“It should,” said Zayshul.
The conversation became more general after that and just as he and Banner decided to call it a night, they noticed Jayza slipping out with the two females he’d spent the evening with.
“I doubt he’ll sleep alone tonight,” said Banner with a grin, getting up.
“He’ll enjoy himself,” he said, pushing his chair back. “I’m sure,” he added in the small silence that followed.
“Would you like me to walk you to the elevator?” he offered Zayshul as they headed out into the corridor.
“There’s no need,” she said with a smile. “Good night.” She nodded to the three of them then disappeared in the opposite direction from the one they were taking.
“An interesting person,” said Khadui. “It’s the first chance I’ve had to talk to her. You knew her before, Captain?”
“Yes. We met on the Kz’adul. She treated me there and at Haven,” he said.
“She’s the kind of female that would interest me,” said Banner lazily.
He glanced at his Second, feeling something akin to resentment that he should even think that and realized, as their eyes met, that he’d fallen for the bait. Looking away, he said nothing.
When they came to the small corridor that led to his and Banner’s quarters, Khadui wished them good night and walked on down to his own room. He turned toward his door only to feel Banner take hold of his arm.
“I’d like a word if I may,” his Second said quietly.
“Would tomorrow do?” he asked, keying open his door. “I’m tired.”
“No, now, if you don’t mind.”
He stood aside for Banner to enter.
“Can I offer you a drink?” he asked, walking over to the dispenser, deciding to make the best of it. “Coffee or kheffa?”
“No, thanks,” said Banner, following him in. “It won’t take long.”
He turned round, perching on one of the tall stools at the meal bar. “What is it, Banner?”
“Is there anything between you and the Doctor?”
“No. Why do you ask?”
“Because I know the signs. Both of you are skittish around each other. Was there anything between you on the Kz’adul?”
“I wasn’t exactly in any physical condition for anything like that,” he said.
“That’s not a factor, and you know it isn’t. All I’m going to say is it isn’t wise to pursue a relationship with her, given she’s Kezule’s wife.”
“I know she is,” he said, irritated. “I also know theirs is the equivalent of a Clan marriage.”
“Kusac,” he said warningly. “You know the danger that could cause. We’re here to do a job. A fling with one of their willing females is one thing, but an affair with her is something else, particularly since she’s . . .”
“Stop right there!” he said angrily, sliding off the stool. “I don’t intend to jeopardize my reason for being here, namely finishing this job and taking Shaidan home. You’ve had your say, now leave it at that.”
Banner sighed. “Just remember that, Kusac, that’s all I’m asking,” he said, turning to leave.
CHAPTER 11
THE beeping of his wrist comm finally woke Banner. As he turned it on, he looked at the time. “Banner,” he acknowledged.
“I’m outside,” whispered a young voice. “Let me in, please, Banner. I need your help.”
He squinted at the face, trying to make out who it was. “Jayza?” he hazarded, going by the voice.
“Yes! Please, Banner! Before Dzaou hears me!”
“Do you realize what time it is?” he asked, getting out of bed and padding across to the door to open it. “It’s the middle of the night!” He switched off his comm.
“I know,” said Jayza, slipping in. “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t stop it myself.”
“Stop what? This better be important, Jayza,” he growled, switching on the light.
Jayza, ears lying back against his skull in acute embarrassment, stood there unclothed, one hand holding a towel to his shoulder, a slightly red-stained towel.
“What’ve you done to yourself?” he asked, instantly taking him by the arm and steering him through to the small bathing room at the rear.
“It was an accident,” Jayza said hastily as Banner pushed him under the light and lifted the towel away. “She didn’t do it to harm me, I’m sure of that.”
He looked up from inspecting the mouth-shaped punctures on the youth’s shoulder. “She? Don’t tell me this is a love bite?” He raised his eye ridges in disbelief.
“Yes,” he said, hanging his head as Banner began to chuckle. “We couldn’t stop it bleeding,” he added hurriedly, “and she knows nothing about first aid, so . . .”
“You woke me.” He reached into the cabinet for his antiseptic. “What happened?” he asked, dabbing some on a clean part of the towel, and commencing to pat it onto the bites.
“Ouch!”
“Stop squirming, youngling,” he said sternly, applying pressure to the wounds.
“Everything was fine until . . .” He ground to a halt, looking up at Banner for help.
“Until?” prompted Banner, deciding that Jayza needed to suffer for dragging him out of bed at this time of night.
Jayza sighed and looked away, knowing he’d get no help from the older male. “Until she came,” he said. “Then she went kind of wild, scratching and biting at me till she really sank her teeth into my shoulder.”
“She did, eh?” he said, lifting the towel to check if the bleeding had stopped. It had, and handing him the towel, he reached for the can of wound sealant and began spraying it over the affected area. “Well, learn from it, lad,” he chuckled. “Next time, keep her head away from you.”
“How?” he asked, peering at the wounds on his shoulder and gingerly touching the film forming over it.
Banner smacked his hand away. “Don’t touch it! You’ll stop it setting. Be inventive. Use your hands to keep her away, Jayza,” he said, turning away from him to replace the sealant in the cupboard and shut it. He grinned widely, showing his teeth. “And you don’t always need to be face-to-face with her.”
“Oh.” His ears, which had lifted upright, sank down again. “Right. Thanks, Banner,” he mumbled, backing out into the main room.
“So where is she?” Banner asked, switching off the light and following him. “Gone back to her own room?”
“No, she’s waiting to see I’m all right,” he said, face breaking into a grin. “She wants to stay till morning.”
“Go!” said Banner, exasperated, pointing to the door. “And if she bites you again, don’t come to me! And put out the light!”
“I won’t,” he assured him as he turned to leave. “And she won’t!”
Still chuckling, he crawled back into bed. Then it occurred to him that he now had a way, albeit not conclusive, of finding out if Kusac was indeed closer to the Doctor than he admitted. Something was going on between them, he was sure of it.
As he drifted off to sleep, he wondered how Dzaou had fared, and if the Doctor had put her friend Ghidd’ah up to tonight’s little performance. Maybe finding himself the focus of some female attention might do Dzaou some good. More likely L’Shoh’s frozen hell would thaw first.
The pool, Zhal-L’Shoh 5th day (January)
The next evening, Kusac went up to the pool as arranged earlier in the day, to meet with Zayshul and some of her friends. He made his way onto the island, turning left once he reached the main clearing. As he passed beneath the trees, he saw the small beach area ahead of him. Ghidd’ah was there, as well as three others, two of whom he vaguely recognized from the training sessions.
“Captain!” said Ghidd’ah, spotting him first. “You found us. How do you like the pool? This is your first visit, isn’t it?”
“Amazing place,” he said, looking around. It was the first time he’d seen this section. Opposite, some twenty feet away, was another, wider beach area. Like this one, it was bordered b
y grass and shrubs, and scattered with cushions and padded mats.
“Sit here,” said Ghidd’ah, patting an empty cushion at the edge of their group. “We’ve brought some wine and fruit with us. Help yourself,” she said, pointing to the glasses and plates.
“A picnic,” he said, sitting down and putting his towel to one side. “Nice.”
Zayshul poured a glass of wine and handed it to him.
“Thank you,” he said.
Knowing that they bathed naked, he’d been concerned that he’d respond to Zayshul’s nearness, but she’d assured him that the odor-masking chemicals now in the pool water would help suppress the effects of even the scent marker. She’d been right. Their nearness to the water, and the presence of the others, were enough to let him relax. Nonetheless, he was pleased to see that they all wore something like a scarf draped round their waists and tied over one hip.
“I don’t think you know everyone,” said Zayshul.
“You know me,” smiled Ghidd’ah.
He nodded. “From the sick bay,” he said. “You work with the Doctor.”
“No titles, please!” said one, lying sprawled on her cushion. She sat up, holding out her hand to him. “I’m Shishu. I work with the children.”
“Shishu,” he said, taking her hand in his. It was slim, and for a Prime, delicate, the nails cut quite short and engraved with blue-painted intricate swirls that matched the predominantly blue hues around her eyes and on her body. “You’re from the Royal Court, aren’t you?”
“You’ve heard of me?” she said with a grin as he released her hand. “Yes, I was.”
“This is Khiozh.”
“Hello,” said a round-faced female. “What should we call you, Captain?”
“Kusac,” he said. This one’s markings were more reddish, he noticed.
“And I’m Na’qui,” said the last, her markings toward the green shades. “I doubt you’ll remember me, Kusac, but I helped Zayshul look after you on the Kz’adul.”
He smiled politely. “I remember very little of my time there,” he said.
“More like you want to forget it,” said Khiozh, reaching for a piece of the cut fruit.
“We’re all very relieved that you haven’t held what happened to you against us.”
“Enough about that,” said Zayshul sharply. “Let the past stay there. We invited Kusac here to enjoy himself.”
“I wouldn’t have thought a furred species would like the water,” said Ghidd’ah.
He took a sip of the wine, finding it a little bitter, and put the glass down carefully in the sand. “I live by the coast,” he said. “I grew up swimming in the bay there in the summer.”
“Then you’ll enjoy swimming here.”
“Did you bring Shaidan’s brush and comb, Zayshul?” asked Shishu.
Zayshul reached into a small bag that he noticed beside her and drew the items out.
“What’s that for?” he asked suspiciously as she handed them to Shishu.
“I enjoyed plaiting Shaidan’s hair, and when he told me that you’d liked his, I said I’d do yours tonight,” she said, getting to her feet in a move so fluid that a Consortia would have been proud of it.
“I don’t think so,” he began.
“Don’t be a killjoy, Kusac,” she said teasingly, moving round him and sitting down behind him. “You’re here to relax, and brushing Shaidan’s hair nearly put him to sleep. Besides, he’s expecting it to be done tomorrow. You wouldn’t want to disappoint him, would you?”
“Have some fruit,” said Zayshul with a laugh, holding the plate in front of him as Shishu began running the brush through his hair.
“With such long hair, it will only get in your eyes when you’re swimming,” said Na’qui. “Besides, we want to know how to plait like Shishu. She’s going to teach us how to do the head decorations they used at the Court.”
He took a piece of fruit just to get rid of the plate from in front of him, beginning to wonder what he’d let himself in for by agreeing to join them.
“It’s moving!” exclaimed Khiozh. “Your tail’s moving!”
He stilled it, realizing he’d been flicking the tip in irritation.
“Don’t be such a stupid,” said Shishu, starting to comb his hair into sections. “Of course he can move his tail, it’s attached to him!”
“How was I to know?” Khiozh asked scathingly. “He’s always wearing that long black robe! I’ve never seen his tail before. Or the rest of him,” she added, looking him over appreciatively.
“My view’s pleasant, too,” said Shishu with a small laugh. “You should wear a tunic like the others of your crew do, Kusac.”
He could feel her plaiting his hair now and it suddenly, and painfully, reminded him of his early days with Carrie. “I prefer my robes,” he said, hearing the strain in his own voice.
“Stop teasing him,” said Zayshul. “Tell us about your world, Kusac. What do your people do for entertainment?”
“Many things,” he said. “We have large game forests on Shola where we hunt in the right season. Eating is a social pleasure so there are many good restaurants. We have Storytellers’ theaters where we go to hear professional Storytellers tell their tales.”
“That sounds interesting,” said Na’qui, stretching out on her cushion. “Do you have set stories—legends—that they tell, or do they make new ones of their own?”
“Some do, some just tell other people’s. Those who invent their own tales tend to be the most famous ones.”
“I like the sound of the restaurants,” said Khiozh. “The food here isn’t very interesting.”
“It’s better now we have fresh meat occasionally, and the meat vats are growing from real protein,” said Shishu, starting on a new section of hair.
“True,” agreed Zayshul. “The mush we had at first was awful.”
He felt a hand on his tail and looked down. It was Khiozh.
“You were moving it again,” she said, running her hand up it. “Your fur is very soft.”
He put his hand on hers to stop her. “You’re brushing it against the lay,” he said. “Please don’t. It’s painful.”
“Sorry,” she said, grinning as she moved her hand from under his and stroked down it this time. “What do you use your tails for?”
He flicked it out of her reach across his legs. “What’s with the interest in tails?” he asked, exasperated. “Ghidd’ah, you dragged Dzaou off last night to ask him about that.”
“Well,” she said, her face taking on a mischievous look. “For starters, we don’t have them. And until very recently, you’ve all kept very much to yourselves. No one has been close enough to you to either ask you, or to do what we’ve all been dying to do, which is touch you.”
He caught sight of Zayshul’s I told you so look, and sighed. Holding out his arm, he said resignedly, “Go ahead, get it over with.”
“Kusac,” Zayshul said, “are you sure?”
“Yes. Go on,” he said to Ghidd’ah while looking around at the rest of them. “I won’t bite you, I promise.” He grinned widely, showing off his canines.
“Very soft,” said Khiozh, reaching out to stroke his arm gently.
“It is, isn’t it?” said Ghidd’ah, taking the next turn.
“I’ll pass,” laughed Na’qui. “I remember it from looking after you as I said.”
Raising an eye ridge, he held his arm out to Zayshul.
She hesitated, then stroked him, too.
From behind, he felt a light touch across his shoulders—Shishu.
“Mm,” she said, her voice almost a purr. “I could get to like that.”
“About the tails,” prompted Khiozh.
“We use them for balance,” he said. “And to communicate.”
“How?”
“Too complicated to tell you,” he said. “But the angle we hold our tails at, whether they are still or moving, how fast it’s moving, and whether we’re moving the tip or more of it, all tells something about t
he mood we’re in.”
“And flicking the tip means irritated,” said Zayshul.
“You’ve been reading again,” he said with a grin.
“No, just working with you,” she replied, taking a sip of her wine. “Tell us some more about the things to do on your world. We don’t go outside the City of Light on ours.”
“Why not?”
“It’s dangerous,” she said. “The City survived the Fall, but there were civil wars outside. Order of a kind was restored, of course, but there are large areas that are still unsafe.”
“Our world is arranged in Clans. We have the fishing Clan who catch the fish, and the town beside them is there to serve their needs, so it sells items the fishers need. Same goes for boat-building clans and farming clans. So we can go sailing, or there are riding beasts, or climbing in the mountains.” He shrugged. “There’s so much to do, it’s difficult to know where to begin.”
“It sounds a nice world,” sighed Khiozh. “I’d like to visit it sometime.”
“Who knows?” he said. “One day you might. Your Prime Prince may still be there.”
“Tell us one of your stories,” said Na’qui. “One that isn’t on the entertainment vids we can see.”
“I’m not a Storyteller,” he said.
“But anyone can tell a story.”
“Not the way it should be told.”
“Try,” urged Ghidd’ah.
By the time he’d told them a tale of Nylam, the Hunter God, finding the love of his life, Shishu had finished with his hair.
“Do I get to see it?” he asked, putting his hand back to feel the intricate braids.
“Mirror,” said Shishu, holding her hand out to Zayshul, who produced one from her bag.
He couldn’t see it that well, but it looked pleasing and, more importantly, didn’t bind when he moved. She’d made several small braids then bound them round each other and tied them off with some cord. On the whole, he was pleased with it.
He handed the mirror back to Zayshul. “Thank you,” he said. He glanced at his wrist comm, seeing it was quite late. “I think I’ll have a swim then turn in for the night,” he said, getting up. “Thank you for your company. I’ve enjoyed it.” He was surprised to find he had.
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