It had been easy to pretend we were on Earth before. There were no windows in the sitting room, and the beam up process, or whatever it was actually called, had been all a whirl and completely painless aside from a small amount of ear pressure. The Lexas were years ahead of us in terms of space travel. Not that I was surprised. As far as I knew, humans weren’t exploring far-off galaxies for day trips.
The semblance of normalcy started to slip away when we stepped inside the command pod. All the walls of the room were covered with large monitors that showed a myriad of data. My eyes jumped from screen to screen to take in the various images and numbers. It looked like a set up I could imagine on Earth except everything was bigger and brighter. It looked real, like if you reached out and touched a picture of the planet you’d really be touching the planet and not the screen.
Dale must have been thinking along the same lines. He reached out for an image of the Earth. There was a small ‘ping’ sound and the image jumped from the screen to float in thin air in front of him. He touched the image again, and the Earth spun. His eyes lit up. “Unreal.”
“I forget how far behind Earth technology is,” Telton mused. “It is not for a lack of intelligence as much it is a lack of interest.”
“Oh, there is interest.” Dale started to spin the Earth image faster. “Lots of interest, just not by the ones making decisions.”
“And that’s enough.” Angie touched the spinning image and slid it back to the screen. “You don’t need to break things on the first day.”
“I wasn’t going to break it.” Dale frowned. “It’s an image. It can’t break.”
Telton turned his back to their bickering. “Rachel, how was your rest?”
“It was fine, but that’s not what we should be wasting our time discussing.” Her words were forced, and I could nearly feel the tension between them.
“Your health and well-being will always be important to me.” Telton angled himself as to partially block me from her view. My guess is he wanted to make sure he kept her attention.
“I want to believe that.” Rachel rolled back her shoulders. “But how can I?”
He flinched. “I thought you understood.”
“I understood what exactly? Why you kidnapped me? Why you lied to me all these years?”
“Yes… but I see I have more work to do to convince you.”
“Right now I need you to make me a promise. Not that your promises mean much, but still. I need it.”
I wasn’t on the receiving line of her biting words, but I felt them enough to know I never wanted to be.
Telton held out his hands palm up to her. “Anything. I will promise you anything you need.”
“That you will do nothing to harm these people.” She spread out her arms. “None of them. They are all innocent.”
“You are innocent too.” I hadn’t really meant to interrupt, but I was quite certain nothing that had happened in Rachel’s life had been her choice at all.
“Yes. She is innocent.” Telton nodded. “Completely innocent.”
“I was blind.” Rachel wiped her eyes with her hand. “That is not innocence, but I know something was done to me. I was given some sort of modifier.”
“In your water…” Telton hung his head.
“That’s why she loves Earth water so much.” Dale clapped his hands together. “It isn’t tainted with drugs. Well, not that I know of.”
I glared at him. Dale was a good friend most of the time, but he could also be unbelievably annoying.
“How long did you know?” Rachel’s voice was calm, far calmer than I would have been.
“A few months.”
“You really had no clue before then? You never wondered?” She crossed her arms over her chest.
“Perhaps I should have. Maybe that puts me in the same boat as you. I was blind.” Telton continued to look down, as if ashamed.
“But you were an adult. I was a child.”
“You were not protected the way a child should have been.” Telton looked up. “I am sorry for that. But I still believe you were given a better life. I’m sorry you were modified for so many years. Had I known I would have stepped in sooner.”
“Did you think I really felt that way? So strongly about Caspian?” Rachel brushed her hair off her shoulders.
“You were close since childhood. Your bond seemed normal considering who he was, and his capacity to feel. There was no way for you to form a bond like that with anyone else.”
Rachel tilted her head to the side. “Why? Why was he different?”
“Not was, but is. Caspian is different from the rest of us.”
“The rest of the Lexas?” Angie asked. She’d taken a seat in one of the few ‘captain chairs.’ She looked tiny sitting in the large black chair, and I was kind of tempted to pull out my phone and take a picture. I didn’t.
“Yes. He has the capacity to truly feel and experience emotion without the aid of modifiers. Nearly all of our kind lost that ability ages ago.” There was no sadness to Telton’s voice, but there was a tinge of something else. Anger, maybe?
“But why does he?” Rachel shifted her weight from foot to foot. “It’s not as if the rest of the royal family does.”
Telton shrugged. “There are some mysteries I cannot explain.”
“How did you find out?” Rachel spoke in nearly a whisper. “How did you find out what they were doing to me?”
“Kelby confided in me.”
“Kelby knew?” Rachel’s voice lilted.
Telton nodded. “He knew.”
“Where is this Kelby guy anyhow?” Dale glanced all around as if the guy was going to magically appear. I guess considering we had been beamed up, it wasn’t such a strange idea.
“We are waiting for him.” Telton stepped back, finally giving me a fuller view of Rachel’s face again.
“Why?” Rachel sighed. “You said he finally told you, which means he knew longer. Did he suddenly have a change of heart? How do you know you can trust him?” There was real anger laced in her voice, and I wanted to ask her why. I wanted to know why this Kelby guy upset her. Was she involved with him too? Like Caspian? I shook myself. Her past relationships were none of my business.
“Because we need him.” Telton zoomed in on one of the screens. This one showed several columns of numbers. “He is integral to this mission.”
“Why?” Rachel followed behind him, waiting just off to the side.
“Because even though I am the Commander of the Explorers, I lack the connections to properly build our army. Kelby can do that for us. In addition to connections, he has the personality.”
“Build an army?” I asked for clarification. Had he actually used the word ‘army’?
“Yes.” He turned to me. “How else would we defeat the Emperor?”
“I don’t see why Kelby has the skills.” Rachel leaned back against a long metal table.
“Kelby could convince a silkworm to buy silk.” Telton tapped the monitor and the numbers disappeared.
“That’s an interesting analogy.” Carl rested his chin on his hand. “Are there many silkworms on Andrelexa?”
“They aren’t native to our planet. No.” Telton kept his eyes on Rachel even as he answered.
“Oh. So you mean you stole them from another planet before you destroyed it?” Angie sat forward in her chair.
“Great. You’re going to insult him?” Dale glared.
“No. She’s right.” Telton flexed his muscles, but not in a showing off way, more like he was stretching. “We’ve made some mistakes, but the decision to destroy a planet is always made after careful consideration. It is only done when we believe there is no other hope.”
“No other hope for what?” I asked. Angie wasn’t the only curious one.
“No other hope for the natives of that planet to save themselves.” Telton studied me.
I tried to pretend I didn’t notice his intense gaze. “So what about Earth? Why is it in danger?”
Telton’s stare didn’t waver. “Because the Emperor is straying from that principle.”
“Why was it threatened with destruction before?” Rachel circled around to come stand beside me.
“Because of the carnage. But we shouldn’t discuss that now.” Telton turned to another monitor.
“Why not?” Rachel pulled back on his shoulder.
Telton spun around. “There is only so much a being like you can take.”
“A being like me?” Rachel pushed her hand into the front of his shoulder. “What are you saying? Are you claiming I’m weak?”
I hadn’t heard that kind of anger in her voice before, and I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. She was getting more upset by the second.
“I can’t have you distraught right now. I’m not implying you’re weak, but you have to be at your strongest. Please. Give me this time.”
“Stop doubting me.” Her hands balled into fists at her side.
I was torn. Did I reach out to comfort her? Or would that come across as condescending?
Before I could react, she relaxed. “I will hold you to it. But if you are correct and Earth is at risk, then I won’t fight you on this now. We must put the safety of the people of Earth first.” She glanced over at me and met my eyes.
“Not to interrupt, but any chance of us getting some of those cool threads?” Dale asked.
“Threads?” Telton’s brow furrowed.
“He means clothes,” I translated. “When have you ever used that word, Dale? Stop trying to act cool.”
“I’m not acting cool. I am cool.”
Angie rolled her eyes. “Really, Noah. You need to do a better job finding friends.”
I laughed. With everything else going on, it felt like the natural thing to do.