The Lereni Trade (8 page)

Krissa sniffed and swallowed.
"Please."

Karik's glare could have burned her to
a crisp.

In that distracted moment, Torik's
emotions set him to action, and he sent the captain flying away,
releasing his hold on Krissa. Torik knew he would likely pay for
attacking Karik, but it was to late. And now, he felt relief at
having taking a stance against the same injustice that the Tah'Na
had inflicted on them.

Theen caught their captain and helped
him regain his balance.

"We must not become them." His words
had no effect on Karik, except to invoke further rage. Torik
tensed, ready for the attack, which came a second later than
anticipated but was more vicious than he'd prepared to take. Karik
was strong and swift. The uniform without the armor stopped deadly
claws from tearing through flesh but allowed the pain of each blow
to ache.

"Torik!"

He avoided another blow and returned
the attack. In the process he caught a glimpse of Theen holding
Krissa's arms behind her back, keeping her out of involvement and
safe for the moment.

Karik was in prime fighting shape and
more experienced than Torik. After a brief wrestle and several hard
blows against each other, both of them bled, but Karik didn't let
up. In the end, Torik's legs gave out, his head pounded, and the
room blurred.

"Stop it!" Krissa's voice came from
somewhere. "Don't kill him. Please…I'll do whatever you want. Don't
kill him."

In that, any lingering doubts about her vanished. From what
Torik had seen, she would sacrifice herself for him. She
was
different. The
others would see for themselves what he had seen since their first
encounter.

The blur that was Karik shifted
away.

Torik lay still, too sore to move but
relieved to not have the challenge taken to finality. "Leave…" He
winced at the ache in his ribs and tasted blood when he caught his
breath. "Leave her alone…Karik."

After a few seconds that amplified his
fears of what the captain might be considering for her fate,
footsteps rushed towards him.

"Torik." Through the aches, he felt a
gentle brush along his face. He didn't have to see her clearly to
recognize her voice and the uninhibited emotions. "I'm sorry. This
is my fault."

"No." He turned his head but winced at
a sharp pain in his neck. "I tried to convince Karik. He won't
listen."

"No. It's me. I know. Whatever it is I
can do, just tell me."

"You…are enough." But if he could save
their world another way, without sacrificing her, he would. Krissa
didn't deserve the fate awaiting at the hands of the
Tah'Na.

Two pairs of legs stopped next to
Krissa. When fuzzy hands reached down for Torik, she stepped back
to give them room to help him.

His words haunted her, along with the
fear that Karik would snatch her to finish what he had started.
Torik could no longer defend her.

No one had defended her like that, but
against his own captain meant more to her. Part of her wondered why
Karik had let him live. Was it mercy buried in that mass of anger
or practical reasons?

Whatever it was, she breathed easier
that Torik was still alive; beaten but alive.

She stayed close to the two helping
Torik past the dining area to a room with an assortment of alien
medical equipment, where they set him on a cot and locked into
place a piece that covered him from chest to knees.

His groan when he breathed plucked at
her sympathy so that she almost couldn't bear to stay in the
presence of his suffering, but she forced herself to endure. From a
few feet away, she watched the other two slide several pieces of
equipment around him. Not sure what they did but trusting that they
were helping Torik, she stayed out of their way. If their medicine
worked as well on their own kind as it had on her, he should feel
better soon, her only solace from the guilt of him being hurt while
defending her.

Above the glowing lid hovered several
images that could have come from her biology class, one of the only
science requirements for her degree. It must have been some sort of
scanner that showed his insides without invasive
procedures.

But she hated blood and guts and
everything that was a part of it. The outsides of creatures she
could deal with, but the insides nauseated her. She tried not to
watch the changing images, but a red flash of one briefly made her
look to see it change to highlight the white of bones.

"Fractures." Korr's fingers tapped on
a panel on the opposite side of Torik.

"Will he…be well?" She clasped her
hands to keep from fidgeting. Torik was her only ally on that ship,
and, despite her frustrations of him not answering all her
questions, she didn't want to see him suffer.

"He will recover." Korr spoke without
looking up from his work.

His words were hardly
reassuring.

"He must," she said.

Although his face was contorted in
pain, Torik's mouth briefly formed a smile that broke that agony.
Too soon, he was wincing again.

Theen twisted from his work on Torik
with a frown to her.

"What can I do? This was my
fault."

"Stay back," he said while entering
something into the controls on the covering over Torik.

That she could do, but she wanted to
be there for him, to have the reassurance that he would be all
right.

They know their own kind. He'll be fine. Just
breathe.
She
inhaled deeply and let it out slowly to calm the anxiety inside
her. Torik would be all right.

What about Karik?

She shouldn't have thought of him. Her
breath quickened with her heart, the fresh fear lurking
inside.

In that instant, she wondered that she
had a heart, but she supposed some sort of circulatory system was a
requirement for life. Of course, she had a heart, and lungs, and
digestive system…

She wasn't human.

What was she?

Why were they afraid of
her?

All the questions of her life flooded
back to antagonize her in their relentless fury.

Krissa stared at Torik, who lay with his eyes closed while
the other two worked. He couldn't tell her. Because he was that
afraid? It didn't make sense if he was so kind.
I would never hurt you, or
maybe you knew that.

She pursed her lips and caught the
glance from him with a distinctly unsettled feeling.

Memories of her life on Earth passed
through her mind in the quiet wait, taking her back to events she
would rather forget and the many assurances of her adoptive parents
that she was special. Had they known?

In what seemed seconds later, the lid
clicked and popped up from Torik. She blinked away the ponderings
to focus on him. His attempt to sit up resulting in much wincing
tugged at her sympathies to bring her to his side to assist
him.

The other two removed equipment from
his vicinity.

"Easy," she said while bearing some of
his weight. "You are injured."

"I know." His somber voice ended with
a grunt, despite the clamped jaw, and he finally sat still, not yet
dropped from the exam bed.

"What is this?" she asked in curiosity
of the lid hanging aside from the bed.

"Scanner and regenerator."

Such technology that she hadn't
thought possible. No wonder he could heal a twisted ankle in a day,
and her head in the next.

"Should you be up?" she
asked.

"No." He caught a look from one of the
others. "But there is work."

"No." She pushed his shoulders down
towards the bed. "If you need rest, you rest. Let the others
work."

"But you—"

"Can take care of myself." She hoped
and forced a smile to hide the grimace that sought to escape at the
thought of Karik.

He fought only briefly, amid a face
contorted in pain, and laid down with her insistence to rest on the
narrow bed. Only then did he relax and breathe deeply.

Krissa stood near his chest and held
his hand. "I will watch."

"You cannot defend
yourself."

No. That's not what she had meant, but
she understood too well what he meant. The Lereni were far bigger
and stronger; she couldn't even fight off two college guys
determined to keep her from ratting on their prank, much less
Karik. And Torik had saved her from them too.

But there was some small hope: "Karik
is hurt."

A small smile lifted lips from sharp
teeth. "Yes. But I'm worse. He will recover soon."

She didn't want to think about what he
left out about Karik coming after her again. Her fingers fidgeted
around his until his fingers tightened on hers, drawing her from
her worries. At the least, she could keep him still while his body
mended.

She tried to smile but could only
grimace. "Thanks…for protecting me."

He let out a breath and closed his
eyes, his fingers still secure around hers. "I believe you are
sincere that you wish to help us."

"I am…but I am afraid."

"You are brave, worthy of the
Karsh'nok
."

"What?"

"They were an ancient order, disbanded
by the Tah'Na."

A compliment and a regret.

"Thank you." She patted his hand, understanding the level
of compliment he had given, even if not fully knowing the
reference. "When they—the Tah'Na—are gone someday, perhaps
these
Karsh'nok
will be reinstated."

He let out another sigh.

Regrets pulled her hand from his, but
only so she could comfort herself by stroking his fur. He wasn't
the old cat that came around the neighborhood where she'd grown up,
but the soft fuzz soothed her. From the hint of a smile and the
easier breathing from Torik, he didn't object.

Her anxieties decreased in the minutes
of stroking his fur like a pet. Her thoughts drifted away to
incoherency, leaving only a peaceful haze of existence in the
moment.

"Would you do anything?"

She blinked from the trance, startled
by the voice from the doorway, and recognized Korr by the most
distinguishing mark she had noted to identify him—his markings and
the faint scar in what passed as a brow ridge on the Lereni. His
question sank in a second later.

"Yes," she said. "I…want to
help."

He stepped forward, and Torik shifted
on the bed. Krissa pressed her hand down on his chest. She could
deal with this, and Korr didn't seem to be coming to attack.
Rather, he wore a curious expression that she couldn't identify.
His eyes shifted from her to Torik and back and he stopped a stride
away.

"You care about us?" His eyes dropped
to Torik, the implications clear.

"Compassion is the strongest
demonstration of civility of any species for another or one of
their own," she said in English. Now to say it in their
language...

It wouldn't be the same, but she
tried: "He…was good to me. I am not…mean. I like kindness. I share
kindness. He protected me, and I owe him to protect. Torik deserves
respect." Close enough. And it seemed to satisfy him, if she
interpreted his lighter expression as a hint of approval. Either
she was learning to read their expressions, or their expressions
were more human than she expected.

"You understand what the Tah'Na
are?"

She paused to consider what he meant.
"They…conquered Leisil, made Lereni slaves."

He shrugged indifferently and turned
to Torik. "You told her?"

"Only about Leisil, the conquest, and
what they have done."

"Yeah…" she interrupted. Both looked
up at her. "About that…Why did they attack you?"

They met each other's gazes and Torik
said, "We were not the aggressors." He could have been reading her
mind.

Could she believe that? He had told
her about clan wars for resources. How did she know that hadn't
extended beyond their planet? Maybe the Lereni weren't as innocent
as her sympathies had led her to believe.

"Trust me, Krissa. We are not the first that they attacked.
They seek only to amuse themselves of us and others…but they fear
Onduun power. They cannot conquer
Seres
."

"Many fear
Seres
," Korr said, his eyes planted on her so that she had to
shift as if to shirk him off like a hot coat in summer.

"Why? Who are the Onduun and
Seres
? Will they help?"

Torik paused, his jaw shifting, like his fingers on her
hand. Finally, he said, "You are a
Seres
of the Onduun."

"What?" His words smacked with
unreality. "I'm…What?" Her brain scrambled upon trying to make
sense of what they were telling her.