by Diana Palmer
Impulsively, as if she knew the correct protocol even though she’d never asked anyone or read about it, she bowed slowly to the plants.
She heard Dtimun’s faint intake of breath. But before she could glance at him, the plants suddenly bowed back—all of them. And then they became the most beautiful, radiant red color that could be imagined.
She laughed. The sound echoed, and the plants suddenly glowed green, just like the commander’s eyes when he laughed.
“How did you know?” he asked gently, joining her.
“Know what, sir?” she replied, lifting her eyes to his.
“You knew to bow to them.”
“I have no idea,” she replied. “It just seemed...proper, somehow.”
He followed her lead, bowing also to the plants. For him, they also made a red flush, followed by the neon green, which lingered.
“I don’t understand the colors, though,” she added.
“Don’t you?”
He looked down at her, and his own eyes mirrored the neon green.
She frowned. Odd thoughts were tugging at her mind. It couldn’t be, of course, that there was some relationship between the emotional colors of the flowers and the ability of Cehn-Tahr eyes to change color to mirror mood...?
Everything went silver, and then gold—including Dtimun’s graceful, elongated eyes.
“A mutation,” she ventured.
He shook his head. He hesitated, for a few seconds. “A genetic combination was introduced into our DNA centuries ago, when our scientists were experimenting with gene enhancement. So you might conclude that we are ‘related’ to the canolithe.”
She was fascinated. “Are they sentient?”
“At some level, I believe so,” he replied, his attention returning to them. “They respond to language, and even to visible emotion. We protect them. Many were killed by visitors who broke them for bouquets.”
“Barbarians,” she snorted.
The plants turned a soft pink.
He laughed. “They agree,” he told her. “They like you.”
“I like them, too. Very much. I’ll never forget seeing them.”
The plants became blue, trimmed in gold.
Madeline was fascinated. “Those are the imperial colors of your government.”
He moved away abruptly. “So they are. We must go.”
“Goodbye,” she called to the flowers.
They bowed, and she bowed back.
“I had heard they lived on Memcache,” she told Dtimun on the way back to the skimmer, “but I never expected to actually see them.”
“You must never divulge anything you have seen, or heard, here,” he said curtly. “You know already how carefully we guard knowledge of our culture.”
“You know that I would never say a word to anyone,” she replied quietly. “I can keep a secret.” She glanced behind them. “I saw rain!” she enthused suddenly. “Real rain!”
He paused in the edge of the bamboo forest to look down at her. “You danced in it,” he murmured quietly.
She flushed. “I’ve very rarely felt rain in my life. On Terravega, where I was born, the vegetation was subtropical and beautiful. But I was kept in a state nursery and we were never allowed to venture outside the domes. I left when I was very small. Afterward there were terrible droughts and larger pressure domes had to be erected, like the ones they have on Trimerius. I never experienced a soft rain anywhere that I wasn’t fighting to stay alive. It was...extraordinary. Real rain! I’ll remember it all my life.”
His hand reached out and touched her hair, the merest brush of his fingertips. Something dangerous flashed in his eyes as he looked down at her. “As I will remember this day.”
Her full lips parted. She frowned, unsettled by the sensations she was feeling from that intent scrutiny.
Around them, the breeze increased in intensity, haloing her hair around her flushed face. She was more beautiful than ever, in the silence of the woods.
“Madeline, do you carry dravelzium in your drug banks?” he asked abruptly.
She stared at him without comprehension. “Well, I can manufacture it,” she said hesitantly. “Veterinarians use it to sedate very large animals....”
He unfastened the collar of his uniform shirt. Visible in the opening was the thick, feathery black hair that covered his broad chest. “Two ccs, if you please. In the artery at my neck.”
Her lips fell open. “Sir, that dosage is...” She tried to tell him how dangerous it was for a humanoid.
“...utterly necessary,” he interrupted. “Obey me.”
She sighed. “Okay, sir. But if you pass out, I don’t want armed guards carrying me off to the brig.”
He chuckled. “I can assure you, that won’t happen here.”
She drew up the dose and laserdotted it into the artery at his neck. It required her to go very close to him. And, as always, burst of pheromones saturated her body, and his senses. She closed the wrist scanner. “Sir, may I ask...?”
“Why?” he mused. “No.”
He drew her forehead to his chest, drinking in the heady perfume of her hunger for him, secure in the knowledge that the dravelzium would protect her, temporarily, from his instincts—which would have been instantly fatal if he’d given rein to them.
He slid his arms around her and held her gently in the silence of the forest, while she stood in his embrace with rainbowing emotions, the foremost of which was a hunger unlike anything she’d ever experienced.
“I don’t...understand,” she whispered huskily.
He smoothed the hair at her temples. She felt his breath at her ear, at her throat. “This is a time out of time,” he whispered. “It can never be repeated. Be still.”
Her eyes closed and she let him take her weight. She shivered a little at the delicious, forbidden pleasure. In the back of her mind, she was gnawing on the implications of what she felt. What was most surprising was the lack of pain.
“Why?” he asked aloud.
“Well,” she replied, “you see, we’re mentally neutered for service. And part of the process is implanting of stimulus response mechanisms. It’s supposed to cause excruciating pain if we permit ourselves to be touched in any, well, intimate fashion.”
He smiled over her head. “I see.”
Her hands spread out on his broad chest, aching to go under the fabric which was still splayed at his throat, to touch his bare, muscular flesh. It shocked her, to want that.
One big hand covered hers and flattened it over the fabric. “No,” he said in her mind. “Even the dravelzium will not permit that.”
She was surprised. She hadn’t known about this use for dravelzium. She’d have to pump Hahnson.
“You will not speak of this, even to Hahnson,” he replied shortly. “And you will give me your word.”
She sighed. So many mysteries. “Yes, sir,” she said. “It’s very disconcerting, to have you in my mind.”
Not for anything would he admit how often he visited it without her knowledge.
She sighed and closed her eyes again. Around them she heard wind chimes and felt the soft breeze on her warm face. It was the greatest peace, and pleasure, she’d ever known in her entire life.
“So odd,” she murmured. “About the pain, I mean.” She hesitated. “Perhaps something more intimate is required to trigger it.”
That amused him and he laughed. He drew back slowly. The drug was already beginning to wear off. He couldn’t risk keeping her close. “Ruszel,” he said, reverting to the more formal usage of her name, “if you expect something more intimate here, in a religious preserve, I have grave doubts about your sanity.”
She burst out laughing. She looked up at him, her green eyes bright with pleasure, her exquisite face flushed with it. Sh
e looked at him with her whole heart in her eyes and he ground his teeth together at the knowledge that this tiny space of time was all they could ever have together. Only this. And it must never happen again. He remembered the woman he had loved so much, on Dacerius. This was not love, he told himself. It was a purely physical need. Odd, though, the tenderness he felt with this human female. The thought disturbed him. His behavior disturbed him. The need must be playing with his mind.
He stepped back, letting her go. She felt empty, alone. Those thoughts mirrored his own, but he didn’t voice them.
It was as if, in those few moments, a change had taken place in their relationship.
He searched her eyes. “As we have already agreed, tempting fate is unwise. We must go.”
She followed him out of the woods, past the temple, past the robed figures who were smiling with something like amusement, and back to the skimmer.
She hesitated at her door and looked across at Dtimun. “It was a wonderful day. Thank you, sir.”
His eyes sketched her face. “You have never used my name,” he said suddenly.
She blinked. “It would be improper,” she said. “Besides that,” she added with twinkling eyes, “I have no idea of the proper pronunciation. I know that names are pronounced differently by each acquaintance, depending on the depth of kinship or affection or even enmity. Your language is still a puzzle to me. I had asked Komak for help, but as you might recall, his attempts to educate me were disastrous.”
He chuckled. “So they were; some of the most offensive known to the Cehn-Tahr tongue!”
“I’m amazed that you haven’t gone howling mad, having him as part of the bridge crew, sir,” she replied, laughing, too.
The laughter animated her, made her even more beautiful. He drew his eyes away from her. “We must get moving.”
She got in beside him.
She could not know, nor could he tell her, why there was no hope at all of anything physical between them. Ever. Just touching her had been dangerous. Exquisite. But deadly. He should never have allowed Caneese to tempt him into bringing her here. And she still had not divulged what Caneese had told her in secret. He only knew that she faced danger in the future. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come from him. He would have to distance himself from her and hope that the mating cycle would diminish with that distance. If she had been Cehn-Tahr, it would have progressed naturally. But she was human, and fragile, and forbidden. There was no research extant on the behaviors in such a situation, because the Species Act forbade any intimacy with other races. He had to trust that Caneese would find some manner of stopping the cycle before he became a threat to Ruszel’s life. As he had already told her, there was nothing in the universe as dangerous as a Cehn-Tahr male who was hunting.
All the way back to the Morcai, hardly a word passed between them. There was a new sense of comradeship, and something much deeper, that Madeline didn’t dare spend too much time thinking about. But she knew that her life had changed forever in those few hours.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
MADELINE HAD THOUGHT that she could separate her professional identity from the woman who suddenly harbored feelings she couldn’t control. But she couldn’t. In the weeks since she and Dtimun had gone to Memcache, everything had changed. She found herself watching him, flushed and flustering when she was around him, nervous as a cat. In turn, he had begun to avoid her. Caneese had warned her, for reasons still not understood, to avoid being alone with him. But that was simple. He never permitted himself to be alone with her. Now, even when she had to consult him on assignments, the door to his office was always left open.
The distance between them was new and disturbing. She didn’t challenge him, as she used to, or defy him. She had become quiet, intense, fascinated with the new emotion that was overwhelming her. Even as it grew, he became more elusive and his temper deteriorated even more. Things were bound to come to a head, and they did, at a called meeting of all Tri-Galaxy Fleet officers in the huge council chamber conference hall.
Lawson had called an informal briefing to update the officers of the various fleets on the newest Rojok technology being thrown at them on the battlefield. It came complete with holo images and tech specifications which were displayed on an enormous virtual screen, rather than on the implanted corneal screens worn by all personnel. Probably, Madeline thought wickedly, to give the admiral an opportunity to show off his new virtual toys. He did love high tech.
As they watched the information being screened, which had already been seen by the Holconcom, she found her thoughts wandering unintentionally toward her commanding officer.
Dtimun was leaning against one of the stone pillars, the epitome of relaxed elegance. She thought, and not for the first time, how regal he seemed in any pose he adopted. Ever since their outing on Memcache, her thoughts had been confused and disturbing. If it was a capital offense to have base desires for a comrade, it was twice damned for her to have them for an alien commander. Unwilling, her eyes went to his broad shoulders, to the hair as black as a Meg-Raven’s wing, contrasting violently with the red of his uniform. She remembered falling from the cliff, when he caught her. She remembered their day on Memcache, with the rain falling as she stood with him near the canolithe. He shared things with her that she knew he’d never shared with any outsider. It was immensely flattering. The memory was the sweetest of her life. She had to stop thinking about it. She tried not to. But that one, unexpected day was the happiest she’d ever known...
Inevitably, she felt the probing of her mind, accompanied by a sense of irritation. Dtimun abruptly turned his head and she felt the impact of his eyes halfway across the room, dark with anger.
She turned away, flushed, and tried to camouflage her loss of control with mathematics. This time, it didn’t work.
“I will see you in my office when the presentation concludes, madam,” she heard in her mind. His tone was not pleasant.
She grimaced. Komak was watching her with an amused expression. Odd, she thought, how he seemed to know when she was communicating with their C.O. mentally. She must be hallucinating. She turned her eyes back to Lawson and tried very hard to pay attention to whatever it was that he was saying. Her heart was racing like a wild thing. What she felt was growing more painful by the day. She only wished she knew how to control it. Today’s lapse was proof that she was losing her battle with her own feelings.
* * *
THE SILENCE IN Dtimun’s office was freezing. She stood at parade rest, her eyes on the wall ahead of her, her hands locked behind her, her breath catching in her throat as she waited for him to speak.
Finally, he perched on the edge of his desk and pulled a small round white ball from the drawer. He activated it and placed it beside him. Its white glow would drown out any AVBDs that might be trying to eavesdrop. They were everywhere in the Tri-Galaxy Fleet, even in the offices of Admiral Lawson himself.
His eyes were still dark with anger as he stared at her. “I need not tell you how many protocols you have broken. It will suffice to tell you that it must stop.”
She bit the inside of her lip. “Yes, sir.”
“I should never have taken you to Memcache,” he said stiffly. “It has encouraged you to dwell on matters which can never have a resolution, tempted you to indiscretion.”
She started to speak, but a slice of his hand silenced her. His lips made a thin line. “I am not blameless. I agreed to take you to Caneese. I permitted an intimacy that should never have happened. But your lack of control over your...feelings for me,” he bit off, “may provoke a tragedy. There is no future in this.”
“Sir, I never...!” she exclaimed, shocked and humiliated by his blunt statement.
He stood up and moved toward her, stopping an arm’s length away. “There are reasons why we never mate outside our own species,” he said bluntly. “You will never repeat what I
tell you here. Is that understood?”
She felt a cold chill. “Yes, sir.”
He drew a harsh breath. “Ruszel, you know the old gossip, that the Cehn-Tahr are descended from Cashto, a pack leader of the great cats, the galots, of Eridanus Three.”
“Yes,” she replied, fascinated.
“In a sense, it is true. Our emperor, in the early days of his rule, decided to improve our race. He employed the best scientists in the three galaxies to that purpose.”
She began to understand. “The canolithe,” she said, recalling his comment about their DNA being used to give the Cehn-Tahr eyes that changed color.
He nodded. “But it goes much further than that. The galots are sentient, did you know?”
“No,” she said, surprised. “That isn’t in any of the scientific studies...”
“There are no genuine scientific studies, because the galots tend to eat scientists who arrive to study them,” he replied with faint amusement.
Her eyes widened. “Eat...them?” She gave him a speaking glance.
He glowered at her. “The Cehn-Tahr do not eat humans.”
She cleared her throat. “I knew that. Sir.”
“However, the combination of enhanced galot DNA and our own produced genetic anomalies,” he continued quietly. “The mutations were encouraged when the scientists discovered that our latent psiabilities were so improved that we became telepaths, that our strength and speed increased exponentially, that we developed a third eyelid and additional cones in our optic makeup, so that we could see great distances in the dark. We could also hear and smell things that normal Cehn-Tahr could not.” The odd remark went right over her head, she was so intent on what he was saying. His eyes searched hers. “Our genome was changed forever, mutated into something neither feline nor humanoid, but in between.”
“That explains how you were able to rescue me from the cliff,” she guessed.
He nodded. “We can leap like the great cats. The clones of the Holconcom have also been modified to produce metallic-strong claws in combat.”