Icarus Rising
by Bernadette Gardner
Atlantic Bridge
www.atlanticbridge.net
Copyright ©2010 by Bernadette Gardner
First published in 2010
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CONTENTS
Blurb
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
About the Author:
* * * *
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Published by Liquid Silver Books, Imprint of Atlantic Bridge
Publishing, 10509 Sedgegrass Dr, Indianapolis, Indiana.
Copyright 2010, Bernadette Gardner. All rights reserved. No
part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the
prior written permission of the authors.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and
dialogues in this book are of the author's imagination and are
not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events
or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.
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Blurb
To save a dying race, sociologist Caleb Faulkner will forfeit
his humanity. He has volunteered to join with an alien
creature in order to take part in an ambitious breeding
program designed to spare the dominant race on the planet
Icarus from certain extinction.
Dr. Zara Abbott has spent months helping to prepare Caleb
for the joining, hiding her feelings for the man who will
become the mate to an Icarian female as soon as he receives
his symbiotic wings. When the joining proves disastrous,
Caleb and his alien symbion can think of only one thing,
mating with Zara. After so long preparing to sacrifice Caleb to
the Icarians, will she be able to refuse the man who makes
her heart take flight?
[Back to Table of Contents]
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Chapter One
With a sense of dread Zara Abbott eyed the brilliant blue-
green Icarian sky and pursed her lips in disdain. Why couldn't
yesterday's rare tropical storm have lasted a while longer?
Guilt over her feelings about this day gnawed at her
insides. A sip of chocolate-infused coffee from the dispenser
dumped the cup of still-steaming liquid into the recycler and
turned her gaze away from the tempered windows that
looked onto the research island's northeastern facing beach.
The weather was now perfect for the Icarian bonding ritual
to take place. She sighed and headed back toward the small
alcove that served as her office in the laboratory compound,
still praying for a little more rain.
Today was the day she would lose Caleb, and she just
wasn't ready.
On her way through the research station's infirmary, Zara
ran into Dr. Raymond Danson. The geneticist headed the
modest, twenty-person xeno-anthropology expedition which
had been dispatched to the planet Icarus not only to establish
a friendly relationship with the native inhabitants, but to help
discover the reason why, on this pristine, primitive world, the
population of the dominant intelligent species had suffered a
steady and near devastating decline, leaving them with barely
ten thousand adult individuals, most of whom could not
procreate.
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"Isn't this exciting?" Danson asked when Zara passed
within his field of vision. Like a small boy given free run in a
toy shop, Danson seemed to bounce on the balls of his feet.
His dark brown eyes sparkled with barely contained glee. All
his research had led to this, and as heavy as the day's events
weighed on Zara's heart, she understood the man's
enthusiasm. If everything went according to his plans today
and in the weeks to come, he would be credited with saving a
dying race. Who wouldn't find that prospect thrilling?
"Where is the man of the hour, anyway?" Zara hoped her
change of subject would cover the fact that she didn't want to
answer Danson's question. In a half-hearted attempt to
appear both busy and anxious, she began arranging the
equipment Danson and his medical team would be using to
monitor the initial results of today's grand experiment.
The geneticist tilted his head for a second, as if he really
had no idea where his star test subject might be. Then he
smiled and jerked a thumb in the general direction of the
majestic arc of pale green sand that stretched nearly a
kilometer between two rock promontories on the island's
northern shore. "He's taking a swim, I believe. The Icarian
cleansing ritual is the first part of the bonding."
This was the first step for Caleb in trading a portion of his
humanity away. Zara squelched the toxic thought. As a xeno-
psychotherapist, she'd been trained to understand the
thought processes of non-human minds, and she'd chosen
this remote post specifically to help the man in question
handle the monumental transition he was about to undergo.
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Repressing her own feelings on the subject was part of her
job.
"I should go find him," she said, still fiddling with the
placement of the rolling monitors around the extra-wide
diagnostic bed, which had been placed in the center of the
infirmary. "To make sure he's fully prepared."
Danson made a non-committal sound that told Zara he'd
moved past worrying whether or not Caleb Faulkner was
ready for the bonding. Grudgingly, Zara had to admit she fully
understood Danson's viewpoint. At this stage in his research,
the man was incapable of accepting a delay or even the most
remote possibility of failure. He'd worked too long toward his
intended outcome. The insinuation, however subtle, that his
human guinea pig might, at the last moment, change his
mind, was beyond Danson's ability to consider.
Zara decided not to pursue the discussion any further. The
person she needed to speak to was Caleb. He was the star of
today's show and the one with the power to make or break
Danson's research, which had proven the Icarians could no
longer reproduce due to a stagnation of their DNA. Caleb's
health and safety, his desires and needs were paramount
today.
Danson's were secondary. Zara's weren't even a blip on
the radar.
She said nothing else to Danson. Leaving him to his final,
meticulous preparations, she hurried through the infirmary,
members she passed on her way out to the beach.
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It didn't take her long to find him. Her breath caught when
she saw him emerge from the gentle Icarian surf. When she
realized he was naked and slightly aroused her face heated.
Instinct bade her to turn away, but some repressed need
made her indulge instead in a long, intoxicating look at the
perfect muscular form of the man she'd lusted after since the
day she first set foot on Icarus.
Wet now and swept back from his clean-shaven face, his
chestnut brown hair just reached his shoulders. Sculpted
biceps and pectorals attested to the fact that, though he
spent most of his time studying the culture and customs of
the native Icarians, he didn't neglect his physical health.
Daily swims in the warm, clear ocean water and
weightlifting in the research station's modest gymnasium kept
him stunningly fit. Even without the athlete's physique,
though, Caleb would have inspired Zara's fantasies. The color
of his eyes matched the mesmerizing blue-green of Icarus's
planet-wide ocean. His voice, deep and cultured, made her
knees slightly weak, and his self-deprecating humor made
him approachable and easy to talk to.
Like Adonis, rising from the primordial waters, he was
perfect. Or perhaps, in this case, the name of the Greek man
of myth for whom the planet had been named represented
more precisely what Caleb would become. Today, when he
accepted a genetic bonding to the winged Icarian bird called a
symbion, Caleb would herald a new era on Icarus and
hopefully become the first father of the race's new
generation. Zara only hoped the ancient myth's modern
counterpart wouldn't meet the same tragic fate.
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Caleb Faulkner battled his natural tendency toward self-
consciousness and forced himself not to run for cover at the
sight of Zara Abbott strolling down the beach toward him.
Rather than duck behind a nearby rock or scramble for the
towel he'd brought along for his ritual skinny dip and spare
them both an awkward encounter, he squared his shoulders
and channeled his inner Icarian, the one he'd been trying to
develop with Zara's help for the last twelve months.
Members of the planet's dominant humanoid species rarely
wore clothing. In the tropical latitudes where most of the
population now lived, they didn't need any protection from
the moderate temperatures, and their bodies were naturally
immune to the effects of the strong sunlight. Once he was
accepted into their society as a fully-joined adult male, he
wouldn't be expected to wear them either, except of course
when he returned to visit the research station.
He had to conquer his modesty, and as much as it pained
him, now was as good a time as any to begin. If only he
wasn't getting a hard-on from just watching Zara walk, it
might not be so bad. As usual, she looked fantastic. Her
golden-blonde hair blew behind her in the gentle breeze off
the ocean, and her stride, long and confident, accentuated
the sway of her hips. She wore shorts that showed off her
tanned legs, and a sleeveless shirt that pulled just tight
enough across her breasts to make his cock sit up and take
notice. At least once he joined with his symbion, he would
gain the ability to control his bio-physical reactions. That
would be a relief.
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Right now, though, he could do nothing about his arousal.
It was too late to dive back into the aquamarine surf and
pretend he hadn't noticed her, so he drew in a deep breath of
the magnificently clean air and met her curious gaze as she
approached.
"Do you want me?" Caleb practically choked on his own
tongue after the poorly phrased question slipped out. Clearly,
he had no control over his brain as well as his body at the
moment. "I mean ... um. Is Ray ready for me? Do you..."
Zara laughed. Though she kept her hazel-eyed gaze fixed
steadily on his, her cheeks reddened. "No. You still have half
an hour before the ritual. I just thought you might like to talk
before ... if there are any concerns you have. Anything you
want to get off your chest."
"Ah." Another year probably wouldn't be enough time to
say everything he wanted to say about the experiment, his
life, about Zara and how much she'd helped him prepare for
this monumental decision. "Nope. I'm good. Ritual cleansing
is out of the way. Now I just have to wait for Jidar and
Namara to arrive with my wings."
The light in Zara's eyes dimmed a bit at the mention of the
Icarian tribal leader and his mate. As the ruling pair, Jidar and
Namara had made the initial decision to permit a human to
join with an Icarian symbion. They had accepted Caleb's
petition to be the first test subject, and they would arrive
today with the creature, a headless bird native to Icarus's
isolated columnar islands. The animal would attach itself to
Caleb's spine and give him not only the ability to fly, as all
adult Icarians could, but the ability to mate successfully with
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a full-blooded Icarian during the upcoming, species-wide
mating cycle. In addition to the diminishing pool of DNA, the
Icarian mating cycle, which permitted fertility only once for a
few weeks every decade, had contributed to the attrition
problem. If Caleb's joining proved successful, other humans
could volunteer to be joined and participate in the upcoming
cycle, thus ensuring at best a sixty percent increase in the
Icarian population within a year.
Caleb knew Zara wasn't completely convinced the
human/symbion bonding was a good idea, but Ray Danson's
research assured the xeno-team that human physiology was
similar enough to Icarian to make the bonding
safe and
effective.
Zara clasped her hands behind her back, as was her habit
when she was trying to reign in her emotions. Caleb
wondered if she knew the posture forced her breasts to jut
out a little further and made his heart race a little faster.
"Would you like to go wait for them to arrive, or do you
need a few more minutes alone?" Zara tossed a speculative
glance out to sea. On the horizon, the towering plateaus of
the nearest columnar island chain caught the morning light.
The Icarians would soon be sailing in on the last strong winds
of yesterday's storm.
Caleb considered her question. A few more minutes alone
might give him one last opportunity to change his mind about
the experiment. Danson had impressed upon him the finality
of the bond. Once the neural connection between him and the
symbion was complete, he would be changed forever. A
surgical separation would kill the alien creature outright and
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very likely leave Caleb permanently disabled, if he survived at
all.
Zara had stressed this in their therapy sessions. She had
been determined to make sure he understood the gravity of
his decision. To her credit as a counselor, he'd taken every
option under consideration and came up each time with the
same conclusion. Even if it meant losing whatever remote
chance he had to take his relationship with Zara to a more
intimate level, he had to go through with this. The future of
the Icarian race depended on their ability to infuse new DNA
into their mating pool. Caleb's future depended on his
symbion.
"I'm ready for the ritual. Let's go."
Zara offered him her hand, a firm grip even though her
fingers were delicate and graceful. He held her gaze as he
shook her hand and tried to ignore the fact that he was still
stark naked.
"Good luck, Caleb. What you're doing today is very
important and very courageous."
He responded with a flat smile and bit back the response
his conscience readily supplied. If only you knew what a
coward I really am, Zara. If only you knew.
[Back to Table of Contents]
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Chapter Two