by Laura Kaighn
With a steel stomach of determination, he must ask Tolianksalya to reconsider his request. Inwardly Vesarius recoiled. Capriciousness was not a Vesar trait. He must make it seem a change of mind rather than of heart.
* * *
“You petition to reinstate the Vwafar´ee?” Tolianksalya bellowed. The ambassador’s spine was a solid mahogany plank. “What changed your mind, Commander? Surely not my mockery of your honor.”
“No, Vesarius,” Tankawankanyi stuttered. He held his fists tightly against his thighs. “I have reconsidered your intentions and found them true. Only Vwafar´ee is worthy of my crime. I accept the responsibility of it, as does my mate.”
“Then you still desire to be bonded, following the ordeal?”
With a solemn nod and squared shoulders, Vesarius agreed. “As per Vesar custom, I have free choice as a citizen to bond with my mate.”
There was a grudging admiration in the ambassador’s eyes for a split second. “Perhaps you are ready to rejoin society. But you speak as though you have already survived Vwafar´ee. You are that certain of your skills?”
Tilting his head, Vesarius had to admit, “I am certain only of my mate’s and my determination, Ambassador. She is as stubborn as I.”
“She will have to be,” Tolianksalya retorted with a grunt. “I must meet this woman. You have consulted with her. She is onboard?”
“No, Ambassador. The decision is mine alone. She has always been committed to this. Only I hesitated in risking her life. She has ... shown me otherwise.”
With a raised brow, the ambassador smirked devilishly. “A powerful woman indeed. Perhaps you are not worthy of her, Commander. You hesitated. She did not.”
Drawing his lips into a silencing purse, Vesarius refused to contradict the ambassador’s accusation. Only he knew of Dorinda’s frailties, her peril at what lay ahead. Together, she had said. They must do this together, or they would fail. “Do you reject my request, Ambassador?”
“No,” Tolianksalya huffed turning his back for a moment before pacing back to his nephew. “Not at all. You have piqued my interest, Commander. If you are successful, I will again have kin. And you will have a new family name. The Tankawankanyi line will be extinct.” The ambassador cocked his raven head, his dark fists again atop his caped hips. “From what family is this woman?”
Vesarius blinked. Was Tolianksalya mocking him again? How could he avoid the ambassador’s direct question? “Hers is an off-world family line. I do not know her history. You will undoubtedly have a chance to ask her at the bonding ceremony yourself.”
Tolianksalya’s chuckle was like distant thunder. “No doubt, indeed.” He growled with mirth. “Commander, come. Sit with us as we discuss our strategy. Later you may escort us to our quarters.”
With an exhale of reserved relief, Vesarius joined his people at the table beside the starscaped portal and listened to their plans. He was grateful Tolianksalya’s team included him, though they never asked for suggestions or opinions. Would a hunter, after all, consult his hound on the best approach to the carsal fields?
* * *
Grunting with the effort, Dorinda tugged off her boots then flopped onto her bed. “Oh, Noah, I’m not going to last another day.” She groaned into the mattress. “I’m exhausted, just like Rosh said.” Wiping her sweaty forehead, Dorinda rolled over and sighed. “I’m too tired to shower. But I’m starving, and the galley won’t let a skunk like me past the doors.” The otter’s head and webbed forepaws bounced up onto the bed before her nose. Chirping his encouragement, Noah imaged the cool clear water of the Pompeii’s pool.
“You’ve got to be kidding! I’ve been going all day. Hiding from Vesarius, meditation and vision retrieval, exercise, judo, Tai Chi. Now you want a swim?” Dorinda groaned again. “I’m beat. Wake me in a week.” Rolling onto her back Dorinda closed her eyes.
Another image skirted her consciousness. Vesarius was smiling at her, his dark eyes twinkling with pride. Smiling as well, Dorinda whispered to her otter Kin. “He better be pleased. I’ll make him eat his words, if it kills me.” Within minutes, she was breathing deeply sprawled on her bed in self-induced unconsciousness.
Noah woke her a few hours later. “What? Oh, my head.” Dorinda groaned and rolled onto her side. “Noah, I said next week.” As she checked the table chronometer the door chimed again, and Dorinda forced her eyes to focus. “Who?” Stiffly she rose and hollered at the barrier. “Give me a minute.”
Tossing her clothes into a crumpled pile, Dorinda trod into the shower and melted away her exhaustion with a stream of hot water and soap. Still dripping but clean, Dorinda wrapped a towel around her and padded her hair dry with another. Stepping from the shower, eyes veiled in terrycloth, Dorinda asked, “Noah, who’s at the ...” Flipping her hair back over her head she gasped. “Sarius.” His eyes were round, polished coal. A slight, embarrassed smile traced one corner of the Vesar’s lips as he stood there watching her. “I ... I didn’t know he let you in.”
“Forgive me,” Vesarius said swallowing. He averted his eyes from the drooping towel wrapped about her middle. “Noah allowed ... I did not mean to intrude.” When he started for the door, Dorinda rushed forward.
“No. Don’t go. Please.”
“I must. I ... came to ... offer my company. At breakfast.”
“You did? You will?”
“Yes,” he answered quietly. His sight still avoided her bare shoulders and half-exposed cleavage. “I will wait outside.” He promptly slipped from her cabin, and the exit solidified.
“All right,” Dorinda quipped through the barrier with sudden energy. “I’ll be right out.” Swiftly, she tossed onto her still damp body a clean set of undergarments, a regulation turtleneck of her favorite color and black, twenty-second century jeans. Next Dorinda pulled her soggy hair back, twisting it into a ponytail for travel. Finally Dorinda hopped into her boots then tramped out of her cabin with a smile as vibrant as her glistening green eyes.
The expression lasted but two seconds. Vesarius was gone. “Noah, where’d he go? I said I’d be right out.”
Sniffing the air for any trace of the Vesar’s passage, the otter bounded off down the corridor. Dorinda followed. They found him leaning outside the galley. “Did I misunderstand you?” she asked sensing the trembling in her voice, hoping he did not. “You said outside. I assumed you meant my cabin.”
Watching a few crew members pass him and enter the cafeteria, Vesarius only mumbled, “Forgive me. I was ... distracted.” Then he stepped aside to allow her entry. With a tilted head, Dorinda made sure he followed. She thought she knew what the warrior had meant by a distraction. The Pompeii’s corridors were a busy place at this time of day. It would have seemed conspicuous for the Vesar to loiter beyond her quarters.
“Anyway, I’m glad we could have breakfast,” Dorinda offered settling into a seat across from him. “I’m starved.” When would come the day she’d be allowed to sit beside the man?
“I … I want to congratulate you on your successful tracking exercise yesterday,” Vesarius began. “Bear told me you were in the observation lounge.”
Grinning in anticipation, Dorinda leaned across the table at him. “Were you going to check there next? The transport’s arrival pulled you away, didn’t it?”
“Yes,” he admitted with a strange twitch of his lips. Regret? “You almost lost.”
“Ah, but I didn’t,” Dorinda quipped. She lifted a napkin to drape across her lap. “By default, I know.” She leaned back in her chair with a stiff sigh. She had stifled a groan. He couldn’t know she was sore, couldn’t know why. Dorinda changed the subject. “So. What’s your fancy, Sarius?”
With an indecisive sigh, Vesarius refused to raise his lowered obsidian gaze. Under his breath he mumbled, “I cannot think of food now.”
“The distraction,” Dorinda voiced for him and suddenly agreed. Through all her soreness and growling hunger, what she wanted most right now was to touch this man, feel his warm arms a
round hers, his hot breath upon her neck. “Do you want to be left alone?”
“No,” Vesarius admitted with a slight brow jump. “I have been thinking too much by myself.” He raised stone orbs to her, filled with uncertainty and restrained emotions. “Would you consider a consultation, Ms. Jade?”
With narrowed eyes, Dorinda searched the Vesar’s face for any glint of sarcasm or humor. What she saw shadowed in his sight was a dark anxiety and turmoil. “You’re worried about the mission,” she voiced for him, not sure if it was the sole reason for Vesarius’ brooding hesitation.
“Not exactly,” he murmured, almost a whisper.
“You need a private place, where we can go. To talk? To discuss the mission?” Dorinda was more than aware that they were in a public setting.
“There is no place to be alone ... Except perhaps Coty’s office,” the warrior added in a low rumble.
Shoving her chair back, Dorinda stood. “I’ll ask him.” She spied her Kinpanion by the food conveyor. “Noah, stay here with Sarius.” She considered the silent warrior watching her. “He’ll tell you what Michael says.” When he nodded and straightened in his chair, Dorinda strode into the corridor. Her rumbling stomach reminded her she really should have gotten breakfast. Later. This was more important.
Vesarius wanted to talk! Perhaps her stubbornness had won out. Maybe he’d decided to train her for the Vwafar´ee. They would be together. Containing her excitement, Dorinda made a quick trip to the bridge to whisper her wishes to her captain. With a silent nod of approval, Coty provided the override access code to his private domain.
Dorinda sent the confirmation to Noah then paced the captain’s office until Vesarius arrived. When the double doors hummed closed behind his broad shoulders, Dorinda had to stifle an urge to rush into his arms. His dark eyes were weighted beneath raven brows.
“Do you want to sit down?” she asked.
With a stiff nod, Vesarius straddled a chair backward and considered the beige, close-cropped carpet at his feet. “I miss you, Sarius,” Dorinda blurted, unable to hold back completely. Would it make for a positive start to their conversation?
It didn’t.
“Tolianksalya is onboard,” the Vesar stated darkly. “He must not know of us. He will destroy us. It was he who had me cast out nearly nine years ago. Execution was too merciful a fate. Now that he knows I am still alive and asking for a return to society, he holds the key to my soul – the Vwafar´ee. He knows I have requested bonding. He thinks it is to a Vesar.” Vesarius said no more.
“What would happen if he found out I’m not?” Dorinda inquired tentative of the broiling emotions beneath his silence.
Vesarius raised constricted eyes. “He could have us both executed for such a breach in protocol. We are a dangerous threat to the old ways. His ways.”
“He hates you,” Dorinda surmised. “Why?”
“Because I allowed his sister to die unprotected,” was the Vesar’s low reply.
“Your mother? He’s your uncle?”
Vesarius breathed into his crossed arms upon the chair back, not answering right away. “I … am no longer his kin,” he rumbled a moment later.
“Does it matter now? Coty and I are your family.”
Obsidian eyes pivoting to consider her, Vesarius did not raise his head from his crossed defiance. “He has my soul, Dori. It is his decision whether I can redeem it with Vwafar´ee. If he discovers us, there will be no chance for redemption.”
“You’re saying he’ll be judge and jury of this thing,” Dorinda voiced for him. “He can also take it away.”
Vesarius nodded and raised his squared chin to answer. “Meanwhile I must work with him, toward the peace treaty, for the Alliance. If I make a mistake, any mistake, he may snatch my soul away from me forever.” Vesarius grabbed at the invisible object of his argument. “There can be no distractions as we just had. There can be no hint that we are anything other than a team, colleagues, perhaps friends.”
“All right, Sarius. For how long? Until the mission’s over?”
“Yes.” He stood with shoulders not quite level, a sign their conversation was complete.
“Then what? You abandon me here?” Vesarius only blinked, so Dorinda leaned toward his solid frame. “I hope you’re not planning on skipping out on me, because I’ll follow you. You might have been able to slip past your uncle all these years, but I’ll hunt you down, Tankawankanyi, with every bit of skill you’ve taught me.”
“We will be together,” Vesarius countered calmly, then pivoted and strode from the office.
Dorinda’s mouth dropped. “Now we’re together again?” she uttered to the empty room. “Why do I feel like a tennis ball?” With a shake of her head and a flap of her arms, Dorinda rested her hands on her hips. “Impossible.” She exhaled and allowed her chin to drop to her chest. “Vesar are just too hard to predict.”
Did that mean they would go to Vesar? Or did it mean they’d be running away together, hiding? Rushing from the office, Dorinda would clarify her thoughts, but Vesarius was already gone.
Chapter 6: Altered Realities
The next eleven days were filled with preparations. Dorinda honed her skills and dutifully avoided Vesarius and his Vesar delegates. Both Roshana and Coty were excellent teachers, and Dorinda was soon able to work out any soreness or frustration with swimming, yoga or meditation.
From what she saw of her alien friend, Vesarius had dutifully accepted his role as mediator between the Orthops and the Alliance emissaries. He was still quiet and brooding, however, testimony to their low regard of him.
Damn it. Vesarius was a living, breathing person, with a soul. No one, especially his own people, had the right to treat him like some lower lifeform!
Inwardly, Dorinda prayed the mission would be over soon. She was actually looking forward to the Vwafar´ee. It meant Vesarius’ redemption. They’d earn the freedom to express their feelings, to be married, to make their own life decisions without the permission of a repressive society. With such promise, even the threat of failure was of little consequence. As in her prior meditative premonitions, the pair would face their fate together.
But they had to reach Orthop first, which was now only hours away. Already an Orthop escort flanked the Pompeii – a squadron of podships with a larger, fully equipped baseship in the lead. Seated in a chair near Sam Waters, on the bridge of the Pompeii, Dorinda observed the proceedings.
“Greetings, Alliance citizens,” the bridge speaker translated from the insect race’s grinding clicks, pops and grunts. Moxland Darby made a final adjustment to the ship’s communications equipment before nodding to Coty.
“Greetings to you, citizens of Orthop,” the captain started from his central chair. “I am Capt. Coty of the Pompeii. My ship brings peace-talkers, an ambassador, and a storyteller. We look forward to meeting with you at the appointed place.”
“We know of this storyteller, Capt. Coty,” the delayed reply through the built-in translator stated. From across the triangular bridge, Dorinda caught Ambassador Tolianksalya’s raised brow. The Vesar diplomat was obviously unaware of Vesarius’ reputation. “He is Vesar, is he not? Our Wise Ones told us of him before they were killed by your proton fire.” Coty glanced at his first officer. Vesarius, seated at his navigational console, merely shrugged. This was Coty’s call.
“An unfortunate tragedy, Wise One,” the captain responded. “Survival now is to both our advantages, Alliance and Orthop. There are several peaceful options which will no doubt benefit you.”
“Unless they are offers of freedom and planets rich in resources, survival will not be assured, Captain,” the translator informed. “We await your delegation.”
Leaning back in his chair, Coty pulled at his chin as the transmission ceased. “This isn’t going to be easy, Ambassador,” he conceded regarding the crystalline double egg shape in the lead of the Orthop convoy.
“Quelling a warrior’s heart never is,” Tolianksalya rumbled his large frame de
scending the two steps to stand beside the captain. “They are as apprehensive as we. It will take some days of reasoning perhaps before they will allow our transport a landing.”
“Days, Ambassador?” Sam Waters asked from the science station. “Didn’t they extend an invitation?”
“Yes, however, there will be security clearances, weapons checks, protocol, Doctor. On both sides.” The ambassador flipped his embroidered cape back over one shoulder. “Captain, my aides and I will, of course, welcome you for first landing. I believe it is part of your orders. A ... show of faith?”
“Yes, Vesarius,” Coty answered.
Dorinda frowned. How odd to hear Michael call this tall, severe man ‘Vesarius’. How confusing. What did one do in a room full of Vesar warriors? Start passing out numbers? Dorinda reminded herself to ask Vesarius later if by chance he had a first name. Parents had to call their male children something before the Age of Manhood initiation. She would also ask him about surnames. Dorinda knew Vesar were matrilineal; upon bonding the man took his wife’s surname. But was it coincidence or by design that all the Vesar present before her had last names with five syllables ending in a vowel? There was still much to learn, she conceded, and continued to listen in on the conversations around her.
“Gen. Chan specified that my first officer and I be members of the first landing to Orthop,” Coty confirmed. “Your delegation, then, would be staying. The Orthop delegates would return with me to the Pompeii for the trip to Tlonnis.”
Tolianksalya dipped his chin in agreement. “My aides and I will represent the Alliance here. Our objective is to speak directly with the queen. To meet with her in person, rather than through a telepathic queenkeeper. Trust must be initiated first. It may take some time.”
