Текст книги "Heat"

Автор книги: R. Lee Smith

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 53 (всего у книги 54 страниц)

“Are you done?” Daria asked. She sounded like she was smiling.

“No. I am not an easy male to live with, by all accounts. And I do not know, even if you are permitted to remain with me, whether you will also be permitted to accompany me on tours off-world. The food will likely be not to your taste, the language will take some time in learning, the appliances will confound you, and the gods only know what you will think of the privy, and of course, you will certainly be under a great deal of pressure to provide our Human Studies scientists with information at every spare moment. If you come…” He sighed, rubbing at his temples in discouragement. “Now that I think it through, I cannot imagine why you would want to. No, Daria. Not even I am so selfish. I will leave.”

He turned around into Daria’s open palm striking against his chest and pinning him effectively in place. “Now are you done?” she asked severely.

“Yes,” he said. “Now I am.”

She took a handful of his jacket and pulled him down into her kiss.

Tagen closed his eyes, feeling all the world slip away. He savored every unending moment of this-her sweet breath, her firm lips, the flicking touch of her tongue, even the cat’s paw batting at his throat. His arms enfolded her easily, holding her against his heart.

At last, she drew back enough to let him see her smiling face. “Even a chance at a life with you is worth any risk,” she said. “You saved me, Tagen. Take me with you. Heck, even if they put me in the zoo, you can at least come visit me. There’s just one thing.”

She stepped back to arm’s length and looked down at the cat in her arms. Grendel purred, claws extending and sheathing in empty air, its long tail lashing happily.

Tagen blinked. “Ah,” he said. He clapped his hands once briskly and opened up the groundcar’s hatch. “I shall fetch out his food. You collect his scratch-sand.”

“Are you sure?”

He had to laugh a little. “Daria,” he said dryly. “I am already bringing home a human. Surely, if they can overlook that, no one would begrudge me a cat.”

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter Forty-One

There were few feelings in all the universe quite as nice as a homecoming. Nicer still was a homecoming to a new home, where the paint was still fresh and everything still clean and hopeful. But nicest of all was opening that door newly-marked with his name, breathing in the scent of a hot meal, and stopping over the twining body of an orange cat to take a beautiful female into one’s arms.

Daria, his Daria, let him hold her as the evening meal threatened to surpass sizzle and move on to singe. Her hair was soft as it passed beneath his stroking hand, her breath warm as it exchanged with his, and her teeth sharp as she nipped his chin when his kiss ended.

“I trust it went well?” she asked lightly.

“Very,” he said. “I have been once more promoted. I am now a third-rank officer. Congratulate me.”

She did, most pleasantly, nibbling all down his throat to his chest as she opened his jacket before biting him hard just above his heart. One last kiss to tease him, and then she was running down the hall to rescue their dinner.

“Vey Venekus wishes an appointment in the coming days,” he called, following her. “For medical testing. Dietary questions, discussion of anatomy, ailments to which humans are prone and the symptoms of same, undoubtedly some matters of reproduction.”

“Oh God help me. All right. Is he the one with the funny eye?”

“No. He is—”

“Oh, the other one. The little guy.”

“Yes.”

“Sure, okay. I like him.”

“Tell him so. It will please him.” Tagen passed a cluttered mass of moving crates, sparing it a smile of approval. Still in their ungainly heap. Good. “For as much as it matters, I believe he likes you as well.”

She laughed, blushing a little, trying to be comfortable with the idea. She stayed busy at the cooker, working it as effortlessly as if she’d had years of experience with the device rather than a mere three days. “So…so it’s all settled? For real? I can stay and everything’s cool? Fine, I mean?”

“Yes,” said Tagen, slipping an arm around her waist. He bent to breathe in dinner scents over her shoulder. “Everything is cool.”

*

“Out of the question!” the Magistrate snapped. And when Tagen did not reply or drop his gaze, she banged both hands down on the table and showed every fang she had. “I am shocked, shocked! That you would even ask!”

“You mistake me, Magistrate,” he said evenly. “I am not asking.”

It took a while for that to sink in all the way, and once it had, Magistrate Inarr’s face seemed to bloom outward with the force of her astonishment. It made her seem younger somehow. Tagen watched, waiting in silence for outrage to come flooding in to fill that oddly youthful face. In all fairness, he couldn’t say that the meeting had taken a bad turn. It had been this bad from the very start.

As he’d known it would be, from the very instant he’d walked into the conference room and seen the four people already seated at one end of the table. The High Magistrate who had started this whole miserable affair, of course, in the same white robes of office and wearing the same bitterly annoyed expression, and who had set the serious tone of this meeting by actually introducing herself. Beside her, a scientist. Not vey Venekus this time, oh no, it was none other than vey H’sivek Kosar, head of the Department of Xenobiological Sciences. And on her left, the only other male in the room, Tagen’s commanding officer from his previous tour of deep-space duty, Dukanath Cura. Across from him, seated at the Magistrate’s right hand, Fleet Admiral and commander of the Jotan Interplanetary Allied Forces, taxan Chani Sta’al. The only person who could have made the moment more intimidating would be Jota Prime’s Governor-in-Chief, Rangan Etat, at the table.

No, meetings like that don’t have good starts. And they rarely work their way around to good endings. Tagen was prepared. He’d made a civil salute to all and taken a chair and then confined himself to trying to appear confident while keeping his temper in check.

“You took her home?” were Magistrate Inarr’s very first words, and so the debriefing was off and running.

“Her quarantine had ended,” he’d said calmly. “Vey Venekus pronounced her fit and in no danger of contracting or spreading communicable disease.”

“That’s hardly the issue!”

“I’m quite sure I filed the proper custody release forms.”

“Yes, but you were supposed to take her to the preserves! Not home, for the gods’ sakes! Really, Pahnee, you need to work on this tendency of yours to overcompensate for failures. Losing one human does not entitle you to keep another! Now sign out a hopper and put her where she belongs!”

“Respectfully, I must refuse.”

“You can’t possibly keep her!”

“I can.”

And from there, the argument had been slowly building—a barrage of mingled disbelief and exasperation from the Magistrate, countered by Tagen’s brief and extremely polite replies—until this explosion and now, this stunned silence.

“You…” Magistrate Inarr’s eyes lost their rings of white as she composed herself. She seated herself with ominous deliberation, her hands still in fists on the table. “You had best go carefully, sek’ta Pahnee. You are risking a great career over a human you had no business bringing home in the first place.”

“Her name is Daria Cleavon,” Tagen replied, still without allowing temper to enter his voice or his face. “And were it not for her aid, make no mistake, Kanetus E’Var would not be in custody now.”

Commander Cura reached out and thumbed at the media panel sunk in the center of the table and an image of Daria suddenly sprang into life in mid-air, flickering as it lazily revolved. She was still wearing her medic-whites; it must have been taken during her quarantine. Every seven seconds, she turned and her mouth moved silently, shaping N’Glish words, ‘Do I just stand here?’ before facing front again.

The Magistrate broke the silence first, snarling as she threw herself roughly back in her chair. “Gods,” she grumbled.

“Pretty little thing,” Cura remarked. His eyes cut to Tagen, cool and deeply assessing.

Tagen stared back, his own narrowing.

“She is, isn’t she?” Admiral Sta’al leaned forward, takking her claws on the tabletop as she studied Daria’s imagine. She was smiling slightly. “Clever, too. I made it a point to have a look at her while she was still contained. We spoke half the day.”

Tagen shifted in his chair. Daria had said nothing of this.

“She struck me as frightened,” Sta’al continued. “Very frightened. But well-mannered, for all that. Friendly. Quite disarming in her own way.”

“What—” the Magistrate began tightly.

“Do you know,” Sta’al interrupted, not taking her eyes from the image of Daria, “she had virtually drained her financial resources in the pursuit of the prisoner? Imagine that, if you will. An alien invades your home, takes you prisoner, conscripts you to be his pilot and guide in the search of a dangerous criminal and further requires that you spend every last crona to your credit.” The Admiral leaned back at last, folding her arms across her chest and looking thoughtful for a short time. “I wouldn’t do that,” she remarked. “Not without a gun to my head and perhaps not even then.”

Silence.

Magistrate Inarr flexed her claws again, glaring at Tagen. Finally, she said, “I am struggling to understand why you would deliberately endanger your mission by approaching a human in the first place. What egregious lack of—”

“The humans have groundcars,” Tagen said mildly, and only Admiral Sta’al did not recoil at once. “They have broadcast media. They have sky cars. They have orbiting weapons arrays. They have sent probes to other worlds in their system. Please believe me when I say they are fifty years or less from encountering our Gate with a manned transport of their own. That is the Earth you sent me to.”

He had their full attention now.

“Kanetus E’Var knew this Earth. He landed, he took possession of a human and a groundcar and he was gone. I was on foot. I was made to believe that I would meet primitives with hand-held blades. I met this.” He took E’Var’s gun from his jacket and thumped it hard on the table. “So if there was an egregious lack of anything, with respect, Magistrate, it was with preparative intelligence. Yes, I invaded Daria Cleavon’s home. She, in turn, instructed me in N’Glish and used every resource at her disposal to locate my prisoner, an act that cost her everything she owned.”

“That…is regrettable,” the Magistrate began with a sidelong glance at Sta’al. “And I’m sure her actions are laudable—”

“I am not here to be placated,” Tagen said flatly. “I am not here to ask allowance. I am here to state without apology what I have done and what more I mean to do. I robbed Daria Cleavon of her home. I robbed her of any hope of resuming her life. And so I brought her here and here, I have told her that she will be free to make herself a new one.”

“It is against the law!” Inarr bit every word off a little louder than the one before and finished by clapping her hands in her judiciously-short hair and snarling at the ceiling. “Use your head, you fool male! What hope have we of maintaining order when our own officers are allowed to keep slaves?”

“She is not a slave.”

“The appearance of impropriety is every bit as important as impropriety itself,” Commander Cura answered. He kept his voice low and his posture relaxed, but his eyes never lost that penetrating stare. “The message you are sending is that the officers of the Fleet are above the law they enforce.”

“That is unfortunate,” Tagen replied. “Because the message I should be sending is that an alliance must be found between our races before we meet again. Daria has agreed to act as translator and liaison to the preserves. With her help, the humans we’ve recovered may become a true colony. Self-sufficient. A resource of outstanding potential. Think. There are a quarter million of them and, at this moment in time, they are not happy with us.”

Cura leaned back and looked thoughtful. Admiral Sta’al looked at her hand on the table, her lips curved in a half-smile.

“Law, all law, prohibits the keeping of humans.” Magistrate Inarr stood and paced the room, fighting for calm and projecting only her blatant impatience and fury. “If this one is as intelligent and influential as you claim, let her work her will from the preserves.”

“Very well.” Tagen unfolded his hands, removed his jacket and his gunbelt and laid them on the table before three pairs of disbelieving eyes (Admiral Sta’al’s small smile broadened). “I resign my commission. I will go to the preserves with her. I gave my word that I would not abandon her and I mean not to.”

The Magistrate cast her eyes skyward, palms upturned in mute supplication for just an instant before slamming them down again on the table. “Very dramatic, sek’ta Pahnee, now sit down and be serious.”

“I am not, as my record surely shows, prone to frivolity.”

Commander Cura leaned forward. “Think what you do, Pahnee,” he urged, frowning. “The preserves are hostile toward Jotan and we will not protect you.”

“I will take my chances, but I will not break my word to the human who risked and ruined her life to aid me.”

“For the gods’ sakes!” Inarr groaned. “You don’t owe that animal a thing!”

A following silence gave those words weight and ugliness until even the Magistrate looked uncomfortable.

“You make me ashamed of my race,” Tagen said at last.

“How dare you speak to me—”

“This is not about you. I am not asking. I am telling. Daria Cleavon stays with me, one way or another. And that is all. If—and believe me, only if—she is allowed her freedom will she offer her services as mediator to other humans. And if she is sent to the preserves, I will go with her and you will get nothing.”

*

“Well, I’m glad it went so well,” Daria said, stirring at the sauce that simmered in the cooker. “I guess it’s okay now to say I was worried.”

“Mm.”

“I’m guessing you talked about everything…” Daria glanced around at him, her brows now pinched with that look of hopeful concern. “Has anyone seen Raven?”

*

“There’s been no report whatever of this second human who escaped from the docking bay on your arrival.” Commander Cura studied his personal media-card a moment longer, his lip curling to expose the tip of one fang, and then tossed the tablet on the table with a clatter. “You’d think a human running loose in the Fleet’s own dock would draw someone’s eye.”

“You’d think,” Admiral Sta’al murmured.

“I think of it as a panicked flight rather than an escape,” Tagen remarked.

“Semantics.” Magistrate Inarr was pacing again.

“Hardly.” Tagen kept his voice calm, but there was a simmering heat in his chest working its way up through his body to his mouth. “Escape implies a wrongdoing on her part. She fled at the thought of being imprisoned in a preserve.”

“Then she should have stayed on Earth.”

“Where she would have been killed for E’Var’s crimes,” Tagen countered.

“I’m sure the humans know best how to manage their people,” the Magistrate said dismissively. “She would have nothing to fear if she hadn’t—”

“If she had not what?” Despite every shred of his will, anger found his words at last. “He abducted her. He raped her repeatedly while in Heat. He butchered over a hundred of her kind right before her eyes. He beat her. He branded her. He mutilated her. And you wonder that she did not fight him?”

The others in the room were silent and even Inarr seemed taken aback, although the High Magistrate was still the first to respond.

“Surely,” she said, staring at him in shock, “Surely you do not suggest we prosecute these events as crimes?”

He had intended no such thing actually, but the unabashed astonishment it signified infuriated him past the bound of self-control.

“And what do you intend to prosecute him for?” he demanded. “Evasion of law? Unauthorized use of a Gate? Theft of Fleet property?”

“Easy,” murmured Commander Cura.

“I have spent thirty-five days in pursuit of this man! Thirty-five days on Earth in the worst of its Heat-season watching E’Var slaughter ten and twenty and thirty humans at a single hunt and you sit here in your clean white robes and ridicule me for calling it a crime?”

It was quite possible that High Magistrate Inarr had never had a male shout at her in her entire life. She didn’t seem to know how to respond. She opened her mouth, closed it, and cautiously sat down. “I don’t deny the savagery of his actions,” she said in her most neutral tones. “But my jurisdiction is restricted to crimes perpetuated in our own corner of the galaxy. However unfair it may seem to you, Earth must police itself.”

“Bureaucrat!” Tagen spat. He made the word a curse. “For five hundred years, Jota has known of the existence of humans in the universe. For five hundred years, the human homeworld has been quarantined and laws affected to prohibit contact. And for that full five hundred years, Jotan criminals have trafficked in human lives! Don’t you dare dismiss that suffering with ‘Earth must police itself!’ We are responsible for these outrages and now we are responsible for those abandoned in our corner of the galaxy and how are we proving our responsibility? We gather them up when we stumble on them and drop them on a moon to leave them to their own devices! The human Raven chose to run blindly into an alien world rather than face that fate!”

Magistrate Inarr just stared at him, her lips slightly parted and her eyes showing the whites all around. And, unless Tagen was phenomenally mistaken, she was also exuding the faintest tinge of musk. He glared at her, his chest heaving as he fought to control his breath and his temper, and sat down again.

“That isn’t fair,” vey Kosar said after a moment. “We offer services. They refuse them.”

“Why should they trust us?” Tagen asked. “When has any effort, any attempt whatever been made to explain their circumstances or apologize for them? None. We take them from the mines or the breeding farms or the slave ship, we pack them into a transport, and we dispose of them like garbage.”

“Whereas you would have us adopt them all as pets,” Magistrate Inarr interjected. She combed her claws through her hair several times, avoiding his direct stare. “Which is so much more preferable to keeping slaves.”

“What I would have you do,” Tagen said, “is admit a responsibility to the liberty of and justice for the humans who have been abducted by Jotan, who are enslaved by Jotan, and who are slaughtered by Jotan. An honest communication between our races is essential to that goal.”

“Agreed!” Magistrate Inarr turned her palms upward in a gesture of exasperated conciliation. “The defining word being ‘honest’. You can trust no human, none of them! They have all been slaves, they are every one of them duplicitous and vengeful.”

“Which brings us round to Daria Cleavon,” Admiral Sta’al said mildly. She turned and eyed Tagen, takking her claws on the tabletop. “Who has volunteered to come to Jota as ambassador to her captive people, provided she is not herself confined.”

“She has made no such provision,” Tagen said. “I make it for her. Daria trusts fully to your judgment.”

“And you do not?” Inarr countered.

Admiral Sta’al and Commander Cura exchanged a glance, and then both looked Tagen’s way with identical expression of voyeuristic unsurprise, waiting for his answer.

“I know our policies,” Tagen replied carefully. “And I know it is far easier to turn a blind eye to dissent if the revolution is already contained on an isolated moon without any chance of decampment. Turning a blind eye is what we Jotan do best when it comes to humans, after all, and those in the preserves are even easier to ignore. But I would make a point here about policies, Magistrate. Not everyone who disregards them is as blatant a criminal as Kanetus E’Var.”

“Clearly,” she said, giving first the floating image of Daria, and then him an allusive stare.

He chose to overlook that. Instead, “Where is the human Raven?” he asked quietly. He glared around the table, meeting and holding each eye until it dropped from his and ending with Sta’al, who merely gazed back at him. “She vanished. Into the Fleet’s own docking bay, she utterly disappeared. Which can only mean that a Fleet officer took her, did not report her and is now either holding her for his own purposes or has sold her to a slaver. And do not forget the Vahst which Raven carried with her, and which also has disappeared into the hands of whoever took her. An officer! A brother!”

Admiral Sta’al nodded. That and the perfect stillness of the others at the table was his only answer. Tagen resumed his seat. “Clearly, our laws are not as effective as we would like to pretend,” he said. “And since they must change anyway, they may as well change to include humans as beings deserving of our respect. We show Kevrian more civility than humans and we were at war with them in my father’s time!”

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.