Enemy Mine

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

For the longest moment, I could only stare at him. I’d guessed Gideon wasn’t human, at least not completely, but I’d never imagined that a Reptilian like Lir Shalan could actually be his father. I blinked, trying to sort through my roiling thoughts. “So…he used his DNA and human DNA to create you?”

It seemed like a safe enough question. After all, the Reptilians were well known for their propensity to play with genetics the way a master mixologist might whip up a new cocktail.

Another of those hesitations. “Not exactly.” Gideon’s gaze flickered from me to the little sitting area with its hard, backless couch and flat metal table. “Perhaps you would like to sit down.”

In general, if someone suggests that it might be a good idea for you to sit, then you’d better do as they say. I retrieved the cup of water and then went to the sofa and perched on one end, just in case he intended to sit down as well. At least that way, we would have as much space between us as possible.

He didn’t sit, however. He remained standing, making me feel quite small as he loomed there in his long, dark robes. But I tried not to show my uneasiness, and instead took a sip of water as I waited.

When he spoke, his tone was quiet and calm, revealing little of what he himself might think of the current topic of conversation. “My mother was as human as you are, Taryn. And I was conceived and born just like any other human. No one created me in a laboratory. I am not a hybrid, at least not in the way you have come to think of hybrids, as the result of genetic manipulation by our scientists.”

That revelation hit me almost like a physical blow. Because if Gideon truly had been conceived in the same way that humans had for hundreds of thousands of years — if you left out those undergoing fertility treatments, that is — then that meant Lir Shalan had been with a human woman, had….

I made my mind stop there. Yes, I’d heard the rumors and the stories, but that was all they had been…up until now. But there Gideon stood, saying that he was the product of one of those unions. Even with all the rumors I’d heard, however, no one had ever been able to provide definitive evidence that the women who’d been abducted and sexually assaulted by aliens had produced half-alien offspring. They claimed they had, but those children’s DNA had been tested and had come back completely normal.

With his green skin and red eyes, Gideon probably didn’t have anything close to “normal” DNA.

“You are surprised,” he said.

Shocked was probably a better word. Or flabbergasted. I drank some more water to cover my amazement, then asked, “Are there others like you?”

He didn’t answer right away, but instead came over and sat down on the sofa next to me. His proximity made me feel that much more off balance. It wasn’t any one thing, but just his general presence, the way his robe flowed over the edge of the couch and brushed against my leg, the way that this close, I could see the strange ruby glint of his eyes, even though they were framed in a fringe of thick black lashes that would make most women jealous.

“Exactly like me? No. Unlike true hybridization, which is controlled in a laboratory and produces the same result every time, these sorts of pairings are…unpredictable. The results are rarely similar.”

“But there are others who were born in a similar way.”

“A few.”

Right then, even though it was probably only around ten o’clock in the morning, I thought I could use something to drink that was a lot stronger than water. And I didn’t even drink very much; I couldn’t, because keeping out of other people’s minds required a good deal of mental control, and control was a difficult thing to manage when you were on your third martini.

My brain didn’t want to accept what he’d just told me. Lir Shalan, the leader of the Reptilians charged with occupying my world, had been with a human woman and had a son by her. A son who now sat next to me. Because he was half alien, his looks could be misleading, but in appearance he only seemed a few years older than I. Which seemed to indicate that he had to have been born not all that long after Kirsten Jones drove the Reptilians out of Sedona.

“Who is she?” I asked. “Your mother, I mean.”

Gideon’s entire body seemed to tense. That is, I could see how his shoulders lifted slightly, the way the muscles along his jaw tightened. “She was a woman who was taken from Sedona as the base was being evacuated.”

I couldn’t miss the “was” in his reply. So she was probably dead. I didn’t dare ask, though. “Taken? You mean abducted?”

“Yes.” He pushed himself off the sofa and went over to the food synthesizer. “Water,” he said.

Once again, the blue light flashed, and the door slid open to reveal a cup identical to the one I held. He took it out and drank some of its contents, then turned back toward me. Some of the tension seemed to have left his face, and I guessed he had gone to fetch the water to give himself some time to decide how best to continue the conversation.

He didn’t sit back down, but again stood a foot or so away from the couch, staring down at me. “She was a visitor to Sedona. She wanted to be there for the solstice, you see, and so was out at the Boynton Canyon vortex that night.”

I nodded. My hometown got thousands of tourists every year, some who came only to hike and gawk at the amazing red rock formations, while others wanted to tap into Sedona’s unique energies. A lot of people dismissed the ideas of the vortexes and the powers associated with them as complete woo-woo, but I knew better. A power like no other on earth — maybe in the entire galaxy — was concentrated there. It was that power which had allowed my own mother to blast the aliens from their base while desperately attempting to save my father, and it was that same power — amplified by Kirsten Jones’s half-Pleiadian abilities — which had driven them out completely a quarter-century earlier.

So I could see why someone would hike out to Boynton to be there when the earth turned from dark to light, and the power of the solstice united with the vortex energies. I didn’t know if I would have the courage to do something like that, simply because that fateful solstice had taken place at something like four o’clock in the morning, and blundering around Sedona’s wilderness areas in pitch darkness was not generally a wise thing to do.

Especially if it put you in the path of a group of alien refugees fleeing the destruction of their base.

“So he took her?” I asked, trying very hard not to think of what a horrifying experience that must have been, and to keep my tone neutral.

“She was brought to him. He was not at the base, you see, but here on his ship. Not this exact ship — this one is much newer — but he has been stationed in this system, and overseeing your planet, for many years.”

Did I dare ask about Reptilian life expectancy? I knew the Pleiadians, like Martin Jones and Kirsten’s father Gabriel and Callista’s soulmate Raphael, lived for thousands of years. But I had no idea how long Reptilians lived. Longer than humans, I guessed, just because Gideon’s explanation seemed to indicate that Lir Shalan had been in charge here for more than a quarter-century, and probably much longer than that.

“Droit de seigneur,” I murmured, and Gideon’s black brows pulled together.

“Excuse me?”

So his English was flawless, but clearly, he didn’t understand French. I didn’t really know why I’d thought he would, only that I didn’t have a very good idea of what the Reptilians did and didn’t know about my world. But I supposed if Gideon’s mother was American, and Lir Shalan had been overseeing a base in northern Arizona, then it made sense they’d only know English, or possibly Spanish as well.

I hesitated, wondering whether I’d offend him with my explanation of the French phrase. Then again, I wasn’t the one whose father had stolen a woman from her world, just because his people had thought she might be useful. But since I’d mentioned the phrase, I didn’t see any way to avoid telling him what it meant. “It was an old custom in medieval France — and England, once it had been invaded by the Normans. It just meant that the lord of the manor had the right to a woman on her wedding night, rather than the man she’d married. It’s not applicable in this case, really. I guess it popped into my mind because of how you said your mother was given to the person in charge, instead of being taken by one of the people who found her.”

During that rather lame explanation — although I wasn’t sure I could even call it that — Gideon’s frown hadn’t disappeared, had deepened, if anything. But then he nodded slightly. “I can see how you might think that. My father was in command, and so he did have first right to any….” He stopped there, as if unsure how to put it.

“Spoils of war?” I suggested.

“I suppose so.” From the carefully neutral tone of his voice, I guessed he didn’t much like that phrase being applied to the woman who’d given birth to him.

Something in his reaction heartened me a little. Gideon seemed to be doing his best to remain as cool and factual as possible, even when speaking of his mother, but I got the impression he was bothered by talking about her in such a way. And if he could have that kind of response, then it seemed to me there must be a good deal more to him that was human besides his appearance.

Or he could also be putting on an act, behaving in a way calculated to put me off my guard. I really had no idea, because I didn’t know him, and I couldn’t seem to penetrate his thoughts. Whether that barrier existed because of his Reptilian heritage, I wasn’t sure. I’d never encountered a Reptilian before I saw Lir Shalan and his henchmen back at the ruined base. Aliens in and of themselves didn’t seem to be an issue, since I’d had to put up my own mental barriers to avoid being blasted by Callista whenever she was having a particularly bad day. But the Reptilians appeared to be an entirely different story.

Even without my peculiar gift giving me hints, I had the feeling that Gideon was wishing he hadn’t brought up the topic of his mother. I didn’t know what to ask — or rather, I had so many things I wanted to ask him, I didn’t know where to start. Inquiring whether he had any siblings didn’t seem like a very good idea, and I guessed that any questions as to the nature of the Reptilians’ plans for me would also be ignored.

Why he’d told me that Lir Shalan was his father, I didn’t know. Maybe to impress me with his importance? No, that didn’t feel right. That little fact had come out when he was explaining why part of his name was the same as that of the alien leader. I wondered then if his mother had named him Gideon, or whether it was a Reptilian name that just happened to have an earthly analogue.

What I asked, though, was the question that seemed to matter most right then. “Why me?”

He didn’t blink, or even look away, but in an odd way, it appeared as if his focus had shifted, that he was trying to avoid eye contact. Why? Maybe he hadn’t yet realized that I couldn’t read his mind. Anyhow, my abilities didn’t work that way. I didn’t have to be looking someone in the eye to pick up on their thoughts, although that sort of contact did help.

“You’re special. You possess interesting talents,” he replied.

Well, true enough. But so did my mother, and so did Kirsten and Callista, Martin and Raphael. Or was I more interesting to the Reptilians because I was human and still possessed psychic abilities?

That explanation seemed plausible enough, although the deeper implications of why they’d chosen me began to sink in a second or two later. Did they want me for their breeding experiments? If I were really lucky, all I’d have to do was give up some DNA for them to play with, but what if they wanted something more from me than that?

I went cold again, despite the warmth of the room and the jacket I was wearing. However, I didn’t want Gideon to see how much his reply had unsettled me. Thank God the Reptilians weren’t what you could call psychic, despite their surveillance tactics.

“Well, thanks,” I said in a careless tone that I doubted would have fooled anyone, let alone the half-Reptilian man who stood only a foot or so away. “My parents think I’m special, too.”

Since I’d almost finished my water anyway, I set the cup down on the flat piece of metal that served as a table and got to my feet. Carefully not looking at Gideon, I sent a quick glance around the room. “So where are you taking me? Back to your world?”

“No, we haven’t gone anywhere at all.”

“Excuse me?”

“Come.”

He held out a hand. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to take it, especially after those revelations about his parentage. What if Lir Shalan had decided I would be the perfect mate for his son? I certainly didn’t want to encourage that line of thought, and taking Gideon’s hand might seem that I was being friendly with him. But then, I’d already blown it if I was going to be standoffish. After all, I’d held his hand when he first brought me here.

There was also the distinct possibility he just didn’t know all that much about human interactions, and only wanted to take me by the hand because that was the easiest way to guide me to wherever it was he wanted to take me.

So I let out a small breath, and once again laid my hand in his. Those strong fingers didn’t feel any less human, even though I now knew that half his parentage was Reptilian.

“This way,” he said, leading me out of the room that apparently was to be mine.

We didn’t head back the way we had come, instead going farther down the corridor and then to a bank of elevators. Like the rest of the ship, they were made of metal, and didn’t seem all that different from elevators you’d find back on Earth. Well, except that they seemed to be turbocharged; Gideon pressed the index finger of his free hand against the panel to the right of the door, and we shot up so quickly that I almost lost my balance.

But he tightened his grip on my hand, keeping me from stumbling. I wished I could pull away, and then scolded myself for being uncharitable. Whatever he — and the rest of the Reptilians — were up to, in that moment, he’d prevented me from taking a nasty spill. I could be grateful for that small moment of courtesy, even if he’d only done so in order to keep the future mother of his children from doing a face plant on the floor of the elevator.

When the doors opened, we emerged into a hallway identical to the one where my borrowed room was located. Here, though, I could see other crew members moving through the corridor, and had to force myself not to stare at their alien faces.

They didn’t seem to be bothered by the same scruples, unfortunately; their flat reddish gazes appeared to follow me as Gideon guided me along. He had to have noticed their scrutiny, but he did nothing to acknowledge it, or them, for that matter. Did they resent him because of his half-human blood? Or was he accorded a certain amount of deference as the son of their leader?

Yet another thing I didn’t know, and a topic I probably wouldn’t want to bring up. Even with all my not-staring, I’d noted that the aliens on this level wore dark gray jumpsuits with some sort of metal insignia fastened to their high collars, very different from the sweeping robes Gideon had on — the same type of garments all the Reptilians in Lir Shalan’s entourage had worn. Maybe they were the elite, while the ones I saw now were more like worker bees.

My questions fell away, however, as the corridor opened up into a sort of observation deck, one that stretched a good ten yards to either side of us. Directly in front was a wall of glass — well, probably not glass, but some sort of transparent material holding back the vacuum of space.

Because I could see now that we were in orbit above the Earth, a beautiful blue-green disk so close it felt as if I could reach out and touch it. We were just passing over the shadowy line that marked the coming of night. To mostly open ocean, I realized as I peered out at the view, although I thought I recognized the continent of Australia about to pass directly below us.

“It’s beautiful,” I breathed.

Gideon let go of my hand so he could wrap his fingers around the metal railing directly in front of us. It hit him roughly at waist level, although it was higher than that on me. Clearly, the Reptilians as a race were taller on average than humans.

“This is what I meant when I told you that we really hadn’t gone anywhere at all,” he said. “There is your world, not so very far away.”

He was right; it didn’t feel far. But since I had no way of getting off this ship, that huge blue-green orb filling the window — or view screen, or whatever it was — might as well have been light-years away.

“Why haven’t you left?”

The red eyes flickered over toward me. “Because we have matters to attend to here.”

That didn’t sound good. “What kind of matters?” I asked, not bothering to keep the suspicion out of my voice.

But Gideon only shrugged and returned his attention to the view of Earth beneath us. “We did your people a service in returning their astronauts to them. It’s only natural that your leaders would wish to speak with my father and the others involved in that rescue.”

On the surface, that reason sounded fine and noble…except I knew that Lir Shalan and his people hadn’t “rescued” those astronauts at all. No, they’d had them imprisoned on the Reptilian base on Mars, and no doubt all of them would have suffered a variety of gruesome fates if they hadn’t been set free by Raphael and Callista and her parents. The astronauts had been sent safely on their way afterward, their ship’s programming altered so they could return to Earth even without following their originally set course.

Unfortunately, the Reptilians had decided to roll the dice, and step in and pretend to rescue the Mars mission’s team, thus earning them the world’s gratitude…and, I feared, giving them carte blanche to do pretty much whatever they wanted.

I didn’t reply at first, mostly because angering Gideon by flinging those truths in his face wouldn’t do me any good. So far, he’d been civil to me, even friendly. While I didn’t want to be here, better to do so in his company than that of his fearsome father or any of the other members of Lir Shalan’s team. Starting an argument didn’t seem like a very wise idea.

Besides, I honestly couldn’t tell if he was being disingenuous or whether he truly didn’t have any idea what a liar and manipulator his father was. Yes, Gideon had been there on Penalta when Callista was brought in front of the Assembly to defend her actions at the Mars base, actions that had resulted in the death of a Reptilian soldier. But she’d told all of us that Gideon hadn’t spoken at all, hadn’t done anything except observe. I supposed it was possible that his father had kept him out of his plans, and so he didn’t know that those astronauts hadn’t been rescued at all, had only been used as pawns in Lir Shalan’s endless games of planetary chess.

“And once they’re done with their business?” I asked, both fearing the answer and wanting to know what my eventual fate would be. If I was going to be hauled away to Alpha Draconis to live my life in exile among the Reptilians, I figured I’d better start steeling myself to that possibility now. My stomach tightened with dread, though, and I wondered how I could ever survive on a world so far from everyone and everything I loved.

“Oh, I think it will take some time,” Gideon replied evasively.

So he wasn’t going to give me any real information. I didn’t know why I’d expected anything different. He might have looked far more human in appearance than Reptilian, but it seemed clear enough to me right then that he’d been raised to be his father’s son. Being polite or even friendly to me was only a means to an end.

And I didn’t really want to think about what that end might be.