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  “I see.”

  He was looking at her intently. She lifted her eyes to his and found turbulence in them. “Why are you looking at me that way?” she asked.

  He reached down and touched her hair, smoothing it with his fingers. “What we imagine the future to be is usually quite different from the reality. In another place, another time, many things might have been possible that are not, now,” he said quietly. He stopped, letting the thought trail away, as his voice did.

  She was confused by the feelings he aroused when he looked at her. She shifted in the chair. Her eyes met his again, and were puzzled once more by their burnished gold shade. It was one she’d never seen before.

  “It is a color which is not shown to anyone outside the family,” he explained patiently. “That is why you have not seen it.”

  “Oh.” She laughed, then frowned. “But I have. Your eyes were that color when you rescued me, on Akaashe,” she added, puzzled.

  “A result of the mating behavior,” he lied. It had been more than that, but he didn’t want to think about it just yet. He traced her cheek, his gaze still intent on her face. “So many differences,” he mused. “But in many more ways, we are alike. We must concentrate on the similarities during our time in Benaski Port, so that we do not arouse suspicion.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ll arm me for the mission?” she murmured mischievously.

  He lifted an eyebrow. “Only under threat of immediate attack by squadrons of Rojoks.”

  She sighed. “I might have known.”

  “You will not require a weapon. I will protect you and the child,” he said.

  Odd, the feeling those words provoked, in a very capable and independent spirit. They made her feel warm inside, in a way she never had before.

  It made him feel the same. It was disturbing. He turned away. “I have duties to attend to. If you need anything, you have only to call. A servant will answer.”

  “Servants, luxurious clothing, every whim attended to,” she said. “It’s difficult to adjust.”

  He smiled. “Despite how it may seem, my own life has been quite regimented and sparse in the way of luxuries. It is a change for me, too, this new lifestyle.”

  Her gaze slid over his handsome face. “It’s only temporary.”

  He nodded. His eyes went to her belly, where his child was growing. His face hardened and he turned away. It wouldn’t do to get too involved with her pregnancy.

  She watched him go with sad eyes. She touched her stomach with wonder. She hadn’t really believed it was possible. She was amazed at how much she wanted the child. That possibility hadn’t even occurred to her. She turned back to the balcony. It would be unwise to dwell on impossible things. She looked up as a small, personal transport flew over and sighed. It was going to be a long few days.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MADELINE THOUGHT SHE knew the commander of the Holconcom quite well after serving aboard his vessel for almost three years. But, the private person was far removed from the military leader.

  Despite the somewhat disturbing physical events of the recent past, she was still comfortable with him when they were alone. He walked with her in the gardens of the fortress, pointing out the various forms of flora and even quoting the names in High Cehn-Tahr, the ancient language, the holy tongue.

  “That dialect is familiar,” she said. “I’ve heard it spoken by the kehmatemer. But it isn’t in current use widely, is it?”

  “No,” he agreed. “The emperor insisted on keeping the ancient language alive, so that the roots of our people would endure. He considers that language is the basis of culture.”

  “I see. So the Dectat uses it in discussions, and the kehmatemer use it among themselves, since they protect the officials of the Dectat.”

  He smiled. “Exactly.”

  She closed her eyes and drank in the exquisite fragrance of the canolithe, which grew in the nearby woods. “I smelled canolithe for the first time in a library on Altair 6 where we were on maneuvers,” she recalled with a smile. “It had been recorded in the sensor logs and reproduced by an olfactory process known only to the Altairians.”

  He turned and looked down at her with quiet appreciation of her beauty, enhanced by the child she was carrying. His child. He felt possession wash over him like a wave. He had never felt it like this, certainly not for the Dacerian woman long ago whom, he was only beginning to realize, had an agenda that he had never perceived.

  She became aware of his scrutiny and looked up. “Is something wrong?”

  He shook his head. “I was remembering the day I brought you here, when I showed the canolithe to you,” he said with a gentle smile.

  Her green eyes brightened. “It was the happiest day of my life.” She hadn’t meant to say it aloud. She flushed a little self-consciously and averted her eyes. “I mean, the military doesn’t get much opportunity to walk around in places like this.”

  He stopped, deep in thought. “At the time, the differences between our species seemed insurmountable,” he said quietly. He turned and looked down at her. There was turmoil in the warping colors of his eyes. “There are things you can never know about us,” he added.

  She frowned. “What sort of things?”

  He sighed. His hand went out to touch her long, reddish-gold hair, given a radiant halo in the light from the two suns of Memcache. “Other dissimilarities that are not apparent. And political considerations that are even more forbidding than the physical differences.”

  “You mean, because you’re an aristocrat and I’m a common soldier,” she said, and didn’t take offense. “I know...”

  “That is not what I mean,” he interrupted. “Madeline, our emperor was a common soldier, too. He came from an agricultural background. His people worked the soil for generations. When he was young, he became infatuated with the daughter of the house for which his family worked.”

  “Oh, dear,” she said, anticipating how that would have played out.

  He laughed. “You assume correctly. Her people were outraged that he would expect to have her. But they underestimated his ambition. He organized a group of soldiers who were outcast from the military because they were clones of their originals, who had been killed in action.”

  She gasped.

  “Yes,” he said. “My people were once as intolerant of clones as yours are now. The emperor looked not at their construction, but at the way they fought, and their loyalty to him. He coaxed the best scientists of our culture to work for him, to concern themselves with genetic engineering that would make his soldiers the superior of any they might meet in combat. He also focused their efforts on the development of microcyborg technology, to accentuate their strengths.”

  “That’s how his imperial bodyguard, his Praetorians, was formed,” she guessed.

  He laughed. “This is how the Holconcom was formed,” he corrected.

  Her lips fell apart with surprise.

  “Once the improvements were made, he had the Morcai built to his own specifications and made it the Holconcom flagship.”

  She frowned. “Those innovations must have required genius. But you said he was from an agricultural background.”

  “He was an eternal student,” he said, glancing around him at the natural beauty of the setting. “He never stopped reading, studying. He won a place in our university system through his own efforts rather than any Clan connections and graduated first in his class with doctorates in physics and chemistry and emerillium technology.”

  “Heavens! I’ve never read any of that in textdiscs!”

  “It is not common knowledge. But the female with whom he wished to bond came from ancient royalty. His wisdom, his accomplishments, meant nothing to her family.”

  “Snobs,” she muttered.

  He chuckled. “In that sense, yes,
they were.”

  “But he did win her, in the end?”

  “Of course. He never relinquished a goal. He determined to have her, no matter what the cost. So he took the Holconcom on a decades-long mission of conquest. When he was done, he had conquered a hundred and fifty worlds. The confederation has dwindled somewhat in the past two decades, with the advent of the sovereignty programs in the three galaxies, but we still claim more than a hundred colonies. The emperor set up committees to govern and improve living conditions within the colonies and sent experts in all fields out to work with their own leaders. His innovations were so extraordinary that the conquered governments never sought liberation, in those days. They were lifted out of isolation and poverty into wealth, given sovereignty, and encouraged to send representation to the Dectat to discuss policies that would affect them.” He glanced at her as they began walking again, smiling. “He became emperor through acclamation with not one single dissenting vote. At that point, I might add, the female’s family was offering their daughter to him.”

  “I imagine they expected high positions at court in return,” she mused.

  “If that was the case, they were disappointed. He had them moved to a distant province, where they still live. They have never been permitted at court.” He chuckled. “He has a long memory and he does not forgive easily. His pride was severely damaged by their attitude toward him when he had nothing except his brilliance and ambition to offer.”

  “I don’t blame him,” she said. “But it must have been hard on his consort.”

  “Not at all. Her family had long treated her as an outcast because she obtained degrees in—” He stopped abruptly. “Let us say that they did not approve of her goal of higher education. They had also attempted to bond her with a much older citizen of great wealth and position.”

  “Attempted?”

  He laughed. “Her father invited him to the house and arranged a bonding ceremony. They only told her when the official arrived to perform the bonding. She left the room, climbed out a window, down a tree beside her suite of rooms and hid out in the forest for two days until the older citizen left. When she returned, she informed her father that the next time he attempted such a union, she would jump from the tree rather than climb down it. He was proud of his position in society. It would be a scandal for the only daughter of the house to commit suicide. She prevailed. And, later, she became Empress of all the Cehn-Tahr.”

  She laughed, too. “What a lady,” she said with admiration. “That’s not the sort of person I thought an empress would be.”

  “Her exploits were legend when she was young.”

  She frowned. “Didn’t she leave the emperor?”

  “Yes. There was a tragedy which separated them.”

  He didn’t elaborate and she was hesitant to pursue the subject. It seemed to make him uncomfortable. She drew in a long breath and sighed. “The canolithe are exquisite,” she said.

  “Yes, I have always thought so...”

  He stopped abruptly as a huge galot suddenly appeared out of nowhere in the garden just ahead of them. The feline’s sleek black coat glittered like diamonds in the sunlight. It had large green eyes and its mouth, slightly open, displayed snowy-white fangs. Its paws were enormous, and although the claws were retracted, she knew they could appear like lightning if it attacked. The species had a reputation for being aggressive and merciless.

  Her hand went protectively to her belly. She wasn’t afraid for herself. But the thought of what those claws could do to the child alarmed her.

  “Be still,” Dtimun said quietly.

  “No, I thought I’d sprint across the yard to the house,” she said in a tone dripping sarcasm, “and try to outrun him!”

  There was a muffled sound from the galot.

  “Why are you here?” Dtimun asked the cat, while Madeline stared at him as if he’d gone mad, speaking to an animal.

  “I wanted to see the female who carries your cub,” the cat spoke, in a voice that was reminiscent of a cat hissing, except the sounds were intelligible as words. Madeline was surprised. She had no idea that the galot species had speech at all, despite zoological studies which suggested it due to the structure of its throat.

  “You chased the small Nagaashe child and frightened it,” Dtimun said curtly. “You were banished.”

  “Only for a time,” the cat said, and made what sounded like a chuckle. “You should know, Dakaashe, that you cannot banish me for long.”

  Dakaashe. Madeline had never heard the word. She wondered what it meant.

  “If Rognan sees you, there will be a war,” Dtimun mused.

  “He is eating fruit. It is the time when he naps.” He moved forward toward Madeline, very slowly, stalking her.

  Dtimun gave a low, warning growl. The cat ignored him.

  Madeline stood her ground, examining him with curious fascination. He was all muscle. And as he drew closer, she realized that he was at least three times the size of a Terravegan tiger. If he stood on his hind legs, he would be taller than Dtimun.

  He stopped a foot away from her and looked into her eyes. He was almost level with them. “You are Ruszel.”

  She caught her breath and laughed. “Yes!”

  “The galots know of you,” he said. “You called Meg-Ravens to save the Nagaashe child from me.”

  She bit her lower lip. “I’m fond of the Nagaashe,” she began defensively.

  The big cat laughed. “It was a novel solution,” he replied in his odd speech. “I am not angry. I would not have harmed the Nagaashe child. They share tech with us, so they are our allies. I simply like to play.”

  “Too much, at times,” Dtimun said curtly, relaxing his taut posture. Had the big cat threatened Madeline or his child, he would have attacked without hesitation, despite the fact that their four-legged visitor was familiar to him.

  The big cat turned to him. “You cannot play. You have forgotten how.”

  “Have I?”

  It was one of the more surprising moments of Madeline’s life, what happened next. Her dignified commanding officer ran toward the cat at top speed, pounced on him and then rolled on the ground, cuffing at him. It was like watching two cats play. They chased each other around the garden, becoming blurs as they revealed the speeds they were capable of. No terrestrial cat could have outrun them. It was like on Lagana, when Dtimun had attacked the Rojok officer who threatened Madeline, that same incredible speed that made him almost a blur. Apparently galots were capable of it, too.

  They went up trees and down them, over rocks, through the small, clear stream that ran around the property. Finally, exhausted and winded, they stopped beside Madeline.

  The commander’s hair was mussed from the play and he was laughing. Really laughing. Madeline found him fascinating like that.

  He noted her curiosity. “This is Kanthor,” he said, introducing his prone, panting companion. “We played together when I could barely walk. He lives on Memcache from time to time, although his true home is on a planet in the Eridanus system.”

  Madeline smiled at him. “Where researchers try to learn about your culture,” she mused.

  “Yes,” Kanthor replied as he panted. “We enjoy their visits. They are quite tasty.”

  It took her a minute to get that, and she burst out laughing.

  “He is not making a joke,” Dtimun said, and he was unusually watchful.

  “I know.” Her eyes twinkled. “Sir, on ancient earth there was a race of cats called Tigers. They were notorious for being man-eaters. I’m not shocked, you know. Felines are simply doing what their nature dictates.”

  “Yes. It is a feline trait, to eat live prey,” he said in an expressionless tone.

  “Not only felines,” she replied with a sigh. “Humans, too, I’m afraid.”

  He stared at her, sh
ocked.

  She flushed. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that, I guess.”

  He moved closer. “Explain. Please,” he added when she was hesitant.

  She grimaced. “Well, you see, in terrible wars in our history, rations ran out on battlefields. There was nothing to feed prisoners of war. When they were desperate enough, they ate each other. It isn’t something we’re proud of, you understand, but it’s part of our culture. Not that we share that knowledge with other species...!”

  He had lifted her from the ground, embraced her almost hungrily.

  She didn’t know what to think. Her arms slid around his neck and she embraced him as well, until his fury abated and he was gentle.

  “Forgive me,” he said roughly, drawing back.

  She stared up at him with wide, unblinking green eyes. “I thought you would be repulsed, to know something so...distasteful...about my species,” she said hesitantly.

  “That is because there are secrets you still do not know about mine,” he replied tersely.

  She wasn’t slow. She smiled. “Those stories they tell about the Cehn-Tahr in battle, devouring their prey. They aren’t just stories, are they?”

  He hesitated, but only for a moment. She had been honest. He could be the same.

  “No, Madeline,” he replied. “They are not just stories. It was a means of survival at first, and then a way to maintain the fear our enemies felt for us.”

  “It is quite effective,” Kanthor mused, and made a facsimile of laughter, deep in his throat. “It keeps researchers from pestering us.”

  Madeline chuckled. “We noticed.”

  “She has no fear of us,” Kanthor told Dtimun. “She is worthy to carry your cub.”

  Madeline’s hand went to the mound under her robes. As she recalled the fate of the child inside her, a sweeping sorrow darkened her mind.

  Cehn-Tahr and the cat stared at her intently.

  “Don’t tell me,” she thought to Kanthor. “You can read minds, too.”

  “Of course,” the cat replied silently. “Where do you think the Cehn-Tahr acquired the ability, if not from our genetic material?”