B00CH3ARG0 EBOK (16 page)

Laura coughed and turned red. The old man broke into a
smile. “Such a charming ability you humans have, to blush. But you are
thoroughly embarrassed.” He turned a questioning look on Marianne. “High one?”

Marianne spread her hands. “It’s just not talked about in
high society,” she replied, biting her lip and trying not to laugh.

“Many humans of high status do not discuss their
reproductive decisions and behavior openly,” Cena said.

Marianne patted Laura’s back through a fit of coughing. “Still
convinced you want to live with these people?” she asked, and burst into
helpless laughter.

Laura shrugged and started to giggle. Before long, she was
laughing merrily with them.

The Sural popped into view on the gazebo steps. “It is good
to see my friends enjoying themselves.” He took a seat next to Marianne. Laura
sobered.

“Your apothecary is most persistent, high one,” Storaas said
in a dry voice.

“I asked Storaas to father my heir,” Cena said. “He has been
delaying his answer for most of a season.”

The Sural shot an appraising glance at Laura’s reddened face
and turned to Storaas. “How is the genetic analysis?” he asked.

“Exceptional,” Storaas replied. “And the child would inherit
my gift.”

“Excellent!” the Sural exclaimed. “You must give serious
consideration to such a rare finding.”

Laura burst. “How can you people sit here casually talking
about a man his age and a young woman her age having ... being ... together?”

“Cena is older than you are,” Marianne said, her mouth twitching
on its own.

Laura peered at the apothecary. “You can’t be more than half
my age,” she said.

Cena smiled. “You are perhaps a quarter of mine.”

“No!”

“Tolari live about 300 years,” Marianne said. “And that’s if
they don’t take the blessing. If they do, they live until they let themselves
grow old and die.”

Laura turned to Storaas and blurted, “Is that what you’re
doing?”

He studied her. “You are very astute,” he said.

“That’s what my husband always used to say.”

“Your husband knew you well.”

Laura swallowed. Storaas’s expression turned sympathetic,
and she did a double-take. She held his gaze for a long moment, before she
looked away and took a deep breath.

It was time to lighten the mood. “So,” Marianne said, “are
you going to honor the good apothecary, Proctor?” She felt the Sural
suppressing sudden amusement. She glanced at him. There was some deeper meaning
to this.

Storaas gazed out at the garden and didn’t answer for a long
time. “I believe so, yes,” he said when he spoke again.

Cena broke into a radiant smile.

“Excellent,” the Sural said with a huge grin.

Storaas and Cena stood. “If you will allow us,” the
apothecary said. Together they headed back to the keep.

Laura gaped. “They’re going – they’re going off to—”

“Yes,” the Sural answered. “It is the usual way to create a
child.”

She blushed to the roots of her hair. “Oh my,” she said. “You
really are aliens, I guess.”

He gave her a crooked smile. “Look into your own history and
you will find many instances of similar behavior. We are not so very unusual.”

“I think I need time to get used to you people.”

“You have time.”

“But if I take the Jorann’s blessing ... it would mean I
could never leave.”

“Quite possibly. There is some hope if your government
changes its ways.”

Laura was quiet. Then her eyes filled.

“I’ll never see my family again anyway,” she said. Tears
spilled down her face. “The government will have them under surveillance. And
if Central Command finds me, they’ll kill me.”

The Sural leaned forward toward her. “That is probable, at
least in the near future,” he said gently, taking her hands in his.

“Tell me you would never use one of your people to get
something the way Central Command tried to use me to get to Marianne,” she
said, searching his face.

“I would never use one of my people in that fashion.”

She pulled her hands from his. “I think you’re telling the
truth,” she said. “Or at least, you think you are. Thank you.”

“You’re like a cat with canary breath,” Laura said to Cena
the next morning.

The apothecary handed Marianne her medical tablet and turned
to Laura with a blank look.

“She means, you look like you got what you wanted last night,”
Marianne explained, not looking away from her daughter’s image on the tablet.
She lounged on the examination bed, touching her daughter’s image on the tablet
with a fingertip, a tiny smile playing around her mouth.

“Marianne!” Laura exclaimed.

Marianne gave her an unrepentant look.

Cena smiled. “Yes,” she said. “It was very enjoyable. The
good proctor is quite skilled and very considerate.”

Laura sputtered and felt herself turn pink. “How can you be
so open about it?”

Cena shrugged a shoulder. “It is our way,” she said. “Truthfully,
I would have him grant the Sural’s request that he take the Jorann’s blessing. I
would like to spend more time with him.”

Marianne put down the tablet. “Cena!” she blurted. “You’ve fallen
in love!”

Cena smiled. “Perhaps.”

“He’ll be able to tell, you know.”

“He could not fail to notice. It is not possible to conceal
such feelings during coupling.”

“Well, perhaps the love of a good woman will persuade him to
stay with us,” Marianne said. “I wish you joy of him.”

Laura looked from one to the other of them. “I’m never going
to understand you people. Not if I live a hundred years.”

“You’ll live a lot longer than that, if you become Tolari,”
Marianne said.

“Well— I can’t win, can I?”

“No, you can’t.” Marianne’s face sprouted a mischievous grin.
“And you don’t even know the half of it.”

“The Sural fathered me,” Cena said.

“I wasn’t going to say that,” Marianne muttered under her
breath.

Laura sat down hard in a chair, flummoxed at this unexpected
bit of information. “The Sural – is your
father
?”

“No, he
fathered
me.”

Laura frowned. “What’s the difference?” she asked.

Marianne tried to explain it. Parents, children, families in
straight lines … Laura rubbed her face. “So – your baby is your heir?” she said,
motioning toward Marianne’s swollen abdomen.

“Yes, exactly.”

“But she’s not the Sural’s daughter.”

“Kyza is the Sural’s daughter,” Cena said. “He can have only
one heir. Thela is his bond-daughter, but she remains her father’s heir. The
Marann’s daughter is neither his heir nor his bond-child.”

“And the Sural fathered your baby, but he’s not the baby’s
father,” Laura said, doubt creeping in that she had it correct.

“Right,” said Marianne.

“This is so strange,” Laura said, dropping her head in her
hands and squeezing her eyes shut. Then she looked up. “Wait, what did you call
Marianne?”

Marianne grinned. “She called me the Marann. It means
‘second one’ in Old Tolari. Some of the servants started calling me that after
I came back from seeing the Jorann, because it’s close to the way my name
sounds to them, and it spread. Even the Sural calls me that now.” Her smile
pulled to one side. “He almost never calls me by my own name anymore. I wish he
would. I like the way my name sounds when he says it.”

“Well, ask him to.”

“I have. He forgets. It’s not very characteristic of him to
forget anything, but I guess he’s so used to the idea that if you have a title,
you
don’t
have a name, it gets past his normal watchfulness.”

“That’s too bad.”

Marianne shrugged. “I don’t mind so much.” Suddenly she
grinned. “The baby’s kicking.”

Laura wandered over to put a hand on her belly. She felt a
little sorry for Marianne that she could only have one baby here. Unless she
got pregnant again? “What would happen if you had another baby?”

“If it were someone else’s heir, that would be fine.”

“You could have someone else’s baby? Wouldn’t the Sural be
upset if you – you know.”

Marianne shook her head and grimaced. “No, he’d probably
think it was an honor,” she said, her voice as sour as her face. “But I
probably wouldn’t. I have too many human scruples about it, as well as some
other problems. And I’m reliably informed that engaging in – that activity –
without the bond is empty.”

“Only relatively,” Cena replied.

Marianne grinned again. “Is that a canary feather?”

Cena flashed an enigmatic smile. Laura gasped. “That’s the
Sural’s smile!” she exclaimed. Cena gave a slight bow.

“You may get dressed now, high one,” Cena said.

“Want to come with us to the garden?”

“Regrettably, I have too much work today, high one. Perhaps
tomorrow.”

* * *

Storaas stood by the windows in the Sural’s open study,
gazing out over the city.

“You look younger this morning, Proctor,” the Sural said,
from where he sat on the edge of his desk.

“Your apothecary is insatiable,” he replied, cloaking
himself in serenity. “She appears to have inherited at least one of your
appetites.”

“As well for you then,” the Sural replied, his lips twitching.

“Not at my age. She could kill an old man. She would not
allow me to sleep until I gave her my word I would return tonight.”

The Sural chuckled. “You are thinking about her.”

“Yes, high one,” he admitted. He half-turned and looked at
the Sural.

“My heart is gladdened for you, old friend,” the Sural said,
allowing the warmth in his voice to reflect on his face.

“She wishes to spend more time with me.”

His breath caught. He went over to the window to stand
beside the old man and looked out at his city. “And will you give her that time?”
he asked, his voice very soft.

Storaas stood silent for a long time. Finally, he whispered,
almost inaudibly, “Perhaps.”

* * *

Laura and Marianne strolled through the gardens after
leaving Cena’s quarters.

“Marianne—” Laura said.

“Hmm?” Marianne tossed a flower in one of the garden’s
brooks and watched it float downstream.

“You said you had too many scruples to have another man’s
baby,” she said, sitting down in the ferny vegetation beside the brook. Marianne
joined her.

“They won’t even ask. Apparently it’s rude to ask a member
of the ruling caste to mother your heir, though it’s allowed to ask a man to
father one. But Cena told me I won’t ever want anyone else that way, because of
the bond I have with the Sural.”

“What about the other problems?”

“What other problems?”

“You said you had too many scruples, ‘as well as some other
problems.’”

Marianne was silent. She plucked a fern and tossed it into
the brook.

“People usually don’t mention things like that unless they
want to talk about them,” Laura persisted. “If you really didn’t want me to
know, you wouldn’t have mentioned it at all. You would have just said that you
had too many scruples, and I never would have been the wiser. So what is it
that you wanted to tell me?”

Marianne gave Laura her best Tolari stare and leaned back on
her elbows to heave a sigh.

“When I was twelve, I walked home alone from the summer fair
late one night. A man followed me. Between the rapes and what he did to me with
… with a barbecue skewer, I nearly died.”

Laura’s eyes went wide with horror. “Oh my God. I’m so
sorry. If you don’t want to talk about it—”

Marianne licked her lips nervously. “You’re right, I guess
deep down I wanted to tell you.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“I put up walls that no one could get through after that. Not until the Sural.”
She lay back in the ferny groundcover and watched the clouds drifting by
overhead.

“Oh you poor ... No wonder Addie kept saying there was no
chance you’d ever get involved with ‘that handsome Sural.’ I wondered why
everyone was so certain you’d be loyal to Earth.”

“You think they picked me because I was so afraid of men?”

“That has to be one reason why,” Laura said. “It has to be.
But how did he manage to get through to you?”

“All the time he spent with me, all the little things he did
for me – I thought he was just trying to be a good friend because I was alone
on his world. A planetary ruler? Interested in a farm girl like me? Not a
chance. But after I changed … he wasn’t going to be able to hide his feelings
forever, so he let me see what he felt.” She rolled onto her side and threw
another little fern in the stream.

“I was terrified, and that’s putting it mildly,” she
continued. “But when the Detral shot him and he nearly died, I realized I
didn’t want to live without him, much as the idea scared the stuffing out of me.
As soon as he was recovered from his wound, we bonded.”

“You put him off because you come from a farm? We humans pay
too much attention to social class.”

Marianne shrugged. “Social class never really affected me.
Not in Casey, Iowa. A few semi-rich types lived in the area, but most of us
were just working folk.”

“Lucky.”

“Eh? How do you figure that?”

“Life is very restricted for a poor little rich girl.”

“Right, how bad could it be?”

“I was never allowed to be alone,” Laura said. “Do you know,
I never climbed a tree? And the only boys I could accompany without a chaperone
were my brothers. It took months to plan and scheme and find a way to elope
with John.”

“Good grief. Who treats their daughter like that?”

“Steven Langley Johnson.”

Marianne gaped. “
The
Steven Johnson? The richest man
in the Six Planets?”

“The one and only,” Laura replied with a wry grin.

“Good God.”

Laura made a sour face. “There’s nothing good about Papa – and
he didn’t get where he is by being nice. Even the Chairman is careful of him. I
wonder if he’s figured out yet it was Central Command that kidnapped me and not
the Triads?”