Close Encounters

by Katherine Allred

  “Kiera? Who are you talking to?”

  “Thor. You can’t hear him?”

  “No.”

  Thor’s frown deepened. “Tell him to leave.” He spoke aloud now, in Buri. But what I heard was Galactic Standard.

  My hand fell limply to my lap. “He’s not a him—sorry, Max. Not in the usual sense. He’s my ship, and I can’t tell him to leave.”

  “He wants me to leave?” Max sounded shocked, and I felt like I’d been caught up in a holovid of the old “Who’s on First?” routine.

  “Just be quiet for a second. He doesn’t understand who you are, and I’m trying to explain.”

  Thor levered himself up on one elbow and stared at me through narrowed eyes. “Ships do not speak this way.”

  “This one does. He’s an artificial intelligence. That means he thinks, feels and has the ability to learn, even though he’s a machine. His name is Max and he’s very smart.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Max, for Goddess’s sake, will you shut up?” I glared at Thor. “Besides, how do you know ships don’t speak this way?”

  “I see the ships the others come in. And I see the images in your mind. None of them speaks.”

  “Yeah, well, Max is special. Don’t say it,” I held up a hand in warning before Max could get another thank-you out.

  “I would see this ship again.” Thor sat up and swung his long legs over the side of the sleeping platform.

  “Hold it just a darn minute, there, big boy. I think there are a few other things we need to discuss first.”

  “What are these things?”

  As he spoke, he stood and turned to face me. I blinked. He wasn’t wearing a loincloth. He wasn’t wearing anything. Yeppers, he’d definitely requested they supersize that order at the old galactic burger drive-thru window.

  Instantly I became aware of mild discomfort in the nether regions of my person, a place where there had only been pleasure before. Nervously, I licked my dry lips and forced my gaze upward. “Uh, I had this dream last night…” My voice tapered off as his lips curved in a satisfied smile.

  Oh, shit. “It wasn’t a dream, was it?” I asked weakly.

  “No.”

  “I had a feeling you were going to say that. Just tell me this. Are we married?”

  “Married?” He rolled the word over while he reached for his loincloth.

  “Mated. As in bound together for life.” I scrambled off the sleeping platform, grabbed a jumpsuit, and pulled it on. For some reason, it felt safer to be dressed in my own clothes.

  “The bond was sealed. We are mated.”

  “That’s impossible! GEPs don’t marry.” My legs were wobbling so hard I sank down on the edge of the sleeping platform to keep from falling. For someone who was supposed to be smarter than the average GEP, I sure had screwed up big this time.

  “You are GEP. We are mated. Therefore, it is possible. Yelling will not change this truth.”

  “Kiera.”

  “Not now, Max. And I wasn’t yelling.” Much. I shot a glare at Thor as he walked to a shelf and picked up a piece of fruit. “How did this happen?”

  He took a bite from the pale yellow globe and chewed thoughtfully for a second. “I felt the connection the first night you were here, as did you. Then, when you came to my village, you groomed me and gave me a gift. I accepted. As you accepted my offering gift in return. The Rellantiim Ceremony is completed. We are bonded.” He finished off the fruit in another bite, and then looked around for more.

  Come to think about it, I was damn near starved myself. I went to rummage through a knapsack stacked in the corner, and pulled out two Zip Bars. I tossed one to Thor and tore into the other one, speaking with my mouth full. “Are you telling me I proposed to you?”

  “Kiera.”

  “Later, Max.”

  Thor sniffed the bar, then took a bite that consumed half of it in one fell swoop. “Proposed?”

  “Asked you to be my mate.” I swallowed, and reached for my boots with my free hand.

  “Yes.” He popped the last half of the bar into his mouth and headed for my knapsack. “But even if you hadn’t, I would not have let you go.”

  “Kiera.”

  “What!” I threw my hands up in exasperation at Max’s continued interruptions.

  “Dr. Daniels would like to speak with you.”

  I closed my eyes and swore steadily for three minutes, even calling into question the paternity of the man who’d created faster-than-light communication. It took three days for a ship like Max to warp here from ZT Twelve, but I could talk to the boss as if he were in the next room. Occasionally, technology has its drawbacks.

  “When?” I opened my eyes to see Thor staring at me with a great deal of interest, another Zip Bar suspended halfway to his mouth.

  “In one hour. The transmission will be beamed into my control room. He doesn’t want to disturb the Buri by suddenly appearing in their village.”

  “Fine, I’ll be there.”

  “As will I,” Thor said. “Who is this person that you do not wish to speak with?”

  “The man I work for. My leader,” I clarified. “Just out of curiosity, did you understand everything I told you last night?”

  “Yes.” Even white teeth flashed as he grinned at me. Damn, but he was gorgeous.

  “As are you.”

  “Whoa. Do you hear everything I think?”

  He finished off the second Zip Bar, then stretched out on the sleeping platform, back propped against the wall.

  “Yes. You broadcast very strongly and have not yet learned to shield.”

  “How?” I shifted to face him, and he lifted a hand and set my new earring swinging. The touch of his finger on the stone was oddly erotic, and I shivered.

  “Through the mind bond formed by the rellanti.”

  I remembered the word from last night, but now I was thinking more clearly. The rellanti was obviously the black stone in the earring. “Why can’t I hear your thoughts?”

  “You can.” His lips weren’t moving. “In time, you will stop fighting the connection and learn to control the bond with more accuracy.”

  I ignored the fighting comment and concentrated on the earring. The stone had to have some kind of psychic properties. Hell, maybe all the colored ones had psychic properties. While I’d always been able to detect emotions, I’d never picked up actual words before. Would I be able to hear everyone’s thoughts now?

  “No. Only mine. When a young male becomes an adult, he is given two rellanti. If he has been prepared correctly, the rellanti gradually attune themselves to his mind. He wears both until he finds the female who is destined to form the mind bond with him.”

  “What happens if he hasn’t been prepared correctly?”

  “He dies.”

  A chill ran over me as I remembered Junior receiving his rellanti last night. And what about me? Could I have died, too?

  “We were all correctly prepared. I would not have risked you otherwise.”

  “If I was ‘correctly’ prepared, then why did your touch hurt me when I first returned to the village?”

  “The pathways were opened, but you did not yet wear my rellanti. This created a dissonance which caused pain when we touched.”

  That didn’t make me feel a lot better, but I decided to let it pass for now. There was only so much anxiety I could take at one time, and I’d reached my limit. “So, when Elder took the rellanti from you, and put it on me, it what? Became attuned to my mind?”

  He thought that over for a second, frowning. “It synchronized the patterns of our minds so they are in accord, and amplified our thoughts. This is why you hear my words in your language, and I hear yours in mine.”

  “Will I be able to understand the rest of the tribe?”

  “If I hear their words, you would understand through me.”

  “Kiera,” Max interrupted. “If you understand what he’s saying, we could easily make a language program.”

  Thor f
rowned again. “Does this ship read your thoughts?”

  “No, although it seems that way sometimes.” I picked up his hand and placed his fingers behind my ear. “Feel that?”

  He explored for a second, then nodded.

  “That’s a computer chip. It contains both a listening and tracking device, as well as a tiny speaker. I can stay in contact with Max from almost anywhere on the planet’s surface.”

  His head tilted thoughtfully. “He would protect you?”

  “Of course. My protection is his primary directive.”

  “Then he may stay.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  But I didn’t want to talk about Max now. There was more I needed to know about the rellanti. My braid had come undone during the night and Thor was lifting my hair, letting it slide through his fingers. I caught his hand in mine, and held it still. As pleasant as another round of lovemaking might sound, I was desperate for answers, panic creeping along my nerves.

  “You said the bond was sealed last night. How was it sealed?”

  “When we made love, both here and within the rellanti.”

  “What would have happened if we hadn’t made love?”

  His gaze drifted from my hair to my face. “I do not know. No one has ever refused the bond before. It has always been as it was with us, and now it is sealed. You are mine.”

  My grip on his hand tightened. “Can the bond be broken once it’s sealed?”

  Suddenly he was very alert, his body tense. “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “If one of us dies, it will be broken.”

  “That’s a little more drastic than I was considering.”

  He relaxed slightly, but there was still watchfulness in his gaze.

  “What’s going to happen to this bond when I leave?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Thor, I told you that I’d be leaving when my job is done. You knew I meant it, and yet you sealed the bond anyway. Why?”

  He looked down at our joined hands. “I have waited all my life to find my bond mate. A true bond has become very rare among my people. I know of only two others. Most of my people mate now in hopelessness. For them, the Rellantiim Ceremony is hollow with no true sharing of spirits. This is why I chose to seal our bond.”

  When he looked up, there was a gleam of determination in his eyes. “The answers you seek will not come easily. When you find a way to restore our fertility, you will change your mind about this ‘job.’ You will not leave me.”

  “And how do you plan on changing my mind?” I asked quietly.

  “You will have a new purpose, a new reason for being. It has begun.” He pulled his hand from mine and stood. “I am still hungry. We will eat now.”

  I waited until he’d almost reached the door before I spoke again. “Thor, do you know why the Buri birthrate is so low?”

  He stopped, but didn’t turn around. “Come. There is much to do before we meet this leader your ship spoke of.”

  A shiver ran over me as I watched him step through the door. I had a bad feeling about this. A very bad feeling.

  CHAPTER 12

  I braided my hair at high speed, and then ran after Thor, determined to continue our conversation. He was halfway across the village, talking to Auntie Em and Elder, by the time I cleared the threshold. Both of them were smiling, Thor was frowning. They were too far away for me to hear most of what they were saying, but I caught just enough to make me wonder. Auntie Em was asking about “the others” and Elder wanted to wake someone up.

  My brow furrowed in puzzlement. What others was Auntie Em talking about? All the Buri seemed to be present and accounted for. Was she asking him about the Dynatec crew? Surely not.

  When the three new Buri had shown up in the village, it had occurred to me that maybe an unknown number of Buri were hiding out in one of the caves. I wasn’t sure why they thought it was necessary unless it was just to confuse Dynatec, but it would explain why Max hadn’t located them. Maybe those were the “others” Auntie Em was talking about.

  But why would Thor vehemently refuse Elder’s simple request to wake someone up? There had to be a missing bit of information here.

  Marriage aside, not to mention my gut-level fear of linked minds, I really needed to learn how this bond thing worked if it would let me make sense of Thor’s discussions.

  Thor gave his head another emphatic shake, then glanced in my direction, his gaze settling on something to my left. With a final comment to the two Buri facing him that wiped the smiles off their faces, he started toward me.

  I was admiring the lithe, sensuous grace of his stride when I noticed the flickers of light. Not with my eyes, but mentally. I paused, trying to find them again, but every time I attempted to focus on the phenomenon, it vanished. A side effect of the mind bond? If so, it was certainly a distracting one.

  Frustrated, I returned my gaze to Thor. And saw the flickers again. It was like glimmering strings of opalescence seen only with the peripheral vision of my psi ability. I was trying to examine this marvel without aiming my attention directly at it when Claudia Karle reached me, Ghost dogging her steps.

  She was talking before she came to a stop. “That was some party last night. Thanks for inviting me. What was that last ceremony about? It looked intense.”

  I gave her a weak smile as Thor joined us. “I sort of got married. I don’t think it’s legal, though.”

  Actually, I was pretty sure it was legal, but denial had me in a stranglehold. It wasn’t that I didn’t care for Thor, because I did. We had this magical chemistry going on between us that was like nothing I’d ever experienced, and love was the only word that seemed to fit. If I were going to give up my work for anyone, it would be him. But at the risk of repeating myself, GEPs don’t marry. It never works for the regular GEPs, and I was even more of a risk than they were.

  “It will work.”

  “Will you stop that!” I answered his smug response with a mental yell of my own.

  Claudia’s eyes were wide round circles of awe as she gazed at Thor. “Holy Goddess. You’re married to him?” She let out a long sigh. “Why don’t things like that happen to me?”

  As she spoke, Ghost caught my attention. Every few seconds he’d shake his head as though to rid himself of an annoying insect. There was a distinct familiarity about the movement, and eyes narrowed, I turned back to Claudia.

  “Is your head buzzing, by any chance?”

  She reached up and gingerly rubbed her forehead. “Yeah, I think I drank too much last night.”

  Seeing where I was headed, Thor abruptly faced Ghost. “Is this female a bond mate for you?”

  A surprised expression froze Ghost’s face into immobility, then he nodded slowly and took a step closer to Claudia.

  “What’s going on?” Claudia divided her attention between the three of us like a spectator at a sky ball match.

  No way was I going to break the news she’d just gotten engaged. “I think I’ve just lost one of my guards,” I improvised. Come to think about it, Poe wasn’t anywhere to be seen, either.

  “The bond is in place. They are no longer needed.”

  Handling multilevel conversations was giving me another headache, so I ignored Thor and forced myself to concentrate on Claudia. “So you wouldn’t mind marrying a Buri and staying here?”

  She shot a sidelong glance at Ghost from beneath lowered lashes, a red flush tinting her cheeks. “Not if it was the right Buri.”

  Okay, she was on her own. I had bigger herdbeast to fry. “I’m surprised you haven’t gone back to work.”

  “All that wine knocked me out and I overslept. My crew is already in the field. I was on my way to join them when I saw you. Figured we needed to talk while we have the chance.”

  I shifted uneasily, painfully aware that Thor now understood everything I said. Or even thought. It was downright spooky, being on the receiving end for a change, and I finally understood why the boss insisted only the two of us know I was
an empath. But there was no help for his eavesdropping. “What have you found?” I asked Claudia.

  “Nothing specific, but there’s a big chunk of data hidden on the ship’s main computer. I found it by checking the available space that’s left against the amount of space taken up by the visible files.”

  I hesitated. “Can you get at it without putting yourself in danger?”

  She nodded. “I almost had it last time I tried. And I’ll probably be taking you up on that job offer from Alien Affairs. This is going to be my last trip with Dynatec, regardless. I didn’t sign on to take orders from Quilla Dorn, no matter how good the pay. Is there anything specific you need when I get in?”

  “Research notes. I want anything you can find on a couple of crystals the original exploration team took with them when they left Orpheus Two.”

  “Crystals? Like this one?” She reached into the front of her jumpsuit and tugged out a chain. At the end dangled a pale green crystal, about an inch long and the size of my little finger in circumference. It was wrapped in thin silver wire to hold it in place.

  “Where did you get it?”

  “Are you joking? The damn things are everywhere. They’re pretty enough, but hell on my location markers. I bet we’ve bent a good third of our supply trying to drive their shafts through crystal. That’s part of the reason our mapping is going slower than usual. Half the time, we can only locate the markers visually instead of letting our equipment home in on them, because we’ve damaged them trying to get them in the ground.”

  I couldn’t take my eyes off the crystal. To my heightened senses, it seemed to pulse with a faint glow that was nearly overshadowed by the bright sunlight. “Why did you pick that particular color to use as a pendant?”

  She looked down at the crystal in her hand. “I don’t know. I’ve never been particularly fond of green, but I fell in love with this one as soon as I saw it. Now I never take it off.”

  “Claudia, have you ever been tested for psi abilities?”

  A flicker of surprise lit her eyes, and then vanished. “No, I’ve never shown a speck of talent. Getting tested would be a waste of time.”