“Ah, the mysterious Sector C lab. I take it the scientists erased these reports as soon as they read them?”

  “Naturally. But we have copies of the notes and our targets’ replies. Also coded.” Selt sighed as they traveled the beige-walled corridor and its banks of computers. “It was a given they’d restart covert experiments and studies. Erasing the entirety their former research and them having to endure regular Galactic Council inspections was merely an obstacle. They’re taking up their evil ways again.”

  “The sort of evil that puts the rest of the known universe in danger.” Hadlez offered him a sympathetic wince. “It isn’t Bi’is attempting to misbehave putting a frown on your face.”

  Selt chuckled and combed his fingers through his shoulder-length curls. He wished he’d had an opportunity to clean up before reporting to Admiral Piras and Captain Kila. He was a rough, tough Nobek, but even a warrior wanted a shower and clean uniform after five days. “I’ll be glad to hand over what’s usually a boring posting to another crew, but yeah, I’m kind of miffed we won’t be the ones to catch the little gray bastards up to no good.”

  “Think of the compensation, though. Our next deployment promises to be exciting, in another fashion.”

  Selt’s good humor was restored in an instant. “The new Earth. Hopefully soon to be heavily populated by lonely Earther Mataras.”

  “Worth giving up stringing up Bi’isils?”

  “Most definitely.”

  * * * *

  Earth II

  Stacy Nichols did her best to disembark from her shuttle in a dignified fashion, fighting the urge to bounce down the stairs. Come on, woman, you’re a thirty-eight-year-old governor, tasked with the start of a new planet. Decorum, please.

  Between excitement and a rush of fear, she felt like a giddy child. She faced the unknown and the unbelievable. It took everything she had to keep from leaping to the floor of the spaceport.

  Security Head Kuran awaited her, his half-smile hinting perhaps he recognized her rush of adrenaline. Or maybe it was just the natural lift of his lips, which always made him appear amused. The majority of Kalquor’s warrior breed didn’t look so friendly, in Stacy’s experience. Kuran had admitted would-be enemies found his pleasant features confusing, especially when he decided the time had come to kick ass.

  Stacy wasn’t confused when it came to Nobek Kuran, a handsome man who sported a seemingly permanent five o’clock shadow on his rugged features. She was all too aware of a spark of attraction when in his presence.

  He bowed at her approach. “Welcome to Earth Two, Governor Nichols.”

  “Thanks, Kuran. I take it this the official welcome, since I’ve visited on nearly a dozen occasions already.”

  His purple eyes, which seemed locked in a squint, twinkled at her. “This is your welcome home greeting. Arriving to take the reins for an indeterminable time period demands a special reception.”

  “I suppose it does.” She let the grin wanting to burst forth do so. Kuran answered in kind. “Speaking of receptions?”

  “Dignitaries await you at the Government Hall.” His real smile answered her.

  Her pulse sped up. His wavy hair, as black as hers, fell past his shoulders in a flood. The gray uniform of a Kalquorian Fleet contract worker hugged his body in a positively sinful manner.

  Chill out. This is Earth, not Haven. There are those who wouldn’t be enthralled by your infatuation for a Kalquorian.

  To underscore the issue to herself, she lowered the voltage of her joy and asked, “Has Kenneth Bryant arrived?”

  “An hour ago.” Kuran’s tone went from warm to careful in an instant. “The lieutenant governor is waiting for you to arrive before he makes his appearance before the guests.”

  Stacy managed to avoid rolling her eyes. “Excellent. Shall we join the party?”

  He swept an arm to indicate the path through the space port to its exit. “Your shuttle awaits, Governor.”

  They strode side by side, Kuran’s usual long steps slowed to keep him from outdistancing her. He was more than a foot taller than her five-foot-five height, tall even for a Kalquorian. The swelling muscles made him a veritable giant.

  Despite him accommodating her, she had to maintain a quick pace. Fortunately, Stacy preferred flats to heels, crisp blouses and comfortable trousers to dresses. Haven, the Earther-Kalquorian colony she’d lived on for the past six years, was, for the most part, a farming community. As lieutenant governor there, she’d regularly visited constituents. One dressed for plowed fields and cow patties if she were smart.

  She beamed at the industry around her. Earth was still in preparation, aiming to be up and running in a few weeks, but the spaceport had been bustling for nearly two years. At the start, supplies and crews to establish the infrastructure of shuttle traffic lanes, public transportation, hospitals, and society’s basic needs had been the majority of shipments. Now businesses, services, entertainments, and schools were readying to open. Supplies for an inhabited planet were pouring in. Cargo ships from every known world jockeyed for space, their crews and dockmasters shouting directions to each other.

  Earth had been reborn and was on the brink of opening its proverbial doors. The excitement was electric.

  Especially when she looked at Kuran.

  Chapter Two

  With every passing mile they flew, Stacy’s nervousness and exhilaration mounted. Outside the shuttle Kuran piloted, Earth II was a sparkling jewel. From the metal-and-glass buildings of its first city, lying outside the spaceport, to the lush wooded areas beyond, to the seashore where the largest of the planet’s ocean lapped, it was as beautiful as Haven. Soon it would be teeming with Earthers, whom had been displaced a decade prior from their dying home planet.

  “What do you think of it?” she asked her companion.

  He shrugged. “Considering this was a lifeless rock less than five years ago, it’s impressive. Terraforming an entire planet is difficult, from what I’ve been told. The engineers outdid themselves when they cooked up your second Earth.”

  “They invented groundbreaking processes to make it happen quickly. Barely a century ago, it would have taken fifty years to do this, and there was no guarantee it would take. This became reality in a mere five years, if you count surveying potential planets and narrowing the candidates down to the right one. Once they started establishing the atmosphere, it became viable within two years. All that was left then was putting our native flora and fauna in place.” She gazed in awe at the distant mountains, verdant with trees and foliage. The seeds had come from the original Earth, as had the animals, birds, and fish, which now proliferated on its namesake.

  “Too bad you’re spoiling it by erecting all those buildings. You couldn’t just use the natural landscape the way we do on Kalquor? Natural is so much better.”

  “Says the man living on a space station.”

  “Says the man who gets to be planet-side for most of my waking hours. If I were cooped up on that orbiting nightmare day in and day out, I’d probably blow it up.” He assumed a fierce expression to back up his claim.

  Stacy chuckled. Kuran had been in and out of the Kalquorian fleet, depending on the manpower needed, in recent wars. He might prefer to live on a planet, but he coped fine shut up in a ship or space station.

  It was the perfect opportunity to dig for a little information. “How are your clanmates handling Station Alpha?”

  “Rihep can handle anything. If you threw a wooden box at him and said, ‘live in there,’ he wouldn’t bat an eye.” Kuran’s smile deepened, his affection for his clan leader obvious.

  “And your Imdiko?”

  “Etnil’s complained nonstop.”

  Stacy eyed him with confused concern. “Why are you laughing about it?”

  “You have to understand Etnil. If he’s bitching, then everything is probably all right. I don’t worry until he goes quiet.” Kuran shook his head, snickering. “Our window vid stopped working last night. He said the view of Earth was the only reason he took the job. He got hold of sheet metal cutters this morning before I left and pretended he was cutting a window in the hull. He said, ‘The vacuum of space will kill us, but what a wonderful view as we gasp for air.’”

  Stacy’s laughter joined his. It wasn’t the only tale she’d heard of Etnil’s sense of humor. For a psychologist, he was quite the cutup.

  She quieted as they approached the outskirts of another city. Kuran didn’t take them as far as where the tallest buildings stretched skyward. It was on the outer border where the Government Hall, also the governor’s residence, sat in the middle of ten acres of manicured grounds. It would be her home until voters tossed her out or she ran the length of allowed terms.

  Kuran might have been dismissive of Earther building and landscaping preferences, but Stacy thought the stretch of green grass and plots of flowers and vegetable gardens were lovely. He banked around the white building itself, an impressive edifice with two wings and columns reaching its four-story height. It was elegant but not overly showy, in her opinion. The Saucin’s residence on Plasius was far more ostentatious, and the Dantovonian prime minister had a compound that stretched a square mile.

  “Home sweet home,” Kuran said. “We should have brought a booster pack, so you could jump from the shuttle and land on the lawn for a dramatic entrance.”

  “Don’t start on our first day, now.”

  They grinned at each other.

  * * * *

  Stacy flushed as her entrance to the reception was greeted by a crash of applause. Those aliens who didn’t possess hands to clap made their acclamations in other ways. Everyone was on their feet or hovering in the air to welcome Earth’s new leader.

  When the hubbub died down, she accepted the speaker box Kuran handed to her. “Thank you so much, but the accolades rightly belong to you. If not for the Galactic Council of Planets and its membership, there wouldn’t be an Earth for me to preside over. I’m especially grateful to the huge contributions of the Kalquorian Empire, the planets Joshada and Plasius, and the Alneusian Confederation.”

  After a few additional remarks about how she hoped her people’s new beginning pointed to success in the Galactic Council community, she wrapped up. Stacy wasn’t big on speeches, preferring action to words. The reception was soon in full swing, and representatives of the many worlds converged upon her.

  “Congratulations again on a well-deserved election, Dramok Mereta,” Stacy said when the secretary-general of the Galactic Council greeted her. “I understand you’re the first Kalquorian to lead the Galactic Council in four hundred years.”

  “Thank you, Governor.” The gentle face framed by graying hair was serene. “The honor is in being chosen to serve the council’s members. I hope I am up to the task.”

  From anyone else, his statement would have resounded in false modesty. However, Mereta was the real deal. He’d been a priest of Kalquor’s Temple of Life, then founder of his own sect of the ancient philosophy. He’d brought his serene clarity to the empire’s Royal Council, then to the Galactic Council. Though he had millions of devotees, he wasn’t known to impose his spiritual beliefs. Indeed, he never spoke of them unless he was asked.

  The first time she’d met him as secretary-general-elect, when her name had been put forth as a potential interim governor for Earth, Stacy had been ready to fend off the foolishness of a zealot. After all, she’d grown up under the governance of the original Earth’s Holy Leader. Browning Copeland had been a man who spoke of God’s love but forced the majority of Earthers to live in a cultish hell. Stacy was leery of those who fashioned themselves as arbiters of any holy path.

  At their initial meeting and the subsequent half dozen that followed, Mereta hadn’t mentioned salvation or sin. He’d kept their conversations to what Stacy brought to the table when it came to the success of restarting Earther civilization, her objectives for her people’s new home planet, and the obstacles she saw ahead. He listened more than he spoke, and his inquiries were never judgmental. Though she knew the barest details of Mereta’s faith, she found herself understanding why he was a sought-for leader. His nomination to the secretary-general post had met little resistance from the member planets.

  “I believe we’ve put Earth’s future in capable hands,” he said now, his smile warm.

  “Thank you. Like you, I’ll do all I can to serve my people and give us a good start.”

  “I have no doubt of it. If you ever require aid, you have only to ask the Galactic Council.”

  “Thank you, Secretary-General.”

  He bowed and made room for the next well-wishers. As the emperors and empress of Kalquor bowed, Stacy returned the greeting.

  “I can’t begin to tell you how thrilled I am to see this day arrive. Only the landing of the first colonists will supersede such a momentous occasion,” Dramok Emperor Clajak told her. His steel-colored hair, a mutation of the usual black most Kalquorians possessed, framed a handsome face.

  “I bet I’m more excited.” Empress Jessica, an elfin woman whose short stature belied her fiery temper, grinned at Stacy. “Our new home world has exceeded expectations, in my opinion.”

  “Mine as well,” Stacy agreed. “Run by a different government, I hope our success will be far greater.”

  Jessica crossed her fingers. “Don’t plant any bombs under the cities, okay?”

  Clajak and the other two emperors, Egilka and Bevau, reacted in shock. “Are you making light of that horror?” Imdiko Egilka muttered in an undertone.

  “The truth is the truth,” Stacy interjected with smooth diplomacy. “Our leaders were insane to have rigged the cities to blow up should a hostile entity breach Earth’s atmosphere. They knew they were dooming the entire planet and the majority of its people when they did so.”

  “But to joke about it?” The lean-featured emperor blinked at the two women.

  “If you don’t laugh, you might scream,” Jessica explained. “Seeing a new Earth and a fresh start for humans brings me delight beyond measure, but…”

  “But it reminds us of what we lost as well,” Stacy finished for her. “It’s dark humor masking a message, Emperor Egilka. It’s right to remind the head of a planet of our past mistakes and what led to them.”

  “I suppose,” he said after a moment’s pause. “The Galactic Council wouldn’t have chosen you if there were a possibility of you making those sorts of decisions, though.”

  Nobek Emperor Bevau, too handsome to be believed in Stacy’s opinion, smirked and asked in a low voice, “I’m not so sure about their choice of a lieutenant governor.”

  Again, Stacy drew on diplomacy because she happened to agree. Kalquor had gone to great lengths to assist Earth’s existence, but once they and the Galactic Council agreed all criteria had been met by Earth’s appointed leaders, they’d have no role in its governance. “All viewpoints should be considered and debated, no matter how distasteful various factions might find others. Fortunately, the traditionalists who lean toward absolutism are in the minority. While Mr. Bryant supports certain values, he isn’t among the extreme element.”

  Her assessment was true, but he was already proving to be a thorn in Stacy’s side. He’d questioned nearly every proposal she’d advanced, whether it was her own or on behalf of those members of the legislature she agreed with.

  She glanced toward her fellow Earther, who’d finally put in an appearance and was speaking to the representatives from Joshada. Bryant was slightly shorter than average but in good shape, his light brown hair just beginning to gray. He was attractive, particularly when he smiled. Behind closed doors, his tongue could turn sharp in rebuttal, but in public, his charm won a multitude of supporters.

  Jessica’s gaze followed Stacy’s. “He held offices on Old Earth. He strikes me as an Earthtique in his views.”

  Earthtique was a combination of Earth and antique. It had become the common slang for those who preferred the lives they’d lived on the original Earth, where the state religion had often brutally ruled its people. Under the Holy Leader’s regime, women had possessed few rights, gays and lesbians had been hunted and killed, and non-English-speaking minorities often kept in poverty.

  Men like Bryant, who’d been born to the right circumstances, had enjoyed many advantages on Old Earth. He’d made little secret he believed he should have been appointed the governor of Earth II, and being second to Stacy Nichols was a situation he found oppressive.

  Stacy allowed herself the slightest of smirks. “Answering to me and a legislature only fifteen percent white and male will be an excellent education for him. With his gift as a public speaker, I can’t think of a better messenger to those who have yet to advance their thinking.”

  The Imperial Clan grinned at her. Jessica and Clajak laughed out loud.

  “You are the right woman for the job,” Egilka chuckled.

  “I’m glad you think so. On that note, do you know when exactly the Galactic Council will hand off full control to my administration? I should have asked the secretary-general, but in the excitement, I forgot.” She looked around for Mereta, but didn’t see him. “Mr. Bryant has been most eager for us to seize the reins. As am I,” she amended, because the agreements between the Earther factions and those eager to see them living as an independent society had been met. She was impatient for her people to chart their own course into the future.

  “I believe Secretary-General Mereta said all that was left was the signing of the declaration by the Galactic Council. The formal announcement should happen before the week is out,” Clajak said.

  “Ready or not, you’re in charge.” Jessica grinned. “Should I offer my sympathy as well as congratulations?”

  “A bottle of leshella would accomplish both,” Stacy teased.

  Jessica laughed. “You already know what’s required. You’re ready, Madame Governor.”

  The Imperial Clan moved on, and Stacy spent the next hour greeting the rest of the dignitaries and well-wishers. At her first opportunity, she checked in with Kuran.