Discovery (13 page)

A sound of outrage and a good shove made his eyes open. He stared into a tilted pair of pissed-off purple ones surrounded by thick, long lashes and set wide apart in a face of sky-blue.

“Oh, hell!”

“Not sleep-rest now, K’nt. Day. K’nt said no kissing.” The alien woman trapped by the tight sleeping bag and his body wriggled now in impatience, not pleasure.

Only then did Kent realize where his hands were and what they were doing.
Jeez.

“I am Povre. Not Linn. Who Linn is? Why kiss-touch Povre, think Linn?”

“Lynn isn’t worth explaining. A bad habit I had.” Kent started to grin. For once he had the advantage: she couldn’t get leverage enough to escape or hurt him, if she was so inclined. His glance lingered on her breasts, noticing they were furred like the rest of her except for the violet-tinged nipples.
No wonder she flushes purple. Is her blood the same color?

He moved his hands from her breasts without hurry, feeling static discharges follow the trail along her soft fur. Her body became still and another soft moan escaped her. She looked and felt so good. Riled and aroused. More aroused than he was at the moment, if the dilated pupils and fast breathing meant anything.

“Lynn is human woman?”

He found her pout irresistible. “Lynn doesn’t matter.”

The dilated pupils contracted to slits.

“Povre, you’re jealous.” He kissed the end of her nose again and let her feel his teeth. She squeaked and tried to wriggle free. Kent adjusted his position to give her more room and somehow prevent her escape, and in the process, stiffened with a stunning realization. “My leg—”

“Leg hurt?” Her frown disappeared into genuine concern.

“No.” Kent moved his sore leg, flexed his foot, and felt no pain. He only felt Povre’s enticing form and the material of his sweatpants sliding against the slick material of the sleeping bag. “No pain at all.”

“Sleep-rest fix,” she said, quite certain. “Sleep-rest fix I, too.”

Kent wasn’t at all sure the answer was that simple. Not for him, anyway. Could her subtle current, in contact with him all night, somehow stimulated the healing process?

“Maybe that, too,” she said.

His attention returned to her face. “Are you psychic? Can you feel my thoughts?”

She looked away, her teeth biting her full lower lip. He wanted to nibble at it.

“Yes…No. Some thoughts. Most feelings, when touch. When kiss.” Her face turned back and her glance was earnest now. “K’nt, need words. More talk-words. I thought-feel them, you give I?”

He wondered if she’d absorbed more language over the night, or the resting time jelled the near-constant lessons of the day before. In any case, Povre was an amazing linguist. Now she was suggesting she could learn faster if he let her feel his thoughts?

He wasn’t sure he liked the idea. His memories, secrets, good and bad, revealed?

Proving her empathy, she reassured him. “Trust, K’nt, only talk-words. Here look I. Not here.” She touched part of his head, then another. “Maybe not work, human and Sirgel not same…what word…ex-peer-i-ment. K’nt need trust I.”

“Povre, you’re amazing,” whispered Kent.

“Please. Need words, so talk I, you.”

“Go ahead.”

“Thank you,” she said with deep gratitude that made Kent feel ten feet tall and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

Her merging was swift and took him by surprise. He expected she would have to touch him in some ritual manner, maybe like a Vulcan doing a mind-meld, but no. She lay beneath him exactly as before and never moved a muscle. Less than a second later he let out a small gasp as a mental touch went under his skin, through his cranium, and paused. He could see a small, pure amethyst spark flare as her awareness settled in him. The spark at first tested pathways as if reading a road map, then, after one more heartbeat of hesitation the spark shot along a neural pathway to unerringly find the speech center of his brain.

In that endless moment of sharing with Povre he could see millions of partitions inside his head, each with a unique purpose. She remained only in one of them. Terms he hadn’t thought of since elementary and junior high flashed into his conscious mind. Tenses, syntax, prepositions. Learning to communicate, beginning in infancy with sounds and cries, into the toddler stage when he could understand but not reciprocate. Was I really that awful? Were those terrible tantrums he threw the result of not being able to make himself understood?

Awed, Kent tried to figure out just how she could be so intimate within his brain yet not touch or direct what he thought and experienced now. He remained acutely aware of physical sensation, where their bodies touched, that he no longer felt her nipples but her breasts felt warm and intriguing against his chest, the birdsong, swishing of the breeze through the pines, and muttering of the Deschutes River outside the tent, their breathing. No longer rushed and aroused, but calmed, peaceful, slow and steady.

The purple spark flared brighter for a second, dimmed, and retreated along the same path taken. He blinked, shook his head, and felt empty; curiously alone.

Povre lay beneath him, still as a stone. Her face held a paler cast than normal. Her eyes were closed, lips parted slightly, and she hardly breathed.

Alarmed, Kent twisted and struggled to reach the zipper of the sleeping bag, then opened the tent flap to let cold fresh air rush into the relative warmth trapped within the thin nylon shell. He disentangled their limbs and moved aside.

“Povre.
Povre
, wake up. Oh, hell.” He touched her face, her limp hands. She looked as if she had no bones, no muscles. The skin beneath her fur had a ghastly grayish undertone. “Povre, talk to me,” he urged, close to panic.

Her lips moved. He leaned close, hoping to hear some sound, some word, anything to know she wasn’t dying.

She moaned, a sound of intense pain. The skin beneath her fur turned even more pale. Her fingers wriggled and clenched and weakly rose to her face as if her brain was about to explode from within. Her breaths came in ragged, forced growls and pants, but at least she breathed.

Helpless, scared, Kent had no idea what to do.

She screamed, the sound soft and thin but enough to make goose bumps break out over Kent’s length. Her body started to shake. One six-fingered hand dropped to her belly, the other clamped over her mouth. Her eyelids opened and he had a brief glimpse of the lovely purple irises before they rolled back in their sockets.

The sound emerging from behind her hand was a warning and plea. Kent scrambled outside, turned, and pulled her by the shoulders into the cold, clear air. He picked her up and rushed to the nearest bushes just in time.

He knelt on one knee, supporting her across the upraised one, and held her head as she vomited. “You know,” remarked Ken despite his worry, “this is the first time I’ve held a totally beautiful, naked female of any species while she heaved her guts out.”

She lay still, gasping, her breasts pressing against his thigh, and retched again.

“Povre?” After clinically noting what came up seemed liquid and clear, he noticed again what a very lovely derriere she had. Her height was entirely in her legs, which were endlessly long, slender and well shaped with evidence of wiry muscles under her skin and fur. Six cute blue toes, which looked long and dexterous, were on each narrow foot, which were more highly arched than a human’s.

“Kent.”

The subtle difference in the manner she spoke his name brought his attention back to her head and face. She hadn’t swallowed the nearly silent vowel sound. He caught the briefest of glances before she had to look away and convulse again.

“Povre?”

She lay across his thigh, panting, shivering, but he felt strength coming back to the body that just moments before had felt so frighteningly boneless. She slid to her knees, pulled her arms under her chest, and leaned into him for support. His caressed her shaggy head with a gentle touch.

“Povre, are you all right? What happened?”

She pushed her upper body to one side and spat.

“I’ll get you some water.”

A nod and another push, which left her supporting herself on folded legs and hands, was his only answer. She shrank into herself and shivered. Only the length of her back, curve of buttocks, and heels were left exposed. Kent hurried to the tent, rooted through the gear for some moist towelettes, the water jug, and a cup, and rushed back.

Now she lay curled on her side on the cold ground in a fetal position. The short hairs covering her body were on end, making Kent guess she was goosebumped head to toe.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” he said with sympathy, “then dressed and warm.”

She fussed in a weak manner while he took charge of wiping her face and mouth. But she didn’t fight when he held the cup to her lips. Her trembling hands and fingers closed over his and she took a deep sip, and then turned her head away and spat it out to clear the Sirgel equivalent to bile. She swallowed the next sip.

He picked her up and carried her back to the tent.

“If I knew what you were going to do was going to make you sick, I wouldn’t have let you do it,” said Kent as he maneuvered her inside the sleeping bag.

Still Povre remained silent, not bothering to even open her eyes. Her color looked better; her breathing easier. Kent tugged his Therma-Rest pad through the opening, sat on it, and like the first night, gathered her into his lap and arms.

“Kent,” said Povre at last in a groggy, husky whisper, “thank you. I’m okay soon.”

“Yeah right, and I’m the Easter bunny.”

“I…clothes…my clothes? Where?”

He nodded toward the tent. “I’d put them on you if I knew how.”

She stirred, raised her head, and blew a strand of hair from her eyes. “I show will you. Notes Kent take.”

He laughed, hugging her into his body. A few seconds later he released her a bit so that he could look into her face. “Can you explain to me yet what just happened here?”

I
T WOULD TAKE TIME FOR
her to fully assimilate the huge download of Kent’s lifetime of language. Once things sorted out in her mind, then she could explain to him. Everything. The adverse reaction to the mindlink had surprised her with its intensity, though. Then again, she’d had previous bad reactions to the Teacher, which was her reason for always avoiding that method of learning. She had never told H’renzek exactly how bad the reactions had been in the fear that he would not allow her to accompany the survey teams. The rules stated all teams were to be infused with certain amounts of information before they could participate on a surface expedition. Besides, she’d always reasoned, the electronic Teacher used very much the same methods she was capable of learning naturally, if she tried, focused, and concentrated hard enough.

Direct merging with her father, however, only left her with a headache at worst. Maybe she had placed too much hope that her affinity with the human would mitigate her reaction. Stupid to forget that, affinity or not, his was a different sort of mind, and he was a different species.

She struggled into her clothes while he packed up the shelter and gear. Not trusting her belly, she refused food, but once she settled inside her outer jumpsuit she accepted more water, which Kent thoughtfully warmed for her. After a few minutes she felt much better physically. Mentally, her brain felt disoriented as the enormous mass of data tried to settle in place. It was harder for her to speak now, in any language she knew, than it had been before.

Although disoriented and uncomfortable, she didn’t worry too much. Her natural instincts didn’t rely on conscious thought. Once her boots had been secured to her feet Povre showed Kent she felt prepared to move on by packing her backpack.

* * * * *

KENT STOOD IN THE
open, shrugging his shoulders to settle his pack while sweeping his gaze around their campsite to make sure it looked as undisturbed as possible. Behind him somewhere, Povre gasped. Before he could turn to see what the matter was, she slammed into him, the force of her impact sending them both headlong into a stand of scrubby sage.

“What the hell, Povre!”

Cursing as dead sticks and spiny branches scraped and poked, he wriggled around to grab her shoulders. Her face held the same expression as it had yesterday morning. Kent didn’t have to push her hair back to know her little catlike ears would be flattened against her skull.