Contact

by Susan Grant

  Chapter Twelve

  The epitome of chilly composure, Kào appeared unaware that he was the target of Jordan’s attention; he was too mesmerized by the bustle of Town Square. “He’s early, way early. I hope we didn’t trip an alarm by hacking into the computer.”

  “Oh, he’s come around in the morning before,” Ben said, appearing out of nowhere and joining Jordan and Dillon at the computer station.

  “I never see him,” she said.

  “You’re too busy to notice. He doesn’t ask for you; he stays in the doorway, watching us, like he’s doing now.”

  Their eyes shifted to Kào.

  “Check out those eyes,” Ben muttered. “It’s like he’s sizing us up to sell on the market.”

  Dillon stopped typing. “What market?”

  “The human market. I don’t know.”

  “Come on, guys,” Jordan complained. Ben was scaring himself.

  But Dillon took the ball and ran with it. “Would they intend to sell us individually or as a package deal? It would depend on the going galactic rate, I suppose. And what we’d be sold as, too. Food or slaves.”

  “Stop it,” Jordan hissed. “The last thing we need is a rumor like that turning dormant fear into panic.” Ben already looked like he was about to be sick.

  Dillon’s fingers returned to the community computer keyboard. “Is there a way to check the futures market for humans, I wonder?”

  Jordan groaned. Grabbing Ben by the arm, she tugged him toward the conference room. “You haven’t been to a single one of the meetings between Kào and me. It’s time you started attending.”

  “Right now?”

  “Now.”

  He resisted at first. Then he gave in and walked with her.

  “You’ll change your attitude once you talk to him,” she encouraged. “He’s not as intimidating as he looks.”

  “Well, forced to choose, I’d rather hang out with ol’ Attila than those two red-eyed aides. They know something that we don’t, I swear it. Those albinos . . . Something’s up, but I can’t tell what.”

  His apprehension was contagious. She girded herself against it. Unless she kept a clear head, she wouldn’t be able to sift the facts from the unfounded fears that bombarded her daily. “I respect your opinion,” she said, more softly. “Just tell me the minute you figure out what it is that’s bothering you, okay?” Or maybe Dillon would find out first.

  They passed a group of people performing Tai Chi. Others lifted makeshift weights. Men and women jogged around the perimeter of the room, and four of the five ladies Jordan spoke to earlier had heeded her suggestion to join the speed walk.

  Natalie breezed past the groups and waylaid Jordan with a new list that looked to be a mile long. “How about I handle it?” Ben offered.

  In her heart of hearts, Jordan wanted nothing to do with the list. Ben clearly wanted nothing to do with Kào. “All right. Why not?” she gave in with a sigh, exchanging glances with Natalie. “I’ll see you both at the staff meeting.”

  She turned her attention back to look at Kào. Strangely, the weight pressing down on her shoulders lifted. Relief filtered down through her body, bringing an almost-bounce to her step. All of a sudden, she felt ready for anything, even trying an unaided conversation in Key, her new tongue.

  She tucked her translator into the back pocket of her jeans and approached him. “Good day, Kào,” she said, speaking to him in his language for the first time.

  His face lit up, as much as a face as forbidding as his could brighten. She remembered her dream and endeavored not to look at his mouth. “Good day, Captain,” he responded.

  They regarded each other expectantly. Jordan was tongue-tied. Deciding what newly memorized words and phrases to use was like trying to choose a chocolate from a just-opened box of candy. “You are here,” she stated in an ill-fated attempt at witty conversation.

  A fleeting sparkle of amusement illuminated the man’s eyes. “Yes, I am. I see that you are here, as well.”

  His teasing sent an airy, happy feeling floating up through her middle. After the stomach-churning misery of the past couple of weeks, the sensation was welcome. Particularly after the most recent scare with the sighting of yet another wandering starship that in the end turned out not to be Talagarian. “I not see you here,” she tried to explain, “at morning.” She shook her head. “In the morning.”

  “Typically, you are immersed in your duties. I don’t want to interrupt you.”

  She waved her hand. “I will like.”

  His eyes gleamed. “Then I will.”

  She did just what she said she wouldn’t: She watched his mouth form each word. Were his lips as warm and soft as they were in her dreams? Heat flared in her cheeks and warmed her lower belly. Now she was tongue-tied for a different reason.

  “Captain Cady.” An elderly Hawaiian couple approached. Neither was over five feet tall, but their eyes glowed with feisty strength. Jordan had assumed that Kào’s presence would keep most people at bay, giving her a bit of a break. Apparently not.

  “The senior citizens of United Fifty-eight would like to start an afternoon bridge club,” the woman announced.

  Jordan wondered if she’d be expected to approve every activity, no matter how inconsequential. “I’m all for anything to help ease stress,” she said.

  The couple nodded eagerly, thanking her. Behind them was yet another pair of passengers, two women, their faces drawn with irritation. Jordan recognized one of them as the lady who’d started the deluge of roommate-swapping requests the night they’d arrived. The other woman could be her twin, and perhaps was. Jordan smiled. “How are the sleeping arrangements working out?”

  “Not good. She doesn’t want Sherri in our bed group. I do.”

  “Sherri?” Who the heck was Sherri?

  “I didn’t say I wanted her to leave,” the sister argued. “But she has to toe the line. She has to try to get along.”

  The first women rolled her eyes. “Try heeding a little of your own advice, Lee, and maybe we’ll get somewhere.”

  The verbal jabs flew back and forth. “Hold it!” Jordan’s hand flew up. The women shifted their attention to her. “Wasn’t this already brought up to the flight attendant in charge of your sleeping area?” It sure sounded familiar. But Ben and the other flight attendants were charged with keeping tabs on the many squabbles. Jordan hadn’t the time to keep up with them all.

  Lee answered sullenly. “Yes, it was.”

  “Then it’ll be taken care of. That’s your supervisory flight attendant’s job.”

  “Today?” Lee’s twin ventured.

  “Yes.” Jordan tried hard to keep her voice even. Patient. Understanding. Calm.

  The sisters exchanged glances, then they nodded what Jordan interpreted as their thanks and stalked away.

  Jordan glanced apologetically at Kào, giving him a shrug that said: “It’s not always this bad.” She couldn’t afford to have it get back to the commodore that her reins of command were slipping. She might not like the job of leader, but she liked the idea of a stranger in her position even less.

  The Darth Vader-shooting boy named Christopher skidded past, his feet slipping on the smooth flooring.

  “Come back, Christopher!” Katie, the little girl Jordan had seen earlier with her nutrition-concerned mother, chased after him. “I want to play with you!”

  Kào’s black eyes sparkled and, incredibly, a dimple appeared in his right cheek.

  A dimple! Who would have guessed? Steel on the outside, marshmallow on the inside. That’s how her mother would have described this man.

  The children skidded and stumbled around their legs. “They’re so active,” Kào observed. He reached out to tousle Christopher’s hair. The boy shrieked in surprised delight. “Darth Vader” had touched him.

  The dent in Kào’s left cheek deepened. “You like children,” Jordan commented with some surprise.

  “I know nothing about them. Nor have I seen many—and cert
ainly none in years.”

  “Did you know that that little boy, Christopher, was the first to figure out that you were an alien?”

  “An alien?” Kào pretended to be affronted. “I’m not an alien. You are the aliens.”

  “That depends on your perspective.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Extraterrestrial would have been a better word,” she acknowledged.

  “Too many syllables for a boy his size.”

  Jordan laughed softly. He’d made her laugh, actually made her laugh when she’d wondered if she ever would again. Thank you, Kào.

  “Did you have siblings?” he asked out of the blue.

  An invisible fist punched her in the stomach. One look at Kào’s face told her he regretted the question as soon as he saw its effect on her, or maybe as soon as he’d asked it. She had the feeling he was not a man to whom light conversation came easily, or maybe any conversation at all. It touched her that he wanted to try with her.

  “I have an older brother. John. We’re very close,” she almost whispered. “He’s a big sweetie.” She could tell by Kào’s face that the colloquialism hadn’t translated. “Big sweetie—it means a ‘good guy.’ ”

  “Sweetie,” he tried in heavily accented English.

  Her smile almost returned, but her mouth wasn’t quite ready. “You and John, you’re a lot alike.”

  At that, Kào’s eyes flashed with startling pleasure. But before she could finish telling him about John, his wife and kids, his career as a fireman, his penchant for barbecues and beach volleyball, and their family traditions, hoping that some of it at least would be translatable from a cultural standpoint, the boy Christopher raced past and tripped over Kào’s boots.

  Kào tried to keep the boy from falling. But Christopher evaded his grasp, stumbled, and took off again, the girl right on his heels. Giggling, they disappeared into the crowd without looking back.

  As Jordan watched them run off, desolation unexpectedly formed a tight little ball in her chest. The children reminded her that her own baby was gone, that Boo had died in terror without her mother there to hold her. Why did there have to be kids aboard?

  She found Kào studying her. In his perceptive gaze, she felt naked, her personal misery, her guilt, laid out for him to see. “They’re your future, Jordan.”

  Again he’d answered a question she hadn’t asked aloud. She was too surprised to reply with anything but the truth. “It’s not that I don’t want them here. It’s that every time I look at them, I wish my child were here, too.”

  “That I know.”

  Three simple words: That I know. His compassion was so bluntly apparent and unadorned with ulterior motives that it was all she could do not to fall into those strong arms and cry until her tears were dried up and her voice was gone. If she wasn’t careful, his kindness would seep into the cracks in her armor. It might open the floodgates, releasing all her pent-up grief. What if she drowned in the deluge?

  She couldn’t risk finding out. Better to keep her emotions tightly sealed. Although, around Kào, that was getting harder all the time.

  His communicator rang, and she almost jumped for joy. Saved by the bell, she thought. Kào opened the device and—no surprise there—answered, “Go ahead, Trist.”

  The pair spoke rapidly in Key, too rapidly for Jordan to understand. When Kào closed the communicator, she guessed, “You have to leave.” It was with mixed feelings that she said the words. Having someone see right through you was pretty unnerving, but she didn’t exactly want him to go so soon, either.

  “Yes.” He searched her face. “Do you remember me telling you about the observation deck?”

  “It’s where you go sometimes after our meetings.”

  His voice lowered to a private tone. “I would like to show you why.”

  She hesitated.

  “It won’t take long,” he assured her. “Come with me.”

  Come with me. She read the words reeling across her translator. Inner alarms clanged in her mind. It would be crazy, going off with him alone. But wasn’t it you who just compared him to your brother? Yes, but John didn’t have numbers carved into the side of his neck. “We’re in quarantine,” she reminded him.

  “That’s what you call it. But the rules are in fact that your people cannot leave your quarters without an escort—a Savior crew member.”

  He was right. Not that anyone had yet been in the frame of mind to want to leave.

  Her attention veered to the group of people waiting for Kào to go so they could corner her. There were thirty of them at least, their eyes shining with unmet needs. She was used to ensuring others’ happiness and postponing her own. But would it be so terrible to do something for herself for once? Just for a little while?

  Nodding, she stepped toward the exit. The passengers thronged forward. “I’ll be right back to answer your questions,” she told them. She was going to treat herself. Unknowingly, they’d made that decision for her.

  She spotted Ben and Natalie staring at her. I’ll be right back, she mouthed.

  Then, without waiting to see their reactions, she held her head high and left New Earth for the first time since arriving.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Outside New Earth, Jordan peered upward to where the walkway disappeared behind what resembled silver and white scaffolding. A mistake. Vertigo made her head spin.

  “This way,” Kào said.

  To purge her dizziness, she trained her eyes on the path’s corrugated gray surface as she tried to keep pace with a man who’d grown up on starships like this one. She, on the other hand, had spent her childhood on a series of Air Force bases, with neat little houses and tree-lined streets where neighbors got together for barbecues and it was still safe for kids to ride bikes to the convenience store. Suburbia idealized. And so very different from this.

  The bottoms of her slip-ons felt sticky, forcing her to lift her legs higher to walk properly. The sensation had something to do with the ship’s artificial gravity. Gravity that wasn’t quite what she remembered from Earth.

  Kào stopped at a locker and pulled out a floor-length white jacket with a hood. The material was as light as gauze and as durable as rubber. “What’s this for?” she asked.

  “To keep curiosity at bay.”

  Fraternizing with the refugees—there must be rules against it. Or maybe the lockdown was still being taken seriously by Kào’s crew, even though it had been weeks since she’d seen guards pacing outside the door to New Earth. She shoved her arms into sleeves that were gossamer thin and pulled the hood over her head. Peering at him from under the fabric, she asked, “What would one wear this for?”

  “To help keep sterile when cleaning up debris.”

  So he’d disguised her as the janitor. She shrugged and fell in step with him.

  A short distance away stood a tube that sprouted up from the floor, disappearing into the ceiling. “A vertical transport,” Kào explained as they stepped inside.

  In other words, an alien elevator. It was clear in front, opaque in back, and inside the passenger compartment, no more than six or eight people could have stood close together.

  As the tube’s door whooshed closed, Jordan’s ears popped, and acceleration upward pressed her feet even more firmly to the floor. Kào looked so determined about taking her wherever he was taking her that for those few precious seconds she forgot her pressing sorrow and the headache of leadership, and found herself anticipating what might happen next.

  The elevator stopped smoothly and the door opened, letting them out. “The observation deck,” Kào announced.

  Jordan drew off her hood. At first, she saw nothing. Darkness disoriented her after the bright lighting in the tube. The sudden silence was equally disconcerting. It was so quiet that she could hear her breaths and Kào’s slower ones. As her eyes adjusted, she realized she was in an expansive circular room bathed in starlight.

  Stars . . .

  Stars were above and all around her, e
xcept on the floor that was soundproofed by a thick layer of carpet. A tremor ran through her. It was as if they were in a gigantic clear bubble about to lift off the top of the ship and drift away into infinity. Only her sigh of awe interrupted the silence.

  “It is where I come seeking peace,” Kào said. “And to think.”

  “I can see why,” she breathed. Although her feet were firmly planted on the carpet, she was unable to shake the sensation of floating. “It’s wonderful. Amazing. Incredible.” Better to use more than one English adjective, in case some didn’t adequately convey her awe. She was rewarded when her words translated to a glimmer of happiness in Kào’s eyes. He came here for comfort, and he’d wanted to share that joy with her.

  As her eyes adjusted further, she noticed that the stars were smeared across the heavens like shooting stars frozen in mid-fall. “I read that the stars look like this because we’re traveling in hyperspace.”

  “Yes. Greater-than-light speed makes the stars appear distorted.”

  Intellectually, the concept made her curious. Emotionally, she tried not to ponder where the ship was speeding so relentlessly: a new home about which she knew nothing. “I agree with you that this place makes you think.” She made a face. “I’m not so sure about the peace part.”

  “Wait and see.” Kào spread the fingers of his right hand and placed them against the clear barrier, all that separated them from infinity. “The farthest detectable stars are ancient. Impossibly so. They were created at the assumed birth of the known universe. Look at them and you see a snap-holo of life fifteen billion years into the past. Worlds that reached their zenith eons ago and are now extinct. One of those long-gone worlds was that of our ancestors. Yours, Jordan, and mine.”

  A shiver tingled up her backbone. “The Seeders.”

  “Yes, the Original Ones. Their purpose, their history, their triumphs are a mystery. Except for one: the sowing of their DNA across the galaxy.”

  “On Earth, we didn’t know that. But we had many different beliefs as to the origin of life. Of human beings. The scientists say that we’ve evolved from earlier forms of life. Creationists believe that God made Earth and everything on it.”