Aa-ryal was a no holds barred barrage to Megan’s senses.  It didn’t help that she spoke none of the languages or had the history and recognition that her sister had when she looked out at the foreign landscape and unfamiliar beings. 

The gadget that played around in your head and taught you all that you needed to know quickly and with no study required had caused a reaction in Sara that the others feared would affect Megan’s full human physiology adversely.  Since she did not want to have her brains scrambled she had no problem waiting until she could be scanned on Aa-ryal and the “teacher” updated before using it.

Megan had been thinking of skipping the whole experience entirely after the discussion, until they left the ship and she realized just what she was up against in this new adventure she was on.  It wasn’t just the hundreds of languages floating back and forth across the space port that she was ignorant about.  Once they hit the open-air market on leaving the landing platform she had no clue what any of the goods being sold were.  Nor could she interpret the shouts that came their way as the five hardened Tellox warriors, and two wide eyed females entered the market.  If she was ever parted from her sister and the warriors, for whatever reason, she would be in serious trouble. 

Megan sighed, looking around and wanting to shake her head at the melee around them.  She was going to have to take her chances with the brain scrambler. 

Her clothes were nearly identical to what Sara was wearing.  At least her simple brown slacks and shiny metallic tunic with the wide crystal belt did not stand out as alien.  And unlike some of the females flitting about the place she was not dressed in fluttering scarves like an "I dream of Jeannie" reject.  Though when she mentioned that to her sister, Sara did not laugh so much as bare her teeth and glare at Creeg.

There were so many colors, textures and strange things to see around her, and most of that was walking on two legs.  Though some had more, and a few seemed to be flying about with real functioning and feathered wings on their backs.  Sara had warned her repeatedly that she would see strange things, but since she had only been to Tellos herself she was not doing much better than Megan herself taking in the plethora of different around them.

The market itself was not so strange, it made Megan think of an Indian open-air market she had seen on some movie or another.  Though the stalls were not made of anything she recognized as wood, but rather looked like someone had taken small metal pods and cracked them open to spill out all the colorful and strange innards to the open air.  The merchants behind standing with their wares were as exotic to her as the wares themselves and even the air smelled of strange unfamiliar spices.  It was a lot to take in, so it was no wonder that she did not sense the increase of tension in the warriors surrounding them until she noticed Creeg pull his mate a little closer to his side.  He saw something in the crowd that displeased him because a feral look flashed in his eyes and he gripped his sword with the hand not holding onto Sara.  Megan tried to see what he was looking at so unhappily when she began to feel the tension around them.  Before she could try to figure out what was happening Sara growled a little, capturing Megan’s skittering attention.

“Stay close,” Sara said, her hand taking hers and pulling her closer to the side that was not plastered to her mate.  Creeg did not look any happier than the any of the other Tellox at the attention they were garnering.  “Creeg thinks there might be trouble.”

“Someone would have to be suicidal,” Megan whispered on a low voice.  Considering the way their Tellox escort had their hands on their weapons and periodically bared their teeth in warning she did not think she was exaggerating.  Well, Creeg did a lot of teeth baring.  But they all five had their own special way of warning off perceived threats.  Look too long at either of the females the hulking Tellox surrounded like a wall of solid muscle bristling with weapons and one of them would show it to you.  Whether it was with a scary smile or a growl they got their point across.  Morax she saw never changed expression.  All he had to do was look at a man in that cold way he had and the too curious would scamper away, posthaste.

“Most will steer clear of even one Tellox warrior, let alone this crew,” Sara whispered back.  “But apparently beautiful and exotic females such as ourselves,” (Megan could practically feel Sara rolling her eyes at the description she was obviously repeating from her mate.)   But she finished with a grim tone and a baring of her own teeth that expressed just what she thought of the subject under discussion.   “would sell for an obscene amount of money to the pleasure slavers.”

That had Megan stumbling a bit at her words.  That sounded all kinds of bad.  “Pleasure slavers?”

Sara grimaced unhappily, flicking a look up at her mate’s hard face before pulling her sister even closer to her side.  “It seems to be a toss-up as to whether a female Tellox or a human would be the more exotic prize.”  Sara looked around at all the varied aliens around them.  Most of whom were either trying to hide they were watching the new arrivals, or blatantly staring.  Megan followed her eyes and swallowed hard, meeting more than one curious, or even worse, avaricious look directed at herself and her sister.  She had been so busy taking in all the strangeness that was Aa-ryal that she had failed to notice the curious eyes directed at her. 

Right, she thought.  Here I am the alien.  Talk about feeling like a stranger in a strange land.  The fact that she was considered exotic here was as foreign a concept as the merchant selling scarves that had multiple tentacles waving them around.  Some deep male voice from the crowd shouted something in a language she could not understand.  She felt the warrior’s attention sharpen like a blade even further.  Unfortunately, since she had no idea what the shout had been about she had no idea how worried she needed to be.  It had sounded like a question, but there had been a belligerence in the tone that made her think whoever he was, spouted more than curiosity.

“What did he say?” she asked her sister in the same whispered tone they had been sharing.

“Never mind,” her sisters reply was benign enough but for the grim tone that said it was bad. 

Yes, definitely taking the chance with the brain scrambler.

Another shout from the growing crowd of curious and Megan jumped when Logaan stepped away from their group and pulled his sword, saying something in the language that Megan did not speak.  This time she knew what he was saying because no one could miss the bare sword or the threat inherent in his stance and tone.  His eyes shown like cold fire as he brushed it over the onlookers until one after the other, they backed away, or in some cases stumbled quickly out of area. 

A few looked up to the challenge but another short speech and a hard smile from Logaan and not even the most dangerous looking of their onlookers followed them with anything but their eyes. 

Leaving behind the bulk of the market stalls and the crowds that shuffled among them was a relief.

But finding that the specialist who would work on the brain scrambler did this out of what looked like a dirty tin can was not reassuring. 

Not that Megan had time to do anything about her concerns before a strange conversation between and Benak and a blue skinned alien began. 

The blue skinned male had red eyes that fixed on her with a now familiar avarice, no hair that she could see on his nearly translucent skin stood about four feet tall and wore only what looked like a leather loin cloth and a whole bunch of piercings. 

Even with the language barrier and the distraction of yet another alien being before her Megan figured they were haggling over price.  Benak looked particularly sinister with that cold look in his amber eyes and a sneer of derision on his lips. 

Forgetting for a moment the strange walk through an alien bazaar and how much she needed to learn, Megan was once again ready to call the whole thing off by the time Benak and the blue alien reached a consensus. 

All the men, and Sara, were now looking less that pleased with the little alien so she had to assume they did not like the conversation, but they had reached a consensus. Or at least she assumed they did because they finally stopped talking and did something on a narrow tablet-like device and everyone stepped away and the little male came toward her. 

Well, everyone stepped away but Morax, who stepped closer to her back, his eyes on the little alien waving his device in the air.  Whatever he said had Morax curling his upper lip and growling at the man.  The alien spouted something back looking harried.  Morax answered, while Megan's eyes went back and forth from one alien to another, the little alien’s harried look went straight to fear before he babbled incessantly for a full minute.  He did this looking at Benak but pointing a long narrow finger at Morax.

It was Creeg who said something short and hard making the man jump forward and run what looked like a mini light saber over Megan.  Morax took a single insignificant step back and let the cold watchful look in his Spanish gold eyes speak for him.

“You know you have to give him more space than that for his reading,” Creeg said in a growl, this time speaking in English, for her sake, Megan assumed. 

Morax gave the little alien one last hard look and then stepped back enough to allow him to circle Megan. 

She tried to relax under the beam of light, but the strange heat that coursed through her everywhere it waved had her feeling uncomfortable, not because it hurt, but because she had no idea what it was doing to her.

She saw Sara elbow her mate.  Creeg grunted but then said shortly, again in English.  “It’s just a reading.  The little programmer works in tech not flesh.  He will use the sensor reading he takes to recalibrate the Teacher.  You have nothing to fear.  The Morai might smell like a black bog, but he knows what he is about.”

Megan looked over the little man’s head while he passed around her a third time, she looked from Creeg to Morax and back again.  “Then why does Morax look like he wants to rip his arms off?”

A glint of humor lit Creeg’s eyes and he smiled with a touch of predator peeking through.

Logaan snorted.  “Probably because he does want to rip his arms off.  The tricky Morai tried to tell us that he would have to perform the scans with you naked, and with privacy.  Morax convinced him he could do it just fine this way.”

Megan could not help the shudder that flowed over her at the disturbing interpretation of the conversation.  She suddenly wished Morax had not backed up quite so far.  But besides a quick warning look the little tech shot her, he did not interact with her. 

A few minutes later and his light-saber thingy flashed at him and he pulled it back, his hand going out flat to Benak, who slapped a small cylinder in his outstretched palm with what Megan assumed was another warning considering the look in Benak’s eyes when he said it.

Morax returned to her back before the exchange had even happened and Megan was grateful for it.  Especially when a moment later and the alien returned and slapped something long and black across her forehead making her head fly back to crash against Morax’s chest at the forceful and unexpected shove.  She heard Morax snap out something but she didn’t understand him.  She didn’t understand anything right then, but pain.

***

Morax caught her before she could hit the ground.  Around him he could hear Tellox reacting with snarls and the clearing of steel from leather.  They did not need their swords to face this adversary but the threat of them was implicit.  Sara was at Megan’s side almost as fast as he was. Taking her hand in hers with a worried look in her nearly feral gaze.

“It’s not him,” she called back to the others not bothering to look away from her sister.  “He is as confused as he is scared.”  She probably saved the Morai’s life with those thrown words, but she clearly was not focused on anything but her sister. Once he knew it was not intentional foul play Morax ceased caring what happened around them.  The little bird was bone white and still.  She was breathing but her lips were tight and her face seemed locked in silent agony.

“Can you find her thoughts?” he asked Sara, brushing back the hair that fell into Megan’s face.  Her skin he noted, was as soft as he remembered it, but nowhere near as warm.

Sara had been working on her control since her mating had amplified the gifts she had been born with into something truly frightening.  Where before she had had feelings and instincts about situations and people, and could usually empathize with the people around her, now she had a hard time not hearing every thought within a short distance from her.  But she had worked on it until she could shut out most of that, otherwise walking among so many in the Bazaar would have been intolerable for her.  Now she just got random images, thoughts, and an occasion headache.  Asking her to lower the barriers she had so painfully and carefully erected, and in such a highly emotional scene as this, was…problematic.

Sara did not need him to ask it, she answered him as soon as the words had left her mouth, telling him she had probably done it as soon as her sister fell.  “She is there.  Her body is experiencing a lot of pain, but I think her mind protected her by shutting down before she could be harmed.”  One breath and then another escaped Sara’s lips in obvious relief.  Then she looked at Morax.  “Why would her body be reacting at all?  I mean it happened to me, but I thought it was because it was not calibrated for a human, or in my case, a human Tellox hybrid by that time.”

They both turned to look at the Morai who stood with his arms crossed belligerently surrounded by the full weight of his brother’s attention.  Morax stood up at the same time he pulled Megan up with him, clasped securely in his arms.  Her sister moved with him as if she had felt his intentions before he moved.  She probably had.

“You calibrated it for her,” Sara said, eyes narrowed on the little tech and speaking in Standard.  “I know you did, so why would her body react so strongly when it was calibrated?”

“I don’t know,” he finally said in the same language when more than one growl punctuated the silence.  “The woman’s brain is like nothing I have ever mapped before, but the scan should have mapped the differences and compensated for it.”

Sara blew out a hard breath and narrowed her eyes at the little man, anger flashing fast and hard through her glowing green eyes.  “You think she is too primitive a species for the “Teacher” to work?”

The Morai sputtered and started to demure but she slashed her hands down between them making him shut his mouth with a snap of fangs and freeze.

“I don’t actually care what your opinion is, what I want to know,” she said slowly and with menace.  “Is whether my sister will wake up with her mind intact.”

“I do not believe she could be permanently damaged, but it seemed that certain pathways had to be opened for the teacher to work.  It should do nothing more than cause her brain to work more effectively.  That is probably what she is reacting to, Genius is not always painless, but if you want a definitive answer you could take her to a healer.  I do not deal with the biological.  Just the tech.”  By the time he had finished talking the arrogance had returned to his tone and stance, at least until something drew his attention and he looked into Morax’s ice cold gaze.  Then it seemed to flake right off him as he withered beneath that icy burn.

“You better hope she doesn’t need a healer,” Benak growled out from the other side of him.  “I don’t think any of us will be happy if your machine did that much damage.  Intentional or not.”

No. Morax thought.  I would not be happy at all. 

“The pain is lessening,” Sara suddenly said sounding relieved, her eyes going to Megan’s in his arms.  Suddenly Morax could breathe a little easier without the rage pressing quite so hard on him.  But they took her to the healer just in case, since none of them wanted to take the chance. 

From what the healer said after a long in-depth scan of his Earth female, her mind and body were adjusting to what they perceived as an attack, she would wake up when she was ready to do so.  Taking the healer's word for it grudgingly, they returned to the ship.  They had even less patience for the curious on the way off the planet and their growls and snarls cleared a way for them through the bazaar quicker than bared steel had.  Still, everyone was paranoid enough after what had transpired that they were on guard for an attack that never happened.

Megan slept through all of it cradled high in Morax’s arms.  No one even looked like they would offer to take her from him.  It was just as well, he would not have given her up if they had.