The Morcai Battalion: Invictus Part 11

His eyes twinkled. "I had forgotten your background in weapons tech," he said. "Yes. This is a prototype.

I have been working on an improvement in the combustion chamber which will solve the repeated overheating during rapid fire."

She was surprised. "I thought your training was military, sir."

He lifted an eyebrow. "Are you going to continue to refer to me as 'sir'?"

"Well, yes," she replied. "After all, this is only a temporary mission."

He shook his head and sighed. "My early training was in quantum mechanics and biochemistry," he told her. "I have doctorates in both fields."

She lay back on her pillows and studied him with quiet pride. "You never spoke of your education."

"There was no reason to." He manipulated the image and turned it, magnifying it, to bring up the combustion chamber, which was an emerillium-based trigger mechanism.

She turned, so that her shoulder and cheek rested on the mound of pillows. "You said that we'd broken behavioral protocols," she recalled frowning. "Which ones? If I'm allowed to ask."

"The first mating, as I explained to you, is only to prove fertility." He glanced at her and lifted an eyebrow over green eyes. "We are not permitted to take pleasure from it."

She cleared her throat and avoided his eyes. "Yes, well, how would anyone know what happened except us?"

"The eldest of the court physicians is a minor royal who thinks herself a telepath," he continued. "She took exception to the length of time we spent in the mating chamber."

"I didn't realize." It hadn't seemed like a long time.

"She also commented on the placement of your wounds, and the fact that I remained during the examination," he added, his eyes showing a hint of the anger he had felt. "I sent her out the door with her belongings." He chuckled. "Caneese almost cheered. She was not fond of her, but she has too soft a heart to manage staff. She has since been replaced by a younger healer." He glanced at her. "She liked you."

"I don't remember much about the examination," she confessed.

He liked the soft blush on her cheeks, but not the memory of the violence and aggression he could not control at the beginning. His hand paused on the virtual controls. "It is feline behavior, the violence.

While the galots can also be pa.s.sionate, their first matings are brutal."

"We are all prisoners of our genetics," she said philosophically.

He glanced at her. "Perhaps we are."

She closed her eyes and snuggled closer into the pillows. "You didn't purr," she said with a wicked smile.

He pursed his lips and looked at her with twinkling green eyes. "No. The first mating is only to prove fertility. It is brutal, and brief. The second, however, after the birth of the first child, lasts for several days."

She gaped at him. "Days?"

He nodded. "Days. Our females do not have cycles of estrus as humans do. It must be induced, which is accomplished by mating."

Never having treated Cehn-Tahr females, Madeline was fascinated with this new information. She raised up on an elbow. "We have access to so little information about your species," she confessed. "I had to threaten Hahnson just to find out that the birth weight of Cehn-Tahr babies is about three times that of human ones." She frowned. "I think you're much larger than you appear. I know your weight is disproportionate to how you look."

He nodded. "We keep secrets."

"I wouldn't be afraid of you," she pointed out.

He only smiled. "Words."

She sighed. He wasn't going to budge. "But each mating produces a child?"

He nodded. "Another hard-wired trait. Family is everything to us."

She was sad. She felt the child inside her moving again and she grimaced at the discomfort.

He looked over at her. "The child is very restless."

"I think he's complaining about his accommodations," she laughed. "He wants more room."

His eyes smiled at her. She looked at home in his bed.

"You don't have to keep me in here," she said drowsily. "I know the Cehn-Tahr don't sleep as humans do."

"I can adjust my rhythms to yours," he said easily. He frowned. "I do not like the idea of having you apart from me at night. My mind is linked to yours, but distractions sometimes occur. I will rest easier if you are close."

"I was just thinking the same thing, from my point of view." Her eyes opened, soft and hungry. "I wonder which one of us the child would have favored."

"Your background in genetics is superior to mine," he pointed out. "Speculate."

"I think he would look more like you. I don't know about his eyes, if they would change color, as yours do."

She felt sad as she realized that the speculation was a moot point. They would never see the child born.

"You don't think the old fellow knows we're here?" she worried. "I hope he doesn't try to read my mind.

But, then, it wouldn't work across so many pa.r.s.ecs, would it?"

"There are no barriers of time and s.p.a.ce that would prevent him," he said surprisingly. "He once blew up a small attack monofighter from miles away. It would have killed me, had he not been so quick."

She sat up. "On Ondar, when I decoyed the Rojok guards at their outpost, one of their officers was about to shoot me." The anger and shock on his face were briefly disconcerting, and flattering, but she continued, "I heard a voice in my mind, telling me to throw the sensor net over me. I did, and the enemy soldier gasped and died although I didn't touch him. Then, when I escaped, a Rojok strafe s.h.i.+p came after me. It suddenly exploded. I never knew who saved me, or how." Her eyes softened. "It must have been him. n.o.body else could have done it."

He smiled. "He is fond of you."

She sighed, and put her hand on her belly. "If he could see me now, I'll bet he wouldn't be. And he's in the Dectat." She winced. "I guess if he found out, he'd have a front row seat at our s.p.a.cings."

"I wonder," he mused, without revealing what he knew. "His att.i.tudes have undergone a conversion of late."

She leaned back and moved restlessly. The child's s.h.i.+fting was a little painful. "I wonder if I could use a sedative without affecting him," she wondered, sliding open the panel over her wrist unit. "Perhaps a very mild one."

"Is it painful?"

She nodded. "Very. I won't sleep if I don't do something." She frowned. "You took away the Altairian child's pain aboard s.h.i.+p, when we rescued the colonists on Terramer. But you couldn't take away mine, on Akaashe. The old fellow said that you were too-" She broke off, not wanting to say the words.

He turned to her. "He said that I was too emotionally involved with you. It is true," he added quietly. "It clouds my abilities in the matter of healing."

She wanted to pursue that subject, but she was too inhibited. She injected a mild sedative, one that would not linger in her system, and felt the pain slowly subside. "The old fellow is your father."

His eyes darkened. "A guess?"

"An educated one. I saw in his mind that he once courted Caneese with a pot of canolithe," she added, her tone soft and becoming drowsy. "Were they bonded?"

He hesitated, but only briefly. "Yes."

She smiled. "He still loves her very much. I saw it in his mind." She looked up at him. "He led the Holconcom, when he was young."

His eyebrows lifted. "You saw a great deal during the mind link."

"Too much?" she wondered, smiling at his expression. "Not to worry. Hahnson is going to do a short-term memory wipe on me when we get back to Memcache. I won't remember any of it."

He was uncomfortable at the idea of the memory wipe. She would forget, also, that one day on Memcache when they had learned so much about each other. He studied his controls with eyes that did not see them.

The child would also be gone. He would pa.s.s Madeline in the corridor and she would see him only as her commanding officer. There would be no more conversations. He shared things with her that he could not share with anyone else. He felt suddenly empty.

But then he recalled his conversation with his father, and the sadness pa.s.sed. There was a future for him with Madeline and their child, but it would be dangerous to discuss it before this mission was over. He would have to keep his secrets, for the time being, even if they brought anguish to her. Revealing what he knew was far too dangerous to the Clan.

He turned to her. But she was already asleep. He touched her reddish-gold curls, moving them away from the soft skin of her face. She looked very feminine, very vulnerable. He wanted to protect her, to keep her close. It was the influence of the child, he was certain, that made him protective and possessive. But he had been protective of her almost from the start.

He frowned. He spent a great deal of time looking into her mind. On at least two occasions, he had influenced her dreams. Thinking about it made him uncomfortable. He s.h.i.+fted on the bed. She was his mate. He did not want to give her up. On the other hand, how were they to overcome the barriers? The most important was his true self, which she had never seen. He hated the idea of revealing himself to her, because she might, as many humans had, react with fear and distaste.

But even if he could overcome that obstacle, there were others, non-physical but impossible to circ.u.mvent. His aristocratic status did not allow bonding with a non-Cehn-Tahr. Her child could not inherit. This was beside the fact that they would both be s.p.a.ced, despite his heritage, if it were known to the Dectat that she carried his child. He averted his eyes and went back to his computations. Thinking about it did no good. His father seemed confident that these obstacles could be overcome. Dtimun was hopeful, but less certain. He glanced at her again and smiled. She was, he thought, quite unique. There must be a way to resolve the problems. He would find a way.

When Madeline awoke, Dtimun was already dressed and gone into the main part of town to talk to some shady characters he knew. Or so Sfilla related. He was looking for Chacon. They had to find him.

Madeline wondered if Lyceria had made it safely to the port, and if she and Chacon had connected with each other. She smiled, recalling Chacon's hopeless attraction to the Cehn-Tahr woman, and hers for him.

At least they had a chance of a long relations.h.i.+p, if they survived the war. An emperor's daughter would have choices denied to a poor soldier.

She ate breakfast and then took a skimmer into the port city, much to Sfilla's unease. The woman insisted on going with her. It was too dangerous a place for Madeline to go alone, she said. Madeline didn't remind her that she'd spent her life in dangerous places. It touched her that Sfilla was so concerned for her. The woman had placed a veil over her hair and face, to help disguise her. As if, Madeline thought, the encompa.s.sing robes didn't do enough of that already. Reddish gold-hair wasn't that rare, she argued, even Dacerian women had it in abundance. But she was overruled. She gave in with good grace. She was also advised to keep her eyes lowered. Green eyes were unknown in this part of the galaxy, even among Dacerians.

She paused at a shop that sold exotic silks, fascinated by a fabric that changed color with the temperature to which it was exposed. It sparkled with tiny energy particles that danced in its gossamer depths. It was a royal blue, flecked with gold, and totally exquisite. Madeline had never had a taste for expensive garments, but this fabric reminded her of the robes Dtimun had ordered woven for her the night they went to the Altair Emba.s.sy. She had felt uncomfortable at first, but then she felt proud at Dtimun's obvious delight in her manner of dress.

"If you like it," Sfilla told her, "we may purchase it. He-" meaning Dtimun "-gave me mems with which to buy anything that you desired."

"It's so beautiful," Madeline said, surprised at her own interest in fabric.

Sfilla smiled. "I can weave it into robes for you," she said. "I have my bag at the hotel, in which I carry my weaving tools."

"I would love to have it," she confessed.

Sfilla grinned. She turned to the shop owner, a Dacerian, and began the long process of bargaining for the best price. "This may take some time," she told Madeline. "There is a java shop across the way, there, if you wish to sit and sample Dacerian coffee while I am occupied here."

Coffee! Madeline's eyes twinkled as she saw the cafe, its patrons sipping from mugs. "I would love that,"

she confessed. The Cehn-Tahr did not drink coffee, so she'd missed her usual morning cups.

"I will find you there," Sfilla promised. "But stay in sight of me."

What an odd thing to say, Madeline thought, but she only smiled and nodded. As if she couldn't take care of herself! She was a combat veteran, while Sfilla cooked and kept the rooms in order. There was nothing wrong with that, but it amused Madeline that the other woman thought to protect her.

Chacon was furious. He pulled Lyceria into the back of a clothing shop whose owner he knew and closed the door.

"Why did you come here?" he demanded, glaring down at her from his slitted eyes.

"To see you," she faltered.

"Our people are at war," he raged at her. "You could be put to death by your own government as a traitor if it became known that you even had contact with me. We risk enough by sending flashes back and forth to one another."

"There is a plot to kidnap you," she began.

"There is always a plot of some sort," he interrupted.

"No! This one is serious," she insisted worriedly. "They dare not kill you because Ho Chan Ho would be immediately suspected. But they can sell you into slavery. You will simply disappear without a trace!"

He sobered.

"There was no one I could tell who could have helped," she said, answering the question she saw in his mind. "And I would only have endangered any other Cehn-Tahr whom I involved. I did attempt to flash the warning to you, but I was concerned it might be intercepted, because sometimes I am monitored. It made no difference...I was never able to get through to you. Apparently whoever monitors you has become familiar with the signatures of my flashes and denied you access to them. This was a last resort."

She looked down at his broad chest. "I could not bear to think of you in a mining colony...."

"Lyceria," he said in anguish. "This is impossible."

Her eyes looked up into his. They were a soft, opaque blue.

"Stop it," he muttered, and blocked her telepathic intrusion.

She blinked, surprised. "How can you do that?"

"I should not have to," he returned. "It is a breach of ethics to touch a mind without permission."

"Someone taught you," she guessed.

"Even among the Rojok there are telepaths," he said. "It has proven to be a valuable skill. Never in my career have I been more hunted. Ho Chan Ho wishes to return to his late uncle's policies," he added grimly. "I will never permit it, as long as I am alive." He stared into her eyes. "Who is behind this attempt, do you know?"

"No," she confessed miserably. "My spies say that it is someone you trust, but nothing more."

"You could have flashed me, through a scrambled port," he said, his voice a little less accusing.

She searched his dusky face silently, her expression one of bitterness and sorrow. "Of course I could have." She averted her eyes. "It has been a long time since you rescued me from Ahkmau."

"Not so very long."