Maia and Rylan Read online

  “Well?” he growled.

  Dr. Laas sighed. “Nope. There’s no mistake.”

  “I don’t make mistakes,” Baine the computer boasted in its clipped male tones.

  “Can you get it?” Rylan asked, ignoring the voice.

  “Yes,” Dr. Laas said. “I’ll send Rio.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Rio?”

  “If anyone can get it out of there, it’s Rio. The man can charm a snake out of its skin.”

  “I suppose you can call it charm. Tell him to call me when he’s got it.”

  Rylan said his goodbyes perfunctorily and signed off.

  “Poor Rylan,” Dr. Laas murmured.

  “Compassion,” the computer said. “An emotion not often detected in the famous Dr. Laas.”

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  Allyson James

  “Shut up, Baine,” she said. “And get me Rio.”

  * * * * *

  Rylan was putting the finishing touches on a ruby-red singing sphere when Rio called him.

  Hands made for pleasuring—Shareem hands—were also good at fashioning the raw crystals into spheres that wafted music when touched.

  One wall of his workroom was a huge panel of glass, a foot thick, tinted and insulated against the Bor Nargan sun. His house hugged the slopes of a high desert canyon, near a community watered by the canyon’s clear stream.

  Rylan had built the house with Maia in mind, choosing the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked red rocks and gnarled pines for her. Maia, who had grown up never seeing the world, could have viewed its beauty from here every day.

  Maia filled every space in the house.

  But she had never seen it.

  Maia had disappeared from DNAmo the day it had shut down twenty years ago.

  From that day to this, Rylan had found no trace of her. He’d looked, damn, he’d looked, every day of his life. Even today.

  Rylan made a minute adjustment to the sphere on his work table and pressed the answer button on the console.

  Rio came on the screen. His swarthy face was serious, but his eyes gleamed. “Rylan, old friend. If you’re holding something breakable, put it down.”

  Rylan carefully set the tuning instrument on the table and pushed the crystal away.

  Rio leaned close to the screen. His voice dropped, and he grinned.

  “We found her.”

  * * * * *

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  Maia and Rylan

  Seven hours later, Rylan arrived at Dr. Laas’ house, hidden away in the heart of Pas City.

  The computer opened the door. “Welcome, Shareem.”

  Baine’s voice followed Rylan as the door closed, directing him through the dark entrance hall to the lift. “If there is anything you need, I can provide it. A glass of spiced wine? Fine pastry? Fellatio?”

  “Nothing,” Rylan growled, stepping into the lift. “Take me to Dr. Laas.”

  The computer sighed. “I am so wasted in this house.”

  The lift dropped, carrying Rylan into the bowels of the compound that Dr. Laas had built for herself after DNAmo shut down. She existed in cushioned exile with her snarky computer, seeing only Shareem, and avoiding detection. None but a few Shareem knew she’d not fled off-world with the other scientists.

  The lift opened into a lush corridor, lit with a pink glow. The air was perfumed with an exotic flower scent. At the end of this hall lay Dr. Laas’ laboratory.

  Not for Dr. Laas, the cold white of a lab. She’d decorated hers in earth greens and light browns, the floor carpeted in a fine nap that tickled bare feet in a sensual way.

  Couches strewn with cushions stood about, and the softly lit walls hid her hordes of computer equipment and databanks.

  Her console, lit from beneath in soothing greens and blues, hummed on the far side of the room. That was Baine’s true home, although the computer flowed through the entire house.

  Rio and Dr. Laas stood in the middle of the room. Between them a crate rested, long and wide, filthy with time.

  “Rylan,” Dr. Laas said, her usual sardonic tone softened. She wore a long robe, slit up each side to her thighs and down her front to her navel. Her blonde hair had been wound into a bun, locks tugged loose where she’d worried it all day.

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  Allyson James

  Rylan crossed the room, throwing off his outer robe as he went. Rio, in his usual black leather pants and leather tunic open to the waist, shot him a sympathetic look.

  When Rio looked sympathetic, things were bad.

  “Is that it?” he asked.

  The crate was old, made of a metal he did not recognize, battered and dented.

  Controls had been set in its side, but they were smashed and coated with grime.

  “Shit,” he said.

  Dr. Laas started to lay a hand on his arm, then arrested the movement. A woman couldn’t touch a Shareem without wanting to caress him, and this was not the time.

  The crate was a suspended animation unit. It had been listed among the effects of one Dr. Flinders, a DNAmo researcher, who’d died last week. Rylan had sifted through the contents of his estate via computer and had found this item—

  One suspended animation vessel, warehouse 27, sector D, Pas City, Bor Narga.

  Rylan’s heartbeat raced, accelerating beyond even Shareem speeds. “Is it her?”

  Baine sounded affronted. “I can match DNA, Shareem. It’s rudimentary computing, even after all this time. I am never wrong.”

  “Can I strangle him?” Rio muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

  “I heard that,” Baine said.

  Rylan studied the crate again, battered and worn with time.

  The day DNAmo fell, he’d entered Maia’s room through the secret passages, only to find it empty. A cloth bundle of belongings, things she’d never leave behind, lay forlornly next to her bed.

  But no Maia.

  He’d scoured DNAmo and the grounds around the compound. Rio had helped. The place had been chaos, researchers hastily downloading notes from computers, stuffing files and info chips into bags, wiping consoles of information.

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  Maia and Rylan

  Government auditors strode through corridors, tall women with superior looks on their faces, confiscating everything they touched, searching for elusive Shareem.

  Most of the Shareem had made good their escape and melted into the alleys of the city.

  Rylan himself had nearly been caught, before Rio had dragged him away.

  He’d searched every room in the fucking complex, and then he’d started searching the nearby streets.

  He had never, ever found Maia—not any record of her, nor any trace.

  She’d simply vanished.

  After things had cooled down, and the government had ruled that killing the Shareem would be inhumane— would make them look bad, they mean, Rio said—Rylan had returned to the city and searched it.

  To no avail. Nowhere had he found any knowledge of the black-haired, beautiful girl he’d fallen in love with.

  Then, a day ago, he’d discovered the existence of the suspended animation unit and called Dr. Laas.

  “Open it,” he said abruptly.

  “We should run more tests,” Baine said. “The unit has badly deteriorated.”

  “Open the damn thing. I have to know.”

  Dr. Laas nodded, understanding. “Baine, can you open it without disturbing the contents?”

  “As you can see, the controls have disintegrated. Not the best packing container.

  The idiot who chose it obviously didn’t care about keeping her alive.”

  “Baine!”

  The computer sighed. “Touch the large round control on the left. It is only a mechanical latch, and will open the crate without destroying anything.”

  Dr. Laas looked at Rio. “Would you?”

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  “Let me,” Rylan interrupted.

  Rio glanced at him. His swarthy face was tight, without a trace
of his usual humor.

  He nodded at Rylan.

  Rylan touched his fingers to the control. He tried to stretch his Shareem senses to feel what lay inside the crate.

  After twenty years of searching, had he finally found her? Buried and forgotten in a warehouse, mystery solved?

  He pressed the control.

  The box wheezed open, the mechanism long frozen. Rio grabbed one side of the lid, and together he and Rylan hauled it off.

  Inside lay a coffin-shaped box covered with a sun-blocking sheet. Rylan heard a faint hum of circuitry.

  “Baine?” Dr. Laas prompted.

  “The control system is functioning—barely.”

  Rylan couldn’t stand it any longer. He reached for the metallic blanket.

  Dr. Laas stopped him. “Let me do it. You might disturb something.”

  Rylan’s fingers froze on the sheet, then he nodded, and released it. Dr. Laas folded back the metallic cloth.

  A woman lay, naked, in a transparent container, body floating in an anti-grav field.

  Soft lights blinked along the sides of the box. Tubes and coils snaked through the container and around her limbs, binding her like blinking vines.

  A thick braid of lush black hair twined about her abdomen. Her breasts were round and full, the areolas as large as old-fashioned copper coins. She had shapely hips and plump thighs, between which swirled a brush of midnight hair.

  Her eyes were closed, her round, pixie-like face pale and relaxed. Her lips, lush and full, were parted slightly, as though she awaited her lover to kiss her while she slept.

  Rylan laid his hand on the transparent lid.

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  Maia and Rylan

  After all these years, and all this emptiness. He’d found her.

  Maia.

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  Allyson James

  Chapter Three

  “I’m going to open it,” Dr. Laas announced. “These controls are pretty far gone.

  Even if we only move her to another unit, I have to get her out of this one.”

  Rylan folded his bare arms, his fingers catching on his black metal chain. “What are the chances she’ll survive?”

  Dr. Laas’ gaze shifted. “Pretty good.”

  “Don’t lie. I’m Shareem. I can smell lies.”

  She met his gaze. Her eyes were tired. “About forty percent that she’ll live.”

  “Is that all?” Rio asked.

  “It’s the best I can do.”

  “Fuck,” Rylan muttered.

  “I know this sounds cruel, Rylan,” she said. “But even if she dies, at least you’ll know what happened to her.”

  If anything, this slim hope was worse. To find her after so long, only to see her lost permanently, was more than he could stand.

  “I want better odds,” Rylan growled. As Dr. Laas opened her mouth to protest, he held up a broad hand. “But we don’t have them. Tell me what you want me to do.”

  Dr. Laas looked back at the tall man clad in the same sleeveless tunic as when he’d contacted her this morning. His sun-streaked brown hair was caught in a disciplined tail, folded once on itself and bound at his neck.

  Everything about him was controlled and tight.

  Except his eyes. His Shareem eyes, blue irises wide, were tormented.

  The Shareem don’t love, she remembered a stuffy researcher saying.

  Gracksfeathers.

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  Maia and Rylan

  She took Rylan’s hand, which was hot and dry. “Come here,” she said. “I’ll show you what to do.”

  * * * * *

  Searing pain coursed through her, and she gasped.

  Air hit lungs that had been still for twenty years, burning like sand on glass. Her heart throbbed to grab the first intake of oxygen, stabbing white-hot pain through her chest.

  She writhed, trying to get away from it, and found herself bound fast. Snakes wound themselves about her, clenching her, opening mouths to devour her.

  She screamed. No sound came from her lips.

  She was choking, she was dying.

  Through the pain came a frantic buzz of voices. “We need to calm her.”

  “Not with a tranquilizer.” The voice was clinical and cold. “With all those chemicals you pumped through her, it would kill her.”

  “No shit, Baine,” a woman’s voice said. “Rylan.”

  Hands touched her. Two hands, strong and large and warm. They slid under the snakes, keeping their mouths from her.

  But the pain remained. She whimpered, trying to roll away from it.

  “Rio, help him.”

  More hands. Hands callused and rough, stroking her skin, sliding over her breasts and her belly and her legs.

  And voices, deep and sensual. They eased into the dark parts of her mind. “It’s all right, love. Shh.” “That’s it, sweetheart. You’re safe now.”

  The four hands roved her breasts, sliding over her thighs, brushing her mound.

  Then down her calves to her feet, and up her legs again to her abdomen.

  “You’re back with us, Maia.”

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  Allyson James

  Maia?

  She opened her eyes.

  She could see nothing but piercing light, and clamped them shut again.

  “Shh,” said the voices. They murmured things she did not understand, but somehow they encased her in sound, calming her. Her limbs grew warm and supple.

  Slowly, bravely, she opened her eyes again.

  She could see little more than a blur at first, then, with each blink, her vision cleared.

  Two men hung over her. One had black hair trailing over his shoulder in a long tail.

  The other had sun-warmed brown hair dragged back from a chiseled face.

  The brown-haired man wore a sleeveless garment with a black chain on his upper arm. The other wore black, a fabric that creaked as he moved.

  They went on touching her. Strong, sinewy, practiced hands slid over her body, down between her legs with a touch as light as silk.

  Looking into their blue eyes, hearing their voices and feeling their touch, brought a strange lassitude to her. Her panic receded to the back of her mind.

  “That’s it,” the brown-haired man said. She craved his voice and the lips that spoke the words, but she did not know why. “Lie still, sweetheart.”

  She closed her eyes. As long as he stayed with her, she would be all right.

  “I’m going to disconnect the tubes,” said the female voice. Compared to the male voices, it was harsh and staccato. “Baine?”

  “Trying now, madam.”

  The snakes writhed on her legs. Her eyes flew open again, and she bit back a scream.

  “Shh,” the brown-haired man said. “We’re trying to make it better.”

  “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” the black-haired one murmured. “You’re in the best hands.” He chuckled.

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  “Ah,” said the cold voice. “A Shareem with a sense of humor.”

  “Pay attention, Baine,” the woman snapped.

  “Madam, I am capable of running fifty-four complex tasks at once. A normal computer would have fried by now.”

  “At least it would be quiet.”

  The four hands touched her body, palms warm, fingers deft. She relaxed to it. A hand traced her breast, fingers gently pinching the areola.

  Before she understood what happened, the snakes writhed once, then receded.

  She breathed a sigh of relief.

  Then suddenly, she felt very, very sick. A thick moan escaped her as her body flooded with pain.

  “Easy,” said the black-haired man.

  “Dr. Laas,” the other man snapped. His voice was harsh and angry.

  “Damn,” the woman growled. “I was afraid of that. Move, Rio.”

  The black-haired man stepped aside, and a woman’s face filled her vision. Her chin was pointed and her eyes were sharp.

  The woman held up
a hypo with a long, pointed needle.

  A flash of light blinded her. She seemed to see a man, white-haired and small, his smile crazed, plunging a needle into her side. She screamed.

  “Rylan, hold her down!”

  The strong hands grabbed her in an unyielding grip. She stared in horror at the brown-haired man’s determined face, and then felt the sting of the hypo.

  She tried to form the word why? and then all went dark again.

  * * * * *

  Rylan studied Maia sleeping next to him in the bed, her body half covered with a sheet. He’d washed and re-braided her hair, which lay in a black line at her side.

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  Allyson James

  As in all rooms in Dr. Laas’ house, the air was softly scented, this time in light lavender. It induced a restful sleep, Dr. Laas said.

  Rylan loved Dr. Laas right now, because the woman had saved Maia.

  Maia had started to die when Baine removed the tubes and turned off the anti-grav unit. Baine had said, Perhaps it’s for the best; she’s probably brain-damaged.

  Rio had threatened to bash the computer to bits. Dr. Laas had told Baine to shut up and then worked fiercely to save the girl’s life.

  She had done it—how, Rylan did not know, but Dr. Laas was a genius.

  In the end, Maia breathed normally and her heart beat normally and her organs and brain worked normally. Rylan had been covered in sweat by the time Dr. Laas was done.

  He’d stripped off and bathed himself in one of Dr. Laas’ extravagant bathrooms.

  Then Dr. Laas carried Maia down on a float pallet, and sat on the side of the huge tub while Rylan bathed Maia, too.

  Maia had awakened during the bath. She’d stared at Rylan in stark fear until Rylan soothed her with hands and voice, and she’d fallen into natural sleep.

  Now Rylan lounged on her bed while she slept beside him.

  He lifted her hand. In her sleep, she coiled her fingers around his.

  The door hissed open, and Rio walked in. He’d removed his clothes, having bathed himself—it was a popular activity after the stress of saving Maia—and wore only a loincloth strung across his hips. His black hair glistened with water.

  “How is she?” he asked.

  “Sleeping.” Rylan’s hand tightened on hers. “She didn’t know me.”