CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SERVING ABOARD THE MORCAI was a little easier on the nerves than service on a Rojok vessel. There, officers were rigid about protocol and there was little frivolity. It was a different story with the Holconcom.
The humans aboard loved to gossip. They told Jasmine about an infamous incident with Rhemun, the last commander of the Holconcom. He and his men had rescued his future mate, Edris, from a potential tragedy on Benaski Port. There had been two little Parsifan girls that he also rescued and brought aboard, to take them to their last living relatives at a farming colony.
The children had a tragic past. They were afraid of Rhemun at first, but they discovered that he could tell stories. So every night he gathered the two children and told them traditional Cehn-Tahr fairy tales. One night, he heard noises outside the compartment. When he left the girls, he found half the command staff hiding in the shadows, listening, including Edris and Stern. When he burst out laughing, they confided that they were all products of Terravegan military nurseries and had never been told stories in their lives. They enjoyed story time as much as the children did.
Jasmine chuckled as they related the incident. There were others, like when the first commander, Dtimun, had a wound that he wouldn’t let Madeline treat. She’d followed him out of the airlock when they docked and actually threw something after him, infuriated that he was bleeding and wouldn’t let her repair the wound.
“This is really nothing like the Rojok military,” she confided to Dr. Hahnson.
“Nothing is like the Rojok military,” he chided. “But they’re noble, honorable adversaries. I was with Dtimun when we fought them in the Great Galaxy War. Those conflicts were especially hard on Dtimun and Chacon, because they were best friends at the military academy on Dacerius when they were young.”
“I owe Chacon a lot,” she told him. “Not to mention the emperor. He’s nothing like I pictured.”
“He surprises people,” he agreed.
“I love having my father back,” she said, smiling. “It’s so nice to contact him on the holon and talk. Mekashe plays chess with him on it. Daddy never wins, but he never seems to mind, either.”
“Amazing tech they’ve developed at Kolmankash,” he agreed. He pursed his lips and his eyes twinkled. “When we make port, we’re all supposed to go to the Fortress for an announcement. It’s going to be earthshaking.”
She looked at him curiously. “Truly?”
“Truly. Wait and see.”
“Tell me,” she said. “Come on. Spill it.”
“Not possible. The emperor would read my mind and I’ll be mopping heads on the rim.”
She laughed out loud. “That will never happen.”
“Not so long as I keep my mouth shut, at least,” he retorted.
* * *
SHE WONDERED ABOUT the announcement and hoped it might be the breakthrough that had been hinted about.
She didn’t have long to wait. They ported at Memcache and a skimmer was assigned to take them directly to the Fortress. She and Mekashe were chauffeured there by themselves.
“Do you think it’s what we’ve hoped for?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said softly. “But it would be the stuff of dreams, yes?”
“Yes.” She searched his eyes hungrily. “I want a child so badly.”
“So do I,” he whispered.
She clung to his hand. “If only,” she said softly. “Oh, if only!”
* * *
THE EMPRESS AND Madeline met them at the front door. They were both smiling.
“We did it,” Madeline announced with a broad smile. “Virtual trials are over and we have a successful serum.” She pursed her lips and looked at Jasmine. “Now all we need is a willing volunteer to be genetically enhanced...”
“Me!” Jasmine raised her hand.
Madeline grinned. “I was really hoping you’d say that.”
“It is safe?” Mekashe worried, glancing at Jasmine.
“It is very safe,” Lady Caneese assured him. “We would never risk her life if we weren’t sure.”
“Exactly,” Madeline said. She didn’t add that it was a serum that Komak had given them the basic formula for many years ago, when he revealed that he could travel in time. He brought back the original sample for Madeline, so that she could bond with Dtimun. But it couldn’t be replicated until the Nagaashe signed a second treaty that allowed their biological samples to be used in production of the substance required. And it was extremely limited. Only in certain cases could it be used, Jasmine’s being one of them.
Jasmine and Mekashe looked at each other with desperate hope. The two women facing them only smiled.
* * *
THERE WAS AN audience after the injection had been given, a laserdot into Jasmine’s artery at the base of her neck.
“I don’t really feel anything,” she began. And then a warm flush worked its way over her body. She felt the change. Felt different. Felt other.
“Here.” Madeline handed her a drasteel sphere. “See what you can do with it.”
Jasmine was hesitant. But after a few seconds, she crushed the ball with her fingers into a misshapen mass. She just stared at it, stunned.
“And now the holon will no longer be required,” Madeline whispered as she drew Jasmine to one side. “But a little dravelzium wouldn’t hurt, just in case. I found that out the hard way myself.” She grinned.
Jasmine hugged her, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I never dared to hope...” She drew back. “Can I have a child?” she asked quickly. “Is it possible?”
Madeline nodded. “The serum includes a small fix for the differences in genetic makeup and racial differences. I know that it works because I have two sons,” she added, tongue in cheek.
“I’m just...speechless,” Jasmine managed.
Mekashe joined them, the waiting impossible any longer when he saw tears on his mate’s face.
“Is everything all right?” he asked worriedly.
Jasmine laughed. “Everything is fine!” she exclaimed. “We can have children!”
“Children.” He caught his breath. “But we are different species.”
“Not to worry,” Madeline assured him. “Different species, but ultimately compatible.” She indicated her two sons in the distance, both fighting Kipling in an impromptu Kahn-Bo match.
“I see your point.” Mekashe sighed. “I am forever in your debt, Dr. Ruszel.”
“So am I,” Jasmine added. “And to the empress.”
“I’ll tell her,” Madeline said. She cocked her head. “Don’t you two want to test the serum? If I were you, I’d go home. You can come for dinner tomorrow. We’ll have your dad and my father over, so they can get acquainted.”
“That would be very nice,” Jasmine said, but her eyes were locked into Mekashe’s.
“Go home,” Madeline repeated, waving them away. “I’ll go entertain the troops by practicing the Holy Tongue to tell them luncheon is served. See you both tomorrow.”
They called their thanks after her, waved to the others in the distance and made transportation history with their rush to Mekashe’s villa.
* * *
“I DIDN’T BELIEVE it would ever be possible,” Jasmine gasped after a passionate union that surpassed anything they’d shared in the holon. She was still shaking with delight in the turbulent aftermath. She ran her hands over Mekashe’s muscular chest, fascinated with what had just happened.
“Nor did I,” he confessed. He was still trying to get his breath and slow his wild heartbeat. He stretched and his powerful body shivered with remembered pleasure.
She heard an odd, deep sound and put her hand in the center of his chest. The sound grew louder. It sounded like purring!
He rolled over, propping on one elbow as he bent to draw his face against hers. “Yes, the Cehn-Tahr purr when they mate,” he whispered amusedly. “Another closely guarded secret. Are you shocked?”
“I love it,” she whispered back. She cuddled close and sighed. “I’m so happy.”
“So am I.” He scowled. “Jasmine, you might want to use your wrist scanner.”
“Use my scanner...why?” she asked.
He put his big hand over her flat stomach and caught his breath. “I heard Dtimun speak of this. I confess that I never truly believed him. Until now. I can...feel the child!”
She gasped audibly. She fumbled her wrist scanner open, produced a sensor and laid it on her stomach. The results had her gasping as well, crying, almost hysterical as she pulled Mekashe close and kissed him until her mouth felt bruised.
“I’m pregnant!” she exclaimed. “I’m pregnant!”
He folded her close. Never in his long life had he felt such tenderness for anyone. “Pregnant. We made a baby,” he whispered, awed.
Her arms contracted around him. She’d never known such happiness in her whole life. Caught in the tender moment, frozen in time and space, she wished that the clock hands would never move, that this could last forever, this almost-liquid, tangible joy.
* * *
OF COURSE, IT didn’t last, and they were wild to announce their good news. They called ahead, sharing the revelation with an excited Madeline Ruszel over the holon.
“Come for dinner tomorrow.” Madeline repeated her earlier offer. “I’ll tell you all about the future. Childbirth is the most fascinating, wonderful process ever known!”
“I’ll look forward to it, Dr. Ruszel,” Jasmine said, laughing.
“I’m just Maddie when I’m home,” came the reply. “Tomorrow. Dinner. And congratulations from all of us. See you!”
Jasmine cuddled into Mekashe’s strong arms and sighed. “I guess now we become good friends until I deliver,” she said wistfully. “I read about it.”
He pursed his lips. “The holon can be used for two avatars at the same time,” he related with a wicked grin.
“Well, how innovative!” she exclaimed, and chuckled.
“Necessity drives invention,” he replied. He touched her cheek with his fingers and then his forehead to hers. “I don’t remember saying the words, although I’ve felt them for, oh, so long. But I love you.”
“I know. I always knew. I love you, too.”
His arms contracted. “Together, in the right way, and a child on the way. Can life confer a greater blessing?”
“An equal one,” she corrected mischievously. “A family. A big family, made up of two compatible species.”
“Absolutely true.”
* * *
THE EMPEROR AND empress were ecstatic. So were the rest of the family. Sfilla came to the banquet with her son, Rhemun, and his mate, Edris, and their children. Dtimun and Madeline and their children joined the celebration.
Paraguard colonel Clinton Ruszel arrived after a long journey and was introduced to the couple, as well as to Jasmine’s father. The two discovered many things in common, not the least of which was that Clinton Ruszel was a history nut. So was Clint, Madeline’s younger son, who sequestered himself with the two adult men and drank in stories about the past of Terravega.
Komak and Kipling, and little Larisse, sat with Chacon and Lyceria and their son, Lomek, in the holon hookup to pump the Rojok warlord for his adventures rescuing the princess from Ahkmau, and helping, inadvertently, to form the Holconcom.
Mekashe and Jasmine sat with Dtimun and Madeline, and the emperor and empress.
“We seem to have compatible guests,” the emperor mused. He glanced at Jasmine and Mekashe. “Your news delights me,” he added softly. “I love my grandchildren. Each is unique, the product of millennia of evolution that brought us to this day.” He grimaced. “Many times I have chided myself for allowing the genetic manipulation that changed us so drastically.”
Mekashe just smiled. “We are the equals if not the superior of any fighting force we encounter,” he said. “It allows us to win battles against the most formidable of insurgents.”
“True,” the emperor replied. “But it has caused many problems.”
“Sir, now that we truly have the tech,” Jasmine said to the emperor, “is there a chance that Dr. Hahnson will want his mate back? She could be cloned with the same tech that I enjoy even now.”
“It is in discussion,” the emperor said, smiling. “We are hopeful that Hahnson will permit it. He has grieved since the Great Galaxy War for her.”
“He is a good man,” Mekashe said solemnly. “The best of us all.”
“In many ways, this is correct,” the emperor replied. “I feel that...!”
He stopped abruptly because Jasmine slipped to the floor and lost the small meal she’d just eaten.
“I’m so...sorry!” she said, sobbing.
“Stop that. You’re just pregnant, Cehn-Tahr style.” Madeline chuckled, motioning to a house worker to clean up the mess. “Mekashe, we’d better put her to bed, just for a little while. It’s all right,” she reassured him as he swung Jasmine up into his arms and followed Madeline down the hall to a bedroom. “She’ll be fine. I went through this. So did Edris.”
“Yes, I did,” Edris added, joining them. “The nausea is bad at first, but we have new medicines for it.”
“We do. Nothing that will harm the baby,” Madeline promised as she shot a drug into Jasmine’s neck artery with a laserdot. “You’ll be fine. But you should rest for a few minutes.”
“Call if you need us,” Edris added as she and Madeline went out and closed the door.
“Are you certain...?” Mekashe began.
Jasmine put her fingers against his chiseled mouth. “It’s a growth spurt. I read about them.” She stopped, stunned.
“What is it?” he asked, and then he, too, was very still. His lips fell apart. “The child,” he whispered in awe. “He speaks to me! How is this possible?”
“We’ll ask Madeline,” she said. She laughed. “How incredible! This isn’t possible with human babies!”
“Another product of the DNA manipulation, perhaps,” Mekashe said. He laughed. “But how delightful!”
“Oh yes!”
And for several minutes, they just listened, feeling the baby’s emotions as if it were already out of the womb.
* * *
THEIR LITTLE BOY was born just a few months later, in a delivery that was quick and painless, presided over by both Madeline Ruszel and Edris Mallory.
“Have you thought of names?” Madeline asked as Jasmine held the baby in her arms and Mekashe touched his small head with its mass of thick black curls.
“Many,” Mekashe confessed.
“Many, many,” Jasmine added. She laughed, weary but joyful as she looked down at the small baby in her arms. “But we found one we like.”
“Very much.”
“What is it?” Madeline asked.
Mekashe pursed his lips and grinned. “We will announce it at the christening, with all of you and our guests present. And you will not be able to read my mind or hers to discover it,” he teased, producing a white noise ball, one so powerful that it locked out even the emperor.
“Well!” Madeline exclaimed. But then she grinned.
* * *
THE CHRISTENING WAS attended by the entire family. Chacon and Lyceria came, with their brand-new son, Krusmok Maltiche Chacon. It turned out that Chacon was the Rojok commander’s surname. No one, except Lyceria, knew his true first name. And she never divulged it.
Even Rusmok came, with Chacon’s special permission. He was in line for promotion to commander of a new commando branch of the Rojok military. He had his own flagship and a brand-new human female who was their resident Cularian specialist. There were rumors, which Rusmok refused to dignify with an answer, that the new physician had Rusmok standing on his head.
The Cehn-Tahr priest performed the ceremony. When it was time to announce the name of the baby, the silence was profound.
“We have given our son these names,” Mekashe announced. “He will be known as Malford Rhemun Rusmok Chacon Tnurat Mekashe. But we will call him Mal. For his human grandfather.”
Malford Dupont had tears running down his cheeks as they made the announcement. Beside him, Chacon and Tnurat were beaming. Not to mention Rhemun, Mekashe’s best friend. Rusmok, in his dress military uniform, wiped something out of his eye that he said was an insect. There had never been an insect in the great facility in the capital city in its history.
* * *
AFTER THE CHRISTENING, there was a celebration at the Fortress.
Rusmok got to hold the child who would be his namesake. “He looks like his father,” he pronounced with a smile at Mekashe. “But I think he will have lighter eyes than most Cehn-Tahr.”
“I agree,” Mekashe said. He cocked his head and studied the Rojok. “I have heard much about you.”
Rusmok grinned. “And I have heard about you constantly for five years,” he mused, laughing at Mekashe’s surprise. “She hardly spoke of anyone else.”
“Or he, of any female except Jasmine,” Rhemun cut in. “Chacon says that you will have command of a new, deadlier operations group. Congratulations.”
“We will one day be almost as famous as the Holconcom,” Rusmok chided. “So be on your guard.”
“We will never fight each other again,” Mekashe said with a grin. He indicated Dtimun and Chacon, taking turns holding the new baby, who had a shock of blond hair like his famous father, along with the slit eyes. “They are too close to allow another conflict.”
“There will always be uprisings and insurgents, sadly,” Rusmok replied. He touched Jasmine’s baby’s soft hair. “Children are surprisingly interesting,” he said, almost hypnotized by the baby. “I never was so close to one.”
“They become addictive.” Rhemun chuckled. “Which is why we have two.”
“You should bond with someone and have babies of your own,” Jasmine told Rusmok.
He shrugged. “Alas. The only female I want does not want me.” His face hardened. “She has bonded. With an accountant.” He made the word sound like the worst sort of curse word.
“I’m truly sorry,” Jasmine said, because she knew that the Rojok, like the Cehn-Tahr, bonded for life.
“What do you Cehn-Tahr call it—karamesh?” he replied, using the word for fate.
“I suppose it was never meant to be.”
“You’ll find someone,” Jasmine assured him. She smiled. “You’re one of the kindest people I’ve ever known. Well, you were, until you landed me with that pirate who sold me a dresmok that had a depleted emerillium core and almost blew up the barracks when I used it!”
“It had depleted krelamok, not emerillium, and it was what you humans would call a ‘stink bomb.’” He pursed his lips. “You got many kuskons for that one. It taught you not to be too trusting of merchants.”
“I got him back,” Jasmine said smugly.
Rusmok rolled his eyes. “She had two of our friends hijack a skimmer from the admiral’s residence and park it in front of my barracks. They were kind enough to add a sample of my DNA to the steering mechanism. I was put in the brig for two days!”
“At least it didn’t smell bad in there, did it?” she retorted.
Mekashe and Rhemun looked at each other. “Perhaps it is a very good thing that we don’t have the two of them together in the Holconcom.”
They laughed. So did Rusmok and Jasmine.
* * *
OF COURSE, THE BABY put limits on Jasmine for a short time. She had to stay at the villa and work at the local infirmary while Mal was little. But he grew at a surprising rate. Madeline Ruszel had told her about the accelerated growth of Cehn-Tahr children, but Jasmine hadn’t believed her until she saw the results. A Cehn-Tahr child—even a hybrid one—grew at twice the rate of a human child.
“Very soon, you’ll be back aboard the Morcai with me, and Mal will be in military school.” Mekashe sighed. “Time goes quickly.”
“Too quickly.” She looked up at him and pursed her lips. “Not that I don’t miss you. But another child might be nice. At the rate they grow, I won’t be out of active duty for very long at all.”
He chuckled at the wicked look she was giving him. “Suppose we discuss this, at length, later tonight?”
She sighed, smiling. “I think that’s a great idea!” She paused. “I think Mal might like to spend the night with his grandfather and learn to play chess.”
“Nice idea,” he agreed. He studied her beautiful face. “How convoluted our lives have been.”
“Yes, but we ended up together after all the trials and tribulations.”
“Life is strange,” he mused.
She pressed close. “Strange and beautiful.”
He drew her close with a sigh. “And endlessly satisfying.”
A sentiment with which Jasmine agreed wholeheartedly. She closed her eyes and let herself dream of the long, sweet path ahead of them.
* * * * *
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