Stolen Dreams (11 page)

 

She found using his portable sanitary unit
embarrassing, but more practical than baring her bottom outdoors to
relieve herself. At least he had been considerate enough to bundle
himself in his sleeping pouch and go outside for the minute it took her
to use the unit. She assumed he took care of his own needs while he was
out there. Nature definitely gave men a few advantages when it came to
survival.

 

By the time the sun slipped below the horizon, they
had reviewed and analyzed Lantana's notes and checked and rechecked what
Shara had done, yet they hadn't been able to discern her error.

 

Underlying it all had been a current of crackling tension that had both of them
jumping at the sound of the other's voice and being overly cautious
about their movements.

 

Frustrated, tired, and cramped, Shara
sighed aloud. "There must be something missing from his notes."

 

"Considering
his advanced age, that could be a possibility. I'd suggest we start
looking for what is not written here, like the effect of external
temperatures. Why don't we have our evening ration of food and get some
sleep? Maybe we've been at it too long to see clearly."

 

She
nodded
and set aside the tempometer belt and notes, but she couldn't set aside
her fears as easily. In theory, it had all seemed so simple. In
reality, she might never get back to her own time, let alone fix
something that happened before. If they didn't figure out what went
wrong, they could soon be facing slow death by starvation. To get her
mind off the gloomier possibilities, she asked him to tell her about
another one of his adventures.

 

He gave it some thought as he
prepared their meal, then said, "You might find my very first journey
interesting. I was young, mind you, and lacked practical experience,
but I thought I could handle anything. Rather than visit a culture that
had been written up in detail, I wanted to uncover something totally
new, right away.

 

"I chose a settlement on a small planet in
the
Telvar system, where the inhabitants were a humanoid species on the
lower end of the evolutionary scale. What interested me most was that
they supposedly lacked the power of speech, as well as any telepathic
ability. You remember what I told you about
my childhood, so you can imagine how enticing a completely silent
culture would be to me. I was determined to find out how they
communicated,

 

"I had heard tales of journeyors allowing
primitive
tribes to believe they were gods, and I had sworn I would never do
something so unethical. I was prepared to put these people at ease and
show them I was not much different from them as soon as I arrived.

 

"When
my ship landed, however, I never even made it outside before they
attacked. A small army of the local residents surrounded the ship and
tried to beat it to death with sticks. The brief information I had
found regarding their evolutionary level seemed accurate. They were
short, with almost no necks, or foreheads, and had arms long enough to
rest on all fours. The men and women were both covered with hair, but
their faces and general forms were decidedly humanoid.

 

"For
the next
two days, they continued to bang on the outside of the ship.
Replacements came to relieve the original attackers, then the
replacements were relieved in turn. I felt like I was sitting inside a
metal drum. Even after I plugged my ears, the vibration from the noise
was driving me insane. I refused to give up on my first journey, but I
wasn't about to leave the ship and be instantly killed, either. I kept
thinking they'd get tired and back off long enough for me to show them
I had come in peace, but it didn't look like they were going to give me
that chance."

 

Shara took a plate of food from his hand, but
her attention was on him. "What did you do?"

 

He shrugged and
made a slight face. "I took off my jammer to find out just how dangerous they were.
At first,
because I didn't pick up any mental voices, I thought something had
happened to my ability. Then an image flashed in my mind and I realized
they thought in picture form. They all had a similar picture in mind.

 

"Apparently
they thought the ship was a sort of giant nut that had fallen from a
tall tree, and they were trying to crack it open to get to the food
inside."

 

Shara smiled along with him. "So they meant you no
harm after all."

 

"Not
unless they were cannibals . . . which they weren't." He took a bite of
his dinner and washed it down with a fruit drink. "Once I'd given in to
using my mental disability to solve the first problem, I threw out most
of my other resolutions as well. Using the ship's defense system, I
dazzled them with a fireworks display, while I broadcast a lively
symphony recording out to them.

 

"They may not have thought I
was a
god, since that concept was too complex for them, but they were
sufficiently awed to give me the break I needed to leave the ship
unharmed. I performed a few tricks, like making fire come out of a box,
and they accepted my presence in their village. That was the first time
I realized that I hadn't learned everything I needed to know in
Parson's Colony. Sometimes unethical methods are the only ones that
work."

 

"I understand what you mean. I've been telling myself
everything I've done recently will be worth it in the end."

 

'The
only problem with that line of thinking is you don't find out if you
made the right decisions until it's too
late."              
 

 

Shara
grimaced. "Do you think that's what happened when the Noronian rebels
first infiltrated Outerworld Earth? They did what they thought they had
to do, but it turned out to be the wrong choices."

 

"I believe
so,"
he replied, nodding thoughtfully. "History reports that the rebels
abused the natives' trust and became power hungry. I'm hoping to
confirm or refute that information firsthand."

 

As soon as the
discussion veered into the explosive topic of their individual goals,
Shara drew him back to his story. "Did you ever figure out how those
people in the Telvar system communicated?"

 

"That and
everything else
about them. From what I could tell, they had no enemies other than
nature, so they had no reason to fear me or hide anything. I wrote my
first published monograph on their culture. The reason they didn't
speak was that their vocal chords were only in the early stages of
development. A few of them could manage a grunt, but they rarely used
it. Their language was pictures,"

 

"Like hieroglyphics:?"

 

"Not
precisely. They didn't use symbols or stick figures. They actually
created realistic drawings. Almost every one of them was gifted with
tremendous artistic ability. Any available surface was used to express
themselves—rocks, trees, cave walls—or they just scratched their
pictures into the dirt with pointed sticks. Of course, getting an idea
across sometimes took hours, but time had very little relevance to
them."

 

Shara could not imagine ever being that patient. "Tell
me, did you enjoy the silence as much as you expected to?"

 

Gabriel
laughed. "For the most part. Though I'll admit, after a few months I occasionally felt the
need to converse with my ship's computer."

 

"A few months! I'm
not the most sociable person, but I doubt I'd last that long without
any sort of dialogue."

 

Gabriel collapsed the cooker and stowed
it away. "I find that brief interludes of sociability are more than
adequate."

 

"Yet you seemed to enjoy teaching me about old
Norona and telling me about your journeys."

 

He
rubbed his chin. "I suppose I do. It must be because you're a good
listener." Again it struck him that his normal behavior had been
altered in her presence.

 

Gabriel was well into his third tale
when
the glow from the heater orb abruptly dimmed. Shara stared at it
fearfully and asked, "What's happening to it?"

 

Glancing up at
the
darkened sky, he could see the first stars had begun to appear. "It's
conserving the energy it stored all day. A small amount of energy can
be absorbed from the reflected light off the stars and moon, but not
enough to maintain all night the warm temperature it's been emitting so
far. Don't worry, though. The sleeping pouch will keep us quite
comfortable."

 

Shara's gaze darted from the orb, to the pouch
rolled
up in the comer, to Gabriel. He didn't look like he had any ulterior
motives in mind, but those angel eyes of his were impossible to read.
"I don't believe we should share your pouch again. I'll put on some
extra clothing and—"

 

"Don't be foolish. You may not freeze to
death
outside of the pouch, but you would be too cold to get a decent night's
sleep. We're both rational adults. If you don't wish to repeat what
happened before, we won't."
Gabriel couldn't understand why she would not want to repeat something
so pleasurable when it had not left his mind all day, but he would
abide by her decision regardless of how unreasonable it was.

 

Shara
held to her belief that she would be fine without his body heat, while
he summarized his last story, unrolled the pouch, removed his clothing,
and climbed inside. But as the temperature inside the tent gradually
grew chillier, she admitted that she was indeed being foolish. Hugging
her knees to her chest, she waited until she was certain he'd dozed off.

 

As
she attempted to discreetly make an opening for herself, he said,
"You'll be much more comfortable without your clothing."

 

Then
she remembered his comment about being a light sleeper. "No, I won't."

 

"Stubborn
woman. You're cold," he complained, but made room for her anyway.

 

She
tried to find a position where the least amount of their bodies would
be touching.

 

"Give
it up, Shara," he finally said in a tone that showed he was losing
patience with her. With little effort, he shifted them both onto their
sides with her in front of him. His arm, wrapped snugly around her
waist, held her against him. "Now go to sleep. We'll get up at first
light and start again."

 

She took a shaky breath and ordered
herself to relax.

 

This
was practical, not intimate. But if it wasn't intimate, why was she so
aware of how solid he felt against her back, or precisely how large his
hand was where it covered her ribs? Or how she could feel his body
changing because of her nearness?

 

He was an opponent, not a
lover.            
 

 

Her heart should not have been racing. The pulse
between her
legs should not have been awakened. In spite of her mental insistence
that she would not succumb to her weakness, her body had acknowledged
his touch and began readying itself for him.

 

"Are you
frightened?" he whispered in her ear.

 

His warm breath sent a
shiver down her spine. "Yes, a little."

 

"I
can feel your heart pounding," he murmured. His hand slid up and
pressed between her breasts as if to slow the heavy beating. "Is it the
situation . . . or is it me?"

 

She opened her mouth to answer,
but
his palm brushed over one tightened nipple, then the other. Her soft
moan encouraged him to cup that breast while his thumb continued to
tease its peak through the thin layer of cloth. She felt him getting
harder and bigger as he moved against her bottom, and she sighed with
the frustration of wanting and not wanting.

 

His warm lips
planted a
trail of teasing kisses along her jaw, luring her mouth closer and
closer to his, as his hand crept down her stomach in search of an even
more sensitive area. Her mind was rapidly losing the battle of
willpower against her body, and she knew if she could not withstand his
advances this time, it would be easier for her body to win the next
time, and the next, until her mind had no say in the matter at all.
Until he and his delicious mouth controlled her every thought and deed
... as long as he needed her.

 

And when his need of her was
ended, he'd be gone, and she'd have nothing and no one. Again.

 

"No!"
she said, pushing his hand away and sitting up to face him. "I said I
don't wish to couple with you,
and I mean it. I intend to find the Noronian rebels and stop one of
them from getting to Earth and none of your sly tricks is going to stop
me."

 

Gabriel raised his brows in surprise. 'Tricks?" He sat up
beside her. "What are you raving about now?"

 

"I
am not raving," she said, purposely lowering her voice to prove her
point. "I am simply warning you that I know what you're trying to do.
Perhaps someone more naive would have fallen for your little seduction
act, but—"

 

"Stop it!" Grasping her shoulders, he gave her a
light
shake. "What you're accusing me of is not only untrue but insulting.
You're a beautiful woman, and I'm physically drawn to you. Period. Your
self-appointed mission was the last thing on my mind a moment ago. If
anything, you're the one who could end up influencing my judgment with
your sexuality."

 

Shara shook her head and looked
away. "I don't need any false flattery. I'm fully aware of just how
resistible I am to men."

 

He
started to argue with her, but held back. There was no sense in
convincing her that she might have some power that she didn't know
about, especially since he hadn't yet figured it out for himself. He
stopped her from leaving the pouch. "Wait. I'm not going to pretend I
understand you when I don't, but I won't try to seduce you again. Lie
back down, Shara. I've never forced myself on a female before. I'm not
going to start with you."