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We need marriage counseling in the first week—that’s got to be some kind of record!I snorted.
The smallness of the shuttle didn’t help any. Unless one of us hid in the bathroom—which was really too small for that—or the cockpit, we were on top of each other. And to be so close to him andnottalk felt like torture.
The one thing he did do was to give me his phone and show me how to use it. I probably should have been looking up all the information I could find on mining and metallurgy in this new world.
But nope. I spent hours reading everything I could about the Zaarn and their mating rituals. The phone tapped into the shuttle’s larger database, which Tark assured me was complete, but I found frustratingly little concrete info.
Almost all fated-mate pairs were formed on Zaar, their home world. Biological factors baked into their genes acted like built-in population control. Male births outnumbered females by over two to one. Nothing they’d tried had changed it, so their entire society was built around banishing the excess males when they turned twenty. The Zaarn even had some kind of speed mating thing in place where every male between eighteen and twenty would meet every female.
Raxnor and Tark were two of these banished males, which just seemed so, so wrong. As upset as Raxnor had made me, I could still recognize what a good guy he was. Hell, he’d hang glided into an alien jungle and hiked miles to infiltrate a guarded compound to rescue a complete stranger!
Yet knowing he was a good guy only made what he’d done hurt worse. Why hadn’t he told me we were married?
And mierda! Why didn’t this database have more info on how my alien marriage worked? I’d read everything I could about Zaarn fated mates, but it still didn’t make sense. All the articles had been written assuming the person reading already had basic information I seemed to lack. Even having the words translated into English didn’t help when there were gaps in knowledge I couldn’t fill.
How did theyknowwho their mates were? No specific info had made it off Zaar, and very few people visited the surface of the planet. The banished weren’t allowed back, and all trade with other species took place at orbiting space stations. I’d almost think they were xenophobic if it weren’t for the fact that they took their natural population control baked into their genes as a mandate to protect the environment of their planet. Extra visitors meant extra pollution and use of resources.
All of that protection had paid off. The few pictures I could find of Zaar made it look like a garden planet full of forests, jungles, and grasslands. It was the very opposite of what humans had done to Earth and exactly the kind of place the people ofARK 1had hoped to create on a new world. As the leader of the expedition’s mining team, it was one of the key parts of my job—finding ways to provide the new colony with all necessary metals without harming our new home.
Would I ever get the chance to do that? The Zaarn males of theDaredevilhad rescued the women ofARK 1from the gray aliens, but they didn’t quite know what to do with over a thousand new people yet. Most of my fellow shipmates were going to remain in cryo for a while longer. Maybe if—
Two points of pressure dug into my calf.“Friend no fun!”
“Oww!” I reached down to rub the spot, even though Lila hadn’t headbutted me hard enough for her horns to really hurt me.
She stood in front of my chair in the main cabin, her tail swishing back and forth.
The males were in the cockpit—again. Tark had to fly the shuttle, but Raxnor? I felt pretty sure he stayed in the up there all day to avoid me.
And no amount of reading could distract me from that for very long.
“Friend no be sad! Here better than before.”A mental image came to me, of being alone and scared and locked in a small box.
I scooped her up into my arms and pressed my face to her fur. “I’m so sorry you went through that.”
“Is okay! Me no sad anymore! Me bored!”She tapped at my hand with her paw, then jumped down.
A surprised bark of laughter escaped me. My pet’s ability to live in the now and ask for what she wanted was refreshing.
I certainly wasn’t going to figure Raxnor out in the next few minutes. I needed a distraction as much as she did.
Leaping to my feet, I said, “You know what? You’re right! I am no fun.” I folded my chair back into the wall and started opening various cabinets. “Let’s find something to play with.”
“Yes, play!”Lila twirled in a circle, chasing her tail, and I laughed.
Food, more food, a tent. Mierda! There had to be something!
But Zaarn males, it seemed, were practical packers. I didn’t find anything until I got to the weapons locker. Blasters and a couple of longer guns hung on hooks, along with knives of various sizes. At the bottom of the cabinet were little drawers. I pulled one out and— “Bingo!”
“Bingo!”Lila echoed in my mind. There was no way she could know the word.
I pulled out the long piece of black material with a buckle on one end, some kind of strap. “Hey, Lila, how do you know English to talk to me?”
“No talk English! Me talk kreecat!”
“Huh!” I guess this telepathy thing did all the translating for us. Very cool!
Like most people my age who’d grown up after pets had become something only the wealthy could afford, I’d watched tons of TV shows and movies with pets. If Lila acted like an Earth cat… I grasped the buckle and stood, letting the long length of the strap dangle to the floor. Pressing my back to the wall to give her as much room as possible, I swished my arm back and forth.
