Inea gasped, choked back a sob, then flung her head back, sniffed, and faced Colby. “Even though I don’t think he’s a monster?”
“You haven’t seen what he did to Dr. de Lisle.”
“He gave his life to save the Collector and the station’s independence from the blockaders.”
“The war is over,” insisted Colby. “It has been since the W. S. ships came to meet the blockaders attacking the ”tainers and announced the cease-fire.“
“I understand,” said Titus, “that the ”tainers arrived safely, and on target.“
“Yes.” Colby seized the chance to change the subject as she tapped her keyboard. “Your work was perfect, even if my ground crews didn’t measure up. Here it is-some spectral grade solvent was sent to your lab. Shimon found it there yesterday, but could find no requisition filed for it. Nobody can figure out what you’d need solvent for-not in this quantity, anyway.”
Abruptly, he could taste the cloned blood, a vile deadness after Inea’s living gift. But perhaps coming off this long a fast, it wouldn’t be so bad. “Oh, that solvent wasn’t for me,” lied Titus, meeting Inea’s gaze. “If it’s what I think it is, it had to do with a project H’lim had in mind-or maybe Dr. Mihelich-or something H’lim wanted Mihelich to do. I don’t recall. I’ll look it up-
“Never mind. I’ll just have it trucked down to storage.”
“Oh, no! Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it. You have so much to do, and my department is going to be dead weight around here with the Project scrapped. In fact, if space exploration is to be abandoned, I may never get another job.” That hadn’t occurred to him before.
“Don’t worry. You’re both accounted heroes and will be substantially rewarded for everything you’ve done. I’ve put you in for hazard pay for the time you spent in the alien’s company, and there will be a decorating ceremony when we all return to Earth. Oh, and Titus, a few days ago, the insurance payment on your house came through, full replacement value. You can have it rebuilt before you go home, or wait and supervise it all yourself.”
“Someone said the station would remain under quarantine indefinitely,” commented Inea, “so we’re stuck here.”
“Only five years,” answered Colby. “It’s to be announced in a few hours. A compromise was reached and some biotech people will be coming up to verify Dr. Mihelich’s findings. Meanwhile, the nearspace program is not being totally abandoned. After the furor dies down, there will be a drive to strengthen Earth’s defenses and early-warning network, which is what Titus’s department was originally intended to do. You won’t be out of work. That is, if you’re still interested. Considering what that monster did to you two and Abbot, as well, no one would blame you if you-”
“Oh, no!” objected Titus and Inea in unison.
Their carefully constructed story was turning into a spider web. They had declared that H’lim had used his power to take them to the Eighth, which was true. People assumed they had been held in thrall, as had Abbot. Titus and Inea insisted that all H’lim had wanted was to go home, and the threat of not being able to call for rescue had driven him to desperation. That was true, too, and also true of Abbot for a different reason. The minor aberrations in Inea’s and Titus’s physiological responses under questioning were attributed to the horror of their ordeal, so nothing more than a routine investigation was planned. Abbot’s clandestine software had protected Titus during the hypnotic deconditioning session, and now security was satisfied.
Titus told Colby, “Nonhuman people are out there.
Pretending they’re not there won’t protect Earth. Now more than ever, we have to learn about the galaxy, and about the principles that drove Kylyd. We just have to do it without attracting attention. Maybe, by our grandchildren’s day, the galactic situation will have changed. Maybe there can be peaceful contact eventually. We have to hope and pray and prepare for any eventuality.“
Colby cocked her head to one side, smiling. “That’s exactly what I told them, almost word for word. You know, you may end up with my job.”
Titus weighed Inea’s expression. The idea of staying on the moon, or returning often, didn’t seem to upset her. He took his courage in his hands. “Inea, shall we ask her to marry us? Now?”
Her eyes widened in astonishment. She darted a glance at Colby, then said in apology. “He wouldn’t let me move in with him.”
The corners of Colby’s mouth turned up and her eyes twinkled. “Well, if that’s the way it is-when would you like to do it? In a week or two, we could manage some decorations and a dress. There hasn’t been a wedding on the station yet, and everyone would-”
“No!” said Titus. “Now.” They were both wearing disposable suits with Project Hail logos, and he had no ring except his class ring, part of the Shiddehara persona. He pulled it off. “Call your secretary in for a witness. We’re ready.” He caught Inea’s eye. “We’ve put this off too long. I’m not going to let another accident get in the way. That is, if you’re still willing, all things considered.”
“All things considered, there’s nothing under this sun or any other that I’d be more willing to do.”
About the author
Jacqueline Lichtenberg was born in 1942, three months after Pearl Harbor. With a degree in Chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley, she worked abroad, then married and raised two children, Gail and Debbie.
In the seventies, she won early acclaim for her “Star Trek” fan fiction, the Kraith Series, which gained her a nomination for the Best Fan Writer Hugo, and twenty-two years after the first Kraith story was published, a feature article in The New York Times Book Review and the first Surak Memory Alpha Award for all-time achievement in “Star Trek” fandom. She is primary author of the Bantam paperback, Star Trek Lives! as well as founder of the Star Trek Welcommittee.
At the same time she was selling novels in a sf universe of her own, Sime/Gen? set on the Earth of the far future and involving a kind of vampiric interdependency. The second Sime/Gen novel to be published, Unto Zeor, Forever, won the 1978 Galaxy Award for spirituality in science fiction. In addition to the four fan-originated amateur magazines dedicated to Sime/Gen, newsletters and single edition fanzines, there are now eight novels in the universe, three co-authored with Jean Lorrah, and one Jean Lorrah original.
Molt Brother and City of a Million Legends, written between Sime/Gen novels, tell the tale of two galactic civilizations and crucial family bonds between human and nonhuman.
The first book in her Dushau Trilogy, Dushau, a fast-paced adventure in a richly populated galaxy, won her the 1985 Romantic Times Award for Best Science Fiction Writer. After completing the trilogy with Farfetch and Outreach, she said, “I enjoy blending romance with a touch of the occult and a strong science motif to ask hard questions about life’s most basic relationships.”
She is past Chair of the Science Fiction Writers of America Speakers’ Bureau, and in her spare time, she gives Tarot and writing workshops, attends “Star Trek,” sf and esoteric conventions, reviews “Star Trek” fanzines for “Treklink,” professional sf/f for Science Fiction and Fantasy Forum, and student manuscripts for the SF&Fantasy Workshop publication Promises Pro-Mss, all while pursuing studies such as vampires, Arthurian legend, Astrology, Qabalah, “Star Trek,” “Blake’s Seven,” and “Doctor Who.” She serves on the Board of Directors of the North American Time Festivals, Inc., which organizes “Doctor Who” conventions.