Kamikaze by Jayel

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Kamikaze, Part 15
by Jayel

"Everybody all right?"

Danziger's voice broke the heavy silence at almost the same moment Cameron's emergency torch illuminated the sudden oppressive dark, and the Eden Project came to life around me. Morgan and Bess were hugging each other and crying with relief; Danziger was apparently checking True's limbs for injuries; Magus and Cameron were comparing notes on the brightness of the light and the intensity of the pain we'd felt. Yale's eyes were still closed, but his lips were moving in silent prayer. Alonzo and Baines were shaking hands as Wolman clapped them both on the back. Everyone seemed whole and happy and giddy with relief.

"Y'all make quite a family," Tara said, her voice reminding me I still held her hand.

"Yes," I agreed, smiling at her. She looked physically all right--no worse than before, anyway. Her violet-blue eyes were very bright, but not unnaturally so, and her hand felt no warmer than mine. "Are you all right?"

She let out a short, bitter laugh and muttered, "Oh, sure."

"Julia, Danziger, come quick," Uly interrupted, running in and blinking under the glare of Cameron's torch. "Mom's awake."

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Devon's body was still in a horrifying condition--the muscle entropy alone was enough to promise her at least another two weeks of bed rest and months of painful recovery after that. But she was alive and awake and seemingly herself again.

"I can't tell you how wonderful you all look," she said, smiling but weak, with Uly in the circle of her arm.

"That's too bad," Danziger teased from his station at the head of the bed. "Because you look just awful."

"No, she doesn't," True disagreed, kneeling by the bed on the side opposite Uly. "She's the most beautiful thing I ever saw."

Everyone laughed at this, more from relief, I think, than humor, and Devon leaned down and kissed the little girl's cheek. "Thank you, True," she said with a smile. "You don't know how much it means to me to hear you say that."

"Listen, Dev," Wolman began slowly. "Do you remember anything? About seeing Alonzo on the dream plane, or . . . being here with us for a while?"

"Vaguely," she admitted, and I saw her take hold of Uly's hand in a grip that would have been painful had she had the strength. "I remember getting sick, and talking to John . . . " Her voice trailed off for a moment, and he reached down and squeezed her slender shoulder. "And I remember that suddenly I knew what I had promised," she continued, looking at Alonzo. "When the Terrians took Ulysses and cured him, they intended to keep him, I think, just as they had kept Mary--I doubt it ever occurred to them that we would want him back." She laid her palm against her son's cheek, her eyes glowing with love. "He was connected to them, and they wanted--they *needed* to be certain that connection wouldn't be broken, that he wouldn't be used as a pawn against them. When Alonzo and I asked them to return him, they wanted us to promise that we would all become part of their circle, but I couldn't promise that." She looked pointedly up at John. "I didn't have the authority to promise for everyone. So I promised for myself."

"You became our scapegoat," Alonzo said. "One standing in for the pain of all."

"Something like that," she answered. "Of course, I didn't realize at the time what my promise would eventually mean, but it wouldn't have made any difference. I would have promised them anything to have my son back."

"I'm sorry, Mom," Uly said, looking miserable.

"Hey, champ, what are you sorry for?" Danziger asked, reaching down and picking the boy up. "You saved us. If you and Alonzo and your mom hadn't been connected to the Terrians, we would never have known what to do about EVE, and we'd have all died months ago, long before we met Tara and . . ." He stopped, glancing up at Alonzo.

"Tara . . . ," Devon breathed, seeming to remember something vital. "I saw her, spoke with her. She was so angry and so very afraid." She looked around at all of us. "Julia, who is she?"

"A friend," I answered. "She and her husband saved us from EVE. Don't you remember?"

"Yes and no," she said. "It's all like a dream--it seemed so clear in the first moments after I woke up--that's why I sent Uly for you, to explain everything." She shook her head. "But now, it's all faded, more a collection of individual moments than anything coherent. I remember calling to Alonzo and speaking to him, but not what I said, only that I was terribly afraid that he hadn't really understood me. I remember wanting to comfort Uly, but being afraid to try for fear I would only make him worse. And I remember that girl's face, crying and hating me."

"I don't think it was you she hated," I assured her. "Does anyone know where she is now? I left so quickly--"

"She's still in the ship," Wolman said. "I tried to get her to come out with us, but she said she needed some time alone."

Yale opened his mouth to say something, but I put up my hand to stop him. "Yes, I know," I interrupted. "Don't worry; I want to go talk to her."

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I had expected to find Tara in a VR program, so I wasn't shocked to enter the ship's hatch and not find the ship. But the faint sound of organ music in the near distance was something of a surprise, as was the sight of a pair of heavy wooden doors opening into an impossibly huge cathedral. Surely if I started down one of those aisles I would crash into the side of the ship long before I reached the altar. But Tara was already there, kneeling under the gaze of an old-fashioned wooden idol with lighted candles at its feet. Tossing logic to the wind, I started toward her, my feet barely making a sound on the thick, wine-colored carpet, and reached her without crashing into anything.

" . . . be with us now and at the hour of our death," Tara was intoning softly, lighting the tiny wick of one of the candles placed in a jumbled mass of colored glass holders before her. She didn't seem to know I was there.

"Tara," I said softly, touching her shoulder, and she glanced back at me impatiently, then up at the wooden woman before her, as if we might offend this thing. "Tara, I think we should talk."

"All right," she whispered. "Just a moment." She bent forward and kissed the idol's wooden feet before rising and leading me to one of the high pews several rows back from the altar.

"Where is this?" I asked her, gesturing toward the elaborate stained glass window to our right. "Is this an actual place, or just something you imagined?"

"This is real," she said, looking up with what could only be called reverence. "Or at least it was--it may be gone now. It's where Val and I got married, on the surface of good old Earth. His parents were part of a secret movement to restore it--they were actual, God-fearing, Latin-loving Catholics, and so was Val."

"And you?" I asked. "You told me once that when you knew me better you'd tell me whether you really believed in hell."

"Oh, I believe in hell," she said with a grim smile. "I'm just not sure it isn't all around us . . . ." Suddenly, she stopped and crossed herself, a gesture I realized I had only seen once before--Val had done it just before he took off in Renaldi's rocket. "Yes, Julia, I believe in hell," Tara said. "The good news is I believe in heaven, too." She looked around the cavernous room again. "It's beautiful here, isn't it? So peaceful . . ."

"If you say so," I answered, the smell of burning wax and what I supposed was incense beginning to be overpowering. "It just seems oppressive to me."

"It did to me, too, at first," she admitted. "But I wish you could have known those people, Doc. They had something, something people like me and you rarely find. Even in that little pile of rubble with bad air and this utterly ludicrous church, they seemed happy in a way I had never been happy."

"But all this kissing statues and reciting the same words over and over," I began.

"I know, Doc, I know," she interrupted. "But believe me, now is not the time to enlighten me." I noticed she was holding on to the pew so tightly, her nails were white. "I need this, now."

"I'm sorry," I said, touching her hand. Suddenly she was in my arms, sobbing, and as I held her, the cathedral seemed to fade around us until we were sitting in the dark, empty wreck again, and she was quiet.

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By the time I brought Tara out of the ship, it was dark, and by the time Magus and I got her settled and asleep in one of the spare tents, everyone else had settled down for the night as well. Going by the med-tent to check on Devon, I found Danziger already there, holding her hand and quietly discussing everything that had happened in her absence, with Uly and True curled up sleeping at his feet. From my vantage point at the tent flap, Devon seemed as comfortable and content as possible, so I decided not to interrupt.

Alonzo was waiting for me in the doorway of another tent, and he kissed me almost before the flap fell shut behind us. "Hey, watch it," I teased. "One night of bliss in an open field does not give you carte blanche to maul me at will."

"Bliss?" he retorted, grinning. "You call that bliss? My back is going to ache for a month."

"Your back?" I shot back. "Excuse me, but you weren't the one lying on a pine cone . . ."

He stopped me with another kiss, and suddenly we couldn't kiss each other for laughing or laugh for kissing each other. "Hey, Doc, we made it," he said suddenly. "All three of us."

For a moment, I didn't realize what he meant. My pregnancy was like a tiny flaming thought that had been burning bright but wee in the back of my mind ever since I knew it, but everything else that had happened had sort of drowned it out. Now suddenly it was everything, and I felt faint from the flood of emotion washing over me. "All three of us," I repeated. "I can't believe it . . ."

"Neither can I," he admitted. "Are you happy or sad?"

"Definitely not sad," I assured him. "Happy--scared-- irritated--ecstatic--but definitely not sad."

"Irritated?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, we were using suppressors," I pointed out. "Weren't we?"

"Yes," he promised. "But you know, sometimes nature takes its course whether we let it or not." He put his hand on my stomach. "Come on, Doc, this is a great thing, and you know it. Besides, you don't want Bess to get ahead of you, do you?"

"This is a great thing," I said. "And Bess has nothing to do with it." I went to the tent flap and looked out, noticing for the first time a strange orange glow around two of the moons. "Alonzo, what is that?"

"Probably fall-out of some kind from the explosion," he explained, coming up behind me. "That satellite probably had every kind of radiation known to man stored somewhere to power it, and that rocket was quite a firecracker, too." He put his arms around me and squeezed. "I wouldn't be surprised if it glowed that way for about a month."

"Do you think it'll have an environmental effect here on the surface?" I asked, leaning back into his embrace.

"Who knows? I kind of doubt it, though." He planted a tender kiss on my temple. "This planet seems to have a way of taking care of itself."

Suddenly I felt like crying again, but I was simply too tired to cry, and somehow I just knew he felt the same. "Do you think she felt it?" I asked. "Tara, I mean. Do you think she felt him die?"

He didn't answer for a long moment. "I don't know," he admitted at last. "To tell you the truth, Doc, I don't want to know."

I knew just what he meant.

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So ends my file on Citizen Reilly/EVE. The Eden Advance Team will proceed to New Pacifica as planned as soon as Devon Adair is sufficiently recovered to travel. We now have at least two new potential residents, one of whom will be named Valentine Donohoe Solace regardless of gender by agreement of both parents. And I, Dr. Julia Heller, born to be alone, will have a family--mate, child, and sister--whether I want one or not. Just like everybody else.

-The End-

Chapter End Notes:

Jayel

//From E-Mail on 28 September 1995

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