Reckless Rescue (15 page)

Tyris didn’t reply. Marlee studied his face in the firelight, not sure what he was thinking. His face was carefully blank. Was he upset? Angry? Considering it?

“What about you, Marlee? You said you offered to have me here. Did you think... well... what were you hoping for? Were you hoping we would have a baby together?”

Marlee thought of the feelings she’d had, lying beside him that morning. What would being with Tyris be like? Something swirled in the bottom of her stomach, sending tendrils radiating through her body. It wasn’t love. It couldn’t be. Physical desire, that’s all. But it could be interesting to explore. The eighteen months allotted for a couple was a long time. They could be happy. Maybe they would even get lucky and have a baby.

She’d thought that last time. That memory was enough to make her shake her head definitively. “I don’t want to go through that again. It hurts too much.”

Tyris nodded slowly, then stared into the fire again for a moment. His next question didn’t give any clue as to his thoughts. “What will the council think about that? Are they going to keep pushing you?” he asked.

Marlee sighed. “Yes, they’ll keep pushing, probably harder and harder,” Marlee admitted. She hesitated. “You’ll get it too,” she added.

“Me?” Tyris asked in surprise.

Marlee hid a grin. “You’ll be a hot commodity around here,” she teased. “There are plenty of women who would be more than happy to have a chance at an almost guaranteed fertile male.”

This time there was no mistaking it. Tyris looked horrified. “Not a chance,” he said quickly. “I’m not having a baby with anyone. Ever.”

She could agree with his sentiment. Even applaud it. But still, it made her catch her breath for a second. “It could get mighty uncomfortable,” she warned.

Tyris shrugged. “Then we can be uncomfortable together I guess,” he suggested.

“We could,” Marlee agreed. It’d be better than standing up to the council alone. “But there’s another possibility,” she suggested.

“There is?”

“We can pretend we’re together,” Marlee said. “It’s not a permanent solution, but it will buy us some time. Time for you to settle in here, and time for me to decide what I want to do. After that, who knows, you might meet someone you’d like to be with.” She ignored the stab of jealousy she felt at her own comment.

“I doubt that,” Tyris said dryly. Then he looked over at her. “Are you sure there isn’t someone you else you would be willing to try with again?”

“Definitely not,” Marlee said firmly. “I’ve lived here for twenty years, remember? I know everyone, and I’m not allowed to be with the only person I wanted.”

Tyris nodded. “Okay then. I’m game if you are. What do we do? Make an announcement or something?”

Marlee smiled, surprised at how relieved she felt at his words. “No, no announcement needed. Usually it’s considered official when two people move in together, but if the actual beginning date is ambiguous, that gives us more leeway in the end.”

It was the best outcome she could hope for. While they thought she and Tyris were together, the council would leave her alone. And perhaps at the end of this, they’d assume she was barren, and she’d be able to be alone without all the pressure.

*****

I
T WAS A DAY OF FIRSTS
for Tyris. Once Marlee finished her tea and he helped her tightly bind her ankle, she’d been able to walk without admitting to too much pain. She made them both a bowl of porridge with honey and strange tasting milk. By then, the light coming through the open window was sufficient that Marlee blew out the lamp. She limped around the kitchen putting flour and water in a big wooden bowl.

“What are you doing?” Tyris asked, in what he suspected was going to become his catch-phrase of the day.

“Making bread,” Marlee said. She measured out the flour in a carved wooden scale, the type Tyris had only seen in lawyer’s logos. The flour formed a pile on one side, and Marlee put little metal weights on the other. She did the same for the water.

“You can make bread?” Tyris asked in surprise, as she put the ingredients into a wooden bowl and began to mix them. Obviously he knew people made bread, but in his mind it was done by bakers in a huge oven with lots of fancy equipment. Not like this in a tiny primitive kitchen with only flour, water, and a strange gooey bubbly mixture.

Marlee just smiled. She pulled the lump of white dough out of the bowl onto a board and began kneading it. Tyris watched her for a few moments then to his own surprise asked, “Can I have a go?”

“Sure,” Marlee said readily, and moved aside. “Fold it in half and push down,” she instructed him.

It looked so easy when she did it, but he felt awkward and ungainly, something he hadn’t experienced in a long time. “I can’t do it,” he said, giving up after only a few attempts.

“Sure you can,” Marlee encouraged. She stood next to him and guided his hands. “Fold it over like this and push down with the heel of your hands, like this. Then do it again.”

Her hands were sure and steady. He tried not to be aware of how her floury fingers sliding against his were warm and soft. But they sent heat running along his veins anyway. She pulled the dough back, and he followed suit, folding the dough in half under guidance of the gentle pressure of her hands then letting the heel of her hand push his down into the dough. Over and over she repeated the pattern, until it was drumming itself into his heart, the rhythm flowing through him.

When Marlee realised he’d caught on, she stepped back. Tyris wished she hadn’t. Kneading the dough created a connection between them, like they had shared something above the mundane.

She wiped her hands absently on the apron around her waist, watching him with a smile on her face. Then she turned away with a swish of her heavy skirt to do something else in the kitchen.

Tyris watched her go, his hands still warm where she had touched him. He needed to keep these feelings for her in check. She’d made it clear to him that she wasn’t interested, even though her actions seemed to indicate otherwise sometimes. He needed to respect that and keep his distance. It wouldn’t help her any if he latched onto her like an injured pilot desperately clutching at his oxygen mask.

It had been a strange morning and an even stranger conversation. When he’d asked her if she’d hoped to have a baby with him, he’d been surprised to realise he had almost hoped she would say yes.

As much as he didn’t want to believe it, with the Hylista unrepairable, he was stuck here. And without his ship, any skills he had were worthless. They wouldn’t put food on the table or keep him warm over winter. He knew nothing about those things. He had nothing to contribute. Marlee had taken him in out of pity, but in reality, he was simply another burden to her. If she wanted a child, it would have given him a way to offer something back to her, a way of helping her.

But she had given him another option. A better option, considering his inability to have children. By pretending that they were together, he could protect her from the pressure to have a child. Protect her in a way he couldn’t if the relationship was real. It was a small contribution, but perhaps a valuable one. And in the meantime, he planned to learn all the new skills he needed as quickly as he could.

Marlee came over and took the dough from him. She put it on a wooden board, covered it with a cloth, and placed it on the small table beside the fireplace. The plates and cups they had used for breakfast were clean and stacked to drip dry, and the dirt floor was swept.

“What now?” he asked.

“We’re off to the barn,” Marlee picked up a bucket near the bench and held out a shawl. Tyris hesitated, but this time, knowing how cold it was outside, he accepted her offer.

“I’ll have to get started on making you a coat,” she said. Another wave of gratitude washed over him. Along with another wave of helplessness. He was so used to money taking care of any problem he couldn’t solve himself. He had no idea where to even start with making clothes. Where did they get fabric from? How did they make them?

Tyris followed her through the gently falling snow, glad of the extra warmth from the shawl. Grey clouds obscured the sun, and the snow he trudged through would probably be much deeper by nightfall. Even the few inches that had already fallen made walking difficult, and Marlee’s limp was becoming more pronounced. Tyris caught up with her in a few strides and took the bucket from her. He held out his arm for her to lean on.

Marlee stared at him for a few moments then nodded. “Thank you,” she said softly as she slipped her arm through his.

The barn was right next to Marlee’s home, so the walk was short. “This was one of the first buildings we built,” Marlee explained. “It’s easier to keep the animals all together and share their produce than to look after them individually. In the middle of winter, we take turns caring for them.”

Tyris nodded. That made sense.

Despite the shawl, he was glad to get inside, where firelight from several lamps cast a welcoming glow. The building was large, dwarfing Marlee’s small dwelling. Wooden railings and posts divided it into four sections. Immediately inside the door to the left were large stacks of hay, wooden crates, and firewood. To the right, a dozen or so small animals with horns, goats maybe, or were they sheep? No, sheep were in the corner diagonally opposite, so those must be goats. The final corner held chickens.

The barn was so large that the roof of each section was held up by its own central pole, as though they were all structurally separate, but joined together without walls. “I can’t believe all this was built by hand!” Tyris said in amazement.

He wrinkled his nose at the smell, though it was not as unpleasant as he had expected. A slightly musty aroma with a hint of hay.

Marlee smiled and picked up a small woven basket sitting on one of the crates. She dipped it into a box full of grain then called softly to the goats. “Benati.” Her sing-song voice echoed through the barn as she coaxed the animal closer. A small brown and white goat with floppy ears broke away from the heard and nuzzled her hand, and Marlee opened the gate to let it out into the walkway between the sections. When Marlee put the basket on the ground, the goat stuck its nose in, eating greedily. Pulling up a three legged stool, she down beside the goat, patting it fondly on its rump. She put the bucket underneath it and began milking.

Tyris watched with interest, no compulsion at all to try this skill. But when Marlee turned to him with a smile and asked, “Do you want to try?” he somehow couldn’t say no. He found himself sitting on the tiny stool, reaching his hands under a goat, and listening to Marlee’s instructions. “Grip with your thumb and forefinger first, to trap the milk in the teat, then close each finger around it and pull down gently, squeezing the milk out.”

Tyris tried several times, but there was no milk. It seemed like an impossible task. Marlee knelt down in the straw next to him and put her hands around his. “Like this, you need to force the milk down to the end of the teat.”

After several attempts, Tyris managed to get a single stream of milk spurting down into the half full bucket and felt an inordinate sense of pride. “I did it!”

Marlee smiled. “Of course you did.”

Tyris tried a few more times with mixed success, and since the goat’s back feet began to shift restlessly, Marlee took over again, squirting the milk into the bucket rapidly. She made it look so easy.

“Good morning, Marlee, Tyris,” he heard a voice behind him say. Turning, he saw Nerris coming into the barn with a basket.

Tyris returned his greeting politely. Marlee stood up and handed him the bucket, three quarters full of foaming warm milk. “Hi, Nerris,” she said cheerfully.

Nerris faced Tyris, leaning back on the fence as Marlee led the goat back into its pen. “We were all so concerned for you and Marlee last night that I forgot to ask, how is the ship?”

Marlee slipped past him and down to the area with the chickens. Tyris suspected she didn’t want to hear him repeat the news any more than he felt like saying it. “Not good,” he admitted. “Even if the rocket booster hadn’t been damaged, the anysogen fuel tank was punctured, and I lost all the fuel. You were right, the Hylista isn’t going anywhere.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, son.” Nerris looked at Tyris thoughtfully for a few moments, then said casually, “Oh well, you probably won’t be stuck here for too long. I’m sure the Colonies will send someone else looking for the anysogen when you don’t return. After all, they know full well it’s here.”

So Yasmyn had told him why he was here. “Actually, I’m not sure they do,” Tyris said. “I mean, obviously someone does, but it’s well hidden.”

“But they sent you after it?” Nerris asked. When Tyris raised an eyebrow, he said, “Come on, I wasn’t born yesterday. I recognise a Space Force ship when I see one.”

“Of course,” Tyris said, wondering what Nerris hoped to gain by this conversation. “But I’m not here on Colonial orders. In fact, I am… was… on leave. I’m here entirely on my own initiative, and no one knows where I am. On top of that, this planet isn’t mentioned in any of the history on anysogen and has been deleted from all the star maps.”

“Deleted from the star maps?” The shock in Nerris’s voice was obvious. “Why would they have done that? No wonder we never saw a rescue ship.”

“I have no idea why it was deleted, obviously something was going on. But even so, they can’t possibly have known there was anyone here to rescue,” Tyris pointed out.

“Do you really believe that?” Nerris said pointedly. “I mean, if there was no one here, why bother to delete the planet from the star maps? Especially one that contained such a valuable resource.”

Tyris struggled to work out what he implied. The villagers had escaped Semala against all odds, how could anyone guess that they had survived? And yet, Nerris had a point. Planets just weren’t removed from the star maps. Before he could even come up with a coherent response, Nerris nodded to him and walked towards the back of the barn.

Marlee came up behind him with her apron full of eggs. “Is everything okay?”

He looked down at her for a moment, then taking her elbow, shepherded her out of the barn. “Marlee, what actually happened on Semala?”