Chapter Eight

Evalee

After we finished eating and put the dishes in the cleaner, Lanimer took my hand for a stroll through his beautiful house. We had been so into each other last night that I had hardly noticed anything else in the dimly lit rooms. But now everything was brightly lit, and the living area was simply furnished and lavishly spacious. I could hardly believe that we were actually underground as it seemed so light and airy.

As I looked up at Lanimer’s smirk, I knew he’d read my mind.

“You thought it would be more cave-like and primitive, didn’t you?”

I giggled. “Yes, I think I did. But I would still want to live here with you.” And then I sighed. It wouldn’t be easy for us to be a mixed couple in the current political climate of Zevus Mar. Lanimer was neither Zevian nor Trakellisan. He was fair-skinned like the Tregan race that invaded Zevus Mar thirty years before killing Lanimer’s family.

I am so glad that telling him about the situation didn’t discourage him from coming. Of course, he read my thoughts.

“Don’t worry, Evalee. There are still some people who will remember how my guardian and his wife came back to help after the Federation drove out the Tregans. I hope to find some of them and catch up on how their lives have gone since the war. I promised Hankura and Chelle I would.”

“But you know the information services never tell the whole story. Things just keep getting worse. Chief Yaroman thinks we should close the Trakellisan clinic because of the unrest. In the last month, the demonstrations have become violent.”

“I know. I saw the reports as we got into this sector. Do you know what the problem is?” I wondered.

“There is a separatist faction that does not want Trakellisans to assimilate into Zevian culture. They want us gone, as in wiped off the planet. The government says they will protect us, but they won’t allow us to ban the protesters from our cities.”

“Your people shouldn’t have to suffer their harassment. I don’t understand their problem. The Zevians have equal rights with the Trakellisans.”

I didn’t even try to hide my frustration because the solution seemed simple to me. If those rebels didn’t like the aliens, they didn’t have to associate with them.

“That’s not their only problem. They have different ideas about how resources should be distributed and who should have control of what. Xenos Free believes that Trakellisans shouldn’t serve in the government because they’re not human. They want my father’s people expelled from the planet.”

“How big is this Xenos Free movement?”

“The last estimate was twenty percent, but a smaller portion of them are radicalized. They are causing the trouble.” Evalee mused.

Lanimer

A sinking feeling rippled through me as it became clear what we were up against. I wondered how this could happen. Evalee was right. This wasn’t in the info streams. “Does the Federation know about this?”

“You’d have to ask the council. We’ve been so busy because we were short a physician, and we haven’t had time to keep up with the info stream to know much more about what’s happening than what we’ve seen,” she explained.

It was no wonder she was struggling with her feelings for me and the uncertainty of the current unrest. While I wasn’t exactly regretting my move to Zevus Mar, I could see how it was more problematic than I considered when I made my decision.

But the dreams were relentless. I kept seeing my family’s beautiful agricultural complex filled with green growing things. I also dreamed of the agricomplex where Orin took us after the other Tregans killed my family. Coming back here had become an obsession even before I received Evalee’s video.

Even though she was not a full-on psi path, she was a highly developed empath. With my ability to see into her mind and understand her core values, I quickly fell in love with her. I cannot even imagine the rest of my life without her already.

“I think we should go ahead and work at the clinic… See how it goes. Despite the unrest, you still have plenty of patients.” I took her into my arms and held her, resting my cheek on her head. I knew there weren’t enough Trakellisan physicians and medics to serve their entire population. I hoped that with my telepathic skills, I might be able to discover the true source of the hostility of the Xenos Free movement.

Because we had spent the night making love, we had slept most of the day away. That meant it was starting to get cooler on the surface, and it would be a good time to show Evalee the farm. We needed something to distract us from the unrest between her people and the humans.

We took the elevator to the surface. As we emerged outdoors, the heat nearly took our breath away. Though the sun was low in the sky, the heat barely lessened. Evalee acclimated more quickly than I did because she was used to it. I am glad she suggested we bring water bottles with us as we would need them if we spent much time on the surface.

As I looked around, I was pleased to see that things had mostly remained as I remembered them. Watered from a deep artesian well, the land surrounding the garage was lush and green, almost as far as I could see.

By most standards, I was a wealthy man. During all the years I spent on Oltarin, my family’s farm grew and sold crops. All of the credits that we didn’t put back into the farm we accumulated into a trust fund account that Hankura managed for me until I was an adult. His family provided for me while I was growing up, and then I began earning a living as a physician myself.

I was glad to have that income when I decided to bring the horses to Zevus Mar. I needed a large barn and nurturing chamber to grow the embryos that I’d brought with me. Because they would grow slowly, I was able to start them before I left Oltarin and transport them through space. They were about 2 pounds each when we arrived at Zevus Mar. My barn droid moved them to the tanks in the stable after we arrived. We stopped to see them as we made our rounds.

The barn was a large white dome built from aerated concrete that would reflect the sun’s heat. It contained six large stalls, storage for feed, and a lab with nurturing tanks for the embryos. I also brought frozen embryos of several different genetic lines to start a breeding program. They already looked like tiny horses in their tanks.

Outside the barn, the androids created and cultivated a large pasture with established grass for my future herd. Evalee was suitably impressed with the setup.

On my journey to Zevus Mar, I shared many videos of horses and riding them in the Cerulean Mountains of Oltarin. She thought the horses were some of the most beautiful creatures she had ever seen. I had to agree.

We spent half an hour casually strolling along the fields and around the pasture after I showed her my beautiful new barn. As we walked around, the memories of my family and our happy times here filled my mind. I could almost feel their spirits pleased with my return. With Evalee at my side, I truly believed this was where I belonged.