To distract my mind, I tried to focus on the here and now.


    “What happened to Vesa and her friends?” I asked Rose.


    Fuji answered for Rose. I wasn’t supposed to know. She was here, but she would not be speaking to


    me. Everyone had been given instructions not to talk about what had happened to her and to keep us


    apart.


    I sighed and shook my head. If I wasn’t supposed to know, Fuji would make sure I never did. A


    command from her owners was all it took. Their word wasw.


    “I would like,” Rose said formally, “to swim with you in the ocean. The activity would be good for both of


    us.”


    I could not believe I’d heard her correctly. When she asked the Keepers to remove her ornamentation


    and stepped into the sea with me, I was more shocked. The pool in the mountains had seemed Like


    torture for her everyday. She’d always done just the requiredps and jumped out.


    “I must learn to be less afraid,” she said as we stood in waist deep water.


    I took her hand and we walked a little farther out. She wasn‘t trulyfortable in the water, so we just


    walked in the waves.


    “My…family,” she said softly, “is working on changing their mindset. They have requested I also change


    mine. I have clung to old fears for too long.”


    Again, I wasn’t sure I had heard her right. “Your family, not your owners, wish you to change?” I asked.


    She looked so animated suddenly as she talked.


    “I thought it was just the mountains and the way your daughters treated them. When we came back


    here, I thought it would be as it was before. Perhaps away from the influence of your family they would


    change back, but they have not,” she said excitedly. “I have a chair at the table now, Ciara. I am invited


    to sit with them by the fire.”


    I was shocked. “You didn’t tell me they treated you different,” I marveled.


    “Oh, you were so busy with the Little one and I wasn’t sure it wouldst…They offered,” she said


    suddenly shy, “they offered to send me back to Earth.”


    I couldn’t believe my ears as I Looked at her. Jealousy exploded in me as she talked. No one would


    stop her if she wanted to leave.


    A N G E L A ‘s L I B R A R Y


    “I said no, of course,” she continued blithely. “I still look like a twenty year old girl and time has gone on


    for so Long. Who would I tell my family I was? I wouldn’t know where to work or what to do. Besides


    that the portals on Earth are so dangerous. Leaving here just to be crushed in an intergctic portal


    would be foolish. It would just be a terrible idea.


    “Basin told me I am no longer a sex ve. I exined the concept of lovers to him and he said that’s


    what we were. They would care for me and I would continue to love them.”


    I looked out over the shining sea and imagined myself pushing Rose beneath the surface of the waves


    until she stopped moving. It wouldn’t be hard. I was certainly trained and I definitely outweighed her.


    “I want to swim to the grate,” I said brusquely shaking out of my weird daydream. “I’ll meet you on


    shore.”


    Before Rose could react, I dove forward and swam out through the inlet toward the grate. The water


    was deep here and the current pulled harder. There was no way Rose would follow me, which was


    good for her. I wanted to kill her.


    N?velDrama.Org owns ? this.


    How dare she turn down freedom! The risk of the portals was worth it. This was no way to live. I was


    furious with her for making her choice and jealous it had been offered.


    A memory came to me as I clung to the grate and looked into the dark sea. I’d asked my men to make


    the same choice. When I’d feared them rising against the women, I’d asked them to just stay put. Being


    mad at Rose didn’t make any sense from that perspective.