Keshona Far Freedom Part 1

of metal boxes with a screaming sound and a flare of actinic light. To the other side it disintegrated a wall. The crescendo of destruction raged toward them in a blinding glare as the mirror pivoted through its arc. Pieces of ceiling fell around them. Dust swirled and spun into vortices that danced into the plane of death, making sprays of microscopic blinding explosions.

  Horss was too stunned by this nightmare of annihilation to put his final thoughts in order. His urge was to pull the admiral behind him, to at least make the gesture to protect her. She prevented that by stepping toward the mirror, even as Horss and Freddy tried to stay away from the mirror's direction of rotation.

  The admiral held the cryptikon before her in her fingertips. As it touched the advancing wall of blinding death, the cryptikon stuck to it and stopped it.

  The Lady in the Mirror wailed again, the deafening tone fading as the lethal plane of light darkened and vanished.

  The egg floated free and bright in the dusty gloom as the admiral released it and staggered back.

  Freddy retrieved the artifact from the air. He looked at the cryptikon, then surveyed the destruction around them. "I was unprepared to die!"

  Horss almost laughed, his fear having arrived too late to do more than release the trapped air from his lungs. The Lady in the Mirror had appeared too briefly to prove him a coward, but he knew he would feel the delayed shock for the rest of his life.

  "Is there a safe place to stay near here?" the admiral asked as though immune to such terror. "Or we can wink to the yacht. I need to rest."

  = = =

  "That was very sweet of you, Alex. I hesitate to say it, but it felt romantic to me."

  "I hesitated to do it, Zakiya. I didn't know if you would want that."

  "I did want it! It was wonderful! But also confusing. I don't fully understand how you feel about me."

  "How many times have I held your hand lately?"

  "Like an old friend concerned for my safety?"

  "I love you, Zakiya! Haven't I said it enough times?"

  "It still feels unreal! I love you! I desperately want to believe you love me!"

  "This isn't just a marriage of convenience, Zakiya. I'm sorry if the situation has made it seem that way. I'm sorry if I haven't expressed myself adequately toward you. You may not imagine how very important you are to me, especially now, and I don't mean just for the matters of my estate."

  "Then please adequately explain yourself to me, Alex."

  "It's difficult. When you're a captain, you're not wise to allow - or to express - certain feelings for those under your command. Did I love you anyway? I know I did. I was afraid to approach you, knowing it would change too many things, including the special quality of the crew. I tried to make myself feel about you the way I felt about Koji or Setek. You were someone I could trust completely, someone who saw me as a friend as much as a captain."

  "How romantic."

  "I told you it would be difficult to explain."

  "You've explained it well enough, Alex."

  "If you see it as a mistake on my part, Zakiya, I ask forgiveness."

  "I'm sorry, but I have to know: Fidelity, the woman you married."

  "I would have married you before Fidelity, before I ever knew her. But you departed so quickly after the last voyage! I lost confidence in how I thought you might feel about me. I learned to love Fidelity with all my heart and almost fell apart when I lost her. Marriage is a sacred commitment. If I find her still alive, we'll deal with my commitments as honestly as possible. I've always loved you, nobly if not perfectly romantically."

  "Don't hang your head that way, Alex. I confess I've had a lifetime of longing for you. I'm so proud to be your wife that I can hardly believe it's true. It was a beautiful wedding, very thoughtfully done. It was the first time I saw Pat cry since he broke that bottle of ancient scotch."

  They embraced for a long time.

  "Are those your tears or mine?" he asked.

  "Ours. I want to change the plan. I want to go with you."

  "I don't think I could be effective, knowing a mistake on my part could make me lose you."

  "All those years on the Frontier. All those impossible situations. You could have lost all of us. I believe in you! You have a magic no one else possesses. I could be useful. Damn it! It's so unfair, to wait my whole life to be your wife, and then lose you!"

  "Don't you think I'm coming back? Don't you really believe in my magic?"

  Time telescopes cruelly to the end of the dream, to the last kiss salted by tears, to the terrible, crushing emotion of loss, and the last glimpse of four friends, one of them a husband. "I'll love you forever," she said to a closed door that might never reopen. She turned away from it to face a long, empty future. She had only a silver bag in her hand, containing utter magic, to make her stand up straight and carry on; yet, it was still miserable proof that a future remained to be lived.

  She awoke at the touch on her bare shoulder. Her clenched fist pulled the silver sack from under her as her eyes focused on the face above her: Jon Horss. She saw his concern. She began to react to the powerful memory she had just experienced. The details had cruelly faded, but not the emotion. Tears washed into her eyes and streaked her face. She couldn't be an admiral, not an admiral Horss would respect. All she could do was be his friend. She forced herself to speak.

  "How are you, Jon?" She sat up. She wiped her tears without feeling ashamed.

  "Fantastic." He replied in Twenglish, but his voice had the same quality of concern as his gray eyes. "What's wrong?"

  She leaned back against the sofa on which she'd slept for six hours and stared at the silver sack in her hand. "Memories of someone I lost a long time ago, Jon. Has Samson returned? Rafael?"

  Horss said a Twenglish word Fidelity knew to be mild profanity. "No sign of them yet. It isn't fair! He's just a child!"

  A woman of East Asian descent entered the room, came to Horss, and took his hand. It seemed Horss had wasted no time in her absence. The woman looked at Fidelity gravely and bowed. "Sugai Mai. Mnro Clinic. Is there no hope of the child's safe return, Admiral? Rafael? Daidaunkh?"

  "I'm not optimistic." She tried to stop her tears. She could see she was upsetting the woman. Jon Horss was also made uncomfortable by her lack of control. She suspected she would have little control over her emotions for a long time. The memories were too powerful, especially now that she knew they were her memories. "No further visits by the Lady in the Mirror," she assumed.

  "No," Horss answered. "And also no attempt by Etrhnk to take you by transmat."

  Fidelity leaned forward, elbows on knees, and dangled the silver pouch from its simple drawstring. "Possibly because of this. I seem to recall that it prevents transmat referencing."

  "A bonus miracle," Horss remarked.

  "Jon," she spoke in her emotion-roughened voice and tried to clear her throat, "I'm very happy to see you in apparent good health. Please believe me, I never intended to do what I did to you. I didn't know I could!"

  "Kill me? The news of my death was greatly exaggerated, Admiral. I'm afraid I no longer meet your criteria for a ship captain, but I'm willing to go with you in whatever capacity I can do best."

  "I wish I hadn't hurt you. I do still need you. How badly were you affected?"

  "I'm strange now! I'll try to be less strange. We're talking as though we still have a ship to sail. Is it all over? Are we no longer Navy officers?"

  "Etrhnk is waiting to hear you sing," a different voice spoke.

  Fidelity looked beyond Horss and Mai to the bald woman in the doorway to Mai's office. The woman approached, passing by Horss and touching his arm. Mai stood aside and was also touched by her. She looked at each of them but her attention remained on Fidelity. Her blue eyes were filmed with tears and her mouth was straining to contain what might escape gracelessly. "Do you remember me, Zakiya?"

  "I... remember." Fidelity spoke slowly, recognition reaching certainty at the last syllable. "Which one are you?" Fidelity asked,
looking up at this creature of myth and legend and seeing an old friend who only wanted that they be friends again. It hurt, that she could call up the memory at will now, of the afternoon in the park, with Jamie playing on the green grass while she and Aylis sat on a bench anguishing over a distant future. She could now look upon the face of her young daughter. She could remember Jamie's face! She could remember Aylis's dark face on that terrible day and match it to the pale face she now saw. Even the calamity of emotion was similar in amplitude but perhaps now more positive.

  "I've been asleep for a long time, Zakiya," Aylis said. "I woke up. This is me."

  The sound of the name - Zakiya: her real name - struck a great chord in the symphony of her existence. Zakiya! She realized she had heard it before in her visions but it had refused to stick with her. The chord died quickly in her heart, leaving her real name meaning less to her. It belonged to another person. She might take it up again but it was just a name. It was not as important a name as Jamie.

  "It hurts, Aylis. Losing Jamie. It still hurts!"

  "I know! I'm sorry! My God, Zakiya! We're here, we're alive, we can remember! You have to let me hold you!"

  Aylis held her arms open and stood before Fidelity with an imploring look on her face. Fidelity could see through her own blurry eyes that Aylis was young again and her face was wrecked by powerful feelings. The anger flowed out of her with her tears. She remembered an old familiar feeling, a feeling of belonging with Aylis, a feeling of sisterhood and of deepest friendship. She