Contact (20 page)

Barb Jensen joined her son John on a tree-shaded redwood deck in the backyard of his ranch-style suburban home. The fall day was crisp and sunny, and the sound of children’s laughter rippled from the play area, a sound she used to savor. But now it only reminded her of how much things had changed.

A lump in her throat, she watched her granddaughter Roberta, playing by herself only a few yards from where her cousins clambered on a jungle gym and swings. The boys would soon be her brothers, two older, one younger, when the paperwork was completed, allowing John and his wife to adopt Roberta as their own. Jordan would be happy, knowing that her child was so loved in her absence. But being a close-knit family had its down-side, too. Jordan would have hated the gaping hole her death had left in their lives.

John propped one hip on the railing and folded his muscular arms over his chest. “Look at the kid, those toy horses. That’s all she does, Mom. All day, all the time, lost in a fantasy world. It’s not normal.” He sighed deeply. “She needs closure.”

“Closure,” Barb muttered. Her fireman son, using psychobabble—she never thought she’d see the day. But then they’d all changed since Jordan’s death. “Closure is a myth. People who use the word haven’t been through something like this.”

“Whatever you call it, Mom, as long as that airplane remains missing, we’re not going to have it.”

“It’s been three weeks and not one piece of scrap metal has washed up.” Or had been dredged up, or even found
floating. “The flight’s vanished. An entire 747—how can you lose something that big?”

John made a sound of frustration in the back of his throat. “God, if I only knew. If any of us knew . . .”

Barb sipped from a glass of iced tea. Despite the mystery surrounding the accident, she’d finally accepted that Jordan was dead. Everyone had: the family, the rescuers, and the news people. Only Roberta refused to give in, refused to believe that her mother’s body lay under miles of dark, cold water.

In a way, Barb envied the naïveté that allowed her to do so. The child’s therapist might not approve, but that childish optimism was exactly what Roberta needed.

Barb left her glass on the deck and walked across the lawn. A herd of plastic horses was nestled in the grass where her granddaughter’s skinny bare legs formed a V. Two knobby, scabbed knees provided the perfect corral.

Roberta held one of the plastic toys with slender fingers. Chipped glittery purple nail polish decorated her nails. “Hi, Grandma,” she said without looking up.

Barb crouched next to her. Her knees made popping noises. Roberta’s smile showed off a gap where two front teeth used to be. “The grass isn’t wet,” she assured her.

Barb chuckled. “All right, I’ll sit down.” She arranged herself on the grass and watched Roberta maneuver a plastic pony around the pen she’d made with her legs. A few leaves that had evaded the lawnmower went tumbling past in a gust of wind. “So, how are we doing, sweetie pie?”

“I dreamed of Mommy last night. She was talking to a man.” Roberta’s blond curls fell forward, hiding her profile. “Not Daddy.”

Not Daddy
. Barb’s breath caught in her throat. Roberta knew her father was in heaven. If Jordan wasn’t “talking” to Craig, then to whom? Was the child psychic? Did she “see” a place—an island perhaps—where Jordan and the
others were stranded?
Daughter’s Dreams Lead to Mother’s Rescue!
It sounded like a feature in the
National Enquirer
, but so did airliners disappearing without a trace. Eagerly, Barb replaced an image of a watery grave with that of a tropical paradise. “Where, Roberta?”

“In the sky.”

Barb’s wild hopes fizzled. “Ah. In the sky.”

Her skeptical tone didn’t escape the girl. Shame flitted in those wide-set blue eyes. Even at six years old, the child must understand that her claims were ridiculous. But she clung to them all the same. In a thin, scratchy voice she said, “I dreamed that the man likes horses. And Mommy, too.”

Barb twiddled a piece of grass between her fingers. Dreams, that’s all they were. Roberta had told the therapist she’d been having them nightly. But Barb was too morbidly fascinated by Roberta’s frank answers to let the thing drop.

“Is Mommy happy . . . in the sky?” she couldn’t help asking. Craig had never been the man her daughter needed. No matter how strong a woman was, she deserved a strong man. If a good relationship had eluded Jordan in life, then at least she could have one in her little girl’s imagination.

But Roberta shook her head. “She wants to come home.”

The cold, dense ball of sorrow in Barb’s chest expanded.
God help you, baby
. “Maybe this man is an angel sent to help your mother’s soul find peace.”

The child pursed her lips, and a determined little valley formed between her brows. “No, Grandma. Mommy’s not dead. And the man is not an angel.”

Kào strode onto the bridge with a decided spring in his step. On his way past a row of mission techs manning their monitors, he spied a familiar white head. “Greetings, Trist,” he called out. “The language program you created for the refugees is working quite well.”

The woman almost dropped her handheld.

He walked onward, whistling an old soldier’s ditty, until he noticed that the entire row of mission techs stared at him. He paused a moment, then continued. Heads turning and whispering behind hands wasn’t new; they all did it when they thought he wasn’t looking. Frankly, he didn’t care. He rarely socialized with the crew.

The psych-medic had suggested that Kào’s self-imposed isolation was a consequence of the length of time he’d spent in solitary confinement in the Talagar prison, but Kào knew better. He simply lacked the urge to form acquaintances.

As a child, he hadn’t any playmates, but that was a matter
of circumstance more than preference. Moray’s weren’t family ships. As a soldier, he’d finally experienced friendship, camaraderie forged by hardships and fear. But those men were dead now, killed in the war. There had been the occasional longer-term lover over the years, when circumstances permitted such liaisons, but friendship had never been involved or expected. The relationships had been based on sex, an arrangement that had suited the women as much as it had him.

If he looked at his social history objectively, as it was his inclination to be analytical, it didn’t make sense that he was so drawn to Jordan. Ah, but he was.

“Kào, my boy!” His father’s jubilant voice called to him from across the bridge. Then the man stopped, gaping at him.

Kào cast an uneasy glance down the front of his uniform. “Don’t tell me I brushed up against the wet paint in the corridor.”

“Your hair is damp.”

“Ah, that.” He smoothed the fingers of one hand through the cropped wet strands. “I took a water shower.” Water was used for cleansing only rarely. Medical insisted on the waterless hygiene showers for health reasons. “I had a particularly long workout, and treated myself.”

“Well.” His father grinned. “I don’t know which pleases me more, that you’re working out again or that you treated yourself.”

“It was only a water shower, Father,” Kào said wryly. “You act as if I wallowed in luxury.”

“It’s your duty with the refugees.” His father waggled a thick finger at him. “Did I not tell you that it would yank you from your doldrums?”

“Actually, Father, you didn’t.” Kào’s mouth quirked. “But I long suspected it was the reason you handed me the chore.”

“You know me too well, son.” Moray pounded him on the back. “I’m glad it’s been a positive experience for you. I admit that I had my doubts after the start.”

He wasn’t the only one. Jordan Cady had caused them much trouble that first day. But now she caused Kào turmoil of a different sort. His feelings in the wake of their intense and intimate conversation on the observation deck had left him spinning like a lost observation buoy. “She’s really something,” he mumbled to himself.

“Who is, Kào?”

Instantly Kào regretted letting the remark slip. “Jordan Cady, the refugee leader.”

“You’re quite taken with her, I see.” Even as his father made the statement, the man’s narrowed eyes searched Kào’s face for confirmation. “Don’t lose sight of the fact that she’s a refugee, Kào, and you’re a ship’s officer.”

“I understand that, sir.”

“I consider you the best man for the job—I still do—but if the refugee woman is complicating matters for you—”

“Nothing is becoming complicated, sir.”
Or was it?

“Good.” Moray took a blinking handheld from a passing aide. “Have you given more thought to marrying?”

Kào gave a quick, disbelieving laugh. “No.”

“Well, I have. A well-placed mate, that’s what you need. As I predicted, the recent elections on Sofu have presented us with many opportunities. Ones I would imagine that you will be as anxious as I to snap up.”

Ah, so it was back to this battle again. But today Kào didn’t feel like arguing. He felt like . . . whistling.

Moray noticed. “Kào, are you not feeling well?”

“I’m feeling fine.” Kào walked to the viewing window where he could see the stars. He stretched, inhaling deeply. “As a matter of fact, I’m feeling more than fine. The best in years.” And it was almost the truth. He didn’t think he’d ever purge the guilt and the pain, or fully escape the
dreams of Talagarian torture that shattered his sleep like broken glass, but the shadows had been pushed farther from his consciousness than ever before.

He turned around to find his father wearing a disconcerted expression on his florid face. “As I said, Kào, I’m glad to hear you’ve taken to working out again. Weights? Running?”

“Both. Your officers-only holo-arena is an impressive facility.” He’d been on the ship for months, but he’d just made his first visit after his observation-deck rendezvous with Jordan. The arena was immense, the three-dimensional, digital holographics vividly real. His father had spared no expense.

“But physical conditioning isn’t all I’ve worked on of late,” he continued. “To make sure you receive full credit for your efforts, I had to forward Earth’s coordinates to the Ministry of Planetary Registration on Sofu. I thought we already had, but apparently, in the confusion afterward, no one had gotten around to it.”

Moray’s eyes widened. “Did you first verify the coordinates with my science staff?”

“Yes. And a good thing I did. Apparently, there was a glitch in the data that would have placed the planet in an entirely different zone. But that’s been corrected now.”

Moray’s entire body deflated with his exhalation. It proved to Kào that his father shared his belief that the Earther rescue was critical to restoring his former standing in the Alliance.

“The Ministry is quite taken with the possibilities of your discovery,” Kào said proudly. “I’ll admit that I, too, am fascinated with the theory that the planet had become separated from the rest of the Alliance in prehistory. I made sure that the Ministry was well aware that you’d made the initial discovery as well as first contact.
And
orchestrated the entire rescue operation.”

Moray puffed himself up. “You flatter me,” he said with the barest trace of humbleness.

“I want this for you, father,” Kào said with quiet conviction. “I want to make up for what happened in the war. Before I leave this ship, I promise you your name will be respected and praised once more throughout the Alliance.”

Moray’s smile faltered. “What is this talk of leaving the ship?”

If the commodore had his way, he’d keep Kào by his side forever. The man had lost his first family. Kào knew he was loath to lose a second. It was with patience that he replied, “We act as if my recuperative stay here is an open-ended visit, but we both know better. I hold no official position here. Sooner or later I’m going to have to find my own way, my own life.”

An aide tiptoed up to them. “Commodore Moray, here is the report on the rogue vessel,” he said meekly.

“Thank you, Jinn.” Moray made a sound in his throat and took the handheld. “Join me for dinner, Kào. We have much to talk about. And not enough time in each other’s company lately to do it.”

“Very good, Father. I look forward to it.” And normally he would have, Kào thought. But the commodore took his evening meal at the bottom of the second third, cutting into the time Kào had set aside for Jordan and refugee affairs. Dinner with Moray meant that he’d miss their meeting. But such was a son’s obligation to his father.

Moray turned away, then stopped. “A thought just occurred to me. Ensign Pren mentioned that her team is finished with the refugees’ computers. Perhaps you’d like to give them back. It would be seen as a nice gesture.” He smiled and walked off.

Kào rubbed his chin. He’d taken to visiting Jordan in the mornings. Their official meetings remained in the early evenings. Now today he’d be able to show up at midday, too,
if he were to use the computers as an excuse.

He returned to Trist’s station. “Ensign, the commodore has told me you’re done with the refugees’ computers. Please arrange for immediate return of the items.”

Trist’s mouth thinned. “That will not be a good idea.”

“Why not? They’ve lost everything. If we can give them something back, even the smallest link to their lost world, then I want it done.”

“But many of the devices were damaged in the data collection process. Not intentionally, Kào, but that was the end result.” She tucked wispy strands of colorless hair behind one pink ear. “My advice to you is not to give any back, not knowing which are functional. The refugees will be angry, and blame it all on you. I recommend you schedule the whole lot for destruction—the computers, that is,” she said, her red eyes glittering in what appeared to be a smirk. “Not the refugees.”

She’d made a joke, one at which only a Talagar would have laughed. Kào frowned. “If you can’t save all the computers, then destroy them all? Is that your thinking?”

She shrugged, unrepentant.

Trist had been born and raised under Alliance rule, but her behavior was pure Talagar. He knew, having met enough of the creatures in the past three years to last a lifetime.
Ten
lifetimes. But even Trist couldn’t spoil his mood. He was on his way to New Earth, bearing gifts—a brilliant suggestion on his father’s part. If decorum prevented him from bringing Jordan flowers, then, by the Seeders, he’d bring her computers instead.