The Spawning (19 page)

She knew the last wasn’t true. She would’ve been horrified even in the

beginning, would’ve felt guilty to think they’d gotten hurt or worse, killed, trying to get food for them. She would’ve been just as distressed if anything happened to any of the Hirachi as she would’ve been if they’d been human. Life was life, and she didn’t consider the loss, or threat of loss, lightly.

She didn’t think she’d actually fully appreciated the danger before, though. It wasn’t that she’d been completely unaware of the threat. The beasts were enough by themselves to drive that home, but her mind hadn’t really ‘acclimated’ to the new reality that she was living. She wasn’t used to thinking in terms of the threat to life and limb any time anyone left the safety of the compound.

She wasn’t sure she could
get
used to it.

She’d come to care more than just a little about the Hirachi, though—some very much more than others, but even those she didn’t know well weren’t really strangers to her.

She wrestled with the urge to go to Gerek and see how badly he’d been hurt. She wasn’t certain enough, though, that it would be acceptable, or welcome. Even after living among them nearly a month, she knew very little more about their customs than she had to start with. She did know, though, that people on Earth had some fairly strange customs and that it wasn’t really a good idea to leap impulsively into behavior that might be insulting.

Some men were very touchy about their ‘manliness’ and although she hadn’t

noticed that the Hirachi seemed to be, they still considered themselves warriors.

Weakness certainly wasn’t something they admired and it seemed probable that they wouldn’t want anyone to think, and certainly not point out, that they’d ‘failed’ to meet their high standards.

In any case, there seemed enough Earth females perfectly willing to ignore the possibility of flouting some of the Hirachi customs and inadvertently insulting them.

Carol and her ‘twins’, Lynn and Joy, and two others whose names Miranda couldn’t remember rushed over to fuss over him.

He looked more disconcerted and embarrassed than pleased by the attention, but then again what did she know?

As annoyed as Miranda was about Carol and her buddies wallowing all over

Gerek, she wasn’t really surprised. She’d realized herself that Gerek was a chick magnet.

THE SPAWNING Kaitlyn O’Connor 84

The only real surprise was that they’d refrained from being quite that obvious before, but she supposed it had taken them a while to get over the fact that their first attempts to rivet the attention of the Hirachi hadn’t gone over very well.

Taking their cue from the other bimbos, bimbo group number two flocked to the

returning the hunters, as well, exclaiming over their prowess as hunters and examining them for injuries—Miranda supposed. She couldn’t actually hear what was going on, but the body language of the women seemed to speak for itself.

She wasn’t thrilled about the objects of their attention—Khan and Teron. In fact, she felt a very unpleasant wafting of unidentifiable emotions about the circumstance.

At least some of it was uneasiness about how the Hirachi might view their

behavior. She’d tried to walk a tight-wire regarding the Hirachi and advised the others to have the same wariness. She’d thought it would be far better to err on the side of caution until they understood their ways better. She hadn’t wanted to say anything that would make them fearful of the Hirachi, who at least seemed friendly and trustworthy, and she had thought it was a good idea to urge them in the direction of acceptance of their situation—but acceptance wasn’t throwing themselves at the Hirachi!

God only knew how they’d take that! Even if it was ‘favorably’ they ran the risk of serious trouble because they were so outnumbered.

If the Hirachi were disgusted with their behavior, then they ran the risk of turning away their only hope of survival.

She’d known she hadn’t gotten through to the majority and that at least some of it was purely from resentment of her advising them at all, but she hadn’t expected such a blatant display.

Try though she might to avoid it, though, she realized the main reason she was not happy had nothing to do with ‘reason’ at all. Jealously, resentment, and envy were the main culprits. Khan, Teron, and Gerek just happened to top her list of interest, damn them! There were damned near a hundred Hirachi—all of them present! Couldn’t they have set their sights on some of the others? Adar hadn’t taken part in the hunt, but he was adorable! For that matter, she hadn’t seen
any
Hirachi males that weren’t at least attractive—virile was always attractive—and all of the Hirachi were so very powerfully male they practically wreaked of testosterone.

With an effort, she pushed it from her mind and tried to focus on her goal. She couldn’t do anything to change the situation and there was no point in dwelling on it. If the blond bimbos wanted them they were probably as good as tagged and bagged

already—whether the men knew it yet or not.

She couldn’t afford to approach Khan about the device simmering with

resentment and jealously. She had a hard enough time with diplomacy at her best and it seemed probable she was going to have to do a little begging and cajoling. If he turned her down and she bit his head off, she wasn’t likely to get her hands on it.

She was doing fairly well in regaining her equilibrium until the men finished and went down to the beach to bathe—and the bimbos flung off their gowns and joined them—except they were more focused on ‘frolicking’ in the water than bathing.

Miranda didn’t know if she was more humiliated or angry. She felt like throttling the whole bunch, though. It was almost more embarrassing that the Hirachi didn’t seem to know what to make of their behavior, couldn’t decide whether to watch or politely turn their backs. Instead, they focused on finishing their baths, put their clothes back on and THE SPAWNING Kaitlyn O’Connor 85

joined the other Hirachi.

Miranda would’ve felt sorry for the women that had made such an exhibition of

themselves if she hadn’t wanted to kill them more. They looked almost as bewildered and embarrassed as the Hirachi had.

Fools! Miranda thought angrily. They hadn’t succeeded in doing anything but

making everyone uncomfortable. Couldn’t they get it through their heads that they were dealing with a completely different race, if not species? From another world entirely?

It occurred to her as she watched the women play in the surf a while longer, just to save face, and finally climb out and head back, that it was the playing that the Hirachi didn’t understand. They worked all the time, and they were young men from what she could see. However old they actually were in human years, they had the look of barely matured adults. She could be wrong, but not one of them looked even close to thirty.

The biggest majority looked to be no more than early to mid twenties.

They didn’t play and it seemed probable from the little she had heard about them that they hadn’t played since they were small children—may not have even then. They’d been brought up as warriors—male and female—because their species was at war with the Sheloni.

Maybe they were actually a little intrigued by the playfulness of the flirters, but they didn’t know how to respond to it and, because they didn’t, it made them

uncomfortable.

It made her feel bad for both of them—the Hirachi and the idiots—but she was

still too angry about the exhibit to feel terribly sorry for the women. It was a pity that they were trying so hard to make themselves appealing and had no idea how to go about it, but they might’ve had a better idea if they’d just considered they weren’t dealing with their own culture.

God! She could think of several cultures right on
Earth
that would’ve been deeply offended and disgusted by that kind of behavior!

It was just as well it didn’t look like she’d have any opportunity to try to approach Khan anytime soon, she decided. She was too upset to handle it at all well. It would be better, she was sure, to wait a day or two and since she was still uncomfortable, she decided to go into the hut and try to rest for a little while. It would be hours before there was anything to eat and she was already hungry. She didn’t think she could endure watching and smelling. If she could sleep for a little while it would put her closer to meal time when she woke.

Deborah, Jan, Mary Jane, and Stacy apparently had the same idea. They fell into step with her as she crossed to the hut.

“I don’t know who I feel most embarrassed for—me, the Hirachi, or those idiots,”

Deborah commented, alerting Miranda to the fact that they didn’t have resting in mind as she had.

Miranda smiled wryly, but shook her head. “It’s a good thing for us the Hirachi seem very tolerant. If they weren’t, there might have been stonings tonight instead of a cook out.”

Stacy uttered an amused snort. “Speak for yourselves. I’m just glad they tried it before the thought occurred to me. Now I know not to try that.”

Miranda couldn’t help but chuckle. “Feeling desperate?”

“Hell, yeah!”

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They’d settled on the bundles of dry grasses they’d gathered to try to make

sleeping less miserable when the other women began to drift toward the hut. Before long, everyone was inside the hut except for the exhibitionists.

Contrary thing that she was, Miranda immediately began to feel sorry for them.

The embarrassment should have been ‘punishment’ enough. Social censure on top of it seemed a little harsh. She supposed she couldn’t blame the women who’d joined her in hiding in the hut, though. If they felt as she did, it wasn’t an attempt to censure as much as it was a desire to separate herself and hide because she was embarrassed.

They’d get over it, she told herself. They were nothing if not resilient and too certain of their appeal to be trounced for long. No doubt they were out there now assuring themselves and each other that
they,
the women who’d decamped, were just jealous of
their
beauty and envious because all of the Hirachi had been so thoroughly entranced by them.

By nightfall they would’ve convinced themselves that they could now have their pick of the males they were most interested in.

And, who knew? They might be right.

THE SPAWNING Kaitlyn O’Connor 87

Chapter Ten

Contrary to what Miranda had thought, the exodus to the hut wasn’t entirely what it had seemed. The women who hadn’t taken part in the attempt to work up a trade with the Vernamin wanted the details. Miranda let Stacy and Deborah do most of the talking.

They’d been close enough to hear everything. Her input wasn’t really needed, at least not until it came down to the question of what they might be able to get up to offer for trade.

She explained her plan, then.

Without surprise she discovered the women weren’t exactly happy about it.

Assuming she could borrow the device from Khan and she could use it to break down the elements of the
jasumi
they were still going to have to leave the compound and search for a supply source and, once found, they would have to gather it. She knew it wasn’t a reluctance to work, that it was because they were afraid of what they might encounter beyond the compound. She was, if it came to that, but the only alternative was just to give up the idea altogether.

Everyone was even more unhappy about that. It was bad enough to have to do

without things they’d always taken for granted, but to know there was a possibility of getting some of the things they wanted so badly if they were willing to risk their lives to get it was worse. It was like teasing someone dying of thirst with a bottle of water by holding it just out of reach.

They wanted to think about it.

Translation, they wanted to wait until they were
more
desperate.

At the rate things were going she didn’t think that would take much more than a week. She didn’t want to wait. There was no telling how long it might take to find something and then, if they were successful, they’d have to collect it and get it back to the compound. If they waited very long, they might end up with nothing to trade when the Vernamin came back.

On the other hand, she wasn’t sure she was desperate enough to go for it yet

herself.

They’d switched to a discussion of what they might do to improve their situation without so much risk when one of the Hirachi came to invite them to join them in celebrating a successful trade with the Vernamin. Everyone rose eagerly to file out of the hut, wondering aloud if it actually was a celebration—if the Hirachi had something special planned—or if it was merely an invitation to eat with them as usual and be more happy because of the trade.

By the time Miranda made it outside, the first of the women to leave had already reached the area near the roasting pit. Wishing she’d actually gotten the chance to primp a little so that it would have more of the feel of something special, and had something to primp with, Miranda scanned the compound where everyone was gathering and

discovered there did seem to be something a little different planned.

Generally, they had the tendency to segregate themselves. Her group had been

THE SPAWNING Kaitlyn O’Connor 88

too uneasy about mixing with the Hirachi when they’d arrived to make any attempt to mingle. The Hirachi had either sensed that they wanted it that way or hadn’t wanted to mix themselves and tended to stay with their own group and they’d just sort of fallen into the habit of it. Beyond that, it was usually a sort of relay meal for the Hirachi. A group would come up on the beach and eat and then return to work as another group arrived so that there were rarely more than a third of the Hirachi in the compound at any one time.

Maybe part of that had been strategic, a wariness about all of them gathering in such an exposed position, but, for whatever reason, Miranda discovered for the first time that all of the Hirachi seemed to be present.