Icarus Rising (6 page)

much influence did the alien now fused to his body have over

his actions?

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"Let's go inside," he said. "I don't want them to find me."

He didn't wait for her response, just whirled around and

stalked toward the entrance of his bungalow.

Zara watched his strong, confident strides. Minutes ago

he'd been unconscious, lying face down in the sand. When

she'd first realized the dark form sprawled on the beach was

him, she'd been certain he was dead. His body had been ice

cold to the touch and eerily still before he'd taken one

convulsive breath and miraculously come back to life.

Now he seemed completely recovered, physically hale and

mentally in command. If only she could believe it was true.

She'd witnessed his disastrous joining, and she believed, just

as Ray Danson did, that Caleb's ordeal was far from over.

She could have run now to the next bungalow. It would be

open since no one used locks on the island. She could call the

lab with the radio there, or she could merely take off on her

still-trembling legs and head down the paved road toward the

bulbous western end of the island where the lab buildings lay.

Instead she bowed her head and resolutely followed Caleb

into the hut.

Her first obligation was to him as her patient. He wanted

privacy and a reprieve from the questions and tests that

awaited him once Danson found out he'd returned. She had a

duty to give him what he wanted, what he needed, no matter

what the consequences for anyone else.

Though he still feared Zara would turn him over to

Danson, he was grateful that she didn't follow him

immediately into his bungalow. The hyper-aroused symbion

seemed to be pumping an endless stream of sex hormones

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into his body, and urging him to mate with the nearest

female.

Not that Caleb hadn't thought about that very thing

numerous times himself since the day he'd met his sexy

socio-therapist, but what the symbion wanted wasn't a

candlelit dinner and a romantic stroll on a secluded beach.

The animal on his back wanted to claim a female, to take

ownership of a lifelong mate and impregnate her.

He wasn't sure how long he could fight the overwhelming

urge, especially if they'd continued to stand facing each other

in the cool night air. With her chest heaving from fear after

their short flight and her nipples straining against her tight

shirt, she looked, at least to his symbion's feral perception,

both ready and willing to be taken.

"Wrong. That's wrong thinking," he told his new and

constant companion as he rummaged through his small

storage area for a pair of pants. "We ...
I
cannot just jump on

her and have sex. It's not right."

"The female is aroused. Mating is necessary for survival."

"I know that. I know that's the whole freaking point of his

experiment, but Zara is not Icarian, and she's my therapist,

and a colleague, and she'll kick me in the nuts if I go after her

waving my dick like a crazed madman. So
back off
."

Caleb sat on his bed and jammed his legs into a pair of

shorts. Covering up at least part of his body gave him a little

peace of mind, though it did nothing to calm the anxious

symbion.

"The female is aroused. Mating is necessary."

"I said, shut up already!"

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"Caleb? Who are you talking to?"

Zara stood in the doorway of the tiny alcove that served as

his bedroom. In the soft, yellow glow of the bungalow's

automatic lighting, she looked amazing. Her hair was

windblown and partially damp. It hung in ringlets around her

face. Barefoot, in shorts, she was all legs. Her pink lips parted

in a question, and her eyes held boundless concern, made

more urgent by his insane outburst.

Of course, what was normal about talking to a voice in

your head?

"Nothing. I mean, no one. I'm fine. I feel better." Being

partially dressed definitely helped. For the first time since the

joining, he felt human.

"Good. Do you want to tell me about it? What happened to

you this morning? Where have you been all day?"

"I'm thirsty." That had come from the symbion, always

concerned with bodily needs. "Yeah. I guess I am thirsty."

She gave him a suspicious look, as if caught off guard by

his half internal conversation. "I'll get you some water."

Clearly reluctant to leave him alone, Zara backed out of

the sleeping alcove and headed toward his food storage unit.

She never took her eyes off him, moving mechanically to find

and fill an empty water pod from the purifier. "Here, it's cold."

She handed him the plastic bulb, and he drank gratefully,

gulping the liquid as though he'd spent the day in the desert.

"You must be hungry too," she said.

"Not really. I should probably eat something, but not right

now. I need to think."

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"You need to talk, Caleb. We need to understand what

happened today. Obviously the joining was agonizing for you,

and it shouldn't have been. That means something isn't right.

You need to see Dr. Danson and have your biochemistry

analyzed. We have no idea what's happening inside you, but

it could be very dangerous."

Caleb finished the water and sighed. He turned the empty

bottle over in his hands and tried to concentrate on the few

clear drops still rolling around inside the container rather than

the allure of Zara's slender ankles, her shapely calves, her

perfect thighs...

"Caleb?"

"I can't go to the lab, Zara."

"Why not?" She dropped to her knees in front of him, a

submissive posture that had his symbion practically slavering.

"Female! Take her!"

Caleb bit the inside of his cheek to distract himself from

the tantrum taking place in his brain. "Danson will want to

remove the symbion."

"No he won't." She offered him a faint, reassuring smile.

"You're alive. You're walking around. Sure something isn't

quite right, but once he understands where the problem is, he

can fix it."

"The problem is in
me
. I'm the reason the joining didn't go

right."

Zara put her hands on Caleb's bare knees. The contact

sent a stab of awareness through his body. His cock pulsed,

his balls tightened, and his symbion stirred, causing his wings

to ruffle. He shivered and pushed her hands away.

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"You're in danger here with me."

"What do you mean? Caleb, we don't have secrets between

us. For the past year, you've told me every thought and

feeling you've had about this experiment. I've been with you

every step. Whatever you think is wrong, you can tell me."

Caleb hoisted himself up off the bed and quickly

maneuvered around Zara, who remained on the floor,

following him with her curious gaze only.

It had been a year of lies. More than a year, in fact. He'd

been fooling everyone, including himself, ever since his

diagnosis.

"There is one thing I never told you or Danson. One thing

that would have made it impossible for me to qualify for the

joining. I hid it from everyone because I was convinced this

was the only way for me."

"For you what? What haven't you told anyone, Caleb?"

He couldn't look at her. He'd never be able to look at

himself again either after this confession, but if he didn't let it

out now, he'd burst.

Fists clenched at his sides, head bowed, he took a deep

breath and said the words he hadn't been able to say before,

even to himself. "I didn't qualify for Danson's experiment

because I'm dying."

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Icarus Rising

by Bernadette Gardner

It seemed to Zara that she'd been drowning all day. The

first cold wave had taken her under on the north beach that

morning when Caleb had disappeared into the brilliant Icarian

sky.

She'd been gulping for air ever since while she waited for

word from the search parties. Now, after only a brief respite,

she felt as if the tide of events had dragged her under again.

In the wake of Caleb's confession, she put a shaking hand to

the middle of her chest and willed herself to breathe. "What

do you mean, dying?"

He faced her, but he didn't meet her gaze.

"I have Rennard's Syndrome."

"No." This statement made no sense. How could Danson

not have discovered the rare disorder during all his tests?

Caleb had been a virtual pincushion for the last four months.

The geneticist had mapped his entire DNA sequence at least

twice.

"I'm serious. I was diagnosed three years ago after I left

the Jovan system. I contracted it as a side effect of my

exposure to the Haldon Belts on Bradon's World when I

worked at the transfer station there as an intern."

A million questions swirled through Zara's mind, but all she

managed to do was gape.

"The disease is slow to manifest and difficult to detect.

That's why Danson never found it. Only people who have

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worked in the Haldon Belts get it ... and I never included that

in my work history when I applied for this post."

"But ... why? Why hide it? You look perfectly—" She

stopped short of saying "normal". The man had wings, after

all. He'd never be normal again.

"Denial. I knew I had five years before the symptoms

started. A month to live after that, but I figured I'd be done

with my work here by then and I could go find a hospice

somewhere."

Tears stung Zara's eyes, and she swallowed hard at the

thought of her vibrant, handsome Caleb slinking off to a

medical facility to die alone. She shook her head. "I don't

know much about Rennard's. How can you be symptom free

for five years and then die in a month?"

"The disease creates a resistance to certain enzymes in the

blood. At first the body compensates, but over time the

enzyme deficiency causes a catastrophic breakdown in cell

cohesion. Death is painful, but relatively fast".

"Is it ... transmittable?"

"No, it's not contagious."

"No. I mean through DNA."

Caleb stared at her now, seeming horrorstruck by her

insinuation that he might have planned to pass on the

disorder to his Icarian offspring. "No! No, it's not. It doesn't

affect the DNA, which is why I was able to hide it from

Danson. He knows everything about me, down to every cell in

my bone marrow, but he doesn't know this because the

enzyme deficiency doesn't appear significant until the end."

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Zara allowed her shoulders to slump. How many more

times would she have to lose him? "Oh, Caleb. I'm sorry."

His wings shivered. "I should be sorry, not you. I'm a liar.

I'm a cheat. I was desperate to pretend it would just go

away. And then when I came to work with the Icarians and I

learned about the symbions, I started to think maybe I had a

chance to beat it."

"The symbions' regenerative abilities."

"Yes. It was hard to document in a race that's generally so

healthy, but the few cases we've seen where young Icarians

were injured or ill prior to joining and their symbions helped

them heal gave me the idea that maybe joining with a

symbion could cure the Rennard's." Caleb looked away again.

"I know I had no right. The symbion knows. He understands

something is missing from me, and that's why I felt so much

pain during the joining. I believed he would be able to

counteract the enzyme resistance."

"If you'd told Danson, he could have tested the theory. He

might have been able to tell you beforehand if it would have

worked or not."

Caleb paced and shook his head. "No. He would have

simply removed my name from the volunteer roster. I know

that's no excuse. I'm ashamed of what I did. I'm ashamed

that I've lied to you all this time."

Zara sat back and folded her legs in front of her. Resting

her hands in her lap, she sighed. Caleb's betrayal stung. The

trust they'd built over the past year had sustained her,

especially after she began helping him with the psychological

aspects of his decision to accept a symbion. She'd known

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there would never be a next step in their relationship, but

she'd managed all this time to keep her personal feelings out

of the equation because their professional relationship was so

perfect. Finding out that all the emotions and dreams he'd

discussed with her might have been pure fabrication left her