As infuriating as Kiel found the situation, he was not of superior rank to Baen and realized he could not order him out. He was tempted to dispose of military protocol altogether and simply beat him unconscious and pitch the bastard out the door. As appealing as that prospect was, though, Manuta had already commented on his behavior and he did not want to risk that Manuta might decide to rid them of the source of conflict. "Granted," he said finally, "but as a military man you should at least admit the possibility of threat and consider that fraternization with a potential enemy is not wise before we have determined the extent of possible danger."
Baen wrestled with himself, but there was no denying the logic of Kiel's assessment. Regardless of the fact that he did not see her as an enemy or any possible threat, he had nothing to base that belief upon whereas Kiel at least had some reason to feel as he did. Danielle had admitted herself that she was a soldier. He shrugged. "I do not see that we can come to a true understanding without any interaction. The data contained in her onboard computer was useful but not adequate for determining whether we should consider her people as a potential threat or not."
"Actually, it was entirely adequate," Kiel argued. "Her people set out to conquer the known universe and met another race similarly inclined, which is how war came about to begin with. There is no reason to believe that they would prefer to ally themselves to us over claiming Marchet, as well."
As angry as that made Baen, he realized Kiel had a point. It could be argued that their colony was well out of reach, but that did not change the fact that her people were aggressive. On the other hand, it could also be said that the Danu had done the same. None of them knew if the Danu were inclined to make war to forward their own plans of expansion or not. Unfortunately, pointing that out to Kiel also did not win the argument.
"That is true. The Danu may have been willing to make war to claim what they coveted of the livable worlds. They may have warred over the worlds they colonized, but that only makes it more likely that our people would consider hers enemies, not less."
Baen glanced at Danielle and saw that she was frowning worriedly as she tried to follow the conversation between them. Clearly, even though she could not understand their language, she could understand that the discussion involved her. "We are frightening her," he said flatly.
"You and Kiel are frightening her," Jalen immediately disputed. "I merely came to look after her welfare so do not include me in this!"
Baen narrowed his eyes at him. "You do not believe that I am actually fooled by such a flimsy excuse to be alone with her?"
"It is no more flimsy than yours!" Jalen snapped. "In fact, it is the same excuse, gods damn it! Why is it weak when I use it to come here and it is not when you do?"
"Because I am an officer and she is an officer and it is common courtesy extended even to prisoners!"
Kiel was about to dispute Baen's claim when it abruptly occurred to him that, as an officer himself, the statement not only paved the way for him to visit the prisoner whenever he liked, but it also eliminated interference of the general population. There were only fifteen captains in Manu compared to five hundred eighty five foot-soldiers. "Exactly! She is to be extended every courtesy, even as prisoner, for her rank. However, unless you are specifically ordered to attend the prisoner, you may not! Moreover, since it was my company that captured the woman, I am responsible for her!"
Baen narrowed his eyes at him. "I believe that would be Manuta's decision, not yours, and I, for one, cannot see that happening. You are clearly biased in your opinion of her and Manuta would expect logic to rule the day rather than emotion!"
"You are not biased?" Kiel demand angrily. "Exactly why is it that you sneaked in here then?"
Baen's face flushed. "I did not sneak."
"It was merely an amazing coincidence that you were not seen?" Kiel said dryly.
"Apparently," Baen responded coolly. "I believe I will take my leave since I am off duty now and must report again at dusk." He turned to Danielle, considered whether he could think of some subtle way to remind her to consider his offer and finally decided he could not. He had planted the seed, however, and mayhap she would consider it without a reminder?
It occurred to him that, even though Kiel had won the battle for now, that did not mean that he would ultimately win. He had thought to propose a mating first, by Manuta's circuits!
It also occurred to him that he might annoy Kiel and Jalen without revealing his ultimate goal and he smiled teasingly at Danielle. "You must send for me if you have any further trouble with the bathing facilities. I would be most happy to help you with it again."
Smiling challengingly at Kiel and Jalen, he strode toward the door, pleased with their reaction even if he could not say that he was particularly pleased with his attempt to convince Danielle to be his mate.
Kiel and Jalen exchanged a long look and then turned to study Danielle speculatively.
"He helped you to bathe?" Jalen demanded indignantly.
Kiel had wanted to know that himself although he had not wanted to ask. Instead of reprimanding Jalen when he did, therefore, he merely turned to Danielle questioningly, awaiting the answer.
Danielle divided a surprised look between the two men. As indignant as she was that they'd asked, though, she could see that Baen's parting comments had thoroughly pissed them both off. She wasn't certain why-unless they had designs on her themselves, but although she had already suspected Jalen might, she found it hard to swallow that Kiel did considering the way he'd behaved around her. Finally, she decided that it just might be suspicion, not jealousy in any form. "He turned the shower on for me," she said tightly.
Kiel's eyes narrowed. "You could not figure that out yourself?"
He was accusing her of trying to seduce Baen, she realized abruptly! That might not have occurred to her if she hadn't considered it, but since it had it didn't take much searching to make the leap. "I only managed to get soap all over me last night when I used it before the damned thing shut off!" she said defensively. "I couldn't get it to come back on after that and didn't know when I'd be able to. Nobody bothered to explain anything to me!"
"So Baen was so obliging as to help you to bathe?"
Danielle narrowed her eyes at Kiel. Resentment over being falsely accused shouldn't have prompted her to remove all doubt with a lie, but as contrary as it was, she didn't try too hard to resist the temptation. "I had to have someone to wash my back!" she snapped. "Otherwise I might not have gotten all the soap off before the damned shower cut off again!"
The rage that washed over Kiel's face caught her completely off guard. A wave of cold crested over her as it registered that she'd managed to convince him his suspicions were right and it had made him furious. Turning abruptly on his heel, he strode briskly toward the door. Jalen was nearly on heels. In point of fact, he was making every effort to pass him.
Danielle stared after the two of them uneasily, debating whether to follow them and try a little damage control. She discovered that she was too thoroughly unnerved to even attempt it, however.
Her shoulders slumped when they'd exited. In fact, it seemed every ounce of strength left her. Looking around a little dazedly, she spied the stool she'd been sitting on before Kiel had arrived and wilted onto it weakly, trying to bring order to the chaos in her mind.
One question kept pounding through her, though. What had she done?
Discovering after a few moments that she needed to know just how bad of a mess she'd gotten herself in to, she jolted off the stool and raced toward the entrance. The door, she discovered, wouldn't open for her, but after staring at it blankly for a moment, she remembered the habitat had windows and began a frantic search for one. She found one within a few feet of the main entrance, but she wasn't particularly happy at the view she got.
Despite the fact that Baen had left several moments before the other two men, he hadn't made it to his destination before they caught up with him. The window went from opaque to transparent
to reveal a nightmarish scene just as they reached him. Kiel clamped a hand on Baen's shoulder. Baen whirled and met Kiel's other hand, balled into a tight fist.
Danielle sucked in a sharp breath, gaping at the men in disbelief as Baen flew backward as if he'd been sucked off his feet by some powerful, unseen force. He struck the side of the building he had been nearing and rebounded. Landing on his feet as if he hadn't been thrown around like a ping-pong ball, he swung a punch at Kiel's face.
Jalen caught his arm mid-swing, swiveled him around to face him, and punched Baen in the belly.
"Oh shit!" Danielle gasped, trying to wrap her mind around what was transpiring. She couldn't. Guilt flitted through her along with the suspicion that she'd set the entire fight into motion by speaking without thinking it through first. Doubt rode the heels of that because it just didn't make any sense to her that anything she might have said or done would create such violent conflict. On the heels of that doubt, another surfaced, complete confusion that they were behaving so much like jealous lovers when they not only weren't, but they weren't even real!
She could understand robots mimicking the behavior of humans. A lot of them did because they'd been designed to imitate human-like behavior. Even Gertrude did that when she couldn't possibly feel the emotions behind it or understand them, and she wasn't even built to interact with humans that way.
This more nearly resembled a bar fight than anything else, though, and it completely blew her mind. How could they react like that, even to emulate? Why would they?
As horrified as she was watching the battle transpiring on the streets, she couldn't seem to move any more than she could think straight. Within moments of engaging the brawl, though, the remainder of the cyborgs close enough to see what was happening did something equally human-like. They rushed to the scene to watch, blocking her view.
Even that might not have finally released her from her trance except for one really unnerving discovery.
The other cyborgs were clearly in a huge rush to get to the scene to watch because they sprouted wings and flew!
?
Chapter Six
Danielle hadn't even managed to pick her jaw up off the floor from shock at the discovery that the Danu cyborgs, at least some of them, were capable of … simply growing wings at will and taking to the air when she made another discovery as the crowd parted briefly before the brawlers.
Jalen, Baen, and Kiel could do a lot more than simply sprout wings at will. They could completely alter their appearance. For one second, she could recognize them. In the next Baen sprouted wings and horny growths and claws, and his skin began to look a lot more like Nubien skin than human-almost reptilian. Kiel sprouted tan fur, claws, and became more feline in appearance and Jalen-she wasn't sure what he turned himself into but it looked like a cross between a feline and the thing Baen had become.
A wave of cold crashed over her when Kiel lifted his head, seemed to stare straight at her, and opened a jagged-toothed maw to issue a challenging bellow. It galvanized her, unlocked her frozen limbs and sent them into mindless, frantic motion. Whirling, she fled, racing in a panicked circle around the habitat several times in a useless, if desperate, search for a way to flee. Encountering the stairs in her second circuit, she fled up them, stumbling and sprawling out about halfway up. The pain seemed to loosen the grip of shock and panic on her mind, however. By the time she'd made it up to the second floor, she realized it wouldn't do her any good even if she did find a way out from the upper floor.
Racing down the stairs again, she made another useless circuit of the habitat and finally began to search the rear wall frantically for one of the disappearing windows. When she finally managed to find one, she checked the entire perimeter of the aperture for some way to open it. Discovering that there was no way to open it, she looked around for something to help her make a hole and finally grabbed one of the stools from the kitchen and slammed it against the 'window' with all her might.
The concussion sent a shockwave of pain all the way through her hands and arms and into her shoulders. Without panic driving her, she wasn't sure she could've broken the material. Sheer terror had lent her extraordinary strength, however, and the thing shattered.
And then it did something completely unexpected.
Shards flew outward in every direction, seemed to freeze in the air, and then flew back toward the hole she'd just punctured-which she discovered didn't lead outside at all. Even as her mind grappled to assimilate that what she'd thought was windows was some sort of viewing screens, the pieces she'd shattered flew back into place and reassembled themselves.
Danielle was still gaping at the panel, the stool in her hands, when the entrance opened. Whipping her head in that direction at the sound, she spied Kiel.
It looked like Kiel. She didn't know if it actually was Kiel after what she'd just seen and she certainly wouldn't have been relieved if she'd been sure it was him. Uttering a scream, she pitched the stool at him and took off at a run.
She slammed into a wall so hard it rattled her brain in her skull. Two arms came around her, but before they could lock, she uttered another scream and dropped, slipping from his hold and then diving between his legs. Scrambling to her feet, she discovered Kiel was standing in front of her. He grabbed her shoulder as she whipped her head around to see who was behind her that she'd just escaped from and discovered Baen had come in with him. Dimly, she remembered she'd seen Jalen and Baen behind him when she'd spotted Kiel, but even as that registered, she jerked away from Kiel before he could close his grip and took off at a tangent to the two men.
Jalen, she discovered, was standing in front of the entrance like a goally. Screaming again, she changed directions and raced up the stairs. Either they were slow to follow because they thought they'd effectively cut off any chance of escape or she was moving at mock speed. She managed to gain the upper floor before the three converged on the stairs. A desperate search for something to use as a weapon or to beat her way through a window-slash-monitor or the wall seemed in vain, but there was a smallish trunk at the foot of each of the two bunks on the upper floor.
It nearly unhinged her shoulders when she jerked one up, proving it was a good bit heavier than she'd expected and awkward enough it wasn't likely to make a good weapon. Instantly discarding that possibility, she headed to the area along the wall where she'd found the 'window' the night before and slammed the trunk against it. It shattered, throwing pieces in every direction, but it also revealed a small hole and daylight. She swung the trunk again before the thing could reassemble itself and knocked a chunk out that looked as if it might be big enough to crawl through.
Pitching the trunk, she dove for it, managing to get her head and one arm and shoulder through before the damned thing closed around her. A new terror rolled through her as she felt the thing close around her. She clawed at it uselessly for several moments, but although it seemed to crumble, it reformed faster than she could remove it.
Someone grabbed her legs. Screaming, she kicked wildly, but it was useless. She was drawn inexorably back inside. Panting for breath, shifting instantly from flight mode to fight mode, she launched herself at Kiel the moment he let go of her legs. She managed to connect her fist to his jaw with her first wild swing, but she never landed a second. A hand settled on her shoulder. She felt a stinging pain shoot through her neck and then darkness descended over her like a clap of thunder.
"What the fuck did you do that for!" Baen bellowed at Jalen.
Jalen threw him a furious glare. "You would prefer she hurt herself trying to take Kiel's head off?"
Baen relaxed fractionally and grasped her limp arm, lifting her hand to examine it. "You are right," he agreed reluctantly. "She has damaged her hand."
Kiel removed her hand from Baen's grasp and scooped her up. Carrying her to the nearest bunk and settling her on it, he straightened and stared down at her, frowning.
"What do you think provoked that … panic?" Jalen asked after a moment.
<
br /> Kiel lifted his head, his lips tightening. "She watched. I saw her standing at the viewer."
Baen stared at him in disbelief. "She is a soldier! Why would that throw her into such a state?"
Kiel frowned thoughtfully. "Mayhap when she saw us she thought we had come to fight her for provoking the battle between us?"
"Why would she think that?" Baen growled. "And exactly how do you figure that she provoked the fight?"
Kiel exchanged a look with Jalen. "She said that you bathed her," he said, his voice rumbling with renewed anger.
Surprise flickered across Baen's face. He glanced down at Danielle speculatively. "If her intent was to create conflict," he said slowly, "why would she panic when it worked?"
"Mayhap she did not expect to get caught up in it?"
"She either expected it or she did not," Baen snapped. "You cannot have it both ways! I would like to know what prompted her to tell you that I had bathed her to start with! I cannot think of any reason why she would have simply decided to announce that."
"You implied it!" Kiel growled. "Jalen asked her if it was true and she said it was."
Baen shifted uncomfortably. "Then I provoked it," he said tightly. "I do not know why you are determined to fault her when I was the one who created conflict. As far as that goes, I would like to know why the fuck you thought it was sufficient provocation to attack! It is not as if it is your business whether I helped to bathe or not!"
"Look!" Jalen interrupted, surprise in his voice. "By Manuta's circuits! She has nanos! Why would she have nanos?"
Distracted from their brewing resumption of their disagreement, both Baen and Kiel glanced quickly at Danielle's injured hand and saw that Jalen was right. They were familiar enough with the rapidity with which nanos repaired their own damage to know it when they saw it, particularly since the purely organic creatures they were familiar with did not heal even half as quickly.
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