The Ilia's Lovers - Chapter Thirty

The villa where they were staying was situated between the city of Ba’hiim, which was the capital city of Ket’Kitara and Tayce, where the summit, meetings were taking place, whatever that was about.

It wasn’t that Elaine wasn’t interested, it was just that it was all so much above her head.

Earth sent the Bilaal Gadid’s to Ket’Kitara to represent them. Alexander was the ambassador to the newly opened Athena station just on the outskirts of Earth’s solar system. Hi wife, Nyala was an admiral of ISAF who ran the station which, even though it was built by the Tessans, was under Earth control under the understanding that it was to be used as a place where alien ambassadors could meet humans and where alien and Earth scientists could gather to exchange ideas and perform research and experiments.

The Bilaal Gadid’s arrived with a small staff days before. In the morning, Pyri and Elaine received invitations from the family to join them at a restaurant called Turoz in Ba’hiim for lunch and were on their way there now. Elaine and Pyri were in one of the akoras together, alone to catch up while Pyri’s pack were in another behind them. Twelve other akoras surrounded them, a collection of Elaine’s personal security headed by Hemian and a half dozen Adosian packs there for Pyri’s protection. Talis and Thelan were taking no chances when it came to Pyri’s personal safety and the safety of their daughter who currently sat on Elaine’s lap.

Sameia’s tail was wrapped around Elaine’s arm and she looked up at her from purple eyes. On her head, two soft pads in her hair showed where her horns would grow soon. They were tender and Elaine and Pyri had to keep moving her hand away from the pads where she’d poke them, then start crying because it hurt to touch them.

Elaine captured Sameia’s hand for forth time since they got in the akora.

“If you prod it again, you’ll just start crying.”

“You do realise Sameia is two months old and doesn’t understand a single word you are saying?’

Elaine stuck her tongue out at her best friend.

“You understand me, don’t you Sameia. You and I are going to have long conversations and be bestest friends.”

“Hey, I thought I was your best friend?” Pyri protested.

“You are. And Sameia is my bestest friend. Hello?”

Pyri laughed.

“My own daughter,” Pyri complained.

Elaine laughed, though the thought sobered her.

“I can’t believe you have a daughter.”

“Me neither. Having a baby was the smart move. Show Adosia our pack was steady, fertile, secure. But Elaine, the first moment I saw her…”

Pyri shrugged, her eyes filling with tears.

“There are no words. I had no idea.”

Elaine took her friends hand and squeezed it. Her other arm a bar holding her daughter tight.

“I’m so jealous,” Elaine admitted.

“Are you trying?” Pyri asked.

“We’re not stopping it. Nothing yet.”

“There’s a baby with your name on it,” Pyri said. “Just waiting for their designated moment. They’ll be along as soon as they’re supposed to be.”

Elaine nodded. Pyri was right. She’d always believed that each person was meant to be born and would be born exactly when they were supposed to be. She’d seen too many stories of people having children against all the odds to believe otherwise. She was just so impatient for it to be her time already.

“Looks like we’ve arrived.”

Elaine looked out of the window to see the akora was descending to a park among a warren of pedestrian walkways, trees and plants. Looking further out, she realised there were no roads anywhere. What she had taken to be roads on a casual glance, were all paths. The low to medium rise buildings were punctuated by large parks and there were trees and plants everywhere.

The akora settled on what looked like a landing pad which Elaine was sure hadn’t been there a moment before. She moved towards the door.

“You better wait. Our security details will be pissed if we get out before they’ve strutted threateningly for a minute, and knowing Talis, he’ll want to open the door for me himself.” Pyri rolled her eyes while she spoke, but Elaine could see she enjoyed it.

The other akoras landed around them, and Elaine could see the landing pads rise out of small openings in the ground. The males inside, Amaran, Adosian and Elaine’s two personal, don’t go anywhere without them heroes, Zinif and Thalvuten, spilled out onto the park attracting the attention of the Kuyon walking through or relaxing.

The males surrounded their akora and all eyes were suddenly on them, the pedestrians came to a halt, conversations stopped and everything stilled in anticipation.

“Oh shit,” Elaine whispered, her palms suddenly sweaty, butterflies erupting in her stomach.

“They’re going to be so disappointed when a couple of humans get out,” Elaine said, squeezing Elaine’s forearm as she spoke.

The door opened and one of Pyri’s pack looked inside, holding out his hands for the small girl bundle still sitting in Elaine’s lap. Elaine handed her over to Adaran.

Talis appeared in the door next and helped Pyri out of the akora. The akoras sat quite high due to the repulsors and tyres being housed in the same body beneath the passenger area, so when she walked over to the door, he just took her around the waist and set her on the ground.

Thalvuten appeared a moment later and Elaine let him set her to her feet. Elaine realised Talis had walked away and she felt offended for a moment.

“Adosian males don’t touch females outside of their family because it’s considered disrespectful to their mates,” Pyri said with an apologetic smile.

“Aww, no, that’s kind of cute.”

Pyri laughed. “Thanks for understanding. They’ll only touch you if they need to get you to safety. I don’t think it’s even culture. I think it’s the mating instinct. He had to help this Adosian female who’d fallen at the celebration of our wedding, and it seemed to actually upset him to touch her. I don’t get how the males addicted to heat were able to touch females that weren’t their mates because every other male I’ve seen will actively avoid touching females.”

“It goes to show how deep their issues went,” Elaine said, watching their guards form a circle around them before they stepped off the platform.

Behind Pyri, the akoras sunk into the ground.

Elaine gasped and turned to find their akora was disappearing also.

“Underground storage,” Thalvuten said, his voice impossibly deep. “I researched about this place when I learned we were coming here. The akoras will be stored and charged while we’re gone and when we enter the park to retrieve them, the parking complex will bring them up so that we have them as soon as we arrive back here.”

“That’s so cool,” Elaine said. “Can we visit them? Get a tour?”

“A tour?” Pyri said, sounding bored already.

“Your dragging me to museums and stuff, you can come on the underground parking tour.”

“Fine,” Pyri sighed.

“The museums sound boring, but I’m in for the parking. Sounds… cool?” Nadan said.

Elaine smiled at his use of the word.

“I think it sounds dull. But I can’t wait for the museums,” Adaran said. “You’re going to love the museums, aren’t you Sameia?”

“Nah, Sameia’s going to be an engineering girlie, like her aunty Elaine,” Elaine said, smiling at the little girl who beamed back at her. “See.”

“Whatever she is, we will love her and honour her right to do it,” Talis said, holding his little girl’s hand and smiling at her. it was the first time Elaine had seen him smile since she met him, even though they spent several hours last night talking at their villa about the conspiracies and funding around the experiments Castus conducted on them and perfected on Pyri.

Thanks to Castus’s interference, Pyri now went into an Adosian style heat. He’d been paid by Thelan’s fathers. Their Varaar was addicted to heats and spent decades exploiting destitute Adosian females, using doctors to inject them with drugs to put them into heat, and abandoning, selling or even killing them when he was done with them. Thelan was one of several children conceived because of them and grew up in an orphanage after his mother killed herself.

It was part of the reason females now had rights on Adosia, a part of the reason they had returned to the culture they’d abandoned when their society became misogynistic. Talis was determined his daughter would be strong and free.

“The restaurant is this way,” Thalvuten said.

As a group, they set off, Thalvuten leading the way.

“This is such a beautiful park,” Pyri said when they’d been walking for a few minutes. “And bigger than I thought.”

“This park is a part of several dozen green corridors that run through the city,” Thalvuten said. “Ket’Kitara is very hot. They mitigate some of that by planting trees which create cooler microclimates. When there are a lot of them, it brings down the whole ambient temperature of the city. It means the Kuyon can walk in the shade wherever they go, and it promotes people walking. People prefer nature, no matter what species they are. They’re more likely to walk if there are pleasant places to walk in.”

“Helps to not have roads, either,” Pyri pointed out.

Elaine laughed and nodded.

The restaurant was beach front with private booths. By the time they got there, they’d barely walked through any of the actual city, sticking mostly to the corridors which, by design, made it a very pleasant walk.

They emerged from the park on the beach and walked along the promenade which had trees planted all along it. Every building had a canopy outside which helped shade the populace from the punishing star shining down on them as they walked up and down the street.

Everywhere they went, Kuyon stopped and stared at them.

The restaurant was sunk into the ground so that the back of the booths were on the same level as the path surrounding it. A foot away, white sand shone under the sun.

Elaine and Pyri entered the restaurant with their entourage. Inside, Kuyon who were already watching them stopped what they were doing, jaws agape as a massive group of Amarans and Adosians and Zinif and Thalvuten walked by escorting two human females.

Though, some of their entourage had stayed at the park with the drivers of their akoras to guard them and more of them stayed outside. Elaine could see them walking the perimeter, guarding all the entrances and exits.

“I’m sure the owners are going to love this,” Elaine said.

“There are already human and Tessans here, Look,” Pyri said, pointing at the group of tables around the Bilaal Gadid’s. Sure enough, there were humans and Tessans sitting and standing around them.

As they approached, the Bilaal Gadid’s stood up. On a table beside them, A young woman in an OSAF uniform stood as well.

Alexander Bilaal Gadid had the most welcoming smile Elaine had ever seen. He was a handsome man with umber skin and an easy manner. Nyala was a tall woman with a kind smile and between them stood their daughter.

“It’s so great to finally meet you,” Alexander said, holding out a hand. He shook Pyri’s first, then Elaine’s.

“We were hoping to meet you both during this summit.”

“You wanted to meet us?” Pyri asked, looking confused.

“Absolutely,” Alexander said, grinning. He pointed at the seats and Pyri and Elaine sat down, diving their attention between watching and entertaining Sameia.

Behind them, her pack took a table a little way away from them while Zinif and Thalvuten simply stood nearby.

“Is that your daughter?” their daughter asked.

“Oh, forgive me. This is my wife Nyala, of course and our daughter Kamali.”

“Are you the only child in the Earth contingent?” Pyri asked Kamali.

Kamali smiled and nodded.

Pyri looked at Elaine and Elaine knew exactly what she was thinking. Besides Harumi, this group of humans was the first group to ever make it out into the galactic neighbourhood without being kidnapped into slavery or taken as a slave. Which meant Kamali was the first child to come out here as a free person.

“We know the significance,” Alexander said, rubbing his daughter’s back.

“You said you wanted to talk to us specifically, why is that?” Pyri asked, getting straight to the point in typical Pyri manner.

Nyala sat forward, resting her arms against the table.

“The two of you were OSAF officers before what happened to Endurance.—”

“I will not be used as a spy against Adosia,” Pyri said. “I love Earth and I’m loyal to Earth, but I love Adosia and I’m loyal to Adosia. That should not be a problem now that Adosia is on Earth’s side. We have declared our support for Earth publicly—”

“We wouldn’t dream of asking that,” Alexander said, holding his hands up.

“You want us to talk to them on your behalf,” Elaine guessed. “Pyri and her pack, and me, with the Ilan.”

Alexander and Nyala looked at one another.

“Yes,” Alexander said. “To whatever level you feel comfortable with. Miss Bjornsdottir—"

“Idra Bjornsdottir,” Pyri corrected him.

Alexander seemed to freeze. Elaine could practically see the wheels in his head turning, acknowledging how badly this was going.

“You are right. We really didn’t do introductions properly at all, did we. Idra Bjornsdottir. And…” Alexander turned to him.

For a moment, Elaine got the urge to just shrug and tell her to call him Elaine, but then she remembered that Dahnus went to a lot of trouble to get her the title he had and that he got it to make sure his people respected her. She had a certain position now, and out of respect to Dahnus, she represent him to the best of her limited skills.

“Lady Franklin,” Elaine said.

“Lady Franklin,” Alexander nodded. “I am Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Earth Alexander Bilaal Gadid. This is my wife, Admiral Nyala Bilaal Gadid. She is the commanding officer of Athena Station and I am the Ambassador in residence. This is our daughter, Kamali, she is twelve years old. Over here,” Alexander pointed at the woman in the next booth who’d stood earlier and sat down unnoticed, “is Lieutenant General Ahana Katri. She is acting as a representative for Earth’s military.”

“Hi, good to meet you both.”

Elaine and Pyri greeted the woman, though Elaine wasn’t sure what she’d said, if anything to the woman. She was the most beautiful woman Elaine had ever seen.

“But please, call me Alexander.”

“And Nyala,” his wife said.

“Please call me Ahana.”

“And I’m Kamali,” the little girl said, a grin on her face.

Everyone laughed and the mounting tension at the table evaporated.

“Pyri,” Pyri said.

“Please call me Elaine. I’m not much for formality anyway. I just wanted to make my position clear.”

Alexander nodded.

“I get it. You don’t want to be taken advantage of or be asked or coerced into taking advantage of the people you’ve become attached to.”

“Precisely,” Pyri said.

“What is it exactly you do want?” Elaine asked.

“We want you to keep Earth’s plight fresh in their minds. We’re afraid of being forgotten.” It was Ahana who spoke, walking around the booth and joining them as she did. “You have to remember what it’s like. Information is limited in Earth’s system. Until the Tessans started sending Dairon Ethallion and Makios Desares to us, we were completely ignorant what it was like out here.”

Elaine remembered.

“We’re afraid that as time passes, we become less important. That the news cycles move on, and we’ll be forgotten.” Alexander said, jumping in.

“I don’t think you have to worry about that,” Pyri said. “The issue is forefront in most of the political minds of those species who were on the IGC when Endurance exploded. The issue is keeping the debate antagonistic enough to stop the Bentari and Fedhith getting their invasion approved. I’m positive it’s one of the reasons Ilan Dahnus hasn’t declared a side yet, though I’m positive he’s on Earth’s side. So many species out here hate the Amarans for their previous invasions and empire, them declaring a side would make a lot of the peoples who are neutral align with our enemies.”

Elaine looked at Pyri shocked. She’d never thought about any of this. Was it true?

Alexander sat back, looking disappointed.

“Damn, I was hoping to talk to you about the Amarans,” he said looking at Elaine. “I thought maybe getting them to issue public support would help our cause.”

“It would most likely hamper it,” Pyri said. “At least until we can find the Todaali who sabotaged our engines and get him to testify to his part.”

“And there’s no sign of him?” Alexander asked.

Pyri shook her head. “The station was chaos. Hekalion Dar told Sofia that he’d sent him to be sold and we have people on the station looking for information—’

“We do?” Elaine asked.

“Adosia does. The advantage of being mated to the ruling pack is I can give the ambassador’s pack and his employee packs side quests.” Pyri shrugged.

Alexander laughed. “Thanesh told me you were a troublemaker. I like you.”

So, while Elaine was sitting on her ass at the Palace of Light, Pyri had plans and agents and had remade a whole world.

“We should order breakfast,” Alexander said, signalling the staff. “And then, you can tell us all what other plans you have.”

Pyri laughed and nodded.