Page 19 of The Intergalactic Duke's Inconvenient Engagement
“My people are in contact with a representative from your planet Earth who is coming to take you home.” He waited for the grateful buzz to diminish before continuing. “The envoy will explain your options to you.”
Rayna—who hadn’t been quite so buzzy as the other females—studied him, her expression unreadable. “The doctor said there were formalities.”
“Because your Earth is a closed world and rather backward, meaning the populace as a whole is unaware of the existence of sentient, spacefaring life elsewhere in the universe, your repatriation—should you choose it—requires some accommodations.”
“Chooseit?” Carmen straightened in her seat, and beside her, Anne blanched. “Why wouldn’t we choose to go home?”
“That is a possibility,” he said hastily and then had to raise his voice over their objections to the word possibility. “Some Earthers choose to stay off-world,” he said, aware of the defensive note in his explanation.
“We didn’t get a choice,” Lishelle snapped.
“Not before,” he acknowledged.“But now you do.”
“And if we still want to go home?” Rayna’s dark gaze was piercing, as if she knew he wasn’t being forthcoming.
He held her gaze. “You go.”
Whatever else happened, he would hold that oath sacred.
He forced his gaze round to the other females. “All of you can stay. Or go. However, if you return to Earth, you cannot take these memories with you.”
“God, why would we?” Lishelleburst out.
But Rayna tucked her chin in confusion. “How could we not?”
Ah, his wary little soonyili, sensing the trap. Honey-birds fed exclusively on the soonyipang flower—and gathering psychedelic nectar from the carnivorous plants was a precarious existence. “The memories would be erased.”
Trixie clutched the pillow higher, as if she wanted to disappear behind it. “What?Allour memories?”
“Only the recent ones, since you awoke, would be targeted,” he said. “The Earth envoy will explain more, of course, but I feel you should know your options now. For all our advances—spaceships and whatnot”—he cast a faint smile at Rayna—“altering memories is…not foolproof. Beings such as ourselves are the end products of sentience and reason, and memory is intimately entwined with both concepts.In a very real way, weareour memories. So larfing with memories…” He shook his head.
“Larfing?” Trixie said faintly.
“Fucking,” Lishelle guessed.
He gave her a nod as his universal translator agreed. “Refocusing memories isn’t always exact or easy. It can be painful for some, not just from the procedure but because gaps—although false memories can be implanted—may remain, never to be explained.”
“That sounds like hell,” Lishelle said bluntly.
Into the others’ stunned silence, he said, “We would do our best but there would be no guarantees. And to get the best results, it’s recommended that the unwanted memories be as short and as few as possible. Meaning, should you choose to be repatriated, we would put you in suspended animation now, to minimize memory contamination, and not reviveyou until the envoy arrives to take over.”
“Take over?” Rayna repeated. “Take over what?”
“Your return, specifically,” he said. “But in essence, everything else. You wouldn’t be in any state to make decisions, and you’d need to be reintegrated to your communities, perhaps under new identities, depending on how long you were missing—”
Lishelle jolted to her feet. “New identities? New memories?No memories! What the fuck? I liked who I was.”
He was glad she didn’t have the glass shard in her hand since she’d obviously liked that too and she looked mad enough to use it on him.
“I’m sorry,” Rayna said dully.
Her low voice cut through Lishelle’s vehemence.
Raz looked at her, aghast at the pain in her eyes. “What?”
She turned her stricken gaze to the others. “I shouldn’t have gottenyou out. You’d still be asleep and then you wouldn’t have to make this choice.”
Trixie shoved aside her pillow to lean forward and grasp Rayna’s knee. “No,” she said fiercely, rivaling Lishelle’s volume. “Don’t you say that. Don’t say you’re sorry for saving us, for giving us a chance.”