Chapter six
Kitchen scene:

      Sitting quietly at the kitchen table, boots tucked underneath and bare feet upon the adjacent of its four old white wooden chairs, Bobbie relaxed into a tired slump and sipped on her second cup of coffee since returning from the morning's fence ride. Hair and shirt still stuck to her skin with sweat, back aching from lugging the heavy posts and hands raw from pulling the barbed-wire, she contemplated the decision she'd made while working the fences and patiently waited Jack's return from his morning chores.

      Looking out the window over the sink, she watched him bounce his way up the lane from the pasture in his GMC pickup. Skidding to a stop in his customary spot next to her Ford, he jumped down out of the old truck--leaving the door open behind him, as usual--and marched purposefully towards the house.

      Cussing a blue streak, hands black with grease and plaid flannel shirt and wrangler jeans stained dull red with rust, Jack stomped his wooden-heeled cowboy boots up the steps onto the back porch, slammed the screen-door open with a bang and strode into the kitchen.

      "God-damn windmill pump is shot. Bearing froze and cracked the case. Nothing left but junk. I all ready called the well rigger from the cell-phone in the Jimmy."

      Laying the large, greasy, and obviously now broken wrench he had been carrying onto the table and placing his hands on his hips, he continues, "The rigger says 1700 bucks, 'cause they don't make-em like that any more'. How's the fence?"

      Pushing her arms high above her head, arching her aching back and stretching her legs out straight, Bobbie then rested her calves on the chair just vacated by her bare feet. Practically beaming at the emotional display that was so typical of him, and one of the primary reasons she loved him so much--the man never kept his feelings from her--she looked up at her husband with a grin almost big enough to be a laugh.

      "Fence is a mess. I left two men out there to work on it. They'll probably be at it all day." Then, glancing at the tool Jack had placed on the table, "We're going on a little trip, lover; and you broke your wrench."

      Grinning back, and very much enjoying watching her stretch that long, beautiful body of hers, Jack moved quickly to her side of the table, grabbed her around the waist and took her up in his arms. "I Broke it trying to get that rusty old pump off that rusty old gearbox on that rusty old windmill of yours. And damn you're sexy when you're all sweated up."

      He kissed her deeply and she kissed him back just as hard. But then, pushing off his chest with both hands and making him put her down, Bobbie lowered her voice to a tone she knew he would recognize as serious, "It's OUR rusty old windmill, babe, not mine. Or have you forgotten Texas is a community property state? But sit down sweetheart. I have something important to tell you."

      Cocking his head to one side, eyeing her curiously, Jack backed slowly around to his side of the table and sat down. "So what's this about a trip?"

      Fighting back one last fleeting feeling of panic at finally revealing her long kept secret, Bobbie took a deep breath and then leaned across the table and placed her hand on her husband's cheek. The physical contact was not necessary to her telepathic abilities but she knew her touch would make him more comfortable with what she was about to do. In an instant she transferred the entire story of her relationship with the Centauri into his mind. Everything, from her first encounter with Greenie and the creation of their half-Earthling, half-Centauri daughter, through the metamorphoses that had occurred in herself since that encounter, to coming to terms with her new found abilities, her discovery of the void and ending with this morning's conversation with Sarah. She conveyed to him not only the information but all the images, sounds, smells and tactile elements of the events in her memory as well as the emotions accompanying them. Every feeling she'd experienced from the great joy of her first contact with Sarah almost two years after her birth to the terror of her first encounter with the void. In a single moment he became aware of it all.

      As Jack sat dumbstruck and staring blankly through her Bobbie moved quickly around the table and climbed into his lap, snuggling up as close as she could manage. Wrapping him up in both arms, she pulled him tightly to her and waited, terrified, for his reaction.

      Jack tipped his head back as far as it would go and, for a moment, let the tears stream across his temples into his hair. Then, leaning forward, he slowly slid his arms around his trembling wife, squeezed her so tightly she could barely breath and kissed her on the forehead. "Why did you wait so long to tell me about this, Bobbie? Don't you know how much I love you. If you can read my mind you must know, don't you? I hate this void thing you're talking about, and I'm not real found of this Dr. Illery son-of-a-bitch for what he's done to you, but I love you to death, darlin'. Knowing about all this isn't going to change that; nothing can ever change that."

      The two sat quietly together for a few minutes. Bobbie's face buried in her husband's chest, her tears soaking his all ready filthy shirt. Jack rocking her gently in one arm while stroking her hair with the other. After awhile he placed his hands on her hips and sat her up straight in his lap. Then, kissing her tenderly, "Everything is going to be all right, baby. Now tell me what you meant when you said 'WE are going on a little trip'. Are you planning on slipping me into your suitcase? Sarah said you can only bring along a hundred pounds. I weigh a lot more than that."

      "Sarah also said she and I were in charge of this thing; that this Centauri Admiral--Killiki--didn't have any choice but to agree to that because she and I are all he has to fight the void. So if I tell Greenie you're going then you're going, case closed. But backup a minute. I want to tell you about something else before we talk about the void."

      Bobbie wiggled her butt into a more comfortable position in his lap and put her arms around his neck. "You said I must know how much you love me because I can read your mind. I don't read your mind anymore, Jack. I did when I first found out I could but it didn't take long to figure out that was a mistake. First of all, it's an unfair invasion of your privacy. It gives me an advantage I'm not entitled to. Secondly, not every thought you have of me is complimentary. Life isn't perfect, honey. Ranching for a living isn't easy and we've had a couple of rough spots in our relationship, too. I know there have been times when you've questioned some of the choices you've made, including your choice in marrying me. I don't fault you for thinking that way sometimes. There've been times when I've felt the same. I'm sure everyone does once in a while, that's life. But it really hurt to see those thoughts in your mind, to feel your discontent with your life, or with me. So I stopped looking into your head a long time ago, sweetheart. It's not fair and sometimes it just plain hurts. I've learned my lesson and I don't do it any more. I have to much respect for you to do that to you."

      Then, leaning into him, kissing him on the forehead and breaking into a huge grin, "However. . . darling. . . lover. . . husband, when I know it's safe, and not a true invasion of your privacy," now patting him playfully on the chest, "I do, occasionally, just occasionally, mind you, play around a little bit."

      Jack cocked his head to the side and, closing one eye, glared at her through the other with mock suspicion. "Define, 'Play around a little bit,' you little shit."

      Bobbie curled her lower lip down into a feigned pout and put on her very best little-girl impersonation. "I only do it once-in-awhile, honey."

      "Out with it, girl. You only do what once-in-awhile?"

      Bobbie dropped the cutsey little-girl routine and became herself again. A persona only Jack and a few trusted friends ever saw. "Well, sometimes when we're in bed making love, I let your emotions come into my mind. Not your thoughts, just your feelings. God, it's so good, feeling your passion, your love for me, wash over me like that. Then there are the games, of course."

      "What games, kiddo?"

      "You know, like when we play strip-poker before going to bed on Saturday night. It's really easy to cheat at poker when you can see the other guy's cards through his own eyes."

      "What are you talking about, baby? You ALWAYS lose when we play strip-poker."

      Bobbie slipped easily back into her most comfortable and most often used persona, the cocky cowgirl most people thought actually her. "Well of course I always lose, darlin'. What would be the fun in MY winning? I love the way you look at me as I slip slowly out of each bit of clothing as you win them from me, one by one, then kiss and caress whatever part of me your last victory has uncovered. By the time you get me neckkid I'm so hot for you I can hardly stand it. It's like a submission ritual for me. It makes it SO easy for me to just give myself up to you once I've lost everything and you carry me off to bed. But the fact is you're a terrible poker player, honey, so sometimes I have to cheat to lose."

      Jack emulated her feigned pout. "Hurrump, I do all right against the boys down at the roadhouse."

      "Those guys, are you kidding? Most of those old farm boys are dumber than dirt. If food didn't grow in their own backyards they'd likely starve. The year before I met you--the year of the drought, remember?--I paid my irrigation bill all summer with what I took off those bumpkins. And that was before I could read their cards through their own minds. Trust me, you're a lousy poker player, honey. Promise me you'll never get yourself into a serious game."

      Jack gave out a little chuckle. "You mean like the one our esteemed Chief-of-Police runs in that abandoned silo out on County-19 every Wednesday night?"

      "I mean exactly that game, darlin'. They cheat, too, if you didn't know. You know that big, gaudy, glass chandelier that hangs over the old riverboat hatch-cover they use for a gaming table? Well that chandeliers' got mirrors buried in it. The Chief and his cronies always sit on the side of the table away from the door and sit their the marks on the other side. They can all see the poor sucker's cards plain as day."

      "Humm, you been in that game since you, you know, got these. . . abilities? I mean, you just put a whole bunch of images into my head a few minutes ago. Couldn't you make them see whatever you wanted them to see in those mirrors while at the same time you could be looking at their cards through their own eyes?"

      "No, I haven't. And, Yes, I could. I thought a lot about that kind of stuff when I first realized what was happening to me. You know, like how I could take advantage of it and all. But no, I never did any of it. That would make me just like them and I couldn't stomach that. So, sorry love, but no, I don't cheat anyone at cards but you."

      Bobbie snuggled back up to him and laid her head on his chest. "But there's more to it than even that. Sometimes peoples feelings, even their thoughts, come crashing into my mind unexpected. My attention is drawn to strong emotions. I knew when you broke your wrench up on the windmill because it made you so mad. It was the pain and anguish of the people the Sentiency destroys that lead me to discover the void. That's how I found Sarah. She was drawn to the void in that same way and our minds met there. I'm still changing, Jack. My abilities get stronger every day and I'm scared to death of what I may eventually become."

      Climbing down out of Jack's lap Bobbie made her way to the kitchen window. Folding her arms in front of her chest she leaned against the sink and stared out across the rolling West Texas countryside. "But I love this place, Jack. My familys' been on this land for a hundred-and-fifty years. It's the only home I've ever known. My great, great, something-or-other grandfather shared that spring with the Comanche and the Cherokee a hundred years before that rusty old windmill was even built. There are six generations of Hankins' buried behind the little picket fence around the family plot and I intend for MY great, great, something-or-other grandkids to be buried there one day. Sarahs' right when she says the huge, beehive mind of the people who make the void are afraid of her. I've felt that fear when we've looked into the void together. And It can't block me out the way it does her, it doesn't even know when I'm there. I've seen things in the void even Sarah doesn't know about. Things so terrible I don't want her to know; she's only a child, after all. So as frightened as I am of what my future holds, if that horrible black evil can be stopped then I have to do whatever it takes to do it."

      Turning from the window to face Jack, she placed her hands on her hips and leaned back against the sink once again. "But I can't do whatever it is I have to do to stop this thing alone, Jack. Together, Sarah and I have the telepathic and psychic power to put an end to the void. But I'm terrified of its evil. I don't have the emotional strength to face it alone; Sarah, even less-so than me. You've always been the one I've leaned on when things got tough. You're the one with the emotional strength and moral integrity to see to it that I do the right thing at the right time. Sometimes I feel like I'm turning into some kind of force of nature and you're the only one I can trust to guide me if I lose control of that force. We're only going to get one chance at stopping this thing. Once we show our hand and it becomes aware of me our advantage will be gone. One mistake and all will be lost. I have to go because my daughter can't do this without me and you have to go because I can't do it without you. You have to come with us Jack. . . I'm sorry."

      Jack picked up the now cold cup of coffe his wife had left forgotten on the table and downed the last of its contents, then turned to where she stood at the sink. "I haven't had nearly enough time to think through all that you've told me, girl, but If you think I'm going to let you go gallavanting off across the galaxy without me you're crazy; of course I'm coming with you. I don't have a clue about how I can help but I promise you these two things: I'll be there when you need me and, more importantly," he cocked his head to one side and, grinning broadly, gave her a wink, "no matter where these changes in you take us, or what you eventually become, you will always be my wife. Don't you ever forget that."

***

© Gary M. Pinkston 1999, 2000.