Core (3 page)

When two hours of watching folks filing in carrying crates, barrels and other sundries needed for a household suddenly came to a halt, four large, burly men of Lero came striding toward their small gathering.

“Lady Cora, Lady Socorea, please join Avatar Relak in the room where the staff was activated. He is eager to hear of your people.” The male speaking was looking at Sox in a way that was not at all perfunctory.

Cor stifled a snicker as Sox’s hormones went into overdrive and her scent changed dramatically. Apparently, it was not a one-way attraction.

“Save it for later, Sox, dinner first. Sir, am I to understand that you are taking over the watch on the Vahsh maidens?”

“I am Borik, and yes, we are here to guard the sacrifices. They will be here when you return.” He bowed low, and Sox mimicked his bow, taking in every inch of his structure and height as she slowly stood.

“Come on, Sox, before you go blind.” Cor took the staff and headed through the darkness with the ease of someone who could see in another spectrum if she needed to. Sox caught up with her, and soon, they were walking the halls filling with busy men and women hanging drapes that billowed in the wind but allowed privacy.

The room where the staff had come out of the floor was completed. A table was sitting central, a fire had been built to ward off the evening chill and covered platters were waiting for them.

Relak was waiting as well, and he had changed clothing. A short hip wrap reminiscent of a kilt covered him from his flat waist to just above his knees. Come to think of it, the men who had come to guard the ladies were dressed in a similar fashion, but on them, it just looked like they were dressed, not like they were tempting Cor to undress them.

She greeted him. “Avatar Relak, thank you for your invitation.”

“Security Officer Cora, thank you for coming. Thank you as well, Security Officer Socorea, we need a chaperone for now.” He inclined his head and gestured to the table. “Please, ladies, sit.”

Cora nervously took a seat so her left side faced the fire. Socorea mimicked her by sitting so that her right faced the fire. It left Relak with the option to sit facing the fire or have it at his back.

He chose to have it at his back, his right hand touching Cora’s left as he casually placed it next to hers. “So, I hear that Terrans are settling all over the Alliance and some have even taken places in the Nyal Imperium.”

A smiling female server brought in a bottle of wine and a bottle of water. As host, Relak poured for them. “Lero tradition means you will not refill your own glass.”

“Interesting tradition.”

“It is my duty as host to provide you with what you need. That was the mistake that the Vahsh made. They did not wait to be offered hospitality, they took it.”

Cor frowned. “It was more than hospitality that they took. I can’t get those images out of my mind.”

Relak nodded. “I am sorry for it, but Lero told me he was showing you the true images. I was on the station negotiation to help the Vahsh have a brighter future and they were here destroying the one bright spot in both our lives.”

There was true grief in his expression and a low simmering rage.

“Who was Dahla? She was not from Lero, that much I could see.”

Sox looked up, curious. “You saw her?”

Cor nodded. “I believe that Lero sent images of the actual events into my thoughts while we were being told the story.”

Sox nodded in understanding. “It is why you said that the tale was excrement.”

Relak arched his brow. “Did you now?”

Cor chuckled. “Well, it seemed appropriate considering the smug attitude exhibited by the Vahsh. Now, what was Dahla?”

The skin and the dark eyes had a haunting familiarity.

“She was a freed slave of unknown origins. Her owners brought her here as a child, and Lero and I raised her. She was engaged in a courtship with a male named Acro, but he was with me on the station when she was attacked.”

Cor stopped eating. “The Vahsh said she was your intended bride.”

He snorted. “Alliance Common only recently penetrated their society. In Vahsh, the word for companion and lover are the same. Dahla was my companion, but she was not my lover.”

Cor furrowed her brow, “So, when Lero demanded that the Vahsh send you wave upon wave of women, it was to give you a companion?”

He shook his head. “No. It was to punish the Vahsh. They needed the threat of my taking one of theirs to keep them in place. I never thought that they would bring an acceptable woman to me. You were a surprise.”

Sox laughed, “Cor is full of surprises, an amazing cook, an excellent dancer and a charming wit. She will make you an excellent companion.”

Cor kicked out and Sox winced. “I am not on the auction block, Sox. I am an Alliance guard. That hasn’t changed.”

Sox snorted, an unladylike noise that was peculiar for her. “You think that if it gives you comfort.”

Cor blushed. It was well known that if a planet wanted possession of a Terran and it was not against the Terran’s nature, they would simply be handed over by the Alliance. It was all in the waiver she had signed when she joined the Volunteers, but she had never considered herself tempting enough to get the interest of any of the exotic males who crossed her path.

Relak tried to put an innocent expression on, but there was a certain satisfaction in the set of his lips.

He lifted covers off the dishes one by one and served each of them in turn.

“Where was the population? The Vahsh thought Lero was uninhabitable.” Sox was smiling down at her plate.

Relak smiled and poured wine for all of them. “There are underground cities all over Lero. There always have been. The core stone of the world powers all the advanced technology that the Leroans have created. Before the murder, Lero was willing to craft a sharing agreement with the Vahsh. They would provide transport, and we would provide the geothermic technology.”

Cor nodded, “It sounds like it would have been a good match.”

“It would have been, but though their administrators told me everything I wanted to hear, their representatives broke every law of decency, respect and guest-ship that has ever been written. The Vahsh have no respect for others, nor any interest in learning their customs. It makes them dangerous and unpredictable. Once these ladies are off the surface, their species will be barred from the orbital station and the surface of Lero.”

Cor nodded and tried not to be obvious as she used her enhanced senses to mentally dissect the meals. The foods were surprisingly familiar. The flavours didn’t jar her like some of the local meals did when she travelled.

She asked, “Were the locals lurking and waiting?”

He nodded. “They watch the sacrifices closely. Your ability to see more than Lero wanted you to see was obvious the moment that you arrived and breathed in deeply. No one who sees the wind-swept ruin breathes in like that.”

So, they had been watched. It explained the humming that she had felt but had ignored as part of the natural topography of Lero.

Cor nibbled on something that resembled a green bean and smiled at the memories of snapping off the ends of the beans in her mom’s kitchen.

It is a good memory.

Lero?

I am here once again. Your mind is arranged like Dahla’s was. Communication with you is surprisingly easy.

Do you miss her?

She was our daughter. We miss her very much. She grew here, played here, laughed and fell in love here. Her beloved died when she did. He would not live without her, and I was poorer for his loss.

It must have been a bad time.

Relak did not want a daughter, but when her owners abandoned that little scrap of life, there was no choice. She was too strange for any of my people to take her in, and so, Relak and I did our best to raise her.

You did well. She was happy enough to let someone love her. That shows that she knew what it was.

Thank you, Cora. Thank you for coming to us.

Cora blinked rapidly as she re-joined the two at the table who were staring at her.

Sox looked at her quizzically. “What was that?”

“Lero was feeling chatty.”

Relak blinked, “Lero spoke directly to you?”

“Yes, is that unusual?”

Relak leaned forward and gave her a deep look. “It is more than unusual, it is unheard of. The only ones who have ever spoken to Lero are my dearly departed Dahla and myself.”

She cleared her throat and turned back to her meal. “Well, Lero did say that the structure of my mind was familiar.”

Relak looked at her with a dawning respect playing around his lips.

Sox worked her way through her meal and didn’t say another word. Enough had been said to bring conversation to a halt for a while.

While she tried to concentrate on her food, Cor felt the happy hum of Lero in her mind. He was glad to have her there, and it made her wonder once again,
What the hell had Dahla been?

Chapter Five

A woman brought dessert out, and she grinned at Relak as she passed. “Good to see you, Avatar.”

“Thank you. It is good to be out again.” Relak smiled.

That brought something to Cora’s mind. “Did you really stand there as a tree for seven centuries?”

He nodded. “I did. It seemed the best option for me. It allowed me to be near my home, near Dahla’s grave and watch the sacrifices at the same time.”

Cora blinked, “But why a fruit tree?”

He sighed, “That was Lero’s idea. I sprouted fruit the day before yesterday.”

Sox choked slightly, and Cor winced. “Sorry, how was I to know?”

Sox mentioned, “Please tell me we didn’t eat anything important.”

Relak laughed out loud. “It was the equivalent of a strand of hair. I would have been in danger if Cora had decided to use me for firewood.”

They shared the joke over the fresh fruit, and after, Sox pushed it around a little, causing giggles to make their rounds around the table. It took Relak five minutes to assure Sox that he had not contributed any of the fruit and Cora could not stop laughing.

She slumped back into her chair. When she finished her dessert and had some more wine, she couldn’t wipe the silly smile off her face.

Relak leaned toward her. “Your hair is a most unusual colour.”

She blinked, suddenly tired from her very long day. “Not that unusual. My friends used to say it was the colour of blood.”

That made him sit up straight. “Your blood is the same colour?”

“It is.”

He left the table without another word.

Sox frowned, “What was that about?”

Cor drained her glass and smiled. “I have no idea. Shall we head to the girls and turn in?”

“I think it is time to relieve Borik.” Sox smiled innocently.

“I think you should enjoy debriefing him at the earliest opportunity.” Cor got to her feet and wobbled alarmingly. “Whoa. Did that wine steal your knees too?”

Sox frowned. “No, not really. It was pleasant but not nearly what you are experiencing. Are you all right?”

“I think I am going to find a nice hallway to prop myself up in. I don’t wanna face the sacrifices like this. I feel funny.” She tried to take a few steps and jerked to the right. “Oh, my.”

Where are you going, Cora?

Oh, hi, Lero. I need to have a nap. The wine is making me all wobbly.

Relak is coming to help you. We didn’t realize what you were.

What I am? I am a Terran.

We know, but we didn’t know that Dahla was one as well until now. Her senses were so keen that the factors in the wine made her very drunk very quickly. Relak has gone to get a treatment to help you process the intoxicant.

Oh. Okay. It was a nice wine.

Gentle laughter cascaded through her mind.
You will develop a tolerance to it, but if you don’t get a treatment, you will regret it in the morning.

I will be on the steps near the campsite. He can find me there.

Why there?

It is a pretty place and it feels good to be there. It isn’t home, but it’s close. I like it.

She hummed a tune as she walked down the hall, leaning against the wall when it was available and tottering past the open expanses when it wasn’t. Sox tried to help, but Cor batted her away.

“No. I wanna walk by myself.” She beamed that she was able to enunciate her statement.

“Fine, but don’t blame me if you fall over. Come to think of it, I don’t think I have ever seen you consume alcohol before. Why did you do it this evening?”

“I wanted to be polite,” Cor paused to burp, “and I wasn’t driving.”

The doorway nearest the camp was ahead and Cor dropped onto the steps with a sigh of relief, leaning back against the wall. “Yay! Made it.” She smiled happily and looked up at the strange constellations marching across the sky above her head.

Sox grinned and made her way back to the camp where the nervous sacrifices seemed to have taken shelter in their silken tents. The Alliance tents were small, efficient and very portable. While Cor watched, Sox pretended to have trouble setting up her tent, bringing Borik close to offer help.

Cora watched the peculiar courtship as Sox made all the moves and Borik responded as predicted and desired. The moment those two had made a connection it had been obvious to Cora that they were perfect for each other. He had an aura of strength and good humour about him that would suit Sox very well.

“Are you enjoying the show?” Relak’s voice was next to her, and when she carefully turned her head, he was sitting less than a foot away.

“I am, Sox needs someone. Borik would be good for her.”

“She has you.”

“I am not her mate. She needs to share her life, her love and her bed with someone. It is encoded in her genes.”

Relak looked out at the couple as they stood and spoke close together. “Her genes, not yours?”

“My people don’t all jump into pair bonds. I have never even been tempted. It is funny, because back on Earth my talent made me keep folks away, and out here, it attracts them. I still can barely stand to be touched, but I like it out here.” She knew she was rambling, but it seemed the thing to do.