LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER FOUR

      MADELINE THOUGHT SHE knew the commander of the Holconcom quite well after serving aboard his vessel for almost three years. But, the private person was far removed from the military leader.

      Despite the somewhat disturbing physical events of the recent past, she was still comfortable with him when they were alone. He walked with her in the gardens of the fortress, pointing out the various forms of flora and even quoting the names in High Cehn-Tahr, the ancient language, the holy tongue.

      “That dialect is familiar,” she said. “I’ve heard it spoken by the kehmatemer. But it isn’t in current use widely, is it?”

      “No,” he agreed. “The emperor insisted on keeping the ancient language alive, so that the roots of our people would endure. He considers that language is the basis of culture.”

      “I see. So the Dectat uses it in discussions, and the kehmatemer use it among themselves, since they protect the officials of the Dectat.”

      He smiled. “Exactly.”

      She closed her eyes and drank in the exquisite fragrance of the canolithe, which grew in the nearby woods. “I smelled canolithe for the first time in a library on Altair 6 where we were on maneuvers,” she recalled with a smile. “It had been recorded in the sensor logs and reproduced by an olfactory process known only to the Altairians.”

      He turned and looked down at her with quiet appreciation of her beauty, enhanced by the child she was carrying. His child. He felt possession wash over him like a wave. He had never felt it like this, certainly not for the Dacerian woman long ago whom, he was only beginning to realize, had an agenda that he had never perceived.