The Ninth Orb (20 page)

“Ah,” Liz countered, nodding wisely. “Hope--the unrealistic expectation that everything will turn out all right in spite of every indication to the contrary.”

The quip surprised a chuckle out of Eden. When she looked up, however, and saw Baen approaching them once more, the laughter died.

He saluted. “The work is going well, Queen Eden.”

Eden couldn’t help but blush at the title. She was fairly certain she was never going to get used to being called queen, or even the formality that seemed ingrained in the Xtanians, but she also doubted that they would change. In any case, as uncomfortable as it made her she wasn’t cognizant enough with proper Xtanian protocol to know whether insisting they drop the title would be a serious breach of protocol or not.

Partly, though, she blushed because he’d made a point of informing her about the progress of the work. She could hardly not consider that significant. Smiling uncomfortably, she nodded. “This is good news.”

He looked disconcerted at her tone but wiped it so quickly from his expression that she wouldn’t have seen it at all if she hadn’t been looking directly at him. Feeling guilty, she searched her mind for something she could say that might be less offensive to his sensibilities. “These trees will work for what you wanted?”

He seemed to relax fractionally. “When they are dressed.”

Eden blinked, wondering if the translator had malfunctioned. “Dressed?”

Amusement gleamed in his eyes for a split second. “The bark removed and the wood cut into workable pieces.”

Eden smiled as if enlightened, but she wasn’t sure she was. She wasn’t certain wood had ever been used as a building material on Earth, but if it had it had been so long ago that no one remembered. In point of fact, there were strict Earth laws prohibiting the desecration of what little woodlands remained. “Oh,” she said a little blankly. “How clever that you simply take whatever is here and use it to build!”

He sent her a look that was a mixture of amusement and irritation. “Your people do not?”

She frowned. “I don’t think so. Liz?”

Liz opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again, giving Eden a significant look.

Thus prodded, Eden recalled abruptly that they had allowed the Xtanians to believe that they were natives. A discussion of Earth building practices past or present wasn’t something they wanted to get in to.

She waved a hand airily. “This is not our area. The bots handle the construction. I’m sure they must do much the same as you do, though.”

Baen sent her a curious look, but she didn’t give him the opportunity to probe any deeper. Turning away, she retraced her steps out of the forest once more. She didn’t look back, but she was acutely conscious that Baen continued to follow them until they reached the safe zone.

“With your permission, I’d like to return to the field to observe for a while,” Liz said thoughtfully as they neared the perimeter.

Eden hesitated, but she didn’t think there was any real danger in doing so. “The guards should go with you.”

Liz looked as if she might argue, but apparently decided against it. Without glancing at either of them, she turned on her heel and headed out to the nearest building site.

Eden watched until they were out of ear shot and turned to look at Baen quizzically.

“Would you care to see the site we’ve chosen?”

Unwise, her mind said, but she smiled. “Yes.”

She glanced back at him several times as they walked and finally stopped. “It’s very difficult to talk to someone who’s behind you,” she said plaintively.

His dark brows rose. “You wished to speak to me?”

Eden tapped her foot a little impatiently. “Conversation would be nice.”

He glanced around. “Three paces is a respectful distance,” he said finally, and then smiled faintly. “I am a warrior. I am not well versed in the art of conversation. You would not find it entertaining.”

Letting out a faint huff of irritation, Eden gave up and turned away. “I’m sure I’ll never know,” she muttered. “Are you forbidden to speak with the women? Or is it simply that you are not taught such social skills?”

She glanced back at him as she asked the last question and caught a flicker of emotion that was gone too quickly to decipher. It occurred to her as she turned around again that very likely this was the main reason she hadn’t noticed the things Sarah had spoken of. Most of the time she’d spent in Baen’s company, he had trailed her at the required three paces. She didn’t have eyes in the back of her head, so she could scarcely observe him, and on the few occasions when she had managed to speak to him face to face, he had been prepared to shield his thoughts from her.

“There is no reason to teach social skills to warriors. Their only purpose is to protect. We do not give comfort or pleasure … only our lives when necessary.”

Eden stopped abruptly and turned to face him, trying to tamp the horror and empathy that had welled inside of her. “That is your place in life?” she gasped.

He tilted his head curiously. “It is not the same with your warriors?”

“To fight and die if necessary to protect everyone else? Yes. But they also have value beyond their calling. They are certainly entitled to give and to receive comfort and pleasure.”

He studied her for a long moment and finally looked away. “This would be a … dangerous concept to introduce to my people,” he said slowly. “Order is necessary to maintain the balance within the meznook. Everyone has tasks they were born to, and trained from birth to perform to the best of their abilities.”

Eden swallowed against the hard knot that had risen to her throat and looked away. It was a warning, very plainly spoken so that she could be left in no doubt as to his meaning.

Finally, she merely started walking again and kept walking until she reached the site Baen had offered to show her. Her thoughts were tumultuous and it was several moments before she realized that the men paused, glanced toward her and then halted in their tasks, looking for all the world as if they’d been caught at something they shouldn’t be doing.

Trar, smudged with dirt from head to toe and gleaming with the moisture of his labors, grinned at her bashfully when she stopped at last. Apparently, recalling himself abruptly, he bowed. “I am disgusting,” he announced.

Eden bit her lip trying to contain a smile. “You are working very hard,” she said reassuringly, hoping to ease his discomfort over the fact that she’d arrived to find him dirty from his labors.

He looked even more embarrassed when he encountered glares from his brothers. “I beg pardon for my appearance. There is no water yet … for bathing.”

“Water?” she asked curiously.

Nodding, he pointed to the hole she’d seen them digging the day before. “So far we have only found mud … very sticky mud.”

“It’s a well!” Eden said when she’d walked over and looked down, finally enlightened, although she could hardly credit that they expected to dig deep enough to reach the water beneath the ground with the crude hand tools they were using. Moreover, it looked like a dangerous undertaking. Already the two who were busy digging at the bottom had had to light a fire on a stick to provide them light.

“On Xtania we would have machines to help. Here we must make do with what is at hand.”

Eden glanced at him at that. “We have machines,” she said tentatively.

The expression on his face was enough to assure her that the suggestion wasn’t well received and, moreover, that he wasn’t certain how to take it. “This is a test of our skills and resourcefulness,” he said finally. “It is to prove our worth to … the one we wish to please.”

“Oh, I see,” Eden responded, though she didn’t see at all.

“We are only just beginning. When we are done, you will see that we have built a place of beauty and comfort.”

It took an effort to resist the urge to ask him point blank why they were building and what their plans were, but she managed it, summoning a smile. “I’m sure it will be.”

She didn’t stay more than a few minutes since it was obvious to her that it made all of them excruciatingly uncomfortable to be in her presence when they were dirty and sweaty from working. After she caught the second resentful glare directed at Baen for escorting her to the site when they were unprepared for a guest, she excused herself and returned to the city.

She didn’t allow herself to dwell on the conversation she’d had with Baen. Returning to her office, she focused on the work that needed to be done, firmly pushing personal matters to the back of her mind.

A decision had to be made about the disposition of the mother ship. It had been orbiting New Georgia since they’d arrived with only a skeleton crew to maintain it for weeks. Theoretically, it could continue to orbit indefinitely with only minor adjustments now and then to keep it locked into an orbit that hid the ship from the world the Xtantians inhabited.

The ship had only been designed to bring them to their new colony, however. It had simply not been possible to devise much of a contingency plan with the limitations they had to work with and it had been understood that they would have to make do with one of the planets in this star system if they found New Georgia unsuitable for any reason.

No one had anticipated finding another race to contend with, however, and after a very little consideration Eden realized that a new plan was needed to protect the interests of the colonists. If they stayed, integration was inevitable. At this point there seemed no way to avoid it--there’d never been any real possibility of avoiding it.

The situation could well be a powder keg waiting to blow up in their faces, though. They had the advantage of superior weaponry, but the Xtanians had the advantage of superior numbers and their customs did not mesh well with the customs of the colonists.

Her decision made, she called a council meeting and discussed the necessity of overhauling the U.S.S. Plymouth, replacing the nearly depleted fuel cells, restocking the supplies and beginning a search for an alternate location for the colony. To her surprise, the council was unanimous in their support of the project, despite the tension it put on already strained resources. She hadn’t realized until then that they were as uneasy about the possible outcome of their situation as she was. None of them were in any great hurry to give up and leave, but all of them felt as strongly as she did about having the security of an alternative.

Despite the ease with which she’d gained support and approval of the council, Eden wasn’t at all certain the majority of the colonists would agree with their assessment of the situation. As hard as she worked to keep her focus on her work, she was not unaware of the growing excitement among the colonists about the grand domiciles popping up around New Savannah and she cautioned the sector chiefs to keep the information to themselves for the time being. At this point, the colonists were only to be told that the ship had to be maintained as a security measure until such time as the colony had achieved stability.

She didn’t want a mutiny on her hands, and she didn’t want the colonists fighting among themselves and alerting the Xtanians.

Chapter Sixteen

“I don’t envy you your office,” Liz said flatly when she’d settled with her reports in the living area of Eden’s quarters.

Eden, who’d been in the process of pouring each of them a drink, paused and sent Liz a searching look. After a moment, she returned her attention to her task and filled the glasses. Setting the vessel aside, she took both glasses and crossed the room, handing one to Liz before she settled on her lounge with her own drink.

She’d arranged the meeting in her quarters to hear Liz’s findings because they were friends and she hoped the location she’d chosen wouldn’t alert the colonists to the fact that it was a meeting, and not merely a social visit between friends. “That sounds ominous.”

Liz frowned. “It could be.”

“Go on,” Eden prompted when she hesitated as if searching for the right place to begin.

“We’ve only had a few weeks to compile these findings. The language decoder has been a help, but you do realize that we can’t be a hundred percent certain of the accuracy of translations because language isn’t like mathematics. There are no hard and fast rules and sometimes the way something is said can completely change the meaning. When you add to that the fact that we’ve only had a few weeks to observe and interpret what we’ve observed, that leaves a lot of room for misinterpretations and plain out errors.”

Eden frowned. “I understand that this isn’t an exact science and that the time constraints you’ve been given have made your job that much harder. But I also know that I can depend on you to have carefully assessed every speck of information you and your group has collected.”

Liz relaxed fractionally, took a long draught from her glass and firmly set it aside. “The bottom line is that, as far as I can see, these men are disposable as far as the Xtanians are concerned. They were banished here because the Xtanians consider themselves ‘enlightened and civilized’ now. Historically speaking, the instances where the queen failed to produce a female to carry on her line were rare and the ‘offending’ brood was usually dispatched immediately.

“God only knows why they evolved as they have, but the tendency towards prolific reproduction of the males, and virtually no females is responsible for their system. Females are in short supply, very short supply, and so they are the most important. The males are so abundant they have almost no value at all. They attain value if they’re chosen by a queen, because the females are little more than baby making machines and they aren’t really physically designed for what their bodies are doing.

The females are generally nearly twice the size of their male counterparts, and yet, from what I can tell, not nearly as strong as we are. They are sickly. They are weak, and after their first brood, as often as not, they’re usually crippled to the point where they can hardly move without assistance. By the time they’ve produced two or three broods, they are completely dependent on their pazaans for everything.

“When a brood is chosen to become a part of the pazaan, they become important only because they are responsible for the health and well being of their queen.”