by Diana Palmer
“Why?” Dtimun asked irritably.
“Because she will ask Chacon to meet her there. She has knowledge of the plot and has been unable to reach him with her comms.”
“Then we can stop it now,” Dtimun said, rubbing his communicator ring to bring up the interface.
“I do not think so,” Komak said, stopping him. “It is already too late. She has left Memcache. You can verify this later. You must listen to me. I have little time left here.”
“You’re leaving?” Madeline asked.
“I must,” he said, and regret was in his expression. He went closer to Dtimun. They were of a similar height, and Madeline found it odd that they resembled each other when they stood together. She’d never noticed that before.
“Benaski Port is the haunt of outlaws and thieves,” Komak continued. “The pirate who controls it has sensors in place to guarantee that no Tri-Fleet military personnel will set foot there, even though it is a neutral port. He has an arrangement with the Rojok Empire and I can assure you that no covert infiltrator with a sensor net has ever been able to make port there.”
“I see,” Dtimun replied. He was concerned, and it showed.
“Chacon will land on Benaski Port because of Princess Lyceria. While he is there, a trusted colleague will arrange his assassination, or his kidnapping, that is not precisely clear in my calculations. But the princess has covert knowledge of the attempt and wants to warn him of a threat. She has no real knowledge of what the threat may be.”
“Then why go?” Dtimun asked angrily.
“Because she loves him.”
“Love,” Dtimun said, and his expression made Madeline’s heart fall. “A primitive, ridiculous emotion which has no place in the scheme of things.” He shifted uncomfortably, his need of Madeline making him more irritable, and the dravelzium Hahnson had given him was beginning to work out of his system.
Komak’s elongated eyes turned green, signifying that he was, oddly, amused.
“Then what do you suggest?” Dtimun continued.
“This will be difficult, for both of you.” Komak hesitated. “It is known in the galaxies that our people permit no bonding with other species, and that no artificial means of conception are permitted, and that the Terravegan military punishes its members for intimate contact with the other sex. It is also a fact that any Cehn-Tahr who mates with a human, if that were possible, would be immediately put to death for violation of the Species Act. These factors would give you a disguise that even the best sensors on Benaski Port would not be able to question. As renegades, outcasts facing death from two governments, you would be accepted as residents without question—the fact of the child would certainly give you a perfect reason for being there. You would blend in perfectly, a Cehn-Tahr aristocrat and his human mate, hiding from the authorities.”
Dtimun studied Madeline with barely concealed hunger. He glanced at Komak. “You have already stated the impossibility of such a liaison.”
“Yes, but as I explained to you earlier, I have a solution. I brought from the future a method which will make conception possible, and, hopefully, give the pregnancy a great chance of success. Caneese is already credited with both scientific accomplishments, so I am not changing the timeline.” He smiled. “Her skills in biochemistry are truly unsurpassed.”
Madeline was fighting a hunger of her own. She’d never wanted a child. But now... She swallowed. “Komak, how would you accomplish this? The differences in our species...”
“The first drug is used in genetic modification,” he told Madeline. “It would change your genome, give you both equal strength and permit you to mate with the commander.”
Her heart jumped.
“No,” Dtimun said coldly. “I forbid it.”
She glanced up at him. “Sir, you can’t forbid it if I decide to agree,” she pointed out. She glowered at him. “I know that you can’t help being possessive, under the circumstances. However, I do mind if you try to make decisions for me. Sir.” She pursed her lips and her eyes twinkled.
He shook his head. “Never in my life,” he began.
“Yes,” she agreed. She grinned. “See what you’ve been missing?”
His eyes flared green before he could contain the humor. But he quickly corrected it and his attention went back to Komak. “You see what genetic modification has done to my Clan, and others related to it,” he told Komak quietly. “It has destroyed the basic genetic identity of our people, changed us into beings that are more galot than humanoid.”
An odd statement, Madeline thought. He didn’t in any way resemble a cat.
He glanced at her. He was keeping so many secrets from her. Was it fair to let her genome be altered before she knew the whole truth of what the Cehn-Tahr were?
“It will be all right,” Komak told him gently. “You must trust me. I see farther than you can.” He moved to face both of them. “More depends on this than I can tell you. The two of you must discuss it. But it must be a mutual decision, or I will not intervene, regardless of the outcome. It is dangerous. The genetic modification will not be a threat, but the pregnancy will.” His face hardened. “In the history of our species, there has never been a Cehn-Tahr/human hybrid.”
“The child,” Madeline asked, her voice strangely gentle, “he would be...he would not be able to breed.”
Komak raised an eyebrow and his eyes twinkled green. “I assure you, that is not, will not, be the case. Our methods of genetic modification are, well, advanced.”
“We allow no modification of conception, or termination,” Dtimun began.
“The Dectat has brainwashed you,” Komak accused with howling green eyes. “Do you honestly believe that all Cehn-Tahr are intimate only for the creation of children? Do you believe that no artificial means of conception are used? Because I can quote future statistics of this era which will raise your hair. Sir.”
Dtimun was torn between amusement and ruffled dignity. Amusement won. His eyes flashed green. “I must admit that life without you in the Holconcom will be far less eventful,” he said, hiding a sadness that the younger alien must leave. “You have been a fine officer.”
“Thank you,” Komak said. “It has been an honor, and a privilege to serve with you both, to know you as comrades,” he added, implying that he might know them as something else in his own time.
“There is the matter of the pregnancy,” Dtimun said, his eyes quiet for a minute on Madeline’s flushed face. “Both our governments set the death penalty for such interaction. And there is the matter of the child, if conceived,” he added. “Termination is not possible, in our culture. Especially for me.”
Komak nodded. “The solution is not yet apparent. You must trust me. Things are in motion that will make this conversation quite irrevelent in the near future.”
“Trust you.” Dtimun glowered at him. “I recall hearing this many times, one of which preceded an enemy agent being stuffed alive into a plasma oven for interrogation.”
Komak’s eyebrows arched. “I did not kill him,” he reminded Dtimun. He grinned. “And he was quite talkative when I took him out.”
Dtimun actually chuckled. Madeline was laughing openly. Komak was incorrigible. She would miss him.
“You must not be concerned about your military,” Komak told Madeline gently. “Or the child. It will happen as fate decides. And as things now stand, there will be a gentle and good resolution.”
Madeline didn’t quite believe that. She was a combat officer now. She couldn’t keep a child or terminate it, and that only left...regression; returning the fetus to its individual components in a gentle process that simply unmade it. She’d seen it done, once. The fetus registered no discomfort at all. Still, it had been traumatic for Madeline, for reasons she didn’t understand.
“You must not think of it,” Dtimun told her at once, his ey
es solemn. “We must trust that Komak knows more than we do.” He glanced at the other alien and his eyes narrowed. “You are certain that I will not kill her in the process? You know more than she does about the first mating, about the violence of it.”
Komak nodded. “She will not be quite as strong as you are. Her human makeup will not make that possible. But she will be able to endure it, with some help from dravelzium and medical care afterwards.”
Madeline was looking worried. Komak smiled. “It is only the first mating that presents such problems...”
“Bataashe!” Dtimun snapped at him, and his posture became menacing.
Komak held up both hands. “I forget, that in your time, these things are taboo to discuss, even with Clan intimates,” he said. “I apologize. I meant no offense.”
“It’s all right,” Madeline said in a soft tone. “These are things I really need to know. Okay?”
Her tone calmed him. He took a long breath and straightened, but the strain was showing. “Can you make dravelzium?” he asked her tautly.
She nodded. She opened the wrist scanner and went through the combinations, producing a laserdot with the usual amount. “I do worry about using such heavy doses of this drug,” she said.
“It will not be required for much longer,” Komak assured her.
Dtimun sat beside her on the bed. His features were strained, his eyes dark with hunger. He opened the uniform shirt at the throat, enjoying her burst of phermones when she saw the thick hair over the hard muscles of his chest as she shot the laserdot into his artery. She wanted to touch him...
“Soon,” he whispered in her mind, and the tone was intimate enough to make her flush.
The dravelzium took effect and he rose again, fastening his shirt. He turned to Komak. “When?”
“When Madelineruszel agrees,” he replied gently.
She laughed. “I already have,” she replied. “Breaking laws is what he does best.” She indicated Dtimun. She grinned at his irritated expression. “And we all know that I’ve been breaking them for years.”
Komak chuckled. “Very well, then. I will have the drugs ready tomorrow morning.”
“Tomorrow?” she asked, curious.
Komak straightened. “It is a decision you must not make in haste,” he replied. “You must think about it overnight.”
“I agree,” Dtimun said. He turned to Madeline, drinking in her beauty. “Your entire genome will be reconstructed. You will never be able to go back to what you were, because the matrix will be destroyed.”
“He means,” Komak added, risking his temper, “that you would never again be able to mate with any human male.”
Dtimun looked impossibly arrogant when he said that. He looked at Madeline with that same expression that had haunted her from their conversation on Trimerius, before her return to the Amazon Division. He looked at her as if she belonged to him.
His expression was eloquent. Smug. Outrageously smug.
She glared at him. She turned her attention back to Komak. Images in her mind were confusing her. “Tomorrow, then, Komak.”
“Tomorrow,” he replied. He smiled. “You should rest until then.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
Komak smiled at her, and a flash of an image in his mind was briefly noted by Dtimun.
“You have a stake in this, beyond the saving of our species,” he told Komak. “You said that you have family in this timeline.”
“You do?” Madeline asked, fascinated.
Komak groaned. “Well, yes,” he confessed softly. “It is one reason I interfered.” He averted his eyes. “I do not wish my family to die.”
Which explained his urgent efforts to secure this timeline, Madeline thought.
“Exactly,” Dtimun replied in her mind.
“I will see you in the morning,” Komak said. “I will continue my work in Caneese’s lab.” He bowed formally to Dtimun and smiled at Madeline. He left the room.
Dtimun didn’t enable the security protocols. He moved to the bed and looked down at Madeline with conflicting emotions.
“I know,” she sighed. “You’d rather mate with a yomuth.”
He glared at her with silent outrage.
“Figure of speech,” she added, not wanting to set him off again. She knew that his control was perilous, even with the drug she’d given him.
“This mission could be suicide,” he pointed out. “Even with your...modifications.”
She sighed. “Well, sir, do you want to live forever?” she asked blithely.
He burst out laughing. “Immortality, they say, is boring.” His face grew somber. “We have discussed gestation. But not in detail. You were right in your assumptions. Our babies have twice the size of yours and our reproductive cycle is a third of yours. The baby would grow rapidly, perhaps too rapidly for even a modified human body. There is another problem, one of which you are unaware.” He hesitated. “I am not exactly as I appear.”
She nodded. “Your weight is uncanny for your size and build,” she said. “I remember it...” She cleared her throat and flushed slightly. She was remembering her fall from the cliff, when he’d caught her in midair and took her to the ground. It had been a very intimate position, and the beginning of her helpless attraction to him. “You’re far heavier than your physical appearance denotes,” she concluded.
“That is true.”
“You don’t really look like this, do you?” she asked with open curiosity.
“The mating is another issue.” He moved closer to the bed. “I told you once that passion is always violent. That applies to the first mating. It is brutal, savage, like that of the great galots. We have tried, in vain, for centuries to counteract the instinct. We cannot. It is one of the residual traits that comes from our genetic manipulation. If Komak uses this manipulation on you, the results could be more devastating than you realize. Even worse, they are irreversible. You understand?”
“Yes, sir, I do.” She drew in a breath. It was still a bit uncomfortable to breathe. Her injuries in the crash had been severe, although she had recovered almost completely. “But if Komak is right, and the future will die with Chacon, can we live with the knowledge that we could have prevented the loss of everything we know?”
“A good point.”
“It’s just...the child,” she faltered.
“I, too, have issues with termination. It is unheard of in my culture.”
She managed a smile. “Maybe we could hide him somewhere?” she asked.
He actually laughed. “In your quarters aboard the Morcai? I think he might be noticed.”
She rested her hand on her flat stomach. It surprised her how badly she wanted a child. Not just a child. His child. She tried working trig in her head to disguise the thought, but it was too late.
He looked down at her oddly. “You want the child.”
She grimaced and averted her eyes.
“This is no cause for shame,” he pointed out.
She looked up at him. “It is, sort of,” she said. “We’re doing a noble thing. But a child should be born of...”
“If you say ‘love,’ I intend to leave the room,” he gritted.
“Go ahead, because that’s what I think,” she shot back. “We’re creating a child as a sort of sensor shield, a child we can’t even keep, who will most likely have to be regressed afterward. It’s shameful, however you look at it.”
He conceded that. “Madeline, I have ordered men to their deaths,” he said softly. “I live with that every day. I remember their faces, their personalities, every one of them. It is a burden I carry, because it goes with command. Sacrifices are sometimes necessary for the greater good.”
“Yes, and I’d sacrifice myself in a heartbeat for that,” she said. “But this is a child.” She he
sitated. “And besides that, I’ve ruined your life.”
His eyebrows arched.
“Well, I have,” she muttered. “I tried so hard not to feel these things...”
He sat down beside her and put a long forefinger across her lips. “I took you to the remembrance ceremony on Trimerius, in what was a very unmilitary act,” he reminded her, “and then, I took you to Memcache, to show you my home, my past.” He withdrew his hand. “I share things with you that I could never share with another person, not even a member of my Clan.”
That was flattering. She wondered why. In fact, she wondered what had changed a military relationship of three years into something so suddenly intimate. She searched his face, but his expression was closed. She sighed. “What should we do?”
“You already know.”
“Yes.” She managed a faint smile. “Komak uses that word, karamesh, fate.”
“Everything is already written. Or so we believe.” His face became solemn. “There will be risks.”
“Sir, I’ve taken risks my whole life,” she pointed out. Her lips pursed. “My biggest one, of course, was when I was hijacked by this Cehn-Tahr commander and became the first human female ever to serve in the Holconcom.” She shook her head. “You can be a real pain sometimes, sir, begging your pardon.”
A laugh escaped him. “May I return the compliment? Wrecking bars. Sparring with human males....” His expression grew dark and dangerous.
“All you have to do is see into my mind to know how I felt about Flannegan,” she invited.
His expression relaxed. It grew possessive. Arrogant. Then he glared at her.
She laughed. “I know. It’s just a gnawing hunger for you, one that you can’t control, and that irritates you even more.” The laugh faded. “I know that you have no...feelings for me. It’s okay,” she added quickly. “I can’t help mine, but I don’t blame you for yours. I know what happened to you on Dacerius, how much you...loved the female with whom you bonded there.”
He averted his eyes. He would never have told her about the Dacerian woman, but she’d seen it, somehow, in his mind when they went to Lagana and he saved her from the deadly fall. “It still perplexes me, how you knew about her,” he said quietly.
