Stolen Dreams (16 page)

 

"We
have forsaken modern technology here, Gabriel," Athena said somewhat
testily. "If you wish to be one of us, you will have to make
adjustments."

 

Gabriel immediately lowered his burden to the ground, removed the degrav, and slipped it into an
outside pocket of the satchel.

 

With
an approving nod, Athena said, "Your timing is excellent. The
Friendship Summit will take place on schedule at sunrise tomorrow.
Representatives of factions from all over the planet have been arriving
here throughout the past week. There is more than enough room and food
for you to stay with us."

 

"Wonderful," Gabriel said with a
broad smile. "We were hoping we would not be too late to observe the
meeting."

 

"You
are welcome to do more than simply observe," Athena assured him. "One
of our beliefs is that everyone's opinion is of value, regardless of
their birth condition. The Ruling Tribunal's decision to colonize Terra
must be overturned before the ships depart."

 

"When are they to
take
off?" Shara inquired. The curious expression on Athena's face and the
frown on Gabriel's told her she had asked a question that she should
have already known the answer to.

 

"I'm afraid long days of
traveling
combined with the delay of our joining has my skalla a bit confused,"
Gabriel explained. "The first day of the second season is a date
everyone is talking about."

 

Shara didn't have to stretch her
limited
acting ability to look embarrassed over her forgetfulness. His calling
her his shalla, the intimate term for soulmate, and referring again to
their joining had her quite flustered.

 

Athena was apparently
convinced. "We will have two sunrises after the Summit to force the
Tribunal to see our point of view."

 

"Force?" Gabriel asked, as
if he didn't know what the future held. Athena stared at him with eyes
that seemed to be trying to read his mind, but, of
course, even if she had the ability, his jammer would prevent it.

 

After
a second, she frowned and said, "The Friends will do whatever they
must. Come, let us go to the lodge/'

 

Without the degrav,
Gabriel had to drag his satchel along the ground by the guide strap.

 

"Allow
me to assist," an auburn-haired young man named Misha said, and the
satchel rose off the ground and hovered in the air.

 

At
the same moment Shara realized Misha was using his mind to lift the
satchel, she felt a mental intrusion and instantly blocked it. There
was no way to tell who had attempted to read her without opening up to
it, however, so she simply determined to keep her guard up against all
of them.

 

Gabriel had told her that, although it was kept
secret at
the time, a few of the rebels possessed extrasensory powers that they
didn't hesitate to use. She had thought it was somewhat contradictory
that these people would reject advanced technology while having no
qualms about using superior mental abilities, but he had explained that
they considered those abilities natural, as opposed to man-made.

 

One
of the many objections the Friends had against the Ruling Tribunal was
the edict that strictly limited the use of any special mental skills.
Some of the Friends believed they were given the gifts to help others.
Others believed the powers made them superior and they were given these
powers because they were meant to lead rather than follow.

 

Seconds
after the first probe, she felt another. This one was gentler and
seemed different enough to
make her think it was not from the same person. These people might call
themselves Friends and speak of friendship, peace, and love, but Shara
wondered why such friendly people needed an armed guard at the edge of
their farm and why they were so distrustful that they would try to read
her thoughts even after Gabriel had given them the appropriate signals.

 

What
would they have done to her and Gabriel if Gabriel hadn't known the
hand sign? For that matter, what would have happened to her if he
hadn't been with her to smooth the way? The group had seemed very
menacing when they first surrounded her and Gabriel. Were they prepared
to kill to protect their privacy? As suspicious as they were, she
doubted if they'd believe a story as outlandish as her being a time
traveler.

 

Again, she had a reason to be grateful for Gabriel's
presence, but she was still annoyed that he hadn't filled her in
completely.

 

By the time they entered the large building Athena
had
called the lodge, at least twenty others had joined them, and more
introductions were exchanged. The inside of the lodge had no interior
walls on the ground floor, but the overhead loft that rimmed the
cavernous room was partitioned off into narrow, draped cubicles.
Several rows of long wooden tables and benches were at the far end of
the room and mats, blankets, and pillows were scattered over the rest
of the floor.

 

"As you can see, we have a rather full house at
the
moment. I regret that we cannot offer you a separate cell, as they have
all been taken, but if you wish less crowded sleeping arrangements, you
can always bed down in the meadow, as some of our other
visitors have." She motioned for Misha to set the baggage against one
wall. "There are over two hundred people staying here tonight and I am
asking all to help where they can. If the two of you would not mind,
there is a desperate need for more hands in the cookhouse."

 

Shara
and Gabriel quickly agreed and Athena took them out the door at the
other end of the building. The heat from several crackling fires wafted
over them. Portions of large animals were being cooked on spits and a
small army of adults and children were basting meat, stirring the
contents of various pots, and preparing greens.

 

Once Athena
left
them under the supervision of the hearth tenders, Shara excused herself
for a moment. Under the pretense of needing something from her bag, she
went back into the lodge. Making sure no one was watching too closely,
she activated the special security guard she had attached to the bag
before leaving Innerworld. With the guard on, the bag was locked and
its weight increased to make it impossible for anyone to open or move
it. The contents were far too valuable for her to be as trusting as she
normally would be.

 

The moment she returned to the cookhouse,
she was
assigned a task. Fortunately for Shara, she was asked to wash a
basinful of tubers, something that required no previous experience.
Gabriel was put to work turning the spits over the hot fires. It was
beginning to look as though they would either be freezing or burning up
throughout their journey.

 

As soon as she thought of burning
up, she
made a quick mental check of her body's condition, then relaxed when
she was positive that she was perspiring from the heat of the fire and
not an inner fever.                 
 

 

Now
that she was in the time period she wanted, she was going to be too
busy to have to deal with a biological impediment. She sincerely hoped
the last time-hop had expelled the simulated fever permanently.

 

Shara's
gaze automatically shifted to Gabriel. With his back to her, she didn't
hesitate to watch the play of muscles in his arms and back as he
rotated the spit. His muscular legs were braced apart to keep his
balance and the tunic was insufficient to stop her from thinking of the
rest of his perfectly sculpted body. On Outerworld Earth he would have
been compared to a Greek god, but now she was among the men who were
the Greek gods and she considered Gabriels physique quite superior.

 

Not
that she was going to allow that incredible body, or his handsome face,
to affect her judgment. As long as there was no fever forcing her to
give in, she would resist the urge to stroke those muscles or thread
her fingers through his silky blond curls, or—

 

She pulled her
gaze
back to the vegetable in her hand. Looking at Gabriel was not the way
to control her weakness. With a little effort, she filled her mind with
her mission.

 

Because their arrival occurred precisely when all
the
rebels were gathering, she was reassured about the theory of eddies and
flows in time. Athena had said they had two sunrises after tomorrow
before the ships departed for Terra. Surely that would be more than
enough time for her to test a hair sample of every rebel in the
vicinity for a DNA match with Khameira. All she had to do was wait for
everyone in the lodge to go to sleep. Any Friends not in residence that
night should be at the Summit in the morning. She would have to be discreet, but she
felt confident that she could accomplish her work without arousing
suspicions.

 

To
make sure she didn't miss anyone, her microputer contained the list of
the names of the two hundred twenty rebels who were originally exiled
to Terra. In order to check off those names, she had to learn each
persons identity. While Athena was introducing those on hand, Shara had
memorized names and faces, but she didn't expect it to be that easy
with everyone else in the camp. Though improvising was not one of her
strengths, she was determined to find a way to test every single
participant in the Friendship movement.

 

If only she could be
sure
Gabriel would not interfere! As she scrubbed the skins of a bottomless
pile of tubers, she concentrated on how to get around his belief that
history should not be tampered with. Reasoning with him had failed. She
briefly considered offering the use of her body in exchange for his
noninterference. However, she didn't believe he wanted to couple with
her badly enough to forget his personal goal of preventing her from
altering the past ... to say nothing for the fact that coupling with
him could influence her thinking instead.

 

"Drek!" Gabriel
shouted, jumping away from the fire and shaking his right arm.

 

"He's
been burned," a woman named Hestia called out. "Get Apollo's case!"

 

As
a little girl dashed into the lodge, Shara dropped the tuber in her
hand and rushed to see how badly he was hurt. A bright red splotch on
the inside of Gabriel's forearm marked the injured spot, and his
clenched jaw let her know it was painful. The moment the girl brought
out a small chest, Hestia removed a bottle of liquid from it and poured
some over the burn.

 

"That will do until Apollo arrives to take
care of it," she assured him. "Until then, perhaps you should help
Shara."

 

He accepted her suggestion as everyone returned to his
or her individual chores.

 

Shara grimaced at the blistering
flesh on his arm. "Did the liquid help at all?"

 

"It
numbed the area," he said, picking up a brush and a tuber. He lowered
his voice to a murmur meant only for her ears. "It will be interesting
to see if Apollo really was a healer, as legend says, or just a good
pharmacologist."

 

Shara leaned toward him and whispered back,
"You didn't burn yourself on purpose just to find out, did you?"

 

"Do
I seem that unbalanced to you?"

 

She cocked her head at him.
"As a matter of fact, you do. What the drek possessed you to say we
were waiting to be joined?"

 

He
casually looked around to make sure no one was paying attention to
their conversation. "It was the first thing that came to mind that made
us sound a bit fanatical, like true Friends. Plus we can now use it to
explain any sort of aberration, including the possibility that the
fever is still with us."

 

She wasn't at all happy to hear him
bring
that up, but his reasoning did make sense, so she moved on to her next
complaint. "Why didn't you tell me about the hand sign and triangle
pendants?"

 

"Frankly, it never occurred to me." He saw a hint
of yellow in her eyes. "Are you angry with me, Shara?"

 

Since
such a reaction was uncalled for, given his explanations,
she started to deny it when she noticed how intently he was starting at
her. He wasn't guessing; he was analyzing the color of her eyes! Her
shoulders slumped with the realization that she could no longer keep
her feelings private. "How much have you figured out?"

 

Though
he
hadn't meant to reveal his one advantage over her, he saw no choice but
to tell the truth. "Your eyes are like emeralds when you're pleased or
excited about something, olive-gray when you're lying or evading,
yellow-streaked when you're angry, and an absolutely delicious shade of
chocolate when you—

 

"Hush! I have no control over the changes,
and I
don't care to wear shields all the time. Normally it's not a problem.
Only a few people have spent enough time so close to me that they can
read my eye color like that." Now her cheeks were flushed.

 

"Shara,
even without your overly expressive eyes, anyone could probably guess
what you were thinking. I told you once, you're not much of an actress.
You show your feelings with every part of your body. If it's not your
eyes, it's the set of your chin, your posture, the way you move your
hands." His gaze slid to her thinly covered breasts. "The way you move
your body when I—"

 

"Please stop saying things like that," she
whispered urgently, glancing around for eavesdroppers. "You know how I
feel—"

 

"Oh,
yes," he said over the rest of her sentence. "I know exactly how you
feel. Like velvet and satin that's been warmed by the sun."

 

"I'm
not listening."

 

"You promised to be accommodating."       
 

 

She narrowed her eyes at him, then touched the back
of her hand to his brow. "You're not feverish."

 

'You didn't
touch the right part of me."

 

Without
thinking of the consequences, she looked down at his lap and her cheeks
heated even more. The loose tunic had a small tent formed in it.