From Part 14 ...
Lois could feel the swell of another wave of tears. She leapt from the bed, vigorously swiping the moisture from her eyes. This wasn’t helping.
Lois Lane did not dissolve into an emotional mess over a man.
OK, she did – but this time the man was actually worth it.
Lois looked at the brand on her hand.
She was Kal’s.
It was right there on her hand. Would be there forever.
She was his ... but he could never be hers ... not really.
Her heaviness settled on her.
But she thrust it off.
She’d had enough of slinking around New Krypton, enough of treading carefully in case she rattled someone’s cage. She would not sit in her room and mope. She would build a life – and that meant getting her newspaper out to the people of New Krypton.
Whether they wanted it or not!
Part 15
Lois rapped on Jib’s door. When Jib opened it, Lois said, “Can you write, Jib?”
“Yes.”
“Would you come and do some writing for me, please?”
Jib’s hesitation was fleeting. “Yes.”
“Would you ask Mo if she would come too?”
“Yes.”
“And Ard?”
“Ard won’t come.”
“Do you have a pencil you could bring?”
“Yes.”
“Good, get Mo and come to my room.”
Once in her room, Lois hauled the mattress from her bed platform and positioned it on the floor next to the bed. She put ten sheets of blank paper on the hard surface. When Jib and Mo appeared at her door, she directed them to kneel on the mattress and use the platform as a makeshift table for producing copies of her story.
They agreed readily enough. Were they so bored, they were happy to have something to break the monotony? Or were they simply so used to following orders, anything else was unthinkable? Lois didn’t have the time to speculate. For now, she was merely grateful for their compliance.
Lois picked up her story about the lost girl and went to Ard’s room. She rapped on her door and the tall, blonde woman appeared moments later. “Can you read, Ard?” Lois asked.
“A little bit,” Ard said.
Lois opened her book page by page as she told Ard the story. “Would you draw pictures for these words?” Lois asked.
At first Ard didn’t answer. Instead, her eyes darted around Lois’s face. “I can’t,” she said eventually.
What had Tek done to her? “Why not?” Lois asked gently.
“I lost my red pencil.”
Again, Lois studied Ard - this time looking beyond her beauty – and perceived that the blonde woman had a childlike demeanour that went far deeper than her baby blue eyes and angelic fair hair. “When did you last see it?” Lois asked.
“This morning.”
Lois smiled at her. “It can’t be too far away ... can I help you look for it?”
“Yes.”
Lois went into Ard’s room and noticed that she had a desk as well as a bed. On the desk were blank sheets of paper, a few completed drawings and a collection of half a dozen stubby coloured pencils.
Lois bent low and looked under the bed – and immediately saw the lost red pencil. She picked it up and handed it to Ard.
Ard’s response came as close to happiness as anything Lois had seen from a Kryptonian other than Kal. She didn’t smile, exactly ... not with her mouth, but her eyes seemed to fill with an understated gladness.
“Can you draw the pictures now?” Lois asked with a kindly smile.
“Yes.” Ard took Lois’s book and sat at her desk.
As Lois crossed the courtyard to her own room, she felt the grating collision of the emotions whirring within her.
Acrid animosity towards Tek. To have an affair with the Supreme Ruler’s concubine was bad enough. To take advantage of a child’s innocence because it happened to be locked in the body of a woman was worse.
Relief because now she completely understood why Kal had taken Ard as his concubine. It had nothing to do with her stunning looks. He was protecting her. An innocent such as Ard at the mercy of Nor just didn’t bear thinking about.
And grudging amusement. Kal had collected an odd assortment of concubines – the beautiful, but still-stuck-in-childhood Ard, the two sisters rescued after the murder of the third sister and her ... an alien from another planet.
It didn’t take long for Jib and Mo to finish making the copies of her story. “Do you know how we can get these to the farmers and the people who couldn’t come to the Report?” Lois asked them.
“Our mother’s neighbour has a son who will take them,” Jib offered.
“How old is he?” Lois asked.
“Twelve.”
“Will you take the copies to him and ask him to deliver them to the outlying farms?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you, Jib,” Lois said with a smile. “And thank you, Mo. You both did really well.”
“Will there be another one?” Mo asked. “A different one?”
Was that interest? Willingness? Enthusiasm? “Yes,” Lois said decisively. “There will be another one. Will you write copies for me next time?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Lois collected the sheets and handed them to Jib. “Thank you.”
Lois watched as the two women departed through Kal’s gates. She had published a newspaper! Sure it was a one-sheet, one-story, handwritten newspaper with a total circulation of ten, but it was a start.
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Lois went to Ard’s room and found that Ard had already completed three pictures – simple, charming pictures that greatly enhanced Lois’s story. “They are wonderful, Ard,” Lois said, genuinely impressed. “I am very pleased with your work.”
“That’s good,” Ard said.
“I’ll come back later and see how you’re going.”
Ard returned her attention to her picture. Lois watched for a moment, before leaving quietly.
She stood in the middle of the courtyard. What now?
Her almost-manic need for productivity had been sated.
The paper was out, the book was in the process of being completed; she had few options other than to return to Kal’s room and face him.
And say what? No, I can’t marry you because you’re already married.
How could Kal understand that reasoning when his society allowed him as many women as he could afford to keep?
He wouldn’t understand, but staying away from his room would confuse him more.
And, now that she had her own ‘illustrator’, she was eager to begin another children’s story. She doubted Kal would be in yet – it was too early for lunch - so she would have the time to work on her new story and attempt to find some clarity in the situation with Kal.
Lois knocked on Kal’s bedroom door and entered without waiting for a reply.
One step later, she stopped abruptly.
Kal was sitting on his bed, surrounded by files, folders and three tomes she recognised from the shelves in the chambers. “Ah ... Kal.”
He looked up. “Hello, Lois.”
“Sorry,” she said quickly. “I didn’t think you’d be here.”
“I left the desk for you,” he said, his eyes already buried back in the book.
Lois hesitated, watching him, not knowing whether to be charmed by his thoughtfulness or peeved by his apparent nonchalance.
She moved to the desk and sat down, acutely aware of his presence behind her.
She took a blank sheet of paper and forced her concentration to a new story.
Her mind remained as blank as the paper. Lois put the pencil to the paper and wrote:
Dear Kal:
OK, so this was not going to be a children’s story.
I love you.
I love you so much, I cannot imagine living without you.
Right now, I should be bursting with joy. I should be so excited, so elated ... because, this morning, the man I love asked me to marry him.
The man I trust totally because I have seen the incorruptible honesty of his heart.
Yet, instead of joy, I feel only pain and misery.
I wish things were different for us, Kal.
I wish I could say ‘yes’ to your proposal.
I imagine how it would feel to agree to marry you and see your smile burst with happiness.
I guess no one has ever told you that your smile is spectacular ... it is Kal ... it never fails to warm me inside.
I promised you I won’t leave you and I know I won’t. I know, that in the unlikely event of there ever being a way for me to return home, I would not take it. I would not leave you, Kal.
I could not leave you.
Because you are the man I have been looking for my whole life.
For so long, I thought I was hopelessly inept at the whole relationship thing. Only now do I realise that I was looking on the wrong planet!
I love your heart.
I love your openness and the beautiful simplicity you bring to everything you do.
I trust you.
I wish I could say yes to you, Kal.
I wish I could hold you. I wish I could hold you so tightly and assure you we will find a way out of this and tell you that together, we are more than enough.
But if I hold you, Kal ... everything is going to get so much more complicated.
Please don’t think I don’t want to hold you, my love.
I ache to hold you ... but for both of us ... I can’t.
I will love you always, Kal,
Lois.
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It had been a lot easier to concentrate on the intricacies of Kryptonian Law when Lois was not in the room.
Now she was here, Kal found his attention steadfastly fixed on her.
He was fascinated by the cloak of her dark hair as it fell against her small shoulders. He had not forgotten the soft touch of her hands on his neck when she hugged him. Kal *really* wanted to put his hand under her hair as he held her.
His fingers had not forgotten the feel of her ribs when he’d wrapped his arms around her.
But her gown had been between them.
Her neck would have no such barriers.
He wanted to hug her again.
He wanted to kiss her again.
He wanted to feel her warm skin under his fingers.
He knew he’d become totally absorbed in her ... he lived in a state of perpetual anticipation of the next time she would kiss him or hug him or smile at him or even touch him. Just her hand on his face was enough to cause his insides to flounder.
Because it felt *so* good.
He sensed a tiny reluctance in her ... not that she didn’t enjoy hugging him, but that she felt a need to ration their physical contact.
He so wanted to get closer to her.
Kal forced his attention back to Kryptonian Law.
He had found nothing to prevent the Supreme Ruler from taking a second wife. Indeed, nothing to prevent him taking as many wives as he pleased.
But Kal wanted only one.
Lois.
Now he’d had the time to reflect, he understood her refusal to agree to marry him. He wouldn’t want to share her either.
He had to find a way to show Lois that his marriage to Za was nothing more than a political arrangement ... in essence just the same as his forced coalition with Nor, Ching and Yent.
He couldn’t annul his current marriage. If he did, Za would become a social outcast. He would continue to provide for her – food and clothing and housing – but he would not be able to protect her from the stigma of expulsion from the Regal household.
He couldn’t dispose of her like an unwanted remnant of a past life.
It wasn’t Za’s fault she wasn’t Lois.
Legally, he could marry Lois without banishing Za.
But would Lois accept it?
He didn’t know, but he was sure that Lois was, and always would be, the only woman he loved.
He needed to show her that.
He needed to get closer to her.
But how?
Then he had an idea.
Tek!
He needed to talk to Tek.
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Lois heard movement behind her and instinctively covered her letter.
“I have to go,” Kal said. “I won’t be back for lunch.”
“All right.” He was gone before her reply had fully left her lips.
Lois pushed aside her letter and sighed as she forced her mind to focus on a fourth story.
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An hour later, Tek walked in with Lois’s lunch and she didn’t bother trying to hide her simmering indignation. She almost snatched the food from him.
He lingered. She guessed he was waiting for another book to take to his children.
He wouldn’t be getting it!
“Where do you live, Tek?” Lois asked coldly. Unfortunately, she doubted he would discern the censure in her manner.
“House number fourteen.”
“I’m taking the new book to your children,” Lois informed him in a tone that left no room for argument.
Tek leant over her desk and picked up the pencil. On a blank sheet, he wrote a figure – it looked like an ‘x’ enclosed in a box. “That is the number fourteen,” Tek told her. “Turn left when you leave the gates and look for this number on the door. It is the ninth house on the right.”
Lois was a little shocked at Tek’s sudden verboseness. Was it possible he’d seen her as he’d emerged from Ard’s room and had decided he needed to curry favour with her to keep her from telling Kal?
Or was his visit to Ard as innocent as she was?
Tek limped from the room. Lois stared after him, wondering.
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Ard handed Lois the finished book. Lois slowly turned the pages, delighted with the finished result. “Thank you, Ard,” Lois said. “You draw wonderfully well.”
“Will there be another one?”
“Yes.”
“Can I draw the pictures?”
“Yes.”
If Lois had acquired any skills in interpreting Kryptonian emotion, Ard was happy at the prospect of having more pictures to draw. Lois felt a sudden impulse to hug her, but decided against it.
Who knew how Ard would respond to physical touch?
“Ard, your pictures are beautiful,” Lois said, hoping her genuine appreciation would survive the translator.
Ard merely turned back to her desk and picked up a pencil. Assuming that was a dismissal, Lois left the room, taking her book with her.
At the gates, she turned left. She hadn’t been this way before - Jib' and Mo’s mother lived to the right. Lois counted the houses and when she came to the ninth one, she saw the boxed ‘x’ figure on the door.
Lois was still several feet from the door when it opened to reveal a woman, her eyes levelled solemnly at Lois, her stance unmoving. She was darker than Tek – in both hair and skin colouring.
Lois moved towards the house, unsure if she would be welcome.
And then she smelled it.
The aroma wafted from the house and curled tantalisingly into her nostrils.
Lois stopped, closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.
Coffee.
Coffee.
Not quite coffee but close enough that she wasn’t arguing. How she had missed coffee.
When she opened her eyes, Tek’s wife still stood before her. “Are you the alien woman?” she asked.
“Yes,” Lois replied.
“I am Riz-Or.”
“I am Lois.”
“That doesn’t translate.”
“I smell coffee,” Lois said, realising as she said it that it was probably rude, even on this planet, but she just couldn’t help herself.
“That word doesn’t translate,” Riz said. “But what you can smell is beverage.”
“Beverage?” Lois questioned.
“Would you like some?” Riz offered.
“Oh, yes.” Lois was a little embarrassed to realise she was practically frothing at the mouth and only just controlling her inclination to push past Riz and storm into the house to ferret out the coffee.
She exerted enough control to allow Riz to enter her house first. They went into a tiny room containing a table and two chairs. Two small children – a boy and a girl, sat on the floor. They had chunks of wood and were using them to build towers.
Riz pulled out a chair and Lois sat down and put her book on the table. When Riz put the steaming cup in front of Lois, she had to restrain herself from snatching it. She wrapped her hands around the cup, forcing herself to pause long enough to revel in its warmth and its promise.
She lifted it to her nose and inhaled deeply.
Oh, she had *missed* coffee.
Lois opened her eyes and realised Riz was watching her - probably puzzled at the strange alien custom of inhaling drinks through your nose. Lois raised the cup to her mouth and sipped. She had *never* tasted anything so good.
Sure, it was black, and a little bitter, but it was close enough to coffee and, until this moment, Lois hadn’t known how much she had yearned for coffee. “I like it,” she said, aware that was an extreme understatement.
“They don’t have beverage inside the gates,” Riz noted.
Inside the gates? Another euphemism for Kal’s place? “No,” Lois said. “Why is that?”
“The Supreme Ruler doesn’t order it.”
*That* was going to change, Lois promised herself. “Thank you,” Lois said to Riz. “And thank you for the face cream.”
The two children had approached the table. There was a girl, probably about six, and a boy about three.
Lois extricated herself from the delights of the coffee and noticed that both children were staring at the new book on the table.
They said nothing, just stared at the book.
Not at her – the alien woman – but the book.
Lois lifted it from the table and held it towards them.
They didn’t move. Riz stood behind them, a hand on each of their shoulders. “These are my children,” she said. “The girl is Dom and the boy is Kip. He is named after Tek’s father.”
“They are beautiful children,” Lois said, realising it was true. They both had the dark features of their mother. Lois felt her anger rise again at what Tek was doing to these three people. Did Riz know? Did she suspect? Surely it couldn’t be standard practice that concubines were there for the pleasure of the entire household.
There was absolutely no way to form a question without risking damage to this family.
Dom looked to her mother and then hesitantly took the book from Lois. She stood there, her dark eyes wide. “Read?” she said.
“You must not bother our visitor,” Riz said.
“Would you like me to read it to you?” Lois asked the little girl.
“Yes.”
Lois looked up to Riz. “Do you mind if I read this story to your children?”
“No,” Riz said as she sat across the table from Lois.
Lois held up the book.
Dom pointed to the front picture. “Ard,” she said.
“Yes. Ard drew the pictures,” Lois agreed. She pushed aside her need to ask questions and opened the first page.
Throughout the story, the children didn’t speak ... their attention didn’t wander. When Lois had finished, the children again stared at the book.
Lois held it towards them. “This is for you,” she said.
Dom took it and both children went back to the floor. They opened the book and went through it again, their building blocks forgotten.
“Is everything different here?” Riz asked. “Different from your home planet?”
“Not everything,” Lois said. “We have families on Earth – a father, a mother and children – just like you do.”
“Children are not many,” Riz said. “Not since we came to New Krypton. Tek and I are very fortunate to have two children.”
“How did Dom recognise Ard’s pictures?” Lois asked.
“Tek brings home pictures for the children.”
So Riz knew Tek saw Ard. Riz’s gaze had settled on her children, but now swung back to Lois. “Do you have children?” she asked.
Lois hadn't seen Riz smile, but she was definitely more expressive than the Kryptonian norm. When she looked at her children, her face softened. Maybe she didn’t have the word for what she felt, but Riz loved her children dearly. “No,” Lois answered. “I don’t have children.”
“Maybe one day.”
“Can I ask you something?” Lois said.
“Yes.”
“I have met other Kryptonians and most of them don’t seem to want to talk to me ... they don’t ask me questions, often it seems as if I’m invisible.”
“I’m curious,” Riz admitted. “And I like to talk. When I was a child, they diagnosed me as ‘hyperactive’, but it wasn’t my body that was too active, it was my mind. I’ve always wondered about so many things – and when I wonder, I talk ... talk too much, it annoys people. When Tek told me you had come, I so wanted to meet you.”
“K- ... I have been told that Kryptonians are suspicious of people who are different.”
“That is true,” Riz agreed. “Even after all these years, separation and distrust remain. To a Kryptonian, someone who is different is a threat.”
“But you don’t feel threatened by me?”
“No. I hope you will tell me about your planet.”
“Why are you so different to everyone else?”
“I’m not completely different to everyone,” Riz said. “I seem different to the people you’ve met because the world inside the gates is contrived.”
“Why?”
“Because it suited those who were in control.”
Those? *Those* who had decided Kal would not be with his wife? *Those* who had limited his knowledge? *Those* who, she was sure, had something to do with Kal’s childlessness.
“My family were always pro-unity,” Riz said. “Even before the end of the Old War. They were so happy when I married Tek.”
“Tek is from a different side to you?”
“Yes, I am from the north, Tek is from the south.”
“Are there many ... mixed marriages?”
“Not many ... some.”
Lois wanted to ask if Tek was a good man ... if Riz was happy in her marriage ... if she loved him. “Is there opposition to mixed marriages? From other people?”
“Some,” Riz admitted. “But Tek is such a wonderful man, the opposition is unimportant.”
Lois swallowed, not knowing what to say.
“Tek has great humility and much loyalty,” Riz said.
And not a lot of honesty, Lois thought. Yet, even as the thought had sprung to her mind, she could feel her conviction wavering. She couldn’t ask Riz about Tek and Ard, but she could ask about someone else who very much whetted her reporter’s instincts. “Which side is Lord Nor?”
“The South. The other Regal Nobles are Ching and Yent. Ching is North, Yent is south.”
“Why are they Regal Nobles?” Lois asked.
“Because they were born to it; their fathers were Regal Nobles.”
“Regal Nobles have children?”
“Yes. Yent is married and has a daughter. Ching isn’t married. Nor is married to his birth wife and has a son.”
“Didn’t Ching have a birth wife?”
“He did, but she didn’t survive the move to New Krypton.”
“So he never married?”
“No.”
“I was told that the old enmity is no longer mentioned.”
“It’s there,” Riz said. “I wish it wasn’t, but it is. Not talking about it doesn’t change it.”
“Do you worry about the possibility of civil war?”
“Sometimes. But peace has been maintained for ten years. While the Supreme Ruler remains, I am confident war can be avoided.”
“What if he ... uhm, the situation changes?”
“If the Supreme Ruler dies childless, it falls to the next in line.”
Lois felt a cold dread creep through her. “Who is next in line?”
“Nor.”
Suddenly, Lois was sure Kal’s *samples* never went anywhere near his wife. “Nor looks older than - ... he looks older.”
“He is ... but he has a son who would take the mantle.”
“Do you think Nor has ambitions to lead New Krypton?”
“He has never said so ... but his personality is one who craves power, but has not the character to handle it.”
That confirmed Lois’s assessment. “Is Nor pro-unity?”
“On Krypton, his family were lauded as a great military family.”
“They relished the war?”
“Nor’s great, great grandfather was made a Regal Noble on the strength of his battle field heroics.”
Or his slaughter of fellow Kryptonians, Lois thought grimly. “But Nor is from the south – isn’t the ruler supposed to be a mix?”
“Ideally ... but if the Supreme Ruler doesn’t have a child ...”
Lois felt a jolt of understanding. Is *that* why Riz had sent the face cream? Was she hoping Lois would provide Kal with the child New Krypton needed? Lois wasn’t at all sure she wanted a child of hers to be coerced into leading New Krypton – not if it meant living the way Kal had been forced to live. “Do the Regal Nobles have children with their concubines?” Lois asked.
“Nor and Yent do.”
“Will those children become Regal Nobles?”
“No. They are considered the child of a concubine – not the child of a Regal Noble.”
So a child of hers could not become the Supreme Ruler? Then why the face cream? Lois studied Riz for a long moment. “I have been told that I am not allowed to talk about ...”
“You’re not,” Riz said. “But I am not employed by the Supreme Ruler, nor do I ever go to his residence, so I am free to speak.”
Was that an offer to provide information? Explanations? Again, their eyes met and lingered.
“It is good that you have come,” Riz said.
Good she had visited Riz? Good she had come to New Krypton? “Why?”
Riz drained the last of her *beverage*. “Tek obeys the rule. He never speaks of things inside the gates.”
That didn’t necessarily surprise Lois.
“But I hear rumours the alien woman is spending time inside the house ... “ Riz mused. “And then Tek asks me for cologne and I know he hasn’t finished his yet.”
“You gave K- ... the cologne?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Tek asked me for some.”
“Why?”
If Riz was given to smiling, Lois was sure she would have grinned right now ... a knowing grin. “No man should be alone.”
“He’s married.” Lois bit on her lower lip as she realised she had referred directly to Kal.
“There has been much loneliness inside the gates.” Riz stood from the table and spooned some of the powdered coffee into a small container. She held it towards Lois. “Barter,” she said. “You bring the book, you take the beverage.”
Lois took it. “Thank you.”
“Will you come again?”
“I would like to.”
“I would like that too.”
Lois said goodbye to Dom and Kip and then left the little shack.
She wandered slowly back to the gates, her mind full.
Tek had given Kal the cologne.
Tek - and Riz - approved of her being with Kal.
Life inside Kal’s household was not quite as secret as the rule would suggest it should be.
Life inside Kal’s gates was different to life outside Kal’s gates.
Why?
Why had they deliberately tried to keep Kal isolated from the *real* world?
Was it *just* to stop the possibility of an heir?
Had they worried that if Kal knew how the common people lived, he would demand more from his marriage?
One thing tugged at her brain and refused to be subdued. Nor sabotaging the ridiculous *reproduction* process between Kal and Za made sense. It would, in time, deliver Nor absolute power over New Krypton.
But Nor – from a family of warriors - did not seem like a man willing to passively wait for the death of a younger man. Not when control was so tantalisingly close.
So why had this situation not reached a conclusion a long time ago?
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Kal was not in his bedroom when Lois returned. The books were still scattered on the bed. What had Kal been reading? They looked like reference books. Maybe Kryptonian Law. Was he dealing with a particularly complex dispute?
Or was violence again threatening peace on New Krypton?
Lois went to the bed and picked up an open book. It was dusty and old. The thin pages were covered in the closely-written script. Lois turned the page, seeing more of the completely unfamiliar script. Would Kal teach her to read it? As she had taught him to say her words?
Mindlessly, Lois turned a few more pages.
Then her breath snared in her throat.
Amidst the writing, this page had a diagram.
A very simple line diagram.
But its meaning was crystal clear.
It was a man and a woman.
Making love.
Lois gulped.
She had no doubt Kal had told the truth when he’d said he didn’t know how Riz had become pregnant.
And equally, no doubt that Kal now knew a whole lot more.
Lois heard a sound in the chambers and hastily dropped the book back onto the bed. She swung around, painfully aware that if Kal had picked up any skills at all in reading body language, he would know she had seen the picture.
Kal walked in. He stepped right up to her. “Lois,” he said.
Lois swallowed around the impossibly big obstruction in her throat. “Y.yes, Kal.”
“Are you writing?”
“N.not right at the m.m.moment.”
“Good,” Kal said. “Because there is something I want to do with you. Something I would like us to try together.”
