by Lea Kirk
Blinking, Nick sat back. “Of all the thousands of healers out there, I don’t understand why it has to be us.”
“That whole gifted thing, it’s not a joke. All the Terrians we’ve discovered bearing Matiran heritage are immensely talented in their fields. Stronger than any of their Matiran counterparts. But so far, the only Terrian healers are you, Alex, and Sakura. Of the three of you, only you and Sakura are viable candidates for this assignment.”
“Why not Alex?”
Dante gave him a look that said he should know better. And he did. Unlike him, Alex had achieved master healer status and could run the Infirmary during Dante’s absences. She also had her family to think about.
“What’s the big secret, Doc?”
Blue lips thinned. “You will find out tomorrow.”
Nick slapped his hands against the tops of his thighs, then pushed out of the chair. “Swell.”
“Don’t forget the book.”
“I won’t.” Nick hefted the volume from the desk. “You know, a digital version would be easier to carry.”
“Indeed.” Dante waved a long blue hand in the direction of the two-ton tome. “It is imperative certain parties remain unaware that we have obtained a copy. Hence, the untraceable, bound version.”
“Because this is so subtle.”
A ghost of a smile touched Dante’s mouth. “Take it easy with that book, it may be useful to you in the future. And do not go beating each other with it. It’s the only English translation in existence.”
“We’ll do our best.” He stalked toward the door.
“Nick?”
Nick turn partway to meet Dante’s gaze.
“It’s nice to have you back, ropo.”
Nick’s mouth twitched and the tightness in his chest eased at the Matiran word for my friend. “It’s good to be with you again, ades.” Brother.
~*~
Nick regarded the massive volume on the wide, black-top table in the common room of the student healers’ dorm. Sakura stood at his side, close enough that he could feel her body heat, but not touching. The delicate aroma of her green tea hung in the air like a subtle perfume.
Sakura set her steaming mug on the table. “Well? What are you waiting for?”
“Just admiring the cover. What kind of animal skin do you think it’s made from?”
“A dead one.”
He cast a side-long glance at her frowning countenance. So much for breaking the ice. She was a tough audience. Quitting while he was behind seemed like the best option. “Let’s see what we have here.”
Grasping the behemoth book with both hands, he dragged it closer, the unidentified olive-green animal skin shushing across the table top. At this point it didn’t matter where they started. His fingers found a spot along the edges of the pages, and he opened the book.
The sharp scent of fresh paper rose up. How long had it been since he’d opened a real book? Had to be at least seven years, and the last book he’d ever opened was probably a high-school text book. He’d been in biology class when the Anferthians came.
A soft gasp cut through his musings and he blinked at the image on the pages. The very detailed image of an Anferthian male’s reproductive anatomy seemed to be just a little too proud of itself. Heat flamed up his neck and over his cheeks, and the room seemed to shrink to the size of a very small closet.
Sakura’s hands fluttered near the vicinity of her throat. “Um….”
Nick gave a small, dry cough. Fine time for his saliva glands to dry. “Ah. Moving on.” Hopefully to a safer subject. He flipped several pages at once.
“I need to warm my tea.” Sakura fled to the kitchen without her cup.
Talk about awkward. A grin crept up, and he gave in to it. As healers, their reactions should be more professional. Yet Sakura’s cheeks and ears had turned a bright pink, and he was still flushed. Good thing Dante had directed them away from reproduction. The circulatory system would be a lot safer.
A few minutes later Sakura emerged from the kitchen appearing more composed than when she’d bolted. The shells of her ears were still pink, though.
“I had to use the restroom,” she mumbled.
“What about your tea?”
If looks could kill, he’d be lying on the floor with no fewer than thirty-six ginsu knives lodged in vital areas. Nick swallowed back a chuckle. Laughing probably wouldn’t help the situation.
Sakura sniffed, picked up her mug, and took a sip. Her hands were tiny compared to his, and her fingers tapered at the tips. Feminine, even though her fingernails were cut short. She probably had a light, gentle touch, too.
Well, damn, his mind just went there again. Nick gave himself a mental shake. It was time to focus on the task at hand, not get on the hot and bothered expressway for a girl who seemed to despise him just because he existed. He gestured to the current page of the open health manual—a well-labeled diagram of an Anferthian brain. “Why don’t we start at the top and work our way down?”
~*~
The late night silence of the infirmary’s conference room enveloped Sakura as she leaned on her elbows over the book, her fingers shoved through her hair and her head supported on her palms. It had been hours since she and Nick had moved back here from the dorm to continue their studying. Dante and Flora, Alex’s eldest daughter, had brought them dinner, then Dante had shown up again at eleven to drop off sandwich-making supplies.
Now it was one a.m. and they were still on the gastral tract. There were so many similarities to Terrian biology, but there were differences as well. The biggest difference being the names of organs—they were all in Anferthian. And, as it turned out, neither of them knew Anferthian.
“Looks like we’ll be learning it.” Nick muttered.
She startled and looked up at him. Had she spoken her thoughts out loud? She must be more exhausted than she had realized.
Across the wide desk, Nick leaned back in his chair and stretched until his spine cracked. “Or we could just use translators when we get to wherever we’re going.”
“I will learn it.”
He grunted. “Of course you will.”
How was it possible that Nick and Alex were related? Alex was so sweet and caring, but her brother…a complete ass. Sakura refocused on the book. The drawing of an Anferthian intestine seemed to undulate back and forth like a rippling ocean on a calm day. If she could only close her eyes, just for a minute.
“You want some ass-whooper?” Nick’s question snapped her back to reality.
“Ass-whoo-per?” What was he talking about now?
His chair creaked as he stood and jerked his thumb in the direction of the infirmary’s tiny kitchen. “Capulus. Better than coffee. If you’ve never had it, it’s like espresso on espresso.”
She gave him a hard look. “I have had capulus before.” Nick should know that Magister Dacian kept the infirmary well stocked with Matir’s version of coffee. It was, in fact, very much like espresso on espresso. She would have to remember that description.
“Then I’ll make a full pot.” Nick disappeared into the kitchen.
A low growl emitted from her stomach. Studying always seemed to make her hungry. She blew out a heavy sigh and pushed to her feet. May as well use this little break to put together some sandwiches.
~*~
The earthy aroma of the dried and crushed capulus blossoms filled Nick’s nostrils and rushed straight to his head, clearing the late night fog from his brain. He leaned over the brewer and inhaled through his nose. Ah. The best stuff in the galaxy to keep a person awake for three days straight. The crash and burn afterward was brutal, though. He’d experienced the aftermath enough times during his training at the Collegium on Matir.
As brutal as the cramming he and Sakura were doing now. They’d covered everything from heartbeats per minute to blood-borne pathogens neither of them had ever heard of. If this wasn’t insanity, it was damn close.
A soft swishing sound c
ame from behind him and he turned. Sakura didn’t even make eye contact as she entered the kitchen. Figured. He leaned his back against the counter as she set out slices of thick Matiran bread, enough for two sandwiches.
“Would you make one for me, please?”
She nodded, then pulled open the cool-box and rummaged through the meats. Not processed meat he remembered from the grocery store, but the real stuff.
“Ham, if we have any.” Couldn’t hurt to drop a hint. How else would she know what he liked?
“No ham,” she said without looking up. “But, there is Matiran colf, which is almost the same.”
“That’ll work.”
Another nod was all the response she seemed willing to give. Fine. He stifled a yawn and knuckled his eyes. “Why the hell are we doing this?”
“Is that a rhetorical question?” The knife in her hand glided over the surface of a piece of bread, spreading a thin layer of homemade mayonnaise.
“Yes…no. Hell if I know.”
“Because Magister Dacian asked us.”
Well, duh. “I know that. I also know that something must have happened to the Anferthians, but what? And despite our ‘immense talent’, as Dante put it to me earlier, why would they send two Terrian healers to deal with it? It’s not like Terrians have any great love for the Anferthians. Hell, the Matirans don’t either, but they do have a higher tolerance of the ’Ferths.” Of everyone, really.
“We are doing this to save lives.” She placed a hefty helping of sprouts on the sandwiches.
He frowned and curled his lip. “We’ll be using our Gifts to save Anferthian lives.”
“Are you planning to run away again?”
A wave of anger surged through him. “What?”
She shrugged. “You did it once already, and you clearly do not care much for Anferthians, so why would I not suspect you might do it again?”
He slammed his open hand on the surface of the counter. “I know some Anferthians, Saku, and I consider them friends. But if it’s those Arruch bastards we’re supposed to help, let them die.”
Her lips thinned and a faint tinge of pink appeared on her cheeks. “I do not li—”
“Do you know what Arruch means?”
The corners of her mouth pulled down, and she shook her head.
“It means ‘sublime’.” He barked a short humorless laugh, and plowed his hand through his hair. “Sublime. Well, there’s nothing sublime about what they did to us, to our planet. They killed seven billion Earthlings, including my parents.”
Her jaw visibly tightened. “They killed my parents too, have you forgotten? And my two little brothers. But that does not change the fact that we are healers. We took the vow before entering our training. A life is a life, and I will honor my vow and use my Gift even if that life belongs to a member of the Arruch Union. It is why we have been given this ability to heal. It is who we are.”
Damn, she had a point; A really good point. He ran his hand over his face. “The Arruch can go fuck themselves for all I care…and don’t look at me like that, because I can’t be impartial on this.”
He returned her glare full measure. She looked like she wanted to say more, and he was ready with counter arguments. There was no way she’d change his mind about this topic.
A cheery chime filled the strained silence announcing that the capulus had finished brewing. Sakura turned away, her hands deftly finishing the sandwiches. It was over, for now. He reached into a cabinet, retrieved two cups, then carried them and the steaming pot back to the conference room. From what little he’d learned in the past nineteen hours, they would be spending a lot of time together. And, wouldn’t that be just great?
Chapter Four
Why did morning have to come so damn early? Nick staggered like an inebriate after a binge marathon as he trailed after Dante along the front path to Ambassador K’nil’s cube. Sakura must be feeling the same pain, but she carried herself with a composed air. Could she actually be looking forward to this meeting?
Dante stopped and Nick stared up at the massive front door. Everything about the ambassador’s place was huge. It was the largest residence in all of New Damon Beach…it had to be. ’Ferths averaged between nine to twelve feet in height.
Nick rubbed his temples to ease the dull throb in his head. Physician, heal thyself. A soft, humorous sound slipped out. Next to him, Sakura jerked like he’d just woken her up. Apparently she felt more pain than she was showing, which meant he wasn’t the only one dead on his feet. A case of misery loved company, that was for sure.
The over-sized front door opened to reveal a disproportionately tiny, white-haired Terrian woman.
“Good morning, Mrs. Beck,” Dante greeted the ambassador’s housekeeper jauntily. Nick gave the back of Dante’s head a slit-eyed glare. Nice to know someone got a decent night’s sleep.
“And good morning to you too, Doctor Dacian.” For a woman pushing seventy, Adah Beck was still full of youth and vigor. A little sass too from time to time. At Camp One she’d been adopted by all the kids as the camp grandmother. Not a surprise, really. She was that easy to love. And now this little bit of a woman was the housekeeper for the Anferthian ambassador.
“Nicholaus Bock, you look like you got hit by a train.” Mrs. Beck reached up, her smooth, cool hand patting his cheek.
Nick gave her a lop-sided grin. “Nah, just sleep deprivation, Mrs. B.” The real fun would happen later when the capulus crash-and-burn hit like a Mack truck without brakes. By then he should be holed up somewhere quiet and alone. Probably not at Alex’s, though. He wasn’t sure if he was ready for that level of discomfort. Besides, Alex might not know he was in town, or have room for an unexpected house guest.
“Ah.” Mrs. Beck nodded, understanding shining in her brown eyes. “That will do it, dear. Come in; Ambassador K’nil is waiting for you in his private office.”
She led them down a hallway and through a huge set of double doors. Beyond lay a comfortable room lined with bookshelves. They passed between a super-sized key-hole desk and several cushy chairs of various sizes arranged in a semi-circle. At the farthest end of the room, in front of a tightly shuttered window were a couple of matching loveseats. And—Nick’s heartrate sped up—a long sofa that silently begged him to come take a nap.
Mrs. Beck led them straight toward that sofa. The elderly woman stopped in front of the wall on their left and four rectangles appeared in the wall, each sliding diagonal to reveal yet another hallway. Nick’s jaw went slack. Where was the crystalline ID reader? What kind of new technology was this? The invisible wall-door concept wasn’t new to him, but he’d only seen them aboard Fleet ships, at the Collegium, and in that damned slave cell he’d been incarcerated in. Every last one of those doors had had an ID reader.
The rest of the group proceeded through the doorway. He cast a last, longing look at the sofa. So close to a nap, but it was not meant to be. What a shame.
Mrs. Beck led them to the end of a short passage toward a blank wall, which also opened on its own accord, no ID reader in sight.
“Shielded room,” Dante murmured as they entered the smaller room beyond. “For privacy.”
There wasn’t much furniture in this room; just a narrow table against the wall and a bunch of tufted, straight-backed chairs in various sizes, similar to the set up they’d just passed in the library. And muffins. A platter piled with assorted muffins—Mrs. B’s delicious, made-from-scratch muffins, no doubt. Nick swallowed the sudden excess of saliva in his mouth as his stomach emitted a long, low growl.
“Master Healer Dacian, Healer Bock.” An older Anferthian man rose from one of the chairs and inclined his grey head. “Mine is the pleasure to see you both again.”
The Anferthian ambassador couldn’t be any older than Mrs. Beck, but what she lacked in height, he had in spades. At least eleven feet tall, maybe slightly more. His demeanor always seemed calm and in control, even during the potentially explosive negotia
tions of the reclamation. The man had handled the criminal offenses of his fellow Coalition member Supreme Warden T’lik without breaking a sweat. Despite his reputation as a tenacious leader for his people, it was his black eyes that had always struck Nick as kindly.
“Ambassador K’nil,” Dante replied as Nick inclined his head in acknowledgement. “It pleases me to introduce my disipula, Sakura Yamata.”
“Great is my pleasure, Sakura of Terr.” K’nil extended his left hand, palm facing up, in the traditional Anferthian manner of greeting a new acquaintance.
Sakura stepped forward and placed her right hand in his. “Mine is the pleasure, Ambassador K’nil.”
Someone must have drilled her in Anferthian protocol at some point. How else would she know this?
K’nil then swept his hand toward the 3-D hologram of a Matiran woman who appeared to be in her mid-forties, by the Terrian calendar. Curls of short, dark hair framed her square face. “Mine is the pleasure to introduce Administer Venta Corvus of Matir, and I am not sure…ah, good. Here is Captain Ora Solaris, representing the Unified Fleet.”
“My apologies for being late,” a familiar voice said from behind Nick.
Ora strode through the doorway in her usual no-nonsense manner. Familiar tawny eyes twinkled with the sparkle of someone who’d just played a practical joke. What the heck was Gryf’s cousin doing here?
“Close your mouth, Nick, before something flies in,” she murmured as she passed on the other side of Dante. “And, welcome to the inner sanctum.”
He snapped his mouth closed as she continued on to an empty chair next to the Matiran Administer’s 3-D hologram. Well, it seemed like some things never changed. “Seriously?” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Next time maybe we can just meet up for coffee, sobin.”
He called her cousin because to him, she was. The juvenile crush he’d had on her when he was eighteen had faded quickly after she fell in love with Bodie. Even after Bodie’s death, Nick’s youthful infatuation had never returned. Ora was part of his family, like another older sister, God help him, and he couldn’t imagine her as anything else.
