Afterburn

by S. L. Viehl

  One of the bigger males came toward him. I don’t believe you. I challenge you.

  Burn swam at him so swiftly that the other male was flipped head over flukes before he could blink. The big ’Zangian used his tail to knock into the male a second time before he backed away. He then turned and looked at the others. If you think I won’t kill for her, think again.

  His flat warning wiped the excitement from the faces of the other males, whose circle around Liana gradually widened.

  Burn came back to her. You have to leave now. Don’t swim fast, and don’t go back to the caverns. Go anywhere but the caverns.

  I’m not leaving you to fight them alone.

  They won’t challenge me. He gave the other males a contemptuous look. You’ll be safe. I’ll be right behind you.

  She didn’t want to be safe. What happens if I go back to the caverns?

  You can’t go there, not until we both calm down. The wildness in his eyes matched how she felt. The caverns are where we mate. If you go there, and I catch you, I’ll take you.

  Liana glided against him. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Just like them.

  Yes. No. Don’t touch me. He looked angry now. I can’t help it. Swim somewhere else. Anywhere else.

  I don’t want to swim anywhere else. Liana backed away from him. Let’s see how fast you are, ’Zangian. She turned and shot off with the current toward the breeding caverns.

  Burn knew there was trouble as soon as he came back from the feeding grounds with his dam, and males started streaking past them without even bothering to acknowledge them.

  You see how they treat us, Znora said. She had been complaining, as usual, about everything the other ’Zangians did or didn’t do. We could be exiled rogues for all the attention we are given. Byorn, if I am ever to recover our proper positions within the pod, you must abandon this military nonsense and stay home.

  I’ve been staying home. Burn turned around and tracked the ’Zangians, who were all swimming in one direction. The odd thing was, they were all male. Why are they doing that?

  Znora looked and immediately blocked his view with her body. Never mind. Let us go down the coast. I feel in need of a long swim.

  You hate going on long swims. He moved around her to have another look. Where is everyone going?

  You are too young to see males making fools of themselves like this. Znora gave him an annoyed, maternal nip. Come along now.

  Burn had never hurt his mother in his life, but he was seriously tempted to return the favor. Tell me what they’re doing or I’ll go find out for myself.

  It is a breeding frenzy. Males do that when a female flaunts herself too much. Znora finned her contempt. Now that off-worlder female will take a ’Zangian pup with her back to her world.

  Off-worlder?

  Burn shot around his mother and followed the stream of males. He ignored her command to return and searched the seascape until he saw something like a black-streaked rainbow darting through the throng of males.

  Liana.

  Burn had never seen ’Zangian males behave in such a strange way, but he knew immediately why they were swarming around Liana. The way she swam was unbearably erotic, as was the scent she was spilling into the water.

  Seeing the other males pursuing her as if she were nothing but food infuriated him. It took every ounce of his already shaky self-control not to ram through the pod and knock away every male in his path.

  He tried to be patient as he dealt with the other males and Liana. He held them off as he told the young Ylydii how to extricate herself from the situation, and warned her of what not to do. He was forced to admit how close he was to losing control over her, so that she would understand how precarious her situation was. After all, she was Ylydii, she didn’t understand how dangerous the situation was.

  Now the brainless female was swimming straight for the breeding caverns. Swimming fast and sure, arrogant in her confidence, as if he were nothing more than one of her cringing Ylydii males, waiting for her to issue orders for him to scratch her hide or lick her flukes.

  I don’t cringe, and I don’t take orders.

  He fought the instinctive urges long enough to keep the other males from chasing her, but they had mostly dispersed now. There was nothing to keep him here, nothing to prevent him from going after her. I warned her. She knows full well what will happen if she swims that way.

  His muscles knotted as he fought against turning, tried not to fill his head with her scent. She was halfway to the caverns now, but not far enough away. If she disappeared from his sight, the terrible urges would ease. He could go back to guarding her, and there would be nothing between them, and she would be safe.

  I don’t want to swim anywhere else.

  That had been one of her taunts, hadn’t it? If the Lady Liana wanted a chase, he’d give her one.

  Burn surged into the current. Going after her didn’t make his blood cool or his head clear; if anything, the clenching need inside him grew worse. Logical thought was impossible; his mind was too busy sorting out her scent from the others in the current and telling him how to adjust to match her direction. His body was cutting through the water and throbbing with heavy need. Then nothing else mattered but getting to her and having her, filling her with his seed and planting his pup in her body.

  Liana glanced back over her shoulder, spotted him, and switched currents, riding a faster, heavier water stream to the caverns. Burn made the same jump and cut the distance between them in half, then in half again.

  Three hundred more meters and he would have her.

  Liana didn’t enter the part of the breeding caverns the Ylydii had been occupying. She didn’t enter the caverns at all, but swam above them only a scant few inches above the sharp rock domes. It confused Burn at first—when he caught her, he needed privacy and a rock shelf—but then he remembered that she couldn’t breathe out of water as he did.

  That’s fine with me. He increased his speed.

  Burn caught up with her at the far end of the caverns, and swam over her before he clamped his teeth on the back of her neck and tried to wrap his fins around her to turn her to face him.

  Liana reversed direction, sliding out from under him and slashing at him with her veiled fins. They prickled his skin, but the stinging sensation sizzled through him with a peculiar intensity.

  Burn hovered, watching her, waiting for her to lower her fins and her guard. That’s how fast I am.

  So you are. She swam down and entered one of the wider caverns.

  He followed her in. He wished he could haul her up to the surface and prop her on the rock shelf so that he could penetrate her, but he’d have to find another way to join with her. Do it again.

  Liana whipped around to face Burn. What did you say?

  That slapping thing you just did with your fins. He used his bulk and weight to propel her to the side of the cave. Do it again.

  Anger, and something else, glittered in her eyes, which now had an eerie green cast to them. I meant to hurt you, you idiot male.

  I know. I liked it. He nuzzled her neck. Do it again.

  Liana unfurled the veils of her fins and displayed barbs like those the little males had. The only difference was that hers were three times larger. I won’t hold back this time.

  He strummed a harsh laugh. Who asked you to?

  Liana sank her small barbs into his chest and shoulders. The sting was hotter and deeper this time, but no less arousing. He kept her pinned against the rock so he could properly position their lower bodies. Her slit was as swollen as he was, and her folds had opened to him.

  He looked into her eyes. Again.

  The third time she used her barbs, it excited him so much that he penetrated her, and she released the sound that he had only heard once before, on the Ylydii vessel when he had gone in to rescue her. He didn’t know what it was, but it reached down into his bones and pulled something deep and nameless out of him. He moved with it, drawing another, more basic sound from her
.

  When Burn was sure she was feeling only pleasure, he eased her away from the wall and rolled onto his back.

  Liana dug her barbs into his chest before she retracted them. I’m not hurting you.

  Not in the way you think. He used his fins to guide the movement of her lower body. She fit to him like skin, so tight that he could not flex or curl himself inside her sheath. I like how it feels. And that sound you make. Make it again.

  This? She filled the water with her song, and then wrapped her veils around him.

  The song made Burn’s flukes curl, and the permeating fire of her barbs drove him out of his head. He was rolling with her, driving his body into hers, and nothing could feel this good, this satisfying. She was trembling, her barbs locked in his hide now, and he could feel her pleasure squeezing his shaft in the same rhythm as her song.

  Yet beyond the pleasure was something else—a primal need to fill her and know that her belly would swell and that they would create something beautiful together. That need was as fierce as her barbs and as inflexible as their joining, but it could not be his alone. This child would be of two hearts, but also of two species and two worlds.

  Liana. He repeated her name until she lifted her face from his chest. Will we make a child together?

  I think . . . yes, we will.

  Will you stay with me? Will you love our child? Will you live for our child?

  Her eyes darkened, the green glow fading a little. I will try, Burn.

  Burn buried himself inside her and felt the rush of his seed, eager to pour into her womb. He held back somehow, instinctively waiting to hear her song peak and fragment over her pleasure. Her womb contracted, drawing him in deeper, and then release slammed into him and took him to the place only they could find together.

  While Onkar wandered around the wrill island, Dair watched with Teresa at the water’s edge, where the infant ’shrike swam in a circle. “It’s not possible. They can’t communicate. Why should they? They eat everything they could ever talk to.”

  As if to prove her wrong, the ’shrike breached the surface and pulsed again before dropping back down.

  “I think you’ve got an argument on your hands here, honey.” Teresa dropped down on the shells and rested her head against her knees. “So do I.”

  “Mom?”

  “I’m all right. It’s a lot to take in all at once.” She stared blindly at the mogshrike, who was hovering just below the surface and watching her. “You used to look at me like that, you know? Through the walls of the treatment tank, when you were at the FreeClinic.”

  “Jadaira.” Onkar drew her away from her stepmother and across the shell island until they were out of Teresa’s hearing. “There are some very serious matters to contend with here.”

  “Yeah, I know.” She glanced back at Teresa. “I think I’m about to get an adopted baby brother ’shrike.”

  “It is not just the ’shrike. It is the island itself.” He nodded toward the hole he had dug. “There are not only ’Zangian bodies buried beneath the shells.”

  “What else is there?”

  “From the smell, larger aquatics and more ’shrikes. I’ve uncovered parts from at least fifty individuals and I’ve barely begun digging.”

  “What killed them? The mother ’shrike?”

  “No.” Her mate glanced at Teresa before he resorted to baelaena. “The body parts are cut up, not torn, and they were skillfully dismembered and skinned with a bladed weapon. It is possible that is how they were killed, as well.”

  “Who would chop them up? Why?”

  “Judging by the decomposition, they were all killed within the last five to seven rotations. There is another thing. The parts of them that are left are those that would be considered inedible by humanoids who consume flesh.”

  Dair felt sick. “The Ninrana.”

  “Urloy-ka and his entourage may have killed them. This would be a logical place to hide bodies one did not wish recovered,” Onkar said. “Wrill moltings attract many carrion eaters. In another week or two, the body parts would have been completely devoured.”

  And the evidence of the crime equally obliterated. Dair loved the sea, but for once the quick way it cleaned up after predators seemed ghastly. “Why would they kill so many?”

  “I do not know.” The sound of a launch approaching made Onkar look out at the sea. “Say nothing of this to Captain Argate.”

  Noel Argate was standing in the inflatable and waving an arm toward Teresa, who was still sitting and watching the infant ’shrike. Dair’s gaze shifted to one side of the launch, and a very familiar dark silhouette beneath the surface streaking directly at the launch.

  “Onkar, that’s my father out there. Duo, he’s going to ram the boat.” She began to run for the water’s edge.

  “Jadaira, no! The ’shrike!”

  Dair skidded to a halt at the end of the shells. The baby ’shrike seemed enthralled with Teresa, but it was a born killer, nearly as long as Dair in the water and with five times as many teeth. In a fight, she would lose, and she had to think of the pup in her belly.

  “Argate!” She shouted. “Incoming!”

  The captain was too far away to hear her, and then it was too late. Dairatha plowed into the launch, knocking the Terran over and into the water.

  Teresa jumped to her feet and shrieked. “Dairatha, no!”

  Dair’s blood froze as the baby ’shrike casually swung around to look in the direction of the splash. Her heart nearly stopped when Onkar dove into the water in a smooth, dark blur of motion.

  It all happened so fast there was hardly any time to think. Onkar went first to the Terran, who was struggling to tread water, and flipped him onto his back. Argate clutched at his dorsal fin while the big male turned and headed off Dairatha, who had been moving at high speed toward Teresa on the wrill island. The males bumped heads and shoulders, until Onkar’s rapid orders seemed to galvanize Dairatha into action.

  Dair’s father didn’t run away from the ’shrike, however. He headed straight for it, his body tense and ready to attack.

  Dair saw Teresa’s expression and caught her breath as she guessed her thoughts. “No, please, Mom. Don’t do it.”

  Teresa dove into the water and resurfaced, and then calmly swam into a position that placed her between the baby ’shrike and her mate.

  Dairatha came to an abrupt stop and breached the surface. “Get out of the water, you stupid woman!” he roared.

  “I delivered this baby, and I’m not letting you kill it,” Teresa said. “Go away from here, Dairatha. You’ve done enough harm for one day.” She turned back to look at Dair. “You stay right there and protect my grandchild.”

  Everyone, including Teresa, froze as the baby ’shrike moved slowly forward in the water. It didn’t swim with the silent grace of its species, but with the slightly jerky hesitation of a ’Zangian newborn. When it was close enough to touch Teresa, who was treading water as quietly as she could, it lifted its head toward her belly.

  Dair expected to see her stepmother’s insides spill out and color the water scarlet. She did not expect to see an infant mogshrike nuzzle her with its snout like an affection-hungry pup.

  “It’s all right,” Teresa breathed. Carefully she lifted a hand and stroked the top of the ’shrike’s head. “This is like petting sandpaper. Spiny sandpaper.” It rolled in the water and presented her with its smoother belly. “Do I scratch the belly of a mogshrike? Well, I petted it on the head and I still have a hand.” She used her fingernails to scratch between the shorter belly spines.

  “Get away from that thing,” Dairatha hissed, but even his recessed eyes were wide with disbelief.

  The baby ’shrike rolled back over, turned toward the big ’Zangian, and released a louder, deeper pulse than it had before.

  Dair blinked. “Did that thing just tell my father to back off?”

  “I think we should give it a name. Now what do you call something that turns your life upside down and makes you do
things you never thought you’d have to?” Teresa was back to petting its head. “Charley. Frances. Ivan. Jeanne. Or maybe I should wait until I find out what gender it is.”

  Another hissing sound startled Dair, but this time the ’shrike breached and screamed out a pulse, splashing and terrorizing Teresa before it sank below the surface and went limp in the water. Dair squinted to see the red tag of a tranquilizer dart sticking up by its dorsal fin. She followed the direction of the sound and saw the corresponding dart gun in Noel Argate’s hand.

  “Would you warn me the next time you do that?” Teresa shouted, putting her arms around the baby ’shrike to keep it from sinking to the bottom. She pulled her arms back with a grimace, and the unconscious ’shrike floated up to the surface. “What do you know. It can float, which means it has an air bladder.”

  “ ’Shrikes can’t float.” Yet there it was, drifting as if being rocked to sleep by the surface waves.

  “If your mate will stop trying to kill me,” Argate said, his voice strained, “we should get this thing back to the Briggs and contained before it regains consciousness.”

  Dair looked out to where her father had been, but the big ’Zangian had vanished.

  CHAPTER 17

  “I promise you, I know what I am doing,” Paal told Moleon as they approached the quarantined area of the barax hive. His excitement was making it hard to stay on two legs. “You see, when I approached them before, I gave tones of command, as always. If our barax have evolved through contact with the Core, as Chemist T’Kaf and Dr. Mayer believe, then I must converse with them. It is a completely different tone, one I use when I sculpt with them.”

  The Skartesh hunter adjusted his quiver. “As you say. I say, if they begin to swarm and bite us as they did before, we are leaving.”

  The Hlagg sculptor grinned up at his taciturn friend. He had learned that such gruff threats were Moleon’s manner of expressing care, and they always delighted and amused him. “You will see that I am right about this.”

  The barax hive had taken on new dimensions since the last time Paal and Moleon had paid a visit to it. Large and complex silvery-white mound structures rose from what appeared to be a sinkhole in the ground. Thousands of dark green barax clung to the mounds, which they were actively sculpting into stranger and more bizarre shapes as they built them up.