AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Jade nodded, thinking of three of the women who’d found Lynxians to love and marry in the year that they’d been stranded here. “Is it dangerous?”
“No more than any other pregnancy.”
Jade shuddered. Those were dangerous enough in themselves, without adding all of this strange science into the mix. “What do you know about Leopardines?”
Cherie must have been used to rapid topic switching and endless questions, either from having four cubs of her own or from helping teach classes at the school. She just rolled with the sudden change of topic. “Well, they’re taller than Lynxians, and their system has incredibly lush planets with lots of greenery and lots of steppe land. The planets are divided into districts ruled by lords, who are sort of a cross between prime ministers and kings of small kingdoms. Each planet has an archlord which must be elected by the citizens and rules over the district lords, and the system itself has a supreme archlord. I don’t know much else about the government or geography.”
“How do they treat women?”
“I... Don’t really know. You could look up some things on a database computer. Dane has one, and I—”
“No! No, I have the use of one. I just wondered if you knew. It sounds like a pretty place to live.”
“Jade, are you thinking of moving to the Leopardine System?” Cherie gasped. “Away from all of us?”
Jade wanted to scoff. All of us? There was no “all of us.” After ten years in the Pleasure Parks, you developed a solitary worldview of self-preservation to keep from being miserable when other girls left—or died. Overdosed. Had an accident. Caught something even the most modern medicine couldn’t cure.
Even here, people tried to include her, and she couldn’t join in. She knew. She knew when a crisis hit, they would take care of themselves and their precious new furry families before they thought of her.
“I don’t like working in the fields or the mines. There’s not much else for me here. I’m thinking of taking a job, and if I like it, I’ll be relocating permanently,” Jade said. Her voice was breezy and calm. No one but her would know that wasn’t her real voice. No one had heard her true voice—something desperate and harsh at times, small and soft at others, in ten years. Maybe Cherie could tell. The nurse had heard her speak when first landing on this dusty planet, confused and betrayed—again.
“Oh, we’ll miss you! But I understand. I almost went back to Sapien-Three, myself.”
“I’m never going back there!” Jade’s answer whipped out, too fast and intense to maintain her mask. “Sorry. Um. I’d better not take up more of your time. You’ve got baking and bedtime to do with your family, and I want to research a few things.”
Jade hung up after Cherie’s startled farewell, keeping it short and not letting the sheriff’s bride linger on the call. She didn’t want pity, and she didn’t want to be talked into staying here.
No lure that someday it’ll feel right. That I could be happy here. That if I’m not happy alone, I can never be happy with myself. People who say that have never had to put survival over joy.
Okay, then.
Jade’s slender fingers swiped across the wide, flat screen of the database computer, opening another box beside the contract she had been perusing. She’d better hurry back to it. There could be hundreds of other women looking—
Oh. No. There aren’t hundreds of other fertile women in this galaxy. Few adult Queens and even fewer humans. For all I know, I’m the only available human in their entire galaxy.
It gave her a feeling of power, one she was seldom used to.
Leopardine System. She tapped in the words and was immediately confronted by a dozen options from governmental, business, and tourist sites.
Pretty place. Filled with furry cat men.
They weren’t handsome to her. No one attracted her anymore. Too many bodies, too many good-looking humans with ugly actions and hearts. She didn’t trust her eyes or her heart anymore.
Well, good. If it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter. Just fill out the form, and see what happens. Once he meets you—he probably won’t pick you, even if you are the only woman in the galaxy who applies.
“ARDOL?”
“What?!” Ardol spun guiltily in his chair, hoping the Canid, Jaxson, hadn’t just witnessed what was on his screen.
“Did those processor cores come in?” Jaxson was an ESM, an Engine Systems Mechanic, and even though he was a Canid, he was the captain’s brother-in-law.
He stole a Queen from us.
Of course, his Queen died, too.
“You okay?” Jaxson bent and peered into his eyes. “You look like you just had a nasty scare. Bad news from home?”
“No. No, no.” That all happened earlier in the week. “Your processor cores? They’re coming from Lynx-One. Once we’re in orbit, the pod will jettison to us. Should be in a few days. That okay?”
