Clara deliberately took her time setting up a table, keeping the closed light lit as she thought about what Renall had told her. How had he done it? How had he gone from being a slave in a mine to being the incredibly wealthy being that he was then?

It was mind-boggling.

No wonder he treated his people so fairly, she mused as she hit the light to signal her table was open for play. He was fair, even if she railed against the fact that so much of what she earned had to go to satisfy so many debts she had run up just by speaking for her family, and then Dana’s.

Not that she was paying much in the way of debt to Dana and her daughters. The women were accomplished and the clothing they made wonderful. The Gurley girls gleefully bought the creations and the profits were already piling up and eradicating their debts to Renall.

The table filled. The game began. Clara pushed thoughts of Renall away, knowing she had to concentrate hard now.

The day waxed and waned. Night set in, signaled by the thinning of the air and the gathering of larger crowds. The wine flowed freely, as did the harder spirits. The Gurley girls ended their shifts, and fresh dancers came onto the stage. Clara was engrossed in a table that was made up of either the very wealthy or the very stupid; she was not sure which. The stakes were incredibly high. Nearly thirty thousand credits were on the table, and she had what was a good hand, but not a winner. Still, the house percentage would be high too. She folded then dealt swiftly, knowing the end was coming. All but four players were gone now. Two were hanging in out of sheer stubborn determination.

Clara knew a rube when she saw one and worry began to set in when the last three players took the next ante. The creature, one she’d never seen before, shook all over, it was so excited. It was humanoid only slightly, with a long face peeking out from around a boxy-framed skull and with four arms and three legs, one of which was off center and appeared to be more appendage than actual limb.

It was clearly over its head but not letting go.

The Habbit that had been at her table the night before called, laid his cards, and came up with a full house. The Outlander from Orbitary slapped his down and came up with a full house, two but his face cards were higher in value, and he had three-eyed kings while the Habbit had two-eyed queens. Clara looked at the creature. “Your down.”

The creature shrieked. The noise, a whining and thin cry, cut through the din. It rang against her eardrums, setting them to throbbing. A sliver of pain crashed into her skull, right between her eyes, blinding her.

The Habbit stood, one hand already going to its laser. The Outlander was on his feet too. The shriek kept going. All over the hall people were slapping their hands over their ears, and Clara did the same but she couldn’t get that scream out of her skull now that it had lodged there. Pain rolled through her, bringing queasy sickness.

Renall appeared, flanked by security, all with drawn lasers. Renall snapped, “Lay them down.”

The creature flung the cards, still shrieking as it did so. Clara’s eyes filled with tears that ran down her face. The sickness spread, floated up toward her teeth. The creature stopped the shriek and shouted, “It cheated in their favor!”

It directed another burst of that sound, and right at Clara! The noise scraped past her white-knuckled fingers. Agony stole over her. Darkness swam in. Pain lanced across her entire body, and she went limp, unable to stay upright in the face of that onslaught.

The Habbit drew, but it was too late. The security officer fired. The creature fell dead to the floor in a spill of bile and organs. The sound stopped, but the pain stayed. Clara retched and gagged. The Outlander grabbed her. She heard his voice come from around the edges of the pain. “That damned Terristal scraped her skull good.”

Clara sagged lower in the chair. Arms went around her. She closed her eyes, but a wild careening and looping sensation swallowed her up, making the vomit rise higher. Acid burned her throat.

Renall said, “It’s all right. I have you.’

His arms lifted her from her seat. Her limbs would not move. All over the floor beings lifted themselves and spoke in low whispers. The dead thing stayed dead, she was glad to see.

Renall carried her out of the hall and into the dim and quiet hallway. The pain began to abate but other things set in. His arms, so strong and long, felt so good on her body. He carried her so easily that she nestled closer, reveling in the feel of smooth muscles working and flowing beneath his tunic as he toted her up the stairs and down the hall that led to her chamber, calling for wine and a compac-press.

In her chamber, he deposited her on the bed and leaned over her. His scent filled her nostrils. She gazed up at him, unable to move still.

Wine and the compac-press arrived. Renall took it and sent the indentured one who had brought it away. His hands were tender as he lifted her from the hard pillows and held the cup to her mouth. “Slow,” he said softly.

She took a few shallow sips. Her eyes closed again. She was sure she was about to throw up, but the wine stayed down and settled her trembling stomach too.

The compact-press met her forehead, cooling it and shredding away the last of the pain there in her skull. Her eyes still watered and ran though. She mumbled, “What was that thing?”

His lips flattened. “A Terestrial.”

She managed to pry her eyes open. “What did it do to me?”

“Skull scraped you. They can focus that voice of theirs to one person. At first, it stunned the room, but then it just went after you.”

“I’ll say.”

Renall leaned back over her. His cool fingers met her wan cheeks. Desire worked its way back through her yet again despite the miserable feeling left from the skull scrape.

His eyes met hers and held. She drew a shuddering breath. Desire grew, intensifying. His mouth came down on hers, demanding and fierce. Their tongues met and danced. Clara’s fingers went to his hair. The scrape of his beard across the lower half of her face was exciting and sexy.

His body lowered over hers; his weight braced on his forearms as the kiss grew longer and deeper still. Clara’s eyes closed and she gave in to all the sensation spiraling up and over her. He was invoking something beyond mere lust.

His body pressed against hers. A very masculine hardness pressed between her thighs, rubbing at the material covering her body. Fresh sensation spiraled along her nerve endings as his hands wandered over her body, the heat of his fingers soaking through the dress and sending shivers across the bare patches of her flesh.

The dress parted below those fingers of his. His fingertips stroked her skin, heating it and her passion. Her legs opened as his tongue continued to probe her mouth and drive her crazy. Her tongue responded and her hips arched below his, her body tendering an invitation that was undeniable.

His breath washed over her neck. His teeth closed over the soft skin there and tugged gently just above the heavy beat of her pulse, and her breath caught. Her nipples hardened, and her toes curled. Her fingers dug into his coarse and thick hair, and her mouth hung open in a hard pant as he took her nipples into his mouth, his long fingers cupping each breast as he took turns suckling first one nipple and then the other.

Clara stared down at his dark head against the white flesh of her breast, and long tremors rocketed across her body. He was making love to her in a slow and assured way, and she wanted more, so much more.

His hands moved lower, and so did his mouth. Little trails of fire streaked over her belly. His tongue left wetness in its wake, and an answering wetness erupted from within her core, streaming down her inner thighs. Her legs opened wider. His hands delved into that junction and found the very tip of her desire; his expert manipulation of the tight bud of flesh at the top of her mound left her shaking and gasping, her hips writhing as she sought to get closer to the fingers driving her toward the brink of a climax.

Renall’s hands shucked his clothes off to reveal a wiry and muscled body. His cock was large and long, and she whimpered as it pressed against the wet flesh at the center of her body and then he entered her, moving fast and hard. Clara responded, her body meeting his every thrust. He filled her body in a way she had never known. Her hands went to his shoulders, her nails digging in deeply. His mouth met hers again, and she kissed him back, her body finding the rhythm and keeping it as he began to move his hips faster and harder, pounding into her now.

Climax hit. Clara came hard, her voice lifting in a low, slow, and very loud moan. Renall’s moan was equally noisy, and then he shuddered one time before going rigid and hanging onto her, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of her neck before releasing her.

They lay together in a tangle of cooling limbs and slowing breath. Renall spoke softly. “Clara, I have to tell you, to be honest with you.”

“Don’t.”

Her fingers went to his lips. She did not want to hear him say that he could not be with her. She knew that already. What she really did not want to hear was that he was sorry that he had bedded her. She was not sorry about it. She could not be. She had liked it, very much. She wanted more, in fact. She shifted a bit, letting her body rest next to his. His skin was smooth and cool to the touch now that the heat of desire had fled from him.

She looked at him. “So, how did you get from the mines to here?”

He blinked. “You want to know?”

She smiled. “I know you are a wrecker. I also know you had to be. But what I don’t know is what else you did, and you do not have to tell me. I just wonder how you could go from such a place of darkness to this.”

His face registered more surprise. He paused. He said, “We flew for a few days, in the stolen ship. We were low on fuel and scared. We were young then, you see. We had no idea where we were, or what to do next.

“Talon had figured out the controls enough to fly, but none of us could figure out the rest of it. To be honest, that first day, after we were sure we had really gotten away, we basically ate and drank everything on the ship we could find. We were starving, you see.”

Clara felt pity worm into her heart. “I am sure you were.”

Renall sighed. “We found a small, half-ruined planet on the brink of some darkened system. It was mostly dead stars, and abandoned. There have been crater wars there so there were no people and there was little in the way of food, but we managed.”

Her head tilted. “What’s a crater war?”

His eyes met hers. He spoke softly. “I keep forgetting that you humans did not know about other life in the galaxy until just a few hundred years ago. The Crater Wars were…long ago when travel through the wormholes began to collapse due to overuse. Those wormholes were the trade routes and when they started going, the Federation that existed then began to limit how often a craft could fly, and how many journeys each system could make through them. A lot of smaller systems felt it was unfair. It was unfair. Smaller systems were left without a lot of ability to journey and bring in things they needed or to export the things that paid for the things they needed. The Crater Wars began when systems and planets fought each other for the rights to use the remaining wormholes. The traffic through them eventually collapsed them too, but before that happened, many a system and planet died.”

Horror hit. “And the beings in them?”

“They died too. Not just from the war though. When the wormholes collapsed, they sucked systems near them into the gravitational clutch. The whole atmosphere collapsed, and the planets imploded due to pressure. We could see, quite easily, that the one we landed in was from war and not from being trapped. Thankfully. If we had wandered too close to one that had been trapped, we would have died instantly.”

“Remind me not to go near a system like that,” she snuggled deeper against him, relishing the feel of his body against hers.

“There are very few gravitational pulls like that still existing. The ones that do are usually clearly marked. That is one good thing the Federation managed to do.”

His words held a ring of something she understood. Anger. She tilted her head up so she could look into his face. “You don’t like the Federation.”

Renall said, “I think having laws in place is a good thing. But the fact is the Federation interferes too much. It’s like your own government. They know the past, and they are afraid of repeating it. They created laws to make sure that it didn’t get repeated. But when the law disregards the beings it is supposed to serve, it isn’t very just.”

Clara’s heart throbbed painfully. “I have to admit, that about sums it up.”

He asked, “Why did you break the law knowing the consequences?”

The past was hurtful, but she could see that his was as well. He had opened up to her about it too. How could she do any less? “I suppose when I was a child it didn’t occur to me that there might be consequences. I mean, yes, they told me. I knew we lived differently and that things were dangerous. I saw neighbors being taken by the Capos. But as a child, those stories of what happened to the criminals felt like stories, you know?

As I got older, I understood the consequences a lot more. The difference then was clearer, however. Our tables kept us from starving. Old Toronto is built above and below, that was a holdover from the ancient days when they built underground for pleasure I think. Anyway, those who lived under, we didn’t have the things that we needed. We were not able to grow, so we had to buy. Those above who could grow were regulated and watched, but there were many who were able to grow extra foods, fruits, and grain that they could and did say had gone bad from blight or drought or the acidic rainfall. They’d send it under, and only those with coin or credits could buy it.

“And my family didn’t just buy for ourselves. In the under, everyone shares so nobody starves. You have to. If you don’t, those who are hungry will turn you in for the rewards and bounties. I once saw a man executed because he refused to share a handful of muskies with a neighbor. The neighbor was hungry, of course, but it was not just hunger that drove him to report.”

She fell silent, sure Renall would never understand. He did though, as his words showed clearly. “It was the muskies themselves then? They were not something the neighbor could walk away from.”

“Exactly. We lived on protein discs and carb-wafers. Anything fresh was rare and precious and getting that stuff risky and dangerous—and expensive. So when we could get it, we shared. Not just because it made us better neighbors, but to make sure we didn’t go to serio-max for having them. And because,” she paused. “Because everyone should have had that stuff in the first place, not just the very rich who could afford to live above.”

Renall said, “Your government mostly lives above?”

Resentment kicked in as it always did when she thought of those things. “Of course. There was an old man who lived below who had found a stash of forbidden history books. He read them to us sometimes. Once upon a time, the government was in charge because people put them in charge, and they worked for the people. But then the government stopped caring about the people and only cared about themselves. They always put themselves first, and the people last.”

“I will not do that when I buy that planet.”

The words jolted her brain into the present. “Oh?”

Renall said, “We, my siblings and I, intend to live in a simple way. To protect our resources by not using them up.”

She groaned. “You’re building a new Orbitary?”

Renall laughed. His chest vibrated below her cheek, and she lifted her head again. His mirth changed his whole face again, and once more she found herself staring at the lightened visage so close to hers. Who was he, really? He was stern and businesslike, but he was also very passionate and kind, when he was not masking those things.

His fingers stroked along her arm. “No, nothing like this. Orbitary’s a planet run by a committee made up of too many beings who have been raised on planets plundered for their resources. Or heard of that. Or saw the after effects of it. I realize that there are too few resources left in the galaxy. I want a home, and I want one I can pass down to my offspring, but I don’t want to so tightly regulate the whole thing that nobody can find any real enjoyment in the place.”

“I see. That makes sense. Orbitary is beautiful, but it is hard to relax and enjoy the beauty of it when everything incurs a credit charge. Do you know that the other day I was caught on a surv-cam walking in the park and breathing too deeply and they sent a credit-bot to demand a hundred credits from me?”

Renall burst into more laughter. “You sound outraged.”

Her lips pursed. “I am.”

Renall said, “You should be. They built the parks and put it out that they have such beauty and natural setting so people will come. Then they charge for it. In a way it makes sense; it keeps beings from trying to take too much I suppose, but I think it also keeps out those who would enjoy it but cannot afford it.”

He was going to be a good ruler on his planet. A new thought came to her. “How many people are going to be on your planet?”

He said, “It’s very small. A quarter of the size of Orbitary and very primitive. We have decided to not populate heavily. Just take those we trust and who will help us to build but not on a large scale way. So not many.”

“That’s going to leave you open to plunder.”

The words had come out of her mouth before she could stop them. His body tensed. His face changed, went grim. He said, “Yes, and that is why I have to wed Laria.”

He spoke as if he were talking to himself but she saw the change, felt him withdrawing from her in a way she could not hope to reel him back from.

That point was driven home when Renall suddenly stood, his long and powerful body flexing. He began to dress. Clara sat up, the coverings of the bed tangling around her limbs. He said, “Clara…”

Tears came but did not fall. “I won’t speak of this.” The wooden words fell from her lips, which had gone numb. “I understand you can’t afford this.”

How many other females had he slept with just to tell that female that he was not available, that they were just a momentary distraction from his future and his wedding—the wedding that was the alliance that would help protect the one thing in the entire world that mattered more to him than anything else.

Of course it did. He had been homeless and for so long. He had spent centuries of his long lifetime building his fortune and the fortunes of his siblings so that they could have that planet, that home that they all longed for. A new question came. “Why do you not just return to your home planet?”

His eyes were bleak. “Because it was destroyed in the Crater Wars. My people took up homes in other systems but none really ever thrived there. My father and others were ship dwellers because there were so few planets on which we could live due to our anatomy. In most aspects, we are like you humans. We can live on other systems but only with gear and equipment and so forth. Our bodies change in those systems, however. Most of my race is dead. Only a handful remains, and the children born on other systems do not thrive. They usually die.”

Oh no. It hit her then. He had to have that planet not just because he needed a home; he had to have that planet in order for his entire race to continue. She knew the rest of it, even if she did not want to. “Your betrothed is from your race?”

“Yes. She is one of the few pure-blooded females of my kind in the entire galaxy.”

And he wanted a pureblooded offspring. He wanted his race to continue, to have their own planet. She looked away. “I see.”

Renall spoke softly. “I am glad that you do.”

How could she tell him that regardless of what he had agreed to, she wanted him, and how could she burden him with that?

Renall spoke again. “Clara, I could still—you could become my mistress. I would care for you until the end of your days. You would want for nothing.”

Clara blinked. Had she heard him right? “I beg your pardon?”

He looked uneasy. “I could place you on the planet nearest the one I shall live on. I could not have you on that one, of course, out of respect to my wedded. But…but I could still…”

She shouted, “You want to keep me but not wed me! You want it all! How selfish of you! How dare you?”

She was not just angry. She was pissed off and indignant. That indignation grew when Renall said, “It is the most logical course to take.”

“Fuck your logic,” she snarled at him. “You are asking me to accept a life where I would be alone most of the time. Where I would be unable to wed because I would be obligated to you. A life that would be nothing but endless waiting for you to arrive and wondering if I had fallen out of your favors. No thank you. You find that logical? It is. For you. Because you get the best of all of it.”

Renall pondered that. “I see I have upset you.”

“Oh, you think?” She tugged at her hair. Her anger deflated fast, leaving her tired and saddened. “Renall, let’s just pretend this never happened. Let’s just act as if we never made love and that you never suggested that. Okay?”

He left. Clara climbed out of the bed and began to dress slowly. She was restless and upset, but she was not in the mood to spend a lot of credits just to go outside. She stood at the window, staring at the vistas of greenbelt and sun. When she had lived below, the risk in going above to see the sunlight, the sunlight that could kill if not properly filtered, had been one she had had to take several times a year. Her body cried out for that light, and for the sight of greenery and streets that opened up to long avenues where houses sat on lawns that had grass, precious and rare as the fruit that the occasional rich gambler would bring below for a table’s ante.

How many credits would she need to have to go to back? To get a genetic lift that would fool her government into not knowing who she had been? To get a home above and stay there in the light?

Too many. But if she had the opportunity to do so, she would. She would, and she would not think twice about it either. With her mother there and then her father and brother, she could earn plenty. Orbitary would provide them with credits, and then they could go back and live above.

And she would forget all about Renall and Brian too.

Brian. A spike of pain hit again, but it had nothing to do with the skull scraping.

Betrayal was what males seemed to be the most adept at.

And there was another problem. If she and her family went back, no amount of credits could protect them from betrayal. She would never be able to fall in love with any man, not really, because to do so she would have to trust him, and how could she trust anyone given what Brian had done?

And now to complicate things, she seemed to have tied her emotions and her heart into a being who could not ever be hers. Renall was quickly winning her heart, but it was clear that he did not want it.