Late afternoon the fourth day, Orin and Lanimer left Nalina asleep in the pump house while they went to forage for fresh fruits and vegetables in the fields. They found enough food for several meals---some starchy tubers, nuts, and a kind of juicy, mango-like fruit from some cultivated bushes on the far side of the agricomplex.
When they returned to the bunker, Lanimer stopped Orin as he was about to go inside to check Nalina.
"Don't go in, Orin" Lanimer whispered urgently, tugging at his shirt sleeve. "She found your laser, and she's waiting to shoot you when you open the door. She thinks you came to kill us."
Orin hunkered down to the boy's level and looked the precocious little fellow in the eyes. "Do you believe that?"
"No! I told you I didn't before," Lanimer scolded.
"Then will you help me get the laser from Nalina, so she won't hurt me with it? I like her, and I don't want to hurt her." As he said it, Orin knew it was true. He did like her. He more than liked her; he wanted her.
Lanimer nodded, and Orin told him his plan.
Orin crept toward the opening from the side and stood with his body flattened against the warm concrete beside the metal pump house door. Then he signaled Lanimer. The child screamed to Nalina for help. Without thinking, she lunged through the opening. Orin seized her around the waist and snatched the laser from her hand as he caught her.
With a terror-stricken shriek, Nalina clawed and kicked him desperately, trying to get away. Orin was nearly sixty kilos heavier and at least twenty centimeters taller than she. It took little effort for him to quickly end her attack. Her screams died, and she sagged against him, trembling with fear. She expected him to do something terrible to her at any moment. But he didn't. Instead, he held her gently but securely in his arms and turned her around to face him. Nalina shrank back from him, cursing his Tregan heritage. She raised her dark eyes to his, cringing, waiting for the blows she was sure would come after her attempt to kill him. Tears glistened on her thick, dark lashes.
Through gentle hazel eyes, Orin stared into her nearly black ones. "Don't look at me like that!" he flared in Aledan and gave her a little shake. "I'm not like them! I won't hurt you. Believe me; I'm trying to help you."
She knit her brows and cocked her head to one side, uncomprehending, suspicious of his deceivingly gentle tone. Lanimer's family had all spoken Zevian to her, and she never bothered to learn more than a few words of Aledan.
Orin arched a tawny brow and made a wry face, sighing as he realized she didn't understand. He looked down at her for a moment, holding her firmly with one hand, and then he pressed his other palm to her forehead. Her brow was cool for the first time since he had found her. He nodded in satisfaction and smoothed her tangled hair almost tenderly with his massive hand.
Lanimer, who had been watching the exchange, came to his aid once again. Chattering in Zevian for a moment, he fell silent. It then occurred to Orin that the little boy was talking to his nurse by sending images directly into her mind through telepathy. Though still wary, Nalina looked up at Orin again, through different eyes so to speak. Seeing the change in her attitude, Orin loosened his grip on her arm and gently coaxed her to come inside the bunker out of the hot sun.
Sitting on the cool floor, they shared a simple meal in silence with Nalina still watching Orin through suspicious eyes. While Lanimer gathered up the left-over food scraps and carried them outside, Orin rummaged through his pack until he found a plastic hairbrush at the bottom.
Nalina watched nervously as he came over and sat down beside her. Orin gave her a sad smile as she cringed from him. Slowly, he reached toward her with a clean, stiff bristled brush and started to brush her tangled ebony hair, murmuring in Aledan, hoping to soothe her. It took quite a while to straighten out her matted hair, but he didn't mind. He had no place to go and nothing more pressing to occupy his time.
Finally, Orin leaned back to survey his work with a grin. Nalina's hair was a lot longer than it had looked before he'd brushed out the tangles. It hung thick and straight just past her shoulders.
"Beautiful," Orin told her.
She squinted curiously, not understanding, and turned to Lanimer for interpretation.
"He thinks you're pretty," Lanimer giggled.
Nalina flashed Orin a fearful look and searched his face anxiously.
Without even being a mind reader, he knew what she was probably thinking. "Damn!” he swore under his breath and shook his head. "No, Nalina," he chided gently. He patted her shoulder reassuringly, got up and walked out of the bunker, heading toward the desert.
What could I expect her to think? He asked himself as he sauntered aimlessly in long easy strides toward the edge of the lush greenery. He was a Tregan in her eyes, however, misplaced. The Tregan Empire controlled a rogue dominion that was hated everywhere in the seven sectors of the Galaxy under Federation control.
On Zevus Mar as on a hundred other worlds they’d raided, the Tregan soldiers had raped and murdered more than one woman since they landed. Orin shuddered at the memory of what he had seen Damon do to a Zevian girl in Elran before he finally killed her.
Orin stopped walking at the edge of the complex where the desert began. He kicked a rock with his heavy boot and looked out across the barren wasteland. Shimmering heat waves rose from the hot sand.
No, he didn't blame Nalina for being scared of a big, hulking brute like him. If his looks and size weren't enough to frighten her, his shirt and trousers still carried the Tregan insignia and rank patches. Viciously, Orin reached for the patch on his right sleeve and tore it off. He tore all the other Tregan markings from his uniform as well. Dropping them into a small pile on the sand, he aimed his laser and turned them all to ashes.
Orin Hart was not and would never be a Tregan Raider again. He was his own man once more, and he had just discovered something really worth fighting for...