Rystani Warrior 02 - The Dare

by Susan Kearney

  “Surely you’ve considered that lovemaking leads to marriage?”

  He didn’t state his feelings. She resented that he hadn’t even asked her with a question. Almost as if he’d never considered that she would refuse him. She supposed that was typical Rystani male, or maybe that she’d made it clear that she’d wanted no one but him from the start of her life as a woman, but a small part of her wondered if he figured that since she’d once been a computer that she would be so grateful for his offer that she’d immediately agree to the union. More likely he figured that since she wanted to make love to him that she also wanted to wed.

  But even worse than his attitude was the fluttery panic in her gut that her decision now affected more than her own life. They had more to discuss, and knowing Rystani custom, he was going to be even more upset with her shortly.

  So she didn’t elaborate on what she’d given up to become human. Unless she died prematurely by an accident, she’d given up immortality to live a thousand years. To a computer one thousand years sounded like a short time, especially since there was so much more she wanted to experience. She wanted to visit Earth, Osari, and Scartar. She wanted to see the Federation homeworld Zenon. She wanted to lie on a sand beach under a hot sun, learn to swim in emerald seas, and cook as well as Miri. She felt as though she was just learning to be human. Just learning how to communicate, how to make love, how to reach out to people and enjoy what they had in common as well as the differences. She wanted a few years to be selfish. Was that so wrong?

  In her heart, she knew Zical was a good man. “I care more about you than any other man I’ve met. You are honorable, brave, loyal. Special. But—”

  “But?”

  “I just don’t know if I want to spend all of my life with you,” she admitted. “Suppose we grow tired of one another? Suppose you meet someone else you like more? Suppose I meet someone else I like more? I haven’t lived long enough to know what I want.”

  “We would make a good fit.” He stated his case as if they were pieces of a puzzle, inanimate objects.

  “A good fit?” Now he’d insulted her, and hurt caused her tongue to loosen. “Do you think I’m so new at being human that I don’t know the difference between getting along well and a grand passion?”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Please, don’t take this personally, but I don’t know if I want to follow Rystani customs.”

  “How else can I take it except personally? I am Rystani,” he said with heat and pride and bitterness, his chin held high, his eyes narrowed on her in fierce concentration as if he feared she might flee at any moment.

  “I think of myself as a woman, but not one from any particular world. Your customs … are not necessarily those I would choose for my own.”

  He shoved away from her, his expression harsh at her rejection. “If you wish to spend the rest of your life alone, then … I will leave you to it.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Seems to me you’ve made it very simple.”

  “What we’ve made is complicated.”

  “You don’t want me for a husband. Nothing complicated about that.”

  “I need time to adjust to …” She hesitated to tell him more, gathered her courage.

  “To me?”

  “It’s not always about you.” She flashed her own anger at him, letting her tone bite. “I need time to adjust to … the new life we made on Kwadii. A life growing in my womb.” She curled her hand protectively over her stomach, still in wonder and stunned at what she’d learned just today through her suit. The baby growing inside her was a miracle that changed not just her plans but her every thought. She didn’t understand how she’d become so human, but the baby inside her already dominated her thoughts, colored her emotions, and somehow, someway, she already loved it. Unconditionally.

  “What!” Zical’s eyes widened with shock, happiness, worry. His lips softened and then his entire face glowed with joy. “You’re pregnant?”

  She couldn’t contain her happy grin. “I wasn’t sure until we returned to the ship, but while we were on Kwadii, we didn’t wear our suits while making love.” She pointed out what should have been obvious. She supposed he’d had plenty on his mind while on the hostile planet and that it was natural for him to have forgotten that the suits prevented pregnancies.

  “We’re having a baby?” Amazement rocked him and softened his tone.

  “Yes.” Dora had only found out a few hours ago. She’d wanted to tell Zical at a moment when their lives weren’t threatened, when their minds weren’t distracted by the mission. She still wasn’t certain what she thought about becoming a mother. However, her feelings for her unborn child were already as strong as the ones she felt for Kirek, and joy suffused her. However ready she might be to take care of and love this baby, raising a child took twenty years or so, but Zical was asking for centuries.

  “Dora, I know you said you haven’t thought about the future, but now you must do so for our child’s sake.”

  She tilted her head, surprised at the sudden vehemence in his tone. “What do you mean?”

  “A child requires a mother and a father.”

  “You’re the child’s father,” she agreed. “You contributed the DNA.”

  “Contributing DNA is not enough. A child needs a father’s love and guidance, and not only is it wrong to deny me that role, you must think of what is good for our child.”

  “I would never deny you parental privileges.”

  Zical came to her and took her hand. “Dora, I thought we were a good fit before you told me the wonderful news. Now, we can be a family. A real family. We should raise this child together.”

  Panic caused her to pull away. He spoke of their child in a loving tone and already she sensed his possessiveness. But surely she could be a mother and still do what was best for herself, too? If she felt tied down and limited by a marriage, what kind of mother would she be?

  “I’m not sure. I only know that I’m not ready for marriage. I need time.”

  “Do you doubt I would care for you and our child?” he asked, the earlier happiness fading to a bleak resignation.

  She shook her head, wanting to be truthful, wishing she didn’t feel her throat closing with tightness, her eyes about to overflow with tears, yet knowing her uncertainty would cause additional damage. “I am not sure if I want to link my life to yours forever. I don’t need a man to take care of me.” Her voice dropped to a painful whisper, but needing to be honest. “It is my ability to commit to you that I doubt.”

  “You don’t know what you can do until you try.” Zical’s eyes pleaded, but his stiff and stilted tone told her that he was as disappointed in her as he’d been thrilled to learn of his impending fatherhood.

  “You don’t get it.” She took a deep breath. “The idea of becoming a mother is all I can handle right now.”

  “Dora.” Zical took her hand between hers. “I’ll help you all that I can. But please tell me you feel up to the task of motherhood. Or do you fear that responsibility, too?”

  “I’m not afraid.” At her words, the tension in his shoulders eased. She already wanted this child with a fierceness that made her breath catch. “It’s just that I didn’t picture my life taking this path.”

  “Neither did I. When I was a boy, I thought I’d grow up on Rystan. I never dreamed I’d have enough to eat or that I’d pilot a starship or that I’d father a child with a woman who was born as a machine. I never dreamed that my foolish exploration on Mount Shachauri could threaten life in the galaxy or that it would be our destiny to try to stop the Zin. We can’t always choose our fates.”

  “I know that.” She squeezed his hand and then released it, understanding that she wasn’t the only one her decisions involved. “Give me time to adjust.”

  He released a sigh of exasperation. “I’d rather we raise our child together, but if you aren’t up to the task,” his tone softened to gentle, fuzzy, and sensitive, “I will raise and love the
baby alone.”

  At his tender words, she wanted to cuddle in his arms and let out a sob.

  “I can do it. I think.” Already, she was too attached to the life growing in her womb to ever hand over the baby to him to raise after it was born. But it wasn’t fair to take comfort from him when she couldn’t promise him a future together. So she held back. Held back the tears of frustration that with all her intellect and all her planning and all her great knowledge of science, she’d forgotten basic biological facts that when women and men copulated, they made babies.

  She’d thought of having a child in the abstract. Much like she’d thought of someday having a husband. It was for a time in the distant future. She certainly hadn’t expected to tie herself down her first year of being human. Yet, she couldn’t help the eagerness and excitement and love from spiraling. What would their child look like? What kind of personality would it have? Boy or girl?

  She didn’t care. She simply prayed that it would be born healthy and strong. She thought of names and wondered if she could be a good mother when she’d had none of her own to learn from by example.

  After they returned to Mystique, Miri and Shaloma and Tessa would help. As would Etru and Kahn. Within their family, only Tessa would understand her reluctance to marry Zical. If Dora never married, likely only Tessa would remain nonjudgmental. But Dora couldn’t make her decision based on how others would judge her. Whatever she decided, her baby would be loved.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  ZICAL AVOIDED DORA for the next two days in hyperspace. His absence hurt, and although she often dwelled on her impending motherhood, she also worried about her future as well as Zical’s. Since what Kirek needed most to recover from his ordeal was rest, he spent most of his time sleeping, and it gave her too much time to think. Mostly, she fixated about the future success of their meeting with the Sentinel.

  After their escape from Kwadii, Ranth had run a self-diagnostic program. He’d discovered that while he’d hidden in the vault, the hyperdrive had been tampered with, slowing their progress. Dora knew Zical had questioned the newcomers on board, Avanti and Deckar, but she could think of no motive for them to slow the mission. They were spending all their time developing their psi to operate their Federation suits. She figured it more likely that when the Kwadii had put the dampeners on their systems, and Ranth couldn’t protect the system when hidden in the vault, the dampeners had somehow adversely affected the hyperdrive.

  Although repairs had been undertaken, Ranth estimated it would now take an entire extra week to reach the galaxy’s rim, where they hoped to find a way to contact the Sentinel, then reprogram the ancient machine to return to guard the galaxy. The scientists were already discussing how to locate the Sentinel.

  However, now that they were so much closer to the rim, Dora tried to gather more information. During the journey her psi had strengthened, and Ranth and she worked more smoothly together than ever before. Their reach into space was far greater, their ability to infiltrate distant star systems more manageable, and they’d broadened their communications networks to gather information.

  She hoped that since the Sentinel was now closer to the Milky Way Galaxy, she might contact the machine directly. The knowledge she could gain would be invaluable, and the task would also give her relief from thinking about Zical, his marriage proposal, and the baby growing inside her. Much more comfortable in the world of logic and statistics and program analysis than in dealing with her personal problems, she tapped into Ranth, hoping that with the hyperdrive repairs completed, he could give her his full power.

  Ranth?

  Linking.

  Dora’s mind merged with the processors and the hardware, her sensory array expanding until she could “see” from thousands of ship’s sensors, monitor hundreds of thousands of random communications, take in so many details that it flooded her brain. To avoid mental burnout, she focused on keeping only the data she required, filtering out extraneous material. As she linked with Ranth, she lost her sense of smell, her sense of touch, becoming lost in a system of intricately woven code.

  Ranth’s and her psi powered up, shooting them through hyperspace, linking with machines from thousands, maybe millions of other worlds. They ignored all data, except that which pertained to legends of the Perceptive Ones, the Sentinel, and contacting and reprogramming the machine.

  They found so little. On a planet called Haptarin was an outpost where the Perceptive Ones might have once spoken to the people on Mount Faragon. On Danjabo, she caught a reference to the Perceptive Ones in an ancient museum, noted a sculpture labeled “The Sentinel,” and collected odd bits of data that singularly made no sense but perhaps when studied over time might aid their quest.

  Stretching their new powers, they flung their psi ever outward toward the rim, where the stars thinned and the galaxy succumbed to the vastness of empty space between galaxies. Utter blackness, utter quiet cocooned them.

  Silence.

  Darkness.

  Emptiness.

  Without Ranth’s link, Dora would have been terrified of becoming lost in the immensity of nothingness. Still, they stretched their psi out farther toward the Andromeda Galaxy. Pushing. Seeking. Dora’s isolation increased as she let go of all sense of self. Hurtled through the great blackness until …

  Ranth. What is that? She noted a tendril of alien intelligence. An iota of a psi tickle.

  I am Guranu.

  The words came to her clearly, the entity responding in pure thought. Guranu. A resting place for the Sentinels during their long journey.

  The information excited and stunned.

  Sentinels? There is more than one?

  Guranu maintains contacts with thousands of Sentinels. Do you require aid?

  We require communication and information, Dora requested, electrified by this contact, but worried that they couldn’t maintain the link for long. The distances were simply too far, their powers weakened by the second. All along they’d thought that a single Sentinel, one machine, protected them from the Zin. To learn there were so many astounded her.

  Hope rose in her. Was it possible only one Sentinel had been recalled? That the rest remained between the Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxies, still standing watch as they had for eons?

  Guranu will link you and the Sentinels. Stand by.

  Standing by, Dora agreed, wondering if their entire journey might have been for nothing. If Zical’s presence at Mount Shachauri had only recalled one machine of thousands, they all might still be safe. The crew could all go home to Mystique. Dora would have liked nothing more than to return to have her baby with her best friend at her side. To be cut off from Tessa had made Dora mature, but she missed Tessa and longed to talk to her. About Zical. About the baby. About what Dora should do next.

  This is Sentinel 17592. Why do you seek communication?

  Have all Sentinels been recalled? Dora asked.

  Yes.

  Oh, no. It was worse than she’d thought, and her hopes that all was at it should be burned out as quickly as a falling meteor. If all the Sentinels had been recalled, their task was now much more difficult. How would they find and contact them all? Somehow they’d have to find a way to turn all of them around—a seemingly impossible goal.

  The recall order was an error, Dora communicated to the Sentinel. All of you must turn around.

  The Sentinels do not listen to the enemy.

  Enemy? The Sentinel thought they were the enemy? Then why had it given them the information they’d been recalled? Nothing made sense. Panic filled her. She tried to explain. We are not the enemy. We are on the same side. The Perceptive Ones created the Sentinel to protect us from the Zin.

  You harbor an ally of the Zin. You are the enemy.

  Dora sensed the machine’s implacable will. Had the Sentinel’s programming broken down, just like the Perceptive Ones’ programming on Mount Shachauri? She sent a tendril down the link, hoping to infiltrate the system and discern the problem.

 
And struck a wall. A wall harder than bendar. A wall that hurled her and Ranth backward. Blinding light shot out, only it wasn’t simply light, but energy, pure hellish energy that destroyed two worlds near their starship, one to port, one to starboard.

  Their ship shuddered, and sped onward safe in hyperspace. But her own continued well-being didn’t prevent Dora’s horror.

  Billions of innocent people had just died.

  Dora jolted back into her body and immediately thought she might be sick. Slowly she realized that Zical was running his hands up and down her arms, a fierce glower of anger and concern on his face. She had no idea how long he’d been there, but he must have been monitoring the link with Guranu and the Sentinels through Ranth.

  Too stunned to talk, she didn’t even ask him what he was doing here. Dregan hell. Two worlds. Billions of people dead within the space of a heartbeat. All because she’d contacted the Sentinel.

  “The Sentinel may attack again,” Zical spoke in a rush, but never raised his voice although every muscle in his neck tensed. It was a measure of his concern for the ship that he didn’t ask if she was all right. As captain it was his job to ensure the safety of them all. Yet, she couldn’t stop shaking, wanted his arms around her. Slowly she recalled she had no right to take that kind of comfort from him but couldn’t get past the knowledge she’d made a terrible mistake.

  “Ranth’s been filling me in.” Zical led her to the vidscreen where he showed her how close the energy burst had come to destroying their ship. “The Sentinel tried to kill us and missed.”

  “It’s my fault.” Slowly she gathered her wits.

  “You didn’t do anything wrong. The Sentinel made a mistake, not you.”

  She shook her head. “It said we’re the enemy, and those worlds would still exist if I hadn’t contacted the Sentinel.”

  Ranth added more facts in an attempt to assuage her guilt. “It’s amazing that these great machines have lasted for eons. Sooner or later, parts wear down, energy dissipates. The Sentinel didn’t recognize us, that’s why it attacked.”