Close Encounters

by Katherine Allred

  Maybe Thor had been right when he said I didn’t trust him. After all, as he’d pointed out repeatedly, their Shushanna had used the Limantti for centuries with no ill effects. I’d just been too busy panicking to really listen. Or care.

  That wasn’t like me at all, so maybe he was right about something else, too.

  Maybe I was resisting the Limantti because of my own personal fears. I’d admitted as much when he’d first broached the subject, but hadn’t really thought the matter through.

  I thought about the consequences now as I drifted to sleep. How could I, in good conscious, accept the use of the Limantti to save Crigo but not the Buri?

  Could I really acknowledge that I was what Gertz had made me, no matter what it was, or was I talking myself into playing God?

  I didn’t know, and I was too tired to figure it out.

  CHAPTER 17

  I came awake with a jolt when a huge paw swatted me upside the head. The damn cat wasn’t gentle about it, either. His amber eyes were shooting darts straight at me.

  Gingerly, I sat up and rubbed the spot while I tried to get my sleep-addled brain to focus. “What was that for?”

  He stalked to the closed sick bay door and sat down facing it while Max answered. “He wants to leave. I wouldn’t let him until you said it was okay.”

  “How is he?” I shoved off the bunk and stood surveying the cat, who was now glaring at me over his shoulder, impatience rolling off him.

  “His vitals and brain activity are back to normal.”

  “No residual weakness?”

  “None whatsoever.”

  “Good.” Awake now, I moved to the desk against the far bulkhead. “Crigo, I don’t want you anywhere near the Dynatec camp for now. But if you’re going to check on Claudia and Ghost, I need you to take a message.”

  He came back and sat beside me while I jotted a brief explanation of why Crigo had hustled them into hiding, put it in a flexiplast tube, and handed it to him. Thor’s note to Ghost would have to wait. Maybe Claudia could figure out a way to communicate the details to her guy.

  “Be careful,” I told the cat. “And this time, watch your back. It might even be a good idea to let Frisk think you’re out of action permanently, so stay out of sight as much as you can.”

  As soon as Max opened the doors, Crigo was through them, disappearing down the hall. I started after him, and then paused. “Max, if Frisk leaves the Dynatec camp, let me know at once. And try to keep an eye on Crigo, see where he goes.”

  “I’ll try, Kiera, but I’m having problems with one of my satellites again.”

  “The same one as before?”

  “Yes. And the one closest to it on the left is flickering occasionally.”

  That worried me. I didn’t like Max having blind spots. “Can you fix them remotely?”

  “I’m trying.”

  I hesitated, feeling the need to do something to help. But there really wasn’t anything I could do right now. “I have to get back to the village. If you don’t have them fixed by tomorrow evening, you’ll have to go up and replace them.”

  “Yes, Kiera.”

  Once outside, I took a deep breath of the perfumed air and headed toward the Buri village. The antigrav sled was gone, so Thor must have taken it with him the night before. A quick check through the bond told me he was still asleep, so I took my time, enjoying the simple pleasure of walking through a tropical paradise.

  The dragon birds were out in full force, taking advantage of the afternoon sun filtering through the trees. One of them landed on a vine near me and cheeped a greeting. It was the same one that had been contemplating eating my weapon yesterday morning. His feathers flashed in shades of iridescence from green to blue to purple as he moved. To my surprise, I picked up a trickle of recognition from the tiny creature. Maybe they were more intelligent than I’d thought.

  He escorted me almost all the way to the village, flitting from vine to vine, cheeping conversationally, and then abandoned me for a clump of flowers as big as my fist. If I was here long enough, and got all the other problems sorted out, I’d seriously consider studying the dragon birds a little closer. I had a feeling there was more to them than pretty feathers.

  The first thing I noticed when I stepped into the village was the Quonset hut sitting off to one side. It looked out of place beside the adobe buildings of the Buri, kind of like an armadillo pretending to be a butterfly. Redfield must have set it up, and from the sound of movement inside, gone right to work.

  I skirted it and headed for my new home. At the moment, all I wanted was a bath and a change of clothes.

  Thor was just waking up when I reached the bedroom, and joined me in the bathing pool. That, of course, led to a round of hanky-panky that left me breathless and replete. Having sex available whenever I wanted it was something I’d missed for the last cycle or so. I could really, really get used to it again, I decided.

  The sun was skimming the treetops by the time we were dressed again, and Thor left to rustle up some grub. I waited until he went through the outside doors, and then moved silently down the hall to the Shushadeien.

  The Limantti sat right where it had been the last time I’d seen it, and I shook my head. What? Was I expecting it to get up and walk around? Do a song-and-dance routine? It was a rock, for the Goddess’s sake. But the truth was, nothing that crystal did would surprise me.

  I walked forward and stopped in front of it. From deep inside its ebony center came pulsing sparks of light. It had stopped broadcasting its siren call the second I stepped through the curtain. Now it was waiting.

  A shiver of apprehension ran over me, but I forced the feeling away. Slowly, I lifted my hands and held them curved around the Limantti, an inch above its glossy black surface. No way was I going to touch that thing again. Not yet, anyway.

  But it didn’t seem to matter whether I touched it or not. The crystal had so much power the air crackled with it, even when the stone was sitting quiescent.

  “Where in the thirteen hells did you come from?” The thought flashed through my mind and out my mouth before I realized I’d spoken.

  Instantly, I was overwhelmed with the sense of vast distances, of eons passing slowly in the cold darkness of space. And worse, a feeling of being so alone that it was more than painful. It was a soul wound, a hunger for companionship that left me gasping for breath and trying my damnedest not to collapse in a torrent of tears.

  Before I could move, the feelings of sadness were gradually replaced by an intense joy, as the crystal discovered the Buri, tempered by its disappointment at their inability to really share with it on a mental level. It needed me for that, and it had waited so long I was tempted to give in right that second. But I couldn’t.

  I stood there a moment longer, then lowered my hands to my sides and stepped back, my gaze locked on the crystal. “I can’t do this,” I told it quietly. “I’m not ready. There are things I need to understand about you first, like your history with the Buri. But I promise to have Thor tell me about your association with his people, and to at least consider the options from all angles. If I decide there’s a way to work with you safely, we’ll give it a shot, but you have to stop trying to lure me into it. Although I appreciate what you did for Crigo, the decision to join with you has to be mine or this won’t go well at all.”

  The Limantti pulsed once and emitted a shimmering blue light that briefly illuminated the surroundings. Its intelligence was more alien than anything I’d encountered before, but I had no trouble picking up feelings of understanding and patience from it. There was even a hint of pleasure that it had helped Crigo. For that, if nothing else, I couldn’t help but like it a bit more. And the truth was, I now felt a bit sorry for it. Its loneliness had struck an answering chord deep inside me.

  With a rueful smile at the realization that I was suddenly empathizing with a rock, I turned and went inside to find Thor. We had some talking to do, and this time I wasn’t going to take no for an answer.


  As it turned out, “no” wasn’t even on my list of options at the moment. I’d barely passed our bedroom when Redfield stepped through the front door.

  “Agent Smith?”

  “Right here, Redfield.” I walked to the front of the building to meet him. “What’s up?”

  “I found something.”

  Thor appeared in the doorway to the large sitting room.

  “There is food prepared. Eat while you speak with the Redfield.”

  With a nod, I gestured Redfield into the room. “We can talk in here. Have you eaten yet?”

  He tilted his head as he thought about it. “No, I don’t think so. Sometimes when I’m working I forget to eat, or eat and don’t remember it.”

  Okay, that boggled my mind. How could anyone forget to eat? Eating was right up there, with sex, breathing and sleeping, on my list of personal priorities. And the aromas coming from the dishes on the low table near the decorative waterfall had my mouth watering.

  All three of us chose pillows, sat down and filled our plates, but I could tell Redfield’s mind wasn’t on what he was doing. I decided to take mercy on him. “What did you find?”

  “Honestly, your ship found it, but neither of you realized the significance. Do you know how the reproduction cycle works in mammals?”

  “Sure.” I stopped chewing long enough to answer him.

  “The female releases an egg, it’s fertilized by the male sperm, and X number of months later a baby or babies pop out. Elementary.”

  He smiled and shook his head. “That’s the end result, not the process.” Pushing his plate to one side, he pulled a pen and notepad out of his pocket. “Here’s how it works. Right above the brainstem is the hypothalamus.” He drew a crude brain and pointed to one organ.

  “The hypothalamus makes a gonadotropin-releasing hormone that tells the anterior pituitary to secrete a follicle-stimulating hormone. Moderate levels of FSH are absolutely necessary for correct reproductive function, but the lack of any FSH indicates a problem with either the hypothalamus or the pituitary. None of the Buri females have FSH, and only one shows any sign of an estrogen-like hormone.”

  I stopped eating to stare at him. “You’re talking about the hormone Max found in the gestating female Buri.”

  “Exactly. And it means that at some point, she must have had the FSH or she could never have conceived. Now she seems to be the only female producing an estrogen-like hormone, which is nothing short of amazing. You see, they need the FSH to become adult females. Since they’ve obviously done so, I can only speculate that after going through puberty, their bodies stop making the FSH. Therefore, no pregnancies and no estrogen-like hormone except in the one case where a pregnancy has occurred.”

  “So all we have to do is give them hormones and they’ll start to reproduce again?” I glanced at Thor to see how he was taking all this. To my surprise, he didn’t seem to be paying much attention.

  I know we have few offspring. The why doesn’t matter. It’s the fixing we need. Only the Shushanna can do that.

  Unaware of the mental conversation going on, Redfield continued. “Unfortunately, no; it’s not that easy, for several reasons. First, the Buri hormone isn’t estrogen. It serves the same purpose, and even resembles it a bit, but there’s enough difference in the two that one could never be mistaken for the other.

  Second, the main problem appears to lie in the hypothalamus. There’s a part of the gland that’s atrophied in the female Buri, and it’s the part that produces the gonadotropin-releasing hormone. Unless we can find a way to revitalize the atrophied section, the Buri may die out in spite of all our efforts.”

  I sat a little straighter, thinking fast. “Can’t we synthesize the hormone?”

  Redfield shrugged and pulled his plate back in front of him. “Possibly. But it could take fifty or sixty cycles to do the research and development. I don’t think the Buri have that long.”

  “No, they don’t.” Worried now, I mentally reviewed all the facts and hit a stumbling block right off the bat. “Wait. How did this one particular female manage to conceive? And what about Brownie’s little boy? His mother must be able to secrete the hormone too, or she could never have given birth.”

  Redfield was shaking his head before I finished. “She doesn’t have it. Her hypothalamus is in the same condition as all the other females. I can only believe that for some reason, it became active again and she conceived. And then when the child was old enough to wean, it went back to being dormant.”

  I turned to Thor. “Is that what happened?”

  He put his fork down and faced me. “I did not understand all the words, but yes. Dryggahn’s mate worked many months to become with child, as did Sillia, the female who carries now. Most are not capable of this feat, and the few that are produce only male children.”

  “How do they do it?” I asked, even though part of me already knew the answer.

  “Through the Limantti. They have a small portion of the Shushanna power, just enough to invoke its aid in conceiving.”

  Redfield was looking from Thor to me and back again. “What did he say?”

  I wasn’t about to tell Redfield about the Limantti, so I said the first thing that popped into my mind. “He said they appealed to a higher power.”

  Well, it wasn’t a lie. Exactly. “And he also said they only have male children.”

  “That’s understandable.”

  I glanced back at Redfield. “How is it understandable?”

  “Because, I believe the sex of a child is determined by the female in the Buri population. The male’s sperm is pretty typical of mammals. Some sperm have the X chromosome, others have the Y. But whether or not the egg allows fertilization by either depends on the amount of hormone the female has released. In the one case we have as an example, only enough of the hormone was present to allow for the conception of a male child.”

  My eyes narrowed in suspicion. “How did you get a sample of the male sperm?”

  A grin flashed across his face. “I didn’t. Your ship had done an analysis somehow and he shared it with me.”

  I was so not going to ask how Max had accomplished that deed. I was afraid I knew. Looked like a little chat with the ship on privacy issues was in order.

  On the other hand, it meant Thor was fertile. And that meant at some point in the future, if I stayed with him, he would expect me to have a child. I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about that. I mean, actually carry another person inside me? To someone who had been grown in a vat, so to speak, actually giving birth seemed a rather messy way to go about the whole reproduction business.

  This would require a lot more thought on my part. And maybe a talk with Brownie’s mate and Sillia. I wondered if she’d let me watch when she gave birth. There were lots of vids out there showing the event, but I’d never been interested enough to buy one before.

  You will be even more beautiful when you carry our child than you are now.

  Yeah?

  He sent me an image of myself, glowing like the sun, belly protruding as if I’d swallowed a minisub. I didn’t know whether to laugh or blush, so instead, I spoke to Redfield again.

  “Thanks for all your help, Thomas.”

  “I’m glad there was something I could do. Besides, you and your ship did all the work. I only put the pieces together.” He finished off his food and stood. “If it’s okay with you, I’ll keep working. Maybe I can eventually come up with something that will stimulate their hypothalamus.”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  He left by the outside door, and I watched him go, knowing there was nothing he could do. Saving the Buri had once again been dumped squarely on my shoulders, pushing me even closer to using the Limantti. But at least trying would keep him busy.

  Wait just a darn minute here. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who could use the Limantti. Sillia had used it to conceive. So had Brownie’s mate. As a matter of fact, she’d been one of the females with Thor last night. The other female
with him was…Churka.

  “Churka.” I reached across the table and poked him in the chest with one finger. “You neglected to mention that your sibling has more of this ability to connect with the Limantti than the other females, didn’t you? That’s how she was able to communicate with me mentally when she brought me your armlets. That’s how you managed to reach the Limantti last night and convince it to save Crigo.”

  “Yes.” He caught my hand and lifted it to kiss my fingers.

  “I was not hiding this from you, as you believe. It merely has no importance to my people. Churka is more gifted than the other females because our dam was the last Shushanna. But she is still not gifted enough to become a Shushanna in her own right. Only you have the ability to do that.”

  Nonchalantly, I stacked our dishes back on the tray. “Speaking of the Limantti…”

  My bid for turning the conversation to the Buri’s history trailed off as the sandy-colored male in charge of the fields stepped through the outer door. He was looking, with a great deal of puzzlement, at an unstrung bow and a quiver of arrows he held in one hand. Mentally, I said a curse word. I’d completely forgotten that Junior was supposed to pick them up from Max.

  When he reached us, he stopped and spoke to Thor. “We do not understand the use of these implements. Are we to throw them at the gergians destroying our fields? Our spears would be better.”

  With a sigh, I stood and reached for the bow. There was at least an hour of daylight left; might as well use it. “Tell him I’ll show him and the others how to use these weapons correctly.”

  With Thor acting as interpreter, they followed me outside, where two other Buri, one a female, were waiting, each with a bow and arrows.

  “Ask him how close they can usually get to these gergians before they flee.”

  After Thor repeated my question, Gardner looked around and then pointed to an outcropping of rock about one hundred yards away. Good. The bows were seventy-five-pound weight and could shoot an arrow about three hundred and fifty yards, so that was well within their range.

  By the time I’d strung the bow, we had an audience. Looked like the entire village was turning out to watch. I glanced around the clearing, looking for a good target and making sure no one was in front of me. “See that tree? The one with pink spots on the dark green leaves? Keep your eye on the trunk.”