consider her an offering since she lay in the net where the
sacrifices had always been placed.
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She struggled to gain her bearings and sit up, but every
movement left her gasping in pain. Her head pounded with
the rhythm of the waves. Her back ached from lying for God
knew how long in the cold, creaking net. The salt spray stung
the vicious raw patches on her knees and she figured at least
three of her toes were broken, possibly her left wrist and
more than one rib. Breathing was agony.
She would never have the strength to call for help.
Caleb! Another wave of panic pumped adrenalin through
her ravaged body. Had Arilani done the same thing to him?
Would the Icarian healer have tried to sabotage the breeding
program?
Right now, Zara was the only one who knew of Arilani's
treachery, and if she didn't find some way back to the
research station, no one would ever know what had happened
here.
With steely determination and tears streaming down her
ocean-dampened face from the excruciating pain, she rolled
over and began to crawl toward the frayed edge of the alor
net.
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Chapter Fourteen
"I see no reason why he cannot mate. Dr. Danson insists
the symbion is able to control this strange human disease
he's contracted. It will not be passed to his offspring, and it
will not kill him as long as he remains joined." Arilani paced
the great room of the royal aerie, her wings twitching in
irritation. After all she'd done to ensure Caleb would be hers,
Jidar had decreed no mating would take place.
"Arilani, Dr. Faulkner is suffering. He has confessed to
killing Dr. Abbott during a mating frenzy. He cannot control
his symbion, and Dr. Danson fears that the illness, though it
won't kill him now, may prevent him from ever being able to
suitably regulate his biochemistry. He is in no position to rear
offspring." Namara's soft voice served only to anger Ari
further. She had no desire to be cajoled and coddled with
logic.
"I told you, Caleb was delirious when I found him. I know
he did not kill Dr. Abbott. The evidence suggests she fell from
the aerie. She probably lost her footing due to the midday
winds."
"We will never know for sure unless her body is found,"
Jidar said.
Ari pursed her lips and cursed silently. She had gone back
personally and searched for Zara's body. It made no sense
that the xeno-therapist's remains could not be found. She'd
purposely dropped her in an area of flat rocks in order to
ensure she would not float out to sea too quickly. The irony
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was that perhaps the lie Ari had told Caleb about her slipping
into a crevice might be true.
Ultimately this should have posed no problem for Arilani,
but the disappearance of Zara's body left Caleb inconsolable.
Jidar now believed Caleb's drug-induced confession, the one
Arilani had planted in his brain and made him promise never
to tell.
"Among the humans, there is a saying—innocent until
proven guilty. By their laws, Dr. Faulkner cannot be said to
have committed murder unless there is incontrovertible
evidence to support it. Without Dr. Abbott's body, we must
assume Dr. Faulkner is innocent because he is human and is
subject to their laws, not ours."
Jidar raised his wingtips in disagreement. "That is not so.
Dr. Faulkner accepted the bonding. He is Icarian now, having
pledged his loyalty to me. He has confessed to a crime of
violence, and therefore he stands guilty of that crime. By our
laws he must be banished for one mating cycle, assuming Dr.
Danson does not insist on removing the symbion. Then, and
only then, will he be subject to human laws rather than ours."
eyes stung with tears. She'd come too close to success to see
it ripped away from her like this. "The symbion's life is
sacred, my liege. How can you allow Dr. Danson to destroy
it?"
"He feels Dr. Faulkner will be unable to function mentally
with the biochemical imbalance."
"But you just said the symbion is preventing his disease
from killing him!"
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Namara sprang forward, hands outstretched to calm Arilani
with a touch. "We did not say the decision would be an easy
one. Dr. Danson is struggling with it. Either way, Dr. Faulkner
may die, and the loss of Dr. Abbott, whether at his hands or
not, has robbed him of the will to survive."
Arilani pulled away from Namara's soothing touch. "I will
give him the will to survive. A mate, a child, will force him to
want to live. He needs only to be told by Jidar what he must
do, and he will do it."
"I will not take the risk," Jidar said. The tone of finality in
his voice made Ari cringe. "We will consider another candidate
for bonding, but only after Dr. Danson completes all his tests
and assures me that what happened with Dr. Faulkner is an
anomaly and will not occur with anyone else."
"This mating cycle will end in just a few months, my liege.
By the time another begins, I will be too old to conceive. Most
of our females will be. If we miss this opportunity, there may
not be another one."
Jidar bowed his head. "I am well aware of that, Arilani. Do
not presume to tell me how dire the situation is for our race."
"Are you prepared to accept donated mating material
then? Or will you simply allow our people to die in order to
preserve the archaic traditions of our ancestors?"
"That is enough!" Jidar rose from his chair, wings
outstretched.
Faced with her leader's wrath, Ari wisely dropped into a
submissive position, head down, wings still and flat against
her naked back. "Forgive me, my liege. I am ... desperate to
conceive."
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"And at least there is still a possibility you shall succeed."
Jidar spoke quietly, but the controlled fury in his voice
frightened her. "Remember, unless we forsake each other for
human mates, Namara and I will never have children of our
own."
"With donated sperm, you could."
"Silence now. I will not consider medically induced mating
unless there is no other choice. I have given Dr. Danson one
week to make his final decision about how to proceed with Dr.
Faulkner. Once he chooses his path of treatment, I will
determine if Dr. Faulkner will be banished or turned over to
the human authorities. Either way, he will never be your
mate, Arilani. I'm sorry."
Seething, Arilani remained in submission to Jidar until he
gave her leave to rise. Once he dismissed her, she turned
resolutely and fled the royal aerie. She had created this mess,
and now it was time to fix it, or every living Icarian would pay
the price.
None of it made sense. Part of Caleb's addled brain was
convinced he'd killed Zara. The words echoed in his head
every time he closed his eyes, every time the lab grew silent
and every time he turned his head to stare in misery at the
brilliant blue/green sky beyond his window.
No human could survive the fall.
The voice in his head was Arilani's, but it rang with such
deep conviction that he had to believe it. He had to learn to
accept it. Zara was gone, and he'd destroyed everything in
his life that meant anything to him. If he could have escaped
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the restraints that held him to the diagnostic bed, he would
have run outside and thrown himself into the pounding surf.
After years of running from the prospect of his death,
denying it would ever happen, he embraced it now. In fact,
he and his symbion both longed for oblivion and the end to
this relentless pain.
"Caleb, how are you feeling today?" Ray Danson stood at
the foot of Caleb's bed. He'd entered the room silently and
had probably stood watching his patient wallow in his mental
anguish for a bit. It would not have been the first time.
Caleb cast a derisive glance at the geneticist but didn't
bother to respond.
"Dumb question, I suppose," Danson said. "You wear your
heart on your sleeve."
"In case you hadn't noticed, Doc, I don't have sleeves. Or
a heart."
"Then why are you mourning the woman you loved?"
Caleb strained against the straps that held his arms and
legs immobile, and wisely, Danson stepped back. "Do you like
hearing me say it, Ray? I killed Zara. I killed her."
"But you don't remember doing it."
"I remember enough."
Danson held up a syringe. "I don't think you do. But I
think I've found a way to clear that up. I've developed what I
think will be the answer to the biochemical imbalance."
Caleb didn't react. What did he care about clear thinking at
this point? He had no desire to relive Zara's murder in graphic
detail, better it was just a fuzzy, half-forgotten nightmare in a
dark corner of his mind.
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"I believe a daily dose of this will regulate all the symbion's
hormone production. That should cure the mood swings, the
depression and help with the pain you've been experiencing. I
know you won't admit it, but I can tell you're still feeling
discomfort from the siphon."
He was. The ache at the back of his neck was relentless,
but at least it provided some distraction from memories of
Zara. He thought of it as punishment for his sins, and
deserved to live with it forever.
"Don't you want to feel better?"
Now Caleb turned a baleful stare at Danson. "Nothing in
this world or any other could make me feel better, Ray. You
should just let me die."
"I can't do that. I took an oath. Even patients who lie to
me, even patients who are accused of murder still deserve my
help. I'm going to make you well again and get this breeding
program back on track whether you like it or not, so prepare
to feel human again. Or at least half human." With that,
Danson stepped up to the IV pump that had been filling Caleb
full of mood regulators, pain killers and nutrients for the past
three days. He carefully removed the cap to a catheter and
inserted the syringe filled with bright red liquid. It took only a
few seconds to empty the syringe into the IV pump. Caleb
watched the drug diffuse into the reservoir where his
medicinal soup sat bubbling and mixing. The fluid there
turned pink and slowly, centimeter by centimeter, the first
drops worked their way through the tube that led to the
central line in his chest.
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Danson flicked the tube with his finger to increase the drop
rate and stepped back with a faint smile of triumph. "There. It
should take a few hours for you to feel the effects, but when
you do, I think you'll find them miraculous. You're not going
to die, Caleb. I know right now that's not good news as far as
you're concerned, but once we get your body running
normally, I think you'll change your mind."
Again, Caleb remained silent. I didn't matter how good he
felt physically. He'd never get over being responsible for
Zara's death. Ever.
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Chapter Fifteen
Zara lay panting at the edge of the net. It had taken hours
for her to work her way toward the relative safety of a flat
rock under the curious scrutiny of an adult symbion.
Unattached to hosts, in their natural state, the creatures
were somewhat frightening. Their long, slender bodies bore
small, round eyes and wide mouths with prehensile beaks,
perfect for tearing apart crabs and scooping small fish from
the sunlit upper layers of the ocean water.
How they built their conical nests was a mystery, but now
Zara understood the reason for the special shape. The tall
nests made it easier for the legless birds to land on their
bellies to roost. With their huge wings folded, they resembled
owls. Each one incubated a single white-shelled egg about the
size of Zara's head.
She lay watching them for a while, concentrating on
anything other than the pain in her legs, her back and her
side. Hunger had made her terribly weak, but at least she'd
managed to scoop some water from an alor frond and take a
few sips. The low salt content of the Icarian ocean made it
relatively safe to drink small quantities. She wouldn't die of
thirst, but if no one came to her rescue soon, she would die.
"Caleb, where are you?" She'd spent three terrifying nights
hammocked in the net, talking to him to keep herself from
succumbing to pain and despair. He had to be dead. If he was
alive, he'd have found her by now. Or maybe he just didn't
know where to look.
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"Stop staring at me," she cried to the vigilant symbion.
"I'm not edible."
Unfortunately, Zara realized she was the only thing around
that was edible at the moment. There were no fruit vines or
small fish within her reach, nothing she could snag for herself
to boost her failing strength or offer as a gift to the watchful
sentinels.
Her stomach had ceased protesting, though, and was
numb now, like most of her body, at least the parts that
weren't broken. Her toes were swollen and purple, her knees
were bright red and still bleeding in places and her fingers
shook with the effort to swipe cold tendrils of wet hair out of
her eyes.
The situation was hopeless. No one would ever find her.
Frustration and fear had her screaming until her voice gave
out. The noise agitated the nesting symbions and they
scattered, then circled around her, seeming both curious and
annoyed by her exhibition of human frailty.
One of the creatures swooped low, and Zara cringed away
from it. Would they attack? The Icarians had claimed the
birds were gentle except when hunting their prey. Likely they
would see her as fair game because she could neither fight
nor flee.
Shock silenced Zara's protests when she realized the
animal soaring above her had dropped something into the
net. An object bounced next to her on the taut alor vines, and
after a moment Zara reached out and managed to grab it.
She retrieved a crab, its shell cracked open. Zara squinted
at the symbion which had come to roost once again in its
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nest. It eyed her expectantly, and she met its gaze with
confusion. "Is this for me? To eat?"
The symbion had no reaction, but Zara could think of no
other explanation. She couldn't recall the lifespan of unjoined
symbions, but she wondered if this one might be old enough
to remember a time when Icarians dropped offerings into the
net from their aerie above. Had it learned from that
experience?
With numb fingers, Zara worked at prying the crab's
broken shell open. She managed to tear a few bits of meat
out of the shell and chewed the rubbery flesh gratefully.
Icarians often ate raw crabs, so she figured the uncooked
meat wouldn't leave her any worse off than she already was.
"Well, thank you." She gestured with a crab claw at the
symbion. "Now I won't starve. Any ideas on how I might get
home?"
The symbion only stared at her. Finally, apparently bored
with watching her gnaw on the remnants of the crab, it closed
its eyes and fell asleep.
Caleb woke to Arilani's face hovering above him. To his
surprise, she seemed to be unfastening his restraints.