The Challenge (4 page)

“Put me down.”

At her request, her body descended until her bare feet supported her once more. With the return of gravity, tension eased from her shoulders. While hanging in mid-air, she hadn’t been able to think of much more than her bobbing breasts, and though Kahn had kept his face mostly neutral, she’d seen his lip curl in amusement, telling her he wasn’t immune to her situation.

But he kept his tone formal. “You don’t believe your own people. Perhaps you’ll believe your eyes.”

“Would you like to visit Earth?”

“Yes.” She eyed him warily. “You’ll let me go home? “

“Of course. But you can’t stay,” he warned. “It would have been difficult enough for someone from this time to accept all the changes and difficulties ahead, but you have the added handicap of being a woman out of the distant past. While I don’t like taking you back to Earth, it’s necessary to make you understand that you have indeed traveled into the future.”

She put the idea of time travel from her mind. He was taking her home, and she tried not to let her elation show. “Didn’t you mention a suit?”

“But it will be a shame to cover such fine proportions.”

She bit back a snarl at the word
fine
and held out her hand, palm up. “The suit?”

Kahn opened a wall compartment and pulled out a black shiny leotard that had arms and legs, gloves for her fingers, and boots for her toes, and even a hood to cover her head. Tessa wasted no time donning the outfit, pleased to finally cover her nudity. Initially, the suit was too large, but the material quickly constricted to cover her like shrink-wrap. The catlike suit might cling to every curve, but at least she was covered. Progress.

And then the entire garment turned transparent. Oddly, she could still feel the material clinging to her.

“Damn.”

He laughed, his tone full of rich amusement at her expense.

Kahn didn’t give her time to ask more questions or complain about her see-through clothing. He tugged her into a moving corridor. Speechless with wonder, she glided past marvels of machinery that pulsed with light, crystal sculptures that served no purpose that she could see, amazing colorful metallic shapes, and unusual sounds that hummed, clicked, and emitted musical tones.

A thousand questions zoomed through her head, but she picked the one most important to her immediate future. “Where are you taking me?”

“This ship is too large to land on your world. We’ll take a shuttle down to Earth.”

How considerate of him to take her exactly where she wished to go.

As if reading her thoughts, Kahn spoke with conviction. “You won’t believe the truth until you see your world with your own eyes.”

Tessa gasped. “That’s not Earth.”

“It’s Earth three hundred years in your future.”

Tessa’s dark eyebrows narrowed as she stared. “The planet has the same familiar continents, but the clouds are supposed to be white, not this filthy brown haze. Your cartographer got it wrong. My world has sparkling blue oceans, not brown sludge.”

If she refused to believe what was plainly before her eyes, he had a huge problem. “Stars! I was assured that your mind was not inferior like your body. Can you not accept the obvious?”

She flung a black lock of hair from her eyes and scowled at him, seemingly not the least bit intimidated by his size and acting as if he’d insulted her, instead of stating a truth. “Since I’m so inferior, I suggest you choose another candidate.””

“I would be happy to do so but, the choice is not mine to make.”

She glared at him, then at the image of her planet. “I don’t believe my people would ‘volunteer’ my services without at least asking first. The Secret Service doesn’t work that way and neither does the United States government. My country has a large pool of patriots and skilled specialists willing to risk their lives for a worthy mission. It’s not our way to force people into taking on an assignment.”

“Your world has changed—and not for the better.” Impressed by her defense of her people and her obvious loyalty, he refrained from reiterating that the major pollution problems over the ensuing centuries had made her people desperate. Those problems could be fixed by a Challenge win, which would allow her world to trade for technology to clean their skies and oceans. He thought the Earthlings fools for ruining their once-beautiful planet as his own ancestors had destroyed Rystan with atomics, leaving his people with one tenth of Earth’s natural resources.

She rested her hands on her hips. “You’re right that I need to see Earth up close. Anyone can fake a voice transmission on a vidscreen.”

Kahn had permission to land his shuttle on the helicopter pad of the White House and set down smoothly. Accustomed to the comings and going of shuttles from Earth’s orbital space stations, the inhabitants paid no special attention to their landing. Since Kahn didn’t wish to attract an audience, he changed the transparency of her suit and altered the style to match those of her world. She glanced down, noting the transformation, but didn’t say anything.

“Ready?” Kahn unlocked the hatch, his heart heavy at what she must now face.

She nodded, her eyes bright and eager. He popped open the hatch and watched her stride out head high, shoulders back, her well-proportioned, lean legs taking the steps two at a time.

Even with the pollution, he envied the riches he saw. Birds flying overhead. Plants. Buildings and vehicles created with metals and glass and heated with natural fuels.

She stopped, her eyes wide with displeasure. “The White House isn’t brown.”

“I’m sorry, but the acid rains have altered the facade of your ‘White House.’“

She lifted her nose into the air and sniffed the polluted yellowish-gray atmosphere, which was clearly not what she expected. “It doesn’t smell bad.”

“There’s an invisible shield over your head.”

She touched her face. “There’s a filter between my skin and the air?”

“When adjusted properly, the wearer doesn’t feel its presence. I could turn off the filtration system for a moment, but,” he gestured to people riding along moving sidewalks, “Terrans wear face masks outdoors, because the poisons are harmful to your lungs.”

Hover planes buzzed overhead, and she stared at them in amazement. Her hands began to tremble, and she clasped one in the other behind her back. If she’d been thinking of escape, the circumstances must have pushed the thought to the back of her mind.

“Do you believe me now?” he asked softly.

“I’m not . . . sure.”

She looked as unsteady as Kahn’s final opponent in the Federation’s Ultimate Fighting competition when Kahn’s fist had fractured his foe’s jaw. Tessa’s legs wobbled, and for a moment, he wondered if she would collapse. He stood ready to catch her. Then she angled her chin in a way he associated with determination.

“Take me somewhere else.”

He kept his tone brisk and didn’t allow her to see his pity. “Where do you want to go?”

“What do my friends think happened to me?”

“They believed you died.”

“Show me where I am supposed to be buried.” She made the suggestion as if it was a trick question.

He simply escorted her inside the ship and ordered the navigation system to bring the shuttle to her grave at “Arlington National Cemetery.”

After they exited the shuttle, the sight of row upon row of grave markers as brown as the White House, caused her to straighten her spine. A muscle in her jaw clenched.

He spoke softly. “It must be shocking to wake up in another time.”

“That’s the understatement of the century,” she agreed.

Using a directory and a map to take her where she needed to go, she walked swiftly through the deserted cemetery, her shoulders squared, but she couldn’t quite control her quivering bottom lip. Her face whitening, she stopped at the grave marker that read, “Tessa Camen. She died with honor.”

“Who’s buried here?” she whispered, her voice low and hoarse.

“An android.”

She sank to her knees and ran her fingers through the grass. “No one could have gone to such extraordinary lengths to . . .” She glared at him, eyes like green chips of ice. “It’s all true, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Having no idea how she’d react, he’d have preferred to avoid putting her through such a shocking experience. But the truth, no matter how painful, should aid his cause in gaining her cooperation—unless she fell apart on him. Some candidates had proven unable to adapt to sudden changes, failing before they’d even begun the Challenge, but she seemed made of stronger character.

Tears rained down her cheeks. “My friends are all dead? My detail? The president?”

“I’m afraid so.” At the moment, Tessa looked fragile enough to break into hysterics as Lael would have done. But she didn’t. Still, he longed to comfort her, but sensed she wouldn’t welcome his touch. “To you it seems like yesterday, but—”

“They died centuries ago,” she whispered. “And even if you could send me back, it would be to die with that assassin’s bullet in my brain. I really have been pulled forward through time.”

“Yes.”

For a woman, she displayed remarkably strong character and reasoning skills. Even though she finally understood that all of her friends and associates had died, she held her head high, ignoring her tears. But the effort cost her. Her hands closed into fists, and she stared unseeing at the headstone, her thoughts her own.

“I know you need time to recover and regroup.”

Her voice was flat, stunned. “I’ve dealt with loss before.”

Best to keep her talking. “On the job?”

“My parents died in a car accident when I was five.” She wiped away her tears and stood. “And I learned in the Foster homes that crying buckets of tears wouldn’t bring them back. Time finally eased the sharpness from the pain. Then, just when the grief seemed to be fading, I lost Master Chen, my trainer.”

“You were close?”

“He died of a heart attack several years ago. But he taught me that when a door closes, another opens.” A sob rumbled from her chest. “He never said it would be this hard. Or that getting over the loss would be so painful.”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t give you much time to heal.”

She shoved her hair from her face. “I’m tougher than I look.”

“Good. Because we have mere weeks to prepare you for the Challenge. The fates of both Rystan and Earth hinge on our success.”

Her tone turned glacial. “You misunderstand. Yes, the impossible has occurred. I now believe I’ve traveled three hundred years into the future. But I won’t take the Challenge.”

“You must—”

“I won’t be the biggest failure my planet had ever seen.”

TESSA MIGHT be in shock, tears might fall, but she would try and look at this new life as a gift, an opportunity.

So what if this wasn’t her time? Or her world?

She’d beaten a surefire death. She had her health, her memories, her skills. Other people had been uprooted again and again. Other people had been orphaned and then lost their homes and families and gone on to make a new life for themselves. So would she.

Although Tessa had taken on difficult assignments and had accepted missions with little chance of success, she’d never taken on a task where the stakes were so significant, either. She would like to help Earth out. She would. But she was not qualified for this mission.

She looked at the dirty sky with disgust, turned from the acid-stained gravestone of the buried android to Kahn. Like a soldier performing an unpleasant duty, Kahn maintained an inscrutable expression. He stood with his legs braced wide, his head high, and his shoulders squared, not a weapon in sight, yet the taut tension in his muscles told her that if trouble arose from any direction, he would not be taken unawares.