Rystani Warrior 02 - The Dare (6 page)
Read Rystani Warrior 02 - The Dare Online
Authors: Susan Kearney
“I’m trying not to drool.” Dora carefully placed the slice of bread between her parted lips, allowed her teeth to sink into the crust. “Oh … my.” The sweet taste of the honey butter drizzled over her tongue. “This is … heaven.”
Tessa took one look at what must have been Dora’s blissful expression and grinned. “It’s a good thing you gave yourself a fast metabolism so you could pig out, even if it isn’t as efficient.”
“Efficiency isn’t everything. I’m human now.”
“Yes, you are. More?”
She tried a bit of fried
yicken
, a tasty meat. “Remind me to thank Miri.”
Tessa busily laid out the rest of the repast. “Not all food tastes as good as Miri’s. Try a little of everything and don’t eat too much or your tummy will ache later.”
Easy for her to say. She’d been eating all her life. Dora hadn’t comprehended that aroma and texture were so much a part of taste. She discovered she loved crunchy sour pickles but didn’t find the soft sweet ones pleasing. Crisp vegetables, cheese potatoes, and rye bread were her favorites. However, she tasted everything, even Tessa’s coffee, which she spat back into the cup with what she hoped was a scowl. “This must have gone bad, although the smell is wonderful.”
“The coffee’s perfect.” Tessa sipped happily from her over-sized cup. “The jolt of caffeine is just what I needed.”
“But it’s so bitter.”
“An acquired taste.”
Sharing hot drinks, alcohol, and food was so much a part of the family ritual that Dora vowed to acquire a taste for coffee. She envisioned many shared meals with Tessa, the two of them lingering over steaming cups while they had interesting discussions, shared news of their day, and traded gossip with the other women. Dora loved gossip, wanted to love coffee. However, she didn’t have to learn to like coffee today, and she pushed aside the cup.
Tessa’s eyes sparkled, and she spoke in a rush of anticipation. “Are you ready for the
pièce de résistance
?”
Although familiar with Tessa’s Terran slang, Dora still wasn’t certain what she was talking about. “Pizza?”
“For dinner, maybe.”
“Dessert?”
“Chocolate fudge.” Tessa cut a tiny square, placed the candy on a plate, and offered the sweet like ambrosia to the gods. “Smell first.”
“Yum.” Dora sniffed and the aromatic fragrance would have had her placing the entire piece into her mouth at once until she remembered how good coffee smelled and how bitter it tasted.
“Go on. Try.”
Dora bit into the chocolate. As the sugary confection melted over her tongue, she squealed in delight. “Chocolate alone is almost worth giving up my immortality.”
“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.”
“I didn’t expect food to be this wonderful. I can hardly wait to make love.”
In mid-lick of sucking fudge from her fingertip, Tessa stopped and sighed. “Whoa. First of all, humans usually ease into subjects like making love.”
“Sorry.” Dora tended to forget that human sexuality was such a sensitive subject and wondered if she’d ever understand why even Tessa was so touchy about discussing it.
But then in her typical straight-ahead fashion, Tessa plunged into the subject anyway. “Eating and making love are two very different kinds of sensual experiences.”
“Exactly. That’s why, as soon as possible, I want to be with a man.”
“Making love is emotional. If you want the experience to be good, and I know you do, you need to slow down.”
“Not everyone agrees that waiting is better.”
Tessa’s cheeks flushed with color. “I’m not talking about technique.” When Tessa had first met Kahn, he’d needed to teach her to use her psi by inducing high levels of frustration. Kahn had used the sexual kind. The two of them had battled and wed and eventually fallen in love. Dora thought their tale romantic. Although she hadn’t been privy to their lovemaking, she’d seen how sexual intercourse had brought them closer together. Tessa might be uncomfortable with the subject, but she could also be blunt. “I’m saying you’ve only been human a few hours. Give yourself time to establish a friendship first—”
“You and I are friends. We’ve been friends for years.”
Tessa sighed over her coffee cup. “Friendship between women is different than between a woman and a man.”
“Zical likes me.” Dora had few secrets from Tessa and appreciated her take on men, even if she often didn’t agree with her conclusions.
“Zical isn’t accustomed to thinking of you as human.”
“But once he sees me—”
“It still may take him a while to change. Rystani men are stubborn.”
Dora’s goal had always been to attract Zical’s interest, and she understood the need for long-term planning and that convincing him to notice her the way she wanted might take time. But her impatience mounted. She couldn’t wait for him to see her.
“You believe he’ll reject
this
body?” Dora stood and with a psi thought made her gown transparent. She loved looking at her body and had kept her flesh covered long enough.
Tessa rolled her eyes at the ceiling. “Dora, when you created yourself, you forgot to include modesty.”
“Fine.” Dora re-clothed herself and fought down her resentment. Just because Tessa was uptight about nudity didn’t mean she had to be. She was an individual. Yet, she also needed to remember to have patience and consideration, traits that seemed more difficult now that she was in her body. “I’m sorry. I’ve waited so long to be human. I want to try everything. Do everything. Do you think Zical will mind if I kiss him when we meet?”
While she’d been eating, Dora had noted how incredibly sensitive her lips were. Lips were a known erotic zone. To press them against Zical’s … oh, that would be a fine sensation.
“Why don’t you at least plan to have a conversation first, then you can ask him if it’s okay before you kiss him,” Tessa suggested.
“If I ask, he may say no. As for the conversation … I don’t know. Can’t I just kiss him hello?”
“That is not Rystani custom. A hug would be more appropriate and you know it.”
“Are you going to turn into my mother?” Dora asked with a twitch of her lip that she hadn’t intended.
“Of course not.” Tessa took her hand. “But I’ve been human all my life. I don’t want to see you hurt. Or Zical hurt. Human relationships are trickier than they appear.”
Dora could see that Tessa was fairly bursting to give her advice. “And?”
“If I were your mother,” Tessa laughed, but her eyes were serious, “I’d tell you to start a conversation with Zical by asking about his work.”
“I’ve been there with him every moment. There’s nothing he can tell me about the lack of progress on Mount Shachauri that I don’t already know.”
“Except his feelings.”
“He’s obviously frustrated. Won’t sex relax him?”
Tessa threw her hands into the air, clearly unhappy. But Dora’s question was logical, wasn’t it? She’d spent years studying humans, and yet she trusted Tessa’s judgment. As a computer, Dora made decisions based on her ethical program, her data stream, and her personality. Now that she was in a human body, she didn’t have the same massive amount of input, but the process to make a decision should have been the same.
Yet it wasn’t.
Zical was the unknown factor, and for her to consider all her possible actions to create the reaction she wanted from him seemed impossible. If she’d wanted only an orgasm, not emotional connection, she could masturbate, but the idea of experiencing her first sexual pleasure with Zical was her first choice—but she had yet to figure out how to win his cooperation. Her eye twitched and her knee gave way. She stumbled and caught herself. She glanced at Tessa to see if she’d noticed her mistake.
She had. When she caught Dora glancing at her, she wiped the frown from her lips. “You’ve done too much. You should rest.”
“Let’s not start lying to one another.” Dora locked gazes with her best friend. “Okay?”
“Okay.” Tessa didn’t mince words. “You shouldn’t be stumbling around. At least, I don’t think so. Why don’t we have a medical doctor—?”
“Good idea.” Dora tried not to let her lower lips quiver. She’d known there would be problems. She would deal with them. Her eyes burned and water trickled down her cheek before her suit wiped away the moisture. Her nose became stuffy and her chest tightened. Even as she noted the uncomfortable physical reactions to her worry, she was realizing that becoming human was more difficult than she’d anticipated.
She’d wanted a perfect body so she could entice Zical. But her beautiful body wasn’t in perfect working order. Her facial muscles twitched and spasmed, her joints gave out without warning.
Miserable at what she perceived as her failure to adjust properly, she didn’t bother to wipe away her tears. “I don’t want Zical to see me like this.”
Tessa embraced her. “Human babies crawl before they walk. You’re trying to do everything at once and you’re doing marvelously well.”
“Thanks.” Dora sniffed, hating the clogged nostrils that made breathing through her mouth a necessity. “I’m being a big baby.”
“No, you’re being human.” Tessa hugged her hard, then stepped back. “You’ve done the impossible, Dora. You’ve gotten what you wanted.”
Dora hoped Tessa was correct. Her lack of medical knowledge bothered her. Since she’d had no intention of becoming a doctor, she’d limited her medical wisdom to first aid. Once she could have consulted every medical text written about her uncontrollable spasms. She would have known which procedures were the likeliest ones to cure her, which doctor had the best rate of success, which hospital on which planet specialized in … Stars … she didn’t even have a name for whatever was wrong with her.
She’d always known humans had to cope with illness and injuries, and she’d admired the way so many people faced their infirmities with courage. Dora wished to do the same. She would not succumb to the fear that the doctors couldn’t fix her before she’d even been diagnosed. When willing her trembling to cease failed, she used a psi thought to stop her quivers.
Taking back a measure of control gave her strength. “My lack of knowledge bothers me as much as, if not more than, the muscle spasms.”
Tessa spoke firmly. “Dora, you need to do what we do when we don’t know something.”
“What?”
Tessa’s eyes brightened with amusement and a chuckle escaped. “Ask the computer.”
ZICAL SUSPECTED TESSA knew that he’d been avoiding a private conversation with her about Dora for several weeks. Luckily, she couldn’t possibly know about his Dora fantasies, which he continued to blame on the golden light. Somehow, Dora’s telling him about her decision to transfer into a body just before the golden light had struck him had flooded his mind with erotic images of Dora that seemed to have taken a permanent residence in his brain. Unwilling to allow his fantasies about Dora to again merge with his visit to Xentos, he’d avoided both of them.
Besides, the notion of Dora as a woman intrigued him too much, and he couldn’t trust himself around her, just yet. He cared too much for her to have her glimpse his lust and mistake it for more than the aftereffects of the golden light. Dora also didn’t need to deal with Zical’s confusing feelings over her transformation. He still thought of her as a computer, not a sexy voice, who had to be feeling very vulnerable that her transformation had gone awry. The last thing he wanted to do was cast doubts about her humanity on top of her other problems. When the doctors couldn’t find a reason for Dora’s physical twitching and uncontrollable muscle spasms, she’d holed up and hidden herself from the few family gatherings he’d attended.
Tessa had finally tracked him down in the gym where he and Kahn had been training. A Rystani woman wouldn’t have interrupted men during combat exercise. But Tessa was from Earth, and she was more skilled than most Rystani warriors in combat and very comfortable in this masculine environment. Normally, Zical would have welcomed her presence, but no man appreciated having an audience for his defeat. Kahn had just thrown and pinned him.
While there was no shame in losing a bout to one of the foremost fighters in the Federation, Zical wondered if the two were teaming up on him. Kahn had him physically exhausted, and then Tessa came straight to the point, ignoring Zical’s muffled groan as he employed aching muscles and a weary psi to shove to his feet.
She shot a look at her husband as sharp as a laser. “Kahn, tell him that if he cares about Dora that he should visit her.”
“Tell him yourself.” Kahn grinned lazily, his eyes full of affection and amusement.
Zical turned to leave, careful to keep his tone casual, as if he had nothing to hide. Although he considered Dora a friend, he didn’t feel close enough to her to intrude on her privacy. “I have to get back to Mount Shachauri.”
He’d spoken no more than the truth. While he’d been saddled with the chore of ferrying engineers and scientists into the mountain, he’d put off making any career choices. But he wasn’t complaining. As much as he missed piloting his starship, his crew was taking a well-deserved vacation, and besides, the alien machinery fascinated him. He also enjoyed listening to the scientists speculate about the find. But if he were honest, as much as he was avoiding Dora, he yearned to see her, curious to know what she looked like. His contradictory thoughts didn’t make sense to him, so he certainly didn’t want to attempt to explain them to Tessa.
But she had that don’t-mess-with-me gleam in her eyes that told Zical he wouldn’t easily escape. In one easy move she blocked his exit. “Oh, no, you don’t.”
Zical glanced to Kahn, but he shrugged. Zical was on his own. “I’m not avoiding her. I’ve attended family gatherings and she’s been hiding in her room.”
“
Really
?”
Tessa might be slender and short, but she could put more authority into one word than any woman he’d ever met. Right now he had to remind himself they were in the same family, that she was Dora’s friend, and that she wasn’t about to let him go until she’d had her say.
Tessa eyed him and softened her tone. “The doctors can’t find anything wrong with her physically. She refuses to speak with a shrink. I can’t reach her and instead of enjoying her new body, she’s cooped up in her quarters and spending too much time with the computer.”
“So?”
“I think you can help her. She’s always had a special affection for you.”
“Affection? She’s a computer.” Zical played dumb. Dora had always been much more than a computer, but defining her was impossible, although, sassy, smart, and seductive popped into his mind. When Dora had been a computer, her affectionate nature and her teasing sexual innuendos had amused him. But now that she was altered, he wasn’t sure he was ready for her transformation from his sexy computer friend to a genuine woman. Especially, with the golden light turning his nights into restless erotic dreams where Dora’s provocative whispers took center stage, he wasn’t certain he trusted himself to handle a new relationship and he didn’t want to cause Dora more damage.
“She wasn’t born human. But I assure you that she’s one hundred percent human now. Or she was … but she’s spending too much time plugged in to the network.”
“Plugged in?”
“To transfer her personality into her body, she created an electronic link. She can link her brain directly into the computer.”
He read the worry in Tessa’s eyes. “Is this harmful?”
“She’s using the link to escape. To withdraw from her humanity. I thought maybe you could snap her back into having an interest in being human.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Go to her. Talk to her.”
“About?”
Tessa rolled her eyes at the ceiling in disgust. “You want me to write you a script?”
“Did you ever think I might say the wrong thing and make her worse?” Or accidentally give her the impression that he was interested in her as a woman? Because Zical knew how unfair that impression would be. When Dora had been a computer, the flirtation between them was safe and harmless because their friendship couldn’t grow into anything more. But now she had a body.
Tessa’s eyes narrowed on him. She didn’t bother refuting his excuse. “Dora cares about you. I thought you liked her, too.”
Zical glanced at Kahn, his gaze questioning. Kahn crossed his arms over his chest. “Talk to her about anything you like. She’s not responding to us. She’s barely eating or sleeping. It’s eerie the way she closes her eyes, lies motionless for hours. She can’t go on like this or she could die.”
“Die?” Zical’s gut clenched.
He missed his conversations with Dora as a computer. Although the new entity performed assigned tasks well enough, Ranth was male, and his personality was young, not fully formed. Until Dora’s transformation, Zical hadn’t realized how much he enjoyed her constant presence in his life. Whether he was on his ship, in his quarters, or out exploring, she’d always been with him, ready to converse, give information, or simply keep him company.
Knowing he hadn’t lost her permanently, knowing he could visit her had lessened the loss of her company. Still, despite how busy he’d been during the last few weeks, he’d missed her more than he’d have thought possible—perhaps yet another reason he couldn’t stop thinking about her. Ranth simply couldn’t replace Dora, but Zical wasn’t so certain the new Dora could replace her former self.
She was human now. Vulnerable. She could die. He didn’t know if he could cope with the mind-boggling change—especially since they’d both seemed to be having difficulties controlling their bodies—he with an almost overwhelming and constant ache for sex, her with uncontrollable twitches. He recognized his irritability but was at a loss how to solve his problem, never mind hers. The old Dora was strong, brilliant, cheerful, nothing ever got her down. He thought of her as superhuman, almost godlike, with no need for him in her life. But now, the way Tessa spoke of her, she sounded depressed, and if she needed him, he couldn’t turn away, no matter how much he feared that he might do further damage.
“We won’t let Dora die,” Tessa vowed, “even if we have to force feed her.”
“I hadn’t realized …” Zical’s thoughts spun. The idea of losing Dora scared him, but the idea of Dora needing help from anyone was a strange concept. One he couldn’t ignore, one that prodded his protective instincts. Dora wasn’t just part of his crew, she’d once been the most essential member. They’d flown every mission together, and she’d saved his life more times than he could count. If she needed him, he would be there to help. “I will visit her.”
“Good.” Tessa nodded. Zical turned to depart, but she placed her hand on his shoulder. “Perhaps you can think of a way to convince her to leave her quarters. She needs to interact with people. Patching into the computer all the time isn’t good for her.”
“What do you suggest?”
“I’ll leave that up to you.” Tessa hesitated, then continued. “Your first instinct may be gentleness, but she needs your strength, not pity.”
Zical’s eyebrows narrowed. Tessa was usually plainspoken, but she was being too vague for a simple starship pilot to fathom her meanings. Or perhaps his churning gut and fear for Dora’s well-being was making him more dense than usual. “I’m not sure I understand.”
“You will when you see her.”
Tessa wouldn’t say more, and he strode toward Dora’s quarters in confusion, but determined to do some good. Tessa’s concern for Dora was very clear, and she didn’t fret the small stuff—an indication of the seriousness of Dora’s condition.
Zical supposed he should have asked more questions, but as his anxiety level rose with his concerns, he realized he had no idea what to expect. Had Dora requested that he visit? Was she expecting him to arrive? Would she allow him into her quarters?
ZICAL KNOCKED on Dora’s door, filled with trepidation. Put him at the console of a sweet little starship and he knew exactly what to do. But dealing with women on personal levels wasn’t in his regular orbit of experience. Praying he didn’t make matters worse, determined to help her if he could, when the door opened he stepped inside.
Her quarters appeared … stark. The walls had no texture or color but remained standard gray. She’d hung no art. Nothing on the walls. No sculptures. The standard lighting, lack of music and scent gave the place a sterile feel. His heart sped with nervous energy. Now that he was finally here, his leashed curiosity ran wild as the
mustangi
on Zenon Prime. Would Dora welcome him? Would he be able to help her?
“Dora?”
“In here.”
Her voice sounded familiar, very close to the friend he remembered so well. Yet, she seemed distracted, as if involved deep in a holovid. Following the sound of her voice, he entered a dimly-lit corridor. The last door on the left was open, and a light beckoned.
Eager to see what she’d done to herself, he entered the room and frowned. He expected to see a woman he didn’t recognize. So what in the six moons of Gorath was the holosim Xentos doing here? His encounter with the computer-generated holosim had been wiped clean after his departure, and the computer hardware was totally separate from Dora’s. Yet, there was no denying the holosim he’d conjured out of his imagination to take off the edge of his sexual desires was here.
Had Dora copied the program to play a joke on him? He looked more closely at Xentos’s features. A holosim’s face didn’t have the kind of detail she projected. This woman had long, thick eyelashes, delicate coloring, and flawless skin that reflected marvelous cheekbones. She was full of curves, her hair a lush cinnamon, her features perfection. Clothed in swathes of soft violet that set off her bronze skin, she was his fantasy woman. The dream lover he’d conjured out of his imagination. The woman he’d had sex with as he’d fantasized about Dora. She couldn’t be real.
But she was.
Shocked, baffled and highly upset, he controlled his voice. “What in Stars is going on?”
She opened her eyes. Alexandrite in color, her violet suit brought out the deep purple in her irises as her unfamiliar stare caught him off guard. “Hello to you, too.”
Dora’s voice coming from those magnificent lips floored him. He stepped forward. “Are you … alive?”
“Blood and flesh.”
“Dora?”
“It’s me. Yes.”
No
.
“I’m human now just like you.”
His stomach tightened. She wasn’t anything like him. She was perfection personified to the nth degree. Stunning. Gorgeous. Her only flaw appeared to be the cord that plugged into her neck, connecting her to the computer system and dividing her attention between him and whatever else she was doing with Ranth. The lack of all expression on her exquisite face reminded him of cold
marbalite
, reminded him that he’d fantasized over that body, had sex with that body.
Shock gave way to raw worry. By taking the form of his holosim, Dora had exposed her wish to please his senses, and he was so stunned he didn’t know what to think. She must have spied on him, then duplicated the body specifications of the holosim he’d built to entice his preferences, and then transferred her personality into it, replicating his fantasy with a precision that left him flabbergasted, and way too susceptible to her beauty.
“What were you thinking?” He crossed the room in two steps, yanked the cord from the plug in her neck, severing her computer connection as his surge of shock veered into deep worry. He didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. He wasn’t certain he’d ever follow the customary Rystani-marriage-andchild route after he’d failed so badly with Summar. For Dora to take the form of his simulated lover revealed she had certain expectations of him … expectations that boggled his mind.