“I don’t know about ‘better.’” Madeline sniffed and swiped at her eyes again, this time with a forearm. “Maybe more like all cried out. I just feel…empty inside. Empty and embarrassed.” She struggled in his arms and Calden let her sit up. “I don’t understand how I could let myself…go like that. I mean, I don’t even know you.” Her cheeks flushed a dull red—clearly she was talking about the orgasm she had experienced while he was washing the nutrient slime out of her.
“You were simply reacting to physical stimuli,” Calden pointed out. “Your nerves are extremely sensitive—you couldn’t help yourself.”
“I should have helped myself—or at least stopped myself from crying like a baby all over you.” She shook her head, still plainly embarrassed by her loss of emotional control. “I’m sorry—I don’t know why I lost it like that.”
“You had a physical release which led to an emotional release, I believe,” Calden speculated. “Waking in the nutrient bath and learning of the demise of the rest of your crew members and your mate was a traumatic experience. I am sorry I did such a poor job of breaking the news to you.”
She frowned and lifted her chin.
“I want to look around your station or wherever this is. I want to see for myself that no one else is here—that you’re telling the truth and you don’t have the rest of them hidden away in slime tanks somewhere.”
Calden thought about it and shrugged.
“I see no reason why you should not have a tour of the station,” he remarked. “In the past, I have brought other specimens out of the lab and FATHER and the Mentats have never objected.”
Madeline sighed. “Could you please stop calling me a specimen? I’m a person, you know. Even though I’m smaller than you it doesn’t mean I don’t have thoughts and feelings.”
“Forgive me,” Calden said. “It is…difficult to know how to treat you. In addition to being sentient and a totally different species, you are also female—I have had almost no experience with your kind.”
“What? With females?” Hey eyebrows raised in surprise.
“My people had no females left to mate with—which is why most of them chose to go looking for brides while I elected to come to the Mentat station. Of course I had a mother…” He sighed. “But she died when I was very young. I have only a few scattered memories of her.”
“Well, just treat me like a friend,” she suggested. “Or at least another intelligent being. Just because I have girly parts doesn’t make me some kind of mystery or riddle to be solved or mean I’m mentally incompetent. I can think for myself—a vagina and a brain aren’t mutually exclusive, you know.”
“Of course not.” For some reason, her words made his eyes flicker down to the vagina in question. Madeline had a soft mound of curls about the same dark color as the hair on her head there. Calden thought of how she had trembled against him, her full breasts pushed against his face as she called out in the throes of pleasure. Strangely, he felt his shaft hardening at the memory. Quickly, he looked away from her naked body.
“Could you give me something to dry off with and then get me some clothes?” Madeline asked.
“Oh, yes—yes of course.” Calden got up from his seat on the hard tiles of the shower-stall floor and went to seek some of the moisture-wicking towels he used after washing the nutrient slime off his specimens. Usually he put the smaller, more delicate ones into a cleansing bath but Madeline, while tiny, wasn’t quite small enough to fit into the deep, shallow bowl he had used for the branthas and other animals their size, which was why he had used the shower instead.
But she’s not an animal, he reminded himself as he handed her one of the dark blue towels and then used one on himself as well—he had basically been sitting in a puddle while he held her and soothed her as she cried. She’s a sentient being—and a female—she will require particular care to keep her healthy and well.
Until the self-termination unit implanted at the back of her neck goes off, that is, whispered a little voice in the back of his head.
Calden pushed the thought away. He had implanted a unit of the longest possible length in Madeline, wanting to have as much time as he could get with her before her heart and lungs froze and she became non-viable. But now, watching her as she clutched the towel awkwardlyto her soft, curvy body and remembering how she had felt in his arms, he didn’t want to think about her impending termination. He just wanted to look at her and talk with her—she was fascinating and, he had to admit reluctantly to himself—most attractive. In an alien, completely non-sexual way, of course.
“You can use the towel on your hair as well,” he told Madeline, who was clutching the dark blue fabric to her breasts, holding it up with her forearms since her hands were still limp. “It will wick away the moisture immediately.”
“No, I can’t.” She indicated her dangling hands. “I can’t do anything with hands like these. Are you sure you’ll be able to cure them?”
“I’m certain,” Calden reassured her. “Here—I will dry your hair.” He started to take the towel from her but she took a step back.
“Look, I know you’ve already seen, uh, all my goodies and you say you’re not interested in me like that, but I’d still rather keep covered. I’m not exactly skinny enough to be running around in my birthday suit, if you know what I mean.”
“No, I do not know what you mean,” Calden said, mystified. “What is a birthday suit? And why should you be ashamed of your curves? They are most attractive—or I imagine they would be most attractive to a male of your own species,” he added quickly.
Madeline frowned. “Thanks, I guess. And ‘birthday suit’ is just a euphemism for naked or nude. Because you’re nude when you’re born—so your naked body is your birthday suit. Get it?”
Calden nodded. “Now I see—that does make sense.” And it was especially apropos considering that she had just been born again in a way, having been grown as a clone in the nutrient tanks. But he didn’t mention that. Madeline had already had enough emotional trauma for one day. Learning that her body was not the one she had been born with—though it was almost identical in every way—might be too much for her mind to handle right now.
“Here.” He got another towel and beckoned for her. “I will tend to your hair. And then we’ll have to see what we can do about getting you some clothing.” He frowned. “I should have anticipated this problem but I’ve never—”
“Had a specimen that needed to wear clothes before?” She raised an eyebrow at him as she came closer so he could towel off her hair.
“Well…” Calden cleared his throat uncomfortably. He would have to find a new way to think of and refer to her. But it was going to be difficult to keep emotional distance from her if he couldn’t think of her in clinical, scientific terms. Difficult to keep the barrier he needed between them in order to keep his observations clear-eyed and his analysis logical.
I think you already broke that particular barrier when you held her in your arms and comforted her while she cried, whispered a little voice in his head. I think you’re in trouble here, Calden. Maybe the best thing to do would be to ask FATHER to implement her self-termination unit now.
But even the thought of that—of watching Madeline sink cold and lifeless to the ground as her heart and lungs seized up—made his own heart fist tight in his chest. No, he wouldn’t do any such thing. He was being foolish. He had much to learn from the little female—he would just have to be careful and delicate in the way he went about learning it. Having a sentient specimen—no person—to learn from was going to present a whole new bunch of challenges he had never encountered before.
That’s all right—I like challenges, Calden told himself. I can handle this—I can handle anything in order to learn about this new culture and species. All knowledge is valuable and sometimes attaining it is painful or difficult. I can…
His thoughts cut off abruptly when he pulled the moisture-wicking towel away from her head and saw the color of her hair. While it h
ad been wet, it had simply been an indeterminate dark shade. Now, completely dry thanks to the thirsty fibers of the towel, he saw it was a deep reddish brown that glowed softly as it fell in long waves down her back. It was rich and thick, almost like a living waterfall and for some reason his hands ached to stroke it and test its silky texture.
Calden had never seen hair like it.
“Beautiful,” he breathed, before he could stop himself.
“I’m sorry, what?” Madeline frowned and turned to look over her shoulder at him.
“I mean, uh…unusual. Your hair—I’ve never seen hair that color before,” Calden said quickly.
“Auburn.” Madeline sighed. “It runs in my family. Or it did, I guess.” She sighed and sniffed. “My mom and sisters all had it too.”
“A hereditary trait—a lovely one if I may say so,” Calden said neutrally. “Let me go see if I can find something for you to wear.” He frowned. “We have a clothing simulator here but it’s set for someone my size only, since the Mentats don’t believe in bothering with clothing except for lab coats to protect their bare skin from volatile experiments.”
“Just give me whatever you’ve got and I’ll make do,” Madeline said. “Anything is better than being naked.”
“Anything is better than wearing your ‘birthday suit’?” Calden said, hoping he had gotten the usage of the strange euphemism right.
“Yes, exactly.” Madeline nodded and a little smile—the first he had seen from her—twitched the corner of her lush mouth. The new expression brightened her face and made her delicate features even more lovely.
Before he could dwell on that idea too much, Calden turned to go.
“As you wish. I’ll simulate the smallest thing I can.”
“Thank you,” he heard her say but he didn’t look back. It was a damn good thing, he told himself, that her species was much too small to be compatible with his own. Madeline was much lovelier and more attractive than he was strictly comfortable with.
It was going to make studying her both difficult and intriguing.
Four
Maddy stood there shivering, the dark blue towel clutched to her chest with her forearms since her hands still hung useless and limp. Maybe she should have asked him to fix that first. But at the moment, getting something to wear had seemed to be her most pressing problem.
For something to do while she waited for Calden to come back, she looked around the strange alien room she found herself in. It appeared to be some kind of a laboratory although what the strange, oversized equipment was meant to measure or observe, she couldn’t tell.
One thing looked a little like a microscope but instead of one lens to look through, it had five and there were delicate-looking knobs all up and down its sides. Madeline thought about looking into it but it might be specifically calibrated and she didn’t want to mess it up.
She walked around the perimeter of the room, taking it all in. There were several other, incomprehensible pieces of equipment including a large rectangular silver box that might be some kind of cold storage unit or refrigerator. It had large drawers with metal handles and she wished again that her hands worked so she could pull one out and examine its contents. Beside it was a sink set into a counter that came up to her chest.It had a long, curving faucet and several shiny knobs and levers attached to it.
The counter ran the length of the wall and afterMaddy passed the sink, she saw something beside it that seemed to stop her heart.
Lying in a shallow pan—a dissection pan whispered a little voice in her head—was the corpse of a small, furry creature about half the size of a cat.
What the hell? Maddy thought uneasily as she looked at the dead alien animal, which was covered in short, orangish-red fur. It had a long snout that looked almost like a trunk and short, stubby legs. Big, glassy eyes were open and fixed sightlessly at the wall. It hadn’t been cut open or dissected—yet. But she saw several sharp-looking cutting implements—maybe Calden’s version of a scalpel?—lying on a tray beside it.
Maddy thought of how she’d accused the huge alien—Kindred, he’d said he was a Kindred—of wanting to cut her open and dissect her and his convincing display of horror at the thought. But surely this strange creature was one of his “specimens” and that looked like exactly what he was going to do. Had he killed it so he could study it? Or had it died of natural causes and he was about to do a necropsy on it to determine the cause of death?
As a vet, Maddy had dissected plenty of specimens herself while in school but she’d never killed anything for the express purpose of studying it. She wondered uneasily how much she could trust the giant Kindred and looked longingly at the sharp blades with their long silver handles laid out beside it. If her hands were working she could take one and hide it somewhere so she’d have a weapon to defend herself if things turned ugly.
Then she remembered how Calden had held her while she cried her heart out—the way he had rubbed her back and whispered soft, soothing words in her ear to comfort her while she had her mini-nervous breakdown. Abruptly, she felt ashamed of herself. Would a person who could display such compassion and kindness for a stranger’s grief be likely to kill somebody and cut them up to study them?
“I don’t see how he could,” Maddy murmured to herself. His arms around her had felt so comforting—she had badly needed a kind touch and a soft word when she was feeling so upset and alone. And Calden had been there for her. Likely he was just doing his best to help her—the sole survivor of a terrible wreck—like any decent guy would do. Still…
“Here you are.”
His deep voice startled her. Whirling around, she saw that he was holding out a piece of black fabric, though she couldn’t see what kind of clothing it was.
“I was looking around your lab,” she said, unnecessarily. “Is that one of your specimens?” She nodded at the furry orange creature in the tray.
Calden stiffened visibly and for a moment she thought she had upset him.
“Yes,” he said at last, his deep voice neutral. “That is a brantha from Harkon Prime.”
“Did you kill it?” Maddy demanded. She didn’t know why she was being so harsh—so accusatory. Hadn’t she just been telling herself that the giant Kindred couldn’t possibly be capable of such a thing? But somehow she couldn’t seem to stop. “Did you kill it so you could cut it up and study it? Or did it die of natural causes and you’re trying to find out why?”
“I did not kill the brantha.” Calden’s tone was still carefully neutral. “But it did die before its natural life span was up.”
“Oh.” Maddy felt a rush of relief. “So you were going to perform a necropsy—to see why. Right?”
“Essentially.” He cleared his throat. “If you’re having fears again about my possible treatment of you—”
“No, I’m sorry.” Maddy shook her head. “I shouldn’t have been so rude. It just…upset me when I saw the, uh—what did you call it?”
“The brantha.” His deep voice was thick with emotion when he spoke this time. “He was…a very engaging little creature. Very affectionate. I was…sad when he passed, though we are not supposed to engage in emotions here on the Mentat station.”
Maddy felt awful when she saw the pain in his glowing topaz eyes.
Oh my god—it was some kind of a pet. I accused him of killing his own pet to dissect it! What a jerk I am!
“I’m sorry,” she said again, earnestly. “I didn’t know he was your pet—I thought he was just a specimen.”
“He was a specimen,” Calden protested. “But…” His voice dropped. “I suppose he became a kind of pet—though again, such things are forbidden here.”
“If having emotions and pets is forbidden, I don’t think I’m going to fit in here very well,” Maddy said, frowning. “I’m a vet—a veterinarian, you know. I worked with people’s pets—cured them and healed them—for a living back on Earth. It’s one reason I was welcome aboard the Kennedy, because the leaders thought I’d be useful to
have around when we established a new colony and we could start defrosting the embryos of the farm animals we brought.”
Calden cocked his head to one side and gave her a penetrating look.
“Fascinating. So your profession was to care for animals? In that case, I am sorry the brantha expired before you could see him for yourself. I think you would have liked him.”
“Did you ever give him a name?” Maddy asked.
He shook his head. “I simply thought of him as ‘the littlest one’ I suppose. To actually name a specimen is to become too attached.”
“I guess it’s too bad I came already named, then,” Maddy said dryly.
“I’m glad you can remember your name,” Calden said seriously. “It means that your other memories are not far behind. And I am hoping to learn much from you in the time that we have.”
“In the time that we have?” Maddy frowned. “What does that mean?”
“I…” Calden cleared his throat. “I just meant in the time that FATHER has allotted for this study.”
“Who is this ‘FATHER’ anyway?” Maddy asked. “You’ve mentioned him before—is it your actual father?”
“Oh, no.” Calden appeared to be amused by the idea because his glowing topaz eyes crinkled and the corners of his mouth twitched. The expression made his chiseled features almost handsome and for a moment Maddy felt her heart skip a beat. “FATHER is the AI overseer who runs the Mentat station,” he explained.
“AI? As in Artificial Intelligence? You have a computer boss?” Maddy asked, putting a hand to her hip—or trying to. She kept forgetting that the damn things were non-functional. All she succeeded in doing was letting the towel she’d been clutching to her chest slip halfway off, revealing her bare right breast.
“Oops!” She clutched for the towel but it was hard to hold onto when her hands weren’t working. She found she couldn’t even get the towel back up to cover herself so she had to settle for hiding her nipple with her arm. “Damn it, I’m getting really tired of this!” she exclaimed, feeling her cheeks get hot with embarrassment and frustration.
Awakened by the Giant Page 4
