Krissa was far braver than what any of them had expected. Even Korr and Theen had been surprised at her altruism and drawn to it once they saw the truth that he had known all along.

  What could motivate a being to give up their life? Did the Onduun not value their own lives or was this something Krissa had learned among the humans? Or was she inadvertently using her power on them?

  It didn't fit with the rumors about the Onduun. She was selfless in her sacrifice, but she seemed sad and lacking of any spirit or the confidence of someone with a purpose, except in giving up her life. Life was to be savored, to be fought for and valued in its brief flicker in the universe.

  He didn't understand, but he wished he could make her see a different purpose.

  Perhaps he'd pitied her all along, ashamed of using her to save their world when she'd been so innocent and unaware of their real purpose. Deceit didn't sit well with him. But in the short time he'd known her, he'd learned that she was intelligent and thoughtful, and that was something he valued. He couldn't betray a friend like this. There had to be a way to save Krissa. As he'd told Karik, she wasn't an object; she was a person. And she was braver than anyone he'd met in his life.

  He stared in disbelief at the thing they had been taught was an enemy. She slept peacefully, despite the encroaching sacrifice. The Onduun weren't the enemy. She was a friend, more of one than even Karik could contend, a friend and ally of the Lereni. There had to be another way to free their world.

  They needed the Inari, but they hadn't been back to Leisil since the Tah'Na claimed it. The mediators might object to trading a life, but they would object to the conditions imposed by the Tah'Na and might know another way to free their world, if they cared. More than that, he wanted to know why the Tah'Na valued her so much.

  Would it hurt their world to turn her over? Would this all be for nothing? Why hadn't the Tah'Na retrieved her? Why demand a Lereni squad to do the work?

  The Tah'Na had proven to be deceptive and greedy, using others for their own gain in whatever way they could. To what ends did this serve? Certainly it couldn't be good for Lereni.

  The possibilities gnawed at his mind while he sat up watching her and waiting for the others. Sleep had been difficult that period. He wondered about the others, who had yet to emerge from their quarters. In two hours, they would arrive.

  Two hours to contemplate how to save the one being who most deserved to live in this whole ordeal. She could teach Karik much, if he'd open his mind to listen.

  Two hours Torik might use to change Karik's mind.

  His fingers brushed aside dark hair from her bare cheek, hair that revealed nothing but fell in her way. He'd had to rely on her facial expressions and body language, but she was easier to read than the Tah'Na.

  Did the Onduun even have hair in their natural state? Was that why it didn't move with her emotional state? He'd never seen one, but the Tah'Na had warned of their camouflage.

  He might not get the chance to learn. All records had been purged from the ship before the Tah'Na had released it to their use.

  Those who controlled knowledge controlled the populace. The Tah'Na could say anything and Lereni wouldn't know any better.

  Fingers curled into fists, the points of claws poking into his palms as if to squeeze their conquerors into dust.

  What did the Tah'Na want with the daughter of Naperi? That question had replayed in his mind since meeting Krissa.

  What would the Onduun inflict on the Lereni? Karik hadn't even considered it, or he had but had determined that the risk of attrition from the Onduun was worse than further infliction of the rule of the Tah'Na.

  In two hours, they would know.

  But by then, it would be too late for Krissa.

  If only there was a way to contact the Inari.

  If only he had known sooner that there was a connection between them and the Onduun Seres and that the connection was the Inari.

  The same Inari who would not step in and aid them in fighting the Tah'Na from their world. As he had told Krissa, they were a peaceful race. They were not aggressive, nor did they ally themselves with combatants but remained neutral, despite the rumored power of their Starfire.

  Next to him, the figure inhaled sharply and twitched.

  He held his breath, not wanting to wake her. The longer she slept, the less time she had to worry.

  To his relief, she fell still again, her breathing slow and deep.

  Torik let out a sigh and caught the faint scrape of a door. On lighter than usual feet, Karik stepped from his quarters and crossed the lounge, only his eyes shifting aside to check Torik while his face stared ahead with the hair on his head partially standing in a calm demeanor.

  Then he was in a fair mood. Perfect.

  Torik eased away from the sleeping girl to join Karik in the command center, where the door closed behind them.

  "There is no other way," Karik said without looking up while he checked the controls at the panel next to his command chair. A readout of their flight path appeared on the overhead display of the front viewport with separate views of the ship interior on either side, including the sleeping girl in the lounge.

  Torik stood on the ramp next to where he had set Krissa down to tend her injured ankle that first night. There, he had a clear view of Karik's face and any hint of sympathy he might reveal, although that would be unlikely.

  "How much did you hear?"

  "Enough to know you're wrong." Karik paused to check his reaction. "She will never convince the Tah'Na that she's useful alive. She cannot possibly convince them to spare Leisil."

  "What of the Inari?"

  Karik dropped his attention to the controls at his chair too abruptly to be casual. Torik had struck a chord that Karik had considered also. There was the string to pluck.

  "The Inari will not interfere in our conflict, nor should they. This is between Lereni and Tah'Na."

  "Your pride would prevent you from asking?"

  Karik stiffened, his lips pressing into something fierce but quickly curling back into the beginning of a snarl.

  "You shouldn't have told her anything!" Karik slammed his hands on the armrests and the display jumped through a series of readouts. A second later, he was on his feet towering over Torik in a threatening pose.

  They'd gone around once. Torik didn't intend to openly challenge his captain again and stepped back in a show of submission. He wouldn't hope to recover in time to save Krissa, if he survived a second assault.

  "She can help us. She's even offered to sacrifice herself, but if there is any chance of saving her and our world…"

  Karik's glare eased only after a hint of trepidation lifted the hair on his head. "She must be handed over. It's the only way. If she's willing, all the better. Our world will be free of these vermin."

  "If they uphold their agreement."

  A huff blew from the captain, who returned to his chair.

  "Prepare the girl for our arrival." He spoke while keying in several readouts on the overhead display. "She should be made appealing."

  Torik shuddered at the implications in that statement and a bitter taste rose in his throat. Karik had indeed been listening to their discussion.

  "If she will have any chance, it will be to satisfy their sexual fantasies, at least for a while."

  She deserved better, but there wasn't any other way out of this. If they didn't make the exchange, the Tah'Na would roast Leisil as a testament to any who dared oppose them; they had demonstrated that power already in a small way—the island would likely not support much life for many years. Leisil had no defense against that kind of power.

  With no other choice in sight, Torik took the dismissal for what it was. The vague notion at the back of his mind to subdue Karik and alter their course to find help slipped away before it could fully form.

  He returned to the hold, where Korr checked on Krissa. Torik joined him and considered the resting girl and the fate she had accepted and the injustice of it all. There had to be another way.

  "He—"

  Torik put a hand up in a signal for quiet then motioned for the crewmate to follow him to the meal room. He was hungry, and he didn't want to disturb Krissa while they spoke.

  Inside, he lifted the lid on the storage chest. After tossing a packet to Korr, he snatched one for himself and barely resisted the urge to slam the lid shut.

  "She trusts me. Do you know what that means? She's doing this because I was kind to her."

  "And if we had locked her up, we would still be making the trade for our world. Either way, Leisil will be free."

  "If the Tah'Na are honest. She's taking the decision from us." Guilt strangled tighter, and he fell onto a seat with the food pouch meaning nothing. "Don't you see? This is what must be saved. This is what the Tah'Na fear—true compassion…She trusts me to save her. She can't want to die."

  Korr slid into the seat opposite him. "You always were soft."

  Sometimes he wished he wasn't, but Torik refused to change. In some ways the Tah'Na were a blessing after the constant warfare of their world over resources, despite Tah'Na selfish indulgences and reasons for removing aggressive populations in those they conquered, like the Lereni. "Our world needs more of that."

  "Does it? That's what the Tah'Na want—weakness. That's what they hope to make us, by removing aggressive individuals from mating, by only allowing the docile to mate."

  "Is it weak to care? Is it the Tah'Na? Many of us didn't want this, Korr. It's the reason for the laws of the clans to remove those who inflict harm on others." Even while praising strong warriors, protection from aggression was necessary; he saw both sides, and it left him confused.

  Korr shifted, his fingers playing with the corner of the food pouch.

  "A community can't prosper without compassion and kindness."

  At that, Korr huffed with a wrinkle of disgust in his nose and the curl of his upper lip and rose. "Or the fighters to protect those too kind to protect themselves."

  "There's a place for both, but it must be balanced." The words struck him before the wisdom, or maybe it was there all along, lying in wait to materialize into the thought that had been stray pieces wandering in his mind for years.

  At the door, his crewmate paused to turn back. "But we cannot cow to the conquerors, or we lose who we are."

  Torik raised his food pouch in salute, glad that the navigator understood.

  Korr looked out and said, "For now, she must prepare for the trade."

  Their world for the girl.

  She emerged past Korr, who excused himself past where she stood in the doorway.

  A shudder passed through Torik, lifting the hair on his head briefly in fear of what she might say. He shouldn't be afraid, but he wasn't afraid for himself. Rather, he feared for her, and that he could feel so compelled to want to see her safe rather than sacrificed to the brutality of the Tah'Na stirred up within him the desire to fight.

  "I've made up my mind, and you won't change it," she said and turned as another figure stopped in the corridor behind her with a cold expression and flattened hair, a length of fabric hanging over one arm. "I never fit in anywhere. I…" She hesitated at the glare from Karik, her throat flashing with a swallow in the light from the panels above. "I thank you for the chance to do something meaningful for someone who appreciates it."

  Karik's icy glare melted slightly as he held the clothing to her. "The Tah'Na expect presentation."

  She took the clothes and he disappeared as silently as he had come. Krissa held up the gown, a semi-sheer fabric that elicited a grimace from her. She clearly didn't like it.

  "It will be temporary." Torik knew it was hardly reassuring when that "temporary" likely meant an end in the form of her death as a demonstration to the Onduun of their intentions to stir up further unrest. The Tah'Na had put them in a worse situation.

  And, by the pallor that fell over her face, she understood that too. She lifted her eyes to him and that unease transformed into a hardness of determination that lifted her chin. This girl they had taken only five days ago had transformed as rumors of the Onduun reported—quick to adapt. But she hadn't yet shown her true abilities, something they had withheld from her because of the Tah'Na warnings. He wasn't sure she was ready, even after the transition she had made to accepting all this.

  And he wasn't sure he wanted her to know. Part of him longed for the freedom he had known as a young child and a return to traditional ways without the oversight of the Tah'Na. That fed into the guilt of seeing her traded as an object when he also saw a being of inner strength.

  Why had the Onduun chancellor abandoned her own child on that remote world? How were the Inari involved?

  The Tah'Na were playing them and the Onduun, but the team had suspected since the assignment of this mission. This couldn't end well for Leisil either way, and in that, the conquerors would ensure their destruction.

  Chapter 11

  While standing at the top of the ramp feeling almost naked, Krissa took several deep breaths to calm her jitters.

  The light clothes she wore were the last thing she would have expected, leaving nothing for the imagination in what they revealed beneath. A wide collar of silver material with its intricate pattern of beads was all that held the cape around her, which further muted the outline of her body but provided no comfort in the chill of the ship. Her only hope was that the temperature outside was tropical. Her only comfort came in knowing that she wouldn't be judged by humans but by aliens who knew nothing of human anatomy. Any other time, she would have loved for guys to stare at her with a certain amount of interest; none had ever given her the satisfaction of feeling attractive. Now, she had mixed feelings, since her Lereni captors had made it clear that her best chance at survival rested in enchanting the Tah'Na.

  The least they could have done was to show her what the species looked like, or maybe that was their way of saying the Tah'Na would be unappealing.

  A hand on her shoulder startled her and she caught her breath to look up in relief.

  "Torik."

  That he tried to smile gave her some small comfort, but his face displayed a twist of pain. Her heart sank to see him distraught. That was why she had agreed to this. Rather than making them force her, which Karik would have done anyway, she had seen no other choice and no reason for living when no one had seemed to care about her. But since first meeting her, Torik had shown her nothing but kindness and friendship, inspiring a hope that maybe her life meant something and that it might be worthwhile to live.

  But it wasn't worthwhile if she knew that he and his world would continue to suffer under the reign of the Tah'Na.

  "Karik was right to insist on changing," he said in a low voice, letting his warm hand slide off her shoulder to leave it colder than it had been before his touch. "I suspect he took our discussion into consideration."

  "Discussion?"

  "Yesterday, in the lounge."

  That discussion.

  Before she could question him further, the tap of steps on the grate of the ship's lower hold drew both their eyes to the figures joining them.

  Korr and Theen eyed her with a regretful approval, if she read their less-than-enthusiastic expressions correctly.

  "You've given me more respect and kindness than anyone," she told them all, the Lereni language flowing easily already, a skill she now attributed to not being human. "For that, I'm grateful. I hope your world is freed."

  "Your sacrifice will be remembered and honored," Theen said.

  Behind him, a surly face appeared, but green eyes on that face went to Torik, avoiding her completely. "Open the hatch," Karik ordered, cutting off the awkward moment of regrets.

  Torik reached forward and touched the controls.

  A sharp hiss accompanied a puff of warm air pungent with strange but not unpleasant scents. The breeze blew back the cape and her loose hair that she had managed to clean in her preparatory bath, a small luxury with their limited recycled water.

  The piercing squeak of metal on metal preceded the steady lowering of the ramp before her and the widening line of glaring light.

  Like the aliens around her, she lifted a hand to shield her eyes and had the fleeting thought that the lights in the ship had been dim compared to daylight; but her Lereni captors had taken her at night. It had been a while since she had last seen sunlight. Her eyes would adjust, but she hadn't realized how dark the ship had been.

  Sooner than she expected, she was able to drop her hand and blinked away the brief spots to stare upon the limited view of a smooth metal ground, which rang briefly from the touch down of the ramp.

  A light push at the small of her back encouraged her forward. She took a breath and stepped down, the discordant clatter of heavy steps behind her drowning her soft sandal footfalls.

  Each step down revealed to her a greater majesty of the rich world upon which she set foot. She lifted her eyes to the monuments around her, where the glaring beauty of metal pierced the sky and flowed like spouts of water frozen by the skill of architects. Bold in their fortitude and shining in their radiance, a hint of the grandiose designs of the builders, revealed vulgar schemes and pride such as what the Lereni crew had warned about. The holographic images had done little justice to standing as a bug among the giant monuments of Tah'Na egos. Not far from the ship, the metal plate ended. Some distance beyond a vast valley, orange and red and brown foliage at the far cliffside draped the flow of white mist disappearing into a faint crash that sounded far below.

  Her first glimpse of an alien world ended too soon at the rising hum of a machine.

  Torik's gentle nudge to follow Karik moved her feet. Not far from the ramp, she stopped behind him facing several alien creatures, most of them above and surrounding them. One stood upon a strange pedestal hovering a foot above the ground before them. All were a hint of bluish gray with strange tattoos upon exposed chests and arms—four arms. Those surrounding them on what appeared to be gun sleds stared through targeting holograms. The sun glinted off platinum caps on their heads.

 

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