The Ninth Orb (10 page)

Smiling a little uneasily, she held the crossbow up. “Would you like to try it?”

His response to the overture was almost worth the fear inspired sweat gathering in her crevices. He smiled, his golden eyes lighting with pleasure. His expression set off a jolt of pleasurable sensation through her.

Taking the bow once more, he examined it thoroughly and fired a test bolt into the trunk of a broad, ancient tree just on the other side of the stream. Reloading, he took sight and placed a second bolt directly beside the first. An expression of satisfaction settled over his features. He handed the crossbow back to her. “Very good thing.”

Striding away from her, he waded across the stream, leaned down to scoop up his clothing and preceded to the tree to examine it while he stepped into his breeches and fastened them.

Relief flooded Eden. She was having a hard time being nonchalant about his nakedness.

When he began struggling into his tunic, Eden decided to join him on the other side of the stream.

The water was so icy it snatched her breath from her chest when she stepped into it. No wonder his hands had radiated cold! Recovering slightly, she moved quickly across and out on the other side. Water squished unpleasantly from her boots with each step she made up the bank on the opposite side. After looking around for a likely looking place to settle, she finally plopped down on a fairly flat stone to remove her boots.

Baen squatted down in front of her, grasped the bottom of the boot she’d just loosened and tugged it off her foot, almost unseating her in the process. “Guess I should have taken the boots off for the crossing,” she said wryly when he turned the boot up to empty it.

He sent her a faint smile. “Wiser. Smarter still to ask me to carry.”

Eden smiled back at him but thoughtfully. “Does your name have a meaning in your tongue?” she asked curiously, trying to ignore the way her stomach jumped when he reached up to brush her hands away and untied her other boot himself.

He glanced up from what he was doing. “Is number seven.”

Eden’s brows rose. “A number?”

“Yes. Seven of seven.”

She no doubt looked as uncomprehending as she felt.

“Seventh baby, seventh birthing.”

That comment sank in very slowly. “You’re saying you were the seventh baby Sademeen bore?” Eden asked, aghast, feeling her color fluctuate rather madly at the horrific thought.

“In seventh birthing.”

She stared at him as he removed her other boot and dumped the water out, wondering whether to pursue the matter until she was certain she’d understood him or not. “You mean she had seven when you were born, but she’d had six babies before that?”

He shook his head. Rising, he glanced around and finally moved to the tree. Turning the boots upside down, he wedged each on a branch and left them to drip dry.

“Eight at my time. Before that …,” he paused, frowning as he thought if over. “Three first time. Five second time and third. Seven each time after until last.” He shrugged. “Was supposed to be queen last time. Instead eight more males. Sademeen did not produce a queen, thus we are kzatha and she is liemzde--disgraced. Is not the same with your people?”

Eden was mentally calculating Sademeen’s ‘production’, not an easy task to do in her head when she was accustomed to using electronics to calculate and moreover too stunned to actually have full use of her facilities. Poor thing! No wonder she was so misshapen and too crippled to move around! “You’re saying she had forty two babies?” Eden managed a little faintly. They had … litters? Was this why they had the harem type family unit? Because the females produced so many children it took a small army to tend to mother and children? Was this why they seemed so--detached from each other?

It seemed probable. Under those circumstances she could see that every ‘family’ would be almost like an institution, processing without much, if any, time for personal attention. Demonstrations of affection would probably be few and far between, if at all, and thus the offspring would not have had an opportunity to really develop emotionally. The negative emotions would have been deliberately suppressed and discouraged because of the turmoil it could create.

He frowned, but nodded. “She is good mother queen. Should not be liemzde.”

There was defensiveness in both his tone and the tension in his expression, prompting a wave of empathy. Feeling compelled to reassure him that she wasn’t being judgmental about his mother, Eden nodded agreement. In a way, she did agree. It didn’t seem to her that Sademeen could have had control over what her body did, or didn’t, do and therefore shouldn’t be considered at fault. On the other hand, she had been pretty cold about disposing of her last litter.

But maybe that was being judgmental? Maybe Sademeen had only tried to accept what she had believed could not be changed? As horrible as that seemed to her, comparatively speaking it probably wasn’t any worse than some of the human practices. Survival and the insurance of healthy progeny were really at the root of most ‘customs’ of this sort. If the Xtanian’s entire social structure was based on a specific number of males and females and nature threw the count off, it could conceivably create all sorts of problems.

Ivy was right. They weren’t emotionless. Apparently, it wasn’t even altogether a matter of stern discipline that made them exercise iron self-control.

When she emerged from her thoughts, Eden discovered that Baen had moved to the tree and grasped the shaft of one of the bolts. The sleeve of his uniform bulged as he tugged at it. She was on the point of telling him not to worry about retrieving them, certain he would find he couldn’t, when he pulled it loose. Removing the second bolt, he examined both of them carefully and returned them to her.

Mildly amazed and vaguely unnerved by his strength, Eden stared at the bolts for a moment and finally took them from his palm and fitted them back into the slots on the bow designed to hold them.

“Your hunt has been unsuccessful.”

It wasn’t a question. Eden smiled wryly and shrugged. “So far.”

Nodding, he waded into the edge of the stream several yards downstream from where Eden was sitting and grasped something just beneath the surface. Eden gasped when he dragged the carcass of a beast from the water that looked like it must be almost as big as he was and probably weighed more. “I will give you mine and return for another.”

A combination of embarrassment and guilt immediately swamped her. “Oh, no! You can’t do that! I couldn’t take it. Really. I’m perfectly capable of doing my own hunting.”

He frowned. “We have hunted here much since coming. The animals are harder to find now.”

“At least that makes me feel a little better about my lack of success,” Eden commented. “I still don’t want to take yours.”

He looked uncomfortable. “You would be liemzde to return without.”

Shamed. Warmth flooded her at his thoughtfulness. He was concerned that she would be disgraced if she proved to be a bad hunter. She supposed she wouldn’t be setting a very good example, but that was hardly a reason for him to do without! Besides, she would be a lot more embarrassed to take credit for something she didn’t do. She told him as much.

The reward was immediate and it discomfited her. He gave her a look of admiration she hardly felt she’d earned. “A gift then … for peace offering.”

He wasn’t mentally deficient or obtuse. He knew she wouldn’t want to insult him by refusing to take it under those circumstances. She smiled with an effort, still not terribly happy about taking his food. “Thank you,” she said a little stiffly. “All we need to do now is figure out how to get it back to the city.”

He bent over promptly, hefted the thing and placed it on his shoulders. Eden tried not to look as impressed as she was by the show of strength, or as revolted as she was at the thought of having the dripping dead thing around his neck.

He hadn’t put on his boots and neither had she, but she didn’t want to hold him up when he was carrying something so heavy. Collecting his boots and weapon and then her own, she followed him rather meekly as he struck off unerringly in the direction of New Savannah while she consulted her locator for directions.

Her feet were tender. His apparently were not. She was so busy trying to pick her way carefully to keep from stepping on something that would jab into her feet that she nearly ran into him when he stopped to allow her to take the lead. He gave her a curious look and dropped the carcass. Grasping her upper arms, he pushed her gently to the ground, took the boots from her when she was seated and proceeded to put them on her. “I am not good at this,” he said apologetically. “I am soldier. The workers would be very practiced and careful of your comfort.”

She looked up at his face as he knelt over her. “You don’t give yourself enough credit. Your hands are very gentle.”

He reddened. “The workers are better. They are the breeders and thus taught from youth to please. There are five breeders in my brood. Two others are soldiers as I am.”

Eden stared at him in confusion for several moments, but the suspicion that rose in her mind refused to be banished. “Are you …? You’re not …? What do you mean by brood?”

“The birthing brood,” he responded promptly, looking vaguely surprised and more than a little uncomfortable. “I have told you we are kzatha.”

Embarrassed heat filled Eden’s face. Warmth seemed to fill her entire body and not all of it was embarrassment. “Are you suggesting … uh … what I think you are?”

He tilted his head at her when he’d finished tying her boot straps. “Sademeen suggested. You chose my brood brothers among those for the celebration. We thought that that meant that you were considering choosing us--if you found us suitable for your needs.”

Eden felt her jaw go slack. Her mind instantly began to scramble to recall the details of that embarrassing episode, but to save her life she couldn’t conjure any clear vision of the faces of the men she’d thought she had picked so randomly.

Oh my god! She thought, horrified.

Chapter Nine

Despite Eden’s shock, it penetrated her chaotic mind that Baen appeared to be more than a little offended by her reaction. He was frowning as he took his boots from her limp hands and pulled them on.

“Your customs are much different from ours,” Eden managed finally, her voice sounding faint even to her own ears.

He nodded, but she could see he didn’t believe their customs were that different.

Good god! He expected her to take on all eight of them? Was it considered a huge slight not to?

Visions of her home filled her mind. She’d thought it very comfortable, but it would be bursting at the seams with nine people. They’d have to sleep stacked like cord wood!

She banished the image with an effort.

What was she thinking?

She wasn’t even sure she wanted one around!

That thought gave her pause. As hard as she’d been trying to pretend she didn’t find Baen irresistible, she must feel a lot more than she’d consciously accepted if she’d picked his brood brothers out of such a huge gathering.

Their mind set was obviously very, very different. An Earth man would have been horrendously insulted if she’d shown any interest in his brothers. They were very territorial. Either the Xtanian’s weren’t, or maybe they were and it was just in a different way? Maybe the brood was almost like a unit? They expected to be chosen in sets? And what would happen if they weren’t? Rivalry? Disgrace? War?

She dismissed that thought.

It circled around and came back. She licked her lips nervously, but she was never going to understand if she didn’t ask some questions. “It would be an insult to chose one and not the others?” she asked hesitantly.

His brows rose. “Yes, but why would you want only one?” he asked puzzled. “There would be none to care for you and the babies. Soldiers are not trained to care for the young, nor workers trained in the skills to protect. This is not the way of your people?”

Eden discovered her head was pounding with the effort to grasp what seemed to her a very complicated social structure. She realized finally that he was assuming that the Earth women produced a litter of babies all at the same time like the women he was familiar with. She was on the point of disabusing his mind of that misconception when it occurred to her that such an announcement would be as shocking to him as his was to her. It would also emphasize the radical differences between their peoples.

She wasn’t certain it was a good idea to help them to understand Earthlings. As little as she liked Ivy’s way of thinking, she knew there was a potential for problems between them. Understanding might eliminate a lot of problems, but it might create more.

She was far more comfortable with collecting answers that supplying him with information, period.

She managed a wavering smile. “Why indeed?” she finally responded. “And the--uh--queens--they usually chose a--uh--brood?”

She could tell from his expression that he thought it was a ridiculous question to ask. “Of course.”

“Alrighty then,” she said, leaping to her feet abruptly. “Well, it was nice chatting, but I should get back now.”

She discovered that despite the carcass he’d shouldered, she couldn’t out distance him. No matter how fast she walked, he remained a specific distance behind her. She was huffing for air by the time she reached the entrance to the city nearest the forest. Baen seemed a little winded, too, but then he was carrying something that probably weighed as much or more than he did, he’d walked at least a half a mile, and he had kept pace with her.

Immediately ashamed that she’d given him no consideration, Eden sent him an apologetic glance.

By her own customs it would be dreadfully rude dismiss him at the gate after his gesture without even offering him a chance to rest and refresh himself.

She found wanted to, though, and not just because it would be rude not to offer.

Accepting the inevitability of it, she lifted her head for the scanner. “Eden Chisholm and guest.” When the computer acknowledged them, Eden led the way along the dead zone corridor.

Baen had not experienced anything like the automated roadway, she discovered.