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  “You told me you wanted a son who resembled me.”

  “Did I?”

  He leaned forward to rest his forearms on his knees. What smoldered in his dark eyes pulsed through him and into her. “You did.”

  She looked at her hands, struggling to catch her breath. “I do not understand how I could be so wanton, so quickly. I was… I lost John, it was too soon.”

  He moved from the chair to sit on the edge of the bed beside her. “You had lost everyone,” he said in a soft voice. “Marianne was your friend, and the Sural protected and sheltered you, but you had no one else when I met you. You were lonely.” He laid one hand along her face. “I knew very quickly I had met my heart’s match in you. It did not take you long to reach the same conclusion.”

  “Love at first sight,” she whispered.

  “When you remember more, and you are yourself again—”

  Laura stopped breathing. “What?” She swatted his hand away from her face.

  “Beloved?” He straightened, brows furled.

  She gasped a breath, and another, her stomach twisting as if she’d been punched. Her father’s voice echoed off the walls of his study. When the gene therapy starts to work. When you are smart. When you are a proper Johnson.

  When you are yourself.

  She fixed the Paran with a glare. “You do not want me.”

  “You know I do. You are far too sensitive not to be aware of it.”

  “No, you want the Laura you once had. Not me, not as I am now. Is everyone else waiting for me to be myself again?”

  “Beloved—”

  “Are they? Who in this place cares about me?” She thumped her chest with one hand. “My family thinks I am dead. No one here wants me as I am. I have nothing. Nothing!” She rolled onto her side, turning her back to the Paran.

  “My heart is yours,” he whispered. His fingers touched her arm. The confusion coursing through him magnified.

  She shook him off. “Your heart belongs to a woman who looked like me, but she died. There is only me now, and you do not want me. Go. Get out.”

  Every muscle in her body quivered. She buried her face in the crook of her elbow, refusing to acknowledge the Paran as his presence retreated from the room.

  Voices rang in her head.

  “I won’t have a deficient daughter!”

  “She’s my daughter too!” Mama’s arms encircled her as Papa stormed away.

  “Papa doesn’t love me,” Laura sobbed, when he was gone.

  “Of course Papa loves you, sweetie,” Mama said, but even young as she was, Laura could hear the hint of doubt in her voice. “He just wants what he thinks is best for you.”

  Laura clenched her teeth against the threatening tears. “No, Mama,” she whispered. “Papa never loved me. I was broken then, and I am even more broken now.”

  * * *

  “Laura.”

  Marianne’s lively presence sat behind her. Laura lifted her face. She still huddled on her side, her back to the window and to the chair Marianne occupied.

  “Go away.” She rubbed her eyes with one hand.

  “You do not mean that.”

  “Do not presume to tell me what I mean, farm girl,” Laura said, her voice a hiss.

  Marianne’s presence jolted and filled with hurt. “Laura, this is not like—”

  “Me?” she sneered. “This is not like me? Is that what you were about to say?”

  “I did not mean it that way.”

  “Then why did you say it that way?”

  “Because like anyone else, including your bond-partner, I say stupid things sometimes.”

  Laura snorted. “So he talked to you.”

  Marianne got up and pulled the chair around the bed to where Laura had to look at it. “He was probably on his way to talk to his apothecary,” she said, dropping into the chair, her eyes like blue crystal lasers. “He ran into me first. His heart was bleeding.”

  “That is not your concern.” She rolled over and presented her back.

  “Laura, you are being very childish.”

  “I am being me. You will soon leave, and go back to your Sural, who wants you for who you are, not for some person you used to be and can never be again. That must be nice.”

  Marianne fell silent. Laura could almost hear her thinking.

  “All right, then. I will leave you alone.” She stood and left.

  Laura chewed on her lower lip. Mama had taught her to be better than the way she had just behaved, but…

  When you are yourself again.

  This isn’t like you.

  She scowled. This is exactly like me! She had to get away from here, from these people, find a way to get off this planet. Central Command would hunt her down and kill her, but she only had Marianne’s word on that. She lifted her hands, so smooth and young again. Surely she could go back to Earth. No one would recognize her, the way she looked now.

  Except Papa.

  But Papa would never take her back in, even if she went crawling back to him, not after she’d defied him and eloped with John. Her stomach dropped. Steven Langley Johnson was a proud, proud man. If he fired you, you stayed fired. If he disowned you—

  It was a good thing the Howards had been rich enough and powerful enough to shield John from Papa’s wrath, that first year of her marriage, until little Patrick came along.

  She shook her head. Papa might approve of the Paran, despite everything. An Earth Fleet officer hadn’t been good enough for her father’s baby girl, not even after he made full admiral, but what about a prince? A prince who—wanted her to be someone she no longer was. Her heart trembled. The people she knew here wanted her to recover her memories, remember who she was before, change from the stunted caterpillar she was into the butterfly the other Laura had been, so she and the Paran could live happily ever after.

  No. She would not do it. She would go to Syvra and insist on an apothecary who didn’t know her before, and aides who did not know her before. No expectations, no pressure, and, above all, no interference from other people’s memories of the woman that the Paran had loved—and lost. They could just stay away. She would start her life over.

  As soon as she stopped crying.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The Monral stared at the chair to his left at the high table. Sharana’s place. Empty. To what extent had she already betrayed him? How much did the Sural know?

  He allowed himself a minute headshake. The Sural could learn nothing from Sharana. She did not know, nor could the Suralian engineers ever suspect, what had caused the tunnel to collapse at a critical moment. He dragged his thoughts back and studied Farric. From his heir, at least, he could rely on loyalty, though when he had awakened from the bond shock to learn that yet another human had taken up residence on Tolar, he had been less than pleased. The assignment to negotiate with the odalli had benefited Farric, who had returned from his mission full of confidence and energy. And the human he had brought back with him had proved less annoying than expected.

  Bertie, as the human called himself, could not be categorized. He calculated financial probabilities like a scientist, theorized law like a scholar, fought like a guard, and cooked like a servant. His cleverness in the kitchen, in fact, had transformed his own limited diet. He then turned his formidable intellect toward beginning to learn Monrali and Suralian, though he would not need the latter once Monralar led the ruling caste, and he had the temerity to be better at archery than the Monral himself. The idea irritated the Monral, but he had grudgingly pronounced the young man—the young human—a fit companion for Farric. The two young men had become such close friends, and spent so much time in each other’s company, that to do otherwise risked his son’s loyalty.

  Bertie rose from his chair, bent in a proper bow, and left the refectory, heading down to the arena for the afternoon’s physical training. Farric remained behind.

  The Monral pierced him with a look. “Son,” he said. “You deviated from my plan.”

  �
�I achieved the results you desired, and more.” Farric met his gaze with calm assurance.

  “But the apothecary under your protection came to harm. Explain why I did not learn this until after your return.”

  “You would have recalled me. The mission was too important to interrupt.”

  The Monral lifted an eyebrow. “You take much upon yourself.”

  “As you taught me.”

  He grunted. “Were you able to determine who bore responsibility for Teylis’ death?”

  “We believe it was Central Security.”

  “We—meaning you and Bertie.”

  “And a human physician whom Teylis had befriended. He had a strong conviction that the individuals who attempted to abduct them were not, as the human authorities claimed, from one of their criminal organizations.”

  “You took the correct path to recover the body so quickly,” the Monral said. “But you should have informed me.”

  Farric inclined his head. After a moment’s silence, he asked, “Father, what happened to you?”

  The Monral lifted an eyebrow. “You did not speak with the apothecaries?”

  “I did. They were mystified as to the true cause of your injury.”

  “Sharana went into the dark.”

  His son blinked and said nothing.

  “The Suralians used their rumored techniques to bring her back. They informed me she will recover and refused to carry any message to her.”

  “Why was she in Suralia?”

  “To speak with the Jorann.”

  Farric’s eyes widened, and disbelief leaked from him. “Did she follow the customary forms?”

  “No. I am, in fact, reprimanded for allowing my beloved to travel to an enemy province unannounced, thus putting at risk Suralia’s honor.”

  “The Sural did not know of her intent, then.”

  “No, it seems he did not.”

  “So your warning to the caste—”

  “She is filled with a sense that I abandoned her, yes.”

  “And believing herself betrayed, may become the betrayer.”

  The Monral leaned back. “Or as a loyal daughter of Monralar, she may have walked into the dark to avoid capture. No matter her reasons for what she did, the Sural has agreed to an accommodation. You will go to Suralia to retrieve her. And take your human with you.”

  * * *

  “Bloody hell.” Bertie’s voice echoed off the transit room walls.

  Farric chuckled. “You say that frequently.”

  The human stared at the long-distance transport pod as if he had never seen anything like it. Farric lifted one corner of his mouth.

  “If you’d stop surprising me every hour, on the hour, I might say it less often. What is this thing?”

  “A transport pod.” Farric laid a hand on it, and it formed a door. A servant bustled in to set a basket of food and drink next to one of the two benches that faced each other across the middle of the pod, and brushed Bertie on the way back out. “Lay your bag near the basket.”

  The human did as he was told, and the pod sealed its skin behind them. “How fast does it go?” he asked.

  Farric lifted a shoulder. “We will reach Suralia in a half day.”

  “That was informative.”

  He snorted. “Suralia lies on the opposite side of Tolar.”

  “Halfway around the planet in half a day? By George, that’s—” he paused, staring upward “—roughly 1600 kilometers per hour?”

  Farric lifted a shoulder—human measures of distance meant nothing to him—and laid a hand on the pod’s control panel. It dropped into the tunnels.

  Bertie looked down. “How deep is this shaft?”

  “Not deep. At the transit hub in the city, we will enter the truly deep tunnels to reach the next allied province.”

  The human took a seat on one of the benches. A sleeping mat lay spread in the rear, covered with blankets and cushions. Bertie gave it a tired glance. The evening had grown old; it had taken most of the day to negotiate an arrival at the Suralia stronghold, and his friend had given himself a hard workout in the arena.

  “Sleep if you like.”

  “Do you mind?”

  “I am accustomed to the solitude. When I travel as my father’s ambassador, a servant may sometimes accompany me, but I am often alone.”

  Bertie threw himself onto the mat. “Strange, that,” he said, settling onto his back. His voice grew thick. “Our ambassadors go everywhere with armed bodyguards.”

  “I go without guards to demonstrate good will. The Sural guarantees my safety once I reach his province, but I must first arrive there. Hence we travel from one ally to another.”

  “Like hopscotch.” He yawned, closed his eyes, and plummeted into sleep, one hand curled on his chest and the other thrown over his head.

  The pod had left Tarasia and was headed north, halfway through the journey, before Bertie stirred again. He sat up, rubbing his face.

  “You had plenty of guards with you when you ventured into Alliance space,” he said, as if the conversation had not been interrupted by such a thing as a lengthy nap. He threw out his chest in a stretch and squeezed his eyes shut. “Was that a demonstration?”

  Farric pulled himself out of communion with the pod and grinned. “You must know better than I how far to trust Central Command.” He left the pod’s controls and sprawled across one of the benches.

  “I notice you didn’t say you trust our honored government.”

  “I am Monralar’s ambassador. I do as he instructs.”

  “Ah, so it’s Dad who doesn’t trust Central Command.”

  “Does anyone trust Earth’s government?”

  Bertie twitched a lop-sided smile. “Let me poll a few… billion… people and see if I can find someone.” He glanced through the pod’s transparent skin at the blur of the tunnel wall. “Shouldn’t you be driving?”

  “The pod knows where to go next.”

  The human’s eyebrows went up his forehead. “Is that your way of saying you programmed in a destination, or do you mean it really knows?”

  “It is a living creature,” Farric said.

  “Bloo—never mind. At some point, you Tolari will stop surprising me. How the hell can a vehicle be alive?”

  “Did your people not use animals as transportation during their history?”

  “Yes,” Bertie replied. “Horses, camels, donkeys, thorps, what-have-you. We still ride them for recreation, but we sit on them, not in them.”

  “I have read about your horses. Our transport pods are little different.” He stroked its inner skin. “Give them good care, and they wish to please.”

  “I swan,” the human murmured, patting the floor, “you people are strange.” He glanced around the pod. “Say, do we have anything that will serve as a table?”

  “The pod can form one low and small, perhaps. To what purpose?”

  “First, I want to eat. Even my dull old human nose can smell what’s in that basket, and I’m hungry. Then,” he said, patting a rectangular bulge in his garments, “I’m going to teach you how to play five-card.”

  * * *

  “Call.” Farric placed five cards of one suit on the table and chuckled at Bertie’s scowl. “Flush.”

  “Rotting bastage,” the human said, laying down a hand with two pairs. “How do you always tell when I’m bluffing?”

  “You are not difficult to read.”

  “Remind me never to play cards with you for real stakes.”

  As Farric grinned, the pod tickled his senses. “We near Suralia,” he said, leaving the game to take more direct control of the pod.

  Bertie gathered up the cards and slipped them into an ornate silver case. “Do you suppose the Sural’s human wife might have taught him to play cards?”

  Farric laughed. “You should hope not. No one can read the Sural.”

  “Dear me.” His friend stood and straightened his garments.

  The pod slowed, came up at the Suralia city hub—su
rrounded by guards in pale blue—and slid sideways. Curiosity and hostility followed them in equal measure until they disappeared into the well-guarded tunnel to the stronghold. Farric breathed a sigh.

  “That bad?”

  He shot Bertie a sharp glance. The man hid a keenly observant eye behind his careless manner. “It is unpleasant to be in an enemy province.”

  “Anything I can do to help?”

  He shook his head. “There will be more antipathy at the stronghold itself. Suralia keeps a large staff and an unseemly number of guards.”

  They entered the shaft up to the stronghold and hurtled upward longer than Bertie seemed to expect. “Damn,” he muttered. “What must the trip down be like?”

  The pod emerged into the Sural’s transit room. Farric ignored the visible and scowling guards and occupied himself with soothing the fatigued vehicle. “Rest and refresh yourself,” he murmured, giving its skin a gentle pat to ask for a door. “My gratitude.”

  The creature crooned as he and Bertie, shoulder bag in hand, exited. The Suralian technician nodded grudging approval as the pod drifted toward an unoccupied nutrient bath in a rest bay.

  Farric led Bertie into the stronghold’s main corridor.

  “Looks just like yours, except for the color of the stone,” the human murmured.

  “Indeed,” he said, stepping to one side. “Leave your bag here—a servant will take care of it. You remember the protocol?”

  “Stay behind you, don’t speak until spoken to.” Bertie dropped his bag. “Rather like the daily ordeal with His Nibs at home.”

  Farric spared his friend a half-grin. “This introduction will be short—it is past the night meridian here. Tomorrow in the morning we will get down to business, as you say, but the Sural cannot allow the heir to an enemy province to arrive without proper welcome.”

  “Just like His Nibs,” Bertie mumbled.

  Farric stopped at the doorway to the audience room. “Prepare yourself.”

  Bertie followed him in—behind and to his left, rather than directly behind or to his right. Farric’s mouth almost twitched. He had told the human what the position meant, but let the Sural think what he would. When Farric reached the dais, he gave a deep bow, which Bertie imitated.

  The Sural did not make him wait. “I am the Sural,” he said, in English. With one hand, he indicated a sleepy child with drooping eyelids, sitting behind him and to his right. “My daughter and heir, Kyza.”