The Phoenix Project (35 page)

    
“And why would I contact them?”

    
“I think you’re being kept out of the
loop.”

    
“I’m in the loop! I’m Catherine’s own,” she
said and stopped.

    
“Her what?”

    
“I’m her daughter, why would she keep me
out of anything?”

    
“You’re mother is Catherine?” Elliot
ruminated on the information with a shocked stare before he continued. “Ask
her, since she’s your mother.”

    
“I’m asking you!”

    
“You want to know? The panel will find
against the Ferine and then your great nation will ask for their extradition so
they can line them up and execute them,” Elliot said. “Let’s just get all the
cards on the table. Do you even know that you’re a puppet?”

    
“I am no puppet,” Nadine said.

    
“You’re not naive either.”

    
“We would never execute an alien species,”
Nadine said.

    
“Just life imprisonment then? It would be a
short sentence for Ranik. I doubt he has many years left in him.”

    
“We wouldn’t do that.”

    
“You have in the past with other
scapegoats,” Elliot said.

    
“That’s different.”

    
“How?”

    
“They were minor dissidents and they were
Human.”

    
“Like Innick?” he asked in reference to a years
old public court case.

    
“He was a terrorist.”

    
“He was a farmer!”

    
“And he was dangerous,” she said.

    
“You mean he was dangerous to the Council.”
  

    
“The Council is the Coalition!”

    
“And that’s why your Council, your mother, will
do her best to get rid of Lathiel and Ranik,” Elliot said.
    

    
“Oh yes, those two are such a danger,” she
said, sarcastically.

    
“They are to the Council.”

    
“Sure they are.”

    
“Now you sound like a loyal member of the
Coalition.”

    
“I
am
a loyal member of the
Coalition,” Nadine said.

    
“The same Coalition that sent you to bed in
tears every night.”

    
“I can’t believe that you’d use that
against me,” Nadine said and rose to leave.

    
“Angry? Why don’t you lobotomize me? You’ve
done it before.”

    
Nadine’s body stiffened as she faced the
door. She stood there while he considered his fate. He looked at her dark,
shining hair for quite some time while she stood still. After nearly a full
minute of eternity, she slowly turned towards him. He saw the tears flowing
down her face. She began trembling and sank to her knees.

    
“I couldn’t do that to you.”

    
“Why?” Elliot demanded. His face was white
with the thought of his own mortality.

    
“I couldn’t. Even if I could, I wouldn’t,”
she said in a shaking voice.

    
“Why am I different? I’m just another
Defensive.”

    
“No your not,” she said and stopped short
of telling him her personal orders.

    
“What is it then?”

    
“You’ve seen me. No one else ever has.”

    
“And?” he whispered.

    
“You didn’t leave. You didn’t hate me. You
didn’t walk away.”

    
“I hate the Coalition.”

    
“I hate the Alliance,” Nadine said with a placating
gesture.

    
“Come here,” he said. She stood up and
walked to him. He took her by the waist and guided her to her knees so that she
could face him eye to eye. From his seat he embraced her and brought her face
to his. He took a careful hand and softly wiped the tears from her face. Nadine
closed her eyes at his caress and felt his lips on her forehead.

    
She kept her eyes closed at the feeling
followed by the touch of lips meeting hers. Nadine felt the warmth of the kiss
and returned the touch with hers.

    
They pulled away from each other and looked
into the dark pupils of each other’s eyes. They searched for the origin of new
emotions held for one another.

    
“So tell me about yourself,” Nadine said.

    
“Over coffee?”

    
“Yours is on the wall,” she said, softly.

    
“I’ll clean it up later,” Elliot laughed,
“Do you always have such a temper?”

    
“You always seem to be able to make me
angry.”

    
“You seem to evoke some pretty strong emotions
from me too.”

    
“I’ll get you another cup,” she said and
rose to go to the kitchen. As she concentrated on replicating the condiments he
had dispensed into his coffee, she felt arms enclose her waist from behind.
“Don’t think we’re going to have make—up sex now.”

    
“I know,” he said and kissed her neck. She
turned around from the completed preparation of his coffee and kissed him
again.

    
“You know you are a charming man when you
want to be.”

    
“Yes Ma’am,” he said and kissed the back of
her hand. Nadine smiled and issued a soft laugh before thinking of their
conversation.

    
“Do you really think the Council will try
to execute the Ferine?”

    
“Nadine, I really am worried about Lathiel
and Ranik’s well being.”

    
“So am I. I just don’t know what to do,”
Nadine said confronting her own dawning realizations.

    
“I won’t let anything happen to them,”
Elliot said. Nadine reached out with her right hand and took his.

    
“Neither will I. The panel is led by Bell and he would
advocate a formal punishment under normal circumstances but I believe he would
opt for some type of legal sanction for the Ferine.”

    
“I don’t think so. I believe the Twelve
want them out of the way.”

    
“I still don’t understand. Why would that
be in my mother’s best interests?” Nadine asked.

    
“We were at war when all of this started.
The Ferine stopped it by initiating First Contact. The Council wanted to win
and early on, before either of the fleets were completed. Something convinced
them they would win by committing themselves to a war right away.”

    
“And now the Ferine are preventing that,”
Nadine said, beginning to understand his line of thought.

    
“Exactly, and if you have an obstacle in
your path you find a way around it or you simply remove it.”

    
“If they were to find them guilty in the
hearings, they would move on to a court trial. If you’re right, they don’t have
the time for that,” Nadine said.

    
“Which is why they would demand the
extradition of Lathiel and Ranik to a neutral site like the UN.”

    
“That wouldn’t solve the problem,” Nadine
said.

    
“No, but I’m sure they could conveniently disappear.
The other Ferine would be horrified and flee the system.”

    
“And the Alliance would be furious. It would lead to a
war,” Nadine finished and Elliot nodded his head. “Elliot, they would look like
maniacs in such a circumstance.”

    
“Who would know for sure that it was the
Coalition? The Twelve would accuse the Alliance
of taking them as a sympathetic party and the Alliance would accuse them of a secret
execution.”

    
“The Twelve would have their war and, if we
won, access to your new fleet before it was completed,” Nadine said.

    
“You got it. Still want to be friends?”

    
“I think we’ve headed beyond friends,” she
replied.

    
“Do you think we can tell anyone that?”

    
“I doubt anyone I know would ever
understand,” Nadine replied.

    
“Josh would be furious. Madi would be okay
with it, but Josh would know within hours of telling her.”

    
“We always have secrets, don’t we?” Nadine
sighed and put her coffee down on the table.

    
“The life of a Defensive and an
Aggressive,” Elliot replied.

    
“Why don’t we make a pact?” Nadine asked.

    
“I’m listening.”

    
“When it’s just the two of us the contacts
are out.”

    
“I don’t know, those white eyes,” Elliot
said.

    
“You said you found them exotic!”

    
Elliot stood up and walked to his bedroom.

    
“Where are you going?”

    
“I’m going to get a couple of lens cases.”

    
He returned from the bedroom a moment later
with two cases and a bottle of fluid. Elliot sat them down on the table. As
they removed their lenses, he remembered an earlier promise Nadine had made.

    
“Weren’t you supposed to bring something?”
he asked. She had one white eye and one blue eye darting about as she searched
her mind for what he was referring to.

    
“Oh!” she exclaimed and walked to the door.
She stopped at the entrance and picked up a forgotten, small, lavender colored
bag. Nadine pulled out a dark bottle, brought it to the table, and set it down
with a soft clink of glass at the center of the dinette.

    
Nadine removed her other contact while
Elliot examined the bottle having already taken both his lenses out.

    
“Champagne?”

    
“I felt like celebrating,” she replied.

    
“Well, we’ll need glasses. Let me get
some.”

    
Nadine looked at her reflection in the
window. Behind her image the Earth witnessed her true appearance of all white
eyes.

    
“I heard that on both sides, we’re always
born with normal eyes,” Nadine said while she contemplated her image. Elliot
returned from the kitchen with two glasses in his hands.

    
“That’s what I understand.”

    
“Why is that?” she asked. He opened the
bottle with a pop of the cork.

    
“I’m not sure. I only know that once the
training begins, our irises either become white or black,” Elliot replied. He poured
a glass and set it down in front of her.

    
“Have you ever met an untrained sensitive?”

    
“Haven’t you?”

    
“No, all of ours are always trained. The
Coalition has a strict policy regarding sensitives. We’re all members of MERA.”

    
“That’s not such a bad idea in a way,”
Elliot said while he poured champagne into his glass.

    
“Because there’s something wrong with the
ones you have met?”

    
“No, not exactly. They’re normal, but if
they refuse training, they never go beyond sensing an occasional emotion or
seeing a glimpse of a person’s intentions,” Elliot replied.

    
“So what’s the problem?”

    
“They always seem to be a shadow of people
like you and me. I can’t help but feel pity for their lost potential. They
seem, years later, to be almost ashamed of themselves,” he said, remembering
the encounters with atrophied sensitives from his past.

    
“Are you sure that’s not just your own
opinion clouding your judgment?”

    
“Maybe. Would you have preferred to not
have been trained?” he asked, looking into her all white eyes.

    
“I don’t know. There have been days where I
wished I never had these abilities, especially with what I’ve done.”

    
“Ah, well I can understand that.”