by Rebel West
“Well, I find it hard to imagine that you are unmated as well,” he says generously, although something in his eye makes me think it’s not an entirely hollow compliment. “You are lovely and clever.”
“Thank you.” I won’t tell him about how I typically work till midnight in my lab back home, stopping for a Lean and Trim meal around nine-thirty and a cup of tea at eleven. How the few dates I choose bomb badly. And I definitely am not going to tell him that Lock’s spanking is the most arousing thing that’s happened to me in the past few years.
Lock makes a growling noise and I look over, startled. “This is not useful conversation,” he says stiffly.
“Lock, as well, is unmated.” Maxxon snorts. “But his problem is that he’s too, shall we say... domineering... for any Luminarian female to stand. Also, sometimes, a bit rude. Perhaps you’ve noticed.”
I widen my eyes. “Surely you jest. He’s been the epitome of gentle sweetness itself.”
I shoot Lock a look and he narrows his eyes at me and touches his belt, making me gasp and shift on my chair, feeling the tingle in my ass anew. I hope with all my heart that Maxxon has no idea at all that Lock spanked me. That I fucking loved every minute.
Maxxon bursts out into laughter. “You’re funny. I like that.” He smiles broadly. “Lock thinks he’s too good for any female. I think someday the most beautiful one will make him her slave.”
“That’s not true.” Lock’s voice is tense. “I don’t think I’m better than anyone. I just haven’t met a single female who matches me.” He runs a hand through his hair. “It’s not a matter of being attractive, Maxxon. I want someone who believes in the same things I do.”
“There are hundreds, thousands of females who believe in the same things you do.” Maxxon’s tone is mild. “They’re called your citizens.” He smiles.
Lock shakes his head. “I want someone whose mind meets mine in a certain way. I’ll know her when I meet her.” But his eyes land on mine. He holds my glance for a long second, and I flush hot before looking away.
Lock clears his throat. “We should tell Dr. Taylor more about your symptoms and your history. Anything that could be useful while she works with the doctors here on the planet.”
“Of course.” Maxxon raises a glass. “This is how you do the bread on your planet?”
“Bread?” I wrinkle my brow. “Oh, no, toast. You mean the toast. Which is cooked bread, also. Toasted. We call it a toast when we raise glasses to each other.”
“It’s lovely. But don’t people spill?”
I shrug and smile. “No. We treasure every drop of our alcohol.”
He laughs. “To you, and thank you for coming.” At Lock’s glower, he adds, “So, please ask me anything else you need to know.”
I summon my holo screen and flex my fingers. “I’m just going to…” I pantomime typing. “So tell me about your past medical history. Do you have any allergies? Any chronic health problems?” I’ve read all of this, but sometimes asking a patient to recite it again triggers a memory or some interesting fact, something that might lead to a breakthrough.
Maxxon shakes his head. “I never had any issues,” he says, leaning forward and placing his elbows on his knees. “Never got sick—like on Earth, we have colds and flus sometimes, although I think they’re less common here. Never got a single one.” He looks past me, then back. “Never got hurt, never got overtired. I could just go and go, do whatever I wanted. This is the first time anything has ever gone wrong. It just doesn’t make sense. And it came on so fast.” He wraps one hand around the other fist.
Lock nods. “Even when the rest of us couldn’t handle something, he was ferocious. Like at the springs.”
Maxxon laughs and punches Lock in the arm. “By Sirene! Remember the time we all dared each other to leap from the rock cliff to the pool below?”
Lock snorts. “You were the only one who didn’t end up with cuts and lacerations. Mother was furious.”
“Ah, so she was. But at me most of all. She told me that as the strongest one of the bunch, I was supposed to set a good example for my weaker siblings.”
The two of them laugh together.
“The spring?” I poise my hands, filled with anticipation.
“Aileron spring, up in the high hills.” Maxxon stops laughing. “One of the most beautiful places on the planet, I think. And relaxing. I still go there at times to swim and get away from... this.” He looks around the room, and I know he doesn’t mean the rich fabrics and sleek electronics, but the demands of the monarchy.
“How often?”
He shrugs. “Well, I haven’t actually been there in hects.” He sighs. “Maybe a full cycle, even. Time flies.” He tilts his head and looks out the window, his face somber.
“I see.” Disappointment surges; I was hoping for an easy answer. Still, I’ll keep this in mind. “So you’ve never even been sick. Never broke a bone? All your vaccinations went fine, no issues?”
“None.” He raises his hands and frowns. “It’s just odd. And there’s no family history of any kind of illness like this.”
“And your doctors have no case histories that are similar,” I add. “You’re unique.”
Maxxon scoffs. “I’ve been telling friends that for years. Too bad it takes a mystery disease to make it obvious.” He laughs.
Lock doesn’t laugh along. Instead, he reaches out and clutches his brother’s shoulder. “Maxxon. We will fix this.” He sounds angry, but I see how he squeezes his hand and his knuckles whiten—that’s fear.
I take a deep breath. “Before this happened, did you have any insect bites or contact with animals that was out of the norm?”
“No, I don’t think so,” he says slowly. “Once in a while I get a per’at bite, but I have barely a reaction to them. Not for hects, though. Some Luminarians get big welts where they are bitten, and it itches.”
“Sounds like a mosquito.” I bring it up on my holo screen. “Oh, fuck, that’s hideous! Ugh.” I shudder, then look at the two aliens, who are regarding me with quizzical smiles. “I’m sorry, it’s just—good God, but that’s an ugly bug. Is it really that big?” I bite my lip. “Ah... those don’t live indoors, do they?” Please don’t let them live indoors. Please God, for the love of everything holy.
The thing on the screen looks like a roach but is about twice the size, with several sets of feelers that have jagged-looking spikes, and a horn on its head that oozes fluid. “Does it, ah, fly?”
“You are afraid of insects?” Lock tilts his head.
“Only the ones that are half my size and look like they could take down a medium-sized man,” I retort. “That’s a hell of a bug, Lock.”
He laughs. “They only fly during mating season, and they mostly spend time in the trees looking for a partner. They only bite if you get in their way.”
“I see. Please inform me when it is per’at mating season so I can remain indoors the entire time.”
Both brothers guffaw. Lock teases, “Maybe I should accompany you everywhere you go and protect you from this fearsome creature. Keep you safe.”
“Yes, you should,” I reply, and when his eyes meet mine, something sparks between us.
“Perhaps I will,” he says softly. “If you wish it.” A small smile plays about his lips, and his eyes burn with something I’m afraid to name.
Chapter Fifteen
Maxxon looks from Lock to me with a bemused grin on his face. “I suppose this isn’t a good time to tell you that I keep a host of them as pets in an aquarium setup.”
I must turn nearly green, and he chuckles. “Got you.”
My eyes widen. “That’s just cruel, Your Highness. I thought you had cats. I mean, semis?”
“Yes. They are fun creatures. Would you like to meet them?”
Lock says, “No,” just as I implore, “Yes, please.”
Maxxon grins. “Lock is just upset because the male, Barteron, is clever enough to open Lock’s Bakkari kit every time he leaves it here after a sparring session.
”
Lock seems displeased with this topic. “Maxxon, she doesn’t need to hear—”
Maxxon continues, his eyes sparkling. “Barteron seems to think of Lock as a sort of, shall we say, enemy? And he tries to embarrass him.”
“A cat can’t do that.” Earth cats have reputations as being grouchy, clever, and manipulative, but this is just plain anthropomorphization.
“Watch.” Maxxon whistles, a series of long and short pulses, and two sleek, small animals race into the room. They look like jaguars, but they are tiny—barely half the size of a regular Earth cat. And they are purple. “That’s my whistle that means, ‘Lock is here.’ I have different whistles for different things, like dinner.”
“Oh, my God, I loooove them.” My hands itch to pet them. “Can I touch them?”
The cats answer this by bypassing my outstretched fingers. They come up to Maxxon, jump to his lap, and start meowing in strange, plaintive sounds.
Maxxon holds up a hand, his fingers jerking. He frowns, then composes himself. “When Barteron, the larger one, makes that sound, it means he is hungry and he wants his snack or else he will do mischief.”
“But how can a cat communicate that?” I try to keep the disbelief out of my voice.
The cat looks at me dismissively and makes a sort of sound, and the other one—I swear it—laughs. It laughs! Oh, it’s a series of meows, but the look they give each other? They’re mocking me.
“Did it laugh at me?” I don’t know whether to be impressed or insulted.
“Don’t feel too bad.” Lock rolls his eyes. “They do more than laugh at me.”
The male repeats his meow request, then flicks his tail. Then he leaps from Maxxon’s chair and saunters over to a mesh bag in the corner.
“That’s my bag for Bakkari,” Lock says, his voice dry. “It’s programmed with a touch pad and a five-digit code I enter to open and close it.”
Maxxon smiles at Cali. “Go closer and watch. It’s fascinating.”
I leap up and hurry over, and slow my gait as I get closer, so as not to scare the cat. It doesn’t seem to be bothered. In fact, it gives me a glance, almost as if it is saying, “See this?”
As we watch, the semi moves its paw slowly over the touchpad, 53365, and suddenly the bag clicks, flashes a blue light, and opens.
“Holy crap.” I lean in. “It knows the code?” I turn to look at Maxxon and Lock. “Really?”
“It watched me one time.” Lock shakes his head. “And learned not only the code, but how to open the bag.”
We observe the cat rummaging through garments with its mouth and paws. When it encounters something that looks suspiciously like a jock strap, it pulls the piece from the rest and trots from the room with the item in its jaws.
“It has his private protector!” Maxxon howls. “Now he’s going to take it and put it in the entry hall. He likes to pull pranks like that.”
“Oh, what a bad cat! Semi. It’s so bad.” My eyes widen; that was a very large jockstrap.
“But they are also quite loving,” Maxxon is quick to add, “and protective.” He blinks up his holo. “Meesa, can you please follow Barteron to the entry hall? He’s going to leave one of his... presents. Yes, if you would. Thank you.” He returns his attention to me and Lock.
Lock growls. “That cat is a menace.”
“Lock is a good sport about it,” Maxxon laughs. “I think he secretly loves the semi and wants to let it have its fun. That’s why he doesn’t change the code on his bag.”
“That creature should be banned from Thore,” Lock snaps but his mouth twitches.
“Why don’t you change the code?” I ask. “Is it because the cat is so crazy cool and you’re fascinated to see what it’s going to do?”
Lock doesn’t answer. “Why don’t you ask Maxxon the rest of your medical questions,” he suggests.
I nod. “The semis, they don’t have communicable diseases? On Earth we have something called cat scratch fever. It’s actually an infection from a bacterium called Bartonella henselae. But I don’t think that exists here.”
Maxxon shakes his head. “Dr. Jayya and Dr. Amakka tested my semis for anything and everything, and they’re clean. Anyway, semis don’t infect Luminarians.”
“I see.” I take notes. “Has your diet changed at all? Any pesticides or chemicals that might have changed in your environment? Any changes to soaps, shampoos, detergent, cologne?”
Maxxon leans back. “None that I know of. I can ask the staff to provide a list of everything like that in my quarters, and it can be cross-checked with the manufacturers for changes.”
“Thank you.” But I don’t think the clue lies there.
There is silence for a few seconds, then Lock touches my arm, a gesture that electrifies me. “Do you have any more questions right now, Dr. Taylor?”
“No, that’s it. Your Highness, it was wonderful to meet with you for dinner. I will work as hard as I can with your Luminarian doctors. I really want you to be well.”
“It was my pleasure to meet with you, human Cali,” Maxxon says, giving me both of his hands.
Startled, I take them, but glance at Lock, then at Maxxon. “You don’t shake, I thought?”
“I am willing to try your customs,” he says. His hands are strong and warm, but I feel the tremor in his pinkie finger and thumb. He rests his hands in mine. “Feel that?”
“I do.” It’s similar to the twitches an MS patient might experience, but there is no evidence of any lesions in his brain or spinal column that would indicate the presence of the Luminar equivalent of that disease.
“Please keep me informed if you make progress.”
“I will. Thank you. Good evening. I mean, good sundown.”
He smiles. “To you as well.”
Lock frowns and clears his throat, and Maxxon removes his hands from mine. “Dr. Taylor, we should go. I will escort you back to your chamber and then I must talk with Maxxon privately.”
Maxxon looks at the two of us and smiles. “Give me at least a seg or two, Lock. I have some things to take care of.”
Lock nods. “Understood.” He shoots me a sidelong glance, and my body thrums to life. But when he receives an urgent holo from an advisor and steps aside to take the call, and a minute extends into ten, I know that we’re not going to get more alone time this evening. And I’m right—he apologizes and excuses himself, and an aide takes me back to my quarters.
When I touch myself later in bed, bringing myself to a breathless orgasm, it’s Lock that fills my mind, my soul. I wish he were here, that I had his magnificent body at my disposal, instead of my own fingers.
* * *
Over the next week, I spend significant amounts of time reading documents and working with Dr. Jayya and Dr. Amakka in their labs, watching how they use the scopes, learning how to examine samples, and reviewing all of the past STEM images of Maxxon’s muscle tissue. Dr. Jayya is not friendly, but since Maxxon ordered the team to make me welcome, she hasn’t lectured me and asked me to leave again. Thank God for small favors.
I’m surprised to find that the myelin damage to Maxxon’s axonal and dendritic tissue is unlike any mechanism I’ve seen in a living creature, more like little BB pitting than uneven fraying. Even with all the differences in their physiologies, Luminarians are so similar to humans neurologically that I would have expected something more human-like.
As a kindness, Lock assigns Allik to take me on a walk every day to visit the zebb and tour the palace grounds. This would have delighted me, except that Allik just rubs me the wrong way. Besides, he usually notifies me that “something” has “come up” so he can’t take me on a tour after all. It’s all right, though. Now that I have lab access, I can spend hours working and the time flies by.
As the latest evening wears on and Lock does not appear, I figure that eating alone will be my thing again, so I wander over to the MFD. I’ve had the chance to try out many Luminarian dishes over the past few days, and it’s my goal to
test everything I can.
An hour later, my table is strewn with the remnants of multiple dishes. Ketta salad, made with cucumber-like watery slices and bright red berries that are sweet and sour at once, sort of like currants—delicious. Tila, a fish from the ocean, cooked with rangon and tissa, local herbs with a garlicky aroma, and fried in the fat of the Tabb quadruped, which has a lovely nutty, buttery taste, is maybe the best thing I’ve ever eaten. And then a sweet cake caller merlit that tastes like honey and almonds, with some exotic hints of nutmeg and orange.
Once my hunger is sated, I wander to the window, feeling lonely. I try to link into my home internet messages, hoping for something cheerful from Maya, but the wrist band flashes up a holo message: “System unavailable. Try again later.” I don’t know if that meant some satellite is out of range, if there was an error in my setup, or even if someone has decided to block my contact for security purposes.
“Well, girl,” I say to my wrist band, “it’s just you and me. Let’s read some more medical documents and party.”
“I am not familiar with the command,” comes the reply. “Please rephrase party.”
I laugh. “Cancel the command. Bring up Maxxon documents.”
For the next few hours, I read feverishly, poring over some documents entirely, rereading sections. Others I skim and skip over, if they didn’t add anything new. I learn about which medications on Luminar are used to control muscular contractions and seizures and how they have shown little effect on the degenerative aspects of Maxxon’s disease, although in the beginning, they had seemed promising. One drug in particular, Lamixx 4B-27, even initially reversed the course of the symptoms. But after a short remission, the muscle twitches came back and worsened, and this time the medicine had no effect at all.
“Pull up model of Lamixx 4B-27,” I order the holo, and the molecule flashes in front of me.
I whistle, marveling at how the Luminarian scientists have been able to attach novel amino acids.
It’s fascinating, but eventually I blow out a breath. Not useful for Maxxon. Lamixx 4B-27 works by inhibiting the excess production of trifinolin, a chemical that inhibits proper neural function in Luminarians by bonding to neuroreceptors and not allowing them to accept their appropriate chemicals. This causes muscles to fire erratically. If enough trifinolin builds up, it starts to damage the myelin sheath surrounding the nerves, leading to irreversible damage. A double danger.