on Madeline’s back and hips and used a disinfectant only on the scar of bonding. Then she, and the remaining three physicians, bowed, smiling, and started to leave the chamber.
“Could you tell me what that was all about...?” Madeline started to ask the question when she was suddenly sick all over the floor. She fell to her knees, shivering.
“Get Hahnson!” Dtimun called in Cehn-Tahr to the young physician. “Now! Bring him here!”
* * *
THE NEXT FEW minutes went by in a blur. Hahnson came running. Dtimun held the fabric around Madeline’s nudity and growled furiously at Hahnson when he approached her.
Hahnson stopped in his tracks. A man confronted by a charging galot couldn’t have felt more threatened. The alien’s posture, barely altered, added to the black of his eyes and the growl would have stopped a decorated combat soldier in his tracks.
“I will not harm you. You must ignore the threat. I cannot help it,” Dtimun said tersely, wincing at his own frustrating lack of control even now.
Hahnson smiled. “I know. It’s all right. Maddie, can you tell me the symptoms?”
“You can see them...on the floor, Strick,” she said with black humor. “I feel so nauseated! My stomach hurts. It’s like a knife...!”
“It is the child,” Dtimun said huskily. “The growth is immediate, and exponential.”
Hahnson grimaced as he looked at the small screen of his wrist unit. “We have to slow the growth. I’m not prepared for this.”
“Caneese has a preparation,” Madeline said weakly. “She told me about it.”
Dtimun called the young physician back into the chamber and rapped out an order. “She will bring it,” he told Madeline.
“Can’t Caneese...?” she asked, confused.
“Caneese is not allowed to see us,” he replied curtly. “It is a breach of protocol.”
“Oh.” She was confused, but much too sick to argue.
Hahnson injected a drug into the artery at Madeline’s neck. “That will help the nausea. But it’s only treating symptoms right now. I have no experience with Cehn-Tahr/human babies,” he added with a wry smile. “I think this is going to be on-the-job training.”
“No doubt,” she managed. She was stunned by the notion that she was pregnant. Despite their earlier discussions, even with Komak’s assurances, she hadn’t really expected it to happen. Her knowledge of pregnancy was limited to a rare assistance at childbirth, but this was far more personal. The physical manifestations were new and startling.
Hahnson looked from one of them to the other. “I don’t suppose either of you would like to explain what the hell you think you’re doing? I mean, we’re talking capital punishment...”
“Chacon is in grave danger. The princess has gone to Benaski Port to warn him,” Dtimun told him. “Komak has traveled in time and knows the future. He said that Chacon’s death will create a disastrous timeline. Madeline and I must go to Benaski Port in an attempt to save them both, but the masquerade can only work if she carries my child.”
“They’ll space you both, if you’re caught,” Hahnson said worriedly.
“That’s why you aren’t telling anyone, old dear,” Madeline told him. “Not even Edris.”
Before he could reply, the young physician was back with a cup of what looked like herbal tea. She offered it to Madeline and left the room. Madeline’s hands shook as she held the beverage.
“You must drink it all,” Dtimun told her, steadying the cup with his own hand. “It will retard the growth of the fetus.”
Fetus. The fetus. The baby. She sipped tea and tried to wrap her spinning mind around the fact that she was pregnant. When she and Dtimun had discussed this possibility, she had asked what they would do with a baby. She was a soldier, she had said, she had no place for a child in her life. But now, with the reality of it, she felt a connection with the baby that overwhelmed her. She was carrying a child in her body. She touched her stomach with a sense of awe and fascination. It wasn’t, she thought, anything like she’d expected.
Hahnson examined her again, and nodded when he saw the readouts. “You’ll do,” he told Madeline. “I’ll compound some of this for you in Caneese’s lab, in a laserdot. She and I will confer on a regimen as well, for your trip.” He looked from one stoic, impassive face to the other. “This is very risky.”
“We know,” Madeline told him. “But the future is at stake.”
He sighed. “Then I’ll hope for good results.” He got up and forced a smile. “Good fortune.”
Dtimun locked forearms with him. “In my lifetime, I have had very few friends. I have always considered you one of them.”
“Same here. Take care of each other.”
He nodded.
Hahnson left, and Madeline began to feel better. She got her second wind and looked up at Dtimun.
“Sir, do you think you might consider telling me what the devil happened with the physicians?”
His lips made a thin line. “The elder one made a remark I did not like.”
“Yes?” she prompted.
“She pointed out that your wounds were in the wrong place. Then she referred to the length of time we spent in the mating chamber.”
She cocked her head. She didn’t understand.
“Madeline, our mates are subjugated, as female galots are subjugated. The process is brief, and brutal, and it leaves wounds on the chest and abdomen, not on the back. Also it is a breach of protocol to enjoy it.”
“It is?” she asked, and mischief suddenly sparkled in her green eyes.
He glared at her expression. “You will never speak of this,” he said abruptly.
“Would I do that, sir?” she murmured innocently. “As you know, I always obey your every order.”
“You never listen to an order unless it suits you,” he correctly curtly. “But if you ignore this one, you will pay for it.”
She gave him a wry look. “I’m not in the habit of discussing intimate things,” she replied. “Besides, people may speculate, but no one will ever know what happened in here, anyway.”
He lifted an eyebrow haughtily. All at once his own eyes went green with amusement. “For which we are obliged to the architect who soundproofed the chamber,” he said with the straightest face she’d ever seen.
He had rarely seen her speechless. It was amusing. Her face was almost as red as her hair. She averted her eyes with obvious embarrassment.
“You fought me,” he mused.
She cleared her throat. “Sorry,” she said, thinking it was probably another breach of protocol.
“You need not apologize,” he chuckled. “I quite enjoyed it, once the shock wore off.” He knelt beside her and touched her long, damp hair. His eyes met hers. They gleamed like pure gold. It was a color she’d only seen in them once before. “I do not like submission,” he said in a husky, deep voice. His hand gripped her hair, hard, and pulled her face under his so that he could see directly into her eyes. He looked down his long, aristocratic nose at her with blatant possession. Her breath caught. The sensations the action aroused were new and shocking.
“That’s a good thing,” she said unsteadily, “because you’ll never get it from me.”
He smiled. He rubbed his head against hers in an oddly feline way, making a caress of it. His hand relaxed and speared through her long hair, savoring its softness. “We mated only to produce a child, to enhance