Frost Station Alpha 1-6: The Complete Series (35 page)

He patted them on the backs as the girl and one of the boys raced toward the ship, then glanced warily at Tamryn. Did he think she would think less of him for being friendly with children? That was a strange notion. Or maybe he just expected her to comment on the fact that the food was stolen.

The middle child, a boy of ten or eleven looked curiously at Tamryn instead of chasing after the others. She did not know how to respond to the scrutiny, but offered a quick smile.

The boy leaned close to Makkon to ask, “Who’s she, Uncle Makk?”

“That is Tamryn. Lieutenant Pavlenko.” Makkon wriggled his eyebrows. “She shot me.”

Tamryn blinked a few times at this introduction.

“She shot
you
? But you’re the fastest hunter in the tunnels.”

“She’s good.”

The boy rose on his tiptoes to whisper toward Makkon’s ear. “She’s pretty.”

“Yes, I noticed.”

“Hurry up, Swarek,” the young girl yelled from farther down the tunnel. “Or we won’t save you any sweets.”

The boy waved and raced off to join his siblings.

“It must be a small place,” Tamryn said. “So far, you’re related to half the people I’ve seen.”

“It is. They’re my brother’s children. They’re very smart, so they were selected for the cryogenics chambers. So was their mother. My brother wasn’t. I help provide for them. Or I did, back when there was game in the tunnels to catch.” He sighed, then continued on. “This way. I’ll take you somewhere to rest until your people contact us and we figure out... whatever we’re going to figure out.”

For the first time, Tamryn considered the ramifications of the story that Makkon had given her back on the station, of a population being decimated—more than decimated—by attacks and having to choose who would be stored away for later resurrection. Her heart ached at the thought of families being separated, some chosen and some told they had to die in the tunnels. What would it have been like for those who had awakened a hundred and fifty years later and found the skeletons of their long-dead kin?

She blinked, tears threatening again. A couple of adults greeted Makkon as they passed and looked at her curiously, so she kept herself together. Everyone was taller and more muscular than average, even though most looked like they had missed numerous meals, but otherwise, they seemed perfectly normal. Perfectly human.

Makkon turned into a stairwell that took them down a level and into a quiet corridor that lacked the foot traffic. It was lined with metal doors, and Tamryn had the sense of an apartment building. The doors lacked numbers, but many of them had animal etchings for decoration. Or perhaps to identify the occupants, she realized, when Makkon stopped in front of one with a dragon that matched his tattoo.

“Your place?” she asked.

The last thing on her mind—or his—should have been sex, but she couldn’t help but wonder what his intent was in bringing her here. He had mentioned resting. That was something she hadn’t done much of lately, but could she sleep while imprisoned down here, wondering what the Fleet ships were doing in the orbit above or around the station? She wished she had a way to communicate with everyone.

“Yes.” Makkon pushed the door open. It wasn’t locked. She hadn’t noticed locks on any of the doors.

Tamryn stepped inside onto a massive black fur hide that took up most of the floor space of the simple room. The head had been removed from the hide, but she imagined that the creature it had come from had been at least two or three times the size of a Paradisian jungle bear. The furniture that lined the walls—a bed, desk, shelves, and dressers—was made from a combination of rock and metal. If Glaciem had any trees or wood anywhere, she had not seen evidence of it. Several guns and bone daggers and axes hung on the stone walls, along with a bow made from some composite she couldn’t identify. A couple of horns and flutes sat on shelves mostly dominated by books, their bindings and pages having a metallic sheen that suggested they were not paper-based. They offered a hint of Makkon’s interests—weapons crafting, geology, and astronomy—but the overall room had a monastic feel. If there was a computer terminal, she didn’t see it. It reminded her of her room on Frost Station Alpha, a transient place meant for short-term living, not a home that housed all of the belongings one had accumulated in one’s life. But then, these people couldn’t have many belongings, could they? The moon had so little to give, and nobody traded with them, offering more sophisticated treasures from the rest of the system.

Her father had called Glaciem a penal colony. That wasn’t true—not according to the history Anise had shared—but it might as well have been. Makkon’s ancestors had been exiled here with no luxuries, perhaps not even the basics necessary to live. That they had survived at all was a wonder. She could imagine why a civilization that had grown up with so little might be bitter, especially when they were aware of what the rest of the system had.

“I know it’s chilly down here to you,” Makkon said, “but the
murogath
wool blankets are extremely warm.”

He walked past her and patted the bed before opening a door she had guessed fronted a closet. Instead, it led to a surprisingly large bathroom, one that appeared to be shared with the quarters next door. A very normal-looking toilet sat behind a half wall, and there was a stone sink under a mirror. The bathroom did not have a shower, but a large, waist-high tub with built-in benches took up a corner.

“There’s warm water,” Makkon said. “Hot water, really. It comes straight up from some hot springs. I don’t know if you knew, but we have over a hundred geysers on the surface that erupt periodically. As for the tub, you can let the water sit after running the bath or cool it down with some ice.” Makkon opened a cupboard in the back of the bathroom that held blocks of ice, apparently there for the purpose.

Tamryn almost laughed at the idea that his home stayed cold enough that ice could sit around in cupboards. “Why don’t you use the hot springs to heat the compound? Surely some pipes could be run...” She trailed off, eyeing the solid rock walls. On second thought, that would have required a ridiculous amount of work for someone. There did seem to be something built into one of the walls, but they looked like oddly shaped blocks or even fossils rather than part of an infrastructure system.

“I’m not sure. I think we’re all just used to the temperature after a few centuries. Also, if you spend time on the surface, it feels balmy down here in comparison.” Makkon returned to his bedroom and opened a chest. “There are plenty of extra clothes in here if you get cold. Take anything you want.”

Tamryn heard him, but she was still looking at the wall in the bathroom. A chill that had nothing to do with the temperature went through her as she walked closer. One of those tile-like things had writing on it, writing that reminded her of the artifacts in Anise’s lab. “What is this, Makkon?”

“Ah, the reason my team wasn’t all that fascinated by your captain’s artifacts, aside from the news of the FTL engine. We have a lot of them down here. Some of the tunnels themselves were originally carved out by the ancient aliens; our people found them when they were first marooned on the surface. It’s a big part of what helped them survive.”

Tamryn flinched at the word marooned. Makkon never spoke like someone deprived, like someone who resented the life he had been born into, but she couldn’t help but compare it to the idyllic home where she had grown up, a big sprawling house in a beautiful climate with hundreds of acres of private forests and lakes around. Once again, she found herself empathizing with him, with his people. She could understand why they’d been driven to try something to change their lives, especially if all of the sources of food had been killed off.

She dropped her chin to her hand, trying to think of some alternative solution, something that wouldn’t end with Fleet annihilating what remained of his culture, his people.
Him
. Her gaze shifted toward the wall again, the tiles. She didn’t know if they held any secrets, but might there be artifacts down here that would prove valuable? What if there were more examples of that engineering language that Anise was trying to decipher?

“I’ll leave you to rest.” Makkon closed the chest—maybe he’d noticed that she wasn’t paying attention to him. It wasn’t her intent to ignore him, but she couldn’t help but think, to wonder if something less than a dire ending could be wrought from ice and stone.

“Wait,” she said as he headed for the door and she realized he meant to leave her alone. “This is your room.”

“I have friends I can stay with.” His eyes were sad as he responded, no hint in them that he expected an invitation to stay here, or that he thought he deserved one.

That made her heart ache. On the ship, after hearing him threaten her and speak coldly to her father, she had mistrusted him. She had wondered if he had lied to her all along, but now that she’d had more time to think, she doubted that was the case. Kidnapping her hadn’t been his original plan, she believed, and he probably hadn’t wanted to use her that way. He had been nothing but chastised for it since rejoining his people. A part of her had wanted to defend him back in that meeting, to point out that he had been the one on the ground, the one who had to make the decisions in a less than ideal situation. Now, she found she wanted to comfort him. Even if he was still the enemy, he was also... Makkon. Someone she had grown to like—maybe
more
than like—whether it made any sense or not.

And his people? They weren’t at all what she had imagined. They hardly seemed like rapists or criminals—they were just frustrated, bitter, and beleaguered. At least, that described the adults. The children had been cheerful enough. Odd, but she hadn’t imagined children down here. It was a silly thing, since grownups had to come from somewhere, but she had pictured a base that housed legions of people like Makkon and Brax, hardened warriors ready to go on the attack at a moment’s notice. Instead, she had found a civilization, what remained of one. Even if nobody had spoken to her, and the government leaders had been grumpy with Makkon, she didn’t want these people condemned to death.

When she didn’t speak, her mind too busy swimming with these thoughts, Makkon turned and reached for the knob.

“Wait,” Tamryn said, walking toward him.

“Do you need something else?”

“Some time to think.” She stopped a step away from him, close enough to touch his chest if she wanted to. “And a bath.”

He nodded. “You should have time for both. Nobody will bother you until we hear back from your military—or we decide that another message must be sent.”

Again, he shifted toward the door, but this time, Tamryn was close enough to touch his arm. She reached out, clasping it before he turned the knob. He paused, tilting his head with curiosity. The muscles of his bare arm lay beneath her palm, and she slid her hand along the bulging contours, tracing a vein with her finger.

Makkon swallowed loudly enough that she heard it.

“I don’t want to do those things alone,” Tamryn said.

“I... I don’t understand.”

“Bathing. Thinking. It should be a team effort.”

He shook his head. “How can you want anything to do with me?”

“For one thing, I don’t know how to work that bathtub.” Tamryn smiled and shifted closer until his arm rested against her belly. “The ice block sounds complicated. And you forgot to point out where the towels are.”

“Oh. That was thoughtless of me.” Makkon lifted his hand to the side of her face, slowly and warily, like he was afraid she might bolt. She couldn’t blame him, not when she had been glaring at him the whole way here. But that was when she had been imagining a fate that involved torture and interrogation, or at least being locked in a dark cell. Instead, he had offered her his own room and a warm bath.

His fingers brushed her cheek, and she shivered with anticipation. Since he didn’t seem certain that she wanted to be touched, she placed her hands on his shoulders and leaned into him for a kiss. At first, he didn’t move, and she slid her tongue along his lower lip, tasting him and inhaling his masculine scent. His hesitation did not last long, and he opened his mouth, taking her lips with his. His kiss was full of wonder, but quickly heated to a stronger emotion, to desire, passion. His arm shifted to wrap around her, pulling her close, and she soon felt every knotty contour of his muscled body pressed against her.

In their last encounter, he had left her shuddering with pleasure only to be interrupted before he could find his own release. She slid one hand up the side of his sinewy neck and pushed through his thick hair to grasp the back of his head. Her fingernails curled into his scalp enough to arouse pleasure, not to hurt. She no longer wanted to hurt him. She wanted to figure out a way to give him what he wanted. Even if she had no idea how to do that on a grand scale yet, she could give him herself. She admitted that she wanted him to take her for her own pleasure too. His deft tongue had been delicious as it had explored between her thighs, but she wanted more than that. She wanted his thick cock inside of her, rubbing and straining against her inner heat, bringing the deep, intense satisfaction she had craved since he had first touched her.

Makkon must have been reading her mind, because he picked her up.

She wrapped her legs around him, gasping at the hard bulge pressing between her thighs. “Where are we going?” she asked between kisses. She shifted her lips to his throat so he would be able to respond.

“To the lavatory. I never showed you the towels.”

“Mm.” She kissed his warm skin, then nibbled his ear. “The last time I saw you with a towel, you did unseemly things to it.”

“Only because you wouldn’t let me do unseemly things to you.”

A moment wasted. Tamryn wrapped her arms and legs tighter around him, feeling possessive and full of regret at the thought that she had truly tried to kill him. If she had succeeded, he wouldn’t be setting her on the wide rim of the tub, turning on the water, and slipping his hands under her shirt. She luxuriated in the steam rising from the water, moistening her skin and warming her body even as his roaming fingers sent tingles of pleasure to her core.