The Ninth Orb (15 page)

Eden did a mental count to calm her irritation at the unjust accusation, realizing that Ivy was probably on edge, too, and for good reason if they were already starting to have problems when the celebration had scarcely got underway. “But you got rid of them, right? Maybe they didn’t have enough to get too bold,” she added hopefully.

“Maybe, and maybe not. That all depends on how many others felt the juvenile urge to liven up the party. Not that I see anything wrong with a drink or two now and then, but the results at this little shindig could be disastrous--especially if the males imbibe.”

Worriedly, Eden turned from Ivy and began to study the colonists and Xtanians piercingly. She saw at least two of them that had that sappy ‘I’m feeling fine’ look on their faces, but she wasn’t certain whether it was because they were surrounded by females or if they’d been ambushed by the colonists.

The giggles from the women around them were getting louder and louder, and their overtures bolder and bolder. “Trouble at three o’clock.”

“I’m on it,” Ivy said grimly, summoning a half dozen MPs as she struck off toward the group.

Instead of following her, Eden headed for the announcement platform that had been set up in the center of the green, deciding a distraction was in order while Ivy hauled the miscreants off. By rushing, she managed to make it up onto the platform before Ivy and her MPs reached the group and deliberately set the microphone to screeching by fiddling with the volume control. The squawk got almost everyone’s attention and she adlibbed a short speech welcoming their visitors and reminding everyone that alcoholic beverages were prohibited at the function to keep everyone’s attention while the group was rounded up and removed.

Feeling pleased with herself when she’d finished, she waved and made her way from the platform again.

Trar, looking a little sheepish, met her at the bottom of the steps. “My brood brothers are angry with me,” he said wryly. “They will strangle me and throw me from the wall of the citadel if I do not make amends for offending you. Since I have great affection for my hide, I decided to risk your temper and try again to please you.”

Eden’s jaw dropped, but she saw a gleam of mischief in his golden eyes. “You’re not serious?” she asked doubtfully.

He chuckled. “I am very serious. I have much affection for my hide.”

Eden couldn’t help but laugh, but she shook her head. “I’m so flattered knowing it took so little to convince you to come talk to me.”

Something flickered in his eyes, but then a slow grin dawned that made her belly jump reflexively. “But this is because you are so beautiful I am terrorized.”

“I guess Liz didn’t have to explain bullshit to you,” she said wryly, but she couldn’t help but find his teasing very engaging.

He looked intrigued. “What is this?”

Eden thought it over but decided she wasn’t up to the challenge of trying to explain. “Never mind. You were sent to--uh--speak for the group?” she asked curiously, wondering if he really had been sent by the others.

He shrugged, but then chuckled. “Vladiv was chosen last time and we are here.”

Eden couldn’t help but smile in response to his tone and his laugh, but she found the whole experience more than a little disconcerting. Beyond the fact that she entertained doubts whether he, personally, found her to his taste--which was lowering, to say the least--her curiosity was thoroughly aroused. She hadn’t considered before how their ‘arrangements’ were conducted. She supposed she’d assumed the contract between them and their perspective ‘queen’ was arranged and that their mother queen handled it. Maybe it was ordinarily, or at least sometimes, but they had had to consider a different tactic because of the circumstances?

Upon consideration she realized she had a hard time envisioning a society where the mothers settled her broods without considering their wishes. After Liz’s comments, she’d done some research herself into some of the old marriage customs, hoping she might understand the Xtanians a little better and she’d discovered social patterns in Earth’s past that were almost as incomprehensible to her as the perceived customs of the Xtanians. But Earth women had rebelled over arranged marriages. It boggled the mind to try to imagine the men standing still for that sort of thing.

So, maybe the contracts weren’t arranged, but they usually courted as a group, and maybe they’d sensed that she wasn’t comfortable being courted by all four of them at the same time?

Who decided which female to go after, though? The oldest of the group? The dominant male? And, if one did the deciding for all of them, were the others inclined to merely go along with whatever choice was made for them? Maybe they just didn’t particularly care so long as they got a female? After all, there was every indication that there weren’t a lot of choices for the males.

It was actually kind of nice to think the males would be vying for them, instead of the other way around. In her memory, women had either equaled or surpassed the number of men, depending on the area, which hadn’t left them in any position of power. Mostly the women ended up knocking themselves out to please the men, not the other way around. Supposedly, at some points in Earth’s history the men had been the ones to have to work to please, but she hadn’t experienced that situation herself and she wasn’t even sure she believed it had ever happened in Earth’s history.

The animal world was exactly the opposite--so maybe the Xtanians were actually closer to ‘natural’ behavior than Earth people were?

Emerging from her reverie, Eden chuckled dutifully at Trar’s comment about his brood brother Vladiv. “Now I have to wonder if Vladiv is as short tempered as I had thought,” she murmured, turning away from the announcement platform finally and beginning to walk slowly across the green. She had no particular destination in mind, but saw no reason to remain on display in the middle of the green. Besides, after the incident, she thought Ivy could probably use all the help she could get in keeping an eye on the colonists. “I noticed he wasn’t particularly happy with your comment, but I’m beginning to think he may be the target of your tongue often enough that his patience is running thin.”

His response was an easy grin. “He is the embodiment of patience--though I am inclined to call it complacency because he has the pretty face. I must work very hard to provoke him, but it is well worth the effort. Twice now he has chased me all the way around the citadel, threatening my life, but I run very fast, and he needs the exercise.”

Eden chuckled. Either bravery wasn’t something considered required for males, or Trar was confident enough he didn’t worry about his image. Either way, she found herself relaxing at his banter and felt a budding kinship with the Xtanians that she hadn’t felt before. Maybe the Xtanians weren’t really so different from them after all? It sounded very much like they teased and argued like close friends, or siblings.

Not that she had any siblings, but some of her friends did and it sounded like just the sort of rivalry and squabbling that went on between them. She smiled. “He just doesn’t know how to properly appreciate the effort you go to on his behalf,” she murmured with mock sympathy.

He sighed, his look as serious as her own, though laughter gleamed in his eyes. “No.”

He glanced across the green toward his brothers, still clustered around Liz, and sobered. “You friend queen Liz tells strange tales about your world.”

Eden’s brows rose, but she couldn’t imagine that Liz would tease them with story tales. “The customs?” When he nodded, she shook her head, smiling faintly. “I’m sure they sound as strange to you as your customs sound to us, but I’m certain whatever she’s told you is true all the same.”

He frowned thoughtfully. “I can not draw this image in my mind,” he said finally.

It took Eden a moment to realize he was saying he found it hard to imagine. She smiled faintly. “What custom did she tell you about?” she asked curiously.

“She said the queen mothers did not arrange the settling of her young that machines chose for them.”

Eden stared at him blankly for several moments. “Computer matching? She told you about that?”

He nodded. “This is true, then?”

“Uh … yes and no.”

“I am confused.”

“It really depends upon what one is looking for. If it’s merely companionship, then we don’t necessarily worry about the pool. Most people do consult the data banks, though, if they’re going to start a family. It’s to make certain you pick someone who is free of genetic disorders and diseases and also that their genetics compliment your own. And we still make our own choices. We just date within the pre-selected pool of gene donors. If we go through them all and discover we aren’t happy with the choices, we run another check and find more selections.”

He looked more confused instead of less so and Eden thought back over what she’d told him, trying to decide if it was the concept that was eluding him or a deficiency in the translator. She finally decided that it was a combination of the two and was wondering if it was worth trying again to explain or if he was even that interested when a commotion near the end of the field caught her attention.

One of the Xtanians staggered through the crowd and collapsed in the clearing.

He was stark naked but it took several seconds for Eden’s mind to assimilate that fact. The moment it did, however, her mind also connected with spiked punch and man hungry colonists and she broke into a run. A crowd had already gathered around the unfortunate man before she could reach the scene. She pushed her way through and discovered that he was babbling completely incoherently, or at least words her translator found unrecognizable.

Instinctively, she glanced at the faces of the crowd. The colonists mostly wore expressions of shock, although she detected nuisances of guilt on the faces of some.

The Xtanians were another matter altogether. By the time it had occurred to her to search their expressions for some clue of the magnitude of the situation, they had schooled their faces to blank masks.

The were white faced, though, and Eden was afraid to speculate on what emotions they were struggling so hard to hide.

She had to do something, and quickly, to diffuse the situation, she knew, and yet she wasn’t entirely certain of what had happened or what would be the best course of action.

“Take him to the infirmary!” she said sharply as Captain Sterling pushed her way through the crowd and looked down at the hapless victim as if she was contemplating taking his head from his shoulders before he could say more.

Ivy’s head jerked upward at the command. For several moments the two women shared a look, but to Eden’s relief Ivy didn’t try to countermand her. Even as several med techs pushed their way forward and struggled to help the Xtanian to his feet, she signaled the soldiers among them and they began urging the crowd back.

Unfortunately, there were only three soldiers within the circle besides Ivy and the crowd had been growing from the moment the man had been spotted. Fearing a disaster, Eden thrust her way back through the crowd, moving as quickly toward the stand as she could. She was shaking by the time she reached it and climbed onto the platform.

She saw at once as she scanned the field that her fears hadn’t been misplaced. The tight knot around the fallen man yielded slowly before the med techs trying to remove him from the field. Otherwise, all of the colonists had gathered round, either forcing the Xtanian’s back--or the Xtanian’s had simply decided to remove themselves from what was transpiring. They’d formed a tight, orderly knot well beyond the crowd of colonists.

Eden tried not to interpret that regrouping as militarily threatening, but it made her distinctly uneasy. As few as their numbers were, and even though they had not been allowed to enter with weapons of any kind, they still posed a threat to the peace of the colony.

“Attention! Can I have your attention, please!” she yelled into the microphone. Without waiting to see how effective the demand for attention had been, she continued. “We have a situation. Please return to your quarters immediately and in as orderly a fashion as possible!”

To her relief, most of those on the fringes of the crowd looked up, hesitated, glanced in the direction of the Xtanians and immediately began to scatter toward the roadways that surrounded the field. “In an orderly fashion, ladies! We don’t want any injuries. We have the situation in hand!”

She couldn’t tell that that announcement had any appreciable effect on those who’d already started moving away, but it drew the attention of many in the crowd who’d ignored her before. The crowd shifted and heaved like a living thing as others pushed their way through and headed back to their quarters.

“No running! No pushing!” Eden yelled bracingly, her hand tightening around the microphone as she saw one colonist burst through the group and begin to run. Her half formed fear was realized. The sight of one woman running was enough to spark panic in others. Just as they’d rushed to the scene to see what was going on, they now reversed course and scattered. The panic seemed to grow exponentially. Like an epidemic wave, it traveled outward from the epicenter and even those who’d begun to move away in an orderly fashion, began to move faster and faster.

She’d lost sight of the techs who were trying to remove the injured man. She had no idea whether they’d managed to reach safety before the crowd began to stampede or not.

She saw, though, that the Xtanians remained where they were, as if rooted to the spot.

It was as well they did, for Ivy and her troops had their hands full trying to control the maddened crowd. Hoping to avert even more of a disaster, Eden dropped the microphone and hurried down the steps toward the Xtanians.

Her heart was in her throat when she reached them, though, mostly from the fear that Ivy and her troops would feel compelled to take action against the aliens. “You must go now!” she said a little breathlessly as she reached them.

Without a word, without even glancing at one another, the Xtanians turned and began to march back toward the gateway.

After staring after them in surprise for several moments, Eden hurried to follow. Ivy caught up to her. Grabbing her arm, she jerked Eden to a halt. “What the hell are you doing?”