Tagen smiled faintly, still staring unseeingly at the wall.
The proprietor had flirted with him. And in gratifyingly direct fashion, so similar to the manner in which a Jotan might approach. Her gaze had been hungry and aggressive. Her musk had been so full. She had demanded him. She had threatened to have him right there on the shop’s floor.
In the growing grip of Heat, Tagen had been tempted. It was unfeasible, of course. The proprietor had surely not realized he was alien to this world, but she would as soon as she’d felt his hands on her body. Mating with her would mean keeping an eye on her afterwards and he could not simply walk away from Daria to take up with another human. Daria may or may not be delighted to see the back of him, but he did not have the energy to ingratiate himself to a new host, to run all the risks all over again just for the convenience of easy sex.
Besides, although it had appealed greatly to his ego to know that he was an attractive male by human standards and as alluring as it had been to hear a female’s command for mating, he had felt no real urge to be with her. He had not even been interested enough to ask the female’s name. And for all that he had been receptive to her at the time, when he had been alone with Heat, it had been Daria again in his imaginings.
Daria.
He supposed he should go downstairs now. He wasn’t hungry, but he knew clinically that he should eat, or at the very least, drink. And he would have to talk to Daria. About anything, so long as she saw he was alive and well and not liable to leap on her in lustful frenzy.
Not that the thought had never crossed his mind, gods knew, but that was done now, he thought. She had caught him out, and now that the secrecy of Heat was destroyed, so went much of his fury and frustration. And he had forced her hand as well, ripped the dressing from her old wound and pulled all the poison out into light. He could live with the way things were, even if he could not deny the longing for things to be different between them.
Gods, what she had lived through.
He had known it would be bad, had suspected there to have been some attack, but he would never have guessed at the whole truth. Small wonder she had feared him so. Knowing what he did now, he was astonished that all she had done thus far was indulge in tears and mindless panic. She might easily and understandably have been compelled to do one or both of them an injury. Instead, she slept just down the hall from him.
She was so much stronger than she knew. Tagen realized he wanted to impress her, and it was not the same as wanting to impress a Jotan female. Jotan females had been handed respect all their lives for merely the accident of their gender, but Daria had earned his high opinion against every odd, and he knew that if she found him worthy of her esteem, than it would be sincere as well. Perhaps now that there was honesty between them, friendship would follow. He could content himself with that.
The light spilling in through his window lost the thin glow unique to early morning and began to strengthen with full day. He really had to go downstairs. He still believed it was cooler than it had been, but that was no guarantee that it would remain so. Much as he may desire to, he could not stay in his room forever.
Tagen grimaced. If nothing else, he would have to clean his… acquisition…before he needed it again. Preferably while Daria was below him and could not know what he was doing. Yes, it had been her idea and yes, she had bought the thing, but still.
He stood up, spurred at last to reluctant action, and dressed. He opened his door and listened until he heard Daria moving downstairs. She was in the kitchen, by the sound of it, and that was as good as Tagen supposed he could expect. Thus assured he would not be interrupted, Tagen washed his stimulator and returned it to his room, tossing a pillow over it to mask it from sight. Not that Daria was in the habit of wandering into his room—she avoided this place with a vigilance nearly equal to her cleanliness—but he didn’t want to look at it, either.
He went downstairs, passing the tee-vee with only an idle glance. The media feeds were on, broadcasting more news of Earth’s civil war. Grendel watched it from the sofa, its ears cocked forward and long tail twitching. Violence and death and murder by the hundreds. The cat looked disturbingly smug.
In the kitchen, Daria was just sitting down before her computer, but she stood again when he walked in. She twisted her hands together in her shirtfront, exposing a pale strip of belly-flesh. Her cheeks were pink and she wasn’t meeting his eyes. She looked more uncomfortable than even he felt.
“May I have a drink?” he asked at last, just to prompt her to movement.
She sprang away with an expression of profound relief and Tagen seated himself at the table. She brought him a tall glass of the iced tea she made, and he accepted it with a nod of thanks. How very formal they were.
Daria hovered at his side, watching him drink and looking miserably like she wished to speak.
She was going to ask him how he liked his stimulator, he just knew it. And he’d have to answer her, damn it all.
Hell. He might as well give her the opening and get it out of the way.
“So now you know,” he said.
Her lips twitched up in a shame-faced smile. “Yeah,” she said, and touched her cheek. “And so do you.”
She sat down at the table with him, folding her hands before her and staring fixedly at her fingers. “I need to apologize,” she said. “I don’t really want to. It seems like every other word out of my mouth since you came along has been ‘sorry’. By now, it’s really started to lose whatever meaning it ever had. But I have to apologize anyway. I can only hope you understand how much I do mean it. I feel horrible for how I’ve treated you.”
The weight of guilt was all around her, seeming to pull the light and substance from the room with all the capacity of a newborn black hole. Tagen felt himself wanting to fidget. “You had your reasons,” he said, wincing internally at the awkwardness of the words.
“I had an excuse,” she said, immediately and with scathing bitterness. “I had no reasons.”
The self-disgust in her words put a new gravity in the room. Tagen could think of nothing he could say to lighten it. The silence stretched out.
“I’m trying to say that…I’ve been…” She trailed off. Her head bent, her hair falling forward to hide her face. It made her look smaller, younger. She said nothing for a long time, but then, “I’m going to try to be better.”
She sounded utterly without hope, as if ‘better’ were as far beyond her as the moon.
Hell. He groped for something cheerful to say to her.
“I appreciate your efforts,” he said, and then covered his eyes and sighed.
She laughed, a harsh and hurt-filled sound. “What exactly do you appreciate, spaceman?” she asked, again with that tone of loathing.
He moved his hand and gave her a hard look. “That you have not stabbed me in my sleep.”
“Christ, you’re easy to please.” She shook her hair back and dragged her hand across her eyes. Her fingers lingered on her cheek.
He wished he knew what to say to appease her. Speech had never been one of his strengths. Not speech, not wit, not insight…gods, they’d make anyone a
sek’ta
these days.
He said, “If you are seeking my forgiveness, you have it.”
She did not look at him or respond in any way.
Tagen shrugged uncomfortably and let his eyes rest on the wall. “And if you are not, I suppose you have it anyway. What the hell, as you humans say.”
She laughed, which surprised him, and when he saw the sincere light of humor in her sad eyes it filled him with a cautious pleasure. She rubbed at her cheek again and then dropped her hands and offered him a wan smile. “You’re a good man, Tagen,” she said.
He thought bleakly of slipping into her room that night, painting his hand with her oils as he plied her sleeping body. “We can both be better,” he said.
“Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry for all the shit I’ve given you. I won’t bother you anymore.” She seemed about to say more, but abandoned it with a sigh. She got up from the table and moved to prepare him food.
“Thank you,” he said. He thought it an inappropriate answer, but it seemed to be what she needed to hear.
She only nodded, she didn’t even look at him. Soon the smells of cooking eclipsed those of cleansers. Daria worked at the oven, her head bent as though in penance, and perhaps it was. It would take a punishing mind to make Tagen stand over hot pans on such a warm day. He felt for her.
“Shall I tell you of Jota?” he asked suddenly, as much to fill the silence as to raise her mood.
She glanced at him, her eyes still shadowed, but managed to smile. “Sure. Tell me…Tell me about you.”
“Me?” He drew back slightly. “What of me?”
“I don’t know. Anything.” She prodded at the food listlessly. “Why’d you become a cop or…join the army, I guess, since it’s pretty much the same thing. Did something happen, or did you just wake up one day and decide to sign up?”
“Neither,” Tagen said, still thrown by her interest. Was there a deeper meaning, or merely a desire to be repaid for the intimacy he had forced out of her the day before? In either case, his answer could only benefit him. He said, “My…father wished me to join. I did so at the earliest age allowed by our law. I have served now…fifty-one years.”
“Seriously?” She gave him a wide-eyed scrutiny, her stirring-spoon dripping into her open palm. “You don’t look that old.”
“Because I am not old,” he said, somewhat defensively. “Most think me quite young for my rank.”
“Are the years on Jota shorter than Earth’s?”
Tagen thought about it, and then had to close his eyes and sketch figures on the tabletop to think about it some more. “No,” he said at last. “In point of fact, I believe they are longer. Our days are shorter, though. Notably.”
“Oh yeah?” Her head cocked to one side and she regarded him with open interest. “Is it hard to get used to Earth’s time? I mean, if the days are so much longer here…You’re still sleeping just at night. I imagine it must be like pulling a double-shift every day.”
He aimed a claw at her. “That is exactly what it feels like,” he said. “Barring, of course, the expectation of additional pay.”
“Yeah, well, we people of Earth have these great things called ‘unions’ that you might want to look into a little before you go home.” She turned back to the oven. “Was your father a soldier, too?”
“Yes.” He picked up his glass and sipped to take away the sour taste that had suddenly invaded his mouth. “One of my world’s greatest.”
“Really?” She turned again, and this time her gaze lingered. “He was famous?”
“Yes.”
“Are you?”
Tagen smiled wryly. “Oh yes.”
“How famous?”
His chest swelled slightly as his body displayed for her without consulting his mind. He had to laugh at himself, breaking the bitter sound into pieces by takking his claws hard on the table. “Very,” he said, answering her question. “Indeed, I think there is not a major city in all of Jota’s worlds that does not have at least one military hall named for Pahnee.”
“Then…” Slowly, her expression faded into puzzlement. “Why are you here?”
He frowned at her, wondering what could have prompted this bizarre spate of amnesia. Slowly, he began, “To pursue—”
“No, I know that. I guess I should have said, ‘Why are
you
here?’ Famous people tend not to be asked to do dangerous things here on Earth.”
“No? How then do they become famous?”
“They act or play sports or go into politics.” Daria’s mouth puckered. “You know, when I say it out loud like that, it sounds pretty stupid.” Her attention returned to the stove. She turned away from him and resumed cooking.
“I am here because I am famous,” Tagen told her. “On my world, those with well-known names are at times called upon to earn them out.”
“Lucky you.”
“Indeed.” But there was not as much bitterness in his answer as there might have been only a few days ago. It made him feel that he had to justify his tone, and he lamely added, “If I should be successful in this mission it will be a…a rising stair for me.”
“Actually, it’ll be more like a platform,” Daria remarked, her back still to him. “It sounds like you went up that stair when they gave you the job. Now that everyone knows no one can do it but Tagen Pahnee, the only stair in store for you is the one they’re all waiting for you to tumble down.”
Tagen felt a smile stretching his lips.
Daria’s back stiffened and she spun around, her spoon raised. “Oh, I’m sorry! Me and my big mouth, what a rotten thing to say!”
“But a true thing, I think.” He flicked his claws dismissively at her horror. “Such have been my feelings since I woke to find my orders, although I could not put them into words.”
And naturally, she could. Such a ready mind.
He said, “I have known all of my named life that I would follow my father’s way. I accepted it. I accept it now.”
“Your enthusiasm is an inspiration, Tagen.”
“Mm.” He set his glass down and stood, pacing over to watch her cook her alien food. He looked down at her, his gaze lingering inexplicably on the curve of her neck where it sloped into her shoulder. After a lengthy contemplation of his past and her gently-curving skin, he said, “I am trying to think if I ever did not wish to be a soldier. I honestly do not know. I knew that I would be. I think perhaps I felt there was little point in wishing otherwise.”
“Is it…like that for everyone on Jota?” Daria asked. “Is everyone just assigned their job?”
“No. As you say, lucky me.” He regarded her closely. “What is it you wished to become when you were young?”
“Well, fortunately, I’ve always wanted to be a neurotic shut-in,” she replied, too brightly, and then shook her head. “I wanted to be a dancer when I was really young. I even took lessons until…I stopped. Later, I wanted to show horses. I wanted it with my whole heart, despite the fact that I’d never even seen a horse up close. I knew the breed I wanted, though. Morgans. Then I found out how much it would cost to buy a foundation stallion, and I gave up. After that, I don’t think I really wanted to be anything. I just went along.”