Dekkir (Galaxy Alien Warriors #1)(26)

“We’re going at it so much that people are going to think we’re trying for a kid,” she teased me softly as I settled in beside her.

I chuckled, my eyelids feeling heavy. It was still at least a good hour before dawn. And a good thing, too, for I had exhausted myself with her so many times in the night that I was actually starting to feel sore. “Would that be such a terrible thing?”

“I don’t know. All of this is happening so fast that I haven’t even thought about that yet. Is it even possible?”

I looked down at her thoughtfully. “We should ask the healer. She’s the only one in a position to know.”

“If she does know. This seems to be pretty unexplored territory for your people and mine.” She stifled a yawn behind her hand. “But I agree. We should definitely ask.”

I sensed the conflict inside her and looked at her curiously. “Is everything all right?”

“I’m just thinking if we ended up having a child of our two races, I’m not sure I would want Earth Command to know. I would have to find a way to hide it from them.”

“Are you . . . expected back anytime soon?” I squashed a surge of apprehension. It was the one thing I had not gotten around to asking her. I had only assumed, since we were now together, that she would be staying on Lyra. Especially since, right now, she had no idea who among her own race she could actually trust. At least, aside from Tabirus.

“I was supposed to be here for two years straight, same as my predecessor, but I don’t know what will happen if some kind of active conflict breaks out. They might recall me. And then, I can either defy orders or end up . . .” She hesitated. “I don’t know. I know there’s no way I’m going to work for whatever crazy bastard is trying to engineer a war between us. I know I don’t want us to be separated. And besides, if they found out I have the symbiont in my system, I’d probably end up a lab experiment. But . . . that’s the thing. If I fall into their hands and I’m pregnant, our child could become a lab experiment, too.”

A jolt of adrenaline went through me, and my eyes flew open. I held her close, stroking her hair back from her face. “Then you must stay with me. If you face that sort of insanity otherwise, just from having the Golden Strain within you, then the answer is obvious. Stay with me. Stay here. Let Lyra be your home from now on.”

She licked her full lips thoughtfully. “I want to. As much as I miss my family, I can’t even think about returning to Earth Command until I know this . . . madness . . . of an interplanetary war isn’t going to come to pass. Whoever is doing this to us, he has to be caught and stopped. Until then, there’s no point in even discussing my going back. I simply can’t do it.”

“Well, then let’s not discuss it. Let us focus instead on what is immediately ahead of us, until Tabirus gives us something to go on.” I kissed her forehead, and she tucked her head under my chin and let out a sigh as her body relaxed.

“That sounds like a plan.”

We were drifting off, my eyelids growing heavy and her breathing going soft and even, when suddenly her whole body tensed against me. She gasped aloud and leaned back, her eyes flying open. “Airships!” she cried out.

I looked down at her. The Strain had left bronze threads in her irises, which seemed to grow more numerous with each day that dawned. Now I saw them sparkle and gleam. I had seen that look before. “Are you having a vision?”

“I think so.” Her eyes were very wide now and focused on something I could not see. It had happened to her off and on during her adjustment: visions, insights, and flashes of intuition. Fortunately, I was around enough that I managed to catch her the few times when the distraction of a vision made her stumble on her feet.

“Tell me what you are seeing.” I watched her face intently. Her emotions had gone ragged and spiky, adrenaline running through her as her eyes tracked around, watching nothing.

“They’re not Earth airships. The design’s wrong. I’ve never seen anything like them. They don’t make any noise as they fly around. I don’t know what they’re using for propulsion, but it’s nothing like dropship fuel.” She blinked several times. “They’re having a battle over some kind of . . . It looks like the place they’re fighting over got hit with a volcanic eruption. There’s no vegetation. The ground’s black . . . I wouldn’t even think it’s on Lyra, but I can see the moons.”

“I’ve seen places near the Boiling Sea that look a little bit like that. Is it on an island?”

“No. It looks more like a plain somewhere. I can see a dry riverbed running through it.” She squinted into the darkness. “The sky looks strange. It’s got a yellowish tinge. It almost looks polluted. But the air on Lyra is so clean.”

I wet my lips. “It was not always so. There is much you do not know about our world. I believe you are seeing a vision from its distant past.”

The gleam in her eyes faded, and she peered up at me curiously. “What do you mean?”

“The Lyra you have come to know was not always thus.” I stroked her hair absently as I spoke. “Two thousand years ago, our world much more closely resembled what you have told me of your own. There were too many people, too many machines. Our chroniclers have carried the memory of those times forward for us across many generations.”