Chapter Seven

Danielle discovered when she glanced around again that Tande had come out of the hotel and was heading straight toward them. Sabin had appeared, as well, although he was making a pretense of having no interest in them at all and had merely settled on the low wall that bordered the raised flowerbed that surrounded the building.

“We need to think of some way to get everyone together to form a plan,” she said quickly under her breath.

Su-lynn nodded and then turned to look at Tande as she approached. Since neither of them wanted to make it too obvious that they’d been discussing something they didn’t want overheard, they stood their ground and waited for her to reach them.

“We were just discussing whether we should pack up everything we might find useful so that we can load it up when the guys get back and carry it with us,” Danielle volunteered when she reached them. “I don’t know if it will be practical to continue using this as home base when it seems everyone has scattered.”

Something flickered in the grundt’s eyes—suspicion, she thought—but she merely nodded and seemed to consider it. “I don’t see that it would be a waste of time regardless of what everyone decides. I will help.”

Su-lynn nodded. “I’ll go get Joyce.”

“I think I’m going to take a master key and start at the top and work my way down. Some of the previous occupants might have left things that could be useful.”

Sabin joined them. “I will go with you, but perhaps we could start around the center? Mikhail has gone to the top to see what can be seen from there. Tande can join him and search the higher floors while we start in the middle and work down.”

Danielle smiled with an effort, quelling the urge to glance at Su-lynn. “What about Ci and Sha?”

“There is far more on the ground floor. They can help Su-lynn and Joyce sort through it.”

Tidy. Danielle tried not to think about what Su-lynn had said about the way they always made certain that they were always within view of at least one of the visitors. There was no reason to object, however, that wouldn’t make it obvious that they’d noticed.

Without argument, she followed Tande and Sabin inside. When they’d retrieved a couple of master keys, they headed up on the elevator, stopping on the sixth so that she and Sabin could get out.

Sabin looked her over assessingly when they emerged from the elevator. “You are … alright?”

Danielle sent him a look of surprise. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

His lips flattened. “The projectile—the bullet? You were nearly hit.”

“It scared the hell out of me at the time, but I wasn’t hit. I’m fine. I guess we might as well start with the nearest room and work our way around until we reach the elevators again.” The near miss wasn’t something she wanted to think about. She looked away, studying the numbers on the doors in both directions. She wouldn’t have been alright if they’d been close enough the bullet had shattered the window instead of just cracking it. She didn’t think she would’ve been ‘fine’ anyway, except for the fact that it confirmed they weren’t on a dead planet. As it was, the proof of survivors had been far too thrilling for her to dwell on the danger.

“You are still angry with me?”

Uh oh. If Sabin had noticed she wasn’t behaving normally, it seemed certain the others would. “I don’t remember being angry with you.”

Sabin frowned. “You seemed angry.”

Danielle thought it over and finally remembered the discussion. “I’m sorry you thought so. I wasn’t really angry … just … I don’t know. A little irritated, I guess.”

The room they entered smelled stale. Unidentifiable odors lingered in it since the air-conditioning unit in the room was shut off. They made a cursory exploration, checking beneath the beds, in the closet, and the drawers. Danielle removed a pillow from one of the pillow cases and headed into the bathroom.

Sabin stood in the doorway, watching her as she collected the tiny bottles of toiletries on the vanity. “What are those?”

Danielle glanced at him in surprise. “Shampoo and cream rinse for cleaning the hair, soap for the rest and lotion—luxuries I guess—but I’m more inclined to consider them necessities. Believe me, all of the women will.”

He didn’t move away from the door immediately when she turned to go and she looked up at him questioningly. It occurred to her abruptly that she hadn’t really looked at him before, hadn’t studied him at any rate. She didn’t know why. She’d certainly studied the other aliens whenever the opportunity arose and she thought they wouldn’t notice her staring.

Beyond glancing at Sabin and On from time to time, though, she realized she’d made it a point not to look at them.

He really was sheer perfection—breathtaking. Her stomach went weightless as she studied him now, picked apart the exotic features that somehow seemed to just miss being completely human. Aside from his elfin-looking ears, the strange slant of his heavy, black brows was probably the most alien feature. Instead of arching, they winged upwards at the outer corner of his eyes, creating a perpetual stern look that only became more pronounced when he actually frowned.

She wondered if she’d simply assumed he was arrogant because the brows and his soberness suggested it—or would have if he’d been human and she could actually count on having some inkling of what might be going through his mind. He certainly never—or rarely—gave anything away in his expressions.

“You know that the odds are not good that you will find any of your people among the survivors?”

Danielle felt as if her chest had suddenly caved in. She struggled to take a breath and couldn’t, felt dizziness wash over her. “Don’t!” she said faintly.

She must have looked as near fainting as she felt. Sabin abruptly grasped her upper arms to steady her. It helped, but she still felt herself sinking toward the floor, felt the strength go out of the hand gripping the pillowcase. It hit the floor beside her.

Sabin glanced around and finally pulled her from the bathroom and guided her to sit on the edge of the nearest bed. She covered her face with her hands when he released her, leaning forward, struggling to fight off the blackness that seemed to be gaining the upper hand.

“I should not have spoken of it.”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” Danielle agreed, but found she couldn’t summon the anger she wanted. She’d been doing just fine shielding herself from the one thing she couldn’t handle at all. She didn’t need him to tell her and she didn’t want him to. She needed to hang on to the belief that she was going to find them alive.

She discovered when she finally dropped her hands from her face that he’d crouched in front of her. He actually looked concerned.

“I deeply regret that I have caused you pain. It was not my intention, but I cannot believe that it will help to delude yourself. It seems to me that you will only suffer more later, if you cannot begin to accept the possibility.”

Danielle felt her chin wobble dangerously. “You think this will spare me anything at all? I have to believe … I have to think there’s a possibility. Don’t you see that?”

Now, he did. He had not expected to unleash such a powerful dam of emotions or he would have kept his thoughts to himself. He had only thought that her determination to ignore all indications of complete disaster were as unhealthy as the female, Lindsey’s, certainty that there was no hope at all. Now that he had, he could not think of any way to remedy the situation. “Yes,” he responded uneasily. “I do see. And you are right. It is no more realistic to believe the worst than to believe the best. Shall I fetch Su-lynn?”

She sniffed a couple of times and abruptly leaned forward, slipping her arms around his shoulders and burrowing her face against the side of his neck. A shockwave traveled through him and then—utter chaos. He stiffened, unable to think what to do, unable to think at all. Equal, opposing urges whipped through him—the first to clutch her as she had him, the second to shove her away—creating more turmoil. He couldn’t bring himself to do either, couldn’t seem to command any part of his body. A tide of heat and then cold washed through him, creating a bone deep quaking that began to grow stronger, leaching him of strength as it gained ground. Balanced precariously on his knees from the moment she’d flung herself upon his chest, feeling the strength leave him, and the quaking increase until he was certain she must feel it, until he began to think it would shake him apart, he finally sat backwards, settling his buttocks on his heels.

She was still gripping him frantically, however, and she didn’t let go. She followed and the two of them nearly toppled onto the carpet. He caught her waist when she landed on his thighs, but he thought it was more instinct to try to balance the two of them than from any conscious effort to either shove her away or pull her closer.

He wanted both, at the same time. The contact was almost more than he could bear and, at the same time, he welcomed the hectic sensations pelting him, the excited hammering of his heart, the dizzying heat that swarmed over him as if every nerve ending had been electrified.

Her face was damp and her eyes red-rimmed when she finally lifted her head and looked at him. He could feel her heated breath against his face. When he breathed, he could smell her, taste her. “Tell me what you need and I will get it,” he said, his voice sounding hoarse and strange to his ears.

She swallowed audibly, sniffing. Her gaze flickered over his face and moved to his mouth and he felt it almost like a touch. “Comfort,” she finally said.

He couldn’t grasp what she meant. His translator had either malfunctioned or his mind had. He wasn’t certain which until she leaned closer and brushed her lips lightly along his. He knew then that it was his mind.

He licked his lips when she’d lifted hers, tasted her, and lost the last of his ability to reason. When she pressed her lips to his again, he clamped his hands to the back of her head and tried to absorb her. She made some sound. He couldn’t tell whether it was indicative of distress or pleasure, but then he couldn’t think at all. Clumsily, he pressed his lips against hers until he could feel his teeth grinding against the sensitive skin of his inner lips. He eased the pressure only when his own pain began to supersede the pleasure pouring through him. When he did, she tilted her head slightly and stroked her tongue along the seam where his lips met. He opened them, tried to capture her tongue so that he could taste more of her.

She sighed into his mouth as he caught her lips beneath his. A measure of satisfaction wafted through him when he’d fit his mouth comfortably over hers and could pull at her lips and tongue. The pleasure that rolled through him was like nothing he’d ever experienced or even imagined.

His heart was hammering against his chest wall in a way it never had, in a way that should have caused him some alarm, especially when he realized his mind was reeling and he could not seem to catch his breath. He found instead that he welcomed the sensations, wanted more.

He didn’t want to stop, even when he felt her begin trying to pull away. It took an effort of will he would never have thought necessary to force himself to ease his grip on her. He managed to drag in an unsteady breath when she’d pulled away and lifted her eyelids to look at him. He stared into her eyes, struggling to gather his wits, trying to understand what he saw in her eyes, fighting, most of all, the sense of desperation that was beginning to take hold of him to draw her close again so that he feel her touch.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, pulling completely away from him and getting to her feet.

He studied her but the struggle to bring some sort of order to his mind and senses made it impossible to grasp more than the fact that she regretted what had happened and she did not want more. He got to his feet with an effort, mildly alarmed, now, that he felt so weak and disoriented. The discovery that his penis was as hard as a rock and throbbing as if it would explode did not help. Embarrassed at his condition, he turned away from her, trying to will the blood away from that particular area. It was not as difficult as he had thought it would be given the fact that it was hard enough to drive rivets through steel.

When he’d managed to garner a semblance of calm and turned, he saw that she’d retrieved the pillowcase she’d dropped.

What he wanted to know—what he needed to know—was why she regretted it. “You are … alright now?” he asked, feeling uncomfortable, strangely awkward even to ask.

She nodded.

He noticed she did not ask if he was alright.

He was not. He felt almost … ill in the wake of what had happened between them. The return of blood from his groin to his brain had cleared his head somewhat and eased the painful throbbing of his genitals, but he was no closer to understanding either why she had touched him or, having done so, regretted it.

For comfort, she’d said, although how she could find comfort in the turmoil that he had experienced he could not fathom.

Unless, illogical as it seemed to be, she had not felt the chaotic bombardment of every sense at once?

Still bemused, he followed her from the room and into another, and another, staring absently around while she searched, focused on trying to unravel what had happened and understand it. It dawned on him after a time that it was unlikely that she had experienced anything approaching what he had.

To his culture any touch, however accidental, was a grave breach of etiquette at the very least—a matter of extreme embarrassment to the one clumsy enough to have befouled another—and a prosecutable offense at the worst. Danielle, he had no doubt, was accustomed to touching and being touched in the most intimate of ways. He’d studied the vids they’d captured during their studies of humans. He’d been appalled when he had seen the almost animalistic way the humans wallowed upon each other, the way they’d seemed to revel in brushing every part of their bodies against one another. And those, presumably, were not even sexual in nature. Their rites of sexual intercourse, where they not only exchanged skin contract but bodily fluids were even more shocking.

Not that he had watched more than one. Those had been far too disturbing even for study.

Although he was obliged to admit that it wasn’t nearly as revolting to watch two humans enact the mating ritual as it was to see two grundts—or any of the other species aboard the Mertosin—copulate.

It seemed reasonable to assume she had not been nearly as affected as he was. It did not particularly please him to arrive at that conclusion, but he could not find fault in it.

He still could not quite fathom why she had thought it would comfort her but, evidently, she had been wrong, for she had not seemed to be comforted at all. She had seemed … embarrassed, which he also did not understand since it was socially acceptable to her people. He was the one who should have been deeply mortified by the experience … except that he had not been.

He discarded the latter thought as having no bearing on the puzzle that troubled him.

Unless he was wrong, she was embarrassed. The question was why?

Because he had not known what to do or how to do it, and that had reminded her that he was mahn and she was human, he decided after a little more thought. He was well aware that his appearance made it difficult for her to accept that he was as alien as the others. The moment they tried to communicate and hit the cultural barrier that lay between them, he could see it in her eyes—the sudden realization that he was not the same as she. He looked like her people. He could speak her language, but, despite his studies, he still had difficulty understanding the way they thought and felt about things.

By the time they had searched two more floors, most of his discomfort had vanished, but his head had begun to throb with pain from wrestling with the puzzle he was no closer to understanding than he had been when he’d started.

* * * *

To everyone’s relief, the expedition party returned near midnight. That didn’t last past the discovery that On had been wounded, however. The bullet had carved a shallow trough along his back.

Someone had tried to shoot him in the back as he was entering the building where they’d found guns. Hostility and suspicion radiated from Bork, who’d been with him at the time, but it was hard to say whether the anger glittering in both Bud and Nick’s eyes was from wrongful accusation, their own suspicions … or guilt.

The four of them had split into two groups—which accounted for the suspicion. It didn’t seem reasonable to think that Nick had sent Bork and On to carry weapons to the vehicles they’d confiscated and then dashed out the back of the building to take potshots at them as they headed back in, though, and she didn’t believe either Bud or Nick would have considered trying to shoot them in the back.

She was still embarrassed, angry, and disgusted that someone had. He had been armed. They all had, but On’s firearm had been secured in its holster. To try to shoot anyone when they were, to all intents and purposes, unarmed, and hadn’t provoked the attack was bad enough. To try to shoot them in the back was unconscionable.

Su-lynn had offered to attend his wound and Danielle to assist. Their services were politely, coolly declined. Ci and her sister, Sha had patched him up and informed the group that the wound had not caused extensive damage.

Danielle, at least, was genuinely sorry that he’d been hurt and relieved that it hadn’t been worse. She thought most of them were, but that didn’t change the fact that the incident had raised distrust among them to a noticeable level when, before, they’d all tried hard to hide the fact that they didn’t particularly trust one another.

It also further complicated feelings that Danielle was already having trouble dealing with. She’d been in a state of complete denial since before the visitors had arrived and nothing that had happened since had changed that condition by more than a hair. Like everyone else, she’d been torn between the mounting evidence of global disaster and the refusal to accept it on the strength of nothing more than emotional grounds. Despite that, or maybe because her strained emotions made her vulnerable, she’d been instantly drawn to Sabin on a purely physical level and, by extension, because they were virtually identical, On, as well. She’d determinedly ignored it, but she’d been aware that she was vulnerable to them because she found them physically appealing.

It wasn’t just a physical and possibly chemical appeal, though, and she’d come to realize that her attraction to both men also wasn’t just because they looked so much alike. Their personalities appealed to her, too, and, in that sense, they were vastly different.

She might have gone on telling herself that her attraction was nothing more than physical, or possibly chemical, or due to the fact that they were exciting purely by virtue of being so exotic except that she’d made the mistake of kissing Sabin, and On had been hurt, and had come within a hair’s breadth of being killed. Those two incidents radically altered her perception, or rather ripped away the veil of denial she’d been working so hard to maintain.

She was wide open to both men. With any encouragement on the part of either of them, she was lost.

She didn’t know what she’d been thinking when she’d kissed Sabin.

Well, in all honesty, she knew damned well that thinking hadn’t actually entered in to it. She regretted it, tremendously, on so many levels that she wondered if a touch of insanity had inspired it to begin with, but she couldn’t take it back, unfortunately.

She’d told herself that she just wanted to be held, that she just needed the comfort of another human being, just for a moment, to shore up her crumbling defenses.

She’d lied to herself. She hadn’t, for one moment, lost sight of the fact that Sabin wasn’t a human being, and she hadn’t wanted comfort from anyone. She’d wanted to feel Sabin’s arms around her.

He was so completely in control at all times, so competent, unshakable. He was like a fortress and she’d wanted shelter in that fortress to make her feel safe.

She still wasn’t certain if he’d been completely revolted because he looked upon her as an inferior species, because she was a different species, or because he simply wasn’t comfortable with physical contact at all. She had noticed, however, that both On and Sabin eschewed any and all physical contact so she thought it was possible that it wasn’t her in particular but everyone in general.

That didn’t change the fact that she’d been aware almost the instant she’d flung herself at him that, far from welcoming it, it made him excruciatingly uncomfortable.

And she’d persisted anyway.

She’d done worse than that. She’d taken it to another level.

Kissing, clearly, wasn’t a custom he was familiar with. She wasn’t vastly experienced with men, but she’d certainly had enough experience to tell when someone else wasn’t.

She had to say one thing for him—he might have been clumsy enough to begin with to give more pain than pleasure, but he was a quick study. He’d more than made up for the awkward beginning with enthusiasm unmatched by anyone she’d ever kissed before in her life. The kiss alone had been so wildly exciting it had brought her within a hair’s breadth of coming. If he’d touched her breasts or stroked her clit, she was pretty sure she would’ve exploded like a quasar.

If it hadn’t suddenly occurred to her how embarrassing it would be if some of the others decided to come look for them …

Fortunately, it had. Equally fortunate, it had cooled her down enough to allow her to think and to realize that she might very well be consorting with an enemy of mankind. She’d felt almost ill when that suddenly dawned on her.

She didn’t believe it, but she was well aware that she simply didn’t want to believe it and couldn’t trust her judgment.

It had made the rest of their search for supplies extremely awkward—made any interaction uncomfortable—although she supposed, given time, she would get over it.

Her behavior also made her situation far more difficult than it needed to be or would have been if she’d kept her head and her distance.

As if she wasn’t in enough turmoil after her encounter with Sabin, Su-lynn had come up with what she considered the perfect solution to their problem of communicating without being overheard by the visitors and hit her with it while the two of them were preparing the evening meal. She’d suggested they pretend to develop a sexual interest in the men of their group, which would give them the opportunity for privacy to talk.

It was a great idea—except for the fact that they had no way to tell the men before hand—and the fact that Joyce and Su-lynn were not only both gay, but partners, and everybody—in their group, at any rate—knew it.

And except for the fact that she’d made it clear, to Sabin at least, where her interests lay.

It could prove to be more than a little awkward for all of them, but Danielle knew she was right. It was their best chance and the least likely to arouse the suspicion of the visitors.

She still wasn’t happy about the fact that they were going to be playing musical beds for the benefit of the aliens, but it wasn’t going to be any more uncomfortable for her than it was for Joyce and Su-lynn.

“It’ll have to be Bud or Mikhail. Nick and I have a history.”

Su-lynn looked irritated. “All the more reason you should target him. It would seem more natural.”

“The visitors don’t know anything about our affair. There’s no reason why they’d think it any less suspicious.”

“I beg to differ. With the way Nick behaves around you, he might as well be wearing a sign. We’re going to have to swap anyway if we’re to have any hope of passing a lot of information quickly.”

“He was blatantly flirting with Joyce just the other day—that first night when we got here,” Danielle pointed out.

“Which is exactly why I’d rather she didn’t target him,” Su-lynn said tightly. “He’s just thick-headed enough to think he’s charmed the pants off of her.”

“You pointed out yourself that we’d have to swap around.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want Joyce in there with lover boy until he knows the score.”

“Fine!” Danielle conceded irritably.

“Tonight.”

“Why tonight? They might not even get back before morning and we were planning to leave at daybreak.”

“Because it might be our last chance for a while—once we get on the road we don’t know what will happen or what our circumstances might be—and because the sooner the better. At the very least, once we leave here, we’re going to have to be on the watch for an opportunity to ditch our watchdogs.”

Danielle frowned. “I’d assumed, though, that we would be leaving a note for Dr. Morton and the others and would be swinging back periodically to look for them. They would know about that and could intercept us even if we did elude them.”

Su-lynn looked away. “I don’t like the idea of abandoning them any more than you do, but they made their choice. I doubt we’ll be coming back this way for any reason, so if they’re not back by morning, they’re on their own.”

Despite Su-lynn’s determination to put their plan in action that night, in the end, they didn’t since the atmosphere was too volatile to make it seem the least bit ‘natural’ to flirt. Danielle was relieved, but she knew it was only a reprieve.

Su-lynn was right. If there was any chance, at all, that the intentions of the visitors were to launch an invasion the sooner they developed a plan of offense the better.

* * * *

Nick brought the SUV he was driving to an abrupt halt the instant they heard the first crack of gunfire. When a second shot followed closely on the heels of the first, and a bullet ricocheted off of the hood of the vehicle, he shoved the transmission into reverse and backed off until he thought they were out of range. “Apparently, they aren’t open to visitors,” he said dryly, glaring out of the windshield as he scanned the field in front of them for some sign of the sniper. “I guess this is the place.”

Danielle unfastened her belt and crawled between the seats, wedging herself between Sabin and Ci and digging through the supplies in the rear of the vehicle. When she’d found one of the pillowcases they’d used for packing, she emptied it and climbed to the front again. Nick studied it and shrugged. “It’s worth a try, I suppose. Give it to me. I’ll wave it around.”

Danielle ignored him. “I’ll do it,” she said determinedly, opening the door.

Another explosion erupted around them the moment she did. The bullet struck the ground close enough to prove that they weren’t completely out of range and that whoever was shooting at them had a fair aim.

“Give me the damned thing before the bastards shoot you!” Nick snapped.

Danielle ignored him and began waving the pillowcase wildly in the air. “We just want to talk!” she yelled out.

“So talk!” someone in the distance responded.

Danielle got out cautiously. “I’m Lt. Danielle Stevens, U.S. Air force. We came to help if anyone is sick.”

“Everybody that was sick died. So you can keep on moving.”

With an effort, Danielle swallowed against the wedge of dismay that rose in her throat. Wariness, she could understand. She hadn’t expected such determined hostility. “Could we at least come a little closer so that we could talk more comfortably?”

“We ain’t got nuthin’ to talk about—especially not with any damned soldiers! Just turn around and get the fuck out of here.”

She was sorry she’d told them her military title. She might’ve gotten a better response if she’d told them she was Dr. Stevens. Of course, she wasn’t a medical doctor, but they wouldn’t know that. “I’m … we’re doctors and …”

“I told you we didn’t need any damned doctors!”

“Maybe you could tell us if there are any other survivors in the area that might be a little more reasonable!” Nick yelled, getting out the vehicle.

His angry bellow was followed by a fairly prolonged silence. “How many of you are there?”

Danielle glanced at Nick questioningly over the hood of the car. “Twelve in all.”

Danielle frowned at him. She didn’t think it was a good idea at all to mention the visitors. If the men were so hostile toward them, they certainly weren’t going to be receptive to the alien visitors.

Nick merely shrugged.

“Get out of the vehicles and walk toward the gate.”

Nick turned and motioned toward the others in the vehicles behind theirs. No one was particularly anxious to approach the gate, but everyone got out.

“You can leave any weapons you’re carrying.”

“What guarantee do we have that you won’t shoot us down?” Nick demanded angrily.

“You can take my word for it, or you can’t get back in those trucks and get the fuck out of here. I don’t give a fuck which.”

After a brief debate, everyone put their guns in the vehicles and headed toward the makeshift barrier they could see about a hundred yards away. They’d managed to get within thirty feet when one of the defenders bellowed at them to stop where they were. “What in the fuck are those things?”