Chapter Seventeen
FROM SPACE Rystan looked as cold and forbidding as the Arctic region on Earth. With no oceans, just different hues of ice and snow blanketing rugged terrain, Kahn’s world appeared no more welcoming to Tessa than a hostile army about to attack. She might have been better prepared for the army. During the past week, Kahn had drilled her psi for battle, which hadn’t gone well. She’d learned three-dimensional tactics and how to raise her shields, but she couldn’t control the temperature of her suit or the null-grav elements.
With Kahn training her so hard, she’d been too exhausted to find the energy to tell him about her profitable business venture. Right now, she wanted to focus on winning the Challenge, not the personal stuff.
While Kahn had given her back her earrings, she still wasn’t sure if Kahn realized Dora was sentient. Tessa hadn’t brought up that little matter, either. Or the fact that she’d bought enough hardware to keep Dora with her on Rystan. Nor had she mentioned the knife that she’d purchased as a gift for Kahn, which she kept tucked away in her boot.
With the hyperlink communications equipment Tessa had bought on Zenon Prime and most of Dora’s hardware already dropped on Rian, Kahn’s village already possessed the new supply of food. Tessa stood beside her husband in the shuttle. Kahn piloted them down to the surface, and she spoke to Dora on privacy mode through her earrings.
“The planet looks cold enough to freeze my circuits,” Dora muttered.
“The Zenon techs guaranteed that your neurons are designed for deep space travel. You’ll be fine,” Tessa assured her friend. Aware that Dora had never before been physically separated from the space ship that she’d called home, her friend was bound to exhibit some anxiety over traveling in her backpack. Yet, Dora had insisted on accompanying Tessa.
“I’m glad you’re coming with me. Thanks.”
“It will be a fantastic adventure. With my new optics, I’ll see those muscular Rystani men performing all those extremely primitive and masculine things, like hunting and riding a masdon.”
Tessa expelled a breath, not the least bit eager to climb atop one of the huge gray beasts the Rystani used for transportation. “Why can’t we land right beside the village’s entrance like the supplies we dropped?”
“The supplies went down to Rian under cover of darkness, but in harsh terrain, night drops are too dangerous for fragile humans.”
“What about lights to guide us, or infrared night scopes? Or for that matter, it’s now daylight.”
“Kahn has other concerns as well. He believes the Endekians might be watching for live targets, and he intends to keep Rian’s underground entrances a secret.”
Tessa saw nothing enticing about this barren world. Living underground didn’t appeal to her at all. She liked open sky, watching the weather—no matter how blizzard-like the surface conditions. But mostly, she dreaded meeting the Rystani people, hated to be an outsider. Every time she’d changed foster homes, every time she’d had to start over at a new school, every time she met new people, she’d been the stranger. Never really accepted—except in the dojo by Master Chen—she’d been considered a freak by the other students because she’d been a woman studying a man’s fighting art. Once on Rystan she’d be the alien, and dread tied a knot in her stomach.
In minutes, they hovered over the only landing strip in site, barely large enough for their shuttle. No other spacecraft were visible. Unlike the multitude of ships on Zenon, Rystan appeared deserted. She saw no buildings. No trees. No animals. No crops. Just snow drifts and sheets of snow falling from an ugly gray sky.
Kahn landed on a rocky tarmac, the only expanse cleared of snow in sight. While he set the shuttle’s controls on automatic for the return to the mother ship, Tessa peered out the bendarwindow. Snow pelted the craft, some snowflakes as large as her fist.
“You will get used to the climate,” Kahn told her, reading her trepidation and heading through the hatch. Tessa walked a few steps behind her husband, keeping her eyes modestly downcast as Rystani custom required, careful to keep her dread from her expression.
Bitter cold whipped across her face as she stepped onto her new world. Arctic winds chilled her to the bone. Dressed in a long gown that reminded her of a shapeless black sack and heavy boots, she felt the frigid cold slice through her suit like a knife. She hadn’t exited four steps beyond the hatch before she began to shiver miserably and stomped her feet to keep warm.
She wanted to remind Kahn to adjust her suit’s heating elements, but before she could force words through her chattering teeth, an imposing delegation of four strapping men stepped out of the snow to greet them. Although none of the men looked directly at Tessa, she caught several curious glances.
After exchanging bear hugs with a man just as tall as himself, Kahn introduced her. “Tessa, meet Zical, my oldest friend.”
Zical had long, black hair that he wore tied in a queue at his neck. Vivid violet with sparkling red and blue highlights, his eyes reminded her of a rare alexandrite. With his impish dimples and lighthearted grin, he appeared delighted to meet her. However, no pleasant demeanor could conceal the sharp angles on his face, the hollows in his drawn cheeks that revealed he hadn’t eaten well for some time.
All the men looked dangerously thin. Kahn hadn’t exaggerated the conditions here, and she was glad they’d brought food with them. Since Dora had coached her on proper etiquette, Tessa didn’t speak or smile a greeting at the man, but bowed her head instead.
“This troublemaker is Etru,” Kahn continued the introductions as if the wind-chill factor wasn’t fifty below zero, and she wondered if Kahn had deliberately failed to adjust her suit in order to force her psi to heat her suit by herself. “Etru is one of Rian’s elders. He sits second seat on the ruling council.” Etru might have been an elder statesman, but she wouldn’t have known it from his muscular physique. Broad-shoulders and bronze skin seemed to define Rystani men, as did their flat bellies and lean limbs due to lack of fat in their diet. Etru’s hair was dark red, except at the temples where it was white. And his eyes were amber like Kahn’s but nowhere near as vivid.
“And last but not least are Mogan, our finest hunter, and his son, Xander.” Tessa saw the family resemblance immediately. While Mogan possessed the body of an adult and Xander had yet to grow into his large hands and feet, both possessed deep purple eyes, strong arrogant noses, and full lips.
All the men wore casual slacks and shirts, summer clothes, but the three tall Rystani men and the boy didn’t appear to notice the frigid climate. Obviously, they knew how to operate the temperature control in their suits. She didn’t.
If Kahn expected that after she turned cold enough, she’d make the necessary adjustment, she hoped he was correct. She was already so frozen that she couldn’t concentrate. Her teeth chattered, and her extremities went numb.
About to collapse from the cold permeating her bones, she whispered, “Kahn,” right before she stumbled.
Kahn caught her immediately, and she suspected he’d been watching her closely in case she failed. Peering at Tessa’s chattering lips, he frowned but began to heat her suit.
“What is wrong with her?” The red in Zical’s violet eyes darkened with concern.
Etru peered at her over Kahn’s shoulder. “Does our air disagree with her?”
“Is she pregnant?” Xander asked and received an elbow in his gut from his father for his too-personal comment.
“You dimwits.” Dora spoke up from Tessa’s pack. “She’s freezing to death. Do something.”
“I already have.” Kahn swore softly, holding her close and whispering into her ear, “I’d hoped your psi would take over the temperature control. I’ll have you warmed up soon.”
At Dora’s female voice, the three Rystani men and boy jerked to their feet and took up defensive positions around Tessa. She would have found their over-protectiveness funny, if she hadn’t been shaking so hard and if she hadn’t been so concerned over their reaction to Dora. Even half frozen, Tessa feared for her friend.
Kahn turned up the heat even higher in Tessa’s suit and blessed warmth made her toes and fingers tingle. But she couldn’t yet force words past her chattering teeth.
With a handsome frown, Kahn ceased looking outward for a menace to Tessa and her pack. “Dora?”
Oh no. Kahn knew Dora’s name?
“I came along for the adventure.”
Zical tapped Kahn in the shoulder. “That is the sexiest voice I’ve ever heard—”
“Thank you very much,” Dora replied. “You are a most handsome figure of a man.”
“Kahn.” Zical’s eyes twinkled. “Who am I talking to?”
“I’m Dora, Tessa’s friend. And if you don’t warm her up I’m going to lose her.”
Kahn rolled his eyes at the sky, an expression of Tessa’s that he mimicked too well. “I’m already taking care of my wife. Soon now, she’ll be back to her normal, feisty self.”
“You are supposed to anticipate these problems,” Dora chided.
“Hush,” Tessa ordered, wishing Dora hadn’t outted herself in front of Kahn’s friends.
Zical, Etru, and Mogan spun around looking for the woman to whom the voice belonged.
As Kahn kept Tessa against his body and the warmth penetrated to her, raising her core temperature, she almost grinned at the men still hovering around her as if Dora was a threat. She placed her arms around Kahn’s neck and spoke quietly to him. “Dora, I need to learn to regulate the suit’s temperature. Kahn wouldn’t have let me freeze to death.”
“If you ask me—”
“Nobody did,” Tessa argued.
“Kahn played that too close.”
“Dora, hush.”
Kahn gently squeezed Tessa. “You will work on temperature control after you warm up and have some rest.”
Tessa sighed, imagining a long, cold journey. “Couldn’t you just tell me how to operate the device?”
“Psi powers cannot be explained.”
“Maybe you just don’t know the words,” she countered.
As Zical listened to their bickering, he raised his eyebrows and snickered. “Could you two stop arguing and tell me where I will find the lady with the sexy voice?”
“In my backpack.” Tessa spoke without thinking, forgetting the Rystani custom to let her husband answer when he was there to speak for her. She’d also forgotten not to “touch” Kahn in front of his friends. But with her arms twined around his neck, she pressed her cheek against his chest and snuggled into his heat, glad he didn’t seem to mind at all.
He’d come far, her husband and the changes he had made for her pleased her and gave her hope for a real future together. A future with give and take, mutual respect, and sharing.
Etru took a quick step backward and glared at Tessa’s backpack. “What demons can put a woman inside a pack?”
“Did you bring us a Coolangerite?” Mogan asked with excitement.
From her experience on Zenon Prime, Tessa recalled the tiny men from the planet Coolanger and assumed that if the women were smaller than their men, they just might fit into her pack. While Zical and Xander seemed happy to meet another alien, Etru and Mogan’s faces tensed, their muscles bunched as if ready to fight.
Kahn seemed resigned to the addition of Dora to their traveling party. “Dora is a computer. She needs reprogramming. Or a good spanking.”
“Now that might be interesting,” Dora purred. “I wouldn’t mind a nice pink bottom like—”
“Dora! Shut up.” Tessa flushed. If Dora continued this conversation there was no telling what she might reveal.
Dora sniffled. “Compliance.”
The men looked at one another uneasily and then to Kahn who shrugged. “Dora has become one of the family. You’ll like her once you get to know her.”
IN AN ENDEKIAN spacecraft on the way to his homeworld, Jypeg sifted through reports. The Osarian partnership with the Earthling was doing substantial damage to their profits. With the homeworld over leveraged to support their expansion within the Federation, the Endekian economy was hemorrhaging—all due to that damnable female’s usurpation of their most lucrative contracts.
Jypeg looked up from his reports and sneered at Trask, his second in command. “Rystan’s inhabitable area is small. Why have we not found their base? Where are they mining the glow stones?”
Trask tried to justify his incompetence. “The Rystani may not have much technology, sir, but they are cunning. They use different routes and remain in groups too small for our orbiting spacecraft to track.”
“I don’t want excuses. I want results.”
“Sir, we are no better than our technology. The snowstorms are hindering—”
“Didn’t you hear me?”
Trask turned pale yellow. “What would you have me do, sir?”
“Find Kahn and his mate. I want them dead. Preferably her first, so he can watch her die.”
“That may not be possible. Rystani men are most protective of their women.”
Jypeg’s glowered at Trask. “How dare you lecture me.” When Jypeg pointed to the scar on his face, his underling cringed. “Every day I look at this face and recall the protectiveness of Rystani men.”
“I apologize, sir. How do you expect our men to find Kahn and the Earthling if our machines cannot see through their thick winter storms and if the radiation distorts our readings?”
“Send men down to the planet. Let them search—”
“But the weather—”
“If the Rystani can survive down there, so can we.”
ON THE SURFACE of Rystan, a fifth man walked out of the snow, leading a line of huge gray beasts with beady mocha-colored eyes. The masdons possessed thick muddy-gray hair to protect them from the cold, and reminded Tessa of elephants, but walked on six massive legs.
The man leading the beasts bent against the wind. Older than the others and thinner, Tessa believed he was the eldest of them all. Recalling the life expectancy of people who wore the suit, she figured he would live for at least another century or two. His ancient eyes crinkled, and the lines deepened as he glared at her arms around Kahn’s neck.
Tessa dropped her eyes, but she didn’t remove her arms. If Kahn didn’t want her touch, her husband would have to tell her so himself. She didn’t need more men telling her what to do. Her husband was enough, thank you very much.
“Nasser, this is my wife, Tessa,” Kahn introduced her, ignoring the man’s disapproving glare. “While I settle her into position, you all should partake of the meal inside the shuttle. Tessa prepared her favorite Earth foods of pizza and beer for you. Enjoy.”
The men departed, heading for the hatch. While she wasn’t hungry, she would have preferred to join them instead of climbing atop the masdon. She’d grown up in cities and had never even ridden a horse. This beast looked huge, and from Kahn’s arms and through the falling snow, she couldn’t even see the animal’s full height.
“Kahn, why don’t we use null-grav to travel?”
“The suits don’t have that kind of energy.”
However, Kahn used null-grav to float them to the animals’ back where an armored saddle awaited riders. Tessa only saw one seat and Kahn raised his leg to settle into stirrups. Then she parted her legs, and he floated her in front of him, fitted her feet into her own set of stirrups.
He pointed to a blanket and pillow. “Lie on your stomach. Place your head on the pillow.”
“Why can’t I sit up?”
“Because Rystani women don’t like heights. They travel lying down behind the armor where they are protected from Endekian sniper attacks.” He pointed to metal plating that would block her view.
“I won’t be able to see anything.”
“There’s nothing to see besides snow.”
“Are we likely to come under attack?” Cowering behind armor while unable to see the enemy or fire back struck her as cowardly.
“Recently, minor skirmishes have occurred all too frequently. We fear Endekian patrols are scouting ahead for the best way to make a major attack.”
Tessa laid down on the blanket and found her perch surprisingly comfortable. Warm and cozy and tucked in for the journey, she figured to catch up on some well-earned rest. In preparation for the Challenge, she and Kahn had spent an arduous week training. Her skills were improving but not fast enough. She wanted to learn to use null-grav and to control her suit’s temperature. Kahn had pushed her hard during their days and they’d spent the nights making love. A few hours of sleep would be welcome.
When Kahn pulled canvas over the top of the armor, she was in the dark, hidden from view, enclosed in a dark cocoon. Kahn removed the pack from her back and slung it into a side compartment. “You didn’t tell me about bringing Dora with us.”
“I was waiting for the right time. How long will it take to reach Rian?” she asked, trying to distract him from keeping a secret from him.
“A full day and night. And I’m glad you found a way to keep Dora with you.”
Tessa was about to tell him about her arrangement with Osari when his friends rejoined them. Then the masdon suddenly began to move in a gait that was surprisingly soothing. In no time the pleasant motion rocked her to sleep. Dreaming, Tessa floated on a sliver of time, unaware of the actual minutes or hours that passed but when she awakened, something was different.
She couldn’t feel Kahn’s psi, didn’t sense his presence. “Kahn, what happened?”
When he didn’t answer, the hair on her nape rose. “Kahn. Answer me.”
She listened intently but heard only the mocking keen of the wind, the slow thud of the masdon trudging onward and the flapping of canvas above her head. Reaching out with her psi, she stretched to her limit, searching for him. And met emptiness.
He was gone.
And one thing she knew for sure. He wouldn’t have left her alone—not voluntarily.