Halcyon Nights (Star Sojourner Book 2)

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Book: Read Halcyon Nights (Star Sojourner Book 2) for Free Online
Authors: Jean Kilczer
He studied me. “I offered to go to Tartarus and drag you back by your ears but she wouldn't have it. What does this alien want?”
    “I wish I knew. Whatever it is…” I watched the shimmering pool of city lights and realized how tired I was, weary as a spent day. “I doubt I'm telepathically strong enough to fight it…him. But I intend to try. I'm not keen on meeting this crote, or a trip to Halcyon, especially if it's one way.”
    Joe got up and shook his head. He opened the door and gestured for me to follow him down the hallway. I knew he wouldn't ask for more information but would wait for me to offer it.
    Not on his life. If this silver being could reach a non-tel on Earth, and I gave Joe specifics, it could mean Joe's life.
    “Lisa's in the den,” he told me as I followed him. “Kid looks at more vis than the real world.”
    We went past Abby's office with its shelves of program cubes. The lit monitor displayed a human pancreas organic. I wondered what modified cells she was designing into it.
    Lisa sat cross-legged on the rug before the vid's small holo stage, her back to us as we entered the den, which was paneled in real wood. She held a stuffed Cleocean doll with mock white downy fur. Its six violet eyes blinked at me from over her shoulder and its twin tails protruded from beneath her arm. I wondered if Cleocean children went to bed with stuffed humans tucked under a flipper. A fire blazed in the stone hearth. The log was fake, I knew, but it crackled, sparked, and emitted a smell of burning wood.
    A Siamese cat curled on the woven rug watched me with jade-green eyes. My heart was thumping as I gazed at Lisa's blonde curls, her small, fragile body. She needed a good father, I admitted to myself. Someone who loved and protected her. I lowered my head, afraid to face my daughter.
    “Lisa?” Joe said. “There's someone – “
    “I'll go to bed after Space Bears!” She hunched forward as though to plant herself. “I promise, Grandpa.”
    “Your father's here to see you,” Joe said softly.
    She turned. Her eyes widened and she hugged the doll, then buried her face in it. Joe went to her and picked her up with a grunt, doll and all. “It's all right, sweetheart,” he said gently. “Say hello to your Daddy.”
    She peeked out from behind the doll's flipper and hugged Joe's neck. “Hello. Mommy showed me holos of Daddy,” she told Joe.
    I remembered the presents. “Uh, I bought you some presents, Lisa.”
    She stared at the bright boxes. “Did you bring them back from pig Tartas?” she mumbled into the doll's cloth body.
    Joe grimaced. “Everything's pig this week,” he told me.
    I smiled. “Well. One's from Tartarus.” I told Lisa and extended a wrapped sea shell. “Do you want to open it?”
    She pressed her head against Joe's neck. “Can I, Grandpa?”
    ”Sure you can. Suppose you and your father open them together?”
    She stared at the presents and nodded. He put her down on the carpet. “Grandma's in the kitchen and I'll be in my study.” He bent stiffly, hands on knees. “Is that all right with you, honey?”
    She looked from me to the presents and nodded again.
    “Good.” Joe patted her head. “I'll call a few friends,” he told me casually and left the room.
    I knew just how serious Joe would turn when he got on the link with his friends. People from the Pentagon, W-CIA, the Worlds Court. Probably Interstel itself on planet Alpha, the seat of the Worlds' government. What could they do about a being they couldn't locate? But Joe never did give up in the face of a small thing like futility.
    I sat on an easy chair armrest and watched Lisa pull at the ribbon of the shell present. The armrest groaned as it tried to conform to something heavier than an arm. I closed my mind to any possibility of tel-reading her thoughts. There's such a thing as privacy, after all.
    On the holo stage, bears twirled and sang against a backdrop of stars as they skated on beams of sunlight.
    “Uh,

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