
A Spectrum
story by Marion Woods
Prologue:

2078
It was
the latest in a long line of leads that he’d followed that had brought him here
and although none of them had amounted to much, maybe his luck was about to
change? After all, what had he had to
go on until now? Sightings reported by
police forces or rumours that had made their way back to Cloudbase through a
tortuous network of gossipy contacts; but they had all had to be investigated –
he daren’t risk missing even the remotest possibility.
He’d
tried hard to keep it confidential – but without much success; somehow - by
that inevitable process of osmosis that bad news has of making itself known -
this had seeped out. He didn’t blame
anybody for it; he knew the few close friends who were fully aware of the
situation would never have spoken about it to outsiders; but speculation had
been running like bushfire through the base for weeks even before he’d left,
and it wasn’t as if he could deny it.
He ran a
tired hand through his long fringe and sighed, closing the email with a slight
grimace. It had been an unusually
diplomatic one from Captain Ochre – a man not normally known for his tact – and
he could imagine Rick had spent some time over it, carefully choosing words
that would convey his information in the best possible light.
The only
other email was from his mother, and he closed the screen without opening it;
he couldn’t bear to read another message from her pleading for him to give it
up and go home.
He went
and lay down on the narrow hotel bed, staring at the ceiling whilst he
assimilated Rick’s news. Sometimes a photographic memory can be useful and he
had no difficulty remembering the words:
Hiya Adam,
I was in Reno yesterday on a
follow-up mission – nothing much to worry over, although I think the
terrestrial crew are a little jumpy, which isn’t surprising given what happened
– but I got listening to a conversation between one of the guys who was going
off duty and his replacement while I was waiting for the ‘all clear’ to head
back to base. They were talking about
this nightclub, where a few of them hang out.
He said he’d met a woman there, a woman who’d only recently turned up, a
mid-westerner with short, blonde hair and green eyes. A young woman, he said.
Now, I know there must be
thousands of women who’d match that description, but Paul said I should let you
know anyway. This one was called Mandy
and she was drinking tequila. The guy
said he’d chatted to her for a while, bought her a few drinks and that he hoped
he would see her again. He didn’t say
much else.
The bar is called ‘Rick’s’ –
that’s why I started listening to him, I guess. I’d have gone and checked it
out, but the helijet arrived and I had to move on.
Anyway, after I mentioned it to
Paul, he said it was worth mentioning, so I thought I’d pass it on, for what
it’s worth.
You keeping okay, buddy? Hope we see you real soon,
Good luck,
Rick
Reno. He wondered how long she’d been there. He doubted very much that it wasn’t her – Rick
must’ve believed it was, or he wouldn’t have mentioned his idea of checking the
place out. No, this had to be the best
lead he’d had so far: even the name – Mandy - was promising, and he knew he’d
have to track the woman down. Although
he’d spent countless hours imagining what might happen when he did find her, he
still had considerable unease about what to expect from her: Karen Amanda, his
dearly belovéd other half. And the
location of this sighting didn’t bode well.
He
stretched out a hand and grasped the phone from the bedside locker.
“I need
to get a ticket for a flight to Reno,” he told the reception desk and waited
until they patched him through to the airline.
He chose a flight in four hours time and informed the hotel reception
desk he’d be checking out, ordering a taxi to the airport.
There
wasn’t much to pack; he was used to travelling light. He was downstairs forty minutes later and the taxi whisked him
through the busy streets to the airport.
He
travelled first class; always. There
was room for his long legs as well as the privacy he’d grown to demand. He nodded silent thanks to the stewardess as
she handed him his meal, but pushed the tray away some minutes later with most
of it uneaten.
Reno. She couldn’t really mean to do anything that
stupid? She’d done some foolish things
in her time; goaded by self-doubt, driven by frustration or simply despairing
of finding happiness, but she’d never mentioned divorce. He supported his head with his hand,
resting his elbow on the armrest of the plane seat, and stared, with unseeing
eyes, out of the window at the all-too-familiar cloudscape below the plane;
letting his mind review the events of the past few years once more.
They had married in Boston, on
the Saturday closest to his birthday; his fortieth birthday, to be
precise. Karen had looked so amazingly
beautiful, she’d taken his breath away.
Her mother had cried; his mother had cried. His father had smiled – which was almost a miracle in
itself. Paul and Dianne had been there
and the colonel had given her away to him, walking her up to where the preacher
stood waiting.
Paul’s after-dinner speech had
been witty and surprisingly emotional for the upright English military man,
ending with the obligatory reference to future off-spring and how to go about
getting them.
Not that they’d needed
instructions. They had a full and
satisfying sex-life already – albeit a somewhat clandestine one.
On their honeymoon, she’d told
him that she wanted to stop taking precautions, and that she wanted to have
children – his children – as soon as possible.
He’d agreed – experiencing what he’d found a surprising surge of emotion
and… gratitude. He’d never thought about
having children, as such – although in his private imaginings of a happy future,
there had always seemed to be the unseen, yet comforting, presence of
children. He’d always laughed
dutifully when Paul or Rick – it was usually one of those two – had commented
on liking children, but being ‘unable to eat a whole one’. Now there was a distinct possibility he’d
have a child of his own – his and Karen’s - and the prospect enthralled
him.
Colonel White had sent them to
stay with Amanda Wainwright, to allow his surprise of new ‘married’ quarters,
made from corner apartments on Cloudbase, to be constructed. They had spent an idyllic couple of weeks in
Iowa and on the day before they were due to return, Karen had told him that she
was pregnant.
Amanda had celebrated the news
with them, already as excited by the prospect of a grandchild as she was by her
own increasingly intense relationship with Charles Gray – Colonel White
himself.
Back on Cloudbase they had been
greeted by Paul and Dianne in their new quarters, and had swapped the news of
their dearest friends’ intention to go ahead with their own marriage, with the
news of their own future joy. Those
weeks had been the happiest they’d ever known.
Karen had taken on a radiance that was visible to all who saw her and
she’d been fit to burst with excitement.
Not that even that idyll had been
uneventful. A few days after their
return, Doctor Fawn had asked Blue to go to see him, and had told him that
Technician Lesley Saville was pregnant – and that the child was definitely his. Fawn was concerned about the health of both
Lesley and her unborn child, as the father of the child was not him, exactly –
was not Adam Svenson, Captain Blue of Spectrum - but his wayward, hedonistic
clone who had been created by a machine
produced by the Mysterons.
Nevertheless, he had felt
responsible and sometimes, when he lay awake at night during the periodic bouts
of insomnia that had punctuated his life since childhood, he could almost
remember details of what had happened – how the clone Captain Scarlet had
christened ‘Blue’ had sweet-talked himself into the hero-worshipping young
technician’s bed.
He’d braced himself to tell
Karen; but she’d taken the news far better than he’d expected, agreeing that he
could hardly be held responsible for what ‘Blue’ had done. Karen had not liked ‘Blue’ much anyway and
preferred not to dwell on the incidents that had led to their decision to marry
even while they continued to serve in Spectrum.
A few days later a polite
reminder came for her from Doctor Fawn to have a routine ante-natal check-up
and she’d dutifully made an appointment.
And, the week before Dianne and Paul were due to get married, she’d
taken in the required samples and gone to see the Head of Spectrum Medical;
happy and confident in the belief that she and her baby were doing fine.
He should’ve known something was
wrong by the way she was when she came back; the light had gone from her eyes,
the glow had dimmed in her complexion, yet, when he’d asked her if she was
okay, she’d smiled, nodded emphatically and exerted herself to be as carefree
as she had been so that he’d dismissed
his fears. The next day she’d gone back
to Medical and when he’d come back from his shift in the control room, he’d
found her weeping on their bed, as if the world was about to end.
Fawn’s tests had confirmed what
he’d told her he suspected yesterday – she was not pregnant. Rather bemused and let down himself, he’d
tried to comfort her, and eventually he thought he’d succeeded, although they
could both clearly recall the last time she’d believed herself pregnant, early
on in their relationship, and how that had resolved itself into a false
alarm. She had wept then, even though
at that time she had not wanted a baby, and now she most emphatically did.
They’d attended the
Metcalfe-Simms marriage and its attendant festivities, Karen struggling hard to
be as happy and cheerful as the occasion demanded; although to the eyes of
those who knew her well, it wasn’t difficult to see her underlying
disappointment. They’d been invited to
stay over with the Metcalfes after the wedding, and once they’d seen the happy
couple off on the first leg of the honeymoon he’d organised for them, they’d
joined Dianne and Paul’s parents and managed to laugh along with them at the
fund of baby-stories and pictures Mary Metcalfe produced to entertain her
guests. Finally, Karen had pleaded a
blinding headache and excused herself to go to bed. As soon as he decently could, he’d followed her, finding her
lying curled up in the bed, staring at the wall with a desperate sadness.
He’d made love to her – for the first time since she’d been to see
Doctor Fawn - but there’d been a tension in her that night which had lasted
until she experienced the numbing pain and sense of loss that accompanied a
heavy monthly period. The removal of
any lingering hopes had led to yet more tears, more misery. The pattern had been repeated for many
months, until he was at his wits’ end how to help her out of the depression
she’d slipped into.
In the meantime, the obviously
pregnant Lesley Saville had chosen to transfer back to her native Cornwall and
have her baby there amongst her family, and he had settled money on her,
assuring her that he would support her and the child. He sensed that Lesley had
hoped for more than mere financial security, but although he liked her well
enough, there had never been room in his heart for more than one woman at a
time – and Karen was the only woman he loved.
When Dianne Metcalfe had
announced that she was pregnant and then Lesley Saville had given birth to a
beautiful, golden-haired, healthy baby girl, Karen had withdrawn even further
into a shell. By the time Dianne gave
birth to her son – and they’d been asked to be the boy’s godparents by the
Metcalfes - she’d started keeping charts, taking her temperature every day and
demanding his presence at certain times, for the sole purpose of having
sex. Unavoidable absences – on duty or
on missions – resulted in tearful arguments that had seared his heart and
shattered his patience almost as much as those emotionless and passionless
bouts of love-making had. He’d been
reduced to feeling like some creature at stud – valued only for his virility
and not for himself.
If he hadn’t loved her so much, he’d have left.
Not that these exhausting encounters
had produced the desired result. Karen
would be on tenterhooks for a fortnight, followed by angry, frustrated weeping,
until he could do nothing more than hold her against him – almost as exhausted
as she. Then the charts would come out
again and his heart would sink…
Finally he’d convinced her to go
to see Fawn, to find out why things were not happening as they should. He offered to go too, but her scathing
answer had been enough to tell him that her previous acceptance had dissolved
and he might never be forgiven for the existence of little Freya
Saville-Svenson.
Doctor Fawn had been
consideration itself. The tests had
been exhaustive, thorough and devastating.
He’d asked to see them both and they’d arranged to go one morning,
between shifts. He’d been surprised
when Fawn had sought him out the evening before the appointment and taken him
aside to apprise him of what to expect.
It was then, he thought, that the
world had stopped and the entire weight of it had landed on him. Karen’s experience in the atomic power
station at Culver – so many years ago – was responsible for their failure to
conceive a child. The radiation Captain
Black had subjected her to had left her infertile. There was no cure – no amount of trying would correct the fault –
there would be no children.
He’d left the doctor, pausing
only to call his thanks over his shoulder and, like a wounded animal, sought
the dark loneliness of the remotest part of the base. He’d stayed there for some time, turning the truth over in his
mind, summoning the courage to face it and the knowledge of what it would do to
the woman he loved.
Eventually he’d walked back to
the Promenade Deck, where Ochre was waiting for the latest of his lady
friends. Rick’s cheerful banter had
cheered him slightly and he’d managed to go back to their quarters before Karen
came off duty. He’d held her in his
arms, and she’d been happy to lie there, allowing him to make love to her with
as much tenderness as he could summon.
As they both relaxed into the trough of lethargy that followed, she’d
turned to him, saying in a voice that was heavy with despair,
“It’s really bad news, isn’t it,
Sky?”
He hadn’t the heart to bluster or
pretend he didn’t understand and he’d told her the gist of what Fawn had said. She had not cried. She had not moved away from him, but he didn’t think she’d slept
that night – he knew he hadn’t.
The tears had come when Fawn
repeated his results and the harsh facts that condemned them to a barren
marriage. He mentioned surrogacy, he
mentioned adoption – and then her emotions had exploded; all the hurt and
betrayal over Freya spilling out into a venomous attack on her husband.
After that
Karen had slid further into depression, failing in her duties to Spectrum,
spurning his attempts at reconciliation, rejecting any helpful advice. Doctor Fawn had finally told her to take a
break and visit her mother.
She’d left for Iowa… and
vanished.
He hadn’t believed Amanda when
she’d called him, worried and bewildered as to where her daughter had
gone. He’d been angry: Karen’s playing up -
that’s all, he’d insisted, dismissing the
worried questions Paul asked. He’d
spent two days in denial and then, with panic setting in, he’d asked the
colonel for extended leave. Charles
Gray had already been pestered by Amanda Wainwright to find her daughter and he
willingly gave his subordinate permission, seeing the anxiety in his officer’s
normally composed expression.
He’d set out for Iowa
immediately, and from there, using every skill he knew to trace her movements;
he’d quartered the continent in his search….
He came
back to the present with a start, when the stewardess asked him to belt-up as
they were about to land, and he did so, turning his gaze out into the
desiccating heat of the desert as they approached the city. From the airport he went to a hotel – a
decent one, where they asked no questions and supplied what you needed when you
needed it. He showered, shaved and
ordered a sandwich from room service.
As night
fell and the city lit up in a bright rainbow of neon colours, he started out
for the bar.
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Adam
ordered a beer and chose a table with a view of the door. He had a newspaper with him and he read that
for a while, glancing up at every newcomer.
At first when the waitress brought him refills, she tried to engage him
in conversation, suggesting he eat something.
He was polite, but non-responsive and eventually she left him
alone. He started on the
crossword. Over the next few hours
three provocatively-dressed young women - and one expertly made-up young man -
approached him, only to be politely brushed-off. The newspaper was neatly folded and abandoned in a handy trash
can on a stroll to the restroom. He
nursed another beer and played chess against his pocket computer.
He was
beginning to doubt she would come; it was late and he was tired, but his
stubbornness wouldn’t let him leave – he’d see the place close.
He
ordered a snack from the bar and had just finished eating when the door opened
again and Karen walked in.
She’d
cut her hair, it was layered into her neck, framing her face – a face that had
lost its curves and was carefully painted with make-up that couldn’t quite hide
the underlying strain. She was wearing
a tight, short, halter-neck dress of pale green and high-heeled shoes. Over her arm was a white jacket.
She sat
at the bar and ordered a drink. The
barman obviously knew her and smiled a welcome.
He
couldn’t go to her – he wanted to, but his legs wouldn’t respond to the
commands his brain was issuing. He just
watched, drinking in the sight of her and wondering what she would do when she
saw him. She ordered a second drink and
swivelled on her stool to scan the clientele.
He ducked his head and sank back into the shadows.
When
Adam looked up again she was talking to a man, smiling into his face as he
leered over her, eyeing the breasts so temptingly displayed by the low-cut
dress. Her laughter reached him as the
man slid an arm around her and whispered into her ear. He felt the anger start to burn in him. That’s
my wife you’re groping, you bastard!
The man
planted a kiss on her cheek and, with a wink, walked away towards the
gents. Galvanised by the incident, Adam
sprang to his feet and crossed the bar to Karen, approaching from her blindside.
“May I buy you a drink, Karen?” he asked
blandly enough. He saw her shoulders
stiffen and her head turned slightly, so that she must’ve seen enough to
confirm who it was speaking.
“What’re
you doing here?” she hissed.
“Looking
for my wife.”
“Go
away, Adam.”
“Don’t
you even care what torments you’ve put me and your mother through? If you didn’t care about me, you could’ve
let Amanda know you were all right.”
“So she
could have told you? I’m not stupid.”
“No,
you’re far worse than that.”
Goaded,
she turned to him. “Why are you here?” she snapped.
“To take
you home, Karen.”
“I don’t
want to go home.”
“Back to
Iowa, then?” He spread his hands. “Anywhere but here.”
“I like
it here.”
“I don’t
believe you.”
He
glanced angrily at the returning stranger, who was approaching them with a
frown on his face. “This jerk bothering
you, Mandy?” he asked belligerently.
Karen
turned her head to meet her husband’s expressive eyes. “Yes,” she said, flinching at the pain she
saw register in their smoky-blue depths.
“Sling
your hook, buddy,” the man said, swaggering slightly. “The lady don’t like you.”
“The
lady is my wife, and if I want to speak to her, I will.”
The
stranger glanced at them both, and seeing familiarity in their body language
towards each other, he quickly assessed the quality of his potential
rival. He didn’t like the odds of being
able to knock this guy aside; he was taller, broadly built and undoubtedly
fit. He glanced at the woman, she was
attractive, all right, but he could see her heart wasn’t in it and, from the
way she was avoiding the man’s eyes, he sensed she felt herself to be in the
wrong. He chose discretion rather than
valour.
“Hey, I never get involved with no domestic
quarrels. Mandy, you call me if you’re
gonna be around.” He handed her a
business card, but as Karen reached to take it, Adam dashed it from her
hand.
The
stranger backed off, and with a sigh she turned back to her husband. “You had no right to do that.”
“I want
to talk to you,” he said, his barely restrained anger obvious in his voice,
“and preferably not here.”
With an
air of resigned indifference, Karen climbed down from her bar stool. The bartender moved across and Adam paid
both tabs before leading her out of the bar and hailing a taxi to his hotel. The receptionist didn’t bat an eyelid as
he claimed the key and followed Karen to the elevator, but he still felt an
uncomfortable shiftiness, as if they were somehow behaving in a disreputable
manner. Of course, the clothes she was
wearing gave the impression that she might be … ‘no better than she should be’
– as his mother would have said. He
could hardly bear the thought that she might’ve gone with that stranger, much
as she was doing here, if he hadn’t interrupted.
Once in
the suite of rooms, Karen threw her jacket onto the sofa and fixed herself a
drink. He shook his head as she
offered him one and she shrugged.
“Please yourself, Adam.” She sat
herself down on the sofa, holding the ice-cooled drink to her forehead. “What do you want to say?”
Suddenly
he had no words. He went and knelt
before her, sliding his arms around her, pressing his head against her
breast. There was the longest pause,
moments that dragged into an infinite moment of slow-time, before her hand came
to rest on his hair and she sighed.
“I love
you,” he murmured, his lips brushing her skin.
“And I
love you; that’s our tragedy,” she replied.
He raised his head. “Adam, you
deserve a family – and a wife who will give you that. I’m no good for you.”
“I want you.
Whatever we have with each other now,
is more important to me than any
potential future we can’t have. Karen,
you have to believe me.”
“You
think that – but you’d come to hate me.”
“I could
never hate you.”
“When all
our friends have families – when… Freya grows up and … and you come home to an
empty house and just me – you’d hate me.”
He shook
his head. “I want you,” he repeated.
“That’s
no big deal… I’ll stay the night and you can get me out of your system, Adam. Then you’d be wise to sign the papers when
they arrive – I told the lawyers to send them to Boston. I’ll have the six weeks’ residency in
another ten days…”
“I will
not agree to a divorce, Karen.” He let go of her and sank back onto his
heels. “You are not serious?” he
pleaded as his eyes studied her face; seeing the aching loneliness and misery
that was etched into her gaunt face.
She looked so vulnerable, empty and in need of tender, loving care, yet
despite that, she gave a short nod. He
dropped his gaze and shook his head.
“No.”
She
sighed. “It just takes longer and costs
more if you won’t co-operate…but I can still do it, Adam.”
“You don’t want to do that; I know
you don’t! Whatever you say, you love
me and that’s all that should count.”
He sprang
forward and pressed his lips to hers, supporting her as his hands travelled
over her familiar, desirable curves.
Slowly, her arms encircled his neck and she relaxed into his comforting
embrace. It was so habitual to open
herself to his caresses - to surrender to the licensed hands that were so
attuned to her body’s preferences that they pleasured her without needing to be
told what she wanted - that her instincts took over and she toppled back onto
the sofa and he moved to stand, lifting her and carrying her to the more
accommodating bedroom.
He laid
her across the bed and Karen lay quiescent as he slowly unfastened her shoes
and slid his authoritative hands up to her thigh, feeling the lacy tops of the
stockings she was wearing and caressing the satin-smooth skin beyond them.
He
removed his shoes and socks, then his shirt, before sitting beside her and
unclasping the hook that held her halter neck fastened. He drew the fabric down, over her breast and
belly, down over her hips and thighs, until he could drop it onto the
floor.
She’s lost weight, he thought,
automatically noticing the changes in the achingly beautiful body exposed to
his gaze. He knew every line of her; every contour was imprinted on his memory,
and yet the sight of her never failed to excite him as much as it had done the
very first time he had seen her.
She
moved slightly, opening her arms to him and he slipped into her embrace,
kissing her face, the slender neck and the rounded curve of her breasts, his
passion mounting with every encounter of his lips with her soft flesh. He raised his head and looked at her; the
warm, sensual colour in her cheeks, the parted lips and half-closed eyes, the
lashes fluttering gently with the increasingly urgent depth of her
breathing. He pressed his lips to hers,
feeling them part beneath his and welcoming the warmth of her tongue as it
reached for his. His hands were busy,
unhooking her bra, cupping, caressing the nipple.
She
responded; her hand pressing against his groin and along the bulge of his
erection. Then expertly undoing the button and zip on his trousers, she slid
her hand inside. He helped her push the
garment down, kicking it away as it slid to the floor. He shifted slightly, and she squirmed higher
onto the bed as he dropped his boxer shorts and lay down beside her.
Familiarity
with each other’s body had never bred complacency in them; each encounter was
like a voyage of discovery and each sensation had the impact of the first. Tonight she was submissive, but often it
was she who took the lead, guiding them both to new experiences. He’d never objected to anything she’d
suggested and they had both taken pleasure in experimenting. He preferred to remember those occasions,
rather than the joyless coupling dictated by the pitiless rhythms of her body
and her yearning to conceive. Now, as
he wooed her again, he tried gently to put those destructive encounters behind
them, and sought to give her every satisfaction, using all the knowledge he’d
acquired through the long years of their love affair to pleasure and delight
her.
In the somnolent quiet that followed
the triumphant climax of their passion, he felt sure he had won her back. She’d met his ardour with enthusiasm,
giving and receiving love as if the past few months had never taken place. He felt sure that she’d accepted his
reassurances and rediscovered within herself the pleasure of making love purely
for its own sake. She snuggled against
him, her body relaxing against his, her hand in his. He closed his eyes and allowed much needed sleep to claim him.
What
woke him he wasn’t sure: a coldness, a
sense of loss? He opened his eyes
quickly to witness Karen dressing again.
He sat
up in bed.
“Karen? Where are you going, älskling?”
She
turned, startled by the sound of his voice.
“I told you, Adam; I’d stay the night and let you get me out of your
system. It’s past dawn… I should be
going.”
“And I
told you, I don’t want you to go.
Karen, please… come back to Boston, let’s talk this over. We can work it out, we always have before.”
“And why
have we? We thought we had a future, we
thought there was something worth saving.
Now, I’m not sure.”
“Bullshit.”
His vehemence surprised her. “We have
what we’ve always had…”
“No
Adam, you have what you always had: your health, your virility, your daughter. I have nothing but an
empty, barren life to look forward to.”
“Karen…
is that all that was worth having in the future you imagined for us? And as it is no longer a possibility, does
that make everything about our future worthless?”
“I don’t
know. I only know that I have lost
something that was important to me…something imperative to my own
happiness. I can’t explain it, Adam;
maybe it’s purely a biological need, the insistence of a body that can’t accept
it can’t have what it demands.”
“Come
back home. Please, Karen. You owe me and your mother that much. Running away won’t solve anything and it
isn’t like you to walk away from a problem, älskling. If we can’t solve this together, then
that’s the time to walk away from the past and draw a line under our
relationship. Karen…?”
“You
don’t understand – how could you? You have your daughter, but I’m outside,
looking in on a world where everyone is happy – and I can’t go there. I made
one mistake; I tried to capture Captain Black and was captured myself. You were surprised the Mysterons never
killed me there and then in Culver, and I’m wishing they had, for what they
chose to do to me has condemned me to an empty existence.”
“It is
not empty – you have me and your mother… all your friends -”
“- and
their children… say it, Adam!”
“There
is more to life -”
“Not for me.”
“Very
well then; go, if you really want to. I
can’t reason with you when you are like this.”
He pulled the sheets around him and said with a quiet resignation, “I’ve
asked you to reconsider; I’ve done my best to prove to you that I love you as
much as I ever did – and that I always will.
All I can say is, if you ever need a hand, if it ever gets to be too
much; I’m here and I always will be.
The unlucky circumstance that dashed your dreams to pieces can’t change
the love I have for you; it is all that it ever was - and it will always be the
mainstay of my life. I can’t, and I
won’t, let you get a quickie divorce, and believe me, I will fetch the entire
legal powerhouse of my father’s company - and every damn lawyer that ever owed
him a favour - down on you, if you so much as try to go against my
wishes.” He saw her alarmed expression
and gave a hollow laugh. “Oh yes, I can be as unreasonable and as ruthless as
you and he put together. Until you have
tried to make this work, Karen, you will not walk away from it easily.”
“It
won’t make any difference; can’t you see that?”
“Then,
come back with me, Karen. Prove to me
this isn’t a viable relationship anymore.
Then I’ll sign any papers you
want; pension you off, if that is what you want. Marry one of the giggling socialites my mom always wanted me to
and have a half-a-dozen kids – just to spite you! But I won’t give up on this until we’ve tried everything. The choice is yours.”
“You
really want to make me hate you, don’t you?”
“Hate
would be better than this - offhand
indifference. Besides, I don’t think
you could ever really hate me – any more than I can hate you. Face it, Karen, we may not be destined to be
the happiest couple alive, but without each other, we’re both going to be a
hell of a lot more miserable.”
“Why are
you doing this, Adam? Why prolong the
agony?” She sat on the bed and ran a
hand through her short hair, turning to glance at him as a slow smile tugged at
his wide mouth and the laughter-lines crinkled at the corner of his pale eyes.
“Well,
you know what they say, ‘there’s a keeper for every flame’ and I guess I’m the
keeper for this one…”
“Just
pray this one doesn’t burn you…” Karen said with an air of resignation. “It’s such poor odds, Adam, you’re mad to
even try.”
“Well, I
never could resist a long-shot…” He lay back on the pillows with a decidedly
smug smile. He knew he’d won this round,
even if he hadn’t won the argument.
Karen shook her head. “I have tried to be honest with you, Adam; so don’t ever accuse me of going back with you under false pretences. You know I can’t fight you – not you and the might of the Svenson money, anyway. I can’t help it if you choose to imagine you understand me better than I do myself. But, I guess, like all your family, you’re used to getting your own way. So, okay; if you are prepared to take me back, knowing what you do about how I feel, we’ll do it your way – for now – but I’m warning you, this isn’t over.”
With
slow, intentionally provocative movements, she stripped off and slid between
the sheets.
“I know
I can make you happy, Karen,” he insisted, wrapping her in his arms once more.
She
closed her eyes at the touch of his lips on the nape of her neck. “If you can’t – then no one can,” she
replied sadly.
Part One:


2081
Spectrum Technician: Grade 2, L.G.
Saville signed off her workstation and gathered her coat and handbag. She walked down the corridor to the
reception desk. Waving goodbye to her
colleagues on security duty, she stepped out into the frosty air and
shivered. Her car was some way across
the car park and she walked as fast as she dared on the hoar-covered ground;
the indicators winked fluorescent-orange in response to her electronic key and
she heard the locks snap back. Once
inside the car, she turned the heating onto maximum and flicked the radio on,
before driving to the barrier and exiting the car park.
It was a familiar drive away from the bright
lights of the tracking station, through the high-hedged lanes to the main road,
and Lesley Saville drove on automatic, slowing down for the nasty bend and the
blind corner, without a second thought.
Her mind was preoccupied with the email she’d received that afternoon –
the personal email, through the Spectrum Grapevine – and she was still trying
to assess her response to it.
It had been from Major Blue on
Cloudbase. That wasn’t unusual – Major
Blue routinely posted instructions and directives to all terrestrial staff, as
did the other colour captains concerned with administrative oversights – but
this was a different kind of email.
She had worked on Cloudbase for a
few years before the birth of her daughter, and she knew the colour captains
fairly well. Captain Blue – as he was
then – had been her favourite: tall,
extraordinarily good-looking, charming - Lesley sighed – and so damned
approachable. Of course, you quickly
realised that you only approached him at your own peril – Symphony Angel had
her hooks into him good and proper and she wasn’t the sharing type – but Blue
was a honey, nevertheless. She’d got
to know him better than most of the other colour captains, because he was
interested in all aspects of aviation and, consequently, would sometimes choose
to spend his free time working with repair and maintenance details. His field partner, Captain Scarlet, would
often wander down to the hangar decks to ‘rescue’ him from what he called
‘tinkering with engines’ and it was good to see the easy-going camaraderie
between two such disparate men. It was
obvious that the Englishman couldn’t quite understand why his, normally so
well-groomed, friend enjoyed getting grimy and he kidded the American that he
was only out to impress the girls.
Blue would laugh it off – seemingly unaware that that was exactly what
he was doing…
On one particular day, she’d heard the rumours that something had
happened to him – something amazing, even by the standards of The Mysterons -
and when she’d bumped into him in the corridor leading from the Amber Room,
she’d seen a rapidly darkening bruise on his face and expressed her hope that
the incidents in Prague that everyone was talking about had not caused him
serious harm.
He had smiled at her – a smile
like none she’d ever seen from him before and one that had started her heart
thumping and sent the colour flooding into her cheeks. He’d begun chatting to her, been friendly,
attentive, seductive… and before
she’d known what was happening, they were in her quarters and he was getting
ever more friendly… She hadn’t stopped
to think – hadn’t wanted to think -
her whole being was swamped by the sensations this man was creating within her.
In the aftermath of an energetic
bout of sex - and you couldn’t call it ‘love-making’ by any stretch of the
imagination, Lesley acknowledged that
to herself, at least, yet what her partner had lacked in finesse, he’d
certainly made up for in enthusiasm… and stamina - they’d been woken by furious
thumping on her door. Robbie Tucker –
the Engineering Technician she’d been dating, on and off, for the past few
months - had over-ridden the keypad coding and swaggered in, belligerent and
offensive at the sight of them naked in her bed. She’d scrambled upright, pulling the sheets around her, but Blue
had slipped from the divan and stood there – towering over Robbie by a good six
inches. Rob
had taken a swing at the American and missed, as Blue sidestepped and pounded
his fist into Rob’s face, with an almost casual sweep of his arm.
There’d been blood everywhere –
Rob was very prone to nosebleeds.
Blue had casually pulled some
clothes on, apparently unfazed by the incident, but, the kafuffle had attracted
the attention of the neighbours and the Military Police had arrested all three
of them, allowing her time to dress before they’d marched them all down to the
brig, where the duty officer – an embarrassed Lieutenant Cerise – had booked
them all on charges of misconduct, adding GBH to Blue’s charge sheet, for good
measure.
The truth behind what had happened
– that Captain Blue had been cloned by a Mysteron machine and that she had
succumbed to the charms of the totally amoral and completely self-indulgent
clone – had only been revealed to her gradually. She could remember to this day the way her face had flamed as the
colonel had explained what had happened to his officer, and dismissed the
charges against her and Rob.
It was nothing to the way she had
squirmed the first time she’d met the ‘restored’ Captain Blue again. He’d been apologetic, casually friendly, but
there was a slight reserve towards her that she’d never noticed before. He thought her easy – no doubt. Symphony Angel, standing possessively at
his side, had been frostily unfriendly.
It was soon after that day - when the news that Symphony and Blue were
to be married had reached her through the canteen gossip - that she’d started
to feel queasy.
Finally her friend, Technician Mary Dawes, had dragged her to the
sickbay and Doctor Fawn had checked her over.
He’d pursed his lips and repeated a test or two and then sat down
opposite her. She’d been scared rigid,
imagining he had news of some terrible illness.
“Lesley,” he’d said kindly, “do
you know you are pregnant?“
Then everything had changed: it
was the blood test Doctor Fawn had insisted on that proved conclusively that
the father of her baby was none other than the recently married Captain Blue,
or rather, the now departed clone of
the recently married Captain Blue.
Once she had decided to keep the baby, Fawn had monitored her every
move, concerned that the foetus might suffer from being fathered by a clone,
but the child had flourished.
She’d grown rounder and rosier
with each week, until her condition was obvious to everyone.
Doctor Fawn had mediated a meeting
between Captain Blue and her, in which he had promised he would support her and
the child, whatever she decided to do.
She knew, through the omniscient grapevine, that Symphony was giving him
a hard time over her pregnancy and she felt some sympathy for him. He hadn’t asked for this and it was a
disastrous way to start off his marriage.
As her pregnancy advanced, she
made arrangements to go home – back to the windy cliffs of north Cornwall where
she’d grown up. Her mother and father,
although a little disappointed that she was coming home without a husband,
agreed to give her a room in their house and to help her look after the
baby. Colonel White had had to
introduce maternity leave for his staff – theoretically, it had always been on
the books, but it had never had such a public application before.
It had been Captain Blue who had
flown her down to Bristol and driven her home in a hired car. It was probably the longest period they’d ever
spent together and, after a little initial embarrassment, they had discovered
they had enough mutual interest to keep a conversation going and by the time he
pulled up at the farmhouse nestling in the hollow close to the cliff path, they
were chatting like old friends.
Blue was suitably deferential
towards her parents but he wisely declined their invitation to stay the
night. Before he left, she walked with
him to the cliff-edge, so he could stretch his legs before the long drive
back. They stood side-by-side, gazing
at the sweeping view from the vertiginous cliffs, the vast rolling ocean of
grey-blue water – water that changed and mutated colour with every gust of the
offshore breeze. The seabirds wheeled beneath
them, their piercing, mournful cries the only sound except for the pounding
waves.
Then he’d asked her what she
intended to do - if she was planning to remain living with her parents. She told him Colonel White had promised her
a job at the Cornish tracking station, high on Bodmin Moor, so that she might
continue to work, and that her family would help with childcare and, in the
course of the conversation, she’d told him of her lifelong ambition to own the
house that dominated the cliff tops some miles away. He’d listened and promised to keep in touch and – more
importantly - to come to see her once the child was born.
As she watched him drive away,
she’d felt an icy fear settle on her heart – she was alone now, in a way she’d
never experienced before.
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She was a spring baby, born when
the daffodils were in full bloom and the weather was veering from deceptively
balmy days to howling gales. The labour had been normal – in so far as anything
that had you screaming your head off and pleading to be allowed to die, could
be called normal. They’d asked her if
she wanted the baby placed on her body when it was born and she’d glared at
them with such ferocity they’d wondered why she’d even decided to keep the
child. With no husband in attendance
and only her mother close by, the experienced midwives supposed the child would
go for adoption.
But, when they finally placed the
baby in her arms, a tiny, red-faced bundle, fair-haired and long boned,
Lesley’d known she could never part with her.
Busily filling in the paperwork,
they’d asked for a name – and, on the spur of the moment, she’d told them:
Freya Evelyn Saville Svenson. Later
she’d wondered where the inspiration had come from, they were not the names
she’d been considering, and she’d not thought to ask Captain Blue’s opinion on
the matter. Her only thoughts were that
it was a Friday - Freya’s Day, in the old, Norse legends - and Evelyn echoed
her father’s name – for which she didn’t think there was a female equivalent -
and then the two family names… Besides, something as fair as her daughter
needed a name redolent of her Scandinavian ancestry.
Before baby Freya was a week old,
Captain Blue had come to visit and he brought a tall, fair-haired woman with
him: his mother. Sarah Svenson had cradled Freya as if she
were a living miracle, cooing over the child and telling Blue how like him she
was. Until Freya opened her eyes, that
was, because however much of a Svenson this baby looked, she’d never be all Svenson, for she had the brown eyes
of her mother.
Before they left, after spending
three days in the area, Captain Blue had handed her a document wallet and
inside were the deeds to the house on the cliff-top. Made out in her name and all paid for.
She’d stared at him in
astonishment. He’d coloured slightly
and the words he’d spoken had made her cry:
you’ve given me something far more
precious.
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The car drew up outside the house
and Lesley killed the engine. There was
a light on in the lounge and she saw Freya watching the car arrive through the
picture window and smiled.
It was good to be home.
Freya was excited and it wasn’t surprising she wasn’t asleep. She ran to her mother, and threw herself against her, babbling in her enthusiasm. Lesley swept her up into her arms and smiled at her mother over her daughter’s fair head.
“You should be in bed,” she
chided, but not crossly. “Have you been
playing Granny up?”
“No, I was in bed -I was, Mummy – but Rosie-bear wanted a
drink and Granny said you were due home, so we could wait for you and I was
watching and I saw the headlights coming before Granny did – and before
Rosie-bear.” She lifted the much-loved, somewhat threadbare teddy to her
mother’s lips for the obligatory kiss.
Lesley obliged.
“Well, okay then, but off you go
now and let me have my supper. I need
to talk to Granny, and Granddad will be here to collect her soon.”
“Come and tuck me in?” Freya
pleaded.
While Lesley was settling the
child down, her mother prepared her meal for her, warming the home-cooked food
in the microwave, and then sat down opposite, as her daughter ate the plate of
beef casserole and rice.
“What did you need to speak to me
about?” Mrs Saville asked. “We’ve got a
while yet – your father rang to say he’s been delayed by a flat tyre. Or was that just a ploy to get littl’un into
her bed?”
Lesley sipped the strong red wine
she’d poured for herself and then said, “No, I do need to talk to you. I had an email today – from Adam; he wants
to know if he can come and see Freya over Christmas. He says he has leave from Christmas Eve till the day after Boxing
Day, and he’d like to see her. She, of course, would be over the moon if he
came for a couple of days – he was hardly here more than an hour or two last
year.” She remembered her astonishment
when a helicopter, in the yellow and blue livery of the SvenCorp company, had
landed in the nearby field and Adam had run into the house, loaded down with
presents. He was spending Christmas in
Winchester with friends, he explained and he couldn’t be this close without
‘dropping in’ – but he couldn’t stay.
It had taken her hours to get Freya to stop crying when, after three
hectic hours, he reluctantly left them.
“What’s the problem then? I know you were planning to come over to us
for Christmas dinner – but he can come too – another mouth to feed won’t make
any odds, Lesley.”
“Thanks, Mum – the problem is –
I’ve checked at Trelawney’s and they’re fully booked – he’ll have nowhere to
stay.”
“Trelawney’s was booked up months
ago – their Christmas special this year is good value.” Mrs Saville looked at her youngest daughter
thoughtfully. “He could stay with us at
the farmhouse, I suppose. We can squash
him in, I daresay.”
“But you’ve got Josh, Sue and the
kids coming down and Peggy and Roy’ll be over with their brood too, and I
expect they’ll want to stop over. You
can’t ask Adam to sleep on the sofa,
Mum.”
“He’ll have to take his chances,
like everyone else – won’t he?”
“I thought about saying he could
stay here,” Lesley said, with a sly glance at her mother. Adam Svenson had made a point of never
staying overnight at the house on his irregular visits, but this time he’d have
few options.
“Well, that’s up to you, Lesley –
and him - of course. From what you’ve
told me about his wife, she wouldn’t like it, for a start.”
“Mary Dawes told me they’ve
separated again. Apparently, they tried
a reconciliation after she left him the first time but it hasn’t worked out for
them. She’s gone to teach at one of
Spectrum’s training facilities.”
Mrs Saville stared at her daughter
until Lesley looked away, her cheeks flaming with embarrassment.
“That’s as maybe – but don’t you
go getting your hopes up, my girl. He’s
a married man, however separated he
might be.”
“I’m not stupid, Mum – I just
thought he might like a little time to relax in a proper home, over Christmas.”
“You’ll be staying here over Christmas, then - with the two of them
- Freya and Adam? After all, even if it
can’t be considered that ‘His Excellency’ might sleep on a sofa, there’s
nothing stopping you from doing that, is there?”
“I can’t expect him to stay here
with her and do all the cooking and so on… he’ll need a break. I’ll see what he thinks is best; after all,
it’s always such a madhouse at the farm on Christmas Day, it’d be better if it
were just the three of us. And Freya
would love to see him, Mum, you know that… besides, he ought to get the chance
to spend as much quality time with her as much as he can.”
“Lesley Saville, you’re as
transparent as them windows… “
“Well, he’s asked me – I’m only trying to be friendly - for Freya’s sake.”
“Hmm. What’ll Simon say about it?”
“Nothing, if he knows what’s good
for him! It’s not Simon Tregonning’s
business what I do, or with whom.”
“Just remember: a bird in the hand
is worth two in the bush, my girl.
Simon’s gonna be here beyond Boxing Day – your fancy American won’t.”
“He’s not ‘my fancy American’,”
Lesley snapped, but her mother caught the undertone of helplessness in her
daughter’s voice.
“Not through lack of trying…” she
commented dryly. “He’s a nice enough
man, Lesley; I give you that and the littl’un’s a stunner. But he’s not for you, my girl.” She glanced out of the windows and stood to
get her coat. “There’s the headlights;
your dad’s here. Sleep on it, Lesley –
don’t do anything foolish.”
“I used up my entire quota for foolishness
five years ago,” her daughter said sadly.
Part Two:


2081
The
school gym hall was seething with people.
Around the edges were tables, with teachers holding court for the parents
of their pupils, while the pupils themselves, unusually quiet, sat alongside.
A tall,
rather prim woman entered the hall, a lanky, dark-haired boy following
reluctantly a few paces behind. She
consulted her list and moved purposefully across to the first table. Several minutes later, she and the youth
took their place in front of the grey-haired, bespectacled teacher.
“Good
evening, Miss Topping,” he said, with a courteous nod of his head and then
turning to the youth he gave a wry grimace. “Ricky,” he added in
acknowledgment.
“Mr
Garcia.” Eleanor Topping knew many of
the teachers well. Her sister, Ricky’s
mother, had taught here before her untimely death, and the school took a
friendly interest in her orphaned child when he went to live with his maiden
aunt. “What have you to tell me this semester?”
Miguel
Garcia pulled a reluctant face. “What can I say that you won’t already know,
Miss Topping? Ricky has a good brain, if he’d
only apply it – but you know yourself – his mind’s always someplace else. He doesn’t try; what’s worse, he doesn’t
even pretend to try.”
“Oh,
Richard,” Eleanor sighed, “you promised me you’d make an effort.”
The
youth flushed angrily. “I do, Aunt
Ellie – but no one here cares about what I want to do.”
“Ricky,
that just isn’t true,” Mr Garcia said reasonably enough. “We have given him
every opportunity, Miss Topping, but he won’t follow instructions. He does just
enough – all the time.”
“I’m
going to be a cop, like my dad was. I
don’t need all this book-learning.”
“You will
never be as good a policeman as your father was, Richard, if you don’t
study. In fact, you won’t even get
into the police force if you don’t have the qualifications,” his aunt reasoned.
The boy
jumped from his chair and glared angrily at the adults. “I’m not staying to
listen to all this nagging again! I’m
going home!”
“Richard!”
his aunt reprimanded him, but the boy was already running through the crowd,
out into the Chicago evening. She
turned and smiled apologetically at the teacher. “I’m sorry, Miguel, he’s got
to be so volatile of late. He needs a
man’s hand; I’ve done all I can with him.”
“I’m
sure we all know the time and effort you’ve put in on the boy, Ellie; and Ricky
is basically a good kid. He’s just at
that awkward age – neither a man nor a boy – and confused about where he fits
into the scheme of things.” He sighed
and added, “I suspect he might surprise us all yet; he has Alie’s blood in him,
after all – as much as his father’s – and he can do so much better than he is
doing.”
Eleanor
heaved a deep sigh and nodded. “I hope you’re right, Miguel. That boy’s had a tough enough time of it so
far, without failing at his schoolwork as well. He has his heart set on being a cop, and if it is what he wants,
there’s nothing I can do to change it; but he still has to work at it and get
his qualifications – they won’t care who his father was when it comes to
getting a decent job on the force. And
he doesn’t seem to realise, I’m not always going to be there to pick up the
pieces for him.”
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Ricky
ran through the schoolyard and out into the street. He stopped running and pulled the hood up over his wavy, brown
hair as soon as he realised he wasn’t being followed, and slouched along,
kicking at pebbles and trash and not really looking where he was going.
Aunt Ellie is such a worrier, he thought
angrily. Schoolwork isn’t everything, and besides, it’s all so boring. I’ll pass their wretched exams without a
doubt – but I don’t see why I should have to waste my time listening to the
stupid teachers every day. When I’m
old enough, I’m gonna enrol in the police force – I’m gonna be a detective –
just like my dad was – and as good as
my dad was! He didn’t have a heap of qualifications, yet he made it to
Assistant World Police Commissioner. Like father like son; Richard Fraser and
Richard Fraser Topping: Crime-busters!
He
wandered along for some time, and realised that he’d taken the wrong turn and
ended up at the mall. He grinned. Left
to their own devices, his feet always brought him here. He jingled the loose change in his jacket – enough for a burger and shake and then I’ll
make my way back, via the video game arcade, before Aunt Ellie gets too mad at
me. She isn’t a bad old stick – in fact
she’s the only ‘mother’ I really remember – the one adult who’s always been
there for me. I owe her a lot and I’m…
fond of her; very fond of her… oh, all right then – I love her – but I’m never
going to admit it.
He ignored the brightly-lit, gaudily-decorated shops, grimacing at the seasonal musak that competed for his attention from every shop front and headed for the fast-food outlet. The burger eased the vague hunger pangs he had, and he was still sucking the thick shake up through the straw as he wandered towards the video arcade. His allowance wasn’t that generous and he wouldn’t have much money to waste on this entertainment, but there might be a few of his pals hanging out there – unless they’d all been dragged to the schoo