by Cindy Dees
What a hash he’d made of it. He’d genuinely thought she would be thrilled and honored to realize he’d given her a child. He hadn’t been kidding when he’d told her Centaurian women fought for the privilege.
And what was this about her having a career? Females had one purpose, and one purpose only. Even on Earth, a woman like Artemesia, who was queen and general and able ruler of a kingdom all by herself, was an extreme rarity. If modern women had abruptly become this strong and self-sufficient, no wonder the Centaurian council was so worried they might go after the Karanovo Stamp.
Recovering a piece of the stamp was why he’d been sent here in the first place. If the humans failed to recover all twelve pieces of the medallion, they would not be able to signal the Intergalactic Council. Just one piece of the stamp. That was all his kind had to find and remove from Earth.
He’d wondered why the sudden urgency when he’d been given this mission to time-travel back to ancient Earth, to find and recover a piece of the medallion. He was too skilled and high-ranking a star navigator to rate such a trivial assignment under normal circumstances. But it made perfect sense, now.
Unfortunately, staring at the back of Tessa’s head while she gazed at a distant hill wasn’t getting either of them closer to their respective goals. He interrupted her reverie quietly. “It’s time to go.”
He didn’t know why she was so hell-bent on recovering a simple map. Sailors in this time already had reasonably complete charts of this part of the world.
Even if her map of unknown seas and continents on the far side of the planet were found, the locals would likely put it down to inaccurate drawing or some sort of imaginary document of the gods’ underworld. A context existed for explaining away her map to these ancient people. If discovered, it shouldn’t derail the development of mankind.
But if the map was that important to her, so be it. After all, she was his consort, and the mother of his child. He owed her a certain amount of consideration.
The females of his kind didn’t usually become irrational and demanding until late in their pregnancies. Maybe these humans started earlier.
But, in her defense, Tessa had good cause to be angry with him. It hadn’t even remotely occurred to him that first night that human females might want some say in their reproductive processes. Now that he knew her better and understood how intelligent and liberated—that word had a sour taste in his mouth—a woman she was, he could see her point.
Not to mention that every star navigator learned in his first days of training never, ever, to involve himself with an indigenous species this personally. But damned if the woman didn’t completely bewitch him. It wasn’t an excuse for his behavior, of course. But it did help him unravel how he could’ve ended up in a mess like this.
It was midmorning before they finally cleared a long line of Greek soldiers off to their east. Rustam glanced over at Tessa, who was riding beside him stoically, steadfastly ignoring his existence.
He sighed. “Tell me of this human custom of marriage.”
She glanced at him, naked surprise flashing in her gaze. To her credit, she swallowed her anger for the moment and answered civilly. “Most humans take a single mate for life. Marriage is a ceremony wherein they promise to spend their lives together and forsake all others.”
He stared, shocked. “You would ask me to give up all my other females for you?”
She lurched in her saddle, startling Cygna badly enough that Rustam had to send out a quick calming to the mare lest she dump her rider off her back.
Tessa glared at him. “I haven’t asked you to marry me nor have you asked me.”
“But on your planet, the mother and father of a child are expected to marry, are they not?”
She blinked in apparent surprise. “It is customary, but not required. Many people choose to be single parents in my time. You don’t have to marry me.”
“But you will be angry with me until I do?”
“Good Lord, no!” she exclaimed.
He frowned, deeply confused. Contrary woman. She railed at him for impregnating her without marrying her; and then when he offered to do so, she turned him down! “Do you want me to marry you or not?” he demanded, roundly frustrated.
“I—no—well, maybe—No!”
A glimmer of amusement shone through his frustration. He said dryly, “Forgive me, but perhaps you could be slightly clearer in your answer? This ignorant alien hasn’t the faintest idea how to interpret that reply.”
She huffed. “It’s not that simple. People who get married love each other. They want to spend their lives together. They have things in common. They like sharing time together. They want to raise a family together.”
“Ahh.” He turned all that over in his mind. It was the way the commoners among his kind lived. Supposedly, they were happy with that. He’d even heard they scorned the lifestyle of the nobles and called it empty and debauched.
Not that debauchery was all bad. He rather enjoyed that aspect of his status as a star navigator. But what she was asking of him—to give up all of that—to live like a commoner…His political status depended heavily on the number of star navigators he sired. To date, he’d produced an impressive twelve. Only Kentar had produced more, and the man was nearly twice Rustam’s age.
Love, huh?
His kind never spent enough time with a single female to develop feelings remotely akin to love. He wasn’t allowed to spend that kind of time with a woman. As soon as one was pregnant, he was expected to move on to the next female who was ready to breed.
Viewed from Tessa’s perspective, he could begin to understand how nobles could be seen as shallow and incapable of real feelings. Perhaps the critics among the commoners were right.
Rustam didn’t even know if he was capable of giving Tessa this love she demanded of him, if they were to marry. What in the hell was he supposed to do now? He was completely at sea in a foreign culture, playing a game whose rules he didn’t have the faintest idea of. And his future with the most extraordinary woman he’d ever met lay in the balance.
The thing was, he couldn’t leave one of his children behind on this planet, especially now that mankind had mastered time-jumping. Star travel would not be far behind if a person with the right kind of talent came along. Such as the child of one of the greatest Centaurian star navigators of his time and a wildly talented human female who might very well carry the star-travel gene herself.
The thought broke across his consciousness with the force of a tidal wave.
Tessa had the star navigator gene.
What else could explain the incredible, inexplicable star flights they took every time they made love? It had been right there before his eyes the entire time, but he’d been too besotted to see it or perhaps had intentionally ignored the evidence right under his nose.
She was a nascent star navigator.
And his orders from the Centaurian Federation were crystal clear.
Eliminate every human female who displays a talent for star navigation.
He had to kill the woman carrying his dreams and his child.
Eighteen
The next week fell into an exhausting pattern for Tessa of nearly round-the-clock travel, with Rustam only calling for short rests every few hours. She ate in the saddle, drank in the saddle and even dozed in the saddle. The horses were tired, but Rustam poured energy into them every time they stopped.
She didn’t complain about the brutal pace, however. If she stood any chance at all of catching up with the medallion fragment, she had to get to that pinprick of energy to the south before the main body of the Persian army reached it. The good news was that the winds blew steadily in their faces, which would significantly slow the progress of the Persian fleet down the coast and make it easier to catch.
Every time she sensed the bronze wedge now, she got a clear impression of water. There was no doubt about it, the bronze piece was traveling by ship. How they were going to get from shore out to the vessel, she had
no idea. She would figure that out when the time came. For now, it was enough to get close to the darn thing.
Hour by hour, the grueling journey stripped her anger at Rustam from her, leaving behind only exhaustion. It was impossible to stay furious with someone who was so unfailingly courteous and considerate.
In spite of the horrendous heat and his obvious fatigue, he steadily engaged in pleasant conversation with her, telling her of his home world and people, and asking endless questions about modern human culture. They compared politics and philosophy and the arts…not to mention a hundred other subjects from children’s education to sports to foods.
Despite her best efforts to hate him, she learned to see him and his race as not so very different from mankind at all. They had the very same hopes and dreams for their children and their future. It just so happened that humans and Centaurians were going to end up competing for the same slice of intergalactic power someday.
And in the meantime, as much as she hated to admit it, Rustam really was a noble, kind, courageous man whose humor and intelligence made him completely irresistible to her.
After yet another of their all-too-short power naps, this one taken during the worst of the afternoon heat to spare the horses, Rustam muttered, “Are you really sure a lost map is worth all this? The horses are about done in.”
She winced. There wasn’t a chance in hell she was telling a Centaurian that she was chasing down a piece of the Karanovo Stamp his race desperately didn’t want mankind—or womankind, to be precise—to get its hands on. She certainly wasn’t into cruelty to animals, but time was against her in a big way.
“How much farther until we catch up with the Persian fleet?”
He looked at the hills around them. Scattered huts had begun to dot the region, and here and there rows of olive and fig trees striped the hillsides. “We’re getting close to the southern tip of the Greek peninsula. Once the Persian fleet rounds the end, it will sail against Athens. According to our records, the Persian ships get bottled up in channel islands near the city.”
Tessa nodded. “That’s what human histories relate, as well.” And there was a line she’d never thought to hear herself utter in her lifetime!
“The Persian fleet will hug the coast as it rounds the southern cape since the Aegean winds and currents offshore are treacherous. We might be able to flag it down there. I would guess that by tonight we’ll reach it. The horses have made good time, but I have no way of knowing if we’ve beaten the ships there or not.”
“Is that our best bet to catch up with the fleet?” she asked.
He shrugged. “It’s probably our only bet if you want to join the ships before they engage the Athenian navy.”
“Let’s ride, then.”
Rustam looked over at her in quick concern. “You aren’t overexerting yourself, are you? After all, you have my child to look after.”
She rolled her eyes. They’d had this argument a dozen times already. She kept insisting that she wasn’t necessarily pregnant, and he remained adamant that she was.
Exasperated, she said, “We won’t know for a few more days if I might be pregnant. And even then it’s not a sure thing. With the amount of physical strain I’ve been under, I could easily skip a period and have it mean nothing.”
“I have never met a woman as stubborn as you.”
She flashed him a grin. “And you love the challenge, don’t you?”
He grinned ruefully. “I am learning to. I must say, you human women are never dull.”
A strange thing happened then. His smile faded and a regretful, almost haunted look passed through his expressive eyes. She’d caught him gazing at her that way a couple of times during the past few days.
She asked quietly, “What’s on your mind?”
He started guiltily. “Uh, nothing.”
Riigghhtt. What could possibly put that much worry in a Centaurian star navigator’s gaze? She wasn’t at all sure she wanted to know.
Dusk was turning to night around them when they rode around a large outcropping of rock. Tessa stopped in surprise. Moonlight illuminated a broad expanse of water before them. The Aegean Sea. Only a steep shale slope separated them from the shore.
Rustam murmured, “The fleet’s not here yet. It’ll stretch for miles when it comes.”
She nodded in relief. They’d done it. Now all they had to do was intercept whatever vessel carried the Karanovo fragment before the great naval battle of Salamis happened. With her luck, the ship bearing the medallion would sink, and she would have to introduce scuba diving to ancient Greece to recover it. She mumbled, “May I borrow your hand?”
Raising his eyebrows in surprise, he offered his big, callused palm to her. She took it, reveling in his warmth and strength in the instant before the power flowed through her, overwhelming all other sensations. She closed her eyes and reached out with her mind, seeking the distinctive sharp emanations of the metal object she sought. There. Off to her left.
She started. “It’s close.”
“How far?”
“A few miles at most.”
Rustam swore quietly under his breath. “If you’re right and your map is on a ship, we’d better make our way down to the shore right away.”
The ride down the hill was wild, with the horses sitting practically on their haunches and sliding down the slope as much as walking down it. When they finally got to the water’s edge, she was surprised to see that the beach, such as it was, was mostly boulders scattered upon the shore as if a giant hand had tossed them there. This land certainly was conducive to legends of gods and mythic heroes.
She cast a sidelong glance at Rustam and smiled. She, for one, knew where the stories of guys like Zeus and Apollo came from.
“What?” he asked in response to her silent look.
“I was just wondering if you or others of your kind are the source of certain mythic characters from the human literary tradition. In particular a man called Hercules.”
“The legendary hero who did the various labors?”
“That’s the one.”
Rustam shook his head. “Silly children’s tales.”
“Those tales will survive until my time and beyond. Maybe not so silly, after all.”
“In my travels, I have found that most myths and legends have at least some basis in fact. I’m convinced that primitive cultures use fictional stories to explain away actual occurrences they are not yet ready to understand or accept as real.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Are you trying to tell me that magic and fairies and the abominable snowman really exist?”
“In some form or another, yes.”
She snorted. “I wish magic existed. I would wave my wand and find that stupid map.”
“And then what?” he asked.
The question brought her up short. “And then I’ll go home, of course.”
He nodded slowly. “Of course. And how are you planning to get there?”
He asked the question lightly, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know he would be intensely interested in her answer. She gave him the response she’d carefully crafted over the past few days. “I have a small device. It’s like a pager and sends a one-way signal. Are you familiar with what that is?”
He nodded tersely. “So you activate this signal, and then what?”
“Then the scientists back home in their lab do their thing and pull me home.”
“You don’t power the jump yourself?”
“Heavens, no!” she exclaimed. “I’m just a simple psychic who can find stuff. I’ll be along for the ride when it’s time to go.”
He frowned thoughtfully. She wished she knew more about time travel and could ask him a few intelligent questions about what thoughts were racing through his head so fast his ears were all but smoking.
But he changed subjects abruptly, surprising her. “What do you plan to do when the Persian fleet sails by?”
She frowned. “Hopefully, I’ll be able to isolate which
ship has the map on it. Then I have to find some way to get out to that vessel.”
He grunted. “You think you can just flag it down and it’ll pull over to pick you up?”
“When you put it that way, no, I don’t suppose that would work.” The corner of his mouth curled sardonically, and she added, “Gimme a break. I’m winging it here. Next order of business is to get on the right ship and find the damned thing. Then I’ll worry about getting it back.”
Rustam murmured, “Time to rest the horses.”
He’d stopped on a tiny patch of sand that barely qualified as a beach. But a small dune rose behind it and sparse grass dotted the sandy slope. She and Rustam unsaddled the horses and stripped off their bridles to let the animals forage for what food they could find. Frowning, Tessa watched Rustam gather driftwood until he had a substantial pile of the stuff. Three substantial piles, in fact. Spaced evenly along the spit of sand.
Finally, her curiosity got the better of her. “What are you planning to do with that?”
“Light signal fires.”
“To signal whom?”
“The Persians when they get here.”
“You think they’ll come investigate a lone fire on the beach?”
“They will when it’s three separate fires.”
“What’s to keep them from killing us when they get here?”
That earned her an arch smile. “I’m the Sorcerer of Halicarnassus. My fame is widespread within the empire, and certainly anyone in the Persian fleet has heard of me.”
“Yeah, and last they heard, you were a runaway slave.”
“I do not think Artemesia will have admitted to anyone that I’ve run away. She’ll have concocted a tale of sending me off on an errand after I paid too much attention to the pale foreigner. No one will question her story. It’s unthinkable that a high-profile slave like me would slip from her grasp.”
“Maybe,” Tessa said doubtfully. “You’re screwed if you’re wrong, though.”
“Ahh. Screwing. I know this one.” His grin flashed as quick and dangerous as lightning. “I had thought you too fatigued for such athletics, but if you insist, I stand ready to serve.”
