She inclined her head to him. “Thank you, Caer,” he heard her say.

Be more careful, little sister. You have great value to me.

“I’ll try, Caer.”

Turning to the leader, she once again bowed her head. “Thank you, Lord Nephil, for coming to our aid.”

Nephil gestured to his left and as she moved there, Jensen found himself staggering forward as whatever compulsion had held him motionless was suddenly lifted. He ran to her side, anxious to know for himself that she was well again.

“I’m fine,” she said, taking his hand.

Caer, take them within. I will decide the fate of the Landers now.

“Don’t harm them,” she said as Caer joined them. “They only prevented me leaving out of fear for my safety.”

Tyril frowned, his aura darkening slightly in anger. This is not your concern. Go with Caer. They must be taught to value what you sacrifice for their benefit.

“They sent us to warn you…” Jensen began.

Go!

Avana pulled him close and whispered, “It’s not wise to argue with him in front of his people.”

“But the colonists…”

“Will survive,” she said as they followed Caer out of the cavern and down the adjacent tunnel. “Danu’s Children are not fools. They each depend on the other. It just takes one visit each generation for Landing to realize it’s better to keep the agreement.”

“What’s this agreement you all keep taking about?” In the distance ahead he could see a faint glow and already the air was beginning to feel warmer.

“The first year we were here, they stole some of our cattle and developed a liking for beef. Now, in return for leaving them alone, we leave some milk and cheese out for them, and give them the occasional side of beef. They also keep an eye on our herd beasts grazing on the lower slopes. They’re omnivores like us and eat mainly the mountain deer and goat-like creatures native to Danu. I also teach them about our art and literature in exchange for learning about them. Primarily, they’re teaching me how to heal. The headache pills I gave you earlier were one of their recipes.”

“Why am I here?”

You were Called, as she was. You can learn our ways and be a mate for her, said Caer.

Avana’s face flushed and she looked away from him. “You were one of the original settlers, weren’t you?” he asked, choosing for both their sakes to ignore what Caer had said.

“Why do you need to know?”

“A question isn’t an answer.”

“Yes, I was. I was the only survivor of the first shuttle crash. They hadn’t had chance to meet any of us till then, so I was brought here to be healed. They soon realized I could understand them and began to exchange learning with me. Time isn’t the same inside the mountain, Jensen. I think it’s because they don’t quite live in the same dimension as us. What was weeks for me, when I went back to Landing, had been years there.”

He digested this for a few minutes. “Then the reason my leg was healed was because I was here.”

“You were missing for three months. That’s why Nolan told the Deigon you were dead. We thought you were.”

“And being Called?”

“Means staying with them for some time as students, and helping me find a way to stop the Company from finding out about them.”

He glanced at Caer pacing elegantly beside them, imagining how the Company would want to either exploit these people, or anger them to the point that war ensued. Beings with mental powers, access to a new dimension where time ran at a different rate from the world outside; he could imagine how salable a commodity this would be for any company, let alone theirs.

“Do they know what’s at stake?” he asked, looping his arm around her waist and drawing her in against his side.

“Oh yes. That’s why they call me their Envoy, Jensen. They’re preparing me-us,” she amended, “to speak for them and defend their rights.”

“Sounds to me like a good way to spend the next ten years.”

MY FATHER, THE POPSICLE by Annie Reed

Jodi thought she was an orphan until one sweltering Thursday night in late June when she received The Letter from Billingsly, Wendham & Owens, attorneys at law.

That’s how she always thought of it after that. The Letter. Wasn’t that how you were supposed to think about things that changed your life? All capitalized and important?

At first she thought it was a joke. She’d just worked a double shift at Hot Dog on a Stick in the new mall south of town. She was dead tired, and sick of the smell of lemons, corn dog batter, and hot grease. Her head hurt from where she had to pull her hair up under that stupid striped hat, her shoulders ached from all the fresh lemonade she had to mix, and to top it all off, the air conditioning had been out on the bus ride home. To say the bus had been fragrant was the understatement of the century. She was in no mood for jokes. Her roommate Harry had a pretty twisted sense of humor. A fake letter from an attorney was just his style, but tonight it wasn’t funny.

“I ought to rip him a new one,” Jodi muttered as she opened her front door. “Hear that, Harry?” she said to her empty apartment. “I ought to rip you a new one.”

Not that Harry was home yet. Harry worked as a bartender at the only gay club in town, and tonight he was on swing shift. Whether he could hear her or not, after a day spent swallowing the snappy come-backs she wanted to make to clueless customers whose IQ wasn’t much higher than the hot dogs they ate, muttering about Harry’s lack of humor sure as hell made her feel better.

Still, the envelope did look kind of authentic. Hmmm…

Jodi dropped her keys and the rest of the mail on the coffee table. It was all junk mail flyers and offers for credit cards neither one of them could afford, so it didn’t much matter where she left it. She plopped down on the couch she’d rescued from a secondhand store, slipped off her sensible, style-free shoes so she could stretch her toes into the carpet, and ripped open the envelope.

She skimmed through the introductory stuff. Dear Ms. blah-blah-blah I represent more blah-blah-blah bankrupt estate. The word assets caught Jodi’s eye, but the word that brought her up short was father.

What?

If this was Harry’s idea of a joke, it definitely wasn’t funny. He knew she had no sense of humor when it came to her family, or lack thereof.

She ended up reading The Letter three times in a row, each time with an ever-increasing shakiness in the pit of her stomach, not to mention a growing sense of unreality.

The Letter wasn’t the easiest thing to understand. Jodi had managed to finish high school-barely-but there had been no money left after her mother died for college. She made enough to pay rent and keep herself fed, but higher education was out of the question. The letter writer sounded like he had degrees up the wazoo and wrote to impress. Way out of Harry’s league. But Jodi did understand enough of the letter to realize that she’d been wrong. She wasn’t an orphan after all. She did have a father.

He was just frozen solid.

Billingsly, Wendham & Owens, attorneys at law, occupied the twelfth floor of a fourteen-story office building of gleaming chrome and glass. It took Jodi three buses and nearly an hour to get there, and if it hadn’t been for the letter in her purse, she would have turned around and gone home without even stepping inside.

Jodi didn’t know which was more intimidating-the building or the idea of meeting with an attorney. Even when her mother had died, there’d been no attorneys involved. Jodi’s mother hadn’t owned much of anything. Jodi just kept paying the rent on their small apartment until the memories became too much and she realized she could move somewhere else if she wanted to. She had no one left to tell her she couldn’t.