CHAPTER 31
KAT HELD GENTIAN close in her lap, cherishing their togetherness. After everyone had eaten, she had slipped away and now sat on the ground overlooking the cove at slack tide. She blanked her mind a moment, trying to center herself. Maybe then she could figure out what was important, where she belonged, who to trust.
Amanda Leonard, her captain, had gone insane and now apparently hosted an alien spirit. The brothers she had blamed for abandoning her twenty years ago now seemed honest men, victims of a corrupt judicial system. Her own thoughts and perceptions had gone awry, affected more by new psi powers that gave her information without hard evidence.
She communicated with a flying cat more readily than she did Bruce Geralds, an attractive man she considered a potential lover.
She had some sorting out to do.
“Will you spy for me again, Gentian?” she asked quietly, stroking the silky fur around his ears.
(I am afraid. But I must or my nimbus will take me away from you. I do not know how they will punish me for cowardice.)
“It is okay to be afraid, my friend.” Kat continued her loving caress of the flywacket, reassuring him and herself of their bond. “I am often afraid. My duty is stronger than my fear, though. I need you to help me stop Amanda from doing more damage to herself and the people around her.”
(Your brothers will do it. You must remain safe, so that I may remain safe.)
“My brothers need you to spy for us as well. The dragons do not respond to our request for aid. You alone can travel the distance between here and Base Camp and back again safely. You alone can help us. I need you to help me put my world in order. I have many new emotions and situations to sort through. I need to take care of Amanda and the world I came from before I can accept my brothers as family.”
(For you I will do this thing, though I do not like it. I fear the spirit that moves your Amanda.)
“We all fear her. And I promise that when I leave this place for good, I will take you with me. I will protect you from the nimbus. I will keep you safe.”
The flywacket settled deeper into her lap with a sigh. Kat thought the conversation ended. Then her companion spoke again.
(My nimbus may not allow you to protect me from them.)
“Your nimbus has never run up against Mari Kathleen O’Hara Talbot before.” Kat laughed a little and ruffled his ears with rough affection.
They both yawned hugely, reminding them that a very long day was nearing an end.
Her brothers prepared to climb the hill to return to their wives and their beds. The villagers wound down their celebration of a hard day’s work successfully completed. Their songs had dwindled away along with their chatter. A few women nursed mugs of hot drinks and men finished off their beers, as one by one they sought their night’s rest.
Teenagers patrolled the perimeter of the village, taking the first watch.
She heard a hesitant step behind her and stiffened her back, prepared to defend herself.
“Don’t go back up the hill tonight, Kat,” Bruce Geralds said quietly. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders.
Kat leaned back a little, welcoming his warmth. Sleeping snuggled against him, waking with him close would be nice.
“Bruce, I’m not ready for a relationship. I’ve just found my family after a twenty-year search. They aren’t the monsters I believed them to be. They aren’t angels either. Until I figure out what they are, and what I want from them, I can’t really accept them as family. It’s all too new. I’ve too many emotions to sort through to risk an entanglement.”
“I’m not asking for a long-term commitment, Kat—unless we never get off this rock. For now, I just don’t want to sleep alone.” He kissed the back of her neck.
Tingles of pleasure radiated down Kat’s spine and through her shoulders. She basked a moment within his caress.
Gentian jumped off her lap and began circling her. He made a point of coming between her and Geralds.
“I guess that damn cat has a voice in this matter.” He broke contact with Kat.
“I guess he does. Maybe later, Bruce. Just not tonight.” She stood and brushed off her crumpled and filthy uniform. “We might be able to find a few moments of privacy tomorrow in the hot spring.” She lifted her eyebrows in speculation. She realized she needed more from him than just sex if she were ever to truly trust him.
“I’ll hold you to that. I haven’t had a proper bath in months.”
“None of us have.” She laughed, too. “We all smell a little musky and ripe. But if we all do, then we don’t offend anyone.”
“Kat, what are we going to do about the omniscium? We can’t just leave it. The GTE needs it. With the money from it, I could break free of Melinda Fortesque. Konner could buy custody of his son. You could buy yourself three promotions.” He stood beside her and looked her squarely in the eyes by the light of a cloud-covered moon.
“Not very likely. The emperor is trying to reinstitute merit promotions. If we ever get back, I’ll have one heck of a lot of explaining to do.” Something about his last statement bothered her. Her thoughts scattered as he kissed her full on the mouth.
“All nice speculation. I’ll dream about it in my cold lonely bed. I’ll dream of you, too.” He pushed her away and walked back toward the jumble of caves and huts.
“What did he mean by breaking free of Melinda Fortesque?”
Gentian did not have an opinion. She stropped her ankles and butted his head against her so that she stumbled toward the path uphill to the clearing.
“Ready for bed, Kat?” Konner asked. He carried a small lantern that burned fish oil. It stank.
So did she.
“Can I get a bath tonight?” she asked, moving close to her brother’s side and the circle of inviting light.
“Maybe in the morning, when the light is better.”
Loki and Kim joined them. Companionably, they all climbed the hill together. For the space of an hour Kat felt almost as if she belonged with them, almost as if she were a part of the family and not an outsider.
How long could it last?
“Why would you have to buy custody of your son if Melinda sent Geralds to bring you back to become a family again?” she asked quietly. “Why would you have to buy custody if you are still married to her as she claims?”
“Melinda is full of lies. Our marriage was annulled, and our prenuptial agreement destroyed—except for my carefully guarded copy,” Konner said bitterly. “Melinda no more wants a family than she wants to share control of Aurora with anyone. She’s blinded Geralds with stardust.”
“Or maybe he’s lying to get on your good side, Kat,” Loki added.
“Or to get into my bed.”
“Be careful, baby sister. Don’t let your emotions blind you to people’s faults,” Konner warned.
“Use your magic to see who tells the truth and who lies,” Kim added. “I’ll show you how to use the Tambootie tomorrow.”
“Can I practice on you three, see how much of the truth you are telling me?”
They all found something else to look at rather than answer her.
That was answer enough. She turned her back on them and walked back down the hill.
“Kat, remember that trust has to be given before it can be received,” Kim called after her.
She almost stopped. A deep ache in her heart kept her moving back to the village and a lonely bed in the women’s dormitory.
Noon sunshine sparkled on the water of the bathing pool. Kat stood in the pool at the base of the falls. Warm water swirled about her legs while a cool splash from the falls refreshed her face. For the first time in months she felt truly clean. Her clothes lay out on rocks, equally clean and drying in the summer sunshine.
Bruce Geralds swam lazy circles around her. His clothes were spread out next to hers.
He probably expected physical intimacies from her special invitation to enjoy the family hot spring.
She intended a different kind of intimacy—probes into his memories of his time before he showed up at Base Camp.
“Don’t hunch your shoulders,” Geralds whispered in her ear as he came up behind her. He grabbed her at the base of her neck and began massaging twenty years of knotted muscles.
Her head lolled forward accepting his closeness.
The current around her legs changed. She realized that he stood behind her, feet braced in the mud, while he gently pulled her body backward into a float.
She dug her toes into the soft streambed.
“Let me work on your neck for a while.” She eased away from him enough to turn him so that he faced away from the bank on the clearing side of the pool. The force field ended just beyond the stream.
Kat now knew that Konner had had to make the force field quite large to accommodate the full crystal array in proper proportions. The king stone resided in the middle of the clearing with twelve green drivers in a circle at a specified distance. One hundred forty-four red directionals stood out from there in another circle, spaced proportionally. Every measurement came down to an exact ratio of twelve to one.
The whole encompassed enough land for a large garden, the hut, and this pool, with acres of trees to shade and shelter it.
With strong hands, she worked on the cords of Geralds’ neck, then spread out to his shoulders and back. He had firm, lean muscles, a long body, and not much body hair. He seemed a perfect compromise between the short, compact body of the civilized planets and the taller, leaner body of the bush planets. Genetic manipulation had determined the differences many generations ago.
She liked his body. She wanted to like the man inside.
“There’s an ugly scar here.” She ran her fingertips diagonally down his back from right shoulder to left hip. “You should have Lotski look at it. Maybe she has something to reduce it.”
“It’s old. Too late for cosmetic repair.” He moved her hands back up to his shoulders.
“How’d you get it?” She wanted to ask why he hadn’t been able to get medical help soon enough to seal the wound without the ridge of thickened flesh.
“Accident. Too near an exploding ship in space. I had enough air and sense to climb into an EVA suit until the authorities picked out my life signs among all the debris.”
“Still . . .” Any inhabited planet connected to the trade routes had decent medical care. He’d only have the scar if he had been in hiding after the accident with nothing more than rudimentary first aid.
Why would he have to hide? Unless he caused the accident.
“Leave it, Kat. It’s history. Let’s talk about something important. Like the omniscium.”
“What’s to talk about?” Kat returned her attention to the tightening cords of his neck. “We can’t do anything until we figure out how to mine it. Then we have to figure out how to get it and us off this planet.”
“I got a peek at the stash of fuel cells at Base Camp. Lots of partials, few full. I think if we put all of them in one of the fighters, you and I can get back to my ship.” Geralds turned to face her, placing his hands upon her shoulders. His thumbs traced her jaw in a gentle caress.
“What about my brothers?” A chill ran up Kat’s legs that had nothing to do with the currents in the pool.
“Let them fend for themselves. They’ll recharge some cells eventually. But you and I can be free. Once we’ve sold a single beaker of omniscium, we can come back here. We can build a palace in the west and rule our own kingdom.” He twirled in the water to face her, grabbing her about the waist in his enthusiasm.
“I—ah—thought cannibals lived in the west; that it was truly barbaric over there.” She backed up through the tight whirlpool he had created with his move. Her balance was off as well as her ideas about controlling this conversation. “You had nightmares of cannibals.”
“Only in the mountains between here and there.”
“You had to walk through their territory to get to Base Camp. How did you survive?” Kat tried to put winsome admiration into her expression. She’d never been very good at flirting. She liked her relationships honest and open.
“I guess I’m too ornery to eat. They captured me in a blind pit. Left me there for a day and a night.” His face fell and his enthusiasm faded. “I just barely escaped when they pulled me out. They chased me for days.”
“Why? They must be desperate for food if they have resorted to eating other humans.”
“On the contrary. They eat humans in a very solemn ritual. It’s a rite of passage and a way of honoring an enemy they respect for his prowess in battle.” He gulped and turned his face away.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that. No wonder you had nightmares.”
“That part isn’t important. I escaped,” he said firmly. “What matters is that Judge Balinakas and his entire judiciary crew managed to get their escape pods to land together on a river near the far west coast of this continent. They’ve set up their own little city already, gotten the locals to build for them, organized crops and trade and communications . . . everything. The land is incredibly lush, full of everything, including mineral deposits. We could settle there, make it our base for mining and selling omniscium. We wouldn’t have to put up with Amanda Leonard or her megalomaniac ideas.” His face lit up again and he hugged her tight.
“Judge Balinakas won’t accept rivals to his power,” Kat hedged.
“Then we’ll make our home someplace else. Someplace new and untouched. This planet is practically empty. Plenty of room for separate kingdoms. Please say yes. Say you’ll join me.”
“What about your wife and children?”
“Who ever said . . .” He did not deny that he already had a family. “I’ll divorce her as soon as we get back to civilization. But I’ll bring my son here. I want Bruce, Jr. with me. He’s my son and heir.”
“Just like the name of your ship.”
Kat pointedly removed his hands from her waist and stepped back toward shore.
“Sorry, Bruce. I don’t think I can desert my brothers. The omniscium belongs to the entire family. I can’t and won’t go it alone.” She waded back to the embankment and began to dress in her nearly dry clothing.
“I trust my brothers more than I trust you,” she said to herself and suddenly felt a lot better.
