Chapter Six

He is certainly cold company. As time wore on, the chillier he'd become. However, he trumped the mayor by a long shot as far as husband material went. Better cold than evil.

He couldn't have made it plainer his heart wasn't in the marriage. Of course, hers wasn't either, but at least she had one, and, when she met the right man, she would embrace love with open arms and her whole heart.

He'd been late coming to get her—everyone else's matches had been waiting for them and greeted them exuberantly, joyfully. Couples had paired up and rushed away to their new happy lives, and she'd been left alone, forgotten, worried her match wouldn't be coming at all. When he finally did show up, he'd never even said hello or offered an apology or a good explanation for being late. And although he'd denied it, he'd been disappointed by her homely appearance .

His reasons for needing the marriage to be temporary bore that out. How had he phrased it? "It's not in me to love another person?" She'd heard that before. Anytime anybody said, "It's not you; it's me," it was you.

His environment confirmed her impression of him. His apartment lacked warmth and a personal touch. Even the flowers. She loved flowers, and, at first, she had been moved by the gesture, until she realized they were exactly like the ones in the lobby. Same blooms, same arrangement. He'd chosen them not for her but for the lobby, had a few left over, and stuck the extras in her room.

Right off the bat, he'd announced they would sleep apart. She'd assumed sex would be one of the benefits of the marriage once they'd gotten to know each other. Instead, he'd given her the distinct impression he'd ruled out physical intimacy completely. This really will be just a marriage of convenience. If she'd nursed a tiny hope that maybe she would find love, well, that was the end of that.

"I usually eat a meal this time of evening," he said, and she noticed the sky had taken on a rosy hue. "Would you care to join me for dinner?" he asked in an ultra-polite tone .

She'd never considered food! What did Caradonians eat? What if their food was gross? What if her body couldn't digest it? A new concern arose, adding to her turmoil. Her stomach was churning, which she'd attributed to nerves, but it might be hunger pangs, too. She hadn't eaten since breakfast. But that had been on the ship. Those meals had been alien.

I did okay with that.

"I'll try," she said. "I mean, yes."

"I'll be right back, then." Was he going to prepare it? Did he cook? It seemed out of character. She would have loved to have seen the kitchen. Maybe she could do some baking while she was here. But before she could speak up, he'd disappeared down another wing.

The sky, an expansive canvas of pinks, mauves, and oranges, drew Hope closer to the window despite her unease with the floor. She normally had no fear of heights, but she'd never stood two and a half kilometers high with only a thin plate of glass preventing her from freefalling to her death. But as she gazed at the breathtaking panorama, her nervousness receded. She understood why there were no coverings on the windows. Who would block this view? This high up, nothing other than a bird could see them. Did Caradonia have birds?

Bravely, she looked down. The skyscrapers—cloudtoppers, he'd called them, sprouted from the planet's surface like a thick forest of slender blocks, rods, and spires. Buildings glowed as lights came on in preparation for nightfall. It's like being an angel watching over the world from a cloud. Except Krogan was no angel.

Did the governor-general enjoy sitting on the top of the world staring down his nose at everyone below him? She'd bet he did.

She snorted as irony dawned. Isn't this my luck? I fled a mayor to end up with a governor-general.

But at least this way, I'm protected by the escape clause. Although she might wish her temporary husband was more congenial, the fact he had no desire to prolong their association counted as a big plus. She wouldn't have to worry about hurting some nice alien man's feelings. She should be relieved.

I am relieved. I'm safe from Gleezer. He can't touch me here. I'm not endangering anyone else. In a year, when the marriage expired, she'd return to Terra Nova, settle in a different village far away from Bloomhaven. By then, the mayor would have stopped searching for her. Hopefully.

"Dinner is ready," Krogan spoke.

"That didn't take long."

She followed him into a huge dining room dwarfing a massive marblelike table surrounded by no less than twenty high-backed chairs of the same material. "Everything is big," she commented. And wide open and vacant.

"I like space," he said as if he'd read her mind.

He liked space in his housing and in his personal life. She might have wondered if he suffered from claustrophobia, except she remembered the windowless, doorless tubular transport. He'd had no trouble climbing into that. However, they'd only been inside a few seconds. Anything was bearable for a few seconds. Maybe it's only relationship claustrophobia he suffers from.

Two place settings had been set at one corner where both parties could see the sunset, deep orange and crimson now. "Beautiful, just stunning," she murmured.

"You can barely catch glimpses of it from the surface," he said .

"So that's why you live in a penthouse in the tallest cloudtopper—to enjoy the view while blocking it for everyone else?" The snarky comment slipped out.

If her comment annoyed him, neither his expression nor his voice revealed it as he replied, "The cloudtoppers were built long before I was born. They are a fact of life. It is a matter of choice whether one stays on the ground or rises to the top."

"Easy for you to say. You're wealthy." What had gotten into her? She knew little about him, his planet, or his culture, yet she felt compelled to criticize. And wealth was relative. The person she should have taken to task was Rose. Yet, she'd never openly criticized her stepmother.

"I wasn't when my mother abandoned me and left me to fend for myself." He gestured for her to sit.

She winced. "I'm…sorry. I shouldn't have said that." Could she make the situation more awkward? She sat and found the chair surprisingly comfortable. Firm, but not hard, it conformed to her spine. It gave her hope the uninviting bed wouldn't be so bad after all.

An android bearing plates of food marched into the room. Metallic-blue and humanoid-shaped, it looked like a spacy mannequin. But instead of facial features, it had two glowing scanners for eyes and what appeared to be a speaker/microphone where its mouth would have been. Capping its head was a whirling light.

"This is Don Juan—" Krogan said.

"Don Juan, really? Does he flirt with all the female androids?"

Krogan blinked. "No. He is not programmed to do that. He's a house bot. Don1.0. Don One for short. Don as in Cara don ia. There are later models, but I've had Don One for years and saw no reason to replace a perfectly good bot."

"Oh!" She laughed at herself. "I misheard what you said. Can it speak?"

"Yes. Don One, this is my wife, Hope Bennett. Say hello."

My wife. Her stomach gave an odd flutter to hear those words in his deep voice.

"Hello, Hope Bennett. I am here to serve you well. Would you care for a beverage with your dinner meal?"

She was impressed. "Yes, I would. What do you recommend?"

Don Juan—she preferred to think of him that way—offered a suggestion, but she had no idea what it was .

"It's a juice," Krogan explained. "Bring one for each of us," he instructed the bot, "and some water."

Don Juan left the room, and she studied her plate of unrecognizable bite-size nuggets. They smelled appetizing.

"I instructed Don One to prepare a sampling of different foods in hopes something would appeal to you. As he learns what you like and dislike, he will adjust what he prepares."

"Thank you. That was very thoughtful of you," she said. Could she have judged him too harshly? She took a nibble of something savory and delicious and discovered she was hungry after all.

Don Juan returned with several goblets. "Do you require anything else?"

"No. I'll let you know if I do," Krogan said.

The bot left.

"Do you have androids on Terra Nova?" Krogan asked.

"Yes. I never had one, but they exist. People in government use them. The government controls our technology. They dole out what we can have, when we can have it, and how we use it. They limit and monitor our tech-tab time."

"Why? What are they afraid of? "

"What all government officials fear—losing power," she replied before she remembered he was governor-general. How much authority did he have, she wondered.

Hurriedly, she added, "They started out with good intentions. The colonizers intended Terra Nova to be agrarian. Earth had developed too fast and didn't manage its technology well, resulting in many unexpected harmful consequences to the planet and the people. Technology supplanted personal contact. People forgot how to behave around each other. They became isolated. And mining for the metals used in technological devices devastated the environment.

"Terra Nova is Earth's mulligan. The government decided that Terra Nova would stick with the basics, operate at a simpler, slower pace, and focus on a lifestyle that brought people together instead of separating and isolating them. The planet was developed into small villages and farms. We have a few industrial areas, but most people live in hamlets.

"The goal was to use technology to supplement our lives, not replace it. Technology was put under the auspices of the government to manage and monitor," she concluded .

"Once government gains control, they don't relinquish it," he said.

"You said it. I didn't."

"Nor did you say why you chose Cosmic Mates."

"My village wasn't safe for me anymore. I had to marry someone I didn't like or leave."

After losing her job at the bakery, she'd submitted an application, unsure if she would follow through. But upon returning to the cottage, she discovered Rose had discarded her belongings and changed the locks. With only the clothes on her back, she'd run to Prudence's house. The constable—a crony of the mayor's—had come looking for her, claiming she'd stolen from Rose. Her friend's parents had covered for her, denying she was there, but Hope knew her presence put them in jeopardy.

For a month, until her Cosmic Mates application had been approved and the ship had come for her, she'd hidden out, moving from place to place. Friends of her boss and of Prudence's family had hidden her. No one dared to confront the mayor outright, but they sympathized. Other than his hand-selected cronies, he had few friends. But she'd had to flee, as much to save the people who'd helped her, as herself .

"So, you exchanged one unwanted marriage for another?" Krogan said.

"Except this one has an escape clause." She cringed at how rude that sounded, but then she realized he'd been pretty tactless in explaining his reasons. At least they were starting out honest. That was something, anyway.

"Speaking of that, we need to make it legal."

"What do you mean?"

"According to the terms of the contract, we must certify our union. I took the liberty of scheduling the wedding ceremony for tomorrow afternoon."

She'd gulped, the reality hitting hard. She'd be locked in for a year.