“Sir, your ward is leaving Alliance Planet Two with Val the Outcast. Should we pursue and retrieve her?”
“Did he abduct her?”
“No. She husband stole him, and Val has legally transferred everything including his flagship, the Song, and his home, One, on Reima Two into her name for the next two weeks.”
“You’re absolutely sure of this?” Jei asked. “Someone heard her speak the ancient words for husband stealing? The Marriage Pause bracelets were exchanged publicly?”
“Yes. She and Tamsin were at the religious festival on Lake Lavia when she initiated the husband stealing. Her guards were the ones who reported it.”
Jei was torn. If he sent Tuk after them in the Kzi, he would need to be there or else he would be treating her without respect. He didn’t care about using the ship for his own personal use, it was breaking the rules, but no one would think anything about it as Reima Two was just outside Imperial territory, not more than a day at high speeds. However, there may never be another opportunity to bring Jane back and not face a trial for breaking the law either. Of course, there was always the religious laws, but they were more lenient with spiritual matters. Jei considered all his options and then resigned himself to a choice. Then he thought, Well played Val.
“Sir?” Tuk asked wanting to know how to proceed.
“Have my representative from the High Council let the Ward know she risks being an Outcast for leaving. That is all. Jei out,” he ended the RVM and hoped that he was choosing the right human woman to save.
Dru and Jesse were alone in her private medical rooms. Jane’s lifeless body lay nearby on a medical bed.
Jesse could feel nothing from Jane’s body even though she and Dru had brought the physical body itself back countless times.
“I don’t like the Alliance gods,” Jesse said randomly.
“You’ve always been afraid of new things and the unknown,” Dru replied. She was anxious about bringing Jane back and hoped that she hadn’t made a mistake sending Jesse to help Babette and Mir to accomplish her own goals. She felt as if she was cheating by accepting Mir’s help.
Jesse ignored her sister’s comment.
“I’m surprised you’re not returning to Earth after this is finished,” Dru said.
“Maybe now I’m going to surprise you and say that I do want something different. I married Kol didn’t I? He’s different,” Jesse replied. “He’s an alien. You can’t get much more different than that, can you?”
“Octopod?” Dru suggested.
Jesse smiled. She liked it when her sister wasn’t scheming and when she was away from Ket.
Dru continued, “You could’ve married a better man, though. A man to have powerful children with. Your children may have no gifts at all with Kol as their father. It’s such a waste.” Dru wanted to suggest harvesting some of her sister’s eggs to combine them with a formidable doctor in the Empire, but she knew her sister would never agree to that unless she had to. Dru knew their life on Hogo would be difficult and they would be poor, so she figured she could wait for her sister to come to her and ask for help and that would be her price.
“Yes, but my hypothetical children may be better at counting money than I am, that’s a gift too,” Jesse couldn’t help but joke, even with Dru. She was on the verge of getting out of the Empire and being with Kol forever.
“I wonder sometimes how we are sisters. Your expectations in life have always been so low,” Dru commented. “You’ve never wanted much.”
“And you’ve always wanted too much. Now you have it, too much. How does it feel? Did the means justify the end?”
“Shut up,” Dru said, knowing that Jesse was referring to the rape as she left the Exterior and then her making a deal with the goddess of home.
“Why didn’t you ask me to help you leave the Exterior?” Jesse said, sympathetically.
Dru said nothing.
Jesse continued, “I looked for you for days. I found your emotional trail. I saw your innocence stripped away in the terrible feelings you left there. No doubt they are still playing out today, repeatedly. Your ill-fated walk up to the guards shack.”
“Mother would have suspected if I would’ve said anything,” Dru said quietly and then after a moment. “Thank you for looking for me and feeling sorry for me. You know that does mean something.”
“Just because we hate each other doesn’t mean we aren’t sisters,” Jesse replied. “It’s our right to want to hurt one another but not for strangers to do it.”
“I’m sorry that I left you to take my place,” Dru admitted.
“I wondered if you ever felt guilty about that?”
Dru looked into her sister’s green eyes, the same as hers questioningly.
“You never sent word back except that one message saying you were here,” Jesse explained.
“I didn’t have the words. I still don’t have the words. I hated my existence in the Exterior yet it’s what made me as strong as I am today. But nothing about Earth and my life there ever made sense to me. You always seemed more content with life there and Mother, oh gods and Mother.”
“I was never content with Mother. I just didn’t intentionally rile her up like you did. It’s as if you enjoyed the pain.”
“It was never intentional. There was an air about her,” Dru trailed off.
“I know,” Jesse agreed. Then she realized, as Dru also probably realized, that this would probably be the last time they spoke face-to-face for a long time, that is, if Jesse’s life played out as Kol fantasized that it would. As soon as this task of bringing Jane back was complete, Jesse was joining Kol on the Ora that was docked at Space Port One, “Do you think you will ever return to Earth?”
“No, there’s nothing there for me. The Empire is my true home. We are the Lost People, Jesse. Had we been born here we both would have been doctors for our skills.”
“About that, the Lost People thing,” Jesse began but then didn’t know how to explain what she had experienced with Babette. She realized that someone had put a block on her. She tried harder and then she accidently took out the power in the room, “Sorry.”
“Computer, restore power,” Dru snapped and then asked, “What are you doing? I thought you had this under control. Don’t take out the computers,” Zol had been working with Jesse to control herself enough not to disrupt certain technology when she used her extraordinary gifts. Zol had compared it to teaching a child to use the toilet. Obviously, Jesse still had some way to go until she didn’t have any more accidents.
Jesse was annoyed with Dru and their heart-to-heart was over, “I wasn’t doing anything. When are the others going to get here?”
“Anytime now,” Dru said evenly, “It’s not as if they are all going to walk into together as if it’s a party or something. Remember this is supposed to be secret until we actually manage to bring her back. If we fail, we will all be punished by the High Council.” The only thing worse an Alliance doctor could do besides using medical technology to reanimate a person after death was to release a virus that would knowingly kill a person, group of people or an entire civilization. There was a reason that Alliance doctors were feared more than Imperial battleships throughout the galaxy.