Jeannie referred to the drones, which were manufactured tools rather than slaves. Drones only had enough consciousness to do as their makers wished. They were not of the Spirit.
“I can’t move. They make me fly on air.” The system’s default voice of Risnarish female interrupted for a single word. “Correction.” Then Jeannie’s voice again. “They make me float.”
The system corrected itself often as it learned the language Jeannie called English. It also interrupted when it didn’t know the right translation. “I forget how I am brought to Risnar. My brain is blank for that. I am in a room. I am lying on a table. The drones surround me. They do bad tests. I am scared. I am hurt. Cuts in my skin. Nothing to stop the pain. I scream. The drones don’t care, but they heal the damage.
“There are others. They are bigger aliens that look similar to giant—” Jeannie’s voice was replaced again. “Risnarish equivalent for English ‘praying mantis’ not found.”
Back to Jeannie’s voice. “They finish tests. I forget what is next. I am returned into my bed on Earth. I sleep. I forget until the next time. If I remember it, I think it is... Risnarish equivalent for English ‘dream’ not found.”
Even with words missing throughout the account, Kren could figure out the gist of her story. He was horrified at what she’d endured, but relieved to know Jeannie was not a construct of the Monsuda. The elders would not have to order her execution.
She paused in her tale to sip tea. As she did so, Arga mused, “I wonder how far away this Earth is. And how are the Monsuda getting to it? They don’t have space flight.”
Mekay wore his distant, contemplative demeanor. “This is a mystery.”
As they spoke, the system translated their words into English so Jeannie could follow along. After listening to it, she offered in a helpful tone. “There have been sightings of strange ships in Earth’s skies. People say they see two kinds of ships. One is round. We call them flying... Risnarish equivalent for English ‘saucer’ not found. The other kind is shaped like the letter V.”
Jeannie made two of her fingers form the shape of one of her letters. “Some people say the V-shaped ship is a secret ship of... Risnarish equivalent for English ‘government’ not found.”
Kren frowned. “Then it’s possible the Monsuda are using space travel. But how? We would know about any flight bases.”
Gurnal wiped a crumb of sweet cake from his mouth. “Something coming from underground, somewhere inside their hives? They take off through caves or tunnels, perhaps?”
Arga scowled. “Impossible. The planetary satellite network records everything coming and going. We’d know it if the Monsuda had attained the ability to space travel.”
Kren didn’t want to acknowledge the suspicious look Mekay wore as he stared at Jeannie. Scrambling for an answer, he said, “Unless their technology has taken a huge leap forward.”
“By the All-Spirit, I don’t want to consider that.” Arga appeared horrified.
“It is enough they are getting off planet and attacking other races. If that is the case.” Mekay continued to eye Jeannie speculatively. Her eyes narrowed at the insinuation.
Kren opened his mouth to refute Mekay’s doubts but snapped it shut again. His guardian’s misgivings were justified. Jeannie could be lying.
The idea that the Earthling was a Monsudan creation could not be discounted after all. The enemy might have constructed her to win the trust of the Risnarish. She might be programmed as a spy to find a way to erase their rivals for the planet, the race that kept the vile Monsuda at bay from their villages.
He didn’t want to believe that. He couldn’t believe it. Everything in Kren’s being refuted the idea, yet he knew all too well that gut feeling was not enough to keep Jeannie alive.
Mekay noticed his anxiety. The doubt on his face erased as he leaned comfortingly toward the man he’d raised as a son, who he still called by his childhood name.
“Zvan, we are yet deciphering this being’s language. No doubt there is much missing. What little we have can too easily be misunderstood.”
Kren drew a steadying breath. He trusted Mekay even more than he did Arga. “I am concerned she won’t be given a chance to defend herself. If the council or Assembly decides she was made by the Monsuda—”
“Let’s not borrow trouble where there may be none,” Mekay said. “If it gives you any relief, I agree your Jeannie shows all the signs of intelligence and sentience. Most important, there are indications of Spirit.”
“Not to mention good taste in art and culinary skills,” Gurnal added brightly.
The men chuckled as he preened with pretended vanity. Due to the system’s limitations with her language, Jeannie hadn’t been able to follow the exchange very well, leaving her to smile with polite humor. Kren was glad she didn’t realize the danger she was in. He tried to imagine himself in her place, discovering that should he be found suspect it could mean his death. His stomachs twisted.
Both his and Arga’s communicators beeped. Kren reached for his. “I’ll take it. Yes?”
Nex’s voice came from the device. “Sir, I know you and Arga intended to spend the day away, but we’ve got a problem. Monsudan drones have been spotted on the western fringes of the village. They seem to be trying to find a way in.”
Kren and Arga exchanged shocked looks. Monsuda rarely tried their fortifications anymore, even through their drones. The barriers could not be breached.
The two officers were on their feet. Kren said, “Send coordinates. We’re on our way.”
Kren noted Jeannie had stood with them. She poised for flight, startled prey that had scented a predator.
Mekay also rose, his gaze steady on her. “I wonder if they tracked her here.”
Angry words rose to Kren’s lips at the suggestion. He did not want to believe Jeannie had anything to do with an attempted attack.
Before he could speak, Jeannie answered Mekay in a tight voice, copied by the translator. “Maybe they did. They have been taking me since I was a child. I have moved my home a few times on Earth. Sometimes far. They always find me.”
Mekay nodded. “You should be scanned for a transmitter. We know from the few Risnarish taken and recovered that they do such things. Maybe they tagged you.”
Arga scowled. “We did a scan on her last night, but we weren’t inspecting for anything like that. It would have been easy to miss.”
Mekay said, “When you’ve secured the village perimeter, do an analysis for any foreign trace materials. Transmitters are quite small. Meanwhile, I want you to leave Jeannie with me.”
Kren froze. He trusted Mekay, but his guardian was an elder. A member of the council. His first loyalty was to the Risnarish. What if he decided to take Jeannie to the head elder?
They must not hurt her. It was the one thing he was sure of.
Mekay gave him a reproachful look. “I need more information from Jeannie before she sees the rest of the council. The system must have more time to collect her language. It is the only way to convince the rest of the elders that she is not of Monsudan creation, but a real being that our enemies are experimenting on.”
Kren had no choice but to concede. He had to trust Mekay wouldn’t take steps that would send Jeannie to her destruction. His guardian would not lie to him. Mekay wanted to exhaust all possibilities before making such a move. Kren would have bet his life on it.
Betting Jeannie’s life was more difficult. He wished he knew why.
He couldn’t stand here worrying over the matter. He had to deal with the drones at the barrier. He had to protect Hahz and its inhabitants, above all. He shoved aside his worry. “All right. I will come for her when I have seen to the drones.”
Mekay, ever understanding, didn’t take offense. He patted Kren’s tense shoulder. “She will be fine with us. I have no intention of presenting her to the rest of the council unt
il I feel I can convince them she is sentient and in possession of Spirit. She has been victimized enough by our enemy.”
Fortunately, it was Arga who sought the reassurance Kren so desperately needed. “You believe as we do? That she is real?”
“Did I not already say so? She will be here when Zvan returns, safe and whole.”
At last, a weight left Kren’s shoulders. Mekay knew Jeannie was of the Spirit. He would not let her be harmed.
* * *
Jeannie understood Kren was leaving only temporarily, and that she would remain with Mekay and continue to program the translator while Kren dealt with the Monsudan threat. What she didn’t understand was the worry that kept filling Kren’s face. Some of the things the translator couldn’t interpret for her made her think something dark simmered under the surface. Mekay seemed to be reassuring Kren that she would be safe with him. A lot.
Surely Kren wouldn’t leave her with Mekay and Gurnal if she was in danger. Jeannie sensed protectiveness from the Risnarish officer she’d spent the night with. After all, he was the alien version of a cop, and didn’t all cops live by the commandment to protect and serve? Except crooked cops, and Kren was most assuredly not one of those.
Jeannie was inclined to like Mekay and Gurnal. Mekay struck her as an intellectual. As for Gurnal, he was an artist, and she had a natural affinity for artists. Those little layered concoctions he cooked, squares of marbled multi-colored fruity deliciousness, baked light and fluffy enough to almost float off her plate—she refused to believe a bad man could bake so well.
Apparently Kren’s concerns were calmed by the older man, because he and Arga prepared to leave to deal with the drones that may or may not have followed her to Hahz. Jeannie tried not to be obvious as she watched Kren move, muscles rippling beneath his striped skin. Good night. Alien or not, he was delicious. Those broad shoulders, that wide chest, those tree-trunk legs. That sculpted ass with the long, flexible tail that gave her thoughts no decent woman should entertain. He made her want to declare him a playground so she could romp the day away. Waking up next to him had done a number on her better instincts. She’d begun to see him not so much an alien but more as a man.
Stop, she begged her libido. Please.
Yet parts below clenched as Kren paused in the doorway to offer her a smile, his palm pressed to his chest. A chest she had woken up to find her face buried in that morning. A chest she’d lick the length and breadth of if it were only that of an Earthling. Then he and Arga were gone, the door closing to block the best view Jeannie had ever enjoyed.
She stifled a sigh. Barely.
At least Jeannie had a distraction that commanded her attention. Giving her unrepentant urges a last mental scolding, she and Mekay got back to work.
The elder Risnarish went to the wall and patted it. “Stid.” He waved at the space around them, up toward to roof with its open window panels. “Stid.”
“Home,” Jeannie replied. The system indicated it added the new word to its database.
Through the translator, Mekay asked her, “What is Jeannie’s home? Please draw.”
Jeannie pulled the floating drawing screen closer to her. She’d been given a slender tool, something that had come from Gurnal’s kitchen. Whatever it was, its pointed end made an excellent pencil. She drew an approximation of the condo she lived in. Since the structure was barely more than a rectangle, it was easy enough. She added the shrubs, doors, and windows, as well as the balconies that dotted the exterior of the building at regular intervals.
“This is the outside view. There are many small homes in this building.”
She drew her condo’s floor plan, telling them each room’s use. “Cooking. Eating. Sleeping. Bathing.”
As she drew, she thought about her little home, where she lived and worked all alone. Would she ever see it again? For a moment, she considered asking Mekay if he could help her get there. She opened her mouth—and couldn’t speak the words. Dull surprise greeted the realization that she didn’t care if she did go home, so long as the alternative didn’t include the Monsudan labs.
Life on Earth, even in a luxury condo at the beach, was lonely. Jeannie hadn’t spoken to her sisters in years. Before disappearing, her mother had made it clear she preferred vodka and rum to her daughters. And Dad—well, he’d taken the ultimate exit first, hadn’t he? He’d been the glue that held the family together, and with him gone they’d fallen apart. Jeannie doubted her sisters would even notice if she never returned to Earth.
There wasn’t much to go home to. An empty condo. A thriving business, though she’d do it sheerly for pleasure if she didn’t have to make a living. Not much to go home to? More like nothing. Not one damned thing.
Staying on Risnar was just as impossible. The monstrous labs where she’d been tortured were on the planet. Nothing was worth being anywhere near them. Even as Jeannie told herself that, she thought of waking in Kren’s arms, of feeling his warm, strong body next to hers.
* * *
Kren scowled at the landscape blurring beneath his dartwing as he flew. He’d recognized the coordinates the moment he’d gotten Nex’s transmission. The drones had been seen in the woods close to where he and Arga had discovered Jeannie the night before. They had to be tracking her somehow. That would cast suspicion on Jeannie. The elders might think she knew she was connected to the enemy.
He thought of her sweet face. No fucking way she’s theirs. He had the urge to punch anyone who would dare suggest otherwise.
Arga’s voice spoke in the radio within Kren’s helmet. “Elder Mekay is a good man. You know you can trust him.”
Kren quirked a smile, not bothering to look at the man flying beside him. Trust his best friend and partner to know what he was thinking. He answered, “I believe he’ll do all he can to find Jeannie is of the Spirit. It’s the rest of the elders I worry about.” He huffed a worried breath. “And now the Monsuda have sent in their drones. If they’re tracking Jeannie, then they have every intention of trying to get her back.”
“They almost never try the barriers. They must have big plans for her and her people to challenge us.”
Kren fumed. From the little he’d learned from the first attempts to communicate with Jeannie, most of her people didn’t know the Monsuda existed. Those who remembered being kidnapped were ridiculed for their stories of alien abduction. Given the disbelief of most Earthlings, it would be all too easy for the Monsuda to continue stealing Jeannie’s people for their horrid experiments.
Hell, they might even decide to set up a colony or two in her world. If they were accessing Earth, it was not to do its residents any good.
He muttered, as much to himself as to Arga, “One thing at a time. Let’s find out what is going on at the barrier and not borrow any trouble.”
“Good advice, as always. There are the others.”
They had caught sight of the squad at the same time and angled the dartwings down to land. Kren pulled in a deep breath as he settled to the ground. He was head of Hahz enforcement. He had a job to do. He put his worries over the Earth girl to the back of his mind and got to work.
* * *
The translator program worked faster and faster by the minute as it continued to gain a better grasp of English. It experienced fewer lapses in deciphering words and phrases as long as Jeannie avoided using slang or metaphoric language.
Jeannie was instructing the system on the various iterations of passive verbs when Mekay made a sudden, bizarre motion. His left hand abruptly issued extra projections that appeared more like tentacles than fingers. He grimaced and covered it with his other hand.
Jeannie stared at him. “Are you all right?”
The Risnarish couldn’t blush, but he looked humiliated all the same. “I am fine,” he said in a low voice.
She still worried for him. “Does it hurt when your hand does that? Maybe we need to take
a break so you can rest.”
Gurnal, who had been hovering nearby, came over to sit at Mekay’s side on the arm of his overstuffed chair. “The uncontrolled growths are not painful. Just embarrassing.” He gave the other man a reproving glare. “Which they should not be since you can’t control them. Besides, Jeannie isn’t used to our kind anyway. She has no reason to judge.”
Mekay sighed and sat up straight. He smiled apologetically at Jeannie. “It is called sisop. A disease of the skin. It makes parts of my body harden permanently and other parts send out projections.”
Jeannie looked at him with continued concern. “It’s not fatal, is it?” She’d hate it if he was terminally ill.
“Usually not, though it cannot be cured. And it feels uncomfortable.” He uncovered his hand and gazed at the long, limp tentacle-like projections. They hung from the edge of his hand, resembling the remains of striped streamers left over from a past party. “In the age of my guardian, the man who raised me, such afflictions were believed to show a weakness of Spirit. It was thought of as a flaw of a person’s character that manifested in the body. Science has taught us better since his time, but I remember the shame people carried in an earlier era. It is difficult to throw off old beliefs sometimes.”
“I know that feeling.” Jeannie too easily remembered the humiliation that competed with grief following her father’s suicide. Shame had also been the companion of anger, brought on by her mother’s descent into alcoholism. Neither had been under Jeannie’s control, and yet she’d burned with indignity over them.
Mekay gazed at her knowingly, as if discerning her pain. He didn’t comment on it, however. Instead he said, “It is kind of you to worry over me. I see not pity, but genuine concern for my wellbeing.”
She blinked at him. “From the little I’ve learned of you and Gurnal, you seem like kind men. Why would I not care?”
Mekay leaned forward. “Tell me the beliefs of your people, Jeannie. Tell me how they feel about the All-Spirit.”
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