6. Sullha
SULLHA
S tars covered the sky over the water, so thick in places that they blurred into a wash of light, and a thin sliver of moon hung low near the horizon. The approaching island gave off nothing. No glow, no lights, only a long black smudge where the water ended.
"There." Yaaf lifted his hand. "That's Safe Harbor."
"How do you know? You've never seen it before." Sullha chuckled nervously. "You haven't seen anything outside our island before."
He turned to look at her, his glowing eyes the most prominent feature in his face. "We are nearing land. Where else could we be other than the stated destination?"
"I can't see anything." She squinted into the dark, trying to force her eyes to do what his clearly already had. "To me it just looks like a big, dark lump. It could be a low-hanging cloud for all I know."
"There's a dock." He pointed. "And a tower at the far end. There are a few low buildings over there. You should be able to see the floodlights." He leaned forward, his torso half hanging over the railing, as if that would help him see better. "Two people walking down toward the water. Both tall."
"You can see that from here?"
"Yes, but I'm not so sure about the people.
" He turned around, leaning against the railing, and crossed his arms over his chest. "Our brains are programmed to recognize patterns, and particularly the shapes of people.
They also like to fill in missing details, so those two might be poles that my brain is shaping into people. "
Why was he telling her these random facts? Was he trying to distract her from what was about to happen? Or was he distracting himself?
No, he was doing it for her. He wasn't panicking because they were about to get separated, because he wasn't dependent on her for anything. While she had grown to depend on him for everything.
It was scary.
She shouldn't do that.
"You're leaving tonight," she said.
Yamanu had told them the plan hours ago, but she had set it aside because she couldn't deal with it yet.
She had to deal with it now. The island was resolving itself out of the dark up ahead, and somewhere out there was a plane that would take Yaaf, the other seven, the scientists, and some of the Guardians and fly them to America.
"I am." He uncrossed his arms and reached for her hand. "You will fly out tomorrow morning. We will not be separated for long."
That wasn't true. They were not going to the same place, and even though Yamanu had promised visits, he hadn't said when that would be possible. Days? Weeks? Months?
Sullha swallowed the lump in her throat.
She didn't say anything else.
There would be time to obsess about their impending separation later. Right now, all she wanted to think about was Yaaf's hand around hers and how good it made her feel.
If anyone had told her a few weeks ago that she would crave the smallest touch from a male, she would have laughed in their face.
But Yaaf wasn't just a man.
He was her childhood best friend, and he was the one she loved. Well, not just one. There were eight of him, but that too could wait for later.
The dock came up out of the dark, just that long concrete finger reaching into water. The engine cut, and the hull shuddered once and settled against rubber bumpers.
It didn't take long to organize everyone to disembark. Yaaf collected the sleeping Tomek off the deck, and her son didn't even blink as he made himself comfortable over the large body carrying him to shore.
A Guardian helped her onto solid ground, and it took her a couple of seconds to trust that it wouldn't move beneath her.
After spending hours underwater, and then a few more on the boat with the deck rolling under her feet, her body had gotten used to the constant motion, and now that the world had gone still, she found she almost missed it.
Whatever she'd expected from this island was not what greeted her.
She'd imagined a resting place, a stop on the way to something better, and her mind had painted an oasis of calm.
The reality was much closer to what Yaaf had described.
Low buildings with corrugated roofs and floodlights on poles, throwing hard white light across a yard where crates were stacked in rows.
There was a watchtower at the end of the pier, just as he'd said, and someone was standing in it.
This wasn't a sanctuary. It was a military base.
The two people Yaaf had spotted from afar stood on the dock.
The woman looked like one of those strange people she'd seen on the way to the cove.
She was very tall and very thin, unnaturally so, and she radiated aggression, but it wasn't the male kind of aggression Sullha knew so well.
Its flavor was just as different as the woman's alien looks.
In contrast, the man beside her was handsome and had an easygoing expression on his face. He wasn't human, an immortal most likely, but he definitely looked much more human than his female companion.
"I'm Jade," the woman said in English. "I'm in charge of this base.
This is Phinas, my partner." She tipped her head toward the man.
"Safe Harbor might not be much to look at, but as its name implies, it is safe.
You will be fed, clothed, and you will sleep in a comfortable bed tonight.
Tomorrow, you will ship out, and by the next day, you will start your new life as free people. "
Her huge eyes fell on Sullha. "You seem to be the only one who's tracking. Care to translate for the others?"
"Yes, of course." She did, and one of the women standing behind her muttered her thanks. A couple of others made soft sounds of agreement.
"Follow us," the man named Phinas said. "Food first. Everything else later."
As they trudged behind him, Sullha stayed close to Yaaf, who was carrying the sleeping Tomek. "Do you know what she is?"
He nodded. "Later," he said quietly. "Not now."
The strange woman probably had exceptional hearing like the immortals, and that was why Yaaf didn't want to explain within her earshot.
The dining hall the tall female led them to smelled like the kitchen in the enclosure. It had long tables and fluorescent lights that made everyone look pale.
"Mama?" Tomek lifted his head off Yaaf's shoulder. "Are we going to eat?"
She smiled, took his little hand, and kissed it. "Yes, sweetheart. We are going to eat."
"Can I eat with Bowen?"
"Is that the first thing you think about when you wake up? Not Yaaf who carried you here, not your Mama. Bowen?"
Tomek pouted, leaned away from Yaaf, and looked into his face. "Thank you for carrying me. Can you put me down now?"
Well, at least he was polite.
"Of course." Yaaf set him gently on his feet.
"Bye!" Tomek was off, zeroing in on Bowen.
"We'd better follow him," Sullha said. "In case Bowen wants to eat in peace without a little boy bothering him."
Yaaf didn't answer, just followed her.
They sat down at the same long table as Tomek and Bowen, not right next to them, but close enough if the Guardian wanted her to take over.
Big platters were already arranged on the tables, with rice, stewed chicken, soggy vegetables, and bread that was a little stale, but it was a feast given how hungry they all were.
"Can I have chocolate milk?" Tomek asked Bowen.
"I'll see what they've got," the Guardian said.
"And cookies."
"If there are cookies."
When Bowen returned with both, Tomek looked like his faith in the universe had just been restored. He dunked a cookie in the chocolate milk, took a bite, and smacked his lips.
Sullha chuckled. "You used to do that."
"What?" Yaaf asked.
"Smack your lips when you found something particularly tasty." She tilted her head to look at him. "Do you still do that?"
He shook his head. "I didn't even remember that I used to do that. Some of the memories are still fuzzy. Some more than others." He lifted a pitcher, and as he poured water into his and her glasses, she noticed that his hand was shaking a little.
"What's wrong?"
He frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Your hand. It's shaking, and it can't be that the pitcher is too heavy for you."
He looked at his hand as if it was a foreign object, put it down on the table, and covered it with his other hand. "The drugs are wearing off," he said in a near whisper. "We need another dose, and we don't have one ready."
Her gut clenched with worry. "What are you going to do?"
"Nothing. I hope Petrov and Dimitri can set up their lab quickly and make us what we need."
"Will they do it here?"
Yaaf shook his head. "They will set it up when we get to America. There is no time to do it now."
"Can you hold on for so long?"
"We'll manage."
That wasn't an answer, but she had a feeling it was all she was going to get.
Partway through the meal, Jade and another woman who looked like her came with armloads of folded clothing and started distributing bundles to the women, Yaaf and the other seven, Petrov and Dimitri.
When Sullha's turn came, she looked at what had been put in front of her. The items looked brand new, but even folded she could tell that they were men-sized clothing.
"It's what we've got," the younger version of Jade said, catching her expression. "We have mostly men here, so that is what we stock. You ladies were a surprise addition."
"I'm not complaining," Sullha said. "Anything dry that smells fresh is wonderful."
"Shoes are the real problem." The young alien-looking woman pulled out a pair of thin plastic sandals from a bag that was slung over her arm.
They were clearly cut for a man's foot as well.
"Shower flip-flops are the best we could do on short notice.
You'll have to shuffle instead of walk so you don't lose them. "
"After swimming in a wetsuit two sizes too big, I think I can manage a shuffle." Sullha turned one of the flip-flops over in her hands. "Believe me, I'm grateful, especially since these are new. We never got anything new in the enclosure."
The woman's gaze flicked toward Yaaf, and she nodded at him, the way one warrior acknowledged another. "Number One."