Date: Tue, 29 Mar 1994 03:15:00 BST Reply-To: Highlander TV show stories Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: "Claire L. Maier" Subject: Excerpt 2/2 Color of Our Eyes Excerpt from the novella, "The Color of Our Eyes" by Claire L. Maier Part 2 of 2 "Randi McFarland." "Hi. It's Duncan MacLeod." Randi's voice showed clear surprise. "Where are you? Where on earth have you been?" "We recently came back from Paris. Can you come to the shop? I have a lead for you." "Can I come to the shop? For a story? Do wild bears..." "See you soon," Duncan said, and hung up. Randi was left staring at a dial tone. Duncan was haggling over price with a supplier when Randi came in; he waved her in the direction of the coffee pot in the next room and told her to help herself. Next to the coffee was a plate of homemade sugar cookies; Randi's stomach reminded her she hadn't had lunch yet. She poured herself a cup, took two cookies, and sat down. She hadn't even finished the first one when she heard Duncan call for Richie to help in the store. Duncan entered the room holding a manilla envelope in gloved hands. He took a seat near Randi and handed her the envelope. "A little leery of fingerprints, aren't we?" Randi commented. Duncan smiled, removed the gloves, and helped himself to a cookie. "Can I open this?" Duncan nodded. Before she touched the sheet of paper inside, she asked, "Just whose prints are on this?" Duncan held up a finger for her to wait; he'd just taken a big bite of cookie. When he'd swallowed, he replied, "Nobody's. Except the guy who loaded the paper at the public photocopy place might have touched it." Randi took out the drawing of a man's face. "Did Tessa draw this?" "No." She looked at the drawing carefully. While Tessa primarily did sculpture, enough of her drawings and paintings decorated the antique store for Randi to recognize the style. Her face hardened. "Don't lie to me, MacLeod." Duncan shrugged slightly. "The identity of the artist isn't important. What's important is the identity of the subject." He poured himself some coffee. Randi sighed. "Are we going to have one of our usual conversations where I have to fight to get every word out of you, or will you for once make my life easier and tell me why you called me here?" Duncan's eyes danced. "Me? Make your life easier? Now where would be the fun in that?" "MacLeod...." Duncan held up his hands in surrender. "Okay. You win." He was serious again. "That man is a rapist and murderer. He's about 5'8", 145 pounds. He drives a 1993 gray Nissan Maxima, four door." Duncan also gave the location where he was last seen. "Do the police know about this?" Duncan shook his head. "How many people has he killed?" "I don't know. The point is to stop him." "How do you know about this guy?" Duncan said nothing. Randi sighed. "I can't go broadcasting the likeness of someone with no police report or anything. That's libel." "I'm not asking you to broadcast it." "Then what are you asking me to do?" "Find out who he is." Exasperated, she said, "You don't ask much, MacLeod, do you?" Duncan smiled. Randi leaned forward and lit a cigarette; she wasn't finished. "What happened to you, anyway? You rescued Victor Paulus twice and then disappeared. The police were looking all over for you, based on Paulus's description. Then Paulus tells the cops that his mentor in Paris said everything was taken care of, not to worry, there won't be any more attempts on his life. And you just said you were in Paris. What gives?" "Tessa had work in Paris. I went to be with her." "Do you know this mentor of Paulus's? You told me you and he had a friend in common. Is it him?" Duncan's face fell and he stared at his hands. Randi was stunned. Duncan MacLeod had never showed her anything of himself before, other than what he wanted her to see, but this was clearly no act. After a moment, Duncan looked up at her; his sorrow was evident. "Yes." There could be only one reason for Duncan's reaction. "He's dead, isn't he?" Randi asked softly. Duncan looked back at his hands and nodded. Anticipating her next question, he added, "It had nothing to do with Victor Paulus." "I'm sorry, Duncan." Duncan nodded, very slightly. "Me too. He was a wonderful man. I'll miss him." "What did he die of?" Duncan just gave her a wistful smile. "Maybe someday you could break that story." His expression changed to all business. "But not now." He pointed at the drawing. "Just find this guy for me, okay? And before you ask; no, he isn't connected in any way, shape, or form with Victor Paulus, the friend we had in common, or anything else we've talked about before." They rose. Randi located an ashtray to put out her cigarette and replaced the drawing in the envelope. She studied Duncan; their conversation seemed incomplete after Duncan's revelation about his friend, and his eyes still revealed the somberness of his mood. She wasn't sure how he'd react, but decided to say it. "Would you like a hug?" Duncan was clearly surprised, but said, "Sure." They hugged, and Randi patted his back. "Thanks for caring," Duncan said as they separated. "I'll really try to find him for you," Randi said. "That's all I can ask," said Duncan. * * * * Duncan shut off his Powerbook, then stretched and leaned back in his chair. "Well, that takes care of the books for now." He glanced across his office at Ellen. "Thanks for helping me." "You're welcome, but I didn't do anything. I just read off the numbers." "That's a big help. It takes a lot longer if I have to keep looking between all the documents and the screen. It's impossible to keep my place that way. I really appreciate having someone to read the figures to me." He took the paper documents from Ellen and began sorting them into their proper files. "Duncan?" "Hmm?" "Are we human beings?" Duncan stopped his filing and looked at her. Ellen fidgeted a bit, then continued, "I was wondering if we were the same species as mortals. I mean, we can't interbreed with them..." "We can't breed, period." Duncan resumed filing. "Are you sure?" "Yeah, I'm sure." "You've tried it, huh?" Ellen giggled a bit at the look Duncan gave her. "A lot of us have tried. Nothing's ever happened." "If we can't breed, then how do we--reproduce ourselves?" Duncan released a slow breath. "You don't ask the easy questions, do you?" "You don't know?" "None of us know, Ellen." He finished the last of the filing and sat down to face her. "Is there any particular reason you're wondering about this now?" "It's just--I was thinking. You know I was adopted." Duncan nodded. "After my parents died, I tried to find my birth parents. I used up most of my inheritance doing it, which was just as well, since the state would have taken it for my care. "It was kinda hard, since they don't want to open those records if you're under age. But I had a private investigator working, and she was adopted too, so she understood how important it was. I don't know whose arm she twisted, but she got into my records." "And?" Ellen bit her lower lip and looked down. "I think I know what happened. You never found your birth parents." "I was left in a basket on the steps of the adoption agency," Ellen said. "They tried to find out who the mother was, but they couldn't. The private eye said that there was no record of me being born in any of the local hospitals. She guessed that I had been born away from a hospital. She said that my mother might have even hid the fact that she was pregnant, and that there was probably no way that I would ever know who she was. "But now I'm wondering--was she just some unwed teen with a secret pregnancy who had the baby alone, or was she...was she even human? Was my father human?" Duncan was silent for a moment, but then spoke softly, as though from far away. "Last year, I was with a little girl, and she insisted that I tell her a fairy story. I thought, well, I can handle this. My people _invented_ fairy stories. Of course, I had to tell her about nice fairies, which narrowed it down considerably, since a lot of the Celtic fairies weren't your Cinderella godmother types, to say the least. "So I picked the tales of the fairies that were fair and good and wise, and protectors of children--and as it happens, the folklore has it that those fairies lived a very long time, and never aged. So I started out by telling her about fairies, but the story didn't end that way. It's funny. I've known those particular fairy tales for centuries, but I'd never thought of them as also describing Immortals before that." "You think we're fairies?" Ellen said, incredulous. "No, of course not. But I think that some knowledge of Immortals might have influenced the tales." He stared at his hands for a moment. "Actually, I did know of another connection between Immortals and fairies before that. Have you ever heard of changelings?" "No. What are changelings?" "They're fairy children that are substituted for human ones." "And the changeling stories might have been influenced by Immortals, too?" Duncan was silent. After a few moments, Ellen prompted, "Duncan? What is it?" "Around the time that I was born, my mother--my adoptive mother, I guess you would say, although we didn't have those terms then--had just had a stillbirth. Someone showed up with me. My mother's midwife said I was a changeling." "So you were adopted, too?" "Yeah. I was." "And your parents told you you were a fairy child when you were growing up?" "No, no. I seemed to be a perfectly normal, healthy child, and I guess my parents figured that the midwife was wrong. I had no idea that they weren't my natural parents. But after I became Immortal, my father--my mother was dead by then--told me that I wasn't his son, and what the midwife had said." "That's terrible," Ellen said. "Your parents should have told you that you were adopted when you were young. All of the experts say that you should tell adopted children the truth as soon as possible." Duncan smiled. "I was born a few years before there were child care experts." "My parents told me very early," Ellen said. "It seemed like I always knew. In fact, how I was adopted was my favorite bedtime story." "Really." Duncan was amazed. "Yeah. It went like this." Ellen's expression softened, and she seemed to be looking at a point in the distant past. "Once upon a time, there was a mama and a papa who wanted very much to have children. So they tried and tried, but they never had any. And they were very sad, and they cried and cried and cried. But then they heard that there were some children who needed a mama and a papa. So they went to the adoption agency, and they told the people there, `We want a baby that needs a mama and a papa, to have as our very own.' And the people at the adoption agency said, `Oh yes, we have just the baby for you. We have a very special little girl who needs a mama and a papa to take her home and love her forever and ever.' So the mama and the papa took her home and adopted her. And do you know who that little girl is? And I would answer, `It's me!'" Duncan was truly touched. "That's beautiful." It occurred to him that his own story probably wasn't that different; his parents had been devastated by the stillbirth of their only son and were delighted to have him. Up until his first death, he had always felt wanted and loved. Ellen shrugged. For a moment, she looked as though she were about to say something else about her parents, but switched the subject back to Immortals. "Are we all adopted, then?" "I think so. Adopted or foundlings or orphans. And probably those that aren't were simply never told the truth by the people that raised them. My father would have never told me if I hadn't..." Duncan hesitated. "If you hadn't what?" "Died in front of him. I think I died in his arms, although I was kind of out of it at that point. If I'd died without witnesses, I might have been able to..." "Able to what?" Able to stay with my clan, Duncan thought, but he couldn't bring himself to say it. He forced a rueful smile. "I guess knowing that I'd come back from the dead, plus the circumstances of my adoption, were a bit much for my father. So he told me that I wasn't his son." "If he cared about you, I'd think he'd be glad you were still alive." Duncan shook his head. "According to my people's faith, there's only one man who was supposed to rise from the dead, and I'm not Him." He added, "And there were a lot of superstitions about dead people, and spirits, and so forth. Dead people were considered to be kind of dangerous until they were buried. So I guess the reactions I encountered were understandable, considering the era and the culture." Duncan felt a little better. It hurt less when he was able to rationalize it like that. "Oh," Ellen said. They were silent for a moment, then Ellen pointed out, "That still doesn't answer my question. Are we human? Are our parents human?" "I don't have an answer for you, Ellen, or for me. I wish I did. But I've always thought of myself as human. It seems to me that mortals and Immortals are more alike than we are different." End of excerpt Claire Maier bioaw124@unix.cc.emory.edu or C.MAIER@GEnie.GEIS.com =========================================================================