“I’ll carry her myself, Ate,” Tacoma counters, moving to Dakota’s head as Wanblee Wapka’s hands descend back onto Kirsten’s shoulders.

“Kirsten,” he intones softly, lips close to her ear, “Kirsten, I need you to let her go, just for a moment.”

“No,” Kirsten moans. “No, please. Please, help her.”

“We will, wikhoshkalaka. We will, I promise. But you need to come away with me so that Tacoma can lift her and carry her to the cart. She needs to be cared for at home and we cannot lift you both.”

Slowly, with great reluctance, Kirsten allows Wanblee Wapka’s gentle hands guide her away from her lover. Dakota’s grip, however, remains tight around her wrist. Wanblee Wapka comes quickly to one knee and begins to gently massage his daughter’s bloodless hand. “Chunkshi, let her go. Let Kirsten go. We must tend to you, Dakota. Please, release her wrist.”

His intent massage softens Koda’s grip and Kirsten, with the greatest reluctance, pulls her wrist free. Dakota immediately reacts, thrashing her long body about. Head twisting from side to side, she moans.

Wanblee Wapka strokes his daughter’s hair, his eyes bright with concern and love. “Shhh, chunkshi. She is here. Your tehila is here.” He turns his regard to Kirsten. “If you speak softly to her, she will hear you.”

One hand over her mouth, Kirsten uses the other to reach out, stopping just short of Dakota’s icy skin. “Koda? Sweetheart? I’m here, right beside you, ok? You’re gonna be fine, I promise.” Unable to stop herself, her hand completes the last inch and brushes against her lover’s flesh. So very cold. She’s tempted to pull away again; a reflex she actively fights. Instead she strokes along the ridges of tendon, muscle and bone, willing warmth into the icy skin. “I won’t leave you,” she vows. “Not now. Not ever.”

Dakota calms immediately under Kirsten’s attentions. Her breathing settles and she appears to slip into a deep sleep.

Wanblee Wapka takes quiet note of the fierceness in Kirsten’s voice and manner, and smiles briefly to himself. This, he knows, is the true face of the woman his beloved daughter has chosen for a mate—the face of the Igmu protecting her cubs. He nods to himself, well pleased, then tenderly draws her away as Tacoma steps in and easily lifts Dakota’s limp, dead weight into his massive arms.

They follow closely behind as Tacoma walks quickly to the waiting cart, Manny at the wheel. He lays her gently in the back of the cart, a place where golf bags normally rest. It’s a tight fit, but he manages. He then ushers Kirsten around to the passenger’s side, and helps her settle in. She immediately twists in the molded plastic seat and reaches out, running her fingers through the thick fringe of hair on Dakota’s pale, chilled brow. Tacoma yanks Manny from the driver’s seat and gestures for his father to take the vacated space. “We’ll walk, Ate,” he murmurs before returning to check on his sister one last time. “We’ll meet you back at the house.”

With a brief nod, Wanblee Wapka puts the cart in drive and heads away.

Maggie finally looks away from the retreating cart, eyeing the remaining men with one eyebrow raised. “Can someone please explain to me what the hell just happened here?”

Tacoma’s lips twitch. “Sure, I’ll tell you as we’re heading back, ok?”

“Fine.”

And with that, the three start back to the base double time.

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

THEY ENTER THE house to find Kirsten, white-faced and pacing nervously the length and breadth of the living-room. The door to Dakota’s room is firmly closed, and no sounds emanate from behind it. The rooms are rich with the aroma of heating soup, though it’s obvious that Kirsten is in no way comforted by the homey scent.

Quickly assessing the situation, Maggie walks over to Kirsten, gently takes her arm, and leads her to the couch. “Sit down before you fall down,” she says in a no-nonsense voice that is nevertheless ripe with compassion. “Manny, get some coffee brewing. Make it strong.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Manny replies, all military business as he all but marches over to the kitchen.

“Tacoma, could you….”

“Ate’ will come to us when he’s ready,” the tall man intones, moving over to the other side of the couch and easing his long frame in beside Kirsten. He cups her hand in his much larger one, chafing her skin gently with the other. “She’ll be fine, Kirsten. I promise you.”

“I—.” Kirsten breaks off and gathers herself. “What’s taking so long?”

“It will take as long as it takes, little sister. She will be fine.”

Pulling her hand from his, Kirsten drags it through her hair, tugging on the ends in a gesture of frustration. “I’m a scientist,” she says as if to herself. “I fix things. And I—I can’t fix this!”

“That’s because there’s nothing to fix,” Tacoma replies. Leaning slightly forward, he takes her hand again, his eyes dark and penetrating with the strength of his convictions. “Kirsten, listen to me. This is a part of who my sister is. It’s something you have to accept as part of her. If you can’t, you can never hope to make a life with her.”

Kirsten’s eyes widen in disbelief, then narrow as determination sets her jaw. Tacoma holds up a hand. “I think you will make a life with her. A very long and happy life.” He sighs. “Acceptance comes with understanding, and I’m afraid we haven’t been very forthcoming with you in this regard.”

“You can say that again,” Kirsten mumbles. “It’s like you’re all on the same page, and I don’t even know where the bookstore is.”

“Not all of us,” Maggie interjects, giving Kirsten a little smirk before turning her expectant gaze toward Tacoma.

The tall man blushes, then shakes his head. “Believe me. Ate is much better at this than I am. He’s had to explain it to his ten kids, after all. I haven’t had to explain it to anyone.”

“I dunno,” Maggie drawls. “Should we let him off the hook?”

Feeling somehow better for the conversation, Kirsten nods. “For now.”

“Thank you!” Tacoma exclaims, grinning at her. Then his expression sobers. “The point is, I understand your fears. I’ve been there, and I know what it’s like to feel powerless to help.” Kirsten is looking at him with frank interest now. “I was thirteen the first time it happened. A koskalaka still learning how to be a man and sometimes, like most teenagers, too big for my braids.” He smiles in a self-deprecating manner. “I’d had my First Vision almost six months before, see, and so I considered myself an expert on the matter. Dakota was twelve—not quite a woman, but almost. She’d just started her growth spurt and was almost as tall as me again.”

Smiling in fond remembrance, he lets go of Kirsten’s hand and rises to his feet, stepping around the couch and stretching his cramped muscles lightly. Taking the cup of strong coffee from Manny, he hands it to Kirsten and resumes his tale. “Ate and grandfather planned a sweat for her, just to get her used to the idea. A kind of trial run, actually. No one really expected her to have a Vision. It wasn’t her time yet.”

“But she did.”

“And how,” Tacoma remarks, drawing a hand over his face. “It started off alright at first. I mean, it was kind of surprising that she was being gifted with a Vision, but…. I could tell she was a little nervous, so I, with my six months of vast experience, tried to help her through it. But then….”

“Something went wrong, didn’t it,” Kirsten observes, holding the mug in chilled hands but making no move to drink the coffee inside.

“I thought it did. And worse, I thought I made it happen. Like I’d done something wrong when I was trying to help her.” He shakes his head, causing the long fall of his now unbound hair to ripple and settle down over his shoulder. “I was so scared that I forgot everything Ate taught me.”

“What happened?” Kirsten murmurs, entranced.

“Luckily, Ate had the presence of mind to snatch me away before I did something unforgivable. While he held me tight, Grandfather went in after Dakota.”

“Went in after?” she repeats. “I’m not sure I understand.”

Tacoma smiles grimly, pondering for a moment. “Dakota told me of the time,” he begins softly, “when you had an unfortunate encounter with an dying android who seemed determined to take you along with it. Do you remember?”

Kirsten nods. Her memories of that time remain, unlike the stuff of her dreams, curiously vivid—though the scientist in her passes those memories off as dreams for lack of anything else to call them. All of her life, she has stood firm in her resolve that the human body and what people liked to call the ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’ are inexorably entwined. As long as one lives, the other lives. When one ceases, the other does as well, world without end, Amen. If she is to accept these memories as something more than the random firings of a brain desperately in need of oxygen, she will have to change some very fundamentally held world views, and though she acknowledges that she is a much different person now than she was then, it is a change that she’s not sure she’s ready to make, in truth.

Tacoma, compassionate to her struggle, remains quiet a moment more before speaking. “Our beliefs are very different,” he remarks softly. “When Dakota realized that you were starting to walk the spirit path, she ‘went in after you’, to bring you back to your body. Grandfather did much the same to Dakota long ago.”

“Why your grandfather and not your father?” Maggie asks, curious.

“Dakota loves my father very deeply, it’s true,” Tacoma answers. “But she worships my grandfather, even now, when he’s been gone from this world for many years. They had a bond that…well, if Grandfather had asked her to take poison for him, she would have done it without a second’s pause.”

“Wow.”