“No more right than I, to ask you the same question. Tell me everything about your Sarleni!”
Adt smirked, having snared his father at his own game.
“That, too, is personal, Father.”
The older man smiled.
“Your wit has remained as sharp as your sword.”
“Sharper, since meeting Sarleni.”
“Yes. I do not doubt it.”
“I insist on respecting your privacy regarding Ju-bilee. So do me the honor of being first to speak.”
Both contestants had posed a verbal impasse. The next to react, lost the point in the match.
Kigor flexed his hands wide; then cupped fingers together. “About Ju-bilee…what a man shares with his woman, is between them. Some issues have broader boundaries. She has been invisible all these years by choice and design. Her purpose should be obvious to you. The woman is dedicated to her cause. We shared too short a journey and you were the resulting joy. Then her studies and vocation.…”
His voice broke off and his eyes were distant. Keeping the secret over all these years had been difficult. Perhaps he could share parts of the truth with his son.
“In time, son, I’ll tell you more. Right now…it is enough to say we had a love relationship and the feelings never completely submerged. I always have you to remind me.”
The man shifted nervously, then straightened, eyes snapping to Adt’s, “Your turn. What is your woman like? I realize she’s Helandian…though, I suspect, different from your mother.”
“That, she is,” Adt grinned.
“As you are different from me: I never had Ju-bilee’s genetic gifts: potent and damningly commanding.”
Adt leaned back, relating the details of his adventure to Kigor.
“Sarleni’s one bossy lady, too. We were brought together on the night of the terrible storm. It is a long story. She was struggling in a skirmish with the Diano when I found her. I managed to destroy them, but was wounded in the process. When the storm worsened, she led with commands befitting a royal Proctoress. I took her for a slavegirl. She thought I was a common hunter and made me her student, whom she bullied into learning HanJahn games! Once I grasped the concepts and the seriousness of her mission, it served.…”
Kigor listened, particularly intrigued by the interactions during their ordeal.
“At first I hated every inch of Sarleni’s lovely, deliciously beautiful, divine shape.”
“Instant love,” Kigor mused, with an inner sense of knowing. “Helandi women can charm a young man, can’t they?”
Kigor then recounted elements of his early life with Ju-bilee; enough for both men to gain an understanding of the Helandian women who had become entwined with their lives.
The duel thus ended. Father and son openly embraced with their eyes. Nothing remained clouded, hidden; nothing left unsaid. Both were blown wide open to honest love and trust. A new bonding had fused. Slowly the two men stood and the meeting concluded.
* * * *
Sarleni glanced up when Adt came through the door of their residence at the Dorta Estates. She had been getting used to their quarters: impeccably organized. Her husband’s father was obviously a very structured person.
She conversationally asked, as he hugged her, “Have you seen him, yet?”
“Yes. He’s under a lot of pressure these days, with more responsibilities than ever before.”
Then lamely added: “It wasn’t exactly how I would have planned our meeting. He is carrying a heavy burden which he keeps to himself: all private.”
Sarleni felt his uncertainty, pain, and frustration but made no effort to enter into his special mental territory. This was not the time for any Zygo. Most of their daily relationship was closer to normal than one might have expected. Habit selected the obvious. And verbal conversation was an easy fall-back.
“All these years I had believed my mother was lost forever, dead.
And now I discover that the most awesome woman I’ve ever met—the most militant, the most fearsome—turns out to be my mother! He should have told me something, at least. He should have prepared me.”
“Adt, it had to be difficult for Kigor, too. They both care deeply for you.”
He pulled her close and she took in the feelings spilling out from him.
“Well, we managed. My father shared a few things about her.”
I thought as much.
Reading my mind?
No! I try not to, without permission: difficult sometimes to ignore our connection.
“You often say, reading my mind is like breathing.”
It had been a problem for them to cross that natural bridge. They both tried to honor one another’s private spaces.
The Zygo connection requires a deep merging. And they had been the first of the Zygo duos to reach full Nexus. Toning down their strengths was sometimes difficult; so achieving complete privacy became a challenge.
You and your male privacy, she smiled, mildly amused.
Don’t you carry your own safe place in which to hide your feminine delicacies? He was calmer now.
We women keep our secrets…so you men continue to be fascinated and interested.
“And confused.”
“Confused or not.”
Her eyes met his in open tenderness.
You can let me in when it pleases you.
She had taught him about the HanJahn and the Mind Powers during their journey across the ocean. Once the link was established, the duo then utilized joint strengths which yielded capacities many factors beyond either partner’s singular potential. The ultimate Nexus which had been the goal of the HanJahn teachings, had thus far, only been attained by Adt and Sarleni. And while they were journeying, the Helandian Academy had been preparing scores on Zygo duos to follow in their footsteps.
It would fall upon Adt and Sarleni to assist the newly recruited pairs to hone their skills towards the Nexus.
“I’m glad you’re working with your father on the Messenger’s data. We’ll need to understand a great deal more about what has happened to the Muti before we leave. For soon we’ll be going to meet my family in Helandi. They are anxious to meet the handsome warrior from the mainland who captured my heart.”
She tenderly touched his cheek.
He frowned. “There are things to be resolved.”
“Reports, conferences and…I’ll want to give Torlo a detailed accounting of our story before we go.”
HanJahn methods have been designed to record memories.
“I wouldn’t doubt that Andon Janis, in his Foundation, might be working on systems along those lines.”
Adt impulsively drew her closer. Their lips touched.
An instant reading of your thoughts, my dear Adt, is not all that complicated; at least not for me.
You cheat, he joked as they kissed again.
Do we need an excuse? Sarleni challenged Adt, who was too enveloped by her to bother with an answer.
They blended together in a complete union of one.
II. Mahzit: The Public Voices
The room was dark. The young warrior’s head brutally screamed at him. Hangovers were monstrous even in Bel-loniea. He was enjoying a nasty one slamming through