Different Senses (83 page)

He reached under me and gave my
butt a highly suggestive squeeze. “I promise it won’t be
difficult.”

~~~~~~~~

By the time I officially
‘came home’, Dad had learned that one of his sons would be stepping
out publicly with a Nihani lover in the not too distant future. He
wasn’t as upset as I feared—neither of my parents minded all that
much, funnily enough—but when and how to break the news to the
public was an issue we couldn’t sort out quickly. My new
relationship with Shardul was a source of joy for both of us, but
also of lots and
lots
of arguments over the public thing. His
relatives as well as mine all had advice and cautions aplenty, but
no guarantees that whatever we did wouldn’t hurt Dad at a point
where he needed to be in office and in control, or Shardul when he
needed to speak for his community with authority.

Me, I didn’t care about, but I
was damned if anyone would hurt those I loved through any act of
mine. Fortunately, Shardul and I found time to be together that
didn’t involve discussing the vexed issue, and even a couple of
weekends away up at my grandfather’s house. Granddad took to
Shardul right away, and Shardul to him. The happy memories of those
breaks carried me through some tough times.

And there were plenty of
those. Though the truly scary attacks had ended when the
ringleaders of the supposed Nihani terrorist group had been
arrested, the harm had been done, and the political hardliners
pounded on the drum of the ‘indigenous threat’ as hard as they
could. They gained a lot of traction—but Dad wasn’t giving up
without a fight. He pressed on with planned reforms, and invited
indigenous leaders to attend news conferences with him. Those same
leaders made repeated, public pleas for their community to remain
calm and law-abiding, which had a real impact. Working with my
father, the Nihan organised a number of goodwill events aimed at
families, and there was a surprisingly good attendance. Dad also
set up a number of community awards, and Nihani individuals were
prominently featured. The government launched an appeal against
Denge’s acquittal, and since three judges, not a jury, would hear
the appeal, there was a good chance of winning. No guarantees,
though. A conviction would go a long way towards assuaging
indigenous anger.

Darshan and his men were
charged with terrorist activity. Someone paid for the Nihan accused
to access a decent legal team, but conviction was likely. We hoped
Darshan would give up his paymasters before trial, because he and
the other two weren’t the real target. We were really after the
hardliners and their illicit connections. Dad’s people had done a
bit of shrewd leaking of their own, planting leads and cultivating
reporters. One of the reporters ran an exposé and the resulting
uproar gave Dad what he was after—an excuse to establish a judicial
review into the alleged links. Whether that would bear fruit, we
didn’t know, and it would move glacially slow, but the judges had
come out on the side of right before, and we just hoped they would
again.

It was all a gamble, and all
Dad could do was count on his fixed term appointment to resist
calls for him to resign. After that, he said, he’d fight for
re-election, and if he failed, he’d fight in opposition. I swore to
help him win the election, even if I had to give up my business to
do it.

I’d already decided to quit
being a cop. Ironic, I knew, seeing how I’d wanted nothing more
than to be an active officer again. But being in the force meant
following rules and procedures—and superiors—I couldn't in
conscience agree with, or reconcile with my relationship with
Shardul. Captain Largosen quietly deactivated my status, and I
submitted my formal resignation after that. “I suspect your true
talents lie elsewhere, Sri Ythen,” he told me at the time. “For the
record, I’m behind what you and your father are trying to
achieve.”

“We need support inside and
outside the system, so please keep going.” I saluted him. “Give ‘em
shit, sir.”

He smiled, but as always, his
emotions were his own secret. I didn’t mind. I judged him by his
actions, and he’d fought the good fight. I believed we could trust
him, and there were few enough around.

Five months later, Shardul and
I drove to the space port to meet some very special passengers,
whose arrival had been kept very quiet, deliberately, because
everything our family did was now political, and we just could not
predict what reaction the media would have to my brother and his
family coming back to Uterden.

“Uncle Javen!”

I grinned and knelt, bracing
myself for impact. “Oof! Wow, look who’s grown.”

“I’m tall now!” Harshul
declared.

“We’re the same height,
Harshul,” Madhu said, squelchingly. “Who’s that, uncle Javen?” He
pointed up and behind me.

“Boys, this is my friend,
Shardul. Say hello.”

They stared. Shardul crouched
down. “Hello, Harshul.”

“I’m Madhu,” he corrected
impatiently.

Shardul, who knew that
perfectly well, bowed his head. “So you are. And you are indeed
tall. Are you brave and clever with it?”

Madhu looked right at
Shardul. “Yes, I
am
.”

“I am too!” Harshul shouted.
Shardul wiggled a finger in his ear, and Harshul took the hint.
“Sorry. Sometimes I’m a bit loud, Mummy says.”

I ruffled his hair. “Yes, but
we love you anyway. Ah, and there’s Mummy and Daddy now.”

Tara waved, and held Nita up to
say hello, but love my darling sister-in-law and her little girl
though I did, I only had eyes for the man next to them. Yashi
strode forward, and held out his hand.

“Javen.”

I pulled him into a hug, and
wanted to never let go. I couldn’t speak, I was so full of love and
relief and sheer amazement that he was here and whole.

“We missed you,” he said,
pounding my back lightly. “We missed home. We just couldn't stay
away any longer.”

“And we couldn’t bear it
without you. Welcome home, brother.” I leaned back to look at him.
“You look....”

“Not quite as good as new, but
getting there.”

He was right, of course. The
rebuilt side of his face wasn’t scarred but it was that very
perfection which looked slightly wrong. But compared with how I’d
last seen it, it was a miracle. I touched his cheek. “You look like
my brother, and that’s all I damn well care about. Tara, come and
meet my boyfriend.”

She gave a little squeak of
surprise when she realised who I meant, but, smiling brightly, she
held her hand out to my lover. “I don’t think we’ve been properly
introduced. I’m Tara.”

“And I am Shardul. Welcome
back. This is a blessed day for Javen and you all.”

The religious reference made
her frown only briefly in confusion, but then she grinned at Yashi.
“Your brother definitely knows how to pick the good-looking
ones.”

“So does mine,” I said. “Let’s
go home.”

“To the residence?” Yashi
asked.

“Nope. To your home and my
home. Mum and Dad are waiting in your house.”

While Dad battled the
hardliners, Mum had battled builders and architects. They’d wanted
to ‘improve’ Yashi and Tara’s lovely house, but she’d insisted that
nothing, outside a few necessary repairs and equipment updates,
should be changed from the original. Using images and vids and my
memory, she’d reconstructed the house and flat almost exactly as it
had been, right down to the paint colours. The burned belongings,
the treasures and keepsakes, couldn’t be replaced, but she’d done
what she could with copies of precious photos, duplicates of toys
and ornaments and books.

Tara burst into tears when she
walked in through her own front door. “It’s so beautiful,” she
sobbed, and my undemonstrative mother actually hugged her while she
cried.

We all cried, except for
Shardul, who politely kept out of the way while all the emotional
stuff was going on. The boys recovered fastest, of course, and
wanted to see the garden, dragging my parents out with them. Tara
insisted she wanted to cook in her kitchen again. “Even if it’s
just to boil water. I can’t believe it,” she added for at least the
twentieth time since she’d arrived.

Yashi had charge of Nita, who
had just started to crawl and who was investigating one of the
chairs. “I should take her outside,” he said. “Care to join us,
Javen, Shardul?”

“In a bit. First, there’s
something I want to do. I’ll come find you guys.”

He nodded, and hoisted his
daughter up in the air, making her laugh. “Outside with you, little
girl. Come see the lovely Uterden sun.”

Shardul turned to me. “What do
you have to do?”

I took his hand. “This.”

I led him through to my rebuilt
flat, and to the bedroom. Mum hadn’t had a hand in the redecoration
here, and I’d added a few touches, to make it more welcoming and
comfortable. I had a reason for that. “This is my home, and now
it’s yours too, whenever you want it to be. When you’re ready, if
you can see your way to it, I want to build a house with you, and
live with you in it for the rest of my life.”

He pulled me down onto the bed,
and kissed me, nibbling gently at my lips and cheek in that
teasing, delicious way he had. “Javen, are you asking me to marry
you?”

“I don’t know. Is that allowed
in your moral code?”

“
I think my moral code
positively
demands
I marry you. Does
your
moral code allow me to
ravish you when there are children in the house?”

I lay back, dragging him on top
of me. “Hope so, because there are going to be children around for
a long time, and I need a lot of ravishing.”

“Shall I lock the door
then?”

“What an excellent idea.”

~~~~~~~~

My journey to Shardul had
begun a hundred and fifty years ago, when my ancestor had fallen in
love with a woman of a different race and faith, and joined his
destiny to that of a beautiful new world and people. But it had
really begun thousands of years before that, when the ancestors of
both our peoples had spread through space, seeking new homes and
new freedoms, diversifying and recolonising. His blood and mine
both ran red through skins of different colour, and we saw the same
world, even if his eyes were sky blue, and mine earth brown. He
believed in a higher power, I believed in science and logic. We
both wanted justice and decency to rule our behaviour and that of
humankind.

Our differences could divide
us, or strengthen us, and our peoples. We chose to make a whole
stronger than the sum of the parts, and that was what we would
fight for in Hegal, in Medele, even for the whole planet of
Uterden. Each of us would be the reminder to the other what was at
stake, and what could stand in our path.

One day, Shardul could be this
country’s first indigenous governor, and I would be there,
supporting him to the hilt.

We’d make a hell of a team.

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