Awakened by the Giant: Brides of the Kindred Page 7

  She liked the big Kindred a lot—though she barely knew him—but she didn’t care for the Mentats at all. She would be happy to leave with her colleagues and continue their search for another habitable planet.

  “In here,” Calden said shortly, coming to a stop before another one of the ubiquitous sliding silver door panels.

  “Where? Let me see!” Madeline came up beside him eagerly but instead of waving his hand to open the door, he stopped and stood there, a troubled expression on his face.

  “I don’t know,” he murmured, his deep voice sounding uneasy. “Maybe you shouldn’t look at this yet, Madeline.” He looked down at her, his topaz eyes uncertain. “It might be…traumatic for you.”

  “I’ll be fine,” she assured him hastily. Please, Calden, I just want to see.”

  “Well…”

  When he still hesitated, Madeline stepped forward and waved her forearm over the blinking red light of the door sensor. She wasn’t sure if it would work since she wasn’t a Mentat or a Kindred but the door beeped once and the light changed to green as the metal panel slid to one side.

  Maddy took a step inside…and gasped.

  On the other side of the innocuous-looking door was a room so vast it reminded her of an airplane hangar. It was half-filled with something so twisted and mangled that at first she didn’t recognize it at all. Then, as she took a step forward, she saw the familiar red, white, and blue of the US flag stenciled on the charred skin of the ship and she knew what she was looking at was what remained of The Kennedy.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered, taking another hesitant step into the enormous room. It was cold in here—so cold she shivered in the thin shirt-dress and her feet felt like she was walking on ice, but she barely noticed.

  The ship had literally been torn in two, as though a petulant giant had broken it like a toy in a fit of rage. What she was looking at, she decided, must be the back half. The long canister of the ship had been ripped apart at an angle and what she was seeing was the storage area where most of the embryos and plant cuttings and seeds as well as the terraforming equipment had been kept.

  Trundling in and out of the ruined ship, their small treads rising easily over the twisted metal, were many little robots, about the size of small dogs. They appeared to be collecting samples from the wreckage and bringing them to a large silver rectangular box with many drawers in it, which looked like a blown-up version of the one in Calden’s lab.

  “My God,” Maddy whispered again. “It’s…completely ruined. This isn’t salvageable at all—none of it is.”

  “I did try to warn you,” Calden murmured. He was looking at her anxiously. “Are you well, Madeline? Do you want to leave now?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “No, I need to see this. I need to look through and see if I can find…find…”

  “There’s no one to find,” Calden said gently, apparently guessing her thoughts. “You were the only one in this part of the ship when the droids discovered it. Believe me, we looked for more.”

  “But what was I doing back here? Why can’t I remember? I need to see—maybe that will bring it back.”

  Maddy started to run forward, towards the ruined remains of the Kennedy, but Calden stopped her with a large hand on her arm. Before she could protest, he had swung her up into his arms and was walking rapidly towards the wreck.

  “I can walk!” Maddy exclaimed. “You can put me down.”

  He shook his head.

  “Your feet are too tender to run over the wreckage barefoot. I won’t stop you from getting a closer look but you’ll have to let me carry you.”

  Maddy wanted to protest again but then she caught a closer look at the jagged edges of the Kennedy’s hull and thought better of it. Her hands already didn’t work—there was no point in injuring her feet as well.

  Calden picked his way carefully over the wreckage, holding her like a child in his arms as he went. The little robots whirred and scattered in his wake, getting out of the way of his black boots. At last they came to the interior, which seemed to be a little less scorched and blackened than the rest of the ship.

  “The cold storage locker.” Maddy looked around, her mind’s eye showing her how the room used to look. “Where we kept the embryos and the seed vault. Everything had to be kept at a certain temperature and it was my job to check it every day and night to be certain the equipment was running smoothly.”

  Was that why she had been back here when the asteroid hit and the rest of the crew got smashed into the blackness of space? Or was there some other reason? For a moment she seemed to see bright flashes of color…angry words…pieces of emotions, none of them happy…and then it was all gone again.

  “What’s wrong with me?” she whispered, looking around at the now-silent embryo storage chambers and seed vault. “Why can’t I remember?”

  “Maybe you’re not ready to remember yet,” Calden remarked softly.

  “Yes, I am! I need to know what happened. Put me down!” Maddy struggled in his arms until he set her gently down on her feet. The broken hull was cold and rough against her tender soles but Maddy didn’t care. She peered around her, trying to remember, trying to see into the past and figure out why she alone had survived such a terrible wreck when all the rest of her crew—her estranged husband included—had died.

  No more memories came to her but she didn’t give up. She wandered further into the storage area, looking around at the immense, ruined machinery which had been meant to terraform a new planet. Some of the terraformers had broken free of the chains that held them in place and had rolled all over the place, like a huge, haphazard game of bumper cars.

  Then she saw something that stood out in the jumbled ruins—a dull splash of maroon decorated the floor under one of the vast round wheels of the nearest terraformer. A splash that looked an awful lot like a puddle of dried blood.

  Madeline went forward, crouching low, an awful pain blooming in her stomach. She could almost remember…but even as she felt the memory coming forward, a wave of nausea overcame her and she bent over and retched.

  What came out of her was green slime. The same kind that had been in the tank she’d woken up in.

  Maddy stared at it, her stomach heaving and her head pounding.

  What’s wrong with me? How did that stuff get inside me? What happened here that I can’t remember?

  Or maybe don’t want to remember, whispered an ominous little voice in her head. Maybe can’t bear to remember.

  Maddy retched again but this time nothing came up, though her stomach clenched like a slick fist. She stared dully as the puddle of green slime that had come up the first time slid towards the dried blood. When the green and maroon mixed, it made a disgusting brown color that made her feel like heaving again.

  Then Calden was sweeping her up into his arms again and cradling her close to his chest.

  “Come,” he said, his voice sounding half tender, half stern. “We need to get you out of here. I never should have brought you in the first place—it’s too much for you to handle right now.”

  “You had to,” Maddy said weakly. “I never would have believed you otherwise. But I see now. They’re dead…all dead. I don’t understand how I survived myself.”

  Calden didn’t offer any opinion on that. He simply carried her out of the vast hangar-like room, away from the wreck of the Kennedy and the remains of her old life.

  Maddy shivered against his chest, trying not to think…trying not to feel. She felt cold and empty and broken inside. And alone…so alone.

  Chapter Six

  Maybe I did the wrong thing in bringing her back—in cloning her. Maybe the memories of her own death and the loss of her mate and the rest of her crew is too much emotional pain to bear.

  It was something he hadn’t even considered before starting this project, Calden admitted to himself as he stood and watched over Madeline while she slept. He should have though—should have realized that cloning a sentient being—a person—would
have consequences.

  Madeline sighed and shifted in her sleep. Calden had given her a sedative to help calm her down and then taken her to his own room. Most specimens were kept in containment cages when they weren’t being studied and observed but there was no way he could do that to the soft little female. So instead, he had taken her back to his own quarters and had slipped her between the sheets of his own sleeping platform.

  The sleeping platform was the one piece of furniture in the entire station which was built completely to Calden’s scale. Though he compromised elsewhere, he knew he needed to stretch out when he slept so he had made sure he could. Now he watched Madeline shift again, her small form looking tiny on the vast mattress.

  She had been shivering so he had gotten a warming blanket he used on his more delicate specimens and put that over her as well. But despite the extra warmth and the sedative he had given her, she still frowned in her sleep, her brows knitting together as she tossed restlessly.

  “Pierce!” she whispered, clearly talking in her sleep. “Don’t say that…how can you be that way? I thought…thought you loved me. Don’t you care at all anymore? How could you…why did you…”

  Calden frowned. Pierce—hadn’t that been the name of Madeline’s now-deceased mate? Was she dreaming of him? If so, the dream seemed to be unpleasant. As he watched, tears squeezed from the corners of her tightly shut eyes and she let out a little moan of pure unhappiness.

  Unable to bear watching her in pain, Calden crouched by the side of the bed and cupped her soft cheek in his hand. Gods, she was so tiny and perfect! He’d never had much contact with females of his own kind. As he had told Madeline, most of them had died out before he was born and even his own mother had died when he was very young. But he couldn’t imagine a more beautiful female than the one before him now.

  Madeline sighed and pressed her cheek into his palm, her delicate features at last relaxing as she nuzzled against him.

  “That’s right, nieka,” Calden murmured. “Just relax…everything will be all right. You’ll see.”

  Although how it would be all right, he didn’t know. He wasn’t sure how to make things easier for her, or even how or if he ought to tell her she was a clone. Madeline had wondered about how she had survived the crash when all the rest of her crew had died but Calden hadn’t thought it was the right time to tell her the truth. She was already so upset—he thought it best to save that particular bit of knowledge for later.

  “It’s all right,” he murmured to her again. “I’ll take care of you. I swear I will.”

  Right up until the self-termination unit in her neck takes care of her for you, you mean,whispered a dark little voice in his head.

  Calden pushed it fiercely away. He wouldn’t think of that now—couldn’t think of it now. He just wanted to stay here, at Madeline’s side, and stroke her soft cheek and watch her sleep. He wanted to protect her and possess her and make her his, though he scarcely knew how.

  He never wanted to let her go.

  * * * * *

  Maddy woke in the darkness in an unfamiliar bed. Her head felt fuzzy and stuffed with cotton. She had been dreaming. Dreaming of…Pierce? Yes, dreaming of her husband. She couldn’t quite remember the dream but she did remember the emotions that had accompanied it. Betrayal…hurt…anger… What had Pierce done to fill her with such feelings? What had he done and where was he?

  For that matter, where was she?

  Maddy sat up and blinked in the darkness. She tried to push her hair out of her eyes but found that her hands seemed to be numb. They flopped uselessly at the ends of her arms and she felt a surge of panic.

  Good God, what was wrong with her? Had she had some kind of stroke in the middle of the night which only affected her hands? How could she work at her veterinary practice if she couldn’t use them? What was she going to do?

  I need help!

  Anxiously, she felt with her forearms, sliding them over the mattress, trying to find Pierce. But his side of the bed was empty. Which was not unusual now that she thought about it. Pierce had been sleeping in the guest bedroom for months before they got word that the Kennedy was going to leave ahead of schedule. And after that, he’d done his best to take a different sleeping shift than her so they rarely, if ever, went to bed together. But Maddy had been trying to change that, hadn’t she? She’d been trying to put them back together…struggling to forgive him for…

  Forgive him for what? What had he done? And where was he?

  “Pierce?” Her voice sounded quavery and small in the vast blackness that surrounded her. She tried to make it firmer—more assertive. “Pierce? Where are you?”

  “Madeline?” The deep, somehow familiar voice came from the side of the bed. Who was that? And what were they doing down on the floor?

  “Pierce?” she asked again but she was almost certain whoever was down there wasn’t her husband. Who was it though? Her fuzzy brain wouldn’t let her remember.

  “No, I am not your mate. Lights dim,” the deep voice said.

  A soft, golden glow which seemed to come from the corners of the ceiling suddenly suffused the room. Maddy blinked and looked around, seeing that she was in an unfamiliar bed—an absolutely huge one, so vast it looked like someone had taken two king-sized beds and put them together end-to-end to form one monstrous mattress.

  Then someone sat up beside the bed—a giant with glowing topaz eyes and a concerned expression on his face.

  “Madeline?” he said, frowning. “Are you feeling any better?”

  For a moment she was tempted to scream…then everything came rushing back to her. Waking up in the slime tanks…the Mentats…the lab…the space station…the ruined hulk of the Kennedy…realizing that everyone she had ever known or loved was dead…and the big Kindred carrying her away and giving her something he said would help her sleep.

  “Calden?” she whispered, making his name a question.

  “Yes, Madeline?” He raised an eyebrow at her. “Are you well? The sedative I gave you shouldn’t have worn off yet—it’s still the middle of the sleep cycle.”

  “You’re real, aren’t you? This is real? Not just a dream?” It was hard to believe—hard to accept that all the strange things that had happened to her in the past twenty-four hours were really true.

  “I am not a dream,” he said. “I’m sorry, Madeline—this is reality. I know it must seem strange to you but—”

  “They’re really dead. Pierce and the rest of them,” Maddy interrupted him. She was still trying to wrap her head around the idea. It didn’t seem quite real but then she remembered the wreck of the Kennedy and realized all over again that it must be true.

  “Yes,” Calden said. “I’m sorry, Madeline.”

  “I’m the only one who survived.” She shivered. “Why me?”

  “You were the only one we found,” he said simply. “Do you wish it wasn’t so? Would you rather be dead?”

  His blunt question seemed to wake something in her—a determination—a will to survive Maddy hadn’t even known she had herself.

  “No,” she said, frowning. “No, I don’t know what I wish but I know it isn’t that. I want to live, Calden. And…and I’m grateful to you for saving me. This is all just so…so scary and new.”

  “And you mourn the ones you lost,” he rumbled softly.

  Madeline nodded and a single hot tear slipped down her cheek. She tried to brush it away and remembered again that her hands weren’t working.

  “Damn it! I thought you said you could fix this!” She waved one useless hand at Calden.

  “So I can. But I thought you needed to recover emotionally more than you needed to recover physically. We can work on your hands in the morning.” He yawned. “Do you feel like you could sleep some more?”

  “I don’t know.” Maddy frowned. “What are you doing down there on the floor, anyway?” she asked, motioning to where he was sitting by the side of the bed.

  “I thought it might not be…appropriate for me to share
the sleeping platform with you.”

  “Even though you said we’re not…not compatible that way?” Maddy asked, raising an eyebrow.

  He cleared his throat self-consciously and nodded. “Even so. Do you think you could rest some more?”

  “I guess so.” Clearly he was tired and it was the middle of the night for him. The big Kindred had done so much for her already—Maddy didn’t want to keep him up and make him sleep deprived.

  She lay back down in the vast bed and, awkwardly using her forearms, pulled the sheets—which were made of some silky, silver material—up to her chin.

  Calden lay back down too, by the side of the bed.

  “Lights off,” she heard his deep voice say and then they were plunged into darkness again.

  Maddy turned on her side but the minute she closed her eyes, her mind was flooded with thoughts and memories—pictures of the past. Pierce on their wedding day with a smile on his face…and then later with a cold scowl as he told her he had to work, that she needed to leave him alone. Then she saw the rest of the Kennedy’s crew…so many faces…laughing, smiling, frowning, crying…so many people who were dead now. And she was alone…all alone. She would always be alone. They were never coming back. She would never see them—any of them—again.