Beneath the Twin Moons of Haldae (15 page)

Feeling a little lonely, she sat down on a large flat rock next to the water. The stone was warm under her hand, heated by the sun, which slowly glided toward the horizon, accompanied by the two moons. She had checked the beacon, and it wasn’t working.

She was beginning to suspect that the moons were to blame for the malfunction of her equipment, as her instruments all seemed to fail whenever they were up. Maybe they caused some magnetic dissonance? It was hard to tell without any instruments, and besides, it wasn’t her specialty. She was just glad that the translang was based on an altogether different technology and that it hadn’t stopped working as well.

The sky was visibly darker when Kris came back, carrying fruit for them to share. He sat next to her on the rock, and they ate in silence until Zaren had to say, “I’m sorry. I should have told you earlier that my people would come for me.”

He shrugged lightly. “I should have guessed they would. I just hoped…”

He didn’t finish. Zaren wanted to ask what it is he had hoped. She thought she already knew the answer, and she didn’t know how she could possibly reply.

It was a long moment before either of them spoke again.

“Zaren…” Kris waited until she turned her face toward him before he continued. “Why did you come to Haldae?”

This, at least, Zaren knew how to answer. “To learn,” she said. “I wanted to know about other people, see how they lived. Learn their language.”

Kris looked puzzled. “But you’ve barely learned anything.”

She couldn’t help but smile. “I learned a lot. You taught me a lot about your people and your planet.”

“Are you going to tell your people?”

He was frowning now, and she thought she knew why. He had shared secrets with her. Things he clearly should not have told an outsider.

“I will not tell them anything you told me,” she said. “You have my word.”

She would have to lie when she returned home, but she was ready to do it. It was the least she could do for Kris.

“You wanted to learn…” he said slowly, thoughtfully. “You could learn a lot more if you stayed here. With me.”

Zaren’s heart tightened. She had tried very hard not to think of that possibility. It was much too tempting.

“Kris… I can’t.”

“I will be an outcast now,” he said as though he hadn’t heard, his eyes back on the lake in front of them. The sun had set, and only the faint light of the moon still played on the calm waters. “Everybody must know by now that I helped you, and I won’t be able to return to my village or see my sister. I’ll be lucky if they don’t hunt me down.”

“Are you saying you regret—”

“No,” he interrupted her very quickly, and took her hand, squeezing softly. “Never. You saved Elea, and I’ll always be grateful. But I thought…” He paused, and his expression softened, turning almost shy. “I thought you would stay with me. I hoped you would.”

As soon as the translang murmured the translation of Kris’ words into the shell of her ear, Zaren knew she had guessed right. But then, she had known simply from the way he was looking at her, from the way his fingers had slipped between hers.

He liked her.

He more than liked her.

And she liked him—more than liked him—in return.

“I wish I could stay,” she murmured back, wishing that the translang would speak as softly as she did rather than in the same, even, almost-impersonal tone. “Believe me, I really do. But my people are coming, and they won’t let me remain here.”

She shouldn’t have been there at all, but that was too complicated to explain to Kris now, and she didn’t want to spend that much time on something that, in the end, was irrelevant, especially since she didn’t know how much longer they had.

“Then…” He hesitated, looked up at the sky for a long moment, then at the lake for even longer, and finally turned to her. “Then let me come with you. Show me your world.”

She wondered what he had seen during that moment of reflection, what was going through his head. Could he even begin to imagine her world when he looked at the stars? Was the lake, this clearing, a special place for him on Haldae? Could he really understand what it would mean to choose between the two? To leave everything he knew, everyone he loved, family and friends, and…

And he had already chosen, hadn’t he? He had left his village at the risk of becoming an outcast—and he had done it for her. He hadn’t hesitated, or at least, he hadn’t showed it, not for a moment. It made her feel even guiltier for having to abandon him like this.

“I wish you could come,” she said, speaking past the heavy lump in her throat. “But my peo k“justify">ple…” Her voice brok
e. “It’s just not possible.”

He looked so lost for an instant that she could hardly bear it. Leaning toward him, she pressed her mouth against his and kissed him softly. He froze against her, then closed his eyes and kissed her back.

The kiss didn’t last long. It was tender and bittersweet. They both knew nothing could possibly come of this. And indeed before the night ended, Zaren was leaving Haldae.

Chapter 15

Leaving

Haldae’s two moons, Teira and its identical sister Louan, disappeared beyond the horizon. Without their pale glow lightening the sky, more and more stars were appearing, reflected in the calm waters of the lake. The night air was growing chilly, but Kris didn’t feel the cold, not with Zaren’s warm fingers wrapped around his own, not when her head was resting against his shoulder.

They hadn’t said a word in a long time. There really wasn’t anything more to say. Or maybe there was so much that Kris didn’t know where to start.

A sudden noise startled Kris, and he jerked forward, rising to his feet at once to look around. It was almost like music, low and regular, to the same rhythm as a heartbeat. It seemed to come from the medicine box Zaren had been carrying around.

“What is this?” he asked.

Zaren was already reaching for the box. She opened it and pulled out a small object. A red light pulsed with every new sound coming from the box.

“My people are coming,” she said softly, looking up at him with an apologetic expression. “They’ll be here soon.” She took his hand again and squeezed lightly. “They can’t find us together; we would both get in trouble.”

“Worse trouble than the Elders?” Kris asked, trying but failing to make the words teasing.

“Much worse,” she replied grimly.

He couldn’t stop himself from taking her hand, just to hold it one last time. “I wish you didn’t have to leave,” he said.

“I wish I could stay,” she replied, just as quietly, and leaned closer to press a fleeting kiss to his mouth.

“Will you come back?” he asked when she pulled away again.

He held his breath as he waited for her answer. He still didn’t quite understand why she couldn’t stay with him—she had said she wanted to, after all—but if she really had to leave, maybe she would return. Maybe even soon.

“I don’t think I will be able to,” she said, and while the box that spoke her words sounded the same as it always did, her voice, the words Kris didn’t unde n“jube able trstand, were filled by a sadness so deep it spoke to the wolf inside him, and made him want to howl. “I’ll try,” she murmured. “But, Kris, you must go now. They’re close. They can’t see you.”

The object with the red light was chiming faster and faster now. Kris pulled Zaren into a tight hug, then quickly let go. He took two steps back and shifted to his wolf form, then ran off into the nearby woods.

He stopped when he was in deep enough to be hidden but not so deep that he wouldn’t be able to see the clearing. For a few minutes, nothing happened. Zaren stood by the edge of the lake, alternating looking up toward the sky and toward Kris, although he didn’t think she could still see him. Not going back to her was harder and harder with each passing moment. He didn’t realize he had stepped forward until, across the distance, he saw her smile at him. The next second, she looked up again. Kris followed her gaze and couldn’t help taking a step back at what he saw.

A large, gleaming object was flying over the lake and toward the clearing. It was the same shape as Zaren’s shuttle, although bigger. It slowed down and came to a standstill in front of Zaren, then one side opened, like a door. Suddenly, it was so bright that Kris could barely see.

Soon, the door closed again. The light faded. The shuttle flew away.

Zaren was gone.

Kris howled toward the moons.

* * * *

Zaren still hadn’t figured out what she would answer when Ilona Brink suddenly said they had to go back and finish the hearing. Confused, Zaren accompanied her back inside. Was Brink going to ask her the same questions again, make her tell the whole council about Kris? Even now, Zaren felt a little guilty about betraying her promise to Kris; she didn’t want even more people to know. And she didn’t want to talk when her mind was swirling with the most important decision she had ever had to make.

“Let’s resume,” Brink said coolly. “When you managed to make contact, you mentioned that natives were approaching. Did you have any contact with them or did you manage to elude them?”

Zaren blinked in surprise. She hadn’t expected this, not now.

“Like I said in my report,” she said slowly, “I activated the shuttle’s camouflage and then I ran into the woods so—”

“Why not stay in the shuttle?” another council member asked. “You’d have been invisible inside it.”

“I wasn’t sure the camouflage would work. Electronics seemed to be going on and off. I figured it’d be safer if I hid in the woods.”

“A smart decision,” Brink commented. “It was a difficult situation, one that experienced observers would have found challenging, but you kept a cool head and followed your training to the letter. A credit to your mentor, certainly.”

She inclined her head toward Loic, and he suddenly sat up straighter at Zaren’s side, his pride filling his voice singpan when he thanked Brink.

Brink went on to declare that these routine proceedings were taking much too long, and just like that, it was over. A couple members of the council threw questioning glances at her, but none of them said anything.

Loic seemed puzzled as well, and as he followed Zaren out of the council room, he asked her in a quiet voice what she and Brink had talked about in the gardens. He had tried to join them to assist Zaren if she needed his help, he explained, but Brink’s assistant had stopped him.

“We just… talked,” Zaren said with a small shrug. “She was an observer when she was younger. She was telling me about that.”

They stepped into an elevator together, and Zaren could tell that he had more questions for her, but she didn’t give him time to say anything else.

“I’m exhausted,” she said. “I’ll go and get some rest.” And because she didn’t want Loic to ask anything more, she added, “Ilona said I should take a few days to clear my head.”

One more lie, the smallest, maybe, but she apologized for it with a quick hug. As she said goodbye, she realized it might be the last time she talked to him, and her heart tightened a little. She had learned a lot from Loic. She wished she could have thanked him now without arousing his suspicions.

And if she was thinking like this, maybe she had already made up her mind even if she hadn’t admitted it to herself yet.

The observer trainees all lived in a building nearby. As she walked there, Zaren tried to figure out what she’d tell her family and friends; she couldn’t disappear without a word.

Except that once she reached her dorm room, she found a call waiting for her and Ilona Brink asked her to do exactly that.

“I didn’t even agree to do it yet,” Zaren protested, taken aback.

On the holo screen, Brink huffed lightly. “Are you saying you don’t want to?”

Zaren opened her mouth. She closed it again without a word and sighed softly.

“I’ll do it. But I have to tell my parents. They’d look everywhere for me if I just vanished. They’d find me. And you don’t want that.”

Brink steepled her fingers in front of her, a deep frown accentuating her wrinkles. Someone off screen said something that Zaren couldn’t quite catch, and Brink nodded.

“Call them now,” she said, her words sharp and precise. “I’ll stay on the line to listen but I’ll go blank. This is what you are allowed to tell them, and if you say anything more I’m canceling the entire thing regardless of the consequences. Do you understand?”

Zaren nodded, her throat too tight for words.

“All right. Tell them you are going on a special mission. Tell them in three days a report will be issued about your OV crashing and that they should dismiss it as untrue.”

“What about—”

“Nothing more.”

“What about telling them I found what I was looking for when I joined the observer training?” Zaren insisted. “Can I tell them that?”

Brink considered her for a long moment before inclining her head. “In those terms and nothing else, yes. Go ahead and place that call now. Keep it brief. We have no time to lose.”

Her image disappeared from the screen, but she was still on the line. Zaren took a deep breath before placing a call to her parents. When her mother appeared, she was smiling brightly. After taking one look at Zaren, however, her smile wavered, her expression turning anxious.

“Zaren? What is it, sweetie?”

“Can you call Dad, please?”

Moments later, when they were both looking at her with the same question in their eyes, for the first time Zaren hesitated. What if she was making a mistake? What if those Elders refused to accept her into the village? What if she found herself alone, isolated—exiled?

Like Kris was.

She wouldn’t be alone, she reminded herself. He’d be there. Her resolve firmed again.

She told them what Brink had said she could, and not a word more. They had questions, of course; her father, especially, insisted when she refused to say any more. He quieted when her mother laid a hand on his arm and murmured something to him.

“As long as you’re happy,” she told Zaren, a question in her words.

Zaren smiled, her eyes blurring a little with tears. “I will be. I love you. I have to go now.”

As soon as her parents disappeared from the screen, Brink reappeared. She watched Zaren in silence for a few moments before she said, “There’s a land shuttle waiting for you outside. It will take you to an OV. Do not bother packing, you’re not allowed to bring anything with you. We can’t introduce new materials or objects to their culture. Even the medicine has been repackaged so that nothing will be left when you’re done treating them. Good luck, child.”

Zaren felt a little stunned when the screen turned off. As though in a daze, she left her room. The shuttle was there, like Brink had said. It brought Zaren to the
docks, where a
ship
similar to the one
that had rescued her
was waiting.
They were slower that observation vehicles, but much more spacious.

The same woman who had piloted the shuttle provided Zaren with clothes and shoes woven from natural fibers; they didn’t feel anywhere near as comfortable as those Elea had let her borrow, but they were close enough not to look out of place in the village.

Zaren felt a pang of exci
tement at the realization that
she would
soon
be back
s/fospan>
there
. Everything was going so fast… Not two hours had passed since Brink had first raised the possibility of this when the shuttle took off to bring her back to the fifth planet of System fifty-nine.

Back to Haldae.

It was probably better that way, she told herself. Better if she didn’t get enough time to think about it and maybe start questioning her decision. She had made the right choice, she was sure of it, and she didn’t want to ever regret it.

This part of her life was over; she was about to start anew. She knew already that it wouldn’t be easy, that she would miss many things—especially her family and friends—but it would be worth it. Just as long as she found Kris again.

Returning to the planetary system took
a day and half
; quite enough time for Zaren to slip on a short-spectrum-impulse headset and learn Kris’ language. The information recovered from her translang had been analyzed and processed, and while the translang hadn’t been exposed to enough of the language to provide a complete dictionary, in a
few
hours the headset implanted the basics of the language directly into Zaren’s brain. She would learn the rest the same way she had learned her first few words, by listening to others—to Kris, she hoped.