Chapter Thirteen

Kalquor

As the hunting group consisting of Resan, his parent clan, Oses, Clan Seot, and the children thundered in the rear of the home in a flurry to ready for the coming day, Betra smiled brightly at Shalia in the common room. He'd been up early and was ready. "What do you need? Blanket, water, snacks? An adult beverage?"

Shalia laughed from her perch on the lounger. Her sprained ankle was elevated on the pillows Cifa had arranged beneath the wrapped limb. Because it was a minor injury, Shalia hadn't been treated by a licensed medic. She'd been diagnosed remotely by the head doctor of the local clinic after a medical scanner app had been installed on Cifa's handheld. Though the district remained virus-free, isolation protocols were maintained except in actual emergencies. She was forced to recuperate naturally.

"I just finished breakfast." Her grin, for Betra alone, sent his heart beating faster. "The only time I indulge in day drinking is a single celebratory mimosa on Christmas morning."

"You continue to celebrate the Earther custom?" He hadn't been aware.

"Many of us on Kalquor do. Earthers gather on Christmas Eve in various regions to have a special dinner. Some celebrate older Earth faiths and get together for those."

"Do your clanmates participate?" A sense of loneliness stabbed him. The Christmas Shalia had spent on his transport had been marked by a fun celebration for the Earther refugees on board. He'd enjoyed sharing in the tradition. There hadn't been another Christmas for Betra since.

"Absolutely. My clan decorates the home a week before, then we exchange presents Christmas morning. The kids love it, of course. It's become the highlight of the year for them."

"I'm sure it is." Betra sank on the lounger next to her, hungry for some sense of belonging to a portion of her existence.

"Larten applies for permission from the local government to find and cut down a small tree for the festivities. The children go with him and take turns choosing the tree. Jordan was in charge last year. When they returned, she brought me a branch smaller than her instead."

"A branch?"

"She'd gotten upset about killing a tree, so Larten cut the limb she chose. We had to warn Anrel and Nayun to stop telling her she'd ruined Christmas because we didn't have a proper tree. So much drama." Shalia laughed as she rolled her eyes.

"I wish I could have seen it." I wish I could have been part of it. Betra's heart ached in longing for all he'd lost: special celebrations, children to share them…and of course, Shalia herself. He took her hands in his. "What a wonderful life you have."

"I do. I wish I wasn't stuck on this lounger for the rest of the trip. I live to add to the memories." She pouted.

"I could stay here instead of hunting. Keep you company, bring you mimosas," he offered.

"It isn't necessary. Nekis is staying with me today, so your vacation doesn't have to be interrupted."

"Nekis loves the children and enjoys taking them to hunt. I hate for her to miss out."

Shalia bit her lip uncertainly. "Well, I suppose you could offer, but—"

"We're ready to go, Betra."

He jumped at Oses' bark behind him. He released Shalia's hands and stood as his Nobek came in the room. "Oh, well, I was thinking perhaps if Matara Nekis preferred to hunt, I could keep an eye on our invalid here."

Nekis herself glided into the room as he was speaking. "Don't be silly, Betra. Shalia and I haven't had a chance to catch up since she arrived. I've been looking forward to doing so for weeks." She sat at the end of the lounger and got comfortable as she beamed at Shalia. "In fact, just before Resan commed to say you were coming, I was ready to ask if your clan wished to visit us."

"Really? We would have jumped at the chance, Nekis. When this pandemic is over, we should get together more often."

"I agree."

"Betra." Oses' tone prodded him to bow in respect to the women and reluctantly follow his Nobek from the room.

"We'll see you later, ladies." It was all Betra could do to restrain a sigh of resignation.

* * * *

"This has to stop."

Despite Betra's efforts to avoid being alone with his Nobek clanmate, Oses had managed to herd him to a secluded spot in the grasslands where no one would hear their conversation.

"Am I supposed to pretend I don't still care for her?" he demanded, going on the offensive.

"As a lover? Yes, you are." Oses didn't glare, but his iron gaze made Betra want to cringe.

He managed to keep from doing so. "Maybe Nobeks can turn off their feelings at will. I can't."

"You've done so in the past, for her good. For the good of us who once counted ourselves as her clanmates, though it was impossible to make it official."

"At the time. Everything's changed, Oses. Nontraditional clans are legal—"

"Nothing has changed where we're concerned." The rugged Nobek's eyes blazed in fury. "What is in your head? Are you going to ask Shalia to leave Clan Seot? They're the fathers of her children! She loves them. And what of Resan? He and Shalia walk on eggshells to maintain a polite environment in each other's company."

"They don't have any real reason for their dislike. If they could figure out why—"

Oses apparently had no inclination to allow Betra to finish a statement. He interrupted again. "Do you think they enjoy being at odds? You and I are important to both of them. If they could overcome their aversion to each other, they would have done so for our sake years ago. Even they admit there's no sense in their mutual animosity, but it's there, and it isn't going away."

"She still loves us. I know she does."

"Of course she does, which is why you go into a tailspin every few visits. But she is a clanned woman. A happily clanned woman, to whom we offer no better future. There's a reason we'll never have a Matara, and it isn't just because you and I couldn't love someone as we do Shalia. You understand exactly what I'm talking about." Oses' voice had deepened to a warning growl.

"Are you saying if she chose us instead, you'd refuse her?"

"Yes." Oses stepped close, so his bigger frame loomed over Betra. He knew how intimidating he was. When he leaned close so their noses were only inches apart, the Imdiko cringed.

"Stop it. I'll back off."

"You'd better. Leave her alone, Betra, or I'll take it out on your hide…and not the way you like it. Shalia is our past where love is concerned. Accept it, or I promise you, I'll see to it we never visit her again."

Betra gaped at him in disbelief. When he saw Oses meant it, he wheeled around and hurried away, walking blindly through the grassland.

His feelings were a storm of emotions. Oses had worn a determined look when he'd vowed to cut them off from Shalia. Oses, whom Betra knew loved her as much as he did.

How could he accept what they'd lost? Yes, Shalia did have a devoted clan, but Betra and Oses had been there first.

"We saved her life. She saved ours too. She gave me and Oses our clanship," he muttered. Born a rare strictly heterosexual Kalquorian male, Betra hadn't entertained the option of male clanmates. His love and affection for Oses, while deep, didn't include the sort of intimacy the bisexual majority of Kalquorians expected. It had been Shalia's influence that had helped them find a path to the caring if unconventional relationship they'd forged…and had enabled Betra to accept Resan as a valued lifelong companion as well.

If Betra could claim the happiness and longstanding love he had thought impossible, then surely Resan could bury his enmity for Shalia. They could have a life together. Clan Seot was an obstacle, and yes, she loved them but…

"We were there first, and we loved her best. She would have stayed if it had been allowed then." Betra had no doubts on the score. Even his consuming wanderlust and inability to remain in one place for any length of time, the obstacle Oses had alluded to, wouldn't have been the insurmountable dealbreaker they'd believed it was.

Clan Resan and Shalia could have been. They should have been.

* * * *

That night, Betra stood alone outside the home built in the hillside where his clan, Clan Seot, and Resan's parents and grandmother sat around the fire in the vast common room. He'd left them describing the day's adventures to Shalia. Ejia had made his first actual solo kill, and a celebration was in full swing. It had been easy to slip off to breathe the cool night air and listen to the sounds of nocturnal reptilian drils sing their songs to the stars and moons.

He'd had to escape. Seeing Imdiko Cifa curled next to Shalia, holding her as Betra used to, was torture. He stared at the pitch blackness that revealed only the slightest hint of the grasslands and wrestled with the unfairness of fate.

"It isn't easy to let go of whom you adore above all else, even when it's right."

Betra started as Matara Nekis glided to his side. "My lady, you move as silently as a Nobek."

"You don't make it sound like a compliment."

He flushed at her amusement and was glad the darkness hid his embarrassment. "You surprised me. No offense was intended."

"I didn't take it as such." He felt her regard as much as saw the gleam of her eyes on him. "You weren't merely startled. You're struggling, Betra."

"Is it so obvious to those besides my clanmates?"

"Long ago, I also loved madly and lost. I won't bore you by reciting the details, but I spent many years mourning what I couldn't keep. After I was clanned to the best possible men you could imagine, my heart ached for others. I'm ashamed to admit I failed to appreciate what I'd won for a long time."

Betra swallowed. "I can't stop thinking we should have had a real chance."

"You love her."

"With everything I am."

"Do you? Really? You did once. You loved her enough to give her the opportunity to find those who could give her a life you couldn't. What's changed?"

"It was a mistake. I could have made her happy. I lived to make her happy. Oses and I both did…and Resan, if he'd tried, he could have loved her."

"Betra."

It was merely his name she spoke, but he winced as if he'd been struck. He'd noted through the years Nekis could load enough reproach in a person's name to send him begging for forgiveness. Even Resan.

She sighed. "I don't pretend to understand the dislike between my grandson and Shalia. They're both wonderful people, but they can't see it in each other. Perhaps it's a matter of them being too alike. They are, you know."

"I know."

"I didn't come out here to discuss them, however. I came to ask, do you truly love Shalia?"

"Of course I do."

He was newly startled to feel her hand on his shoulder. Nekis wasn't inclined to physical displays.

"Betra, you're a wonderful man. I want you to understand I think so of you. Unfortunately, for reasons you're fully aware of, you aren't the best man for Shalia. If you were, then the old clan laws wouldn't have stood in your way nine years ago. You wouldn't have let her go. You did because you wished her to be as happy as she could possibly be. Your wish has come true."

Betra wanted to yell she was wrong. He wanted to stomp off so he wouldn't have to hear her speak. His feet remained rooted to the ground, however.

She squeezed his shoulder. "Shalia has all you rightly and bravely begged fate to give her. So you'll let her go again, though it tears the very heart from you. You'll do it because you've been cursed to love her beyond anyone else for the rest of your days. Because above all other considerations, you would never hurt Shalia."

Having spoken, she left him, her words ringing in his ears.

* * * *

Alpha Space Station

Under the watchful eye of a Nobek station security guard, Charity sat at a long table in the middle of the installation's library. For once, she was doing the schoolwork assigned to her before she'd fled Galactic Council space. There was nothing else to occupy her time. After it had been ascertained the Gyma had been spying on her, Nobek Selt had clamped down hard on her comings and goings, with her aunt's and uncle's full approval.

Though she sighed and grouched in her guardians' company, Charity honestly didn't mind. Flirting with Kalquorians was fun, but the men on the station were too old for a young woman who wanted to be silly and carefree when she wasn't buckling down on her studies. There was too much for the Kalquorian personnel to be serious about, thanks to the Darks and the pandemics circulating on Earther planets and the empire.

Charity was in a serious frame of mind herself. Danger was present, though great efforts were being made to keep her safe. Because she was in no position to help fight the problems, as her ever-absent sister and father no doubt were, she'd begun to put her more sober and thoughtful mood to her studies. She might be useless where saving the galaxy was concerned, but she could at least behave and stay out of everyone else's way.

The library was quiet. Only a handful of others used it, seated apart from each other at the room's three computer-covered tables. Besides her vigilant guard, who was so still and silent she'd begun to consider him part of the furniture, there were Dramoks and a couple of Imdikos. They sat well away from her, intent on the computer readouts they studied. Before Nobek Ebos had faded in the background, he'd explained they were probably researching matters for their jobs on the station. "Laws, treaties, engineering and maintenance matters…whatever requires a link to the Galactic Reference Depository. Anything they can't access on the local servers to answer questions that come up, they come here to research."

Charity herself had a trio of vid screens floating in front of her. She worked on mapping what had until recently been Bi'is' kingdom space using coordinate plotting for her astronomy class. It boggled the mind to realize the Bi'isils no longer existed, but she had set the sense of dismay aside to work on the assignment. There was a fourth screen activated as well, smaller than the rest, which she acknowledged perhaps once an hour. It played the latest news stories. Its audio was an almost meaningless hum in Charity's earpiece, gaining her attention only when she needed a break from the endless computations and charting.

A beep sounded in the earpiece, worn so what she listened to wouldn't disturb her fellow researchers. She blinked and set her work on pause, her gaze checking the chronometer. Midafternoon, time to take a break.

It flies when you're having fun. Alpha Space Station adhered to Earth's New Hope City's clock, and she imagined fellow Earthers on the planet below the station counting down the hours to the workday's end.

She stretched and yawned. Mapping star systems was fun as far as Charity was concerned. Like most of her classmates, she hoped to discover a new planet or star…really, any celestial object that hadn't been detected before. Even a comet would do. The thrill of being the first sentient to find what no one else had seen or suspected would be heady stuff.

Her glance went to the news vid, and she tuned in to the reporter's voice. The lead stories were the usual doom and gloom. Kalquor was managing to contain the RCN-16 virus to certain sections on its home planet. Health officials reported they were on the verge of developing a vaccine, but the death toll in affected areas continued to climb.

Earth II's Dark Death continued to rage virtually unchecked. Governor Nichols had asked Kalquor's researchers to help it develop a remedy, and they had apparently agreed to do so. Earthtiques predictably swore to avoid vaccines the Kalquorians had a hand in, for fear of genetic meddling. Governor Nichols was considering making any successful vaccine mandatory, and Earthers who refused it would have to leave the planet. "You're free to put yourselves at risk, but no one else should suffer for it," she'd said.

The Galactic Council alleged an "invading Kalquorian force" was using an Earther orphanage as a military base to attack them. The empire was countering by leveling its own accusations that the GC fleet had attacked the orphanage and was on the brink of continued aggression on "innocent staff and children who'd survived Armageddon only to be caught in the middle of the Darks' war against Kalquor, and now, Earth." The Royal Council's spokesperson went on to accuse the Darks of unleashing the devastating viruses RCN-16 and Dark Death on the two species.

The same stories had been playing the last time she'd paid attention. At least nothing else has gone wrong in the past two hours.

As if her thought had been a challenge to chance and it had eagerly taken her up on it, a new bulletin began to play. Charity gaped to be confronted by her own face as an adolescent on the screen.

"The Galactic Council's leading news agency has released footage taken days ago on Alpha Space Station, which orbits Earth," the voice in her ear announced. "Charity Nath, daughter of Borey Nath, who was last seen alive on Earth's Holy Leader's battlecruiser Sword of Truth , is reportedly alive."

The old picture disappeared, replaced by a vid of Charity, Ruth, and George walking along the station's promenade. The shot zoomed in, froze, and a point-by-point identification program was run to show the probability it was her. Ninety-five-point-seven percent flashed in red under her face.

"In light of this new evidence, the Galactic Council has renewed its demands Kalquor, as well as Earth, reveal the whereabouts of Browning Copeland and Borey Nath. General Nath, a major force in the Earth-Kalquorian War, is accused of working in collusion with the Kalquorian Empire to hide the original Earth's Holy Leader without benefit of a trial. It is already alleged Charity Nath's older sister Hope is also alive and the Matara lifemate of Clan Piras, known to be stationed on Alpha Space Station. In response to this footage, the official government of Mercy Colony is offering a reward for the capture of any of the three Naths, who are wanted on that planet for questioning."

The report went on, but Charity was waving frantically to Nobek Ebos. The scarred warrior was at her side in an instant, and she pointed to the news vid. "Mercy Colony has offered a bounty on me! Everyone knows I'm here."

"Close out your research. You'll return to your quarters immediately." He spoke to his com next. "Agent Selt, we have a breaking situation."