My Enemy's Son (The Two Moons of Rehnor, Book 2) (7 page)

“Senya’s a prince, then?”  I turned back
to Loman.  “Did he come here to take back the Karupatani continent?”

“I don't think so,” Loman shook his lion’s
mane.  “He has quite a full plate to deal with back on Rehnor.”

“Like what?” Kenak asked, anxiously.  “Do
tell.”

“Well Dr. Kenak, you see, Senya is also
the grandson of the King of Mishnah.  In a dozen years or so, he will inherit
the entire planet.”

“What?” I gasped.

“What?” Kenak and Donak cried together.

Loman chuckled at our reactions.  “The
Karuptas refer to him as the MaKennah ka Rehnor.”

"The what?" I said.

“He's the MaKennah?” Kenak exclaimed.

"What is he?"  Donak looked at
me. 

I shrugged.

"He is my enemy's son!"  Kenak
spun around in a circle clutching his hair.  “My son is my enemy’s son.”

"Kenak, you do not have a son,"
Donak snapped.  "Your only marriage lasted less than a year and produced
no offspring.  Get a grip on yourself, man!"

"No, no, no!" Kenak practically
shouted while Captain Loman smiled indulgently.  "It was not I who said
that.  I am quoting Karukan, the Infidel, from his writings."

"He wrote about his son?" I
mumbled.  “I guess I hadn't studied that part yet.”

"Karukan wrote of the savior of his
people," Loman explained, patiently settling back in the sofa, his hands
crossed in front of his stomach.  "He referred to his descendent who would
also be a descendent of his enemy, the Saint, Markiis Kalila."

"He called him the MaKennah,"
Kenak added, excitedly pacing the room.

"Yes," Loman replied.  “One of
Senya’s many titles is MaKennah Ka Rehnor.”

“Titles?" I said.  “How exciting! 
Like what?”  I had never met a prince before, just a lot of Allied politicians
at dinners Tim was invited to.

"Well, MaKennah ka Rehnor, Crown
Prince of Mishnah and Karupatani, Duke of the Light Continent and Dark
Continent, Duke of the Mother and Child Moon…”

“I can’t believe this,” Donak scoffed. 
“Our Senya?  He smokes, he drinks, he swears profusely and he doesn't wear
shoes."

“You don't know half of it,” Loman
remarked with a raise of his brows.

"Yet he is telepathic, telekinetic
and of astounding intelligence," Kenak pronounced.

"And a drug addict, prone to violence
and emotionally unstable," Loman added.

"Violence?"  Donak’s eyes grew
wide.

"Try not to make him mad," Loman
advised.

"Is he supposed to save Rozari
too?" I asked.  "Or did the Infidel’s prophesy refer only to
Rehnor?"

"That I cannot say," Loman
stretched and stood up again.  “I had best be going now."

"The writings of Karukan were unclear
as to which planet he referred to when he spoke of the MaKennah," Kenak
mused from nearby the window where he had parked himself after his pacing.

"The Karupatani assume it is our
planet as Karukan wrote those words after he arrived on Rehnor."  Loman
headed to the door.

“Well if he's supposed to save Rehnor,
what is he doing here?” I asked.

Loman turned and studied me for a moment. 
"You are not Rozarian."

"How could you tell?  Is it that
obvious?  No, I'm from Earth.”

He narrowed his eyes as he looked me
over.  "He is hiding here.  I brought him here to protect him.  His
enemies do not have the capacity to come here in large numbers and attack him.”

“He has enemies?” I gasped.  “Who'd want
to hurt Senya?  He's so sweet.”

Loman coughed loudly and looked at me like
I was crazy.  “I don't believe Senya and sweet have ever been used in the same
sentence.”

“But who would want to kill him?” Donak
inquired.

“Prince Akan, his uncle,” Loman replied. 
“He was intended to be King before the crown was passed over to Sehron
instead.  Akan has a sizeable force because many do not want a half-blood
Karupta on the Mishnese throne even though Sehron is through his mother, a
Kalila.”

“That makes him a descendant of the
Saint,” Donak stated, a puzzled look on his face.  “Does it not?”

“Of course," Kenak declared, turning
back from the window.  "Have you not been paying attention, Donak?  If he
is the grandson of the Mishnese king, the son of my enemy’s son, he would have
to be.  Blessed Saint, what a find!  What an incredible find you have made old
friend.”

“Yes,” Loman nodded.  “He is the son of
both the Infidel and the Saint, as you said Dr. Kenak, the one Karukan wrote of
more than a thousand years ago.”

“Does he have an army himself?” Donak
asked.  “How will he defeat these enemy forces once he returns?”

Loman smiled.  “Yes, there are those who
are loyal to him and will be when he returns.  This is why we make so many pics
and pinups of him.  The people, especially the ladies, love to gaze upon him. 
He has a beauty, an aura about him, does he not?”

“Does he ever,” I sighed.

Loman put his hand upon the door.  “Truth
be told, Senya needs no army.  When he is healthy, he has more power in his
little finger than Akan's entire force.  I can see he is healthy again and for
that you all must take care.  There are times when he cannot control the forces
within him and he gets too busy or distracted to do what is necessary.”

“What is necessary?” Donak asked.

“I will send to you the King's instructions,”
Loman replied.  “For now, I bid you take care of our Crown Prince.  If you
would allow me to, I would like to periodically contact you so that you may let
me know how he is doing.  If you require compensation for your efforts or
desire a donation to your institute, I am sure I can arrange that.  My lord,
the King of Mishnah is extremely wealthy.  I will leave you now.”  He bowed
slightly to us and departed.

“He is a descendent of the Saint,” Kenak
murmured and collapsed on the sofa with an expression of pure joy upon his
face.

“He has power in his little finger,” Donak
mused.

“Senya's going to be king of an entire
planet?” I gasped.  “Somebody needs to teach him to wear shoes.”

Senya or rather Dr. Ron, continued his
work at the medical centre and received his MD and license to practice
surgery.  He specialized in neurology and the brain sciences and in a few short
years became an expert in repairing function to damaged brains and spinal
systems.

Periodically, Kenak would get an email or
a call from Captain Loman just checking in or sending our department a donation
which made us one of the richest departments in the Institute.  Our popularity
grew as well and by the time I left the department, there were many Post Docs
and dozens of grad students to do the work I had been doing.

Regarding Ron's future both with the Institute
and on Rozari, we never spoke.  Any time Kenak approached him about it or
queried him about the past, he was politely but definitively cut off.  I began
to wonder if Ron would really return to Rehnor to do his duty.  He seemed very
content to remain with us on this dusty dry planet and play doctor forever.

You may wonder then why I gave up my
position in the Anthropology department and with a PhD, I became an
administrative assistant.  The simple answer was, he asked me nicely.  The long
involved answer included that he paid me more than the Institute was paying me,
and I was really ready to do something else even if it was just making
appointments and pushing paperwork through the medical system of Rozari. 

To get to the asking nicely part, well, I
was drifting off to sleep at my desk as usual one afternoon when to my greatest
surprise, Ron walked in.  He had a cigarette hanging off his lip and was
wearing a lab coat, with some disgusting looking stains on it, over his jeans
and a t-shirt.

“Shelly,” he said and squatted down beside
my chair so we were about eye to eye even though he was wearing those dark
sunglasses and I couldn’t see his eyes.  He took off his glasses and smiled at
me.  On top of everything else, he did have the sweetest smile when he showed
it.

“Were you genetically engineered?” I
asked, staring at his long thick eyelashes.

“Only by God.”

“He did a good job,” I noted.  “Except for
your feet.”  I waited for him to tell me why he was gracing me with his
presence today.

“You will come to work for me,” he said. 
“Yes?”

“Work for you?”  Now I laughed.  “You need
a researcher?  How could an anthropologist possibly help your surgical
practice?”

“I need an admin,” he replied as if it was
obvious.  “You will like this job.  No stress, good money, yes?”

“Why would I want to be your admin?” I
shrieked, nearly hysterical.  “Don't you have enough dumb blonde bimbos
following you around who can answer your vid?”

“You are smart and you won't follow me
around.”

“I have a PhD for heaven's sake!  I am a
professor!”

“You are bored with being a professor. 
Your PhD is a useless piece of paper.”

“Maybe it’s useless for you who already
knows everything and is going to be a king.  For me it means something.  How do
you know I’m bored teaching?  How do you know I won't follow you around?”

He looked at me curiously.  He didn’t
understand I was teasing him.

“Right now, I am not king, I am Dr. Ron.” 
He pointed at the embroidered name on his lab coat with a sardonic smile. 
“Right now, I need an admin and I want you, yes?”

“Please?” I prompted.

“Very please,” he stated and as if it were
already a given, he got up to leave.

“May I call you Your Majesty and kiss your
hand?”

“No,” he said abruptly.  “I am not
Majesty.”

“Well what are you then?”

“Dr. Ron,” he smirked, heading to the
door.  “But you may call me Your Royal Highness and kiss my hand if you wish to
get down on your knees.”

Working for Dr. Ron was nice.  I admit
it.  There was no pressure, lots of people to chat with and the money was
great.  Ron's nurse was Janet, the nurse who first took care of him at the
hospital, the same nurse who was in my vision of the future, the SdK
Corporation’s buildings and eating lunch by the lake.

The three of us made a good team. 
Occasionally I caught Janet staring at Ron with puppy dog eyes, but then again,
I probably made a few of those too.  Janet and I would go out for drinks on
Friday night after work and after a few she would get a bit morose and all she
wanted to talk about was Ron.

“Gina Gibbons was following him all over
the hospital this week even though she didn’t have rounds with him.  Did you
see Teresa standing by the lift at 5pm every day last week?  I thought that was
a little obvious.”

“Does he know you're interested in him
like that?” I asked her.

“He knows everything, right?” she replied
and swallowed her beer.  “And we're professionals, right?  He told me straight
off, this is all business.  I'm the best nurse there is.”  She wobbled drunkenly
on her bar stool.

“You are good,” I agreed and patted her
hand.  “If Ron says you're the best, then you are.”

“And he doesn't sleep with his employees,”
she mumbled.  “Just everyone else in a skirt.”

One day, after Dr. Ron had finished doing
rounds and came back into the office, he stopped in front of my desk.

“Bring me Thad, yes?” he said and he
pronounced Thad's name as something like
Zad
.

“Thad?” I repeated. 

Our oldest son had just recently moved to
Rozari with his two kids.  I loved having my grandchildren living with us.  It
had been a very long time since I had an eight year old and a five year old
underfoot, but Thad was very depressed and depressing and was my biggest source
of anxiety right now.  His wife, whom I had never liked anyway, had left him
and the kids, saying she needed to find herself, but along the way, she also
found another guy.  Thad, in my humble mother's opinion, was smart, good
looking, a wonderful husband and father, and his ex-wife was a fool.  But right
now, Thad was unemployed and depressing.

“You have a job for him?” I asked
hopefully.

“I do,” Dr. Ron said.

“Here?  In the office?” I prompted.  Thad
before his life fell apart had climbed the corporate ladder at breakneck speed
to become a vice president of a pharmaceutical company.

“No.”  Ron disappeared into his office.

Thad came in that afternoon and then left
without telling me a thing.  A month later, he bought a house in our
neighborhood and a new speeder.

“What are you working on?” Tim and I kept
asking.

Thad laughed.  “Nothing illegal.  Ron and
I are building a new company and I've signed a confidentiality agreement. 
You'll see it soon enough.”