The Mandala Maneuver Read online

  “I agree.” She bent down and retrieved her satchel from the floor of the capsule, pulling out her tablet as she did so. A second or two to hook it up to the onboard computer, and then a few seconds more to dump the data onto the small handheld processor. “Okay, I’ve got everything useful off the computer,” she said. “There should be an emergency kit in that panel directly behind you.”

  The Zhore nodded and used his gloved fingers to pry open the small metal panel, then retrieved the waterproof bag containing a week’s worth of water and rations, as well as survival gear such as a thermal blanket and emergency lighting. Never mind that the kit had been designed to keep one person alive for a week, not two full-grown adults.

  Maybe she should’ve pushed to get to that other escape pod. Then they would have had double their current supplies. On the other hand, there was a very good chance the two pods would have landed kilometers apart, and that would’ve been even worse. She had no idea who or what was after them, or why they’d been shot down. It was better to be with the Zhore than alone. She’d just have to hope they could find some potable water on this world. The survival gear would have a testing kit for that. As for the rest….

  Well, it shouldn’t take them a week to hike a hundred kilometers, even if the terrain proved to be difficult. Her brief scan of Mandala’s data had told her that the world was classified as “unimprovable, with no exploitable resources,” which meant that it had too much native flora and fauna to be worth colonizing without a massive sterilization and replanting. The Consortium tended to leave such worlds alone, as the costs of making them over in Gaia’s image were actually higher than terraforming a planet from scratch. The atmosphere was breathable, though, and she’d already determined that the gravity would not be a problem. As for that flora and fauna —

  Horror stories of the early days of galactic exploration, of man-eating plants and predators who sprayed their victims with acid before devouring them so they would be easier to digest, flitted across her mind’s eye. No, she couldn’t worry about that now. The kit had a knife and a pulse pistol. They wouldn’t be completely defenseless.

  She hoped.

  “Ready?” she asked, reaching out for the controls to blow the hatch.

  “Ready,” Lirzhan said quietly.

  Alexa pushed the button, and the light and air of Mandala flowed in around them.

  Two

  Lirzhan watched Alexa Craig step outside, the gray-white light of Mandala’s sun turning her hair almost to silver around the edges before she disappeared through the hatch. Something in him had wanted to stop her so he could go first, but with the way the tiny capsule was set up, that would have been nearly impossible. Even so, he hurried after her as quickly as he could, the heavy emergency kit slung over one shoulder. He did not want to let her out of sight, not now, when he had finally met the one he had been seeking for so many years.

  When he’d entered the cabin of the shuttle that scant seven standard hours ago, knowing that he would be sharing it with Ambassador Craig, he had not expected anything save the brief greetings custom required. He had not expected to see her lift her head and murmur a softly voiced hello in Galactic Standard, and to feel that one simple word like a shock to the very center of his being.

  She was beautiful, yes, the alien beauty of a Gaian, with her pale smooth skin and dark gold hair. That hair had been pulled severely back into a knot at the base of her neck, revealing the fine lines of her jaw and throat, the curve of her high cheekbones. He’d wanted to pull the pins out of that hair and see it cascade over her shoulders and caress her neck. He’d wanted —

  All of her. In that moment he’d felt a brief pulse of annoyance, and then almost a mental shrug, as she turned away from him to look out the window. But beneath that annoyance he sensed sadness, and he’d wished he could go to her and comfort her, take her in his arms.

  Madness. And yet, it was more than that. The resonance was there. His mother had tried to explain it to him, and his father had made the attempt as well, but although Lirzhan understood the concept on an intellectual level, he could not fathom how it would feel in real life.

  “Ah, well, you’ll know one day,” his mother told him, and smiled, sending a loving glance in her husband’s direction.

  Lirzhan had hoped that day would come, the day when he would meet the woman of his heart. He’d just never expected it would come in the form of a Gaian female.

  And now…

  The air that met his nose smelled damp and fresh, overlaid with hundreds of complicated scents — unfamiliar flowers and grassy plants, dark earth beneath his feet, an atmosphere thick with moisture, although it was not raining at the moment. He sensed nothing inimical nearby, although a dusky odor beneath all the others told him that this world was not free of predators.

  Alexa Craig stood a few paces off, head tilted upward as she surveyed the trees that towered around them. Some sort of deciduous variety, he decided, looking at the delicate, lacy leaves and the wide, spreading branches. Above, the sky was a greenish-blue, streaked with clouds in shades of pale gray. Flowers of a subtle blue dotted the vegetation below his booted feet.

  All in all, he thought, Mandala seemed to be rather a lovely world. He wondered why the Gaians had not yet settled here.

  “The science station is that way,” Alexa said, after a brief glance downward at her tablet, and pointed ahead of her and slightly to her right. “Not that I see any real paths, but the ground doesn’t look too rough here.”

  He took in her tailored jacket and skirt, and wondering how she was going to hike through miles of jungle in such attire. “Do you think you’ll be able to manage the terrain?” True, her boots had low, sensible heels, unlike some of the footwear he’d seen women teetering around in during his time on Eridani, but the rest of the outfit was definitely not suited for arduous outdoor travel.

  Her sky-blue eyes narrowed, and one hand planted on the curve of her hip. He tried not to stare. She was…distracting.

  “Why shouldn’t I?” she replied. “I train for at least an hour in the gym every day. I passed my last physical with flying colors. I’m sure I can handle it just fine.”

  “Of course,” he said quickly, wishing he hadn’t asked. “If you’re sure,” he added, realizing that any comments he made as to the viability of her outfit in such conditions would most likely be met with hostility.

  Alexa Craig might be sayara, but she did seem rather…prickly.

  “Of course I’m sure,” she responded at once. “It’s not as if we have much of a choice. We certainly can’t stay here. That capsule can’t have been that hard to track.” A lift of one delicate eyebrow, and she added, almost as if she’d somehow read his thoughts, “And yes, if I’d known how my day was going to end up, maybe I wouldn’t have dressed to impress, but I can’t really change that now, can I?”

  Under the hood, Lirzhan’s lips quirked. Good thing she couldn’t see his smile; he had a feeling she would not have appreciated it. “This is true. Please lead on, Ambassador Craig.”

  By her expression, she did not appear particularly mollified, but she only nodded and struck out for the least overgrown section of ground that presented itself. He knew better than to offer to take the tablet from her and step out in front, even though he guessed he had far more experience with this kind of terrain than she did. Zhoraan had been kept in its natural state as much as possible, and all of its people knew how to make their way through the wilderness while impacting the natural world as little as possible.

  Lirzhan could not say the same for the Gaians.

  However, Alexa seemed to move confidently enough, and at the moment the route she had chosen did not seem all that difficult. So he followed her in silence, letting her set the pace. She did seem quite fit, as she had asserted before. If the terrain took a turn for the worse, then he would volunteer to lead. Until then….

  Until then, he was experiencing a quite un-Zhore-like pleasure in watching the movement of her hips and rear
end in the slim-fitting skirt she wore. The women of his race swathed themselves in heavy robes, the same as the men did, and so he had not had much opportunity to admire the female form. True, the women of Eridani and Gaia and Minari did not hide their bodies, but he had experienced no attraction to any of them. After all, they were not sayara.

  But this woman….

  He set his jaw and tore his gaze away from her slender but well-curved form and instead looked around him. This deciduous forest appeared to extend in all directions. Far above them he heard odd chittering sounds, most likely from some sort of arboreal creatures, although even his keen eyes could not detect them among the thick foliage. Whatever they were, they seemed to be keeping their distance, most likely frightened by the two interlopers making such a racket as they moved through the woods.

  He was glad of the thick foliage overhead, and the multiple life signs around them would possibly make it more difficult for them to be tracked. Every minute or so he would glance up, halfway expecting to see a gleaming ship descending from the clouds, hot on their trail, but so far the skies were empty of anything except those clouds, and a few avian creatures circling high overhead.

  At least the temperature was pleasant here beneath the trees, although his heavy robes had been designed to accommodate extremes of climate, whether hot or cold. And since there were no signs of immediate pursuit, he began to wonder if this trek might not be so terrible after all. A few days of hiking through the woods…a few days to be alone with Alexa Craig. And at the end of it, a science station with the communication equipment that would bring their desired rescue. Perhaps by that point she would have opened up to him somehow. She did not seem the type for confidences, but spending a good deal of time in another person’s company often changed such predispositions.

  A hiss, along with a wave of that dusky predator scent he had noticed earlier, were his only warnings. A blur of pale grayish fur dropped from one of the trees above them, landed a few feet in front of Alexa, and launched itself at her so quickly that Lirzhan had no time to think.

  He leapt forward, pushing Alexa to the side while at the same time pulling the pulse pistol from where she had it tucked into her belt. While his people did not condone taking another living being’s life, even they acknowledged that sometimes such things were necessary in self-defense.

  So he raised the pistol and shot the beast between its glaring violet eyes just as it snarled and turned toward him, accurately gauging that he and not Alexa was the true threat here. At once the animal slumped to the forest floor, dark blue blood trickling from the hole in its forehead. Lirzhan murmured a few words, asking the beast to forgive him for protecting himself and Alexa. Even in death it was beautiful, some sort of feline with intricate patterns in shades of gray along its back, no doubt to help it blend in with the gray-green foliage of the trees around them. But, beautiful or no, it would have killed him or Alexa…or both…if not for the pistol Lirzhan held in his left hand.

  He turned to Alexa, who had gone sprawling into the dead leaves and underbrush, and who only now was pushing herself up to a sitting position, face pale and eyes wide as she took in the still form of the dead predator lying a meter away. Dirt now streaked her immaculate suit, but she seemed to pay it no mind.

  When she spoke, though, her voice sounded remarkably calm. “I didn’t know Zhore could be that fast.”

  For some reason, her words surprised him. He’d halfway expected her to offer some remonstrance for so brusquely taking the gun from her and knocking her out of the way. “When the occasion calls for it,” he replied.

  An unexpected, almost wry smile touched her full mouth. “Obviously you’re better suited to this whole survival thing than I am. While I’m not thrilled about being knocked on my ass, I can see why you did what you did.” That said, she pushed herself up to her feet and brushed the last of the stray leaves and dirt from her crumpled skirt. A small shake of the head as she looked down at the damage to her attire, and then she shot him a sideways look. “You know, it’s probably a good idea if you take the lead from here.”

  As she fell in behind Lirzhan’s black-robed form, Alexa couldn’t seem to keep her hands from shaking. Stupid, really. She was fine, except for some bruises and maybe a damaged sense of dignity. Getting tossed ass over teakettle was something a bit outside her experience. But it was obvious she’d taken this world for granted — it was beautiful, and they had survived the landing here with no real problems, and maybe she’d started to feel a confidence that had clearly proved to be misplaced, lulled into a false sense of safety because no one seemed to be pursuing them. Not all predators went on two legs.

  What else might be lurking in the trees, she didn’t know, but she made sure to stay only a pace or two behind the Zhore, who obviously knew a thing or ten about surviving in the wilderness. The Consortium had never managed to get any spies on Zhoraan, despite its best efforts, and so all intelligence of the planet was based on scans taken from several hundred thousand kilometers away. Even so, it was clear enough that much of the planet remained wild…“unimproved,” as the politicians liked to say. This was of course a matter of opinion, as she surmised that the Zhore were probably just fine with their planet the way it was.

  But she’d never been anywhere wilder than a city park. Stubborn pride had prompted her to take the lead at first, since it was her tablet whose tracking hardware would lead them to the automated science station. Pride wouldn’t help much in keeping them alive on this planet, so she’d swallowed hers and let Lirzhan take the position he should have had all along.

  However, chugging along in his wake and trying to pretend her boots were more comfortable than they actually were didn’t appeal to her all that much, either. No matter what else happened, they would be spending the next few days in one another’s company, so she figured she should attempt to learn more about the enigmatic alien who had become her unexpected travel companion.

  She picked up her pace so she was more or less even with his shoulder. “I suppose you have a lot of experience with this sort of terrain?”

  The hood angled slightly in her direction, but even staring up into it revealed nothing of the features hidden within its shadowed confines. “Not precisely like this, but similar. The forests near the home where I grew up were not quite as dense, and there were more hills.”

  “Really?” she asked. Even this small tidbit tantalized her, although she had a difficult time imagining any of the Zhore as children. Did they run around in miniature versions of their parents’ bulky robes? She wanted to ask, but knew such a question would be futile. The Zhore revealed as little of themselves as possible. “Are there a lot of forests on Zhoraan?”

  He looked away from her then, and something in his posture seemed to stiffen, although his pace did not falter. “I think you are trying to get some information out of me.”

  Damn, there was something so disconcerting about having to talk to a blank, faceless figure like that. Of course she’d been trained to work with alien races, but Stacians and Eridanis, and humanity’s own exotic off-shoots, the Bathshevans and the Minari, had facial expressions you could analyze, even if they weren’t all precise analogues of those of Gaian-based humans. A Zhore was an entirely different story. She might as well have been talking to a wall for all the readings she could get off his hidden expressions.

  “And what if I am?” she returned evenly. Never let them see you sweat…

  “I admire your persistence, even under our present conditions. However, the affairs of Zhoraan are its own. Besides, I have no doubt that my planet’s topography, vegetation, and fauna have been extensively scanned from far orbit.”

  No point in denying that. “Yes,” she admitted, “but you’ve still never allowed off-worlders on your planet. Not even one still camera. Nothing. Can you blame me for being curious?”

  Surprisingly, he chuckled. His laugh had a warm, rich sound, quite human in tone, even if she had no idea what exactly he was hiding under those ro
bes.

  Scratch that. She had a small idea — she’d felt his arms, and his legs, and the broad, strong expanse of his chest against her back in the capsule, which was probably more than any other human being knew of his race.

  That recollection was more than a little discomfiting, for reasons she really didn’t want to go into at the moment.

  “No, I suppose I cannot blame you,” he replied. “You Gaians are an inquisitive lot. I believe it would be difficult for you to deny your nature. But it is not my place to speak of such things, no matter how much you would like to know more of them.”

  Well, damn. She’d expected as much, but some part of her had been hoping she wouldn’t get shot down quite so quickly. Distracted, she stumbled over a tree root, and at once Lirzhan’s strong gloved hand was on her arm, steadying her so she could regain her footing. Damn it. She’d face anyone in the galaxy across a negotiating table, even a fierce-browed Stacian, and yet here she was, tripping and blundering her way through the wilderness like the most pathetic of romance-vid heroines, needing a big strong male to protect her.

  Alexa almost jerked her arm away, but she knew that would be rude. He was only trying to help, after all. Instead she mumbled, “thanks,” and waited a proper interval of a few seconds before gently easing her arm from his grasp.

  He let go at once. “And what of you?” he inquired. “Were there woods nearby where you grew up?”

  She let out a brief, bitter laugh before she collected herself. “Most of Gaia is pretty built up.”

  That was all she could trust herself to say. She wasn’t about to let herself start spilling the intimate details of her barren childhood — the mother who had abandoned her to the Consortium’s tender mercies almost as soon as she was born, the sterile foster homes where she’d grown up. Adoption was an expensive luxury, whereas the state paid people well to foster unwanted children. Add in the fact that children raised in such homes were supposed to repay their debt to the Consortium by enlisting in the Gaian Defense Fleet, or the Exploration Commission, or the Diplomatic Corps…well, she’d chosen the latter because it had seemed the most appealing to her, but she never forgot that her life wasn’t entirely her own, that she was expected to give at least another ten years after graduating from college to the service before she could even think of doing anything else. And at that point, what else could she do? She had no other skills, no other education. It was quite a clever trap.