Inheritance

CHAPTER 43

Amber’s door slid open and Reese leaned into the room. “What’s taking you so long?” she asked.

Amber was sitting on the edge of her bed, lacing up a pair of knee-high black combat boots. “These,” she said.

Reese came inside, the door whooshing closed behind her, and picked up the pink dress hanging over the back of a chair. “This is going to get all wrinkled.”

“It’s been there for five minutes,” Amber protested. “Here, give it to me.” She stood, reaching for the dress she had just worn at the departure ceremony, and hung it in the narrow closet. The pink edge of it peeked out when she shut the door.

After months of preparation, the Imria were finally returning to Kurra, along with Reese, David, Julian, and several other human ambassadors. In May, the six-month-long Congressional investigation into President Randall had resulted in her impeachment, with Vice President Huntington stepping in to take her place.

Reese sat in the chair and watched while Amber returned to lacing the boots. “Are those new?”

“Yeah. Somebody sent them to me.” Amber seemed pleased. “Ever since they started that photo blog of my outfits I keep getting really awesome stuff.” Amber had developed a particularly enthusiastic following after her interview went live on Bin 42 last fall, with adoring fans documenting her every move.

As Amber tied the laces into a bow, Reese asked, “Are you going to send them a photo of this outfit?”

“Maybe.” Amber was wearing black leggings and an artfully ripped vintage T-shirt over a blue tank top. “Do you think I should?”

“Why not? I like the boots.”

“Me too. I feel prepared for anything in them. Kidnapping, assault, running through hay fields.” She stretched her legs out to examine the boots. “If only they didn’t take so long to put on.”

“That’s why I came to get you. Everybody’s ready for the launch.”

“I’m almost done.” Amber went to the mirror on the back of the closet door and made a couple of adjustments to her short blond hair. She picked up a tube of lip gloss and raised the wand to her mouth, spreading the dark pink gloss over her bottom lip in a quick, sweeping motion. She pressed her lips together, then ran the wand over her upper lip and studied her reflection carefully. She caught Reese staring at her in the glass. “What?” Amber said. “Does it look bad?”

“No,” Reese said, smiling slightly. Amber shot her a playful look, and if they weren’t already late, Reese would have kissed all that lip gloss right off. “Let’s go,” Reese said, standing to open the door.

“Okay, I’m ready.” Amber grabbed her hand as they left together.

“I can’t believe we’re finally leaving,” Reese said.

“You’re going to love it. Except there’s no ice cream on Kurra. That is truly tragic.”

“With a zillion years of technological expertise, you guys haven’t engineered ice cream over there?”

The third level corridor was empty; everyone was already downstairs in the dining hall, which had been set up to view the liftoff.

“It’s not the same,” Amber said. “There are no cows.”

“You could import some,” Reese suggested as they waited for the elevator. “Or bring in some cow fetuses and birth them on Kurra.”

Amber shook her head. “It’ll disturb the ecosystem. I made Mom get a few gallons from Mitchell’s but it’s not going to last.”

They entered the elevator, and Amber circled her arms around Reese’s waist. “So you’re staying for the whole year?”

“Yeah. We just confirmed it today.” Reese, David, and Julian had all deferred their freshman year of college to stay on Kurra and learn the language. It had taken months of discussion before their families all agreed, and Reese had pulled a lot of strings to persuade Akiya Deyir that Julian should be permitted to join them. It was Julian’s work for Bin 42 that finally convinced the ambassador, and while Julian was on Kurra, he would continue to report on his experiences for the public back on Earth.

Bringing Julian on board, though, had been less difficult for Reese than navigating the last nine months with David and Amber. It had been complicated from the start, because even if David hadn’t wanted to be jealous, it didn’t mean he wasn’t. Amber presented a whole different set of issues, because although she could touch Reese and know her feelings, she had a hard time understanding David’s struggles. Amber and David mostly avoided being alone together, and though they were polite to each other when they were in larger groups, they weren’t friends. Reese felt as if she was constantly translating for the two of them. In her darker moments, when none of them seemed to understand one another even though they could have practiced susum’urda together and known the others’ emotions intimately, Reese thought it would be easier if they gave up this relationship entirely. The only thing stopping her from calling it off was the knowledge that it would make them all equally miserable.

Ultimately, it was going through the experience of having their relationship revealed to the public that brought them closer together. They had managed to keep things quiet until December, when one of Reese’s and David’s classmates—they never knew who—leaked the story to the press. Reese had known it would get out eventually, and she hadn’t wanted to lie about it, but she wished there had been more time for the three of them to work things out in private.

The weekend after the news broke, they met in Amber’s room at the Imrian ship on Angel Island and talked about how to deal with the fallout. There had been so much immediate judgment, so much snide commentary and innuendo—along with disconcertingly vocal support from the tiny polyamorous community—that it felt like being thrust into the center of a tornado. For the first time since they took shelter in Carl Baldwin’s house, being alone together felt safe.

Watching Amber and David face each other in person after months of careful distance, Reese realized she had to stop protecting them. She had been willing—even eager—to be the buffer between them, but now she saw that she had only made things more awkward. Though Amber and David had spent little time together, they knew each other intimately through Reese’s emotions. That created a disconnect that could only be mended by getting to know one another the old-fashioned way. That weekend in December, Reese asked them, for the first time, to talk to each other, and she left them alone to do it.

Things improved after that, little by little. When the possibility of spending a year on Kurra—where plural relationships were normal—was raised, Reese knew they had to go. They might be able to figure it out on their own here on Earth, but it could only be easier if they were in a place where nobody thought their arrangement was unusual.

“I’m glad it worked out,” Amber said, smiling at her as the elevator descended.

Reese leaned in, the tip of her nose touching Amber’s. “Me too.”

When the door opened, a boy squealed, “Cat sent me to get you!”

Reese pulled away from Amber. “Hi, D.” She bent down to smile at Diego, ruffling his black hair. He was still dressed in his departure ceremony outfit, a kid-sized gray suit with a mini blue necktie.

“Come on, you guys are late,” Diego said, grabbing Reese’s hand to drag her down the corridor.

Amber laughed and followed.

The first time Reese had seen Diego, in the orphanage in Los Angeles, he had been silent and terrified. At first he refused to speak at all, and meeting him had made Reese understand, in a way she never had before, how significant it was that she could touch him and know what scared him. Perhaps because of that, Reese had been the first person Diego had spoken to. He still didn’t allow most people near him, but he liked Reese’s parents, and he had completely latched on to Julian. One day, Reese knew, she would have to tell him about his mother, and she wasn’t sure how she was going to do that. She still remembered Torres’s emotions so clearly—her pain and loss, coupled with the sheer edge of her deadliness—and she saw the soldier’s face in Diego’s. To some degree, she felt responsible for Torres’s death, even though she knew the soldier’s days had been numbered long before she helped Reese, Amber, and David escape. To Reese’s surprise, her mom had recognized that when Reese brought up the possibility of adopting Diego.

“Taking care of her son won’t bring her back,” her mom said.

“I can’t leave him there without any sort of connection to her,” Reese insisted. She was stuck, though. If her mom didn’t agree to help with the adoption, Diego would have to stay at the Children’s Home for now. The state of California would never allow an unemployed teenager to adopt a kid.

A few days later, her mom told her that she and Reese’s dad had decided to try to adopt Diego. That was how Reese learned that her parents were back together.

“I’m willing to give him another chance,” her mom said when they were alone in the kitchen of their home in Noe Valley. The house had new front windows and a new alarm system, and her dad had moved his things into her mom’s room. “I want you to try to give him another chance too.”

“But what if it doesn’t work?” Reese asked, an unsettling mixture of hope and fear sparking inside her.

“Honey, you can never know. I can’t predict the future. I only know that it feels right to try again.”

Reese couldn’t object, because she understood what her mom meant. And even though she had her issues with her dad, she couldn’t deny there was part of her that had always wished they could be together again as a family. With the addition of Diego, it was like a new beginning for all of them.

Diego ran down the corridor, tugging at Reese’s hand so that she had to jog to keep up with him. “Come on!” he urged her.

In the dining hall, the tables were gone and chairs were lined up to face the floor-to-ceiling screens. They showed the view of the eucalyptus trees outside, and to the left, Reese saw the sparkle of the bay. Everyone in the ship except the captain and his assistants had come down for the liftoff. She saw Akiya Deyir, Nura Halba, Eres Tilhar, and Malcolm Todd. She saw the nervous-looking delegates from the newly formed Council of Earth Nations, who would be establishing the first human embassy on Kurra. And she saw Dr. Brand talking to David’s parents, with her own parents nearby. Their families would only be going to Kurra for a month. They would return to Earth on a different ship with another group of Imrian representatives who would continue readying the adaptation procedure while Reese, David, and Julian stayed behind. Up front, in the corner of the room, David waved to her. He was sitting with his sister, Chloe, and Julian.

Diego let go of Reese’s hand so that he could rush over to Julian, yelling, “I found her! Can we go now?” Julian laughed and tackled Diego onto the floor, tickling him until the boy shrieked with laughter.

“You ready?” Reese asked Julian.

“I’ve been waiting for this my entire life,” Julian said, a smile splitting his face from ear to ear. “You have no idea how ready I am.”

Julian dragged Diego upright as Reese sat on the floor next to them. David was behind her, and Amber took the seat beside David. That wouldn’t have happened a couple of months ago, and Reese felt a surge of happiness inside her. Maybe all this really would work out. She leaned back against David’s legs and sensed his anticipation in a warm glow between them.

Akiya Deyir came to the front of the room and stood before the screens, raising his hands for quiet. “I’ve just heard from Hirin Sagal, and we are ready for takeoff. I suggest you all find a seat. It should be a smooth liftoff but just in case, you might not want to stand until you’ve gotten your space legs.” Some of the humans laughed nervously, and Akiya Deyir added, “Don’t worry. We are very much looking forward to bringing you to our home.”

A scattering of applause followed as he sat down, and then Reese felt the ship’s engines hum on, a slight rumble shaking the floor. Diego squealed. Reese sat forward, her arms wrapped around her knees, and gazed at the screens as the ship lifted from the ground. A murmur of excitement went through the dining hall. They rose over the lawn of Camp Reynolds and the whitewashed officers’ quarters, and as the ship turned, Reese saw the strip of beach where she and Amber had been photographed that day in August. They had walked down there again after returning from Ohio, and flipped off all the paparazzi who lurked in boats on the bay. The memory of that made Reese grin, and she looked over her shoulder at Amber, whose legs were crossed in her big black boots. She was watching the view with something like sadness.

“Hey,” Reese said, tapping the toe of Amber’s boot.

She glanced at Reese and slid off the chair to sit beside her. “What?”

“It’s amazing,” Reese said, turning back to the screens. Amber leaned against Reese, and Reese put an arm around her. She realized that the sadness she had seen on Amber’s face was about leaving Earth. “We’ll come back,” Reese said, surprised.

“I know. But it’s my home too, you know. I get homesick when I leave.”

Far below, the steely water of the bay was dotted with sailboats and yachts and fleets of ferries that had been reserved for tourists to watch the liftoff. The edge of Angel Island, like an irregularly shaped starfish, came into view, and across the water the hills of Tiburon and Sausalito were speckled with houses. Then the Golden Gate Bridge sliced across the water, its crimson cables stretching over the mouth of the bay. To the south, past the rock of Alcatraz, Reese saw the city of San Francisco, and she imagined the crowds gathered in the Marina, cameras and binoculars pointed at the black triangle cutting across the sky. In the distance the Pacific Ocean curved away in an endless dark blue, marking the edge of the horizon and the edge of the Earth itself.

David put his hand on her shoulder and she leaned back, reaching up to clasp his fingers in hers. Here we go, he thought, and she and Amber and David all held their breath as the ship ascended and the Earth dropped away beneath them. It was graceful as a dancer, the clouds like veils. As North America receded and the blackness of space began to envelop the planet, Reese gazed at her world in wonder.

It glowed from the reflected light of the sun, but it seemed lit from within, as if every life on the planet gave off a luminescence that together created an ethereal lantern in the dark. The ship slowly turned away from Earth, and a sigh went through the room as the blue-and-white sphere disappeared from view. Then they were facing the stars: masses and masses of stars scattered in a carpet of diamonds for them to walk on.