Kaitlyn O'Connor (23 page)

“You usually don
‟
t get that feeling unless they are,” Karen said dryly. “How did you feel about it?”

Loren frowned. “I think I was just mostly surprised and really unnerved. He actually doesn
‟
t seem at all like I thought he was, though.” She paused. “He
‟
s actually kind of attractive—in a really alien way, if you know what I mean. The first thing that popped in my mind, though, was that maybe he thought, or knew, that Kael and Dakaar and Balen didn
‟
t want me anymore and he could move in.”

102

If it had occurred to her that there might be a problem with following Karen
‟
s advice, Loren never would have. Although she hadn
‟
t been convinced that the corridor they
‟
d taken had to lead around eventually as Karen had been, though, she
‟
d figured they would see a com unit at some point and be able to ask for directions. That wasn
‟
t the case, unfortunately. They walked until they were nearly exhausted and finally sat down to rest and consider the situation.

“I was sure the lift must be this way,” Karen said irritably.

“I told you it wasn
‟
t,” Loren reminded her.

Karen glared at her. “Well! Why did you follow me?”

Loren shrugged. “I figured we
‟
d be able to ask the computer to tell us how to get back if we got lost.”

“Why didn
‟
t you? I know we passed at least a couple.”

“I didn
‟
t know we were lost then!” Loren snapped. “And I figured there
‟
d be more.”

Karen fell silent, thinking about it. “You know, I think I remember seeing one at that last intersection. Let
‟
s go back that way and look.”

Shara stared up at her accusingly when she stood. “I stay here. Tired.”

Karen frowned at her.

“I
‟
m with her,” Loren seconded. “I
‟
m tired. Let
‟
s rest a little bit before we try anything else.”

“Well, I
‟
m hungry,” Karen objected. “It must be about time to eat.”

“
That
isn
‟
t going to tempt me to get up from here,” Loren muttered. “It
‟
s disgusting.”

Karen sat back down sullenly.

Loren had just decided she
‟
d rested enough to tackle renewing their search for the lift when she looked up and saw a group of the men heading toward them. Kael was in the lead and he looked like a thundercloud.

She surged to her feet guiltily, wondering if there was a problem on the bridge or if they were just in a foul mood because they
‟
d been pounding on each other and then discovered all of the women had disappeared.

Kael searched her piercingly, as if he was looking for some kind of injury. “Why here? Why no go back to control?”

Loren chewed her inner lip. “We were exploring.”

The men with him—Dakaar, Daeman, and one of Karen
‟
s men, Jarr, looked around the corridor skeptically. Loren glared at them, uncertain whether they
‟
d taken her literally or they were trying to be sarcastic. “Not here, here,” she said testily. “We were exploring this level and we got tired so we decided to rest before heading back.”

“We
‟
re ready to go back now, though,” Karen offered. “We
‟
ll just go with you guys.”

103

“I, too,” Shara said decisively, surging to her feet.

Kael gave Loren a look, but he and the rest of the group merely turned and headed back.

Loren sent Shara and Karen a speaking look. Karen shrugged and mouthed something at her, but she couldn
‟
t interpret the mouth movements.

To their surprise, the men led them back to the large room where they
‟
d been „sparring
‟

earlier. There were a couple of tables now where the floor had been cleared and they
‟
d rounded up a combination of actual chairs and some containers approximately the right height to use as seats and placed them around the tables.

The „plates
‟
were also a combination of actual plates and varying sized and shaped containers.

A wave of nausea washed over Loren as the smell of the food wafted past her nostrils.

Contrary thing that it was, her belly took that moment to let out a roar that would
‟
ve made a mountain lion proud. Everyone looked around. Loren studied the ceiling.

“We wait for udder search parties,” Kael announced, just enough dryness in his voice to make it clear he hadn
‟
t believed the story Loren had told for a moment. Loren
‟
s lips tightened, but she decided not to take the bait. After looking around for a place to perch, she finally settled on one of the makeshift „chairs
‟
.

“Great!” Karen said under her breath. “If they weren
‟
t convinced before that we
‟
re about as useful as a miniature lapdog, I
‟
m sure they are now.”

Loren glanced at her irritably. It wasn
‟
t as if it hadn
‟
t crossed her mind, but she was damned if
she
was useless! “Everybody can
‟
t be good at everything,” she muttered.

“Dey can,” Shara said with her usual candor. “Are.”

“I can do things!” Loren informed her, gesturing around at the ship.

“I don
‟
t want to be mean but the computer
‟
s running the ship,” Karen pointed out, then added hurriedly when Loren glared at her. “Not that anybody else could run it without a computer! It
‟
s just too big and complex.”

“I
‟
ll have you to know my parents saw to it that I had a very well rounded education! And we went on a little dig every summer, so I know a lot about camping besides.”

Karen looked at her with interest. “A dig?”

“They
‟
re archeologists—mostly they taught while I was growing up, but after I left home they stopped teaching and went back to field work.”

“I
‟
m surprised you didn
‟
t become an archeologist.”

Loren shrugged. “I just didn
‟
t love grubbing in the dirt like they did—I mean, when I was a kid I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I was always way more interested in machines.”

“I was a teacher back in the old days,” Karen said glumly. “I don
‟
t suppose that
‟
s going to be very useful.”

“It will be if you
‟
re pregnant and we don
‟
t get back home.”

Karen brightened immediately. “I hadn
‟
t thought about that!” She frowned. “I
‟
m not sure how pertinent it
‟
s going to be. I taught kindergarten.”

“Hey! The first years are the most important!” Loren said, nudging her.

“I healer,” Shara offered.

Karen and Loren both stared at her. Loren didn
‟
t know what was going through Karen
‟
s 104

mind, but „witch doctor
‟
popped into hers. She smiled with an effort. “Great! That
‟
s definitely useful.”

The „udder search parties
‟
arrived shortly after that, thankfully, and she didn
‟
t have to struggle to find out whether Shara just chanted and waved burning embers around or if she was actually a woman of science. Everyone moved to the tables, picked a spot and began relaying the food that someone had prepared around the table. Shara and Karen had gotten up and moved to sit near „their
‟
men, and Kael had sat on one side of Loren and Dakaar the other. Balen had glared at both of them but taken the seat to Dakaar
‟
s right.

Daeman parked directly in front of Loren.

She tried to pretend she hadn
‟
t noticed, but she was keenly aware of the fact that most of his attention was on her rather than the platter making its way around the table. She forgot all about him, however, when the platter arrived. Kael very carefully took a portion and handed the platter to her. She stared it for several moments, trying to convince herself that it couldn
‟
t possibly taste as bad as it looked and finally put a small portion on her plate and handed the container to Dakaar. Dakaar stared at the portion she
‟
d taken and dipped a second helping and put it on her plate before he got his own.

Loren tried to look appreciative, but it hadn
‟
t been consideration for everyone else that had prompted her to pass on anything but a very small portion. She was as conscious of the food shortage as everyone else and would
‟
ve been careful regardless, but she also didn
‟
t see any point in taking food she very much doubted she could choke down to save her life.

And it was a matter of life or death, she reminded herself. She
had
to eat something or she would starve to death.

Fortunately, water seemed to be in fairly abundant supply and they
‟
d found various containers to hold the drink. Picking it up when the men on either side of her dug in and began to clean their plates as if the mess was odorless and tasteless at the worst, or scrumptious at the best. She slid a glance at Karen as the platter reached her.

Karen turned a strange shade she
‟
d never seen on a black woman. It was sort of a greenish gray and no more flattering than the color she felt she was—green. Swallowing convulsively a couple of times, she scooped up a small portion and put it on her own plate. As Dakaar had done, the Hirachi beside her examined it and added to it.

Karen sent him a weak smile and then looked at her plate like she thought it might jump out and bite her.

Loren returned her attention to her own food. After staring at it in revulsion for several moments, she became aware that Kael, Dakaar, and even Daeman kept glancing at her and finally took a pinch with her fingers as they were doing. Her stomach rebelled the moment she put in her mouth. She held her breath, chewed a couple of times and then grabbed her water and tried to wash it down. It was a battle for several moments as to whether she could keep it down or not, but it finally settled like a rock in her stomach.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she girded herself for another battle with her stomach. By the time she
‟
d emptied her water vessel, she
‟
d managed to choke down five or six small bites, her belly was sloshing with all the water, and she knew absolutely that one more bite was going to be her downfall.

Breathing shallowly, she sat back, trying not to look at the plate in front of her.

“No eat?”

105

Loren glanced at Kael and clamped a hand to her belly. “I
‟
m full. You eat the rest.”

He frowned, flicking a glance at the plate and then her empty water container. “Full water.

No eat nothing.”

“Oh but I did. I just don
‟
t eat much. You
‟
re sure you don
‟
t want the rest?”

He looked her over assessingly. “Need eat more,
shimone
.”

“I can
‟
t. I really couldn
‟
t take another….” She stopped abruptly as a warning wave of nausea hit her, swallowing convulsively several times as a cold sweat popped from her pores.

Clamping a hand to her mouth, she looked around wildly for some place to puke where she wouldn
‟
t distress everyone else or humiliate herself. “Excuse me,” she muttered behind her hand, leaping to her feet and racing for the door as fast she could run.

She heard the scrape of another chair, but she didn
‟
t realize Karen was right on her heels until she blundered past her and led the way. Hoping against hope that Karen knew where a bathroom was and she could hold it that long, Loren raced her to the next room off the corridor.

It was really unfortunate that it seemed to be a storage room. Karen puked in the middle of the floor and that was enough to rip the shred of control Loren still had away from her. She puked right beside her. When she
‟
d finally stopped heaving, she looked around a little weakly for a relatively clean place to collapse.

That was when she discovered they had an audience. “Go away!” she growled at the green men in the doorway.

Kael looked like he couldn
‟
t decide whether to retreat or not.