Alienated

Chapter Twenty-Five

Cara swore she’d never travel at light speed again. Never ever ever. Not even if astronauts discovered a chocolate and peanut butter planet and claimed it for the US of A.

Oh, God, she shouldn’t have thought about food! Rip­ples of nausea turned her stomach as her mouth flooded with saliva. Clutching the steely rim of her toilet with one hand, she rose onto her knees, tugged her hair aside, and hurled for the third time that morning.

She moaned to herself. Outer space sucked. Why hadn’t the L’eihrs warned her this would happen? Oh, yeah, because everyone aboard the SS Buzzkill hated her with the fire of a thousand supernovas. Except for Aelyx, who’d holed up inside his own room, which explained why their paths hadn’t crossed.

With a groan, she curled up against her bathroom wall, too weak to even wipe her mouth. She’d never felt so misera­ble, not even when she’d caught the swine flu in kindergarten and wound up in the hospital with secondary pneumonia. Of course, she hadn’t lost the love of her life at age six.

Childish as it felt, she wanted her mother. Mom would know all the right things to say to make her feel better, but Cara’s parents were galaxies away, and she didn’t even know if they were safe. If she weren’t so dehydrated, she’d break down and cry again, but she knew the tears wouldn’t come, and crying without tears felt too much like dry heaving.

A light knock sounded from the door to her quarters in the next room, but she didn’t budge. Whoever it was could come back later, maybe collect her dead body and ship it back to Earth. A loud hiss told Cara someone had opened the door, and she prayed to God it wasn’t Aelyx. The last thing she wanted was for him to find her on the bathroom floor with dried puke in her hair. But when the medic poked her head through the doorway, disappointment tugged at Cara’s heart­strings. Part of her had hoped it was Aelyx. She missed him so much it hurt.

“Sacred Mother,” the girl said, twisting Cara’s heart with another reminder of him. “You look awful.”

“Can’t. Stop. Yakking.”

She gave a sympathetic smile and nodded. “Speed sickness. Why didn’t you come to the clinic?”

“Because I couldn’t take the toilet with me.” It sounded better than I’m a wussy coward who was scared of running into Aelyx in the hall. She’d had all her meals brought to the room for the same reason, not that she’d been able to keep most of them down.

“Well.” The girl blinked her mile-long lashes and set her bag on the floor. “I’m glad someone asked me to check on you.”

There was only one person on this godforsaken spacecraft who cared if she lived or died, and as much as she hated it, she still cared for him, too. “Is he sick like me?”

“Sicker than I’ve ever seen him.” The medic crouched down and rooted around inside her bag until she found a hypodermic needle and a glass vial filled with clear liquid. “But not like you.” She tapped one finger against her temple. “He suffers here.” After scanning Cara’s face a moment, the girl pressed two fingers over her heart. “And here.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Despite all his lies, she hated the idea of Aelyx hurting. It’d been so tempting to let him use Silent Speech to explain away what he’d done. There was no point denying that she ached to be with him. But she couldn’t trust Aelyx, and without that, they had nothing worth saving.

“Do you understand why you’re so sick?” The girl filled her needle with clear solution and motioned for Cara’s arm. As she injected the medicine, she explained, “It’s all in your mind.”

Sucking in a sharp breath, Cara clenched her teeth as the icy liquid swept through her veins.

“Your brain doesn’t believe your body is capable of light speed,” the girl continued as she massaged Cara’s arm, push­ing the medication toward her heart. “How can your mind understand something you’ve never experienced? So it assumes you’re hallucinating—that you’ve poisoned yourself—and it induces vomiting to rid your body of the perceived tox­ins.” She pulled what looked like a metal thermos from her bag, unscrewed it, and handed it over. “L’eihrs are no differ­ent, Cah-ra. Our brains are resistant to change. How can we understand what we’ve never experienced and adapt without making mistakes?”

Cara’s hand froze in midair as she reached for the cup. She had a feeling they weren’t talking about motion sickness any­more. So, if she understood the subtext correctly, the medic was suggesting she cut Aelyx some slack for wrecking the alli­ance because he’d never been in love before? That was the lamest excuse she’d ever heard.

“Well,” she said, regaining use of her arm, “if L’eihrs are so evolved, they should be able to figure it out.”

“We can.” She nodded for Cara to drink. “But it takes time. And patience.”

Cara studied the girl over the top of her cup as she fin­ished the sweet liquid—electrolyte supplements, no doubt—in three eager gulps. Why did this L’eihr give a fig about her relationship with Aelyx? Out of the hundreds of crew mem­bers aboard this transport, why was she the only one to offer comfort and gentle smiles? “What’s your name?” she asked the medic.

The girl screwed the lid on her container, peeking through a fringe of dark lashes that seemed suddenly familiar. “Elyx’a,” she said, pronouncing it e-licks-ah. “But call me Elle.”

Cara’s heart raced. “By any chance, does that mean daugh­ter of Elyx? "

Face expressionless, the girl nodded.

“You’re his sister,” Cara whispered. Aelyx had never men­tioned brothers or sisters. Just add that to the long list of secrets he’d kept from her.

“Genetically, yes,” Elle said. “From what I understand of human culture, you’d consider us more friends than brother and sister.” She stood and extended her hand to help Cara to her feet. “But I care for him.”

Propping one palm against the wall for support, Cara gripped the girl’s hand and pushed to standing, waiting for nausea to catapult her stomach into her throat. But to her surprise, nothing happened. Her stomach stayed right where it belonged.

Elle wrapped a supportive arm around Cara’s shoulder and guided her into the main chamber, a gray room the approxi­mate size of a postage stamp, vacant with the exception of two metallic bunk beds. Cara remembered how comfortable Aelyx had felt in his boring gray room back home. It finally made sense.

“He’s different,” Elle continued. “More empathetic than most of the clones. I think that’s the real reason the Elders chose him for the exchange, not because of his language skills.”

Cara quirked a skeptical brow, recalling how cold and unfeeling Aelyx had seemed when they’d first met. “He’s the best you’ve got?”

“No,” Elle whispered, turning her gaze to the floor. “That was Eron. I suspect they’ll clone him again.”

“I’m so sorry.” Cara squeezed the girl’s hand and sat on the edge of her bed. “Were you two close?”

Nodding, she stood on tiptoe to pull a clean uniform off the top bunk. “He was my l’ihan.” She dropped the clothing into Cara’s lap and explained, “The Way wants us to emulate the human method of reproduction.”

“To make babies the old-fashioned way?”

She nodded again. “And for the first time, they’ve allowed us to choose our own mates.”

“Oh, no.” Cara studied Aelyx’s sister—really paid atten­tion for once—taking in the redness that rimmed her silvery eyes, the dark circles beneath her lashes, the smiles that never reached beyond her lips. Though she’d done a stellar job of hiding it, this girl was grieving the loss of her . . . “L’ihan means husband?”

“No, more like betrothed. The literal translation is future.”

Dipping her head in shame, Cara clutched the clean clothes to her chest as if to hide behind them. “You must hate me.”

“Quite the opposite.” Using one finger, she tipped Cara’s chin up until their eyes met. “I hope you’ll stay.” She gestured to the uniform and added, “Get dressed. We’ll meet the other transport soon, and then the three of you will appear before The Way.”

“The three of who?”

“You, Aelyx, and Syrine.” Elle glanced around the tiny room until she found her bag. “You’ll have a few minutes with your brother while Aelyx receives his reckoning. It won’t take long. Our leaders will summon you then.”

“His reckoning?” Cara didn’t like the sound of that.

“Yes. He needs to account for disobeying the Elders by bringing you here.”

The iphet, then. That horrible electric lash. Cara told her­self she couldn’t wait to get away from these sadistic bastards, but in reality, she had to grip the mattress to keep from bolt­ing out the door to Aelyx’s room.

He lied to you for months, she reminded herself. You can’t trust him, and he’s not your problem anymore.

Before Elle left, she asked, “Will you think about what I said?”

Cara wished she could say no, but she couldn’t have stopped the words from turning over in her mind if she’d tried.

After she’d washed the vomit from her hair and scarfed down a meal that really did taste like Mom’s roast, Cara heard Troy’s knuckles rap on her chamber door. She knew it was him because he always knocked three times, each strike punc­tuated by a sweeping beat of silence, so it sounded like the intro to that old song their dad loved so much. Thump, thump, thump. Another one bites the dust.

She opened the door for her brother and completely fell apart at the sight of his welcoming smile and outstretched arms.

She collided with him at full force, locking her arms around his neck and shaking his chest with the force of her sobs.

“Damn, Pepper.” It took her brother three tries to unglue her from his body, but he finally held her at a distance. “You missed me that much?”

She wiped a sleeve over her eyes to bring Troy into focus, noting at once the changes in him. The wavy black hair he’d inherited from their mother nearly touched his shoulders, which seemed odd when contrasted against his military uni­form, but that wasn’t what struck her. It was his eyes—still vividly blue, but no longer sparkling with carefree wander­lust. He studied her face deliberately, in a way he’d never done before, pursing his lips in concern.

Sweet mother of God, Troy had grown up.

“What happened?” he asked. “When Mom e-mailed, she said you were happy to leave.”

“Mom’s okay, then?”

Troy nodded. “Dad, too. More or less.”

Cara led her brother inside. After taking about a dozen deep breaths to calm herself, she told him everything—starting with how she’d fallen for Aelyx on Earth and ending with what Syrine had said a few days ago.

“So,” Cara continued, her breath still hitching, “somehow I have to convince them to give us the technology so we can take it home.”

“You’re sure about this? Ten years?”

She nodded, and Troy gaped at her in disbelief.

“I don’t have much time before they call me in. I need to know what’s going on back home—anything that might help. Did they catch the guys who killed Eron?”

He dragged one hand over his face, seemingly struggling to absorb what Cara had just told him. “Troy?” she pressed.

“No.” He shook his head. “And they probably never will. Tracking terrorists isn’t like busting civilians. They’re networked. They operate as one, and they never give each other up.”

“I was hoping at least—”

A quick series of knocks interrupted her, and she answered the door to find Stepha, the L’eihr ambassador, observing her with indifference.

“If you’ll follow me,” he said, tipping his head toward the hallway.

Troy promised to wait there, and after a quick good-bye, she followed the ambassador to what she assumed was a con­ference room.

When Stepha pressed his palm against an identification panel, both doors retracted into the wall and Cara stepped inside, taking a moment to orient herself. Dominating the space were ten plush, vacant seats arranged in a soft arc, a single glass podium glowing beneath an overhead light in the center. Three metallic stools faced the panel, two of them already occupied by Syrine—who slouched forward, cradling her head in her hands—and Aelyx, who sat ramrod straight next to her.

As Cara moved to the seat beside him, she scanned his back, expecting to see a crisscross of welts raising the uni­form’s fabric but finding none. The skin on his neck appeared smooth and unmarred, too, but when she took her seat and examined him more closely, she noticed a thin sheen of sweat glistening on his face. He gripped his knees with trembling fingers, and Cara could almost feel his agony. Her own flesh prickled, and heat flooded her cheeks when she imagined the pain he’d endured.

She stewed in silence for several long minutes before turning to him. “You okay?”

Not returning her gaze, he spoke in the detached voice of a stranger. “When The Way enters, it’s crucial you don’t talk until you have permission—the previous speaker will hand you a small baton. To interrupt is considered the height of rudeness, and while the Elders might have admired your pas­sion at one time, they won’t look kindly upon it now. Not after what happened to Eron. Do you understand?”

The coldness in his tone made her throat tighten. She nodded and whispered, “I’m sorry you had to go through that because of me.”

“Just remember what I told—”

“Don’t worry.” Whether on Earth or in another galaxy, if there was one thing Cara knew, it was the rules of debate. She couldn’t salvage her heart, but maybe she could save her people. It was time to put Aelyx out of her mind and focus on the speech she’d been mentally rehearsing all morning.

She took a deep breath and prepared for the fight of her life.