Chapter 10

"Who's next on the agenda," the goddess Elaine asked the court assistant.

"Mr. Jake Hedron, Goddess," the man replied.

The Golden Goddess sighed. This was his fourth petition to retrieve his wife from exile on Earth. She'd been exiled several months ago for treason against her husband's family, causing the deaths of everyone in his family and two of Elaine's immortal sisters.

"Show him in," she said quietly. She never turned anyone away, even a worthless pest like Hedron who, instead of going to university and learning a useful trade (security not being a viable occupation in New Eden), spent his time sorting through and cataloging the records that the librarian Sabrina had spent half her life downloading from the last remaining Praetor.

"Thank you for seeing me, Goddess," Jake said, as he was admitted into the temple court.

Elaine noticed that he walked crouched over, although his physical fitness was still that of a twenty-year-old human. She knew what pain caused him to walk that way, but was still unwilling to change her mind about his exiled wife. As her primary accuser, only the goddess Elaine could make the request to terminate the woman's exile and she had no intention of doing so.

"What is it this time, Master Hedron?" Elaine asked tiredly, already knowing the answer. She called him 'Master' because he was working in the records department at university. He spent most of his time trying to find a historical precedence that would free his wife, but he was also putting university's historical records in order, so perhaps he had some use, after all.

"I've come across an entry that describes the beginning of the university Praetor's usage. It seems that Béla actually destroyed the previous Praetor because of some misunderstanding of its intentions regarding her continued survival."

Elaine frowned at the human who dared to use her dead sister's name, but honored her decision to hear him out, despite the fact that she wanted nothing more than to teleport him onto the outer surface of the little hollow moon they occupied. "Continue," she commanded.

"Um, thank you, Goddess," Jake murmured nervously. "It seems that a Praetor is capable of recharging itself using the, um, 'souls', if I may use that word, of the people it comes into intimate contact with."

"Yes?" Elaine asked. "And your point, Good Sir?"

"There is a Praetor still on Earth," he said, knowing he wasn't telling her anything she didn't already know. "If Tabatha could be guided so that she could find that Praetor, perhaps she could..."

"The Praetor's location on Earth is unknown," the Golden Goddess declared, seeing where his logic was going. "It was hidden from prying minds by my deceased sister, whose 'life force' remains undetected, as well."

"So Tabatha's life is to be wasted to pay for something she didn't know she was doing?" Jake cried out. "It was my family that died! I should have some say in what happens to her!" Elaine looked down at him in pity. It always came down to the same argument. "She's all I have left."

"Your request is refused, whatever it would be, Master Hedron. No one knows where the Praetor on earth is, so whatever new scheme you've hatched to rescue your wife is, by this fact alone, thwarted," Elaine said quietly. "Aaron, please show Master Hedron out.

"And Aaron?" The court assistant turned toward her. "No more petitioners today." Elaine stepped down off her seat. She wasn't enjoying her job any more. She hadn't enjoyed much of anything since her sister was drugged and murdered, two centuries ago.

The worst part of it, now – the part about living on, anyway – was the indeterminable waiting for a tiny ball of fire eight hundred million kilometers away to burst. No one was certain if New Eden was far enough away to be protected by Jupiter's mass when the big event finally occurred. No one was certain that even massive Jupiter, itself, would survive the incredible assault of energy the sun would release when it went nova.

'What if it's all a waste, ' Elaine thought as she walked toward the goddess' mansion. She imagined some lizard-like child (the only alien race she'd ever met) pointing up at the night sky at the pretty new star, not realizing that the bright light that so enamored him announced the demise of two intelligent species. 'Is that what all our endeavors boil down to?' she lamented. 'A bright light in some alien child's eye?'

She entered the mansion through the front door. That in itself was unusual, for the Golden Goddess usually flew directly to the balcony entrance of her quarters. Their quarters – she and Jacob, her life-mate. He met her at the door, Jacob did, surprising the goddess with his infectious grin and lightening her mood, as always.

"You always know where I am, don't you," Elaine said, stretching up to kiss him. It wasn't a question as much as an acknowledgement of his devotion to her. He didn't answer. He just kissed her. "What do I smell?" she asked, brightening up even more.

Jacob, Elaine discovered early in their relationship, could cook. So when Chef passed away, several years after she'd officially made Jacob her lifemate, Jacob took over the cooking for everyone in the mansion. "Come and find out," he replied, then led her into the dining hall.

Dinner was a meat loaf made from lamb, pureed rice, mushrooms, onions and yesterday's bread (sun dried and crumbled, then mixed in with pureed tomato) and eggs. It was lightly spiced with salt, pepper, dried garlic and ginger. Potatoes pureed with cream and chives, then spiced with pepper, paprika and garlic accompanied the lamb loaf. Everyone thought it was wonderful. Elaine thought it was another of Jacob's wonderful sausage dishes he often served. In fact, the lamb loaf was called 'sausage' loaf, though it had no pork in it at all.

Shortly after Jacob took over the cooking for the mansion, he decided to wean Elaine off sausage. To him, sausage was the most unhealthy, grease-laden non-meat that had ever been invented by mankind. After experimenting around for several years, he discovered a combination of lamb, rice and mushrooms that he could make taste just like sausage, right down to the texture. By adding a small amount of bacon fat, even Elaine couldn't tell the difference.

So, Jacob very covertly began to replace the sausage that Elaine craved in her diet with lamb, rice and mushrooms. In less than a year, she was unknowingly weaned off sausage completely. Over the next few years, he gradually cut down on the amount of grease she consumed, also. Now, Elaine could have all the sausage dishes she desired (and he had taken the time to learn sixty different ways to prepare it for her), and she and the rest of the household were eating healthy.

In addition, to protect the recipes that he kept in his head, he asked Elaine's sister, Dawn, to show him how to shield those images in his mind so that none of the other telepathic goddesses could raid his mind and serve his gourmet dishes in their own districts. In addition, the shield protected him from Elaine ever finding out she wasn't eating sausage.

Jacob normally didn't prepare desserts with starch-heavy meals like the one they'd just eaten so, after the main course, Elaine and Jacob retired upstairs while the servants cleaned up.

"Play for me?" Elaine asked, smiling at him.

"Of course, My Queen," Jacob grinned back at her.

He recalled when he met her. The goddess had come to him in the middle of his sleep period. They'd made love for hours and hours. Then he'd played his pipe for her. After mere minutes of pouring his heart out to her on his pipe, Elaine knew she was in love.

His current pipe was an instrument he was proud of. It was the fourth one he'd carved; each one more exquisite and intricate than the previous one as he learned more about the instrument. This one was capable of producing two tones at once from the same mouthpiece. He'd even written several compositions specifically for this instrument, although it was the only one of its kind in existence.

Jake Hedron had returned to university after his abrupt dismissal from the temple audience chamber. It had been more than three months now since his wife, Tabatha was taken from him and, in a trial lasting less than an hour, sentenced to exile on a barren, baked Earth. The justices had immediately surrounded her and teleported her there after stripping her of her powers. He hadn't even been allowed to say goodbye to her.

Since that day, Jake had relentlessly spent every free moment learning as much as he could about the justice system, the powers of the goddesses, previous judgments; anything he could use in an attempt to free his wife. Today was the first time he'd tried subterfuge, attempting to create a situation where his wife would have access to a Praetor, the ultimate lawgiver in this society.

He knew that if Tabatha could access a Praetor, she could possibly convince it to retry her case, if she were even still alive, that is. Earth today was a dry, dead, radioactive wasteland with limited plant and insect life. Tabatha was fit, strong-willed and resourceful. But she was a city girl, and ... Three months of scrounging for food and water? Jake doubted that even he could survive those conditions.

He spent the next six hours researching Béla's trial where she'd murdered a landowner and taken over his estates. He didn't find anything he could use, but now he understood why she had been given the freedom to govern herself free of any impediments.

Exhausted from his efforts, and heartsick that he may never see Tabatha again, he staggered to his cot in the dormitory. That night, for the first time, she came to him in his dreams.