the female’s delicate skin – he grasped her wrists in one hand and stretched them over her head.
Then he caught her legs beneath the other hand at the mid-joint, is it called a knee on a human? Keeping his hand away from the human’s sex, Galtan carefully pinned her to the table.
“Settle down. Settle down. ”
*
Amelia couldn’t move – she didn’t want to show weakness and cry, but nothing was making sense.
“ Tagyek truga – tagyek truga. ” While the male wasn’t hurting her, he seemed to be taking care to not do so, Amelia couldn’t move. Her eyes started to tear in frustration.
“ Ro-ro – Alahi yhevet dan-ro. Moyda’f gaylea.” Amelia’s intergalactic leaned in close and rubbed his forehead against her own. Their noses touched, tip-to-tip and he pushed air through his teeth, “Ssssss. Tagyek truga.” He was trying to get her to calm down.
Amelia forced herself to take a breath and to stop struggling; once she was as still as her shivering body would allow, Lavender-eyes took his right hand from her legs. He then rearranged her arms, settling them at her sides.
*
The healer was right, Galtan didn’t want to bind the human – he wanted her to relax, especially when he saw the tears.
“No, no. Spirit, don’t cry. You’re alright.” He inexplicably sought a more companionable contact with her and had put his skin to hers, nose-to-nose as he had seen the couples of other races do. “Sssss, Settle down.” Finally, the woman seemed to calm.
Galtan rearranged her arms when he was confident she would stay as he put her so the healer could scan her. He went nose-to-nose with the female once more, just for a moment; then he stood and took a step back as the device hummed to life and zipped over her curves.
“Pandor as I thought – but what we need the scanner to tell us is the specific variety. Here it is: Pandor – Strain 7 – Abeebran origin.”
“From the beetles?” The old man had wisely said nothing of Galtan’s behavior with a human slave.
“Yes, it is popular with groups such as collectors because it is cheap; however, it if is not harvested correctly, it can have very bad side-effects. Such as the ones your human is exhibiting.”
“You can treat it, yes?”
“Absolutely,” the healer held up an injection gun. “I have already loaded the necessary remedy. It’ll be easier on her if I deposit the remedy in a large muscle.”
Galtan returned to his position at the table – the opposite side as the healer – and lifted one of the human’s legs. He pushed the mid-joint toward her chest, exposing and tightening the shapely curve of the woman’s hindquarters. She whimpered as the healer put the loaded injection gun against her skin there, and then yelped as the remedy was shot into the muscle.
“You wanted a translator implant too, right?” the old man confirmed, as he shuffled to retrieve an implant. Galtan saw the healer select a base model.
“Do you have any 1800KLP models?” The 1800 was the best available, the one Galtan had implanted behind his own right ear.
“I do.”
“Put in an 1800, then.” At the querying look Galtan answered the healer’s question, “She needs the language varieties to be of use in my household.”
“Of course my lord.”
After the implant was surgically placed, the healer compensated for his time and services, and the – correctly – sedated female bundled into his cloak, Galtan resumed his trek through the streets.
When, near the dawn of the first of Amirak-Ren’s twin suns, Galtan finally reached the door of his silent home, he contemplated his lie to the healer – she didn’t need the best implant in order to navigate his household, there was no one in it but himself…and now Spirit.
Chapter 2 … Language, Culture, and Promises… and
C. J. Cherryh
Learning to Kill: Stories
John O'Riley
Brenda Sinclair
Christopher George
Stephen Lloyd Jones
Karl Iagnemma
Celya Bowers
Jill Gregory
Aria Cunningham