“You’ve got to stop obsessing on the woman.”
“It’s a good story, and you know it. I’ll fuck whoever you want, but give it to me.”
“That’s my Mellanie. All right, I can spare you for a couple of days. If you can find out what she’s doing for the Burnellis I’ll be impressed. But if not, I want you back on Elan in forty-eight hours.”
“Thank you.” Mellanie kissed her, properly this time.
“All right,” Alessandra said eventually, chortling happily. “Campbell! Remember? Now go.”
Mellanie dropped her cocktail glass into the rosebushes, shook her tousled hair back, pushed her tits out, and started walking toward her target.
The engagement party was going well after all. Justine surveyed the guests as they drifted in for the evening buffet. A twenty-piece band had set up in front of the big fountain pool to play merry 1950s tunes. She could hear a lot of laughter amid the drone of conversation. Thick flower scents drifted on the fresh night air. Overhead, the constellations burned brightly. Down toward the beech wood, the Tolthorpe troupe was running through their final rehearsal with the stage techs.
Her mood had lifted considerably since her father and the Myo woman had left. She supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised at her father accepting conspiracy theories in his desperation to catch the murderer. It was just that he was always the ruthlessly logical one. Thompson’s murder must have shaken him up a lot more than he was admitting to.
In the morning, she would take the time and talk to him properly about the whole situation. In the meantime, however, there was still time to have a lot of fun. And there were several men on the guest list she’d be happy to spend the night with. When she started searching around she saw Campbell Sheldon. He had a blissful smile on his face as he chattered away to Mellanie Rescorai. The girl had obviously decided he was going to take her to bed. Justine rolled her eyes at the folly of the male psyche. Ah well, he was a big boy, he’d probably survive the experience.
Ramon DB was over by the marquee, giving the food a long guilty look. She smiled warmly. He’d been a tower of strength for her at Senate Hall, helping her through long difficult days. He was due for rejuvenation in another year. She’d miss him in the meantime; although when he was twenty he was so handsome.
She looked for Estella, who would be good uncomplicated company.
“You left this behind, ma’am.”
Justine turned to face the young waiter who was holding out a silver tray. There were no glasses on it, only a tatty, faded old sunhat.
“I don’t think I—” She stopped. Stared at the sunhat. Suddenly some strange force was squeezing her throat, making it difficult to breathe. That same force that was making incredulous tears sting her eyes as she looked up into the waiter’s face. “Oh. My. God. Kazimir! ” Her legs almost gave out, but she still managed to fling her arms around him. He was bigger. Older. With much broader shoulders. A dark handsome face with jet-black hair flopping down over his forehead. And he was as ecstatic as she.
“Every night I have dreamed of you, my angel,” he whispered into her ear as his hands stroked her hair. She clutched his back, almost tearing the waiter jacket fabric.
“Every night.” He was trembling now.
Justine tightened her grip on him.
“Every night I wanted you to be happy. I wanted you to love your beautiful life. Yet even wishing you all that, I wished I could see you for just one minute more.”
“Shush.” She slid a finger down over his lips, then kissed him. Tenderly at first, not believing this could be real. Then demanding, passionate, shaking in his embrace.
He pulled back, staring intently into her eyes. His smile of wonder was as bright as ever, brighter than her memory. “It is you,” she said exultantly. “Really you.”
“I had to come, my angel. Different worlds or different galaxies, I couldn’t be apart from you. I had to find a way. Forgive me.”
“Oh, Kazimir.” She knew she was going to cry and didn’t care. Her gorgeous, romantic, foolish lover had pursued her across the stars.
“Come with me,” she said softly, and pulled him imploringly, longingly toward the Tulip Mansion.
In the full dark of midnight, hologram projectors cloaked the open-air stage in broad strokes of primary color. Dry ice flooded spookily through the beech trees. Cleverly positioned force fields allowed Puck and the fairies to fly gracefully through the air. Soliloquies were declaimed with bravado and majesty, to be greeted with enthusiastic applause from the audience.
Justine neither heard nor saw any of the Tolthorpe troupe’s finest hour. In the darkness and peace of her bedroom, her own body was performing the most erotic, sensual acts she could physically achieve. She had forgotten what it was like to be adored so completely, so unselfishly. He was so much more responsive now, matching the pleasure she gave with ease, willing and eager to satisfy her. They could be gentle and slow with each other, moving in tender rhythm, or fierce, almost fighting to bring themselves to climax. It didn’t matter, both kinds of lovemaking were right for them. Time after time amid the silky shadows she watched his enraptured straining features soften into a smile of unbearable joy, only to lose herself in the same delirium. For once there were no chemicals or programs to help. This was real.
When the dawn cast its bland gray illumination into the bedroom she smiled at their bodies, still wrapped together, sweat mingling on their skin, faces inches apart, sharing perfect secret contentment.
“I love you,” he said fearfully.
“I love you.”
“I won’t let you go again.”
She smiled in admiration at the conviction in his voice. “What are you doing here on Earth?” She knew the answer she wanted, that it was for her and her alone.
“There was a chance that I could see you. How could I ever let that go by?”
“My wonderful love.” She put a finger on his thorax and slowly drew a line down his sternum, playfully following the ridges of hard muscle. His body was fabulous. How long would it have taken a boy born into low grav to build himself up to handle standard gravity? The effort he’d made, the determination. She was rather glad she’d kept up her own aerobics classes and maintenance diet, still slim and trim.
“It will be difficult to get away to see you, but I will manage it.”
Her finger stopped just as it reached his navel. Already, she knew this was going to be bad news. “Get away from whom?”
“The Guardians, of course. I’m here on a mission.”
“Oh, Christ.” She pushed at him, slithering herself over the sheets until she was an arm’s length away, and stared at him in dismay. Already his youthful sympathetic face had produced a puzzled expression.
“A mission,” she croaked. “You’re here on some kind of Guardian mission?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, Kazimir, no; no you can’t do that kind of thing here. This isn’t Far Away. You have to stop.”
“I cannot stop. This is our time. This is when the planet will have its revenge on the Starflyer. I’m a part of that, Justine. Bradley Johansson chose me.”
She wanted to put her head in her hands, or maybe belt some sense into him. “Kazimir, listen to me. We have a navy now, which has a branch dedicated to stopping Johansson. Hundreds of officers are working on the case. They will catch you. They will.”
His kindly smile was one that told her she simply didn’t understand. “They won’t. We’re perfectly safe.”
“Kazimir, this is not a game.”
“I am the one who has always known that. And now you have become a victim of the Starflyer, too. I wept when I heard its creature had murdered your brother. How cruel that fate: that of all the people in the Commonwealth, it hurt the only person I love.”
“No, God no, this isn’t happening. Kazimir, please, there is no Starflyer. My brother was killed by his rivals. It’s ugly, and brutal, and shocking, and it’s never happened in Commonwealth politics before. But it is not the fault of a secret alien.”
“Politicians are its creatures, too. They are the easiest of all humans to corrupt.”
“Listen to yourself. You’re just repeating student slogans. Johansson is an evil old man who’s using you, and all the other clans back on Far Away.”
“Justine, I’m sorry, but it is you who cannot see the truth in this.”
“I can’t believe we’re having this argument. You have to stop, Kazimir, just walk away. I’ll clear any problem with your involvement. God knows, you’ve been indoctrinated since birth. Nobody will blame you.”