Beast of Dreams

by Cynthia Williams

  Sirus figured he’d catch up with the brothers later to find out what happened and focused his attention on completing the liftoff procedure.

  “We left him unharmed and with his supplies, right?” Carson whispered, seeking consensus with his brother.

  Nathan responded, keeping his voice low as well. “Yes, we did, and at the last, Shodan was surrounded by hungry night jackals as we left him sitting in the tree.”

  As the engines kicked in, the two shared a look that said they’d take what they’d really seen with them, to their graves.

  * * * * *

  Sirus found Amanda in her hut preparing for the bonding ceremony that would begin in little over an hour. He wanted to reassure her that Shodan had been dispatched safely to Kendor, so she could put that concern behind her.

  She looked lovely, several of the pack’s women fussing with her hair while she sat impatiently under their ministrations. He remembered the first time he’d held her as a baby in his arms, when he was but in his teens, and she’d captured his heart forever. Though he didn’t admit it to anyone, there had been one thing he’d missed from his years under Malfous’ control, and that was the care of younger children. When Jonathon and his wife, Marie, had asked him if he’d like to help care for Amanda when they were away, he’d gruffly said yes, afraid to let them know just how much it meant to him to have someone small to love again. When Marie had died, it fell to Sirus to take over much of her care, as Jonathan’s business was also hit by more than one crisis at the time. To Sirus, Amanda was as much his daughter as his niece.

  He recapped with her what transpired in Kendor when he and Karrick’s brothers dropped Shodan off. Though she tried to look stern when he told her they’d left him tied in a tree with his backpack’s contents strewn about by hungry night jackals, the laughter escaped and she guffawed for several minutes, her uncle joining in. Amanda’s attendants smiled as well, enjoying the idea of Shodan being bested, after having caused so much trouble for the pack. Sirus kept to himself the moment of uneasiness he’d shared with Karrick’s brothers.

  Amanda grasped his hands in hers, and asked her attendants to leave for a few moments so she could talk to Sirus privately. After the two young wolfan females left, Amanda stood up and wrapped her arms around Sirus, hugging him hard and burying her face in his chest. She looked up into his eyes then, and with her heart in her own eyes, she said, “You’ve never failed me. You’ve been as much a father to me as Dad was, and I’m so happy you can be here to see me married to Karrick.” She stopped for a moment as tears, something rare for her, fell off her lashes and onto her cheeks. “I will always love you, Sirus. Thank you so much for helping rescue me last night.”

  Sirus felt the bittersweet feeling that all fathers feel when their daughters are about to leave them to begin a new life with the man that they’ve chosen. Part of his heart was breaking, knowing she would never be completely his again, but also he was joyous for her, knowing that she’d found love with a good and decent man, one who loved her and suited her well.

  “When I go, are you and Karrick coming with me or will you be staying here?” he asked, already knowing the answer but wondering if she’d sorted that out yet.

  “Staying. Karrick is pack leader, and although I asked him once if he’d leave for me and he said, yes, I know that he’s a good leader and that the pack deserves and needs him here.”

  “What about your explorations? I thought you wanted to continue with that?”

  “I will. I have a whole planet to explore, and the challenges that face me are immense. There’s profit to be made here, too. You could take advantage of that and visit us a few times a year, Sirus,” she said, teasing him.

  “I’m glad to know that you’ll be staying here, Amanda. I didn’t tell you before when I dropped you off, but I found out while on Gliese III that the accident on Io was actually an attempt on your life.”

  “No!” she said, looking at him incredulously.

  “Yes, some of the men that bought out your father and Yasuyoshi at the dissolution of their Io venture are involved with the penal colony there. Several weeks before ExtraSol sent your team there, a large amount of Barsanian cluster bombs were purchased and delivered to the colony. My contact found out that the cluster bombs were set up to explode several kilometers away, sending shock waves out that set off the volcanic eruption where you were working.”

  “My god, we need to tell ExtraSol.”

  “No, we don’t. It was Dominic Warpmen, vice president in charge of your division and part of the penal colony’s directorship, who set this up. Amanda, it was all done just to get to you.”

  “God, this makes me sick. Why did he do it?”

  “Things are coming to a head, Amanda. He and others only see you as Jonathon Parker’s daughter, and Jonathon was one of the few men in power who stood against them. Jonathon had a strong following and they see you as a potential threat, especially if you were to take up your father’s political battle to protect the subspecies. They are doing everything they can to eliminate any political power for the wolfan, tigran, and others because they see them out-breeding standard humans and are afraid of them.”

  He paused for a moment, not wanting to darken her special day, but he needed to be sure she understood how serious the situation had become. “The wolfan and others are stronger and more intelligent because of the selective genetic engineering process, and time and time again, they’ve beaten out standard humans in physical contests and scientific advances. Much of that wasn’t publicized but nonetheless, it happened frequently. That was the reason for the separatist policies in the first place. Standard humans can’t compete and win anymore. The council sees a time where the entire universe will belong to the subspecies, and standard humans extinct, because the laws of survival of the fittest have been stacked against what was once the norm. The humans in power only see one solution, and that’s to wipe out the wolfan, tigran, and others first.”

  * * * * *

  Amanda stood broodingly, watching Sirus leave. He’d told her that he’d made a commitment to help the wolfan and others in the coming conflict. Her pride in him warred with the fear that at times he would be putting himself in harm’s way.

  Danni walked in a few minutes later with the attendants who were helping Amanda get ready for her bonding ceremony. One of the wolfan chided her for crying and letting her eyes get puffy. She ran off to get a damp towel to put over Amanda’s eyes to reduce the swelling. Danni walked over to her and showed her the special outfit she’d made for Amanda to wear at the bonding ceremony.

  It was a two-piece ensemble. One piece was an alabaster white tunic with long sleeves. The other was a long swath of dove grey fabric that was very soft to the touch. Amanda put the tunic on, then Danni wrapped the grey garment around her like a kilt. Amanda was wondering how it would be held together, when Danni reverently opened a box and took out a large ornate clip the size of one of Amanda’s hands. As she looked at it closely, she saw that it was a coat of arms for their pack. It was beautiful, made of solid gold and yet thin enough not to be overly heavy. The design was a wolf’s head with its eyes closed, its head surrounded with dream symbols. Amanda thought it highly appropriate for the Wolfan Psi Pack.

  “This is beautiful, Danni,” Amanda said softly, enchanted with the lovely outfit and clip. “The fabric is as fine as any I’ve seen on the populated worlds. The clip is exquisite, too. It has such a beautiful design.”

  “Karrick’s outfit is much the same, except his tunic is sleeveless,” the tigran said with a soft purr.

  “Did you make the outfits, yourself?”

  “Yes, the tunic and kilt are weavings made from the wooly fur from the Shoats, which actually are a genetic combination of the sheep and goat species.”

  “Did you make the coat of arms clips, too?”

  “No, that was my pack brother, Wood. He knows where to find gold and loves working with fine metals like silver and gold. That’s his hobby when he’s
not busy being the pack’s blacksmith.”

  “Thank you so much for the lovely garments, Danni, and please be sure to let Wood know that I really appreciated his gift as well,” Amanda said as the young woman kissed her on the cheek and left. Danni’s visit had lightened her mood considerably and she was ready to meet Karrick at the hall.

  * * * * *

  Sirus stood, dressed finely in his space captain’s outfit, something he kept handy for dress-up functions when it was required as part of his free-trader’s role. On his arm, Amanda looked spectacular in the tunic and kilt, with an impressive-looking clip of the pack’s coat of arms. Held in the crook of her other arm was a colorful bouquet of fragrant flowers, many of the same types she’d noticed that first day when she’d landed on Eridani. Her hair had been piled on her head, her curls brushed and tamed so they shone like burnished gold, framing the apricot and cream beauty of her face.

  At the dais stood Karrick in his kilt, his fur brushed to luxuriant radiance. His eyes filled with love and passion as he saw his betrothed approach on the arm of her proud uncle.

  Sirus brought Amanda to her future husband, and again felt that twinge of heart fathers feel when they pass their daughter to another’s care.

  Jarwok presided over the ceremony, and though he was far into his ninth decade, his deep wolfan’s voice carried well to the seated pack.

  “We share in this new beginning, when love brings a man and woman together, and they make the decision to share their lives together, and go forward as one.”

  Sirus appeared to be listening attentively as the ceremony continued, but inside was remarking to himself that it was a beautiful day for it and that all had turned out well. Karrick and Amanda were well-suited and as he understood from something Carson had let slip on the way back, he’d be a grand-uncle in about nine months. He wondered if he should be angry and call Karrick to task, but ultimately, his main concern would be that the wolfan take care of Amanda and that was what he was already doing. The thought of a new baby in the family warmed him as well, and he knew he’d be back to Eridani to visit again soon.

  His attention was caught when he heard a woman softly crying behind him, which in itself was not unusual, but the accompanying sensual purr was. He turned around as unobtrusively as possible to see who or what it was.

  His heart stopped for a moment when he witnessed the most delectable female he’d ever set eyes on. She was utterly beautiful, completely covered with a coat of pure white fur and had the largest blue eyes he’d ever seen, accented with long silky black lashes. A streak of black here and there in her otherwise snow white hair marked her as a tigran female, the first he’d ever seen face to face in his life.

  He’d never been able to find a picture of a tigran female in the Galactic Library, though he did find a few vague descriptions. The Conglomerate’s efforts to reduce access to information about subspecies had been very effective.

  He felt a big grin break across his face as he stared at her, mesmerized by her allure. She gazed back at him, a small shy smile answering him back, and the two would have continued gazing at each other except for the large wolfan next to her who suddenly clamped his hand on Sirus’s shoulder, and quite painfully, too. Sirus looked into the big wolfan’s eyes, the biggest wolfan he’d ever seen yet, and watched his eyes narrow into slits.

  “You watch the ceremony, human, not my pack sister, got it?” rumbled the wolfan in his bass voice. Sirus barely caught a glimpse of the other four wolfan males and their large mother, who must be her pack family, all glaring at him with various levels of hostility, before he turned back to watch the rest of the ceremony.

  He heard the tigran beauty softly admonish her pack brother, and smiled.

  The ceremony soon ended and everyone gave a roaring cheer when Karrick kissed his new bride shamelessly in front of the entire pack. Sirus wondered what Karrick whispered in her ear immediately afterwards, being that Amanda turned bright red and gave an embarrassed smile to the crowd.

  Sirus turned around to address the young woman who had so captured his attention, but she and her entire family had disappeared. He didn’t let it bother him too much, he intended to track her down tonight at the wedding reception.

  * * * * *

  The celebration was going full swing, wine was flowing, and the noise level so great from the wolfan band of amateur musicians that Sirus could barely hear Alexander speaking to him, though the two sat next to each other sharing a cup of Kujah wine.

  Thankfully, the band took frequent breaks, giving him some relief from the noise. As soon as the band set down their instruments again, he decided to broach the subject of the delectable little tigran he’d seen earlier that afternoon.

  “I saw a young woman at the ceremony today, sitting right behind me. I assumed she’s a tigran.”

  “Oh yes, that’s our little Danni.”

  “How’d she get to be here with all your wolfan?”

  “The Rajah of Cephei IV requested that I engineer a tigran child of his line with empathic abilities. Danni’s zygote was put into deep freeze after the political troubles on the Rajah’s planet,” explained Alexander.

  “So he decided he didn’t want Danni after all?”

  “Actually, he was more determined than ever to have her, but he insisted that we wait and hold onto the zygote until an appropriate time. He’d planned to come to Eridani and bring his new wife with him to have her impregnated with the zygote.”

  “He never showed up?”

  “Might have, I don’t know. We weren’t monitoring the system yet for visitors until several months after the crash. He might have shown up before then and just did a quick perusal. We’d done a good job hiding our survival, laying out trails of ship debris far and wide to mimic complete annihilation of our spaceship.”

  “So he might have come, and gave up when he saw the debris, or heard of the crash and assumed everyone was dead.”

  “That’s what I think happened. So, what do you think of our little tigran?” Alexander asked, looking at Sirus sharply.

  “She seems like a very nice young woman,” Sirus said, playing his cards close to his vest.

  “Come on, Sirus. You’re tigran yourself. Don’t you find her attractive?”

  “Of course,” he finally admitted. Changing the subject a bit, Sirus asked, “How did she come to be in that family of giant wolfan?”

  Alexander laughed. “Ah, the Johansson’s. They do run big, don’t they? Well, about nineteen or so years ago, Danni’s deep-freeze unit started to lose power and we were forced to implant her in one of the older wolfan females. Marissa Johansson volunteered. Marissa has a heart as big as this planet and she wanted to help when she heard we needed to do an immediate implant.”

  “Danni’s only nineteen years old?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Shit.”

  Alexander laughed heartily. “Got it bad, don’t you?” he said, barely able to speak over the music that blared up once again, louder than ever. He was grateful for the break in conversation because an idea had just occurred to him that would serve to kill several birds with one stone. He wanted to think through the details first before he set his plan in action.

  * * * * *

  After the next set of music was over, Alexander excused himself and said he needed to mix with some of the other guests, but would come back again to talk when the set after that was done.

  Sirus used the time to find Amanda and see how she was doing. After a few minutes looking around the hall, he found her outside in back of the communal hall and near the path to Karrick’s parents’ home, being thoroughly kissed by her new husband. Not wanting to intrude, he was heading back to the hall when he ran into none other than Danni. She tripped and he instinctively put an arm around her slender waist, ensuring she didn’t fall. It was dark outside and the partial moon only gave off a small amount of light to see by.

  “Uh, sorry about that. It’s hard for me to see, too. Are you okay?”

 
“Oh, yes. Actually, I was looking around for you because I wanted to apologize about Wood,” she said, the muted sound of a purr beneath her voice.

  “Wood?”

  “Yes, my pack brother. He shouldn’t have treated you that way. You were only trying to be polite, smiling at me,” Danni said, giving his arm a light stroke to show she was sorry.

  “Well, perhaps he feels that strange men have no business smiling at his little pack sister,” he said a bit gruffly.

  “That’s what he said afterwards to me. He must have talked to you, then. I did tell him that he should go apologize to you.”

  Sirus smiled down at her. “No. Some things are just unmistakable, that’s all.”

  “I was wondering,” she said hesitantly.

  “Yes?” He was barely focusing on what she was saying as he drew in the fragrant scent of her perfume. She smelled lightly of the rose-like flowers that bloomed around the hut he’d been put into, the one that was occupied by Amanda before today.

  “Are you really going to Cephei IV?” Her face was very earnest.

  “What?” Sirus sputtered, wondering where the hell she got that idea.

  “Alexander was just speaking to my mother to let her know that you’re going to Cephei IV to talk with the tigrans there, to see if they might be interested in forming an alliance with the wolfan.”

  “Oh, did he?” he said, deciding to minimize what he said, and let her spill the beans to him on whatever Alexander was conjuring up. He’d forgotten how devious the scientist could be sometimes if he felt he had an agenda to pull off. It was something he had learned to be grateful for, since without that ability to scheme, Sirus and the other children under Malfous’ care would never have been rescued. He waited for Danni to speak, sensing her hesitancy. “Go on,” he encouraged her.

  “Well, I’m sorry if I just created a problem by bringing this up. I was just wondering that if you do go there, if maybe you would take me with you,” she asked, hesitantly.