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  She pushed upward from the chair and swung her legs off the edge.

  He stood up and moved to her. “I’ve said something that disturbs you.”

  “How did you know what I was…what she was diagnosed with?”

  “At this point it’s public record but I could ascertain as much from the music. Samwise concluded the same.”

  Ria rubbed her thigh. “Why do you call him Samwise when everyone else calls him Sam?”

  “It’s a perfectly good name and I suppose it’s habit.”

  Suddenly, she froze, his earlier words hitting home. “Public record?”

  Taking a deep breath, he set a hand at her arm. “You foresaw the opening of private to public consumption. Especially…or perhaps I should say unfortunately, if the individual threatened those in power.”

  Her mouth filled with bile and the sense of being exposed before the world surrounded her. “I was considered a threat?”

  “I’m afraid so. A campaign began not long after you disappeared to vilify you and, in effect, destroy the organizations you supported. It had limited success, but did succeed in revealing much of your private life to the public eye.”

  “Oh. God.” Her eyes closed and she sagged.

  Jarveski lifted her legs back to the chair and urged her to lay back. She had no strength to resist him. He stroked her hair before setting the helmet back down. “Ria. Rachel. Don’t try to hide from any of it. It’s the past and it’s your choice to leave that past behind and embrace where you find yourself. Now. Listen and remember.”

  His voice came at her from a distance. Inside her huddled a woman who didn’t want the pain of memories. She felt her hand held, and the music began. Songs she’d forgotten drifted through her. Again and again, particular lyrics spoke clearly to her. First, the finding of a friend, a true friend.

  The vision of Phillip at the high school they both attended rose in her. Young, idealistic, a bit old fashioned. The studied step of their courtship through college along with the awkward and clumsy physical relationship. They wed and a thread of discontent wove its way into the pictures. Standing in the bathroom after making love and staring at herself, wondering what was wrong.

  Trying to find an answer. Writing her first book, a story of discovery for a woman who was led by a man of experience into love and passion. Its surprising success and Phillip’s pride. Years passed and…

  A sob escaped from her as she found herself sitting on the floor of a hotel room, staring at a text message. His flight was late, he wouldn’t be arriving until the next day. She knew it was a lie. She’d called the airline moments before for an update.

  A word from a song darted in and out of her. Liar.

  Littered around her on the carpet lay the testimony of her success. Book flats, glossy and shiny, touting the wonders of her new book. Lists of the awards, words of praise. Her smiling face looked up her, from a magazine cover. The program featured her name, large letters. The guest of honor.

  Hiding in plain sight…

  Key phrases continued to rise from the music. Songs she knew, some that were new to her. Many she recognized but had never paid a great deal of attention to. Appropriate words, slitting her open like a knife.

  Months turned into years, into decades. She asked him to consider an open marriage. He refused. Clues to his infidelities littered her life, but she ignored them.

  Shouldn’t have asked… If I didn’t notice… I’m to blame… He’s a good man…

  Friends tried to talk with her, she banned them from her life. She grew colder and colder. When at fan events, she put on a face and survived. Thrived.

  That face became who she was. The music in her head echoed the path. Masks... Playing a role… Games people play… Staring in my own life…

  The longer she lived the lie, the further the truth faded away. When he died, she was in the middle of a new book. The first she’d written in three years and totally new from her backlist. She stepped outside her comfort level and wrote a pure science fiction piece. Then Phillip suffered the stroke and lingered for three weeks.

  Inside her head, the tendrils stirred and touched the sensors, stroked the built in speakers. Ria felt the comfort and cautious exploration. The divide between her past and present, the split between the author and the wounded wife, the betrayed friend and the sexually frustrated female…shifted. She tottered on the brink of mending her grief…

  The music of the last twelve hours blended, turning into a vast medley of noise, nonsense and clarity.

  With a scream, Ria broke through the cage of Rachel Inez Astor.

  Jarveski caught her and lowered her to the floor, where she skittered away from him, found a wall and curled toward it. Hiding. He followed.

  “Ria. Accept it.”

  Accept what? That her entire life was a lie?

  Her hands clutched at her hair and the tendrils stroked her fingers.

  How did they know? Were they part of her or part of T’talin?

  Did it matter? Her hands fluttered back to her lap.

  A blanket fell across her shoulders and a cup pressed into her hands. The trembling faded and calm descended.

  Into this quiet, Jarveski asked the question she had never asked herself.

  “Why didn’t Rachel leave him?”

  Raising the cup, she took a sip of the fragrant tea and considered. Exhaustion threatened to sweep her away into the welcome refuge she knew from the ship. A tingle at her scalp refused that retreat.

  “Rachel…not me?”

  “No, you are Ria. And Ria has the power to look at Rachel and understand without sinking. I believe this.”

  The shadows of the room made it easy to stay floating on the surface, the image Jarveski provided a platform to use.

  “Rachel was too proud to be the public martyr.”

  “But in private?”

  “It became about…hate. She couldn’t hate him, so she hated herself.” Ria lifted her head from the steaming tea. “I…she was close to switching that allegiance, when the stroke hit. I think…she thought…she began to…”

  The words wouldn’t come.

  Jarveski crossed his legs and sat, less than a foot from her. “Can I say what I think happened? What Samwise theorized?”

  She nodded.

  “Rachel anchored her life on the ideal of romance. And romance let her down. She became hemmed in by the box the public put her in. And couldn’t break out, save when her environmental ideals came into conflict with social pressure and that served to finally release the voice of discontent.”

  What he said made sense. She closed her eyes and remembered how invigorating it had felt to come up against the business interests of those who insisted the science behind a growing ocean catastrophe was false. She had rallied, she had ranted and she embraced a cause that didn’t involve any part of a personal relationship.

  Phillip hated it. They argued. But not about their marriage.

  “Rachel was close to striking out, wasn’t she?”

  Ria nodded, then lifted her head. “Then he fell ill. She sat next to his bed and flowers filled the room. Fans sent notes of encouragement, reporters clamored for attention. To write articles on the storybook romance that launched an empire. Sentimental tripe.”

  “What did Rachel remember, looking at him?”

  “How he cried when she asked for an open relationship. Tears ran down his face, pleading with her not to risk destroying their marriage, claiming he wasn’t strong enough to share her…how he turned it into a discussion of her appetite, her fragility, her…weakness.” Ria set the china cup down, the urge to throw it growing almost too strong to resist. “He poured poison into her ear. Guilt and duty and how it would look…”

  “I think she began to hate him then. That wasn’t allowed, so instead…”

  “She hated herself. Yes.”

  Ria drew a deep breath, her shoulders slumped, weariness threatening to win out. “How did you know all this? When I didn’t know it?”
>
  “The public record, the observations of Samwise. I’ve been waiting for you to arrive for months, devoted myself to preparing. I hope it doesn’t shock you to hear this, but what drove Rachel to dive from the stern of that cruise ship wasn’t anything mysterious.”

  The chuckled that burst from her caused a fit of coughing. He slid next to her and patted her back. “Now, we begin to build who Ria is and what you want to keep of Rachel.”

  “Nothing.”

  “Not an option.”

  “Why not? I didn’t remember her for years.”

  “No, you always knew the hurt and fractured idealism that lay at the heart of who you are.” He glanced at a flashing light and stood up. “Just a moment.”

  Ria sat, her knees drawn up to her chest and rested her face on her crossed arms. A thread of music hovered in the air, settling down over her.

  Welcome to the planet…

  She listened carefully to the song. It wasn’t one she knew or remembered. The voice drew here in, the words captured her, as if they spoke to her alone.

  Dare you to move…

  Without thinking, she pushed herself up and began to sway, embracing the words, the hope of a beginning…

  Her arms spread and her hair danced as she spun.

  Maybe forgiveness…

  The door opened and a light switched on. She stopped, staring at Jarveski.

  He gestured to her. “We have to leave. Samwise is in trouble. Hammer has him.”

  Her arms dropped.

  Oh, hell.

  18

  T’talin poised, surrounded by screens displaying data, analyzing information, sharing the world of humans with the Aleena. A tide of hopeful expectation filled the room. He blinked and turned his attention to a select screen, one tied in with following Ria.

  Despite sinking to depths humans couldn’t conceive of, they had been able to keep the information flowing, using the electrical properties of sea water. As the weeks built to months, their understanding of the species they shared this planet with expanded in ways he hadn’t thought possible.

  And all the while, he wondered of Ria’s journey. The tendrils he’d sacrificed years ago left him a sense of connection. Because of it, he’d found her twice before the damage she’d caused herself caused permanent harm. Until Agent Montgomery boarded and she began to wake up to being human again, he hadn’t realized the extent of the gulf between their species.

  Now, as Ria learned how to be human again, he accepted the role the Aleena would play. He began to identify when his connection to Ria seeped into his consciousness. So, when the lift of hope followed a crush of despair, he turned to his monitors.

  She danced!

  He tuned into the music eliciting this response and took a deep breath. Jarveski had done as he’d promised Dr. Drummond, taken Ria in, uncovered the core of hurt and planted hope. The Aleena had provided intuitive connections and tied together the last dangling pieces of Jarveski’s computer analysis program. Now T’talin saw it in action.

  Stepping closer, he reached out and wished it were possible to be there… When the lab flooded with light, he flinched. Hearing Jarveski’s words, he strode to the command center. “We are needed in Virginia. Set the course immediately.”

  Next, he directed his crew to uncovering this danger. Hammer had gone undercover so completely they’d lost track of him days ago, but there had to be a trace. A fast exchange of information with Dr. Drummond gave them a time limit.

  The meeting with the elders left T’talin with the authority to do whatever it took to guarantee the maintenance of life.

  He’d start with Sam and Ria.

  *****

  “Agent Montgomery, glad to see you back with us.”

  The pounding at the back of his head made it torturous to open his eyes, but he managed. The room swam into focus. A bright light flickered above him, white walls, shelves and tables full of lab debris surrounded him. The source of the voice moved into his view.

  Alfred Hammer the Third. He’d never actually met the man, but the family resemblance was striking. Sam remembered a run in with the second Hammer, when he was a young man at the university. They’d been on opposite sides of a debate to regulate the campus radio station.

  Sam took a deep breath and tried to move. The straps holding him secure to the slanted table left him no room to shift. Even his head was bound to the table. He clenched his fist, debating if he should attempt dialog.

  Hammer titled his head. “You can resist, but it won’t matter. I suppose you may feel better but since our time is limited I’d rather not deal with that drama. Now, I’m going to make this simple.” He gestured to the surrounding shelves. “This is what remains of the research from the laboratory in Massachusetts. You and that creature didn’t manage to destroy it all, just the parts I was willing to share.”

  He pulled a stool from the side and sat, perched within Sam’s vision. “Experimenting with the Aleena provided a wealth of information. Most of it purely scientific in nature and though fascinating, not of much use when it came to what interested me. Save for one thing. They have this gland, isn’t that what you called it, Dr. Nowisk?”

  “Yes, sir.” A white smocked man stepped into view. He held a very long syringe and peered at Sam from thick, old-fashioned glasses.

  “This gland yielded a chemical compound with truly fascinating properties. I have no idea how it benefits the Aleena but its effect on humans is invaluable.” The slimy contractor lifted an eyebrow. “We’ve refined and honed it to near perfection. The only drawback? It eventually kills the subject. But those days leading up to that death are inspired.”

  Helpless, completely helpless to resist. It was galling and terrifying all at once. Sam swallowed the fear and attempted to buy himself time. “What does it do?”

  The doctor moved out or sight. Sweat began to drip down Sam’s back as he held back the shudder threatening to overwhelm him.

  Hammer tilted his head. “In layman’s terms, it removes free will. You’ll answer every question I ask. You’ll do everything I request.” He slid off the stool. “And the most delight aspect of this compound? You’ll know and be aware of every moment.”

  “And then I’ll die.”

  “Yes, regretful, but you’ll last long enough to see that author in my power and I have no doubt she’ll prove a worthy subject for research. I have a facility prepared, far from the waterways and completely off the grid. A large militia is prepared to close the borders. I think I’ll enjoy living in Idaho.”

  Before Sam could formulate a reply, he felt a breath at the back of his neck, then the cold prick of that diabolical needle slid deep into his brain and he froze.

  I’m sorry, Ria. So sorry…

  Hammer coldly observed the agent as the chemical flushed through is body. First, a heat wave, causing extreme skin redness and sweat dripped off his face, soaked his shirt and pants. Muscles clenched. He’d asked the second subject whether it had hurt and was told it had been excruciating. Agent Montgomery had caused him a great deal of trouble, led to a frustrating chase, the disastrous failure of his person fortune, his political influence undermined to the point of uselessness. For the next three days he’d pay.

  The Aleena were hemmed in by the sonar weapon. The private fleet in charge of Commander Scicle would see there was no interference during the exchange. Once he had this Ria creature in his lab, he’d unearth how they’d reversed the aging process and then the world would crawl to his doorstep for the secret.

  “He’s aware.”

  The doctor set the needle aside. He studied Sam’s face. “His training leads me to believe he will need direct questioning. His brain is highly disciplined.”

  “Leave us.” Hammer waited to be alone before asking his first question. “Is Ria a clone of Rachel Inez Astor?”

  The agent’s eyes narrowed, the tiny muscles around the eyelids twitched, the iris dilated. All signs of fighting the compulsion to answer, but there was no effective resi
stance. Eventually, he answered, “No.” A tear ran down the outside of his left cheek.

  “When they reversed her aging, was she mentally compromised?”

  “Yes.”

  Hammer didn’t like how fast that answer was forthcoming. “Are you attempting to mislead me?”

  This reply took longer.

  Slowly, word by word, Hammer drew answers from the agent. This type of questioning involved a method to unearth the disingenuous from the useful. It appeared Agent Montgomery knew the nuances of disguising the truth. But gradually, the military industrialist grew confident of winnowing the wheat from the chaff.

  Four hours later, Hammer smiled. “Do you believe you can hide the truth from me?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Time for further demonstration.”

  He released the bands securing Montgomery to the table and ordered him to step down and follow him. No doubt every move was painful, but though the mind could attempt to resist, the body was nothing more than a machine.

  It was time for the agent to learn this.

  On fire. Every nerve and muscle, every tendon, fiber, skin cell radiated intense outrage. In some small part of his mind, Sam was thankful that the poison kept him from reacting. Or he’d be huddled on the floor, screaming. The agony built as Hammer continued to prod for the truth. No matter how he twisted and turned a phrase, the man dug until Sam despaired of being able to hold anything back.

  Then he’d stopped, content with what he’d learned?

  If so, then hope remained. As he followed the bastard, he considered the questions he hadn’t asked. The man still vastly underestimated the Aleena. Seemed convinced that the rebellion in their ranks amounted to nothing more than a nuisance he would rein in or destroy. He hadn’t asked where they’d gone, or what he’d told them…nothing regarding the computer infiltration.

  Arrogance ruled the man, to Ria’s advantage. And T’talin. He’d fixated on the apparent restoration of Ria’s body, dismissing the aliens as a force already dealt with.

  Sam’s therapist mind knew the label. Sociological narcissist. He considered how he might use that to manipulate the man.