Awakened by the Giant Read online

  He reached for her again and she stepped away from him.

  “Don’t you dare touch me!”

  “Fine, I won’t but you have to come on.” He glared at her. “Will you come with me now or do I have to pick you up and carry you?”

  “I’ll come.” Clutching Snuffy to her chest, she followed him out of the lab. But just because she was going with him, didn’t mean that she believed him, she told herself grimly. Calden had a lot to answer for—not the least of which was the fact that he’d known his animals weren’t dying from natural causes. Apparently he’d been implanting them with suicide devices that killed them when their time was up. And even worse, he’d implanted one in her too!

  If I don’t die, she thought murderously, glaring at his broad back as he led the way down the corridor, I’m going to fucking kill him!

  Fifteen

  Madeline seemed to have some strange idea that he’d cloned her more than once. And she was upset with him—extremely upset—for cloning her in the first place.

  Well, he could certainly understand that, Calden admitted to himself. He’d been meaning to tell her the truth but he’d wanted to assure her future aboard the Mentat station first. And now it looked as though he’d be lucky if he could assure her any future at all.

  Calden shoved the thought away. He had to concentrate on the here and now—on getting Madeline off the station and finding her some help. That was all that mattered at the moment.

  You should have at least hidden her original body better, whispered a little voice in the back of his head. That was a hell of a way for her to find out the truth. You should have moved it out of the lab!

  He’d meant to, of course—but it had never seemed to be the right time to move her original remains. Once they began to get close, he’d had Madeline with him almost all the time and it was hard to make a good enough excuse to be gone long enough to move her body…

  Stop making excuses, whispered the little voice. You made a grave miscalculation, Calden. You might even say you fucked up. If she does live, it’s going to take Madeline a long time to trust you again.

  But he couldn’t think like that—couldn’t allow himself to think the word “if.” She had to live—he would make sure she lived!

  They reached his quarters and went inside. Calden grabbed a bag out of the wall storage unit—the same bag he’d brought his few meager possessions in when he had first moved to the Mentat station, five cycles ago, in fact.

  He didn’t take much—some Kindred meal cubes, the coin-sized storage disks that held his data, a tiny holo picture of his mother—the only one he had—the last picture she’d taken before she’d died when he was only eight cycles old. Then he went to the small desk and unlocked the drawer.

  He stared at the sleek, deadly blaster stored there. It was illegal to have it here but he’d smuggled it in, though he didn’t know why. Maybe he’d done if for the same reason he’d planted the bonding fruit seed. He’d taken the blaster at his friend, Bram’s insistence, who had wanted Calden to have protection, even though Calden had explained that the Mentat station was a non-violent space, devoted only to research and science.

  Might not be quite so non-violent now, Calden thought grimly. He grabbed the blaster and tucked it into the waistband of his trousers, under the white lab coat he wore. He wouldn’t use it unless he had to. But if he had to, he wasn’t going to hold back, he told himself.

  Then, almost as an afterthought, he swept up the small bonding fruit plant. Its silvery-green leaves were lush and full and several ripening fruits were clinging to its branches now. He and Madeline would probably never get to use them. But taking the plant was a gesture of hope—a gesture of defiance.

  If there was any way to get her to safety, Calden was damn well going to do it. And if they did get to safety and Madeline got her unit removed and ever forgave him, he wanted them to have a chance for a full and complete life. Without the bonding fruit, that wouldn’t be possible.

  So Calden took the plant and sealed it carefully into a side compartment of his bag. Then he turned to Madeline, who was still clutching the little brantha to her chest.

  “Come. We need to go.”

  She nodded, her eyes still shadowed with doubt, and didn’t say a word.

  But when Calden passed his hand over the door and the metal panel slid open, it wasn’t an empty corridor that greeted them.

  At least a dozen Mentats, Grack-lor in the lead, were standing right outside Calden’s quarters and all of them looked enraged.

  “What’s this? What in the Seven Hells are you all doing here?” Calden demanded, glaring at the huge Mentats who were standing there. Maddy saw with a shiver that Grack-lor was among them and he looked extremely pissed off. The pouch beneath his chin was bulging oddly—maybe because it was hugely swollen—and dripping black, oily liquid which might be the Mentat version of blood.

  “We’re here for you—or should we say we’re here for that little cunt of yours,” the big Mentat snarled. “So send her out now, Calden, if you don’t want to get hurt!”

  Calden seemed to grow even larger and Maddy saw his topaz eyes flash red.

  “You have no right to Madeline—she is mine,” he growled. “Now just step aside and let us pass. We are leaving this place so you’ll never have to see us again.”

  “I’m afraid we can’t let you do that, Calden.” Kro-thur stepped forward, cawing self-righteously. “Not with your work, that is. You know that you promised anything you worked on while you lived here with us would belong to the Mentat station. FATHER has sent us to collect it before you go.”

  “All right, fine.” With jerky movements, Calden reached in his bag, grabbed his data disks, and threw them at the Mentat. They bounced off Kro-thur’s scaly chest and clattered to the floor like shiny, silver coins. “There—satisfied?” he demanded.

  “By no means, Calden.” Kro-thur frowned. “You see, your specimen’s DNA still contains traces of the nutrient bath she was grown in. You know that is a proprietary formula which must never leave the station.”

  “Which means you’d better turn her over now,” Grack-lor snarled. “So we can dispose of her.”

  Maddy felt like her blood had turned to ice in her veins. She wasn’t sure what Calden was going to say but her stomach clenched like a slick fist when she saw the angry gleam in Grack-lor’s eyes.

  He’s going to kill me, she thought, feeling sick. Going to get his revenge. I’m going to wish I was already dead by the time he gets done with me!

  She looked anxiously at Calden again, seeing that the big Kindred’s eyes were now completely blood-red. But strangely, he didn’t say a thing. He shook his head and reached under his lab coat.

  “Calden, as you know—” Kro-thur began self-importantly but he never got to finish what he was about to say because Calden shot him right between his black, oil-spot eyes.

  After that, everything was a blur. Maddy watched as the other Mentats’ eyes grew wide and they stared with incomprehension as the tall, thin Kro-thur began to sag where he stood, his eyes blank, his mouth slack and drooling oily black blood.

  Calden didn’t give them a chance to react. Even before Kro-thur’s scaly body pitched forward and hit the floor, he was shooting the rest.

  Grack-lor gave a huge bellow of pain as he went down with three blaster-shots to the chest. Jong-tar, Calden shot right in his big mouth, as the Mentat started to protest. Even old Nusper-veis took a blast to the heart and never got up again. A few of the Mentats got away but all of their accusers fell dead, leaking oily black blood on the metal floor.

  Then Calden was grabbing her by the wrist and they were running—running as though their lives depended on it and FATHER was calling over the intercom as the lights in the corridor flashed from pale yellow to warning orange to angry red.

  “Calden, come back. You have committed several egregious violations of the oath you took when you came to us. Calden—”

  There was a small door off the sid
e of the corridor, near the airlock which led to the parking area. Calden paused for a moment and threw it open. Inside, was a glowing bank of computers, the lights blinking off and on like a Christmas tree.

  Maddy watched in surprise as Calden pointed the blaster and fired straight into those blinking lights. There was a hissing and sputtering and then a small fire broke out among the ruined remains of the machinery.

  “Calden…Caaldeen…Caaaaaldeeeen…”Abruptly the AI’s calm, even tones ground down to silence.

  The big Kindred glared at what he had done.

  “Goodbye, FATHER,” he growled. Then he grabbed Maddy’s wrist. “Come on—my ship is this way. We have to get out of here while we still can.”

  Maddy followed him—what else could she do?

  Sixteen

  The Mother Ship wasn’t answering. In fact, as far as Calden’s long-range instruments could tell him, it was nowhere near. It might as well be nowhere at all, since apparently the vastness of space that separated them was so immense his sensitive ship couldn’t pick up even a trace of his Kindred kinsmen.

  For the first time, Calden really began to panic. He tried not to look at the chronometer on the ship’s instrument panel—tried not to think about how they now had less than twenty-four hours to save Madeline…or remember 6how the littlest brantha, which she still clutched to her chest—had died in his arms the first time he had cloned it.

  “So where are we going?” Madeline asked at last, breaking the silence. She was sitting in the passenger seat, completely dwarfed by the Jor’gen Kindred-sized chair, her legs dangling like a child’s. She had been staring straight ahead, not speaking to him, from the moment they’d gotten into the ship and Calden had set a course to get away from the Mentat station’s orbit. Now she finally turned to face Calden, her eyes cold. “Where can we get help to get this thing you put in me out of my neck?” she asked.

  Calden took a deep breath.

  “I…don’t know,” he admitted. “The Mother Ship of my people isn’t answering my calls and…there are no other inhabited planets anywhere in this sector.”

  He thought that Madeline would shout at him—or maybe break down and cry. But she did neither of those things.

  “Is there a bathroom on this ship?” she asked after a long, long silence. “Or anyplace I can go to be alone?”

  “The back of the ship is the living quarters,” Calden answered through numb lips. “But Madeline,” he protested as she unbuckled the harness that held her in place and started to leave. “If you’d just give me a chance to explain—”

  “Let me tell you something my mother taught me, Calden,” she said, rounding on him, her green eyes flashing. “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. Right now I can’t think of a single civil thing to say to you. In fact, I don’t want to be anywhere near you. So I’m going.”

  And she left, still clutching the littlest brantha—who whined unhappily as though he knew something was wrong—to her chest.

  After she was gone, Calden sat mutely in the captain’s chair, staring at the vast expanse of cold, unfeeling space in his viewscreen. There was nowhere to go—nothing to do—no help to be found. Madeline was going to die—die hating him—and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

  He thought of her parting words, “Let me tell you something my mother taught me…” and gave a low, desolate laugh that sounded more like a sob. He remembered the last thing his mother had taught him—that people you love die. That you shouldn’t let yourself feel or love or care for anyone too much because they could be taken from you at any minute.

  The way Madeline was about to be taken away.

  His mother’s death—when he was only eight—had also been the death of his faith in any kind of higher power—the beginning of his reliance on logic and reason and science as the only things that made sense in a cold, uncaring universe. But now he thought back to the time before she’d died—of her insistence that he say his prayers every night because the Goddess was always watching, always listening…

  Of course he knew it was ridiculous—there was no supreme being who loved and cared for and watched over all her children. There was no mysterious figure who could swoop in and save the woman he loved. But despite his skepticism and doubt, Calden opened his mouth and heard a prayer come out.

  “Oh Goddess, Mother of All Life,” he said, hearing the hopelessness in his own voice. “I know you’re probably not there and if you are, you probably don’t care. But I have no where else to turn. The woman I love is dying and I have no way to save her. Please, Goddess, please help me find a way to save Madeline—send me to a place where I can find help. Please!”

  It was a cry from his heart and for a moment Calden didn’t care that he was being illogical—he only knew that he hurt and he didn’t want to see the woman that he loved die. Didn’t want to hold her as the life faded from her eyes and her chest stopped moving as he had held the littlest brantha while it expired.

  Suddenly the cabin of his little ship filled with a presence—a female presence, though how he knew it was female, Calden couldn’t have said.

  “Warrior,” a warm, strong, female voice said, seeming to come from both inside and outside his head at the same time. “Though you have been distant from me for many years, I have heard your prayer.”

  “Goddess?” Calden looked around in shock. It couldn’t be, could it? Was the Mother of All Life, creator of the Kindred, really speaking to him?

  “Yes, Warrior—I am the one you called on. I am the Goddess,” the voice said, answering his thought. “I will send you someplace where you may get help for your bride. Listen closely—Madeline must go back to where she came from.”

  “Back to Earth? But I don’t know where that is? I don’t even think it’s in this sector!” Calden protested.

  “It is not. But there is a way back to it. Think, Calden—where was Madeline’s ship recovered from in the first place?”

  Understanding bloomed in his mind.

  “The asteroid field! That’s where the wormhole her ship came through in the first place is at!”

  “Now you understand.” The Goddess sounded approving. “Take Madeline back where she came from and then hail the Mother Ship again. You will get a response—though it may not be the one you are expecting.”

  Then, as suddenly as she had appeared, the Goddess’s presence was gone. But that didn’t matter because now Calden knew what to do. The asteroid field in question, where the droids had first found the remains of Madeline’s ship, was nearly twenty-two standard hours away, even with his engines and hyperdrive going full bore. That wasn’t going to leave them much time to get help for Madeline once they reached the other side of the wormhole but now Calden had faith that there would be someone on the other side.

  “Call for the Mother Ship,” the Goddess had said. His Kindred brothers must have traveled far indeed to be near Madeline’s home world. But Calden was certain that once he found them again, they could help. His old friend, Ren, the ship’s science officer, had been amazing with all kinds of technology. If anyone could find a way to remove the self-termination unit from Madeline’s neck, even though it had never been deactivated, Ren would be the one to do it.

  I’ll find them—find my brothers, Calden told himself. And they’ll help me save Madeline. Thank you, Goddess!

  He set a course for the asteroid field without delay. Madeline was going home and once she got there, she would be saved, he was sure of it.

  Seventeen

  Sylvan, the Head Chancellor of the Kindred High Council and also the father of two rowdy twins who had not wanted to go to sleep that night, was awakened by the feeling that someone badly wanted to speak to him. At first he thought it must be a dream. It had been Sophia’s night out with the girls and Kara and Kaleb had kept him up well past both their bedtime and his. It was no wonder he was having a restless night after all of that.

  Rolling over, he buried his head in the pillow and tried
to get back to sleep.

  But the nagging feeling that someone wanted to speak to him wouldn’t stop. Sylvan found himself coming more and more awake until he sighed and reached for the thin silver wire—the Think-me—he kept on his bedside table. Though it was uncomfortable to be bespoken in the middle of the night, it was still the best way to deal with any kind of emergencies that might arise on the Mother Ship without waking his wife, Sophia.

  She was sleeping quietly beside him, Sylvan saw—she must have slipped in after he had dropped off himself. A surge of tenderness went through him as he watched her quiet face, her long brown hair tousled around her cheeks. She was still so lovely, his bride. Being careful not to wake her, Sylvan jammed the Think-me over his temples and closed his eyes. He could have just opened himself to the communication coming from the other side but the thought-transference device made the process of speaking mind-to-mind with someone he didn't know intimately a little less uncomfortable.

  “Yes? What is it?”

  “Forgive me for disturbing you, Commander Sylvan, but there is a strange vessel bearing down on the Mother Ship.” It was the mental voice of Raren, a young Blood Kindred communications officer who often worked the overnight shift since he was still unmated.

  “An unknown ship?” Sylvan frowned and sat up straighter on the side of the bed. “What are its intentions? How big is it? Does it pose a threat to the Mother Ship?”

  “It’s not very big and I don’t believe it poses a threat, Commander,” Raren replied. “But…there’s something strange about it.”

  “Strange? What do you mean, Raren? Explain.” Sylvan tried to keep the impatience out of his mental voice but it was difficult to do. He had given orders that he was not to be disturbed at night except for absolute emergencies. A small, unknown ship that didn’t appear to pose any danger to the Mother Ship didn’t seem to fall into that category at all.