasant but firm.

  “Jon only arrived...uh...this morning,” Lenore improvised quickly. “A friend dropped him off and he hiked to the cabin. I had no idea he was coming to visit, but he’s much more of a city person than a country person, so I’m taking him back down the Corridor.”

  “Right. Well, drive carefully till you’re locked onto the glideway. The last time I went down that way, I saw how badly Transport’s letting things deteriorate up here.”

  “Yes. I know.”

  This was one of Angus’s hobby-horses and, given a chance, he’d ride it to death. He was one of those people who wanted a glideway right to his door, but didn’t want the attendant bustle of people it would bring to his peaceful little valley. Of course, this being an agricultural and forest preserve area, the chances of a glideway coming into the Robson Valley were all but nil. Still, Angus liked to complain.

  Quickly, to distract him, she said, “Is Jane in?”

  “She’s gone over to Nancy’s store. You’ll find her there for the next hour or so. You know how she and Nan like to chatter. And now that Nancy’s agreed, finally, to marry Peter, they have a lot to yak about. Jane’s doing stand-in as mother-of-the-bride.”

  Well! Now, for sure Lenore was going to stop at the store to learn more about this unexpected turn of affairs.

  “Your car’s all charged up and ready to go,” Angus said. “See you soon, I hope.”

  “I hope so too.” Lenore smiled as Angus set his machine in motion again and glided off in a whir of electric motor, followed by the inevitable cloud of crows.

  After putting Mystery safely out to graze on the new grass in the paddock near the house, Lenore led Jon to her car, a snappy little blue two-seater bubble that she realized, as she opened the passenger door, had never been meant for a man well over six feet tall. Though the seat automatically adjusted to his height and weight, dropping down as low as it could and sliding back to its farthest limits, it was still a tight fit for him.

  “If you were willing,” he said, shifting as if to try to find a comfortable spot for his knees and shoulders, “I could simply take us wherever it is you want to go.”

  “My car too?”

  He hesitated as she showed the detector panel her wrist-chip,
then punched the keypad to activate the fuel cell, setting the car in motion.

  “Perhaps not...yet. In another day or two, though...

  “But the sooner we find your Octad, the sooner you can accomplish your tasks and leave. We will be at my home in less than two hours. But first, I must stop and say goodbye to my friends.”

  Outside the store, she said, “Come in and I’ll introduce you to Jane and Nancy.” Odd, how much pleasure it would give her to do just that. Especially to see the expression on Nancy’s face when Lenore walked through the door with a large, golden god to show off. But no. Maybe not, since she had, as Angus said, ‘finally’ agreed to marry Peter Johanssen. She’d have too many stars in her eyes to focus on Lenore’s spectacular find.

  “I think not,” Jon said. “I’m not certain I will be able to leave this seat while in my corporeal form.”

  Lenore blew out a puff of air. The man had a point. It absolutely would not do to have him dematerializing inside her car, then materializing again right out in plain sight. If Nancy saw that, it would be the tabloids for her and Jon for sure.

  Chapter Twelve

  IT TOOK NEARLY AS long to reach the east-west glideway at Kamloops and lock on as it did to complete the rest of the trip. Once on the glideway, with little to worry about beyond punching in the correct coordinates that would switch them through to the north-south system at the right moment, though, it was pleasant to relax and watch the entire metropolitan area of the Cascadia Corridor spread out on either side of them as far as the eye could see.

  “This is a very large center of population,” Jon observed, surprising her. She’d been thinking he might find her world provincial, if not primitive.

  “It is a series of three city sectors,” she said. “They extend from Sector Vancouver at the northern end, through Sector Seattle in the center, and terminate at Sector Portland in the south. Once, it was possible to determine where one left off and the other began, but not for many years. Now, the entire region is called the Cascadia Corridor. There are many such population corridors in North America. This is the westernmost one, and one of the smallest.”