The Alejandra Variations (17 page)

"You're mine!" a female voice cried. Nicholas could almost feel the tears behind it. "You're always mine and they'll never take you away from me! Never!"

The shark vaporized in an angry explosion that drew a cloak of sorrowful dark about him. Nicholas fell into a sudden and final peace.

The Third Variation

Chapter One

"H
ELLO
, N
ICHOLAS
," the woman said as she entered the room. Nicholas rose and shook her hand. Turquoise bracelets clicked at her wrist. "Melissa Salazar. I'm glad we could meet."

Somehow, he'd expected the head of Foresee to be a man, not an attractive fortyish woman. He liked her dark eyes. They were friendly and intelligent.

She sat behind her desk. "I've been looking over your application and your in-system trials.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Don't call me ma'am or you're fired," she said, smiling.

"I got the job?"

"You got the job." Melissa Salazar leaned back in her chair. Beyond the wide window behind her, Nick could see the Pacific Ocean and part of tranquil La Jolla as well.

"I'd like to know more about you, though," she said, leafing through the dossier on her lap. "In your own words. For example, this Kennedy thing. That's pretty impressive. It backs up, by the way, what Mnemos Eight tells us about you."

"I was eleven when it happened." Why was he so nervous? The woman was very congenial, acting almost like an older sister.

"Right," she said. "Nineteen sixty-two."

"I was home sick from school that day. I don't remember what I had, but I do remember that whenever I stayed home—sick or not—I'd always hang out in my room. I'd read comics or listen to the radio." He rubbed his hands nervously. Did she want to hear this? He went on. "Anyway, I was in my room when I got this really weird urge to turn on the television."

"An urge?"

"I almost never watched TV when I was sick. You know, game shows and stupid housewife-stuff."

"Yet, something told you to turn on the TV."

"I just got up, grabbed a couple of pillows, and sat down in front of the set. The pillows were the strange part. Something in me knew that I was going to be watching television for a while."

Melissa Salazar nodded, gazing at the profile papers.

Nick went on. "President Kennedy was on all three networks, telling us about the Cuban Blockade. I was really scared, Ms. Salazar."

"Melissa."

"Melissa. It was like I could feel the whole country being scared too, and it told me to turn on the TV. I still don't know what it was."

"Did you know how serious the missile crisis was?"

"Yes," he said.

Melissa cleared her throat. "The possibility of nuclear war is a big burden for a child to carry."

Nick was silent.

Melissa continued, "Tell me about the incident with the Russian bomber." Nicholas liked the tinny sounds her bracelets made when she went through the papers. The small sounds, the gestures of women…

"That was a few years later. I was spending the summer in Flagstaff at my Uncle Frank and Aunt Lorrie's house. One day when I finished chopping some firewood for them, I decided to take a short nap. I woke up when I heard a droning noise very high up."

"A droning noise?"

"Right. It was very weird."

Melissa smiled thinly.

"See, when I was a kid I used to build model airplanes. And there's only one kind of bomber that makes a sound like that. A B-36. I'd seen them before in real life. Big things. You know B-36s?"

"Yes," she smiled at him.

"Well, anyhow, I got up and looked in the sky for it, but I couldn't see it."

"What made you think it should've been there—aside from hearing its engines?"

"Well, Flagstaff is about forty miles to the north of a major cross-country flight path. You see contrails over that part of Arizona all the time."

"But no bomber."

"Then some numbers came to my mind: zero, seven, five, seven, four."

"And the word 'Bear' as well."

"Right."

Melissa pondered the papers, then she pulled up a computer sheet. "When did you guess it was related to the Russian coastal-reconnaissance flights?"

"I saw a picture in
Life
. It's sort of famous now. It shows a Russian holding up a Coke bottle in the fuselage window beneath the tail of a Bear reconnaissance bomber that two American jets were escorting away from the east coast. Those Bears sound almost exactly like the old B-36s, with their turbo-assisted prop-engines, which is what the B-36s had."

"And the serial number of the bomber was correct?"

"The numbers, yes," he said, remembering it well. "There was a symbol or word in Russian, but I didn't get it. But even now I can tell you where Bear bombers are. I can feel them." His voice was slow. He was staring out at the blue San Diego sky above the ocean. How he yearned to be out in those waves, sailing with Rhoanna. Maybe this new job will give me time, he thought.

"How old were you then?"

"Sixteen. It seems like yesterday, though."

"What about today?"

Nicholas looked searchingly into her eyes. "They're still out there," he said.

"Where?"

"Two hundred miles south southwest of San Diego. Fifty-five thousand feet. One bomber, close to Mach 1."

"You're sure of that?" She seemed as calm as a poker player.

"They're like flies to a piece of candy, Ms. Salazar," he said, leaning forward. "Our Seventh Fleet is on maneuvers in Hawaii. Those Bears are going to take some pictures."

Melissa Salazar smiled. She then did a few things with the computer at her desk. Within a few seconds a small line of data ran out in green formation across the computer's screen. She nodded to herself and switched it off.

"You're very good, Nick."

"And I got the job?"

"You got the job."

Chapter Two

"SAL," NICHOLAS CALLED out. "I smell flowers, Sal."

Somewhere inside, he knew that Melissa Salazar was not present to hear his words. But the flowers were there. Quince blossoms, marigolds, hydrangeas, phlox, lupine—all of a dozen colors and fragrances.

"Rhoanna," he breathed. Something in the flowers smelled of Rhoanna.

But she, too, was not there to hear him in his dreaming. A vision came to him of the hibiscus and the volley of snapdragons that grew outside their apartment in La Jolla. How he had loved those flowers! He saw her bending over them in her caftan bathrobe, nurturing them as if they were her children. Chrysanthemums, azaleas, camellias.…

The powerful aroma of a forest of flowers and vines came to him. Slowly, they roused him from his dreaming of them.

Awake. Not awake.
What was he?

He thought it curious that a sea of golden dandelions would be crushed beneath his mighty wheels as he rolled ever onward over a plain of green grass and delicate yellow flowers.

His wheels?
Rolling?

He opened his eyes—or tried to, but felt no movement of his eyelids. Yet an image formed before him: a world that encompassed him with the colors, the sounds, and the sensations of spring. The sky was an ocean azure, and pillowy cumulus clouds hung above like fleece shorn from Olympian sheep. The far-off hills bristled thick with woods, and at the base of those woods were gatherings of flowers and unfettered vines.

"Hello?" he called out searchingly.

He began exploring his sensations. He felt a sudden rush of helplessness—his flesh and bones weren't responding as flesh and bones. He was rolling. He stood upon wheels twice the height of a man, and he was moving across a wide valley. He could feel the tiny heads of dandelions going down beneath his wide, metal wheels.

He concentrated upon the rolling. The wheels.

He was inside something. A something that was alive—though made so by his own intelligence.

Moving his perceptions up from the wheels, he expanded his sensations to the widely spaced axles, then on up to the main body itself. It was an unfamiliar land craft. His body was long, broad, and very much like that of a crustacean, segmented and silver-plated. And he knew that he was heading, slowly, in a southerly direction through a valley that ran wild with columbine.

The shock of all this brought up a storm of conflicting emotions—the first of which was panic.

He'd been awake—if he could call it that—for about a week but only the influx of olfactory sensations from this particular meadow had brought him fully around.

He was outside!

Long had he slept in a dream of entrapment, the sort of dream that came from being contained somewhere for an incalculably long time. Images had been drifting across his preconscious mind for days: DefCon. The Bore's ceaseless tunneling. Lexie.…

But they seemed ages past. A calamity of cherry blossoms assailed his perceptions from all sides of his sturdy, trundling form. The dark, womblike world of DefCon began to recede from his awareness.

Where am I?
he screamed to himself.
What am I?

"Hello!" he cried out again.

Voices came to him. The voices of women.

"Hush!" one said quickly. "He's coming out! Oh, great day!"

"Inform the rest of the Clan! Oh, hurry!"

"Shhh!" returned the first, more authoritative, voice. "We must be gentle with him."

A bolt of energy snapped suddenly through his body. A warm, soft female hand had touched his check. His cheek?

The colossal moving sensation that had enveloped his body-consciousness came to a halt. The craft had stopped.

The warm hand felt familiar, and its gentleness brought back another memory: Something burrowing. Cockroaches the size of dogs.…

A girl's face drifted before him in the mists of memory, but fell back into the twilight world which had spawned it.

He opened his eyes—his
real
eyes.

"All praise to the Clans!" a woman in front of him said in a throaty voice. She clapped her hands, and grateful tears came to her eyes.

Nicholas tried to blink the illusion into focus. She was the most strikingly beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life. Her hair was pure spun gold, and her skin glowed with a rich bronze tan.

Like the women gathered behind her, she wore a regal-looking kilt or short toga with a simple gold necklace around her throat. Her hands were strong and capable, and her figure full and robust. It had been this woman's hand which had graced his cheek so gently.

She bent over the couch in which he lay as the tears continued to trail down her cheeks. "Thank all the gods," she whispered. "It's been so long.…"

Nicholas began to understand.

He was in something like a stasis couch; it was open, and a helmet of peculiar design cupped his head and the back of his neck. He blinked. He could still feel the large vehicle in which he moved, because the couch was tied into the computer, or unit, which propelled it along.

He was alive!

The golden woman touched him once again. There was an aura of ruggedness about her, though she appeared to be gentle. Confidence and strength added to her attractiveness. She was obviously the leader.

"Where am I?" he asked, or tried to.

In reply, she snapped her fingers and turned aside. Nicholas saw two servant girls rush over, bearing pitchers. Like their leader, they wore short kilts, and each was cast in bronze.

"Amazons," was the word that came to Nicholas's mind.

At the far end of the room stood a cluster of other women, all dressed similarly except for the addition of ribbons of various colors which probably denoted rank. They were of differing ages, but all were vigorous-looking.

Slowly, Nicholas sat up. The helmet was tight around his skull, but the pressure didn't bother him as much as his thirst. He took a goblet from the servant and downed it without considering that it might not be water.

Whatever it was, it quenched his thirst quickly, having the rejuvenating qualities of water—and something else besides. He felt the blood quicken in his tired body.

The servant withdrew, and the golden lady smiled at him. "I am Cesya."

She was quite close to him. Her breath smelled as fresh as a bouquet of flowers—flowers from the paradise beyond the windows of the craft in which he lay. Her eyes sparkled with golden flecks, and the tears she'd shed upon his awakening were gone. Her smile was like the sun rising to a new day.

"I…" He hesitated, finding his voice. "My name's—"

She touched him on the arm. Nothing must be rushed, the gesture seemed to say. There was plenty of time.

"You are Tejada," she said proudly. "You are in the Clantram Tejada, and you have brought us"—she paused and held her breath for an instant, briefly closing her eyes—"you have brought
me
great happiness by your awakening."

"Clantram
what
?"

His name had tripped off her tongue as if she'd known Spanish inflections all her life. But it was the descriptive adjective which bothered him.
Clantram
Tejada.

With the woman's help, he carefully pulled off the bulky helmet, wires sliding from the skin of his temples and neck. He set it aside gently.

Cesya stood up. The suggestive form beneath her tunic sent arousing ripples throughout his own body as he gazed at her. "This is the Clantram Tejada, and we have been of your Clan since the beginning of time."

She spoke majestically, as if her words had been rehearsed and kept within her for the thirty-odd years of her life. Each word hung like a precious jewel full of value and meaning.