Chapter 4 – I’m Quite Content To Stay
Here
Mei-Wan stood in the bright sun, looking at her team as they
prepared to board the Athena and head back home.
Home. That word meant a lot more this time. Mei-Wan glanced at the
ring now on the finger of her left hand. In seven months, she and Dani would be
married. Nothing was more important to Mei-Wan than that reality.
But her team still had work to do before that day came. And she
still had to find a way to stop Forcas.
“By any measure, our trip here was a success,” Mei-Wan told them.
“But I only made it to a third of the bars in this city,” Harold
retorted.
After a cluster of laughter, Mei-Wan replied, “Then you have
something to occupy your time the next time we visit.”
“We still have a paper to write,” Nick said, bringing down the
level of joviality just a bit. “All we did here was present the broad strokes.
The heavy lifting is yet to come.”
A few of the others started to mumble and complain.
“Nick is right,” Mei-Wan said. “Our presentation showed them where
we’re going. Now we have to lay down the track so they can get there.”
“Track?” Neelan asked.
“Another human metaphor,” Emily Taalan
answered. “Metal rails that large steam powered monster machines traveled on
across the endless plains of North America.”
“Among other places,” Susan Tanega added.
“If we do our work well, the galaxy will feel as if it were struck
by a monster,” Dani said.
“Exactly,” Mei-Wan replied. “Let’s get going.”
***
After the Athena had gone to
warp, sailing away from Yed Post IV, Mei-Wan and
Dani, after having eaten dinner, began to get ready for bed in Mei-Wan’s. The bunk in her quarters wasn’t really designed for
two people, but it did mean they had to embrace one another all night which
Mei-Wan enjoyed immensely.
She stared at the bed for several
moments. “Should we get a new place on Kel-j’na after
we’re married?”
Dani turned to her. “Why?”
“I don’t know if my place or your place
will suit us any longer.”
“Both seem to suit us fine when we’re
with one another now,” Dani replied.
Mei-Wan frowned. “I suppose.”
“Is this another human cultural thing?”
Mei-Wan grinned. “It’s just each of our
places are your place or my place. I guess I was thinking in terms of our
place.”
Dani didn’t say anything.
“Am I confusing you again?”
“Yes.”
Mei-Wan pulled Dani into her arms.
“Sorry.”
“No need to apologize,” Dani said. “I
treat these conundrums as puzzles to be solved which will further enlighten me
about you.”
“It really doesn’t matter I guess,”
Mei-Wan said. “After we finish the paper, and I find a way to deal with Forcas,
are you still willing to move to Earth?”
“I am willing to, yes.” Dani looked into
Mei-Wan’s eyes. “Is that what you want?”
“I’d like a chance to teach at the
Academy. Raymond told me I’d have a position there whenever I’m ready,” Mei-Wan
said. “After the paper is published, I’ll turn the Archaeological Institute
over to Susan. I think it’s ready to leave the nest now.”
“Leave the…”
“Certain Earth animals are born in eggs,
and live their childhood in a nest, it’s a…”
Dani shook her head. “I will look it up
later.”
Mei-Wan smiled. “It means the Institute
is ready to go on without me.”
“Then we shall begin our life together.”
Dani kissed her.
Mei-Wan led Dani toward the bed. She
smiled as she pressed her body against the cool surface of Dani's skin. “For
the first time, I'm with someone I know loves me... without any doubt or
equivocation, or ulterior motives involved.” She kissed Dani. “I love you.”
Dani smiled. “My love for you is
stronger than I have ever felt with any of my own people, or any other species,
stronger than any love my ancestors felt for anyone.” She leaned back a moment.
“If one of your kind can elicit such love from someone so different from
yourselves, then your kind can be redeemed. I am certain of that now.”
Mei-Wan
pushed all thought from her mind of Dani's mission to investigate humanoids.
All she wanted was Dani to be engulfed by Dani both in body and mind.
“Enter
my mind,” Mei-Wan said. “See how much I love you.”
Dani's
body began to flow around Mei-Wan like a liquid spilling out of its container,
wrapping around her like syrup poured on pancakes.
Mei-Wan
prepared herself for that feeling of drowning which always occurred as Dani's
substance entered her mouth and nose as well as other openings on her body. She
knew there wasn't anything to fear. Dani always provided the oxygen Mei-Wan
needed to survive. But there was always that momentary panic.
Once
it was past, Mei-Wan let herself float in the nebula of Dani, all other sense
input now gone. She felt as if she were in her own small universe which
included only one other person, Dani. During this experience, Dani fired off
Mei-Wan's nerve endings, resulting in a euphoria she
had never experienced in her life. But a large part of that was how their minds
began to merge, forming a unity of consciousness.
This
was how love should be, Mei-Wan thought.
“It
is how my love is for you,” Dani said in reaction to Mei-Wan's
thoughts.
“And
you can see how much I love you?”
“Of
course,” Dani said. “You and I will always have this connection. No matter how
long I continue to live, no matter where we go throughout this galaxy, and...
no matter where you go in time, we will always be connected.” Dani hesitated.
“But I dread that your life is so finite.”
“Me
too,” Mei-Wan said. It wasn't out of fear she felt that way now, it was because
she didn't like the thought of Dani being separated from her.
“A
part of you will remain with me,” Dani said. “Do not fear for me.”
“But...
you are afraid for me.”
“Yes,”
Dani said. “You think it is oblivion you face, don't you?”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps
one day, I can show you something which will calm your fear of oblivion.”
“I
would like that,” Mei-Wan said, falling back into the mental nebula with Dani.
***
Felicia and Jack sat at the dining room
table in her home, eating a wonderful meal she had prepared for the two of
them.
She looked up from her plate. “I should let you read my ancestor’s
diary sometime,” Felicia said. “She had quite the crush on your ancestor.”
Jack’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “Really?”
“Oh yes,” Felicia replied. “She was rather infatuated with him.
She wrote about her feelings for him endlessly in her diary. After his wife
arrived, and then he disappeared, she was incredibly distraught. She considered
suicide for several weeks.”
“Oh my god,” Jack blurted out. He hadn’t had any idea how Anne had
felt about him. Sure, he could tell she was interested, but he’d assumed that
was because the town had so wanted the two of them to be together.
I’m so sorry…
Felicia smiled. “It’s not your fault. This happened five hundred
years ago.” Her smile widened. “And besides, if that hadn’t happened, she
wouldn’t have left town, gotten involved with a man she never named, gotten
pregnant and given birth to her child, my ancestor.”
“She didn’t name the man even in her diary?” Jack asked, somewhat
relived she’d found someone.
“No,” Felicia said. “She didn’t know she was pregnant until a few months
later, and by that time she was on her way back to Pierce Valley. For several
generations it was considered quite the scandal in my family, her getting
pregnant and not being married. But since my existence depended on that scandal
I can’t say I see it as problematic.”
“But in that time it would have been considered immoral, almost on
the level of committing murder,” Jack replied.
“Which is why she concocted a story about having gotten married,
and her husband having been killed in an attack by Indians, what we now call
Native Americans.”
“Did she return to teach?”
“Yes,” Felicia said. “She continued teaching until she died at
sixty-three. But she still was in love with that period’s Jack McCall. Her last
diary entry was about him, and about how deep her love continued to be.”
Felicia looked up at Jack. “Truly a case of unrequited love.”
“I’m sorry she didn’t get to see him again.”
“She had a good life,” Felicia said. “Well, at least as good as it
could be in that century.”
“It was my understanding it was a good time to live in,” Jack
said. “People were free to do as they pleased, go where they wanted.”
“Yeah if you were a European male with money,” Felicia replied.
“Everyone else had to contend with their rights being violated continually,
catching some disease, dying, or enduring hard physical labor and seeing very
little for their effort.”
“Yes, it could be a hard life, but there were positive things
about the time too.”
“Says the descendant of a European male with money.”
Jack frowned. “I don’t think that’s entirely fair.”
“I suppose not,” Felicia said. “Being three centuries removed from
the ludicrous racial discrimination of humanity’s past does give you some
excuse in that you don’t understand how people could treat one another on the
basis of such absurd premises. But as a historian, I can’t ignore it.” She
smiled. “However, were you aware that Jack McCall’s wife was of Chinese
origin?”
Jack nodded. “Yes.”
“That was rather forward thinking for a man of his time,” Felicia
said. She stared at him for several moments. “Odd that you also married a woman
of Chinese origin.”
“But she and I are divorced.”
Felicia leaned forward on the table. “Are you intentionally trying
to repeat his life?”
“Not consciously,” Jack said. Telling the truth would explain all
of this to her. But it was the one thing he couldn’t do, and it would bring
forth even more difficult questions.
She grinned. “You could finally fulfill my ancestor’s infatuation
though from a distance of five centuries.”
“How would I do that?” Jack asked, more curious than anything
else.
Felicia stared at him. “I like you, Jack.”
Jack smiled. “The feeling is mutual.”
She took a breath. “Would you like to go to the bedroom?”
“Felicia… I like you, but I can’t.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m married.”
“But I thought you were divorced.”
“I was, but I got married again.”
“Where’s your wife?” Felicia asked. “Wife number two that is.”
“She’s serving aboard the ship I used to command.”
Felicia nodded. “Many light years away?”
“Yes,” Jack said, unsure where she was going with this.
Felicia took a long breath. “Look, I’m only looking for an
enjoyable night with a friend. I’m adult enough to understand your situation. I
realize it won’t go any further.” She smiled. “Unlike Anne Lowry, I’m not
infatuated with you.”
“I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression,” Jack said. “I’m
committed to my marriage.”
“I didn’t say you weren’t,” she replied.
“I’d like it if we could be friends.” Jack finally looked at her.
“But I’m not looking for sex.”
Felicia nodded. “Okay. I won’t bring it up again.”
“I’m sorry…”
“No need to be,” she interrupted. “I said I wouldn’t bring it up
again because I can see it makes you uncomfortable. A friend shouldn’t make you
uncomfortable.”
Jack finally smiled. “Thank you.”
“But… the offer is still there… if you change your mind.”
Jack didn’t reply, feeling it best to let that part of their
evening end.
Their conversation quickly returned to the history of Pierce
Valley.
