The Dragon Circle (9 page)

Kim wrapped his arms around Hestiia, tucking her beneath his chin. She just fit there. Together they stood for long moments watching the last of the daylight fade beyond the western horizon.

“What troubles you, husband?” she asked.

His senses still reeled from the Tambootie. He dared not mention his reaction to the weed. He'd cleaned up after himself as best he could. But he had to lock his quaking knees and pretend nothing had happened.

“Kim?” Hestiia prompted him.

“Trouble comes,” he replied.

“What form does this trouble take?”

Kim sighed. She'd not allow the subject to drop until he told her all. He did not like secrets. His family had too many. But some things were best kept private among his brothers.

“Tell me.” She tried to step away from him.

He pulled her back against his body, savoring her warmth and her love.

“More people from my homeland approach. They will bring many miracles. But each miracle comes with a price. They will poison the air and water. Our ears will be assaulted with noise day and night until we can no longer hear birds sing or crickets chirp.” How else could he explain the cost of industrialization?

Magic would do nothing to stop these people.

“Many, many more people will come to live here. At first the land will produce enough for all, but eventually the fields will grow tired and give forth smaller and smaller crops. My people will poison the soil to force it to grow more and more crops. And still more people will come, blind to the pollution, blind to the conflicts that arise when too many people fight for the same small piece of land. They will destroy everything we hold dear.”

“Then we must stop them.”

“Not so easy.”

“But you and your brothers are the Stargods. Surely you and your white dragon
Rover
can defeat them, send them back where they came from.”

“There are too many of them. They have bigger ships and more powerful weapons than we do.”

“There must be a way . . .”

“We have one small chance. We have to find and destroy a small device before they find us.”

“I saw the Tracker follow your brother Konner. She can help.”

“I pray that she can.” But Kim doubted it.

“Your silence tells me there is more trouble than a device that calls these Others.”

“Are you sure you do not read my mind?” He kissed the top of her head.

“I know you well, husband. What else troubles you?”

“The beacon we seek was stolen.”

“Who would dare!”

“Who, indeed?”

They both stared in silence at the silhouettes of trees against the last glow of light.

“Hanassa died. Your brother killed him. Gentian and Iianthe dropped his body into the fiery heart of the mountain,” Hestiia said.

“Indeed. But Hanassa began life as a purple dragon, triplet to Gentian and Iianthe. But only one purple-tip may exist at any time. Gentian shrank to become a flywacket, Iianthe remained a dragon. Hanassa sent his spirit into a human body. Are we certain Hanassa's spirit died with his body?”

“Yes!”

“Then he must have had more disciples than Taneeo. We know how much our new priest hated Hanassa. We know we can trust Taneeo. Another must be haunting the caverns and making mischief for us.”

“We must ask Taneeo. He would know if Hanassa trained any followers.”

“I hate to bother him. He has not yet recovered from . . . from his ordeal.” Ten drugged needles from Loki's rifle had run all the way through Hanassa's body into Taneeo's. One hundred or more of the needles had lodged in Hanassa's vital organs and muscles. The priest of Simurgh had died instantly. Taneeo had been knocked unconscious. Already weakened by months of privation while Hanassa's slave, the apprentice priest had taken a long time to recover from the wounds and the drugs. Even now, after more than a month, he failed to gain weight or rebuild muscle.

“We must still ask. Now better than later.” Hestiia insisted. Decisively, she grabbed Kim's hand and led him back to the campfire.

A quick look at the assembly showed Konner and the new woman still missing. Taneeo had not made an appearance.

“I took food to his hut,” Pryth, the old wisewoman said. “He often eats alone and sleeps early.” She dismissed his behavior as normal.

But it was not normal. The Coros lived communally. The evening gathering was important to them. They sang, told stories, and shared their lives as no one on the civilized planets of the Galactic Terran Empire would. Survival on this primitive planet depended upon mutual cooperation and sharing of burdens.

“Perhaps I should examine Taneeo again. See if he needs healing,” Kim mused as he and Hestiia trudged over to the circular hut set a little apart from the larger, square cabins of the rest of the village. With a bit more of the Tambootie, perhaps he could leech some residual poisons from Taneeo's body with his magic.

Hestiia politely rattled the strands of beads hanging outside the doorway. Kim counted one hundred heartbeats. Then he gave the beads a more vigorous shake.

No one answered.

“I'm coming in, Taneeo,” Kim called as he ducked beneath the low doorway.

Inside, the single room was dark and deserted.

“St. Bridget!”
Konner cursed. The Tracker woman had merged with
his
shuttle in a way he never could. If the ship wanted a human partner permanently attached, it should be him. Not . . . not this female from an alien culture. A
primitive
alien culture that knew nothing of machines or electronics or space travel or . . . or . . .

Damn.

“Um . . . has this ever happened to you before?” Konner stared at Dalleena's hand. He could not see where her flesh separated from the cerama/metal hull of
Rover
. He ran a blunt fingernail around the edges of the merge. One seamless bond.

Puzzled, he scratched his head.

“I . . . I do not usually have to touch the sheep and children who wander off to find them,” she said. A tiny note of apprehension crept into her voice. Not panic. Not hysteria. Neither emotion would help and so she kept them at bay.

An eminently practical woman, to go with the sturdy broad palm, nails cut nearly to the quick, and shortish fingers. A sturdy hand used to hard work.

“This certainly complicates life,” Konner grunted as he walked around Dalleena to study the problem from another angle. He also studied her figure. Nice curves were outlined beneath her masculine clothing. She stood quite tall for a woman, as tall as many of the men on this planet. The top of her head reached the bridge of his nose. All of those curves would fit very nicely snugged against him. “Perhaps I should call my brothers.”

“No!” Now she sounded closer to panic.

Konner cocked an eyebrow at her.

Immediately, she seemed to realize how her hasty reply had sounded. She squared her shoulders and returned his stare, measure for measure.

“Then what do you propose to do?”

She swallowed deeply and held out her other hand. He clasped it in his own. A tingle shot up his arm.

Who is this stranger, Konner?
Mum's voice demanded in the back of his mind. Not Mum. The computer voice he had programmed to sound like Mum. He and his brothers had agreed that at times they needed her voice of authority to calm them when the IMPs were hard on their heels and all seemed lost. At other times they took immense satisfaction in telling the voice to “Shut up” and slapping the mute with enthusiastic vigor. Something they would never do in Mum's presence.

Dalleena's eyes opened wide and she bit her lower lip.

“You heard that?” he asked.

She nodded, eyes still wide.

He knew she was frightened, but she kept it under control. He liked that.

“Don't worry. Mum won't hurt you. At least not as long as you stay on this world,” Konner chuckled.

“Your . . . your m-mother? This dragon is your mother?” Her knees knocked together and her face grew pale.

“Nothing quite so simple.” Although to describe Mum as a dragon . . . Well, she did pretend to the wisdom of the ages and keep her own counsel. Margaret Kristine O'Hara could be as enigmatic as a dragon. She also defended her offspring with a ferocity reminiscent of a battle between a dragon and a behemoth.

Somehow Konner's fingers became entwined with Dalleena's.

Her other hand began to glow. And so did the hull beneath it.

Konner slapped his own hand atop hers, careful not to touch the cerama/metal scales. New warmth permeated his being from his points of contact with the strange woman.

“I expected the glow to be hot,” he muttered. Just flesh. All he felt was soft, warm, feminine flesh beneath his hand.

He suddenly found Dalleena's lips very close to his own. She licked her lips. Their gazes met. The world seemed to stand still.

“Konner!” Loki called from the edge of the meadow. “Konner, we need you. Taneeo is missing.”

“St. Bridget, his timing is perfect as usual.” Konner broke free of the thrall of Dalleena's luscious mouth.

“Go,” Dalleena whispered. She sounded more than a little breathless . . . and perhaps reluctant. “I will free myself. Somehow. They need you more than I do.”

With the last statement she stood taller, straighter, and thrust out her chin in stubborn resistance to his charm.

“Fine.” Inexplicable anger shot through him. Konner jerked both of his hands away from hers. The moment he was free of her, he regretted the distance between them.

Without thinking he clamped both hands around her right wrist, braced his feet, and pulled on her arm.

“If I can levitate a three-ton boulder, I can separate you from my ship and my life.” He shuddered in memory of the disaster that had forced him to use the latent psychic talent in order to rescue Raaskan.

He should concentrate on separating Dalleena's flesh from the hull.

“Not so easy a task,” Dalleena chuckled. She remained firmly attached to the shuttle.

Had she referred to the now famous levitation or to freeing her?

“Not easy, but possible.” Konner shifted his weight and balance a little. With a firmer grim, he concentrated on the line of skin that met cerama/ metal.

A ripping sound alerted him. He caught her as they tumbled away from the shuttle. She landed atop him on the ground. Again her mouth was a bare breath away from his.

“Free of the dragon, but not free from me,” she said softly. Her gaze seemed concentrated on his own mouth.

Before he could reply, she brushed his lips with her own. Then she scrambled away from him.

He rose quickly, brushing grass and debris from his trousers and vest.

Now what? Clearly the woman wanted him. He could not deny the evidence that he found her very attractive. “St. Bridget and all the angels, I don't have time for a relationship,” he muttered, hoping she would not hear him. “I have to get off this planet and claim my son. I have to find the beacon and keep the IMPs from finding us. I have to finish too many things before I get serious about a woman.”

“I will meet you here at dawn. We will hunt your lost bee-kan together,” she announced and stalked back toward the village campfire. Not once did she look back over her shoulder.

Konner pounded his fist into the hull of the
Rover
. Pain immediately cooled his ardor . . . but not his frustration.

”I
AM WAITING for an answer, Lieutenant.”

Commander Leonard drummed her fingers against her screen.

“For the life of me, Captain, I can find no record, ever, of this space configuration,” First Lieutenant Kohler said, shaking his head. His fingers never stopped moving across his screen.

“Sir,” Kat interrupted. Never good to jump into a conversation with senior officers too quickly.

Commander Leonard nodded for Kat to proceed.

“Sir, there is a habitable planet. Fourth from the sun. We are too far away to read signs of life. It looks green. No man-made satellites. One moon. And I'm getting a faint echo of the beacon.”

“Communications, you picking up any traffic?” Commander Leonard swung her chair around to face Ensign James Englebert and his array of screens.

“Nothing coming from any of the planets, sir,” he replied. “Except that beacon. But
my
instruments cannot pinpoint a location. It seems like it's coming from everywhere and nowhere.”

“Any other habitable planets?” Commander Leonard asked.

“Not without artificial habitat,” Kat replied.