No Words Alone (9 page)

“Is this your passion, then, or your
job?”

She hadn’t thought about it in a long time.
How did she feel about it? “Flying was my first love. I joined the
Galactic Explorers to be a pilot, but was assigned to language
services instead. I hated it at first, but now...I like knowing
what those around me are saying. It has been a useful tool.” And
yeah, she did feel a little smug now and then knowing that she
heard things her captain didn’t understand. She’d had an essential
role to play, and it had felt good.

“I didn’t know you were a pilot,” Ryven
murmured. “What can you fly?”

She shrugged. “Small craft, officially,
though I’ve spent many hours in a simulator.” Flying fighters and
large craft, but she wouldn’t add that unless he asked.

He didn’t have a chance, for his father had
more questions. “Why did you learn our language? Surely you had
many to choose from.”

True. At the time there had been many more
practical choices. “It was exotic, I suppose. I liked the way it
sounded, the....” She couldn’t think of the word. “It is beautiful
to hear.” Although she’d heard it shouted, growled and clipped in
the last week, she still thought it was one of the most lyrical
languages she’d heard. It was almost impossible to make ugly.

The old man looked pleased. “Do you have many
suitors on your home world?”

He liked to hop around subjects like a
grasshopper around stones. Xera replied, “Er, no. I haven’t been
home in a long while.”

“Elsewhere?” he persisted.

She stared at him. “I’ve been very busy,
sir.” What with getting shipwrecked and all. She just hoped he
wasn’t asking for his own benefit. Too late, she thought about
inventing a man, but doubted it would be useful here. Long-distance
relationships were not going to help. Judging by the incredulous or
scoffing looks around her, business should have been no impediment
to her love life.

“It seems your captain was five times a
fool,” Shiza said candidly. “Had you been on my ship….”

“You may have been the one with the broken
knee,” she interrupted in warning. Shiza held her eyes, for she had
been very rude in so speaking. She didn’t back down, though. She
couldn’t hear what he may have been about to suggest without
fighting adrenaline.

Ryven touched her shoulder, lightly. She
stiffened as she met his gaze, but slowly the tension eased in her,
almost as if he drained it.

“You will not be harmed,” he said quietly.
“You do not need to defend yourself from Shiza.” He looked at his
friend, who relaxed back in his chair. His expression was still
arrogant, but the man dropped the subject.

Lord Atarus looked pleased. About what, she
couldn’t guess, so Xera let her eyes fall on her drink. It made a
useful distraction. She’d always had a hot temper, but few things
sparked the full fury of it. No matter how tame they liked the
women here, she just couldn’t hold her tongue over things like that
without a beating. He should know better than to talk about women
like that. She really didn’t like him.

“I have appointments this afternoon. It would
be best, Ryven, if you would settle your lieutenant at the palace.
We will speak again later.”

“She is hot tempered.”

“When threatened, yes.”

“Beautiful enough to keep a man home.”

Ryven waited.

“I will consider your request.” His father
waited a moment, than added as if prompting him, “I am pleased.” He
seemed slightly anxious, as if afraid his son would not do the
thing he was hinting at, would not fulfill the wish the father had
held for years now.

Ryven just smiled. “As am I, father. I will
see you again soon.” Their transport was waiting to take them to
the palace, and he had already sent Xera and her escort down.

Toosun smirked at him as soon as they were
out of their father’s hearing. “It’s cruel of you to taunt
him.”

“It builds character,” Ryven said
blithely.

“You are going to do it, then?” Toosun asked
too casually. Curiosity must have been burning him from the inside
out.

“Perhaps.”

Toosun punched his arm playfully hard. “You
may be the elder, but I can still beat it out of you.”

Ryven smirked. “Do not distract me, youngest.
I have important plans to make.”

Toosun just growled.

When she had been told she was going to the
palace, Xera envisioned a European castle or even something Arabic.
She had not anticipated the mass of dark crystals thrusting
themselves toward the sky like a black starburst. On approach it
appeared windowless, bleak and without entrance. Monstrously huge,
it towered for more than seventy stories and had to be a mile in
diameter. It looked as if it had burst from the living rock.

She drew a sharp breath in amazement. She’d
never heard of anything like it. How did people live here?

Their transport came in fast, revealing a
series of unconnected crystal spikes before it slowed and rounded a
last spire. A seemingly natural crevasse between crystals opened
into an entrance that loomed larger the closer they got. It
swallowed their craft into a tunnel lined with lights, like the
glowing spots of some enormous underwater sea monster. Instead of
into a dark stomach, however, the transport emerged into a sunlit
shuttle bay. Xera couldn’t see the sky and it had been overcast
outside, so it wasn’t immediately apparent how the area could be so
well lit. She could easily see that the central shaft rose all the
way to the ceiling, and as their craft rose up the different levels
she could see shuttle bays on each.

They were only a few levels from the top when
their driver slowed and pulled into one of the bays. Perhaps she
looked as dazzled as she felt, for Ryven looked at her and said in
amusement, “Are you all right?”

She blinked and reminded herself not to gush.
Now was not a good time to look overwhelmed. “I...I’m fine. This is
some place you’ve got here.”

He smiled. “There is more to come.”

She could hardly imagine. Ryven and Toosun
got out, and she slid out after them, allowing Ryven to take her
hand and help her. She barely noticed that he didn’t return her
hand, that he tucked it into the crook of his arm instead. There
were other transports parked there and people came and went from
them, but not many. It was by no means crowded.

Ryven led her to the exit. A glance back
showed her aide and attendants supervising the unloading of Xera’s
new things from the other transport. The hallways ahead were wide
enough to let three people pass comfortably side by side, and
decorated with Venetian splendor. The whole was filled with
sunlight.

“This can’t be true sunlight, can it?” she
asked Ryven. “We’re inside a huge black crystal! It must be your
technology that does this, but I wouldn’t know where I was if I
hadn’t kept my eyes open.”

His eyes gleamed with pleasure. “We are on
the Lord’s level. You’ll have a suite of your own for now. It
should not take more than a day or two to have a decision made
about your position. Meanwhile, I have time. I’ll show you around
the palace after you’ve seen your room.” He stopped before a door
and opened it. The first thing she noticed was the spaciousness;
the second, the curving wall of windows looking out over a winter
garden. As she got closer, she saw that the view was of ground
level, an impossibility considering how high up they were.

“It’s a hologram,” she said, somewhat
disappointed. Very pretty, but no more real than a picture.

He smiled and opened a balcony door. He
reached out, scooped up a small handful of lavender snow and
slipped it neatly down her shirt.

Xera shrieked. The melting lump slid between
her breasts and down her belly, then lodged against her sash, and
she couldn’t get it off.

Ryven glanced up at the attendants who poked
their heads from her bedroom and they quickly disappeared. “Allow
me,” he offered, and slid his hand into the back of her shirt to
whisk away the offending snow. He didn’t fumble around while he was
there, but then he didn’t have to. The feel of his hand sliding
against her skin was enough to make her stiffen with shock.

He tossed the remains of the snow outside.
“As you can see, it is a real garden, helped along by a little
technology. It is over one hundred years old.”

Her brains were scrambled. She felt alarmed,
but didn’t have time to analyze the source of it, if there was only
one. The moment called for a reply, but the only safe one she could
think of was a complaint. “My shirt is wet.”

“You may change it if you like. I think
they’re finished putting away your wardrobe.” He didn’t look the
least bit apologetic.

Well, why would he? she thought as she
stalked to the bedroom. He was a man, and men liked putting their
hands down women’s shirts, even if he’d been rather circumspect
about it. She didn’t care for the knowledge that he’d enjoyed it,
though. She didn’t want to look at him in that light, didn’t want
him to view her in a sexual sense. She wasn’t going to play with
him. She was a “guest” here for who knew how long, maybe even the
rest of her life. That’s what they’d said.

The thought made her flinch. It didn’t help
when her attendants looked at her with wide, questioning eyes.

“I need a new shirt,” she said stiffly. “Lord
Ryven got snow on mine.”

Namae looked at her carefully. “You sounded
frightened, mistress.”

Xera frowned. “I was...surprised. I didn’t
expect him to be playful.”

The others relaxed. Namae helped undo the
stubborn sash and chose a cream and blue tunic to replace the damp
one. At a quiet word from her, the others left. Namae solemnly
looked into Xera’s eyes.

“Yes?”

Namae looked down thoughtfully. “You have had
a very strange meeting with our men, have you not? You met them as
an enemy.”

Xera wondered where this was going. “Yes,”
she said warily.

“Have they hurt you?”

Surprised, Xera blinked. Honesty forced her
to admit, “No. They have even protected me at times.” And they had
saved her life, and tried to secure a high position for her. It
made her question some of the tension she was feeling now.

Namae nodded. “I think you could be safe with
Lord Ryven, if you allowed it.” She bowed without waiting for an
answer and hurried away.

Xera stared at the carpet for a moment then
nodded her head. Namae might not be older, but she seemed kind and
sensible. It really was better to go on without fear.

Ryven took her to the public pools and showed
her the place where families swam, and the separate pools for
single men and women who were of age. She was frankly baffled why
it was okay for unmarried sexes to bathe together when the Scorpio
were so strict in other respects. How was it okay for them to be
naked together when it wasn’t permitted to remove a jacket in a
man’s presence? It was going to take time to figure out. Meanwhile,
she could not see herself swimming in public anytime soon.

They toured the grand public library with its
glossy crystal shelves full of books and media, and he explained as
they walked the halls and took the occasional lift that there were
recreation areas, sports arenas and shopping malls, and where they
were located on the various levels. They had theaters and art
museums and many more amusements when she had the time. The only
place she and Ryven lingered was the large summer garden located in
the heart of the Lord’s level.

It was a place of incredible beauty.
Intellectually, Xera knew that part of the sky and plants were
holograms designed to fool the senses, but the sky still seemed to
stretch forever. The illusion was even more convincing because so
many of the aromatic flowers and herbs were real, the light so
changing, chased by the occasional cloud shadow. Vegetables were
interspersed with flowers and grown closely together in beds
bordered by low hedges or stone walls. Everywhere she looked there
was beauty, and she felt as if she’d been transported to some rich
country estate.

“This is amazing! How far does the garden
really reach? It looks as if you could walk here for days and never
see it all.”

“You could. It’s as big as it looks.”

“But how could it be so huge? How did your
people build this place, this palace? It looks impossible from the
outside, and even more so from here.”

“Perhaps we are not the savages you think.”
His words broke the music of the moment, as if a song were cut off
mid-word.

Xera looked at him. Was this a test?
Impossible to know from his impassive face. “I’ve never thought you
were savages.”

“Never?”

She thought about it, gave honest
consideration to anything she might have seen him do. As she did, a
memory stirred. “You killed Genson.”

“I saw your face when you looked at his body.
You made a special effort to return him to your people.”

“It was a life wasted. He was a decent man.”
And yet it seemed so long ago now, with too many experiences
layered over it to find the original emotion.

“Was he a friend?”

She struggled with the feelings his questions
brought up. “He was a comrade, a crewmember. We weren’t close, but
he had family.” Family that would be grieving him, and she felt for
their loss. Her own family would grieve, too. She was never going
home.

He nodded, his eyes steady on her. “Our
cultures are very different at times. You will not believe what I
was trained to find just, and I don’t always understand you. I
think you are honest at heart, though. That is rare.”

She considered the times he’d protected her,
given what he had for her comfort. “You’re not completely
repulsive, either,” she agreed reluctantly. She even smiled a
little at the joke.

He smiled, too, but there was something else
in his expression as well. “Do I repulse you?” he asked softly.