Running with a giant queen bee through Los Angeles is not as easy as it sounds.
And it does not sound easy.
Elian was not built for running.
She was built for flight, command, elegance, impossible distances, and terrifying criminals with poor impulse control.
I was built mostly for prescription pads and avoiding hospital cafeteria meatloaf.
Neither of us was at our best.
Behind us, voices moved through the garden.
Flashlights cut between the trees.
Above us, helicopter blades hammered the sky.
Elian stumbled.
Not badly.
But enough.
I caught her arm.
That was ridiculous.
She could probably lift a bus.
Still, for one second, she leaned against me.
Warm.
Alive.
Frightened.
My heart did something medically unhelpful.
Elian turned her head.
“Your pulse has increased.”
“We are being chased.”
“It increased before that.”
“I have an irregular relationship with panic.”
“You are lying.”
“A little.”
She studied my face.
This was becoming a problem.
Not the helicopters.
Not the government.
Not the possibility of being shot, dissected, imprisoned, or interviewed by cable news.
Her looking at me.
That was the problem.
“Can you fly?” I asked.
She opened her wings.
They trembled in the dim light.
Then folded again.
“No.”
It was the smallest word I had ever heard from her.
And the most frightening.
“All right,” I said.
“You have a plan?”
“No. But humans often say all right before making one up.”
“That explains much of your history.”
“Yes. Keep moving.”
We crossed a service road, scrambled through brush, and climbed toward the dark outline of Griffith Observatory.
Above us, the white dome rose against the sky.
It looked calm.
Beautiful.
Almost holy.
Which was misleading.
Most holy places are surrounded by parking problems.
We reached a maintenance entrance below the main terrace.
Locked.
Of course.
I looked at Elian.
“Can you ask this door politely?”
“I am weak, not useless.”
She placed one hand against the lock.
Something clicked.
The door opened.
“Thank you,” I said.
“I did not do it for you.”
“I will accept the benefit.”
Inside, the observatory was dark and cool.
We moved through a corridor smelling faintly of dust, stone, and school field trips.
Every American child has at some point been marched through a science museum and told to appreciate wonder while secretly thinking about lunch.
Now I would have appreciated lunch.
Or shoes.
Or several constitutional protections.
We found our way into the main hall.
Planets hung above us.
Exhibits stood silent.
A model of the solar system gleamed faintly in emergency light.
Elian stopped beneath it.
She looked up.
For a moment she seemed less like a fugitive and more like a princess who had wandered into a cathedral built by children.
Cinderella with wings.
Supergirl without the cape.
And me?
I was the middle-aged doctor in an orange jail uniform trying very hard not to notice how beautiful she was.
I failed.
Completely.
“Jed.”
“Yes?”
“Your temperature has increased.”
“It’s warm in here.”
“It is not.”
“I am Canadian.”
“You are still lying.”
“I was raised with privacy.”
“Your body disagrees.”
“My body has been making poor decisions for years.”
She considered that.
“Is this illness?”
“No.”
“Fear?”
“Not exactly.”
“Pain?”
“Not that either.”
She stepped closer.
This did not improve anything.
“Then what is it?”
“Human complication.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It’s the most accurate one I have.”
She watched me a moment longer.
Then, mercifully, looked back toward the stars suspended above us.
I breathed again.
Quietly.
Like a coward.
We climbed a narrow stairway toward the telescope dome.
Halfway up, Elian stopped.
Her hand went to the wall.
I turned.
“Sit down.”
“I do not require—”
“Sit down.”
She looked surprised.
So was I.
Apparently I had discovered authority.
It was about time.
She sat on the step.
I knelt beside her.
“Tell me what’s happening.”
“The separation is widening.”
“From the Hive.”
“Yes.”
“Will it kill you?”
She did not answer.
Doctors dislike silence after that question.
“Elian.”
“I do not know.”
There it was again.
The impossible creature giving the human answer.
I don’t know.
The most honest sentence in the universe.
“If you die…”
I stopped.
The sentence was too large.
She finished it for me.
“Another may wake.”
“Another what?”
“A daughter.”
“You have children?”
“Not as humans understand children.”
“That’s becoming a popular category.”
“Among my people, queens prepare successors. Some sleep for centuries. Some for longer. They carry memory, pattern, purpose.”
“Your memories?”
“Some.”
“Your feelings?”
“Perhaps.”
“Perhaps?”
She looked at me.
“Continuity is not duplication.”
That sentence frightened me more than the helicopters.
“Would she be you?”
Elian looked down the stairwell.
Then at her own hands.
“I do not know.”
I sat beside her.
For a while neither of us moved.
Somewhere outside, a helicopter passed close enough to rattle the glass.
Searchlight swept across the dome and vanished.
I should have been thinking about escape.
I should have been thinking about police.
I should have been thinking about how a jury might react to my third bad explanation in three days.
Instead I was thinking about her daughter.
A future queen.
Carrying Elian’s memories.
Perhaps remembering me.
Perhaps not caring.
That seemed unfair.
Which was absurd.
I had known Elian for less time than most people keep leftovers.
And yet the thought of losing her and meeting something almost her felt unbearable.
I said the only useful thing I could think of.
“Then don’t die.”
She looked at me.
“Is that medical advice?”
“Yes.”
“It lacks detail.”
“I’m improvising.”
For the second time that night, she smiled.
Not much.
Enough.
We reached the dome just before sunrise.
The telescope pointed toward the heavens with the patient dignity of a machine that had been asking the same question for generations.
Why are we here?
Humans built instruments to ask that.
Elian’s people crossed stars.
Apparently nobody had received a satisfying answer.
She stood beneath the great telescope and touched the railing.
“Your species looks outward,” she said.
“When we aren’t looking at ourselves.”
“Why?”
“Hope, mostly.”
“You hope something is there?”
“We hope we aren’t alone.”
She absorbed that.
Outside, the sky brightened over Los Angeles.
For once, the city looked almost innocent.
“My people look outward for the same reason,” she said.
I turned to her.
“You’re not alone.”
She looked at me.
Golden eyes.
Tired now.
More human than she knew.
“Nor are you.”
I wanted to say something clever.
Something protective.
Something worthy of the moment.
Naturally, I said nothing.
That may have been best.
Outside, tires crunched on gravel.
Doors opened.
Voices rose below.
Morris.
Vale.
Others.
Elian turned toward the sound.
Her wings opened slightly.
Then failed her again.
I stepped in front of her.
Not because I could stop anyone.
I couldn’t.
Not because I was brave.
I wasn’t sure.
But because, for once, I was the one standing between her and danger.
At the bottom of the stairs, a flashlight beam appeared.
Then Morris’s voice.
“Doctor Arlen?”
I looked at Elian.
She looked back.
My heart was still behaving badly.
My body was still betraying me.
The government was downstairs.
An alien queen was behind me.
And for reasons I was not yet prepared to explain to anyone, including myself, I was not moving.
“Yes,” I called.
Morris climbed one step.
“Please tell me you’re alone.”
I glanced at Elian.
She almost smiled.
I sighed.
“Detective,” I said, “when have I ever made your life that easy?”