Erstwhile: A Sci-Fi Romance (The Jekh Saga Book 1) Read online

  Is this “builder’s special” supposed to be the future?

  The house looked like every new construction mini-McMansion back on Earth. Apparently, the best outer space had to offer her was contractor-white paint over drywall, taupe carpet, and a skylight for flair. She hadn’t known what to expect, but certainly something other than that.

  Her relocation specialist, Tim, strode into the great room and made a demonstrative sweep of his arm. “You’re in luck. This was one of the more unique units. Has some upgrades the builder decided not to use in the second crop of houses.”

  Jerry scampered to the baseboards and immediately took up sniffing them, probably in search of his first spot to defile. She’d need to check and see if the backyard was fenced so she could let him out.

  “What sort of upgrades?” she asked, only half-listening.

  “Hidden storage spaces, extra cabinetry, real wood trim. That sort of thing. The wood’s all imported. Native wood is too soft for this sort of construction. Shall I give you the tour?” Tim grinned broadly and canted his head toward the staircase.

  Half-listening or not, she figured out what he wanted with no delay.

  Hell no.

  She just wanted to snatch her keys from him and tell him to leave. She’d fought her way through two different police academies and before that, had to hustle her way through college. She had no doubt that she could figure out the floor plan of a traditional, single-family home.

  “Um. You know what?” She spread on the winning smile that had always earned her an extra cookie from her grandmother. “I need some time to decompress.”

  “Oh! Well—”

  “Alone, if you don’t mind. You know how tiring relocation is. Moving into an empty house. No furniture. No food in the fridge.” She chuckled. “New city. New planet. I just need to get my bearings.”

  “Oh. Totally understand. I was like that when I arrived last year.” He drummed his fingers atop his tablet and rocked back on his heels.

  So leave.

  “You’ve been matched, huh? Do you know if the guy is someone who’s already on-planet?”

  God. She ground her palms against her tired eyes and tuned in to the sound of Jerry snuffling across the room. Maybe he was probably trying to acclimate himself to the scents of the place in the same way she was trying to get used to the sights.

  The light spectrum in Jekh’s atmosphere was subtly different than Earth’s. Other settlers she’d corresponded with before the trip said she’d get used to the bluer light in time, but had been provided with color-adjusting glasses that would adjust what she saw into a spectrum more similar to Earth’s. What she wouldn’t get so easily used to, those same settlers had said, was the natives’ ruddy skin. Everything from their skin to hair to eyes was redder than in humans. Redder to better absorb the available light, apparently.

  Court had never seen a Jekhan, except in caricature, but her grandfather had said, “They might make you do a double take, but they’re just like us.” He’d been one of the few Terrans who believed that, and she’d been glad she’d trusted him.

  He’d told the truth. She’d saw a Jekhan janitor at the port, and she’d indeed done a double take. She’d thought he was human. There was no way Jekhans didn’t have shared genetics with humans. The odds for that kind of coincidence in appearances were simply too small.

  Sensing Tim still there, she grunted, then dropped her hands. “Yes, the agency reached out to match me with a settler and I figured I’d at least meet whoever they sent me. And, no, he’s not on the planet at the moment. He’s apparently a trader on a freighter run and not due back for several months.”

  That was all she knew about him, other than his name. Reg Devin. Her Internet searches on him had brought up nothing interesting.

  “Oh! Well, if you want to meet for coffee or something sometime, just give me a call at the agency. Getting busier with more and more settlers arriving, but I think I can squeeze you in.” Tim winked.

  She stifled a scoff and gave herself a mental high-five for the restraint. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks for the ride.” She opened the door, hoping he’d get the hint.

  “Tap communicators and swap numbers?” He held out his arm and pointed to his wrist. “Just tap your watch to mine. You’ll have all my info, and I’ll have yours.”

  “Oh.” She tried, and likely failed, to keep her smile serene. Her mouth twitched at one corner, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  Another blind man.

  “I guess you’re my first contact.” She bumped her wrist to his ever so lightly, and wondered if deleting useless information from those things would be as easy as with her old communicator. She didn’t want to waste so much as a kilobyte of her thirty-two terabytes on Tim.

  Jerry scratched at a closed door just off the kitchen, and she whistled at him. “Nails, Jerry.”

  He plopped his hindquarters onto the carpet and thrashed his tail against the door. Probably wanted to explore.

  Tim held out her key fob and the electronic badge containing her entry credentials to the neighborhood. “We’ll send around a settling-in basket tomorrow morning. If I can find the time, I might bring the goodies myself.”

  “Great! Call first.” She took the keys. She’d do everything she could not to be there when he arrived.

  “Stevedores should have your stuff off The Cormorant soon, so the runners may be around in an hour with the rest of your luggage. Might want to open the basement door so they can haul things through there.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  When he didn’t move immediately, she waved at him. “See ya.”

  He waved back, opened his mouth as if to say something, but apparently thought better of speaking the words. He jogged out the front door, down the stairs, and out to his company car. The little solar-powered thing reminded her of a clown car and moved about as slowly as a fully loaded one. They’d been seated so closely in the thing that she’d been disquieted the entire ride by his breath on her arm hairs. Erin wouldn’t have survived the short trip. She would have gotten out and walked.

  Court closed the door and engaged the one simple electronic lock before sliding down to the floor.

  “I hope they’re not all like that, Jerry.”

  Jerry thumped his tail some more and canted his furry, caramel-colored head to the side.

  “Can’t deal. Should have known better though, right? Sissy said they’d probably all be sex-starved and looking to pounce on anything with a cunt.”

  The dog settled onto his belly and crossed his front legs. He didn’t understand her, of course, but he’d always done a good job of pretending. If he weren’t such a good listener, she might have spared him the hard trip and left him on Earth with Erin. Space had been at a premium on the shuttle, and Court had needed to bring him. He made her smile at the end of the day and kept her from being lonely. At the last minute, the shuttle company made room for him in live animal storage, but she’d had to pay handsomely for their inconvenience. Her Earth checking account was tapped dry.

  Her watch read fifteen hundred hours. She could probably take a nap while the stevedores finished. Or perhaps log into the house’s computer system and pick out some furniture. Order some groceries or find a grocery store at the very least. She’d prefer to see for herself what the local wares were rather than trusting a computer rendering.

  Jerry barked.

  “Or, I could walk the dog.”

  Jerry jumped up, ran to the front door, but seeing that there was no leash there as there had been in Court’s apartment back on Earth, he ran in a confused circle.

  “Ditz. Come on. Your leash is in my tote.” Fortunately, she’d had the good sense to put that in her carry-on. She clipped the clasp onto his collar, adjusted the collar buckle-side up, and then brushed some remnant stasis compound dust out of his fur. “Shit. If you’ve got it, I’ve probably got crud all over me, too. Don’t even want to know what I look like right now.”

  Good enou
gh for Tim, apparently, but that probably wasn’t saying much.

  ___

  “Just a woman,” Trig whispered. He stood in the shadows and tracked her ankles back and forth as she paced in front of the basement window.

  The closet wasn’t well insulated from the great room upstairs, and he’d heard her talking to the man who’d left. She was alone, save for a pet of some sort. She’d mentioned a leash, so perhaps one of those canines Terrans called dogs. There was nothing like them capable of domesticity on Jekh. Jekhans weren’t much for pet keeping, anyway, beyond fish and birds.

  She moved away from the window well and, as if pulled by some tether, Trig followed.

  He got as close to the window as he dared, hiding his body next to the opening and leaning slowly to watch her.

  Her back was turned.

  The dog—an energetic little beast with medium-length tan-and-white fur and a brown nose—darted back and forth between his owner and the back gate Trig had used so many times during the dark of night.

  She bent down to pet him, and he caught only a glimpse of her profile before her wild mass of hair obstructed his view.

  His hand was on the glass, as if he could push back that curtain from her face for a better view before he realized what he was doing.

  “Damn.” He wiped the palm print from the window with his sleeve, and settled back into the shadow.

  “Five minutes,” she called out the dog.

  Must have been a smart dog, because he made way to the fence and obediently lifted a leg.

  She moved toward the gate with her hands stuffed into the pockets of her cargo pants. At the fence, she stopped, and seemed to be studying the alleyway the city sent its trash haulers through once a fortnight.

  Standing next to that gate, he could tell just how small she was. The top stopped at her chest. She couldn’t have been much more than a meter-and-a-half in height. The few Terran women he’d seen so far had been tall, hale, and hearty—perfect breeders. They were immediately sent out to the farms in the rural districts like where he’d lived before his parents died in their accident.

  He wondered what this slight little woman would be doing for a living until her man came to collect her. Running a shop? She probably had a trade. Craftswoman of some sort. She wouldn’t have been allowed to come in the early settlement wave if she didn’t have a skill they desperately needed.

  “Come on, Jerry. We need to see about food.”

  Even muffled through the window glass, her voice was an erotic treat. There was a sultry warmth about it that seemed to settle into his body and made his nuts ache. Handling business had been the last thing on his mind lately with Murk being ill. At the moment, Trig didn’t see where he had a choice but to touch himself. He hurt. And she’d done that to him with just her voice.

  She turned to face the house, and he jumped back with a gasp. “Fuck.”

  She was…beautiful. Yes, that was the right word. Not an exaggeration. Even Murk with his artist’s eye would agree. Her features were delicate, but somehow managed to be generous at the same time. Those lips…

  She couldn’t have been a desperate bride seeking opportunity on a hostile planet. She had to be some man’s first choice—someone’s prize. He knew how the system worked. For the moment, that man wasn’t around. Maybe he and Murk wouldn’t have to run just yet.

  Murk might just perk up at the sight of her.

  Trig hurried to the closet, locked the door behind him, and bent into the secret space. He shifted the sliding panel back into place, and got on his knees to give Murk a shake.

  “Murk. Try to wake up.”

  Murk let out a raspy breath and forced his burgundy eyes open. Slowly, he lifted his hand and laid it on Trig’s wrist.

  “There’s a woman here. Alone. Maybe she can help.”

  Murk closed his eyes and gave Trig’s wrist the barest squeeze. He’d already given up.

  Trig understood his partner’s lack of enthusiasm. After all, why would anyone help them? Trig took his hand is his and rubbed. “Really, Murk. I’ll get you something that’ll help.”

  Something she’d worn that carried her aroma. A shirt, perhaps. Anything with pheromones, really. It wouldn’t be a cure, but maybe the scent could get Murk on his feet. Then they could move on to someplace else and find Murk the medicine he needed.

  “Gods, Murk. I wish you could see her.”

  Murk’s eyebrows shifted a few millimeters upward before falling back to their usual positions.

  “Darkest hair I’ve ever seen. All wild and curly. Her skin is like that paint you could never afford. It’s brown or tan or gold or some color I don’t know the word for. Maybe you’d tell me the word if you could talk.”

  Murk’s vocabulary in any language was far more expansive than Trig’s. Didn’t do him a damn bit of good at the moment, though, since his vocal cords were paralyzed along with most of the rest of him.

  “She’s a goddess, Murk. I swear.”

  He settled down in front of his partner, back against the wall in the cramped space, and slipped his hand down the front of his pants. “Sorry.”

  Murk gave the barest nod and rested his hand on Trig’s ankle.

  Trig hadn’t had a real erection in weeks, and that last one had been the result of a dream that had seemed so real that when he woke, he cried to see Murk hadn’t miraculously improved.

  Also, there was the small matter of not being particularly attracted to anyone else. Murk had always set an impossible standard that no other man came close to meeting. Trig hadn’t expected a woman would surpass it.

  He closed his fingers around the base of his shaft and gave it a tentative clench in his pants.

  Murk squeezed his ankle again, his heavy-lidded gaze on Trig’s crotch.

  “Oh.” Wasn’t going to be much of a show for Murk.

  Trig freed his cock from his pants and experimentally dragged his thumb over the head. Already, tightness pooled at the base of his spine and frissons of electricity danced through his core. He put his head back and started long, slow tugs that made blood rush from places that mattered more than his too-turgid cock.

  “Gods.”

  He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth as the tease of pleasure tightened his balls, and hissed when warmth was immediately replaced by stabbing pain in his midsection. As he filled his hand with infertile ejaculate, he bit down hard on the other, nearly breaking the skin.

  Tears tracked down his cheeks as his toes curled in his shoes. His cock’s pulses slowed, and he freed his fist from his teeth’s clench.

  Murk looked up at him, and worry drew his features tight.

  Trig couldn’t lie. Couldn’t say, “It’ll be all right,” because he’d stopped believing things would get better.

  He’d gotten it, too.

  The Ague.

  He could have weeks or months of waiting, but eventually, he would be flat on his back just like Murk.

  “I’ll…I’ll figure something out.” Trig scraped his hand clean on his handkerchief. “Maybe the Terrans left some of the treatments at the clinics. If I can break in…”

  Murk’s breath came out in a sharp stab—the closest sound he could make to a scoff.

  “Yeah. I know. If I break in, I’ll get caught. They’re not going to send me to the slums this time. They’re going to pitch me into one of work camps like they wanted all along for us.”

  Murk gave one more squeeze.

  “I won’t do that to you. I’ll stay close.”

  Murk closed his eyes. In less than a minute, he was asleep again.

  While Murk slept, Trig plotted, just like always.

  The woman upstairs meant there’d be food in the house soon. When she left for her errands, he’d filch a little. She’d probably never notice.

  He tucked his flaccid, traitorous cock into his pants and tightened the drawstring.

  She’d change her clothes soon. Maybe even for bed. He’d just take one piece. People never missed the things they
didn’t value. That was probably why he and Murk were living in a cramped hidden compartment inside a settler’s walk-in closet.

  She’d be like all the rest of them. Beautiful, yes, but probably ruthless.

  Trig wondered if he should be more ruthless.

  He smoothed Murk’s hair back from his face and brushed his thumb across the other man’s lips.

  Yeah. Ruthless.

  For Murk, he could try.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The next morning, Courtney stood at the front door and jangled Jerry’s leash. “Come on. Amy’s waiting.”

  Jerry made a quiet woof of refusal and plopped his ass onto the floor in front of the basement door.

  “What is with you? Did space travel warp your doggie brain?”

  Another woof, followed by him pawing the doorframe.

  “You really want to see what’s down there, huh? There’s nothing down there. I saw for myself yesterday when the delivery guys brought my cargo from the ship.”

  Apparently Jerry needed some convincing.

  She sighed, draped the leash over the knob, and strode to the basement door. “Fine. Move.”

  He skittered merrily out of the way, tail thrashing excitedly as she pulled the door open.

  She hit the stair lights, and pointed down. “See for yourself.”

  He was a beige bolt down the stairs.

  Shaking her head, she followed, leisurely skimming her fingers along the glossy stair rail as she descended. The house was way too damn big for her, but the best she could tell from her research before bed the previous night, pretty much everything available was that size. The houses seemed wasteful and excessive, but she remembered the settlement’s would-be mission for her: breed, breed, breed.

  The dog immediately put nose to ground and started sniffing everything and nothing.

  She opened the bedroom’s door, crossed her arms over her chest, and leaned against the wall. “Have at it. Get your fill so we can go. I’ve got a lot to do today.”

  For one thing, she needed to finish picking out furnishings. They were included in her relocation package, and getting them was a simple matter of choosing which she preferred from the electronic catalogue. They’d be delivered the same day, or the next, from the construction warehouse in Buinet. The furniture was all waiting room-grade stuff—nothing unique. Nothing she would have spent her own money on back on Earth, but it’d be the best she could do until she could get her heirlooms hauled from Earth.