Part 12 (1/2)
Soft dark blue anguish colored her great eyes. ”A lifetime.” She stared at his broad chest. ”You answer my flashes, but as though you dislike receiving them, and when you reply, it is with diplomatic formality.”
”To protect you, you little fool,” he shot back angrily, ”in case they were intercepted. You risk much.”
”I could not let them make a prisoner of you,” she said miserably.
His thin lips made a straight line. He was flattered. More than flattered. But he clamped down hard on his emotions. ”You must leave here at once.”
She laughed with faint self-contempt. ”That is no longer possible. My forged papers have been stolen. I am without proof of citizens.h.i.+p, although most would recognize me as Cehn-Tahr. But that will not give me access to a s.h.i.+p. Nor do I have funds. Those, too, were stolen.”
He looked at her as if she'd suddenly sprouted feathers. ”They followed you here.”
Her face lost every drop of color.
”If there is a plot,” he said softly, dangerously, ”it included your own capture. It was baited and sprung.”
He drew her farther into the shop and looked around worriedly. ”We must disguise you and hide you until I can think of some way to return you to your family.”
She closed her eyes and shuddered. ”I am sorry,” she whispered.
”Sorry!”
”You will die and I will be responsible, when I thought only to save you,” she moaned.
His broad chest rose and fell heavily as he registered her misery. Even now, she thought first of his safety, not her own. It was humbling. His big, six-fingered hands smoothed down the soft skin of her arms, tugging her closer. ”I was too harsh,” he confessed. ”I have no fear of battle or death, but your welfare is another matter. I could not bear seeing you harmed.”
”You could not?” Her great eyes opened into his, revealing secrets.
He groaned inwardly at the expression on her face. ”You are a child, chasing dreams and adventure. I am an old warrior, scarred and bloodied. I am not fit for such as you.”
”Old?”
He laughed bitterly. ”In my own culture, yes. You see, the Rojok also used the DNA enhancements that have destroyed the original genome of your own people. We did not dare risk letting our enemies, the Cehn-Tahr, develop greater physical abilities than we had. I am the age of your Commander Dtimun, more or less.” His eyes narrowed and he smiled. ”While I doubt that you have seen more than seventy summers.”
She cleared her throat.
One eye ridge lifted, for Rojoks had no eyebrows. ”Less?”
She averted her eyes.
”Sixty?”
She hesitated, and then nodded. His hands released her. It was worse than he had thought. She truly was a child in her own culture. Barely a woman.
”So now you will not want to speak to me again. You think I am too young.” Her lips tightened. Tears threatened. ”You do not...want me.”
His eyes closed. A wave of anguish washed over him. Want her! He would die to have her, and he could not admit it, not now. He felt a tingling in his mind and his eyes opened. Hers were pale blue, intense and...stunned.
He glared at her. ”Unethical,” he bit off.
She nodded. Then she walked right up against him and slid her arms around him, pressing close, holding on tight, with her soft cheek against the leather of his s.h.i.+rt. He hesitated, but only for an instant, before his arms closed around her fiercely. He recalled then his anguish when he found her at Ahkmau, racing across the galaxy to spare her the horrors of torture ordered by then-Emperor Mangus Lo. He had been too late. She had been subjected to subsonics and her mind had been in full retreat. He had risked his career, his life, to bring Dtimun to her, to coax her back from certain death. It had been the happiest moment he could remember, when her soft, elegant eyes opened and looked at him.
”I know what you feel,” she whispered at his chest. ”You may try to hide it, but strong emotions are more difficult to conceal. And I am a telepath.”
”You are never out of my thoughts,” he whispered back. ”But what you seek is not possible. Your father is Emperor of the Cehn-Tahr. I may command the Rojok fleet, but I am a soldier, a commoner. I have no royal status.”
”It will not matter. My father has more respect for courage than social status.”
He laughed shortly. ”Not when the future of his daughter is in question.”
”We can agree to disagree. At the moment, your safety is my greatest concern,” she said.
He drew back. ”And yours is mine. You should not have come.”
She smiled tenderly. ”I know.”
He touched her cheek lightly and then laid his forehead against hers, in the Cehn-Tahr greeting between family members ”When we leave the shop, you will go back to your hotel and remain there, safe, until I can find a way to deal with the loss of your doc.u.ments. Do you understand?”
”Yes.” She sighed and pressed close. The world could end, now, and she would not notice.
Madeline had ordered a tiny cup of the delicious imported Dacerian coffee and sipped it at the bar while she looked around at the traffic. Aliens on foot wandered from store to door. Some in one-person conveyances whizzed along the narrow streets at low speeds. Occasionally there was the sound of a flute as a robber was pursued by Benaski Port security forces. It was a busy, colorful marketplace. Madeline loved it.
When she finished her coffee, Sfilla was still arguing with the shopkeeper, her elegant hands waving in the air as she ridiculed the price he was charging for such a bit of mundane fabric. He, in turn, was arguing that his fabric was the finest sensor weave in the known galaxies and she was a peasant who knew nothing of quality merchandise.
Chuckling, Madeline got up and moved into the crowd. She paused at a shop of beautiful handmade veils, and was looking through them, when she heard a familiar voice.
Curious, she moved to the back of the shop. Now there were two voices, one male and thickly accented as he spoke Rojok, one feminine and soft, pleading. There was a long silence, and then the male walked out without looking anyplace except straight ahead.
She moved quickly past the shopkeeper, who was inviting an Altairian woman to try on one of the veils, and followed behind the Rojok, who was wearing a hooded robe. She recognized his carriage and his big booted feet more than his voice. It was Chacon!
He paused to speak to two Rojoks, dressed in the same black uniform as the one he wore under his robes.
He pushed back the hood and his long, straight blond hair fell to the middle of his back. He ignored pa.s.sersby as he gave what sounded like firm orders to them.
Madeline came up beside him and tugged at his arm.
He glared at her from slit eyes in a dusky face. ”Go away,” he said icily.
”I must speak with you,” she said, wary of eavesdroppers.
”I have nothing to say to a female of the streets,” he added, and turned away from her.
She kicked him in the leg.
He whirled, furious.