Chapter Fifteen
It was almost midnight before Davos came.
Blake was dozing by the fire when the cellar door flew open and at least ten big soldiers rushed down the stairs and fanned out over the room. He sat up in alarm, gaping at them, and saw Rhaegar and Derrick stumble to their feet, Rhaegar reaching for the disruptor. A shout from the doorway stopped him from raising the weapon.
“No, Rhaegar. Put it down,” Davos said, coming down the stairs, the light from the fire gleaming on his polished black boots and the weapons bristling at his side.
Rhaegar lowered his disruptor, but didn’t drop it as Davos swept into the tiny room, his eyes glowing as they searched for Blake. Blake surged to his feet with a little cry and ran to him. Davos swept him up in his arms, lifting him up to kiss him, a hard, demanding kiss that Blake wished could have gone on forever. He was breathless when Davos lowered him back to his feet, keeping an arm around him and keeping him close to his side. Davos looked directly at Rhaegar.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“What about my crew?” Rhaegar replied tersely.
“Already on board the ship and waiting for you.”
Blake saw Rhaegar’s mouth fall open and he looked wonderingly at Derrick.
“But how did you manage all this?” Blake asked, glancing at the fierce looking soldiers and wondering if he was still asleep and only dreaming.
Davos looked down at him as if puzzled by the question. “I’m the king. My soldiers follow my orders.”
“But won’t your council be angry when they find out?”
He snorted. “My council has been angry before and will no doubt be again.” He was being cavalier about it, but Blake knew there might be trouble from this. Davos’s enemies would use it against him if they could. Worried, he touched Davos’s chest with his hand and looked up at him. Davos covered his hand with his and squeezed it warmly, but didn’t meet Blake’s gaze.
“Gather your things—we need to go quickly,” he said, and took Blake’s hand to lead him toward the stairs.
Everything happened so fast it made Blake a little dizzy. They left the palace grounds and walked down the cobbled streets outside to reach a ship that Blake recognized as Davos’s personal craft, waiting for them right there in the street. They got on board and Blake strapped in next to Davos, as Rhaegar and Derrick took the seats behind them. The soldiers climbed on board as well, filling the rest of the space inside the cabin. The pilot lifted off, and Blake was soon looking down at Haggoz City laid out below them, its lights twinkling up at them. None of it seemed real, and Blake pinched himself to make sure he was really awake.
Almost as soon as they went up, they were landing again at the docks across town. The hover craft came to a landing beside a ship that Blake recognized with a startled little, “Oh.” It was his own ship, the damages from the crash landing a few weeks before all repaired as if they’d never been there at all. The hull was gleaming in the lights from the hover craft and Blake couldn’t see any of the old damage. He turned in amazement to Davos, who lifted one shoulder. “The damage wasn’t extensive, and it has all been repaired. This ship should take you wherever you wish to go.”
He got out of his seat and held out a hand to Blake, who took it and allowed him to escort him off the ship. But now the moment to leave was here, at long last, Blake’s legs refused to hold him up properly. He knew that if he got on that ship and left, he’d never see Davos again. Davos would stay here in this alternate universe and people would say he was missing, but Blake would know the truth. He might never be able to get back to him, even if he went through the Never Never a hundred times or more. The Black Hole the pirates had given such a fanciful name wasn’t exactly a sure thing. Blake thought that once you left, it might never bring you back, and maybe that was partly how the thing was given its name. He wasn’t even sure if it would take him back to his own universe. The only thing he was sure about was that if he left Davos here, he was taking a huge chance on ever seeing him again. And that was simply intolerable.
Davos had his hand and was tugging him toward the ship. “No,” Blake said, holding back. “I can’t go on that ship and leave you behind. If I leave you now, I don’t think I’ll ever see you again and I-I can’t risk that.”
Davos frowned as he looked down at him. “You know I want you to stay, and I would keep you with me, but not at the risk of your life. You have to go.”
“I don’t have a life without you.”
“Sweetheart,” Davos said softly, pulling him into his arms. “Don’t make this so hard on both of us.”
Derrick came to stand beside him and took his hand. “Please omak. You have to come with us. Think of Nicarr and Larz—think of Anarr and Vannos and Mikos. We need you.”
Blake moaned, feeling as if he were being torn apart. He felt as if his heart was breaking, and if that were true, then he hoped the cracks would stay embedded on the surface of his heart, like the lines on a star chart. If he had to stay with Davos, then those cracks might one day lead him back to his children.
He looked up at Davos again and pleaded with him with his eyes. “If you ever loved me, if you love me now, even a little bit, then come with me. I won’t leave without you. You told me once that there were two of me inside here,” he said, placing his hand on his chest. “Me and the Alliance soldier—the lieutenant. You said the lieutenant was your enemy and you wanted to make him go away and leave only me behind. But for me it’s different. I think there are two of you inside too, but I want both of you, whole and strong and mine. Always mine, no matter what. I need you, Davos, and I think you need me too. Whoever you are, where ever you are, that’s where I have to be. So if you won’t go with me, then I’ll stay. Unless…” he held out a hand to him one last time and placed the other on his stomach, over their child. “Unless you want to come with me and our baby, and trust me. Trust me that I love you and I’m telling you the truth. That your life is so much richer back on Tygeria with your family. And all you have to do is take my hand, love. Take my hand and I’ll take us home.”
Davos looked at him for a long moment, his eyes stormy and troubled. Blake died a thousand times as he watched him make his decision, his eyes searching Blake’s face. Whatever he saw there made him sigh, a long, drawn out sigh that sounded as if it were dredged from the depths of his soul. Then slowly, hesitantly, he reached out and firmly grasped Blake’s hand.
****
In the end, finding the Black Hole that Blake and the others called the Never Never again was almost anti-climactic. Davos thought this trip would more than likely be a short one, at least this first leg of the journey. He figured the pirates would orbit for a while, before finally admitting they couldn’t find any sign of a mysterious black hole that came and went like a thief. Then they would either talk Blake into plotting a course for some planet like Leeria, where the pirates were always welcome, or take him to some Alliance friendly planet, where he needed to be to find a doctor who could treat him. They would drop Blake off, make sure he was in good hands and then leave. He’d come back for him as soon as the child was born, and he knew Blake was safe and out of danger.
Either way, this was taking a bit longer than he had expected. Either Rhaegar was as delusional as Blake and Derrick, or he was really trying to make this look good for Blake and his son. Rhaegar was at the helm because as he had bragged, “I’m the best pilot on board the ship.” Davos had simply rolled his eyes and settled back in his seat beside Blake, willing to let this play out for as long as it took.
He’d taken a calculated risk in going along on this journey. He hadn’t meant to come—he had planned to see Blake off and track him to wherever the ship took him. Then at a later date, he’d go after him, once the child was born and Blake was safe. But when Blake told him he needed him and looked at him from those beautiful blue eyes and begged Davos not to break his heart—well, he hadn’t meant to be swayed by it and he was still a bit surprised that he hadn’t been able to say no. That had never happened to him before.
The old pirate who had led him around by the neck with that rope slowly sidled by him and went to stand by Rhaegar. Davos glared unforgivingly at his back.
“Any sign of it, Captain?”
“No, nothing yet.”
“Some say it comes when you need it the most.”
“I don’t think the damn thing is a sentient being, Smeet. It hardly knows when someone needs it.”
“I don’t know, Captain. That’s just what they say. I remember once back a few years ago, we was running from some Tyrolian ships that tried to waylay us on the way back from a trading run, when…”
“Good gods, there it is!” Rhaegar suddenly cried out and Davos came wide awake and jumped to his feet to go stand beside him. Blake gasped and grabbed for Davos’s hand, trying to pull him back down in the seat.
“It’s going to toss us around.” Blake called out to them. “Come back and strap in. You too, Smeet!”
“He’s right. Everybody needs to hang on. This is going to get rough.”
“Hold up!” Davos yelled. “Have you done this before? Gone into a black hole?”
“No, or at least, not as I remember. I know I was on a ship that went just inside the edges of it once.”
“What happened?”
“Let’s just say it wasn’t anything I ever wanted to repeat. But it looks like I’m going to.”
Black holes were incredibly hard to see because of how deep and dense they were, so even though Davos strained to see something on the screens, he could only see a blank area of space, surrounded by other bright matter that made it hard to see the object itself. Black holes were born when massive stars collapsed in on themselves and created a region of gravity so intense that not even light could escape its grasp, so what Rhaegar was responding to wasn’t so much the sight of the hole, but the “sound” of them, the gravitational waves or literal ripples in spacetime that emanated from black holes and registered on his equipment.
“This is not possible,” Davos insisted, straining forward.
“Hang on, Your Majesty. I’m heading in!”
“No!” Davos cried out, but then they were inside the thing, being tossed around like a feather in a whirlwind as all the air suddenly seemed to be sucked out of the cabin. Davos tried to reach blindly for Blake but the gravitational forces had him glued to his seat and he couldn’t break the hold. Then just as suddenly as it left, the air rushed back into the cabin and Davos could draw in a full breath. The gravitational forces eased a bit but before Davos could relax, the ship was suddenly grabbed by a giant hand and hurled out the other side, the force so intense that if he hadn’t been strapped into his seat, he would have been smashed against the interior hull of the ship.
The intense movement stopped, and they were left hanging in space in a sudden calm, as shocking in its way as the storm had been inside the black hole. Davos quickly released his straps and knelt beside Blake, who lay back in his seat with his eyes tightly closed.
“Are you all right, Blake? Can you speak to me?”
Blake blinked slowly and opened his eyes, smiling at Davos. “Did we make it? Are we home?” He took Davos’s face in his hands and looked into his eyes, his own eyes shining. “Your eyes are amber again.”
“What? My eyes have changed color? But that’s impossible. I’m still me. I don’t feel any different!” And it was true, except suddenly new memories were flooding his brain, memories of his sons, Mikos and Annar and Vannos. Nicarr and Larz and… “Derrick!” he said, turning toward his son. “Derrick, are you all right?”
“Yes, I think so.” He turned and looked at Davos and gave a little start of surprise. “Father? Do you know who I am?”
“Of course, I know who you are. Why are you asking me such a thing? I was chasing you and Rhaegar and…and then you disappeared. My helmsman followed you and …gods, I-I don’t remember what happened next.” Feeling confused and disoriented, he sat back down hard in his seat and looked wonderingly at Blake. “Except for you. But how are you here? I left you on Vokaria. No…wait. You told me to take your hand and you’d take me home.”
“That’s right. It’s a long story, and I don’t know if you’re ready to hear it just yet. Later, when we get closer to home, I’ll tell you the whole thing. But I’ll go ahead and warn you in advance—I don’t think you’re going to believe a word of it.”
****
It was a full two days later that they reached the outer edges of Axis airspace. By that time, Derrick and Blake had explained in infinite detail what had happened to both Rhaegar and Davos, but Blake could tell they still weren’t completely convinced. Blake didn’t think he really believed him until he learned of the new baby that was coming. He laid his hand reverently on
Blake’s stomach then and was speechless for perhaps the first time in his life.
Neither Davos nor Rhaegar had any real memories of Tveir or what happened there. Davos said he remembered a little of it, but it was like something he had dreamed and not real. The only real thing had been Blake.
Smeet and the other crewmen didn’t remember much either, though Smeet was much more willing to believe what they told him. He was upset and disgruntled about it, though, saying he’d heard the stories of the Never Never all his life and then the one time he had stories of his own that he could possibly tell, he couldn’t remember a damn thing.
When they were within range of Tygeria, they contacted Tygerian Air Control and spent an exciting few minutes trying to convince them of who they actually were. Finally, they patched Mikos through and he could barely speak for the longest time. When he was convinced he was actually speaking to his fathers, he told them, in a shaky voice, that he was on his way to intercept. He told them to enter orbit around Tygeria, but then refused to answer any of Blake’s frantic questions about Larz and simply insisted he would “see him soon.”
Convinced the news must be bad, Blake paced back and forth, inconsolable, until Mikos’s ship docked with their own. When Mikos came on board, looking big and healthy and altogether beautiful, he swept Blake up in a huge hug and then reached out for both Davos and Derrick to envelop them too.
Mikos’s voice broke when he tried to speak so that he had to start over a couple of times. “Where-where have you been? I’ve searched everywhere for you. Annar too, and Vannos. All of us. We’d almost given up hope.”
Davos gripped Mikos’s hand. “What is it you’re not telling us, son? I’m glad to see you too, but it hasn’t been so long, surely, that you all thought we’d never come back home. Why are you acting like you thought you’d never see any of us again?”
Mikos took a deep breath and shook his head before answering. He seemed to be trying to choose his words. “Because I didn’t, Father. Omak left here to go find you…three cycles ago. We gave you all up for dead a long time ago.”
“That-that’s impossible,” Blake said. “We were only gone a little over a month. Maybe a bit longer. But three cycles! No, that’s impossible.”
“We searched everywhere for you. There was no trace of your ship anywhere, nor was there any trace of Father’s or Rhaegar’s. It was as if you’d all just…vanished. What happened to you?”
“We did vanish, in a way,” Blake said, feeling stunned. “We’ll tell you everything, but first tell me about Larz. You found him, right? Please tell me he’s safe, Mikos, please.”
Mikos shook his head, lowering his gaze, and Blake felt his feet go out from under him. Davos caught him around the waist and held onto him tightly, putting his head against Blake’s.
“I’m sorry, omak. Father. We’ve looked for him for a long, long time. We’ve never been able to find any trace. We haven’t given up, of course. We’ll never give up.”
But Blake didn’t hear the rest of what Mikos was saying. Larz’s disappearance, the journey through the black hole, the pregnancy, the shock of hearing they’d been missing not for a month or so, but for three long cycles had finally proven to be too much. His eyes rolled back in his head and darkness settled over him like a shroud.