Part 4 (1/2)

Soz nodded. ”According to this, an automated Allied probe discovered this planet a few days ago.” Actually, days was inaccurate. During their escape, they had never quite managed to engage the stardrives, racing instead on the edge of light speed. It had made their time dilate, eighteen minutes going by for them while almost three months pa.s.sed for the rest of the settled galaxy.

”The probe transmitted its discovery to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics on Earth,” she said. ”No one had yet downloaded the data when President Calloway's routines found it.” Reading the file, she whistled. ”Calloway must have some system. She got in, copied the data, and then wiped out all trace of it. Aside from us, only she and Erin know this place exists.”

”And your father,” Jaibriol said.

Soz swallowed, thinking of the tears in her father's eyes as he had bid her good-bye. Loving a Rhon psion himself, her mother, he understood Soz's decision to free Jaibriol. So he had used his hot line to the Allied president to request sanctuary for the lovers.

Her eyes hot with unshed tears, knowing she would probably never see her father or family again, Soz leaned over the computer. ”These files have some data on the planet.”

Jaibriol gentled his voice. ”How about the length of the night?”

Soz flicked her finger through a holicon above the screen, the tiny icon of a world. A much larger holo appeared floating in the air over the computer, showing a star system. ”Prism orbits a red dwarf star, which orbits a blue-white star.” She paused, studying the data. ”This is all referenced to Earth. The red star pulls on Prism with a force more than twenty times that of Earth on its Moon. That ought to drag Prism into a tidal lock, which means it would always keep the same face toward the red sun. But either it isn't locked yet or else it's in some sort of resonance. It rotates three times for every orbit it makes around the red sun.”

”Three days per year?” He stared at her. ”How long until we see sunlight again?”

Soz brought up more data. ”For every three days that pa.s.s relative to the red sun, four days pa.s.s relative to the blue-white sun. So sometimes we have no suns in the sky, sometimes we have one, and sometimes two.” She grimaced. ”What a flaming mess.”

Jaibriol laughed. ”Does that last have a scientific translation?”

She gave him a rueful smile. ”Unfortunately, yes. Right now we're at the start of a 135-hour night. We get a long night because we're on the side of the planet facing away from the red star when red is between us and the blue-white star.” Peering at the data, she said, ”When day comes, it will last 243 hours, with both suns up for 135 of them. Then an 81-hour night. Then a 486-hour day, when Prism pa.s.ses between the blue-white and the red sun. While red is up, blue-white sets and then later rises again. After both suns go down, we get another 81-hour night, followed by another 243-hour day. Then the whole mess starts over again.”

”G.o.ds,” Jaibriol said. ”Do we get cooked during the days?”

”I don't think so.” She studied the glyphs on the screen. ”Both suns have to be up for the planet to receive as much light as Sol s.h.i.+nes on Earth. We're more in danger from flares on the red star. But the atmosphere offers protection. It also does a reasonable job holding heat, which is probably why it's warm right now.”

She glanced at him standing in the entrance, his chest bare to the balmy night. Distracted by his husbandly attributes, she lost her train of thought. It was a moment before she could refocus on the GeoComp. ”We can determine the north celestial pole from how the stars move in the sky.”

”How do you know it's north?”

She looked at him, pleasantly distracted again. ”It?”

”Why call this the north hemisphere?”

”We have to call it something.”

”I just wondered why you picked north instead of south.”

”If you want to call it south, that's fine.”

”I didn't say I wanted to call it south.”

”All right. North.”

”That's not-never mind.” He looked outside again. ”So what is our lat.i.tude?”

She hesitated. ”We're pretty far north. Or, uh, south.”

”North is fine.”

”About sixty degrees north of the equator.” She squinted at the screen. ”This is all relative to Allied standards. 'The same lat.i.tude as Sundsvall.' Whatever the h.e.l.l that means.”

”It's in a place on Earth called Sweden.” Jaibriol rubbed his palm across his chest. ”I guess we'll have to get used to the dark.”

Seeing him touch himself, she smiled. ”I could get used to long nights.”

He glanced at her, then flushed and looked away. Once again he rubbed his chest, this time with a self-conscious motion.

What had she said? They were married, after all. It wasn't as if she were drooling over him in an erotica arcade. Then again, she also found her reaction to him unsettling. She hadn't responded this way to her former fiance, Rex Blackstone, another Jagernaut. After being injured in combat, he had withdrawn his proposal for fear of what the war would do to their marriage. She had died inside then, for the loss of their newly acknowledged affection. Yet in all the years she had known Rex, she had never felt such an intense pa.s.sion as Jaibriol had stirred in her from the moment she met him. Like knew like. Rhon.

Jaibriol swatted at his arm. ”That's odd.”

She flushed, afraid he had picked up her thoughts. ”Odd?”

He scratched his arm. ”My skin itches.”

She stood up and went over to him. ”Where?”

”Everywhere.” He rubbed his cheek. ”It hurts.”

Soz drew him back into the cave. ”Maybe you should-”

”No!” He jerked away from her. ”I can't come in here. If I have something on me, it could hurt you.”

”I'm going to turn on the quasis screen.” The thought of his being unprotected outside stirred an intense emotion in her. She wasn't sure how to define it, but she knew she wanted him here with her. Safe.

As she reactivated the screen, Jaibriol made a strangled noise. Turning, she saw his face go pale. She grabbed the medkit off a crate and pulled out the diagnostic tape. When she set the flexible strip against his chest, holos formed in front of it, views of a man's body, red and blue veins on one, the nervous system on another, ivory for his skeleton. Glyphs scrolled across the tape.

”Oh, h.e.l.l,” Soz said. ”Do you have any allergies?”

He heaved in a strained breath. ”None I know of.”

”You're having an allergenic reaction.” She took an air syringe out of the kit, dialed in the antihistamine recommended by the tape, and injected his neck.

”I can't-” He choked and sagged against the wall.

”Jaibriol!” Soz caught him as he collapsed. His weight knocked them over, but her hydraulics kicked in and she controlled their descent enough to lay him on his back. The red alert icon on the tape gave the story: he was in anaphylactic shock. His larynx had swollen, blocking his respiration, and his blood pressure had dropped far too low. Tipping back his head, she tried to breathe air into his lungs. Without breaking the rhythm of her efforts, she pressed the end of the diagnostic tape against a receptor square on the syringe. When the syringe beeped, she injected his neck again, all the time breathing air into his lungs.

Blow in. Wait. Blow in. Wait. Over and over she tried, praying the swelling would recede enough for him to take in air.

Don't die, Soz thought. G.o.ds, don't die.

With a shuddering gasp, Jaibriol heaved in a breath. As Soz jerked up her head, his chest rose again. She watched, ready to resume, but he continued to breathe on his own. His long lashes twitched and his eyes opened.

”Thank you,” she whispered, she wasn't sure to whom.

He spoke in an almost inaudible voice. ”Soshoni?”