Contact (31 page)

“Yeah.” He cracked a smile and returned his attention to the computer. “So . . . an eye for an eye, is it?”

“Yup. We owe Trist a future favor. God knows what we’ll be able to do for her. I say we got the better end of the deal.”

“Ah . . . here we go.”

“What, what?” Her heart rate picked up, and she leaned forward.

“I plugged in Earth’s coordinates, and there’s our star map.”

The image was three-dimensional, reminding her uncomfortably of the holo-recording. “Now all we need is our present position and we’ll know where we are in relation to home.”

“Home,” Dillon murmured. “It’ll always be that, even burned to a crisp, eh?” He bent his head to his task again.

Ben sauntered up to where they sat. “He found Earth’s coordinates,” Jordan told him.

Ben peered at the numbers scrawled on Dillon’s scratch-pad. “That’s not right. The fourth symbol . . . it’s their number four. The half C with the squiggle on the top. You’ve got a seven.”

“How the hell would you know?” Dillon asked.

Ben tapped the side of his head. “I have a photographic memory, remember? You said it would come in handy someday, and it did. In the holo-vid last night I saw a string
of numbers, bottom right-hand side, like they’d labeled the flick. It was the same format as what you’ve got there—almost the same number, too, except for the seven. If it wasn’t the coordinates, then what was it? Especially with the numbers being so close to the ones you’ve got there.”

Dillon traced his index finger across the flexible screen, distorting the image under the light pressure. “There are twenty-six numbers in galactic coordinates. That’s a lot of figures to remember. You sure about that four you saw?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

Dillon swore under his breath, grumbling as he went back to work.

“What’s his problem?” Ben asked Jordan under his breath. “It’s probably just a typo.”

“But which one has the typo?” Jordan murmured back. “Dillon’s been working on this day and night, trying to pinpoint our present position.”

“Why not just ask where we are?”

“I did,” she said. “It’s classified. No one but the senior staff knows our position at any given time. If they haven’t told Kào, they’re not going to tell us.”

“And Earth’s coordinates?” Ben whispered back. “Can’t you ask about those?”

Dillon interjected, “Those I had to find myself. Or at least I thought I had. Now you tell me they’re wrong.”

“Hey, man, I’m sure what I saw was a misprint.” Ben tried to appease him with a smile.

But Dillon was already hunched over the computer, so deep in concentration that he hadn’t heard him.

“I’ll let you work, Dillon,” Jordan said quietly. “Good luck with it.”

Ben offered her a hand. She grabbed it for balance and hopped off the double chair. “It seems to me he’s going through a lot of trouble for nothing,” Ben remarked as they walked away. “What’s the point of knowing where we are
in space now? Maybe it was a big deal once, when we didn’t know where they were taking us, but now we know. Kào told you. The Rim.”

“Dillon wants to know. He won’t give up. And frankly, I hope he doesn’t. I think it’s safer to question, to confirm things on our own. Thank God Trist is letting us. Or we’d be totally in the dark.”

“Like we are now.”

Jordan shrugged and sighed. “We’re in the dark and searching, Ben. That’s better than the alternative. I guarantee that if Dillon were to throw in the towel—and he won’t—I’d jump right in and take over. And, no, I wouldn’t know what the heck I was doing, any more than he’d be able to fly that nice jet we’ve got parked downstairs, but I’d feel like I was doing something.” She rolled her hands into fists. “I have to feel like I’m doing something. Going forward. In control.”

Ben rubbed her back. “Ah, Jordan. This whole thing sucks.”

She sighed. “Yeah. But it’s getting better.” Thanks to Kào.

They stopped by the water dispenser, where it was blessedly deserted. They filled glasses and drank. Ben refilled his cup. “Last night must have been pretty intense for you,” he said under his breath.

She choked on her swallow of water.
He doesn’t mean Kào
. She cleared her throat. “It’s going to be a while before I stop seeing the explosions every time I close my eyes.”

He sipped pensively. “Trist helped me put things in perspective.”

Jordan lowered her glass. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“No. She’s a lot different than we thought. She’s . . .” His eyes unfocused, and then his mouth curved smugly as his attention came back to Jordan. “Really
nice
.”

“That’s . . . great.” Jordan didn’t know what else to say. She’d had a very different first impression of Trist than
what the woman was turning out to be. If she made Ben happy, then the least she could do was try to like her.

Ben chuckled. “I called her ‘snow angel.’ She didn’t know what to say.”

“I can imagine.”

“She looks like one, you know, with that skin and white hair. And she’s so tiny. Really delicate.”

“Size is deceptive. I wouldn’t underestimate her strength.”

He gave a very male-sounding laugh. “I won’t anymore. Not after last night.”

It was all Jordan could do to keep her jaw from dropping. Had he slept with Trist? Had there been time? When Jordan had walked through the front door, Ben was already sitting on the couch with Natalie, waiting for her. But if he and Trist had made love only once, one quickie instead of . . . A hot blush flooded her face, and she tried to hide it by taking a deep drink of water. “Snow angel, huh?” she prompted, swallowing.

“Yeah . . . last night was pretty incredible. But she’s in a relationship.” He shrugged. “She didn’t tell me until after, though.”

Whoa
. After? After
what
?

Ben regarded her thoughtfully. “So, did you and Kào . . . you know?”

This time she managed to swallow without choking. She thought of fibbing. But what was the point in denying her involvement with Kào? Ben and Natalie would figure it out soon enough, especially if her plans to sneak away to Kào’s quarters became a nightly thing. They’d already seen the official Alliance uniform she planned to use as a disguise, courtesy of Kào, that just happened to be folded neatly inside a large box delivered that afternoon along with a surprise ration of rare, fresh, ready-to-eat produce for everyone on Flight 58. On Earth, he would have sent roses. “He’s a
really good guy, Ben,” she replied as enigmatically as possible.

“You need a good guy.”

“For however long I have him around. He can’t leave the ship. And we have to.” She wished she could feel as casual and unconcerned about the prospect as she sounded. The bittersweet feeling of “doomed romance” settled over her once more. Two people destined to cross paths and never see each other again. God, she was depressing herself all over again.
Buck up, Jordan
.

She forced a smile. “So, why the sudden change in heart about Kào? Only yesterday you had him at the center of a conspiracy to keep us all as prisoners.”

“Let’s just say that I learned a few things.” He rubbed his shadowed cheek. “People aren’t always what they seem. And you can’t judge a book by its cover.”

“Meaning the Talagars.”

“Yeah.”

If Trist had wanted an ally among the refugees, she’d found one. “Well, I’m happy for you, Ben.” She was. Really. Everyone needed someone in difficult times, and who was she to judge? “So, are you ready to get to work? Let’s finish that inventory we started. I want listed everything we want to take with us when we leave the ship. Including what’s left on the airplane,
and
the airplane itself, if they let us take it. We’re not going to have the chance to come back and look for anything we left behind.”

Broken hearts included.

Kào’s quarters were bathed in a romantic amber glow, and the air was scented with something fresh—simulated outdoors, Jordan guessed, since it smelled like a forest after a soaking rain, clean and fresh. Luxury settled all around her like a downy comforter. Languidly she glanced at the time. It was the middle of the last third. When it ended, Kào would have to sneak her back to New Earth. But for now, they were together.

The bedding was twisted around her ankles. Her lips tingled, abraded by the roughness of his beard. The tender skin of her inner thighs tingled for the exact same reason. And more, much more. They’d made love impatiently as soon as the hatch had sealed behind them. It was always like that: first the hunger and then the tenderness.

Kào lay with his back toward her. She snuggled closer, bumping into Kào’s translator. She longed for the day when they wouldn’t have to sleep with their computers. Though
she’d be gone by then, she thought sadly. “You were pretty wonderful,” she murmured in his ear.

He answered with a grunt. She propped herself on one elbow and forced his shoulder down to the mattress, shifting him onto his back. His mouth was hard; his scar stood out starkly. And his eyes burned as dark and ominous as a late afternoon thunderstorm in the Rockies.

She pursed her lips. While she’d been lying in bliss, he’d been brooding. She should have figured as much; he seemed to have a tough time assimilating happiness. “Someone is wearing the world on his shoulders again.”

He picked up his translator and gave it a funny look. “I don’t understand the phrase.”

“It’s vernacular for putting pressure on yourself, taking everyone else’s problems and making them your own. Because how bad can your problems be”—she traced her finger over his shaven jaw—“after tonight?”

He sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. The blanket, wadded between them, was made of a holofabric. Tiny spruce-colored leaves danced atop a matte background of black-ticked gold. Absently she waved her palm above the pattern. Her hand didn’t pass through the leaves but above them, destroying the illusion. “You’re shutting me out, Kào.”

The muscles in his back bunched under the brutal lash marks defacing his smooth golden skin. His voice was gruff and hushed. “Jordan, I share something with you and your people that no one else onboard the
Savior
does. We’re orphans of destroyed worlds. We can never return home. At the time Moray rescued me, I was too young to comprehend my loss. But as an adult, I carry the emptiness here”—he pressed his fist to the center of his chest—“the place that pride in my land, my heritage, would have filled. The very least I can do is ease your people’s transition to your new world.”

“Meaning?” She tried but failed to keep the yearning out of her voice.

A look of profound pain crossed his face. He hooked her with one arm and flung her to the mattress, deftly pinning her with one hard thigh. His skin was hot and his hands were thorough. Before she knew what was happening, he was kissing her with the same, dizzying attention.

“Wait,” she mumbled, pushing against his bristly jaw. “We weren’t done talking.”

“Talking.” He groaned in wry, male exasperation. He was aroused; she felt the hot, rock-hard length of him sagging heavily on her belly. The minute she took him inside her, she wouldn’t get another coherent word in edgewise. Kào knew it, too.

“Yes, talking.” She twisted out of his embrace and sat up, sweeping her tangled mane off her face. She gave him a sideways glance through her curtain of hair. “You’re not used to sharing, are you?”

“The night is nearly over,” he snapped irritably. He climbed off the bed and stalked to where he’d discarded his clothes. He was magnificent, a provoked, fully aroused male. “Since we are done here, we’d better gather our things and go.”

“Oh, so we’re done, are we?” She grabbed the T-shirt and jeans he held out to her. “You big, quiet types always brood when you’re worried, to the point of shutting out the very people you’re worried about.” She noticed that he was left holding her panties and she snatched those, too. “Don’t deny it. I know all about guys like you, thanks to my father and John, my brother.”

He pulled on his pants, his back to her. “And this is what you think I’m doing—shutting you out?”

“Yes.” She lowered her translator. “Something happened today, and it’s bothering you. I guess we could spend the rest of the trip pretending otherwise. Or doing
this
, making
love,
having sex
, but I can’t. I don’t want to, Kào. For what little time I have with you,” her voice caught, “I want
all
of you.”

That took the wind out of him. His shirt hung from one tightly fisted hand and his translator from the other. He pointedly kept his broad, scarred back toward her.

“I’m your friend, Kào. Confiding in me is okay.”

He turned around, scowling. “You’re more than a friend. We turned that corner last night. And that is the crux of it.”

“The crux of what?” she persisted.

His jaw tightened, and his gaze bored into her. But as their eyes met and held, his anger dissolved into something she didn’t understand. He walked slowly to where she sat perched on the edge of the mattress and reached for one of her long blond curls.

With his thumb and forefinger he moved her hair away from her cheek, gazing at her for the longest time. When he finally spoke, his voice was gruff. “When I first saw your eyes, I thought of the sea. . . .”

Her heart wrenched with the profundity of the simple statement. His lashes shielding his gaze, he tucked the strands behind her ear with such poignant regret that she thought she’d die on the spot. Time stood still as they regarded each other, more passing between them in those moments than any words could ever convey. The sense of good-things-never-lasting swamped her. She averted her eyes, her nostrils flaring. Her hands trembled as they clutched her translator. “What did you mean when you said you wanted to help our transition to our new home?”

He sat on the bed, his hands flat on the sheet. “I want to leave with you and your people, to assist as you settle there. I’d pondered doing this well before we”—he lowered his voice in that adorable way of his—“made love. Then, weeks ago, I thought you’d wonder why I’d want to come along.
Now,” he said quietly, “I hope you might not wonder at that.”