*
The late night feeding over, Carrie was unable to settle their daughter. Kashini wriggled and squirmed, mewling fretfully in her tiny, high-pitched voice.
“I’ll take her for a while,” offered Kusac, sitting on the edge of the bed beside her.
Gratefully, Carrie handed over the cub. “I don’t know what’s gotten into her,” she said, rubbing her arms. “She was like this when I fed her this morning. The nurse said she’s been fine with her, though. And she’s growing so fast! She weighs a ton, Kusac.”
“Hardly,” he laughed, holding his daughter upright against his chest so she could see over his shoulder. “Cubs do grow quickly at first. She’ll slow down soon, I promise you.”
As if by magic, Kashini’s mewling stopped to be replaced by a low, trilling purr. Carrie watched as the infant’s hands clutched hold of Kusac’s pelt and the small body began to relax against his.
“Great,” she said “It’s your fur she’s after. Well, there’s no competition, is there?”
Kusac reached out with his free hand to run his fingertips across Carrie’s face. “You like my fur, why shouldn’t she? She’s only taking after her mother.” His tone, both mental and verbal, held a teasing note and Carrie had to smile.
“That’s better,” he said, resting his hand on her shoulder. “You’re tense. If you’re finding Kashini so heavy, you should do what Vanna does. Lay Kashini down on the bed beside you and feed her like that. Then her weight won’t matter.”
Carrie grunted, making herself more comfortable against the pillows. “And how do you suggest I get round the problem of being unfurred?”
“You don’t need to. What Kashini is responding to now is being held upright. Lying on her back isn’t a natural position for her, it’s one of surrender, of acknowledging you’ve lost a Challenge, or,” he said, hand clasping the back of her neck firmly as he leaned toward her, “accepting your lover.”
“I like that one,” she said, leaning forward to meet him.
Their kiss was gentle, a stolen moment as their child began to settle. Reluctantly they parted.
“I think she’s been picking up the physical tension her weight’s causing, and that plus the fact she doesn’t want to be on her back, are all that’s wrong,” Kusac said, reaching up to gently caress his daughter’s tiny head.
“You’re probably right,” Carrie conceded. “I’ll try what you suggest tomorrow. By the way, shouldn’t we have had a Link day round about now?”
“Not necessarily. Mother said you might not feel the Link compulsion just after Kashini’s birth because of your hormone levels. It isn’t dangerous so long as we stay close during this period.”
“Will you go to Vanna?”
He hesitated, then decided to get up and put the cub in her crib before answering. He knew by the infant’s slow mental rhythms that she was close to sleep.
“Not for the moment,” he said, returning to his mate’s side. “Vanna’s becoming more involved in her own life at last. I’m hoping Kaid will settle with someone so that when you and he are together …” He tailed off as he saw the expression on her face. “What is it? Is there another problem with Kaid?”
“Have you seen him since third meal?”
“No. Why?”
“He’s wearing one of the Brotherhood robes.”
“It’s cold, Carrie. Even I’m feeling it,” he said Ãxwreasonably.
“That’s not why he’s wearing it. He’s begun to create a physical barrier between us now, I can feel it.”
Kusac sighed and climbed into bed beside her. “Then it’s probably just as well I contacted Lijou. Don’t let it upset you, cub,” he said. “I’m sure we’re as much victims of what’s troubling Kaid as he is.” He wrapped his arm across her waist and gently urged her closer.
“I’m not upset,” she said. “I just wish I knew what had happened. It was so sudden. One day he was gentle and affectionate in his own way, the next, it was as if there was a wall of ice between us. Did I tell you I asked T’Chebbi to keep an eye on him?”
“Sensible. They’re old friends. Her concern won’t make him feel like his privacy’s being invaded or that we’re keeping a watch on him,” he said, nuzzling the side of her neck.
“More than that, if there is anything wrong, she’ll spot it quicker than anyone. The pity is she won’t be able to go to Stronghold with him.”
“Lijou and Kha’Qwa will watch over him, don’t worry about that. I think our esteemed Head Priest regards Kaid as God-marked. He doesn’t want any harm to come to him either.”
Carrie turned to face him. “Dim the light,” she said. “Kashini’s asleep now.” She began to gently stroke the short, soft fur that covered his face. “Have I told you what a good father you are?” she asked drowsily. “If I haven’t, I meant to. I love watching you two.”
A wave of pride swept through him and he began to gently lick along the edge of her jaw. I try, he sent. You and Kashini mean everything to me. He wanted her so much, but he knew she wasn’t ready yet for a more intimate contact.
Soon, she replied, running her hand across his chest. The magic will awaken me soon.
I know. It’s just so damned hard to wait! Resolutely he suppressed his lustful thoughts and contented himself with breathing her scent and holding her close within his arms.
*
T’Chebbi watched Kaid from behind a pillar in the garden. He stood looking out toward the woodland beyond the front gate. He’d been standing ankle-deep in the snow like this for the last half hour; it worried her.
“What is it, T’Chebbi?” he asked quietly, turning round to look at her hiding place.
She came out from behind the pillar and plowed through the snow to join him, pulling her coat tighter around her. “Should have expected that.” She stopped a few feet in front of him.
“Why are you watching me?”
“She asked me to.”
Kaid’s ears flicked, once. “She?”
“The Liegena. Said you might need company at night.”
“Company?” His ears laid themselves backward, flat against his skull.
She shrugged. “Talk. Company.”
His eye ridges met. “She… told you what?”
T’Chebbi’s ears flicked a negative. “Nothing.”
“She’s wrong,” he said abruptly, turning away from her, raising his ears with an obvious effort. “I don’t need anything.”
T’Chebbi watched him stalk off into the villa, robe billowing behind him in the wind. “Wrong, Brother Tallinu,” she sighed, waiting till he was out of sight before following him. “You need her. You just won’t, or can’t, admit it.”
*
He paced angrily round his room, holding the Triad pendant tightly in his damaged hand. He felt used, but by whom he didn’t know. The same with his angerâ there was no one at whom he could rightly direct it. Part of him wanted to wear the pendant as openly as did Carrie and Kusac, but the other side… He flung the piece of jewelry at the far wall with all the force he could muster, hearing it hit and fall to the floor. Against the base of his throat, the crystal began to warm. He’d pull it off, too if he could bear to touch it, but touching it would bring back memoriesâ and worse, enhance her presence in his mind.
He growled deep in his throat. Memories. He wanted none of them! His mind was playing tricks on him, hiding something from him. Why had Vartra reached out from the past and touched him in his new life? Why couldn’t He have left him alone? He laughed, knowing the sound wasn’t pleasant even as he made it. The life of a renegade hadn’t been so bad. There had been no feelings, no memories to hurt and plague him, until Garras had contacted him. And no alien female to… what?
Flinging himself down on his bed, he pulled the cover over himself. He winced slightly as a fold caught on the edge of his right hand where his smallest finger had been. Ghezu. There were times when he woke with the smell of his own freshly spilled blood in his nostrils and the memory of Ghe
zu holding him upright by the hair. But Ghezu was dead. He’d personally killed him.
The memory wouldn’t leave him though. If I have to cut the information from you an inch at a time, I’ll do it. He could hear his voice, smell his scent. The room seemed to darken around him as he struggled to break free of the memory and the fear.
Another rushed up on him, banishing the first. Noni.
There will be cubs, Tallinu, prepare yourself for that. Your cubs. I saw them before, and I’ve seen them since.
“Not if I can help it,” he growled, pushing himself up and lifting his head and shaking it in an effort to dispel the memory of her words. “Not if I can help it, you old crone! Not even if Vartra Himself orders it!”
Vartra. The God had used himâ for what? He tried to remember, but it was becoming difficult to think straight. Half a lifetime of service to Him in return for… betrayal.
Betrayal? Harsh words, Tallinu. He knew the voiceâ knew it only too well. What is one when balanced against the future of a species?
Once more the beginnings of fear rushed through him, and determinedly he pushed them back.
“You’re not a God. You’re a male, no different from me!” His voice was low but intense in his anger.
I was. Who do you think speaks to you? How do I, dead these thousand and more years, speak to you if I’m not a God?
“Varza! He was the God, not you!”
Gently mocking laughter echoed inside his head as he put his hands up to his ears. “I won’t listen to you any more, Vartra! It’s over! I’ve done what you asked!”
Varza once lived, too. He was fragmented, first by the collapse of His Temple, then by His monastery. The people wouldn’t let me sleep. They used Him to see me, Tallinu. They disturbed my peace, condemning me to live on, to exist without rest till I am as you know me now.
Kaid looked frantically round the room. “I’m imagining this,” he growled. “You aren’t real!” He began to shiver and cautiously let go of his head to pull the cover up again.
Not real? Look at me! A sigh sounded in his ears as he shut his eyes, afraid to look. What’s real, Tallinu? You helped create me! You and the generations of worshipers who demanded that I be there for them! You are my link to the future and the past, Tallinu. I cannot release you. Our work is not yet done. Look at me!
He could feel the cold seeping into the room, making him shiver till his teeth began to chatter, chilling him to the very soul.
Look at me! The voice sounded loudly in his ears. He could smell the scent of the nung incense, of the world of the Margins.
He opened his eyes, afraid of what might happen if he didn’t. Before him, at the foot of his bed, stood the image of the God. He sucked his breath in, trying not to cry out in terror. It was Vartra, the Vartra of the Margins, but dressed in traditional Warrior gear, complete with the two swords held in the back-slung harnesses. Gods! He was hallucinating! He really was losing his mind.
The soft laugh, mocking yet not unkind. A male like you, lose your mind? I hope not, Tallinu. You, one day, will find peace. But not until our work is finished; we have our people to save. Trust, Tallinu. Now you must really trust me! Remember this meeting, remember what I’ve told you.
He watched, frozen in fear, as the apparition turned. Beyond it a flicker of light shone, and it was toward this that Vartra seemed to walk. A few steps and he was gone. In his head Kaid heard the echo of the God’s last words as he lost consciousness.
Remember this meeting.
*
He woke to feel a hand shaking his arm. He hadn’t the strength to do more than let out a strangled cry before the light came on and he saw it was T’Chebbi. He lay there shivering convulsively as she leaned over him and took hold of his hand.
“Excuse,” she said apologetically, reaching for his neck and placing her hand against his pulse. “You’re burning up.” She pulled the cover aside to feel his robe. “You went to bed damp,” she said, frowning. “No wonder you have a fever.”
He lay there watching as she went to the bathing room and returned with a large towel. It hurt to breathe and his joints ached. All he wanted to do was lie still till he felt better. Pulling him upright despite his feeble protests, she efficiently stripped off his robe and began to towel him briskly.
“Standing in snow for so long, then sleeping in damp clothes. You trying to die, Kaid?” she demanded, lowering him back to the bed. “Easier ways!” She left him and went to the wardrobe to fetch another woolen robe. Flinging it over the bed, she took hold of him and began to pull his legs off the bed until they touched the floor.
“Get up,” she ordered. “Put robe on. I fetch Vanna.”
At last he felt impelled to make the effort to speak. “No,” he said hoarsely. “Not Vanna. She’s got a cub, too. Take me to Jack.”
She looked at him in disgust. “You mad? Take you out in this state? You die for sure!”
“No. Must leave. Mustn’t give it to them or the cub,” he insisted, taking hold of the robe with shaking hands. He knew without doubt that this time he was beyond dosing himself. “Take me, T’Chebbi.”
She made a dismissive sound and turned to leave.
He caught hold of her. “T’Chebbi, I must leave here. This fever’s dangerous, I know it! Could kill Kashini. Trust me!”
She searched his face, then nodded slowly. “Very well.” She helped him get to his feet and put on his robe.
“Tell Jack, cleanse the room,” he said, keeping his head turned from her as slowly they began to make for the door. “You must be isolated, too. Jack won’t get it, nor any Humans except Leskas.”
She grunted. “How you know so much? If you so sensible, why stand in snow?”
“Cold helps reduce the temperature. Tell Jack that, too.” He leaned against her, trying not to cough as they made their way slowly toward the staircase.
*
Fifteen minutes later, they were knocking on the door of Jack’s private quarters in the medical unit.
“God Almighty… What’s up with him?” Jack demanded, flinging his door wide open.
“Fever,” said T’Chebbi, supporting the almost unconscious Kaid. “Said bring him here. Contagious to Sholans and Human Leskas. He’s burning up, Physician.”
Jack ran his hands through his hair, thinking rapidly. “Take him to the ward on this level,” he said. “Give me five minutes to get dressed.”
“Where?”
“Back the way you came, second door on your left. Take the first room you come to and get him into bed.” He turned back into his room then stopped. “Get that robe off him. Can you take his temperature?”
T’Chebbi raised an eye ridge. “I’m a paramedic,” she said. “I’ll do it.”
*
Jack hurried into his bedroom and hastily got dressed, cursing himself briefly for assuming that because T’Chebbi used words sparingly, she wasn’t the equal of any other Brotherhood member.
When he joined T’Chebbi in the single room, she silently held out the diagnostic unit to show him Kaid’s temperature.
“He said use ice,” she said. “Was more lucid than I thought.”
Jack went over to the wall-mounted comm and called the medic on duty. “We’ve got a fever patient. I need as much ice as you can get and as fast as you can get it. Get buckets and collect snow if you have to. I’m in room five.” He turned back to T’Chebbi. “Right. What d’you know about this? What kind of fever is it?”
“None I know,” she said. “He kept saying Carrie knows.”
“Use the comm. Wake them and find out what you can,” he said, going over to where Kaid lay on the bed. He pulled back the thin sheet that T’Chebbi had used to cover him, then proceeded to open both the windows.
“We’ll have to put up with the cold until the ice arrives,” he said. “Unless we get his temperature down fast, he could go into convulsions.”
*
Bleary eyed, Kusac answered the comm. “T’Chebbi, what is it?” Then h
e saw the hospital room behind her. “What’s happened?” he demanded, instantly awake.
“Kaid has a fever,” she said. “Serious. One he says you and Liegena could catch. Says Liegena knows what the fever is.”
“Carrie knows? How could she know? Are you sure it isn’t the fever talking?”
She shook her head. “Not. Ask Liegena. Temperature dangerously high. She knows, he says.”
“I’ll get her.” He left the lounge and returned to the bedroom at a run. Carrie was already half out of bed.
“I picked it up,” she said, pulling on an overrobe and hurrying into the lounge. “T’Chebbi, Kaid says I know the fever. Did he say how?”
“No. Only other things he said was ice. He wants ice to lower his temperature. Says only Sholans and Human Leskas can catch it.”
Kusac watched Carrie turn white and put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, Gods, no!”
“What?” he demanded, grabbing hold of her and turning her round to face him. “What is it?”
“The fever! The first fever he never caught! Vartra’s serum! He must have caught it while we were in the Margins!”
“The dream you had! That’s got to be it! T’Chebbi, let me speak to Jack.” He waited impatiently till Jack came to the screen. “Jack, back in the past, Vartra used a strain of ni’uzu to carry his genetic enhancements. It triggered a fever, but it was stronger than normal. It raised the temperature to the point where some patients suffered convulsions and brain damage. A lot of them died. You’ve got to bring his temperature down!”
“I intend to, lad, don’t worry,” said Jack, glancing over his shoulder. “The ice has just arrived, I’ve got to go.”
Carrie pushed Kusac aside. “I’m coming over, Jack,” she said. “The fever is a stronger variant of the one we caught. We should be immune.”
“You’ll come nowhere near the center, Carrie,” he said sternly. “It’s under quarantine as of now.”
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