Discovery (9 page)

The tiny objects in her hand fell to the ground and she turned slowly, her enhanced heat-sensitive vision sweeping the forest.

She heard K’nt make inquiring sounds in his language, but ignored him, carefully sweeping her gaze in a wide arc.

There. So far as to be yellow-orange instead of hot-red. Even as she watched, the blobs of distorted heat sources moved away, but they were K’nt sized sources and her instincts said they, like him, were male. Povre pushed every ounce of her empathic talent forward, but couldn’t reach far enough. Still, she felt unsettled, uneasy, and quite sure the two other native beings didn’t mean her well.

K’nt touched her shoulder. As she turned her head to look at him, she blinked her eyes a few times to re-adjust her vision back into its normal range.

Kent’s entire body punctuated his query.

Povre held out two fingers. What was that counting word? And that other one she picked up while they were drawing? “Two. Same K’nt.” She put her two fingers against his chest.

His brown eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared. Interesting. Was his sense of smell more sensitive than hers? Maybe he could spot them better than she could, as well.

She put her other hand up to her eyes and then pointed into the forest and back again. “Watching us.”

His dark gaze went uneasily in that direction and he frowned. The deep line between his brows returned.

“They’re gone now,” she added in her language, with more signs. They were getting good at this. She already knew his intellect was enormous, matching or exceeding hers. If only they could meet on equal ground. If only they could overcome the language barrier. She could try to merge with him and absorb information from the speech center of his brain. It was far too risky: her reaction to procedures like that was never a good one and no telling what it might do to him. There was no one around to help either of them in case of an emergency.

But maybe they would have a chance yet to have some meaningful two-way conversation, she thought hopefully. If they kept up the pace of learning they started with, pretty soon they’d be communicating with ease without signs, pictures, and strength of will.

A niggle of doubt entered that thought.

We won’t have time.

He spoke. She picked up several words that were becoming familiar:
we
,
here
. He sounded urgent, and she understood a moment later when he started piling things back in his pack.

* * * * *

“WE LEAVE HER NOW.
We’ll take it one step at a time, Povre, but we’re out of here, babe.” Kent scrambled to his mountain tent and started disassembling it. He didn’t take time to roll the fabric. He shoved it hastily into the small sack. The shock-corded poles and pegs went into another.

He’d almost panicked when she looked at him a few minutes ago—the whites of her eyes in full eclipse by the violet irises until, after a few blinks, they reverted to normal. Jeez! What was that all about? It served to remind him for certain she was truly alien, and he’d better not get too comfortable or think about her with anything but his intellect. Damn it anyway, but it was all too easy for him to feel like it was completely normal to be around her!

He pointed to her pack. “What do you have in there we don’t need?” He had to try several different movements and signs to make her understand.

In answer, Povre took her pack, opened it, and without ceremony dumped the contents on the ground.

Kent could only stare for a moment. “Holy crap, you
are
carrying rocks!”

He crouched to examine the pile. Rocks and stones, the largest no bigger than his fist, some of every type to be found on the surface nearby. Small containers, in a few clear ones he could see twigs, roots, seeds, soil. In another container was a feather, probably from a crow. A few other long tubes, also clear, held cuttings of the few green plants offered in this season and location: ponderosa, lodgepole, sugar pine, and juniper.

And several gadgets and gizmos of mysterious function and various size.

If they had the time, he’d love to go over each of those gizmos one by one. But from what he understood, they were broken. He still didn’t understand how, only that they didn’t work any more. Even after she indicated the fact, more than once Povre still reached for something in the pack or on her belt, probably to record observations or test substances, and replace the device with a sad look and sheepish smile that said
“I forgot”
loud and clear.

“We can bury them,” said Kent, making digging motions. He sensed her reluctance to part with her equipment.

She shook her head. Passing her hand over the ground and making a humming noise, she sent Kent a questioning, raised-eyebrow look.

“I didn’t think of metal detectors,” he admitted. “But…how do we know our metal detectors can find your metal?”

Povre, when she caught his meaning, crossed her arms. A soft growl escaped her. She bent for his notebook, which poked up from a pocket of his knapsack, and opened it to the sketches of atomic elements and compounds they’d both drawn to illustrate basics like air and water.

One long slim finger tapped the first model of hydrogen and oxygen. “Same, K’nt,” she said in a you-should-know-better tone of voice.

“Ah, right, I goofed on that. Of course it’s possible our entire periodic table of elements matches yours, but I doubt it. Anyway, Povre, we don’t need extra weight slowing us down. I have the bare minimums. We already have to carry extra water. There are no plugs for your hair dryer and curling iron, sweetie, so we have to do something.”

Had she been human, Kent would’ve sworn she was about to burst into tears. Then she sighed, got on her knees, and started to dig like a terrier after a rat while Kent watched, his mouth opening wider than before. He closed it with a snap.

Dirt flew and the hole deepened. He had to wonder if her fingernails were made of iron. Her excavation went deeper by the second and soon she was leaning half in it and still digging. Kent found himself contemplating the tightest, sweetest little derriere in the galaxy as her jumpsuit stretched tight over dangerous curves.

From the back, with the blue skin hidden from sight, she looked as human as…well, as any woman. Matter of fact, if he could hide those six-fingered hands and somehow color her silky blue fur, plus keep her hair over her ears, she’d pass for an exotic-eyed Afro-Eurasian. All she would need then was another foot and a half in height, and most people would instantly assume she was some exotic high fashion model.

“Yeah, but could I convince you to keep your hands in gloves or in your pockets, and then get you to take a bath in hair coloring?”

Povre swept her gear into the hole and then added items from her belt. Several flat rocks went next, then the dirt. She took another rock and tamped the soil tight. Kent helped her strew pine needles and other detritus over the spot. But Povre wasn’t done. She limped into the tree line and stopped at a big black boulder some long-ago volcano had upchucked in a seismic fit.

“No, that’s impossible,” whispered Kent.

Povre bent down and tested the boulder with one hand. Then two. Then crouched like an Olympic snatch-and-jerk weight lifter.

Kent covered his eyes. Okay, so he peeked from the tiniest crack in his fingers. She didn’t lift the rock. She pushed it. Rocked it. Maybe even cursed and yelled at it a bit. Rolled it end over end. Whatever she did, the massive boulder moved closer and closer to her targeted spot.

It had to weigh as much as a full sized pickup truck and didn’t have wheels to make it roll. To see a slender, fragile looking female handle the monolith with such ease unnerved him to the extent he remained in place instead of moving to help her.

He couldn’t have done it. No way. Not in a million.

She gave the rock a final shove and let it thump in place over her cache. Dusting her hands together, Povre returned to the naked spot formerly housing the huge rock for Lord knew how many thousands of years—until now—and proceeded to make it look like any other patch of open ground along the riverbank.

“Remind me not to get you mad at me,” he said. “It’s a good thing you seem peaceful and even-tempered, Povre.”

Maybe mild-mannered was a better choice. The term popped into his head and dragged up images of Superman with it. “I think I’m beginning to understand what Lois saw in Clark.” He chuckled. “But if you get really pissed I only hope I’m in the next county, or at the very least not in the path of direct fire.”

Only the lighter tone beneath the silky blue fur on her face betrayed her exhaustion and pain. The lost, frightened look was back in her eyes. Kent thought he understood. The only things linking her to home were four feet under several tons of rock.

“I’m sorry, Povre.” He limped closer and put an arm over her shoulders. Hell, he thought. I wasn’t going to do this. Besides, she might not appreciate—

But she turned toward him with a gulping sound and pressed tight against his body. Kent tightened his arm over her narrow shoulders and she tucked her head under his chin. It fit perfectly. Little jolts of electricity zinged into his jaw and carotids. Her scent added a spicy edge to the giddy sensation in his brain and elevated his heart rate. Clean fresh air, damp earthy soil, juniper berries, and exotic spice.

Stop that!
Ken thought to his errant member as he felt himself start to get hard again.

He let his other arm creep around her until both encircled her slender waist. If anything, Povre burrowed closer. Her wiry arms locked behind Kent’s back.

He swallowed. He had the wildest urge to kiss her silly. To strip her from that dark gunmetal blue jumpsuit and—

Hold it, Kent. She’s smart, she’s pretty, but she’s an alien! Alien as in…not human.

“We’d better get moving,” he said gruffly after clearing his throat. “It’s a long walk.”

~~

Not looking at him, Povre backed away and picked up her empty pack. In it went the water container, the cooking gear, and anything he’d not yet replaced in his pack.

Chagrin flooded her and she was glad packing up gave her the excuse to keep her telltale face averted.
What is it about him that attracts me so? That makes me behave like this? Want to touch him all the time? Why do I persist?

He isn’t even my species.

So?
another part of herself argued back.
I have close friends in four different species and five genders. Why should his be different?

But it
was
different. She didn’t want to touch her other friends all the time, or be with them all the time, or think about them the way her thoughts were taking with K’nt.

“Povre,” she heard him say. A huge sigh followed when she refused to look up. More words in his language, the delivery a bit halting; the tone apologetic, regretful. After only a minute, he let out another sigh and fell silent.

She kept her gaze on the ground and didn’t bother to try translating his meaning. What would be the point? So that he could tell her to stay away from him? To leave him alone and stop touching him? She must remember to keep her distance, be respectful, obey his directions. She had to rely on his good graces. After all, she’d put herself in his custody. She needed to remember
she
was the alien here.

The one who didn’t belong.

When the native finally turned to limp along the river trail, she limped after him.

H
IGH ABOUT THE GREEN AND
blue planet, hidden behind an artificial satellite and sophisticated—to that planet’s technology—screens, the sleek ship orbited, keeping pace with the communications array that helped hide it from visual means.

“You left Dr. Povresle behind?” repeated the ship’s captain in disbelief.

Eyeing the squat pink Kemmerian, H’renzek let out a breath of disgust.

“Look, Captain, you know the rules as well as I do. Matter of fact you repeated them word-for-line before our landing craft left. Povre left the camp. She was told to stay with the equipment and wait until we returned with the others who would serve on the rotation.”

“But she—”

H’renzek’s hands went to his hair, fingers clenched tight in the strands. Furious heat flooded his body. What was wrong with his shipmates? Did they forget he was responsible for everyone on the Exploration team, and not just Povre? “I was following operational procedure, Captain. Do you think I feel
happy
about possibly sacrificing Povre to those below?”