Sarai Read online

  ELED, TIG AND BRAM WAITED anxiously in the corridor outside the examination room. Alekyn gestured to them and they followed him into the room, halting in a group to talk. Healer Tiff was entering something on his e-tab, while Maist was tucking the sheet closely around Jamie Munroe. When he finished, he stood back and incautiously ran a hand over his head then jumped nervously as Alekyn snarled.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” he said shamefacedly, then dug himself deeper into the hole. “He’s just so unusual, so pretty. His hair feels extraordinary, so soft.”

  Healer Tiff grunted in annoyance, pointing silently to the door, and Maist, after casting one more look of longing at Jamie, scuttled by the angry, looming pard and left the room hurriedly. Alekyn had no doubt news of his mate would be all over the city, and probably the planet, within hours; he didn’t know whether to be proud or upset that others might see and desire his treasure.

  Proud, he decided, sounded about right. Then he scowled — others could see and envy, but not touch! Not ever!

  He then cleared his throat, studying his pardmates…the news was so good he could hardly believe it himself.

  “It seems we have reason to celebrate, my kin. Healer Tiff thinks my little thing — my Jaimie Munrow — will be a breeder of note — ”

  “It is compatible, then?” asked Tig, his voice shaking. Alekyn nodded.

  “Yes, he is.”

  Eled’s smile spread wide across his face. “I thought it smelled male. Bram, you and Tig owe me 200 creds. I’ll take cash, not kind.”

  “Prick,” Tig responded good-naturedly. “As long as you spend it on Alekyn’s mate.”

  Alekyn grinned. His beautiful, unusual little mate — the first of their pard’s sarai — was going to be so spoiled; he’d want for nothing, ever, and when they’d found more like him …

  Healer Tiff interrupted Alekyn’s musing. “It is indeed unusual to see such a specimen…he offers great promise, so great that I am obliged to present a report on him to the High Council.”

  Alekyn nodded; he’d suspected as much from the meticulousness of Tiff’s examination. It means nothing, he assured himself — his mate belonged to him, and would become part of his pard, the Clan Furis. The High Council would, however, want more information on Jaimie Munroe’s species. And the PanGalactic Federation would need to know more of his sarai’s world.

  “It seems my mate’s species is a close cousin to us,” he informed the others. “He carries the Foretimer genome like us and, with a little genetic modification which Healer Tiff will perform shortly, he will be able to bear my offspring.”

  “Thank the Goddess,” muttered Eled. “I want one like him anyway, and now we know his kind can breed with us …”

  “When will you report to the High Council?” Bram asked Tiff. “Is the Council likely to want to see him?”

  Tiff shrugged. “Shortly, but I cannot say definitively what will happen. Although my report and the accompanying data and images will be sufficient, they may want to inspect him. Your discovery,” he added, with a small smile, “is one that may change the future of our species, particularly if he is as fertile as his test results suggest. The fact that you recognised him as your sarai almost immediately is astonishing…others will want the same opportunity.”

  The pardmates gazed silently at each other, the significance of their discovery dawning on them. The Naferi race was intersex but its numbers had been in decline for generations; no one knew why, but it was becoming harder and rarer with each passing generation for Naferi Sarat, the dominants among their species, to find the sarai that would bear offspring.

  Before the Naferi population loss reached the point of no return, their healers had discovered how to manipulate the DNA of males from Naferi-compatible species to enable single-sex breeding, but the pregnancy failure rate was high, too high to ignore the breeding prospects offered by their little mate’s people.

  Tiff was right, Alekyn acknowledged grimly, other Naferi would want a share of this good fortune.

  Times were about to become very interesting indeed — not just for Clan Furis and its newest member, not just for all Naferi, but also for his mate’s species and the rest of the member races of the PanGalactic Federation.

  Alekyn found himself fervently hoping that those times would not become too interesting.

  Chapter Four

  ALEKYN STUDIED THE face of his sleeping sarai, and touched it gently with his fingers, marveling anew at its smooth perfection. The healers had put Jamie into a restorative sleep after his physical examination. He would shortly take Jamie home to the den he and his pardmates shared in the city, and then Jamie would be allowed to wake naturally.

  He sighed. Unfortunately he couldn’t remove Jamie to his country den in the Vamiet Mountains — orders had come from the most senior levels that the human had to remain in the city. He could guess why and the knowledge was eating at him. Everyone, it seemed, was interested in his sarai. His fears about the interest Jamie’s species would generate had been fully realised. Healer Tiff’s preliminary report into his genetic makeup had sparked incredible interest. Scientists and researchers were jostling to examine Jamie; in fact, several had been caught trying to enter his room unauthorized, while others had tried to bluster their way into his presence. An image someone had taken of him illicitly was now circulating on the compnet and on PanGal’s open communications network. The increasing clamor for more information had prompted a lockdown of the medcentre. Alekyn shivered. After the image had appeared, he, Tig, Eled and Bram had decided they would take turns being with Jamie at all times. Even the High Council’s request to see Jamie had been put on hold.

  It was obvious that public interest was growing into obsession, and there was a real risk Jamie could be kidnapped, possibly even illegally claimed. Alekyn felt uneasy — what if someone managed to take his precious sarai from him? Everything felt out of control, as if the universe had unexpectedly flipped itself inside out.

  The door entry pinged behind him. He didn’t bother turning — the visitor could only be a healer or one of his pard. His reverie was interrupted when someone coughed politely. Alekyn turned and immediately leapt to his feet, pulling himself into a full salute.

  “At ease, major,” Commander Tain, his immediate superior nodded, and gestured to the man accompanying him. “I’m sure you recognise the prince.”

  “Sir,” Alekyn nodded respectfully, “it is an honor.”

  Arakin smiled. “The honor is all mine, major. Best resume your seat. We’ve a lot to talk about.”

  The prince and Tain drew up more visitors’ chairs. Once seated they looked across at the sleeping human. Alekyn felt a mix of pride and apprehension. What did they want?

  “It’s true, then,” Arakin murmured. “He’s a pretty little thing — though I gather from the rumors circulating that he is a tad obstreperous?”

  “Willful and unwilling to accept his new role.” Alekyn supplied. “We do not know whether those are individual or general characteristics of his kind.”

  Tain grunted. “We’ll all soon find out. Not that it matters either way.”

  That seemed irrefutable. Alekyn waited. It didn’t take long for his commander and the prince to get to taws.

  “You’ve managed to do something rather extraordinary,” Arakin glanced at Tain. “In fact, I would go so far as to say you have changed the course of history.”

  Alekyn sucked in a deep breath. “Sir, you refer to my sarai. Healer Tiff said his kind could breed with us — ”

  “Oh, it’s rather more than being able to manipulate his physiology to bear Naferi offspring,” Arakin said easily. “You and your pard have managed to find something mythical.” He paused. “Major, you’ve found the missing link.”

  Alekyn gaped at him, his thoughts buzzing. If this were true…

  “Your sarai not only carries the Foretimer gene — his species contains a variable that will enable related but incompatible Foretimer species — the Naferi, the Keinyn, the El
usians and the Halatians — to produce offspring that can interbreed. The humans are the missing link for all of us.”

  Tain grunted. “Now tell him the bad news.”

  Arakin flicked an eyebrow upwards and then sighed. “My old friend here refers to the Church of Nemta. Its leader has just declared that your sarai is a manifestation of the god’s will.”

  Alekyn paled. Although small, the Church of Nemta was conservative and had close links with the most powerful people in their society. His worst fears seemed to be on the brink of being realised. “He has done this because my sarai’s species is the missing link?”

  Arakin shook his head. “Not in my view. No, I suspect Patriarch Syfern is seeking to attract more followers. His leadership took a battering five years ago when he…”

  There was an awkward pause interrupted by Tain growling. “The annihilation of the Lyrians can be sheeted home to Syfern, goddamned hypocrite that he is. Not you, my prince.”

  The Lyrians had also shared the Foretimer gene, but Syfern and his most outspoken supporters had vehemently opposed the mission to Lyris, claiming their god would not countenance the Lyrians, a reclusive ocean-dwelling race, as viable breeding partners for the Naferi or any of the other Foretimer species variants. The ensuing political bunfight had lasted months, until it became obvious that the Zill had stolen a march on everyone and were attacking Lyris. The hastily put-together rescue mission led by Arakin had reached the planet too late — the oceans of Lyris which had once teemed with life had evaporated into space and the joyful sea songs of the Lyrians were forever silenced. Nothing remained but a cold barren rock floating in space.

  It was rumored Arakin had contemplated withdrawing completely from public life as a consequence.

  “It happened on my watch, old friend” Arakin smiled at Tain ruefully. “We can’t allow another species, whether it carries the Foretimer gene or not, to be destroyed by the Zill.”

  Alekyn slowly expelled the breath he had unconsciously been holding. “What does Syfern’s declaration mean for my sarai? I’m sorry, sir, I don’t know where this is going.”

  “Why should you?” Arakin sighed. “There’s no easy way to say this. Major, Patriarch Syfern is currently demanding that your sarai be given to him as the god’s representative on Naferis.”

  “No!” Alekyn leapt to his feet. He could feel his cat roaring for release, rage reddening his vision, claws unsheathing; he wished more than anything that his species, like the Keinyn, still had the power to transform into their beasts. “Jamie is mine! My sarai …”

  “Control yourself, major,” Tain had also risen to his feet, drawing his stunner. “Or I’ll do it for you.”

  Alekyn forced himself to breathe deeply. Slowly his cat retreated, sulking and pulsing with anger, but common sense was asserting itself. Tain and Arakin were telling him this to warn him. After a few minutes, he nodded. “I apologize, Commander, my Lord Arakin.”

  Arakin nodded. “I understand this is a shock to you. However, my brother, the Adan ap Reji, anticipated this would occur. He has decreed that your rights to your sarai are inviolate and your claiming of him will be honored in law.”

  Alekyn fell back into his seat, shaking with relief. “I cannot…please thank the Adan ap Reji for me. I cannot contemplate life without my sarai.”

  “Then if I were you, I would claim him as soon as possible,” the prince poured a glass of water and held it out to Alekyn, who took it gratefully. “Your sarai is safe from Syfern’s claim, thanks to my brother, but a greater issue remains — that of the Zill and their plans for humankind.”

  He paused, then added, his eyes hard. “It’s only a matter of time before the Zill attack this new world and its inhabitants, and I — I do not want a repetition of the Lyrian tragedy. I will not have the destruction of another species on my conscience. I intend to ensure the humans survive. There’s too much at stake now — we don’t have to save the humans merely for our own benefit, but also for the Keinyn, the Elusians and the Halatians as well as any number of unknown Foretimer species-variants in the cosmos. More than that, we have to save them because it is the right thing to do, the only thing to do.”

  He leaned towards Alekyn, grasping his shoulder. “Major, you and your crew — and chance — have saved the future of all the Foretimer races.”

  _________________________

  HE HAD TO STOP WAKING UP LIKE THIS, was Jamie’s first thought when he regained consciousness for the second time.

  He groaned, wondering what new nightmare was going to confront him. He remembered with awful clarity the strange doctor, his “master,” the pain as the doctor probed his private bits.

  Fuck. Shit. Fuck. He didn’t want to think about those things or, he shivered, the breeding those cat-bastards had talked about. He opened his eyes slowly, letting his eyelids flicker tremulously as though he was still sleep. He didn’t want to move too obviously until he knew whether he was alone. He waited for seconds that felt like hours, feeling his heart race, but he couldn’t see any catmen.

  What he did see, however, was that he was no longer in that stark hospital room.

  This room was large and airy; stone walls, carved and fretted ornately, rose to a round skylight far above the bed on which he lay; along one wall, a series of tall arched windows allowed in light and a breeze that lifted filmy indigo-colored drapes gently up and allowed them to flow slowly down.

  Wall sconces with patterned metal covers tossed intricate patterns of dim light and pale shadow in the farther corners of the room. Colors were muted, soothing — purples, blues, deep greens, a splash of crimson here and there. It managed to be warm but secluded; a comfortable, calming place, or it would have been had he not been a prisoner.

  He lay still, regulating his breathing. He was naked, which he found disturbing but he wasn’t restrained, which he found reassuring.

  The bracelets he discovered around his wrists shortly afterwards reignited his anxiety.

  What the heck? He blinked, but they were still there — finely made solid bands of some silvery metal inset with white and green stones, snug fitting and comfortable, but why were they on him? He held a wrist up, the stones catching the light and sparkling like diamonds and the palest shade of peridot against his pale flesh. He tugged at the band on his left wrist, trying to get it off, but to no avail. He couldn’t find a catch to unhook. It was puzzling and somewhat annoying, but, hell, it wasn’t the worst of his problems. He’d get the bloody things off later, once he’d gotten away from wherever it was he’d been put. He shuffled his legs across what he noticed now was a frickin’ enormous bed. How much room did one of these catmen need? And what the hell did it matter so long as he wasn’t in it?

  He stood up warily. He had no idea how long he’d been kept drugged, and the last thing he wanted was to keel over and plant his face in the floor. Besides, his bladder was suggesting strongly that he needed to find a bathroom. If the catmen had such a thing, he brooded resentfully.

  He looked around for something to cover himself with, deciding in the end that one of the soft sheets on the bed would have to do. As he wrapped it round himself toga-style, he noticed more bands fitted above his ankles. More bloody man-jewelry. It would have to wait as well.

  There were two doors in the room — one was set deep in the stone walls; made of a metal that gleamed like polished copper, it had an ornate handle, three times the size of any he’d ever seen. Impressive, he thought, but unlikely to be what he wanted.

  The other door looked more promising for his needs. Feeling a bit like Goldilocks — would this one be just right? — he reached for its handle, then jumped in amazement as the door simply vanished. Cautiously he waved his hand through the space it had occupied. Nope, nothing there. He moved forward, wondering at the technology that could create virtual doors.

  Luckily the room beyond the disappearing door was indeed a bathroom. Even more luckily, the facilities he needed were, unlike the door, more permanent. He grinned at the t
hought of a virtual toilet, then pulled himself up — this really was no joke and definitely not the time for toilet humor. He was here, in a place definitely not his home and seemingly in a world that was not Earth. If all this was real and not the product of a psychotic break, he was up shit creek. Totally deep, deep shit creek, and without a paddle.

  He rewrapped his sheet toga and made his way back into the bedroom. The view from the windows showed him a vista remarkably like Earth, with what looked like evergreen trees stretching hundreds of feet upwards. In the distance snow-capped mountains dwarfed the world below them. A few clouds drifted lazily across a sky more intensely blue than any he’d known. And, he leaned forward, his hands braced on the stone window casement, and gaped in amazement — two large moons were cresting pale and mysterious in the skies above the faraway mountains.

  Two moons. Jamie’s knees sagged slightly. Two moons — he really wasn’t in Kansas anymore, he thought. Any second now it would be raining farmhouses and flying monkeys…right on cue, a musical ping sounded behind him. He turned slowly, knowing what he’d see.

  The catman from the hospital was there. Alekyn, the name dropped into his consciousness — Alekyn, who claimed that Jamie belonged to him, was his…sarai, was it?

  For a long moment they simply looked at each other. Behind Jamie, through the open windows, came the sound of birds singing, sweet and piercing. Just like home. God, if only.

  “You…I remember you from that place, the hospital place,” another memory teased his brain, “and the house — it was burning, those things…I think you saved me from those things —”

  “The Zill,” responded Alekyn, his blue gaze steady on Jamie’s face. “Yes, my men and I drove them off.”

  “Zill.” Jamie repeated the word slowly. “What about the other things? The wolf-things?”

  “Keinyn, half-shifted. We think they were captured and enslaved by the Zill.”

  The words rang clear as a bell in Jamie’s head but he didn’t have clue what Alekyn meant. “Half-shifted — what is that?”