By the third day they had settled into a routine, and words like cramped and boring filtered back into their conversations. Elenya started making forays beyond the café perimeter. She visited with her father, mending fences, checking on the pulse of the mini-city growing up around them. Their little structure had become the center of a human whirlwind, even though most of the real tornado was off-world. The bureaucrats grew increasingly frustrated and resentful of being kept out of the loop. Which of course was ridiculous. Every Watcher reported in as soon as they returned. What the authorities meant was, they hated not being in control. And since Sean couldn’t do anything about that, he wouldn’t even talk to them. Even when Tatyana asked nicely. There was too much risk of giving in, and he couldn’t afford that. None of them could. Everything depended on maintaining the status quo. And hoping they would hold on to the element of surprise.
Much as Sean chafed at their confinement, he couldn’t just leave. As Dillon put it, they were the ones who brought everybody to the dance. The station and its perimeter were now on a battle footing. There was no such thing as a day off. They were on full alert, even when sitting around watching the clock count down the Cyrian equivalent of seconds like a miser handing over gold.
But they could make temporary escapes.
That evening, Earth time, Dillon and Carey slipped away for a meal with her father. When they came back, Sean and Elenya followed suit. Elenya seemed thrilled with John’s backyard grill, the roast chicken, the potatoes. It was amazing to watch her get excited over coleslaw. And raspberry iced tea—she actually moaned with pleasure over that one. It felt great to laugh, to share with John all that was happening, to feel a momentary freedom from the grim cadence of waiting.
The fourth day passed. And the fifth. On the sixth, the Cyrian leaders tried to insist on bringing Insgar back. The old woman was the last remaining Watcher who had survived an alien attack, and had been one of those responsible for tracking the aliens when they tried to spread via the transiters’ occupied bodies to other worlds. She had led the Watcher’s Academy for almost thirty years.
Insgar informed the Cyrian delegation they would ignore Sean’s instructions at their peril, and sent them packing.
The sixth day gave way to the seventh, and the eighth. The disjointed meals with John and the few fleeting moments they could enjoy in the loft became a highlight of each passing day and kept the rising tension at bay, at least partly.
On the ninth day, everything changed.