My Enemy's Son (The Two Moons of Rehnor, Book 2) (10 page)

"You really do have cool powers,"
I said.

He didn’t respond.  He might have been
sleeping, he was so quiet.  We were lying on the beach and the Rozarian sun had
moved behind the hills.  I thought about going back in the water to rinse off
again but I didn’t want to move.  I was stuck against him, coated in sand and
sweat and other stuff too.  His face was snuggled into my neck and I was
viewing the bay through the screen of his black hair.  I remembered lying in my
bed just as this, holding him throughout the night, feeling his body tremble,
fighting off whatever demons were plaguing him in another world.  His hair was
gone then.  Now it was long and thick and smelled like lavender.  I buried my
face in it and kissed his head.  He shifted and his breath caught.

"Hey," I said and stroked his
scratchy cheek with my hand.

He pushed himself up, his eyes flashing,
momentarily blinding me.  Then he lurched away from my touch.  My heart sank. 
One and done. 

He sat back in the sand and clutched his
temples mumbling something in a language I didn’t know.  I sat up too and
reached for my clothes, damp and sandy, dried stiff in some places.

"I guess I should get back to the spacebase,"
I said quietly.  "Could you give me a ride?"

His eyes lit on me again as if he just
realized I was there.  "Ta firach ke lekarati....sorry."  He shook
his head.  "Sorry?  You wish to go to the spacebase now?"

"Well, yeah."  I started to
rise.  I needed to get my other uniform out of my kit.  If I showed up at the spacebase
in this dirty, wrinkled one I’d get kicked out of the force.

"No," he said.

"No, what?  You're not going to give
me a ride?"

"No, you are not going to leave.  You
have until Wednesday.  I will return you to your spacebase then."

I sat back down, torn between being pissed
off that he was ordering me around and thrilled that he wanted me to stay.

"I don't want to take you back
now."  He moved closer and pulled me against him.

"Really?"  He put his hand on my
face, seeing me.  "I thought...when you bolted away from me just now,” I
said.

He shook his head again sending slivers of
light through his hair.  "I'm sorry.  I was...I was somewhere else for a
moment."

"Where?"

"It doesn't matter.  Now I am here
with you."

“Senya?  What happens next?”  I tried to
look in his blank eyes.  "I have to go back to space and you live here. 
Will we see each other again?  Well not see see.  I mean I'll see you but
you'll, well you know what I mean."  Sometimes, I really wanted to slap
myself.

He held my chin and kissed me.

“We will be married and live happily ever
after,” he said.

“Really?”

“Mhm.  Well, no actually.  Maybe some of
the time?”

“What about the rest of the time?”

“Absolute hell,” he winced, “sorry.”

In the boot of the Porsche he had packed a
picnic of wine and cheese, fresh bread and fruit, and a couple blankets.  After
fetching them, we hiked the grounds late in the afternoon when the temperature
started to drop.  I was wearing his t-shirt which hung nearly down to my knees
and he was only in a rolled up pair of jeans. 

On one end of the property, there was a tropical
forest complete with rivers, ponds and waterfalls.  The meadow side of the
property had a wonderful building site and then a smaller forest that backed up
to a national park.  All told including the two forests there was about fifty
acres.

“So why doesn't the rest of Rozari look
like here?” I asked as I followed him through an uphill stretch toward the
waterfall.  The hike was exhausting even though I worked out almost daily.  I
had a second degree black belt and was working on my third degree but life in
space took a big toll on your muscles.

“It did at one time,” he replied.  He
didn’t seem tired at all.  It probably helped to have longer, stronger legs. 
“After few thermo nuclear explosions, and a thousand years, only now the planet
is starting to come back.”

“There was a nuclear war here on Rozari?”

“The Wars of the Saint?  You did not study
that in your academy?”

I shook my head.

“The Karupatani continent was decimated. 
This continent took a lot of damage but survived, although there are still areas
that are uninhabitable or domed.”

“What happened to the people?”  I took his
hand and walked beside him as the trail levelled out.

“A few Karupta families left the planet
before they were attacked.  The Sainted people remained here and rebuilt.  Nearly
a hundred years later, another war broke out between two of the Saint's
grandsons and their followers.  Mishka Kalila and his people followed the
Karupatani to their new planet, Rehnor.  A whole new round of warring began
once they settled there.”

“I haven't heard of Rehnor,” I commented.

“It is not a member of the Alliance.  It
is where I am from.”

I digested this, wondering if that would
have any possible effect on my Spaceforce career.  “I guess that's why you
speak Rozarian with an accent.”

“Ay yah.  I speak four languages and every
one of them I have an accent.”

We set up camp by the waterfall.

“So what were the wars about?”  I walked
around collecting sticks for a campfire.

“The same thing all wars are about,” he
replied, clearing a space for the fire and placing some of my sticks there.  He
pointed at them and a flame burst up through them.  It wasn't cold but it
definitely had cooled and the fire immediately warmed us.  “Land and God. 
Fish, yes?”

“The wars were about fish?”

“No, you would like to eat fish?”  He left
the fire to burn and went over to the grass beside the pool.  Then he lay down
upon it and reached his hand into the water.

“Ok,” I shrugged as he pulled out what
looked like a trout.  He reached in again and took out another.  “How'd you do
that?” I dropped another pile of tinder on the fire and went over to look in
the lake.  “What did you do?  Overstock it with tame trout?”

“No, I am very quick about it.”  He picked
up a flopping fish and cut off its head with a large knife.

“Ew.  Hey, where'd you get the knife?”

“My pocket?”  He sliced the fish down the
middle and gutted it.

“That was not in your pocket,” I replied. 
“That would not fit in your pocket.”

“Oh? Perhaps you are right.”  He prepared
the second fish.

“Where'd you get the knife?” I insisted.

“This is complicated,” he said and he put
the knife aside and picked up the two fish.  I bent down to pick up the knife
but it was no longer there.

“Where'd it go?”

“I told you this is complicated.  There is
a good rock, yes?” 

He pointed at a large flat rock near my
foot so I picked it up and walked back to the fire with him.  He took the rock
from me and put it in the center of the fire and laid the fish on top of it. 
When the fish began to sizzle and bubble, he used the knife, which was somehow
back in his hand, to move the fish around on the rock.  “There is a lemon tree
next to the waterfall.  You will like lemon with this.”

“Ok,” I said warily and trotted off.

“Are we staying here tonight?” I asked.  I
was satiated with fish, bread, fine wine and awesome sex.  We were lying on the
blankets and I was staring at the stars and spaceplanes that shot across the
sky.  He was smoking a cigarette which I had learned was something he did
almost continuously.

“Terrible habit,” he agreed nearly choking
me as my neck was in the crook of his elbow.  “Would you like to stay here?”

“I would like to stay here forever.”

He didn’t respond, just blew grey smoke
into the air.

“Senya?”  I turned back to him, running my
hands across the hard muscles of his arms and chest, biceps, triceps,
quadriceps, gluts.  “How did a doctor get to be so built up?”

“I carry the weight of the galaxy on my
shoulders,” he smirked.

“Funny guy.  Why did you come to me back
then?  How did you know me?  And don't tell me it's complicated.  I want an
answer.  I'm not a brain surgeon but I'm not stupid either.”

“I know you are not stupid.”  He took a
long drag on his cigarette.

“Then explain it to me.”  I threaded my
fingers through the silky black hair on his chest.

“I remember what happens in the future,”
he replied.

“Everything?”

“No.  Only some things.  Just as you
recall now some things that have happened in the past, I recall what will
happen as well as what has happened.”

“How can you do this if it hasn't happened
yet?”

He sighed as if I was too naive to
understand and tossed his cigarette into the air where it flamed up and
disappeared.

“Time is not a straight line, Katie.  Time
is a vortex.  You understand this, yes?  Time swirls around in great circles
before disappearing into infinity.  Sometimes, I can…I can jump between the
waves.  When I was twelve and my body was near death, I…I skipped ahead, as it
were, and found a place that…”  He stopped talking.

“That what?”

“A place that I was safe.”

“Safe from what?”  My heart skipped ahead
too.

“Safe from everything.”

“Where was it?”

“With you,” he replied.  “In your arms. 
In your bed.  So that is where I went.”

“Why did someone shoot you, Senya?”

“Because they did not want me to live.”

“Because you're kind of scary with your
cool powers and strange eyes?  Or because you can skip through time and
metaphysically cross the galaxy?”

“You are not afraid of me," he said,
stroking my hair.

“That's because I know you.  I'll protect
you Senya,” I declared.  “I'm qualified in four types of firearms and I’m a
second degree black belt in mixed martial arts.  I won't let anyone mess with
you again.  You are safe with me.”

He smiled and his eyes flickered in the
darkness.

The next day we relocated to his flat in
the city.  Minimalist would be an exaggeration.  It was a nice sized unit on
the top floor of high rise with huge floor to ceiling windows and a fabulous
view of the city of Takira-hahr, but it was virtually empty.  There was a king
bed, a table covered in drawings, a tablet sitting on a chair and a beautiful
kitchen that had never been used.  The refrigerator was completely empty.

“Do you live here?” I asked.

“Come here, I want you to see these,” he
said and started thumbing through the drawings on the table.  I tossed my bag
in the middle of the empty floor.

“There, now it looks lived in,” I remarked
and went to look at his sketches.

 The first few were of buildings and there
was a lovely color sketch of a campus.

“We shall go see this tomorrow,” he said. 
“It is almost complete.”

“What is it?” 

“This building is the medical centre. 
This is the engineering centre and here is manufacturing.  I think I will put a
fourth building here for sales and administration.”

“Great?”

“Here is the house.”  There was a drawing
of a fabulous Spanish style villa in the meadow by the sea.

“Are you really going to build that?”

“I am waiting for the permits.  The
Rozarian government wants more money from me.”

“What are these?”  I flipped through some
pictures of some sort of equipment.

“Medical devices.  These are just ideas
about some of the products we are going to produce.”

“And this?”  I pulled up the last
drawing.  “Oh my, that's beautiful!”  It was a sketch of a starship.  It was
roughly the shape of an ancient airplane but a thousand times larger.  “Do you
have the specs on this?”

“Not yet.”

“Did you design all this stuff?”

“Yes.”

“Wow!”  I gasped.  “Where are you getting
all the money to build all these things?”

“I have some holdings,” he replied and
tossed the drawings back on the table.

“What kind of holdings?  Like rental
property?”

He laughed.  “Yes, I have a lot of rental
property.  A whole planet’s worth.”

“Does everybody think you’re full of it or
just me?”

“I don't care what everybody thinks,” he
replied.  “I only care what you think.  I only care if you love me.”  He
trapped me between his arms and lifted me on to the table.

“Love you?  You are full of it.  As far as
I am concerned, you are just a grown up version of that arrogant bratty boy.”

“Ach, well...”