“Not lost exactly, but it did take some time to fold space for such a large vessel,” Commander Terex acknowledged. “You must have been calling when we were in the fold.”
“Well, you got here just in time. Well…almost just in time,” Torri amended, thinking of the ruined Capital Building.
“Yes, I see that the Scourge had already destroyed one of your seats of government,” Commander Terex said soberly. “I am very sorry we weren’t able to stop that tragedy before it occurred.” He turned to Vic. “VIC Unit, I need you to come to the Mother Ship to discuss how best to approach the remaining leaders of this world. You have been gathering information on them for months—your input will be valuable.”
“I will come at once,” Vic promised.
“Good.” Commander Terex looked at Torri. “Will you come as well? I need some human perspective on this matter before I meet with your heads of state.”
Torri smiled tentatively.
“Well…I don’t know if I’m the best person to advise you on world politics, but I can at least give you my opinion as a human.”
“Thank you. That will be most helpful.” Commander Terex. “Well then, I’ll see the two of you shortly.”
And the view screen went blank.
Fifty-Four
The Mother Ship was the most amazing place Torri had ever seen. It had room for millions of people and a vast, park-like area in its center, lined with restaurants and shops and theaters. Really, it was like a huge, self-contained city.
But in the vast, gleaming structure that was still hovering protectively over the Capital, she couldn’t help noticing that there were way more men than women. No wonder the Kindred needed to call brides from Earth! She just hoped she could help make that happen.
She and Vic spent time explaining Earth and its problems—many of which the Kindred had solutions for—to the Kindred High Council. Torri even got to give them all a sample of Nana’s cinnamon apples, which were universally acclaimed.
But during the entire process, she couldn’t help worrying that very soon Vic’s commanding officer would decide that he had provided all the information the Kindred needed and that it was time for him to go back into stasis.
All too soon, that time came. It happened just as Commander Terex was arranging a meeting with Earth’s first World Council, which had been hastily assembled after the Scourge’s attack. World Leaders from every country on Earth were coming to the Mother Ship to hammer out a deal with the Kindred—protection from the Scourge and medical technology in return for the right for Kindred warriors to call brides from among the people of Earth.
“It’s going to be a kind of draft system,” Commander Terex explained to Torri, when he was running the idea by her.
He had asked her to come alone to his office to talk about the upcoming meeting—he wanted a human woman’s perspective, he said, to be certain it was acceptable to human females.
“Females of all different countries will sign up for the Bride Draft—as long as they are not already mated, of course. Then, if a female starts Dream Sharing with one of our warriors and is called as a Kindred bride, she will have to spend one solar month here aboard the Mother Ship while they have their Claiming Period to see if they are compatible,” Terex explained.
“I think it sounds fair. But what if a woman who’s already married, er, mated, starts Dream Sharing with a Kindred warrior? The way I started Dream Sharing with Vic?” Torri added pointedly.
Terex frowned.
“That would be a problem I hope we don’t often encounter. Most of the time the Goddess won’t match a female who is already in a committed relationship with another male—it goes against everything the Kindred believe in to break up a mating.”
“What if the husband in question had his wife committed to a mental asylum and intended to keep her there the rest of her life while he stole her inheritance and spent it with his mistress?” Torri asked tartly.
Commander Terex’s blue eyes widened in surprise.
“Forgive me, but is that what happened to you? I know that VIC Unit…er Vic told me the two of you met in a place for people deemed not mentally stable.”
“I was there because of my dreams of the Scourge,” Torri said. “Which have completely disappeared, now that they actually came to Earth,” she added. “And Vic was there because they thought he was trying to assassinate the President. But yes, that’s where we met.” She sighed. “It was after we escaped and stopped by my house to get some clothes that I heard my husband and his mistress talking about their plans. Apparently my grandmother, who died recently, left me a large sum of money. My husband used my visions of the Scourge invasion as an excuse to commit me to a mental hospital so he could take the money for himself and his mistress.”
Terex frowned.
“Mistress is…an unfamiliar term for me, at least in this context. You don’t mean it in a Yonnie Six way, I take it?”
“I don’t know what Yonnie Six is,” Torri said, frowning. “’Mistress’ means another woman that a man has an affair with outside of his marriage. At least here on Earth,” she added.
Terex shook his head.
“VIC Unit told me something about the human ability to leave one mate and take another at will, but it still seems strange and wrong to me. How could a male leave a female he was already mated to—bonded to—and seek out another mate?”
“It happens all the time here on Earth,” Torri said dryly. “Maybe because we humans don’t ‘bond’ like you Kindred apparently do—although I still don’t quite understand what that means, though Vic has talked about it some.”
“When a Kindred takes a bride, they form a soul-bond—a mental and emotional connection that allows them to hear each other’s thoughts and feel each other’s emotions,” Terex explained. “It is a sacred thing—a union not to be desecrated or disrespected in any way and it cannot be broken except by death. But it sounds to me like your mate—your husband—abandoned your union and betrayed you in a way no Kindred ever would or could.”
“He did—and I found out he had been for a while,” Torri said grimly. “From what Vic and I overheard, he’d been cheating on me for years.”
“Who is this male, anyway?” Terex sounded indignant. “I hope he was publicly exposed for what he tried to do to you. No male should disrespect and hurt a female in such a terrible way!”
“Well, I’m afraid Chuck is still on the loose,” Torri said dryly. “He’s probably not far from us right now—he works in the DOJ, you know—the Department of Justice,” she added, when he frowned in confusion. “And his mistress, Amanda, is also his secretary, so they’re probably both there.”
“You should confront him.” Terex still sounded upset on her behalf.
Torri gave a jagged little laugh.
“Are you kidding? I don’t dare go back down to Earth at all—I’m still a wanted fugitive, since Vic and I ran away from St. Elizabeth’s and Vic killed an orderly who was…” She swallowed hard. “Was trying to attack me on our way out.”