Charlotte Boyett-Compo- WIND VERSE- Hunger's Harmattan Unknown (top business books of all time .TXT) 📖

he’d lay right back down. Tonight she had seen added trembling,sweating and a look in his eyes that made her uneasy. “Tell me.”

“No,” he said. He met her gaze. “You didn’ttell me what else you did while I was gone.”

“You aren’t going to change the subject, ehemann,”she told him.

“Aye, I am,” he declared. “What else did youdo?” He tightened his arms around himself.

Shanee realized he was slowly rocking backand forth as he sat there and knew he wasn’t even aware that he did so. Aportion of a conversation she’d had with Bahiya a few days before passedthrough her mind.

“With Reapers, sometimes you have togive in order to get,” the Prime Reaper’s mate hadimparted. “When you need to get answers from your man, give him what hewants. Eventually, he’ll give you what you want.”

The Amazeen crossed her legs as she satfacing him. “I helped the men build this hut.”

Ailyn looked up at the pole rafters and atthe layered walls. “You did well. What else?”

“I helped the women gather the leaves andgrasses for the pallet then stuffed most of it myself.”

He nodded but made no comment to that.

She ached to touch him, to put her armsaround him in his apparent misery but she refrained, instinctively knowing hewouldn’t appreciate it just then.

“Oh and a scout ship landed the fourth dayyou were gone,” she said, and smiled at him as he turned his head to look ather. “They had a message for me from General Strom so I went on board and spoketo him privately.”

“What did he want?” he asked, reaching upto arm away the sweat that had gathered under his chin.

“He wanted to know if you were going toreturn to Riezell with me. I told him you would but that you had no intentionof seeing your mother. I explained to him why you thought she wanted you backand he said he’d already come to the same conclusion. He is agreeable tokeeping your return secret from the vice-counselor and your mother.”

“That would be best,” he said.

“Now tell me about the dream, Ailyn,” sheordered.

At first she didn’t think he’d answer buthe hung his head, closed his eyes and began a tale that would keep her awakethe rest of the night.

“Tariq had been on R-9 for thirty years ormore when they brought the first of us there,” he began in a soft, tonelessvoice. “I don’t know who the scientists were but I know they had doneexperiments on him off and on over those years. He says they didn’t know whatto do with him until a new scientist arrived about six months before I wasbrought there.”

She watched him get up and go to the tableto pour a tumbler of water. His hand was shaking violently and he gulped theliquid down as though he were parched. Draining the tumbler, he poured anotherand drank that as well. He seemed a bit calmer when he returned to the palletand sank down on it again.

“Her name was Perse Cean,” he told her.“She was half Saurian and half something even more bizarre.”

Shanee had only met one Saurian and she hadbeen uncomfortable with the reptilian warrior. With his black, elliptical eyes,hairless face covered in thick, shiny scales, broad and fleshy tongue that wasfour times the length of a normal humanoid’s and long, spatula-like fingers,the Saurian was the ugliest creature she’d ever seen. When he spoke with ahissing sound, she nearly gagged seeing the pebbly warts and double rows ofsharp, spiky teeth inside his mouth.

“I overheard her and the three assistantswho came to R-9 with her discussing their homeworld. From what they said it iswhere Raphian is worshiped as the primary god.”

Shanee frowned. “Where is that?”

“A place far beyond Esvaria in the DiamhairGalaxy,” he replied. “She called it Chiaroscuro but I’ve studied every star mapI could get my hands on since I came to Theristes and I can’t find it listedanywhere.”

“Tariq has star maps here?” she asked.

“The Burgon gave him an entire library ofinformation. He said he never again wanted Tariq and his people not to knowwhere they were in relation to others in the megaverse.”

“Makes sense,” Shanee said.

“It had been Bakari’s predecessor whobrought Cean,” he continued. “The gods only know where he found her but she wasthe one who did the first Transference.”

She remembered what Tariq had told her…

“The only explanation I can give you forwhat happened on R-9 is that Raphian was involved. He influenced the Allianceto create the hell that was Riezell-Nine.”

“Were you among the first ones they did thatto?” she asked.

He ran a hand through his hair and she wasglad to see he was no longer shaking.

“When they brought me in—more dead thanalive—they threw me in a holding tank with eight other men. All of us had beenseverely wounded and none of us were expected to live. There was one among uswho took it upon himself to make sure we knew who each of us was. He said weshouldn’t die alone without having friends to mourn us. His name was Creightonand he and I swam against one another in a couple of meets. Marcus and Damianwere about the same age as me—twenty-four, twenty-five. You’ve met them,haven’t you?” At her nod, he continued. “Three others were older by a score ofyears and the remaining three were in their mid to late thirties. When Cean andher assistants came to take a look at us, she pointed to the three older onesand they were taken out first. The next day they came back for the next threeand then finally the day after that for Marcus, Damian and then me.” He took adeep breath then released it slowly. “I was the ninth to receive a parasite.”

There was no need for him to tell her aboutthat again but there was something he was holding back, something that botheredhim so deeply his eyes were filled with tears. She broke down and laid her handon his thigh.

“Tell me,” she said gently.

“It was her hands,” he said. “Her handswere ice cold and even through the latex gloves I could feel that chill and theroughness of those gods-awful scales.”