Heat (109 page)

Both Cura and Sta’al acknowledged this, the Admiral with a nod and a narrowed eye, the Commander with an open growl and a flex of his claws.
Vey
Kosar hummed to herself, again thoughtful, and Magistrate Inarr bent forward and covered her face to snarl.

“
Sek’ta
Pahnee,” she sighed at last. “Have you any idea how tumultuous such sweeping changes would be?”

“Yes. Which is why I do not recommend them.” Tagen waited until the High Magistrate looked at him before continuing. “I suggest that plans be made for a gradual evolution towards that end, one that I recognize must take many, many years if it to be done safely and effectively. And in the meantime, Daria Cleavon will initiate an interface between Jota and the preserves.” He took a moment to reflect acridly on Kanetus E’Var, and particularly, that notable’s thoughts on compromise, before laying out what he hoped would be his winning peg. “In her role as liaison, she anticipates that she must offer herself to answer questions, to be examined for medical purposes, and to provide template biological data to further our understanding of humankind.”

Vey
Kosar sat swiftly upright, her eyes cutting toward Sta’al first, and then Inarr, silently but intently indicating immediate approval.

“This…” Magistrate Inarr cracked her claws down on the table, then sprang up and paced away. “This is setting a dangerous precedent. Do I care if you keep a human in your closet? Ha! I do not! Keep as many as you like! And is there good cause for such a thing? Yes, I suppose there is. But I foresee a thousand such pets in a year’s time once other Jotan see such a high-ranking officer taking one.”

“I am not taking her,” he said, annoyed. “And if it offends your diplomatic sensibilities to have her room with me, then by all means, assign her quarters of her own.”

“No!” Inarr and Admiral Sta’al said it together, exchanged a startled glance, and then rueful smiles.

Inarr retook her seat. “No,” she said, more calmly. “A human on Jota I could possibly learn to live with, but not outside of Jotan custody.”

“I am aware of the appearance of impropriety.” Tagen shrugged back into his uniform jacket and gave it a brisk tug to straighten it, adopting what he hoped was a solemn and dignified attitude, just as though he had not risen from a bed in which Daria lay resplendent with mating musk that morning. “When I stayed in her home on Earth, she gave me rooms of my own. As a ranking officer in the Fleet, I am entitled to take family-sized quarters, and upon my return, I requisitioned them. If you like, I can message her now so that you can see for yourselves what room her bed is in.”

“No one is suggesting you…that is…”
vey
Kosar looked around at the others as though hoping for support, or a script, but she was ignored. Inarr only sat with her head bent and her claws in her hair, Admiral Sta’al had resumed the intensive study of her hand, and Commander Cura was giving Tagen yet another disturbingly direct stare. In the end, the scientist settled for saying, “I’m certain you maintain admirable conduct at all times. Both of you.”

“Gods!” Inarr groaned and rubbed at her face. “Why must I live in such interesting times?” She sat up and gave Sta’al a hard look. “Is Rangan going to cast in on this lot at all?” she asked testily.

“The Governor’s official position is that this matter is not an executive one and should be addressed equally as a xenobiological hazard, a security risk, and a point of law.” Sta’al gave each represented branch a nod as she named them. “She’ll go along with whatever accord we reach, provided we reach it unanimously.”

“Bitch.” Inarr scratched at her throat, scowling. “I don’t want to be responsible for this disaster.”

“Which,” Admiral Sta’al said with a sigh, “is the meat of the matter, isn’t it? None of us want to be the one that sets this storm in motion. The eyes of all the world will be watching, and as the homeworld goes, so follows the rest of our colonies. There is no such thing in such circumstances as a ‘little’ mistake. But speaking for myself, I agree with
sek’ta
Pahnee. It is time, and indeed, it is long past time that the matter of the preserves was readdressed. And as much as Daria Cleavon impressed me when we met, it is the disappearance of the other human that troubles my sleep.”

Commander Cura grunted, nodding.

“If communications are opened between Jota and the preserves,” Sta’al continued, “if an alliance such as you suggest can be forged through such communications, and if humans under Jotan supervision respond favorably to such an alliance…then these are good and admirable things. I have committed myself to the belief that all living things deserve liberty and protection, most of all those who cannot provide them for themselves. That we are directly responsible for their suffering may be debatable, but that we are responsible for confining them now without equity or representation is undeniable and as that would appear to be the only issue at hand, I will lend my official support to the institution of such a program. As to the physical whereabouts of the human Daria Cleavon, I will say only that Jota’s position in talks of emancipation would be severely lessened were we to first incarcerate her.” She smiled, and then resumed her inspection of her hand.

Magistrate Inarr glanced at her, but there was no heat in the look. “
Vey
Kosar?” she asked sourly.

“We need information,” she said simply. “A willing subject who would honestly answer questions…that alone could perhaps double the present life-expectancy and infant mortality rates of the humans in the preserves. She says she’s willing to undergo complete medical exams? Imagine what we could learn! Nutritional needs, growth rates, common deficiencies of aging, childcare and pregnancy—”

“The location of the liver,” Tagen muttered, thinking back to
vey
Venekus’ main complaint.

“Precisely.”
Vey
Kosar spread her hands. “All she wants is a room in the back of an officer’s quarters with a
sek’ta
in full supervision at all times. She doesn’t even view that as imprisonment. What is the problem here?”

“And you?” Inarr glanced at Commander Cura.

“I can speak solely for Pahnee’s record and character,” he answered. “Both exemplary. He is not in the habit of chasing after humans. I haven’t met this one, but I must trust his assessment of her.”

“Oh, very well.” Magistrate Inarr flicked her claws dismissively and spun her chair away. “It’s bound to go over poorly no matter how we handle it, so we may as well bite the media full on the chin. We’ve got to look like we approve of this catastrophe. Congratulations,
sek’ta
Pahnee, you’ve just been promoted for your decisive and meritorious conduct on this mission.”

Tagen sighed.

“My feelings precisely,” the Magistrate muttered, and then spun back to scratch at the tabletop. “We have E’Var at least, and we can show him in shackles while we tell the fair citizens of all Jota’s worlds that a decorated officer is keeping a pet human in his closet.”

“I am not,” he said tightly.

“Oh, hush, male. I said you could keep her, didn’t I? Just, for the gods’ sakes, don’t take her anywhere. Not for a while at least.”

“She won’t mind the seclusion, will she?”
vey
Kosar asked. “Humans are very social creatures, from all accounts. Will the isolation…affect her?”

“I doubt it.” He refrained from commenting on all the practice she’d had adjusting to it. “She understands the necessity of discretion.”

*

“So does that mean they want me to be a neurotic shut-in?” Daria pressed, plating the prepared food.

“At least for now.”

“Yay!”

“Although there will be a conference later this season to introduce you before the media. Limited interactions, I’m sure, but very public. I’ve been instructed to teach you to speak Jotan.”

“Good.” Daria made just one of her eyes close in an singularly sly and alluring manner as she seated herself at the dining table. “Because all I know how to say now is ‘
Tor u’ane sa y te chi’ay’
.”

“I advise you not to,” he said, his brows rising in feigned surprise, just as though he had not taught her the words himself. “Although, gods know, it would certainly present humans in a fetching light.”

She giggled. “Ladies and gentlemen of the press,
tor y’ana sa y te chi’ay
.”

“
Chi’an
is plural,” he remarked. “And the ladies, if there are any, will be at distinct odds to comply.”

“Just you, then.” She interlocked her slender fingers and perched her chin atop them, her eyes sparkling. “
Tor u’ane sa y te chia’ay, Tagen
.”

“Oh, if you insist.” He picked up the table, dinners and all, and moved it to one side so that nothing obstructed his approach. He lifted her into his arms and she opened eagerly to his kiss, her hands slipping beneath his clothing to scratch along his chest.

He took his time undressing her, even though she, in her youth-sized Jotan clothing, was far easier to access than in her old Earth-wear. Every inch of her was precious, every inch demanded to be kissed, caressed, admired. He unwrapped her in this slow, jubilant fashion, there in the corner of the kitchen, and knelt before her. He ran his hands wonderingly down her naked body all the way to her feet, and then back up to grip her hips as he pressed his mouth to her belly, her thighs, her sex.

Her hands clutched at his hair, pulling him even closer as his tongue coaxed her to open. Her cries, unbridled and dazzling with delight, sent flashes of pure sexual pleasure through him like lightning. He teased her with greater passion, greater tenderness, and her fragrant oils filled his senses for reward.

‘All my life,’ he thought dazedly, letting her passion coat his questing tongue. ‘I will have this amazing female for my own all my life.’

She tugged at his hair sharply, guiding him up so that she could pull his clothes away, her eyes glassy with the intensity of her desire. He could think of nothing he had done in his life to deserve such a wondrous, passionate female.

Or her cat, he thought, distractedly eyeing the orange paw that covertly hooked the cooling meat from Tagen’s plate and dragged it beneath the table. “Ah, lucky me,” he said, and pulled Daria with him to the tiled floor. It was cold at first, but not for long. In moments, they were joined together; in moments, there was only the heat of their breath, their blood, their bodies. There was only heat.

Blessed heat.

T
he hopper left Jota Prime just after six bells and by seven, it had docked with the prison transport vessel
Depahg
. The prisoner was transferred shackled and unconscious from one holding bay to the other, and then the ship was underway. They were two hours from the Gate that would bring them to Far Point space when the prisoner finally began to rouse himself awake. His name was Kanetus E’Var and this time, he was caught for real.

He had spent fifty days in a holding cell deep in Jota Prime’s Magistrate Capital, days without either sunlight or stars to comfort him, days measured out by idle scratches on the wall after the receiving of each day’s allotment of food. Days he passed lying on the thin mat provided for his bed, waiting until his interrogators came for him. And they always came. He’d fought every time, but every fight had ended with him in binders and a solid dose of hypnotic swimming in his veins. And then, the questions. The same ones every day.

The Fleet did everything by regulation. It was a joke, one that everyone knew, and it was always as funny the fiftieth time as it was the first. Regulations allotted prisoners a cell just large enough to stand up and lie down fully, and so Kane had one. Regulations provided a bed and one meal per day with adequate nutritional basis to sustain life, and so Kane had it. Regulations allowed for interrogations to be provided under hypnosis through the use of only those serums approved for that use, in specific, the drug endoxis, and so that was what they gave him. And Urak had been giving him endoxis since he was six years old, just in case. A far-thinking man, his father.

It wasn’t hard to sit there in his restraints and stare at the wall. It wasn’t hard to tell them over and over that there was no Gate, he knew of no Gate, his father had been building no Gate. Boring, yes, but not hard. And it only took the regulation fifty days to convince them.

Now he was here, in yet another prison transport ship with the engines thumping in time to his headache, on his way to the last home he’d ever see.

Kane gained his feet slowly, his throat locked against the groans his body demanded. The Fleet used wargu’unal to pacify its prisoners when they were moved. Endoxis was nothing, pleasant even, gave you good dreams. Wargu’unal now, that shit was dangerous.

“Ah, it stirs!” The prison ship’s pilot, a bored-looking veteran, was watching him from the console, grinning hugely. “What a shame. You looked so peaceful lying there. Wouldn’t you say peaceful, Devus?”

“I’d say peaceful.” The co-pilot was fresh, scarcely into his majority, and he looked more scared than anything else, but he managed a mocking grin to impress his pilot. “I’d even say pretty.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

“Would you now?” the pilot purred. “Well, E’Var, that’s convenient for you, isn’t it?” He ran a lazy eye up and down Kane’s body. “I hear the pretty ones get special attention at Tyuk station.”

Kane rolled his eyes and leaned against the hull since there wasn’t anyplace but the floor to sit. He wasn’t worried about prison, Tyuk or any other. He wasn’t looking forward to it by a damn sight, but he wasn’t worried. He’d find a way to come out on top. Somehow.

‘That’s the stuff,’ Urak said, far back in his mind. ‘E’Var
is
survival. Never forget where you came from, boy.’

“They say the first time’s the roughest,” the pilot continued, recapturing his sour attention. He was still giving Kane too close a stare. “If you live through it, you ought to come out fine.”