Read Forbidden Worlds - Box Set Online
Authors: Bernadette Gardner
Forbidden Worlds - Box Set (53 page)
Another human medic appeared, clipboard in hand, a concerned expression on his face. “Are you two all right?”
“I’m okay. Lieutenant Arroyo seems a little woozy,” Lela said.
Kiyan held up a hand. “I’ll be fine. Give me a minute.”
“I can give you something for the nausea,” the older man said.
Kiyan waved him off as she stood up straight, the color returning to her face. “No, I’m feeling better.”
“I’m Doctor Briar. If you experience any other medical problems while you’re here, see me immediately. You can request light duty for the first twenty-eight hours if you’re still experiencing conversion sickness. I know Lieutenant Arroyo from her last tour, but you haven’t been here before, have you?”
Lela shook her head. She had only joined the crew of the
Orion
a few months ago after completing her training, and this was her very first off-ship assignment.
Briar handed Lela an info-disc. “This is your orientation video. Once you get settled in your quarters, watch it before reporting for duty. The most important thing to remember while you’re here is this place was not built with humans in mind, or Carnathians for that matter. It’s easy to get hurt, so pay attention to stairs and ramps. We see an awful lot of sprained ankles in the infirmary. Second most important thing to remember,
don’t
drink Carnathian beer. It smells good, but it
will
dissolve the lining of your stomach.”
“Ugh, thanks, Doc.” The last thing Lela wanted to think about at the moment was drinking…or eating. She was still a little light-headed from the shot, and her main focus was finding her quarters and getting her bearings before she had to begin work on the machinery that produced and regulated the Denebian atmosphere. She and Kiyan had six months of intensive work ahead of them before they were scheduled to return to the
Orion,
and despite feeling a little off at the moment, she was eager to get started.
Kiyan thanked Dr. Briar and hustled Lela on her way through the wide corridor that led away from the space dock. “When you’re done watching that video, stop by my quarters, and I’ll fill you in on all the stuff you
really
need to know about this place.”
“Like what?”
“Like how to avoid becoming a Carnathian sex toy…unless you’re into that kind of thing, of course.”
“What do you mean by that?” Lela had devoured every bit of information she could find about Carnathian society during her training for this mission, and the sex toy thing had certainly never come up. Not that the idea wasn’t intriguing, but sex with an alien wasn’t really something Lela had planned on when she volunteered for a tour of duty on Deneb IV.
Kiyan, who still looked a bit green, just waved Lela off. “Come find me later. I’ll tell you everything.”
* * * *
Shutting off his personal computer interface, Iden Riggs sighed and muttered a rare Carnathian curse word. “I don’t know why we bother.”
“You’re not checking the list again, are you?” His
sho’tar
mate, Rex Terrel, walked past the desk terminal and scooped up his uniform jacket from the back of the chair on which Iden sat. “You know it’s not going to change.”
“Last cycle, I heard there was a substitution a few days after the list was posted. That’s how Darius and Vel got their mate.” Iden rose, stretching muscles that were sore from hunching over the terminal in the quarters he shared with Rex, hoping in vain to see their names on the short list of candidates chosen for joining in a three-way marriage with a female of their race.
Sho’tar
mates, like he and Rex, heterosexual males who committed to a dual relationship, regularly applied for the chance to be chosen by one of the few female Carnathians for long-term mating. As a means to keep from outgrowing their limited living space, the population had been genetically modified to be seventy-five percent male, and procreation was carefully controlled.
He and Rex had applied each time for the last six cycles and hadn’t yet been chosen, largely because the pool of eligible male couples was just too large, though Iden had begun to suspect it was also because few women of their race wanted mates who spent so much time away from the residence domes. He’d started to wonder if the two of them continued to work in engineering, which kept them busy for such long hours, they might never have the opportunity to enter into a permanent tri-bond.
“I know you’re disappointed,” Rex said, fastening his formfitting jacket. “But we don’t have time to mope about it now. Our new engineer from the
Orion
starts today, and we have to get moving on the system-wide diagnostics.”
Iden rose reluctantly. Though he was as eager to get to work on the atmosphere exchange problem as his partner was, he wasn’t ready to accept that another cycle might pass before he and Rex could be considered by an eligible female. “You don’t seem that bothered,” he said, following Rex out the door of their quarters.
“Right now I’m focused on work. With the atmo problems getting worse, we all should be. A major malfunction could put all breeding on hold if we have to abandon any of the domes.”
“Well, just tell me this, do you think our being in engineering is hurting our chances of finding a mate?”
Rex turned to meet Iden’s questioning gaze. “No, but I think anything less than a hundred percent attention to our work could hurt everyone’s chances. Later we can rethink our next application.” He clapped Iden on the back. “Right now, we need to get to work.”
* * * *
Despite being only a planetoid, and one of the smallest objects in the Denebian system, Deneb IV had no lack of space. The multidome habitats that littered its surface were truly enormous, and that was something she could definitely get used to, Lela decided after she’d found her quarters in the dormitory section of the Maintenance dome.
Because the domes had apparently been built to house at least half a billion roughly human-sized people, there was plenty of room, meaning there was no need to share quarters with several other female crewmembers like she did on board the
Orion
. The spacious suite she’d been assigned sported a bed big enough for at least three people, a bathtub long enough to swim laps in, and a living area almost as wide as a spaceship’s bridge.
Lela loved it. In fact, she wasn’t sure she’d ever want to leave. It would be too easy to get used to having all this sleek, glorious space to herself. She couldn’t imagine the place ever feeling claustrophobic, as Kiyan had suggested.
Immediately after stowing her meager gear in the huge closet she popped the info-disc into the video player and stretched out on the bed. While she rolled from side to side on the soft blankets, a boring dissertation on gravity, atmosphere, food allergies and basic social etiquette droned on, telling her nothing she hadn’t already heard a dozen times before during her training. She was pretty sure Dr. Briar was the narrator, and his somewhat monotone voice made her extremely sleepy.
“Blah, blah, blah,” she moaned. Such boring stuff about when to knock on a closed door, the proper time to walk backward out of a room, and the correct way to address an elderly person. She knew the basics: The Carnathians were humanoid, bipedal, and strikingly similar to humans in outward appearance but with some significant differences in respiratory and digestive systems. Other than being taller, broader, and more muscular than humans, though, they could certainly pass for human, and the social mores of their culture weren’t all that strange or unusual.
They valued a polite, positive attitude, appreciated humor and honesty, and were known for their intelligence, wit, and scientific curiosity. They had no wars in their history and very little violence. Their home planet had been decimated by the collision of two nearby stars more than a thousand years ago, and they’d come in ships across half the galaxy searching for a suitable home. A five-hundred-year journey had brought them to the abandoned planetoid, the only place they’d ever found with an atmosphere compatible with their own.
Lela wished she could have met one of the Carnathians sooner, but their inability to breathe the same atmosphere as humans meant they were limited to their own habitats and ships. The respiratory immunization that transformed humans back to breathing oxygen from argon didn’t work on Carnathians, so for now, their population remained on Deneb IV except under very special circumstances. The info-disc didn’t really offer any knowledge Lela hadn’t uncovered in her own research, and soon it became a chore to keep her eyes open. Finally, she decided she could just listen to the rest of the dissertation while resting her eyes and stretching out on the bed.
She woke hours later, unaware of how much of the boring info-disc she’d slept through. After her unplanned nap, she felt much better, definitely up to locating Kiyan’s quarters and finding out all the things the video hadn’t told her. From what she remembered before dozing off, it certainly hadn’t mentioned anything about sex, not that she planned to engage in any while she was here. Kiyan tended toward the dramatic and was more than likely being facetious. She was certain a mention of sexual etiquette would have been included in her prep classes if it was warranted. No one expected the human staff of Deneb to be celibate, or to suppress their natural curiosity about their hosts. Nevertheless, sex was the farthest thing from Lela’s mind when deep below the surface of the planetoid lay the most advanced, complex example of alien technology ever discovered. Working with the atmosphere generators that made life on Deneb possible had been her goal for the past three years, and she intended to focus on her work and nothing more.
Excited to begin her shift, she retrieved the discarded pieces of her uniform and got dressed.
“You have a visitor,” the door chime announced before she finished lacing her work boots.
“Who is it?” she asked the ceiling, hoping the computerized voice would tell her that as well.
“T2 Rex Terrell. Section twenty-three overseer.” The response didn’t come from the carefully modulated computer chime. This voice was rich and masculine and obviously belonged to her very first Carnathian. Excitement made Lela’s skin tingle. She was about to meet a non-human for the first time in her life!
“Be right there!” Rubbing her suddenly sweaty palms on her thighs, she headed for the door of her suite. After a deep breath of the alien atmosphere, to which her body had adjusted while she slept, she palmed the door controls to admit her visitor.
Lela’s jaw dropped rudely when she laid eyes on him.
Rex Terrel towered over her, his broad shoulders filling the doorway of the suite. Piercing dark eyes met hers, and he smiled, making the chiseled planes of his face soften into an invitingly handsome expression.
His black uniform clung to ridges and valleys of muscle, leaving little to question about the rugged physique beneath the fabric.
If asked, Lela could not have pinpointed anything about him that marked him as alien other than his impressive size and the fact that, if sex hadn’t been on her mind before she’d met him, it certainly was now.
And
Coming Soon!
Chrysalis
(The Carnathian ChroniclesBook 2)
She’s still waiting to exhale…
Life support engineer Kiyan Arroyo barely survived the horrifying Carnathian interrogation that helped catch the man responsible for sabotaging the atmosphere generators on Deneb IV, but the invasive brain scan also uncovered a secret she’d vowed never to reveal.
Her knowledge could be the key that will save a race from extinction, but for a crucial experiment to work, she has to put her trust in the people who tore her mind apart. Can love grow in the wake of devastating destruction?
About the Author
Fascinated by forbidden worlds, Bernadette Gardner is the darker reflection of a mild-mannered paranormal romance author.
To learn more about Bernadette’s books visit her website:
http://www.bernadettegardner.com
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