by Megan Alban
She still hadn’t called him Your Highness, but Khiron was willing to forgive the lapse in one so lovely. “And what about—what did you call it—Latin? How many Terrans speak that?”
“Nobody, really.”
Khiron’s brows drew together. He turned to Bickli. “You told me you spoke a language that was known all over Terra.”
“But it is,” Bickli protested. “This person is too stupid, perhaps, to—”
“Excuse me, I am not stupid,” Mia said. “You’re right about Latin in a way, but you’re behind the times. I guess you could go anywhere and find a professor who knows it, but ordinary people haven’t used it for hundreds of years.”
“You see, educated people speak it, Your Highness,” Bickli said.
“I want to be able to talk to everybody.” Khiron turned to Mia. “You yourself can communicate in one of the international languages?”
“I speak English best, but I can get by in all of them,” she replied.
“So, please ask this woman”—Khiron gestured to the cleaner—“if she knows where we will find my fiancée, the future Princess Linza.”
He sat back and watched while the two Terran women conversed. The young one—Mia—moved her hands in an attractive way as she spoke, and this seemed to aid communication. He would be glad to spend this night with such a passionate girl, and feel those expressive hands moving over his body. His skin tingled in delicious anticipation.
She turned back to him, and he caught the last moments of the smile she had bestowed on the other Terran. It lit up her face and made his heart sing.
“She says your fiancée spent some time in south-east Asia, setting up a clean water project. This woman’s native town benefited from it. But this was last year, and since then your fiancée has moved on—she thinks to Europe.”
Khiron nodded. “Very well. We’ll go to Terra tomorrow. It seems Linza is well known, and will not be difficult to find. Meanwhile, we shall have dinner, and sleep together.”
The girl looked startled. Khiron gave her a smile to reassure her. She looked from him to the manager, then to Bickli, and finally back at Khiron.
“You mean me?” she said.
“Why, yes. I do not intend to sleep with Professor Bickli.” Khiron laughed at his own joke.
“But you said you have a fiancée.”
Khiron frowned. Could she be questioning his morals? “That’s a matter of politics. It was arranged by our parents. At the wedding, I’ll take a vow of fidelity, and I’ll keep it. But I’m not married yet.”
“All the same, I—” The girl looked troubled. She glanced at the waystation manager, who scowled at her.
Didn’t she want to spend the night with Khiron? Strange, this had never happened before. What objection could she have?
“You’re married yourself, perhaps?”
“No, but I—”
“Mia,” the manager said in a warning tone. “I’m sure the crown prince will make it worth your while.”
Her face took on a stubborn frown. “I’m not a prostitute.”
The manager hissed something at her in an undertone. Khiron couldn’t hear it, but he guessed its meaning. Whatever her reason for turning him down, he didn’t wish her to feel forced to accept him, or lose her job.
“Don’t be harsh with her,” he said to the manager. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t wish to spend the night with her if she’s reluctant. I’ll find somebody else.”
The manager nodded, and sent her back to her work with a frown. Khiron watched her leave. Her shoulders were stiff with self-consciousness. Why? Were sexual customs so different on Terra?
She intrigued him. In spite of the desire she’d aroused, he wouldn’t look for another partner tonight.
Mia
“You won’t believe what he said,” Mia told Cindy. “I couldn’t believe it myself. First he said something about bedding me, and I thought I must have misunderstood. Then he said it again. And he was staring at my breasts the whole time.”
“I guess he hasn’t seen them before.”
“That’s no excuse.” Mia threw a pile of tablecloths into the washing machine, and slammed the door. “I wish the Delinan had kept their flight path through Alpha Centauri, and left our solar system alone. Who does he think he is?”
Cindy threw up her hands. “Don’t ask me. Unless maybe he thinks he’s somebody important, like the heir to the empire that governs the galaxy?”
“That doesn’t give him the right to assume everybody will sleep with him at the drop of a hat,” Mia grumbled. “I certainly don’t plan to.”
No matter how much she might want to. She had to admit, part of her did want to. He was gorgeous—built like a man from her own planet, but taller than most, with luscious silver skin, a powerful jaw and strong features. His stare was hot enough to set her pulse racing. Even now, needles of arousal ran through her when she thought of the way he looked at her. His voice was low and warm, and she shivered to imagine it whispering words of desire in her ear.
But with a Delinan prince it wouldn’t ever be more than a brief fling, and she wasn’t interested in those. She wasn’t interested in anything that took her mind away from working to set up her grandparents’ trust.
He ate dinner in the cabaret restaurant with his Latin-speaking professor and two green-haired Perseans, a subspecies she’d never seen in real life. His crew, she guessed. She couldn’t tell if they were male or female.
They had the best table, of course, a shimmering crystal slab surrounded by low cushioned seats where they could lounge to watch the acrobats and dancers on the circular stage. The crown prince didn’t see Mia. She worked in a low-lit area far from the central stage, and he seemed interested in nothing but his conversation with his companions. Even the dancers, performing expressly for him, hardly rated a glance.
“Poor Prince Khiron,” Cindy teased. “There he is, pining for love of you, having to spend a night all alone.”
“Pining? I don’t think so. And I’m sure he won’t be alone. Someone will be happy enough to jump into his bed in the royal suite.”
“Is that a note of jealousy I hear?”
“You are joking, right?”
“Mia! There you are.” The manager strode into view around a massive display of irises and lilies, imported from Terra. One thing the empire liked about Mia’s home planet was its plant life.
“Yes, here I am,” Mia said with a sigh. Where else would she be?
“Crown Prince Khiron has requested your assistance with his mission to Terra,” the manager said, sticking out his chest as if this reflected well on him. “He’s not convinced his interpreter will be able to deal with the natives, and you seem to speak more of the languages, so he wants you to translate for him.”
Mia gripped the back of the nearest chair. “But—you mean he wants me to go there with him?” She went cold all over, and her body seemed to turn to stone. “I can’t do that.”
“Mia, this attitude toward the crown prince—”
“It’s not about him. I’ve no experience of that type of work. I don’t know why he imagines I could do it. Tell him to find a professional interpreter when he lands.”
The manager gritted his teeth. “Your language skills are excellent. Would you please try to be a little more cooperative? This could be a big career step for you, and an excellent PR exercise for the waystation.”
Cindy spoke more gently. “Don’t you even want to think it over? It would be amazing. I’d go like a shot, if I was a native Terran speaker. Imagine traveling all over your home planet with royalty! Why, you’d have the best of everything the whole time you were there.”
Mia shook her head. Royalty meant nothing to her. Getting closer to him might have tempted her, if he wasn’t a prince and engaged to be married. But he was way out of her orbit—and she’d have to do something that terrified her, something she’d sworn never to do again.
“I’m staying right here,” she said.
Chapter
3
Mia
She spent a restless night. Khiron had pressed too many of her buttons. He’d angered her, awakened her worst fears, and aroused a lot of other emotions she didn’t want to examine up close.
Yet something about him attracted her, and it was more than his looks. His calm assurance made her feel safe. Maybe someday she’d meet somebody like him. Not a prince with a fiancée, of course, but somebody who’d take care of her, and not be put off by her wild Terran ways. She could dream of that, though she couldn’t let herself dream of him.
She woke to a knock on her door. Had she overslept? It often happened. Her body clock was a mess. Even after five years on Martian time, with light therapy every evening, she hadn’t completely adjusted to the slightly longer Martian days.
She swung her legs out of bed, pulled down her short nightdress and hurried to the door. Snatching it open, she said, “Cindy? Am I late?”
But it wasn’t Cindy who stood there. It was Crown Prince Khiron.
Did he plan to invade her bed? If so, he was up late. These underground levels had no windows, but the hall lights had begun to change color. It must be around dawn. He’d better not be drunk.
His eyes traveled slowly down her skimpily-clad body, and back up to her face. She crossed her arms to cover as much of herself as she could, but he appeared stirred by the parts he saw.
“I’m sorry to disturb you so early, Miss Langland.” He didn’t sound drunk. His voice was husky, but steady. A faint masculine scent reached her nostrils, delighting the animal in her.
“Give me a minute,” she said in a strangled voice. She slammed the door, leaving him outside—another breach of etiquette, no doubt, but she was too frazzled to care. No way would she let him in her bedroom without more clothing to protect her from his gaze.
She grabbed her bathrobe and checked the time. Half an hour until her alarm. She canceled it, then changed her mind and reactivated it. It would give her an excuse to throw him out, if he stayed that long.
She opened the door. He’d gone a little down the hallway to look at the photo of a pink Mars dawn.
He heard her, and turned. “Mars is a bleak planet. It makes a good stopover point. No inhabitants to be disturbed by the traffic.”
“I guess.” She pulled her hair out from under the collar of her bathrobe, and let it fall down her back. His eyes widened in surprise. Then his gaze moved from her hair to her generous cleavage. She tugged the robe closer at the neck. Maybe this wasn’t such a great choice of clothing.
“Have you worked here long?” he asked.
“Five years.”
“Do you ever go outside?”
“Not often. I take antiradiation meds, but it’s still better to stay in. We have such a thick atmosphere on Terra, we aren’t acclimated to high radiation.”
“Ah! Your people are so new to space travel. In a few more generations, you’ll find it easier.”
“I guess.” She didn’t point out that in a few more generations, she wouldn’t personally be around.
His eyes had drifted downward again. This was too much. It was time to say something. “I wish you wouldn’t stare at my breasts, Your Highness.” She used the English word for them. They didn’t exist in the Delinan language, as far as she knew.
“At what?”
She put a hand to her chest.
“Oh, you call them breasts? Is it rude to look? I’ve never seen such things before. I was hoping for a closer view.”
“Please. I’m not a specimen in a zoo. You’ll see plenty of breasts on Terra. All the women have them, and I’m sure somebody will give you the full tour.” She wasn’t used to such curiosity. With so many subspecies working together here, nobody made a big deal about physical differences. “Is that why you came down here, to get a look at my body?”
“No. I’m sorry if my behavior is inappropriate. I find you extremely attractive, but I’d simply like to get to know you. I thought you could come to Terra with me, but they tell me you don’t want to. Did I offend you so deeply?”
Mia had never met such a mixture of entitled and humble. She relented a little. “It’s not you. I have other reasons for not wanting to go there right now.”
His green eyes widened, and his mouth tightened with concern. “Somebody there wants to hurt you? A man?”
“No.” Mia didn’t want to admit to her phobia—it would sound so stupid. She didn’t want to lie to him, either. What could she say?
Down the hall, a door opened, and a head peered out—a head with long, pointed ears. A Raprian, with painful sensitivity to noise. Seeing Khiron, he said nothing, but gave Mia a black look and disappeared back into his room. The door closed quietly.
“I guess you better come inside,” she said.
Khiron
He wasn’t surprised when she didn’t stand back and let him go first, as anybody else would have done. He was accustomed to her ways now. She didn’t have the respect for royalty that most people had. She stepped back into her room, and he had to follow. He found it refreshing. If he cared about her breaches of protocol, he wouldn’t be here.
She turned on the main light. Her room was narrow and the furnishings meager, although she had done what she could with a bright coverlet and colorful pictures on the walls. Mountain scenes, and lush forests—it could have been Delina, but he guessed it was Terra. Certainly not Mars.
There were no chairs, no table—no space for such things. Just the bed, a closet, and a door that must lead to her bathroom. This whole room would fit into one of his mother’s closets two times over—and his mother had three of them.
Mia straightened the covers, her capable hands moving quickly, and motioned to him to sit on the end of the bed. Only then did she sit down herself, an arm’s length away. He wished her closer, where he could better breathe the earthy scent of her newly-woken body, but he was absurdly grateful to be in her room at all.
But he wasn’t so grateful that he’d do what she wanted and leave Mars without her. He spoke as if there’d been no break in the conversation. “Wouldn’t you like to visit your friends and family?”
“I have no family anymore.”
“Ah.” He hesitated to push her when she seemed stressed, but he needed to know more to increase his chance of talking her around. “You lost them in a natural disaster, perhaps?”
She took the pillow and gripped it hard, with white-knuckled hands. “My parents were killed in the floods in Florida. I was with my grandparents at the time, so I stayed and grew up with them, but they died a few years later in—in an accident.”
Could this be why she rejected him? His advisers had warned him, before he left Delina, that events on Terra might be presented to him as a grievance. Their coastal regions had suffered catastrophic floods in the last twenty years. Thousands of people were killed by the rising water, and thousands more in the skirmishes that broke out when the displaced populations tried to move to higher ground, already occupied by others. Much of the coastal land had been used for agriculture, and food shortages brought even more deaths. Then there was disease ...
“And you blame my people for this?”
She sighed, and let go of the pillow on her lap. “No. Although if you hadn’t invaded—I mean, if you hadn’t come, my grandparents’ accident wouldn’t have happened.”
“Mia, your floods were caused by your subspecies’ use of combustible energy. Our travel to and from your planet made only a tiny contribution, and traffic around Mars has no effect at all.”
She shook her head impatiently. “It’s not that. I didn’t mean the floods.” She stood and began pacing the room. “I’d prefer not to talk about this anymore.”
“Then you don’t have to. But tell me this. Do you plan never to return to Terra—to spend the rest of your life here, or on other planets?” Maybe he could persuade her to come to Delina, he thought.
“Oh, no!” The tension left her body, and her eyes glowed with animation. “I’ll go back as soon as I have
enough money. My grandparents had a project—they planned to create a home for children like me, children who lost their parents in the catastrophe, and had nobody to care for them. But they hadn’t finished setting up the trust fund when they died, and some of the property was lost—I don’t understand exactly how.”
Now Khiron felt he understood her. “So you want to complete this project?”
“Yes. I’m saving for it. It’s hard to find work on Terra, and I was here, and the waystation was recruiting, so I stayed. They feed us, house us”—she waved an expressive arm at the room, as if she thought herself lucky to have this tiny space—“so I can bank almost all I earn.”
Her eyes shone. He couldn’t tear his gaze from her when she looked like this, lit up from inside with the love and care she hoped to bring to the children of her planet.
“How long will it take you?”
“Maybe another couple of years. I don’t know exactly how much I need, but in two years I might have enough to get started.”
He nodded. This project might give him the leverage he was looking for, but he didn’t want to push her back into the negative emotions she’d shown before, by insisting right now.
On the other hand, he didn’t want to leave Mars without Mia. If he did, he’d never see her again—a painful thought. His ship wouldn’t need to stop here on the way back. Unless he made some excuse to his crew, for calling here again—or maybe he could leave something here, something important, that he’d need to pick up before they left this star system?
No, he’d have Linza with him on the return trip. He kept forgetting his fiancée. Not surprising, since he barely knew her. If only he wasn’t engaged—but then he’d never have come here at all.
A loud buzz broke into his thoughts—Mia’s alarm. She moved to switch it off, and spoke with her back turned to Khiron. “I must get ready for work now.”
“There’s no need. I talked to your manager. You have the morning off. I hope you’ll help me for an hour or two—that’s what I came to ask. I’d like to learn a few words of greeting for the first people we meet, since they may not understand Bickli’s version of Terran. You can also teach me about the culture, and advise me how to find an interpreter.”
