My Enemy's Son (The Two Moons of Rehnor, Book 2) (4 page)

Senya smirked.  “Ay yah.”  This was
followed by something in another language.

“Sorry?” Kenak asked and then looked at
us.  “Did anyone remember to bring a Universal Translator?”

Donak and I shook our heads.  I didn’t have
an iPhone either.

 Senya put down his cup again and leaned
forward as if he were going to tell us a great secret.

“Now you help me.  I need learn Rozarian. 
I need learn English.  I need learn all things.  I need Shelly shopping.”

“What?” I gasped.

He pulled at his shirt and nodded to me.

Kenak and Donak turned to me with blank
expressions on their faces.

“I was just thinking he needed someone to
take him clothes shopping,” I explained as my face became flushed.

Senya was smiling smugly and smoking again. 
“Very good, Shelly.”

“Senya,” Kenak said calmly in the voice he
used with our undergraduate students.  “We can do all these things for you but
you must be willing to speak with us about Rehnor and about the Karuptas.  That
is what we do here.  We are Anthropologists.  We study our history.  We will
trade your knowledge for ours.  Is that a deal then?”

“Deal?”

“Yes, deal,” Kenak replied.  “Do you agree
to work with us so we may work with you?”

Senya’s brow furrowed thoughtfully as he
breathed out a cloud of grey smoke.  Then he said something in his language. 
My head went fuzzy.  Suddenly, I was not in this chair anymore.  I was outside
somewhere sitting by a lake on a park bench.  There was grass at my feet and
birds were chirping in the trees.  A woman was sitting next to me.  I
recognized her as the nurse from the hospital, Janet.

“Look at that duck,” she said, pointing at
one of the ducks paddling along the lake.  “She looks like she's about to bite
off the head of that mallard there.  I bet he was screwing around on her
again.”

I knew Janet's boyfriend just dumped her
again.  I looked at my watch.  I didn’t really want to get into a discussion
about her boyfriend right now.  I needed to get back to the office.

“Let's go back in,” I suggested, gathering
up my lunch bag and tossing it in the bin next to the bench. 

I started walking down the gravel path
back to the building.  It was a perfect eighty degrees and a cool breeze blew
in off the lake and along the walkway.  Our path was lined with foliage and
trees made a shady canopy over our heads.  There was a rose garden with a
fountain and a gazebo just off the path on my left.  In front of us was a large
building surrounded by three other buildings and all of them were gleaming in
the coppery reflection of the sun.  Atop one of the buildings was a huge sign,
the name of the company I worked for, SdK Corporation.  The building I was
walking towards said,
Medical Centre
, and there were many people,
patients, doctors and nurses streaming in and out towards the parking lot where
thousands of speeders were parked. 

I thought about my oldest son, Thad.  I
wondered if he and the kids were coming over for dinner tonight and if so I
should defrost a chicken and boil up some pasta.

Janet caught up with me.  She had a
bouquet of roses in her hands.  “I just stopped to pick some for the office
from Captain Perfect's garden,” she said in a snippy voice.  “I love these
yellow ones but these pink ones are really fragrant too.  Smell them Shelly. 
Aren’t these nice?”

I leaned down and took a whiff of a pink
rose when suddenly, I was back in this hard folding chair in Kenak's office on
this dry dusty planet at seven in the morning.

“Are you alright, Shelly?” Kenak asked. 
Donak was standing over me looking deeply into my eyes.  I looked past him at
Senya on the couch.  He was smoking and drinking his coffee, a smirk on his
face.

“What happened?” I asked.

“You started to sway and nearly toppled
over,” Donak said.  “Do you feel alright now?”

“Yes,” I nodded.  “I guess I need more
coffee.”

With my back to them, I stood at the
coffee machine and pondered what I had just seen.  It felt completely real,
like a memory, yet none of that had happened.  Thad lived on Earth and I had
met Janet only once a few weeks ago.  I had no clue if she even had a
boyfriend.  I had never seen trees or a lake or even a duck here on Rozari.  I
had never heard of a company called SdK Corporation.

“What's the matter, Shelly?” Kenak called.

“Nothing,” I replied.  “Nothing at all.” 
I turned back to them and stared at Senya.  He smiled at me.

“Was that a future memory, Senya?” I
asked.

“What?” Donak said.

"A future memory?" Kenak
pondered.

“Very good, Shelly,” Senya replied with a
nod.  “Smart Shelly.”

“Please stop saying very good to me!”  I
stomped my foot like a child and then looked helplessly at Kenak and Donak.

“What happened, Shelly dear?” Kenak asked
innocently.

“I...I…He…”  How could I explain what I
just experienced?  Where could I get a future memory?  Was this really my
future, Thad, my grandchildren, Janet, roses and ducks all here on Rozari?

“Shelly?” Donak asked.

I shook my head and sat down in my chair. 
Senya raised his eyebrows at me over his dark glasses. 

“Let’s just help him,” I sighed, “just
help him.”

Donak and Kenak stared at me dumbfounded.

“Very good, Shelly,” Senya said again.

Kenak gave me some money out of the
department's budget to go buy some clothing for Senya.  I bought him a few
shirts and some jeans, as well as some running shoes and socks, figuring I
could always return whatever didn't fit. 

In the meantime, Donak took Senya back to
the Medical Centre and together they went to a retina specialist who was
familiar with the sensory lens technology.  In a matter of days, Senya's
sunglasses were fitted with microchips. 

Kenak acquired all the forms for
requesting asylum and citizenship from the Rozarian government. 

“It should be no problem,” he informed
me.  “A Rehnorian is just a descendant of Rozari anyway.  They should
automatically grant him citizenship.”

“That's great,” I said as Senya and Donak
came back into the office.

“Senya,” Kenak greeted them heartily. 
“How do you see now?”

“Very good,” he replied. 

Did we expect another answer?

“I'm sure going to be glad when you learn
enough Rozarian to have a normal conversation,” I remarked while admiring the
clothing I bought.  It looked good on him but then anything would.  “Where are
your socks?  You need to wear socks with your shoes.”

He looked at his feet as if they were the
culprits for having removed their socks.

“Senya,” Kenak interrupted us.  “You can
worry about your socks later.  I have your citizenship forms to fill out, as
well as your admission papers for the Science Institute.  You will need to take
some assessment tests before we can determine where to place you academically
and what your subjects of interest are.  Come sit down with me and let's go
over this together.” 

Kenak sat down at the student desk across
from mine and Senya took the chair in front.  He was smoking again.

“You couldn't convince him to stop
smoking?” I asked Donak while Kenak began to type on his screen.

“About as successfully as you convinced
him to wear socks,” Donak replied.

“Now Senya what is your full name?” Kenak
asked.

Senya smoked.

“You do have a last name, do you not?”
Kenak inquired.  “A patronymic or surname?”

Senya continued to smoke.  He played with
the laces of his shoes, pulling them out.

“Come on lad,” Donak prompted.  “You can't
apply for any of these things unless you give them the proper information.  Do
you have a surname?”

Senya held a shoe lace in his hand and
studied it with his new glasses.  It moved.

"Eek!" I screamed. 

The shoe lace had turned into a small
snake, an asp, and it was wrapping itself around Senya’s hand while he stroked
it as if it were a kitten or something.  Kenak and Donak stared in amazement,
their mouths wide open.  The asp rose up out of Senya's hand and stuck out its
long forked tongue at them.  I shrieked again.

"How did you do that, Senya?" 
Donak recovered his voice.

"I don't care how," I cried. 
"Get rid of it!"

Senya turned toward me and cocked his head
slightly.  A wave of heat washed over my brain.  "Ach, Shelly," he
said and pointed the snake at me. 

I blinked and it was no longer a snake. 
It was a pink rose bud like the one the nurse, Janet picked in my future
memory.  Senya tossed it at me.  I let it drop to the floor and watched it for
a moment.

"It won't turn back into a snake,
will it?"

He smiled as if I had said something
funny.  "Need water."

Cautiously, I picked it up and put it in
the water bottle on my desk.  Instantly, it sprouted roots on the stem.

"Well, look at that!  Do you think I
could plant it outside, Senya?  Tim has wanted to start a rose garden for years
but was always afraid they’d all burn up in the heat."

"Ay yah, Shelly," Senya
shrugged, "need water.”  He pulled out, then tossed to me his second shoe
lace.  This turned into a twig with a couple of leaves.

"What is it?  Some type of
tree?"

"Apple?" 

"An apple tree?  Thank you,
sweetheart!"  I put the apple twig in with the rose and it too sprouted
roots.  Tim would sure get a kick out of this!

"You will have your own little garden
of Eden, Shelly," Kenak remarked drily.  "Complete with a snake. 
Senya, shall we resume your application?"

"That can wait," Donak
interrupted.  “Blessed Saint, Kenak, did you not see what he just did?  He just
transformed the molecular structure of inanimate objects to animate.  He
created life where there was none.  It was amazing, miraculous, if that is, in
fact, what he has done."

“Indeed,” Kenak replied.  “Yet we still
have all these forms to fill out.”

“I want to know how you did that, Senya,”
Donak prodded.  “Explain it to me please.  Is this something that all Karupta
can do?”

Senya finished his cigarette and flicked
it into the air.  It disappeared.  He either didn’t understand Donak or was
pointedly ignoring him as now he was playing with his shoes, taking them off
and putting them back on again.

Donak watched Senya do this with an
expression of disbelief.  “Senya,” he said sternly.  “Answer my question.”

"Let's finish up here first,” Kenak
suggested.

“Leave him alone, Donak.”  I watched my
apple tree grow more leaves.  “So he’s weird and can do some kind of magic
stuff.  We knew this already.”

Donak stood with his arms crossed in front
of his chest and studied Senya as if he was a specimen in a zoo.

“We have much to do today,” Kenak
continued.  “I, too, want to spend some time with him discussing the Karuptas. 
Now Senya, could you please just tell us your last name so we can submit this
form?"

“Perhaps he doesn't have a last name,” I
said now stroking the soft petal of my rose bud.  “Maybe the only name he has
ever had is Senya.  Why don't we make one up or you can use mine.  I'll adopt
him.  Call him Senya Mattson."  I smiled at him even though he was
studying his shoes and didn’t notice me.  I wondered if he was going to turn
his shoes into something too.

“Shall we do that?” Kenak asked Senya. 
"Would you like Shelly to adopt you?"

Senya held a shoe in his hand and looked
at it through his new glasses as if it was a real novelty.  He smiled at me. 
“Very good, Shelly.”

"Senya, what is your full
name?"  Donak asked impatiently.  "Let's get on with this.  I want to
take him back to my lab.  I'd like to run some tests.  I want to take some more
blood and biopsy some ocular tissue."

"No," I protested.  "I'm
not going to let you treat him like an experiment just because he can do magic
stuff."

“What he did just now is beyond magic,”
Donak protested.  “It is important that we find out exactly what has become of
our brothers on Rehnor, what they have done to develop these abilities.”

“No, I say it’s wrong to study him like a
lab rat.”

"He's not your son, Shelly,"
Donak insisted.  "Even if you do pretend to adopt him."

"Well nobody else is concerned about
him!  Maybe I'll adopt him for real."

"We are all concerned about him but
he is obviously an adult not a child.  I dare say he is well into his twenties
if not his thirties already.  You cannot adopt him.  Furthermore you are not a citizen
of Rozari.  You are an Earth ex-patriot.  If he agrees to the tests, you have
no say in the matter."  Donak pounded his fist on poor Kenak’s desk.