Rystani Warrior 02 - The Dare (3 page)
Read Rystani Warrior 02 - The Dare Online
Authors: Susan Kearney
TESSA STRODE INTO the command center, obviously overhearing Dora’s last words. “Who needs rescuing?”
“Zical.” Dora explained the situation quietly to Tessa while monitoring Kahn’s communications. He’d ordered a rescue unit to the site but told them not to enter without his specific command. He also readied his private skimmer, and when Dora advised him that he couldn’t land near the site, he spoke with Etru about piloting close enough to the site for Kahn to jump-and-float, a procedure where he’d leap from the skimmer’s open hatch, employ his suit’s null-grav capabilities to descend, and land at his destination point.
Tessa must also have been listening to Kahn’s conversation with Dora. She placed a hand on his shoulder. Kahn’s blood pressure steadied and he glanced down at his wife, one inquisitive brow quirked upward. “Yes?”
Her tone remained gentle but firm, but her eyes brightened with urgency. “I’m coming with you.”
He nodded. “Fine. Let’s move.”
As they ran hand in hand for the bay where Kahn’s personal skimmer awaited, Dora couldn’t help admiring their partnership. Not so long ago, Kahn would have told Tessa to remain at home where she would be safe. He now recognized that kind of life was unacceptable to his adventurous wife. In fact, Tessa thrived amid turmoil and danger, and Kahn had learned to cherish her fighting spirit.
In Dora’s quest to become human, she hoped to someday share her life with a man who understood her so well. The yearning to share part of herself had led to building a body, but with Zical’s disappearance, she worried that her goal might end before she’d even started the transfer.
The couple had exchanged few words, each of them recognizing that time might be of the essence. But although their synchronized run might appear effortless, Kahn had shortened his steps to match Tessa’s shorter legs. He kept her hand in his.
Dora couldn’t wait to touch and be touched like that. She’d read all the definitions of touch, but it was like explaining sight to an Osarian—nothing could duplicate the reality of experience. More importantly she wanted to share the kind of communication, sensitivity, and empathy that Tessa shared with Kahn. She longed for a time when she could understand another human so well and have him understand her. The marriage had made Tessa happy and complete, and Dora wanted that kind of love.
It might never happen. Not everyone was lucky enough to find a mate. Despite her vast stores of knowledge, Dora figured wanting a man to love was only the first part of the quest. Next she needed to find the right man. At the moment, Zical was her prime candidate. First and foremost, Zical possessed a devastatingly sexy grin that sparked all the way to his unusual and wondrous alexandrite eyes. She adored how his eyebrows raised inquiringly when he teased her, how his mouth set in a firm line, yet one corner usually turned up in amusement, especially when he was trying to appear firm. Right now she missed the full-bodied sound of his voice, the low throaty grunt while his eyes smoldered. Of course, her perception of the man might alter after she transferred to her human body, so she’d mostly kept her thoughts private.
Through human eyes, Dora might not find him as attractive as her sensors. But sheesh, Zical had eyes that sparked liked magical lightning, a ready smile, and a responsibility to his people that she admired. She accepted that she might not be attracted to his smell, another sense she had yet to experience, but she’d considered options to offset the possibility. Since subliminal chemistry was very important to humans, she’d used her best science to ensure her pheromones and his would integrate on both the conscious and subconscious levels.
Even if her feelings for Zical remained after her transformation, she understood on an intellectual level that he might never return her passion. Tessa had questioned Dora, then made her talk to a psychiatrist to ascertain that she wanted to be human for herself—even if she never found a mate. The psychiatrist had agreed that the yen to touch, to love, was an intrinsic part of Dora, a part she couldn’t eradicate even if she wanted. However, her idea of bliss was to have a relationship that ran deep and true, like her best friend’s.
Kahn and Tessa reached their skimmer and Dora picked them up on her portable units as well as a small mainframe inside the craft. Tessa took a seat in the rear at a navigation console. Kahn slid into the copilot’s seat next to Etru, who had the engines primed to go. From his muscular physique, Dora wouldn’t have guessed Etru’s age. Broad-shoulders and bronze skin seemed to define Rystani men, as did their flat bellies and lean limbs due to lack of fat in their diet. Etru’s hair was dark red, except at the temples where it was white. His eyes were amber like Kahn’s, but nowhere near as vivid.
Dora’s scanners noted a stowaway on board. Kirek, the little rascal, had sneaked in when no one appeared to be looking. While he still wore his portable unit on his wrist, the portable unit had lost contact for the last several minutes with her mainframe. Dora had been about to report the malfunction. She ran a self-diagnostic check, and Kirek’s unit once again appeared to check out in good working order, but Dora found it statistically impossible that Kirek’s unit so often malfunctioned without good reason and suspected the boy’s powerful psi had something to do with the breakdown.
Kirek didn’t resemble his father, Etru, or his brown-eyed mother, Miri. His birth in hyperspace had marked him with deep blue eyes and dark black hair, and it had also given him an off-the-charts intellect and one of the strongest psi abilities of any Rystani. Since the intellectually adult, four-year-old boy was in no danger, Dora had the latitude to decide whether or not to report his activity to his father. Tessa had already spotted the boy and said nothing, so Dora took the cue from her and remained silent.
“Dora, give me everything you have on the area,” Tessa requested. “Geography and weather conditions, please.”
“Compliance.” Dora called up the data and shot it to Tessa’s monitor.
Kahn strapped himself in. “Dora, what’s our estimated time of landing?”
The calculation took less than a nanosecond. “With the current tailwind, twenty minutes.”
“Dora.” Etru fired the jets to initiate a vertical liftoff. “Inform Miri we may be late for supper.”
“Compliance.” Dora passed on the message and added that Kirek was aboard the skimmer so Miri wouldn’t worry over his absence, then Dora aimed three extra sensors in his direction.
Meanwhile, she scanned for signs of Zical. She found his absence disturbing.
Dora had become accustomed to his presence. Looked forward to their conversations. Enjoyed looking at him while he worked, ate, and slept. He shouldn’t risk his life to satisfy his curiosity. Humans were so fragile, each person so unique. Zical was one in a billion. Just in case he’d emerged at another location on the mountain, she broadened the scan and came up with zip. Zero. Zilch. It was if a black hole had swallowed the man alive.
DURING THE FLIGHT, Dora finalized her alexandrite eye color, choosing the chromosomes to achieve the exact shade she wanted. Of course, she also gave herself perfect vision, genetically protected her eyes against disease, including several types of blindness, and began the process of choosing a skin tone and hair color. The combinations were infinite, and slowly she narrowed the choices.
She also helped Miri pick out a recipe for dinner, found a trader to deliver Mystique’s new crop of orangewheat for Shaloma, helped a mechanic overhaul a starship engine, continued to watch Kirek, and scanned for Zical. In addition, part of her circuits, a large part, focused on solving the communications problem with Zical’s portable unit, penetrating the peculiar force field on Mount Shachauri. Even as she connected all planetary and interplanetary communications, monitored the weather, and searched for Zical, she still noted the fascinating byplay between Tessa and Kahn.
Although Kahn sat upfront in the copilot’s seat and Tessa remained aft in navigation, Kahn frequently glanced in her direction, but not in any regular pattern. Each time he did so, his gaze ever-so-slightly softened, his pupils dilating. Too often for coincidence, Tessa seemed to glance up from her monitor to latch onto his gaze as if she were attuned to him on a special wavelength they alone shared.
Envious, but oh-so-glad her friend had such a strong connection with her mate, Dora longed for that kind of bond with another being. The complexity of human emotion endlessly fascinated Dora, and she eagerly anticipated the day she could experience a comparable relationship.
Although Dora had often been alone during her first three hundred years, she hadn’t longed to become human until after she and Tessa had become friends. Then Zical had come along, and the Rystani male had affected her sensors and stimulated her processors, until conversation alone had not been enough to satisfy her. She wanted to be a blood-and-flesh woman who could wrap her arms around a man, kiss him, stroke him, caress him. She wanted to be a true partner, and if she had to give up her immortality to have her chance at love, so be it.
Apparently, Kirek decided that they were too close to their final destination for his father to turn back. He climbed out from his hiding spot. “Hi, Dad.”
“Stars!” Etru swore, and Dora prepared to take over the piloting if necessary, but his hand remained steady on the controls. “How many times have I told you that a skimmer is no place for a child?”
“If I stayed home, I’d miss all the excitement.” Knowing his father was too busy to hold him, Kirek slid onto Kahn’s lap, the clever boy sure of his welcome. “I’m going to be a starship pilot one day.”
Kahn chuckled and his arm closed lovingly around Kirek’s waist. “You should have asked to come along.”
“You would have said no.”
“Starship pilots obey orders,” Kahn countered. “Your mother must—”
“I notified Miri that Kirek’s with his father,” Dora informed Kahn and Etru, remaining silent about exactly when she’d sent the message. However, when Kahn rolled his eyes at the ceiling, a Terran habit he’d picked up from Tessa, Dora suspected he’d figured out that her scanners had picked up the boy and she’d informed Miri, but not him, shortly after takeoff.
During their conversation, Tessa prepared emergency kits in the back. Dora lowered her tone so only Tessa could hear. “I’m modifying my portable unit in hopes that when you enter the cavern, we can maintain contact.”
“Great.”
“The modification may not work.”
Tessa picked up a laser weapon. “Understood. How long until the drop?”
“Two minutes.”
Up front Kahn stood, placed Kirek in the copilot seat, and then strapped him in. “Stay.” His tone was harsh, but he gave away his true feelings when he tousled the boy’s hair with a gentle hand.
“He’s not going anywhere,” Etru muttered.
At Kahn’s approach, Tessa braced as if fearing her husband was about to give her the same order. But Kahn had learned that his wife rarely obeyed him. At the sight of three packed kits, his eyebrow lifted. “You’re coming along?”
“You might get into too much trouble on your own. Besides you’ve been telling me I work too hard and need to relax more.”
“You call dropping out of a skimmer relaxation?” Kahn sighed at his rhetorical question, but his lips ticked upward into a grin. He opened the hatch and wind blasted into the skimmer. Kahn leaned forward and gave his wife a fierce kiss. Almost always during times of intimate contact, one of them commanded Dora to leave their presence—while all the interesting stuff happened. However, they appeared so wrapped in the kiss that she had a perfect opportunity to observe.
All she could think was … yum.
Dora couldn’t wait to find a man to look at her with that kind of heat and tenderness. A man who’d kiss her with that combination of untamed need and savage possessiveness.
As always when she thought of a mate, her thoughts turned to Zical. Dora had done her best to ensure that the composition and elasticity of her human vocal cords produced the same timbre as her computer-generated voice. Would he find her human voice as sexy as her computer one? If she made herself attractive enough, would he be compelled to make love to her?
BY THE STARS, had he fainted? Zical rubbed his aching forehead, groaned, and forced his eyes open. The blinding golden light had disappeared. Soothing darkness backlit from the portal allowed him to view the alien machinery surrounding him, and he was relieved to find himself on his stomach only a few feet from the cavern’s entrance. After he gathered his strength and regained his feet, he’d do what he should have done in the first place—what Dora had suggested—go back outside and report his find.
Dora’s tone prodded him, but with the ringing in his ears, he couldn’t make out her words. What had knocked him flatter than the geological pancakes on Damar, Mystique’s second moon? Breathing lightly past the tightness in his chest and the fullness in his loins, an odd side effect that his suit would take care of now that he was conscious, he ran his hands over his face while the ringing in his ears subsided and Dora’s voice slowly became clear enough to comprehend.
“Zical. Talk to me. Are you hurt? Do you require—”
“Give me a minute.”
“I’ve already given you sixty.”
He wouldn’t consider rolling over until the suit finished countering his arousal. Luckily, Dora hadn’t seemed to notice, or no doubt, she would be asking personal questions for which he had no reasonable answer. Thanks to the suit giving men control over their passions, Rystani males did not have erections unless they were ready to have sex.
Stunned by the fierce sensation of need, need that he had no way to satisfy at the moment, he winced and lost track of the conversation. “Say that again, please?”
“I would have summoned help but communications are still down.”
“You sensed no immediate danger?” he guessed, rolling to his side and sitting up cautiously as he avoided putting pressure on tender areas, pleased his suit had done the job. His head pounded as if the entire Rystani army had tromped through, muddling his thoughts, scrambling his impressions. Yet, his skin tingled as if stroked.
“Are you ill?”
“I don’t think so, but …”
“But?” she prodded.
Stars. He wanted a woman so badly that he’d almost said so—a clear sign he was thoroughly rattled. Perhaps Dora’s discussion about breast size right before he’d blacked out had remained in his mind and stimulated him. Yeah, sure. More likely, he’d put off for too long a visit to a holosim, a holographic simulator, that would relieve his needs, so the first time his consciousness relaxed, his body felt as though he’d gotten a weekend pass to play. However, with Dora expanding her circuitry into every business on the planet, Zical couldn’t be certain his time with the holosim Xentos would remain private. The idea of Dora knowing about his personal business with a holosim disturbed him, so he always left his portable unit at home during his infrequent trips to that part of town.
“What happened while I was out?”
“Nothing. Your respiration and pulse remained within normal limits. You remained flat on your stomach, unmoving. Why?”
At the sound of a skimmer outside the portal, Zical staggered to his feet. Nothing hurt, but his bones throbbed in a way he’d never experienced. Something odd had happened to him when the golden beam had struck. He would have thought he was simply suffering from the aftereffects of repressed sexual desire, but he recalled images, images so erotic that he suspected they couldn’t have originated with him.
Zical peered toward the portal. “Who’s here?”
“My communications still aren’t functioning. But my mainframe may have sent a rescue party when—”
“Zical?” Kahn’s voice shouted through the portal.
“Stay where you are. I’ll come out.” Zical straightened, bumped into a panel, and swore under his breath. Machinery rumbled, clicked. Zical’s scalp prickled, stopping him in mid-curse.
“Let’s get out of here,” Dora’s voice deepened with urgency.
Overhead, a fan-like noise whirred and fresh air wafted inside the cavern. Zical tipped back his head and spied what looked like a ventilation system, then the lines of the grill formed a shape that reminded him of the sensual sway of a woman’s hips. Lips pressed to his neck, but no one was there. A wispy soft breast brushed his cheek, yet he was alone, his suit in proper working order. Not prone to fantasizing while at work, he blinked, stared hard, now saw only the grill from the ventilation system. What in Dregan hell was going on?
“Zical,” Dora’s tone commanded with authority. “Come on. Move.”
His muscles pulsed. His bones vibrated strangely as he forced one foot in front of the other. He put down the fantasizing to the aftereffects from his knock on his head. Had his presence, his bump into the machinery, or the rescue party’s arrival brought the machines to life? Were they about to undergo another attack of golden light? Would the portal close and trap him?
Kahn poked his head into the corridor, one thick arm blocking Tessa from entering. In a sweeping, intelligent gaze, Kahn took in the hum of machinery and Zical’s unsteady steps.
Without hesitating another moment, Kahn entered the cavern, approached, and placed a steadying arm over Zical’s shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Zical rubbed his forehead again as another jolt of sexual need coursed through him. “Everything. I don’t know.”
Tessa slipped to Zical’s other side, and together they helped him stand and go outside. “Dora, what happened?”
Concisely, Dora reported the pertinent details, including that Zical’s portable computer unit was undamaged and again in contact with the mainframe now that they were outside. She concluded her analysis with the suggestion, “Zical should undergo a full physical exam.”
“Dregan hell. I’m fine.” What he needed was an hour with Xentos to take the edge off, a night to douse the flames of desire from his system. He hoped the sensation would abate when they left the cavern. It didn’t.
For some damn reason, every time Dora spoke, erotic images of her with a body flooded his mind. Dora dancing naked for him. Dora kissing him, her mouth sultry and warm. Dora’s hands busily stroking … damn. The golden light must have put those images in his head, and no matter how much he tried to focus his thoughts on the ancient machines and their purpose, he failed to get Dora out of his head.
With Tessa, Kahn, and Zical standing outside in the niche, the spot was so crowded, he couldn’t move. Zical closed his eyes and more exotic images of Dora filled his mind, images similar to those that he’d dreamed while unconscious. Dora with a sexy neck, large breasts, and sensual hips. Dora with a body like Xentos, his holosim. If he shared this odd information with Kahn, he’d not only have to suffer through a physical, but he’d also have to withstand a psych evaluation. He hated nothing more than talking to a therapist, resented anyone probing his mind, digging into old and painful wounds better left alone.
He could imagine the therapist’s questions. Did he fulfill his needs with a holosim, not a real woman, because he couldn’t put aside his failure to protect Summar? He would honestly answer yes, but no good would come of tearing open old wounds. The fact remained that Summar was dead, and while he’d unconditionally loved the baby inside her, he’d always had deep reservations about his child bride and resented their arranged marriage from the beginning when he’d recognized they were a poor match. After her death, he’d tried to numb his grief and forget his failure to protect his family by accepting one war mission after another. If he was reluctant to involve himself with another woman, he could blame his people’s need for competent starship pilots and his busy schedule.
Tessa peered at him, her concern in eyes as green and deep as the valley far below. “Do you think the golden light is a weapon?”
“Rays of golden light cut through my suit like a starship through hyperspace.” Slowly, the thrumming ebbed, leaving him certain that if the creators of the technology inside Mount Shachauri had wanted him dead, he wouldn’t still be breathing. “I’m not hurt. Maybe it was a welcome?”
“A welcome that knocked you out?” Kahn muttered sarcastically.
“Dora says these machines are ancient. The builders couldn’t possibly have anticipated what effect their technology might have on beings other than themselves,” Tessa countered, peering around Kahn to the interior.
The Terran’s curiosity brightened her eyes, made her muscles taut with eagerness to explore. Kahn, always cautious and protective around his wife, seemed torn between exploration and keeping Tessa safe. Four years of marriage had taught him to word his concerns with care.
“Why don’t we come back tomorrow with a team of engineers, scientists, archaeologists, and—”
“Let them have all the fun?” Tessa slipped around him and entered the cavern. Kahn swore and followed. Zical kept his gaze carefully averted from Tessa. In his highly charged state, he didn’t want Kahn thinking that he was ogling his wife. Zical loved Tessa like a sister, nothing more, but right now he didn’t trust his reactions.
Tessa hurried forward as if aware Kahn would attempt to stop her progress. “There’s no point in sending in a team until we know if it’s safe.”
“Specialists should decide,” Kahn argued, but he, too, seemed fascinated by the ancient machines that amazingly still worked. Apparently, one system could turn on the next. Lights blinked. Dials glowed. Crystals flowed like rain across monitors. Deep within Mount Shachauri, engines stirred, their vibrations seeping upward through the stone like a hibernating animal that slowly stretched, yawned, and awakened.
Zical scowled. “We have no specialists on the Perceptive Ones.”
“Not true,” Dora piped in. “Several Zenonites are experts.”
Was Dora trying to make her voice sound even sexier than normal? Or had the golden light altered him in some way to make him more sensitive? Turned on by just the sound of Dora’s voice, Zical tried to keep both desire and irritation from his tone, he also had to stiffen his suit around his
tavis
to prevent his blood from engorging the sensitive area. “Zenonites rarely leave Zenon. Besides, even if one of them consented to come to Mystique, he would take days to arrive.”
“These machines have been here for eons. They aren’t going anywhere,” Dora countered, then announced, “I have solved our communication problem. We have contact with my mainframe.”
“Good.” Zical felt better, knowing Dora’s vast resources could now work on the problem of helping to figure out exactly what they’d found. Part of him throbbed with guilt for being secretive about his unusual thought patterns. Part of him—just throbbed. Despite the suit that prevented his desire from showing, he ached, his balls tingled, and his
tavis
zinged with intoxicated, unruly desperation.
“Did you lower the force field?” Kahn asked Dora.
“I found a back door through the shielding. The field is still intact. In fact, I’m currently using a portion to communicate through a network that’s similar to but much more advanced than my neurotransmitters.”
Zical stopped short, his thoughts wild and furious. Had the golden light temporarily changed his brain waves? His hormones? Perhaps it had been the knock on the head. Either way, he was having difficulty focusing beyond a driving need for sex, which he ruthlessly squelched. “The system’s alive?”
“That would depend on how you define life.”
Kahn, Tessa, and Zical strolled through the corridor. The golden light didn’t reappear. Perhaps only the first person to break the portal’s seal was welcomed or examined or whatever by the golden light.
Kahn peered at crystals floating along one wall. “Have you anything in your data banks that’s similar to this equipment?”
“The machines are mostly constructed of
bendar
. Those monitors are likely used to view data, but of what sort, and whether they still work may take years to discover. The complex is over three miles wide and twenty-five deep. Zical, you stumbled into the apex. There are four other similar portals all at the same altitude.”
