The bubbles popped more delicately this time, depositing them gently on their feet at the mouth of the space port, right by the huge arching gate of Twilah, Juno’s capital city. Shad breathed a sigh of relief as he looked around. Yes, this was just as he had seen it in his fathers’ memories.
Deep and Lock, Shad’s Twin Kindred fathers, had been finder/seekers who had been able to project their minds into the astral plane and travel in spirit to many more places than they had traveled in body. At their death, their memories had passed to Shad, because he had been the first born of his brothers.
He had slipped out of the birth canal only a few moments before War, who was quickly followed by Peace. But the timing was enough that when the Mother Ship blew, he was immediately inundated with thousands upon thousands of memories, recollections, and visions of foreign, far off planets and places he had never seen with his own eyes. It had taken him months to process them all, complicated by the fact that he had been grieving deeply for the loss of all three of his parents at the time.
Shad drew on these memories now, using them to orient himself as he looked around the busy, crowded entrance to the city.
“Shad? Where are we? Where are we going now?” Harper asked. Apparently she was tired of waiting for him to speak.
He glanced at her, his heart swelling as he remembered the tears on her cheeks—tears she’d shed for him. Shielding her honor was the most natural thing in the world for him— as it would be for any Kindred protecting the woman he loved. But Harper had taken it to heart, crying out for him in a way he was unable to cry for himself.
There was uncertainty in her jade green eyes now—eyes he’d seen in his dreams since he was a young boy. Gods, how he wished he could take her in his arms and reassure her—wished he could kiss away the sorrow and doubt on her lovely face and tell her how he really felt about her.
But he’d been down that road and had suffered the pain and loss it brought in the end. Even if they succeeded this time in reaching the end of the loop, he would still lose her, he reminded himself. The past would be changed and the path they had taken to change it would be erased from existence—completely eradicated from everyone’s mind but his own. He had the looper which meant he alone would know what had taken place. To Harper, he would be just another Kindred…another stranger…
No, it was better not to get involved this time. Better to keep things as impersonal as possible. He might love Harper hopelessly and helplessly with every fiber of his being…but that didn’t mean she had to know it.
“We need to get to the Thieves' Market,” he told her shortly. “To do that, we’ll need to hire a V-copter to take us.”
“A V-copter?” she said, frowning. “I thought this was a vehicle restricted planet.”
“It is—for large vehicles like my ship. “A V-copter is small and maneuverable—a little like a motorcycle on Earth only it’s capable of flight.”
“A flying motorcycle?” Harper sounded doubtful. “That doesn’t sound very safe. I thought you said the, uh, past was constantly trying to kill us because it resists change?”
“It is but we’re on a new path now,” Shad told her. “We’ve never been here before. And besides during the last, uh, reset—that’s what I call it when the loop is restarting itself…” He cleared his throat. “During the last reset the Goddess told me to trust more. It’s…one of the reasons I chose to take you here in the first place, rather than trying once more to get your DNA changed in O’ha.”
“The Goddess? You mean the Kindred Goddess?” Harper frowned. “She, uh, talks to you?”
“Ever since I was a child,” Shad told her plainly. “She showed me your image before I was even six cycles old.” He looked her in the eyes. “I’ve known for years it was my mission to rescue and protect you, Harper. Almost all my life.”
“I…” Harper shook her head, clearly uncertain of what to say.
Shad was used to this response—he had told her in other paths that she had been his mission since childhood. It always took her some time to process the information.
“Besides,” he said, trying to get back to the subject at hand. “It’s either ride a V-copter or walk. Thieves' Market is about…oh…” He consulted the memories in his head. “Twenty prilecks that way.” He pointed. “That’s about thirty miles or forty-eight kilometers, depending on which Earth measurement you prefer.”
“Oh…” Harper’s face fell. “Okay. These shoes you gave me are comfortable but they’re not that comfortable.”
“All right. Come on—I’m going to hail a copter. Just one thing…”
Harper raised an eyebrow. “Besides riding on a flying motorcycle you mean? Sure, what’s the one more thing?”
“The Junians who drive these copters are extremely sensitive and easily offended. So watch what you say,” Shad told her.
She shrugged. “Fine—I won’t say anything.”
That would probably be for the best since, according to the memories of his fathers, these people were ridiculously easy to offend.
Shad nodded and started to turn away but she plucked at his arm.
“Yes?” He turned back.
“Your…shirt,” she said hesitantly. “It’s pretty much ruined. You ought to take your jacket back—it’s warm enough here that I don’t need it.”
Shad had to admit she was right. The Controller’s burning, whip-like tongue had almost completely singed away the entire back of his t-shirt. All that was left were ribbons and rags.
“Fine.” He pulled the shirt over his head, leaving his chest bare for a moment.
Harper’s eyes widened and she looked away hastily as she shrugged out of the jacket and handed it to him.
“Is…is your back all right?” she asked, still not looking as he pulled on the old leather jacket. It creaked comfortably as it settled against his bare skin, still warm and with a hint of her sweet fragrance. “I mean, what that bastard did to you—”
“I’m fine,” Shad said shortly. “It wasn’t pleasant but it’s over now.”
“Wasn’t pleasant?” She looked at him incredulously. “Shad, that asshole beat—whipped you—because of me.” Her lovely jade green eyes were suspiciously bright and Shad realized she was upset.
He wasn’t sure what to do—what to say. They were on a new path here—one he’d never taken with her before, despite all the times they had traveled the time-loop together. He had never seen this particular reaction—it was hard to know how to act.
He shrugged uncomfortably. “One of us had to pay the tax.”
“It didn’t have to be you,” Harper protested. “You didn’t have to do that. He wouldn’t have hurt me. It would have been disgusting but—”
“Wouldn’t have hurt you?” Shad glared down at her. “He was planning to penetrate you—to violate you, Harper! I couldn’t let that happen.” Just the thought made him feel murderous with rage.
“But he nearly killed you!” she exclaimed. “If I’d known how awful it was going to be for you, I never would have let you—”
“Let me what? Protect your honor? Guard your body with my own?”
“I…I just…” She fell back uncertainly. “I just don’t want you to get hurt on my account. I’m a grown-ass woman. I can take care of myself.”
“Clearly not in this case,” Shad snapped.
Her eyes narrowed.
“I still don’t understand why you did it. You don’t even—”
“Don’t even what?” he demanded.
But Harper looked away.
“Never mind. Nothing. I guess you think it’s your job or something.”
Shad shook his head. As many times as he’d traveled the time-loop with her, she was still sometimes a mystery to him.
Maybe that was why he loved her so much it hurt.
“Protecting you is more than my job, Harper,” he told her. Leaning down, he allowed himself to touch her sweet, soft skin, lifting her chin so that she looked reluctantly into his eyes. “Protecting you is my reason for being,” he told her. Then he let her go and turned away, unable to stand being so close—close enough to kiss—without leaning down to taste her sweet lips.
He felt like a male who was thirsting to death pushing aside a glass of cool water but he left her and went to the side of the broad road. It was paved in round, dark green stones as big as his palm and led out of the space port and into the city of Twilah. Shad looked up and down it, searching for a hailing post. After a moment, he saw one—a tall, slender fixture of flexible black metal which looked a little like a flagpole.
He found the recessed control box and tapped in a code. At once, a line of red and yellow lights flickered to life and ran up the side of the post like a line of ants. When they reached the top, a blazing beacon of red and yellow light came from the very tip of the pole and a high, piercing note began to sound.
After a moment, a V-copter skimmed over the top of the pole, the driver extinguishing the light and the sound with one booted foot. He sank slowly to the ground, the flashing silver of his copter glowing in the sunlight. The copter had no wheels at all—instead, hover jets which burned with noisy, crackling blue flames kept the vehicle humming just above the surface of the pavement.
“You looking for a ride, yah?” the driver asked Shad. He was tall and thin with bulging yellow eyes and deep bluish-green skin that exuded a pungent personal odor Shad tried to ignore. It certainly wasn’t very pleasant. “You got credit to pay, yah?”
“Yah.” Shad nodded. “We have credit. Need to get to Thieves' Market.”
The driver whistled between his teeth—he only had two—big, tombstone-like slabs which looked ridiculous in his small, pursed mouth.
“Pretty long trip, yah? Gonna cost you, yah!”
He named a price and Shad pretended to be shocked. He named a price of his own which the driver claimed was insulting. However, Shad knew that if he had truly been insulted, he would have hopped on his copter and flown away. In fact, refusing to haggle on Juno was more likely to offend someone than the reverse. Finally, after several minutes of bargaining, they agreed on a fare.
“Okay, yah. You get up—I take you there,” the driver said, nodding. “Female in the middle, you behind, yah?”
“Yah, okay.” Shad motioned for Harper to get up behind the driver while he himself got settled behind her. She didn’t look very happy about this but he was damned if he’d take a chance on her falling off the end of the copter in mid-flight.
She would just have to deal with it.
* * * * *
Harper didn’t like the seating arrangements for the flying motorcycle one damn bit but there didn’t seem to be anything she could do about it.
Once they were firmly settled, with Harper sandwiched between the Junian copter driver and Shad, she found she could hardly breathe—not that she wanted to. The driver exuded a pungent aroma which smelled like really bad BO mixed with Cayenne peppers. Harper couldn’t decide if it was his own personal odor or maybe some kind of cologne but either way it made her nose itch and her stomach roll.
“Here we go, yah? Hold on, now!” the driver exclaimed. The handlebars of his copter suddenly seemed to grow, extending straight back so that they formed shiny silver rods on either side of the copter at just the right height to hang on to.
As she grasped the safety rods on either side of her, Harper was immensely relieved. She’d been afraid the driver meant she ought to put her arms around his skinny blue waist and hold on—something she very much didn’t want to do.
Her relief was short-lived, however. The copter gave a violent lurch and lifted straight off the ground so fast Harper gave a little gasp of protest. It felt like she’d left her stomach back on the green cobblestones, about a hundred feet below her.
“Hey,” the copter driver grunted, looking over one skinny blue shoulder. “You no make insulting noises on my copter, yah?”
“Oh, uh…sorry,” Harper muttered. “I was just scared, that’s all.”
“You no like my driving? You say it’s scary, yah?” he demanded in a belligerent tone.
Actually, it was extremely freaking scary. They were whizzing through the air hundreds of feet up at a horribly fast speed with no seatbelts or helmets—not that a helmet would save you if you fell from this height, Harper thought. You’d be dead meat—literally—when you hit the green cobblestone street below. The silver safety rails on either side of her suddenly seemed flimsy and ridiculously inadequate as they flew through the air like they’d been shot from a cannon.
But, remembering what Shad had said about the Junians being easily offended, she tried to calm the situation.
“I’ve just never ridden on a, uh, V-copter before. I’m sure you’re an excellent driver but this is all new to me.” Well, part of that was true anyway.
“Of course I’m excellent driver, me. Yah!” the copter driver exclaimed, proudly. “Best driver in the whole damn city—yah!”
Harper thought sourly that men were the same wherever you went. Even on an alien world halfway across the galaxy from Earth, you could always find a bragging asshole who wouldn’t shut up about himself and his “skills.” This guy kind of reminded her of her ex-fiancé, Jereth.
Behind her, she felt Shad give her thigh a warning squeeze. She turned her head and glared at him as she mouthed, “It’s fine.”
The big Kindred gave her a long look and then nodded as if to say, All right for now. Just be careful.
Harper faced front, trying not to breathe in the personal scent of the skinny, blue, easily offended driver and also trying not to gasp or exclaim at the way he was driving.
While she’d been eye-to-eye with Shad, they had entered an area of high traffic and the driver was ducking and dodging around a hoard of other V-copters who were all coming at them from the opposite direction. He seemed always to wait until the last minute to dodge too, forcing the other driver coming at them to swerve at the last instant, exactly when Harper was sure they were going to crash.
It was like a terrifying mid-air game of chicken and she could just imagine them plowing head-on into another copter and having a fiery collision which would end with their remains and chunks of the copter raining down on the pedestrians below.
Somehow, however, they got past the crowded area without incident and were back into a clear lane with no other copters after a few moments.
“See? I tell you I’m the best driver, yah?” the driver demanded. “Who else can drive suicide pass and come out with not a scratch on other side?”
“Suicide pass?” Harper demanded, unable to help herself. “You mean you didn’t have to take us through that awful place?”
“Of course I have to—is fastest way, yah?” He glared at her over his shoulder. “You want to get to Thieves' Market today, right?”
“Of course but there’s no excuse for…for…ah…ahchoo!” The driver’s personal scent had finally gotten to her. Rather than lessening with the wind of their travel, it seemed to intensify until Harper felt like she had snorted a pinch of pepper up her nose.
The driver looked at her, his yellow eyes widening.
“You dare!” he exclaimed, looking at Harper as though she’d just stuck a knife in his back, rather than sneezing.
“On my planet they say ‘bless you,’” Harper snapped. She was getting just about tired of this guy’s bullshit. “In fact we…Ahchoo! A…achoo…AHCHOO!”
She slapped a hand over her mouth and nose but it did no good. It was like she was a cartoon cat who had been tricked by a cartoon mouse into snorting sneezing powder—she couldn’t stop sneezing!
With each fierce explosion, the driver looked angrier.
“So rude, yah!” Harper heard him muttering. “Can’t believe it, me!”
“Harper!” Shad growled in her ear.
“I can’t…choo…help it,” she gasped and sneezed again. “I can’t…ahchoo… stop.”
Abruptly the copter began losing altitude, descending as rapidly as it had ascended in the first place.
Harper shrieked as they dropped like a stone, rising off the long seat of the copter even though she was holding onto the safety rails with a death grip.
At last they came to a stop with a jolt. They were hovering about an inch above a stretch of deserted road with no traffic in sight. The safety bars on either side retracted, telescoping back into the handlebars. Harper gasped and then sneezed again as they slid away from under her hands.
The driver turned to face them.
“Off!” he proclaimed, glaring at Harper.
“This is the middle of nowhere,” Shad protested. “The Thieves' Market isn’t even in sight!”
“Too bad. First you insult my driving, yah! Then you make the noises of rudeness right in my ear,” the driver snapped.
Shad started to protest again but just then Harper, who had been trying to hold back another sneeze, lost her battle against it.
“Ah-Choo!”
“Off!” the driver thundered. “Off…off…off!”
There didn’t seem to be anything else they could do.
Stiffly, Harper got to the ground and Shad did the same behind her.
With a final shout of, “So rude, yah!” the driver lifted off and whizzed away into the empty sky.
Shad glared at her but said nothing—which to Harper was worse than if he’d shouted or raved.
“What?” she demanded. “What? I couldn’t help it—he made me sneeze! I think I was allergic to his cologne or body odor or whatever it was that made him smell that way.”
“It was very pungent,” the big Kindred admitted at last. “And I’m not blaming you for your reaction to it. But either way the result is the same—we’re walking and the Thieves' Market is still at least five or ten miles away.”
Sighing, Harper fell into step behind him. It was going to be a long trip by foot. Smelly or not, she wished she was still on the back of the V-copter. Then she remembered the suicidal driving of the pilot and decided that no, she would rather walk, thank you very freaking much. But still, it was going to take hours to reach the damn market.
She was completely wrong, but she wouldn’t find out until it was too late.