Chapter Six: The Pitfalls and Pleasantries of Kryptonian Multiplication

Thanks to Terry Leatherwood, without whose conflict throwing this fic would suck. I’m just too nice to want to put the characters through anything bad, so I try to block it out and my writing suffers because of it. Terry asks just the right questions in just the right places to lead me to great conflicts, not only making the story more realistic, but hopefully more entertaining as well. After all, who wants to read a full-length story full of fluff? Not that I don’t like fluff—I just hate that it’s practically the only thing I’m able to write without help.

Kmar deserves lots of kudos too. She constantly checks my facts for me, and helps me with research I don’t even know I need to do. Not to mention, she can spell “reconnaissance,” which is one of the few words that still gets me every time.

You two rock!

*Some lines in this chapter have been quoted directly from the episode “Big Girls Don’t Fly.” In this chapter, I also make a small reference to a certain novel which shall remain nameless until the end of the chapter.*

To recap:

In chapter five, Jor-El, Lara and Clark arrived at his apartment, only to find Zara and Ching at a stand-off with Martha and Lois (with Jonathan sitting in the background). There were some exchanges of information, and an argument ensued after Lara let the bomb drop about the birth-marriage between Zara and Clark. Martha broke up the argument and everybody decided to go to sleep and talk/think about it in the morning.

And now, on with the show . . .

Remember:

*Telepathic Communication*
"Speech,"
"*Speech and Telepathic Communication at the Same Time,*"
and EMPHASIS.

Chapter Six
*Marriages and Mayhem*

The telephone rang in a fifth-story apartment on Carter Avenue.

It rang again, eliciting a moan from the comforter on the bed. Slowly, the comforter moved and a hand snaked out from beneath it, groping toward the night stand.

After the fourth ring, the hand reached its goal, bringing the receiver back under the comforter.

“Hullo?” asked Lois, voice low and gravel-filled from sleep.

“Lois?” Clark’s voice came over the line. “Are you still asleep?”

She perked up as she heard her fiance on the line. “Well, I was until the phone rang. Why?”

“Uh, Lois,” Clark said. “You do know that it’s almost ten, right? You missed the staff meeting, and Perry’s been looking for you since it ended.”

The covers suddenly folded over as Lois turned and sat up. “What? Ten o’clock? You mean I over-slept? That’s impossible! I never over-sleep.”

“Sorry, Honey, but you did today,” Clark soothed. “I don’t blame you though--you did seem pretty exhausted last night when I dropped you off.”

“Why didn’t you call me sooner then?” Lois asked as she hurried around the room, grabbing clean clothes, rushing through her morning routine and thinking to herself that it was a good thing she’d managed to take a shower before the whole debacle at Clark’s the night before.

“Perry wouldn’t let me out of the meeting,” came the answer. “He said at least one of us had to be here to fill him in on our stories, and since we know about each other’s individual stories too. . . .” He let the sentence hang, and Lois grumbled her displeasure at the idea--after all, how could she ever get the scoop on the rest of Metropolis if she didn’t get up early enough to get there first? “Anyway, while I’ve still got you on the phone, I should probably tell you that everyone is planning on continuing the conversation from last night after work this evening. I was going to tell you when you got in, but--”

“Right,” Lois answered, distracted as she hurriedly hung up the phone, applied her make-up, grabbed her shoes and purse, and left the apartment.

-----

Fifteen minutes later, Clark heard Lois grumbling all the way up the elevator shaft.

“Could’ve been here in five minutes if I hadn’t over-slept . . . stupid mid-morning city traffic . . .” came the sotto voce litany. Clark had to smile; Lois was just adorable when she was irritated. Plus, her rants were almost as fun to listen to as her babble-tangents.

As the elevator came within a couple of floors of the newsroom, Clark got up from his chair to pour Lois a cup of coffee. He reached the ramp just as the doors came open with a “ding,” and met her with a kiss at the elevator. “Morning, Lois,” he said with a smile as he handed her the mug.

“Almost isn’t anymore,” she grumbled, but returned the kiss. He watched as she carefully took a sip of the hot coffee, closing her eyes and sniffing it as she swallowed. “Mmm, thanks, Clark,” she said, opening her eyes and moving a bit more sedately down the ramp toward the bull pen and her desk. “What are we working on today?”

Clark reminded her about the status of a few of their open investigations, then started into the details of the new assignments they’d been given, but was interrupted when Lois suddenly sat straight up in her chair and turned around, fixing him with a piercing stare.

“Wait a second,” she said. “Before I left my apartment, did you say something about talking to . . . you know, THEM . . . again tonight?”

“Yeah,” Clark answered, uncertain whether the vitriol his fiancee put into the word “them” was for his birth-parents, Zara and Ching, or all four of the born-and-raised-but-currently-Earth-bound Kryptonians. “Everybody decided this morning before work that it was probably a good idea, since we still have to figure out what to do about some things anyway.”

“So, they called you, but you couldn’t call me before ten o’clock?” There was a dangerous note in her voice. Clark was secretly glad that Zara wasn’t working today, since her presence probably would have had Lois spitting nails within the hour, especially after Jor-El and Lara’s revelation of the night before. It was one thing for the “new girl in research” to have a crush on Clark, but he suspected it became quite another thing entirely to Lois when it was revealed that the very same “new girl” actually had had a claim--albeit a claim from a completely alien legal system--on him since they were infants.

“No, no, that’s not it,” he hurried to explain, quietly so as not to be overheard by their colleagues ranged around the bullpen. “Mom and Dad were already at my apartment, right? So when Jor-El and Lara and the others contacted me in my head, it woke me up. I was so surprised, I must have shouted because I woke up Mom and Dad, so I told them what the other four were saying, and we came up with the plan for this evening. I had already planned to tell you about it when you got here, but I didn’t know you had over-slept. I called you as soon as I could get to a phone after I realized you weren’t here yet.”

Clark inwardly chuckled at the adorable picture Lois made as she sulked, contradicting some of the statements she’d made earlier that week. “You know, it’s just not fair! I want to be telepathic too.”

-----

“What kind of barbarian civilization marries people when they’re babies anyway?” Lois asked no one in particular as she swung a fork over her Kung Pao chicken that evening. She and Clark had finished their work at the Planet, and were having dinner--courtesy of Superman’s World-Wide Delivery Service--with Martha and Jonathan while they awaited the arrival of the Kryptonians. “I mean, you’d think with all that technology, they would have at least had the sense to wait until the kids could make their own decisions, wouldn’t you?”

“Indeed I would,” Jor-El answered from the stairway. She had not noticed Clark getting up to open the door, and turned quickly in her seat to see the Kryptonians as they walked into the apartment.

She opened her mouth to ask why he and Lara had married Clark and Zara then, but closed it when Jor-El continued.

“I had long pleaded with the leaders of our planet, not only to save as many of our people as possible from the destruction of Krypton, but also to find a balance between tradition and other, possibly better ways. Ways that would acknowledge the rights of the common people as well as those of the nobility.”

“But then why--”

“There simply was not time for persuasion,” Lara interjected. “Had we not performed the ceremony at the appropriate stage in Kal-El’s infancy, we would have called attention to our family in ways that would have, at worst, hampered our son’s ability to leave before the planet’s end, killing him as well as the rest of the population.

“As it was, we were lucky to have as much time as we did. The best we could do was to keep Zara and Kal-El from ever meeting, as we had hoped that he would find happiness with a woman from Earth.

“In a way, the birth marriage was also an alternative, should he not have found anyone suitable here. We wished then, as we do now, only for our son’s happiness.”

Lois thought about the new information she’d been given as the eight of them found places to sit around the living room, and made it a point to sit between Clark and wherever Zara sat. She noticed Martha staring at Lara with an unreadable expression on her face, although Lara did not notice as she defended her and Jor-El’s actions to Lois.

Jonathan spoke. “That’s what we want for him too.” Martha nodded her agreement.

Lois sighed. “Well, I guess I can see that. So, how do you undo it?”

“Undo?” Jor-El asked.

“Yes, how do you make it so that Clark and Zara aren’t married anymore?”

All four of the recently-space-bound Kryptonians looked at each other, and Lois wondered if they were having a high-speed telepath conference. They were at least doing the “speaking without words” thing that even some humans did from time to time.

She guessed that they really had not been speaking telepathically when Zara finally answered. Judging by Jor-El’s flinty expression, Zara’s upcoming words were either opinion or only personal knowledge. “There is no way in our laws for a birth marriage to be ‘undone.’ Both parties have a duty to each other and to the Kryptonian people. If marriages were suddenly allowed to be broken, what other laws might then be taken as merely ‘guidelines?’ No, there would be rebellions, criminals everywhere, chaos.”

Lois silently contemplated the possibility of calling Dr. Klein for some kryptonite as she raised an eyebrow at the other woman. Did she really believe what she was saying? It was like she was reciting a lesson, or she was some kind of brainwashed propaganda machine for Minitrue. “And your people always follow the law? What, there aren’t even annulments in your culture? How are two people who were married at birth supposed to live together if they were not even allowed the choice to agree or to disagree? What if they’re not even compatible, much less in love?”

“Compatibility is irrelevant,” Ching answered as Lara and Jor-El continued to be silent in the background, jaws tight. “The continuation of the species, especially of noble blood lines, is of the utmost importance, particularly now that the population of Kryptonian peoples in the universe is exponentially smaller than it was only decades ago.”

Something in the man’s tone which Lois could not put a name to made her think that he was trying to convince himself as much as he was trying to convince her; maybe he had not been brainwashed as Zara had. She did not react to the insight, but filed it away for future reference nonetheless before she growled.

She stood, pushing Clark’s calming hand off of her thigh, where he’d rested it at the beginning of Zara’s explanation. “Do you even hear yourselves?” she asked as she swung her hands and arms wildly in frustration at Zara and Ching. “Do your people not have brains to think? Do they not have hearts to feel? Are you all robots, doing only what you’re told, never questioning whether or not those commands are right and good? Did no one think for themselves on Krypton?”

She watched Ching’s fists clench at his sides, but when he started to speak again, Jor-El held up a hand. “Stop,” he commanded.

Surprisingly, Ching obeyed. Lois wondered about that, and then remembered last night, when Jor-El had called Zara “Lady.” Was Ching a subordinate? Then did that mean that Jor-El and Lara were at least close in rank to Zara? They’d have to be, she deduced, since she doubted any Kryptonian noble had ever married below their station. Surely, that would be at least strongly discouraged, not to mention against their all-important laws, she scoffed to herself. Which would mean that Clark was--no, he couldn’t be, could he?--some sort of prince, or lord?

Her thoughts were curtailed as Clark’s birth father continued. “These young ones have not studied the ancient laws as I have. Before you were born,” Lois saw him nod to Clark, “and the threat to our home was fully realized, I pored over the oldest texts, searching for ways to precipitate change in our society.

“Many millennia ago, before the birth marriage became an almost mandatory tradition, there were quite a few instances of people who were excused from marriages they did not want when their majority came upon them. But such excuses had long passed into disuse and unofficially banned before our time. However, even the oldest of these Laws of Excuse still had not been formally and legally repealed on the day of Krypton’s demise.

“Therefore, if Kal-El were to approach the current governing Council of Elders with a request in accordance to those laws, then the Council would not be able to deny him the request, and upon condition of her agreement, his marriage to Lady Zara would then be severed.”

Lois smiled smugly at the woman in question--who looked slightly gob-smacked--and folded her arms across her chest as she leaned back on the couch cushions. Clark gently squeezed her shoulders in a brief side hug.

“I have indeed researched the old laws concerning our people’s marriage customs,” Ching answered the older man. Lois looked at him, the wheels turning in her head. Why was he searching such old laws? She remembered his tone from earlier then. Did he have a birth marriage he didn’t want either?

Or did he want someone else’s birth wife? She looked from him to Zara, whose eyes told Lois that she was just as surprised as Lois felt. Intrigued by the possibilities in Ching’s words and posture, Lois listened closely as the man continued.

Even Ching’s stoic exterior was cracking, lending credence to her theory that the man was decidedly not happy with the statement he was about to make.

“The old laws specifically prohibit the severing of a birth marriage between nobles, if the severing of such a union will threaten the peace which the Kryptonian people have enjoyed for hundreds of millennia. Should Lord Kal-El be excused from his marriage to Lady Zara, New Krypton will be plunged into civil war.”

-----

“I don’t understand,” said Martha, breaking the silence from the chair she sat in next to the couch Clark shared with Lois and Jonathan. “How could a divorce start a CIVIL war? I mean, I could understand if it were two countries with a treaty predicated on a marriage between members of both ruling families, but wasn’t Krypton basically one planet-wide country? That’s what it sounded like you said, Ching, ‘the peace which THE KRYPTONIAN PEOPLE have enjoyed.’ Am I right?”

Clark looked from one Kryptonian to the other as they each nodded in response: Lara, Jor-El, Zara, Ching. Martha continued, “Then how can a divorce--or a refusal to marry--between two people of the same country cause a war within that country? Why should the identity of one noblewoman’s husband make a difference?”

“Lady Zara is not merely a noblewoman,” Ching protested. “She is the First Lady, blood heir to the Kryptonian monarchy, and Lord Kal-El is the ruler consort, First Lord of New Krypton.” Clark stared at Ching, eyes wide, and jaw slack. Him, a king? The idea was daunting, to say the least.

“Therefore,” Jor-El explained, “if the marriage between Lady Zara and Kal-El were to be severed, then Lady Zara must marry his successor. But I also do not understand how this will cause civil war among our people.”

“Because if Kal-El doesn't return,” Zara answered, “Lord Nor is next in line for my hand.  He is a monster, a soulless brigand who would enslave all who oppose him, and the Council of Elders is blind to his treachery.  Marriage to me would ensure his reign; he will seize power, which will divide all the ruling houses in the hold that they have over the people. Riots will be followed by mass murders, followed by civil war.  Our people would live in fear, and there would be little to nothing that I could do to stop his tyranny.”

“Can’t you rule alone?  Or has New Krypton not embraced Women’s Lib?”  His fiancee’s pointed question brought a slight smile to Clark’s face, even through his surprise.

Lara sent him a query, mind-to-mind.  *Women’s Lib?*

His birth mother’s voice in his head as her eyes met his broke Clark’s thoughts from their stupor, and he answered, *A political and social movement which strives for equality between the sexes in business, government, economics, and other aspects of life.  Specifically, the movement emphasizes better rights for women.  ‘Women’s Lib’ is actually short for ‘Women’s Liberation,’ and the movement is also often called the Feminist Movement.*

Lara nodded, returning his look and sending a telepathic burst of interested and slightly-dampened confusion while he refocused on the verbal conversation.

“No,” Zara answered Lois’s question, and Clark heard the impatience in her voice.  “The first duty of all Kryptonian nobility is to produce legitimate, noble heirs.  Were I to refuse a husband and sever the birth marriage after the thirty-first anniversary of my birth, I would be jailed and tried for treason, a crime for which the penalty is death by banishment.  My body would be disintegrated, the Council would scatter my molecules across the universe, and Nor would win the throne by default.  My people would be left utterly without hope.”

A pall hung over the group as the information percolated through their minds.  Finally, a slightly subdued Lois spoke, clutching Clark’s hand as though she were afraid he would be ripped from her in the next few seconds.  “So . . . what?  We’re just supposed to sit here while you take Clark away to a planet he’s never seen, away from everybody he’s ever known?  We need him here too, you know.”

Clark held her close as Ching replied, “It is his duty.  There is no other way.”

“We will find a way,” Lara vowed.  “If not now, before you must leave, then as soon as possible so that he may return to Earth--the home we meant for him to love when we sent him here--before much time has passed without him.”  Clark looked to Jor-El, and saw his birth father’s solemn nod.

“Before we do that,” Jonathan said, “we need to do something about Jor-El and Lara’s stories, and their ship still needs to be taken to a better hiding place.”  Clark had nearly forgotten that his father was in the room; the man was quieter than usual tonight.

“Our stories?”  Lara asked.

“Oh yeah,” Martha answered.  “You’ll need human identities and background information, and disguises so that you won’t be too conspicuous.”

“Lt. Ching can take care of the necessary identifying paperwork,” Zara said.

Ching nodded from his corner.  “It will be easier than was creating Terran identities for Lady Zara and myself, since I shall only work backward from Lord Kal-El’s.  It is a matter of public record that he was adopted as an infant, so I need only create the paperwork for the birth parents of the child who was adopted and then named Clark Kent.  I will use the names on the birth record which was created when he was found.”

Martha, Jonathan, Lara and Jor-El nodded.  “If you need any of the paperwork we have for Clark,” Martha offered, “just let one of us know.  If I don’t have it in Smallville, then Clark probably has it here.”

“That will not be necessary.  I had already found the computerized records during my original search of the planet for his current whereabouts.”

“Since that’s taken care of,” Clark said, “I could go move the ship right now.”

“You will need help,” Zara said.

“I thought you people had done your homework?” Lois interrupted.  “Clark’s lifted a shuttle into space before, and he stopped an asteroid from demolishing the Earth.  Shouldn’t he be able to handle a space ship the size of a yacht?”

“Normally, yes,” Ching answered.  “But the ship in which Lord Jor-El and Lady Lara came to Earth was made from Kryptonian materials; therefore, it has a molecular structure much more dense than anything made with even the heaviest of Terran metals.  Moving a ship of the size necessary to transport two Kryptonians and the required supplies would take all five of us, possibly more if the ship is considerably larger than my estimates.”

Jor-El quoted a measurement that was unfamiliar to Clark, and Ching nodded.  “The five of us should be able to lift and transport it then, but not without difficulty.”

“Have you been able to fly yet?” Clark asked his birth parents.

“No,” Lara answered.  “Not yet, although the possibility of flying under my own power is a thrilling thought.”

Zara shook her head.  “Their powers will not come fully to them for another week at least.  It may take longer; our scientists are not yet certain if age is a factor in how long it takes for a Kryptonian to come to full strength under the influence of a yellow sun.  Learning to control the abilities with enough accuracy to avoid obstacles at the highest altitudes and speeds will take longer.”

“Then I guess I’ll just have to keep an eye on the ship for another few weeks,” Clark concluded.

-----

The Colonel watched as General Taineckew perused the written report he had brought to him just minutes before.  The colonel had been especially hesitant to tell him that his troops were reluctant to attempt entry due to the obviously alien--and, judging from the dress and probable origin of the two beings to exit so far, probably impregnable--design.

“Yes, tipping our hand to the alien so early could be disastrous,” the general mused.  “Were there signs of anyone else aboard?”

“No, Sir,” the Colonel answered, “but if there were, surely they have noticed our presence and informed Superman.”

“Recommendations, Colonel?”

“It may be prudent to remove all troops from the valley, Sir.  The approaching storm front will serve to cover any evidence of their presence, should any inside have failed to notice already.”

“Do it, Colonel.  Dismissed.”  The Colonel did an about-face and left the office, polished boots clicking smartly on the linoleum in time to his regimented gait.

Taineckew paged his Lieutenant, “Reed, patch me through to Cash.”

“Yes, Sir,” Reed answered over the intercom.  A few moments later, the voice came through again, “Colonel Cash on line one, Sir.”

The General grunted.  “Make certain I am not disturbed until further notice.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Taineckew picked up the receiver, and pushed the button for line one.  “Colonel Cash, this is General Taineckew.  We have a matter of national security on our hands.”

“The Metropolis contingent is in place and awaiting your orders, Sir,” the other man answered.

“Keep an eye on Superman.”

“Superman, Sir?”

“Yes, Cash,” barked the general, “Superman.  A little less than a week ago, Superman was witnessed guiding a ship of unknown origin to a valley along the border of Idaho and Montana.  Two unknowns disembarked, and Superman escorted them out of the valley, presumably back to Metropolis, leaving the craft.  Attempts to open the craft and ascertain its contents have failed.  The size of the ship leads us to believe that there are more Kryptonians aboard, at least enough to subjugate the human race.  Your orders are to track Superman, note any changes in his behavior, and report back to me in one week.  You are also to identify the unknowns and their purpose here.”

“Yes, Sir!”

-----

Bottom-Dweller’s Note: I do not own the rights to the term Minitrue, nor to the novel it came from (George Orwell’s 1984), and I used the term without permission.  No copyright infringement was intended, however.  It just fit the situation in this story, and I’d profusely thank all involved if they would not sue me.

Next Chapter: Lara and Jor-El get disguises and learn about Superman, and the plot actually moves past Clinton Street (I hope).