He cried out, pain lacing briefly with pleasure, but she stifled him with her lips, kissing him deeply—just as she’d done that night on the Kz’adul. Then it was over and they lay locked together, panting and damp with sweat.
Head pillowed on her shoulder, he waited for the pounding of his heart to slow as he allowed her to unlace her hands from his. Despite the warmth of the room, her skin was cooling now, and this combined with his own damp pelt was making him uncomfortable. Though her scent, comingled with his, was still strong, whatever power it had over him had dissipated now that their frantic coupling was over.
She moved under him, giving a small grunt of discomfort.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, easing himself back then pushing himself upright.
She sat up, concentrating on pulling her dress around her, looking up only when she could do no more because his hands were resting on her thighs.
He snatched them away, backing off, aware he was in a similar state of disarray. Turning away from her, he began adjusting his tunic, only to see the ubiquitous vid com.
“I disabled it,” she said, as if reading his mind. “There’s a shower and toilet facilities through the door opposite. I need to set the air recycler to cleanse the room of our scents.”
Her matter-of-fact tone angered him and as he spun back to confront her, she slid off his desk.
“You had this planned down to the last detail, didn’t you,” he snarled, pelt rising around his face and neck.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she said coldly, walking over to the panels by the exit door and resetting the extractor. Instantly a concealed fan began to hum. “This room has been used by couples as a secret meeting room since we arrived here.” She turned to face him. “There are also fresh coveralls in a cabinet in the bathroom. You’ll have to invent your own reason for wearing a pair, if you can get into them, unless you want even your scent-blind crew to know what we’ve been doing.”
“Don’t take that high tone with me,” he said angrily. “You’re forgetting a few important facts! None of this is of my doing, or by my wishes! So what do you intend to do now to remove your marker?”
She lowered her head, breaking eye contact. “I can’t,” she said quietly.
“You can’t?” He was beside her in three strides, grasping her by the arms, shaking her. “What do you mean you can’t?” he demanded furiously. “Tell me how you turn the marker off!”
“It’s biofeedback,” she said, trying to push him away and failing. “I can only do it while we’re coupling.”
“Do what? What exactly did you do when you marked me? Did you try again just now to turn it off?” He could hear his voice taking on a dangerously hard edge but was beyond caring now that her scent was no longer drugging his senses.
“We produce a chemical—internally—at will, that’s absorbed on the male’s skin,” she stammered, watching his eyes dilate until they were totally black. “Yes, I did try again to turn it off, but it hasn’t worked.”
His sight was narrowing and he could feel his claws unsheathing in rage as his hands clenched even more tightly round her arms.
“You’re too different, Kusac . . .” she stammered, terrified. “It went wrong somehow. There shouldn’t be this obsession—for either of us. I don’t know what to do about it.”
“Synthesize it—do lab tests on my blood, on yours,” he snarled, trying to force back the tunnel vision of the hunter/kill state. “Have you even thought of trying that?”
She shook her head, the tears welling from her eyes flying in shining droplets around her. He could feel her fear like a palpable cloak around her, could see himself through her eyes as she projected her terror—he’d grown in stature as his almost waist-length hair and the visible pelt across his shoulders had bristled out to its full length; his lips were pulled back from teeth which shone white and deadly against the pink flesh of his mouth.
“It can’t be done,” she whimpered, trying desperately to pull away from him, shocked that her superior strength was failing her. “It’s been tried before and never succeeded—the chemical’s too volatile, it can’t exist in the air. You’re hurting me, Kusac—and frightening me!”
He released her suddenly, backing away from her and the temptation to hurt her for what she’d done to him. “And you accuse me of not thinking my actions through,” he snarled contemptuously, trying to slow his breathing and control his rage. “Have you any idea what you’ve done to me? What I lived through on Shola before coming here because of this marker? It wasn’t till I smelled your scent on Kezule’s message that I knew it was connected to you! I saw all your males as rivals—was ordered to work with your M’zullians because everyone assumed my imprisonment had made me prejudiced!”
As he turned his back on her, the incident with Prince Zsurtul suddenly fell into perspective. “Dammit, I even attacked your prince because of your marker!” he snarled.
“Prince Zsurtul? Oh, no!”
He turned back to her. “Oh, never fear, he only got a bruise or two. Kaid stopped me pretty damned quickly,” he said with heavy sarcasm. “Your marker played hell with my life, Zayshul, even then. It alienated me from my wife, from Kaid—everyone. Now you tell me it may be permanent. I can’t accept that. You must find a cure for it.” He could feel the prickling sensation on his scalp and shoulders as his hair and pelt finally began to resume its usual level.
She cowered against the door, hands scrubbing at her eyes, trying not to weep. “I can’t . . . You don’t understand . . . The chemical’s only produced when I’m aroused by you . . . There’s no way to collect it!”
“Vartra’s bones!” he swore. “Then think about it! We’ll invent a way!” Even as he said it, the ludicrous side of the situation hit him, dissipating the last of his rage. He took a step toward her, making her edge farther along the wall away from him. Stopping, his mouth twisted into a lopsided grin. “Looks like we’ll have to continue these—encounters—for a while longer if we’re going to turn the marker off.” Another thought struck him and he frowned. “You do want it turned off, don’t you?”
“Yes! You think I want this any more than you do? It’s humiliating being driven by such base instincts to couple with you, an alien, without everyone else’s assumptions and curiosity . . .” She stopped abruptly, looking away from him again, hiding her face with her hands.
“Thanks,” he said dryly. “Mutual, believe me.”
“Just go and shower,” she said, her voice muffled. “We haven’t much time left before someone will want us. There’s some short white hospital gowns in the cupboard beside you. Use one of them, and in the name of any deity you choose, wash your tunic as well!”
Annoyed, he turned on his heels and stalked off to the shower. He’d been trying to make amends—not very well, he had to admit—but she’d thrust it straight back at him. So be it. Next time, he would wait her out, make her come to him! As for tomorrow, he’d ask M’kou to get a data link established to the comp in his own room.
It was only sheer determination and willpower that kept Zayshul from falling apart until after Kusac, showered and wearing one of the short white gowns as a tunic, left. Once in the bathroom, with the door locked, she collapsed in a heap on the damp shower mat and wept. Kusac had terrified her when he’d suddenly changed into the enraged warrior—it had been his eyes more than anything, so cold and focused. Then there had been his contempt for her and what he believed she’d done.
In her heart, she couldn’t blame him. From what he’d said, the marker had destroyed what had been left of his life after Chy’qui had robbed him of his telepathic abilities. Worst of all, it didn’t stop there—now it was destroying them both. If she couldn’t find a way to turn off the marker, it could mean they were locked in this obsession permanently, and it wasn’t what she wanted either.
When she’d cried herself out, she got up and showered, trying to think through yet again how he’d been marked in the first place. Kezule had believed in her innocence, w
hy couldn’t Kusac? In fact, had Kezule believed her too easily? Did he know something she didn’t? The more she thought about it, the more she was sure he must know more than she did. Had he found out something at the Directorate, before he’d destroyed it and all their people? Or had it been something that the TeLaxaudin Kzizysus had done? Certainly they used scents as a major form of communication—and more, she thought, remembering how she’d been helped by them when giving birth to her egg. Had he found a way to either reproduce her scent marker chemically, or to somehow harvest her own without her knowledge? If they could produce a device that when pointed at a female could instantly make it possible for her to bear eggs that were small enough to carry full term, then who knew what else they were capable of doing? But why would either of them have got involved in faking her scent marker? The only ones with anything to gain had been Chy’qui and the Directorate, and that made them the main suspects. And the only one who might possibly be able to help her still remained Giyarishis. She had to speak to him as soon as possible.
She dried herself hurriedly, dressing in a fresh pair of coveralls. Bundling her wet dress in another, she hurried down to her quarters to sling it into the laundry machine, then headed up to hydroponics to see the TeLaxaudin.
Giyarishis was busy in his lab when she arrived. He continued to flit between the various experimental plants and his comp while she hesitantly told him her problem.
“Cannot help,” his translator said as he jumped up on his chair to look at a sample. “Busy am. You go.”
“Kezule said you were going to help us,” she persevered.
The TeLaxaudin stopped to look at her, eyes swirling darkly as the dual lenses adjusted.
“You must be able to do something. You use scents all the time—and it is a scent that is marking him apart.”
“Is more. Found it I did when him I examine.” The translator seemed to be speaking slowly, if such a trait could be attributed to a machine. “His species different, marker bound in such a way unexpected. Only if you can undo can be done. This have I told your mate.”
She hesitated, wondering whether to admit that she’d already tried. “What did Kezule say when you told him that?”
“He say not acceptable,” said Giyarishis, folding himself up on the chair and regarding her. “I can do nothing, Doctor.”
“But I didn’t do it!” she exclaimed, taking a step closer to him. “How could it have been done in the first place without my involvement?”
“So sure you were not involved? How else could it be done you ask. I say, you did but no memory have of it.”
She stared at him in shock. “What?”
“You say yourself—how can anyone else do it. I say it was you then.”
“It can’t have been!” she said, stunned. “I would have remembered, I know I would!”
“Is only explanation to fit facts.”
“But you let Kezule believe that you could . . .”
“You rather I say you did?” he interrupted. “Him I told nothing. Did not say you aware of doing, only said you do.” He turned his back on her to continue his work.
It took a moment or two for what he’d said to sink in. “Are you saying I was drugged and . . . used . . . like he was?”
“Fits facts. You go now, I busy. No more I can help.”
Still in shock, she turned and walked slowly out of Giyarishis’ lab, through his office, and out into the Security area. It wasn’t until she’d entered the elevator that it finally hit her. It couldn’t have been her, could it? How could it possibly have happened without her knowledge? Then she remembered the power Chy’qui, as one of the Emperor’s Adviser’s, had wielded aboard the Kz’adul—enough power to secretly find and recover Kusac’s cryo unit from space, to have him taken to a room beside one of the hospital labs and implanted with one of the M’zullian controlling devices, and . . . She shook her head, trying to dispel those thoughts. Yes, Chy’qui had had the contacts, and the knowledge to have made it possible for her to have been the one who had visited Kusac all along. A cold chill went through her as she suddenly realized it would also explain why her DNA was present in Shaidan. She had been the one who’d supplied the breeding sample. But where did N’koshoh fit into it? Why had she visited Kusac—or had she? And if not, why had she been killed? Questions with no answers tumbled round and round her mind and it was on unsteady legs that she got out on the Officers’ level and headed for the main elevator down to Command.
Giyarishis watched her leave with a feeling akin to relief. It sat uneasily on his conscience that he’d had to make the female sand-dweller believe she had been the one responsible for scent-marking the Hunter, but it was imperative that no trail should ever lead to TeLaxaudin involvement. He knew they’d had another coupling, but as before, his net had gone blank. He had, however, sensed enough of her fear and mental turmoil when the net had reestablished itself to know the Hunter was not acting as had been foreseen—in fact, his reactions were the antithesis of what they needed. He must bond emotionally to the female. At least his work socializing her husband was proceeding to plan. His experiment forgotten, he began to ponder his next course of action.
Later, in the rec lounge
“Not possible, Captain,” said M’kou regretfully when he asked him that evening in the rec room. “The feed comes from the library, and it and the medical office you are working in are connected to the main databases. Those in the other rooms aren’t. May I ask why?”
“I want to be able to access my own comp data as well,” he said shortly.
“Let’s sit down,” said M’kou, gesturing to an empty table nearby. “Perhaps something can be arranged.”
He followed him over and sat down, putting his glass of ale on the table.
“Now, what exactly is it you want to do?” the young Prime asked.
“Multiple searches and cross-references with my own database,” he said. “I work more efficiently when alone. I’m not used to having to explain what I’m doing to someone else.”
“I thought that the point of you working with Doctor Zayshul was so she could help interpret data from our past for you.”
He shifted in his seat, picking up his glass and taking a drink from it. “I work mainly on instinct and experience, Lieutenant,” he said, placing the glass carefully back on the table. “Explaining it takes time and breaks the flow of thoughts.”
M’kou nodded. “I can see that it would. The library is only two rooms down from where you are at present. How would it be if I made several terminals there available to you? You’d also be close enough to the Doctor if you needed to collaborate on anything.”
He nodded. “That would be fine,” he said. “I want to go into records older than Doctor Zayshul is currently going through. I think the answers we need are unlikely to be in those of the male-only society to which the General belonged.”
“Are there any older than that?” asked M’kou.
“I believe so, though the files look like they may have degraded during the passage of time. I may need to do some work on recovering them and I have some programs on my own comp that could help me do that.”
“Sounds promising. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and make sure all will be ready for you for tomorrow morning,” said M’kou, getting to his feet. “I’ll see you later, Captain,” he added as the door slid back and a small group of civilian females entered, followed by the Sholans.
“Alone, M’kou?” said Zhalmo, smiling broadly as she passed him on the way to their table. “I was sure Lazaik would be with you. Captain.” Nodding at Kusac, she slipped into an empty seat beside him.
“She’s working this shift,” Zhalmo’s brother said. “I’ve some business to attend to but I’ll be back shortly.”
“I’ll keep the Captain company,” she said, reaching out to touch Kusac’s hand briefly. “He can tell me how his research is going.” She looked up at M’kou. “Go, go! He’ll be fine with me.”
M’kou was frowning slightl
y as he left.
“What’s the ale like tonight? I hear it’s a new batch,” she said, reaching out to pull his glass closer and sniff at the contents.
“Tastes the same as usual to me,” he said lamely. “Uh, can I get you a drink?”
She smiled brightly at him, the rainbow-colored skin round her eyes creasing slightly. “Would you mind? I’ve just come off-shift on the Zan’droshi and I’m exhausted.”
He got up and joined the others clustered round the bar.
“You’re here early,” said Banner as he took his drink from the young civilian Prime serving at the bar. “How’s the work going?”
“Slowly,” he said. “I came here to see M’kou so he could arrange for me to use the library tomorrow. It’s going to be a lot faster if I can set some search parameters on a couple of comps and let them crunch the data for me. And you?”
“It’s interesting exploring on one of their battle cruisers, I’ll give you that. We’ve worked our way through to a refueling area today, by one of the fighter landing bays. Sent a couple of drums of fuel over for testing to see if it is still good. Also found their machine shop. If the fuel’s good, they plan to try it out on one of the fighters they’ve been restoring.”
“How many fighters have they found now?”
“Usable ones? About ten, I believe, out of fifty. The rest had been shot up in what must have been a pretty bad firefight in the landing bay and are beyond repair. Found a couple of other craft too—deep space scouts.”
“Useful,” he said, then gave his order to the waiting youth.
“Depends what for,” said Banner in an undertone.
He shot his Second a sharp look, getting one of complete innocence back.
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