The Lawgivers: Gabriel (28 page)

On the contrary, he’d thought of little
else since their first night together but repeating the infraction
as often as he could manage it and she was willing.

He’d certainly worked to gain her
trust, he thought wryly, but his objective had been to get between
her legs—not to find out what he could about her people. That
hadn’t occurred to him as a possibility until later—but he wasn’t
about to tell them that.

Their excursion—well, excursions—had
created a problem he hadn’t anticipated, however.

He’d known that none of his people
would approve of a liaison between them and that included the
‘bleeding hearts’ he’d held in contempt who supposedly saw them as
higher intelligent life that needed only a helping hand to
‘recover’. What he hadn’t expected—or at least hadn’t really
believed—was that her own people would despise her for laying with
him and that worried him far more than the charges that had been
brought against him.

Regardless of what Lexa had said, he’d
convinced himself that it wasn’t her that they were shunning. They
simply wanted to give him a wide berth and since he made sure he
stayed close enough to her to convince them another attack would be
inadvisable, they avoided her.

Even he couldn’t convince himself that
it was purely imagination on Lexa’s part, though, after they’d
returned. There’d been condemnation to the degree of hate in the
expressions of every villager that looked at her, however
fleetingly.

He didn’t even know how it had come
about that absolutely everyone in camp knew they’d gone off
together that first night and had leapt instantly to the correct
assumption of what had transpired between them.

Had they both looked too well satisfied
for it to be anything else? Or had he been far more obvious than
he’d thought in his preoccupation with Lexa? Had he somehow given
away the fact that his interest went beyond his duty as peace
keeper?

On the other hand, he supposed the
assumption that his interest in Lexa was purely sexual might still
be better for her than the alternative. If her people shunned her,
now, because they thought he’d taken her off for sex when they
didn’t seem to have any particular social taboos regarding sex in
general, how might they react if they knew she’d led him to other
villages?

Would they see it as
betrayal?

It seemed possible, despite the fact
that he hadn’t heretofore seen any signs of unity among them,
because it was hard to ignore the fact that the humans appeared to
see all of the udai as enemies and he was certainly no
exception.

That thought made him far more uneasy
than he liked and made it all the more difficult to contain his
impatience with the proceedings.

His interest in Lexa might well have
made her a target for their frustrations rather than convincing
them to stay away from her as he’d thought it would.

“There are a number of reasons I
objected to the program,” Gah-re-al responded finally, deciding to
ignore the offer to save himself from any penalty by denying Lexa.
“First and foremost because it taxes our own resources with no
conclusive data that it will benefit our people in any way. I
understand the theory is that there would be less trouble with the
natives if they were lifted out of survival mode and taught how to
take care of themselves, but it will take decades before we can
even see if it’s effective—just as we’ve already spent decades
nurturing the flora and fauna in an effort to stabilize and improve
this world. And tampering with the natives is liable to undo all
the years spent trying to improve our own situation in regards to
air quality and renewable resources. They must crawl before they
can walk. The technology to preserve and protect the environment
could be generations away if they must develop it
themselves.”

“You were pretty vocal regarding your
contempt of the savages and your certainty that nothing would
civilize them or make them cease to be a problem short of
exterminating them.”

He hadn’t been that vocal about it,
damn it! It was true that he had said as much, but he’d done no
more than voiced his personal opinion … at that time. He hadn’t
made any attempt to influence the decision to save the natives and
rehabilitate them. He’d merely said that he thought it was a waste
of time and energy.

His experiences with them prior to
meeting Lexa had led to that conclusion and he still wasn’t
convinced that the majority could be saved or were worth saving.
Half were wolves and the other half sheep—dangerous predators or
weak prey that would fall to the next predator as soon as the udai
eliminated those of their own kind preying upon them.

With the exception of Lexa.

He’d seen signs, though, that none of
them had seen before when he’d taken Lexa in search of her
siblings. The little farm Lexa had described wasn’t a singular
occurrence—an evolutionary fluke. There had been others, enough to
make it impossible to ignore the fact that the humans weren’t as
backwards as they’d all thought, not as savage and undisciplined.
There was plenty of that going on but in the midst of it there were
also humans struggling to build against all odds.

“I still have my doubts the program
will succeed, but I had no vote in the decision and still don’t.
I’m a Lawgiver and satisfied to follow orders and allow others to
make the decisions—for good or evil.”

Justice Jon narrowed his eyes
speculatively. “So you wouldn’t hesitate if you were ordered to
exterminate them?”

Gah-re-al felt a cold finger inch its
way down his spine. A wave of nausea followed it. He maintained an
expression void of emotion with an effort. “Has that been
ordered?”

Justice Mer-laine sent Justice Jon a
furious glare. “It has not! And it will not! We are not savages! We
are a civilized people.” He paused for a long moment. “Since you
haven’t denied the charges of unlawful fraternization with a
native, Lawgiver Gah-re-al, you will be fined one hundred credits
and you are hereby ordered to have no further contact with the
female in question—or any others. I’m not certain I understand the
attraction you seem to have developed for the primitives, but we
certainly don’t want to risk cross-breeding with the natives and I
also have a concern that that sort of ‘interference’ could create
more problems than we want to deal with. Furthermore, you are a
Lawgiver and this gives rise to doubts regarding your ability to
remain impartial and objective when judging them. If we receive
similar reports in the future you will be removed as a
lawgiver.”

Whereas he could be impartial and
objective as long as he despised them and remained too aloof to
actually know them or understand them, Gah-re-al thought
sardonically? Instead of voicing his opinion, however, he merely
bowed at the judgment, keeping his expression carefully guarded as
he left the chambers, but he was furious.

By the time he left the building,
however, the rage had resolved itself into a queasiness in his gut.
The fine was steep—higher than he’d expected—but not the source of
his anger and frustration.

He was forbidden to see Lexa
again.

Chapter Fifteen

Lexa had been stunned and awed when
they had finally drawn close enough to see what had appeared to be
a solid mass of green in the distance. In a sense, it was solid.
Plants carpeted the earth, more plants than she’d ever seen
together in one place. There was so much green it made her
dizzy.

There were trees, as well, she
discovered as they descended from the sky, unlike anything she’d
ever seen, not scraggly stunted things barely taller than she was,
but trees many times taller than her whose branches, fanning out
like open arms, were so thickly covered in bright green leaves that
they captured the rays of the sun and cast deep shadows beneath
them.

It made her forget, for many moments,
the turmoil that had besieged her since the village.

Ralph had been among the dead, but that
hadn’t seemed to especially please Gabriel and it hadn’t relieved
her nearly as much as she’d thought it would. Mostly, she’d just
felt hollow, because his death didn’t undo the things he’d done and
she’d discovered so many more just like him in her wanderings that
she felt none of the freedom from fear that she’d thought she would
feel in knowing he could never touch her again.

She hadn’t seen any sign of her little
sister and brothers among the villagers and that had so distressed
her that it was a while before it sank in that there was far more
to the attitudes of the villagers toward her than a natural
distrust of strangers. And they were strangers. She saw none of the
faces she remembered from her time there. Few of Ralph’s men were
even familiar to her.

They merely stared at her blankly when
she questioned them about what had happened, however. It wasn’t
that they didn’t know. She could see from the flicker in their eyes
that they knew something, maybe everything, but they weren’t about
to tell her.

And it wasn’t from fear, not entirely
anyway.

It was because she’d arrived with
Gabriel. She knew that with sudden, blinding certainty when she
caught some of the glances they divided between her and
Gabriel.

That frightened her, enough that she
was relieved when Gabriel told her that he would take her back to
the others. She was too caught up in worrying over that
circumstance and her misery that they’d failed to find any of her
siblings to even think what returning her meant until she
discovered that Gabriel had left her.

She didn’t even know when he’d
left.

They’d landed near the edge of the
encampment and Gabriel had escorted her to the woman he called
Phil-a-shee. She didn’t know what had passed between them but their
conversation certainly hadn’t been cordial. Regardless of the even
tone of voice both used, their expressions were so far from
friendly Lexa had no doubt that it was a disagreement of some kind.
She just didn’t understand what it was about because she couldn’t
understand their language.

Phil-a-shee had finally turned her
attention to her, though. “Come with me,” she said
briskly.

Lexa glanced at Gabriel, but he seemed
distracted. Since he didn’t contradict Phil-a-shee’s order, though,
or try to interfere, she allowed the woman to escort her away. She
glanced back at Gabriel once. He was watching her, but he looked
away when she turned back, focusing his attention on the others in
the encampment.

Stumbling from her inattention to where
she was going, Lexa caught herself, and, embarrassed by her
clumsiness, she didn’t look for Gabriel again until Phil-a-shee
deposited her with a small group of people seated on the ground
around another udai. When she looked for him again, she discovered
he was gone.

Dismay that seemed to surpass any that
she’d ever known immediately enveloped her. She felt like she was
drowning in it. Her chest felt as if it would cave in and it was a
struggle even to draw breath. She thought if it wasn’t for that she
would’ve burst into tears. She could feel them gathering in her
eyes, could feel the painful need to expel her sorrow in racking
sobs.

Fortunately, the udai she’d been turned
over to distracted her before she could betray herself so
blatantly.

“You! What name are you called,
human?”

Lexa jumped, but it still took her a
moment to figure out that the udai man was speaking to her. Her
voice came out as a croak when she spoke. “Lexa.”

“Pay attention! I’m
instructing.”

She gaped at him for a moment and then
glanced around at the other people in the group. She discovered two
things at that moment that made listening nearly impossible—none of
the people in the group were familiar and every single one of them
was looking at her as if they hated her. It chilled her to her
bones.

* * * *

Lexa was relieved when the udai
finished ‘instructing’ and told everyone to get up and follow him …
until she discovered that Phil-a-shee had returned to collect her.
“You missed orientation,” she said sourly. “You’ll come with
me.”

Lexa had no idea what she meant by
orientation, but the way the woman looked at her when she said it
made it fairly clear that she knew why Lexa hadn’t been there and
what she was doing instead of ‘orientation’. She was too miserable
and too embarrassed and too uneasy to object, however.

She saw why none of the people in the
previous group had looked familiar to her when Phil-a-shee had left
her before, though. As they crossed the wide field, she saw another
group of people arriving. She thought at first that it was Gabriel
leading them and quickened her step, nearly outrunning Phil-a-shee
until they were close enough she discovered that the udai man
leading the new group wasn’t Gabriel.

“Gather around!” Phil-a-shee said
sharply, waving her arms at the people who’d just arrived. “Quiet!
Settle down!”

Everyone in the newly arrived group
gaped at her and then each other and finally sat down, staring at
the woman.

She smiled sourly, nodding her
approval, and went to stand beside the udai man Lexa had mistaken
for Gabriel—though she didn’t know, now, why she had. She knew
Gabriel had left for one thing and it wasn’t logical to think he
could’ve returned with more people in the space of time since she’d
seen he was gone. For another, once she got a closer look at the
man Phil-a-shee referred to as Lawgiver Raphael, she saw that he
looked nothing like Gabriel in the face and beyond that he was both
taller and broader than Gabriel.