Ninth Orb

by Kaitlyn O'Connor

  “And as cold as her attitude seemed, the males, apparently, are in greater supply than needed, and thus less valuable--but still a trade item. If you look at it that way, this Sademeen was simply trying to pay for peace with ‘goods’ she didn’t mind trading off--they’re nothing to her because she has way more than she knows what to do with, but she figured they’d be valuable to us because we don’t have any.”

  Eden thanked her and stood and began pacing. “I haven’t had a great deal of time to think this through myself, but I have a suggestion.”

  She saw when she turned to look at the council members that she had their full attention.

  “We had already agreed that we would have a thanksgiving celebration and invite a representative group to join us. I think we should proceed with that plan. We bring over a small group, observe them at close range, see how they interact with the colonists and then go from there.

  “They can’t pose too much of a threat if it’s only a small group. Granted, there could be some danger in it, but it would be minimized and it would appease the curiosity of the colonists--for now, anyway.”

  Ivy didn’t look the least bit pleased with the suggestion but the other council members immediately agreed that it would be a good place to start. When the others had filed out to make the announcement to their sects, Eden waited to hear Ivy’s objections.

  “On the surface, I agree that that sounds fairly safe, but you do realize that you’d be giving the enemy the opportunity to study us, not just the other way around? Plus, they would have the chance to study our defenses.”

  “I may not have a military background like you do, Ivy, but I’m not a complete idiot. It occurred to me. Your job will be to place guards at all key positions to make certain they don’t get the chance to study, or sabotage, and also to have ‘off duty’ militia in the group to keep an eye on things. I’m counting on discretion, though. We’re not going to get what we’re looking for here if they know they’re being watched.”

  Chapter Seven

  Both Liz and Ivy accompanied Eden when she returned to the alien compound. Their shuttle had barely settled to the ground when the gate opened. Even as Eden walked down the gangplank, she saw Baen striding purposefully through the gates.

  A mixture of emotions pelted her at once. Foremost among them was appreciation, for she felt like she could allow herself that much and, alien or not, she couldn’t help but think he was very attractive--strong, well-built, his facial features very pleasing to the eye. She found his quiet manner and the intelligence in his eyes appealing, as well. And, truth be told, she couldn’t help but find his bashfulness rather endearing.

  An unaccustomed uncertainty fell over her as Ivy and Liz joined her. She’d been wrestling with her own private fears all the way out and hadn’t formulated a speech. Now she felt that that had been an error on her part. She had no wish to insult them, or wound them.

  She didn’t care what Ivy thought. She had felt that Sademeen’s comments had wounded Baen. She didn’t believe that she was wrong and she certainly had no wish to injure his sensibilities further.

  Smiling a little nervously, she decided to feel her way carefully. “Mother queen, Sademeen was most gracious,” she said a little hesitantly.

  Something flickered in Baen’s eyes. He averted them. His demeanor was as stiffly correct as ever, but she had the sense that he felt the comment was a prelude to a dismissal. “Our customs differ greatly from those of the Xtanians,” she added quickly. “And we are not certain that we, or you, would be comfortable with what she proposed.”

  Baen sent her a confused glance. “The choice is yours,” he said finally.

  Eden reddened, exchanging a glance with Liz.

  “What she means to say is that we feel we can not make a judgment without coming to know one another better,” Liz added helpfully.

  Baen frowned and returned his attention to Eden.

  “In order for our two peoples to begin to know and understand one another better, we wished to invite a small group from the kzatha to join us in celebration of--uh--our new friendship,” she added and then stopped again when she realized that a problem of understanding ‘when’ might arise. They were still using Earth time. New Georgia’s calendar would of necessity be different, though, and Xtania’s different from that. “When the darkness has passed ten times more.”

  “How many will you choose?”

  Eden blinked, exchanged glances with Ivy and Liz and finally looked at him a little helplessly. “One moment,” she said, turning to Liz and Ivy.

  “Fifty,” Liz said promptly when Eden looked at her questioningly.

  “A dozen,” Ivy said at almost the same moment.

  Eden held up her hands and turned to face Baen again. “Thirty.”

  Nodding, Baen turned on his heel and strode back into the fortress. A few moments passed and Eden was beginning to think that that had ended the interview when she heard the tramping of feet, many feet.

  When the fortress began to disgorge a virtual stampede of Xtanians, Eden, Liz and Ivy exchanged a look of pure horror. Fortunately, even Ivy was too stunned to manage much more than a gape. For, despite the overwhelming tide of seven foot males, they were very orderly as they formed up with military precision outside the walls.

  Eden’s color returned with a vengeance as she looked up and down the rows of Xtanian males.

  “We’re supposed to choose?” Liz gasped, obviously as horrified at the prospect as Eden was.

  “Apparently,” Eden muttered, wishing she hadn’t thought up the ‘plan’ at all, wishing she’d sent someone in her place, wishing she was anywhere except where she was.

  “I feel a little faint.”

  Eden sent Liz a narrow eyed glare. “Don’t you dare!”

  “I’ll pick,” Ivy said decisively.

  Before Eden could say ‘yeah or nay’ Ivy strode boldly toward the first male in the front row and looked him over as if she was considering buying. Liz and Eden exchanged a glance.

  “I’m not letting her do all the picking,” Liz growled. “She’ll pick all the runtiest ones that are the least appealing, mark my word!”

  Eden and Liz joined Ivy. “You’ll choose ten,” Eden said militantly.

  Ivy studied her a long moment and finally shrugged. “No soldiers.”

  Eden’s jaw dropped, her gaze darting from Ivy to Baen, whom she discovered had followed them and could not have failed to have overheard the remark. It was on the tip of her tongue to contradict the order, but she realized almost at once that her desire to do so was far more than an impulse to establish her position. Maybe she was more interested in Baen than she ought to be? Perhaps her interest was clouding her judgment? Finally, she merely nodded.

  Looking far more relieved than smug that Eden hadn’t contradicted her, Ivy nodded and approached the first row of the formation. She’d made her way all the way down to the opposite end, looking each male over cursorily, before she returned, tapping first one and then another on the shoulder, seemingly at random.

  Trying to ignore her discomfort and embarrassment, Eden made her way to the Xtanians lined up in the last row and Liz took the center row.

  It was difficult to decide, Eden found. They were all very serious about the business and gave nothing of their thoughts, or personality, away. Uneasily, the thought occurred to her that Ivy might be right about the selection process. They could influence the colonists either way by choosing only those most appealing, or the ones that were least appealing. On the other hand, it occurred to her that what she found appealing might not necessarily appeal to another woman so perhaps she was being unnecessarily sensitive about her own influence? Finally, she simply decided to choose at random as Ivy seemed to have.

  It was an unexpected ordeal. She felt more than a little faint herself when she had returned to the shuttle. Liz seemed to have recovered in the interim. She looked as if she was trying very hard not to look too pleased with herself. “They are an exceptionally ha
ndsome race, are they not?”

  There was a note almost of giddiness in her voice. Ivy sent her a look of displeasure. “Very fine specimens,” she said tartly.

  “From that I’d have to guess she didn’t find any runts or ugly brutes to pick,” Liz said testily.

  “This entire thing has made me very uncomfortable I don’t mind telling you. I feel very badly that we could not invite them all,” Eden muttered. “I know it isn’t safe, and I’m not arguing that, but I couldn’t help but feel that those not chosen must feel slighted.”

  “Which is a good thing,” Ivy retorted. “Now we will see what behavior this provokes and I’ll warrant we will understand them a good deal better.”

  Eden’s eyes widened as she stared at Ivy. “You were hoping to provoke some sort of violence by showing favor to some and ignoring others?” she demanded, appalled. “What if you’d succeeded? There were hundreds of them out there. I’d be willing to guess the entire city emptied. I had heart palpitations only thinking, briefly, that it might be an attack. I do not want to be caught up in the midst of giants like that fighting.”

  “I had it covered,” Ivy retorted dryly. “The techs recalibrated the transporters and targeted the three of us the moment we stepped out of the shuttle. If there had been a problem, they would have snatched us up instantly.”

  “You know this for a fact? I didn’t see you communicate with them!”

  “I left orders. I’m not accustomed to having my orders ignored. We were perfectly safe.”

  “But you’re assuming they managed to recalibrate and focus on us. You don’t know they did! There could’ve been a malfunction with the equipment, atmospheric interference … any number of things.”

  Ivy gave Eden a look. “I didn’t formulate these plans,” she pointed out. “That was the decision of the council. It’s just that it occurred to me that it would be an opportunity to see just how dispassionate they really are.

  “And I’ll tell you one thing--I may not be a behavioral specialist like Liz, but these aliens are not emotionless automatons! They are amazingly well disciplined--even the workers--but I saw the look in their eyes when we were looking them over like choice pieces of meat. They were damned anxious to be picked, every one of them, and very disappointed when they weren’t! You may be certain that I will have my entire army on full alert when they come!”

  “It’s no more realistic to assume the worse than it is to assume the best,” Liz snapped. “I noticed, as well, but you could be misinterpreting the reason. It doesn’t necessarily follow that they were anxious to get inside to attack us. Maybe they just wanted to be picked because they’re curious about us. Maybe it was nothing more than the chance to engage in a little entertainment. It doesn’t appear to me that they do much besides work.”

  Upon their return to New Savannah, they were greeted at the landing pad by a good third of the colonists. Dismayed, Eden nevertheless found a point of vantage and addressed them, explaining that a representative group of Xtanians had been invited to join them in giving thanks for a safe voyage and successful beginning to their enterprise.

  An air almost of hysteria gripped the entire city thereafter so that Eden began to wonder if she’d made the right decision. Reluctantly, she admitted there had been no choice. From the moment the colonists had realized the city across the valley was entirely male, for most of them, caution had gone right out of their thoughts. There would have been even more problems to deal with if she had tried to stem their enthusiasm.

  It was hard to condemn them when she completely understood their desire for male companionship. Fifteen years was a very long time to spend in the company of women, without even children to break the monotony.

  If the Xtanians had not already been across the valley when they arrived and they had had time to settle in and impregnate the first draw of colonists, the focus might have been on ‘nesting’ and babies. But that had not been the case and now all of them were in ‘mating’ phase and nothing short of doing so was going to appease them.

  The one positive side to the entire business, as far as she could see, was that morale was at an all time high. The colonists were so anxious for their promised treat that they worked far longer and harder than they might have otherwise in establishing order to the colony so that they could prepare for their celebration.

  She had a very bad feeling that Ivy and her troops were going to have their hands full trying to keep an eye on the visitors. If these males were the least bit like their human counterparts they weren’t going to have any trouble at all coaxing the colonists off for a tryst during the festivities.

  Chapter Eight

  Hunting wasn’t something Eden cared for. She had mastered the skill like all of the other colonists because the project leaders had considered it necessary. They would take what they could to establish the colony from Earth. They would begin to produce their own food on the new world as soon as possible, but it was thought to be unavoidable that there would be a void that would have to be filled, where they would have to supplement the food that remained from their trip with available resources until they managed to establish their own supply through agriculture and animal husbandry.

  Protein was in shorter supply than anything else. They’d produced much of the food for the trip in route in the ship’s garden and everything that could be transplanted to the surface had been and was already beginning to flourish.

  Meat was another matter. Except for what had been processed and packaged, they had no source but the ‘pops’, frozen embryos, they’d brought with them and they couldn’t even begin to develop their farm animals until they’d had time to investigate whether the introduction of these animals would upset the natural balance of New Georgia.

  If they were to have a meat course at the celebration, they were going to have to chase it down and kill it.

  As revolting as that thought was, Eden was as hungry for real honest to god protein that hadn’t come from a freeze dried pouch or a tin as everyone else was. Moreover, she considered it essential to practice what she preached, not simply order someone else to do it.

  Sometimes that could be a real hardship. This was one of those times when she would have preferred to send someone else to handle the job.

  After the probes had assimilated the data on the local beasts, therefore, she selected a group to accompany her and set out on a hunting expedition. Three days of disappointment followed. Logically it seemed to her, the same techniques used on Earth should work here, but the native beasts weren’t cooperating. They found tracks. They found droppings, but they didn’t find any targets they could hit.

  After the third day, she acknowledged that their method was probably the problem. A half dozen hunters stumbling through the woods sounded like a herd of buffalo. They were scaring their prey off by trying to stay together for the sake of safety.

  There hadn’t been any threatening activity from the Xtanian compound, regardless of what Ivy seemed to have expected. On the fourth day, Eden broke up the hunting party and sent everyone off in a different direction. No one was particularly happy about the prospect of wandering through an alien landscape alone, but they were all armed, both with bolts for their hunting bows and phazers for anything else, communicators, and even personal locators and vitals monitors in case anyone was injured and unable to call for help.

  The strategy seemed to be working. Eden came close to nailing two beasts that appeared to be mammalian. She didn’t succeed, but she at least managed to sight something and fire at it. As the morning wore on, however, and the prospects of capturing anything dwindled, she made her way toward the small stream that bisected the valley, hoping she might come upon some tardy arrival at the watering source.

  She wasn’t prepared for what she did come across. The sight that met her gaze when she finally reached the roaring noise that told her there was at least a small waterfall, or rapids, nearby so completely stunned her that she simply went catatonic for many moments, as frozen as if sh
e’d been hit with a stun ray.

  Sure enough, there was a tiny waterfall.

  Baen was standing in the middle of the rush of water without a stitch of clothing on. When the frozen state of shock finally wore off, banished by the unaccustomed sound of fluttering wings, she discovered that he was staring back at her, a half smile playing about his finely etched lips.

  Aside from the curling horns that sprouted from his skull and the leathery wings he’d just shaken the water from, there was nothing about his anatomy that looked the least bit alien--except there seemed to be more of everything and he was completely hairless except for that on top of his head, leaving nothing to the imagination.

  Dragging her gaze from the impressive male genitalia to his face, Eden felt color rise in her cheeks and pulse as she met Baen’s gaze and saw the half smile.

  She was in no state to interpret his expression and torn between a craven need to charge off in full retreat and an unaccustomed desire to completely assuage her curiosity and study him to her heart’s content.

  “I--uh--beg your pardon. I didn’t realize there was anyone here bathing.”

  A frown creased the space between his dark brows, but his expression was puzzled, not irritated.

  It dawned on Eden after a moment that, although she’d brought the translator in case of need, she hadn’t really expected to meet up with any of the Xtanians. The headset was off and curled around her neck.

  She was suddenly uncertain of whether she really wanted to set her weapon down to adjust the headset. They were completely alone in the woods. If his intentions were to do her harm, now would be a very good opportunity for him to do so. No one would know but what the attack had come from some of the local wildlife.

  He tapped his ear and for the first time she noticed his ears were formed into a peak at the top, almost elfin in shape.