“Hid it? Why?” she asked, exasperated.
“Would you reveal to an optimistic, ambitious population with growing tech ability that another civilization had risen to such heights, only to be destroyed in a natural catastrophe?”
She thought about that. “I don’t know.”
“It would diminish your accomplishments, dull your ambition,” he suggested. “It would limit the achievements.”
“I suppose it might. How did you come to be a time traveler?” she asked. “And who discovered its potential?”
He grinned. “It was me. Building on tech developed by one of my...antecedents,” he said carefully, “I perfected the ability to jump through dimensions, into different time lines.”
“But how?”
“I cannot say. But the Nagaashe are the key,” he added. He sobered. “You made the discovery possible, by convincing them to trade with us. You do not yet realize the scope of that accomplishment. It will lead to untold discoveries.”
“I just crashed on their planet,” she said softly.
He shook his head with awe. “I read about this period of history. But the records were quite scant, and frankly the first-person accounts of it were grossly understated. All of you were too modest about your actions. And nowhere was it recorded that Chacon himself assisted in your rescue. Or your...old fellow,” he added. “There were whispers, of course, but they were dismissed as myths.”
She smiled. “I make odd friendships.”
He chuckled. “Indeed you do. I am most proud to be included in them,” he said gently. “You and the commander are more than I ever realized from my research. The two of you have been a constant delight.” He drew in a long breath as he looked at her. “Serving with you is my greatest honor and privilege.” His eyes saddened. “I will miss you both.”
“Miss us?”
He nodded. “I must leave. Today.”
“Today? Surely not before the bonding ceremony!”
“Yes.” His face tautened. “I must not interfere in any way with this timeline.” His eyes were soft with affection. “It is precious. More precious than I can tell you.” His face tautened. “There is another matter,” he said quickly. “You must not return to the Amazon Division, for any reason. Do you understand? It is important.”
Her heart jumped. “Komak, this is only for a mission,” she said. “I can’t tell you what it is, except to say that many lives may depend on its success. But afterward, whatever happens, I will go back to duty.” She averted her eyes. “I’ve already spoken to Strick Hahnson about doing a short-term memory wipe on me. I won’t remember anything...”
“Memories are precious, Madelineruszel,” he said quietly. “Your feelings for the commander are quite intense. Do you really want to forget them?”
Her sad eyes met his. “He’s an aristocrat. I’m just a grunt of a soldier, and I’m human. He must...bond with a woman of his own species, to produce an heir who can inherit his estates.” She lowered her gaze to the table. “He feels nothing for me. I just get on his nerves. And right now, he’s locked into a behavioral cycle that could cost him his life or his career, all because of my intense feelings. I have to do whatever I can to save him. Whatever the cost. I can’t go back to the Holconcom,” she added quickly, conspiratorially. “Don’t you see? Even with a memory wipe, I might feel the same for him, all over again, and trigger the same behavior. I won’t put him at risk a second time.”
Komak’s face was grim. “You care so much?”
“I care so much,” she said huskily.
“But, if there is a child, as I feel certain there will be...” he began hesitantly.
“The child can be regressed. It’s a gentle process. He’ll be absorbed back into the tissues of my body.” She didn’t look at him. “Nobody must know. It would hurt his career, if it became known that he’d fathered a child onto a human female. It would...disgrace him.”
“Surely he did not say that to you!”
She didn’t speak. He hadn’t. Not in so many words. But she knew he must have thought about their differences in status. Her jaw tautened. “I’ll do whatever I need to do, for this mission to succeed. Then he’ll go back to his command, I’ll go back to mine. We’ll be quits.”
Komak looked devastated. This was not the history he had read. Surely the timeline was not so corrupted already?
“We don’t always get what we want in life,” she said thoughtfully. “I would have liked to keep the memory.” She drew herself up to her full height. “But I’ll do what’s best.”
He stood up, too. He moved close to her, his eyes wide and quiet and tender. “I will never forget these years with you,” he said softly. “It has been an honor, to know you as a comrade.”
She smiled sadly. “It has been for me, too, Komak.” She shifted. “I feel...odd.”
“Odd, how?” he asked, but he was smiling.
She reached impulsively for a metal sphere on the desk and closed her fingers around it. No human could have made a mark on it. She crushed it in her hand. She gasped.
He chuckled. “So. We need not ask if the experiment was a success.”
She looked at the misshapen lump on her palm and laughed with delight. “No. We need not ask!”
MADELINE WAS A combat surgeon. She certainly knew about the reproductive process, in animals and humans, even in Rojoks. But trying to get any information about Cehn-Tahr matings was like pulling stones out of a vacuum.
She thought Caneese was the obvious person to ask. Although Caneese was very polite, she was almost mute on the subject.
“You will cope,” she told Madeline gently. “The thing to remember is that you must...yield, and let nature take its course,” she said finally, after searching for just the correct word.
“Yield.”
“Exactly! I am so glad that we had this talk. You will feel better about the encounter, now, yes?” And she walked away, smiling.
Madeline ground her teeth into her lower lip. “Smoke and mirrors,” she said to herself, nodding.
* * *
IN THE END, there was only one person she felt comfortable talking about it with and that was her partner for the event.
She found him standing on a stone patio, his hands behind him, watching the sun set over the distant mountains.
He heard her footsteps and turned. In the robes he wore at Mahkmannah, he was like a stranger. She wore robes, too, of course, but was less comfortable in them.
“You have concerns,” he mused as she approached.
“Yes. Nobody will talk to me about it,” she said irritably. “They talk around it.”
He gave her a long look. “You must remember that women in my culture are not as self-possessed and independent as you are. We have traditions that have existed for millennia.”
“I’m not denigrating your culture,” she said. “I just want to know what’s going to happen.”
He