The WorldNet logo flickered briefly on the screen, and then Analin reappeared.
“Well, so much for peace and quiet,” Juna remarked. “You’d better come on over.”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” Analin promised. “Meanwhile, call station security and have them secure your hallway.”
Ukatonen came in just then, slamming the door behind him loudly enough to make her jump. He was so red with anger, he seemed to glow.
“I’ve got to go,” Juna told Analin. “Ukatonen just came in, and he looks upset.”
“I’ll be over as quickly as I can.”
“Thanks,” Juna said.
“Hey, that’s what you pay me for,” Analin said with a smile. “Something like this was inevitable, given the Tendu’s talents. I’ll do what I can to minimize the impact on you, but you should brace yourself for some heavy weather ahead.”
“I think some of it just blew in the door,” Juna said, and signed off.
“What’s the matter, Ukatonen?”
“There was a reporter in the Japanese garden,” he said in skin speech. His words were dark black against the glowing red of his skin. It reminded Juna of cooling lava. “She wanted to know about the work we’re doing at the hospital. I told her I wasn’t going to talk to her, but she wouldn’t leave me alone!”
“Did you say anything?”
Ukatonen shook his head. “No, but she wouldn’t leave me alone! Why?”
Juna laid a gentling hand on his arm. Despite the deceptively blazing color of his skin, it was as cool and moist as a spring rain.
“Ukatonen, word of what we’ve been doing has gotten out.” Briefly, she summarized Analin’s comm call. “It looks like the press are going to be all over us again,” she said with a sigh.
“Why wouldn’t she leave me alone?” Ukatonen repeated. “I told her I wasn’t going to talk to her. Didn’t she believe me?”
He was an enkar, and on Tiangi no one would dream of being so rude to someone of his status.
Juna sighed and rubbed her forehead. She was tired, her breasts and back were sore. All she wanted to do was lie down and sleep until the baby came.
“You did exactly the right thing, Ukatonen,” she told him. “But reporters are paid to be persistent. They don’t care that you’re an enkar. To them you’re only a story. That’s why we have Analin to deal with them.”
Ukatonen’s color had cooled somewhat, but he was still clearly agitated. “She was so rude,” he said aloud and then again in skin speech. The words flared black against his red skin. They faded and flared over and over again, gradually growing fainter, like a dying echo of his spoken words.
Analin’s warning proved all too true. Despite everything Analin did to minimize the impact, they were mobbed, first by the press, and then by people begging to be healed. The hospital called Juna and told her to stay home. They were afraid there would be a riot if the Tendu showed up.
So they remained caged at home. Ukatonen and Moki helped her clean house, after which the two Tendu sought comfort in a long, intense link. Juna looked around at the clean apartment, trying to find something else that needed tidying. Finally, desperate for something to do, she attacked the enormous pile of mail on her desk. As she was sorting through it, she came across the folder from the Xaviera family. She picked it up and began paging through it. Juna was pleasantly surprised to see that the Xaviera family residences, though gracious and beautiful, were not nearly as grand as she would have imagined. There were plenty of amenities, but very little overt display of wealth.
The gardens, however, were another story. They were filled with rare and beautiful plants and animals, many extinct in their native habitat. Every effort had been made to create and preserve full ecosystems. She turned to a double page hologram of their fifty-hectare rain forest preserve on the Moon, and smiled wistfully. Ukatonen and Moki would love that.
She looked up at the closed door of their room. Yang had said that their invitation to visit was open-ended. The hospital couldn’t use them, and there was nothing else for her to do here except answer mail. If they were out of the public eye for a week or so, perhaps the furor would die down and they could slip quietly back to Snyder and continue their work.
She put a call through to the Xaviera family and left a message for Yang. He returned her call after only two hours.
“Juna! I’m glad you called! Are you coming to visit?”
“I’d like to, but— ” She paused. “Have you seen the news? I’m afraid that we’re all over the net. The hospital is mobbed, and they’re afraid of a riot if we show up. It looks like we finally have time to visit, but I’m afraid that we’d be bringing trouble with us.”
“Nonsense, Juna. Discretion is one of our family specialties. The Tendu will be coming with you of course?” he inquired politely.
“I couldn’t leave them behind.”
“Of course, and they will be welcome. You’ve seen our rain forest?”
“Oh, yes. The Tendu will love it.”
Yang smiled. “We hope so. Now, let me make some arrangements, and then I’ll call you right back.”
Discretion was, indeed, a family specialty. Somehow, Juna and the Tendu were whisked off the station in the middle of the night, escaping through the service tunnels, and onto a private shuttle. Only Analin and Toivo knew where they were going.
“It’s the Tendu,” Analin had said, when Juna told her about the proposal. “They want access to the Tendu.”
“I know,” Juna replied. “But I’m tired of doing all this by myself. I need someone powerful in my corner.”
“Be careful, Juna,” Analin warned.
“I will be,” she said.
Now, staring out through the filtered window at the sunlit surface of the Moon, she wondered how wise she was being. The Xavieras were immensely powerful. They could ruin her, or kill Toivo and Analin, and kidnap her and the Tendu. She took a deep breath, fighting off the crawling paranoia that had risen from the depths of her psyche. There was no turning back now. The shuttle was landing.
Yang met them at the gate. “Welcome to J6ia da Lua, Juna. I am honored to meet you, Ukatonen, and it is good to see you again, Moki. I hope you enjoy your stay with us.” He escorted them to a ground car with fat rubber moon wheels.
“What about our bags?” Moki asked.
“Don’t worry, they’re being taken directly to your rooms,” Yang told him. Yang opened the door to the ground car, a big, luxurious model that could seat at least six people in the back, and waved them graciously inside before climbing in himself. “We’re so glad you were able to come. The rest of the family can’t wait to meet you.”
“I’m looking forward to meeting them as well,” Juna said. “Getting us here must have been a great deal of work. I’m sorry if we caused you any additional trouble.”
Yang shrugged elegantly. “My family has often had to travel discreetly. We have systems in place to do so. The hardest part was getting you out of your apartment and into the service tunnels without being seen. Everything else was easy.”
The car entered a tunnel. Juna felt her throat close in sudden terror. Perhaps all this was a ruse, a cover for kidnapping them. They stopped at a huge airlock door. There was a rumbling and a heavy thud behind them as the back door of the massive cargo airlock closed. Then the front door opened, and green forest light flooded in.
They drove out into the midst of a jungle. The trees, in the Moon’s reduced gravity were hugely tall. Ukatonen and Moki chittered excitedly, staring out the windows at the passing forest, their skins bright pink with excitement.