Cat Star 04 - Outcast

by Cheryl Brooks

  The look he shot in her direction said otherwise.

  Bonnie tried to see it from his side but was having trouble relating. "What happened to you, Lynx? Cat doesn't act anything like you, and when Jack found him, he was in chains! You're driving me nuts! Just when I think I might actually be getting somewhere, you clam up again! You're not a slave anymore, Lynx! That part of your life is over and done with, but you've got a chip on your shoulder the size of Arcturus, and it's got to be getting heavy!"

  Realizing that her little speech had been liber­ally laced with Terran expressions, Bonnie knew that Lynx probably didn't get the exact meaning of a lot of it, but she didn't care. It was happening again; she'd been trying so hard to be nice to him and was finding it extremely frustrating when it didn't work. Lynx had nothing further to say, so Bonnie just gave up after that. Indulging in an erotic fantasy might have kept her mind off her swollen, aching feet, but she figured that Lynx would have smelled her desire and gotten all weirded out again, so she focused on her baby instead.

  Her little girl, actually. It might have been better to know it was a girl or a boy ahead of time so she could think of it as something other than an "it." A name was needed, too. A girl name... something that sounded good with Neurath, because Bonnie wasn't about to give her baby girl Sylor's last name! They hadn't been married anyway, so she didn't need to—wouldn't have needed to even if they were—though she thought that Halen might have been easier to match up a first name with than Neurath.

  With a grandmother named Lucretia and a mother named Eudora, Bonnie didn't have any intention of naming her daughter after either of them, so she knew she would have to come up with something else. On a whim, she asked Lynx what his mother's name was.

  As deep in thought as Bonnie had been, she'd al­most forgotten how reticent Lynx could be, but, surpris­ingly, he answered her quite normally—not even asking Bonnie why she wanted to know. Perhaps he saw it as a welcome change of subject.

  "Shaulla," he replied.

  Shaulla Neurath... it sounded exotic and mysteri­ous, and shortening it to Ulla wasn't bad either. It was a thought, but then another occurred to her, completely erasing the original.

  "So tell me, Lynx," she began. "Did you dislike your mother?"

  He wasn't sure why she needed to know, but an­swered her anyway. "No," he replied.

  "Did you love her?"

  It may have been Bonnie's imagination, but his ex­pression seemed to soften slightly.

  "Yes." Lynx recalled his mother's gentle touch and her warm smile. She had loved him as a mother should, and he had loved her in return—but that was very long ago.

  "So you don't hate all women," Bonnie asked, inter­rupting his reminiscent thoughts. "Just all of us except your mother?"

  When he didn't reply immediately, it became evident that he was giving this some thought, so Bonnie pushed a little further. "There are some of us who are probably a lot like your mother, you know," she said neutrally. "Would you hate them too?"

  "Perhaps not," he admitted.

  "But you haven't met any of them yet, have you?"

  "No."

  Apparently Bonnie wasn't anything like his moth­er—which was probably just as well. "Would you be inclined to think more kindly of a girl who had your mother's name?"

  "Perhaps," Lynx said cautiously, still unclear as to her purpose.

  "Well, then," Bonnie said roundly, "if Cat's right about my baby being a girl, I'll name her Shaulla."

  Bonnie couldn't tell if he approved or not—his ex­pression was once again as enigmatic as ever—but if her baby girl was going to be growing up around Lynx,

  Bonnie did not want him acting as though he despised her! It was bad enough that he felt that way about her, and besides, she did like the name.

  "And her last name?" Lynx prompted—though Bonnie couldn't begin to guess why it would have mat­tered to him.

  "Neurath," she replied firmly. "Unless I marry some­one in the next few weeks."

  "You will not give the child her father's name?"

  "I wasn't married to Sylor," Bonnie said evenly, "and he left us. I see no point in giving her his name. Any man who would leave a woman while she carries his child deserves no recognition." She tried to keep the anger and bitterness out of her voice, but it was difficult.

  Whether Lynx agreed with her sentiments on that subject didn't matter to Bonnie. Sylor was gone, hav­ing left shortly after her pregnancy was confirmed. It was possible that the reality of becoming a father may have frightened him—though they'd talked it over and he'd agreed to it—but so far he hadn't found the courage to return, and with Bonnie's delivery date rapidly ap­proaching, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for him to convince her to trust him again.

  "You no longer like men?" Lynx inquired.

  Bonnie wasn't sure why he thought she wouldn't like any of them—she'd already admitted to liking Cat, and Lynx had been sniffing out her desire—but she didn't bother to quibble, because for all she knew it was true. "Yeah, and you don't like women—though you could have at least tried to be a little nicer to Salan. A few more exchanges like that and she might start charging me more than two eggs for her cheese!"

  Trudging onward, her mind nearly as weary as her feet, all Bonnie could think of was how sick she was of it all. She was tired of playing this stupid game; there ought to be at least one person in everyone's life that could be counted on, and she hadn't had someone like that in a very long time—probably not since her mother. So far Lynx had proved to be trustworthy, but not friendly, and Bonnie figured that it would have been too much to ask for a man to be likable and trustworthy. She was reminded of an old joke she'd heard once about how men were like parking spaces; the good ones were always taken and the rest were handicapped. Unfortu­nately, she knew from experience that it was too true to be very funny.

  "It isn't that I don't like men, Lynx," she said after a bit. "I just want one I can trust. You wouldn't think that was too much to ask, but apparently it is—for me, anyway." Looking ahead, Bonnie could see her home just coming into view, and it had never looked so good. "Thank God we're almost there," she sighed. "I can't remember ever being so tired."

  The thought of having to make that walk to Nimbaza again was almost enough to make Bonnie want to lay down and die—though it was either that or let Lynx go to market by himself the next week. It would be in keep­ing with her usual luck if he simply sold everything, including her cart, and then took off the way Sylor had. But as bad as she was feeling, she concluded that it might be worth the risk.

  Lynx might have said he wouldn't leave without tell­ing her, but that didn't necessarily mean he would stay forever. If he would just stay on another month or two,

  Bonnie thought she could make it on her own after that. The mines might not be hiring, but there were bound to be other people looking for help—some place that Lynx would be happier. Drummond must have known that Lynx wouldn't like working for Bonnie—and while she might have been at the top of his list, the job at her farm surely hadn't been the only one available when Lynx arrived—but perhaps he'd felt sorry for Bonnie, or thought that having additional help would make the avocados grow faster.

  After unloading what she'd bought at the market, Bonnie sent Lynx off to put the cart in the shed. Tossing him a bag of chocolate chips as an afterthought, she said offhandedly, "You never know when you might get a craving. Thanks for going with me today."

  Lynx put the bag of candy in his pocket but didn't say anything.

  "The correct response to that is to say 'you're wel­come,'" Bonnie pointed out. "Try to remember that."

  "You're welcome," Lynx said over his shoulder as he walked away with the cart.

  It wasn't bad for a start, she thought. Now if he could only say it like he meant it.

  Lynx walked quickly back to the shed. What a night­mare of a day he'd had! The only good thing he had to show for it was the bag of candy in his pocket—and the prospect of working on Wilisan
's speeder, of course. Of all the Zetithians who could have survived the war, the two he'd met up with had to have been some he actually knew! Men who'd known him the way he was before he was sold as a slave. They didn't seem to have been changed a bit by being enslaved, even though they'd both been beaten within an inch of their lives—and more than once, too. No, they hadn't been changed, at least, not the way he had been, and they both had wives and children to prove it. They were successful, too—had traveled the galaxy and had found a type of freedom that Lynx knew he would never possess.

  When he had first seen Cark—or Cat, as he was now called—he'd felt a surge of happiness beyond anything he'd ever felt in his life, which was increased expo­nentially by the added joy of seeing Leccarian again. But all too soon the reality began to sink in. Those two were everything he was not, as were brothers Trag and Tychar, who had also been members of his unit. Cat and Leo told him the brothers had been owned by a reptilian queen who had pampered them, and while they might not have been with a woman in twenty years, they'd subsequently found a Terran woman who loved one and took pity on the other.

  Lynx had listened to their stories, but when prompted to tell his own, he was reluctant to relate the story of his life as a slave to so many women. His talents as a lover would have been worth telling—but only if he still pos­sessed those abilities. He was able to tell his old friends of his life since then—he even got them laughing when he told a few stories about the exploits of his fellow miners on Paemay—but didn't want to see their reac­tions when he told them he no longer cared for women. It was an attitude in such direct opposition to that of other Zetithian males as to be unheard of. He wished with all his heart that it wasn't so; that he could tell them of his new life with Bonnie—as her friend, if not her lover—but he wasn't even her friend, and he would have had a great deal of difficulty finding the words to explain why.

  Cark—Lynx had trouble thinking of him as "Cat"— had seemed to sense his distress and had not pressed him. Even so, he'd been about to tell them everything when Cark's sons had come running up to meet the "uncle" they didn't know they had. Such things were not to be discussed in front of children, and so Lynx had remained silent.

  "These are Larsanken, Moriconthan, and Curlanikund," Cat said, introducing his sons one by one. "They are named after some of my ancestors, but Jacinth has a problem with the length of our Zetithian names and calls them Larry, Moe, and Curly." Then he added with a droll expression: "I will explain the origin of those names later."

  "And I have two sons and a daughter," Leo reported proudly. "But they are babies still and are back at our ship with their mother."

  Lynx stared at the boys in wonder. Cark had not only fathered children, but they all appeared to be pure Zetithian! He took each of their hands in his own and gazed wistfully into their softly glowing eyes—eyes that he had longed to see in a child for so long...

  If only Lynx had met Bonnie long ago, and if only he had been capable of fathering children, things might have turned out as well for him. Bonnie was different from the other women he had known; he knew that, and there were times when he wished he could allow himself to have normal feelings toward her. Without the demons of his past to haunt him, he would have been her lover long before this—perhaps even from the very beginning. He knew deep down that she wouldn't have abused him or taunted him the way the others had; she would have loved him—just as surely as Cat and Leo's wives loved their husbands—not like those other women who had quite literally used him up.

  Lover, they'd called him. Lover Boy, Slave Boy, or just Boy—or Slave, when they were angry with him. Anything but his own name. In fact, not one of them had ever even asked him what his name really was. Not that it mattered. He told himself it would have been differ­ent if he'd actually loved any of them, but he hadn't. He didn't even know how.

  A quiet but persistent voice inside his head reminded him that Bonnie had asked him his name—even though she'd been bleeding and in pain at the time—and he felt a pang of regret for the way he'd treated her. She'd been very kind to him; he knew that, and he also knew that she was right; it wasn't her fault. None of it was.

  It was difficult to even look at her, because he couldn't deny the fact that she was beautiful. Her angelic face, the soft curves of her body, added to her kind nature, should have made him want her. There was a time— albeit a brief one—when he would have admired such a woman and knowing the level of pleasure he could give her would have emboldened him to act; to entice her into his arms and delight in her reaction to him. He would have loved her and given her such joy.

  But the fact that he couldn't do any of those things angered him. If only he had never scented her desire! He could have been nicer to her if only she hadn't smelled like that. Her scent was tantalizing but tormenting at the same time. One whiff of her should have sent him into full arousal, but it only reminded him of things he'd rather forget. He didn't intend to seem ungrateful, but he knew that in thanking her, he might lead her to think he felt differently toward her, and he didn't want that to happen. All he could do to thank her for her kindness was to do the best job for her that he possibly could.

  He couldn't even risk smiling at her. She had caught the one smile he'd ever sent her way. "No more Mr. Nice Guy, " she'd said. Hearing that, Lynx couldn't help but smile; Bonnie didn't have a mean bone in her body. He would do his best not to give her any other reason to complain about him and vowed to work harder. As he saw it, it was all he could do.

  She said she only wanted conversation with him. He didn't believe it, though he almost wished he could. If he'd been one of those men who could rattle on for hours about nothing of importance, he could have at least kept her satisfied in that respect, but he wasn't. He couldn't lie, either—couldn't even begin to come up with a less sensitive excuse for his behavior—and since he had no intention of telling her the real story, he had decided that the less he said to her the better. He almost wished he could have lied, because it might have made things easier for him—and for her.

  Chapter 9

  Over the next two weeks, Bonnie spent more time with her feet up than a Davordian girl in a Paemayan brothel, but she certainly wasn't having any fun. She couldn't breathe, couldn't eat, couldn't sleep worth a darn, and picking vegetables was completely out of the question. Kipper moped around, looking up at her with big, sad eyes, wondering what was wrong with her. She wished she could have had Tisana around to talk to her pet and explain that she would get back to normal even­tually, but Jack had gone off on another trading run, tak­ing Tisana with her. Then one day, Shaulla dropped and life was good, except Bonnie now had to pee constantly, and her feet swelled up even more.

  Lynx might not have liked it, but except for the cook­ing, he was now doing everything—and Bonnie cheated a bit on that, too. Breakfast was usually eggs and toast, but for the other meals she fixed a pot of vegetable soup. Each time they ate some of it, she would add more water and vegetables to it and just let it keep on cooking. Lynx never complained, and though Bonnie knew he had to be getting sick of it, quite honestly, she didn't care.

  Lynx had the speeder up and running within two days of getting the parts, and he'd taken the next day to work on Wilisan's speeder, with equal success. Bonnie was impressed, and said so, but for all the good it did, she might have been complimenting one of Mobray's cows on her excellent cheese. What it would take to get through to him was beyond her.

  Then one day, Bonnie decided to play dirty and intro­duced him to cookie dough.

  Even after having traveled across the galaxy to a new world, Bonnie still considered chocolate chip cookie dough to be one of the ultimate taste sensations in the universe— right up there with turkey gravy on Thanksgiving— especially when she made it with dark brown sugar. Bonnie wasn't sure which one evoked a more orgas­mic response, but since there were no turkeys on Terra Minor—something that she considered to be a serious oversight—she was left with cookie dough.

  It might have been th
at burst of energy one gets at some point just prior to delivery, but though her back was killing her, Bonnie was feeling downright industrious one day. She'd been mopping floors and was in the process of cleaning the kitchen sink when she noticed Lynx out working in the garden. Since the inconsiderate wretch was doing it without a shirt, she felt that a bit of retalia­tion was in order. Gathering up her own milled flour and fresh eggs, Mobray's excellent butter, and Jack's out-of-this-world chocolate chips, she whipped up the fluffiest, creamiest dough her culinary skills could produce. Then she went out on the porch and yelled for Lynx.

  Apparently not wishing to entice her into an odorifer­ous state of desire, she noted that the little snit put his shirt back on before coming over.

  "Hey, would do me a favor and taste this?" she asked, holding out a spoonful. "I want to know what you think."