He stopped and turned her to face him. “Honey, if you want, I’ll get down on my knees and kiss every last one of their feet and thank them for saving you.”
That earned him a soul-lifting laugh. “I don’t think they’ll make you do that.” She looked at the guards and said something to them. They both nodded and smiled at Ford.
Ford held out his hand first to Pabo, who eventually shook, and Gwan. Then Ford hugged them both.
The Beyants awkwardly hugged him back while Emi looked on, smiling. Then Pabo said something that made her laugh.
“What?” Ford asked.
She stepped close again and he put his arm around her as they started walking. “He said they appreciate the gesture, but all you had to do was say thanks.”
“Now they tell me.”
The DSMC and ISNC wouldn’t intercede, said it was ISTC jurisdiction. The DSMC gave Aaron permission to follow the convoy to Mars and arranged for them to dock in the diplomatic hangar, but beyond that, there was nothing they could do other than be sympathetic.
Graymard also issued Aaron strict orders not to attempt to contact the diplomatic party until after the treaty signing. After that, it didn’t matter.
“This is total bullshit! It makes absolutely no sense!” he argued with Graymard over the com link.
“It’s the law. Remember the Corsarican Massacre? Eighty years ago, a misunderstanding with a poor translation led to a huge battle and innocent lives lost. Now, until the treaties are signed, there is to be no communication beyond very strictly controlled and limited circumstances. It’s safer for everyone,” Graymard explained. “Their willingness to comply is seen as a sign of good faith. Our escorting them, unmolested, to the treaty signing is also seen as such.”
Aaron thought it was bullshit, but he was helpless to do anything about it.
He was also finally forced to admit the truth to Caph, about what the station security officer had told him regarding Emi’s chip. He worried Caph would get upset, but instead it seemed to relieve him.
“I knew that was bullshit, Aar. Ford wouldn’t get so drunk he ended up on the wrong fucking ship. You know him better than that.”
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t want you getting your hopes up.”
Caph shook his head, quiet resignation on his face. “If he did it, he had a good reason. All I know is I want Ford back. We’ll deal with the rest of it later.”
The Beyant ship was too far away and too well protected by defense shields for Aaron and Caph to scan it for any sign of Ford.
Or Emi.
Aaron tried to check his anger. Something else happening that was his fault. Had he been around the past several months and not dumped everything onto Ford while absorbed in his own grief, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. Ford must have snapped. What other explanation was there?
As the weeks ticked by and they drew closer to Mars, he focused on his work, on his ship, and on Caph. They really couldn’t spend much time together, other than overlapping watches on the bridge. He worried for the big guy, knowing he usually needed contact, needed the downtime to talk or relax with one of them.
“Are you okay?” he asked him one day as Caph appeared on the bridge to take the night watch.
“Yeah.” He looked at Aaron. “Please promise me you won’t leave me,” he quietly said, his gaze focused on the deck.
He hugged him, hard. “Never. You’re stuck with me, buddy.”
“I’m tired of losing the people I love, Aar,” he said as his voice choked with emotion. “If I lose you, too, I swear to the gods I will kill myself. I don’t want to be alone. I can’t stand this.”
“We’ll get him back, Caph. I promise. I’m sure they won’t hurt him. They’re diplomats. They can’t risk an interstellar incident over something like that.”
“You think?”
“Yeah, I think. I know.” In fact he wasn’t sure, but no way in hell would he admit that to Caph.
Chapter Twenty
Over the next couple of days, she grew to think of herself as Emi and not Erin. She still answered to both names. The longer she spent with Ford she didn’t gain much in the way of memories, just a stray snippet here and there, usually the memory of someone saying something. But she quickly came to fall in love with Ford all over again.
They didn’t try to synthesize the antidote despite finally deciphering and translating Beyant equivalents. Ford was afraid what might happen if they used the wrong things or in the wrong combinations. She agreed that under the circumstances it was best to wait. Considering the time that had already passed, they presumed it might not make any difference anyway.
Ford struggled to learn the new language. “You know,” he said one afternoon, “I’m never going to be an expert in speaking Beyant.” But by the end of the first month, he knew enough to keep up with conversations. Deciphering the written version was a different matter. He still relied on Emi to translate that. Yanna, the ambassador, and the others came to trust and even like Ford.
One evening at dinner, the ambassador spoke up. “I have been thinking. Because you are the husband of my daughter, that means you are my son-in-law and should be officially recognized as such.”
Ford looked at Emi in confusion. “Huh?”
She smiled. “Yes, that’s what he said. You’re his son-in-law.”
Yanna, his father, and the other Beyants in attendance all lifted their cups to Ford in a salute.
Ford smiled and kissed Emi. “Welcome to the family, huh?”
“Yeah.”
They made love almost every night, Emi as eager as Ford to make up for lost time. She couldn’t get enough of him. During the day he worked with her and Pachya in the labs, or spent time on the bridge learning about their ship’s systems. Two months into their journey, while taking a turn on the scanners, Ford practiced by looking at the escort ships in the convoy accompanying them to Mars.
The last one caught his eye. As he fine-tuned the frequency to read the ship’s beacon code, he let out a whoop of joy that scared the crap out of the other bridge crew.
Yanna and Emi ran over. “What is it?” Emi asked.
Beyond excited, Ford pointed at the signal and reverted fully to standard, unable to think of the words fast enough in Beyant.
“There she is! It’s them! There she is!”
Confused, Yanna turned to Emi for clarification. “Ford, who?” Emi asked. “They? She?”
He grabbed her and hugged her, smiling from ear to ear. “The Tamora Bight! Look, that’s our DSMC beacon code! Aaron and Caph, they’re following us. I never should have doubted them being able to find me. They know I’m here. They’re following us to Mars!”
Her breath caught in her throat as she stared at the scanner signature. She reached out and touched the screen. “Aaron and Caph.” She’d only seen their faces in the photos on Ford’s picture card and in her dreams. Their voices still wouldn’t come to mind.
So close. So close she wished she could touch them.
Her fingers stroked the screen as her tears flowed.
Ford saw. “Hey, this is good, babe. What’s wrong?”
“Will they still want me?” she asked softly enough only Ford could hear.
He frowned. “What? That’s crazy. Why wouldn’t they still want you?”
“I’ve been gone so long.”
“Honey, a day away from you is too fucking long. Seven months is torture, believe you me. But abso-fucking-lutely they want you back. I’ll be lucky I can get so much as a passing glance from you for the first few weeks we’re all back together. They’re not going to want to let you go.”