Heat

Chapter Eight

Tagen opened his eyes before his ears had finished processing the quiet rustling sounds that had wakened him. The first thing he saw was the mess—crates and dust and junk spread over every flat surface like sauce over dry bread. He could not look at it without thinking of the exhausting effort it would take to try and put the place in order and even after a full night’s sleep, he was still too tired for that.

Next, he saw the human. She was over by the door, gathering objects from among those he’d deemed too dangerous to leave in her reach yesterday. Judging from the space she’d cleared already, this was not her first trip.

Tagen sat up, holding the bedsheet at his hip, and watched her. She was nibbling at her lip, every muscle straining with the effort of being so quiet. If she were collecting the knives from the box in which they now rested, he would be concerned by this level of stealth. However, she was taking tins and jars of food. He supposed he was safe enough, although she’d proved to have a wicked aim with far lighter fare.

She glanced his way as she finished stacking things in the crook of her arm, and promptly uttered a shriek and dropped everything.

Tagen started to get up as she dropped to her knees, then remembered he was naked beneath the sheet and settled back down.

“Sorry,” she said, scooping food hurriedly into the improvised basket of her shirtfront. “I didn’t mean to wake you, I was just trying to put my house back together.”

She was nervous and talking fast. Every word but the first had been a near-meaningless babble of sound. “Slowly,” Tagen said, frowning. “Please.”

But she did not repeat herself. Instead, she went on with a whole new babble. “I’ve got your clothes out of the dryer now and it doesn’t look like they shrunk any, so I’ll bring those right up. Sorry.” She backed up and fled, banging the door shut behind her.

Tagen swung his legs over the side of the bed and leaned forward, rubbing at his face. He still felt drugged by exhaustion, for all that the Earth’s sun was well-risen. He blamed the heat, which was already cemented into the air and tickling sweat out of his pores. The heat…gods, would it never end?

He opened his pack and took his day’s suppressant. They were more than half-gone now. Surely the season was nearly over. He hated to think what would happen if he actually ran out. He’d have to return to his ship then, wouldn’t he? His superiors would have to understand that. How could he be expected to complete his mission if he was in Heat?

On the other plate, it was highly unlikely that Kanetus E’Var was doing anything productive if he was in Heat, either. Collecting dopamine didn’t take a lot of effort, considering the fragility of humans in general, but it still took a modicum of concentration and skill that would be utterly eroded by the effects of Heat. So even if he had come to Earth initially, he might have turned around and gone home as soon as the weather sank in a little. Tagen could probably leave right now, secure in such knowledge.

“I hate Earth,” he muttered.

The human’s footsteps were returning. Tagen made sure his loins were covered and then straightened up and tried to look as dignified and professional as possible while wearing a sheet.

She tapped at the closed door and then cracked it open and peeked at him. “I ordered groceries because I thought you might like to eat at some point, and they’re going to be here in a few hours, so we really need to be able to open the doors, or at least the front—”

“Please!” Tagen said, more sharply than he intended, and her voice switched off at once. “Speak more slowly.”

She backed up into the hallway, looking anxious, and then crept forward and put the folded articles of his uniform on the edge of the bed. “Sorry,” she said.

And then she left again, damn it all.

Tagen dressed in quick, angry jerks. He reminded himself that the human was badly frightened and coping very well, all things considered. Yesterday, she had probably woken up with the understanding that hers was the only race in all the known universe and now there was an alien holding her prisoner in her own house. There were rescued slaves in preserves back in his corner of the galaxy who never recovered from that little shock, so he needed to go easy on her. He lectured himself severely on the human tendency to resist obedience, and counted himself fortunate that this human, at least, limited herself to throwing food and ignoring his requests to repeat herself, as opposed to, for example, poisoning him or stabbing him in his sleep. He warned himself to remember what it had been like to wander in the forest outside, and that his one human here in this isolated house was the best circumstance he could have hoped for and that he was as responsible as much as she for not ruining it.

By the time he had his pips on and his gun belt tightened, he was calm again. Yesterday had been a good begi

He went in to the privy and used it with great confidence, then shaved successfully and set his hair in order. He’d lost his binding band somewhere in the woods, but he found one in the human’s cupboard that worked just as well. The face looking back at him from the mirror was an officer, a man and a commander of men. Tagen tugged his jacket straight, smiled grimly, and went back into his room.

The human wanted her doors opened. Very well. Tagen would make a gesture of trust. He found the tool by which he had sealed the doors and took it downstairs.

The human was in her kitchen, standing on the counter and scrubbing out her empty cupboards. She looked around guiltily when he came up behind her, hugging her cleaning water as though she feared he would take it from her by force. “I figured, when was I going to get the next chance?” she said. “It’s been a long time since these were cleaned.”

He doubted that, but then, time was relative when one had too much of it. Besides, if it relaxed her to spend her mornings scrubbing cupboards, who was he to stop her?

Tagen held up the tool and then laid it on the table. “For you,” he said.

“Thanks.” She looked at it longingly, then at her cupboards, and finally began scrubbing again. “I’ll finish up here first, though, but I appreciate that you probably think you’re making a big step. Was the bed okay?”

“Yes.” His one word was a hammer whose killing impact even Tagen could sense. Public relations had never been one of his talents. “Thank you,” he added awkwardly.

“Are you hungry?” She finished wiping the last shelf and then put her cleaning water aside without waiting for an answer. She climbed down from the counter with a nimbleness Tagen admired in an abstract sort of way, dropping to her knees and then kicking out and onto her feet with a light thump. “I could fix you something,” she offered. “Cereal or something.” She eased around him, pressing herself flat against the counters until she’d passed, just as though there were not an arm’s length of distance between them.

Tagen seated himself at the table as she busied herself with food preparation. It was very strange to watch her move; even in her obvious anxiety, there was a freedom about her. She was so different from the recovered slaves he had known. Even though she was not relaxed, just being in her own element gave her a kind of confidence he was not accustomed to seeing in her kind.

She brought him a bowl of flaked food with a thin, white sauce poured over it. The texture was abrasive, the taste very sweet, but it was cold and so Tagen ate it all. She watched him, standing off to one side and shifting her weight restlessly. ‘This is what it must feel like to have a personal slave,’ Tagen thought idly. Not an entirely unpleasant feeling.

“You look a lot better this morning,” she remarked.

He wasn’t sure how to answer that. It hadn’t exactly sounded like a compliment. “As do you,” he said at last.

She colored and looked away, so clearly that had been the wrong response. “Thanks,” she said glumly, and went back to her cupboards. She wiped at the shelves with a dry cloth and began replacing food in very neat, very deliberate arrangements. “So…do you have any more questions or are you leaving?”

“What I require most at this time is N’Glish,” he told her. “That may take some time.”

“Oh.” Her shoulders hunched. “So…so what am I supposed to be doing? To help you, I mean.”

“Talk slowly when you speak. Allow me food and sleep. Answer questions when I ask them.” She nodded after each command, furthering Tagen’s mild sense of power over her. Slavery was still abhorrent and indefensible, of course, but he was begi

“How long do you think you’ll need before you can go look for your guy?”

“My…guy.”

“The guy you’re looking for,” she amended. “I mean, once you have your N’Glish down, how long before you…?” She shrugged.

“Leave?”

She nodded, not looking at him.

“It would depend on many things.” He studied the back of her as she finished putting her food away, trying to think of a way to alleviate some of her persistent fretfulness. “I can promise not to stay solely to prolong your misery.”

She flinched and then turned on him. “I’m not miserable!” she shouted. “I’m just a little uncomfortable because there’s an alien in my damn house!”

So much for trying to calm her down. “And there is going to be an alien in your damn house for some time,” he told her evenly. “So you should learn not to be uncomfortable.”

She glared at him. “I need to take the boards off my doors,” she said in a tight voice. She threw down her cleaning cloth, and marched out.

Tagen sighed and resisted the urge to go after her. The skill he would need with the language to make her mind easy was well beyond his current reach. Best to leave her be for now. He picked up his empty bowl and took it to the sink.

The human marched back into the kitchen and snatched the tool he had brought down for her off the table. “I forgot my hammer,” she snapped and took herself out again.

Tagen tried to get his teeth into his good intentions, and gave up. “Wait.”

She didn’t.

Tagen followed her, a

“I’m not offended!”

It was nearly a shout. Tagen stopped in the hall and gave her rein to get well ahead of him. He watched her dig the teeth of the thing she called a ‘hammer’ under the restraining board and pull ineffectually at it. Her whole body was coiled like a spring. He needed to start over. He said, “Do not fear me. I mean you no harm.”

“I’m fine!” She planted her bare foot on the door jamb and heaved back with all her little might. “I’m not scared of y—oh!”

The board pulled free with a snap and a splinter and the human went flying. Tagen darted forward instinctively and caught her; she fit neatly into his open hands, as light as a child.