Starkissed. Part 11

The pool was roughly oval shaped and about the size of a small swimming pool. The warm water felt heavenly on her skin. She scrubbed at her hair and face and wished for soap. Somewhere out there in the vast greenery of this planet was a plant that had soap-like qualities, and she was determined to find it before she died!

Sometimes it was easy to laugh at their situation, but more often than not she wanted to cry in frustration. Now was not the time for tears because she enjoyed the hot water too much. She swam until her arms grew tired then sat on the underwater ledge. She had to give her clothes time to dry before she dressed again. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes.

She was glad she had talked J'Qhir out of coming. She found the idea of him seeing her unclothed...disturbing. Disturbing in the same way she felt the summer she turned thirteen and suddenly Marq Casijian wasn't just another one of the guys. He was someone she wanted to kiss. And more, she could now admit with a smile. At that age, for her, kissing seemed the ultimate goal. She never did get to kiss Marq, but a year later Drew Garrison thoroughly taught her how to kiss. Marq and Drew were still friends of hers. She saw Marq occasionally and Drew now worked for McClure Shipping, as one of their best pilots.

So many years later, she now couldn't imagine anything more serious than kissing Drew while her mind could conjure up all sorts of images of J'Qhir. Because of their situation, she told herself over and over. If Steve had never put them alone on this planet, they would have gone their separate ways and nothing would have ever happened. She knew that for fact, but it didn't change the explicit dreams she'd had the night before.

She shook her head and emerged from the water. The cooler air made her shiver. She rushed to the alcove, welcoming the heat of the fire. She allowed the water to evaporate from her body and dressed, then spread her hair close to the flames. When her hair was dry, she put out the fire and made her way back down the hillside.

Tomorrow would be J'Qhir's turn.

The next few days they entered into a set pattern. J'Qhir still needed to stay off his leg so it could heal, so Leith went out foraging for anything that resembled food. The beast jerky would have to be supplemented with whatever plants, nuts, and berries she could find until winter set in. Then they would have to make the foodstuff last for as long as winter did. They had no idea how long that might be.

Leith set out early in the morning carrying the empty flightpack and returned to the cave around noon. She left whatever she had been able to find with J'Qhir. He spent his time making baskets and drying what she brought in. In the warmth of the afternoon, they took their turns in the pool. The mineral rich water helped his knee. He still limped and sometimes used a crutch, but he proclaimed it didn't hurt nearly as much as it had as long as he didn't overdo.

After lunch, Leith would head to the pool on her days or spend the afternoon gathering deadfall to stack near the cave. They were lucky that the weather held and although the mornings and evenings were cold, the afternoons were as warm as springtime. They had had no frost as yet.

In the evenings, after another meal of dried beast or soup, they worked on baskets. With practice and patience, Leith's efforts did improve, but they still weren't as good as J'Qhir's.

One day as Leith returned from her turn in the pool, she turned upstream instead of returning in the direction of the cave. After an hour's walk and finding nothing new, she had almost decided to go back when a bit of white past a clump of brush caught her eye. She circled the brush and found a bed of strange looking plants.

The ground was marshy, soaked with water from either the stream or an underground spring, and the plants were thriving in spite of the cold nights. Each was as tall as her waist and bent under the weight of numerous white pods. Several had broken and leaked a white, creamy substance. She pulled out the a.n.a.lyzer and nearly jumped for joy. The substance was edible and high in sucrose. Sugar!

She plucked off one of the pods and broke it open, touching the thick liquid to her tongue. It would be an acquired taste, but one she was willing to work at. It was sweet and that's all that mattered. Now, if only she could find a chocolate tree.

She didn't have the flightpack along so she ate her fill then carried a handful back to the cave. J'Qhir hadn't liked the sweetened coffee she'd given him on the Catherine McClure, but he might like these sugarpods.

When she reached the outer door, she noticed the fire there had nearly gone out. Before she could frame any thoughts about why J'Qhir hadn't kept the fire up, a long keening wail echoed from within, then cut off abruptly and a low chanting began. The monotone sounds rea.s.sured her. He hadn't broken into song the other times he had been injured. Some Zi ritual that she probably shouldn't interrupt, but she was curious.

She crept toward the inner door, careful not to make a sound. Perhaps she could watch from there and not disturb him. As she neared the door, a blast of heat engulfed her. No wonder they had run low on fuel if he stoked the fire this hot every day while she was gone. He had never complained about being cold. In fact, when she came in for lunch, the fire was very small and he usually had his jacket off.

She stepped inside and felt as if she was entering a furnace. A sheen of sweat covered her almost instantly. The fire was a blazing inferno, flames reaching halfway to the ceiling. She waited while her eyes adjusted. Through the flickering flames, on the other side of the fire, she saw J'Qhir.

His eyes were closed and he knelt, thighs spread wide. He chanted in guttural, earthy tones. His hands clasped over the haft of the knife and raised it up over his head, the blade pointing down and glinting wickedly in the firelight. His voice grew louder as he slowly brought the knife toward himself.

Chapter 8.

"No!" she shrieked and ran to him, dropping the sugarpods.

Startled, his eyes flew open and his hands fell. "Leith-"

She s.n.a.t.c.hed the knife from his grasp, flinging it into a darkened corner. The clatter of metal on rock echoed hollowly. He struggled to his feet, lurching awkwardly because of his injured knee. She didn't offer to help. He had gone to his knees by himself, and he could get himself up again. Tears welled in her eyes. When he stood erect, she doubled up her fist and hit him square in the chest.

"What the h.e.l.l do you think you're doing? Are you trying to kill yourself?"

"Noooo, Leith!"

She hit him again. "Some stupid arcane suicide ritual?"

"No-"

"Is it that bad, being stuck here with me?" She tried to blink back the tears, but they spilled over and flowed down her cheeks. "How could you leave me here alone?"

He shook his head. "Not sssuicide. It isss sssomething I mussst do..."

"Then, what were you doing?" She wanted to hit him again and again and again. And he would let her, she knew. He would stand there and take it, as he had done that first day. He would let her beat on his chest until she pa.s.sed out from exhaustion and never lift a finger against her. Knowing that, she wrapped her arms around herself to resist the temptation to hit him one more time.

"The Admisssion of Failure."

"Failure?" she cried out incredulously.

He stiffened at the ridiculing tone in her voice. "I have failed many timesss. I failed to protect you. I failed to ssstop Hanc.o.c.k. I failed to-"

"Where did you get the idea it's your responsibility to protect me?" She clenched her hands into tighter fists. She desperately wanted to hit him again, to knock some sense into him if nothing else.

"It isss my duty, the duty of the Warrior." He looked down at her, his amber eyes glowing from the firelight. "a.s.ss sssoon a.s.ss you were threatened in my presssence, you fell under my protection."

"I'm not Zi!"

"It doesss not matter. Anyone in danger in the presssence of the Warrior isss protected. Or ssshould be. I have done a very poor job of protecting you."

Leith shook violently. Honor and duty and responsibility were all well and good, but he carried it too far. "Wh-What is this ritual? If you weren't going to commit suicide, then what were you going to do?"

"The ritual isss to atone. a.s.ss the Warrior, my failuresss affect all of my people. It isss required that I brand myssself ssso that all may know I have failed."

Leith didn't want to hit him anymore. She wanted to enfold him in her arms and hold him close. She wanted to take away his pain and ease the anguish from his face. His crest was knotted tightly, and his eyes burned. Not from the firelight as she first thought, but from the turmoil within his soul. She had to handle this delicately. She couldn't make light of what he perceived as his failures, and she couldn't scorn what he was driven to do.

Instead of embracing him, she reached out and took his hand. "I don't understand how you think you have failed. If you failed, then we both failed," she said quietly.

"It isss my duty-"

"There was nothing you could do to stop Steve. There was nothing either of us could do that wouldn 't have gotten one of us killed on the spot." She squeezed his hand, and his fingers tightened around hers. "We're alive. We're surviving. How can that be a failure? As long as we stay alive, we're thwarting Steve's plans. I consider that a success."

"I ssshould have sssaved usss," he whispered hoa.r.s.ely.

She didn't know what to tell him. She could say it a thousand times, and he wouldn't believe her. He would think he should have found a way to stop Steve. She reached for his other hand and held them firmly.

"Nothing I say will make a difference, but you have to promise me you won't ever do this again." She couldn't bear the thought of his tawny-umber skin carved by a blade with his own hand, and the scar it would leave. She couldn't stand by and allow him to brand himself for something he had no control over. "And you have to promise that you won't ever do this again over something you think you have failed to do."

He looked miserable. She could see the indecision in his eyes-the need to do as she asked, to please her, weighing against the compulsion to follow the rules he lived by.

"Promise me."

"I can-not." His voice broke over the words. His honor would not allow him to do it just because she asked.

She searched for a reason, something practical he couldn't refuse. Then it came to her.

"J'Qhir, you have to promise that you will never do this again. If you cut yourself, you could develop an infection. We don't know that the antibiotics work on you, and even if they do, our supply is limited. You could very well die from an infection. So you have to promise that you won't do this again, ever."

She waited while he considered her reasoning. His eyes lightened, and she thought he looked relieved. He tilted his head to one side and nodded once.

"I promissse, Leith."

"Good." She did not doubt his word. "I know that it's difficult for you to go against your beliefs, but some of them just won't work here."

His hands tightened around hers. "Yesss. I have dissscovered thisss already," he said, his voice barely audible. Then he spoke again the words he'd said to her before, "I will build a lair for usss."

Leith started to shake her head, but stopped. She didn't know why he insisted on constructing a shelter when the cave was perfect for their needs. Was there some hidden meaning to the words she couldn't decipher? She had answered in the negative each time. Perhaps he had to hear a positive answer to satisfy some Zi need she couldn't understand.

"All right, J'Qhir, you do that. When we travel south and find a place with a warmer climate, building a lair would be fine."

His hands tightened on hers and for a moment she thought he was going to smile. He didn't, but he seemed contented with her answer.

She pulled free and wiped the perspiration from her face. "It's so hot in here I can't breathe. I'm going to step outside while you lower the fire and-" Her gaze swept over him, head to toe and back again, and her eyes widened. "And you, um, can get dressed."

She turned and fled.

Outside, she headed for the stream. She splashed her face with cold water several times, washing away tears and sweat, and to cool her burning face. She needed lots of cold water. She sat back on her heels and rested her forehead on her knees.

She had learned two things about the Zi. One, nudity was not taboo to them. He had stood before her not wearing a st.i.tch and didn't try to hide a thing. Two, he didn't have a thing to hide.

J'Qhir had spoken of younglings. Of course, the Zi had to procreate, but Leith had seen no evidence of how this could be accomplished. His chest was a paler solid shade of tawny, and his skin was ribbed toward his abdomen. Below, there was...nothing. She had noticed some sort of vertical decorative mark about ten centimeters in length but nothing else.

Leith sat a long time and pondered the implications of her discovery. His unique physique rendered any kind of intimacy an impossibility...and made her recent dreams pure fantasy. Just her luck, she sighed. She would get marooned on a deserted planet for the rest of her life with a being incapable of s.e.xual intimacy as she knew it. Worse, she thought she was falling in love with him.

Leith didn't know if it was love or not and decided it was a waste of time trying to decide. It didn't matter what she felt, or thought she felt, they were stuck with one another.

"We scratch a grid in the dirt, like this." Leith drew two vertical parallel lines, then crossed them with two horizontal parallel lines.

J'Qhir carefully did the same.

"Well, we only need one grid at a time, but-" Before she could finish saying they would use his later, he quickly smoothed the dirt over his. She sighed.

"We have to keep score." She wrote an L and drew a horizontal line after it. "Hmmm, I have no idea how to spell your name."

J'Qhir drew a few glyphs composed of graceful arcs and lines. Leith wrote a J beside them.

"That's how I would write the initial sound of your name."

J'Qhir nodded. "Like ssso."

He painstakingly printed J'QHIR in block letters. Leith smiled. She half expected to see his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth. The letters were perfectly formed, like a child would write when practicing his alphabet.

"Terran Ssstandard," J'Qhir proclaimed.

A fanciful name for English. Leave it to the English-speaking people of Earth to make their own language standard across the galaxy.

"Very good." Leith then drew a C with a horizontal line beside it. "That's for the Cat."

J'Qhir's mouth turned down and his crest furrowed. "Who isss the Cat?"

"It's very easy to play to a draw in this game, so when there's a tie, the Cat wins." He still looked puzzled. "That's the way I played it when I was a child. Youngling. It's not supposed to make sense now."

"Ssss..."

"Now, the first one to get three X's or three O's in a row wins."

J'Qhir quickly marked three X's diagonally across the grid. Leith clamped her lips together and tapped her stick against the bottom of her boot.

"Um, it's not a race. It's a game of strategy. We take turns." She smoothed out the dirt and re-drew the grid. "Since you're so eager, you go first. Do you want the X's or O's?"

Off to the side of the grid, J'Qhir precisely lettered one X and one O. He studied them a moment. "Thessse two figuresss are diametrically opposssite."

"They're what?"

"Diametrically opposssite. One isss a complete curve and the other isss composssed of ssstraight linesss."

Leith bit her lip. She didn't know if she did so to keep from laughing or crying. Or slapping him upside the head. Somehow she resisted that urge.

"So they are. Do you want to play or not?"

"Yesss, Leith." He rubbed out the two letters. "I will ussse the X."

He drew an X in the center of the grid. Leith drew an O in the upper right corner. J'Qhir put an X in the center right. Leith blocked him by placing an O in the center left. They continued until each had taken four turns, and there was only one square open.

"It's a tie," Leith pointed out and made a mark beside the C.

"But there isss no way to win," J'Qhir protested.

"Not if the first player always begins in the center square."

"Yesss... Then what is the purpossse of the exercissse?"

"It's for children, to make them think, I suppose." Leith rubbed out the grid and the scoreboard. She stood. "You're no fun. I'm going to bed. Good night."

"Good night, Leith."

The next evening, after another long, exhausting day of hauling deadfall and scanning for potential foodstuff, Leith spent the better part of an hour creating a checkerboard in the dirt. J'Qhir watched her, completely absorbed in her actions, and didn't say a word.

His intense silence wore on her nerves, but she said nothing either. She had scratched out sixty-four squares. To differentiate between the colors, she pressed a flat piece of bark in every other square. Earlier in the day she had scoured the bank of the stream for two dozen uniform pebbles, twelve white and twelve brown. She had painted one side of each with sugarpod juice and laid them in the sun to dry to a glossy finish. They could turn one over to be "crowned" instead of trying to balance one rounded stone atop another.

Now, Leith set the pieces on the bark squares, glazed side down. When she had all twenty-four in place, she rested her hands in her lap.