Transmission Lost (30 page)

Jack touched a finger to her scar, tracing it all the way down from her collarbone, down between her breasts and to her belly. Her muscles twitched in reflexive response to his light touch. “I doubt everyone who was on that ship would see it that way. You must have saved a lot of lives by doing what you did. I'm sure they're all grateful for it.”

“Well...maybe,” Aria allowed. Her ears laid flat, and she growled quietly as the fur on her neck bristled. She rolled over, turning her back to him. “And now they charge me with treason. No gratitude for my service.” It was the first sign of bitterness that Jack had heard from her.

Moving closer to her, Jack wrapped his arms around her body from behind, holding himself up against her. “Don't think about it,” he said, trying to sound soothing. “The trial won't be for a while, right? Just enjoy the time you have until you have to worry about it.”

“Yes...Is true...” Aria closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again. His presence against her was comforting, though she cursed herself that she needed comfort at all. She should be stronger than that. “Is getting late in the morning.”

She was right, Jack realized. While they'd been otherwise occupied, the light had increased to brighter levels outside. “I suppose we should think about getting out of bed.”

“Yes. Only Sami know we...well...together. Not good if rest of family find out, and they come looking for me if they find out I not in my room.” Reluctantly, Aria slid out of bed, retrieving her robe from where she'd left it on the floor the previous night and putting it on. “Cannot afford to look suspicious, yes?”

Jack followed her out of bed, his hand rubbing his neck, where his fingers contacted the slave collar that he'd quite forgotten about. “Hey...Before you go, can you take this collar off of me? The slave dealer put it on me, and I'd kind of prefer not to have to wear it anymore.”

The look on Aria's face gave him the answer he needed before she even said it. “I...cannot.” She looked extremely apologetic. “Slave collars have sensor in them. Is illegal to free human slave. If I take off, someone come to investigate. Would be very bad...”

Though he was not at all pleased with this, Jack knew it would be unfair to bring any further scrutiny on Aria, if it could be avoided. “Alright.”

Aria went to the door, but not before bending down and giving him a tender kiss. “Not worry...I find a way to help with it. After the trial...If there is after.” She kissed him again. “Breakfast soon. I come find you when ready, yes? Until then, my home your home. Go wherever you like.” With a fond brush of her hand along his shoulder, Aria slipped out the door and was gone.

******

The next two weeks were an interesting experience for Jack, though they were largely uneventful, if one could call a human being housed with a large Ailian family uneventful. Once they got used to his presence, Aria's family seemed to be cordial to him, if not exactly outgoing in efforts to be friendly. Oddly enough, her brothers seemed much less standoffish than the rest of her family. At least they didn't go out of their way to avoid him, like her sisters did. And Jack was fairly certain that her father outright disliked him, though Aria insisted that he didn't. She told him that he was grateful to him for all that he'd done to help Aria return home, but Jack was quick to point out to her that this wasn't exactly the same thing as liking him. He actually got the feeling that most of her family partly blamed him for the situation that Aria was in right now. In fact, pretty much the only member of her family who didn't seem to consider Jack's presence an inconvenience was Sami, her eldest sister.

Jack liked Sami. She seemed a lot different from Aria, and from the rest of her family. Young Ailians seemed to have a lot of aggression inherent in them, and it wasn't unusual for him to walk in on some of Aria's siblings arguing or engaging in play-fighting. Sami wasn't like that at all. She was a lot quieter and seemed to prefer reading or painting, which was a hobby of hers. Jack learned that some of the paintings that hung on the walls had been made by Sami, including the large portrait of Aria's mother that hung in the main dining room. Aria and Sami were very attached to each other, and he learned from Aria that they had been best friends all through childhood.

Another thing that Jack noticed during his time in the home was that Aria's father didn't seem to be the real head of the household. He was discovering that the Ascendancy seemed to have a very matriarchal culture. Jack had assumed that, even so, Aria's father would have been the real authority figure, but that wasn't the case. In fact, Sami, the eldest female in the household apart from Aria, seemed to be the one in charge. And now that she was back, Aria was taking over more and more of the family's decision-making power. Jack mostly stayed out of things, trying to make himself as little of a bother as he could, since he was a guest in their home.

One of the ways in which Jack tried to make himself useful was what he'd proposed to Aria before: he was doing his best to help Sami learn English. Admittedly, he didn't have any experience at all with being a teacher, but he had assistance with that. As it turned out, the Ascendancy military command had turned out a number of written works with the aim of teaching English. Most of them were even written in phonetically translated English lettering, instead of the jagged, flowing Ailian script. Jack had wondered about that until Aria explained to him, slightly awkwardly, that the books had been printed that way in order to make it easier for human slaves to learn Ailian as well as to teach their masters how to speak English. It was yet another reminder of the situation that Jack found himself in, though he was grateful to have the books. This way both he and Sami could learn at the same time, and Jack was desperate by now to learn how to speak Ailian. He was tired of not being able to understand anyone around him.

Jack didn't limit himself to just teaching Sami, of course. He tried to help out with household chores as well. Though the Me'lia family did have a few paid servants who tended house, the siblings did things around the estate as well, such as tending the garden and cooking meals. Though everything around him was on a larger scale than what he was used to, Jack took every chance he could to assist. In this way, he was able to explore most of the estate without feeling like he was getting in the way. The place was even more expansive than it had looked at first glance. Besides the main house and the guest house, there was a third building on a garden tier above them that was used as a recreation area. Inside was a small court that could be converted to play a number of games, some of which were vaguely similar to games played on Earth. A few other rooms, smaller and more private, were contained in the building. One of them was used by Sami as a studio to paint in, and Aria used another full of padded floors and walls to teach her siblings hand-to-hand fighting that she'd learned in her military service. Jack took her up on her offer for a lesson, but after she almost broke his neck with some of the techniques that Ailian soldiers used he decided it wasn't for him.

A fourth building, set on the highest garden tier, was a small bath house. The inside was designed like a natural hot spring, with an uneven rocky basin that held crystal-clear, steaming hot water. All around the inside was a carefully landscaped inner garden of flowering bushes and small ornamental trees. Aria told him that many well-to-do families on Lirna had bath houses such as these in their homes, though they were only used by the females and were off-limits to the males. So, Jack got to see the inside of it one time, and then he, like Aria's father and brothers, kept out.

All throughout his stay with Aria's family, Jack noticed cracks beginning to form in Aria's tough outer shell. As long as he'd known her, except for the one time when she'd been afraid to climb the cliff with him back on their uncharted planet, he hadn't seen her ever show any signs that stress had any effect on her. Now, though, he was seeing indications of the strain that she was under. The upcoming trial was constantly in her thoughts, and dominated much of her day to day life at this point. Every couple of days, a transport from Mat'aar Airbase arrived at the foot of the path leading through the estate, and took Aria back to the base to meet with her commander, Major Tal'in. The major was continuing to handle Aria's legal matters, and would do so until Aria obtained her official advocate. At this point, that was the thing that was giving her the most trouble. By now, Aria's trial was public news throughout the Ascendancy, and the reasons behind her charges were the subject of gossip. She was having trouble finding an advocate who was willing to take her case. The few lawyers who were willing wanted it mainly for the publicity, and none of them expressed any confidence or belief in their ability to get her cleared of the charges. Both Aria and Major Tal'in understandably turned them down.

Whenever he and Aria were together, Jack occasionally caught her staring off into space, not paying attention to anything around her. She was getting distracted, forgetting small things such as chores around the house, and she was sleeping at times longer than usual and at other times not at all. Her fuse was getting shorter as well, and she was snapping at everyone a lot more than she usually did, growing frustrated more quickly and more easily. Jack found himself trying to avoid her at times, though he could tell he was hurting her by doing that. Another major source of stress for Aria was that she very much wanted to spend time with him, but she was also reluctant for her family to learn of the scope of their relationship. That meant that any time they wanted to be together, whether for sex or just to enjoy each others' company, it had to be done in secret. The strain was incredible, but they tried to bear it as best as they could. They did manage to spend nearly every night together, which was a welcome break. Only at night, when the estate was quiet and all of the family was asleep, could they set their problems aside in favor of peace.

Through it all, Aria tried to maintain her composure. But she felt like everything was slowly falling apart, and that it was only a matter of time before something terrible happened.

******

One evening, Aria stepped into the bath house, weary from a long day. When she had closed the door behind her, she inhaled a deep breath of the steam-laden, clean air. The transport to the airbase had been earlier that morning than usual, and she had spent many hours with Major Tal'in, scouring military law books and legal records for precedents which could be used in her defense. As usual, they hadn't found much of anything. They also hadn't made any progress with finding an advocate, which was what they really needed. A good lawyer would be able to find loopholes and exploits in the legal system much better than they could, as well as have a better idea of how to more efficiently search through centuries of case law.

Shaking her head, Aria tried to banish away the thoughts of her upcoming trial. She needed to be able to shut off now that the day was over, but it was very difficult. Which was why she'd come to the bath house in the first place. She lit several candles, placing them around the rim of the dark bath house. Soft, flickering light filled the room.

-Maybe a long, hot soak will help,- she said to herself. Shuffling off her silken robe, the Ailian stepped over to the edge of the rocky bath. Aria put one foot into the water, continuing in until she was submerged up to her shoulders. -Oh, yes...-

With a sigh of pleasure, Aria closed her eyes, leaning back against the wall of the bath. The water soaked through her fur, and the searing heat seeped into her body and warmed her very core. The stress began to bleed away, little by little, as the bath relaxed her muscles and soothed her worries. Aria turned around, folding her arms on top of the edge of the bath and resting her head on them. She waved her tail behind her slowly, gently swishing it through the hot water.

-You look like you're enjoying yourself.-

Aria opened her eyes, smiling a little as she heard the familiar voice. -Yes, Sami, very much. Come join me.-

With barely a ripple, Aria's eldest sister slid into the water beside her. Sami stretched her body out with a purr, showing obvious pleasure at the therapeutic heat of the bath. -I wish I could spend all day in here. But then I wouldn't get any painting done. Though these days I'm having much more fun learning to speak human.-

-Jack is doing a good job, then?- Aria asked, propping her head up on one elbow and looking at Sami.

-He says I am a slow learner, but that I am doing well,- Sami said, laughing. -I would tell him he is a terrible teacher, but I don't know those words yet.- She glanced sidelong at Aria, her eyes sparkling with mischief. -He seems cute, sister. For a human.-

Aria felt a hot flash inside of her, despite the already high heat of the water surrounding them, and a twinge of jealous anger. -Oh, you think so, do you?- She stared at her sibling.

Sami laughed lightly, waving a hand at her. -Don't worry, I'm not interested in stealing him from you. He is not my type. And I doubt I would be able to anyway. He seems quite enamored with you.-

-Oh. Well, good.- Aria calmed down, embarrassed with herself for her rush to anger. She should have expected better of her sister than to think that she had any ideas about Jack. Sami would never do anything like that. -I'm glad, at least, that he's found something to do when I'm away. I imagine he'd be having a pretty terrible time of it otherwise. I don't think many of our brothers and sisters like him very much.-

-You're right about that,- Sami agreed. She closed her eyes and sank lower into the water. -He does talk about you a lot, though. At least, I think he does. I still have trouble understanding what he says to me. But he has managed to tell me a little about your time together after you crashed.-