by Lea Daley
“But could I, Aimée? Ever since I woke up here, I haven’t been able to…you know this! I haven’t been myself…sexually…” She was twinkling at me. And why not? I sounded idiotic.
“You wish to know whether you can experience physical pleasure again.”
“Yes! Please!”
She bowed deeply. “It can be arranged.”
“Then I want it! I own it! They had no right to take it from me!”
“Did you read the fine print, Leslie-ahn?”
Oh, god. A weakness of mine. There was endless paperwork to sign before they chilled me down. And had I truly believed I’d be revived one day? Or had I simply been seeking an easier death? “Aimée? Are you saying that I gave them permission?”
She laughed out loud, such a rare and beautiful sound on Jashari. “I am teasing, Leslie-ahn.”
I sat on the edge of my bed, then pulled her onto my lap. “Sweetheart, if you don’t explain this, I’ll shake you till your bits and bytes rattle!”
Aimée grinned. “This is one way the Elders attempted to outwit parts of the prediction related to Returnees. No sex means no children. Which means no fated meeting of child and prophesied change agent.”
“God! I should have figured that out!”
“Also, Leslie-ahn, sexuality is very difficult to control. Ordinary people may do extraordinarily strange things in the heat of erotic feeling. Imagine how fearful the passions of Les Incurables would seem to proper Jasharians—especially the urges of a deviant like yourself!”
“If they considered me deviant before,” I growled, “what will they think when I make love to their VTO?”
“I will not tell them. Will you?”
“When would I have the chance?”
“An excellent point, but you do not wish to dwell on this.”
“No.” Touching my mind to hers, I said, Tonight I wish to dwell on you…And beside you…And within you…as if we had all eternity.
Then let us have some wine, Leslie-ahn. I am eager to experience it.
I placed the roses on my nightstand. Their petals were satin, their perfume the very scent of seduction. Then I slipped that bottle from its paper sack. It was endowed with every detail I remembered, from thick gold foil over real cork to the deep dimple on its bottom. The wine was Californian, bottled decades before I fell away from Earth. A favorite of mine, the staple of a zillion celebrations. I rolled cool green glass between my palms, remembering all the absent friends who’d shared that vintage with me. Then I thrust melancholy aside. “What? No corkscrew? No crystal goblets?”
But, of course, there were both. And a vase for the roses. Aimée pulled those fragile vessels from a cabinet as if I’d stumbled blindly past them for months. So I poured the pale, aromatic liquid and taught my darling the rituals of wine and lovers until we were both mellow and yearning. I wanted—desperately wanted—to touch her. But I was so damned afraid.
“You do not have to do this, Leslie-ahn. I know you are uncomfortable.”
I looked at my hands, which had never failed me back home. “I couldn’t bear for this to go wrong, Aimée.”
“You would call it a piece of cake, love. There is simply a mental block I can override if you choose. Remember? I did it once before?”
Of course I remembered. I’d relived that kiss in a million midnight fantasies. This time I wouldn’t push her away. “You know my answer.”
Aimée lifted her face, offering soft lips. She was the dearest thing on this world and I adored her. But I felt nothing of the fire I’d known before. When I started to pull back, she held me close, twining her fingers in my hair, tracing my lower lip with her tongue, speaking directly to my mind. Relax, Leslie-ahn. Every capacity has been reactivated, every sensation restored. Forever. And suddenly I was warm, then warmer, superheated, melting! I sobbed with relief.
Easy, darling. All is well.
It was. I was. For a long moment I just held her, letting myself feel that I was feeling. But Aimée was uncharacteristically impatient. “I like this kissing thing. Can we do it again?”
We could indeed. I approached the task with enthusiasm. She might have the advantage of clairvoyance, but I had long practice on my side. There was an innocent sweetness to those first kisses, and I remembered Aimée was that rarest of beings, a virgin of sorts. In the beginning, I returned each caress with restraint. Then I found I could make her arch and shudder in my arms. And when she moaned, the sound shivered through my core.
There were odd moments of accommodation, of course, things we’d laugh at later. If only we were going to have a later. The question of clothing, for instance. Aimée was nude to my touch. I could feel her body, with all its delicacy of design and stunning strength. But she was clothed to the eye and I had no practice undressing anyone but myself here.
“Aimée—I want to see you! All of you!”
She drew back and knelt on the sheets. Fixed amber eyes on my face. Watched me watch her as she slowly dissolved her gown. The neckline crept lower. The hem higher. More and more warm-toned flesh appeared.
I bent to kiss her shoulder and when I raised my head all suggestion of clothing was gone. Aimée fell backward on fresh linen and lay motionless, allowing me study her. The gentle rise of her breasts. That slender waist. Sleek thighs, sheltering her deepest secret. Then, so yielding, so open. When I cupped one hand over silken darkness, I thought I might die of ecstasy. She smelled intoxicatingly musky and—like everything alive—she was wet inside. If Aimée wasn’t fully human, neither was I. But she was a demanding lover. “You are still dressed, Leslie-ahn.” And so I was, at least by Jashrine standards. I slid off the bed, willing my clothes to slip and part, revealing my own fervent body, little by little. If she could do a striptease, so could I.
Still, I was self-conscious, wondering how Aimée felt, what might please her. Wondering what her astonishing body was capable of. Wondering whether my own could match it. Soon, though, I was immersed in pure, mindless, holy sensation. No words were necessary, hardly even thoughts. My skin, itself, sang to her. She curved into me and all boundaries evaporated. Aimée cried a bit when she came—from surprise, perhaps, and regret. I cried too—from relief, from joy. For tonight, at least, I was myself entire.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Do you know the impotence of the outcast? Do you know the rage and sorrow of confronting that which can neither be influenced nor altered? Do you know the mortal pain of a freshly broken heart? These were Jashari’s parting gifts to me.
Aimée and I made love throughout that fateful night and cursed the twin suns when they appeared, much too soon, in the morning sky. There was only a little talk left between us, only one thing I needed to know. “What happens now, Aimée? Where will you go? What will you do?”
“I am not certain, my love. I think I am a dilemma for my creators. I am…perhaps I have become…more than they intended. If I were an earlier…model…I would simply have been…hmmmm…melted down? remaindered? sold for scrap? stripped for parts?”
I flinched. “But now?”
“They will have to decide. I am the first of my kind. Creating me was very costly.”
“Wait! You told me you were a VTO. But really, you’re the VTO?”
“I am the only one of this generation.” A tear slipped unnoticed from the fringe of her lashes. “After my performance is assessed, there may never be another.” Drawing Aimée close, I held her, rocked her in my arms. But after that we scarcely spoke. What was there to say?
We abandoned our bed with the greatest reluctance. Speechless, I pressed a few keepsakes into Aimée’s hands. Serenghi’s book. The whimsical painting I’d made as a Christmas gift—my beloved portrayed as a multifaceted goddess. How long ago that seemed! Before Belladonna was stolen. Before Bahji was iced. Before I’d made my fatal commitment. “Open this later, Aimée,” I whispered. “When you’re alone.”
After one last, lingering kiss, I sent her away. Had she stayed, I might have lost my nerve. At loo
se ends, I drank some tea. Considered eating, but that seemed pointless. My courtyard beckoned one last time. There I watched the suns soar higher. Watched shadows converge then intersect, lacing the garden into a grid of light and dark. I listened to water rise and splash in my fountain. Drew air deep into my lungs and forced it out again, the simplest act suddenly so precious. The promise I’d made was bitter on my tongue, but I’d honor it. For Bahji. For Taylor. When terror gripped me, I quelled it by visualizing the child’s ecstatic reunion with her mother.
As the appointed hour approached, I carried my tea bowl inside and set it gently in place. I walked through both chambers of my apartment, fingering the artifacts of my brief, anomalous life on Jashari. This time I owned nothing at all, could take nothing with me. I wondered what would happen to my archaic little collection of possessions.
Finally I began to dress for the ceremony, which the Council had tastefully labeled my divestiture. I considered wearing the tattered painters pants and lavender T-shirt, but knew that symbolism would be lost on almost everyone. Instead, since the moment was dramatic—historic even—I played it to the hilt. Black becomes me, makes my hair blaze brighter, my eyes go emerald. A simple tunic dropped from shoulder to ankle and slit over knee-high boots of supple ebony leather. A dark cape, lined with the hushed green of pine forests, draped my back. Since the locals had supposed me royalty of a sort, I bound my forehead with an ephemeral crown. Just a twist of precious metals, studded with tiny stars. If they remembered nothing else, they’d remember I looked regal this day.
I’d barely finished dressing when escorts appeared to lead me to the High Council Hall, a structure I’d never seen. I let my mind slip away and noticed nothing on the journey. What use had I now for a mental map of Jashari? I was eerily calm by the time the guards ushered me through a wide corridor, then bowed me into the Hall.
There were no soaring columns in that place, no flaming torches, no heraldic banners stirring in ominous shadow. So why did it feel like a medieval throne room? Perhaps because the Council was convened on a dais, the Elders’ faces still and solemn. Perhaps because Chastity Whitehall stood so near them, clad in silver and dissemblance. Perhaps because my very life hung on a single well-chosen word.
Taylor Hemingway was almost within reach, straight as an arrow, taut as a bow. Resolutely refusing to acknowledge her former lover. I hadn’t seen Taylor since I told her my decision. She was pale and gaunt, her scar a living thing, restless and revealing. I knew what animated it: apprehension warring with anticipation. She shot a glance my way, laden with guilt and gratitude. Soon Bahji would enter this chamber through a distant archway. Then she’d take her rightful place at Taylor’s side. Whatever failures were mine, at least I’d accomplished that.
A multitude had assembled to observe my final hour. Every Jasharian dressed in pale, flowing garments. Each facing forward with military precision, seeming to shrink from small clusters of Returnees. My compatriots. Whose parti-colored garb and restlessness were so foreign in that becalmed sea of white.
The hall was hushed, as if the universe held its breath to bursting point. I ached to shatter the silence with some unthinkable act, some startling display, some Earthly outrageousness. I didn’t belong here. Had never belonged here. Would never belong on Jashari. But neither did I yearn to leave this place. For beyond, a cold, cold corridor awaited. Soon I’d step onto that path, accepting oblivion, this time without the slightest hope of reprieve.
My eyes found Aimée in the crowd. She seemed to stand apart from all others, as if her hair were glossier, her flesh rosier, her attire a shifting, iridescent aura.
Steady, Leslie-ahn.
I’m ready. I can do this.
I know, my love. And I am awed by your valor.
Courage has nothing to do with it—there’s simply no other choice.
Others would have seen numerous options, Leslie-ahn, each one self-serving and ignoble. Yours is a high and honorable act. It will live forever in the annals of Jashari. Then—barely above a whisper, even in my mind—As you will live in my heart.
Any observer would wonder at my sudden, brilliant smile, so out of keeping with this somber occasion. I love you, Aimée. Take care of Bahji and Taylor. I—”
But N’yal Di’loth had risen to greet the assembly. He spoke in High Jashrine, the dialect of rules and ritual. Rebelliously, I translated those majestic phrases into English, framing responses in my native tongue. If the audience couldn’t follow these proceedings, I cared not. I’d speak without artificial constraints, using my own vernacular to convey passionate emotion and forbidden beliefs.
The interrogation began. “Leslie Alana Burke, Returnee, pretender to the mantle of Li’shayla Mar-Né, do you appear before this assembly of your own free will?”
Influenced perhaps by his cadence, my speech took on a formal quality. “I appear of my own free will, Honorable Sir.”
“What brings you before us?”
“I wish to petition the Council on a matter of vital import.”
“Are you represented this day by any other entity?”
“I am not, Honorable Sir. My plea will be witnessed by my freely chosen family.”
“Do you lay claim to the title Li’shayla Mar-Né?”
“In truth,” I declared in a ringing voice, “the title claimed me.” A murmur wove through the crowd, a hive of bees fanning its wings with alarm. And in that moment I was the one foretold, the irresistible force that could not be undone. Dark destiny pounded through me and I was rocked by the thunder of worlds split apart.
N’yal Di’loth silenced the audience with the barest gesture. “Are you now prepared to present your petition to the Council?”
“I am so prepared, Honorable Sir.”
“We are mindful that these are your last words and listen with absolute attention. Speak then, Returnee.”
Casting my words to reach the farthest recesses, I said, “I will preface my appeal with brief remarks. If they seem alien, I beg the assembly’s indulgence. For I am an Incurable, an exile, truly a stranger in a strange land…
“Nothing is more perfect, more filled with promise than a child. Nothing is more worthy of regard and protection. Nothing is more vulnerable to abuse. Jashari boasts many beautiful children. I have observed their grace, noted their unquestioning obedience, admired their flawless comportment. And I have felt your rightful pride.
“But here one child transcends all others. One makes the heart leap with pure, involuntary delight. One is the essence of all that youth should be: eager, daring, intelligent, curious, affectionate and alive. Yet this one also embodies Jashari’s ancient values: sensitivity, concern, commitment to community.
“Like every child, she is precious. But most importantly, she is unique. For she is a child of both Earth and Jashari, a marvelous blend of both cultures. A symbol of what might yet be on your planet. I exhort you to examine her past. I urge you to model your future on her present. She has much to teach about being fully human. I appear before you on behalf of that cause.
“Hear then my petition: I, Leslie Alana Burke, citizen of Earth, now Li’shayla Mar-Né, request the release of Bahran’aji Hemingway, sole child of Taylor Hemingway, Returnee. I entreat you to restore her now and forever to freedom, and to the undisputed care of her mother, until such time as she reaches her majority. To achieve these ends, and to secure the Harmony of the Whole, I extend an offering of consequence.” Here I paused and bowed deeply, well-coached by Aimée.
N’yal Di’loth stepped forward. “Your petition is entered into record in the presence of the Council and this assembly. What do you proffer in exchange for the child’s liberty?”
The question was mere stagecraft. Schooled by Chastity, the Elders had dictated the terms of Bahji’s discharge—and the price was everything I had. I lifted my chin to recite an ancient pledge: “I offer my life, my fortune and my sacred honor.”
N’yal Di’loth turned his gaze on ten thousand rigid witnesses. “Fo
r the sake of the Harmonious Whole, what sayeth this Council?”
Behind him, the Elders rose, bowing unanimous assent.
I was nearing my final moments of consciousness. After one glimpse of Bahji’s bright face, I’d be led away. Taken to the Medical Reception Station. Prepared for deep sleep. There I’d orbit Jashari, without hope of clemency or remission, for infinity. That was the agreement—the cost of Bahji’s freedom.
I hardly heard what came next. It was all a fraud, prescribed words, prescribed gestures. In a swirl of Jashrine script, I signed the documents that stripped away my wealth. I signed the documents that severed me from the future.
Taylor and I stood side by side now, bent under the weight of the moment, tension building to intolerable heights. When a sound behind us caught my attention, I turned. A door had opened—the only door I’d seen on Jashari. A dim corridor loomed beyond, preparing to swallow me.
Then Hemingway gasped, and I whirled around. Saw Bahji in the distance, saw her once again. At the far end of the Council Hall. Headed toward her mother. Gliding at a stately pace worthy of any Jashrine youth, but picking up speed. Any second now, she might break into a run, child of Earth that she was.
Her smile was luminous, her huge eyes glowed. Celebratory flowers crowned her hair. Her knees, if still scarred, were concealed by a longer dress than any I’d known her to wear. Only Belladonna—a vivid black accent against the gauzy white gown—undermined that proper image. Taylor’s arms rose slowly, reaching toward her daughter, still thirty feet away.
Someone tapped me from behind then. I yearned to see that instant of impact, the moment when Bahji leaped into her mother’s embrace. Yet I’d sworn an inviolable oath. Wrenching my gaze away, I bowed to my captors. Entered the interminable passageway. Pointed my feet toward the shuttleport. Despite earnest intent, my knees were balky, unbending things, my progress slow. Already I felt chilled to the bone.
Suddenly an unearthly scream pierced the air. Agonized! Mortal! Bahran’aji-ahn! I broke free, ran on legs newly adrenalized, leaving my startled guards behind. Pulse pounding, breath ragged in my throat, I burst into the High Council Hall—and into my worst nightmare.
