Episode Five
The Forgotten:
Discovery
By
Kaitlyn O'Connor
© copyright by Kaitlyn O'Connor, February 2010
Cover Art by Alex DeShanks, February 2010
ISBN 1-978-60394-396-3
New Concepts Publishing
Lake Park, GA 31636
www.newconceptspublishing.com
This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author's imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.
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Chapter Nine
When she wasn't bored out of her mind, Danielle worried--about what might be happening back 'home'; about what the cyborgs really intended; about what would happen if they really did take her back. Under the circumstances, she might have welcomed Baen's with enthusiasm arrival as a distraction if not for the fact that he'd been determined to convince her to be his mate the last time she'd seen him. As it was, she felt a leap of pleasure that was followed almost instantly by a sinking of dread and uneasiness when he came in.
"Hi," she said with a weak smile.
He stopped abruptly, sending her a puzzled look.
It took her a few moments to figure out why. "It's a greeting," she said, then added with a touch of irritation. "Actually, you're supposed to knock and then give a person the chance to answer the door-or not. At least, it's our custom to do it that way and then if they want to talk to you they open the door and greet the guest-say 'hi' or 'hello' or something like that."
Irritation flickered across his features. "I came to ask you to walk with me."
Danielle's uneasiness deepened. "Really?" The thought of taking a walk instantly produced warring responses-the near desperation to get beyond the walls of the habitat, even if it was just for a short time, and wariness of what his ultimate motives were. She finally decided, though, that he didn't need to take her for a walk to try to jump her bones and that might not be his motive. "Why?"
Something flickered in his eyes. "It is a good time to take a walk."
Danielle frowned. There was little natural light filtering into the habitat and that meant it was near dusk. "It's getting dark. I thought it wasn't really safe to walk around outside because of the animals and the primitives?"
"I will protect you."
There was something he didn't want to tell her and that made her more uneasy. "Has everyone stopped work for the day, then?"
"No. They will work in shifts throughout the night. Manuta wishes to see the project finished quickly."
It made her feel a little less intimidated to know they wouldn't be completely alone, but she was curious to know why Manuta seemed to be in such a rush. "It's harder to work with floodlights. Manuta must be in a big hurry," she said tentatively.
He looked a little taken aback. She'd just decided it was because he didn't want to tell her why Manuta was in such a hurry when he disabused her of the notion.
"We do not need floodlights."
Because they were aliens and they had better night vision than humans! It was harder to adjust to being among aliens than she'd thought it would be. "Oh," she said, getting up from the couch. "I can't see that well at night. I just assumed …. It'll be nice to get out for a little bit, though."
He seemed to relax when she didn't argue further, but she couldn't decide if it was because he wanted her company or if he had another reason for wanting to get her away from the habitat. She discovered when they left the habitat that the city streets were full of cyborgs, more than she'd ever seen at one time in one place before, except maybe at the construction site. "What's going on?" she asked uneasily.
"The workers are returning from working on the project and others are heading out to work," Baen responded, an edge to his voice that made Danielle uneasy, though she couldn't decide why when it seemed like a perfectly reasonable explanation.
"Are we going to have a look at the progress?"
"If you like we will go there before we return and look," he responded absently. "I am taking you to the river."
Danielle glanced at him sharply. "The river?"
"Yes."
Her belly tightened. "Romantic! The river in moonlight," she responded lightly.
Baen glanced at her, clearly startled, obviously surprised enough she had to reconsider his intentions. He frowned. "This is considered romantic? Define romance."
She kept forgetting they didn't know a damned thing about romancing a woman! Maybe it would've been more accurate to say that she knew they didn't just from what she'd learned about them and she still couldn't accept it as the truth? "Ok, so I guess it isn't going to be romantic," she responded dryly.
"This word was not on your computer."
"Because it's got nothing to do with military operations?" she suggested dryly.
He caught her elbow, guiding her from the settlement at a tangent to the construction site. "I understand that and suspect this is a custom we are unfamiliar with."
Danielle shrugged. "It's not really what you'd call a custom." She sighed.
Baen sent her a look of frustration. "We have a superior understanding, but we cannot understand what we have neither been taught nor had the chance to learn. Explain."
"You're right. It's completely unfair to expect that of you and a lot harder to learn something you have to figure out on your own than to be taught or even learn by experience. It isn't even always easy to learn from being taught." She glanced at him speculatively. She wasn't sure she'd be comfortable trying to explain it, though. He might catch on too fast and then he'd be trying to seduce her, she thought ruefully.
On the other hand, men in general didn't seem to 'get' the idea of romance. It either seemed to come naturally to them, or not, and if it didn't they weren't worth a damn at it! Of course, the attempt was what mattered a lot of the time. It still meant that you were important to them if they were willing to try.
"It's hard to explain," she said finally. "It's a concept and the problem is that everybody is different. They like different things and, because they do, they all have a different concept of what's romantic and what isn't. I guess a broad definition would be to do something to make a woman feel special."
He looked more puzzled instead of enlightened. Danielle was starting to feel pretty frustrated herself. She'd never considered trying to teach such a thing! Then, too, she couldn't say that she had a lot of experience to fall back on to teach! Not that she hadn't had her fair share of male interest-at least before the war broke out-but she, and they, had been reacting 'naturally' to one another. She hadn't analyzed it! She'd learned from watching others interact, from listening to her friend's stories of romance, and trial and error, she supposed but it had seemed to just come naturally, anyway.
She was still trying to decide how to explain it when they finally reached the banks of the river. It distracted her. Pausing, she stared at the flow of water through the rocky landscape for a few moments and finally lifted her head to look up at the primary satellite of their world. It was close enough to be huge in the sky-breathtaking, really. After glancing around, she found a rock that looked comfortable enough to sit on and settled on it. "It's sort of like beauty," she responded finally. "It's your perception that shapes how you feel about it. To me, this is beautiful-all of it together. The moon up above shining on the water and making it gleam, the softening effect of the light and shadows. It makes me feel peaceful and it speaks to something inside of me.
"Now somebody else might look at this place and feel entirely different. They might think it's creepy because of the shadows-or they could look at the water and think it was creepy because they didn't know how deep it was or what so
rt creatures lived in the water. They wouldn't feel peaceful. They'd feel uneasy.
"Same thing with romance. If you come to a place like this with someone you like and trust and feel sexually attracted to, then it would seem intimate and romantic because you're alone and the shadows give you privacy. It might make you think of kissing and touching and maybe even more. If you don't feel that way about the person you come with, though, then it isn't romantic-it's a threat. You're alone and it's dark and you're afraid they might try to kiss you or touch you or have sex with you. Perception."
Baen was silent so long she began to wonder if he'd even listened to her rambling explanation. In point of fact, his attention seemed to be divided between staring at the river and listening for something in the distance.
"We aren't in any danger here are we?" she asked a little uneasily.
He turned to look at her. "You are safe, here with me. I brought you here so that I could be certain that you would be."
Danielle stared at him, waiting to see if he would explain that cryptic remark a little better. When he didn't, she felt more uneasy, not reassured. "I was in danger at the settlement?"
"What is 'to kiss'?"
Danielle stared at him, trying to change gears. "Kiel didn't … uh …." She broke off at the hardening of his expression.
He tilted his head, his eyes narrowing. "You explained to Kiel?"
"Something like that," she muttered.
He didn't look convinced. "All of this that you have said, it is part of the mating ritual, yes?"
"I guess so. Well, sometimes it is." She hesitated. "To be honest, I'm still not sure that I understand your concept of mating. You all seem to see it at the most basic level. You're trying to compare it to the mating habits of animals. I can see that. I understand why you would. Honestly, a lot of men do-I mean human men. They're pretty much that basic. They feel the need to spread their seed and that's all they really do-try to spread it around by fucking as many women as they can. Not consciously, mind you. We all use birth control so they know they aren't actually going to reproduce and they really don't want to because they don't want to be saddled with having to help support 'brats'. Subconsciously, though, they're following their basic instincts to nail as many different women as they can.
"It's not that I'm totally against sex just for fun. I enjoy it as much as the next person. I think it's really important, though, to make sure both parties understand and agree to it. Not that that's always insurance somebody won't get hurt. Sometimes, even when you don't want to, you get emotionally attached and then when they move on you get hurt, but at least if you understand the ground rules you have a chance to protect your emotions and try to keep from getting hurt.
"What I'm trying to say is that in some ways mating among humans is just the same as it is between lower animals. The difference is that sentient beings can and often do become emotionally attached. They usually do if there's a baby involved, not always, but usually it creates a bond and then they want more than sex. They want companionship. They want to share the responsibility of nurturing their child. Then they become partners. They share a habitat and all the responsibilities of upkeep and mutual support as well as the child's support.
"And, let us not forget, there's always the lazy, the helpless, and the incompetent-the people that can't seem to make it on their own or at least can't provide as well for themselves as they would like to live. They want a partner to help them get by or to help them do better.
"You haven't had the chance to experience that either, so I know you probably don't know exactly what it is that you want. In fact, I think it's very likely that what you really want is just to fuck and spread your seed.
"I have to tell you, though, even if that is what you're looking for, you need a little more finesse. You have to at least convince a woman that you're good enough at sex to satisfy her needs or she isn't going to give you the time of day even if she's just looking for fun like you are. So there's still a lot more to it than just fucking like an animal."
It was only as she finished speaking that Baen dragged his attention from listening for sounds indicating Manuta had discovered their plot and taken measures to prevent them from carrying it out. He had felt the need to be certain that Danielle was safe if their plan did not go as expected. At the same time, he had chaffed that he could not protect her and also take part in the raid.
Now he realized that he had made the right decision, the only one that he could make. Protecting Danielle had to come first if he committed himself to becoming her mate. Beyond that, she had given him a better understanding, both of mating in general and herself. As she had pointed out, perspective was everything and, whether she had intended to do so or not, she could only give him her view of the mating process.
Wryly, he realized that he was still a long way from understanding-not as far as before-but there was still far more than he had realized that he needed to understand. As she had said, it was complex.
It still pissed him off that she had clearly explained a good deal to Kiel. Mayhap Kiel had merely asked and she had been obliging enough to try to explain it, but he sensed that there was more to it than that.
He crouched down in front her, studying her face. "Teach me."
Even in the shadows he could see the request unnerved her. Her cheeks began to glow with warmth. She fidgeted, showing discomfort. "Teach you what?"
He wrestled with himself, struggled with the desire to demand instead of request, the urge to tell her he wanted to be taught everything at once. "Whatever you are willing to teach," he said finally. She chuckled, but it was more a sound of uneasiness or discomfort than humor.
"I'm not sure I'd know where to start," Danielle muttered. Actually, she was pretty sure it wasn't a good idea to start anywhere! Discomfort aside, there was still the fact that she was a captive among aliens who had the potential of being dangerous enemies. She'd already seen that they could be damned territorial, too, and she wasn't experienced enough to even consider playing one against the other. That could be dangerous any time. It was magnified exponentially by her situation.
"You said that this was a romantic setting, a place where one might think of touching, kissing, and maybe more."
Incautious comments coming back to haunt! "That was theoretical."
"It is not the way that you feel," he said neutrally. "You do not find that I am appealing?"
"I didn't say that! You are! You have to know you're handsome."
He smiled thinly. "How would I know this? You said that beauty was a matter of perception. The only perception that is of any importance is whether you perceive me as appealing or not."
Danielle gulped against a knot that had risen in her throat, making it hard to swallow at all. "It isn't that."
"Then what is it?"
What was the problem, she wondered? Fear that she might like it more than she ought to? Or just fear because she didn't know if he would play by the rules … because he didn't know the rules? One of the others might come to her rescue, if they heard her, but they might not and she realized she was deeply concerned about opening the flood gates. They seemed completely in control of themselves, but they clearly hadn't experienced passion and what if he did? What if she wanted him to stop and he didn't? She'd had lovers, or at least considered men as lovers, who hadn't had a lot self-control when she opened the door to them. There weren't very many things that were scarier than a man determined to finish when you just wanted a kiss and maybe a little petting to see if you were interested in taking it further. The big problem, she realized, was that she knew he didn't understand the concept of convincing a woman, or stopping if he realized he hadn't managed to convince her. "Men don't always have a lot of self-control when they … uh … get started," she said bluntly. "Or, at least, they don't try to have any. Not that I'm saying you might not be able to control yourself, but what if you can't? It isn't like I could make you stop."
He looked disconcerted and then angry. "You are a
fraid of me?"
"Truthfully? You scare the hell out of me. It isn't that I don't think you're attractive. I do. I actually think I'd like to experiment a little bit. I don't know if I can trust you enough, though."
He studied her for a long moment and finally straightened. Moving to the water's edge, he settled, staring at the river. Disconcerted, Danielle stared at him, noting the tension in his posture. He was angry. She supposed she couldn't blame him. In a way, even talking to him about sex was an opening that pretty much anybody would have interpreted that way. She didn't think she'd meant it that way, as an offering, but maybe subconsciously she had? Didn't it say something about trust that she'd even discussed it?
She should probably just leave it at that, but it bothered her that he'd gotten the idea that he wasn't appealing to her. It was completely untrue, but he wasn't likely to believe it considering what else she'd said.
It was still a bad idea. She knew it was and the control issue was only part of that. Becoming intimate with any of them was a bad idea. Setting aside the possibility of creating tension and possibly a lot of trouble, she had to consider what it could mean to her. What if he decided he liked it enough that he didn't want to take her back?
That was conceited, she supposed, even to think he might but then again she'd heard men say that even bad sex was good sex. It was a damned shame it wasn't that way for women! For women, bad sex was just bad sex!
Still wrestling with her internal debate, she got up after a few minutes and joined him on the bank, settling directly beside him. "Don't laugh," she said, "but we haven't really got this figured out ourselves."
Baen slid a glance at her. He didn't smile but she saw some of the tension ease from him.
She considered a moment longer and finally caved in. "There are rules and I'm not going to even consider playing the game until you know them and accept them."
His expression tightened. "This is a game?"
Danielle met his gaze levelly. "Remember what I said about not giving a person false expectations? I'm trying to be fair and honest here so that there won't be problems later. It's more than the oath I took to help defend our colony, alright? I'm helping defend our home and until it's safe it wouldn't be right to even consider finding a partner and it certainly wouldn't be right to allow myself to become pregnant.
The Forgotten Five Page 1