Starcrossed (40 page)

“Ultimate penalty?” I gasped, finally finding my voice. That meant a complete memory wipe, unless . . . was there a death penalty that wasn’t in the books? “What is he accused of?”

A woman I’d met once before—Kyna, that was her name—replied when both Shim and Allister hesitated. “Kidnapping, Excellency. Did he not take you from the O’Garas’ protection against your will?”

“No! Of course not! Running away was totally
my
idea. He only agreed after I talked him into it. You
have
to let him go. Now!”
 

A surprised murmur ran through the people in the room, but all I could think about was Rigel. Was he being told the same thing? A new fear gripped me: if he thought it might help me somehow, would he
admit
to kidnapping me? What would they do to him if he did?

“I’m afraid it’s not that simple, Princess,” Allister told me. “Even if what you say is true, the boy is now a security risk. It must never be suspected that you ran away of your own volition; that you deliberately attempted to abdicate your responsibilities and position. That would completely undermine our campaign to present you as the logical choice for leadership now that Faxon’s regime has collapsed.”

“Collapsed?” The word caught me off guard, distracting me, but only for a second. “I don’t care about your
campaign
,” I informed him vehemently. “All I care about right now is Rigel. You can’t make him stand trial—or
thrialach
—for a crime he didn’t commit. I won’t let you. I . . . I’ll abdicate. I hereby totally refuse to be Sovereign, unless you let him go.”

That seemed to startle, even alarm most of them, but almost immediately Kyna snapped, “That’s not possible, Excellency. There is so much you don’t understand, so much more at stake than—”

I turned my back on her to face Shim. “
You
won’t let them do anything to Rigel, will you?” I pleaded, cutting Kyna off midsentence. “They
have
to let him come back! You know how sick both of us will get.”

Instead of giving me the reassurance I craved, he turned to the others. “This is becoming needlessly, perhaps disastrously, upsetting for the Princess. I would like to speak with her—alone—to clarify the situation. The
entire
situation.” His words seemed laden with a significance I couldn’t grasp.
 

As the others hesitated, I finally had a chance to notice who was here. Besides the furiously frowning Allister and the disapproving Kyna, I recognized little Nara, watching me with sympathetic tears in her eyes.
 

Those three, plus Shim, had also been present when a blood test proved my identity in this very room back in September. The others were strangers to me. I wondered where Rigel’s parents were, and the O’Garas.

“You may record our conversation if you wish,” Shim said with a touch of impatience when the only response was Allister’s quick head shake. “Or listen remotely from another room. My only concern is that the Princess understand everything she must, as quickly as possible. Nothing else can progress until then.”

The others murmured their agreement though, at Allister’s insistence, one of the men I didn’t recognize set a small omni-like device on the mantel before they all filed out, leaving Shim and me alone in the living room.

He pulled a chair to face me and sat down with a weary sigh, looking somehow older than I remembered. I guiltily wondered if the stress caused by my running away might be the reason.
 

“First, my dear, let me say how genuinely happy I am that you are safe. And my grandson as well, of course.” A smile flickered across his face. “We all imagined the worst until our trackers picked up your trail and were able to deduce what had happened.”

“Um, how
did
you—?”
 

Shim held up a hand, silencing me. “Let’s just say that we have techniques neither you nor Rigel were aware of. Right now, however, it is essential that I inform you as quickly as possible about all aspects of our current situation—and then get you home.”

I glanced at the clock on the mantel. Three o’clock? Sunday afternoon, I assumed, since it was light outside. “How long was I out?”

“More than twenty hours, and if you’re not home before five, the, ah, creative excuse Lili O’Gara has provided your aunt and uncle may not hold up. I’m sure you don’t want their suspicions aroused any more than we do.”

“Uh, no, I guess not. Excuse?”

“Again, that can wait. You’ll be given the gist on your way home. The entire
Echtran
Council has convened here for a purpose that cannot be put off any longer. As you heard, Faxon has finally fallen from power. Though we knew things were tending in that direction, his ouster happened more quickly than expected when Royal sympathizers took advantage of an unexpected opportunity and most of his inner circle turned against him. Word reached Earth late Friday night, within hours of your leaving Jewel.”

In other words, the power vacuum Allister and the O’Garas were worried about—and me nowhere to be found. Guilt stabbed me again, but I shoved it away.
 

“Okay, my timing really sucked, I get that. But the O’Garas—the Council—didn’t leave us any choice! They were planning to separate Rigel and me permanently. Yesterday. Weren’t they?” My question was an accusation, directed not just at Shim, but at the whole Council, listening in.

He nodded sadly. “Allister assured us you had no suspicion, but he has always tended to underestimate you—both of you. Yes, the plan was to test this new antidote yesterday, which would have entailed an immediate separation after its administration.”

“Were the Stuarts okay with that? Were you? Where
are
the Stuarts, anyway?”

“On their way to Montana, to support their son in any way they can. And no. Ariel, in particular, was violently opposed to the plan,” Shim admitted. “Nor was the Council unanimous, though only Nara and I actually voted against it after the debate concluded. I suspect our opinions were given less weight because of our personal feelings in the matter.”

Though that helped a little, knowing wouldn’t have kept me from running away. For all the good that did, since Rigel and I had been separated anyway. I refused to believe it would be forever.
 

“Okay, I’m here now, whether I want to be or not. What
exactly
am I expected to do? According to Allister, I won’t be ready to actually lead for years, so I guess I don’t see what the big deal is. I mean, why not just elect someone who’s qualified
now
to take over, at least for the next ten or fifteen years, since you need a leader right this minute?”

I knew it wasn’t quite that simple, based on all I’d learned about Nuathan government, but it still seemed like the logical solution in a unique emergency like this one.

“It’s true that you are too young to step into a full leadership role immediately,” Shim agreed, “but with several factions suddenly vying for power on Mars, it is
essential
that the majority of those factions unite, and quickly, before we are plunged into anarchy and civil war. You, my dear, are the obvious rallying point for that unity, young as you are.”

“So it’s like I said to the O’Garas before—I’m basically going to be a figurehead?”

He surprised me by nodding. “In that particular sense, yes, for the time being, though a symbolically important one. However, there is another matter of which even the O’Garas are unaware, one that makes you our only possible choice for Sovereign and representative of our people, completely apart from Nuathan politics.”

“There is?” Something even the O’Garas didn’t know? I’d figured they knew more about everything Mars-related than anyone, except maybe Shim himself.

“Until last night, this was known only to a small handful of our most trusted leaders and scientists,” Shim said, his look impressing me with the seriousness of whatever he was about to tell me. “It was only revealed to the entire
Echtran
Council last night, when there was dissension about your, ah, fitness to lead because of your recent adventure. Prior to that, Kyna and I were the only Nuathans on Earth who had been fully briefed, due to the nature of our research contributions.”

“So . . . really top secret stuff, huh?”

“Extremely.” His look rebuked me for my light tone. “So much so, in fact, that it would be considered treason for you to mention this to
anyone
outside of the Council. That includes any of the O’Garas and my grandson as well, should you eventually be reunited.”

Those last words created a bubble of hope that wiped out the rest until Shim’s commanding gaze forced me to focus on everything he’d said. Slowly, reluctantly, I nodded. “I . . . I promise.”
 

I had no idea how I could keep anything secret from Rigel, since he could read my mind, but I wasn’t about to mention
that
with the rest of the Council listening in. They’d probably use it as a reason to never, ever let me see Rigel again.
 

Shim was watching me shrewdly, almost like he knew there were things I wasn’t telling him, but then he nodded. “Very well. I must hold you strictly to that promise, Excellency. Once you hear the rest, you will understand why secrecy is so vital.”

Again he paused, watching me carefully for any reaction. I was careful to keep all expression off my face and after a moment he continued.
 

“For more than four hundred years, we on Mars have scoured the galaxy for signs of other intelligent life. I realize Earth humans have been doing the same in recent years, but we had the advantages of more sophisticated technology and the certainty, due to our own history, that such life does exist.”

“The Extra-solar Research Ministry. I know.” I’d memorized all twenty-seven ministries since Nuathans were so into bureaucracy. “You mean they found something?”

“Indeed. Several somethings, most of which are known to the general population, as they are simply unconfirmed evidence of possible civilizations on far-flung planets. What most do
not
know, however, is that we ourselves were contacted approximately three hundred years ago and that a sporadic, ah, correspondence has continued since.”

My breath caught and I stared at him. “Wait. Mars has been in contact with
other
aliens? For three hundred years? Are . . . are they the same ones that originally—”

“We believe so, based on how they originally contacted us, though even that is not absolutely certain. There is still much we do not know about the Grentl—an approximation of what they call themselves. They are not humanoid, though we have reason to believe they have something resembling DNA. They appear to exist as some combination of physical and energy-based life and have technology that surpasses ours by quite a bit more than ours surpasses that of Earth.”
 

By now I was mostly past feeling like I was living in a science fiction novel but this threw me right back into that mindset. Boggled, I shook my head.

“How can we communicate with them at all?”

“That took nearly fifty years to work out,” he admitted, “And it’s still rudimentary. They don’t use language in the same sense we do, but seem to understand us better than we do them. What they have primarily sent so far have been questions.”

I thought about that for a moment, then asked what seemed like the most pressing question. “So are they . . . friendly now, or are they coming back to do more experiments?”

One corner of Shim’s thin, dry lips quirked up, reminding me forcefully of Rigel’s crooked grin. “That, unfortunately, is one of the things we have not been able to conclusively determine. I congratulate you, Excellency, on so quickly striking to the heart of the matter.”

Had I? I shook my head, still confused. “But . . . what does it have to do with me? And why is it such a huge secret?”

“Interestingly, those two answers are bound together. It had always been our policy to only disseminate information about potential extra-solar civilizations after the ESR has drawn its preliminary conclusions, so as not to invite undue or premature speculation.”

I had to suppress a snort. “I guess the Martian press isn’t as persistent as ours.”

“No, it certainly isn’t. That has sometimes been a blessing, though in the case of Faxon . . . but again, that is a discussion for another time. When the Grentl contacted us—‘us’ meaning two ESR astronomers who happened to be on duty at the time—the protocol was to wait until we knew more before publicizing that fact.

“Over time, a two-way dialogue of sorts was established due to their sophisticated use of quantum entanglement. And the more we learned, the clearer it became that the general citizenry should
not
be told. For one thing, many of our people have beliefs rising to the level of superstition, even religion, when it comes to our original abductors.”

That made sense, as primitive as the original colonists had been.
 

“For another, we discovered early on that the Grentl are—how to put it?—rather touchy. During preliminary communications with our scientists, there was a, ah, misunderstanding. Fortunately, young Sovereign Aerleas, your great-grandmother, was able to avert what could have been a diplomatic—or much worse—disaster, after which the Grentl made it clear they would deal only with her.”

“But . . . what happened when she died?” I was caught up in the story, which felt more like fiction than anything real or personal.

Shim gave me another slight smile. “Ah, there we had a stroke of luck. The Grentl apparently reproduce by fission. Because of this, they perceive an offspring as essentially the same person as the parent. Therefore, your grandfather Leontine was able to pick up where his mother left off without the Grentl taking offense.”

“And now he’s gone,” I whispered, suddenly seeing where this was going.

Shim nodded. “As is your father.”

I swallowed. “So did Faxon—?”

“Apparently so, though we have no way of knowing yet what damage he has done to relations. Please believe me when I say that should the Grentl choose to take action as a result of perceived insult, it could well mean the end of life on Mars and, quite possibly, Earth as well.”