Heat

*

Another day dawned, and it dawned hot.

Tagen woke in an sticky ocean of sweat-soaked sheets. He felt out for his pack and chewed a suppressant before he even opened his eyes. He didn’t want to see how few he had remaining.

He showered under a cool spray and dressed in the tight-fitting human clothes Daria had given him, all the while feeling heat and ill humor gnawing at him. It had been another long night of little sleep, another span of restless hours he had spent wandering the dark halls of this alien house and wondering what in hell he was still doing here. And another program on the tee-vee demonstrating all the creative positions in which humans could mate, while Tagen drank iced water and thought brooding thoughts on the subject of his unwilling host.

She had wakened before him. He could hear her moving around in the back of the house, still trying to force more order into the already painfully-neat structure of her home. The air stung his nostrils; the scent of cleansers was everywhere.

There was a plate of food waiting for him on the table, although she was not in the kitchen. It was a great portion of food, too, and if it hadn’t been for the acid tang of disinfectants fumigating the room, it would have smelled divine. Unwilling though she might be, she was a very good host.

Tagen ate, listening to his human at work in the utility room. It sounded like she was scrubbing the tool shelves. He’d never heard of such a pointless pursuit. Even as a first-year recruit on a military ship, no one scrubbed the tool shelves. She was more than a little unbalanced on the subject of dirt.

No. This had nothing to do with dirt, and everything to do with avoiding whatever the real problem was. Tagen was no mind-doctor, but he knew that much. Just as he knew that his presence was serving to amplify her little habits into something much more obsessive. He no longer believed it would break her just to have him stay—she’d have done so by now, if that were true—but his being here was infecting that secret wound of hers, that much was certain.

The worst of it was, he felt guilty. He had to be here. Leaving aside the physical necessities of food and water and sleep, his understanding of human technology and N’Glish had been greatly furthered, so he knew he had no choice but to stay. All the same, he realized a little more every day that he was an invading force. Daria was enduring him, but her anxiety came through, and his remorse was inescapable.

These episodes of conscience bothered him more than the mere summing of guilt. More and more, the thought was worming into him that he would not feel as much self-condemnation if his host were male.

Daria didn’t act like a female. She was fidgety and shy and altogether selfconscious. Still, there was something in her very vulnerability that struck Tagen as perversely arousing. The fact that she definitely noticed he was male—feared it, but noticed it—only exacerbated the situation. He found himself displaying for her, completely subconsciously, but very obviously, and it irked him fresh every time he did it. And she did not notice, which was even more aggravating.

Tagen put his dishes in the sink and retreated from the kitchen before Daria could come in and find him there. He couldn’t face her yet. Not her fear, not her questions, and not her alluring female scent. Gods, why did it have to be so hot?

He took a seat on the sofa in the front room and put his feet up on the low table. The cat, Grendel, was already there on the cushions beside him, but it permitted only two passes of Tagen’s hand before expressing its own feelings on the cursed weather by leaping down and waddling upstairs. Tagen watched it go, feeling deserted and pricklish about it. He picked up the tee-vee controller and turned it on, scrolling rapidly up through the cha

He heard Daria coming down the hall, but he did not turn to watch her approach. After a second, he realized he was pretending to ignore her the way he would pretend to ignore any approaching female, waiting with male politeness for her to notice him. The thought got in close to the skin like sand, abrading and irritating to the effect that when Daria came into view, he shot her a glare potent enough to stop her in her tracks.

She was holding a glass of something iced, holding it out as a gift for him. He felt like hitting himself.

“Forgive me,” he said instead, and directed his glare at the tee-vee. His favorite law program didn’t deserve the glare either, but at least it couldn’t get its feelings hurt.

“It’s okay.” She inched a little closer, set the glass on the low table before him, and then backed out of reach again.

She was sweating. It was only mid-day and already hot enough to set teeth on fire, so that she should be sweating was hardly surprising, but it aggravated Tagen anyway. He could smell her female musk faintly through her clothes. Her stare had a weight he could feel; it was a look that would be flirting, if only it came from another source. He gazed into the screen of the tee-vee without seeing the images on it.

She seemed to be waiting for something. “I brought you iced tea,” she said finally.

Tagen reached out automatically and picked up the glass. It was cool, refreshing even just to hold. “Thank you,” he said. He risked a glance in her direction. She was examining him almost as intently as he’d pretended to be watching the tee-vee, and his spine seemed to straighten and his chest to swell of its own accord, making himself as impressive a specimen as possible. Displaying again, damn it all. He growled low in his throat and sipped at the sweet beverage she had brought him. He was taking his suppressants, for the gods’ sakes, what was the matter with him?

“Is it okay?” She looked unsettled by his expression, and was already reaching to take back the drink. “I could make some juice if you’d rather—”

“It is fine,” he said, and drank deeply to prove it. The scent of it filled his nostrils, a blend of subtle herbs that took away the scent of her musky sweat. He could feel himself relaxing. “Very fine,” he said. “Thank you.”

“Well, I figure you’ve been watching Law & Order for days on end, and your strength might need some shoring up by now.”

He gave her a narrow look, killing her slight, teasing smile.

“Sorry.” She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Your N’Glish has gotten better.”

Tagen searched the words for sarcasm and found none. “Thank you,” he said cautiously.

She exhaled in a short rush and then said, “I never was any good at small talk,” while casting an irritated glance at the ceiling.

He felt himself straightening again, and the smell of her suddenly seemed very strong. But when she met his eyes, the sketchy thought that she might be making an overture evaporated (which was good, he insisted sourly. Which was very damned good.). Her face was set for a grim undertaking, and he was right in the scope of her sights.

“Don’t you think it’s about time you told me the whole story about why you’re here?”

She said it like she thought there was so much more than what he’d already told her. Tagen directed his gaze to the tee-vee screen, sighed, and shut it off. He stood up to face her and she promptly (but not unexpectedly) backed up a step.

“I am a police,” he said. He paused. “A police officer. I am…investigating the disappearance of a criminal who has escaped us. He may have come to Earth.”

“What did he do?” Daria asked. “I mean, ‘criminal’ covers a lot.”

This was dangerous ground to be traveling with such an unstable opponent. It was all too easy to imagine that Daria could think him capable of the same evils as E’Var. If he did not go carefully, he would undo much of the tentative co

It would have to be the truth, but he would be vigilant about the quantities in which he offered it. “He has killed many people,” he said. “Your kind and mine.”

It was an answer she had clearly anticipated, but having her suspicions confirmed did not silence her. She came into the room and sat beside him on the sofa, clasping her hands too tightly and staring at the dark face of the tee-vee. “Why did he come to Earth this time?” she asked. “Is it just because of…because he thinks your army won’t follow him here, or is there another reason?”

“There is,” he said slowly. But he did not want to tell her. That look was in her eyes already, the look of one who expects the worst and has never been disappointed. He wondered again what could have happened to her to make her believe so fervently in the evils of others.

For now, he said, “E’Var comes to Earth to hunt your kind.”

“To—?” She stared at him and shook her head. “Why?”

“He takes something from those he kills,” Tagen told her. “And sells it to other criminals.”

She said nothing, but she had heard him well enough. Her face was pale. The decorations on her left cheek stood out like fine filaments of circuitry.

“We have been pursuing the ship E’Var and his…his…” He gave her a helpless glance. “Those who pilot and work on a ship.”

“His crew.” She looked away, rubbing at her arm as if she were cold. “You’d know that if you watched more Star Trek and less Law & Order.”

“Crew. Thank you.” Tagen ignored the comment on his tee-vee preferences. “The ship belonged to Uraktus E’Var, his…father, you would say, and perhaps the most notorious of all criminals of his kind. Our forces had pursued him…ha, nearly all my life. And at last, he was found.”

“You caught him,” Daria guessed.

“We killed him.”

Her features sobered alarmingly.

He shook his head in answer to the question unfolding in her eyes. “If it was vengeance he wanted, he would have gone to Jota to hunt,” he told her, and she frowned, considering that. “E’Var’s ship was taken and all his crew captured. Only Kanetus E’Var escaped us.”

“And he came here, of all places.”

“As you say, he no doubt believed no one would follow.”

“And as you say, he can hunt here.” She raised her head and looked at him sharply. “How much are his…his trophies…worth? Enough to buy a new ship, maybe?”

“Such is our fear,” he admitted, impressed no small amount that she had so rapidly come to that conclusion.

“But you don’t know for absolute sure he’s here,” she pressed.

“Little in life is an absolute surety,” he retaliated. “That is why police are employed to investigate the uncertain.”

She smiled with half her mouth. “Touché, spaceman.”

He raised his iced drink to her, supremely pleased with himself. Scoring a point off Daria Cleavon was like getting one off Kolya Pahnee. Tagen could count the number of times that had happened on his hands, and still have fingers to spare.