Discovery

by T M Roy

  POVRE'S QUICK ASCENSION INTO AN UPRIGHT stance caused a wave of deep vertigo, and had she not leaned into his hard body—she assumed the being was male —she would’ve fallen right back onto the rocks. Beneath her, his chest rose and fell in a shallow rapid pattern. This close, she felt his sudden alarm and remembered noticing the shock in his face and eyes when she took his hands.

  Why? She wasn’t that different from his race, was she? It wasn’t as if she had been a Lazorta or Kemmerian: one with a mouth wide enough to swallow him whole; the other a gelatinous pink jiggly cylinder with four eyes on stalks and ten tentacles. Povre had two eyes, two hands, two legs. His hands possessed fewer fingers than hers, and his skin looked different—smooth and a light pale brown color. His body appeared taller and more heavily built than those she was used to seeing. So?

  Oh. Maybe her biokinetic emanations had something to do with it. The other races of the Affiliated Cooperative were accustomed to or prepared for a slight energy discharge when making skin contact with one of her race. She let go of his hands and fought to keep her balance. “I apologize,” she mumbled.

  With a huge sigh, the native steadied her with a hand on her shoulder. At first, his grip was tentative, as if expecting another shock, and then it firmed.

  “The material insulates from any energy discharges,” she explained.

  His expression didn’t change. He continued to stare at her in that unnerving manner. So she stared back. Povre couldn’t see many big topographical differences between their species at all. His face was strong boned and broad, his hair long and dark, his eyes deep-set. She couldn’t quite tell if they were dark brown or black. Colors looked so different in the light cast by this planet’s satellite.

  “Why do you look at me that way?” she asked. “Am I so ugly to your eyes? Do I repulse you? Do I stink to your olfactory senses?” Povre tried to remember what their scientists knew of the natives, if these beings saw differently out of the blinding white light of the primary source, instead of the gentle brightness of the star’s reflection off the neutral surface of the small dead moon caught in orbit.

  “You’re just surprised,” she decided. “Not half as much as I am.” A small smile wrinkled her nose. “You look like a Folonar. Of course you’re not, but the resemblance is as remarkable as they say it is. Of course I’ve seen images of your species but I never met one.” She grimaced and looked down, embarrassed. “I wasn’t supposed to, either.”

  He had taken a half step closer so she leaned against his body for support as she tried to find a comfortable stance. He felt so good, so strong. Povre felt his pulse slow down, his breathing even. She tried to gauge his emotions. His aura was so similar to what she knew, yet different. No, he didn’t fear her. Surprised, uncertain, wondering. All blended in with a pervasive curiosity. And despite what she had been told about this planet’s dominant lifeform, she didn’t fear him, either.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” she told him. “Thank you for helping me. But you can just let me have my pack and I’ll be on my way.” She offered him a smile. “I’ll make it. My camp isn’t too far, and there I have a medical kit and something that will heal my leg.”

  He remained unmoving. His biorhythms continued to steady. However, he didn’t hand over her pack or let her go. He didn’t understand her words, she could see that. But one of them brought a flicker of recognition.

  “Your leg?” he said, nodding his square chin at her sore leg. He used her language this time, and it delighted her as much as it filled her with hope.

  “Yes,” said Povre. “That’s right.”

  He smiled in return. His mouth was wide and showed even teeth in front. She felt some relief to notice he didn’t possess the sharp teeth of a carnivore. Then his expression changed, and he said something else.

  “I can’t understand you,” she told him.

  He guided her arm so it rested across his shoulders. His legs shifted, adjusting his stance until they stood side-by-side. He gestured down the slope toward the sparkling river, tossing and murmuring as it hurried to whatever destination awaited the flow.

  “I can’t go with you,” she protested, guessing what he wanted. “I’m not even supposed to be here. I wasn’t supposed to be seen, or make a contact. You can leave me—”

  Despite her efforts, her voice weakened. The pain in her leg and foot became overwhelming when her circulation increased. She fought it, but overcome, felt herself falling into a wall of blackness.

  * * * * *

  STAGGERING UNDER THE WEIGHT of both the girl and the pack, Kent lurched his way down the treacherous scree. He slid and almost fell several times. He clamped his teeth tight and forged on with determination to carry the girl to safety.

  Girl? he thought. She’s not human.

  Part of him screamed to dump her and her pack and run. A small part. Another stronger part reminded him it wasn’t exactly kosher to leave someone hurt, helpless, and alone in a wilderness. It was possible, he supposed, that she was far from helpless. But her pain was undeniable. The largest part of him, Kent Xavier the scientist, won all internal arguments hands down and his natural curiosity overcame his misgivings.

  He’d been camping alone in every condition imaginable for years. When not teaching science classes, labs or giving lectures, he taught wilderness survival and orienteering. Setting all humility aside, he was the current leading authority on the plants, climate, and wildlife of the Pacific Northwest. He’d made a specialty of the state of Oregon, especially the Cascades, from the eastern high desert to the lush temperate rainforest-like area on the western slopes. Flora and fauna were his bread and butter.

  The living, breathing, uh…person he carried certainly wasn’t on the list of species found only in Oregon’s high desert he’d come expecting to observe, but by golly, he wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity.

  And she…

  He hoped the gender was correct, because he’d sure feel stupid getting turned on when her slender frame fell against his and all sorts of normal-feeling curves, hidden by her clothing, came in warm contact with his body.

  Pull your head out of your jeans. You’ve sworn off women. All women.

  He shook his head and staggered on. “Damn it, Xavier, you’re a sucker and a half. A damsel in distress and it’s right back to Dudley Do-Right and the sign taped to my back that says go ahead and kick me! And as for you…” he warned the inert female in his arms, “this is just until I figure out what to do with you.”

  Finishing the thankfully short distance to his campsite, he fell to his knees, managing to make it a controlled crash as the pack swung and took him off balance. His back burned and his shoulder ached. Kent let the pack drop to the ground and awarded it a snarl. What the hell did she have in it? Rocks? He was tempted to look but had an aversion to peeking in strange women’s handbags, or, in this case, backpacks. She probably carried the alien version of usual female things, like lipstick, mascara, at least ten credit cards with only one good to use, seventy pounds of old keys she had no idea opened or operated what, condoms, and Mace.

  The Mace part made him pause. With his luck, the alien equivalent of pepper spray would reduce him to pure carbon in less time than it would take to make a pass. Better keep the pack out of her reach for now. He used the gentle care one took with live explosives and settled his foundling on the ground.

  Then, with one hand trying to rub out the muscle burn on his sore shoulder, he knee-walked to his tent and backed out with the down-filled sleeping bag. He unzipped its length and rolled the unconscious female into the puffy material. Then he started a fire in the pit. Coffee. He needed some coffee. Something hot and stimulating.

  He jerked his eyes from the figure in his sleeping bag. Get off that track.

  Of course, he could just fire up his backpacking stove, but he didn’t want to waste the small supply of fuel he kept for emergencies and nasty weather. There was plenty of stuff to burn around the site and the dry high desert summer, the wild
fire season, was still several months off.

  He busied himself feeding his small blaze into a respectable and warming campfire. Not quite a “white-man’s fire” as some experienced backpackers jokingly called the campground infernos produced by some people who dared to call themselves campers. The sorts of campfires that looked like small forest fires and deemed barely suitable to toasting marshmallows. Kent grimaced, remembering why he shunned designated and planned camping areas, the trailers, the kids, the litter, and the destruction of natural forestlands all in the name of recreation.

  At her pained sound, he moved back to the side of his foundling. She moaned again and thrashed against the confines of the narrow bag.

  “Hey there.” In the bright light of the moon and glow of the fire, her skin looked blue with cold. Sighing, Ken retrieved his Therma-Rest pad from the tent, dropped it next to her, and sat, pulling her shivering form, sleeping bag and all, onto his lap. “It’s okay. It’s okay. Easy does it.”

  She burrowed into him and relaxed. Her eyelids never opened. Her thick black hair smelled of fresh air, junipers, and some exotic spice. Her face turned into the hollow beneath his chin and neck and Kent jumped when he felt a warm wetness touch the skin of his throat, sending electricity through every nerve ending he had. Real electricity, not imagined. Like before, when she’d taken his hands. But this charge zinged right up his carotids to his head and caused his body to react involuntarily.

  Visions of sci-fi flicks where innocent looking aliens feasted on human flesh flashed through his eyes. Despite that, his erection swelled painfully against the combined pressure of his jeans and the weight of her body. Every muscle in his body contracted. Instead of releasing her and pushing her away, he hugged his arms around her even more tightly.

  The wetness was followed by the pressure of soft lips, a murmur, and…nothing more. His throat tingled. He felt as if the hairs on his arms and legs stood straight up.

  She’d kissed him. Jeez. Kissed him! A little lick of her tongue followed by a kiss. His heart rammed against his chest and he fought to get himself under control. Calm down. Calm down. Too many movies. Too many TV shows. Those brilliant white teeth he’d seen revealed in a staggering smile earlier hadn’t indicated she ate freshly killed meat. They weren’t vampire fangs. Or snake fangs injecting venom into his veins. Those full warm lips, although on a small mouth, were as sexy as—

  Whatever she is, she’s a female, and right now, they’re the enemy. Kent reminded himself that he was determined not to let a pretty face get him in another situation that would leave him feeling stupid, used, or worse…dead.

  “Jeez. And what’s this with zinging me? Is that something produced inside you? Or something you carry…?”

  A massive yawn interrupted his rhetorical queries. He made sure he hadn’t dislocated his jaw before continuing.

  “Anyway, don’t do that to me again. Or I swear I’ll just dump you and leave you for the coyotes—” Another yawn overtook his warning. Kent hitched his butt back a few more inches so his back rested against the trunk of a nearby ponderosa. “I’ve learned my lessons the hard way. One wrong move and you’re on your own, whatever you are.”

  * * * * *

  COMFORTABLE AND SATED WITH warmth, Povre didn’t want to move. She sighed, loving the feel of the puffy material and the hug of the strong arms holding her close. A dream. That’s all. A dream, and H’renzek, grumpy as he often was, had come to make it better by holding her.

  The scratchy skin pressing against her nose tickled. When had H’renzek’s body fur grown so rough? And this noise he made as he breathed. What was that? Was he sick? And since when did he smell like—

  She opened her eyes.

  The being slept, his broad, strong-featured face tilted back, resting on the tree trunk he leaned against. Surprised at the urge she felt to explore his lines and texture, she stopped her hand just short of touching his skin. Her electric touch would awaken him. She wanted to thank him properly, but if he woke up, he might not allow her to leave, and she had to get back or…

  She didn’t want to think about the consequences.

  He moved slightly but didn’t awaken as she slithered from his arms. She wriggled free of the warm, thick covering he’d cocooned her in, held her breath and kept a wary eye on him.

  I shouldn’t be afraid of him. I don’t think he captured me. He helped me.

  Povre rose to her knees. She winced as her foot twisted and her bruised ankle and leg sent pain shooting straight past her hipbones. She shivered as the cold, moonlit air poured onto her body. Not a good idea to sleep with clothes on and get so warm only to face the cold with nothing else to layer on against it. Not healthy.

  Maybe they did things differently. She reached for the thick covering and carefully draped it over his sleeping body.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. She stood, first on one leg, and then gradually let her weight balance between both. She found her pack, shouldered it, and moved off.

  * * * * *

  POVRE CRIED OUT IN DISTRESS upon reaching her camp.

  Nothing was there. No one. No cases of equipment, no shield emitter, not one scuff mark or footprint.

  “No! Oh Goddess, please no!”

  She sank to the carpet of dead brown spikes from the strange needle-leafed trees rising tall above her. Her leg throbbed.

  She reached for the communications device on her belt. Even as her fingers closed over it, she knew it wouldn’t work. That, or any other device she carried. A signal from H’renzek would have rendered them useless. It was a standard precaution in case any of them were caught.

  The comm device fell to the ground. She dropped her head into her hands. “What am I going to do now?” Her throat tightened and her eyes started to burn with dryness. “Am I stuck here forever? What am I supposed to do?”

  For starters, Povre, you should have obeyed orders! You got yourself into this mess and you’d better stop whining about it and start thinking!

  Pulling off her boot, she rubbed her sore ankle and leg. She was surprised that the distance between here and the native being’s camp wasn’t all that far, although she felt as if she’d traversed an entire grid sector. She’d started off well before the primary star even brightened the horizon, and now that radiant sun was fully in view, casting a brilliant golden light over the planet she once thought too lovely to resist.

  * * * * *

  “DAMN.”

  Sunlight, warm and golden, warmed his chilly body. His fire was a heap of sullen, smoking ash. Why was he outside and not in his tent? Snug and warm in his sleeping bag? Why was his sleeping bag spread across his lap?

  “What the hell am I doing? Sleepwalking now? Great.”

  He groaned. His back felt as if it molded itself into the shape of the tree trunk behind him. Kent’s stiff fingers chafed at his arms. The crinkly rustle of the Gore-tex cloth made him feel even colder. He grabbed the limp sleeping bag on his knees and wrapped it around himself, hunching together for warmth and trying desperately to remember. Like the brisk morning air, the memory of his night’s adventure hit him cold and hard. He jumped to his feet, staggered, tripped over a vagrant piece of firewood and narrowly avoided falling into his fire pit.

  “Marvelous. Not only have I completely lost my scientific composure…I’ve lost my coordination, too. It’s a good thing I’m not mountain climbing.”

  His gaze raked over his camp. Fitful light breezes made his open, empty tent suck in upon itself then balloon outward, as if it was an odd gray animal breathing. The same breeze caused the unzipped opening to flap like a limp handkerchief waving a farewell.

  The alien with the six fingers on each hand and shaggy black hair was gone. Gone as if she never existed.

  “Of course she didn’t exist,” Kent said to himself. “It was a nightmare. I was sleepwalking. Twelve-fingered, black haired gorgeous aliens don’t exist.” He scrubbed his face with his hands. “It was that freeze-dried stew last night. Lynn always said that bran
d of backpacker’s dinners gave her nightmares.”

  Lynn. How he wished she was just a stew-induced nightmare.

  A rustle behind him made Kent whirl in that direction.

  “Damn!” He laughed nervously as a golden-mantled ground squirrel scampered into the low brush. “Now you’re jumping at fauna. Great.” He began gathering pinecones and dead branches for a fire. He was hungry and needed some coffee, badly. Then he’d break camp and start heading back.

  The image freshened in his mind. His empty stomach tightened. Jim, jumping up…Lynn, still basking in the afterglow, asking Kent why he hadn’t called ahead. Savagely, he snapped a thick branch in two over his knee.

  A severe pain in his face made him realize he clenched his teeth.

  “Damn her. Damn it. Put it out of your head. It’s over. It’s done. Just thank the Lord you found out now and not later.” He had been prepared to take the vows of holy matrimony seriously, and had they been married…

  He stripped twigs from another branch and let them fall at random near his feet.

  “Look, Kent,” he continued, reasoning with himself. “This is hardly your first relationship or breakup.” This was however, the first time you’ve loved someone enough to propose and to want to spend the rest of your sorry life with her, argued his wounded ego.

  “No, I don’t love her! Not any more. And I’m darned glad I always used protection,” snarled Kent. “Who knows what I could’ve picked up from her.” He still felt dirty. He’d have himself tested for STDs as soon as he got back. Thank the Lord she also used contraceptives. The thought of her getting pregnant and having a child, passing it off as his when it could’ve been anyone’s! It made him sick.

  Things would have been different if she’d loved him, admitted her affairs were mistakes, and wanted to work through this. He wouldn’t have cared who biologically fathered the child. Wouldn’t be the poor kid’s fault. After what happened, though…

  “Damn it, stop thinking about it!”