Never Love A Stranger Part 31

In fact, James spent most of the afternoon talking with "his people." She was aware of a faint twinge of jealousy, but she tried to repress it, knowing it was unworthy of her. She really couldn't blame James for his childlike delight.

In the evening, she put on a dress Charles kindly provided, and went to dinner in the town square.

The humanoids ate outside, "under the stars," Charles explained. As the darkness fell, it began to grow chilly, but not uncomfortably so. She sat in the middle of a large, friendly group of humanoids, James by her side, and chatted as she ate homegrown corn and beans. "How long have you been up here'" she asked Charles.

He flashed a smile that was as brilliantly mesmerizing in its way as James' lady-killing grin. He was chocolate-skinned, with long dreadlocks--every bit as gorgeous as James, yet totally opposite in appearance. "Two years," he said. "We couldn't go on living as slaves. James here led us out of slavery."

James looked abashed. "I did my best."

"But you claim it didn't work," Charles said, grinning. "No matter'if you didn't save us in the present, James, you must have saved us in the past. Because we are free."

"Your village is very impressive," Gar said, looking around at the metal structures. They looked vaguely reminiscent of those buildings Annie remembered from M*A*S*H'Quonset huts, she thought they were called. It was no wonder they didn't use wood; here in the middle of the desert there wasn't much to use. "How did you build it'"

Charles seemed slightly taken aback. "How'"

Gar nodded. "How did you get the metal' Surely you don't have mining capabilities, do you'"

The smile on Charles' face flickered slightly. "No."

"So I suppose you bartered with my people for the metal," Gar said.

There was the slightest hesitation before Charles said, "Yes, that is what we did."

Odd, Annie thought. It was almost as if Charles didn't know how the village had been built. Which was

ridiculous, if he was the mayor of this place. He must have supervised its construction. She frowned at her plate. Crops growing in the desert. "Where do you get the water'" she asked abruptly. Charles raised his eyebrows. "The water'" "How do you get the water to grow the crops'" "We have a source of water," Charles said. There couldn't possibly be enough water in the desert to keep those crops growing, Annie thought.

"What source'" she persisted. "I thought the pipes were far below ground here. How do you get the water'" Charles hesitated, looking confused and bewildered, and James intervened. "Annie," he said, wrinkling his forehead. "Surely it isn't necessary to interrogate Charles."

Annie lowered her lashes. "No," she said. "It isn't. I'm very sorry, Charles." James frowned at her, a disapproving look that made her feel about five years old. "Annie," he said in a stern voice. "We need to talk." He stood up, and she rose to her feet and followed him.

When they had walked some distance away from the others, he turned to her, looking uncomfortable. "Annie, I want you to know that I very much appreciate everything you have done for me." That sounded so much like a dismissal that her mouth fell open. "I haven't done anything for you, James." "You have done a great deal for me," he said. "You have treated me like a human, and for that I am extremely grateful. But my people'." He lifted his head and stared past her, at the group of laughing, chattering humanoids. "My people need me, Annie."

"They don't need you, James. They're doing just fine."

"They need me," he repeated. "And I need them."

She saw the truth in his eyes, and a huge lump lodged in her throat. "Fine. I can stay here with you,

James. I don't mind." In the back of her mind she thought of never seeing Kay or Clark again, and pain sliced through her heart like a knife. But she was willing to make the sacrifice for James. She wasn't exactly certain what her feelings were for him. But she did know they'd been through too much together, and she couldn't let him go. She couldn't. But his next words shattered her hopes. "No," he said gently. "You need to be with your people. You must return to your own life, Annie. You belong in your time, just as I belong in mine. According to Charles, the Bureau in this reality understands, and they will help you return to your time." "I thought they wanted me as an accessory to murder'" "Charles believes they will send you back to your own time rather than punish you."

She swallowed hard and tried very hard to keep the tears that burned in her eyes from falling. "You're telling me to get lost, aren't you'" "Annie'." He sighed. "Our time together meant a great deal to me. But you cannot understand me, understand the way I think, understand what I truly am, the way other humanoids can. I've come to realize that a relations.h.i.+p with a human is a poor subst.i.tute for living among my people."

He couldn't have hurt her more if he'd slapped her. "Fine," she said tightly. James looked at her with a compa.s.sionate gaze. "I'm sorry, Annie." "It's all right," she said in a harsh whisper. "I understand." And the h.e.l.l of it was that she did understand. He'd been cut off from his people, alone in the universe, and he'd turned to her for companions.h.i.+p because he'd had nothing else. But she knew she couldn't really understand him the way Charles and the others did. It didn't surprise her that when he had to make the choice, he chose the humanoids.

"You and Gar should leave in the morning," he said. "Fine," she answered dully, and turned and walked back to the happy, laughing group around the fire, feeling like she was dying inside. * * * * "Charles told me we have to go," Gar said an hour later. He and Annie were walking back through the town, with its small, neat metal huts. "Is James coming with us'" "No. He's not." Gar frowned. "I don't understand that, Annie. He loves you."

"I don't think so."

"He is capable of love, Annie, despite the fact that he is a machine. When I was a child, he gave me a great deal more love than my mother ever did."

"I know that. But I think'" Annie swallowed. "I think I was just a sort of subst.i.tute to him, something he

could hang onto when he lost his people. But now that he's found his people again, he's discovered he's

not that attached to me after all."

Gar shook his head. "James isn't like that, Annie. He's loyal to the core. I don't believe he'd leave you voluntarily."

"He did," she said, unable to keep the bitterness from her tone. "He looked me right in the eyes and told me to get lost."

Gar's steps faltered, and he turned to face her. "Suppose they forced him to do that somehow'"

"Forced him' How could they do that'"

"They could threaten him with one of our deaths," Gar suggested. "We both mean a great deal to him.

He would probably agree to let us go in order to see us be unhurt."

That idea appealed to Annie's wounded heart, but she shook her head anyway. "No, Gar. Think about it from his point of view. It makes perfect sense that he doesn't want me anymore. He fell for me because he missed his people, because he felt alone, but when he found them'"

"When he found his people he just told you to go to h.e.l.l' That isn't like James, Annie. Trust me, something is not right here." Annie sighed. "Yeah, tell me about it. There's something weird about the whole place, if you ask me. The mayor doesn't know how the town was constructed."

"He probably wasn't designed for construction work," Gar said. "All the humanoids were programmed with specific knowledge for the task they were built to fulfill. James wouldn't have the faintest notion how to build a hut, either, although I'm sure he could learn if he needed to. There are probably humanoids here who are construction workers, so Charles didn't need to learn."

"But the mayor should at least have an idea how the metal was obtained, shouldn't he'"

"You'd think so. But perhaps he wasn't mayor when the town was built."

"And the water," Annie went on, thinking out loud. "He didn't seem to have the slightest clue how they

were getting water."

Gar nodded. "I have to agree, that surprised me."

"And when I tried to press him on it, James pulled me aside. He distracted me." Annie frowned in

thought. "It's almost like they didn't want us to a.n.a.lyze everything too closely."

"What are you suggesting, Annie'"

"I'm not sure. But something is fishy here."

"Let's think about it logically. What have we observed that seems out of place'" Gar began to tick facts off on his fingers. "Crops in the desert. James acting odd. And houses made of metal, which the mayor doesn't seem to know how they obtained." He scowled. "Not much to go on, Annie."

Houses made of metal. Annie stared at one of the metal huts, which was located well off the road, and a sudden idea occurred to her, a notion that was almost too bizarre to be believed. But it would explain a great deal.

She headed toward the hut with a determined stride. Gar trailed behind her, obviously uncertain what she was doing.

When she reached the hut, she reached out and touched it. Her hand disappeared, and the whole structure quivered.

"This isn't real," Annie said in a low tone. "It's a holo-image." She looked up at him, seeing his eyes widen with surprise. "What if the whole town is a holo-image, Gar'"

"Some of it must be real," Gar answered. "The hut they let us stay in this afternoon was real, or we would have noticed it was a holo-image the moment we stepped inside and sat on a piece of furniture. And the food was definitely real. But most of the village may be entirely artificial."

"What about the people' Are they holo-images too' If they were, wouldn't they ' s.h.i.+mmer'"

Gar shrugged. "The smaller holo-images don't appear to show any sort of distortion. That building looked convincingly solid until you touched it. The desert holo-image probably s.h.i.+mmered because of its scale, or maybe because it was combined with a force field. The only way to tell with a smaller holo-image like a person would be to touch one."

"I think they're all holo-images," Annie said. "None of this is real, Gar. The crops, the buildings, the people'all fake."

Gar swallowed. "You may be right, Annie. In retrospect, I think you are right."

Annie closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and met Gar's eyes. "What about James'"

She could tell from his startled expression that he hadn't given any thought to that. "You mean James might be a holo-image'"

"Why not'" she said impatiently. "He was out of our sight for thirteen minutes. He's stayed away from me, so I haven't touched him. In fact, he backed away from me when I tried to touch him. And you're the one who pointed out he's acted in a very un-Jameslike way. Suppose whoever's doing this kidnapped him, then used this'this illusion to keep us occupied for hours. They must have realized we'd see through it eventually, but they wanted to keep us busy and out of the way."

"And we fell right into it," Gar said darkly. "They showed us everything we wanted to see."

"But who are they' None of this makes any sense. It seems too elaborate for the Bureau. All they want is to kill James."

"If the James we've been seeing is a holo-image, then James may very well be dead," Gar said gently.

"I don't think so. They could have killed him instantly, once they had him inside the wall. But then why would they invent this elaborate fantasy for us' They'd either send us back to the cylinder city or kill us outright. It doesn't make any sense that the Bureau would try to keep us occupied this way."

"No," Gar agreed. "It doesn't. Therefore our captor is very likely not the Bureau."

"That doesn't make any sense, either. Who would capture us besides the Bureau' Who would even know we were here'"

"Why do you a.s.sume they want to capture us in particular' Maybe this is just a trap set up to ensnare anyone who happens along."

"Oh, sure, and it just happens to show us a scenario that we desperately want to see," Annie drawled. "Unless the people who've captured us can read minds and generate images based on our thoughts, Gar, that doesn't make any sense. Think about it. They have to know who we are, and they must have captured us deliberately."

Gar folded his hands behind him and set his jaw. "We are criminals," he suggested. "As far as the Bureau is concerned, we are all responsible for Dekka's death."

"So they might be trying us one at a time'" Gar looked puzzled. "Trying us'"

"Yeah, you know, bringing us up on charges in front of a judge." "A judge' You mean someone who decides if you are guilty or not'"

"Exactly."

Gar shook his head. "There are no judges here, Annie. Particularly not for James, but for us as well. If the Bureau says we are murderers, then we are murderers."

"I guess innocent until proven guilty isn't an idea that caught on in the future," Annie muttered grimly.

Gar's forehead wrinkled. "How could a murderer be innocent'" "Never mind." Annie relieved some of her tension by putting her fist through the building and watching it quiver again. If James was dead'.

But she refused to believe that. He couldn't be dead. She couldn't bear it if he were. Besides, it didn't add up. "So this isn't some sort of holding facility. Which wouldn't make any sense anyway, now that I think about it. If they had captured us, they could just throw us in the local equivalent of a jail. No need to keep us occupied."

"True enough."

"They're trying to get rid of us. That's the only scenario I can imagine that would make sense."

"Get rid of us'"

"Sure. We visit for a day, see that everything is just peachy, see that James will be happy, and then go back to the cylinder city. That's what James and Charles both asked us to do, after all. That gets us out of their hair. But the real James stays here."

"So you're suggesting we're here because someone wants James."

"Yes, but who' That's what we have to find out."

She swung around and started back toward the eating place, Gar striding behind her. In the distance, illuminated by moonlight, she spotted Charles and James standing together, and she walked faster. She stalked up to Charles and glared into his eyes.

"Tell me what the h.e.l.l is going on."

Chapter 26.

Charles stared at her, his coffee-dark eyes puzzled. "I don't understand."