Laura Jo Phillips (22 page)

“
Aisling
means dream,” she said.  “Interesting coincidence isn’t it?”

“Maybe,” Olaf said with a smile.  “Maybe it’s not a coincidence.  Maybe it’s fate.  By the way, may we know your last name?”

“Ametsa,” Aisling replied with a grin. 

“In our ancient tongue,
Ametsa
means
dream
,” Olaf said.

“I know it means
dream
,” Aisling replied.  “But I didn’t know it was your ancient tongue.  My father told me it meant
dream
, which is why they named me
Aisling
.  He said that I was his dream, and mother’s dream, so they thought two names meaning
dream
was appropriate.”

“It seems you are the answer to many dreams,” Rand said.

“Will you forgive us again, Aisling?” Olaf asked.  “We promise, we will never turn from you again.”

Aisling opened her mouth to respond, then closed it when she got a strange feeling from Olaf that she didn’t understand.  After a moment she realized that he was holding something back.  She could not bring herself to ask what it was, so she just continued to stare at him, waiting. 

Olaf sighed.  One could not lie, or even withhold something important from one’s Arima.  Even if she was not their Arima, she was close enough to it that she sensed his feelings, and his reluctance.

“We meant to tell you this earlier this evening, before the Falcorans arrived,” Olaf said.  “I hesitate to tell you now as I fear it is something you will be unhappy about, and you’ve had enough unhappiness this day.” 

“Just tell me, please,” Aisling insisted gently.

“When Clan Jasani reach the age of maturity, which for gryphons is about eighty to ninety years, we lose both the ability and the urge to have sex.”

Aisling was so shocked she didn’t know how to react.  This was the last thing she had expected him to say.  “How is it that you have children then?”

“When we find our Arima, and our mating fangs descend, the urge to mate returns to us,” Olaf explained.  “If we choose to mate with a human female who is not our Arima, we must drink the potion to artificially stimulate our mating fangs.  Then we are able to have sex with that one chosen woman, and her alone.”

“I see,” Aisling said, not sure she really saw at all, but knowing that Olaf was being honest.  “So you have no sexual urges at all?”

“Oh, we have intense urges for you, Aisling,” Olaf said.  “We do not, unfortunately, have the ability to satisfy them at this time.”

Aisling smiled.  That they at least wanted her meant a lot.  “I need to know if you plan to do that potion thing with me.”

Olaf, Rand, and Rudy rose to their feet, all of them looking at her with solemn expressions.

“We would ask you, formally, if you will do us the honor of becoming our mate,” Olaf said.  “If you agree, we promise to cherish and protect you every moment of every day throughout eternity, both on this plane of the living, and all planes beyond.”

Aisling swallowed hard, wanting more than anything to leap up and throw her arms around Olaf’s neck.  But as they had been honest with her, she had to be honest with them.

“I want to say yes, but there is something I have to do first,” she said. 

“What things?” Olaf said. 

“I have to go to Rathira,” she replied. 

“Why must you go to Rathira?”

“I got a message this morning from Jessi,” Aisling said.  “She has solid information that Urwin is planning to go to Rathira.  This morning, after you asked me to be your mate, I thought that I could just ignore that situation.  But now I know that I can’t do that.  I have to finish that business before I can move on with my life.”

Olaf sat back down in the seat across from her, Rand took the seat beside her and Rudy took the seat next to Olaf.  “We agree, Aisling, that this is a matter that must be dealt with,” Olaf said, surprising her.  She’d expected an argument.  “Do you have any idea what he’s doing there?”

“I’ve been chasing this man for years, and I grew up knowing him as my Uncle.  I don’t need anyone to tell me what’s up to.  I already know.”

“Will you share with us?” Olaf asked.

“Urwin is a man who takes the path of least resistance,” Aisling said.  “Simply put, he’s lazy.  If something works once, he sees no reason that it won’t work again.  When he’d gambled away the money he stole from me, the first thing he did was come back to me for more.  When that didn’t work he decided to repeat what he’d done before.”

“Please don’t tell me someone else trusted him to be their child’s guardian,” Rand said with a grimace.

“Not exactly, no,” Aisling replied.  “He realized that wasn’t going to happen, so he made a small change.  Rather than become a legal guardian to a child, he kidnapped a young Terien woman who had just turned eighteen, and forced her to marry him.  That gave him legal access to her money according to Terien law, and effectively cleared him of any wrong doing since the woman he kidnapped was his wife by the time he was caught.”

“Disgusting,” Olaf growled softly.

“Yes, it is,” Aisling said.  “The only flaw in his plan was that Terien law does not allow divorce.  So when he tried to repeat his plan with another woman a year later, he couldn’t.  He was charged with kidnapping that time, but he managed to escape before they could catch him.”

“What happened to the woman that he married?” Rudy asked. 

“Teriens are very traditional people,” Aisling said softly.  “She was married without the consent of her family.  That it was not her fault counted for a little, but not much.  The real problem was that the man, Urwin, was a despicable criminal with no honor, who left her the moment he had her money in his pocket.  That was a shame she could not live with.”

“She took her own life?” Rand asked.

“Yes,” Aisling said, saddened as she always was by the memory of that girl. 

“What happened to the second girl he kidnapped?” Rudy asked.

“Her family disowned her,” Aisling said. 

“For being kidnapped?” Rudy asked, outraged.  “She was a child!”

“Yes, she was a child,” Aisling agreed.  “A child that Urwin raped, thinking that if he was caught before he was able to marry her, her family would force her to marry him anyway.”

“Would they have?” Olaf asked.

“Yes,” Aisling replied.  “We are talking about people who have very strong beliefs and traditions.  To give her family credit, they didn’t want to disown her.  They knew she had done nothing of her own will, that she was a victim.  But the culture they lived in did not offer them a choice.  They could not pretend that their daughter was pure.  And if she wasn’t pure, she could never, ever be married.  So long as she lived in her family home, her younger sisters could not hope to find husbands.  So they sent her away to live alone in the country.  They sent her money and food, but she was alone.”

“You found her, didn’t you?” Rand asked.

“Yes,” Aisling admitted.  “I’d studied self-defense and weapons for a couple of years by the time I started trying to track Urwin down.  If I had waited any longer, it would have been too late for her.”

“What did you do?”

“I took her home with me,” Aisling replied. 

“Ah, Jessi, right?” Olaf guessed.

“Yes, Jessi.”

“She has recovered from her trauma?” Rand asked.

“Yes, in a sense.  She is determined that she will never marry because, in her culture, she is not worthy of marriage.  That is part of who she is, and though it makes me sad, I cannot change it.  She wants to stop Urwin from destroying any more lives, as I do, so she helps me as much as she can.  But it is not her life, as it has become mine, which is as it should be.  She just graduated from medical school, and plans to return to Teira to practice.”

“You paid for her education, didn’t you?” Rand asked.

Aisling shrugged, and dropped her eyes.

“You are a good and honorable woman,” Olaf said.  “We are most lucky to have your love.”

“I was able to save only one woman,” Aisling said sadly.  “There were more.”

“Tell us, please,” Rand urged her gently, sensing that she needed to tell this far more than they needed to hear it.

“After I found Jessi, I let it be known that I would pay a substantial reward to anyone who gave me valid information on his whereabouts, no questions asked,” Aisling continued.  “About eighteen months later I got my first good hit from that.  Urwin had gone to another world and repeated the same thing he’d done on Teira.  The laws were different of course, as were the customs, but he walked away with another pocketful of cash and left a young woman behind with a shattered life and an empty bank account.”

“How many times has he done this?” Rand asked.

“Not counting Jessi, five times that I know of for sure, for a total of about twenty million credits.  I’m always just a fraction too late to catch him.” 

“That’s a lot of money,” Rudy said with a soft whistle.  “Does he always gamble it all away?”

“As far as I can tell yes, he does,” Aisling replied.

“You said that this world, Rathira, is three weeks from Jasan,” Olaf said.  “Isn’t it likely that he will be finished and gone by the time you get there?”

“Not this time,” Aisling said.  “According to the informant, Urwin was on Tartega, making plans to go to Rathira.  He’d just purchased an old Marlden Class 3 yacht, and had put out the word that he was looking for help with an upcoming job on Rathira.  The informant also said that he was awaiting a shipment of speeders.”

“How old is this information?” Olaf asked.

“It’s impossible to be sure but my best guess, given transmission times, is about seven days,” Aisling replied. 

“Do you know how far from Rathira he is?”

“Ten days on a space transport, minimum,” Aisling replied.  “But since Rathira is a Class D planet, there are no space transports that go there.”

“Ten days on a space transport generally means two to three weeks on a yacht,” Rand said.  “However, a Marlden Class 3 is very slow going.  Even factory new it was much slower than the newer yachts.  It will probably take at least five weeks, maybe more.  The only problem is we have no idea when he plans to leave Tartega, or even if he already has.”

“I’ve never had an opportunity like this with Urwin before,” Aisling said.  “It’s impossible to guess what world he might choose, what girl he might abduct.  This time, he’s actually planning something, and from the sound of it, it’s something big.  Big enough that he’s involving other people for the first time.  Big enough that he’s actually held back enough cash from his gambling to put this plan into motion.”

“If we assume it will take him five weeks to get there, and if we assume he’s just left, we still have four weeks,” Rudy said.

“You want to get there before him, don’t you?” Olaf asked.

“If I can, yes,” Aisling replied.  “It’ll be tight though.  Like I said, Rathira is a Class D planet, so there is no liner service to it.  I’ll have to get as close as I can, then try to rent or purchase a yacht from there.”

“You intend to go after him without having your injury corrected,” Rand said.  “That’s putting yourself at a distinct disadvantage.”

“I know, but I don’t have time,” Aisling said.  “I’ve spent all of my adult life trying to catch this man, and this is the best chance I’ve ever had to succeed.  I can’t let it pass me by.  Aside from trying to stop him from destroying more lives, he has my father’s data.  This may be my only real chance to get that back from him.  If he still has it.”

Aisling fell silent and waited for the Gryphons’ reaction.  She hoped that they didn’t try to talk her out of going after Urwin.  If they did, it would make her unbearably sad as it would mean that they didn’t understand her at all. 

“Even though we spend a good deal of our time working behind desks, we would have you know that we are, in fact, seasoned warriors.  We have not spent all of our years working with numbers.  Given that knowledge, we ask that you allow us to assist you in your quest to bring the murderer of your parents to justice, and retrieve your father’s life’s work,” Olaf said.

Aisling blinked, surprised, touched, and more than a little relieved by their acceptance.

“Thank you,” she said.  “I would love your help.”

 “We understand and agree that this chance cannot be ignored,” Olaf said.  “But I think we can do it a bit differently than you had in mind, if you don’t mind a suggestion or two.”

“Not at all,” Aisling said eagerly.  She was not adverse to anything that might give her an edge against Urwin.  She didn’t care how he was caught, or even who did the catching.  She just wanted him stopped.

“I suggest that we ask the Bearens if we might borrow the Kontuan,” Olaf said.  “It’s the fastest ship on Jasan at this time.  It will easily get us to this planet in three weeks, probably less.  I would also ask Doc to perform the correction to your back before we leave.  We could then place you in a healing tank on board the Kontuan and you can complete your healing during the journey.”

“That would be great,” Aisling said.  “Do you think the Bearens will agree?”

“Yes, of course,” Olaf replied.  “If not, we will use another ship, but I do not think they will refuse us.  The only issue would be if someone else is currently using the Kontuan.”