Aurora Rising: The Complete Collection (188 page)

She removed the bracelet from the box and slipped it on her wrist. It swirled in graceful arcs up her forearm. She felt no hint of sharp or abrasive edges, and the metal was cool and smooth on her skin. Simple, unadorned, strong and resilient, it was more beautiful to her than the most elaborate gold filigree.

She tore her gaze from the bracelet to look up at him with a buoyant grin. If his face was any indication, she didn’t need to tell him she was pleased, but she would anyway. “Caleb, it’s amazing and exquisite and perfect. But you already know that.”

He shrugged and made a passing attempt at appearing humble. “It’s the first gift I’ve given you, so I couldn’t be certain.”

“Uh-huh.” She set the empty box on the table and snuggled into his waiting arms. “You still have the sword, right? I mean, you only used a sliver from it.”

His lips nuzzled her ear. “Absolutely. I may need it. You never know when another dragon is going to swoop down out of the sky.”

“Any second now, I expect.”

“Well…we probably have a little time to catch our breath.”

Peace hadn’t been a feature of her life lately; in many ways it had never been a feature of her life. But it didn’t suck. She’d undoubtedly get restless soon enough, but for now she intended to enjoy this lightness in her heart. She sank deeper against him and allowed the peaceful silence to linger.

Caleb’s hand drew along her arm, dancing idly over the bracelet. “For the record, you deserve a vacation lasting six months at a minimum. Years would also be entirely justifiable. But once you’ve had all of the boring normal life you can stand, what do you think you might do?”

“Well, now that I’m famous—or infamous—the potential clients are lining up. I’m ignoring all the inquiries for the time being, but should I want it I won’t lack for work. I think it will be difficult, though, returning to the old routines knowing what we do. The galaxy, our entire universe, is something very different than we perceived it to be, and I haven’t decided yet what that reality means for me. We’ll see.”

She pointed to her temple with a wry grimace. “Also, there’s the whole Artificial inside my head thing complicating the issue. Regardless, boring normal life will do just fine. For now.”

“So…Delavasi asked me to run the organized crime section of Special Operations. Obviously my days of undercover work are behind me since my face was broadcast on every news feed in the galaxy.”

She bit the inside of her cheek to suppress the frown which tried to leap forth. The careful tone in his voice suggested he’d been waiting for the proper time to share the information. She wasn’t sure she agreed this was it. “Did you say yes?”

“I said I’d never sit behind a desk. So he asked me to take over the training program for Division’s new recruits.”

“A teacher? You’d be an outstanding teacher.”

“Maybe. It still lacks an element of excitement…which is why he also assured me I could still serve as an active agent when any non-undercover operations caught my interest.”

She moved away to retrieve her glass of wine then moved to the center cushion, creating some space between them. “You really can’t ask for a better arrangement in your line of work, and it sounds as if he desperately wants you back in whatever capacity he can get you. What did you tell him?”

“I haven’t told him anything yet. Honestly, after everything that’s happened and everything
I
know, I’m not sure if I’m willing to kill people—or even order their deaths—on behalf of my government any longer.”

She gave him a smile she hoped passed for genuine. “You should at least take the teaching job. It’s a great opportunity.”

His eyes met hers, but she was unable to read what they conveyed. “Is that what you want?”

Her own eyes slid away. She hadn’t meant for them to, but she could not do this with him staring into her soul. “It’ll be fine. We’ll make it work. I’ll lease a bay at the Cavare spaceport. I can be there as much as I’m here, or more. We can—”

“You didn’t answer the question.”

Dammit. Why was he making the high road so hard? “I think it—”

His hand found her chin and nudged it toward him. His voice was low, weighted by import. “You’ve spent your entire life going after what you want, to hell with everyone else. So tell me, Alex. What do you want?”

She pulled back from his grasp, and with a frustrated sigh he allowed her to escape. She picked up her glass, stood and went to the window to stare out at the light from the moon shimmering in the Sound beyond. It occurred to her the last time she had done so was shortly before she left for the Metis Nebula. An eternity—one of Mesme’s aeons—ago.

She took a long sip of wine and studied Caleb’s nebulous reflection in the window. He had dropped his forearms on his knees and simply watched her, his expression completely impenetrable.

Try as she might, she could not find the strength to turn and look him in the eye, nor to raise her voice above a whisper.

“I want you to stay. I want you to share my ship with me. I want you to share my life with me. But it’s selfish of me to want such things—and that’s what I’ve spent my life being. I can’t—I won’t—ask you to give up your career, your home and all you’ve built for me.” She summoned up her resolve and finally shifted to face him. “It’s okay. We
will
make it work.”

There was no change in his enigmatic expression as he stood and approached her. He silently took her glass and set it on the table, then returned. A hand came up to cup her cheek, and now she thought she saw in his eyes—

“Yes.”

Yes…it was selfish of her? Yes, she couldn’t ask those things of him? She knew all this, dammit. That was the yebanaya point. “
What?”

“Alex, I don’t know what tomorrow or the next day or the next decade may bring. No one does. So this is where I make my own choice, with full knowledge and understanding of the consequences: a choice to not walk away.
Yes
, I will share your ship with you. I will share your life with you.”

She viciously squashed the wave of ardor surging in her chest. “No. You cannot leave everything—”

“Too late. I sent my resignation to Delavasi while I was walking from the couch to the window.” His other hand appeared in the space between them.

“Marry me. Let’s never worry about this again.”

The ring held aloft by his forefinger and thumb consisted of two bands of a subtly pearled tungsten metal woven together. Was it adiamene? In the center lay a tapered stone which…may have been a diamond, if like none she’d ever seen. With each tiny movement the facets caught a different angle of the moon’s reflected light and transformed the stone to a new and bottomless hue.

She opened her mouth to respond—

“Before you say it, I
can
leave my career behind. It was never mine, and I don’t want it.”

Again she tried, succeeding in pulling her focus from the sublime object he held in his hand and meeting his gaze—it burned with fervency and hope—but only managing to utter half a syllable before he cut her off.

“What I want, for myself and in the most selfish way possible, is you. My future is with you, whatever may come. If—”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and drew him close, an insistent, tantalizing murmur on her lips as they met his.

“Would you
shut up
and let me tell you yes?”

CODA

R
ESTLESS
V
OL.
II

A
N
A
URORA
R
ISING
S
HORT
S
TORY

2323

(
T
WO
M
ONTHS
A
FTER THE
E
ND OF THE
M
ETIGEN
W
AR)

EARTH

S
EATTLE

A
LEX STARED AT THE ARRAY OF SCREENS
organized neatly above the low table. The whirlwind aftermath of the final battles against the Metigen fleet having at last subsided, it was surely time to go back to work.

She tried and failed to choose any particular screen on which to focus. Her vision blurred as her mind drifted….

Understand you are but a glint, a faint spark in the sea of stars of the true cosmos. Aurora was born but yesterday. Your species only moments ago.

Fifty-one lobbies. Fifty-one subordinate portals, mirrored fifty-one times over in an elaborate, interlocking tunnel network. Fifty-one universes.

We have explained to them that Aurora displays the potential to deliver the very answers we seek, but they are no longer listening.

What answers? To what questions?

We cast you adrift to do as you will, with this one warning: do not come looking for us.

But what were the Metigens
doing
? What purpose drove their universe-tinkering games? She had believed they went to war to preserve the secret of their existence, but what further revelations remained shrouded, hidden beyond those portals?

“The Messier 71 job could be interesting, due to the globular cluster’s hybrid profile and abnormally high metal content.”

Valkyrie’s unsolicited input jolted her out of her reverie. She blinked and tried again to concentrate, dropping her elbows to her knees and leaning in closer on the off chance it might help.

Or boring.

“So the Advent contract pays well, but a week sampling asteroids is hardly what I’d call a good time—if that’s our first job together you’re liable to bolt back to Division before the credits clear the bank. Zwicky Research wants detailed, on-scene readings of the impending supernova WR 102f in the Quintuplet Cluster.” She accessed Valkyrie’s astronomical databanks.

—current core 72-80
^M

—indicators of secondary core collapse

—detection of rising levels of Ni
₅₆
beginning 2322.1215

“But it’s liable to erupt any
day
now. Even I’m not that crazy. There’s two planetary scouting jobs, one in NGC 3603 and one in Messier 71, and an initial spectrum survey of two sectors way out in Palomar 1.”

A sigh made its way past pursed lips. “What do you think? 3603? I mean, we have to do something, right?”

Her inquiry was met with silence. She gave him a few more seconds then looked over her shoulder.

Caleb stood behind her, as he had for several minutes now. His hands rested on the top of the couch, and he swayed idly back and forth. His gaze appeared to be targeted at the screens displaying her current job offers, but it held no greater focus than hers had a minute ago.

“Caleb? Thoughts?”

He smiled a bit sheepishly. “Sorry. Well…are you sure you don’t want to risk the supernova? It could be quite the show.”

She peered up at him curiously. His eyes were bright and dancing about. The corners of his mouth were twitching erratically. The corded muscles of his arms flexed beneath rolled-up sleeves as he continued absently fidgeting behind the couch.

“You’re going completely stir-crazy, aren’t you?”

He sucked his lower lip in to chew on it. “Are you telling me you’re not?”

She held his gaze stoically for a beat, then groaned and crossed her arms atop the back of the couch. “I’m about to
crawl out of my skin
.”

He leaned down to tease the tip of his nose against hers. “Want to go climb a mountain and jump off of it?”

“Yes, I do.”