Chapter 4
Suvan launched out of the booth, putting Mariah behind him as he squared off to the anomaly.
It hadn’t moved. But it didn’t have to. Between radiation, quantum tunneling, and—he grudgingly admitted—the possibility of more metaphysical tricks like manifestation, it didn’t need to simply move.
Squinting at the doubled datpad on his wrist, he checked for evidence the anomaly was destabilizing or otherwise transforming. But other than the scintillating light, the readings were unchanged.
At least now there were readings to squint at. Before the anomaly had stabilized in Mariah’s knot, it had been all but imperceivable by his sensors. Very aggravating.
Like a certain Earther female. He caught a hint of the sweetness that had been haunting him, and he realized Mariah had sneaked out of the corner and was standing beside him. Too close.
“You are going to impale yourself,” he snapped.
She was gazing at the resonark. “A rainbow won’t hurt me.”
“On me,” he clarified.
Shimmering with the anomaly’s energy, her wide brown gaze flicked to his bristling quill-scales. “Oh. Sorry.” She sidled a half step away.
Sorry? As if he would be the one hurt by her touch? Both he and the anomaly were potentially hazardous to her, and she was sorry?
Despite her little calluses, she was not tough enough for this universe.
“This chamber should be locked and off-limits,” he said. “We have no idea what effects might result from continued exposure to the anomaly’s shadowlight.”
“Weddings.”
He glared at her. “What?”
“Well, probably starting with datings and matings. At least for some.” She frowned back at him. “That is what Mr. Evens promised.”
Suvan sputtered. “He can’t make such promises.”
“Not really, I know that. So much of a love match depends on factors that can’t ever be quantified: aspirations and cravings and wishes and dreams and—”
“No,” Suvan growled. “He can’t promise it because the anomaly isn’t love.”
“It just has to be a chance.” When she tilted her head with an Earther smile, her bronze braids also caught the polychromatic glints.
As if the anomaly was touching her all over, fusing with her.
The thought froze him in place. The unique tessellation of the anomaly that he’d identified when it was contained in the capacitorus had escaped via the linkage created by the recital song. That waveform had taken semi-solid shape as the plasmic sphere suspended in Mariah’s woven shroud.
What if it sought another form? Her form.
With its influences extending to the quantum level, there was nothing he could do to stop it.
So he kissed her.
The kiss was not entirely considered, admittedly.
There was no time to run analytics or chart projected outcomes.
But he’d noticed the captain and Felicity, and then Ikaryo and the Earther songstress, as well as a few of the passengers, had formed pair bonds that seemed to be protective in some ways.
As if kissing initiated a molecular exchange that shifted both energetic bodies into stronger coherence, which might be a defense against the anomaly’s more disruptive wavelengths.
In the heartbeat when he pivoted on his heel to loom over Mariah, blocking the resonark’s shadowlight, her eyes widened even more, the onyx centers expanding like hungry black holes. She made a tiny sound that was a breath slipping backward over her parted lips on an inhalation…
Before he brought his mouth crashing down over hers.
That first contact was electric.
For an instant, there was just the body heat, the pressure, a hint of slick softness. Then the galvanic jolt of it spread in a shockwave from his lips, over his skin, out along every quill-scale.
And deeper too, sparking nerve endings and burning through his bones, as if he might ignite from within.
And still the force continued inward, into the hidden unknowns of him, not merely atomic but metaphysical.
The touch of her fingertips on his chest reversed the shockwave, summoning all that energy back to her, as if his heart sought to leap into her hand.
He jerked away, his own startled exhale leaving him lightheaded.
He would have blamed the resonark for the surge of sensation still swirling through him, but there was no further sign the anomaly was synchronizing with her or emitting any energy beyond its knot.
Still in his shadow, Mariah stared up at him, the fingers that had grazed his chest rising to press to her lips.
“Mariah…” His voice cracked, and he imagined the universal translator snugged against his brain, waiting impatiently for whatever he intended to say.
He hadn’t meant to be so abrupt and vehement. Though he hadn’t bothered reading all the Earther-specific IDA handbooks on interspecies relationships—he was crew, not customer—he’d comprehended the point of romance, wooing, and pre-contact consensus.
But keeping to himself in the engine module hadn’t given him the experience to read the expression on her face now.
“Are you… I shouldn’t have… The resonark.” Perversely, reminding himself of that troublesome anomaly steadied him. “Did you feel it touch you?”
She blinked at him, so slowly he wondered if she’d succumbed to that entangling energy. But then she let her hand drop away from her lips. “You touched me.” A rapid flurry of blinks. “You kissed me.”
Which was a true but incomplete analysis on her part. “You were glowing,” he told her. “With the resonark’s shadowlight. I thought it had taken hold of you.”
She leaned forward to frown at him from approximately ten degrees closer. “You took hold of me.”
He shifted back on his heels eleven degrees. “Only…your mouth.”
“It wasn’t the resonark.” She was staring at him so hard he felt pinned by those sharp little needles and the even sharper scissors, plus a nano-edge diode laser. “It was you. Like in my dream.”
She’d dreamed of him?
The accusation chilled him. Could he be guilty of appearing in a random neural signaling during her sleep cycle?
“I apologize,” he said stiffly, taking a longer step back. “I should not have touched you. The energy fluctuation of the anomaly seemed to be indicating a state change. And I thought—wrongly—that its energy was bridging to you, the same way it manifested in your weaving.”
“So you decided to…make contact first?” Another five degrees toward him. If she went another degree, likely she’d fall.
And he’d have to catch her.
He flexed his hands into fists, as if bristling his quill-scales would discharge the embarrassment. “As I said, wrongly. I should never have violated your autonomy.”
“You kissed me without asking because you thought the resonark was possessing me? Then I forgive you.”
“Not the word I would have used, but yes.”
“You wouldn’t call that a kiss?” Her lips pursed, just a little and slightly off center. “What do Szauralithyn call it?”
He hissed out a breath. “It was a kiss. But not possession.”
“Words.” She waved her hand dismissively. “I’m talking about feelings. You felt I was in danger.”
Even with the safer distance between them, he caught her scent. After she’d left the engine module, a hint of musky sweetness had lingered in the humming air. At the smell, Lub had coughed up a ball of monofilament, and Suvan had increased the atmo exchange speed.
But it had persisted still in the quill-scales on the back of his wrist even though he’d cleansed. Several times.
He took yet another step back, reluctantly exposing her to the resonark’s light again. He’d been appallingly wrong about its effects on her.
And it seemed he was more danger to her than the anomaly.
Because mostly what he’d felt was a shocking hunger for more of her.
“I shall report my misconduct to the captain and accept any disciplinary action—”
Finally, she straightened. “What? Why?”
Was she torturing him for his transgression? “For kissing you without asking.”
“You kissed me, not the captain. It’s me who deserves your apology and any amends. And I said I forgive you. Because you wanted to save me from the resonark.”
She gave him one of those Earther smiles, which made him wary because he knew there were many ways to interpret the flash of teeth.
Then she added, “And thank you for that,” while she pressed the insides of her wrists together, hands fisted, and bowed her head for a moment: a Szauralithyn gesture of appreciation.
He stared at her. No surprise she’d studied various ways of expressing gratitude; he’d already noticed she seemed to perceive the universe itself as a gift.
But he should explain to her that the captain needed to be aware of all potential concerns on his ship. He should object to any implication of heroics. He should warn her not to thank him, much less forgive him.
Because he couldn’t promise he wouldn’t kiss her again.
But he returned the gesture. “I…thank you for your understanding.”
She inclined her head. “I can’t blame you for not trusting the resonark.
It hijacked the ship, and then you had to sacrifice your engines to catch it.
And now it’s just”—she flicked one finger upward—“hanging out in the lounge here like a slacker, making us guess and fuss. No wonder you overreacted.”
That…had not been why he kissed her, not quite.
But he couldn’t find the words to confess that if she was going to be possessed…
It would only be by him.