“Really? You’d do that for me?
“Sure, sweets. I want you to be happy. And safe.” He looked down at her, his expression tender. “We’ll figure something out.” He nuzzled her neck. Gema sighed and melted against him. Maybe everything would work out. Being with him, in his arms, made her dreams were possible.
“Are you sore?” He rubbed his face between her breasts, inhaling deeply. “Got a little out of control.” The memory of the pleasures of the night sent a shiver down his legs. He moved so his cock was pressed between her thighs, close to her clit. She was wet and his heart revved up. He’d never been so charged up in his life. He hoped they could keep the swarm out of the dugout, because he could not seem to get enough of her.
“No.” She slid her hands into his hair, enjoying the way his thick texture slid between her fingers. She felt a little shy, talking about sex with him. It was something she had not done with Paulus. They spent their days pretending they didn’t spend their nights together. Nor had she and Paulus ever had sex more than once a week. Kellac had kept her up half the night until they were both sated and exhausted. “I feel fine.”
More than fine. His fingers gently squeezed her nipples, sending shoots of delight straight to her pussy. Not only was he a young man, he was PureGen, with far more stamina in his lab-perfected body. And he smelled so enticing. His sweat didn’t smell like an unwashed man, instead it smelled sexual, like heated male. Gema tightened her arms around his neck. As long as the swarm was missing…
They finally got up. Gema threw on clothes and headed for the small stream to wash a little. The river would be too cold this early in the day for a swim. The swarm was nowhere to be seen. Technical difficulties, they laughed. And in their absence they made love, over and over again, barely taking time to forage.
Lovers, if only for a short time. Something to remember when she was on her own and Kellac was on his Homeworld.
When the time came she would go alone. He was an exotic PureGen, from some important wealthy family. They would not accept her, not even as a mistress. Not if they knew the whole truth.
Kellac wouldn't like the truth. Oh it hardly matters, this is all temporary, the swarm will return soon.
“Let’s talk about strategy for the game,” Kellac said the third morning after the swarm malfunctioned as they ate their first meal. “The swarm is sure to show up again soon, so let’s plan while they're down. “The nudity went over really well. It’s what the audience wants. You’ll rack up points in your account.”
“Yes, but…”
“This is the easy way out. No treks, no wild animals, no huge danger. We can walk away in five weeks with our freedom and a lot of credits to spend. And it will be pleasant for us, also.”
“I’m not having sex for the audience.”
“Gema, think of the advantages.” He pouted just a little and she wanted to bite his lip. “You enjoy having sex with me. We can ignore the swarm. And do it under a blanket. Or find a way to capture them for a small time. For the audience we can kiss, show some skin. I’m telling you, this is the best way to spend the remainder of the Game.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Well, I understand your sense of modesty. But think about the rewards of amassing lots of points. Plus, how can we stop now? This game lasts just a few more weeks. After it ends we would both be free, with all the funds we need to start a new life.”
“Not me. I wouldn’t be free.” Dread filled her but he would not give this up. He was right, it was an easy way to survive and leave the Game with credits to burn. But he didn't know.
“What are you talking about?” Kellac frowned at her.
She shook her head. “It won’t work that way. There are things about me you don’t understand.”
“What? You feel shy about having sex in public? I understand it, and I don’t think we’ll have to actually have sex, anyway.”
“No. You know I’m not PureGen.”
“I know.”
“My family… we were from the first sector. Some people in sector one… I’m from a Zh Cle’ world.” She swallowed hard. Finally she just blurted it out.
He stopped spooning food into his mouth and frowned at her.
“Look. I have Zh Cle’ blood. It shows on my back.” Gema turned around and lifted her shirt. In the morning light a pattern was clearly visible, intricate, tiny mother of pearl-like scales in swirls, symmetrical on either side of her spine. Some Zh Cle’ had wings. She was an eighth and only had the markings on her back.
“It would show during sex, if I’m naked and viewed from the back. I could be arrested on any PureGen world and sent to prison.”
Kellac was silent. His lilac eyes bored at her. She turned to look at him and knew he was going to break her heart.
“Zh Cle’?”
A heartbeat of silence.
“Bug?”
Chapter Five
Fury swept through her. “Bug? You are calling me that term? With all your education you should know we are as human as you are! Just different. Three races, all different, yet all the same. It is in the Text of the Ancients! Terrans, Zh Cle’ and Recondins.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder and glared at him.
“We don’t hold those myths sacred and no one has ever seen a Recondin. I know all about the ruins found, but no one has proved those were Recondin inhabitants.” Kellac turned around. “How come they didn’t send you back to a Zh Cle’ world when you were stranded on Toph?”
She shrugged. “I was old enough to bathe myself when I arrived on Toph. They did cast my leg, but no one saw my back, and as far as I know they didn’t do any blood tests. Before our journey my parents had schooled me not to tell anyone we were Zh Cle’. So I held my tongue, afraid they would be angry or mean. It was obvious I wasn’t PureGen and they all saw me as a burden and a problem they shouldn’t have to deal with. In the pen we had private bathing accommodations… it is easy enough to hide. I was careful. I’m an eight Zh Cle’, I can pass easily enough.” She stalked toward the dugout, not looking at him.
He cleared his throat. “Sorry I used the term. It is common ─”
“─Yes. It is common on PureGen worlds!” She shot the words at him, her heart tight with pain. She could barely breath her chest was so tight with anger. Kellac saw her as a Bug! It was so rude, so beneath the man she assumed he was. I guess I was making him up to be what I wanted him to be. And he is not the man I thought he was at all. She wiped a tear and tried to think of what she should do now. She couldn’t keep sleeping with him.
Kellac sat down on the log seat.
“I need to think about this.”
Gema turned back to the dugout and went inside, head down so her caramel streaked hair hid most of her face. She didn’t want Kellac to see her tears.
***
Bug. I had sex with a bug. I'm New Prague royalty, six generations PureGen!
She looked so human. Not PureGen, but at least human.
He stood up abruptly. “I’m going to… check on the swarm,” he called to Gema in the dugout.
“I understand,” she said softly, so he could barely hear her.
She was hurt. He hesitated. Considered going to her. He felt guilty about hurting her feelings.
But—Zh Cle’! His family, his people, his buddies in the military, they would be appalled. “Keep your junk out of bugs.” It was a common phrase told to young military on leave. Stay away from those lower status brothels, in other words…
Anger at Gema, for being Zh Cle’, for not telling him… he knew it was irrational. She had not changed as a person, she was still the sweet, lovely companion she’d always been. It was him.
It was if something dirty and decayed had been poured over their relationship.
He trotted to the trench, saw the pile undisturbed, and ran down to the river, where he plunged in to bathe.
The Zh Cle’ hybrids were why PureGens like himself even existed. Knowing humans could mate and produce half-human hal
f-Bug offspring had started a genetics purity movement. Worlds with a PureGen constitution and offspring filled the Diaspora sectors. Eventually the Zh Cle’ and Zh Cle’ hybrids were confined to a few planets in the first sector. Reservation Worlds. As more worlds were found and deep space immigration became more common, planets had developed PureGen constitutions, complete with DNA lab tests for potential immigrants. On tech worlds, families commissioned their baby’s from labs, sometimes bearing them naturally, sometimes using artificial wombs.
If he was with his unit, or on New Prague, he’d never even have met a Zh Cle’ woman. Except maybe in a brothel off world somewhere, and he never went to those establishments. He took his lovers from military cantinas, women from other units women who were looking for a passionate interlude before rejoining their unit.
His own homeworld didn’t have a PureGen constitution, but it was a Terran colony world. A few Zh Cle’ hybrids were on New Prague, as legal non-citizens, working in the factories and mines which covered the planet. There was no penalty, they were not barbarians. New Prague did not have many immigrants. Temporary workers would be recruited for sudden manufacturing bubbles. They didn’t stay, though. New Prague was not a hospitable environment. The northern continent was cold and violent storms rent the warmer areas. It was not one of the Seeded Worlds, like Dusault 9, with flora and fauna similar to Earth. On New Prague one had to live under a dome to survive for more than a short time. Some of the fauna sent out poisonous spores which could travel around the planet on the harsh winds.
Immigrants went to worlds which met at least basic temperature, air and water needs. Groups of Zh Cle’ mostly went way out into the Yonder, to the distant worlds not formally claimed by other planets in the Confederation.
Like Gema's family had tried to do.
How stupid could he be? He should have figured it out by the clues she gave about her past.
New Prague required no genetic test of immigrants, but few came to New Prague with any kind of a permanent stay in mind. Temp workers, well paid, took off for more popular worlds as soon as their jobs ended. If a non-pure had Zh Cle’ blood, it could be hidden. Look at Gema, she looked completely human. Felt completely human…
The Terran Confederated Military did genetic testing, though, because several powerful PureGen planetary systems insisted on it. So the soldiers he worked with were human, of Terran descent.
Zh Cle’—they had special powers. Inhuman powers. What was Gema's? It came to him right away. The stampede. It should have killed us the first day… we were way too lucky. And the lack of trouble from the herds around their camp. Maybe that wasn't luck.
He shivered and crawled out of the cold water to warm up a little. He stayed down at the river until midday, thinking.
When he returned, Gema was leaning over a travois made of saplings, used for hauling wood. The cleavage of her breasts showed clearly and his body reacted with sudden heat.
She was packing the frame with her hatchet and rope.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m taking the travois and hatchet so I can load saplings onto it.”
“What for?”
“I’m building my own place to sleep in.” She waved at the area where the fence was finished and joined the sod wall of the dugout. “I thought I would build a lean-to right there.”
Kellac frowned. “You have a bed in the dugout.”
Gema shrugged. “I want a change.” She turned her back on him and walked toward the trees near the small stream, dragging the frame behind her.
She doesn’t want to be with me anymore. I called her bug. Emotions fought within him, panic at losing her, relief he didn’t have to make the decision to sleep with a Zh Cle’ woman. Frustration the exciting sex would be over so soon. Realization he was trying to appease people and attitudes a half a galaxy away.
Kellac chopped some kindling for the fire, then thought of something he wanted to ask her. He ran after her and found her sawing down a sapling near the creek.
“You have a Zh Cle’ power. Something over animals.”
She looked at him and he couldn’t help but enjoy the long, thick golden brown eyelashes which fluttered for a moment.
“I can mentally direct some animals. Animals in herds, sheep and cows. Those aurochs are similar enough to cows that I could herd them.” Gema shrugged. “My people were simple farmers. They raised sheep, cows, grain crops… It is a common Zh Cle’ ability.”
She turned away from him and continued sawing on a sapling. “Gema, you can use the saplings from the pile I already cut down for the fence.”
“No thanks. I prefer to do this myself.” Her words were clipped.
She’s angry at me. Again he felt a mix of emotions, relief because he shouldn’t be with her anyway… but deep inside there was a feeling he almost didn’t recognize. Sadness. Loss, similar to what he felt long ago when his grandfather died.
He walked back to his own pile of fence posts. This is wrong. Everything is wrong. She shouldn’t be here, she should be safe on a Zh Cle’ reservation. The Toph government treated her cruelly as a child.
Or out Yonder in some close knit farming community. I should be home, defending my homeworld, with my brothers… this whole stupid game is wrong.
I shouldn’t have loved having sex with her … Zh Cle’… You'd think I could tell. But look at her? How many men could resist?
He still desired her. After the past few days of uninhibited sex his body was clamoring for hers. And deep down inside he wondered if he was treating her cruelly.
And Gema wanted nothing to do with him, now. He’d offended her.
Kellac hacked at saplings and dug fence post holes for the rest of the day, barely taking time to eat. He slept fitfully alone in the dugout. He wondered if she was safe so he checked on her a couple of times and slept with the door open. Every time he looked at her she was sound asleep in her bedding. Sleeping the sleep of the righteous.
I’m the bad guy here...The revelation was there all along but he didn’t acknowledge it until the middle of the night.
More importantly, what would his family think? He was expected to marry well, perhaps a woman chosen for him by his mother and oldest brother. She would be PureGen, well educated, of an established New Prague family. And it wouldn't happen for years, many years.
And why was he thinking about marriage, anyway? It wasn't even the issue.
What was the issue again? He hadn’t known about her ancestry, but would it have mattered? Would he have kept his hands off her the day in the river after seeing her bare breasts? Or the night the swarm died, or any of the times since the first night?
Even now his body longed for her touch. He wanted her soft body, those breasts in his hands, his cock buried deep inside her, reveling in her tight slick pussy.
He'd been an idiot. That was for sure.
Kellac doubled his efforts on the fence and got it finished the next day. Gema sleeping outside the dugout made him worry and he couldn't stay awake all night to make sure she was safe.
She was barely speaking to him. It made him feel a new emotion. A down, dragged out feeling. Depression was its name.
Chapter Six
Two days after their fight the swarm still had not appeared. Kellac went back to the spot where they were buried and dug a few up. He’d already checked on Gema, she was busy working on the lean-to and seemed fine without him.
He dug around until he found the swarm. One globe had the blinking red light, the others were black. Curious, he took a few of them back to the dugout and spent the morning prying them open. He had no tools other than his fingers and wood splinters, but soon he knew some things.
The recorders were military grade, from the Allied Force. He recognized certain components.
If he had Gema’s illegal com he’d probably know more.
Yes, he needed the com. And it wouldn’t hurt to check on her. It was a hot, sticky day, he wouldn’t be surprised if there were thunderstorms later. Ma
ybe he should take her some water. She’d left the dugout with the travois while he was digging up the swarm cameras, he knew he would find her near the stream.
As he approached the stream he smelled a cook fire and a delicious aroma.
He found her in just a short while. She was hacking down a sapling and didn’t see or hear him approach.
“Your lean-to is looking sturdy.”
It did. She’d thatched the roof with meadow grass and river reeds.
Alien Blood (Diaspora Worlds) Page 6
