“I am certainly getting that idea. Now, shopping?”
“I think I owe you breakfast first. I know just the place.”
At the mention of food, her stomach roared. “Good. I think we have ten minutes before my stomach goes critical.”
“We can be there in five.”
Vida had no idea what she had eaten, but her stomach didn’t care. It was happily going to work on her meal.
“Where are we going to shop? Come to think of it, I should have gotten a robe before I stuffed myself.”
“Not an issue. You aren’t shopping for anything form fitting.” Ziggy smiled at the server and swiped her chit across the payment screen.
“Thank you, Potential. Have a good day.” The young man flicked his wings and bowed.
Vida got to her feet with a groan and followed Ziggy across the walkway.
The shop was peculiar and Ziggy was speaking with a shadow.
“The Potential tells me that you need a robe to go with that amazing suit.”
Vida extended her arms slightly. “Something a little more subdued if possible.”
“Black then?”
“You tell me. I just want this covered up.”
The shadow moved around her and hemmed and hawed. Suddenly, he retracted and disappeared behind the counter.
Vida asked her friend. “Is this normal?”
“It is part of his process. He has analyzed your hair, eye and clothing colour. I briefed him on your physical activities, so this is going to be interesting.”
It took three minutes until a rack with several long robes was brought out. The shadow lifted one off the rack and settled it on her shoulders. “How is that?”
Vida walked to the mirror and turned from side to side. From the hip down, the robe was sliced to allow for full movement of her legs. She could run in this.
“I like it.” She smiled and the shadow slipped it off her shoulders, producing the next one that included a belt that changed it from robe to coat. It would be fine on Gaia, but it seemed a little silly to wear a coat on the ship.
“Nah. A little too much.”
“Right. How about this?”
They went through twelve robe styles, which amazed Vida. She didn’t realize that there were twelve robe styles.
In the end, she picked three with hoods and two without. She wore one of the hooded robes out of the shop. Ziggy paid for it all with a swipe of her chit and had everything sent to the delivery slot in Vida’s rooms.
Ziggy steered her toward a shop that specialized in footwear when her wristband got a call.
Vida continued looking at boots with the shopkeeper while Ziggy was on the call. The moment she finished, she came over and grabbed Vida by the arm.
“Please excuse us. There is a matter we need to witness. We will return as soon as we can.” Ziggy fired the statement over her shoulder as she hauled Vida to the transport pods.
“What is going on?”
“There is a challenge taking place in the atrium, and I am hoping that we haven’t missed it.” Ziggy scowled as their pod whisked them along the rail.
“What kind of a challenge?”
“That is just it. No one has any kind of idea. The Balance don’t normally settle their matters in public, and there haven’t been any face-offs of this nature since the ship left their home worlds.”
The pod slowed to a halt and they got out. Ziggy lifted her skirts and scooted down the steps toward an archway that contained a green space.
The way Ziggy spoke of it, Vida expected a huge crowd, but less than twenty people were standing near the open, grassy meadow in the centre of the park.
Two members of the Balance were facing each other twenty feet apart, and what surprised Vida was that she had met both of them.
She caught up to Ziggy who was next to her husband. Rothaway held his wife’s hand as the strange and silent battle was waged.
Vida slipped to the front of the small crowd and closed her eyes. She had a front-row view of the actual battle that none of the others could truly appreciate.
Dark and light energy were lashing back and forth across the distance between the two men, each was trying to upset the balance in the other. It was strange, but each contact of power was absorbed and intensified by the victim. The two men were lashing each other into a fury of power and light.
It was a stunning display, and finally, Lerinian allowed his power to drain back to normal levels.
S’rin stood motionless and mastered the energy from the fight. He didn’t dispense with it; he wore it and balanced it.
Lerinian bowed low, surrendering the field.
Ziggy came up next to her, “Who won?”
“S’rin. He managed to hold more power and maintain the balance while he did it. I think that was the point.” Vida shrugged. “Do you know what it was about?”
S’rin turned his face toward her, and he approached her slowly as if carrying a wobbly burden. When he was five feet from her, he stopped and bowed.
She bowed slightly in return. It seemed the thing to do. “Congratulations on your success, S’rin.”
“Thank you, Lady Vida. I have won the right to assist you in your investigations and pursue you socially if you are amenable.”
“Pursue me? Am I running away?” She opened her eyes and blinked at the duality of his energy over the calm, dark robes of his daily garb.
She could hear amusement when he said, “No, I don’t think you are the type to run from danger.”
“Are you dangerous?”
“To you? Never. Would you care to accompany me to the Balance area where we can look into the best means by which to use your talent?”
She looked back at Ziggy, and her friend waved her on with a smile. “I know where to find you. There is a tracker in your suit.”
“Then, S’rin, my afternoon is all yours.” She stepped toward him, and he offered her his arm.
With a sense of destiny, she wrapped her hand around the fabric that covered him. He shivered and her body heated. There was something between them, and it went deeper than a shared fashion sense.
Chapter Seven
“I did not think you would be so agreeable to joining me.” S’rin’s voice was bemused.
They had made it through the pod in silence, and when they reached the Balance segment of the ship, he had begun to speak.
“Why not? I can see you, and I find you wonderful to look at on both planes. I cannot say that about many men of my acquaintance.”
“You burn brightly as well. I find your urge to run into danger in complete harmony with your compulsion to help those around you. It is an odd balance, but a balance nonetheless.”
Vida laughed. “And balance is your primary point of attraction?”
“Each race has their own points of interest. Balance just happens to be ours.”
“What happened with you and Lerinian?”
“He wanted to help you with your search. I could not allow him to blend his energies with yours. It would be an intimacy that would bind you whether you knew it or not.”
“Ah, and you are willing to bind yourself to me?”
“In a heartbeat. You are the brightest star I have ever seen, and you simply walked into my lab by chance. That has to be the design of the stars.”
She cleared her throat and fought her blush. “Where will we run our first test?”
They had crossed the Balance spaces and were walking along the outer edge of the ship. He pointed to a platform that was raised and separated from the walkway by a small metal barrier.
He opened a gate with a small catch and closed it behind them. “I believe that this will work if you stand in front of me and I place my arms around you.”
“I can see why you thought Lerinian and I would get too close. It is a rather intimate position without adding in the mental connection.”
She knew she was babbling but staring out into space was making her a little dizzy. She swayed and his arms came around her, offering her support and an anchor to the world where gravity still held sway.
“Open your senses and look at the world beneath you and the endless space stretching in front of you. I will keep you safe.”
He held her tight and breathed slowly until her breathing matched his.
Vida leaned back against his chest and closed her eyes, letting her vision soar. She could see traces flying from the planet to the mother ship, but beyond the mother ship, there was nothing.
“There isn’t anything.” Depression gripped her.
“We are going around Gaia every few hours. Keep looking and you will see something. I will keep you supported. You need not fear.”
She could feel his energy wrapping around her, and the balance of hot and cold, calm and passion, almost made her dizzy. It also made her feel more powerful, and she extended her vision far beyond her normal range.
He was right, the world was turning under them or they were spinning over it. Either way, the five-and-a-half-year-old traces left by the Tokkel soon became visible. She could follow their paths from space to the ground.
Anticipation burned in her as she caught a trail leaving the planet and entering space. It broke up, and she howled, the connection broken.
S’rin stroked her hair and murmured in her ear. “We will find the path again. We just need a different vantage point.”
She was sobbing at having come so close and having it taken away from her the moment that the ship left the atmosphere. “Why can’t I see them?”
He stroked her hair again and smoothed it away from her face. “Because you aren’t looking in the right spot. We will work this out. I have a few ideas as to how to find them. Will you work with me?”
She swallowed and looked into his strange glowing eyes. “I will.”
“Will you have dinner with me?”
Vida smiled. “I will.”
Dinner with a member of the Balance was apparently not something that most women did. The servers fell over themselves to bring the food out and they never had the same one two times in a row.
Vida leaned toward S’rin. “I think this is a little odd.”
“We normally eat our meals in the Balance section of the ship, and courtship is done in the same manner. We separate the women from their communities to see if they can accept our ways.”
“You didn’t think that it was necessary with me?” She laughed and sipped at the strange cool-hot wine that had been served with dinner.
“You are one of the most accepting women I have ever met and the most determined to have your own way at the same time. The balance is incredible.”
“What will you think if I solve my problem by finding my parents and I have to surrender my quest?”
She could hear the smile in his voice.
“You will find another quest to drive you. You cannot remain still.”
Vida cocked her head. “You actually are getting satisfaction from that thought.”
“Yes, I am. You have a difference from the women more often chosen by our community, and yet, you fit in perfectly.”
“Do I?”
S’rin took her hand. “Your aura calms when you enter the Balance area. Your mind clears and you smile a little. You already want to be there. With us, with me.”
Vida sighed and placed her hand over his. “I do. I fight every day to keep myself calm, to keep my sight clear. In that one place, it comes to me effortlessly. I haven’t felt anything like that since before the Tokkel attacks.”
“You can feel that every day if you agree to be mine for life.”
She blinked. “Just like that?”
“There is surety in my mind, just as there is in yours.” He kept his hand on hers.
“How is it done?”
“We go to the gardens and exchange blood for blood. We can return to your quarters for the night and make the announcement tomorrow, but we will have to bond on the same day that we mate for the first time.”
She blinked and pulled her hands back. “Too fast. Ask me again tomorrow. I am still getting over having my bones overhauled.”
He reclaimed one hand and pressed a kiss to her fingers. “I will accept that and I will ask you again tomorrow.”
Ziggy escorted her to the Balance section the following morning and left her alone with S’rin.
He ran a detailed exam on her with the scanner that Meevin had brought in. Her transformation was still underway, but she was getting stronger.
Once the exam was over, she found a chair and pulled it over. She stood on it, flipped the hood of his robes back and kissed him, just to try it on for size.
His arms snapped around her and held her tight to him until he was ready to release her.
When she had finished her exploration and her head was spinning with energy that wasn’t all hers, she lifted her lips from his. He slowly opened his embrace and she braced herself on his shoulders as she stepped to the floor.
“That is going to be hard on your neck, S’rin.” She smiled. He was a foot and a half taller than she was. It was going to be an adjustment for him.
“I believe that the mating ceremony will let you meet me halfway.”
It took her a moment to absorb what he meant. “You are kidding.”
“No. Most Balance brides gain height as a side effect of the bonding process.”
She blinked. “I just got clothing that fits me. I don’t know that I will be amenable to throwing that all away.”
He stared at her in astonishment. “You would throw away a proper match because of clothing?”
Vida looked at him with narrow eyes. “Do you know how hard it has been for me to keep myself fed and clothed over the last six years? Clothing that is new and that fits is definitely a consideration.”
He sighed. “I will set you up with an account so that you can replace the clothing as needed. Now, would you like to hear my idea on how to see your family?”
She blinked. “Fine, but we are going to revisit the clothing thing. I don’t take. I earn my own keep.”
He grinned and flipped his hood up. “I expected nothing less. Now, come with me. We are heading to the projector.”
He explained his theory as they walked through the Balance section until they reached a theatre.
He led her to the centre of a huge room where a cushion was waiting on the floor. “Sit on the cushion and get comfortable. We are going to be there a while.”