“Told me what?” I asked.
Elian closed her eyes.
This was not reassuring.
In my experience, people close their eyes before delivering bad news, receiving bad news, or pretending they have not heard a question asked by a man in an orange jail uniform.
Vaela smiled.
Not warmly.
More the way a cat might smile at a bird with poor judgment.
“Oh,” Vaela said. “This is delicious.”
“Vaela,” Elian said.
“What? I have said almost nothing.”
“That is rarely where you stop.”
Ambassador Tovan stepped between them with the exhausted authority of a man who had prevented family disasters across several star systems.
“This is not the time.”
“It is exactly the time,” Vaela said. “She has dragged half the Council into a panic, exposed herself to a violent primate civilization, and apparently developed feelings for a wounded mammal with no shoes.”
“I had shoes earlier,” I said.
Everyone looked at me.
“Not recently,” I added.
Vaela studied me.
“It does attempt dignity.”
“He,” Elian said.
“What?”
“He attempts dignity.”
Vaela’s eyes moved from me to her sister.
Something flickered there.
Amusement.
Concern.
Recognition.
The terrible knowledge sisters possess when they realize the other one has done something emotionally inconvenient.
“Oh, Elian,” she said softly.
For a moment, she sounded almost kind.
Then she ruined it.
“You always did collect damaged things.”
“I am standing right here,” I said.
“Yes,” Vaela said. “That is part of the damage.”
Elian’s wings rose slightly.
“Enough.”
“Enough?” Vaela said. “You hid an injured human from his own authorities, fled military observation, triggered satellite attention, violated the observation accord, and did all of this in a city where people pay money to sit in traffic and drink weeds.”
“Tea,” I said.
“I have examined tea,” Vaela said. “It is hot weed water.”
I had no immediate defense.
The hillside above Los Angeles had become, in a surprisingly short period of time, the most awkward family reunion in the known universe.
Tovan stood with his hands folded before him.
Elian stood very still.
Vaela circled her slowly.
I stood barefoot in my jail clothes, trying not to look like evidence.
“Do you remember,” Vaela said, “when you were eighty-three and tried to rescue an entire moon?”
Elian’s face tightened.
“Vaela.”
“It was a very small moon.”
“It was inhabited.”
“By moss.”
“Sentient moss.”
Vaela looked at me.
“She cried for three planetary cycles because a moss colony expressed disappointment.”
I looked at Elian.
“You rescued a moon?”
“Part of a moon.”
“It was adorable,” Vaela said.
“It was not adorable.”
“You named it.”
“It needed a name.”
“You named it Clarence.”
I tried not to laugh.
I failed.
Elian looked at me.
“Clarence was a temporary designation.”
“Of course,” I said.
“Do not encourage her.”
Vaela brightened.
“And the hiveworms.”
“No,” Elian said.
“Seventeen orphaned hiveworms.”
“They were cold.”
“They were parasites.”
“They were infants.”
“They ate the east wall of the nursery.”
“They were teething.”
I began to understand something important.
Elian was not merely a queen, a visitor, a scientist, or a being capable of crossing impossible distances.
She was also somebody’s little sister.
This changed everything.
It made her less mysterious.
And somehow more miraculous.
Below us, Los Angeles stretched toward the ocean, glowing with cars, glass towers, swimming pools, palm trees, unpaid bills, and the quiet despair of people trying to make left turns.
Vaela looked down at the city.
“Explain this place.”
“That may take a while,” I said.
“Why are there six lanes in each direction?”
“Traffic.”
“And why are they not moving?”
“Traffic.”
She considered this.
“Your language is poorly designed.”
“We know.”
She pointed toward Hollywood.
“And that?”
“A sign.”
“For what?”
“Hollywood.”
“Why does Hollywood require a sign?”
“So people can photograph it.”
“Why?”
“To prove they saw the sign.”
Vaela stared at me.
“Your species is in more trouble than Tovan believes.”
Tovan did not smile.
“That has been my position for some time.”
“They are not hopeless,” Elian said.
“No,” Vaela said. “They are worse. They are interesting.”
She looked at me again.
“You especially.”
“Thank you?”
“Do not thank me. I have not decided whether that was praise.”
For a few minutes, the three of them spoke in a language I could not understand.
It was not buzzing.
That would be too easy.
It was music, vibration, pressure, memory, and mathematics braided together in the air.
The eucalyptus leaves trembled as they spoke.
The stream below us changed rhythm.
Even the dirt seemed to listen.
I caught nothing.
Then Vaela switched back to English.
“He does not know.”
Elian said nothing.
“Elian.”
“Do not.”
“He deserves to know.”
“That is not your decision.”
“No,” Vaela said. “It was yours. And you did not make it.”
The humor drained from the hillside.
Even I could feel it.
Tovan stepped closer.
“Vaela.”
“No. She has involved him now. Whether foolishly or beautifully, she has involved him.”
“Involved me in what?” I asked.
Elian turned away.
That was when fear entered me properly.
Not the ordinary fear I had felt when men chased me or helicopters circled overhead or government satellites took my picture without asking.
This was worse.
This was personal.
“Jed,” Elian said.
“Yes?”
She could not seem to find the words.
Vaela found them for her.
“She is leaving.”
I looked at Elian.
“Leaving where?”
No one answered.
“Earth?”
Still no answer.
My throat tightened.
“When?”
Vaela’s expression softened.
That was somehow worse than her insults.
“Soon,” she said.
Elian closed her eyes again.
“How soon?” I asked.
Tovan looked toward the sky.
“Before your governments decide fear is policy.”
“That could be any minute,” I said.
No one laughed.
I wished someone had.
Across town, Detectives Ramirez and Collins were still outside the government building that officially did not exist.
Collins had purchased two coffees from the cart.
“This coffee tastes like regret,” he said.
“Drink it,” Ramirez said.
“Why?”
“Because regret keeps you alert.”
Collins took another sip and made a face.
“If our suspect was rescued by a giant bee,” he said, “does that make him more guilty or less guilty?”
Ramirez thought about this.
“Less ordinary.”
“That was not one of the choices.”
“It is now.”
A black SUV rolled through the security gate.
Then another.
Then three more.
Collins lowered his coffee.
“That looks serious.”
“Everything looks serious when people drive black SUVs.”
“Should we follow them?”
Ramirez started the car.
“Absolutely not.”
“Good.” He pulled into traffic behind the SUVs.
Collins sighed. “You and I define absolutely not differently.”
On the hillside, I tried to understand what had just been said.
Elian was leaving.
That should not have surprised me.
She was not from Earth.
She did not belong to Los Angeles, to Griffith Park, to jail cells, helicopters, eucalyptus trees, or men who had misplaced their shoes.
She belonged to the stars.
I knew this.
Knowing a thing does not make it useful.
“Were you going to tell me?” I asked.
Elian looked at me then. There was pain in her face. “Yes.”
“When?”
“When I understood it myself.”
That was a strange answer.
And worse, I believed it.
Vaela’s voice was softer now.
“She was sent here to observe.”
“I know.”
“No,” Vaela said. “You know the little version.”
“There’s a larger version?”
“There is always a larger version.”
Tovan looked sharply at her. “Careful.”
Vaela ignored him.
Sisters are apparently immune to diplomatic caution.
“Earth’s bees are dying,” she said.
“We know that,” I said.
“You know it the way humans know things. You measure loss, argue about causes, hold conferences, publish papers, and continue doing whatever made the papers necessary.”
This was insulting.
It was also not entirely inaccurate.
“Elian came because your bees called.”
I looked at Elian.
“Called?”
“Not with voices,” she said. “With distress.”
“And you heard them?”
“All of us heard them.”
“But she answered,” Vaela said.
Tovan’s face darkened.
“She was permitted to observe.”
“She was permitted to care,” Vaela said.
“There is a difference.”
“Only to cowards.”
The word landed hard.
Tovan’s wings lifted slightly.
For the first time, I saw the power beneath his calm.
Vaela did not retreat.
The fun sister, I realized, was not necessarily the safe sister.
Then Elian raised one hand.
Everyone stopped.
She was looking past us.
Not at Tovan.
Not at Vaela.
Not at me.
At the air.
“Listen,” she said.
I listened.
At first I heard only the city.
The distant freeway.
A helicopter.
The hush of wind in the eucalyptus trees.
Then something else.
A vibration.
Soft.
Layered.
Growing.
Vaela stopped smiling.
Tovan turned toward the west.
“That is not possible,” he said.
“What?” I asked.
No one answered.
The vibration grew louder.
Not threatening.
Not angry.
Alive.
From the trees below us, bees rose into the evening air.
Dozens.
Then hundreds.
Then thousands.
They came from gardens, gutters, flowers, rooftops, hives hidden in walls, orange trees, lavender beds, freeway medians, backyards, parks, and all the secret places where life continues its work without applause.
More bees joined them.
Then more.
The sky over Los Angeles began to darken.
Not with smoke.
Not with weather.
With wings.
Vaela whispered something in her own language.
For once, it did not sound sarcastic.
Elian took one step forward.
The bees did not attack.
They did not scatter.
They gathered.
A living cloud.
A river of wings.
Every bee in Southern California seemed to be moving toward her.
Tovan stared.
“They should not be able to do this.”
Vaela looked at her sister.
The humor had gone from her face.
Something older had taken its place.
Awe.
And perhaps fear.
Elian lifted her hand.
The bees circled above us, filling the sky with gold and shadow.
I looked from Elian to Vaela to Tovan.
“What does it mean?” I asked.
No one answered.
Because no one knew.