LINDSEY Johanna - Heart of Warrior

by Heart of Warrior (lit)

  “Hey, I’m impressed,” Shanelle said with a chuckle. “That’s a really good logical deduction if you’re determined to doubt. But let’s hope we don’t need the meditech to prove any more points. Shall we adjourn to the Rec Room now? Dalden’s probably

  done with Jorran by now and wondering why you’re not where he left you.”

  Brittany had forgotten all about Jorran. “That egomaniac is behind lock and key, I hope?”

  “Better than that, he’s in a containing cell. It doesn’t have doors, windows, or any other means to get out of it without Transfer. A very luxurious suite, actually, which in my opinion he doesn’t deserve. But we don’t mistreat prisoners, we just make sure those needing isolation get it. Though Martha has been Transferring his people aboard‑they’ve all elected to travel with Jorran, rather than return home on their ship‑they aren’t going to be allowed to speak with him during the journey and are being delivered to an unused portion of the ship where they’ll be kept happy but out of the way. Putting him with them would just be asking for trouble. How’s the collection going anyway, Martha?”

  “Two rods left unaccounted for,” Martha replied. “But two of Jorran’s people haven’t checked in yet to know he’s been captured. Current estimate is another three hours before we can depart.

  “The captain of Jorran’s ship is being very cooperative,” Shanelle explained as they headed out of Medical. “Once he got a look at the battleship hovering over him, he gave the exact coordinates for the remaining Centurians on his ship, wanting them all off it immediately, and he’s making every effort to find the remaining two still down on the planet.”

  “Then he’s not a Centurian himself?”

  “No, it’s just a simple trader with a full crew that Jorran hired to transport him to his new ‘kingdom.’

  They had arrived at the Rec Room. It was a really big room, designed to entertain the ship’s crew in their off‑duty hours. This ship had Martha, rather than a crew, but the Rec Room was filled with men anyway‑nearly fifty of them, and all huge like Dalden.

  “You aren’t going into shock again, are you?” Shanelle asked with concern. “Weren’t you told that there were other Sha‑Ka’ani here?”

  “I don’t‑recall.”

  “These are my father’s warriors, sent along to protect my mother on her trip to Kystran. We were on our way home from that planet when we got the distress call from Sunder. Mother insisted the warriors accompany us, and went home alone.” Shanelle’s voice rose to reach Martha amid the noise in the room, even though there was a wall monitor right behind them. “Assure me again, Martha, that the Probables say she didn’t get punished for that? “

  “Stop fretting, doll,” Martha replied. “You know your father is more understanding than that.”

  “Except when it comes to the protection of his lifemate,” Shanelle said in rising agitation.

  “Punished?” Brittany choked out.

  “You don’t want to know,” Shanelle replied before she stomped off, really upset now.

  “Martha?” Brittany demanded, her own upset getting out of hand.

  But Martha Just purred, “She was right, you don’t want to know. Besides, Shanelle typically overreacts whenever she thinks her mother has earned her father’s displeasure. In this case she’s dead wrong, but there’ll be no convincing her of that tin she gets home and sees for herself.” And then Martha added, “But why get into the oddities and peculiarities of a people you don’t believe exist?”

  Brittany opened her mouth to protest, then snapped it shut. She did want to know what they’d meant by punishment, but she’d be damned if she’d ask now. The Sha‑Ka’ani didn’t exist, she wasn’t in a spaceship, none of this was the least bit real. But where the hell did they find fifty giants to participate in this bizarre scam?

  Chapter Thirty‑three

  TEDRA ISN’T FROM SHA‑KA’AN?”

  “No indeed, she was hatched on the planet Kystran in the Centura star system, which is fortunate for you, doll. I’m sure she’ll set you up with all the modern conveniences from other worlds that she enjoys, which most Sha‑Ka’ani refuse to introduce to their daily lives. Kystran is a major exporter of luxuries, a member of the Centura League of Confederated Planets.”

  Brittany had settled into a chair near the entrance to the Rec Room, with a monitor on the wall behind her. She wasn’t about to proceed any farther into that room with all those giants lounging about, and Dalden not among them. She had felt the chair move under her when she sat on it, shrinking somewhat, but wasn’t going to comment on it.

  Martha was less reticent, had remarked nonchalantly, “The beds

  here adjust to size as well, just so you know. When you’re ready to crawl into one usually isn’t the time for such explanations.”

  Brittany hadn’t thanked her for the warning. She’d been too busy trying to keep down her unease of being in a room with so many huge men. Those men were ignoring her for the most part, but that didn’t reassure her one bit. Some were watching what looked like war movies on really big screens. Others were involved in wrestling matches. Still others were exercising on mats. Actually, most of them were doing things that should have been done in the gym instead….

  ” They hate the gym, ” Martha said, back to reading minds rids. ” It’s filled with things that are foreign to them, and like Dalden, none of them really like things that are unnatural to their own world. They’ll play the war games on the ship’s entertainment system, because they understand they are just games, but when it comes to workouts, they’ll do it their own way. They’d be practicing with swords like they do at home if I hadn’t forbid it.”

  Swords‑warriors. Brittany still found it incredulous that they’d found this many huge men for this convince‑at‑no‑expense project. All of them were over six and a half feet; one looked even taller than seven!

  She had mentioned Dalden’s mother to get her mind off what she was viewing. And much as she didn’t want to appear curious, she couldn’t let that “hatched” comment pass.

  “Are you going to try to convince me now that your Tedra isn’t human?”

  “Put the brakes on,” Martha said, injecting surprise in her tone. “Where’d you get that from?”

  “Your ‘hatched’ instead of born. Either you don’t know that ‘hatched’ implies a hard‑shelled egg, which I doubt, or you were being cute to confuse the issue.”

  A good bit of soft chuckling floated about Brittany. “Can’t deny I do have my ‘cute’ moments.” More chuckling. “But I was just calling it like it is in this case. Kystram are a species so far

  advanced that they long ago did away with natural childbirth as you know it.”

  “They couldn’t have. They’d be extinct, yet you don’t talk of them in the past tense.”

  “They did almost come to extinction during the Great Water Shortage many years ago. They lost most of their plant and animal life, but didn’t abandon the planet. They are one of many colony planets founded by the original Ancients more than two thousand years ago, so they got a lot of help from their sister planets. They adapted because of the shortage, created waterless baths, new food sources, oxygen, liquid, and with the bad comes the good. They now have the technology to populate barren, resource‑deprived planets. “

  “You get an A‑plus in distraction, Martha.”

  “Now who’s being cute? And I wasn’t avoiding the subject, merely supplying a little history. They’ve done away with natural childbirth for the simple reason that it’s painful and dangerous. It also isn’t selective breeding, and Kystrani prefer to cultivate intelligence that can better their way of life.”

  “But how?”

  “Give it a little thought,” Martha replied, “and your best guess

  would probably be right, since your own planet is starting to experiment in the same area.”

  “Cloning?”

  “Close. You call it artificial insemination. The Kystrani took that one step further
by eliminating the female from being the holding tank, using man‑made artificial wombs instead. Add to that worldwide birth control that’s not left to individual choice, but administered in all food and drink on the planet, and donors from only the most intelligent. The whole process is monitored by Population Control. The children are then raised in Child Centers, where they are tested to determine their best match for life careers.”

  “It sounds very‑cold.” “Tedra would agree with you. Child Centers teach everything a

  child needs, they just don’t supply what only a child’s parents could. Tedra had to go to Sha‑Ka’an for that missing ingredient.”

  “You’re talking about love, right?”

  “You betcha.”

  “Then you’re contradicting yourself,” Brittany was quick to point out. “Or didn’t you just try to convince me awhile ago that the Sha‑Ka’ani have their emotions mastered to near nonexistence?”

  “The males do, not the females,” Martha clarified. “But I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Warriors truly are convinced that they can’t love. Caring, yes, but not the deeper emotion of love. But my Tedra upset that notion all to hell with her lifemate, Challen. He loves her to pieces even though he tried to deny it to begin with. It was what she was missing in her life, so you don’t think that I would have let her stay there with him if he wasn’t going to supply it in big doses, do you? But she had to almost die before he owned up to it. So expect a lot of frustration if you’re going to try to make your warrior admit it.”

  “Thanks tons,” Brittany said. “Just what I needed to hear.”

  “Now, don’t get discouraged, doll. I like you. I’m not going to steer you wrong. And I’ve just given you a major advantage where your warrior is concerned: he might try to convince you that it’s impossible for warriors to love, but you now know that isn’t so. just don’t push it, would be my advice. He’s Tedra’s son, after all, which makes him quite a bit different from other Sha‑Ka’ani, so he’s likely to figure it out on his own, whereas most pure ShaKa’ani never do. Their own women don’t buck the way things are. It takes off‑worlders to stir things up and show them that ingrained beliefs aren’t always what’s real.”

  “So my role is to be teacher?”

  Martha laughed. “That’s a good one, and not even close. These men don’t take to learning new ways, they think their way is the best way. I said show, not teach, and I meant your lifemate, not the whole planet. Tedra has tried to change things there, with little luck. Believe me, she hates their rules and laws just as much as you

  will. But you’re stuck with them because their women don’t mind them‑yet. Your own people have followed the same path, subject to a male‑dominated society up until they finally got tired of being treated like children and did something to change it. ShaKa’ani women just haven’t reached that point yet.”

  “Talking to you, Martha, can be really depressing. God, I’m glad none of this is really real.”

  Martha sighed. “If it’s any consolation, Tedra has been very happy with her warrior all these years. She wouldn’t want to live anywhere but with him.”

  “In other words, she got converted to their ways rather than them learning from hers.”

  “No way. She just knows when to ignore things she can’t change‑and help where she can. She’s gotten quite a few of their women off‑planet and living where they can feel useful and needed.”

  44 Which is the wrong thing to do. It takes dissatisfaction to want change. If she’s shipping off the ones who aren’t happy there, nothing will ever get changed.”

  Martha was back to chuckling. “I know that, and obviously you know that, but my Tedra needs to feel that she’s doing something for those people, so we aren’t going to point that out to her.”

  “To coin a phrase of yours, wanna bet?”

  “So you’re going to stir the pot?”

  “You could always return me to my home instead,” Brittany suggested.

  Martha chuckled. “Blackmail?”

  “Bargaining.”

  “You keep forgetting that you’re dealing with a computer who can tell you exactly the end of that scenario. I send you home, I even take Dalden back to Sha‑Ka’an without you, since there’s no choice in the matter of who flies this ship. But then we have one very angry warrior, and one very angry Challen who will agree I overstepped my bounds. So I probably get unplugged, and Dalden gets another ship and comes to collect you, because there is no

  getting away from your lifemate. So at the most you’ve saved yourself from this horrid new life you’re imagining for six months, then get taken to Sha‑Ka’an anyway, but with an angry lifemate rather than one who is presently going to go out of his way to please you. Now I ask you, which option is going to be more to your benefit?”

  “Oh, shut up and go away.”

  “I can’t go away. The best I can do is offer silence. But then you’ll just sit there and brood about everything you don’t believe, and since arguing with me is more healthy than brooding, guess which you get?”

  “I’m not Tedra, ” Brittany nearly snarled. “I’m not your responsibility.”

  ” ‘Course you are. When Dalden made you his lifemate you became part of Tedra’s family, and I think we’ve already covered this ground. Her family, every member of it, falls into my sphere of responsibility. She’s a very caring woman. She gets upset when her personal people aren’t happy. She feels their pain.”

  “So who gets priority when two of her ‘people’ are unhappy with each other?”

  “Priority is given to the best‑choice conclusion with all variables involved,” Martha replied. “That may mean someone will have to bend a little, but compromise is necessary in many disagreements.”

  “Why do I get the feeling that I’ll be the someone who has to bend?”

  “Not even close, doll. I’ve known Dalden all his life and you not even a week, but keep in mind I said best‑choice conclusion. Dalden has been due for some bending. He strives to follow, only the one path, ignoring half of his nature. This has caused him a lot of unnecessary grief that I’d like to see end. He’ll be happier with himself, with who he is, once he accepts that he’s not just a ShaKa’ani warrior.”

  Chapter Thirty‑four

  BRITTANY DID GET TO BROOD SOME, FOR ALL OF TEN minutes. That was about all she could stomach of trying

  to assimilate all the fantastical information Martha had thrown at her. There was simply too much of it, too many

  bizarre inventions, too many advanced concepts mixed in with the barbaric. And even that didn’t make sense. If there

  were such advanced, godlike worlds such as Morrilia, why weren’t they educating the primitive worlds? Why leave

  them to struggle in ignorance?

  But none of it was true. Whoever had designed this program she’d been unlucky enough to get picked for had a really strange imagination. Or maybe it was just Martha, instructed to improvise as needed, who had the overactive imagination. And where did that leave her? Imprisoned on this so‑called ship for nearly three months? Then what? Taken to some remote area that they had set up to convince her she was on another planet?

  Somehow she doubted they planned to invest three full months on just one test subject. There was probably a time limit, a couple of weeks, a month at the most, to either convince her or admit it was all a farce and send her home‑without Dalden.

  Her heart constricted. He was one of them, part of the program. Work on the heart as well as the mind? God, she hoped not. She’d rather think their involvement hadn’t been counted on, that at least that part of it was real.

  But she still wasn’t going to get to keep him when this was over. And she had to decide whether to cut that string to her heart now, before it got any stronger‑or enjoy him while she had him. But hadn’t she already decided to savor their time left, to stockpile the memories, anticipating that their time together would end? Of course, that was a decision made before their p
rogram went into full gear.

  “Where is Dalden?”

  “Done brooding already?” was Martha’s reply.

  Brittany sighed. “Tired of the headache already. Where’s Dalden?”

  “He’s calmly assumed the role of ambassador and is presently explaining to Jorran why his demands aren’t going to be met. I’m amazed he hasn’t lost patience yet. Jorran’s overwhelming arrogance is hard to stomach by any species.”

  “I suppose you’ve been listening in on them?” Brittany remarked.

  “I’m capable of following and participating in every conversation going on in this ship at any given moment,” Martha boasted. “Computers aren’t single‑tasked like you humans, you know.”

  Brittany allowed herself a satisfying snort before suggesting, “How about directing me to him? I’d prefer not to stay‑here.”

  “These warriors aren’t going to bother you, doll.” Martha went back to reading minds. “You’re off‑limits to them because they know who you belong to.”

  “I don’t belong to anyone. Must you make it sound like slavery?” And then the thought struck her. “Is there slavery there?”

  “Yes, in a few of the more distant countries. But before you go getting bent out of shape over that, kindly remember that there’s still slavery in some of the far corners of your own world, and it was widely accepted just a couple of hundred years ago in your own country.”

  Brittany thumped her head mentally for even asking. Barbaric in the eyes of “most of the universe” would of course include things like slavery. A logical deduction. And much easier to convince the nonbeliever if the tall tale followed a logical path.

  But Brittany proved just how single‑minded humans were by repeating, “Directions? Or is there some reason I must stay here?”

  “Out the door and right to the lift at the end of the hall. It’s voice activated‑or controlled by me.” And then a chuckle. “Dalden doesn’t even know that. He just assumes it’s always going to take him exactly where he wants to go in the ship, because I always know where he wants to go and control it for him.”