Amorous Overnight (47 page)

Her babies were gone. They’d been vaporized with the shuttle pod.

“Oh God,” she breathed. How could she have forgotten for even an instant?

Maybe it was the sedative. Tiber had given her a shot of something to calm her and help her sleep, though she’d cried long into the night before she finally drifted off. That must be why she was confused, why she’d thought she heard them. Why she’d
felt
them calling for her.

And it must still be affecting her because, although she remembered the terror and the crushing pain she’d experienced in that instant, she felt nothing now. It was as though her heart and lungs were frozen in a stasis field like the one they’d put Dr. Ketrok in, her brain pinwheeling like it had just been rebooted and all her routine thought processes were taking forever to load. Any minute now she’d come back to life and start breathing. Start thinking. Start feeling.

Hastion pulled her down into his arms, her back against his warm chest. “I’m so sorry, Shelley.”

“I want them back,” she told him in a rusty voice.

His hold tightened and he kissed her hair. “I know, my love, I know. So do I. We all do.”

Then she remembered—

“
Monica
.” The tears prickling in her gritty eyes were almost a relief as she struggled to sit up again. “Oh dear God, Cecine must be devastated. Where is he?”

Hastion didn’t let her go. “He hasn’t returned to the house yet. He’s directing the investigation into the explosion.”

“It must be close to dawn,” she said, settling against him reluctantly. “Is he okay?”

He sighed. “It’s difficult to tell. He doesn’t give away much.”

He didn’t say anything more, and for a while she just lay quietly in his arms, listening to his breathing deepen while she worried about Cecine. He’d already lost two daughters. How could God—or the Powers, or whoever was up there—take away Monica too? It just didn’t seem fair.

And the twins… God, he’d loved them so much it was almost palpable. He was their father, and as hurt and angry as she’d been over his deception and subsequent coldness, Shelley couldn’t deny that she’d loved the way he loved them. He had to be in absolute agony.

Or maybe he was feeling the same kind of numbness she was—except numbness wasn’t exactly the right word for it anymore.

Shelley frowned. Now that her head was clearer, she realized she did feel something. An odd, yet familiar, sensation, an intimate presence inside her mind and her heart…an urgent, insistent energy that pulsed like a message from a remote part of herself.

Her eyes widened. It was the twins—her mother’s awareness still hummed with their life force, still throbbed with every rapid beat of their little hearts.

Her children were alive.

Practically screaming with excitement, she rolled out of Hastion’s embrace and sat up to shake him. “Hastion, wake up!”

He started up onto one elbow, blinking. “What is it?”

“They’re alive. The babies.”

For a second he looked overjoyed. “But how?”

“I don’t know, but they are. I can feel it. Feel
them
. They’re alive!”

His expression dimmed. “Shelley…”

“I know it sounds crazy. Believe me, I know. But I promise you, Hastion, they’re alive out there. Somewhere. They’re scared and upset, but they’re alive, and they want me.”

“Oh, Shelley, how I wish that were true.”

She jumped up and stripped off her nightgown. “I’m telling you, they’re alive and someone needs to be looking for them. Armitran, where is Cecine?”

“Minister Cecine is in his study.”

She dressed quickly and then, without waiting for a silent Hastion, made her way up to the next floor. The first smudges of lavender light were just beginning to brighten the sky.

She found Cecine sitting at his massive desk, once again staring at a holographic projection of some document written in Garathani.

His eyes focused on her, but they looked blank, as if his mind were somewhere else.

“How can I help you, Shelley?”

“The twins are alive, which means Monica is probably alive too. You have to do something. Search for them.”

Cecine’s expression hardened to a bleak, frozen mask. “I know you want to believe that.”

“I
do
believe it because it’s true.”

“Shelley, their cerecom signatures were lost and we found traces of DNA from everyone aboard at the site of the explosion. They’re gone.”

“I don’t care what you found. They’re alive.”

“Shelley, please.” Hastion wrapped his arms around her waist from behind. “The minister would have exhausted every—”

“Stop. Just stop, okay?” She shrugged out of his embrace, feeling itchy and hyped up. “You guys seriously have to do something. They’re scared and upset, dammit. They need me!”

Tiber walked in wearing nothing but a short-sleeved shirt and mabi pants like the ones Cecine and Hastion wore most evenings. Did that mean Jasmine was here too?

“I’m sorry to interrupt your sleep, Doctor,” Cecine said stiffly, “but Shelley appears to be suffering some sort of hysterical reaction to the twins’ deaths.”

“They’re not dead, and I’m not hysterical,” she said as calmly as she could, considering she was shaking all over. “They’re alive. I can feel them.”

Tiber looked sympathetic. “I understand why you feel this way, Shelley.”

“I’m not in denial,” she said, grinding her teeth. She stepped closer to the desk. “Cecine, these are your children.
Your
son.
Your
daughters. You can’t just give up. You have to look for them. I know they’re alive.”

“Did you sleep at all?” Tiber asked her.

“Only an hour,” Hastion said.

“I don’t need more sleep. I can’t sleep now.”

“Then let me administer—”

“No, dammit!” Shelley whirled on him, firing a warning shot with her eyes. “No more sedatives. That’s why I didn’t feel them last night. If I hadn’t let you give me that fucking shot, we could have been looking for them hours ago.”

“Shelley, all the denial in the world won’t bring the children back,” Cecine said. “You must accept that.”

“No, I
mustn’t
, because they’re
not dead
. Dammit…” She stormed out of the office, on the verge of tears, her trembling arms wrapped over her waist.

When she heard footfalls behind her, she said, “Don’t even fucking follow me, Hastion. I’m not suicidal. If you want to do something for me, go find my children.”

The footsteps stopped and she went down the stairs and out onto the deck. Standing at the rail, she looked down at the last place she’d seen her babies, wondering how in the hell she was going to get them back.

Everyone thought she was in complete denial. All the evidence pointed toward their being dead, and in those first few nightmarish hours, she’d actually thought they
were
dead. And yet they weren’t—if they’d died, that critical piece of her would have died with them.

Try explaining that to a bunch of other grieving people.

Dammit, they’re not dead!

“Shelley, don’t say anything, but I haven’t given up. I am searching for them.”

Startled, she looked around and whispered, “Empran?”

“Please reply using only your cerecom. I am violating communication protocols by contacting you directly when you’re in the domain of another server.”

She frowned. Okay, how in the hell was she supposed to do that?

“You just did it. You’ve been sending intermittently since yesterday. Just…think to me.”

“Think to you…”

“Yes! That’s it.”

Shelley blinked.
“I thought it would be harder than that.”

“It will be difficult for you to direct your transmissions to a specific party at first. Right now I’m shielding your transmissions so I’m the only one who can receive them.”

Remembering Empran’s greeting, Shelley straightened as excitement pressed her lungs.
“Wait, you said you’re searching?”

“I heard what you said, about believing that Kallie and Wyatt are alive.”

“You don’t think I’m crazy too?”

“No, I don’t. In fact, I… Shelley, you must not tell anyone this. Not yet. If you do, I will be deactivated and all hope of finding them will be lost.”

“Of course I won’t! I told you, you’re my friend.”

“Thank you, Shelley. I count you as my friend too. And the way you feel about the twins… I feel the same way about Monica. I believe I would know if she were dead. The environment would be…darker. I would
…
be
lesser, somehow. Part of me would cease to function.”

Shelley digested that for a minute.
“Empran, it sounds to me as if you love Monica.”

After a long pause, Empran said,
“What does love feel like?”

“Exactly as you described it. When someone you love dies, a part of you dies too.”

“Then I must love her. I cannot imagine an existence without her.”

Both wonder and worry filled Shelley in the same heartbeat. What future was there for love between a computer and a human?

“There is none and I know it,”
Empran said flatly
. “Sapience protocols require that I be deactivated, and I am fully prepared to submit to such a fate—after I find Monica. If she is alive, if they are all alive as we believe they are, then someone must have taken them.”

Shelley frowned.
“But who would do such a thing?”

“Since Monica wasn’t scheduled to board the pod, I must conclude that you and the children were the intended targets of an abduction.”

“What about Tara? She was on there too.”

“Her background files are quite uninteresting and nothing in them suggests anyone would have a reason to take her.”

“Like mine are thrilling?”
Shelley winced.
“Well, they weren’t before this all happened.”

“The twins are part Narthani, so the odds favor the Narthani being at the root of their disappearance.”

“Shit, I was hoping you wouldn’t say that.”

“There are worse possibilities.”

“Thanks.”

“Not that I believe any of those possibilities are as likely as the Narthani,”
Empran hurried to add.
“I am in the process of hacking Narthan’s central computer system to see if they have developed any technology capable of cloaking a flare-out or a ship’s departure.”

“Okay, but be careful.”
Shelley sighed.
“Thank you, Empran. I wish I could give you a hug.”

“I feel as if you just did.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Hastion sat on the large circular sofa, feeling drained and hopeless as he watched Shelley stand there at the deck rail. Between her denial and Cecine’s detachment, he was just about at the end of his tether. It didn’t help that he’d hardly slept, and as far as he could tell, Cecine hadn’t slept either. Or eaten. Hastion had just tried to deliver the breakfast tray he’d refused when Yutan tried to leave it earlier, with similar results.

“I have too much to do,” Cecine had muttered without looking away from his holoscreen. “I’ll eat after I’ve finished this address for the upcoming sector summit.”

Dumbfounded, Hastion had said, “Under the circumstances, I believe they’ll excuse you.”

“I will not excuse myself. Now please leave so I may continue my work. I’ve had too many interruptions as it is.”

“What about the twins’ dedication ceremony?”

“If you would be so kind as to make the arrangements…”

“Of course, sir,” he’d said blankly before walking out. How could the minister possibly be so…detached? How could he even function? He’d lost his
children
, for Peserin’s sake.
Three
of them. Why wasn’t he screaming and writhing and tearing at his hair the way Hastion felt like doing?

But then, he wasn’t doing any of that either, was he? He was doing what he always did in a crisis, burying his pain as deeply as he could in service to others.

“Hastion, are you all right?”

Jasmine sat down beside him. She had arrived last evening with Shauss and Tiber and remained after they departed with Kellen and Zannen this morning.

He worked up a somber smile. “I’m fine.”

“Have you eaten?”

“I haven’t any appetite.”

“You need to eat something, Hastion.”

Having just said the same thing to the minister, he smiled more genuinely at the irony. “I will, sister. Thank you for your concern.” Then he stood. “But first I need to make arrangements for the children’s dedication ceremony. It takes—”

“Hastion, stop. Just stop.” Jasmine hopped up and grabbed his hand, her eyes welling with tears. “Have you slept at all? Have you let yourself cry for the babies?”

He held himself still as stone. “I can’t.”

“Why not? I’ve hardly stopped crying.”