As Eva sliced plain bread and meat in the dark hours of the morning, she tried to dispel the image she’d seen in the mirror when she woke up.
She was still bald.
The scar looked worse. It hadn’t changed, but it looked worse. Depressed, her mouth tasting terrible, she had sneaked into the kitchen in the main house and found the only food she could stomach that wasn’t sweet.
The knife she used to cut meat for a sandwich was sharper than the pathetic little steak knife she’d kept hidden under her mattress at Hearst Castle. That had been a joke. There would have been nothing she could have achieved with that knife that wouldn’t have led to instant death. It wasn’t a weapon.
The kitchen knife she held now was better. The long smooth blade had been honed to a crisp sharpness. The wooden handle firm, the knife balanced, the steel heavy. She liked this knife.
She could use this knife.
She dragged the blade through the meat and it sliced cleanly, evenly.
“I apologize that I disturbed you,” she said without turning around when she heard footsteps shuffling from Visitor’s room.
“It’s okay,” he said, then he rushed to her. “You’ve cut yourself!”
Eva looked down. A long, thin line of red extended from the base of her palm almost all the way to her elbow. The hand that held the knife didn’t look like hers. She couldn’t understand what had happened.
She dropped the knife.
“I apologize,” she cried. “It must have slipped.”
Visitor snatched a towel from the counter and put it on Eva’s arm.
“Hold this.”
She did while he wet another towel in warm water. The cut didn’t hurt until he put the wet towel on it, then it stung a little.
“You will need to have it glued,” he said.
“No, it’s okay. It’s not deep.”
“It’ll leave a scar if it’s not glued.”
Others arrived soon, they fussed over her, and a doctor glued her skin, saying she wouldn’t need a bandage if she kept it clean. Visitor repeated several times that it had been an accident. She listened to their conversation carefully, but none of them called Visitor by his designation. The doctor called him ‘sir’ once or twice. Eva was disappointed that they hadn’t revealed his true designation.
She began telling herself that she’d cut herself on purpose just to get others to come over so she could learn who Visitor, her benefactor, really was.
Eva spent most of the rest of the day sleeping. Hrwang medicine was powerful, and whatever the doctor had given her knocked her out. She got up a couple of times when she was hungry. Her every foray into the kitchen was closely supervised by the short maid. All of her food was prepared for her, she wasn’t allowed anywhere near a knife, and she ate nothing but plain meat and plain bread, apples, and some of the chocolaty spread.
The fuss wasn’t necessary, Eva told herself. She hadn’t cut herself on purpose. The knife had been an accident. But the medicine left her mind foggy and it was easier to allow someone else to serve her.
The maid offered her a colored juice once, but it smelled spicy and Eva passed on it. She stuck to cold water.
In between visits to the kitchen, she slept all afternoon and evening, and as soon as night fell, she awoke and felt alert.
Eva turned on every light in her bedroom and paced to avoid thinking about everything that had happened to her. Her arm still stung a little. She eventually found her way to the window and stared out at the darkness, listening to the ocean sounds and desiring to lay on the beach. But not in the dark. She’d have to wait until morning.
She became aware of another presence.
An elderly soldier stood outside her window.
“Good evening, Lady,” he said courteously when she looked in his direction. She pulled away from the window and went back to her bed. Was she a prisoner again? She couldn’t tolerate being a prisoner. She couldn’t go through what she’d gone through before. She couldn’t sit in the dark, waiting, wondering if it would be Visitor who come to her or if it would be the other guard. The heavy set one who looked like a football player and came into her cell.
What if he waited for her now?
She needed a knife.
She opened the door and no one stopped her, so she made her way to the main house and went to the kitchen.
Another servant worked there. Not the short woman from earlier, but her kinswoman. The two looked similar.
“I’m hungry,” Eva said to provide a reason for her coming to the kitchen at such an odd hour.
The servant shrugged, not understanding Est, so Eva mimed eating. The servant nodded and pointed Eva toward the dining table. When Eva didn’t move, the servant put her hand on Eva’s arm and tugged her gently. She nodded and smiled, pulling Eva to the table. Eva gave in and went with her.
She wasn’t really hungry, but when the food was placed before her, she ate all of it.
After finishing, Eva decided she’d been hungry after all. She debated what to do next. Part of her wanted to go out onto the deck and listen to the ocean, but the dark oppressed and frightened her. She wished it were light already.
Another part of her wanted to smuggle a knife out of the kitchen, kill the guard outside her bedroom, and escape into the night. But then she’d have to go outside in the dark.
She shook her head in frustration.
She should just focus on getting a knife.
She stared at the crumbs on her empty plate and thought about knives. Kitchen knives were good, but combat knives were better.
She’d been trained to use a standard military knife, the Marine Ka-Bar fighting knife, but the Agency had also trained her to use other, more wicked, blades. Curved weapons designed for close quarters combat, blades serrated on one side designed for inflicting maximum damage, small throwing knives, although she’d never been good with them, and tiny folding knives that could be hidden almost anywhere.
She wanted one of those.
“Are you okay?” a friendly voice asked. Visitor’s hand rested gently on her shoulder, which she now realized had been shaking. She’d been crying.
She looked up at him and the pain in his eyes at seeing her overcame her. His arms went around her and she went into them, sobbing uncontrollably.
She awoke lying awkwardly in Visitor’s arms on one of the couches in the main room. She moved away from him immediately, he was the enemy, but as soon as she did, she missed his comfort.
Get a grip Gilliam, she warned herself. You’re losing it.
Visitor woke up also and immediately reached out to her, but she shook her head.
“I’m okay.”
I have to be okay, she thought. I have a mission. Turning into a puddle of goo again wasn’t going to do her any good. What was wrong with her, anyway?
Her thoughts accused her and blamed her and as soon as Visitor’s arms went back around her, she started crying again.
“In the morning, when it’s light, we’ll go somewhere,” he whispered to her when she finally calmed a little. “I think you’ll enjoy it. It’ll be a good distraction. For both of us. You’ll have to wear my sister’s swimsuit, though.”
Okay, she nodded but didn’t say anything. She’d burst into tears again if she had to talk.
“Your nightdress is starting to smell a little, though. You should change it.”
She jumped off the couch, embarrassed. She did smell. She’d been wearing the same thing for two days now. She hadn’t showered since she’d woken up in Visitor’s guest cabin.
“I apologize,” he quickly said. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“It’s okay. I should shower.”
She made a quick departure, running back to her cabin without noticing the body of the elderly soldier slumped in the corner against the privacy fence.
; The warm water cascading over Eva’s body refreshed her. It washed away her tears, her sweat, the sunscreen and aloe-like gel she’d put on, and all of the terrible memories. She found a razor and lathered soap on her legs and gently shaved them. Everything still looked flat, and she worried she’d cut herself again. She suddenly thought with surprise that they should have taken the razor away from her. That is, if they were worried she was going to cut herself again.
Had she done that on purpose?
She didn’t know.
The fuzz on her head prickled when she ran her hand over it, so she lathered it up also and began shaving blindly. She ran one finger along the side of the blade, making sure she didn’t cut into the scar on her scalp.
The skin on her head burned a little by the time she finished.
Feeling clean again, she rotated slowly in the shower, allowing the water to pound on her head, her face, her neck, her back, and her chest.
She told herself that when she was locked up, one of the things she’d missed the most was standing under a shower and now she was going to enjoy this for as long as there was warm water.
A muffled noise from the bedroom interrupted her.
She turned the water off and listened.
She heard nothing.
Visitor?
Had he come to check on her?
She resisted calling out to him.
She stepped out and grabbed her towel, drying off quietly while she continued to listen. She still heard nothing.
She felt safe behind the closed bathroom door. She was terrified to open it, as if she suspected someone were lurking in her bedroom, waiting for her. Ridiculous. She had just come over from the main house and hadn’t seen anyone. How would someone know to find her in her bedroom in the middle of the night and just at this moment?
The paranoid part of her mind wished she’d managed to smuggle a knife out of the kitchen.
She was tired. The cut on her arm ached. She looked at the long, thin, angry line, and she hoped it wouldn’t scar. How had she done something so stupid?
She put her hand up to the chest-high door handle.
Her hand shook.
Breathe, Eva. Bogeymen aren’t lurking behind every corner.
She opened the door.
The darkened bedroom on the other side warned her and she crouched immediately, dropping low and grabbing her towel with both hands, turning the soft, white cloth into a weapon.
A long dagger slashed at where her face had just been, and Eva brought the towel up on the blade, shielding herself from it and attempting to disarm her opponent.
The cloaked and hooded figure wielding the blade pulled back, but Eva twisted her towel over the dagger, turning her arm over her assailant’s arm to bind the weapon. She lashed a kick into her attacker’s stomach, keeping the dagger trapped in her towel.
Her attacker let go.
Eva let the dagger and her towel fall to the ground. She kicked out again into the darkness, connecting with flesh. She heard a grunt and a rush of feet. The door to her cabin slammed open.
She ran after her assailant. The figure fled through the open gate in the privacy fence and Eva followed onto the beach. A boxy, black Hrwang combat craft sat on the sand, near the edge of the water, with its entry hatch cycled open. Eva’s attacker dove through the hatch before she could catch up.
The vehicle vanished.
Eva stumbled into the spot that had been occupied by the craft, falling on the sand that still bore the impression of the weight that had just rested on it. She looked around herself helplessly, looked up at the sky, scanning it for any signs, but the craft was gone.
She screamed at the empty night.
Soldiers in black uniforms escorted Eva off the beach and back toward Visitor’s compound. At the gated section of the fence, another soldier handed her a large blanket. She’d forgotten that she’d been in the shower and now walked naked in the midst of several men. She wrapped the blanket around herself, conscious now of how the men had not stared at her, but had glanced as much as discreetly possible.
She pulled the blanket tighter.
“Are you hurt?” Visitor cried, rushing to her side when she stepped inside the fence. A soldier held a bright light while two more knelt in the corner between the fence and her cabin, just under her window where the elderly soldier had stood guard earlier in the evening. She watched them, suspecting who they worked on, and regretted the thoughts she’d had earlier about killing the man and escaping. He hadn’t been there to keep her in. He’d been there to watch over her, and her attacker must have dispatched him first before entering her cabin.
One of the kneeling soldiers stood and looked at Visitor, shaking his head.
Visitor put his arm around Eva and escorted her into the main house.
“Are you hurt?” he asked again.
“No, I’m fine. I apologize for your guard.”
Visitor bit his lower lip.
“I am so sorry,” he said. It was the first time Eva had heard an informal apology from a Hrwang, and it sounded much more sincere than “I apologize”.
“I am sorry also,” she told him.
His lip quivered.
Several soldiers remained at a respectful distance, but Eva knew the men would be distraught at having allowed an attack to occur on their watch. And at losing a comrade in arms. They weren’t about to allow another, although Eva wasn’t concerned that another attack would occur. Her assailant had fled and wouldn’t be back soon.
Visitor steered her to a bedroom door.
“My sister is away on urgent business. You can put on some of her clothes.”
“I can fetch my nightdress from my room,” Eva replied.
He shook his head.
“Investigators will be examining and analyzing every fleck of your room for hours.”
“Okay,” she said and reached through the doorway to turn the light on. Visitor noticed her hesitation.
“My soldiers have swept the entire house. It’s safe. Extra guards are posted everywhere.”
Eva nodded and went into the room.
She needed to get dressed. She hitched the blanket up around herself again.
She looked through dresser drawers until she found one containing underwear. It was all granny underwear, but Eva put it on anyway. She found something that looked like pajamas, a white shirt and pants made from a soft, fleece-like material and covered with the print of tiny creatures that resembled rabbits.
She couldn’t stay in the bedroom. Being alone felt like being trapped.
She came out of the bedroom and looked at a soldier. She wanted to ask him where Visitor was, but he pointed her toward the kitchen. She acknowledged him with a nod and he nodded back.
She found Visitor sitting at the dining room table, untouched food in front of him, with his head in his hands. He looked up at her when she entered and chuckled a little.
“Fuzzy bunnies. Those were my sister’s favorite when she was little.”
Eva sat.
“Well, not that specific pajama,” he continued. “One that fit her, of course. But I found that adult-sized pair in a market one day and bought them for her. I wonder if she ever wore them.”
“They’re comfortable,” Eva said.
He smiled, but his eyes remained sad.
“He was a dear, old man. The guard who was murdered. I’ve known him since I was a child.” Visitor stared down at the table as he spoke. “He was retired and lived in a cottage farther down the beach. He volunteered for the occasional guard shift. He told me it was for a change of pace in his life, plus he wanted to teach the younger guards their duty better. As soon as he learned there was an alien in the household, he volunteered to watch over you. He’d never seen an alien before.”
Visitor broke down a little, his eyes moist.
“I can’t believe he’s gone,” he said.
Eva reached out and put her hand on his arm. He buried his face in his hands a moment, wiped his eyes, and looked up at a soldier who walked in slowly, carrying a dagger in Eva’s towel.
Visitor nodded at him.
“Lady, is this the dagger that was used to attack you?” the soldier asked.
“I’m not sure. It was dark. But if you found it in my room wrapped in my towel, it must be.”
He held it up for her inspection. On the blade, near the hilt, a small emblem had been engraven. It was an oval with jagged edges, a belt of lightning encircling the middle.
“I’ve seen that symbol before,” Eva said. “What does it mean?”
Visitor looked at her solemnly.
“It’s my family’s crest,” he said.
Eva lay in First Sister’s bed until dawn, reliving the attack over and over again, unable to sleep.
She noted several things as she reviewed everything. First, her attacker had been small. Just a little shorter than her. He hadn’t been particularly skilled. The initial thrust had been direct, almost blind. The mask he wore to protect his face had also hindered his vision, and he had struck out without realizing Eva had already ducked. He relied more on surprise than skill to achieve his end. As soon as Eva had fought back, he’d fled, as if he wasn’t trained in fighting, and as if discovery of his identity would have been worse than not succeeding in his mission.
She got out of bed when she felt hungry. She hoped she could find something palatable for breakfast.
Visitor sat at the dining room table in the same spot he’d occupied when he’d persuaded her to go to bed.
“You couldn’t sleep either?” she asked.
He looked up, his hair disheveled and his eyes a little bloodshot.
“I apologize. Would you like something to eat?” he asked in reply.
“Maybe. Something bland.”
He nodded, stood, and went into the kitchen.
The long dagger lay in a plastic wrap on the table. A tablet lay next to it. It looked like Visitor had either been taking notes or reading someone else’s. He returned with a platter of the bland meat and plain bread. It wasn’t the breakfast Eva desired at that moment, but she didn’t feel like experimenting with any other Hrwang food.
She thanked him.
He watched her eat for a little while, but he clearly had something on his mind.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I can talk and eat at the same time. I expected an investigator to question me about what happened.”
He looked at her puzzled.
“I don’t understand.”
“Your soldiers. They will want me to answer questions.”
“Investigators still interview witnesses on your world?”
It was Eva’s turn to look puzzled.
“Yours don’t?”
“Our courts decided over a century ago that the testimony of witnesses was too unreliable. Forensic evidence is sufficient in every case. Is it not the same on your world?”
“I suppose our science is not as advanced as yours,” Eva replied. “We still question witnesses.”
He nodded.
“When you use long sentences, you mix up your word order sometimes,” he said. “It’s a little confusing at times.”
“I apologize,” Eva said quickly.
“No. It’s okay. You are learning Est admirably well. I’ve never used a sleep conditioner, but they appear to be effective.”
Eva nodded, a little afraid to speak now. She hated doing things wrong.
“How did you disarm your opponent so easily?” he asked, referring to the tablet. “The report says that your attacker only stepped once toward where you crouched in the bathroom doorway. It concludes that you disarmed him after one thrust.”
“I’m trained,” Eva replied simply.
“There is one odd thing they noted. Your attacker had small feet. Did you get a good look at him?”
“No,” she replied, trying to determine the correct way to phrase her next response. Keep it simple. No compound sentences. “His face and head were covered. He was also short.”
Visitor nodded and pushed the tablet aside. He picked up the wrapped dagger.
“This was stolen from our family museum. It was the only weapon there. Someone gained access after it was closed and took this from a locked cabinet. They knew where the key was.”
“One of your soldiers?” Eva asked. The conclusions Visitor made suggested an inside job.
“I apologize, but if that had been their intent, one of them would have just shot you.”
Eva nodded. He was right.
But something didn’t make sense. Why use a museum piece?
Unless her attacker had access to no other weapon.
She decided to keep that to herself. That would make the attack on her a crime of passion. Not well thought out.
Who would do that?
“Thank you for wearing the swimsuit.”
Eva thought it looked ridiculous, but she’d put it on nonetheless.
It was more comfortable than she would have expected, the sleeves and legs made of a diaphanous fabric that allowed her skin to breathe, and she thought she might look good in it once she’d regained ten or fifteen pounds of muscle.
Visitor wore a similar swimsuit and Eva almost laughed. It looked more manly on him, but it reminded her of pictures of swimmers from the 1800s. Fashions come and go and return decades later, but she couldn’t imagine anyone from Earth wearing swimsuits like these ever again.
He offered her canvas deck shoes and the original servant Eva had met gave them a picnic basket and a large flask.
“Beer?” Eva asked, surprised a little that the Est word came to her when she thought of it, but Visitor shook his head.
“Just water.”
She nodded, a little disappointed. Getting drunk right now might help her cope.
As soon as they got onto the sand, Eva took her shoes off. She never asked him where they were going.
“My men are opposed to this,” Visitor said when they were a couple of hundred yards away from their house.
Eva nodded agreement. The tall condos in the distance could hold hundreds of snipers.
“There are dozens of guards tracking us, watching everything,” Visitor added. “It is one of the detriments to my position.”
She glanced up at the condos.
“They couldn’t stop men with guns from shooting from the windows.” She didn’t know the Est word for sniper.
Visitor laughed.
“We’re safer here than anywhere else. Those homes are filled with the wives and families of my soldiers. I think they watch out for me better than anyone else.” He couldn’t stop chuckling. “Please don’t have any concerns. What happened last night cannot be repeated.”
“How can you stop enemy vessels from just appearing, like that one that contained the person that killed your guard?”
“Any such craft would be attacked immediately. The one that was on the beach last night had authorization to be on the island. I apologize.”
Eva rounded on him.
“You know who did it?”
He shook his head, no.
“I apologize. Please. Don’t worry about it. Soldiers are investigating. There is nothing we can do. Please just enjoy this day.”
Why not? Eva thought. It beat sitting in a cell.
“Okay. I won’t talk about it again.”
“Today. You can bring it up tomorrow if you would like.”
Eva laughed.
They continued down the beach.
Her thoughts lost themselves in the sounds of the ocean, the steady waves crashing on the shore, the slight breeze coming off the water, and the sounds of
seagulls circling overhead.
Seagulls! She looked up and watched them for a while and they looked the same, at least from a distance, as the seagulls in California. Hrwang had seagulls. Amazed, Eva wondered what other animals were similar. And what were different.
If God had created people, humans, on both planets, and they were all the same, all the same on all the planets where people lived, were animals the same? Did nature, or evolution, dictate what sorts of animals lived on a planet?
She had questions about something other than her own predicament. It felt good to have those questions. It meant she cared about things beyond herself. It meant she wanted to know and wanted to learn. Being outside, by the ocean, made her feel almost human, almost whole, again.
She focused on tiny sensations: the cool sand under her toes as she walked, the smell of the salty breeze, and the occasional spray of water. She moved closer to the water, walking where the waves came up and splashed on her feet and receded, leaving firm, damp sand behind. She felt fifteen. Just moved to California, disappointed at her mother, fighting depression, but always happy to be at the beach, walking on the sand with her father.
She’d hated her parents for divorcing but appreciated the places her father had taken her, especially the beach. She recognized now how much he’d tried. Now he was probably dead and she couldn’t even tell him sorry.
Her eyes teared a little and she tried not to think about him. She watched the water, watched surprisingly Earth-like clumps of seaweed pushed around by the waves and watched the water foam white as those waves broke and fell away. If a big pier with a ferris wheel were nearby, she could have been on Santa Monica Beach.
It felt the same.
Visitor looked at her occasionally, but he walked quietly on, leaving her to her thoughts. She appreciated that. She didn’t know what he was doing, she wanted to know who he was, but those revelations could wait. He would tell her. Maybe. But she knew he was a good man. She could trust him.
Enjoy the beach, enjoy the water, enjoy whatever place he’s taking you to, she told herself. And stop thinking about the past. That holds no happiness, no answers.
Eva wiped tears from her face. She smiled at Visitor when he looked over at her, and he smiled back, almost in relief.
They still walked quietly together. She giggled when a large wave splashed around her, soaking her up to her knees and striking his feet, catching him off guard. He yelped.
She almost put her hand out to take his; she thought if he’d been her mark, she would have done just that. If she’d been trying to seduce him the way she had the Lord Admiral, that’s exactly what she would have done. So she kept her hand firmly by her side.
They eventually reached a tiny marina, just eight berths and only four of those occupied.
“We’re here,” he announced.
Eva raised a foot, wiped the sand off, and slipped a deck shoe on. She did the same with the other foot, then joined Visitor up on the wooden planking. It swayed with the waves.
“Have you ever sailed?” he asked.
“Just once,” she replied.
“That makes you an old salt,” he said, then grinned.
He led her to the largest boat at the tiny dock. It had only one mast and looked just big enough for four or five people. He stepped onto it and beckoned for her to follow. She tried to figure out how to say, “Permission to come aboard,” but the Est words weren’t in her vocabulary. He probably wouldn’t get the joke anyway.
She stepped onto the vessel.
He indicated where she could sit. He began the busy work of unmooring from the dock and firing the outboard motor. It was built into the hull, out of sight, and he operated controls from the back of boat. He left the sails furled.
Eva watched him, and as the boat pulled away from the marina, bobbing up and down with waves that lapped at its sides, the feeling of something being wrong, being alien, hit her and wouldn’t go away.
She had only been sailing once; it was a wealthy man’s sport. She’d never gone in California. It was nothing her father ever could have afforded and she’d only been invited once. The invitation had come from a rich, creepy sleezeball and she’d turned him down.
In college, a group of guys invited her and two of her roommates to go sailing on a three day weekend. It had been an all evening drive after classes on Friday, two cars caravanning to Norfolk, Virginia. They slept in their cars at the marina.
Early morning out to the dock and on to a large, two-masted, sleek yacht. Eva had wanted to help, but the guys weren’t in the mood to teach. She quickly realized the girls were along to wear bikinis and drink beer. One of the guys had even brought extra bikinis in case the girls hadn’t.
With such a large boat, once the sails were set there was little to do and the guys brought out all the food and beer and tried to flirt. Disgusted, Eva moved out to the front of the boat and watched the hull slicing through the water. What had she expected? That someone would teach her on a one day sail? It was an expensive boat and taking the girls along was a way for the boys to show off.
It had been a little fun. Although sleeping on the boat that night with a bunch of drunk college kids had been awkward.
She remembered a phrase: “Coming about.”
On the front of the boat there’d been a large sail, she couldn’t remember what it was called, with a long pole to hold it out. The main mast was designed the same way, and when the sails were shifted, someone yelled, “Coming about,” and everyone on deck had to duck.
A boom. They’d called it a boom.
Visitor’s ship didn’t have a boom.
She studied his sails now.
Two small poles came off the main mast, making a vee, and holding sails out on either side. He cranked a winch and the mast rotated, and both sails filled with wind. Since the vee poles were angled, no one had to duck. It didn’t seem as efficient, though. On her college trip, when both sails had been completely extended and there was a stiff breeze coming up the bay, they’d all been ordered to move to one side, even sitting up on the rail and hanging off it a little to balance the boat and get the most speed. It had been a rush for Eva. The tipped boat cruising in the wind, everyone cheering, water spraying them, the fear in her roommates’ eyes as they held on for dear life, and that had been the one moment she’d enjoyed the most.
Then the wind had died.
Visitor’s boat would never tip like that with its sail design. It appeared more suited for ease of use than for maximum speed.
At least it was nice to be out on the water.
They sailed along the coast, about a quarter of a mile from shore, and Visitor pointed out a few villas belonging to relatives.
“Your family must own half this island,” she said after he pointed out where his grandmother lived.
“All of it,” he said.
“All of it?” Eva exclaimed.
He nodded.
“We own the entire island. Our family vacations here, retires here, and our servants live, vacation, and retire here. They don’t own the homes where they live, but they don’t have to pay rent.”
“What?”
“It’s our island. We take care of our people. And they take care of us.”
Eva didn’t know what to say. She’d never heard of such a thing. The cost must have been staggering. But what a way to engender loyalty. You get to retire to a tropical paradise if you serve faithfully.
“So people work for you their entire lives?”
“Families work for us for generations.”
“Who are you?” Eva asked.
Visitor ignored the question. He moved forward to make an adjustment to the sails. When he returned, he sat right next to Eva.
“When we return to Capitol Island, I want you to be my adjutant. I’ve been thinking about it.“
?
??Why?”
“It’s the simplest way to provide you freedom of movement.”
“How? What does an adjutant do?”
“It’s a fairly loose designation. That’s what makes it great. My adjutants do whatever I need them to.”
“A ‘go for’.” Eva smiled.
“A what?”
“We call them ‘go fors’. In English it sounds like the name of a small rodent, so it’s a joke. But you tell them to ‘go for this’ and ‘go for that’. An adjutant sounds like a ‘go for’.”
Visitor shook his head.
“Aliens,” he said. “I don’t think I could ever get used to living among you.”
His words put up an instant wall between them and she understood a little how the Lord Admiral felt when she’d compared him to a human. She was a human, not an alien, although she recognized she was alien to this planet. But the Hrwang were the aliens, the strange people who never revealed their names, the evil people who attacked other worlds for no reason, the disgusting people who ruined their food with awful spices, and the friendly people who housed and protected and healed her after her ordeal in the prison.
Although the friendly one with her had also claimed credit for having placed her in prison in the first place.
She stood up and climbed to the upper deck. She held the rigging as she made her way forward, not even having to duck under the sails, and went to the front. There wasn’t a second sail there. She thought all sailboats on Earth, all ‘human’ sailboats, had an extra sail up there, but this alien boat didn’t.
She took her shoes off and placed them carefully on the deck in a recess so they wouldn’t slide off. She sat on the deck at the edge, moved her legs under a railing, and hung them over the side. She resisted the urge to look back at Visitor to see how he responded.
He left her alone for a while.
The spray cooled her legs and chilled her a little. She ignored it and watched the water without thinking.
Thinking hurt.
She’d lost too much.
She finally heard him join her.
“I apologize,” he said.
“Who’s driving the boat?” she asked, not looking at him.
“I turned us to out to sea. It won’t need to be steered for a long time.”
“What about running into other boats?”
“That would be unlikely.”
She turned to look at him now.
“Why?”
Visitor waved his arm along the empty horizon in front of them. He was right. There were no other boats around. Other than the three docked at the marina, Eva hadn’t seen anything out on the water.
Chesapeake Bay had been choked with boats in places and more than once, the college sailors had been required to switch to their motor because they couldn’t turn and adjust the sails fast enough to avoid collisions. At the time, she’d simply thought they were idiots. But sailing in that much traffic must have been challenging. Sailing on open water, like they did now, was child’s play. Visitor didn’t even need to steer.
“It’s okay,” he said. “We won’t go out far.”
“Why not?” Eva asked.
He looked at her, puzzled.
“We can’t leave sight of land,” he explained, sounding like he was talking to a child. “The ocean is vast and it’s easy to get lost. We must be able to see the island at all times.”
“Why?” Eva asked, surprised.
“There’s no AI on board. How would we know where to go?”
Est for the words ‘navigational equipment’ wouldn’t come to mind, so she talked around it.
“There are things that let you look at the sky, at the sun and the stars, that let you talk to things that fly in space, and they tell you where you are.”
He laughed.
“Ancient technology,” he said. “All navigation is performed by AIs.” He laughed again. “Being out on the ocean, out of sight of land and without an AI, would be like a horror movie. It would terrify people. Wait. Your people would make movies like that, wouldn’t they?”
As he said new words, like ‘technology’ and ‘navigation’, she understood them. She hadn’t realized until that moment how much she’d helped the Hrwang learn English just by being in their presence and speaking to them. Almost as if she’d been aiding and abetting the enemy.
She’d been on, and was still on, a fool’s errand.
“Or would they?” Visitor asked.
“I apologize,” she said. “What was the question?”
“Nothing. Just that your people would make a horror movie just to scare others, wouldn’t they?”
“Yes. They have always been popular with ‘my people’.” She’d almost said humans. “We tell scary stories to children to teach them there are bad things in the world and as we get older, we realize it’s fun to get a little scared when it’s safe. So we watch scary movies.”
He shook his head, but he didn’t say anything about her being alien.
“I have some friends who make movies. Maybe I’ll tell them about this idea and they can make a scary movie. I wonder if it would make any money.”
Eva shrugged and turned to look back out at the ocean. She didn’t care. Money meant nothing to her right now.
Visitor babbled for a while and she gathered that he was quite wealthy. Of course, his family owned a huge island, so that should have been a clue. But he never revealed anything concrete about them or about himself. He intentionally guarded his identity and Eva knew she’d never tease it out of him, so she didn’t try.
“I’m hungry,” she said, interrupting him, and he looked behind them, the spell of conversation finally broken.
“Oh! We need to turn around,” he cried.
She crawled out from under the railing and picked her shoes up. The deck was mostly dry, so she negotiated her way back barefoot. The island was just a tiny dot in the distance.
Frustrated with trying to turn them around and get the sail engaged properly to tack, Visitor turned the motor on. Eva suppressed a smirk.
“I apologize,” he said. He truly was terrified. He looked frantically past the sails, guiding the boat toward the tiny speck that was his family’s tropical paradise.
“You should have your friends make that movie,” she said after they were close enough to the island that Visitor had relaxed a little. The tiny dot on the horizon had grown large enough that it was clearly the island.
Only it didn’t look any closer to Eva. Everything looked flat on the horizon. She ignored the sensation.
“Where is the food you brought?” she asked.
Visitor went below the deck and brought up the picnic basket.
“First Over Kitchen Servant is the greatest cook,” he said, grinning.
Eva hoped there would be something unspiced for her in the basket and there was. Grateful, she ate the sandwich and the small salad that accompanied it.
“The water flask?” she asked after she’d finished eating.
Visitor pointed back below the deck. He was on his second sandwich, holding it in one hand with a glass of water in the other. She went down the steps and started to look inside when she heard a cry from behind her. Visitor dropped his glass and it clattered on the deck.
She looked up at him and he was pointing skyward. She looked up, following his arm and hand, and saw that a second sun had appeared in the heavens. She quickly looked around her.
She saw a thick, yellow vest.
She grabbed it without thinking why.
10