Close Encounters (21 page)

“We were all correctly prepared. I would not have risked you otherwise.”

“If I was ‘correctly’ prepared, then why did your touch hurt me when I first returned to the village?”

“The pathways were opened, but you did not yet wear my rellanti. This created a dissonance which caused pain when we touched.”

That didn’t make me feel a lot better, but I decided to let it pass for now. There was only so much anxiety I could take at one time, and I’d reached my limit. “So, when Elder took the rellanti from you, and put it on me, it what? Became attuned to my mind?”

He thought that over for a second, frowning. “It synchronized the patterns of our minds so they are in accord, and amplified our thoughts. This is why you hear my words in your language, and I hear yours in mine.”

“Will I be able to understand the rest of the tribe?”

“If I hear their words, you would understand through me.”

“Kiera,” Max interrupted. “If you understand what he’s saying, we could easily make a language program.”

Thor frowned again. “Does this ship read your thoughts?”

“No, although it seems that way sometimes.” I picked up his hand and placed his fingers behind my ear. “Feel that?”

He explored for a second, then nodded.

“That’s a computer chip. It contains both a listening and tracking device, as well as a tiny speaker. I can stay in contact with Max from almost anywhere on the planet’s surface.”

His head tilted thoughtfully. “He would protect you?”

“Of course. My protection is his primary directive.”

“Then he may stay.”

“Gee, thanks.”

But I didn’t want to talk about Max now. There was more I needed to know about the rellanti. My braid had come undone during the night and Thor was lifting my hair, letting it slide through his fingers. I caught his hand in mine, and held it still. As pleasant as another round of lovemaking might sound, I was desperate for answers, panic creeping along my nerves.

“You said the bond was sealed last night. How was it sealed?”

“When we made love, both here and within the rellanti.”

“What would have happened if we hadn’t made love?”

His gaze drifted from my hair to my face. “I do not know. No one has ever refused the bond before. It has always been as it was with us, and now it is sealed. You are mine.”

My grip on his hand tightened. “Can the bond be broken once it’s sealed?”

Suddenly he was very alert, his body tense. “Yes.”

“How?”

“If one of us dies, it will be broken.”

“That’s a little more drastic than I was considering.”

He relaxed slightly, but there was still watchfulness in his gaze.

“What’s going to happen to this bond when I leave?”

“I do not know.”

“Thor, I told you that I’d be leaving when my job is done. You knew I meant it, and yet you sealed the bond anyway. Why?”

He looked down at our joined hands. “I have waited all my life to find my bond mate. A true bond has become very rare among my people. I know of only two others. Most of my people mate now in hopelessness. For them, the Rellantiim Ceremony is hollow with no true sharing of spirits. This is why I chose to seal our bond.”

When he looked up, there was a gleam of determination in his eyes. “The answers you seek will not come easily. When you find a way to restore our fertility, you will change your mind about this ‘job.’ You will not leave me.”

“And how do you plan on changing my mind?” I asked quietly.

“You will have a new purpose, a new reason for being. It has begun.” He pulled his hand from mine and stood. “I am still hungry. We will eat now.”

I waited until he’d almost reached the door before I spoke again. “Thor, do you know why the Buri birthrate is so low?”

He stopped, but didn’t turn around. “Come. There is much to do before we meet this leader your ship spoke of.”

A shiver ran over me as I watched him step through the door. I had a bad feeling about this. A very bad feeling.

I
braided my hair at high speed, and then ran after Thor, determined to continue our conversation. He was halfway across the village, talking to Auntie Em and Elder, by the time I cleared the threshold. Both of them were smiling, Thor was frowning. They were too far away for me to hear most of what they were saying, but I caught just enough to make me wonder. Auntie Em was asking about “the others” and Elder wanted to wake someone up.

My brow furrowed in puzzlement. What others was Auntie Em talking about? All the Buri seemed to be present and accounted for. Was she asking him about the Dynatec crew? Surely not.

When the three new Buri had shown up in the village, it had occurred to me that maybe an unknown number of Buri were hiding out in one of the caves. I wasn’t sure why they thought it was necessary unless it was just to confuse Dynatec, but it would explain why Max hadn’t located them. Maybe those were the “others” Auntie Em was talking about.

But why would Thor vehemently refuse Elder’s simple request to wake someone up? There had to be a missing bit of information here.

Marriage aside, not to mention my gut-level fear of linked minds, I really needed to learn how this bond thing worked if it would let me make sense of Thor’s discussions.

Thor gave his head another emphatic shake, then glanced in my direction, his gaze settling on something to my left. With a final comment to the two Buri facing him that wiped the smiles off their faces, he started toward me.

I was admiring the lithe, sensuous grace of his stride when I noticed the flickers of light. Not with my eyes, but mentally. I paused, trying to find them again, but every time I attempted to focus on the phenomenon, it vanished. A side effect of the mind bond? If so, it was certainly a distracting one.

Frustrated, I returned my gaze to Thor. And saw the flickers again. It was like glimmering strings of opalescence seen only with the peripheral vision of my psi ability. I was trying to examine this marvel without aiming my attention directly at it when Claudia Karle reached me, Ghost dogging her steps.

She was talking before she came to a stop. “That was some party last night. Thanks for inviting me. What was that last ceremony about? It looked intense.”

I gave her a weak smile as Thor joined us. “I sort of got married. I don’t think it’s legal, though.”

Actually, I was pretty sure it was legal, but denial had me in a stranglehold. It wasn’t that I didn’t care for Thor, because I did. We had this magical chemistry going on between us that was like nothing I’d ever experienced, and love was the only word that seemed to fit. If I were going to give up my work for anyone, it would be him. But at the risk of repeating myself, GEPs don’t marry. It never works for the regular GEPs, and I was even more of a risk than they were.

“It will work.”

“Will you stop that!”
I answered his smug response with a mental yell of my own.

Claudia’s eyes were wide round circles of awe as she gazed at Thor. “Holy Goddess. You’re married to
him
?” She let out a long sigh. “Why don’t things like that happen to me?”

As she spoke, Ghost caught my attention. Every few seconds he’d shake his head as though to rid himself of an annoying insect. There was a distinct familiarity about the movement, and eyes narrowed, I turned back to Claudia.

“Is your head buzzing, by any chance?”

She reached up and gingerly rubbed her forehead. “Yeah, I think I drank too much last night.”

Seeing where I was headed, Thor abruptly faced Ghost. “Is this female a bond mate for you?”

A surprised expression froze Ghost’s face into immobility, then he nodded slowly and took a step closer to Claudia.

“What’s going on?” Claudia divided her attention between the three of us like a spectator at a sky ball match.

No way was I going to break the news she’d just gotten engaged. “I think I’ve just lost one of my guards,” I improvised. Come to think about it, Poe wasn’t anywhere to be seen, either.

“The bond is in place. They are no longer needed.”

Handling multilevel conversations was giving me another headache, so I ignored Thor and forced myself to concentrate on Claudia. “So you wouldn’t mind marrying a Buri and staying here?”

She shot a sidelong glance at Ghost from beneath lowered lashes, a red flush tinting her cheeks. “Not if it was the right Buri.”

Okay, she was on her own. I had bigger herdbeast to fry. “I’m surprised you haven’t gone back to work.”

“All that wine knocked me out and I overslept. My crew is already in the field. I was on my way to join them when I saw you. Figured we needed to talk while we have the chance.”

I shifted uneasily, painfully aware that Thor now understood everything I said. Or even thought. It was downright spooky, being on the receiving end for a change, and I finally understood why the boss insisted only the two of us know I was an empath. But there was no help for his eavesdropping. “What have you found?” I asked Claudia.

“Nothing specific, but there’s a big chunk of data hidden on the ship’s main computer. I found it by checking the available space that’s left against the amount of space taken up by the visible files.”

I hesitated. “Can you get at it without putting yourself in danger?”

She nodded. “I almost had it last time I tried. And I’ll probably be taking you up on that job offer from Alien Affairs. This is going to be my last trip with Dynatec, regardless. I didn’t sign on to take orders from Quilla Dorn, no matter how good the pay. Is there anything specific you need when I get in?”

“Research notes. I want anything you can find on a couple of crystals the original exploration team took with them when they left Orpheus Two.”

“Crystals? Like this one?” She reached into the front of her jumpsuit and tugged out a chain. At the end dangled a pale green crystal, about an inch long and the size of my little finger in circumference. It was wrapped in thin silver wire to hold it in place.

“Where did you get it?”

“Are you joking? The damn things are everywhere. They’re pretty enough, but hell on my location markers. I bet we’ve bent a good third of our supply trying to drive their shafts through crystal. That’s part of the reason our mapping is going slower than usual. Half the time, we can only locate the markers visually instead of letting our equipment home in on them, because we’ve damaged them trying to get them in the ground.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off the crystal. To my heightened senses, it seemed to pulse with a faint glow that was nearly overshadowed by the bright sunlight. “Why did you pick that particular color to use as a pendant?”

She looked down at the crystal in her hand. “I don’t know. I’ve never been particularly fond of green, but I fell in love with this one as soon as I saw it. Now I never take it off.”

“Claudia, have you ever been tested for psi abilities?”

A flicker of surprise lit her eyes, and then vanished. “No, I’ve never shown a speck of talent. Getting tested would be a waste of time.”

“You’d better reconsider. I think those crystals may be the reason Dynatec filed Chapter Twenty. If I’m right, they enhance psychic abilities. Come by my ship later and he can test you.”

“Sure, if you think it’s necessary.” She didn’t look convinced as she tucked the crystal away, and I could sense she was only humoring me. “So, you want me to look for any indication that Dynatec knows the crystals enhance psi abilities?”

“Exactly. I was also going to ask you to find out if there’s any mention of an altercation between the Buri and some of the crew, but I think I can get that information from another source now.” I glanced at Thor.
You will tell me, won’t you
. It wasn’t a question, and he gave a slight nod of acknowledgment.

“A fight?” She sounded shocked. “I haven’t heard any mention of a fight. Are you sure about this?”

“Yes. Some of the Buri show signs of laser burns. I would like to hear what Redfield has to say about the incident. I don’t think he’s too comfortable with whatever Dorn and Frisk are up to. He still hasn’t managed to get away from them long enough to talk to me, though.”

“I’ll see what I can do, although it might take me a few days to get Redfield alone. He’s telling the truth about Frisk and Dorn. I’ve noticed that at least one of them is with him at all times. And it’s gotten a lot worse since you arrived. They won’t even leave him alone with the other crewmembers. Dorn almost caught us the day he asked me to give you that message about wanting to speak with you.”

I nodded my understanding. “Okay. If you need me, just make sure you’re outside and set your comm unit to the frequency Max contacted you on before. He’ll relay the message to me.”

She gave a little wave, cast one last look of longing at Ghost, and then headed in the direction her crew was working. Ghost took a step after her and then hesitated.

Thor seemed to understand his problem. “Go.” He gestured at Claudia’s retreating form. “But remember, you must not mate with the female until the ceremony has been performed.”

Not mate? I grabbed Thor’s arm and tugged him around to face me as Ghost hurried after Claudia. “Why can’t they mate until the ceremony?”

“The rellanti would try to complete the bond. Without preparation, the female would die.”

“Is that why you didn’t…uh, mate with me before?”

“Yes.”

And all this time I’d thought I had bad breath. “But you said the bond is rare. How can your people mate at all? Wouldn’t every female die?”

“Only if the possibility of the bond is there, and she is unprepared. Without the potential of the bond, the rellanti does not react to mating.”

I narrowed my eyes as an idea occurred to me. “Does this bond have to exist for your people to bear young?”

“No.”

“And you have no intention of telling me why they aren’t reproducing, do you?”

“No.” He grinned.

Damn. Back to square one. I never should have told him I’d be leaving when I found out what the problem was and corrected it.

“Kiera,” Max interrupted. “It’s almost time.”

“On my way. And you,” I told Thor, “can tell me all about this battle with the Dynatec crew while we walk. Max can have something ready to eat when we get there.” It came as a surprise that I’d picked up his thoughts of food without even trying. Maybe the key to using this bond was to relax and let it work instead of forcing it.

“This ship cooks, too?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

He made a slight detour to collect his spear and a wicked-looking knife, and then we entered the dim light of the jungle side by side. The branches closed us off from the village when he spoke again.

“The battle occurred shortly after these others arrived. The mate of Dryggahn went into the jungle to gather fruit, taking her child with her.”

When he said
Dryggahn
, I got a mental image of Brownie. It didn’t surprise me. I’d suspected it had something to do with him.

“The child wandered a short distance away from his mother and three of your people grabbed him. Alerted by her child’s screams, Dryggahn’s mate called to him through their bond. A large group of my people stopped the three before they could reach their camp. The child was retrieved unharmed, but several were wounded, and one died. We do not understand why the child was taken.”

“I’ve got a pretty good idea why. They wanted to run tests on him, to ensure your people really can’t reproduce. As long as you’re dying out, there’s nothing we can do to stop them from claiming this world.” A shudder ran over me. “No wonder Brownie hates me.”

“He does not hate you, merely distrusts. Our children are so few, those we do have are precious to us.”

“There’s another female who’s expecting a child.” I stepped around a nasty-looking plant with saw-toothed blades and glanced at Thor in time to see him smile.

“Yes. We celebrated many days when Sillia shared this joyous news.”

“Does this Sillia share the mind bond with her mate?”

“No. They were not so fortunate.” He held a branch aside so I could pass. “Dryggahn has convinced himself that Sillia’s child will be our Shushanna.”

That would explain why Brownie was so opposed to the Buri calling me Shushanna, I thought. “Is that why he challenged you for leadership?”

“Yes, in part. There is also more.”

“More?” I arched a brow in question.

He sighed. “When it is time to chose a new ruler, all those eligible from the royal line are considered, and then the people vote for whomever they believe will make the best
Deshunnat
. I was chosen, but Dryggahn felt it should have been him. He also is of the royal line and ten cycles my elder. He truly believes he knows better than I what is best for the tribe and resents that I do not follow his thoughts. He was sure the new Shushanna would be born into the tribe, while I was not.”

Holy shit! My mouth had dropped open halfway through that pronouncement and I had trouble closing it now. “You aren’t just the Buri leader,” I said. “You’re the damn king!”

His head tilted thoughtfully. “I do not know this word,
king
.”

I waved one hand. “Descended from a royal line, ruler by right of blood.”

He nodded. “Then yes, I am king.”

Air was having trouble squeezing through my suddenly tight throat. “And since I’m your mate, that would make me…”

“The Shushanna,” he said with a great deal of satisfaction.

“Is the Shushanna always mated to the king?” I asked, still trying to breathe.

“No, of course not. Although it was so with my sire and dam.”

Whew. “So I’m not the queen.” When he looked blank I clarified. “A queen is the female who is mated to the king, or sole ruler in her own right.”

“If you were ruler, then I suppose you would be this queen,” he commented. “But I alone am ruler of my people. You are my mate and the Shushanna.”

Okay, I could finally breathe again. Queen was the very last thing I wanted to be. I did want to explore this Shushanna thing in more depth later, but right now I needed to refocus on the bond.

“You said you knew of only two couples who share the bond. Brownie and his mate are one. Who are the others?”