CHAPTER 15

Jenna

After so many months, I was alone with my father.

It was like being with a stranger that I’d known all my life.After a young man came up and saw Elliot, Byron, and Cade out, Daddy and I had a moment of awkward silence that I finally found unbearable and had to break.

“Daddy,” I said quickly before he could speak up, “I understand what you’re doing.I know what you want to do with it and how important it could be.We’re talking about maybe changing two worlds here, which is just what it could do.But have you thought about what else it could do?You’ve taught me about how some people can be about scientific things.Someone on Earth could get hold of this and try to take it away from you, take control of it for themselves, try to get a monopoly on it; and they’d probably not be someone who cares about the world the way you do.They’d be someone who only cared about themselves, or only cared about money.Or, even worse, it would be so easy for someone on Earth to turn your work into a weapon.

“Think of what that could do:whole cities, maybe whole countries just wiped off the map without any radiation or fallout like there’d be with nukes.So many people killed, so many things destroyed.Oh, Daddy, that could happen; it would be so horrible and so easy.”

Solemnly, he said, “I’ve thought about all that, Jenna.But that risk has come with other things that people have invented.So many of the things we create have the potential to destroy as much as they help.Does it mean that we don’t do those things? Does that mean we deny the world the good that our work can accomplish?These risks have always existed in science, Jenna.They’ve been there, I’m sure, from the time men learned how to make fire.Does the potential for harm outweigh the promise of good?Where would the world be if every creation for the good were kept locked away because it might be misused?Jenna, you know I’ve always believed that the promises of science are more important than its threats.The promises of my work are no different.We go ahead, trusting that what we do will be used more for good than for harm.”

There was another beat of uncertain silence.Daddy had defended himself from one thing, but from the sober look in his eyes, I could tell he knew what else there was that he had yet to face.“That isn’t what you really want to talk about, is it?” he asked.

“No, it’s not,” I replied and I began to clench and unclench my fists, which I knew he recognized as the tell for when I felt most upset.Inside, I was seething at him.I wanted to blow up at him, but ironically, the rationality that he’d taught me to use all my life held me back.So I didn’t scream at him, but still I poured out what was in my heart.“Daddy, I’m hurt.I am so hurt.How could you just disappear from my life that way, not letting me hear a thing from you, not letting me know where you were or what you were doing—or how you were doing, if you were in trouble or if you were hurt?What was I supposed to think?How could you do that to me?What did I ever do to deserve that?”

“You never did anything to deserve that, Jenna,” he said.“Oh, my girl, that was never what I intended.”

”Then why?”

“Because of exactly what you said before.Because of how important it all is—and how risky it all is.Jenna, we’ve been discussing the forces not only on Earth but here on Tellus that would want to suppress my work, bury it or steal it for their own use—who might go to the extent of harming me to do it and you’ve been through a terrible danger yourself from these same people.I can’t tell you the fear I felt—the pain, the horror of anyone holding my daughter against her will, possibly threatening her life.I wish you’d stayed on Earth and waited until I came back.At least on Earth you’d be safer.”

”And I’d be away from you, still not knowing what you were doing or what was happening to you!”

”But you would have been safer,” he argued.“That was why I didn’t want you to follow me.”

I shook my head at him, my eyes getting wet.“Even if I could have helped you?Daddy, my whole life you’ve taught me everything.You never assumed there was anything I couldn’t learn or anything that I couldn’t do because I was a girl.You taught me to value science.You taught me physics and astronomy.You taught me about technology, and passed on your values to me, your principles.Daddy, what hurts me the most, what makes me the most angry; is that it feels like you didn’t trust me any more to be the daughter that you raised!It’s like you gave me everything of yourself and didn’t give me any credit to know how to use it!You just took off on this adventure and didn’t take me with you!How was I supposed to feel about that?I came over to this world and I’ve had to make my way in it for myself—yes, with Uncle Neal’s help, but most of the time I didn’t even have him!Most of the time it’s been just me!You didn’t have to do that!You could have trusted me!”

“But it hasn’t really been only you, has it?” he said meaningfully.“You haven’t made your way here only by yourself, Jenna.For a while now, there’s been someone else.You have not been completely alone.”

What I knew he was saying now made me stiffen up and tighten my lips into a frown.“Not lately, no.”

He took on a pained sort of voice.“Jenna.Darling.Three of them?Three dragon men?Three?”

”They’ve been good to me, Daddy,” I said.

“And as I understand it,” he said, “you’ve been just as good to them.”

I took on a defiant tone.“I care about them, and they’ve shown me they care about me.”

”As well they should, considering.”

His hint of flippancy about my relationships and subtle tone of judgement about the men in my life began to stir up my anger again.“Do you think they’re using me?”

”What else should a father think?” he said.

“You mean a father who ran out on me, looking for a way to change the world without me?”

He shook his head at me the way I had earlier done to him.“Jenna, when I left Earth you were a girl who’d only had one boyfriend and never been with him in that way.You came here as a 19-year-old, inexperienced girl, and now there are three of them, and they’re allmen and dragons, Jenna.Three men who are in a different place in life than you are, and they’re dragons and from what your Uncle Neal says…”He stopped himself.I could see how difficult it was for him to imagine me with any man, let alone three men who could release dragons from inside themselves.“Jenna, every father with a daughter knows that someday there will be a man who is more important to his girl than he is, and if he’s sane and has any sense, he learns to accept it.But Jenna, a father expects there will be one man.One.”

”It was one, at first,” I explained.“It was Elliot at first and he was kind and he left it up to me to decide what would happen and he was wonderful to me.I thought it would be just Elliot.But then there were his friends, and they were good and kind to me too and everything I felt for Elliot was still there, and it kept growing and getting better.But there were his friends, and they all made me feel important and they all made me happy.None of them has ever done anything to hurt me.I wouldn’t even be here without them and…I’m not sorry.

“I know it’s different, and from a human point of view it’s strange and it’s nothing I ever would have expected or imagined.But it isn’t bad, Daddy.They aren’t bad.They’re good, all of them.I love Elliot.I care about Byron and Cade.It’s strange, Daddy, but it’s good and I don’t regret one bit of it.”

He sighed at me.“Jenna…my Jenna, I look at you now and I still see that little girl I loved and raised and taught.But now, suddenly, I see someone else, someone new.Someone that I didn’t raise, someone who’s taught herself things that I never could.Part of me is sad, Jenna and part of me regrets the way I did things.Perhaps I should have brought you along on this, kept you at my side.I might have kept you safe in spite of everything.

“But with me…oh, Jenna, you probably would not have become the person I’m seeing in front of me now.I’m looking at my little girl and I’m amazed at who she’s become:someone who came across universes on her own, faced danger, fell in love—not the kind of love that I would have wanted for her, but love—and perhaps become stronger than I am and all this you’ve done—without me.”

I couldn’t keep my voice from cracking a little.“I did it without you, Daddy, because I needed you.I’ve always needed you.I’ll always need you and if you’d brought me with you, maybe I would have still found someone to love here.It wouldn’t have been the same as with Elliot and the others, but it would have been love.But Daddy, it wouldn’t be the same as how I love you.I’ve been mad and scared and hurt because you took away the love that showed me who I can be.I need my father!”

He held out his arms to me.“Jenna…my baby…my girl…”

I ran to him, tearfully, and now I couldn’t stop myself from weeping.“Daddy,” I sobbed.“Daddy…”

And we hugged, long and hard, sealing up the cracks in our relationship, restoring the love that I could only have for my father, and him for me.

_______________

My escort back to the tree house where they’d taken the guys was a young man named Dominic.He was a handsome-looking guy of the same age as Elliot and the others.He wore shorts and a T-shirt and had strongly muscled arms and legs.If I hadn’t met the guys that I was already with, I could easily have had something with Dominic.At the moment, all I could think about was the talk that I’d just had with Daddy—and wanting to see my own three dragons again.

We walked in the settlement outside in the dark, in violet-white light from Ambience lanterns that made the forest around us look like a painted backdrop on a stage.“Your father is a brilliant man,” Dominic said.

“You’ve been watching his work?” I asked.

”And helping out wherever I had the chance.He’s been testing the transmitter/receiver system at different locations.This is the best place for it that he’s found.The problem has been keeping the energy stream integrity constant.Going through the domain buffer between here and your world, the energy stream keeps breaking down, becoming static.That’s no good.Your father thinks the synchronization of the domain in this spot has the best chance of giving him a constant energy flow without the breakdown.If it works here, he’ll study it more and see if he can find a way to reproduce the stream integrity in other places.Once he overcomes that, things go to the next level.”

I was impressed at how well Dominic understood what Daddy was doing.“Seems like you’ve really been paying attention,” I said.

”Sure I have,” Dominic replied.“This is history being made here—history for our world and yours.How many people get to be right there on the spot when something begins that could change everything?Your father is going to become one of the great inventors.The future will be different—better—for everyone because of him.”

”I’m glad you have so much confidence in him,” I said.“I hope there’ll be a lot more people like you when it’s time for him to go public.”

”Don’t you have confidence in him?” Dominic asked.

”Well, of course I do.I know how brilliant he is.I knew he was brilliant before he got here.”

”Just think,” said Dominic, “you’re about to be the daughter of a man who brought two worlds together.”

”Yes,” I said, remembering some of the things that Daddy and I talked about before really beginning to show our feelings.“Just think.”

We came to a large tree with a big house in its massive, sturdy boughs.There were lights in the windows of the house, and a strong hanging ladder of wooden beams and thick ropes descended from its entrance to the ground.“You’re here,” said Dominic.He pointed to the house.“Your friends are up there.Can you get up all right?I can morph and fly you up if you want.”

“I can manage, thanks,” I said.

”Good night, then.I’m really looking forward to the big test tomorrow.”

”Me too,” I said.“Well, good night, Dominic.”

He started away, hands in his pockets, looking over his shoulder at me as he walked off into the Ambience lighting towards the darkness of the forest beyond it.I watched him for a second.He had such a beautiful look about him, his face, his build.In a far corner of my mind, I was tempted to wonder if my guys wouldn’t consider bringing a fourth dragon into our relationship.

But then I thought, No, the four of us are enough.We have enough love together to last us.Dominic is gorgeous and he’s enthusiastic about Daddy’s work, but he’s a stranger.We don’t know how he’d fit in with us, with the relationship we have.We don’t need anyone else.We’re good as we are.

And with that, I grabbed onto the hanging rungs of the ladder—dismissing the tantalizing thought of what handsome Dominic might have “hanging.”I was surprised at myself for letting such a thing cross my mind.It wasn’t long ago that I wouldn’t entertain such thoughts about anyone at all.I had backed out of sex with my human boyfriend back on Earth, and just look at me now.

Yes—just look at me now.I began to climb up to the tree house, turning all my thoughts to who was waiting for me there.