Face to Face by Linda FFF

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Face to Face, Part 3
by Linda

"Answer the questions. Who are you and what are you doing in my home?"

Alonzo carefully appraised the woman who was steadily holding a gun, albeit plastic, pointed directly at Julia's head. The woman looked to be about in her late 50s, with naturally gray hair cropped close to her head in a practical style and tanned skin that spoke of much time outside in the sunlight. She was wearing a pair of baggy pants and a T-shirt, both of which appeared -- like the cabin -- to be homemade rather than of the preformed, cookie-cutter style found in station-made garb. Her T-shirt was unevenly dyed a shade of blue that highlighted the color of her eyes. Slim and physically fit despite her advancing age, she appeared competent, even comfortable, with the weapon in her hands and she had a determined stare that made both Alonzo and Julia uncomfortable, although neither was sure exactly why. Alonzo glanced down at the Magpro he had placed on the bed while looking at the pictures of Devon and wondered if he should attempt to go for it. But a rash move might cause the woman to shoot and Alonzo wouldn't do anything to risk Julia's life.

"Do I have to repeat the questions again?" The woman kept her weapon steady, as she appraised the slim blond woman she had as a possible target and the dark-haired male who accompanied her. "I haven't seen you around this area before. Are you penal colonists?"

"No." Despite the weapon aimed at her, Julia kept her calm. Her instincts said this woman didn't want to hurt her, but merely was reacting to the presence of strangers in her domain. Given some of the strangers Eden Advance had run into during their time on G889, she could understand the woman's apprehension. Besides, Julia wanted to find out the connection between the woman and the pictures she had discovered, and more importantly her friend Devon Adair. "My name is Julia and I am a member of Eden Advance. This is Alonzo. We didn't mean any harm."

The women stared at her intently, trying to judge Julia's intentions, but never releasing her confident grip on her weapon. "What is Eden Advance and why are you in my home?"

This time it was Alonzo who fielded her queries, deciding to be as truthful as possible while trying to find out about this strange woman. She appeared unlike any one else the group had met on this planet, but experience had taught them to be wary of strangers. Like Julia, he was curious about her connection to Devon but he did not want to reveal his own.

"Eden Project is a group that plans to make their home on this planet. It consists mostly of families of Syndrome children who believe the youngsters can be cured if they are taken off the stations. Eden Advance is made up of those who came ahead to prepare a settlement for the families and their children. Unfortunately we crashed far from our intended destination, and many of us did not survive our rough beginnings on this planet. In addition, many people who were planning to return to the stations were forced to evacuate the ship with the settlers. So we are a rather mixed group of people, although there are only 15 of us now. We are moving quickly. We came here because of a radio signal. We thought it might be one of our missing supply pods or some of our cohorts. Instead we found your cabin."

"So you decided to make yourselves at home?" The woman's tone had a sarcastic bite, which seemed to echo in Julia's and Alonzo's ears.

"Since we've gotten here, we've found various humans that we didn't know about. Penal colonists. ZEDs. We're always interested in other humans." Alonzo grinned, trying to put the woman at ease so perhaps she would lower the gun. She was still staring intently at Julia, making Alonzo nervous. "Although we have to admit, we prefer to avoid the ZEDs."

"I can understand that. There's a reason why I don't keep any metal here." The woman smiled briefly, but as she looked at Julia the smile metamorphosed into a grim frown. "Do you work for the Council?"

"No." Julia took a step toward the woman and looked her directly in the eye, attempting to exude the truth of her statement, even as she recalled all the times she had lied about her Council connections.

"You lie." The woman remained calm. "You see, I know who you are, Julia Heller. It's been a long time, but you look just like your mother, the cursed Council goddess herself. And everyone who's anyone knows that Katharine chromotilted her kids and trained them in her own image."

"How do you know my mother?" Julia asked, wondering at the shocks that seemed to come one after another on this planet. She quickly regained her equilibrium and looked the woman straight in the eye, a flood of relief spreading over her that the woman hadn't shot her the instant she identified Julia as a Council operative. "I did work for the Council." Julia continued to wonder silently where the woman had obtained her information. Neither her status as a chromotilt nor her mother's activities for the Council were common knowledge on the stations. "And yes, my mother probably still works for them, if she is alive. But I do not. I joined Eden Advance as a spy, but I gave that up long ago in exchange for something much better -- a family and friends."

The woman laughed. "You say that so easily, but I know better. You don't just give up being Council. You do that and you're dead. Or worse. And believe me, there are worse things than death."

Alonzo felt that perhaps he should jump in. "You sound as if you speak from experience."

"If you're asking me if I ever toiled for the Council, the answer is no. My conscience is clean, at least in that respect."

"So what are you doing here?" Nervously Alonzo tried again to find some explanation. He stood in one place, but he couldn't help shifting his weight around periodically as he worried about the woman's obsession with Julia's Council connections. He hoped he could find a way to distract her, before she did something foolish or dangerous with her weapon.

"I want some proof that you're not Council."

"There is no proof." Julia continued to look her steadily in the eye. "You're going to have to accept my word."

Just then the gears both Alonzo and Julia were carrying began to beep.

"I'm really happy for Alonzo and Julia." Magus had decided to confide in Adair after all. Like Devon, she hadn't had a lot of female friends in her life and she wasn't too sure about starting with someone who had been a station princess. But there weren't a lot of choices around and at least she respected Devon -- most of the time. She kept her seat on the ground and nervously played with some of the fallen leaves that had begun to accumulate on the ground. "But hearing about their engagement just reminded me how alone I am. There's no guy shooting me longing looks from across the campfire.... When I first started working as Ops, I tried so hard to be one of the guys. I wanted to be noticed for my skills, not for my hair or my legs, not that they're that noticeable in the first place. But I wanted to be the equal partner, another member of the team. Now I'm stuck that way. Larry Baines wouldn't give me a second look if I walked up to him naked. He'd probably just continue whatever he was doing and go, 'Hand me the number 4 wrench, would ya' Magus?' "

Devon tried to stifle a laugh at the image in her head, grateful to Magus for distracting her from her own worries. "So Baines is a little oblivious. Sometimes," she paused, not wanting to give away too many of her own insecurities, "I think that that's a cover for fear. If he doesn't deal with his attraction to you, if he keeps you as just another of the Ops guys, then he isn't as likely to get hurt. But I'm sure we could wake him up with a little teamwork." Devon grimaced as she realized that she was beginning to sound like Bess Martin.

"What do you have in mind?"

"Bess and I were talking about a surprise engagement party for Alonzo and Julia when they got back. Let's see what we can do about making that environment work for you." Just then Devon's gear began to beep at her. She glared at it, realizing she was never going to get her opportunity to think in solitude, and then she put it on. "Adair here." Denner's face appeared before her. "What's going on?"

Denner appeared worried. "Alonzo and Julia haven't called in since going up to check on that radio signal. We just tried to reach them and they haven't responded yet."

"Do we have a tracking signal on the gear?"

"Yes." Denner replied. "I think you ought to get back to camp. We'll keep trying to reach them. Denner out."

Adair took off and stowed her gear, and then turned to Magus to relay what was happening. The women moved briskly back toward the camp together, brainstorming ways to wake up Baines, mostly to keep their minds off their missing friends. As they walked into camp, they noticed most members of the group milling about near the com tent, waiting to hear any news about Julia and Alonzo. They didn't see True Danziger leaving her tent and the camp area with a full backpack of supplies.

"OK, guys. There's no reason to panic just yet. Remember we are talking about a newly engaged couple." Devon forced a smile for her gathered friends as she went into the com tent to talk to Danziger and Denner, who had continued to page the scouting team.

Bess took her cue from Devon. "All right, guys. You heard her. We have an engagement party to get ready for when the lovebirds get their behinds back to camp." As she heard Bess begin to give orders, Devon smiled gratefully in the tent and then attempted to reach the absent twosome yet again.

As the gear beeped at them for the umpteenth time, Julia and Alonzo played a waiting game with the woman who had built the cabin on the mountain with her own two hands. On one end of the cabin, the gray-haired woman exuded calmness and reasonability until one noticed the gun deftly aimed to kill Julia. She appeared to be listening, although nothing she had heard thus far had changed her mind. But then, she thought to herself, she had never been known for having flexible opinions. Across from her, Alonzo was getting more agitated by the moment. He would have been fine had the piece of plastic been pointed at his head, but he could not bear to see the woman take aim at Julia. He watched Julia's composed mask maintain its predominance on her face, but he knew that underneath she was as frightened and worried as he was.

"I don't know what I can say that will convince you that I'm not Council," Julia said, barely a hint of exasperation in her voice. Although she had not learned yet the woman's connection to Devon, Heller was sure that there was one. So she decided to play her trump card. "If you don't believe me and you don't believe Alonzo, perhaps you will believe someone else."

"Like who?" The woman was curious about the group called Eden Advance. If half of what the pair had told her about the Council trying to blow them up and thwart their plans for settlement was true, they could be her chance at a life with other humans rather than a hermitage alone on a mountain. But she had to be careful. She knew that anyone halfway connected with the Council would still kill her -- given just half a chance. And she was still enough of a fighter that she wasn't willing to give them even one quarter.

Alonzo and Julia exchanged a glance, mentally agreeing to name the woman in the pictures.

"Devon Adair."

The women started laughing hysterically, her gun still pointed at Julia's head. "I have to admit you're good," she said as she calmed down. "I almost bought it -- that 'the Council tried to blow us up' routine. But naming my daughter was a critical error. Only a fully briefed Council operative would try to get at me that way."

As the woman stepped closer to Julia and prepared to shoot, she declared, "I know better than to believe you now. I won't allow you or anyone else to use my memories of my daughter to destroy me again."

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