by Wen Spencer
"Doing what?" he asked.
"Whatever needs to be done. Standing guard. Fishing. Scrubbing." She reached out and tapped the bar of soap in his hand. "You rub that against your skin until it foams, and then you rinse it off."
"I know." Part of the ancient imperial trappings that the Volkovs observed were scented bars of soap. Divine right via neo-Luddite cleaning methods.
"Then do it." She whistled to a male crewmember, a younger brother or cousin by the look of him, and handed him the chest piece. "My cabin."
Turk forced himself not to watch them carry it away. It's not like she threw it away. Growing up under Ivan Volkov's rule, he knew the difference of something gone forever and something that might be earned back.
Captain Bailey stood eyeing him. "You need to wash. Civ mold can take down even a Red's antibodies."
He looked at the soap in his hand. Between the exhaustion and grief, he couldn't find the energy to move.
Captain Bailey sighed, crouching beside him and taking the soap. "Okay, I'll help you now, but you've got to pull your weight."
She worked the bar of soap into a lather that spilled suggestively down her bare legs. She took his hand in hers and started to wash him. She focused a nearly medical attention onto his hand, and yet, after all the practiced seduction of cat fanciers, he found it wildly alluring. "Boy, the mold has already worked into your fur. Can you shed it?"
"I can't shed on command." He snapped. Normally he could, but not now, not feeling this vulnerable. He hated being weak, dependant, ignorant, and needy. He knew that this sudden desire to fuck a complete stranger was just some emotional reaction to being lost and alone. Like starvation making plain food delicious, his complete isolation made Captain Bailey seem like the most desirable woman he ever met. The blue of her eyes wasn't truly that stunning a color. Her lips weren't that kissably full. Her smile wasn't that open and warm. Her body wasn't so fuck-me perfect. He was just imagining it.
Captain Bailey looked up to study him for a moment and then nodded. Bending her head over his hand, she scrubbed her fingers through his fur, kneading in the soap. He closed his eyes to shut out what the wet t-shirt was failing to cover.
Focus, Turk, Focus.
The Captain rinsed the soap from his arm, making him hiss with pain as the salt burned into the tiny cuts she just scrubbed open. "I'm sorry." And then for the first time she moved cautiously, tentatively touching his shoulder. "I need to scrub your head."
She was aware, then, of how dangerous he could be. As she slid her hand up to his neck, he went tense, controlling the instinctive reaction to defend himself. She watched him closely as she continued to work the soap into his fur.
"Easy," she crooned. "No one's going to hurt you."
He wasn't worried about himself. He forced himself to relax. She smiled and used both hands to knead the tight muscles in his neck. It felt wonderful. As she massaged the back of skull, he slumped forward, resting his head against her shoulder. She smelt of soap and clean skin. The civilized part of him whispered that he shouldn't trust this stranger who had no reason to be good to him. The feral part of his soul, though, accepted the offered refuge.
Captain Bailey went still, holding him close, and then pulled away. He could swear she was blushing. "Get rinsed off."
He gritted his teeth through rinsing as she washed her own hair. After he dragged himself on board, she stripped off her wet t-shirt and finished her bathing in false privacy. He lay on the wood planking and watched her bare back as foam slid down her spine. He should have stayed and offered to wash her back. Then again, it was probably better that he hadn't.
* * *
Captain Bailey supplied him with a towel to wrap around his hips, apparently for modesty only. "Lie out in the sun and dry off." She only had a towel on, wrapped under her arms, and barely covering her groin. "Stay here. I'll be right back."
Turk was on the edge of sleep when the hot sun lessened abruptly, as if something large was casting a shadow over him. He felt the movement of someone nearing him. He struggled to wake back up, growling out a warning.
"It's just me." The Captain's voice came from above him.
He pried open his eyes. It alarmed him how difficult even that task was. He was still lying on the wooden deck. The sudden shadow was from a cloth awning that just had been extended over him, creating shade. Captain Bailey had changed to a swath of bright colored fabric around her like a dress, tied so a part of her leg and hip came into view when the wind fluttered the material.
"Too much sun will make you sick." Captain Bailey locked the awning into place. "Here." She swirled a brushed steel carafe, letting him hear the water gurgle inside it. "I brought you lemonade."
He struggled to sit up and take the carafe. The steel tainted the lemonade, but it was cool and tart and probably the most wonderful drink he'd ever tasted. He held it in his mouth, letting it soak into the dry tissue, before swallowing it down.
"I've drunk my fill." Captain Bailey said. "You can have all of that."
He hadn't considered that they might have to share. She sat down beside him and placed a wooden box filled with slices of raw meat between them. "This is dinner."
He snarled at her, angry that she assumed he ate raw flesh like an animal.
"Sorry, it's Manny's turn to be cook and he hates to do it, so we usually end up with sashimi." She mixed a green paste with black liquid, dipped a piece of meat into it and actually ate it without signs of distaste.
"Sashimi?"
"Sushi has rice and sashimi doesn't. It's a Ya-ya dish. Hopefully you don't mind fish, because that's what we mostly eat, although normally not raw."
With shaking fingers, he picked up a piece of meat and tried it. It was surprisingly good. There were thirty pieces roughly the size of his thumb. His share, then, would be fifteen. He wolfed his half of the fish.
"You want more?" Captain Bailey licked her fingers clean after she finished her half. Did she know how erotic it was?
He felt a flash of embarrassment that he had snarled at her. "No." And because that too felt rude, he added, "Thank you."
"Good, I'm beat." She stretched out in the shade. "We took some damage in our crew quarters and we're short on bunks at the moment. We're short on everything. We can rig you a hammock someplace later, when the weather changes."
It wasn't under she closed her eyes that he realized that she meant to sleep beside him.
"You don't have a bunk?"
"We're hot bunking at the moment." She meant that the crew shared one set of bunks. "I worked through my sleep cycle."
Which meant someone was in her shared bed.
He sat in the pool of shade, watching as her breath deepened into sleep. Exhaustion dulled his thoughts and his emotions swam like fish through the murk of his fatigue. He was too tired to even identify them. Was he feeling dismay? Sorrow? Fear?
Why was Captain Bailey laying here beside him like he was her pet cat? Did she think he was harmless? Or was this a subtle invitation? If that was the case, it was too subtle for him. He looked out into the endless blue. It would be comforting to think that he wasn't completely alone in this alien world—but that would be a dangerous trap to fall into.
* * *
Paige woke when the Rosetta's engine coughed and sputtered three decks below where she had slept. She lay still. Listening. Praying.
Please let it work. Please.
The engine coughed and sputtered again before settling into an uneven growl.
I'll take that.
It was only then that she realized Turk slept beside her. His chin nearly touching her shoulder. His breath warmed the bare skin of her neck. He had his arm thrown across her hips to snug her close to him. Their legs entwined. He breathed deep, fast asleep. Not surprising considering his ordeal. He was still furred over from stress, making him velvety soft over rock hard muscles.
She sighed. It been entirely too long since she woke up with a handsome man beside her. And Turk was dangerous
ly good looking. When he wasn't glaring at her—which was most of the time—he had a warm, open expression with meltingly beautiful eyes. His hands were large and strong, and all his below deck equipment matched in size.
It was very tempting to cuddle up to him and let nature take its course. But she had to think of the long journey. She hadn't been able to walk away from him when he was a stranger. If she gave him her body, she'd end up giving him her heart. And after that, every decision would be that much harder to make.
She slipped out from under his arm; putting distance between her and temptation.
The ship cats, Amber and Miles, were curled up against Turk's back. They gave her evil looks as she shooed them away. Creche training made the Red fairly safe to humans, but God knows what he'd make of cats. And Rantannann.
What the hell had she been thinking? Certainly nothing beyond getting off the civ raft alive. She thanked the gods that Turk was still asleep, giving her time to consider what to do with him next.
While in theory the Rosetta ran as a dictatorship with Paige as tyrant, in reality it operated much more like what it was: a family wrapped in pretensions of obedience. Orin ambushed her before she even got to the clothesline.
"Are you nuts?" he whispered. All their arguments were quiet ones so they could maintain the illusion of a united front against their younger family members. "A crèche-raised Red?"
She didn't need Orin echoing her own thoughts. "I established my dominance yesterday. I let him know he's off the boat if he doesn't obey everyone. And I will put him off."
"With Hilary and Becky knowing damn well that being castaway is a long, slow death?"
"Yes! If I have to." Her clothes were still damp but she jerked them off the line anyhow. She ducked behind one of the sheets drying on the next line to change. "We have to give him a chance. It's the only decent thing to do. He seems intelligent, sensible . . ." . . .sexier than hell.
Orin heard the unvoiced part. "If you screw around with him, you're going to lose dominance."
"Do you have anything to say that I don't know already?" She stripped off the fabric she'd used as an impromptu dress.
"You're so confident in yourself that you don't think you're wrong."
Paige took a deep breath and kept in all the truthful but hurtful things she could say. Luckily he was on the other side of the sheet so he couldn't see them on her face. Telling Orin that he was reacting to a strange male in his territory wouldn't do anything but make Orin angry at her. If he was willing to be truthful with himself, he'd figure it out on his own, otherwise textbook references and photographic evidence wouldn't be enough to convince him. She pulled on her underwear and shorts, aware of the angry silence between them, but too annoyed to fill it with anything safe. She needed to say something, though, or the silence would turn cancerous.
She pulled the sheet down to shoulder height so she could meet his eyes. "No, Orin, I'm very aware that I might be doing the wrong thing. But bringing him onboard was the only decent thing to do. And giving him a chance is the only reasonable thing to do. Besides if he's sleeping with me, Charlene and Hilary will keep their hands off him."
He flinched at that truth. "That would have put Mitch's nose out of joint." Meaning Charlene sleeping with Turk.
"Yeah, Charlene being Charlene, she might have jerked both their chains just for the hell of it." Paige let go of the line and it snapped back up, giving her privacy to pull on her top.
Orin grunted agreement.
Dressed, Paige ducked under the line to his side of the sheet. "It sounds like Rannatann got the engine working. I'm going down to check on him. Plot me a course to Ya-ya, and I'll be back up to take over in a few minutes."
He nodded unhappily. It meant postponing their trip to Fenrir's Rock to make sure their family on the Lilianna were safe, but they'd come close to total disaster with their engine failing during an eclipse. And truth be told, they weren't out of dangerous waters yet.
* * *
She found her mechanic not in the engine room but in the galley, getting food. Manny had made Minotaur gruel for breakfast. Rannatann was eating it in his typical fashion; by eschewing a spoon and sticking his entire muzzle into the bowl.
"Rannatan is the engine good?"
Rannatan looked up, licked his muzzle and blew a wet raspberry. "Engine piece of shit."
"It's running though."
"For now."
"Will it get us to Ya-ya?" Paige asked.
A chorus of dismayed cries went up from her family.
"We'll be lucky to get to Ya-ya." Paige pointed out.
"But the Lilianna!" Hillary cried and was echoed.
"Might have left before anything happened," Paige said. "Might be at Ya-ya. Might be dead and gone."
Her family went abruptly silent. For a moment Paige felt bad for being so harsh. Then realized that they weren't looking at her, but over her shoulder.
Turk was in the door. He was naked except for a hand towel, hanging on his lean hips like a loincloth. He'd relaxed enough that he'd shed his defensive fur, revealing a body of chiseled muscle. All that was left was a thatch of black hair, his thick eyebrows and long eyelashes, and an arrow of chest hair pointing down to the small flap of clothing covering his privates.
Ooohh hoochee mama!
He really needed something to wear. What was left of his tattered uniform had been too impregnated with mold to salvage. Nor did they have any spare clothes that would fit him—he was broader in the shoulder than Orin, Manny or Avery.
"Everyone, this is Turk." She broke the silence. "He's part of our crew now."
They nodded. It wasn't like there was another choice. If Turk was on the boat, he was either crew, passenger or cargo. No one in her family would sell a Red, so he wasn't cargo, and no one expected him to pay.
Turk was staring at the Obnaoian with unnerving attention.
"This is Rannatann," Paige said.
"What is Rannatann?" Turk asked.
"He's my mechanic."
Turk torn his gaze from the Obnaoian to give her a dark look.
"He's an Obnaoian, which is another intelligent race. And I need him to keep my engine working. I don't need you for anything. You so much as breathe hard on him and I'll put you off this boat."
Turk gave a slow solemn nod. "His people control this place?"
Paige laughed. "No."
Rannatann had been staring at Turk with equal fascination. "You're a male, right?"
"Yes." Turk snapped, and then frowned. "Are you male or female?"
Rannatann whistled and chirped a moment in annoyance. "I'm male."
"Manny, he'll be working with you today." Paige assigned Turk to Manny because her cousin was the oldest male on board after Orin and secure in his position. Also the work would be fairly simple. Washing pots and pans. "And since you have help, something more than sushi today, please."
Manny held up his hands, warning off her annoyance. "No sushi! I promise."
Paige noticed that Charlene had been staring at Turk. Luckily Mitch was a little slow on the uptake and hadn't noticed yet. Paige smacked her younger sister in the back of the head. They really needed to find Turk something to wear.
* * *
Working in the kitchen was a learning experience for Turk. Food was something that arrived cooked on a plate, and dishes were something that were either recycled or taken away by servants. The Rosetta's crew ate off steep-sided, metal plates that could also be considered shallow bowls. The morning breakfast of cooked grain had the consistency of glue. The plates had to be submersed in hot, soapy water and scoured clean. Mannie worked on the other side of the tiny galley kitchen, doing mysterious things with plants in preparation to make them into food. Like most of the crew, Manny was blonde haired, blue eyed, and lean. He talked to Turk in a friendly open tone about how to cook. Turk found it oddly comforting.
"These are potatoes." Manny held up a lumpy brown oval that didn't look anything like the potatoes Turk had eaten in the
past. "We keep them in the back of the pantry, out of the light. Got to keep an eye on them though. They'll grow appendages and walk out of the galley if you don't watch them closely."
"Appendages?"
Manny laughed. "I'm kidding. You cut off these dark spots and throw them into the compost bucket. We compost everything we don't eat and keep a small container garden going. That's where I got these." He held up red tomatoes. "Which don't store, so we got to use them as soon as they ripen. They're important because they ward off scurvy."