Candidate (Selected Book 4)

by Robin Roseau

  "What?" I screamed. "Leave human space? Do you live back on the Whiteblack homeworld?"

  "No, no, that is much too far."

  "Where? Tell me where!"

  "It is another star. It is near, but traveling between the stars is difficult. We harvest the asteroids for fuel so we could come back. When we got here, we heard about you."

  I looked back and forth between them. "How far?" I asked in a cold voice. "We're talking another star. That means light years. I did research. The nearest star is over four light years away, and you said it's not that one. Saturn is a billion kilometers, and that's an incomprehensible distance to me. But you're taking me a thousand times as far. Ten thousand, twenty thousand, fifty thousand times as far."

  I jumped to my feet, pulling away from them. "Do you go into some sort of cryosleep?" I asked. "It takes years. Decades."

  "No. Not that long," Jaguar said. "But it is difficult, so we cannot come back soon."

  "How soon? Next year? Five years? Five decades?"

  They stared and didn't answer. "That means never! Never! I'll never see my parents again. They'll never see me. It will be like we're dead to each other. How can you do this to me? I told you that first night how close I was with my parents. The space station. Okay. The space station is bad, but I could talk to them, and I could get promises to be allowed to come home. Jasmine told me that once. Not often, maybe not even every year. But not never!"

  "We left our parents," they said quietly. "To come here. We left our families and our people to come here. To... to do the things that must happen here. And humans leave their families. It wasn't that long ago when humans would move across America. It would take months. People died during the travel. They certainly didn't expect to ever go back. They left their families."

  "You're talking two hundred years ago! Chances are their parents were dead. Women died in childbirth all the time. They left to make a better life. Well, I like my life here! And I'm not leaving my parents!"

  And then I ran for the exit, sobbing, yanking the visor on as I ran, nearly slamming into the door until it opened, the visor now locked to my face. Jaguar and Harp ran after me, but I dashed away from them, sobbing, running.

  I didn't even care I wasn't wearing a stitch.

  I trigged the emergency signal on the visor. Jasmine appeared a half second later.

  "Where are you?" I cried "Where are you? Where are you?"

  "Follow the lights, Andromeda," she said calmly.

  And so I ran, Jaguar and Harp calling after me. Except they weren't chasing me. I could feel them calling. It felt like it had earlier.

  But this time I ran away from them.

  Jasmine waited for me in her apartment, and she had a robe open to me when I burst in. She wrapped me in it, then pulled me into her embrace. "How could you do this to me? How could you?"

  "Let's sit at the table," she said.

  "You did this to me. You're making me decide not just between them and Charoite, but between them and my parents!"

  "They were supposed to tell you at the beginning," Jasmine said. "They told me they would tell you."

  I pulled away but moved to the table and plopped on a chair and buried my face in my hands.

  She let me cry, and then I could feel my triangle moving closer. They were still trying to call to me, but I stayed where I was. And then they were there.

  Jasmine met them at the door, and when I looked up, her tentacles were waving wildly. "You didn't tell her," she said. "When were you going to tell her? When you were already two light years away? Oh, by the way, you'll never see your parents again."

  "We don't understand," Jaguar said. "We are a triangle. We are replacing her relationship with all others."

  "Like hell you are!" I screamed.

  "We do not understand," Harp said. "We feel the triangle. We feel her grief. We have a triangle. She no longer has a triangle with her parents."

  "I don't know what you're talking about, but if you are making me pick between you or my parents, I'm picking my parents. You can just go off to Alpha Whateverthefuck without me."

  "We do not understand," Jaguar said again.

  Jasmine said, "Let us talk about it."

  "There's nothing to talk about," I said.

  But she led them in. They tried to go around the table to me, but I scrambled out of the chair and kept the table between us. "And you stay away from me, too!" I said, pointing at Jasmine. "This is your fault!"

  "You two sit there," Jasmine said. "Andromeda, sit here. Now." She pointed to a chair.

  "No."

  "Sit here, now!" She barked.

  "You keep your tentacles to yourself."

  "I won't touch you," she said. "Sit."

  I sat, but I glared at all of them. My heart was breaking, again. I was tired of this.

  Jasmine stepped away. When she returned, she had paper. I hadn't seen paper since arriving. But she had paper and a variety of pencils. She sat.

  "Jasmine Brighteyes, we do not understand," Jaguar said. "The triangle has formed. The bond with her parents should be ending."

  "It doesn't work that way!" I said.

  "Of course it does," said Harp. "Perhaps you don't feel it yet. That's all."

  "Andromeda," said Jasmine. "Let me handle this."

  She sat down and pushed the paper and pencils across the table. "Draw the triangle that Andromeda shares with her parents."

  "That triangle is replaced."

  "Draw the old triangle," Jasmine said.

  Harp took the paper. She selected pencils and drew a simple triangle with colored in circles at the vertices. "We do not have symbols."

  "Use M for Mom," I said, "D for Dad, and A for Andromeda."

  And so she labeled the vertices. She gave the paper to Jasmine.

  "Now draw the triangle you intend to share with Andromeda."

  Harp said nothing. She drew a similar triangle, but she used different colors. She used symbols for her and Jaguar, aliens symbols, but the A for me.

  Jasmine took it from her. "This is the only triangle either of you would have."

  "Of course. You can only be part of one triangle."

  Jasmine tapped the other triangle. "This is a Whiteblack triangle. Humans do not have the same sort of triangle. But they have their own. This is what you thought she felt." She tapped the other paper. "This is what you believe she feels now, and this old triangle is gone."

  "There may be a ghost," Jaguar said. "Once we solidify the triangle, the old one is gone."

  I shook my head.

  "That is not how human emotions work," Jasmine said. "This is what you are asking Andromeda to do." Then she drew a second triangle tied to the first, and so there were two triangles, one with me, Jaguar, and Harp, and a second one with me, Mom, and Dad.

  "No, no," said Harp. "This triangle fades. It should already be gone, but perhaps it lingers. It will fade."

  "No it won't!" I said. "You think I can stop loving my parents? Are you insane?"

  "This is Andromeda now," Jasmine said. "She feels both of you. Her triangle with her parents is not like her triangle with you. And so they both exist at the same time. But you are asking her to do this." And then she took the paper and tore it, ripping the portion with my parents away. I saw that, stared, and began sobbing.

  I hate crying.

  "Can't you stay?" I asked. "Please. I'll go to Saturn with you. Or the asteroids here. Or Mars. Or even further, but can't we stay close enough to visit? Can't we stay close enough to talk? Don't make me dead to them. You can't do that! Jasmine, you can't make me go with them. That would be as bad as giving me to a male."

  "Maybe not as bad, but I understand, Andromeda."

  "But..." Harp looked at the paper. Jaguar looked at me.

  And then I felt their grief slamming into me, and I was filled with such deep pain, I doubled over.

  "One triangle must break," Jaguar said, her voice rough. "How do we break the other triangle?"

  "You can't
! You're asking me to choose between you. And I choose my parents. Do you hear me? I choose my parents!"

  Then I doubled again with a new wave of grief.

  "It hurts," I said. "It hurts! Make it stop hurting."

  "We must break the triangle," Harp said. "It is fragile. We can break it." She stood, and Jaguar stood, and they moved around the table towards me. I scrambled to my feet, intending to run away, but Jasmine was there, and she caught me.

  "Let me go! Don't let them touch me." I struggled with her.

  "Andromeda," she said firmly. "You must decide."

  "My parents! I'll go to Saturn, but I'm not going to another star unless they can promise we'll come back every year."

  "We cannot," Harp said. "We wouldn't be back for a decade at the soonest. Three or four is more likely."

  "They'll be dead! They're in their fifties. They could have heart attacks next week."

  "Andromeda," Jasmine said. "I'm sorry." She nodded to Harp and Jaguar.

  Jaguar stepped forward. "Andromeda, please think about what you are giving up."

  "You should have told me," I said. "You should have told me!"

  She nodded. "Yes. Jasmine Brighteyes told us to tell you. We didn't think you would accept the process if you knew. We weren't sure it would work, but if it was going to work at all, it would be with you. You have given us a gift. We know we can form a triangle with a human. This is a great gift of knowledge." She looked down for a moment. "If you wish to break the triangle, we must deliberately hurt each other."

  "You already did that part."

  "We did not deliberately hurt you," said Harp. "We didn't want to hurt you."

  I looked down at the floor. "I don't want to hurt you. I just want to stop hurting. Can't you stay?"

  "We wish we could," said Jaguar. "We really do. We cannot explain. It is not allowed. We are very sorry, Andromeda. You must hurt us. If you do not, the triangle will tighten, and you won't be able to resist the next time we call. And we won't be able to leave you. You must hurt us."

  "I don't want to hurt you!"

  "You must," said Harp. She stepped closer. "You must hit me as hard as you can. You must try to hurt me."

  "I'll break my hand."

  "Hit me somewhere soft," Harp said. "Here." She pointed to her stomach. "As hard as you can. You must hurt me. I hid this from you. You must hate me."

  "I love you!" I screamed. "You made me love you, but you want to take me from my parents."

  "Hit me, Andromeda. Hit me, or by tomorrow, you will be crawling to us, the pain will be so intense. And we will all leave together. You must decide. Hit me, and then hit Jaguar. And then we must hit you."

  "You'll kill me."

  "No, but you will know this time we hurt you deliberately."

  "There has to be another way. Please. We're all smart people. There has to be another way."

  "There isn't." And then she reached out and slapped me. She slapped me so hard my head rocked back. I cried out, and then I wound up and hit her back. Then Jaguar hit me on the other side. And I threw myself at her.

  Jasmine had to pull me off of Jaguar.

  And then... I screamed with the pain before collapsing.

  Grief

  I was in and out of consciousness for two days. The world moved on without me, as the world does, but I was oblivious to events around me. But then I woke. I was in bed in my cell. Jasmine was sitting beside me, staring into space. I stirred, and she lowered her gaze to me.

  "Are you with us now?"

  "They're gone, aren't they?" I asked.

  "Yes."

  "Oh god, Jasmine. I loved them so much. I could feel them. I could feel them! I can't feel them anymore. Oh god. Oh god." I buried my face in my hands and began shuddering.

  She moved onto the bed and wrapped around me. She held me while I sobbed. She held me for a long time, wrapped around me as I clutched at her. But slowly I calmed down, staring ahead, feeling dead.

  "I'm sorry," she said softly. "Andromeda, I didn't think it would work. They wanted you, but even how you felt about Charoite, we had to give them the chance. I can't tell you how sorry I am."

  "They should have told me everything," I said quietly. "They were duplicitous."

  "I agree," Jasmine said.

  "The gifts they gave me," I started to say.

  "Were gifts," she said. "They want you to keep them."

  "Will you take care of them for me?" I asked. "At least for a while. I don't want to look at them."

  "Of course."

  I paused a moment then asked, "Does Charo know? I'm not ready to see her."

  "She knows."

  "Does she hate me?"

  "No. She asked to come. I told her to wait."

  "Tell me Charo doesn't live two stars away."

  "She's at the space station most of the time with her mother."

  I nodded. "I need some time. I can't go from that to her arms. I feel like a big, fat cheater."

  "You don't control the situation, Andromeda. I do."

  * * * *

  I returned to work the next day. People were gentle with me, but I had events to run.

  Charo's version of waiting didn't exactly correspond to mine. I needed a week or two. I got two days. She came to me in my cell late that night, sliding into my bed with me. "You're moving up in the world," she said.

  "Hey," I said quietly.

  "Jasmine told me what happened."

  "I know."

  "She also told me you feel like you cheated on me."

  I rolled away from here, staring at the world. "I did," I said quietly. Charo moved against my back, sliding one arm underneath my head, the other around my shoulder before pressing against me tightly, spooning me.

  "You had no choice in events," she said. "Please don't push me away, Andromeda. I want you." She pulled on my shoulder, and I let her pull me onto my back. Then she pulled on my chin until I was facing her. A moment later the visor went black, and she pulled it from my face, setting it aside. We looked into each other's eyes.

  Charo caressed my face. I didn't try pulling her away, but my heart was in my throat.

  "I want you," she repeated, speaking gently. "I think we would be good together. Unless you send me away, I intend to stay while we each make sure. Will you please let me stay?"

  I looked into her eyes then captured her hand and kissed the fingers. "I don't even know what to apologize for."

  "You apologize for nothing. You ask me to kiss you, and we move forward from here."

  "Please kiss me, Charoite."

  And she did.

  * * * *

  We worked together the next day. Afterwards, Jasmine invited us for dinner and Boardwalk. Bay had an event that was running much longer than expected. The mating candidate was doing a good job hiding from her challenger, and Jasmine told him, "If she's doing a good job, let her win. She's got two more to go." Cedar volunteered to stay with him to keep him company, but he told her to go along with the rest of us.

  So there were five of us: Jasmine, Cedar, Clover, Charoite, and me. We had a nice dinner, but I was surprised how the game went.

  Everyone helped me capture the Kitsune. When she realized what they were doing, she squeaked, and it wasn't her amused squeak, either. She wasn't entirely gracious about it when she moved to share my cushion, but then she cuddled in.

  "This is more like it," I said. "I was wondering what it would take until I had the upper hand with you."

  "It took a human, two Catseye, and a Loris," she said. "I should be flattered."

  "We both know it only took two Catseye and a Loris because the human is so incompetent. They could have captured you far more easily, but giving you to me was the hard part."

  It took her a few minutes, and I teased her a little. But soon she was flirting up a storm with me and teasing back. And then she began trying to tell me how to play.

  "Who is the vassal?"

  "I am only giving you advice," she said. "And I'm not a vas
sal. That's the Catseye term."

  "You're in a Catseye household," Jasmine said. "Vassal."

  Everyone else laughed.

  "Fine. I'm your vassal. But it is my duty to give you advice."

  "We are strengthening our position," I said.

  "That's not how you win."

  "It depends on the definition of winning."

  "There's only one definition."

  "That's not true. I don't want anyone taking you from me. We are winning or losing together."

  "Well, we're going to lose together."

  "Yes. We'll do it together."

  "But-" She put on a mutinous expression. "Maybe if you kiss me, I won't mind losing."

  I smiled and took my time about it. Once we were paying attention to the game again, Cedar said, "You two are good together."

  We did indeed lose together, but it was together, and when Clover removed us from play, she didn't insist we separate. The warm Kitsune felt good, and it felt even better when I let her take me to her apartment.

  I spent the night cuddled together with her. She didn't seduce me, but if she'd tried, I would have let her.

  She did it the next night instead.

  * * * *

  Afterwards, we lay together. "Thank you," I whispered.

  "That was nice," she said.

  "Just nice."

  "Nice is good. They can't always be earthshaking. Nice is good. Nice is how you settle in for the long haul. And it was together. That makes it special."

  "Yeah," I said. "I liked that part."

  We dozed a little bit, but she was restless, so finally I asked if she wanted to get up for a while and play a game or something. "You could tell me what you've been doing the last few weeks."

  "I'd like that," she said.

  So we climbed from bed. She gave me a robe, collected one for herself, and we moved to the living room. Then cuddled together, I asked, "So, where did you go?"

  "I've been talking to more of the team at NASA. I grabbed a group and we went over to Geneva to hang with some of the engineers from the European Space Center. I tried to convince them what I wanted to do was safe, and then we discussed the other choices."

  "Can you explain it in terms I might understand without a degree in astrophysics?"

  "Yes. You know I want to colonize nearby space."