Afterburn

by S. L. Viehl

  “I don’t trust him, but I need his resources.” She patted the big female’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. He won’t be here forever.”

  The N-jui gave her a long, silent look, and then nodded and turned her attention to the console.

  Teresa rarely spent any time alone with Dairatha anymore. Privacy was basically impossible underwater, unless they went to the breeding caverns, and even there they could only play for a short time before she tired and had to return to the URD. She also didn’t think going to the caverns was fair to her mate, who could no longer enjoy her as he would a female of his own kind. Thus, when it came time to tell Dairatha about her plan to work with Noel Argate and the military, Teresa thought it best to do so in private.

  Her immersion tank was too small to accommodate him comfortably anymore, and transporting him to her land dwelling had become a major production involving evac equipment and other people, so she asked him to meet her in the study tank at the Burantee Point station. It fed directly into the ocean, so there was no need for him to leave the water, and she could stay on deck and not have to try to communicate while wearing a breathing rig.

  Teresa had helped build the surface research lab at Burantee Point when she first came to K-2, but it was rarely used these days. The URD offered better equipment and an undeniably superior environment to conduct research. She wasn’t at all surprised to find the lab unoccupied when she arrived and went down to tank level.

  Her mate was already there, waiting for her.

  “We should have the tank at your dwelling enlarged,” Dairatha said as he began circling the upper level of the tank. “Then I could spend the night with you again.”

  “Even spending the night means I sleep on one side of the wall, and you on the other.” Teresa sat down and dangled her legs into the water. The idle movement reminded her too much of Noel Argate doing the same thing, so she pulled her feet up and tucked an arm around her knees. “You know that if I could grow gills, I would, love. I hate being separated from you like this.”

  “You are always with me inside,” he assured her, coming over to nuzzle her toes briefly before backing away. “Now, what is so important that you must bring me all the way in here to discuss it?”

  Guessing he might react negatively to the idea, Teresa had rehearsed everything at least twice at home. She told him first about the increased number of ’shrike sightings, and how concerned she and the other scientists were for the safety of the ’Zangian pods. She explained how blue whales had been captured on Terra in natural inlets, and how studying giant aquatics often led to amazing breakthroughs in behavior tracking and understanding. Once she had presented him with those facts, she mentioned Noel Argate, his expertise, and how she planned to use him and his military resources to find an answer to the ’shrike problem.

  “Yes, yes,” Dairatha said as she paused for breath. “This is all very scientific, but what has it to do with me? Do you require assistance in the water with whatever experiment you are conducting?”

  “Not this time.” She couldn’t keep sidestepping the issue. “Dairatha, we intend to lure a mogshrike to an inlet north of here and capture it alive so that we can study it.”

  He stared at her, his big form going completely still in the water, and then he released a strum of laughter. “My haffets must be clogged with choke-weed, or that was the most tasteless attempt at humor you have ever made.”

  This was not going the way she had hoped. “You heard me fine, and I’m not joking. We’re going to catch a living ’shrike. We have to, love. It’s the only way to know why their habits are changing.”

  He bared his teeth. “Find another way.”

  “A live specimen would—”

  “No.” His hide flushed with dark color, and he rose so far out of the water that Teresa thought he might full breach. “I forbid it.”

  It was instinct. She was talking about the only thing on the planet that could kill his kind. Naturally he was upset. “I assure you, Dairatha, we will take every precaution and safeguard to insure no one is hurt. Once we have it secured—”

  “Do you know what you say?”

  Teresa clapped her hands over her ears. “Stop shouting at me.” ’Zangians never used full vocal power above water, and for good reason. “We can’t discuss this if you get angry; my eardrums will burst.”

  “There is no discussion of this.”

  She eased her hands down and gave him an exasperated look. “Of course we’ll discuss it. We discuss everything—”

  Her mate’s massive head slammed into the side of the study tank, so hard that Teresa was knocked backward. Before she could right herself, a heavy fin dragged her back to the edge of the tank so that her face was an inch from her mate’s furious eyes.

  “No discussion.”

  She had never seen him like this, and it was terrifying. “Dairatha, for God’s sake, please—”

  “You will be silent now, Teresa, and you will be the one who listens.” Blood spurted from a split along the edge of Dairatha’s mouth, but he didn’t seem to notice the wound he had inflicted on himself. “I have curled myself like an oversize wrill, working myself around your humanoid ways. You said it would hurt you if I mated with another, so there have been no females but you. You said you could have no pup of mine, and I accepted that. You said my only child would benefit from leaving the pod to live among the land-dwellers and protect them with their star vessels, and I let her go. Even now, when I have grown too old and large for you to be a proper mate to me, I remain exclusive to you. I have done all you have ever asked of me, whatever it cost me with my own kind.” He jerked her closer. “Have I not?”

  She nodded, too frightened to speak.

  “This I have done out of love for you, and it is a deep and abiding love.” He pulled her close, his grip not hurting her now, but pressing her to him as if she were as precious as life itself. “Duo, Teresa, we have let nothing come between us. Not the water or air we breathe. I know you have sacrificed as much to be with me. The love you feel, I know it is as strong as mine.”

  “It is.” Her hands shook as she lifted them to his face. “I swear to you, it is.”

  He set her back to look into her eyes. “I hope that you mean what you say, for this time it must be my way, not yours. You will not lure a mogshrike to shore. You will not try to capture one alive, here or anywhere, at any time. You will not allow others to attempt it.”

  Teresa folded her arms across her waist. “You don’t understand what I’m trying to do. You think I’m putting everyone in danger. It won’t be like that.”

  “I do not care what it will be like. It will not happen. You will not do this thing, Teresa.”

  “Fine.” She threw out her hands. “You’re not asking much, are you? Just stand by, Teresa, and let the ’shrikes keep coming. Maybe I can record it on vid and relay it to other League worlds. Everyone can watch the ’Zangian species become extinct via live relay.”

  “If we are to die, then we will die defending our way of life, in our water. It is none of your business, Teresa.”

  “But I love you.” If he had used his teeth on her, it wouldn’t hurt as much as what he had just said. Anger surged inside her. “Damn it, Dairatha, this isn’t just about you and me. It can’t be about us. I’m trying to save all of you.”

  He looked ready to ram the side of the tank again, and then he swam away, circling several times so swiftly that the surface of the water turned white with froth.

  “I would do anything for you,” Teresa said, knowing he could still hear her. “Anything but let you die.”

  Slowly he approached her, and lumbered out of the pool. She tried to stop him—it was dangerous for him to do so—but he would not be moved.

  “What are you doing? Get back in the water.”

  Dairatha picked her up with his fins and lifted her four feet off the deck so that they were at eye level. “Tell me you will not do this thing. Say it. Now.”

  She could have said no,
she wouldn’t, and that would have been the end of it. By tomorrow, Dairatha would have forgotten all about it. But his life, and the lives of the other ’Zangians, were depending on her answer. That was the only thing she considered greater than her love for him: the future of the ’Zangian species.

  “I can’t. I love you, but I have to do this.”

  His great dark eyes clouded for a moment as he stared at her. It was as if he no longer recognized her. Then, very carefully, he set her back down on her feet and pulled his fins away from her. “You are no longer my mate.”

  Dairatha dove from the deck into the tank and disappeared.

  Teresa didn’t know how long she stood there, staring into the empty tank. Of all the reactions she had expected from him—annoyance, anger, even outrage—this had not been part of it. They had pledged themselves to each other so long ago she couldn’t remember what it felt like not to be mated to Dairatha.

  It feels like this.

  At some point a pair of gentle hands turned her around, and an insistent arm made her walk away from the tank. She moved like a drone; jerky, cold, unfeeling. Uncaring.

  You are no longer my mate.

  There was a change of light, and sound, and something fragrant and warm was put to her lips. She drank and swallowed tasting nothing, seeing nothing, hearing the distant murmur of a voice but not making out the words. She couldn’t hear anything but his voice, and his words.

  You are no longer my mate. No longer. No longer.

  The clinical, scientist part of her psyche split off to one side and tried to reason it out. Had she really ever been Dairatha’s mate? Everything between them had been a series of adjustments or compromises. If she set aside her emotions, it was clear that he would be better off with someone else.

  Someone not like Teresa, who was no longer his mate.

  A mature ’Zangian, like Kyara, Dair’s biological mother, or one of the younger females, would make Dairatha much happier. He could certainly help himself to anyone he wanted now. Another ’Zangian could give him the kind of companionship Teresa never had. He didn’t have to restrict himself to monogamy anymore; a pod female would never expect that of him. Dairatha might chase down more than one in the breeding caverns and, in a few seasons, give Dair five or six new siblings to love.

  He didn’t need a mate like Teresa, who couldn’t breathe water, or make love with him, or give him a child of her own body.

  “Teresa.”

  Teresa, who had just refused his only request in the ten years they had been together.

  “Terri.”

  Something was brushing the hair away from her face, and something else held her close to another body. She looked up into eyes that weren’t as big as her fist or the color of the sky before moonsrise. These eyes were smaller and lighter and much more familiar. Terran eyes.

  Noel Argate’s eyes.

  “I heard what he said,” Noel told her. He looked how she felt: old and tired. “Terri, I . . . I don’t know what to say. I am so sorry.”

  She rested her cheek against his shoulder and tried to feel something, anything beyond this wrenching, tearing agony that was going to kill her, kill her slowly, so slowly, chewing her to pieces.

  And I fed myself to this mogshrike. “So am I, Noel.”

  The battle was over, and patchy communications were established with the Ylydii diplomatic vessel. Shon volunteered to fly escort for Burn back to K-2, while Onkar and the patrol stayed behind to collect the survivors from the mercenary ships.

  “I’m reading weak life signs coming from two of the derelicts,” Onkar told the medical crew. “We’re sending in the transpods first to check for hostiles and traps.”

  “Make it fazt, Zubcommander,” Dr. Dloh advised him. “From the zignz, those beingz don’t have long to live.”

  The armed gunners docked with the mercenary ships, and soon reported back that it was safe for the medical crew to board and perform triage on the wounded.

  “I don’t think they’ll like this, Subcommander,” one of the gunners transmitted. “They’re all dying.”

  Dr. Dloh, who also monitored the incoming relays, broke in with, “We’ll determine that, if you don’t mind, pleaze.”

  Onkar sent Curonal in with the medical crew to evaluate the situation. The gunner reported back in a few minutes, but his transmission was equally dismal. “The medics are doing what they can, but the wounded are not responding. Something is wrong with them.”

  Onkar had encountered many ways to die. “Are they self-terminating?”

  “The doctor says they might be sick with something; that they were sick when they were fighting us.”

  Onkar instituted contagion-control procedures. By the time the wounded were transported back onto Rescue Three, all but one had expired. Dloh did his best to keep the sole survivor alive, but the mercenary refused to cooperate. He subsequently sank into a coma and died en route to K-2.

  Dloh came up to the helm to report. “I’ve run multiple blood zcanz on all of them. Theze men have zerious gaztric and lymphatic damage, and it could be pozzible that they’re ztill carrying a contagiouz pathogen.”

  After landing back at K-2 Main Transport and passing through a thorough biodecon, Onkar left the helm and watched as the bodies were unloaded from Rescue Three’s modified cargo bay and onto morgue transports. Engineering Chief Verrig joined him.

  “If they were all sick, why would these men not seek help for their condition?” It was, according to Dair, what humanoids did when they discovered they were ill or in danger of dying.

  “I can’t say, but the ship is on full quarantine until we identify the source,” Verrig promised. “I’ll download the computer databases that are recovered from the battlefield; see what was happening on board in the days before the attack. Would they have attacked the Ylydii ship for medical stores?”

  “If they did, they killed the entire crew looking for them.” Burn joined them and waved a fin back toward the diplomatic vessel. “I have more bodies than you can count floating around in there.”

  “Where are the Ylydii survivors?”

  “Over at the medical facility. They evacuated them first; took them out in emergency tanks.”

  Onkar noted the long gash across the younger male’s face and the change in his eyes. Burn looked as if he had come back from a long swim through the outer currents. “Did you notice if the mercenaries on board the Ylydii ship were sick?”

  “I don’t know.” Burn’s gaze followed the evac unit transporting the Ylydii to the colony’s FreeClinic. “I killed them all before I could check out how they were feeling.”

  So he had blooded himself thoroughly, Onkar thought. That explained the wound, and this new remoteness. “Was it necessary?”

  “Yes, it was. And no, it wasn’t.” Burn hesitated, and then looked at him. “You were right, Onkar. It was not like firing on another ship. I heard them, and saw them. I could taste their blood. I felt them die.”

  “You will carry it with you for a time,” Onkar told him quietly. “Learn from it.”

  “Learn what?” Burn demanded. “That I enjoy killing, but only from a distance? That one mistake costs a hundred lives?”

  Jadaira hurried out from the Flight Control tower and launched herself at Onkar. He caught her and held her close for a moment before looking over her head at Burn. The subject of killing was not to be discussed in front of Jadaira. The younger male nodded in mute understanding.

  “If you ever fly at another ship like that again,” she began saying, and then shook her head and buried her face against the front of his flightsuit.

  Onkar held her close and said nothing. She knew he would fly the maneuver again, just as she would once she was back in space, and he remained on the ground to watch and worry and fear for her.

  “We knew what we were doing, Dair,” Burn said. “Onkar and I both mastered that maneuver long ago.”

  “I should slap you both with a regs violation. I think I will, as soon as I think
of one.” Jadaira glanced at him and then whirled out of Onkar’s arms to touch her cousin’s face. “What happened—Burn, this is a blade wound.”

  He started to say something and then shrugged. “You should see the other male.”

  She glowered for a moment and then blew some air through her gill vents. “You’ll be able to see the scar from a mile away.”

  Verrig tapped Burn on the shoulder. “A signal came in for you, Sublieutenant. You’re wanted over at the FreeClinic. You two as well,” he said to Onkar and Jadaira. “Report to the immersion tank room at the aquatic treatment center.”

  Onkar was tired, and hungry, and wanted nothing more than to take his mate and go home. He was also deeply concerned about Burn, who needed time to adjust to what he had done in space. “Can it not wait?”

  “It’s probably the Ylydii ambassador,” Burn said, shuffling his flukes. “Cara-something. She said some things when she broke down the door to the helm and found me with her daughter.”

  “Like what?” Jadaira demanded.

  “Some things about me.” The younger male sounded glum. “Using another blade on me. And something about prison.”

  The three ’Zangians rode over to the FreeClinic with one of the evac transports. They were met outside the aquatic treatment center by the slim blond Terran administrator.

  “Ana.” Jadaira exchanged greeting with her stepmother’s friend. “Did you summon us?”

  “Yes. I thought it best, considering how upset Ambassador Carada is.” She glanced at Burn. “Sublieutenant, I have to ask you not to make any remarks during this meeting. You either, Subcommander. You won’t be addressed by the ambassador anyway, so please allow Jadaira and me to handle this.”

  “Why won’t she speak to us?” Onkar asked.

  “Ambassador Carada has very high rank among her species.” Ana rolled her eyes. “I have been informed that Ylydii females of her position do not speak directly to males.”

  “Her daughter does,” Burn put in helpfully.

  “Yes, the daughter.” Ana grimaced. “I think that Lady Liana may be at the center of this. Please, come with me.”