As the two men ac­com­pa­nied the girl to the door, it opened to ad­mit Egilka. He stepped in­side and stopped to see his naked Dramok, the nearly naked Plasian, and the some­what ex­posed Be­vau be­fore him. The girl came for­ward and ran her hands over his chest. Be­vau was im­pressed with her ea­ger­ness to con­tinue on.

  The Imdiko smiled and shook his head, pat­ting her cheek. “Thank you pet, but no. I’m quite done for tonight.”

  She shrugged and gig­gled. As she walked out, Be­vau re­al­ized he hadn’t heard her say a sin­gle word. Then sev­eral scents wafted to him, tak­ing his thoughts far away from the sen­su­ous Plasian race.

  Mixed in with Egilka’s nat­u­ral musk was sour al­co­hol blended with the woodsy smells of soil and leaves. There was some­thing else too. Be­vau’s jaw dropped in amaze­ment as he rec­og­nized the sea-salt aroma on his Imdiko clan­mate.

  “You smell like Earther!”

  Cla­jak stepped close to his Imdiko and in­haled. His eyes flashed. “You smell like her.”

  Egilka frowned. He started to say some­thing, stopped, and turned red. With a dis­gusted grunt, he said, “I de­cided I might as well sam­ple the aliens tak­ing over our planet.”

  He pushed past them both and went to the bathing basin. He stripped his clothes off, and Be­vau grinned to see the deep scratches fur­row­ing his chest. “She likes be­ing sam­pled, doesn’t she?”

  Egilka looked down at him­self and snorted. He glanced at his clan­mates’ smirk­ing faces and gave up his pre­tended non­cha­lance. His own smile lit up his face with pride. “In­deed she does. I see Cla­jak car­ries his own marks of honor.”

  Cla­jak brushed the claw marks Jes­sica had left on his shoul­ders, chest, and ab­domen. “My back too,” he boasted, turn­ing to show them. “I have more than you, but they’re not as deep. I’m not sure who per­formed bet­ter.”

  “And you, Be­vau? Where are your marks?” Egilka slid into the wa­ter.

  Be­vau’s chest puffed in an­tic­i­pa­tion of show­ing up both his clan­mates. He pulled his form­suit off, and they gasped with ad­mi­ra­tion. “She bit you!” Cla­jak brushed his fin­ger­tips over the per­fect oval crusted with dried blood. “You lucky bas­tard.”

  “Now that’s a true mark of honor,” Egilka said, envy in his tone. “What did you do to earn that?”

  Be­vau and Cla­jak joined him in the basin. The three men sat in a cir­cle, let­ting the wa­ter soak the day’s ten­sions away.

  “I dom­i­nated her, but I also en­cour­aged her to fight me. She loves a strug­gle, es­pe­cially when she’s on the los­ing end.” His cocks hard­ened, and Be­vau cursed. “Do you think she’s up for more fun tonight?” he asked Egilka.

  The Imdiko laughed. “Only if you don’t mind her un­con­scious. Jes­sica fell asleep in the shut­tle, and I had to carry her to her room. Our fa­vorite lit­tle piece of fluff is done for the day, my friend.”

  Cla­jak snorted. “That fluff has a nasty tem­per. There’s noth­ing soft about her when she’s riled.”

  Egilka cocked an eye­brow at him. “Does it re­mind you of any­one else we know?”

  Cla­jak dropped his eyes. “My Imdiko, I can’t apol­o­gize enough for break­ing the news the way I did. There is no ex­cuse for my be­hav­ior. What can I do to make it up to you? Name it.”

  A pained ex­pres­sion flit­ted over Egilka’s face for an in­stant, then it was gone. He gazed at the Dramok with a mix­ture of ex­as­per­a­tion and love. It was an ex­pres­sion Be­vau had seen on their el­dest clan­mate’s face of­ten, and it was al­most al­ways aimed at Cla­jak.

  His voice gen­tle, Egilka said, “Grow up, my Dramok. That’s what you can do.”

  Cla­jak nod­ded, and his gaze flicked to Egilka’s face. “Is there any­thing else I can do in­stead? Some­thing eas­ier?”

  Egilka burst into laugh­ter, and just like that the rift be­tween the two healed. Be­vau felt some­thing in­side of him­self lift. His clan­mates had fought be­fore, but this time had seemed se­ri­ous. Re­lief took the last of his ten­sions away, and he re­laxed for the first time that day.

  Egilka said, “You can help con­vince lit­tle Jes­sica to come to Kalquor. Her ex­pe­ri­ences with you and me have soured her on join­ing a clan. She re­fuses to go now.”

  Cla­jak’s ex­pres­sion went dark, but he tried to shrug it off. “She is only one fe­male.”

  Be­vau fought the ten­sion creep­ing back in. “With less than two thou­sand Earther women on Kalquor, we need ev­ery vi­able woman we can get. She has to go back with us.”

  Egilka nod­ded his agree­ment. “She is strong, healthy, and not as re­pressed as most her kind. She must be clanned.”

  Be­vau nar­rowed his eyes. “This is a com­plete turn­around for you, my Imdiko.”

  Egilka sighed. “I know my duty, dis­taste­ful as it is. I guess maybe Earth­ers aren’t all that bad.” As Be­vau con­tin­ued to stare at him with dis­be­lief, Egilka flushed. “It’s not their fault I couldn’t save our peo­ple.”

  Egilka had truly ex­pe­ri­enced an epiphany. Be­vau felt re­lief along with sym­pa­thy for his clan­mate. He pat­ted the Imdiko’s shoul­der. “No one doubts you did your best. Many ad­mired your ef­forts.”

  Egilka shrugged him off. The wound­ing was still too fresh for him to ac­cept com­mis­er­a­tion, even from those he loved best. “Let’s get back to Jes­sica. It would be prefer­able for her to come will­ingly, but we might have to en­ter­tain the pos­si­bil­ity of tak­ing her against her wishes.”

  Cla­jak growled low in his throat. “I don’t mind be­ing force­ful. Maybe I can col­lect a few bite marks of my own.”

  Be­vau’s cocks swelled their own agree­ment. He felt again the soft­ness of Jes­sica’s trapped body against his own, her help­less strug­gles to es­cape him. “We have a few days to change her mind. When re­wards and prom­ises fail, we can re­sort to co­er­cion and pun­ish­ment.”

  “Ei­ther way, we will all be very per­sua­sive,” Egilka vowed. The three men ex­changed de­vi­ous grins.

  This is go­ing to be fun, Be­vau thought. He hoped Jes­sica would prove dif­fi­cult to con­vince.

  Chap­ter 7

  Jes­sica screamed as whirling dark­ness fell upon her. The roar of the wind pressed ev­ery­where, and she bat­tled against the shred­ding black sky as it pinned her help­less body. “Lind­sey! Lind­sey!” she cried, reach­ing for her sis­ter.

  Thrash­ing, she fell off the lounger, tan­gled in the soft cover keep­ing her naked body warm. Two of the triple moons re­mained in the sky, gleam­ing through her untinted win­dows and light­ing her Plasian quar­ters.

  The dregs of the night­mare tugged at Jes­sica, mak­ing her heart race even as com­fort­ing re­al­ity as­serted it­self. She lay still on the soft car­pet, fight­ing to catch her breath.

  It was just an­other dream. I’m safe on Pla­sius. Past is past, and all is well.

  “Af­ter twenty years, I should have out­grown this by now,” Jes­sica grouched, ex­tri­cat­ing her­self from the linen wrapped around her. “Win­dows full tint. Lights up half.”

  Il­lu­mi­nated light­ing globes came to soft life as the win­dows dark­ened. Jes­sica stood and shiv­ered in the chill. Egilka must have put her to bed. She didn’t re­mem­ber any­thing shortly af­ter they’d climbed on board the shut­tle. Af­ter switch­ing the heat on, she fixed her­self a cup of cof­fee scav­enged from the mil­i­tary trans­port. She wouldn’t sleep the rest of the night any­way.

  Jes­sica dressed, throw­ing on a sweater and long slacks. She pre­ferred skirts and dresses, but the cold held on de­spite the heat blast­ing into her quar­ters. She guessed the Imdiko prince hadn’t thought about her lesser tol­er­ance to low tem­per­a­tures. At least Egilka had cov­ered her up af­ter un­dress­ing her.

  Jes­sica curled her fin­gers around the cof­fee cup, let­ting warmth ra­di­ate into her hands. She sipped it, sa­vor­ing the smooth, slightly bit­ter fla­vor. She had per­haps an­other week’s worth of cof­fee left if she ra­tioned her­self to two cups a day. She sighed. Earth had some things right, and cof­fee was one of them.

  Af­ter fin­ish­ing the drink, she won­dered what to do with her­self. Dawn was still an hour away, and Michaela was a late sleeper. Even with some­thing to read or a vid to watch, sit­ting still would in­vite ves­tiges of the night­mare to crowd her con­scious. Jes­sica couldn’t al­low that to hap­pen. She would not let child­hood ter­rors rule her life.

  She thought bet­ter when she stayed ac­tive. Now that she had made the de­ci­sion to not go to Kalquor, she had to look at her op­tions. Even cof­fee couldn’t tempt her back to Earth, which was at the bot­tom of her list … well, next to the bot­tom. Kalquor was the last place she wanted to go. Too many of the men were jerks.

  A walk would clear her head of the night­mare and let her con­sider her choices. Jes­sica had ex­plored lit­tle of Is­rala’s es­tate. Michaela kept her too busy with dance prac­tice. With the house­hold asleep, she could roam the prop­erty with­out any­one to dis­turb her.

  Pleased with the op­por­tu­nity, she pulled on a pair of boots and a coat made of an alashoo’s smoky gray fur. The Plasian mam­mal’s thick hide was sti­fling in the now-warm suite. Made for the taller Plasian race, the coat reached her an­kles. Feel­ing equal to the Plasian en­vi­ron­ment, Jes­sica left her rooms.

  * * * *

  Jes­sica wan­dered the grounds of Is­rala’s es­tate, skirt­ing the lush gar­den with its aphro­disi­a­cal flow­ers. A gen­tle breeze wafted their scent in her di­rec­tion from time to time, stir­ring her senses. Ev­ery time she caught a whiff of the blooms, her thoughts went to the Kalquo­rian princes. How very dif­fer­ent they were from one an­other, yet each man aroused her in his own way. If only Cla­jak wasn’t such a self­ish jerk and Egilka a big­oted one. To imag­ine shar­ing her body with the clan for the rest of her life…

  Jes­sica grum­bled a warn­ing to her­self and set her back to the gar­den. She didn’t want to think about the Kalquo­rian princes, about how much she wanted them. That might lead to ad­mit­ting the real rea­son she was de­ter­mined not to take her place in any clan.

  One moon re­mained aloft in the sky, a lone sen­tinel in the last ves­tiges of night. The sil­ver-white orb was a flood­light, al­low­ing her to nav­i­gate the hedges that wound a me­an­der­ing trail to­ward the front gates of the es­tate. She fig­ured by the time she reached the end of the trail and re­turned to Is­rala’s manor, oth­ers would be stir­ring.

  The sil­very metal­lic front gates were for show only; the dec­o­ra­tive would-be bar­ri­ers stood eter­nally open to ad­mit ev­ery­one that chose to en­joy Is­rala’s man­i­cured lawns, mar­ble pa­tios and, of course, the aphro­disi­a­cal gar­den with its out­door rooms. When it came to her prop­erty, Is­rala was no dif­fer­ent than the rest of her race. Plasians shared their be­long­ings as eas­ily as their bod­ies. Hoard­ing any­thing was un­known to them. In Jes­sica’s opin­ion, it made the amorous race the most ad­vanced in the known uni­verse. They would have made won­der­ful Bud­dhists, she thought. If Earth wasn’t such a threat to the peace­ful planet, she would hap­pily stay.

  Round­ing a hedge, she gasped. A scar­let-scaled whalha peered at her from the top of the fo­liage. Jes­sica paused and stared back, ad­mir­ing the crea­ture’s smooth bul­let-shaped head. It opened its tooth­less mouth to trill a warn­ing be­fore un­furl­ing its bat­like wings and tak­ing flight. The rep­til­ian crea­ture was as big as Jes­sica, and its beat­ing wings blew her hair back from her face. Clawed hands and feet curled to its belly as it flew away to­wards the north where the tan­gled for­est bor­dered the un­named Plasian capi­tol. She smiled to hear its melodic call, as tune­ful as an op­er­atic so­prano. The noc­tur­nal whalha was rare in set­tled ar­eas; to hear one was sup­pos­edly an omen of good for­tune. To ac­tu­ally see one meant one’s dear­est wish would come true.

  Jes­sica won­dered what her dear­est wish might be now that she had es­caped Earth. A vi­sion of Cla­jak, Be­vau and Egilka sprang up in her mind, and she res­o­lutely shoved it away.

  “For my par­ents and Lind­sey to join me off Earth,” Jes­sica whis­pered. Yes. See­ing her fam­ily again would be the sweet­est gift of all, and see­ing them free of Earth would be be­yond imag­i­na­tion. Like a child, she crossed her fin­gers.

  Jes­sica con­tin­ued to wan­der the loop­ing path. As she rounded an­other bend, a tall shape loomed be­fore her. She jumped back with a lit­tle scream.

  “Who’s there?” a rough voice snarled in Eng­lish. The man’s back was to the now set­ting moon, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for Jes­sica to dis­cern his fea­tures. She rec­og­nized the green cam­ou­flage fa­tigues as that of an Earther sol­dier, but he wasn’t one of Is­rala’s play­things.

  Jes­sica swal­lowed. It had to be an Earth loy­al­ist, one of the sol­diers un­hap­pily ma­rooned on Pla­sius. That group re­mained quar­tered in the trans­port she’d served on, which now sat alone in a stor­age hangar at the space dock. The dozen or so men, older ca­reer sol­diers de­voted to Earth’s gov­ern­ment and the Church, kept to them­selves. They were rarely seen. What was this one do­ing on Is­rala’s es­tate?

  “It’s Nurse McIn­ness from Earth,” Jes­sica said. “Are you okay? Were you look­ing for help?”

  “We’re all healthy, Nurse McIn­ness,” the man said, re­lax­ing a lit­tle. “Though we’re cer­tainly not happy. I’m scout­ing the en­emy, which you seem to have joined.”

  Jes­sica stiff­ened at the threat in his tone. Her voice icy, she lied with ease. “Un­der the vir­tu­ous com­mand of Gen­eral Croft, I was com­fort­able aboard our ship. With him dead, I found it in­ap­pro­pri­ate to shel­ter on the trans­port among men I do not know the in­ten­tions of. Saucin Is­rala has granted me pri­vate quar­ters, the bet­ter to en­sure my virtue. Earth Gov is wel­come to eval­u­ate my ac­tions when I re­turn home.”

  She took a step back, as if to demon­strate her ret­i­cence to be iso­lated with any man. She tried not to show her re­lief when he didn’t close the dis­tance.

  “My apolo­gies for doubt­ing your moral­ity, Nurse. With so many trea­sonous bas­tards turn­ing their backs on Earth to feed their lusts, I as­sumed the worst.” He shiv­ered in the cold early morn­ing air. “I keep hop­ing enough will re­cant to fly the trans­port and get us off this deca­dent planet.”

  “None have men­tioned any­thing of the sort to me. The men are awash in sin.”

  “It’s that Jezebel Is­rala. God has a spe­cial place in Hell re­served for that one. I’d like to send her there sooner rather than later.” The sol­dier’s voice dripped with ha­tred.

  Jes­sica went cold. She would have to warn the Saucin. With no po­lice force on Pla­sius, she didn’t know what good it would do, but Is­rala had to know her life might be in dan­ger.

  The sol­dier’s next words fright­ened her even more. “I heard the abom­i­na­tion put on a porno­graphic show for the vis­it­ing Kalquo­ri­ans. Ru­mor says it per­formed sex­ual acts with all of them. That freak must be de­stroyed.”

  Other Earth­ers re­ferred to only one per­son as ‘the abom­i­na­tion’. Jes­sica’s emo­tions ran the gamut: ter­ror to hear the threat on Michaela’s life, fury at the sol­dier’s in­sin­u­a­tion she was less than hu­man, and amuse­ment that the still vir­ginal dancer was thought to have rut­ted with all the Kalquo­ri­ans.

  Wouldn’t the hate­ful bas­tard soil him­self to dis­cover Michaela was far more chaste than Jes­sica? She wished she could share that lit­tle tid­bit with him just to see his ex­pres­sion.

  “I can’t con­firm the story. I keep to my­self. The less con­tact I have with the god­less, the safer my soul,” she said, her tone aloof.

  “Amen, sis­ter,” the sol­dier an­swered. “I will be glad to vouch for your piety when we re­turn to Earth. I hope you will do the same for me? I’m Sergeant Ja­son Fiske.” He saluted.

  “It will be my honor, Sergeant Fiske.” Jes­sica ex­am­ined his face, slowly be­ing re­vealed by the light­en­ing sky. His lined, pale fea­tures re­minded her of a bull­dog. She mem­o­rized the heavy jowls, the baby-fine gray­ing hair, and the deep-set brown eyes for later de­scrip­tion. Ev­ery­one needed to be on alert for the prowl­ing sol­dier.

  “Day­light’s com­ing. I’ve got to get back to the trans­port be­fore I’m seen,” Fiske said. He scowled at the sky as if it was his en­emy. “Keep your­self safe, Nurse McIn­ness. If any of the traitors ap­proaches you about re­turn­ing to Earth, send them to me. Tell them they’ll be granted im­mu­nity for their crimes in re­turn for get­ting us home.”

  “Will they re­ally be granted im­mu­nity?”

  Fiske grinned, but there was noth­ing pleas­ant in the ex­pres­sion. “Don’t you worry. The ex­emp­tion lasts only un­til we ar­rive on Earth. Proper judg­ment will be passed, and they will re­gret their sins for the rest of their very short lives.”

  * * * *

  Later that day, Jes­sica was reach­ing for her blouse when she heard the door be­hind her open. “Did you for­get some­thing, Slana?” she called with­out look­ing around.

  Slana was the seam­stress Michaela had hired to sew their cos­tumes for the fes­ti­val. The Plasian had left only sec­onds be­fore, hav­ing done Jes­sica’s fi­nal fit­ting. When she didn’t an­swer, Jes­sica turned to see what she wanted.

  Cla­jak stood in her suite, smil­ing with de­light as he looked over her body, clad only in a lacy thong. Jes­sica gasped and cov­ered her ex­posed breasts with her hands. “Get out!” she yelled.

  “But I just got here,” he an­swered, his grin turn­ing in­so­lent. “I must say, I en­joy the view in your suite much more than mine. Be­sides, I came to apol­o­gize for our mis­un­der­stand­ing.” He moved to­ward her, his preda­tory stalk re­mind­ing her of the way Be­vau had hunted her in this very room.