The turning heads jugged Lauren in the ass. She did not want to have all eyes upon her while she struggled to get down the steep stairs in a leg tangling, ankle length dress without falling.
She was aware, though, that most of the people gathered had turned to stare at her before she could get to the bottom and it was not a feeling she enjoyed.
Thankfully, Rama met her at the foot of the stairs.
She smiled at him gratefully if a little nervously and saw something in his eyes she hadn’t expected.
Empathy.
He took her hand and led her to a table set up on a dais at the front of the room near the fireplace hearth.
By the time she’d managed to settle in the oversized chair Rama had shown her to, she discovered pretty much everyone in the room had found a spot at a table and settled, as well—either by coincidence or because they’d been waiting for the King to seat himself before they did.
And he’d been waiting for her to arrive.
She knew he had even though he’d made a pretense of mingling with his men because as soon as he’d noticed her he’d approached the stairs to meet her and had gone directly from there to the table.
She just wasn’t certain if it was ‘typical’ behavior because she was a guest or if she could take it personally.
She rather thought there would be a danger in allowing herself to believe that she had influence upon King Rama of any kind, though.
She must, therefore, put it down to good manners on his part or custom.
Or maybe suspicion.
She suspected the colony leaders that had thought up the ‘invasion’ had been laboring under the impression that the Uti were inferior intellectually to humans, but if they did they were wrong and it could be a fatal misconception—for everyone involved.
It couldn’t be argued that the people of Kali were well behind humans in terms of technology—well in a lot of areas, including medicine and farming/animal husbandry. A fairly organized and complex society had emerged, but the Uti were still in societal ‘childhood’ or perhaps puberty/teens. Meaning, they’d learned to work together to create their society, but they were still ironing out the wrinkles with physical force, aggression, and violence to a great degree. Advances were bound to be slow until they reached a point of peace to allow for that sort of development.
Nevertheless, they were clearly intelligent or they wouldn’t have gotten as far as they had, and they were clever enough and curious enough to learn and to apply what they discovered to their lives and the enrichment of their lives.
That conclusion had led Lauren to the suspicion that Rama had not been fooled for a moment by the story they’d cooked up. She felt it in her bones just from some of the looks he’d given her.
And she was beginning to believe he was just waiting to see what they had planned to decide how and when to act.
She hoped to hell she would be back in the colony before he realized exactly what they were up to because her first impression of Rama didn’t lead her to an expectation that he would take it well.
Not that it seemed reasonable, from her viewpoint, for them to take exception. It wasn’t as if they had evil designs on Rama or his people—or any of the other tribes or rulers for that matter.
But, despite their obvious intelligence, they’d certainly not reached an understanding of microscopic organisms and how they could create havoc among the ‘advanced’ complex organisms of the world.
That had made even an attempt to explain the situation dangerous and might have made it impossible for them to get what they needed. It would certainly have made it far more difficult and anything that delayed their progress at this point could lead to complete disaster.
No. It was better that they had acted as they had. She completely agreed with that—which was why she’d volunteered.
But that didn’t mean she couldn’t see their side of the situation—Rama’s.
Rama would not be pleased once he figured it out. She knew that now with absolute certainty.
And that might be an understatement.
She was very quickly getting a picture of the being referenced as the ‘warrior prince’ or King Rama that made her feel far more wary of him than she had before she’d been sent out. It wasn’t necessarily different than the picture painted by the colony researchers. In fact, not different at all, but he was far more powerful in the flesh than she’d expected—in every way—more.
He would not be easily duped, regardless of the beliefs of Commander Stiles of their militia/security or the colonial governor, Lyle Brunswick, that humans were so superior intellectually that it would be no contest.
She felt like, at this very moment, he was peeling back the layers of the story they’d cooked up and detecting every flaw.
And he did not strike her as the type to simply dismiss such a thing if he figured it out as ‘no harm, no foul’ regardless of Stiles and Brunswick’s assumptions that they would have no reason to be angry even if they did figure it out. There was no harmful intent and so there was no provocation.
Well, that was true as far as it went, but she thought the Uti would take offense at discovering they were being investigated as the potential petri dish for the dangerous pathogen.
She shook it off the best she could after a few minutes and focused on trying to be sociable while they dined.
It wasn’t doing her any good at all to dwell on the potential for disaster—and none to try to convince herself of her innocence when she knew damned well that she was guilty of deception even if her intentions weren’t evil!
It was just as well, Lauren thought wryly, that her stomach was too tied in knots to allow her to eat much because the second she realized her moment to entertain had arrived, her stomach tied itself into a tighter knot. The food had been surprisingly good or she wouldn’t have been able to eat anything at all, actually.
* * * *
Lauren had every eye on her when she discovered her player was broken.
She’d been nervous before that, tense because she would have to perform in front of so many when she had no clue of how they would take her attempt to amuse them.
But she’d managed to attain a level of calm, managed to adjust to a degree to the crowd and the situation while she dined. She’d been relatively calm when Rama had indicated it was time and she’d gotten up and left the dais. She’d felt almost a sense of relief that she didn’t have to anticipate it any longer as she’d taken her place in the area cleared for the entertainment—her.
But then, she’d posed and touched the play button—and nothing.
Icy horror instantly swept over her—clearing her mind of absolutely everything except the non-responsive button she kept pushing because she couldn’t accept that nothing that was supposed to happen had.
Oh my fucking god!
For many dull, thumping heartbeats nothing pierced the shock that had frozen her instantly into a block of ice. Then abruptly, her mind shifted into overdrive while she fantasized about leaping over gaping Uti warriors and tables and making it out the door while she contacted central command for a pick up ….
Oh god!
Oh god!
Oh god!
Think! Think! Think!
She was going to hyperventilate and pass out!
For several moments she hoped for it, begged whatever deity that might actually exist to just open a hole up in the stone floor and swallow her.
It didn’t happen, of course.
She was stuck with the nightmare situation. She had to resolve this herself.
Nobody was going to help.
No-fucking-body!
She sucked in a deep breath, held it, and then let it out slowly, trying to calm herself to keep from bursting into tears and collapsing in a heap on the floor.
She could do this!
Oh god!
It occurred to her abruptly that she’d practiced lip syncing. She knew the words. She’d memorized the tune.
But she was no sing
er her inner doubter reminded her. Not a trained singer. She wasn’t even sure she could manage to stick with the tune. She’d always had a problem with that.
But they wouldn’t know, she realized in a sudden burst of hopefulness! They wouldn’t know if she substituted words, or hummed! Because they had never heard this before and knew absolutely zero about human music!
They hadn’t bothered to translate it. Part of the appeal was supposed to be the fact that it was new and different to the Uti because it was their music.
Actually, there weren’t any living humans that would be familiar with the song beyond the ones who’d been taught it for this mission because it was ancient, a folk song the researchers had thought most likely to have some appeal to the Uti.
Calming herself, she searched her memory for the beginning, found a point to focus on where she could close her mind to the sea of faces staring at her, and lifted her voice to squeak out a beginning line. As the memory began to flow, though, she actually did calm down and the quavering note to her voice vanished.
There were gaps. There was more than one place where she had to throw in a word or several to replace some she’d forgotten, or hum when she couldn’t think of anything to throw in, but she was relatively pleased with herself when she made it all the way through the ballad and only stumbled a handful of times.
When she’d finished and fell silent you could have heard a pin drop in the great, cavernous hall.
Slowly, as the dead silence persisted, Lauren felt cold sweep downward through her body and then blood rush back in a flood that seemed to pulse in her face like neon.
She searched her mind for any clue of whether the reaction was ‘normal’ for the Uti or not.
Did they actually know how the natives traditionally displayed appreciation for a performance?
Then Rama sat forward in his chair and began to beat his mug on the table.
When he did, everyone else in the entire hall began to do the same until it was deafening.
Weak with relief when she realized that was the reaction she’d been waiting for, hoping for, quick-thaw set in and Lauren found that she could move, breathe. Biting her lip to keep from crying, she bowed low—so deeply grateful that Rama had supported her effort that it was a struggle to maintain even a façade of calm.
When she straightened, she made a beeline for the stairs, moving quickly but short of a run as she wove through the tables and diners on benches until she reached the stairs and then she climbed them briskly to the upper floor. Once there and out of view, she jogged to the King’s chamber.
Without warning, Mount Vesuvius rumbled, then threatened eruption before she’d managed to get much more than halfway across the room. She made a dash for the bathroom and just managed to ring the toilet when the volcano went off.
Supper tasted way the hell worse coming back than it had going down. She gagged until she was thoroughly empty and weak and shaking, leaning over the hole for many moments after she’d stopped to gather the strength to move. A jolt went through her when she turned to the pool to bathe her face and wash her mouth out. Rama had followed.
He was leaning against the door frame—watching—although she only glimpsed him and didn’t even attempt to read his expression.
She couldn’t dredge up enough strength even to be a little upset about him witnessing her humiliation or the possibility that he might construe it as a sign of guilt of—something. She washed her mouth, spat in the toilet, gargled. When she’d finally managed to get rid of the majority of the horrible in her mouth, she discovered her gown hadn’t weathered the episode unscathed and she peeled that off and left it on the floor to wash—later—when she didn’t feel like she was dying.
Rama surprised her by scooping her off her feet and into his arms. He carried her into the bedchamber, hesitated for a split second as if trying to decide where to put her, and then headed toward the pallet the elder woman had made.
Lauren didn’t complain—either about the lift when she’d wondered if she had enough strength left to make it to her bed or about the furs he deposited her on. She simply lay weakly where he’d deposited her until he’d turned and left the chamber and she’d managed to gather a little strength. She got up then and got her sleeping bag and spread it over the furs, activating the self inflating mattress that was part of it and then crawled gratefully on top and zipped herself in to the portable cocoon.
Warmth began to invade her shivering form fairly quickly since the bag was made of a specialized material that would maintain a comfortable sleeping temperature.
She was asleep before Rama returned.
* * * *
Rama was tempted to stay.
And that was reason enough not to.
Beyond that, he had determined to adhere to the letter and spirit of the custom until or unless he discovered something that would nullify the agreement he had made with the people of Atlantis, the sky people.
He did not believe for a moment that the custom was also their custom, but it was a tradition among his own and that alone required him to honor it.
Beyond that, though, he was certain that it was only a ruse and their intentions had nothing to do with making friends/allies of him and his realm.
He was almost convinced that Lauren’s performance was the proof he had been looking for.
Not that he had understood a word of it, for she’d performed in her native tongue, but there had been elements that suggested to him that she was not accustomed to performing and she should have been very polished indeed if she were in truth a Di-ore.
So … he had been sent a woman who was not a Di-ore for a purpose unknown.
The part that confused him the most was that he was convinced they had means of spying that would make putting Lauren in danger unnecessary, that they could see and hear from mindboggling distances.
Mostly this was because Lauren had arrived among them knowing far more than she should have known about them.
He knew she had not previously left the colony and ventured into any part of his realm or in fact any of the Uti realms.
He would have known—would have heard.
Up until he had seen her, he had believed that these sky people were very strange creatures—nothing like them.
But Lauren was a great deal like them physically.
Unlike them, as well, but those differences were subtle—not fantastical like he’d previously believed.
So why risk her life by sending such a fragile creature amongst enemies when he could think of nothing they might want that would require it?
Chapter Five
Lauren’s first instinct upon awakening was to reach out with her senses to determine whether she was alone or not. She decided that she was alone and unzipped her sleeping bag and sat up. The bed was empty, but it was hard to decide whether Rama had already gotten up and left or if he’d never returned to the room at all.
It was unsettling to realize that he moved quietly enough that he could come and go without her knowing.
But did that mean he moved with the stealth of a jungle cat?
Or that her hearing/senses were that bad?
She supposed it might be a combination of both—He actually did move with quiet efficiency because he was honed for survival and she was so ‘civilized’ her survival instincts were dulled almost to non-existence.
The ‘white-noise’ the rushing water in the bath created was really just a salve to her sense of inadequacy.
It took three attempts to get up and get out of her sleeping bag. She hurt all over. Groaning, she forced herself to get up instead of rolling back into her bag like she wanted to. Deflating the mattress, she rolled the bag and stowed it and then went into the bathroom.
Her costume from the night before was where she’d left it so either no one had been in the room to clean or they’d simply ignored her belongings because she was a mere servant to their minds.
Shrugging it off, she stripped and got in the pool and bathed quickly a
nd then got out and cleaned the dress, wrung it out the best she could and looked around until she found a place to hang it to drip dry. She wasn’t terribly handy at hand washing, but she’d done it enough since she’d become a colonist that she’d gotten at least somewhat used to it.
Becoming a colonist required a willingness to minimize one’s lifestyle, accepting that a little more inconvenience for everyone meant saving important resources—like fresh water, power, and food—that could become critically short if it was used without any regard for the future of the colony.
After a brief debate, she decided to wear the hab suit. There hadn’t been room to pack a lot—not that she had a lot of clothing anyway because that was part of the minimization, bare essentials—and she didn’t think it would make her any more noticeable than she already was just by virtue of being human.
And it was protective.
Not that it would protect her from germs she ran across that were airborne, but … well it was a good bit of protection anyway.
After a little thought, she removed her underwear before putting the suit on and went back to the bath to wash those.
It occurred to her after she’d hung them up that she might have been preoccupied with her wardrobe so long she’d missed the chance at collecting some samples.
She saw when she checked that there was indeed a goblet on the table in the lounging room as there had been the day before—clearly a habit of Rama’s to enjoy moments of privacy before he started his day.
Dashing across the room, she grabbed it and took it with her to the bedroom where she extracted her kit and then a swab from the kit. A sense of triumph filled her when she’d collected the sample and placed it securely in a vial.
She could finish off the first kit by swabbing the doorknobs and then all of the surfaces in the bath!
There was a woman she hadn’t seen before standing in the door way connecting the master bedroom from the rest of the suite when she turned.
She wasn’t left to wonder if the woman had seen any part of her collection efforts. She was staring at Lauren as if she thought she was insane.
The Nine Realms of the Uti I: Warrior Prince Page 4