gaian consortium 06 - zhore deception (33 page)

“Yes,” she replied, and went and wrapped her arm around Zhandar’s waist. He stiffened for just a second — from shock at the public display of affection, nothing more — and then curved his arm around her as well. She leaned against him, feeling the strength of his body, the unseen embrace of his love and affection. “I can’t think of anyplace else I’d rather be.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The transfer back to the commandos’ ship took place without incident. No doubt the actual crew of the supply vessel would be dining out for weeks on their story of being hijacked out in the middle of nowhere. Or perhaps not. They could be facing their own particular set of repercussions, although Zhandar couldn’t see how even the most unjust government wouldn’t understand that a crew of four subcontractors wasn’t really equipped to prevail against a hardened team of more than a dozen mercenaries. Even so, he wished the best for them. Perhaps it might be time to ply their trade in a sector not quite so dominated by the Consortium.

Barely a half-hour into their return flight, Trinity leaned up against his shoulder and fell asleep, the last bit of worry smoothing itself from her face as she allowed herself to slip into slumber. Looking down at her, Zhandar thought he’d never seen anything so beautiful, or so precious. And yet he’d almost thrown her and her love away, simply because he’d been unable to look past his anger to understand why she’d done the things she had.

If any of the men who shared the passenger compartment with them were made uncomfortable by his obvious intimacy with Trinity, none of them showed it. And although he couldn’t read minds the way she could, he couldn’t sense anything except satisfaction with a mission well done. Maybe one or two seemed just the slightest bit annoyed, but their irritation appeared to stem from the object of their rescue mission not staying put where she was supposed to.

For himself, perhaps Zhandar would admit to wishing Gabriel Brant had met a more fitting fate than being locked up in a supply closet. Then again, when he contemplated what the man would probably face once the truth of Trinity’s escape got out, he thought that perhaps it was better that Ejiro had left Brant to the tender mercies of the Consortium’s own investigative teams. At the very least, he would probably be demoted and sent back to Gaia in disgrace. And if his own handlers were sufficiently annoyed, the man might be sent to that very same MaxSec prison on Titan that he’d used to threaten Trinity.

Zhandar couldn’t summon the will to be terribly concerned about what might happen to Gabriel Brant after that.

What he did think about, however, was the way Trinity had quite publicly come to him and put her arms around him. While the men under Ejiro’s command didn’t seem the type to gossip, even so, the story might begin to get out.

And would that be such a bad thing? Perhaps his people’s obsession with privacy sometimes worked against them. If they’d been more open about their population problems, and then allowed that in rare cases the Zhore and humans could interbreed, perhaps a plot like Brant’s would never have gotten past the planning stages. Surely the Eridanis, long allies of the Zhore, would have offered their assistance and support.

Zhandar looked down at Trinity again. A tendril of gold-streaked brown hair had fallen over her cheek, and he reached over with a gloved hand to brush it away.

A gloved hand.

He stared at his leather-encased fingers for a long moment, considering the thoughts that had just passed through his mind. Perhaps too much secrecy was not such a good thing after all.

Before he could stop himself, he grasped the fingertips of the glove and pulled it away, revealing the glinting rainbow shimmer of his bare skin. There, that was better. Now he could feel the softness of Trinity’s hair against his fingers. She stirred, and her eyes opened. Bleary at first, and then she seemed to focus on him, on the way his hand was exposed to everyone in the cabin.

A sharp tingle of worry, followed by a warm rush of understanding. She nodded, straightening in her seat.

Zhandar was aware of the watching eyes of the commandos, of the way they were trying to stare without staring at the revealed flesh of his hand. He knew he must do this thing now, before he lost his nerve.

With shaking fingers, he clutched the edges of his hood and then pushed it back so it lay against his shoulders. Black hair fell free against the black fabric of the robes.

Inside the cabin, all was deathly still, except for the faintest vibration of the ship’s passage through subspace. Zhandar could feel all those eyes on him, even as he sensed the strength of Trinity’s approval and admiration, clothing him in the very moment he felt most unclothed.

Then Ejiro stepped forward, and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Welcome to the galaxy, Zhandar,” he said, smiling.

And Zhandar smiled in return.

Trinity wasn’t sure she would have believed it if she hadn’t seen it for herself. But no, there was Zhandar, pushing back his hood in front of all those men, proudly bearing the brunt of their shock and surprise, even though in general they were certainly not the type to gawk.

Afterward, lacing her fingers through his, she murmured, “Why?”

“Because it’s time,” he replied quietly.

And she couldn’t argue with that.

They were quiet the rest of the way back to Zhoraan, their hands still clasped in one another’s. The ship landed at a facility out in the woods somewhere, clearly a private ’port. And Nalzhir was there waiting for them.

As Zhandar had begun to disembark, he raised the hood once again. Trinity lifted a questioning eyebrow at him, and he said, “While I might be willing to start a revolution, I also understand that I cannot change the world overnight.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” she responded, but she thought she understood. What he’d done on the ship had required a level of bravery she wasn’t sure she entirely comprehended, but even so, that action had only involved revealing himself to outsiders, to people who had no true conception of the utter privacy and secrecy the Zhore maintained in all levels of their public lives…and even their not-so-public lives.

He’d squeezed her hand, then led her from the ship. They’d already said their thanks and made their farewells, so almost as soon as their feet touched the soil of Zhoraan, the ship was lifting from the ground and heading back toward the sky.

And what a sky that was, deep cerulean tinged with green, and with high, high clouds streaked across it like the finest of antique lace. Trinity stood there for a moment, breathing in the fresh air, realizing that she was safe, that Gabriel Brant could never hurt her again.

Or…could he? After all, he had stolen her right from her apartment there in Torzhaan.

“You are troubled,” Zhandar said, even as Nalzhir emerged from the shelter of the spaceport’s office complex and began to head toward them.

“That’s a strong word. I suppose it’s just that I’m not sure Gabriel won’t try something again.”

“His actions do speak of a certain level of desperation. However, I think he will be spending a good portion of his near future trying to explain how you got away. I will admit that I don’t have a firm grasp of the inner workings of Consortium government agencies, but I would imagine that kind of incompetence isn’t the sort of thing they like to reward.”

Zhandar’s words soothed her a bit. True, the government didn’t tend to be too forgiving of those who failed it, especially on such a spectacular level. It would probably be a long time, if ever, before Gabriel was entrusted with anything of more importance than overseeing the trash-hauling schedules for Luna City.

Nalzhir approached then, radiating relief. “Ms. Knox, welcome back to Zhoraan.”

“Thank you,” she said politely. “It’s good to be back.” And it was, although right then what she wanted more than anything was to go to Zhandar’s apartment and spend a very long time reacquainting herself with every square inch of his body. Well, right after she had a decent meal, anyway. They’d been given water pouches on the mercenaries’ ship, but no one had mentioned food.

She couldn’t see his face, but she thought Nalzhir smiled then. “I also sent word of your return on to Lirzhan and Alexa. They were somewhat occupied, as apparently she went into labor early, but — ”

“Is she all right?” Zhandar asked, concern obvious in his voice.

Alexa. The former Gaian ambassador, who now had a Zhore husband. Hers would be the second Zhore/human child born. Trinity listened, anxious now as well.

Nalzhir raised a gloved hand. “She is fine. The baby has already been born. A healthy girl.”

Thank God. So that seemed to be two for two when it came to these hybrid children. Trinity touched her own stomach briefly.
And you — you’ll be fine, too, despite everything,
she told the tiny baby sleeping within her.

Zhandar seemed to understand what she was thinking, because his fingers twined themselves around hers once again. “That is welcome news. Then I will save my thanks to them for later, when they are not quite so busy.”

“Perhaps that is for the best. But now, I believe you would wish to return to Torzhaan?”

Yes, thank God,
went through Trinity’s head, even as Zhandar replied, “I can think of nothing else we would rather do. I suppose at some point you will need our report, but if we can be allowed our rest first…?”

“Of course,” Nalzhir said.

Rest,
Trinity thought.
I’m not sure what we’re going to be doing is precisely resting, but….

Something of her thoughts must have transmitted themselves to Zhandar, because his fingers tightened on hers, and he murmured, “Soon, my love. Very soon.”

She just hoped it would be soon enough.

Nalzhir had muffled Trinity in some borrowed robes, but as soon as she stepped into Zhandar’s apartment, she pulled them off and draped them over the back of a chair. “Your turn,” she said.

He followed suit, piling his hooded cloak on top of hers. They stood that way for a moment, regarding each other, not speaking. Then she said,

“When you let those men see you. It was brave, but….”

“But you are wondering what my end goal is.” He went to her and kissed her on the cheek, gently, marveling at the velvet softness of her skin. “Some
zhir?
” he asked.

A little sigh escaped her lips. “Love some.” The Zhore liquor had such a low alcohol content that she knew a small amount couldn’t hurt the baby.

He went to the refrigeration unit and pulled out a bottle, then retrieved a couple of glasses and poured a measure of the pale gold liquid into each. Trinity came to him in the kitchen and lifted one of the glasses.

“To the future.”

“That is a good thing to drink to.” He raised his glass as well and drank, savoring the dry mineral taste of the liquor as it drifted over his tongue. Slanting a look down at her, he said, “And I believe you were wishing for some food?”

She arched an eyebrow. “I though I was the mind reader here, Zhandar, not you.”

“Let us just say that I’ve begun to understand something of your thought processes.” He went over to the robes he’d just removed and extracted his handheld from an interior pocket. A few swipes of his finger, a few taps on the screen, and then he set the device down on the dining room table. “It will be here shortly.”

“Wonderful.” She paused for a few seconds, obviously thinking something over, then asked quietly, “What
is
your end goal, though? Those mercs don’t seem like gossips, but I’m pretty sure word will begin to get around.”

“Good.” He paused, then drank some more of his
zhir,
a healthy swallow that almost emptied the small glass. After this glass, he would have to stop, because he did not want any memories of this time with her hazy and blunted by the alcohol. “When the Eridanis first came to Zhoraan, they were surprised by the way we hid ourselves, but they accepted our customs. They did not try to change us. And as we began to have more contact with the galaxy, instead of opening up, we became that much more reclusive and clung to our practices that much more tightly. It is true the robes serve some purpose, in that they can help to protect us from the emotions of others, but the real truth is, Trinity, that we are taught from an early age to keep those emotions to ourselves so that we don’t inflict them on others. So in many cases, these robes only serve to keep us separate from one another. And that is something we cannot afford. Not with what we are facing now.”

“But what about those of us who aren’t Zhore?” she asked. “It’s not as if most people are trained to have the kind of mental barriers someone like me might have. That’s got to be tough for you.”

“It can be,” Zhandar replied. He set down his glass and came to her. Seeming to understand his intention, she also placed her glass on the table and then let him take her hands. Her fingers felt so fragile in his, but he knew how strong she truly was. “But there are very few of us who venture out into the greater galaxy. Some, yes. People like Lirzhan, who was an ambassador. Or this Sarzhin, who met his Gaian wife on a colony world. Even fewer who travel because they want to see stars and worlds that are not their own. It is not that difficult to stay at home and enjoy the beauties of Zhoraan, and be surrounded by those who know how to politely keep their emotions shielded. Better, I think, to catch a stray drift of someone’s worry or fear or anger every once in a while rather than have the entire galaxy thinking we are all some kind of hideous monsters under these robes.”

Trinity opened her mouth, as if to protest, then stopped herself. Sounding rueful, she said, “I was about to tell you that we do no such thing…but it’s true. If you could find it in yourselves to let everyone else know what you truly look like….” She stopped herself then, and chuckled slightly, blue-green eyes dancing.

“What is it?” Zhandar asked, puzzled by her reaction. Surely nothing he had just said was that amusing.

In response, she went up on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. “Oh, I was just wondering what was going to happen once the word gets out that you Zhore are not only gorgeous, but empathic and amazing lovers as well. Every single woman on Gaia is going to be hopping a ship for Zhoraan.”