Chapter 4
Rose sat down heavily on her bed and let out a deep sigh. She covered her eyes with her hands. “Oh, brother.”
Rohn eyed her from across the room. “What’s the matter?”
“That was a disaster. I can see there are going to be a lot of problems communicating between our two peoples.”
“What was so disastrous about it? We communicated well enough. We spoke the same language, and we understood everything everybody said.”
“You heard what happened. Every exchange between my team and your family turned into an argument. This is how wars start, and we’re supposed to be building understanding between the Allies and Kratak.”
“Undoubtedly, we don’t agree on many subjects, but we understand each other perfectly well. As far as I can see, that’s the beginning of a strong relationship between two peoples.”
Her head shot up. “You don’t really believe that, do you? You did everything but come straight out and tell Whitney to his face that he was too weak and inexperienced to hunt the wild pigs, when you yourself have hunted them all your life.”
Rohn snorted. “Come now. You don’t really expect a spineless creature like him to fight the wild pigs, do you?” He laughed.
“There. You see? You’re doing it again. You said he’s a spineless creature.”
“Compared to me, he is.”
Rose turned away with a shake of her head. What was the use in arguing with him? They would never agree.
“If you had ever seen the wild pigs, you would know a man like Whitney could never hunt them. Look at me. I’m twice his size, and it takes up to seven or eight of us hunting together to bring down one pig.”
She looked at him, all right. He towered over her, with powerful shoulders and a barrel chest. His legs ran down to the floor like tree trunks. No wonder he saw Whitney as a pathetic excuse for a man, especially since Whitney lived in a world controlled by females.
Rose picked up her medical kit. “Let’s not argue anymore. We have the rest of the year to build understanding between our peoples, and arguing about our differences right at the start won’t help. Let’s concentrate on those things we do agree on.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. You tell me. What do we agree on?”
“I don’t know, either. That’s why I’m here. You interest me, so I thought this would be a good way to find out more about you.”
“I’m the one who’s studying you. I’m the one finding out more about you.”
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
Rose stood up with her kit in her hand. “Forget it. Let’s get on with the examination.”
She got out a notebook and a pen. Without her usual recorder and scanning devices, she had to do everything the old-fashioned way. This was going to take some time.
She faced Rohn and looked him over. He was certainly a fine specimen of a man. She rarely saw anyone as strong and healthy as him back home. The people she usually worked on needed all the Allies’ technology to keep them healthy. These Krataks had no technology, yet their bodies showed none of the usual signs of break-down and decay. Even old Rowan and Fay remained vital and sturdy, in spite of their grey hair.
Rohn studied her with his head leaning to one side. “What are you writing?”
“I’m just writing down my initial observations. I’m writing down what you look like, and how strong and healthy you are. I’m writing down the color of your skin and eyes, and what clothes you wear.”
He swept his eyes down to her feet and back up to her face. “Do you really need to write that down? Won’t you remember it?”
She put her notebook aside and came toward him. “I definitely will remember, but someone else will want to see my notes when I get home. Since I have no other way to record my findings, I have to use a notebook and write it down.”
They faced each other, each observing the other. Except that she had to look up to see his face, they matched each other in their direct gaze. She didn’t flinch from his inspection, and he studied her without malice or hostility. “What’s in the bag?”
She picked up her kit. “Shall I show you? This is my stethoscope. I use this to listen to your heart and lungs. This is an otoscope for looking in your ears and mouth.”
“What is that instrument? It looks like a knife.”
“It is. It’s a scalpel. It’s used for cutting people open and working on their insides.”
His eyebrows went up. “Do you mean like cutting up an animal before you eat it? Do you plan to cut me up?”
“Of course not. We don’t cut people up or eat them. We use this to fix something on the inside that has gone wrong.”
“If something goes wrong, doesn’t that mean you failed to do your job as their doctor? Isn’t your job to keep them healthy so you don’t have to cut them open to fix them?”
The blood rushed to her cheeks. “Yeah, I guess that’s my job, but sometimes, I can’t keep them healthy. Sometimes something goes wrong, either their bodies break down or don’t work properly, and the only way to fix them is to cut them open.”
He frowned. “How do their bodies break down?”
“They just do. What do your people do when someone gets sick?”
He hesitated. “What do you mean by ‘gets sick’?”
“You must get sick sometime. Do you have medicines, or folk healing practices?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Forget it. We’ll talk about it later.” She picked up her stethoscope and put the kit aside.
Then she found herself confronted with a new problem. He stood so much taller, that she had to lift her arms above her head to reach his chest. “Maybe you should sit down.”
He sat down on the chair next to the bed, and Rose put the stethoscope into her ears. “That’s better. Now take a few deep breaths.” She laid the instrument against his back and listened to the tide of air moving in and out of his lungs.
He took several deep breaths and let them out. He stared straight in front of him. From behind his shoulder, Rose studied his body close up. He exuded a power and certainty she never encountered in a man before. Unquestionably, Tanner and Whitney didn’t give the same impression of solidity and unstoppable power. She couldn’t think of a single man she ever met who impressed her the same way.
Why was that? Why did all the Allies’ men seem so weak and spineless? They gave way to the demands and motivations of the women around them. They rarely acted on their own initiative. No wonder women controlled the Allies. The men lacked the will to rule, or even to do the first thing for themselves.
Since she never saw any men act any other way, she always thought men were weak and impressionable by nature. Now she found herself face to face with an entire race who turned that idea on its nose. If the Kratak men could be tall, strong, forceful and willful, what stopped the Allies’ men from doing the same thing?
When she held up the two groups of men side by side in her mind, she hated the men of her own people. She hated her father and her brother and her colleagues and every man she’d ever known. Without will and power of their own, she couldn’t respect them. She saw them through the Krataks’ eyes, through Rohn’s eyes. They weren’t really men. They were tools of the women around them. They were pathetic, disgusting.
She kicked herself for thinking those things. She hated Rohn for saying Whitney was spineless, and here she was, thinking exactly the same thing. How could Rohn, or any other Kratak man, respect her or any woman, if they chose one of these weak scarecrows for a mate? What woman in her right mind would want to mate with one of them, when she could choose a man like....?
She forced that idea out of her mind. She could NOT allow herself to become attached to Rohn or any other man on Kratak. She was here for a year. Then she would leave all this behind. Men like Whitney and Tanner and all the other men she knew, would become normal for her again. She would love and respect them for their intelligence, their kindness and their respect for women. She would forget all about raw muscle and fighting prowess. She would forget about the hunters and warriors of Kratak, and she would be happy to choose a man from among her own people, the way she was supposed to.
She tapped Rohn’s back, across his shoulders and down to his ribs. His chest thumped sturdy and hollow under her hand. His skin felt warm and tender under her fingers. He certainly was healthy. His lungs rang clear all the way down to the base of his ribcage, and his heart beat strong and steady in his chest.
She walked around in front of him. Putting out her hand, she stopped short of touching him when he gazed straight into her eyes. “Is anything the matter?”
“I’m supposed to listen to the front of your chest now.”
“Go ahead. I submit myself entirely into your hands.”
She caught a glint in his eye. He didn’t submit himself to anything. He would never submit. Submission didn’t exist for him. His way was power and dominance. He would smash anything submissive under his heel. He loathed anything submissive.
For a fraction of an instant, he terrified her with that fiery glint in his eye. No matter how polite or conciliatory he might be, he challenged her to contradict anything he said. She might be Commanding Officer of a team of weaklings from another planet, but she could never stand against him if she tried.
Then her innate fiery nature flared up. She’d never backed down from a challenge in her life, and she wouldn’t start now. He might be bigger and stronger than her or any of her team, but she would never let him defeat her. She would persist in her mission until she got the job done. She would bring these Krataks to an understanding with the Allies if that was the last thing she did.
She lifted aside the buckler hanging sideways across his chest and opened the neck flap of his shirt. She slipped her stethoscope under the fabric and laid the diaphragm against his skin. His muscled chest rose and fell with his breath. The tide of air whispered through her earpieces, but Rose listened to something else. She heard something primal, something ancient, beating in his heart. His blood spoke to her in a language she didn’t know she understood.
She raised her eyes to his face and found him staring into her eyes. His nostrils flared when he breathed. He was smelling her. His skin changed color before her eyes. The shifting patterns under the surface bloomed and dropped out of sight. His skin took on a different hue. It changed from bluish-purple to greenish-lavender and back again.
Rose caught her breath, but he kept her fixed in place with his eyes. Something overwhelming kept her locked within the sphere of his magnetic presence. When had she felt that pull before? She couldn’t remember. He fired her blood, robbing her of all her ability to think.
He let out a strong whoosh of air. Rose took the earpieces out of her ears and set the stethoscope aside. Her cheeks burned. “That part is done.”
She turned away to hide her confusion. She didn’t understand that queer sensation running down her body. Her lips tingled, and electric energy spread over her chest, out to her nipples, and down her belly to a pit of roiling emotion between her legs.
She had to get away from him before she went insane. She couldn’t let herself get flustered by this man or his unaccountable kin. They were savages. They had no respect for women. They were brutes.