Discovery (29 page)

Movement caught his eye, and he turned his head slightly to watch as Comet, tail in the air, wandered across the deck toward him. The cat gave his hand a cursory bump and then decided he wanted to sit in Kent’s lap. The interruption was well timed, for Kent felt himself getting more maudlin than he wanted to be. He grunted as the hefty bundle of fur and loose skin landed on his thighs.

With Kent’s next breath, Comet’s cozy weight turned into agonizing pain. Dropping his half-empty beer, Kent yowled in unison with the cat and swept the feline off his lap in self-defense as four sets of needle-sharp claws dug into his upper thighs and crotch.

“Damn it! Ow! Damn cat, what is your problem in life?” Kent came to his feet, gingerly checking himself for damage. He forgot the fleeting, needling pain, becoming aware instead it was exceedingly quiet. He yawned, feeling the urge to pop his ears.

And blinked.

It barely fit in his backyard, but it was there. He stared at the little spacecraft. The same one—or a twin—to the one that landed at Skinner’s Butte over three weeks ago.

Rooted to his spot in astonishment he could only continue to stare as a vaguely familiar figure emerged. Without hesitation, the stocky, shaggy-haired being mounted the three steps from lawn to deck and came into the light from the kitchen’s French doors.

“Hello,” said the newcomer.

“I’m hallucinating,” said Kent.

“Dr. Xavier, may I be seated?”

“Uhh, sure. Want a beer? I need another one.”

Without waiting for a reply, Kent went into his kitchen and grabbed two Red Hook ESBs from the fridge.

The visitor slouched comfortably, long legs outstretched, in one of the resin patio chairs. Comet now occupied his lap. A blue hand with six long, nimble fingers stroked the feline’s fur. Comet’s purrs were thunderous.

The faint snap of a static discharge as Kent handed the second bottle over convinced him Povre’s father was no hallucination. Despite his half-frozen mental condition, he still managed to wonder why the alien’s interior electricity didn’t seem to bother the cat. Was it the fur? Or just the fact that cats operated by their own rules?

“So,” Kent began, taking his chair. “Nice night for a ride, I guess.”

“Hmm,” grunted H’renzek, sniffing at the bottle’s opening.

“Aren’t you worried that someone might see you or your ship?”

“No one will,” came the nonchalant reply.

In an all too familiar gesture, the Sirgel reached to his belt, produced a tiny gizmo—only this one worked—and inserted a thin probe into the liquid. Kent didn’t take offense. H’renzek just needed to make sure he could metabolize the brew.

The Sirgel’s grin flashed in the light from the kitchen, and the bottle rose in a salute of sorts before he took his first sip.

Kent cleared his throat. His fingers, on the hand not clutching his Red Hook in a death grip, tapped his knee. Like it was every day aliens from outer space dropped into his yard and came to the back porch for a beer and a chat. Yeah, right.

“Your English sounds improved, what little of it I’ve heard so far,” commented Kent.

“There has been time to practice,” agreed the older man. “With one more familiar in actual usage.”

Kent swallowed half the contents in his bottle. “So.” He took a breath, willing his voice to continue steady and casual. “How is Povre?”

“She carries your child.”

“That’s nice. I was worried. I—”

Kent choked on his next swig. A firm hand clouted him in the middle of his shoulder blades. His bottle rolled to the deck, making a puddle of brew that joined with the other one he dropped. He couldn’t breathe. He had beer in his nose, in his windpipe, and it burned. Another firm swat released the bubble and Kent’s disbelieving word.

“What?” he gasped, tears streaming down his face. He coughed, swallowed, coughed again. He hardly felt the shock or firm grip on his arm as H’renzek guided him back to his seat.

“Povre carries your child,” repeated H’renzek as if reporting there was a good chance of rain in Portland by morning.

“Oh my God—” spluttered Kent. He coughed again, but not because there was Red Hook Extra Special Bitter up his nose. “It’s not possible. She said—”

“Impossible things are known to happen quite frequently. Only the Goddess knows.”

Kent recovered his wits. “Why are you telling me this? Why? To torture me? I
love
her. I asked if I could go, be with her. This just makes it worse.” He dropped his head in his hands. “It just makes it worse. She was wrong. She said I’d get over it and find someone else, but I can’t even think about anyone but her. It’s affecting my work. It’s driving me crazy. And now you tell me she’s pregnant, biologically impossibly pregnant, with a baby,
our
baby, and I’ll never see her again.”

He raised his face to glare at the Sirgel sitting so damned calmly next to him. “Is this some sort of test?” His words dripped with sarcasm as sharp as the beer he still tasted in his nose and throat.

“Perhaps,” said H’renzek, “but you passed it.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean? You’d better start talking and talk fast. Or I’m going to scream like a banshee and have cops in here faster than you can jump into your little scooter over there and take off.”

“I doubt that, Dr. Xavier.” The amusement that flared for a second in H’renzek’s tilted eyes made Kent take a breath as in preparation to carry out his threat.

Long, strong fingers clamped over his mouth before Kent even knew the alien moved. The pressure, accompanied by a tingle of electricity, lasted only a heartbeat, long enough for Kent to reconsider.

“Why are you here? Never mind that. Take me with you.” An unexpected doubt crept forward in his mind. “Does…does Povre…?”

“Love you? Povre will always love you, Kent Xavier. She neglected to tell you once a Sirgel gives his or her heart it is forever, and there can never be another. Unlike humans.”

Kent’s hands pulled at his long hair as if the pain would make more sense than what he heard or felt. Povre. Povre doomed herself to a life of loneliness because she thought it would be best for him. She hinted at it, even before they made love. She tried…

She
knew
.

And she still went ahead, knowing what it meant for her.

“Unlike
some
humans. I want to be with her,” Kent said, voice wooden.

“That is,” H’renzek said, “why I came.”

“You said it wasn’t possible. Ben said it was against your laws.”

The Sirgel’s deep, dry chuckle cracked like brittle ice. “Laws.” Kent watched him take another swallow of the microbrew. “All my life I have lived to uphold laws and rules. Good ones, made sensibly, for sound reasons. But there are laws made by a higher order than the Affiliated Races.” The alien took another pull from his bottle. “And there are things a father must do for his daughter. It is not right that you two, having Life Mated, be separated, baby or no baby.”

“Life Mated?”

“Yes. I should have seen that sooner.”

“Wait a minute.” Kent felt a silly grin starting on his face. “This Life Mating, is that anything like making a formal commitment? Like getting married?” He saw the term went right over H’renzek’s shaggy head. “Like until death do us part?”

“The bond lasts beyond the death of one’s mate,” H’renzek said at last, and so very softly Kent almost missed the personal note of raw loss and grief. He cleared his throat and went on before Kent could say anything more. “I understand what you mean. Some of the other Affiliated people have such…ceremonies. We do not. But yes, Dr. Xavier, it is done.”

Kent watched as H’renzek’s half-shadowed form carefully sat the empty bottle of Red Hook on the deck. “Povre said I might not survive.”

H’renzek shrugged and tipped his head slightly. “Every decision in life has it risks.”

If I get to go—hell, I’ll crazy glue myself to H’renzek so he’ll have to take me.
Kent nearly laughed aloud at the mental image. Instead of dragging the human kicking and screaming aboard an alien starship, the alien would be kicking and screaming trying to dislodge Kent from a death grip on his body. No kidnapping or abduction, rather a hijacking.
When we go,
thought Kent, eyeing the still-pensive Sirgel slouched into the resin deck chair,
I’ll still ask Povre to marry me. Even though we already are in their eyes. In mine, too.

Their making love wouldn’t have changed a thing. Nor her being pregnant. Kent realized he’d found his heart’s desire in the Deschutes National Forest.

“
Retu
H’renzek?” Kent recalled Povre assigning that title to him. Despite the slouch, Kent noticed from the start that Povre’s father was more soldier than explorer. “Can you translate
Retu
for me?”

“It is a rank for commanders of Exploration teams.” The older male spoke as if Kent’s words switched his voice back on. “When we came to recover Povre, I thought what I witnessed between you both was only an infatuation, an enchantment. Something brought about only because you were each so different and fascinated by those differences. Not true and real love. I was wrong, and so overwhelmed to have Povre back that I failed to interpret the signs properly.”

“It was a pretty intense moment,” Ken allowed, feeling for the older man.

“That is why I am here. And if it is not the Goddess’s intention you be united with Povre, then, and only then, will we admit defeat.”

Kent stared. “Does Povre know you’re here?”

H’renzek’s shaggy, silvered head shook. “No. We didn’t want to raise her hopes only to disappoint her.”

“Okay, H’renzek,” Kent said, “what’s the plan?”

“The risks?” the older Sirgel reminded.

“I’ll walk through fire if that’s what it takes.”

H’renzek nodded. “It may require that,” said the alien as calmly as if ordering his lunch.

“Okay,” said Kent, tipping his bottle to make certain he got every drop. If this was his last beer on Earth, or anywhere, he didn’t want to waste it.

* * * * *

“KENT," MURMURED POVRE IN
her dream. She smiled. They were back in the huge bed of the motel—her body spooned into his. He’d made love to her the way she knew he wanted to. Slowly. With endless, deliberate passion and tenderness. Now they lay together, exhausted, sated.

But only here in her dreams.

“Kent,” she said again, moving his dream hand to her belly. “I’m going to have your baby. I’m so happy. I wish he looks like you. Or she. Then I can feel you will always be with me. But I wish…”

She wriggled herself closer to his dream body. She loved the feel of his dream hand stroking her hair.

“I wish you can be with me, with us too. I hope you’re happy, Kent…”

Povre purred in pleasure as his dream lips closed, oh so gently, on her ear, and then moved to trail tiny little dream kissed along the line of her jaw, her neck. His dream arm slid around her, under her sensitive breasts, and she moaned softly, wanting his warm palms to cup and caress her there. Wanted to feel him nuzzle and suckle like the baby would.

But it was just a dream, and as vivid as her dreams of Kent were, Povre only felt a growing frustration building with her sexual tension. Her throat tightened and her breath caught on a sob. “The doctor says I have to stop being so emotional,” she told Kent’s dream presence. “It’s not good for the baby. I shouldn’t be so emotional anyway, Kent. I am a scientist.”

Her hand fell to the mattress, but his dream hand remained on her belly and traveled upward slowly. She bit her lower lip and groaned deep in her chest. Attempting to roll on her back, she came up against a solid, warm wall.

“Analyze this,” whispered a voice in a language still foreign, yet intimately familiar. Warm breath sighed against her ear and face.

Povre came fully awake with a gasp.

The tiny kisses didn’t cease. Nor did the hand stroking her hair, or the other making teasing circles that fanned the deep burning fires of desire within.

“Kent,” she breathed.

“Povresle,” he whispered.

This time, when she rolled over, eyes wide open, she encountered no resistance.

“Kent!”

“Hey, there.”

His beautiful brown eyes were wet and shiny. He smiled. Povre lay frozen, willing him to be real and not an open-eyed dream. Her breaths came in short gasps. When she again opened her mouth to say his name, he kissed her instead. Swallowing her words. Filling her mouth and mind with tender sweetness. She found control over her limbs and clasped her arms and legs around him tightly so he couldn’t escape.

“How?” she cried when he let her up for air.

~~

Kent drank in her happiness, not minding the increased zinging that came along with it. “Your dad picked me up. What some of us on Earth refer to a shotgun wedding, I guess.” He chuckled at his joke even as he saw it go right over Povre’s shaggy head.

“H’renzek! Why…? How?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Kent said. He dipped his head, his teeth closed softly over her lower lip, his tongue laving the spot before delving deeply into her warm mouth again. He couldn’t quell the flash of regret for the pain his faked demise would cause others…his friends, his sister. His students and colleagues. Even Lynn. But accidents happened every day. And his had been quite spectacular. He’d sure miss his motorcycle, though.