Keeper of the Flame

by Stephanie Burke

  Her face immediately bloomed with color.

  “It was a simple matter for me to manipulate your computers to my advantage. I have the technology to do so at any given time. To make up for the loss, I deposited a significant amount of gold into your depository. Gold is a useless metal on my planet and we have great quantities of it strewn across the landscape, but the people here place great value upon it. I have dumped a load of it in your reserves.”

  “Well.” She got out through her gritted teeth; “Thanks for explaining that to an idiot like me!”

  “I did not mean you, Mistress.” He smiled widely. “You seem to be most intelligent. You are a credit to you planet.”

  “Well thank you very much, Mister Supreme Being!” she said with a saccharine sweetness. “Now let's get a move on before your advanced race of executioners catch up with you!

  “They will search in a hundred mile radius of where they will assume I have landed,” he acknowledged, becoming serious once again. “You are right, Mistress. We cannot tarry here longer. Let us finish and leave.”

  After a small argument in the check out aisle, Flame paid in cash all the while reminding her that he did not want to be a burden. She grumbled while she installed two-top-of-the-line car seats in the back seat of her minivan. These were designed with a stationary base that separated from the seats so that they could be used as carriers.

  Flame had held both children in their harnesses when they began their shopping trip. Kendall had driven slowly and prayed that no cop would stop them. It was a five hundred dollar fine to be caught transporting children without a proper car seat and she didn't know what Flame's reaction would be to the flashing lights and sirens of a police car.

  While Flame stored their purchases, Kendall placed both the children into their new safety seats. The babies quickly settled in their new conveyance and they were quickly on their way back to Kendall's place to pick-up the rest of their gear.

  In addition to buying what seemed to be a year's supply of diapers and formula, Kendall had persuaded Flame to purchase some shirts for himself in something other than the somber black. He relented and bought a few “scandalously colored” T-shirts and jeans all the while insisting that bright colors were for younger men.

  As they made their way back home, Flame seemed a little listless and pale. Kendall noted his pallor and made a mental note to keep tabs on him. Anyone going through the stress of labor should be resting, not out shopping as if nothing had happened to him or her. The body needed a recovery period in order to heal properly and Kendall decided that Flame was going to get all the rest that he needed.

  Packing the van was easy once they made it back to Kendall's house. Kendall already had her luggage packed for her aborted honeymoon trip and Flame stuffed his new purchases in a black duffel bag he'd salvaged along with the learning cubes and his necessary equipment from the ship. He'd been soaking wet when she found him because he took no time to sink the ship from land. Her spaceman slammed the thing into the lake and swam to shore. He'd gone back early in the morning to retrieve the things he felt he needed.

  Kendall took one last look at her beautifully landscaped yard and started the engine. She tried to shake off the feeling that her life would never be the same after this trip, but the premonition remained. “How long before they start to search this area, Flame?”

  “I came into your airspace cloaked from your radar by slipping through a small time window your government left open. I can camouflage the ship from sight, but your government would pick up the fuel trails my ship left behind. It will be several days before that window opens again and those who follow me will want to wait for that time.” His low voice was almost pained and he looked at her with tired eyes.

  “No fraternizing with the lowly earth peons then?” Kendall tried to make a small joke to cover her concern about Flame’s condition.

  “I do not think your government would take kindly to an invasion, Mistress.”

  Remembering all those specials about alien dissection, Kendall tended to agree with him. They no sooner pulled to the end of her driveway, than a car screeched to a halt in front of them. “Oh for crying out loud!” Kendall got out before Richard slammed out of his car and raced to the driver side door.

  “Kendall, I need to speak with you!” he cried, oblivious to her passengers.

  “I've said all that I'm going to say to you Doctor Dick!” Kendall growled at the man. He had a flare for the dramatic. With his Nordic good looks, he should have pursued a career in acting instead of going to medical school. His ice-blue eyes pleaded with hers.

  “Where are you going? We need to try and work something out. There are factors...”

  “Do you wish him eliminated, Mistress Kendall?” this came calmly from the passenger side. “This I can easily accomplish.”

  “What?” Richard turned just as Flame sat forward and glared at him. His hair was starting to do that breezy thing again and his eyes were beginning to sparkle. All traces of weakness seemed to have been obliterated by the annoyance that seemed to radiate from him in waves.

  “This has nothing to do with you, buddy!” Richard turned again to Kendall. “Who is this clown anyway?”

  Torn between righteous anger and frustration, Kendall made a swift decision. “Doctor Dick, meet my new, ahh, boyfriend Flame. Flame...ah...MacIntire.”

  Both men turned incredulous looks on her.

  “When exactly did this happen, Kendall?” Richard asked.

  “Not that it's any of you business, but we met a few weeks ago.”

  Flame raised one red eyebrow, but his hair did seem to be settling down a bit. His expression seemed to say, “At your discretion, Mistress.”

  With a nod for emphasis, she added, “Now you are holding us up!”

  “Where did you come from?” Richard growled at Flame, ignoring Kendall altogether. His face was set in a stern doctor's mask as he demanded answers.

  Anger tightened Flame's face. How dare this low-caste male address him in such a manner? He might be a mere male, but he was royal born!

  Flame did not mind the untruth that his guide told for he could sense that she wanted to help him and his children, but disrespect by a man to even the lowest woman was not to be tolerated. Even though he hated the society that spawned him, its rules were too ingrained to let such importance go without major repercussions.

  “Where I come from is no concern for a past mistake such as you!” Flame spoke in a low controlled voice that was more frightening than the mightiest of roars. “You would do well to tender your responses respectfully when answering my mistress, small man, or you will have need of me to correct your unseemly behavior!”

  With some shock, Kendall realized that Flame was about to do something...alien...to her ex if she didn't step in right away. “Let us go Richard!” she cried out. “You have no reason to be concerned with my life anymore! You made that abundantly clear when I caught you… Just let us go!”

  “This isn't over.” Richard stated as he backed away to his car. “We need to talk Kendall. I can't let it end like this. There are things that you need to know!”

  With the slam of a car door and an angry squeal of tires, the good doctor once again left them.

  Kendall turned to Flame. “We had better get out of here before anything else happens.” With a tired sigh he nodded, hair once again in place. “Damn those curses!” Kendall muttered before starting up the engine again and easing out onto the small street.

  Blissfully, the children remained asleep.

  Chapter Three

  “Now I know why I don’t work in the nursery!”

  After about two hours on the road, the children began to get antsy. First Ember started with a light alto causing her brother to add his harmony and soon they were both wailing in time to the music playing on the radio. Appropriately enough, Pasty Cline was singing that she was crazy.

  “I can relate!” Kendall muttered as she spotted salvation up ahead. A wonderful b
lue sign read Rest Stop Ahead. With an overwhelming sense of relief, Kendall pulled over at the nearby rest stop to feed and diaper the children.

  Flame had been quiet thus far into the trip.

  At first he gasped at every oncoming vehicle on the road, so much that Kendall had to question his offer to drive. She watched as his eyes grew larger. A semi sped past going in the opposite direction.

  “Cars are not going to hit us, Flame. They are supposed to keep up with the flow of traffic. It’s only going about sixty miles per hour.”

  Although his face remained expressionless and pale, he managed to nod politely before once again checking his safety belt.

  “I know what I’m doing, Flame. I won’t get us in get in an accident.” She blew out an exasperated breath as she watched him tug at the belt.

  “Do you think you can do any better?” she questioned. “You are so shaken by this light traffic that you would probably wrap us around a tree! Why is it that men automatically think that they are the better drivers?” Even this alien, who had never driven a car before, thought that he could do better. Men were the same universally!

  “I do not think I could do better, Mistress. I only have a bit more experience in handling high speed maneuvers!” His voice rose a bit as Kendall executed a swift lane change and passed the car in front of her.

  “You’re frightened out of your gourd!” Kendall crowed with delight.

  Flame clenched one hand to the headrest as the other hand braced him against the dashboard. “Not frightened, Mistress. Merely a bit nervous at traveling in this manner.”

  “If riding in a car makes you nervous, how do your people get around?”

  “We walk, Mistress.” Wide-eyed, he watched a passing tractor. “It is more energy efficient and healthy for our people. Of course, women have the option of riding in a solar power anti-gravity vehicle or a litter.”

  “I suppose there are groups of muscular men to carry the litter around?”

  “Of course!”

  “How healthy is that? I mean lugging around all of that dead weight all day? It must be murder on the back.”

  “I do not know, Mistress. I have never had that particular duty.” He turned to face the window. After that his mouth closed up tight, leaving her to try and hold back her mirth as he flinched at each car that passed.

  Then the children started crying.

  Flame appeared almost as much at a loss as Kendall. He winced as the crying grew in unbelievable volume before reaching unattainable heights. He looked back at his red-faced, screaming children and paled a little more.

  “We’ll have you guys fixed up in no time,” Kendall crooned in an uncertain voice as she swung into a parking space near a picnic table.

  The moment the car pulled to a stop, Flame unfastened his trusty safety belt, hopped out, and raced to open the rear passenger door. “Why do they cry?” As panic widened his eyes, he eased Ember out of her seat, pulled her to his broad chest then grimaced at the wetness he felt on her bottom.

  “I think they need changing, Mistress.”

  He gasped as he held the little girl at arm’s distance. The odor that emanated from her small bottom was...unpleasant.

  “Oh, boy, do they!” Kendall waved her hand in front of her nose when he extended the little girl in her direction.

  “No way, buddy!” she cried out as he tried to hand off the smelly, uncomfortable baby. “I’m labor and delivery. I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout changin’ no babies!”

  Flame looked a little panicked, the babies began to cry harder, and they began to draw strange stares from the people around them.

  Kendall began to feel a little uncomfortable as guilt vied with impatience within her. Flame’s eyes pleaded with her for help and it seemed that Ember too was begging for assistance. Her large gray eyes filled with a fresh flood of tears and her tiny pink lips trembled.

  “Oh for goodness sake! Give her here before we get arrested for child abuse!” she cried finally reaching for the little girl. Funny, but Kendall swore she could read relief in Ember’s little gray eyes. The force of her cries seemed to ease off. Resigned, Kendall grabbed the little pink diaper bag and stalked over to one of the wooden tables.

  Patiently, she explained the convenience of disposal diapers as compared to the cloth that Flamed seemed to prefer. Kendall spread out a changing pad thankfully provided with the diaper bag.

  “Cloth diapers are for protecting your shoulders from cheesing and moist baby belches,” she explained. She laid Ember down, peeled the diaper tabs and then...“Oh my God! What has this child been eating?”

  The aroma that waft up from the diaper could only be likened to a landfill. “Give me the wipes,” Kendall ordered, while trying not to breath through her nose.

  Even Ember seemed to laugh at her as she wiped the soiled little bottom. After powdering the little rear, Kendall replaced the soiled diaper with a fresh one and smiled at her accomplishment. Ember was no longer squalling or smelling like a miniature red-haired skunk. She turned to Flame so he could share in her newfound abilities, only to come face to face...well face to bottom with a soiled Spark.

  “Oh, no, buddy. You’re on your own with this one. I’ve done my tour of duty.”

  Flame looked at Kendall with pleading eyes, to no avail. Spark’s little mess was all his. Flame paled a little more, but gamely laid out Spark’s changing pad. Copying Kendall's actions, he soon had his son quiet and dry.

  After a small debate over who would drop the offending diapers into a nearby garbage can, the decidedly wan-looking Flame took charge of his son while Kendall began to feed the laughing Ember.

  “They‘ve grown so much in just one day!” she gushed as the little girl, after the change of diaper, again savaged the latex nipple. She looked and smelled like a little angel again. “Is that normal?”

  Now that the babies weren’t squalling their little heads off, they again resembled little red-haired cherubs. She turned to the silent giant beside her, a smile on her lips.

  “In ways of growth, yes. But my children are very small.” He looked distracted, but not by the laughing children running in the play area or by the groups of adults eating, talking and generally enjoying the warm summer weather.

  “Small?” she gaped, looking back and forth between the children. “They weigh at least seven pounds each!”

  Flame managed to muster up a small grin. “A normal Testrios child is at least ten of your pounds at birth. Twins often weigh the same, if not a little more.”

  He looked down at his contented son who ate his meal with the same hunger, if not the same enthusiasm shown by his sister. “They are a little premature, Mistress.”

  “How premature?” Kendall knew the dangers that befell many premature babies. The thought of underdeveloped lungs alone in her little charges caused her to shudder. But they seemed to be all right, a perfect ten on the Apgar Scale, the scale for determining the health of a newborn, since birth.

  “Three of your months, Mistress.”

  “Three months! Holy cow! How long do you guys carry a baby anyway?” These two seemed to be perfectly developed children, if not a trifle advanced for their ages. No newborn on Earth would be able to giggle, let alone give those little smiles that they seemed so fond of giving.

  “We are altered to gestate over a twelve month period.”

  Ouch! Kendall winced in sympathy. It seemed hard enough for a woman to go nine months with a full load, let alone twelve months carrying that enormous weight.

  “You said ‘altered’ once before. What exactly does that mean? If you guys aren’t natural baby factories, how can your bodies be altered to enable you to carry a child?”

  Flame stared down at his son, a tortured look on his face. “The pain I endured will not be repeated for Spark.”

  Kendall decided to change the subject. Flame didn’t look good at all and she wanted no undo stress on her new...friend? Yes, friend. That was a good safe way to describe this man. He was her
friend. Her extremely attractive and masculine friend, but friend never-the-less.

  She didn’t know when she had decided he was a friend, but it probably had something to do with the way he’d defended her against Richard. No one had ever stood up for her like that. In fact, she was always championing other people’s causes. She was a regular White Knight. No one had to charge to her rescue because she was the one who did all the charging.

  “It’s a lovely day. I’m glad the weather is holding. Baltimore weather is so unpredictable, and that’s one of our more endearing traits. One minute it’s sunny, the next it’s pouring rain.” She continued, knowing that she was babbling, but didn’t stop speaking. “Sunshine is always good for the babies, you know. You never know when it’s going to get cloudy, so you had better enjoy it while it lasts.” Kendall smiled as she breathed in fresh air and listened to the birds chirping in the trees, before looking back at Flame.

  She rambled on, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. Flame wasn’t answering any of her questions and he was beginning to look worse than he did a moment ago. Maybe his adventures in driving weren’t the real cause of his recent loss of color.

  “The cabin where we are going to has every available comfort for us to enjoy while we’re there, a fully stocked kitchen and a Jacuzzi bath in the bedroom. Plus with this weather, the flowers will be in full bloom outside in the forest. It’s got to be a beautiful place with the leaves beginning to turn and the animals scurrying around.”

  Placing the now empty bottle on the table beside her, she positioned the sleepy girl on her shoulder and patted her back until she was rewarded with a tiny burp. Smiling, she inhaled the smell of new skin and baby powder. It was a combination that brought a yearning to her heart and almost a tear to her eye.

  Blinking back the moisture, she turned to Flame just in time to see him pale and began to shake.

  “What is it? What's wrong?” she demanded as she placed Ember in her portable car seat and reached for Spark. These sudden surprises had her nerves shot. She didn’t know what to expect next.