Maryam Read online

  No, he wouldn’t. Per­haps he’d dis­cov­ered an un­to­ward fas­ci­na­tion for Maryam, but Pana wouldn’t act on such an in­fat­u­a­tion. Briel was his clan­mate, and he would move the en­tire gal­axy to make their re­la­tion­ship work.

  He took her hand in his and kissed the back of it, smil­ing at his Matara.

  Pana kept his at­ten­tion cen­tered on Briel as Maryam re­turned with pret­tily wrapped gifts. He watched his Matara with de­ter­mined de­light as she tore into the pack­ages with ex­cite­ment. That she was en­thu­si­as­tic about gifts meant for the com­ing baby brought Pana joy.

  Kels was right. When the child came, Briel would set­tle down. She and Pana would ap­pre­ci­ate each other more. He’d love her as he should.

  Briel emit­ted more of her girl­ish squeals as she showed him the ronka-themed blan­ket, pil­low, and stuffed an­i­mal. Pana couldn’t help but share her glee as he ex­am­ined the beau­ti­fully con­structed items.

  “These are ex­quis­ite. The amount of work you put into it…as­ton­ish­ing,” he com­pli­mented Maryam.

  The Earther waved off his ap­pre­ci­a­tion. “I cre­ated tem­plates so I can turn out pieces fairly quickly. The big­gest is­sue I had was fig­ur­ing out how to in­cor­po­rate a ronka into my de­signs. Such shaggy crea­tures. I’m glad the gifts are a hit.”

  “They’re per­fect. Thank you, Maryam.” Briel thrust the presents onto Pana’s lap. She jumped to her feet to hug and kiss her friend.

  Pana ad­mired the in­tri­cate work, wish­ing he could do some­thing as kind in re­turn for all the at­ten­tion Maryam had be­stowed on Briel. That re­minded him of the in­vi­ta­tion Kels had ex­tended, and he checked the time in a panic. For­tu­nately, he’d re­mem­bered be­fore it was too late.

  “Matara Maryam, I nearly for­got. My Dramok—well, all of us—wish to treat you to a meal to thank you for be­ing Briel’s friend.”

  “For keep­ing me from my worst in­stincts, in other words.” Briel gig­gled.

  “Would you join us?” Pana asked.

  He saw the strug­gle in the Earther’s ex­pres­sion. She wanted to say yes, when the an­swer was clearly no. “There aren’t any other Earth­ers on the sta­tion that I’m aware of, but they do show up here reg­u­larly. If word got out that I’d been in the com­pany of Kalquo­rian men—”

  “I un­der­stand. We’ll have to find an­other way to show our ap­pre­ci­a­tion for your kind­nesses.” He smiled, ig­nor­ing the dis­ap­point­ment that sat heav­ily in his gut.

  “Truly, it was my plea­sure. Briel’s com­pany has been won­der­ful.” Sin­cer­ity rang as she wist­fully gazed at Briel. “I’ll miss you when you leave.”

  Briel blinked hard, swal­low­ing as her ex­u­ber­ance dimmed. She reached for Maryam’s hand and pressed it to her cheek. They smiled at each other, their eyes shin­ing. Pana stayed quiet, feel­ing like an in­truder on their odd but com­pelling friend­ship.

  * * * *

  “What’s go­ing on?” Der­gan asked his Dramok.

  They’d ar­rived at the el­e­gant restau­rant early, where meals could cost as much as a small planet-bound shut­tle. Not ex­actly the most com­fort­able place for a Nobek who over­saw the mil­i­tary’s tac­ti­cal forces, but he’d grown used to grand sur­round­ings since Kels’s el­e­va­tion as Se­bist’s ad­vi­sor. The soft mu­sic from a quar­tet of Plasians, dot­ing wait­staff in for­mal wear, and richly up­hol­stered semi-cir­cu­lar benches clus­tered around pol­ished mar­ble table­tops were too op­u­lent for Der­gan’s tastes, but the aroma of the food promised he’d en­joy his meal. Be­sides, the bar had top­notch bo­hut of an im­pec­ca­ble vin­tage.

  Pana, Briel, and per­haps Matara Maryam weren’t due to join them for sev­eral min­utes. Der­gan ap­praised Kels with a per­cep­tive eye. Af­ter sixty years of clan­ship, he rec­og­nized Kels’s pen­sive mood. His Dramok had been quiet all morn­ing. Twitchy too, pac­ing the suite and find­ing an ex­cuse to duck out when Der­gan at­tempted to find out what was both­er­ing him.

  Con­vinc­ing Kels to ar­rive early for lunch, un­der the pre­text of hav­ing a few drinks be­fore­hand, as­sured Der­gan of pin­ning his clan­mate down.

  “Ob­vi­ous in my old age, aren’t I?” Kels said with a sigh.

  “You’re not old. Just well-sea­soned.” They snick­ered at the joke. Der­gan was glad to see Kels re­lax.

  “I heard from Se­bist last night.” Kels drew cir­cles in the con­den­sa­tion his drink left on the gleam­ing ta­ble.

  “Okay.”

  “Earth­ers are com­pat­i­ble for breed­ing with our peo­ple.”

  Der­gan froze for an in­stant, all thought still­ing. His well-honed mind bul­lied past the shock, quickly cat­a­logu­ing all the stun­ning state­ment could mean.

  First, clar­i­fi­ca­tion. “Their fe­males can bear our chil­dren?”

  “The mir­a­cle we’ve waited for.”

  Right away, Der­gan sur­mised the main prob­lem, no doubt why his Dramok wasn’t shout­ing with joy. “Their gov­ern­ment won’t al­low them to come to the em­pire.”

  “No. Worse still, we have less than three hun­dred years un­til ex­tinc­tion.”

  An­other shock to ab­sorb. Two full sec­onds passed be­fore he re­cov­ered. “I knew the sit­u­a­tion was crit­i­cal, but I hadn’t re­al­ized we were so up against it. Will Kalquor bank­rupt the trea­sury to coax Earth into let­ting us court their women?”

  “More on the or­der of bankrupt­ing our souls. We’re to bring Maryam home with us.” Kels lifted his gaze from the wet pat­terns he drew on the ta­ble’s sur­face. He stared at Der­gan, let­ting the bald state­ment sit be­tween them.

  The Nobek sat back in his richly up­hol­stered seat, re­fus­ing to let emo­tion color his rea­son­ing as he con­sid­ered the sit­u­a­tion. At last he said, “It’s an ex­treme step. Some would say re­pug­nant.”

  “I hold out hope she’ll come will­ingly.” Kels gulped his top-shelf bo­hut.

  Matara Maryam shoved into Der­gan’s thoughts. She wore a type of weary ex­pe­ri­ence on her pretty face, the kind Nobeks wore who’d fought in tough but mean­ing­ful cam­paigns. Der­gan had been im­pressed with her on sight, and not merely be­cause of her strange but com­pelling beauty. The fe­males of her world were sup­pos­edly sub­ju­gated to a hor­ri­fy­ing de­gree, but she’d dis­played none of those char­ac­ter­is­tics. In those few min­utes he’d been in her pres­ence, she’d given Der­gan the im­pres­sion of hard-won as­sur­ance.

  Would she wish to be “res­cued” from Earth? Could Der­gan do so if it were against her will?

  It took ef­fort, but Der­gan kept his tone even. “Given what we know of her world, I sup­pose it’s pos­si­ble she’d agree to go to Kalquor. How­ever, it’s as likely she won’t. How am I to rec­on­cile the sit­u­a­tion with my­self if she re­quires more force­ful con­vinc­ing?”

  “She’ll join Se­bist’s clan.”

  “Any Kalquo­rian Matara would count her­self lucky to have that op­por­tu­nity.”

  Kels pre-empted his next state­ment. “But she’s not Kalquo­rian.”

  “Not even close.”

  “The or­der came from high up. Maybe the Im­pe­rial Clan it­self, though Se­bist couldn’t say for sure.”

  Der­gan skew­ered Kels with a glare. “This could start a war with Earth. Have you con­sid­ered that? Our tech­nol­ogy is far ahead of theirs, but their num­bers—we’ll have far less than three hun­dred years of sur­vival left if out­right hos­til­i­ties break out.”

  “If we lose. Don’t give me that look, Der­gan. I’m aware of the odds against win­ning a war against Earth.”

  “Then why are we dis­cussing this?”

  “Be­cause we’re faced with an early pos­si­ble end or a cer­tain de­layed end of our peo­ple. If you’re aware of an­other op­t
ion, I’d love to hear it.”

  Der­gan downed his bo­hut in a sin­gle gulp and sig­naled the nearby Darotkin waiter for an­other. “I hate these moral co­nun­drums. The older I get, the more of them I have to deal with.”

  “It was eas­ier when we were young, wasn’t it?” Kels agreed.

  They sat in si­lence for sev­eral min­utes, Kels let­ting Der­gan work the is­sue out for him­self.

  What is there to work out? My peo­ple are dy­ing. My son will be among the last of his kind. I’ve been given an or­der. I have to do what I’m told to save Kalquor.

  Der­gan searched to find some­thing worth­while in the mis­er­able state of af­fairs. “At least if I go along with this, I can make up for let­ting Briel slip through my fin­gers.”

  Her suc­cess­ful week-long es­cape ran­kled. What kind of Nobek of his age and ex­pe­ri­ence let a twenty-year-old out­wit him? Der­gan scowled at his drink.

  “I’m kick­ing my­self over that too.” Kels shook his head with a rue­ful chuckle. “She’s clever, my Nobek. We’re all guilty of let­ting her youth lull us into a false sense of se­cu­rity.”

  “She’d be far less in­ter­est­ing if she weren’t a chal­lenge.” Find the good, you fool. And never let this dis­grace­ful ex­pe­ri­ence hap­pen again.

  Shov­ing aside his hu­mil­i­a­tion, Der­gan re­turned to the ques­tion of Maryam. “I hope she’ll con­cede to our des­per­ate need.”

  “As do I. If not?” Kels gave him that pierc­ing stare again.

  Der­gan strug­gled longer than he should have. In the end, he gave the an­swer he had to. “I’ll do it for my em­pire. Not for honor, be­cause there is none in kid­nap­ping a de­fense­less woman.”

  On the heels of his grudg­ing ac­cep­tance, he noted Pana and Briel en­ter­ing the restau­rant. With re­lief, he stood and mo­tioned them to the ta­ble. “En­tic­ing the Earther won’t hap­pen to­day, I’m afraid.”

  Kels stood too. They bowed to Briel as she and Pana joined them. Their Imdiko’s arms were full of pack­ages. The promised presents, no doubt. Briel hadn’t been able to speak of any­thing else un­til she and Pana had left to visit Maryam.

  Re­mem­ber­ing how tempted he’d been to fol­low them, to keep Briel in sight for fear she’d run off again, brought an­other wave of em­bar­rass­ment to Der­gan. He forced his ex­pres­sion to re­main pleas­ant. Briel gave him a saucy grin as she sat.

  What was that smirk for? Re­mind­ing him of his in­dig­nity?

  If so, Briel didn’t main­tain the silent mor­ti­fi­ca­tion. Her thoughts were else­where, so per­haps Der­gan had only imag­ined she sneered at his lapses. “Maryam couldn’t join us.”

  The men sat. Pana ex­plained, “She’s wor­ried word would get back to her peo­ple if any­one sees her with us. Her gov­ern­ment is ev­ery bit as strict as you told us, my Dramok.”

  Briel or­dered leshella from the waiter be­fore adding, “You don’t know the half of it. If you’d heard the sto­ries she’s told me, you’d punch ev­ery Earther man on sight. I can’t imag­ine ex­ist­ing un­der such con­di­tions. It’s no won­der she chose to live here in­stead.”

  Der­gan didn’t miss the gleam in Kels’s eyes. The Dramok noted, “Matara Maryam is still close enough to Earth to be some­what un­der her gov­ern­ment’s thumb. I won­der how she stands it.”

  “It’s not so bad on the sta­tion. The Earther ships don’t stay long, from what I un­der­stand.” Briel sighed, the pic­ture of sad­ness. “I’m go­ing to miss her so much. She’s be­come what I’d imag­ine an older sis­ter would be.”

  Kels darted a glance at Der­gan be­fore say­ing in a con­tem­pla­tive tone, “Why should you have to give her up?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s come to my at­ten­tion that Earther women would find wel­come on Kalquor. Per­haps Maryam would like to re­turn to the em­pire with us?”

  Der­gan couldn’t help but ad­mire the smooth fash­ion Kels launched into bring­ing Briel into the plot. Hang­ing around his states­man friend Se­bist must have been rub­bing off on him.

  The Nobek ad­mit­ted to him­self a twinge of un­easi­ness when it came to us­ing their Matara to per­suade the Earther to come with them. Truth be told, how­ever, it was prefer­able to out­right forc­ing Maryam. Maybe he wouldn’t be driven to per­form the hor­rid task af­ter all.

  Chap­ter Four

  Min­utes af­ter she’d opened for the day, Maryam wasn’t sur­prised when an Earther man in uni­form en­tered the shop she worked in. She’d seen mem­bers of a fleet crew wan­der­ing the shop­ping level, and her boss had sent a mes­sage that an as­sault-class fighter had docked at Pelk. Though she’d been dis­ap­pointed to turn down lunch with Briel’s clan the day be­fore, she was re­lieved about her de­ci­sion that morn­ing.

  The ser­vice­man wore a cap­tain’s uni­form, giv­ing her more rea­son to thank her com­mon sense. His de­meanor was ca­sual, and his ex­pres­sion was friendly. His gaze lit on her stand­ing at the counter at the back of the shop al­most im­me­di­ately, and he headed her way, his boots softly thud­ding as he came. His leisurely progress gave Maryam time to ap­pre­ci­ate his au­thor­i­ta­tive but calm bear­ing. In the store’s well-lit en­vi­rons, he ap­peared to be in his for­ties, with the first specks of sil­ver dot­ting his dark hair. He was at­trac­tive in an un­re­mark­able, stoic fash­ion. His chin was per­haps too small for his face, his nose a tad sharp on the tip, and his jaw not as square as it should have been. He seemed some­how small for a man of his rank too, though he filled his dark blue uni­form nicely.

  With a start, Maryam re­al­ized she was com­par­ing the of­fi­cer to the men of Briel’s clan. No won­der he looked in­signif­i­cant to her.

  Draw­ing a breath and forc­ing the uber-mas­cu­line Kalquo­ri­ans from her mind, Maryam adopted a pleas­ant smile and waited for the ship cap­tain to reach her.

  He paid lit­tle at­ten­tion to her as he crossed the white-tiled floor, though she had the idea he was quite aware of her. He pe­rused the items on the racks and shelves as he neared, smil­ing a lit­tle to him­self, as if re­call­ing some­thing en­joy­able. That smile grew wider as he reached out and snagged a con­tainer of gin­ger snaps. Snack in hand, he reached her counter and set his pur­chase on its sur­face. His friendly ex­pres­sion in­ten­si­fied as his gaze met hers.

  “My great­est weak­ness. It’s been three months since I had these.”

  Maryam met his broad grin with her own. “It’s al­ways a joy to have a taste from home.”

  “Ab­so­lutely. Your store?” He seemed im­pressed.

  “It’s owned by an Adraf. Half the stores on this level are, each cater­ing to the dif­fer­ent species who visit Pelk reg­u­larly. He’s a smart busi­ness­man.”

  The of­fi­cer’s glance lit on the chil­dren’s sec­tion. “Baby items. Surely you don’t get many Earther kids on this sta­tion?”

  “No, but their fa­thers and grand­fa­thers in the mil­i­tary are thrilled to have presents to take home to them.”

  The ami­able cap­tain chuck­led. “Add un­cles to the list. My sis­ter had her first baby last month. What do you rec­om­mend for a new­born girl?”

  Maryam ush­ered him to the stock of new­born gifts. She helped the man, who in­tro­duced him­self as Cap­tain Robert Miller, se­lect an adorable bunny-mo­tif blan­ket for his niece.

  Af­ter they re­turned to the counter, Cap­tain Miller asked in an off­hand tone, “Have you seen any Kalquo­ri­ans? One of their de­stroy­ers is docked here.”

  Maryam mir­rored his non­cha­lance. “Usu­ally, they don’t come in here. I sup­pose we don’t have any­thing they wish to buy.”

  “Usu­ally?” His man­ner re­mained friendly, but his gaze on her face was sharp.

  “A Kalquo­rian woman came in last week. She saw some of the chil­dren’s items on the promo wi
n­dow out­side the shop. Be­ing preg­nant, she came in to browse.”

  “A fe­male Kalquo­rian, huh? Rare to see those.”

  “So I’ve heard. She was nice. We had lunch a cou­ple of times.” Maryam vol­un­teered the in­for­ma­tion be­cause she was sure he would in­ves­ti­gate. It would look best if she ad­mit­ted to her pub­lic in­ter­ac­tions with Briel.

  “Uh huh. Were those lunches with or with­out her clan?”

  “She came with­out them. They showed up a cou­ple days ago to take her home. I be­lieve she said they’re leav­ing to­mor­row.”

  His eyes nar­rowed. “You haven’t been around them? The men, I mean.”

  “I have the sense not to go any­where near the males of that race.” The lie rolled off her tongue eas­ily, as re­laxed as the in­no­cent ex­pres­sion she wore for Miller’s scru­tiny. Most Earther fe­males learned to lie to re­li­gious and gov­ern­men­tal au­thor­i­ties early in their lives. Maryam had the added ad­van­tage of know­ing how to bluff. Her late brother and his friends had taught her dur­ing weekly poker games.

  A twinge of sad­ness ac­com­pa­nied that mem­ory. She had few pleas­ant re­mem­brances of her fam­ily. Her brother had died in a shut­tle ac­ci­dent, and she’d never been close to her fa­ther or step­mother. She re­fused to think of her de­ceased mother at all.

  She kept all that at the back of her mind, main­tain­ing steady at­ten­tion on the con­ge­nial but prob­lem­atic Cap­tain Miller.

  He con­tin­ued to watch her as she to­taled his pur­chases and ac­cepted his pay­ment. “I’m glad the Kalquo­ri­ans haven’t been a prob­lem for you.”

  “None at all.”

  He hes­i­tated, con­cern re­plac­ing the slightly sus­pi­cious cast of his mood. “Keep an eye out. It may be noth­ing, but I’ve heard a few re­ports that some of our women have dis­ap­peared in the past twelve hours. Women like you, on space sta­tions and alien colonies.”