by Thomas Locke
When Elenya returned from the next walkabout, she sat down beside him and said, “Maybe you should take a pause.”
“I like that idea.” Dillon was sprawled on the floor opposite the desk. “Pausing is good.”
“Yeah, you’re a real pro at that sport,” Sean shot back.
“Think about it,” Dillon said. “You do your best thinking when you’re not thinking at all.”
Odd as it sounded, Sean had to admit, “You’ve got a point.”
Dillon raised both hands to his unseen audience. “Dillon Kirrel, problems solved, damsels rescued, dragons slayed. My specialty.”
Elenya said, “Teach me how you shoot your energy.”
“I don’t,” Sean said. “Dillon does.”
“But you feed him the energy, yes?”
It felt good to struggle over something else. “It’s like passing a ball. You get it and you hand it on, quick as it comes. It hardly touches you. You basically just guide it on.”
Elenya asked, “Can I try?”
So Dillon and Elenya played at that for a while, while Sean did what Elenya suggested. He propped his feet on the doctor’s desk and did his best to keep his mind off the problem and the ticking clock. Elenya came over eventually and settled on the desk so that she could rest one hand on his leg.
Sean asked, “So how do you see your shield?”
“There is a bird on Serena, it drinks nectar from flowers. The bird is so small.” She held up her thumb. “Smaller than this.”
Sean said, “They beat their wings so fast they look like feathered blurs.”
Dillon said, “Hummingbirds.”
“Please?”
“That’s what we call them,” Sean said. “The sound you make when you sing without words. Hum-birds.”
She looked from one brother to the other. “Truly, these birds are on your planet?”
“Sure thing,” Dillon said.
“It’s a beautiful image,” Sean said. “You grow hummingbird wings and they form your shield.”
But she had already left that behind. “I must tell my father. Other than on Lothia, there is no planetary species that . . .”
Sandrine entered the office and announced, “My shift has ended, and my replacement has arrived. It is no longer safe for you to remain.”
When they transited back to the loft, Sean was ready to give in to the exhaustion of a futile day. His shoulders and neck ached from carrying a burden he couldn’t shake, the fear that he had made a terrible mistake. That the whole exercise was not just pointless but suicidal. Every wasted hour taking them one step closer to a face-off with the Counselor.
Then Dillon noticed the yellow sheet of paper folded tent-like on their table. He picked it up, read it, and blanched. “Carey came over because she heard voices. Looks like Tatyana and Carver showed up.”
The electric terror was enough to erase every shred of his exhaustion. “Where are they now?”
“Over with her and the prof.” He dropped his hand, like the note weighed a hundred pounds. “They brought company. A man. Carey says he’s very distinguished looking and he’s dressed like Elenya.”
Sean watched as Elenya paled to the color of old parchment.
Tatyana greeted them with, “You’re under arrest.”
Dillon just plopped down in the nearest chair. Like a doll with the stuffing jerked out.
Carey did not comprehend the Serenese, but she clearly understood the result. She moved swiftly, draped a protective arm around Dillon’s shoulders, and stood between the attackers and her man. She demanded, “What’s going on here?”
Sean had never liked her more than at that moment. Even when he didn’t have the strength to reply.
Carver stood at parade rest behind the sofa holding the professor. His gaze scalded Sean, a silent communication of disappointment and concern and frustration. A senior officer brought low by the deeds of people in whom he had placed his trust.
John Havilland had clearly been informed of the situation’s gravity, for his features were stained with very real concern. His gaze swiveled around the room, always returning to his daughter.
The Counselor went on, “You were expressly forbidden from ever setting foot on Cyrius. And yet off you went. Failing to notify anyone of your actions. Involving a third party in this latest escapade. Can I at least assume you did not drag Elenya there against her will, that she went of her own volition?”
Sean found himself disappearing inside himself. As though he had been looking all day for this very level of pressure. To squeeze and compress him until he arrived at the point where he was looking at the world from beyond. The region where logic held no place. Where his thoughts could scramble in their fear and their adrenaline rush. Out where the impossible became real.
Tatyana sniffed her disdain at their silence. “Did you even bother to inform the young lady of the edict in place against your returning to Cyrius?”
Elenya remained planted in the center of the room. The point at which no one would look directly. Oddly enough, she did not seem the least bit vulnerable to Sean. She remained where she was by choice. Waiting. For what, Sean had no idea.
“It’s not enough that you must now endure the mind-wipe.” Tatyana motioned to Carey and her father. “You also involved non-transiters. Who now must undergo the same treatment as you. I am only sorry you will fail to live with the guilt you deserve—”
Elenya broke in. “What about me, Father? Are you going to erase my mind as well?”
The Ambassador was not a cruel man. Elenya’s own nature testified to this fact. Instead, he had been distilled down to a deep and almost primitive core. The essential nature that defined Tatyana and Carver was revealed here, a man sculpted by the whirlwind force of planetary politics. His silver-white mane was swept back from craven features, like some Plains Indian from a time before time. His gaze was as fierce as a hawk’s. How Elenya withstood his glare without flinching, Sean had no idea.
The Ambassador replied, “You were an unwilling participant. You—”
“Oh, but I wanted to participate. I readily admit my guilt. I was the one who insisted they return to Cyrius.”
The three officials winced in unison. Sean wished he could do something to support her. And yet, even the wash of pride left him somehow untouched. He felt as though he watched his beloved taunt a lion, but viewed through a telescope. He was that removed from the unfolding scene.
Elenya went on, “It was all my idea. So what now, Father?”
The Ambassador rumbled, “That is not true.”
“Perhaps not,” she shot back. “But I will insist upon claiming this responsibility in an interplanetary court. You taught me that. It is my right.”
“Stop it.”
Mentally and emotionally Sean drew farther away. Not just from the wrath on display. From the day’s failures. He looked at this from a totally new perspective. One he had not even considered until that moment.
Elenya retorted, “Or what, Father? What will you do? Drag me back home? For how long? Do you think I will stay for—”
“This is neither the time nor the place, Elenya.”
“This is precisely the time. This is exactly the place. How dare you hide behind this Counselor’s skirts? Do you think for an instant I would not recognize your hand at work?”
Sean heard what was beyond Elenya’s words. Serenese was an open language, even when communicating fury. Which Elenya most certainly was. A cold, implacable force that shocked her father.
And which pushed Sean yet another step away.
Back to where he could finally glimpse the answer.
The aliens did not exercise two attack modes—infiltrating some humans, genetically duplicating others. They did not penetrate living people and take them over temporarily, and then biologically make copies of others.
The force the aliens used in both forms of their attacks was one and the same.
What granted them entry into an individual also fueled their duplication process.
Sean sensed a transition within Elenya. Or guessed it was happening. In this realm where logic had no place, he could not isolate his guesswork. He simply knew that Elenya’s icy rage created a vulnerability. One that he could now use.
No matter how great or powerful an individual’s shielding abilities, Sean realized, nothing could withstand such negative forces. Fear, terror, rage, consuming desire. All became an acidic force that ate away the transiter’s natural protection. Which meant they became defenseless. They were exposed. The aliens could re-form these negative emotions into entry points. Turning human life into instruments of self-destruction.
“Let me tell you what will happen, Father,” Elenya said. “After your puppets have punished these two innocent young men.”
Tatyana protested, “I am most certainly not anyone’s puppet—”
“INNOCENT!” Elenya shrieked the word so high and so powerfully it pierced them all. She stood there, poised on her toes, hands clenched by her sides.
Wisely, Tatyana did not rise to the challenge.
Sean reached into Elenya. What he was about to attempt scared him as badly as Tatyana’s threat of punishment. But he did it anyway. In a semi-perverse sort of way, it felt natural. Like Elenya was not actually growing angry with her father because of this outside event. Instead, the whole deal was set in motion so he could . . .
Do what aliens do.
“Innocent,” Elenya repeated, softly now. “Let me assure you, Father. I am lost to you. I am gone. I denounce you. I disown you. My departure is only the signature on the document you yourself have written.”
First Sean formed a shield bubble separate from himself. Then he took aim at the human race’s Achilles tendon. The rage, the fear, the ugly hidden forces that ate at an individual’s natural shield. He drew it away from Elenya. And fed into this all the similar forces that rocked this room. All the wrongness. Sean sucked it in and passed it on, leaving him tainted. Weak. And determined.
The Ambassador protested, “Elenya, do not speak words you will soon—”
“Look carefully, Father. Because this is the last glimpse you will ever have of your youngest . . .”
She stopped talking because she was no longer standing there alone.
Now there were four of her.
Elenya turned and gaped with the others at the new trio. All dressed as she was. But immobile. Silent. Until Sean gave them the words to speak.
Sean formed the words, and the trio of Elenyas said, “The aliens went after Sean and Dillon for the crime of showing up at the wrong place at the wrong time. Same as Tirian. He went to the train station as Examiner. And as a result, he became just another target.”
Carver was the first to find his voice. “So the aliens . . .”
“Are readying their next attack,” the three mock Elenyas confirmed. “And it will be centered on the Cyrian central station.”
45
The experience left Elenya very fatigued. Which was hardly a surprise, since Sean had worked like an emotional parasite and drawn from her enough energy to form three duplicates.
Sean thought everyone seemed the worse for wear, as he had pulled on the emotional force emanating from everyone. Except for himself. Despite being wearied by the experience, Sean felt great. Proving his theory left him feeling like he had swallowed about a gallon of galactic energy drink.
They returned to the loft, where Elenya stretched out on the sofa. Sean warned her that he couldn’t wait for her to wake up, but he wasn’t sure she even heard, she was gone that fast. Carey refused to leave Dillon’s side, even when it meant enduring Tatyana’s protest and the Ambassador’s glare. But by then all three of the officials had lost a good deal of their starch, such that when the professor said he deserved to be included as well, they hardly kicked up a fuss.
But no one expected Sean’s next step, which was to ask for a meeting with Tirian.
He explained what he thought might be the key, giving them enough to justify his request. Not saying what he really felt needed to be stated. That it was time to release an innocent man. They would have to come to that conclusion on their own.
At a word from the Ambassador, Carver and Tatyana left for the courts. Sean and Carey and Dillon and John returned to the house to make sandwiches. The Ambassador agreed to transit to Cyrius and inform the authorities that an attack might be incoming.
As they crossed the lawn, Sean said, “I guess I should be happier that things are finally in motion.”
“All I can think of right now is that we’re not getting wiped,” Dillon replied.
John said, “That’s some lady you’ve got there, Sean.”
“I don’t have any idea what Elenya told them,” Carey said. “But it was still as strong as a punch to the heart.”
The words warmed him through the impromptu meal and the planning and the return of the three officials. And the confirmation that a meeting had been arranged with Tirian. One that the Chief Justice assigned to the case would attend. Dillon left with Carey for the Cyrian clinic, this time with the Ambassador’s consent. When Sean asked whether Dillon could check things out when Sean wasn’t there to anchor him, his brother stated with absolute confidence that Carey’s grip would prove as solid as Sean’s.
The Ambassador had yet to speak a word directly to Sean.
Sean returned to the loft to find Elenya up and waiting for him. She listened to his summary of everything that was happening in silence, then asked, “Has my father behaved?”
A voice from the bottom of the stairs replied, “He most certainly has.”
Elenya stopped him in mid-climb by saying, “Stay there, Father. We’re coming down.”
Sean nodded his agreement. The man might not be his enemy, but Sean had no interest in the Ambassador entering his private space.
Elenya planted a hand on Sean’s chest, then kissed him. She must have liked the flavor, for she smiled and kissed him again. Then she took his hand and led him downstairs. “Father, I would like to introduce Sean. Sean, this is my father, Anyon.”
Sean was not going to lie and say it was nice to meet the guy. So he simply said, “How do you do.”
Anyon grimaced over everything unspoken yet revealed by his native Serenese. “Still coming to terms with your discovery, is how I am.”
“Start by accepting that Sean is an adept, Father.” Elenya squeezed Sean’s hand hard enough to halt his protest before it emerged. “That will make everything else much easier.”
Anyon mulled it over, his gaze on their entwined hands. “Shall we join the others?”
They returned to the home, where Elenya hummed her pleasure over John’s tomato and basil and mozzarella sandwich. Then they all transited together. John joined hands with Carver, who offered to serve as translator.
They arrived at a standard transit room, but one that smelled somewhat musty and held a symbol Sean recognized from class. “This is . . .”
“Serena,” Elenya confirmed. “Home to the planetary government and the main prison.”
Sean didn’t say anything. But what he thought was, this would definitely not count as his first visit to Elenya’s home world.
They exited the transit room into an unadorned prison chamber, where more security and several officers greeted them. Everyone gave Sean a good look as they went upstairs, through electronic doors, and met more officials, and then Sean was left in a room alone. Everyone else crowded into the chamber next door, watching through the blank mirrored surface to Sean’s right, and probably through unseen cameras as well. The silence was intense.
Tirian was led in by two security. The guards seated the former Examiner at the central table and hooked his wrist to a hold on the tabletop. Then they backed up and planted themselves by the rear wall.
Tirian’s attitude had not been improved by prison. “Come to gloat?”
“We don’t have time for that.” Sean seated himself and said, “The clock is ticking.”
“What do you want?”
“Confirmation,” Sean replied. “That this whole deal was a case of wrong place, wrong time.”
The room was a muted ivory, same as Tirian’s prison garb. The visitation room was impeccably clean, the air almost sterile, void of all sound and smell. But one look at the shrunken man across from him told Sean everything he ever needed to know about the interplanetary prison system. Tatyana’s cold voice echoed through the chamber. You’re under arrest.
Tirian drew him back by glaring at the mirror taking up much of the side wall and demanding, “Who is in the next room?”
“Carver. Tatyana. The Judge assigned to your case. The former emissary to Lothia.”
“Ambassador Anyon?” Tirian’s stark black features were made to sneer. “For an outworlder, you certainly haven’t wasted any time.”
Sean felt so disassociated from the man’s scorn he could easily brush aside the comment. “Let’s review what we now know. The Cyrians dislike us. They have done everything but ban our presence.”
“Our presence,” Tirian repeated. “So now you count yourself among us.”
“They resent authority being imposed from beyond their own world.” Sean found it remarkably easy to ignore the dark scowl, the suspicious gaze, the unseen observers beyond the one-way glass. “But the Cyrians need us to export their technology. They may also use us as a stick to keep their leaders in line. But they detest us for what we represent. The unspoken evidence that their strand of humanity is not unique. That they are not the sole human race. That they are not superior beings.”
“Who told you that?”
Sean chose to ignore the question. “Which brings us to the aliens. And we now enter into the realm of speculation. But this is necessary to understand why we are seated here. May I continue?”
Sean could see that Tirian wanted to refuse. The young man seated opposite him was stark evidence of his own failure as an Examiner. The fact that his freedom rested in Sean’s hands was almost too much to bear. He fluttered his cheeks with a harsh breath, one that almost shaped a word.
Sean took that as the only green light this constipated soul would offer. “The aliens have been defeated all but seven times. Now that they’ve missed cycles, many want to believe the threat is gone. That they won’t return at all. But you think differently. All you need to do is look at the legacy of your own world and the wasteland now used by the Academy. You knew the threat of war wouldn’t just fade away. You suspected it was only a matter of time. So you set up your school. You started choosing your students while they were still very young. You wanted to control them, guide them, shield them from the threat of being attacked in the next cycle like transiters had been three times in a row. And you remained certain another invasion was coming.”
