LITMIR.BIZ

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under his touch, but didn’t draw away or lower her eyes.

      “Ah, you are very bold, Cassie,” he said in his own tongue, wishing she could grasp his meaning, wishing he could gauge her reaction.

      She responded to her name with a tiny twitch of her lips. He pushed her a little further, shifting his grip to find her pulse. The beats accelerated.

      She remained very still, trying wordlessly to convey the impression that she wasn’t afraid of him. He knew from her shallow breathing and her pounding heart that it was a lie. Yet he kept coming back to the central truth of their short acquaintance. She’d saved his life when she could have left him convulsing on the floor.

      He’d give a lot to know her real motives. Since he could hardly conduct an interrogation, he cataloged other observations. He could tell a lot from her hand, for example. And from the way she took care of her hair and face. She looked no more than twenty. Yet she was wise beyond those years. She was from the ruling class. Perhaps even royalty, because she’d never done manual labor. She was from a land far away from the one where he’d been assigned, since she hadn’t been raised to defer to his people. In fact, she seemed to have no idea of his status.

      He turned her hand over and saw a red circle on her index finger that looked like a recent burn.

      When he gave it the barest touch, she winced.

      “What happened?” he asked in his own language, accompanying the question with a raised eyebrow that he hoped would help convey his meaning.

      She caught on immediately. Scrambling up, she crossed the room and pointed to one of the data analyzer terminals, waving her arms and spouting a long string of words that meant nothing. When he looked perplexed, she strode into the grooming alcove and emerged with one of the drinking goblets.

      Was she going to pour water on the delicate equipment? That was all he needed.

      “No,” he ordered, using one of the few words he’d learned of her language.

      Ignoring him, she tossed the vessel at the machine and jumped back. When the missile hit, an electrical discharge sizzled like a bolt of lightning.

      “Klat!” The curse was wrung from him in anger—and surprise. “That is how you got burned?” he asked in his own tongue, frustrated that he couldn’t get an answer. What he wouldn’t give for a language decoder.

      She responded with a sigh and a question of her own, part words, part pantomime. She pointed to him, pretended to touch the equipment and made a sound like an explosion, “Boom!”

      It was accompanied by appropriate hand gestures, the performance very telling. She was asking if the same thing would happen to him.

      He shrugged. “Ask Lodar.” Even as he made the suggestion, he felt a mixture of anger and apprehension stir inside him. Teeth clamped together, he pushed himself off the floor and discovered his muscles felt like pudding. Before he’d taken two shaky steps, Cassie was at his side, holding him back. He was chagrined to discover that at the moment she had more strength than he. Obviously he was in worse shape than he’d realized.

      He saw her eyes were round with worry. That, as much as her restraining hands, stopped him from crossing the room. He wasn’t used to anyone caring so passionately about what happened to him. Bemused, he reversed his course. But before sitting down on the makeshift bed, he found a packet of regenerating salve in the healing cabinet.

      “Come here,” he said quietly, accompanying the order with a hand gesture.

      Hesitantly she sat beside him.

      “Let me fix your hand.” Although she couldn’t understand, it was strangely calming to simply talk to her.

      He opened the packet of salve and rubbed a little on the back of his own hand to show her it was all right. Then he reached for hers. Careful of the burned flesh, he spread the ointment on her wound.

      He saw her draw in a quick breath. Saw her let it out in a soft sigh as the salve began to soothe.

      She stared down at her injured skin, watching the red color fade. Then she raised wide, questioning eyes to his.

      He shrugged and squeezed her fingers. For long moments, she sat with her hand in his. They couldn’t talk, yet words were hardly necessary now. He was content to be simply with her like this for hours, the innocent contact like a healing balm. Languid warmth stole over him.

      She started to lean on his shoulder. Then her head jerked up, and the rosy flush he liked so much spread across her cheeks. So she’d felt the closeness, too. And it made her skittish.

      She blinked, her face changing from guileless to guarded. Scrambling up, she darted across the room, picked up a blue carry bag and brought it over. When she returned, she sat an arm’s length from him and began to rummage inside. With a little grin, she pulled out a small leather-covered book and what looked like a writing instrument. Fascinated, he waited to find out what she had in mind—besides putting some distance between them.

      She opened the book and passed it to him. The pages were covered with unintelligible symbols. The only things he knew for sure was that her people had a well-developed written language that used an alphabet rather than ideograms. And that her handwriting was precise.

      He shrugged.

      She found an unused sheet and drew two people. One had a parody of his face. The other had longer hair and two half circles to indicate breasts. She pointed to the first one. “Thorn.”

      He beat her to the punch and pointed to the other. “Cassie.”

      She nodded, obviously pleased. Underneath, she carefully wrote a string of the symbols he’d seen on the previous pages.

      “Cassie,” she pronounced as he studied the configuration, noting double consonant in the middle.

      When he pointed to each symbol, she gave him the phonetic sound. “Kaa-see.” They repeated the process for Thorn.

      He sighed. In a couple of weeks, they might get somewhere with this. By that time they might both be dead.

      She pointed to him and grimaced, her face showing pain, her shoulders sagging in weariness. She used a word he’d heard her say just before he’d fallen asleep. “Thorn weak.”

      “Weak,” he repeated in her language, wishing he could pretend he hadn’t comprehended the meaning. Sick and vulnerable. Lacking strength. They were probably all good approximations. He scowled at her.

      She looked apologetic, as if she knew how much he hated the observation. A timid woman would have backed off. Instead, she followed with a drawing of the Thorn figure lying on a bed, his eyes closed. “Thorn...needs...sleep.”

      The next picture showed Thorn standing straight and tall. She drew him again, sitting at the analyzer and walking through a door. Pausing, she took her lip between her teeth. Then at the top of the page she drew a circle with wavy lines radiating from the perimeter.

      He studied the sketch, and his chest tightened as he deciphered the pictogram. She’d drawn an almost universal symbol—a sun. He pointed toward the sky, tipped his face up and closed his eyes, pretending to bask in pleasant warmth.

      She nodded eagerly. “Sun,” she supplied and began speaking rapidly.

      He put up a hand to stop her. He didn’t know the meaning of the words flowing from her, but he understood she thought he’d be smart to get some sleep before exploring this place. With a sigh, he crossed his legs at the ankles and inclined his head toward the cabinet of healing supplies. Inside were several varieties of cutaneous patches he could use. One would put him into a deep, mending sleep for several hours. The prospect was tempting. If he’d been alone, he wouldn’t have hesitated to use it. But he couldn’t risk being out of commission while his companion’s motives were still in doubt.

      Her green eyes regarded him solemnly. This time he was the one who broke the contact. He longed to trust her. Longed to give in to the conviction that they were in this

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