Starkissed (22 page)

Leith returned to the fire and her work. J’Qhir had showed her how to make twine by twisting fibers they found underneath tree bark. She had experimented with braiding the lengths of twine into a thicker rope. She was still impatient with the twine and rope making, but it seemed to go faster than making baskets.

After the short snowfall the night of the full moon where less than ten centimeters had fallen, they had experienced another warm spell. They had taken the opportunity to return to the cone tree forest. They had built a litter with sides and brought back as many cones as it could carry.

Leith had experimented with the sugarpod juice and found that the liquid, when spread thin on a flat rock and quick dried with the laserlight, formed a leather that could be rehydrated when boiled in water. It was an excellent way to preserve the last of the pod juice.

Now, J’Qhir entered the cave and unslung the flightpack from his broad shoulder. He had insisted his knee was well enough for him to take a turn at gathering when the weather was warm enough. Leith didn’t believe him, but she dared not call him a liar.

J’Qhir leaned on his makeshift crutch for a moment before he eased down on the other side of the fire. Leith said nothing. If she asked him, he would tell her he was all right.

She knew different. His knee hadn’t healed properly, and he would never be able to walk without a limp and pain. He said long soaks in the pool helped, and they probably did temporarily.

She asked him if he was hungry, but he said no. Leith hid a smile. The day she first thought of trying to dry the sugarpod juice, she was going to use the pan from the mess kit, but couldn’t find it. After searching the cave, she went looking for J’Qhir to see if he knew where it was. She had found him in the woods with a small fire. He was cutting up one of the giant worms and cooking it in the pan. Quietly, she left him with his secret. On the days she found the pan missing, he wouldn’t eat of their stored food. She didn’t mind and thought of telling him she knew. But everyone needed a guilty pleasure. She had the sugarpods and he had worms.

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With the beast jerky, cone nuts, sugarpod leather, and assorted nuts, dried berries and greens, they had a good chance of surviving the winter if it wasn’t too harsh or too long.

Leith bent her head over the rope she was braiding and sighed softly. She still craved a chocolate milkshake!

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128

Lanette

Curington

“Do you feel it?” J’Qhir whispered and halted the lovely rhythm their joined bodies had achieved.

“Not anymore…” Leith murmured and kissed his tympanum. She wriggled her hips against him impatiently.

“No, Leith. Lisssten!” he hissed and withdrew from her completely. His arms tensed around her. “I hear it now. Do you hear it?”

Leith groaned.
Now
was not the time for J’Qhir’s acute senses to pick up the Paradisian version of an ant tunneling through dirt fifty meters away.

“Sss’h!” he warned sharply.

Leith forced her body to remain motionless although she desperately wanted to resume their course to its natural conclusion. How he could stop
at this moment
was incomprehensible to her, yet a part of her hazy mind recognized the urgency in his voice.

She strained to hear any strange noises over the gentle lapping of the water and the wind soughing through the trees. The sooner she assured him she could hear nothing, the sooner they could return to what they were doing.

“I don’t hear anything,” she said and pressed her body against his again. Over the past few weeks, they had made love here in the pool as often as in the cave. She supposed by the time their lives were over, they would have made love over much of the surface of the planet. She nestled her head in the space between his shoulder and neck and dipped her hand beneath the waterline in an attempt to lure him back.

“Leith! A ssship!”

In one quick motion, he hauled her up and out of the water. She clung to his neck as he ran to the alcove. He slowed as colder air gusted around them, but he reached the fire.

He set her down and picked up his clothes.

“We h-have to h-hurry,” he said haltingly. “It might b-be an Arreisssan ssship.”

Leith dressed quickly, her clothing still damp from laundering. The thought of rescue filled her with a different kind of excitement.

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Starkissed

129

“What if it’s a pirate ship?” she asked as she drew on her jacket and raised the hood over wet hair.

“Then we mussst convince them it isss in their bessst interessst to take usss with them.”

She helped wrap the beast blanket around him and fasten it in place with the sturdy twine. Then she spread the solar film over him.

“Leith, you need thisss.”

“You need it more. I’ll get cold, but I won’t shut down.” She adjusted the film and secured the magnostrips.

They kicked dirt over the fire and descended the side of the hill. J’Qhir had pinpointed from which direction the sound came. She hoped he hadn’t mistaken another horde of flyers or some other native fauna for the engine of a ship.

J’Qhir led them past their cave and through the woods. As they neared a clearing she remembered from her foraging, he motioned for her to be quiet.

Silently, they moved to the edge of the grassy glade. Passion, adrenaline, and steady movement had kept her warm. Now, standing still, the cold crept into the edge of her hood and sleeves. Her fingers were numb from exposure, and she shoved them into her pockets.

“It isss Terran,” J’Qhir whispered.

Leith nodded. The Rover class ship was larger than the lifecraft, but much smaller than the
Catherine McClure.

The door opened and a ladder ejected. A humanoid emerged dressed in a silver thermosuit, complete with hood. He scanned the immediate area then spoke to someone out of their line of vision before descending the ladder.

“Rohm’dh!” J’Qhir exclaimed at the same time Leith recognized him for a Zi. “What isss Rohm’dh doing on a Terran ssship?”

The second humanoid had exited and was halfway down the rungs. When he set his feet on the ground he was taller than the Zi. Long, unruly brown locks were pulled back and fastened at the nape.

“Drew!” Leith pointed. “Drew Garrison!”

Suddenly, Leith found herself running as fast as she could, running toward Drew and rescue. When Drew recognized her, he broke into a run also. When they met in the center of the glade, she threw her arms about him and he swung her up and around. Both were laughing and Leith was crying as he put her down. She held Drew’s lovable face in her hands and kissed him soundly.

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130

Lanette

Curington

“Leith, Leith!” Drew grinned widely and hugged her again. “Everyone thinks you’re dead.”

“Not for lack of Steve trying. Steve Hancock marooned us here.”

“We know, Leith. We pieced it together.”

A third humanoid had emerged from the Rover. It was Corru, the Paxian who had attended their meeting on Arreis.

“How did you three get together?” Leith asked, but her voice trailed off as J’Qhir joined them. J’Qhir. She slipped from Drew’s arms and studied J’Qhir. As usual, his face was expressionless. His eyes flickered once toward the other Zi before shifting back to her.

She understood completely. No open expression of their relationship. Nothing to give away their intimacy. She couldn’t tease him or touch him or kiss him. Couldn’t make love to him. If she remembered the layout of this class ship correctly, all areas on the upper deck except the facilities were open. No privacy. They wouldn’t even have a place to talk. If she didn’t find a way to have a few minutes alone with J’Qhir before they left, she had no idea when it would be possible.

Rohm’dh could not even suspect there was more to their relationship until J’Qhir was ready to bring it out into the open.

J’Qhir’s saurian eyes, slits narrowed to almost nothing, pierced Drew coldly.

“Captain Drew Garrison, a pilot for McClure Shipping and an old friend,” Leith introduced him.

“Hey, I’m not that old,” Drew teased.

“This is Warrior J’Qhir.”

Drew held out his hand, but J’Qhir ignored it. Drew shrugged and put his arm around her again.

“I want to thank you for taking care of Leith—”

“Msss. McClure isss quite capable of taking care of herssself,” he said crisply, then turned and limped toward Rohm’dh. They spoke in the low, guttural tones of Zi.

“Not too friendly, is he?” Drew observed. “It must have been a rough six weeks, stuck with him.”

Leith smiled at J’Qhir’s retreating back. “He doesn’t know you, that’s all. He’s quite…friendly once you break through his reserve.” Leith tore her eyes away from J’Qhir. “How’s Dad?”

“He’s doing good. He still has a few months of recovery, but he’s on schedule. No setbacks.”

“Oh, I’m so glad. I’ve been worried about him. And Mom?”

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“She’s fine, too, but neither of them took your alleged death well. They didn’t accept it at first, and they couldn’t believe J’Qhir would do what Steve and the media said he’d done. Hell, I couldn’t believe it either, but none of us suspected Steve.”

“It came as a shock to me, too. And I don’t completely understand why he didn’t kill us outright instead of marooning us here. This planet is a paradise. He should have known we had a good chance of surviving.”

“Basically, Steve is a coward. I’ve known that about him for years. If he got caught, you two would still be alive. He wouldn’t be charged with murder.”

“What about Wiley? Steve hinted he fixed the stolen ship so Wiley wouldn’t survive.”

Drew shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know what was going through his farking mind.”

Leith glanced at J’Qhir who was still deep in conversation with the smaller Zi. She looked back to Drew. “Do Mom and Dad know you came looking for me?”

Drew shook his head, dark brown hair coming loose from its fastening. “I couldn’t tell them, Leith. Didn’t want to get their hopes up. I took a vacation leave and borrowed the
Starfire.
Before all this came up, Cameron had been urging me to use one of the smaller ships and take some time off. He thought it strange that I chose to do it in the middle of this crisis, but he agreed.”

“As soon as we get aboard, I’ll put a call through to them on LinkNet,” Leith said.

“If you can get through. A transmitter in this sector blew. Calls have to be re-routed, and it’s taking a helluva lot longer than usual for them to go through.” Suddenly, Drew threw his arms around her and hugged her until her feet left the ground. Over Drew’s shoulder she saw J’Qhir watching them. “Are you ready to go home?”

Oh, yes, she wanted to go home…but she wanted to stay, too. She wanted more time with J’Qhir. She would never wish they hadn’t been rescued, but why couldn’t it have been later? They never had a chance to speak of a future off Paradise. Once they left the planet, everything between them would change.

“Leith? You are ready to go home, aren’t you?”

“Of course,” she answered quickly and slid from Drew’s bear hug. “I’m sure Warrior J’Qhir will want to wipe out every trace of our presence on this planet before we leave.

Come on. I’ll show you where we’ve been living.”

Leith took his hand and tugged. She had to get away from the sight of J’Qhir right then. At the thought of the cave, she suddenly remembered their sleeping arrangements.

If Rohm’dh saw it before Leith could rearrange things, he would know they had shared a bed. For J’Qhir’s sake, he couldn’t see the lone pallet of grass and leaves.

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132

Lanette

Curington

When Leith and Drew reached the trees, she broke into a run, pulling him faster.

When Drew hesitated and didn’t move fast enough for her, she let go of his hand and sped faster through the woods.

“What’s wrong, Leith?” he shouted after her.

“I’ll explain later,” Leith called over her shoulder.

Inside the cave, Leith started tearing the bed apart and tossing the leaves and grass on the fire. She did it methodically, mechanically. If she stopped to think about it, she might cry. She and J’Qhir had shared and discovered so much in this one place. She could hardly bear to destroy it.

Drew entered the cave and walked to her. “God, Leith, you look like you’ve lost your best friend.”

Leith smiled up at him. “You’re my best friend and you’re not lost.”

“No, but you were.” Drew squatted beside her and helped burn the bedding. “We thought you were dead and, I tell you, Leith, something inside of me died too.”

“Oh, Drew.” She patted his hand. “Hey, now that you know I’m alive, maybe that part of you will resurrect itself.”

“Already has,” he said with the boyish grin she remembered from childhood. “I felt it come back to life when I saw you run across that clearing.”

By the time J’Qhir and Rohm’dh arrived, Leith and Drew had cleared away every trace that she and J’Qhir had shared one bed. J’Qhir stopped short just inside the doorway, and his gaze swept the room, resting briefly on her. She couldn’t tell if he was pleased or not, but since no expression crossed his face, she thought she had done well.

Leith cleared her throat. “I’ve started cleaning up.”

J’Qhir nodded. “Corru hasss returned to the ssship.”

Leith looked at Rohm’dh who remained a respectful distance behind J’Qhir. She had assumed all Zi were as tall and broad as J’Qhir, but Rohm’dh was not much taller than she and not much broader. Leith bit her lip. It was one of a thousand questions she suddenly needed to ask J’Qhir but couldn’t. Later, when Rohm’dh wasn’t near.

“We need to dessstroy everything,” J’Qhir said. “We cannot leave anything behind that could posssibly one day affect the development of thisss planet.”

“The quickest, most efficient way would be to burn it. I have a laserlight,” Drew offered and pulled one from his pocket.