She knew it was irresponsible to head for her bunk, but she was just too wrung out to think straight and that was never a good condition to be in when critical work had to be done.
It would be better, safer, to rest for a few minutes—recover her wits.
She wasn’t even sure of why she’d had the breakdown, but realized it was probably a multitude of stresses.
She was fond of Reyes. She always had been. But even she thought her reaction to his possible demise was a little excessive—which meant it was probably only the catalyst and possibly just the tip of the iceberg.
She was actually surprised, now that she thought about it, that she’d managed to hold it together as long as she had.
Constant terror was a severe drain.
She was out like a light almost the moment she lay down—as if she’d been pitched into never-land.
She realized as soon as she felt his presence why she’d exhausted herself and climbed onto her bunk to rest.
Well maybe more precisely, she’d let go and allowed her emotions to rule her for a change instead of the other way around.
She needed him and she didn’t know of any other way to contact him.
Torin hesitated as he studied her sleeping form. Finally, he reached down and stroked his index finger over her ‘third eye’. “You had only to summon me, Tita. We are linked, you and I.”
Claudia sucked in a sharp breath and sat up, blinking at him. Briefly, she turned his words in her mind but then dismissed them. “Reyes isn’t getting any better. They haven’t said so, but I’m convinced he’s going to die if he doesn’t get help. You said you had a healer who could help …?”
“I believe that she can, yes … assuming the poison hasn’t spread too far in this time.”
The comment angered her. It put the blame, if he died, squarely on her shoulders for not acting quickly enough.
Torin made a sound of annoyance. “I was not suggesting that! I want you to understand that I did not lie to you or try to give you false hope. Some things are not in the hands of the living. We can only do our best and hope that he is not beyond our help.
“This also means the window is closing, however. You will need to act fast!”
Claudia realized she’d already made up her mind. She didn’t need further convincing. “What do I need to do?”
Torin hesitated, but she didn’t believe he was thinking about it. He’d obviously planned it for some time and must have all the details figured out already.
He gave her an unfathomable look. “Yes. I have spent considerable time working out what could be done and what must. You have a laser aboard for mining. We will need that to cut through the ice to the control panel to open the mountain where our people took refuge.”
Chapter Eight
Claudia’s heart was palpitating as she rushed to gather the supplies needed for the trek to the mountain and the return trip back. When she’d double checked and then stowed them in a carrier, she half climbed, half slid down the ladder from the main level to the lower level to locate the equipment they’d brought with them to extract core samples. The mining laser Torin had specified was among those stores.
She checked it. It seemed intact, started up without hesitation. Of course, she couldn’t know it hadn’t been damaged in some way in the crash and might fail them when they needed it, so she located a couple of smaller lasers she thought would be powerful enough to do the job if the main laser failed.
Between her highly agitated state and her preoccupation with gathering what she thought she would need, she didn’t hear Shelly’s approach.
Or, perhaps, Shelly had been too stealthy for her to hear?
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Claudia nearly jumped out of her skin. She whipped a shocked, guilty look at Shelly and froze, staring at the gun Shelly had aimed at her.
“What are you doing with a gun?” Claudia countered instead of responding, mostly because she couldn’t seem to focus on anything beyond the immediate threat inherent in having a gun pointed at her.
Shelly shook Claudia’s carrier of supplies at her and dropped the bag on the floor. “You’ve got the gall to ask that when you’re stealing supplies the rest of us might need?”
Claudia gaped at her in disbelief. “I didn’t take a damned thing more than mine and Reyes’ share!” she ground out, abruptly angry enough at the false accusation to forget her danger for the moment.
“I would ask if you’d cleared it with Reyes first, but he’s in no condition to object, is he?”
“I took his share for him!” Claudia snapped indignantly.
“And the stuff you’ve got there? You figure that’s your share, too?”
Claudia licked her lips. She hadn’t wanted to try to explain what she was doing to Shelly. She shouldn’t have to! Shelly damned sure wasn’t her superior! But she could see Shelly was bound and determined to stop her. “Torin said they could help and Reyes wants me to take him! He’s dying! This is his only chance!”
It was Shelly’s turn to stare in absolute disbelief. “Who the hell is Torin? You know what, never mind! You’re insane! You’ve totally lost it! Now, put that stuff down and surrender your weapon!”
“You don’t understand! He doesn’t have much time! I have to take him now! Why do you think I was rushing around so frantically? We have to hurry!”
“I think you were rushing because you wanted to take everything while Commander Wilkes and Lt. Johnson aren’t here to stop you,” Shelly said cattily. “Now! Put the laser down, slowly, and your weapon or I’m going to blow your head off!”
Seeing no hope for it, Claudia slowly lowered the laser rifle to the deck. As she straightened, however, she saw a flash of blue. She sucked in a sharp breath to cry out a warning, but it was too late. Shelly had seen him. Her eyes widened like saucers. She screamed and started firing.
As solid as Torin appeared, the bullets passed through him as if he wasn’t there.
Which Claudia realized he wasn’t—probably never had been.
Unfortunately, when Shelly saw it was having no effect, she turned the gun on Claudia once more. This time, however, she fired.
Torin dove between them—as if to shield Claudia, which she didn’t think possible or wouldn’t have if she’d had time to think anything at all. Everything happened far too fast for brain function, however, for her to do more than ‘photograph’ the images as they played out.
Torin did stop the bullets Shelly launched at her—mid-air. It was as if they simply froze in place.
Claudia could only register Shelly’s intent to kill, though, and reacted to it, diving away and firing at the same time.
It was probably the wrong move, probably unnecessary, but she had been trained to react to life threatening situations and she did react as trained—automatically and without a wasted thought.
She caught Shelly mid-mass when she returned fire.
Shelly clipped her as she dove toward cover.
Shelly was dead before she hit the deck.
Claudia was pretty sure she was going to die, also. The pain was blinding, absorbed her entire focus. She struggled to drag breath into her lungs.
Until Torin leaned over her, looked at her—entered her body.
She felt him within, felt warmed by him and then a lessening of the pain.
And then he was kneeling in front of her once more. “Get up, Tita! We must go now! I’ve done what I can, but I can’t really help you in this form. Come to me! Hurry!”
Claudia hardly understood the half of what he said, but the urgency in his voice was unmistakable and she reacted to it. It still took an effort to get up and gather the things she’d chosen to take, the things she knew they would need. She didn’t waste more than a glance at Shelly as she passed her.
She knew Shelly was already beyond help and, in any case, she was in no condition to offer aid. It was all she could do to gather enough strength to act at all.
When she go
t back to the med center, she stopped long enough to bandage her wound to help stop the bleeding or at least slow it and put on a hab suit, then she ‘packed’ Reyes for the trek, settling his IV inside with him, covering him with a thermal blanket and then ‘podding’ him within an isolation capsule. The wheels helped to transport him to the outside but once there she had to get his capsule up onto a makeshift sled.
She didn’t know how she managed it, but it was a near thing for a handful of minutes, then it just seemed to glide into place almost as if it was levitating.
It seemed to take forever to finish loading the sled with their supplies and hook it to one of the skimobiles, and she’d begun to think she would pass out and leave poor Reyes stranded before she managed to accomplish it. The thought was enough to bolster her determination, though, and she was able to finish and mount the skimobile.
She didn’t know where she was going, she realized almost the moment she started the engine.
Then she discovered to her relief that Torin had mounted behind her. He pointed the way.
She would never have made it without him. Somehow he managed to keep her on the skimobile and alert.
She saw nothing but an icy cliff when he directed her to stop and set up the laser.
It was fortunate for all of them that the laser hadn’t been damaged in the crash and become unusable, because she was in no shape to attempt to break through with the laser rifles. She barely managed to set up the laser and program it to the depth Torin indicated.
It made short work of the nearly twenty feet of ice that had built up over the door to the sanctuary of the world NASA had designated Rogue 719 that Torin had told her was called Vishnu by his people, she recalled.
He was Torin, leader of Vishnu—or King. He wasn’t certain of the translation into English.
It didn’t matter. He had promised to help and she knew in her heart that he could be trusted, that he was man of high moral fiber, a man of honor and integrity.
She’d been right to trust him. He wouldn’t let her down.
The code he gave her to open the door produced an instant reaction. There was no ‘rustiness’, no hesitation as if gears or computer were sluggishly responding. The door slid open as if it had only closed the day before instead of the many, many years it had been sealed.
Maneuvering the isolation pod into the airlock sapped the last of Claudia’s strength. She slipped to the floor as the doors closed, trying to gather herself to get up again. Instead, she felt the darkness closing in. It occurred to her that she might well be slipping over the edge from life to … whatever came next, instead of simply losing consciousness, but, thankfully, she was too weary to care one way or the other.
She’d gotten Reyes to the help he needed. She hoped they could save him. In that moment of time, that was all that really mattered to her.
Then she felt Torin’s presence, felt warmth, a floating sensation. “No, Tita! You can’t leave me now—not when I’ve crossed light years to find you! Not when I’ve joined my soul to yours. I’m not ready to go and I will not let you go!”
The words made her smile. It was so romantic! It was a damned shame only dream men said such things! It would’ve been so nice if she’d found someone that really cared for her like that.
She dreamed he pressed his lips to hers, felt the warmth and substance of them—almost like sleeping beauty except that she fell into total darkness instead of waking.
* * * *
Claudia wasn’t certain, at first, when she woke up that she was actually awake.
It had become harder and harder to separate dreams from reality since she had crashed on Vishnu and met Torin.
He defied the laws of physics at will—at least as she knew them—ghosting in and out of her presence until the lines of reality and fantasy-dream had blurred and she was in an almost constant state of confusion, struggling to tell what was really happening and what was a dream manifestation.
She’d seen this very room, she realized almost immediately, in the dream she’d had when Torin had been making love to her.
Her face heated at the memory.
Well, she amended, he had. They just hadn’t consummated. She’d taken one look at his two penises and popped right out of what had been a very promising dream.
She was certain the minute she shifted to try to get a better look at her surroundings that she was definitely not dreaming. Pain she’d barely been aware of stabbed through her like a lance. She sucked in a sharp breath, squeezing her eyes closed and breathing shallowly while she waited for it to pass.
She sensed a presence a split second before she felt a light touch.
It wasn’t enough to brace herself.
She jerked all over, letting out a hiss as she caused herself more pain.
“The fever has passed … thankfully,” Torin said, his voice carefully neutral.
Claudia’s eyelids flew upward of their own accord in response to that deep voice she instantly recognized even though it didn’t sound quite as she remembered.
“It was in your head before. You weren’t hearing with your ears.”
Claudia blinked at him, feeling … a vague sense of intrusion. “You read my mind?” she asked a little defensively.
He studied her for a long moment, seeming to debate with himself. “That offends you?”
Claudia’s lips tightened. “Invading my privacy does, yes,” she ground out.
His face twisted. “And yet I heard no objection when I joined my soul to yours,” he said tightly. Turning, he headed briskly toward a door on the far side of the vast room. “I will leave you to your privacy. You have only to call out if you have need of anything.”
Claudia gaped at the door that closed behind him in disbelief, struggling with a sense of guilt that she was sure she didn’t deserve to feel.
It was unfortunate that she remembered thinking how sweet and romantic it was when Torin had told her he had joined his soul to hers.
Because she’d thought she was dying, damn it! Dreaming death dreams or something like that!
It wasn’t as if he’d asked her before he’d done it!
Or she’d told him she was ok with it!
What the hell did he mean by it anyway? Did he seriously believe they’d somehow formed a bond, soul to soul?
Yes, he does, damn it!
Claudia jumped at the disembodied voice, suspecting for a nano-second that it had come from a speaker.
But she knew better.
He was in her head!
“There’s only room for one damn person here!”
There was no response.
“Soul mates?”
In a far truer sense than your definition, he growled in her head, clearly displeased with her.
“Well, I don’t care, damn it! I’m human. I’m used to being alone in my head!”
Then quit sharing.
“I’d love to,” she snapped indignantly. “Tell me how.”
He didn’t. He either moved away or closed her out or threw up some sort of barrier that would allow him to eavesdrop without her being aware that he was there.
It brought home as nothing had before that she was dealing with an alien, an unknown entity that had abilities she couldn’t begin to imagine, that had customs she might never really understand, that could be motivated by things completely incomprehensible to her.
Exhaustion began to take hold almost as soon as she stopped feeling as if she would go into cardiac arrest. She struggled against it, feeling a sense of threat at the thought of being completely vulnerable.
It hardly seemed logical given that she’d woken from what she felt like must have been a prolonged period of unconsciousness, but she still felt it.
And it availed her nothing because she slipped over the edge despite her best efforts to hold onto consciousness.
It was a sense of urgency that pulled her from her dreams some time later. She sat up in the bed and looked around, trying to decide if the sense of urgency was
a threat of danger or something else.
Torin was lying beside her—stark naked and sleeping like the dead.
He wasn’t snoring, despite the fact that he was lying on his back, which led her to suspect he wasn’t asleep at all, but feigning for some reason.
Maybe to avoid a confrontation?
He didn’t move so much as a hair when she lightly lay her hand on him.
In point of fact, she didn’t even feel his chest move with breath and he was cool to the touch.
She leapt from the bed when that connected in her mind.
But when she turned to look at him, she discovered that she was looking at the frozen, barren wasteland of the rogue.
She was outside.
Without a suit.
Before she could have hysterics over that, she felt a pull—as if invisible strings were drawing her forward. It pulled harder when she was slow to respond until she discovered it had pulled her completely off her feet and she was flying above the ground—like a kite—lighter than air.
Except she knew there was no air to speak of.
In the distance, she saw a dark, seething mass. Above that mass was a swirling light show like the Aurora Borealis except this was churning and slowly forming into a funnel like a tornado.
As she drew closer, she realized the seething mass was actually a mass of individuals, moving their arms above their heads in almost a wave like motion.
Torin was standing at the forefront.
Confusion flooded her, but the pull she’d felt brought her directly to where he stood and she settled to the ground in front of him as if he’d summoned her.
There was an expression of fury on his face when he looked down at her. “You don’t belong here! You aren’t one of us! You could be hurt! Or killed!”
Claudia took a step back in dismay. Before she could whirl and flee, however, he grasped her arm just above the elbow and launched both of them into the sky. They flew so rapidly she could hardly catch her breath, could see nothing below them but a blur of white.
And then she blinked and when her eyes opened again, she found that she was in the room once more … staring down at herself where she lay next to Torin.
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