Chapter 70

“So, who gets to claim Terra?” James asked.

Lee shrugged and shook her head, “Not me. I still have Earth to worry about as well as my other two planets. Fortunately, Zeke and his partners are looking after the rest of Sol space.”

“I have a feeling that you and Dusty will eventually solve that problem. You might wish to make that your next mission since you seemed to have succeeded with the last three you were given.”

“Can’t,” Dusty replied.

“Why not?” Patty asked.

“Well, we have a little problem in that we have to raise a couple of kids, and I already have two planets to look after,” Dusty replied.

“Hey! You brought Nuru and me here to sort out a Kingdom, and we have to raise a kid, too,” Patty replied.

“Congratulations,” the people around the table said to both Patty and Dusty.

Saji finally worked out who the gorgeous Persian woman with the huge African man was. He had to blink several times to consolidate the image.

“Pathan?” he asked warily.

“Patty is just fine, my brother. So, what do you think of my partner? Do you think the people in Shapur will accept us?”

“Probably better than you would think, Patty. Ishmael purchased a shipload of slaves from Africa for his mines. Most of them are female, so your man will most likely go down a treat with them,” Mica replied.

Patty chuckled, “Nuru prefers to be female as often as I do. He is only in the male form at the moment because he is in protection mode.”

“I’m surprised that he didn’t kill you,” Mica stated.

He knew a lot about what had gone on in Fiaz’s family since he married into it. Fiaz often used him as an impartial sounding board. Fiaz didn’t have a lot of real friends, and many would be surprised by how much he had dumped on Mica in the past.

Patty looked at Nuru and then back at Mica, “He did wish to when Dusty took me to the island, but these strange cuffs that Dusty put on us decided that I was innocent of the crimes he believed I had committed against his family.”

“While I had been with my father when he carried out some of the crimes, I had not been able to intercede and participated under duress. I can’t stand strong pain or the hurting of others, to my supposed father’s disgust. It upset him when I fainted at the sight of blood. I fainted a lot,” she chuckled.

“Saji, he was bringing me here to dump me off as useless, just as they did to you.”

“Yafi had informed Fiaz that he had captured several Shifters on Haven, whom he believed had strong magical abilities. He told my father that he had sent them here with Hasan. Fiaz wanted them to heal him so he could live longer and have more sons,” Patty told them.

Dusty then asked the men with Saji, “Do any of you know where they are? We have not been able to locate them. I was hoping that Hiram had them, but he said that Hasan hasn’t come back from Haven.”

“He thought that Hasan had taken them to Fiaz while he was on Earth. However, the beacons recorded the ship leaving the Tres system to come here.”

The local men all shook their heads that they didn’t know.

It was Nazem, who volunteered, “Hasan took his family with him the last time he went to go to Haven. He said that the kids wanted to see the aliens who could change their shapes, so he was taking them on holiday.”

Dusty looked around, “How many of you knew of the people on Haven?”

The men all looked at each other and shook their heads, except for Nazem again.

So, he said, “Hasan is married to my sister. Sorry, I just thought they were people from Utopia. Hasan described them as being the same. They weren’t my problem at the time, as I had my own worries.”

“Hasan did tell me that he wasn’t happy that Yafi and his people were harassing them. He wouldn’t have been any happier to find that he was supposed to bring some of them back here as slaves.”

“Fiaz held the lives of our families over us, and Hasan particularly hated that he did. He was a very ethical man and hated Fiaz with a passion. He loathed having to collect the slaves from Haven and to hand them over to Hiram.”

“I would not be surprised if he did a runner with them. Are you sure that he even left Haven? He said that most of that planet was unpopulated and that he would love to live there. He liked the lighter gravity, the huge trees and all the birds since he was into Ornithology.”

“He could have doubled back as the beacons are only in a set to cover the corridor. He could have simply jumped back in on the other side of the sun. He was a good pilot and had a good crew.”

Dusty and James looked at each other and then they both smiled.

Dusty said, “Thank you, Nazem. We now know where they are and believe they are safe. We will check on them when we go back to Haven.”

Happy that that little mystery was solved, Dusty turned her attention to Vera.

“As for you, young lady, your father and Aunt are not happy campers. You are very lucky that Hiram had other plans for you, and we got here before he could carry them out. What possessed you to try to rescue those women?”

Vera shrugged, “Dusty, you saw the conditions they had been kept in. I just couldn’t leave them like that.”

She chuckled and then said, “It sure pissed his people off when I swapped their drugs. Thirty very cranky women were a bit much for his guards to handle.”

More seriously, she said, “It was just as well you did turn up before Hiram got back, or he would have been a dead man. As it is, you may want to find him some other place to live because if any of those women can get near him or his guards, I don’t think they will treat him or them well.”

“I had a hard enough time stopping them from killing the guards as it was. I just hope that they settle down a bit after more of that insidious drug is flushed from their systems. Even after a week, it is still affecting them.”