Ninth Orb

by Kaitlyn O'Connor

  “Thanks!”

  “You’re welcome!”

  * * * *

  “E zith tsatima tae amen za san piz wil pzyztha?”

  Eden whirled to look at Baen with a mixture of surprise, guilt, and embarrassment. Reaching up, she switched the translator on. “What?”

  “In what way am I different from the men of your world?”

  The temptation arose to pretend she wasn’t aware that he’d overheard more than he should have, to try to gloss over her stupid mistake with lies and half truths. After what he’d overheard, though, she knew she was going to have to feel her way carefully to keep from offending him more.

  He was offended. She was in no doubt of that. “A lot of ways, actually, but not all of them are bad.”

  His brow creased in a look that was more angry--or perhaps wounded--than thoughtful. Pushing himself upright, he moved to sit on the edge of the bed. “And not all good?”

  Maybe she wasn’t really cut out to be an ambassador of her people? She thought wryly. She was beginning to think she wasn’t worth a damn at diplomacy. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  He seemed to debate with himself whether to pursue the matter further. “These--differences--they are repulsive to you?”

  His voice was carefully neutral, but there was no doubt in Eden’s mind that he felt very strongly about his doubts. She forgot her role as colony leader and ambassador and reacted on a purely personal, and feminine, level. “No!”

  He sent her a startled look, but she could see her vehemence hadn’t convinced him. Yielding to the impulse she’d been struggling against almost from the first time she’d met him, she moved closer. Kneeling in front of him, she looked up at him earnestly. “I am different from a Xtanian woman. Do you find that distasteful?”

  He swallowed audibly. “No.” A wry smile tugged at his lips. “I am not certain I understand what I feel when I look at you, but it does not seem to be revulsion. I think things that are forbidden for me to think, want things I should not.”

  Warmth suffused Eden. Doubts surfaced, but she willfully ignored them. Just a kiss, she lied to herself, just to soothe his wound, just to show him I don’t find him repulsive at all.

  What possible harm could such an innocent gesture do?

  Giving in to the impulse to move closer, she lifted a hand to his cheek, tilting her head up to touch her lips lightly to his. He stiffened, but he did not pull away. When she drew back to gauge his reaction, she saw that his eyes were stormy, his face taut.

  “What is this custom?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

  Surprise flickered through Eden. “The kiss?”

  The word didn’t translate, but it took Eden a moment to realize it. She didn’t know if that was because the computer simply hadn’t had that sort of input before or if it was because they didn’t kiss, but she strongly suspected the latter, especially when he traced one finger lightly along her lips, swallowing hard. “It is forbidden for a soldier to touch a queen in any way except to prevent harm to her,” he said slowly.

  He didn’t move away, though.

  It was a warning and she should have heeded it. She knew she should, but her lips tingled from his touch and a hunger had arisen inside of her she found she didn’t want to ignore. Rising, she placed her palms on his shoulders and a knee on either side of his thighs, settling her buttocks on his lap. A flicker of something that looked like alarm crossed his features, but she ignored that as she had the warning. He planted his hands along the curve of her hips as if he was of half a mind to set her away from him, and half inclined to pull her closer still.

  Eden slipped her arms around his neck. Leaning closer, she placed her cheek along his, breathing in his scent. It was intoxicating. “Kissing is one of my favorite customs,” she murmured near his ear.

  A tremor went through him as she dragged her lips along his cheek and sought his mouth again, brushing her lips lightly back and forth across his. His breathing became labored, his lips parting as he struggled to drag more air into his lungs. Eden felt her body respond, her heart accelerating, warmth pouring through her bloodstream. It decimated what little rational thought remained.

  She traced his lips with her tongue, plucked at them with her own lips and finally fitted her mouth firmly against his, thrusting her tongue into his mouth to taste him and explore.

  He sighed gustily into her mouth, his hands tightening almost bruisingly on her hips as she leaned against him. She felt him grow hard beneath her as she continued to explore his mouth, felt his great body begin to tremble until he was shaking as violently as if he had fever. His response sent another heady rush through her.

  It also set off distant warning bells which she did her best to ignore.

  He wasn’t used to being touched intimately. The only females they had were queens, and as a soldier, they were off limits to him.

  If she unleashed the desire he had been trained to keep inside ….

  She could feel the battle going on inside of him.

  Reluctantly, she lifted her head. For many moments she remained where she was, waiting, hoping that he would not allow her to stop there. She realized finally that between the liqueur and the desire she’d aroused in him that he was too disordered to do more than cling to his training at the moment like a drowning man.

  Slowly, her desire waned and empathy resurrected itself. She should not have pushed him, she realized. She stroked his hard cheek soothingly. “It’s alright, but you do understand now why I’m not at all certain that it would be wise to consider Sademeen’s offer? My people and yours are too different to adjust to one another I’m afraid.”

  He set her off his lap and stood abruptly. Eden swayed slightly as he brushed past her. “Baen?”

  He stopped and swiveled around to meet her gaze.

  “I’ll have to escort you from the city.”

  He nodded a little jerkily, dark color creeping into his cheeks.

  * * * *

  “Was that wise?”

  Eden felt color pulse in her cheeks as she dragged her gaze from Baen’s retreating form and whirled to look at Ivy guiltily. She realized almost at once, though, that Ivy had no way of knowing how stupid she actually had been.

  Horny twit! She berated herself.

  “Probably not,” she retorted brusquely. “He lugged a--something-or-other--over a mile for us, though, besides bringing it down and cleaning it himself. It would’ve been just plain rude to dismiss him at the gate like he was a servant.”

  “He is a servant--in their society--from what I can see. All the males are.”

  Eden brushed past Ivy, heading for her home. Ivy fell into step beside her.

  “That’s not the only reason you invited him to your quarters, is it?” Ivy asked shrewdly.

  In spite of all she could do, Eden felt color rising in her cheeks again. “Actually, it was.” She hadn’t intended to kiss him. He’d just looked so cute befuddled by the liqueur, and she’d been worried she’d poisoned him.

  She was such a sucker for a hard luck story! From the moment she’d heard that they’d been abandoned here every nurturing instinct she possessed had been screaming for her to cuddle and protect as if they were infants and completely helpless instead of full grown, really big and dangerous looking men! She would’ve found the temptation they represented almost too much to resist if it had only been a fever of the blood that drew her. The other was just icing on the cake to make her behave like a complete idiot!

  If they were as cold blooded as they appeared, they could be planning death and destruction and she was going to be as easy a target as all the other red blooded females in the colony!

  It could all be an act, this whole ‘we need women’ thing. Her instincts told her it wasn’t, but she had a bad feeling she couldn’t really trust her instincts.

  “But then you just couldn’t resist?”

  “All right. I kissed him,” she admitted testily. “Not that it’s any of your business!”

  “I
t is when it pertains to the safety of the colony,” Ivy shot back at her, but she looked more amused than angry.

  “Maybe I was just experimenting like you did the other day?”

  Ivy made a rude noise of disbelief. “I don’t think you should be playing doctor with the aliens. For all we know they might not even have the right equipment, and that could be frustrating all the way around.”

  “They have the right equipment,” Eden retorted, feeling very defensive of them.

  “So--you were playing doctor? How was it?”

  The question dragged a reluctant laugh out of Eden, mostly because it showed that Ivy wasn’t nearly as immune to them as she pretended. “I did not! He was bathing in the stream in the valley when I came upon him.”

  “Which was probably at the back of your mind all the way back to the city.”

  Eden thought that over. “Maybe,” she finally responded, albeit reluctantly. Not that just seeing a naked man would have been enough, ordinarily, to get her all hot and bothered, but she was already buzzing every time she came within Baen’s vicinity. He didn’t have to do much to push her over the edge.

  She discovered they’d reached her home once more. After a moment’s hesitation, she invited Ivy in. “I discovered something when Baen was here,” she began.

  “He’s a good kisser?”

  Eden sent her a look. “I gave him a glass of liquor and he had a really bad reaction to it. Apparently their metabolism can’t handle it.”

  “This is interesting,” Ivy said slowly. “Exactly how did it affect him?”

  “He was drunk on his ass,” Eden said bluntly, “but that isn’t what I wanted to tell you. It scared me. I thought I’d poisoned him and sent for Deb. She ran tests.”

  “And?” Ivy prompted when she didn’t continue.

  “They aren’t an alien species. They’re human, just like us.”

  Ivy was clearly as stunned as she had been. “How is that even possible? It must have been some kind of screw up.”

  “I thought so, too, but Deb was convinced. So now, the three of us know.”

  Ivy looked troubled. “When the others find out, there’s going to be no stopping them.”

  “I’m not sure we should try to stop them. Unfortunately, I’m also not sure we shouldn’t. Even if they’re just another race, and not a completely different species like we thought, their culture is so completely different from ours that’s enough by itself to cause some real problems. Right now they’re very respectful and I’m pretty sure it’s because they see us as the same as their queens. If we disabused them of that misconception, there’s no telling how they would behave toward us.”

  “Did you find this out before or after you kissed him?”

  Eden gave her a look and Ivy shook her head. “This is exactly what I’ve been afraid of. You’re one of the most level headed people I know, and look what you’ve done!”

  “And you trying to provoke a territorial battle and or jealousy wasn’t just as impulsive and ill advised?” Eden said indignantly.

  Anger flashed across Ivy’s face but was gone almost at once. “Maybe it was. But I thought it better to prod them a little while they were on the outside of the fields!”

  They both fell silent, thinking.

  “Maybe it isn’t such a bad idea,” Ivy said finally, if somewhat obscurely.

  “What isn’t such a bad idea?” Eden asked testily.

  “I think we can both agree that we’re not going to be able to keep the colonists on their side of the fence long, and not at all once they discover the aliens are just ‘foreigners’. Somebody has to test the waters before it gets completely out of hand. Since you’ve already taken the plunge, I’m thinking you should pursue it and see what happens.”

  Eden studied Ivy with a mixture of fear, resentment and, admittedly, more than a little wishfulness. “There’s one little problem with that that you’re forgetting. They form harem units.”

  “Just tell them you’re not interested. That’s the whole idea, stirring them up to see how much danger they could represent.”

  “Easy enough for you to say! Besides, this family unit is at the very root of their culture. Everything revolves around it.”

  “All the more reason. And you didn’t mind kissing him!”

  “I wouldn’t mind doing all sorts of things with him, but that isn’t the point! This pazaan of theirs is more complicated than that. Baen is a soldier and, apparently, they aren’t allowed to--uh--mate. It’s the workers that--uh--handle the breeding. Besides that, he--they expect us to take a brood, like their queens do. If we refuse, they might just decide they want nothing to do with us, or they might decide that they can make us do what’s expected, or they might just start fighting over which one’s get the females. Then there’ll be hell to pay.”

  “What’s a brood?”

  “The queens appear to have multiple births--anywhere from five and up at the same time. All those born at the same time are called a brood.”

  Ivy gaped at her for several moments. “How many in his brood?”

  “Eight.”

  Abruptly, Ivy burst out laughing. “Lucky you.”

  “Very funny. I can’t have eight of them in here!”

  Sobering almost at once, Ivy frowned. “No, not enough room, besides the fact that the other colonists would really be outraged about you having eight when they don’t have any. So maybe the experiment should be conducted on the other side?”

  “If I decided to try it, I’d rather it be on neutral ground, thank you very much!”

  Chapter Eleven

  Wryly, Eden conceded that she had only thought the colonists were the next thing to hysterical with excitement when the celebration was announced. By the time the day everyone had been anticipating rolled around, nerves were at fever pitch and probably three quarters of the colonists had had disciplinary action taken against them for a variety of infractions. They were behaving a lot more like teenagers, or mail order brides than the educated, mature, sensible women they’d proven themselves to be pre-alien-colony-discovery.

  She was hardly in a position to throw stones. Even though it had been Ivy who’d suggested the ‘experiment’ she entertained a lot of doubts about her own reasons for seriously considering the suggestion.

  It seemed reasonable.

  It seemed like the only safe solution, really, to a situation that couldn’t be simply ignored.

  But was it? Or did it just seem like that because she wanted to consider it?

  As far as that went, she wasn’t completely certain she did. As little as she’d been around any of the others, she didn’t feel threatened by the Xtanians, but how much faith could she place in her instincts for survival when her instincts for ‘mating’ were turning her brain to mush? Intellect and sensibility only took one so far. In the end, people were still animals and had a very hard time ignoring their instincts or controlling them.

  Beyond that, just any one wouldn’t do it for her. If she was going to consider taking a partner/companion, she wanted Baen, but if she’d understood him correctly, he wasn’t really in the picture. And she wasn’t sure she dared to cross that particular line, in the interests or either pursuit of knowledge or personal preference. Everything she’d learned about them told her they were born to their stations. Baen didn’t strike her as a man that was easily flustered, and yet he’d been so thoroughly rattled by her overtures that he’d left New Savannah as if the hounds of hell were after him.

  What did the Xtanians do to those who bucked the system and crossed the boundaries of acceptable behavior? It must be something pretty horrible to keep them all in line, because they were human, too, and however differently they might have evolved it was impossible to believe that some of them hadn’t rebelled, or just been too weak to resist temptation.

  They weren’t immune to jealousy and rivalry. Sademeen had said she’d banished her last brood because the older males didn’t want them around. She supposed Sademeen having that extra
brood, when she was supposed to have produced a female had disrupted the balance of things and she hadn’t been able to settle them with their own queen because there weren’t enough to go around--her fault and thus her disgrace.

  But if they were as prone to jealousy and rivalry as their Earthly counterparts, how the hell was she going to pacify a whole brood? How did their queens manage it?

  She still hadn’t come to a decision when the Xtanians arrived to take part in the thanksgiving celebration, but she very quickly had plenty to do to distract her.

  The males that she and Ivy and Liz had chosen seemed to be laboring under the impression that they were to stay with the ‘queens’ who’d chosen them. When she and the other council members had greeted them at the city’s main gate and escorted them through the city to the site chosen for their grand party, none of them made any attempt to join the festivities. She didn’t know whether she was more horrified or amused at the discovery--because Liz and Ivy looked as horrified as she felt and that struck her as extremely funny.

  She’d expected a certain amount of awkwardness. It stood to reason there would be some, but it was much worse than she’d expected. The park north of the center of the city had been chosen as the one and only possibility for a gathering of such a size. Most of the colonists had turned out, although there were a few whose jobs prevented them from participating completely and would only be coming for a short time and leaving again. The colonists had ranged themselves on one side. The Xtanians halted on the other, behind the women who’d escorted them in.

  Wryly, Eden wondered if the first thanksgiving that the pilgrims had celebrated with the American Indians had been as unnerving for everyone involved.

  Probably. She was certain the white faced, strangely clothed English must have looked just as alien to the American Indians as vice versa. And they were in much the same position, alien in culture and race, each uncertain of just how much the other side could be trusted.

  She encountered the next stumbling block when she informed the Xtanians that they were expected to mingle and entertain all of the women. The nearly identical expressions of abject panic that flitted across every Xtanian male’s face was enough to assure her that she needed to rephrase the invitation. “We are all here to begin to get to know one another,” she added hurriedly. “You must feel free to converse with anyone and everyone here.”