Cat Star 03 - Rogue Read online

  Brooks, Cheryl

  Dedicated to all brothers everywhere.

  Chapter 1

  As you might expect from a planet where the intelligent

  species were reptiles, Darconia was hot, dry, and lack­ing in natural beauty—unless you happen to be fond of rocks. Lots and lots of rocks—as far as the eye could see, and then some. The palace was built of stone, as were all of the other buildings in the capital city of Arconcia, which made you feel only slightly cooler once you were inside.

  "Should have listened to my mother," I muttered. "You're much too timid, Kyra!" she had said. "I can't even imagine you traveling alone." My father's comments had been similarly discouraging. "No point in compound­ing one mistake by making another," he had said. Not having an artistic nature himself, he hadn't approved my choice of music as a profession. "And when you get there, they'll walk all over you, just like everyone else does!" Mom had thrown in for good measure. But I'd found the courage somehow, and here I was! And what, I thought to myself, was a humble piano teacher from Upper Sandusky doing so far from Earth, about to be introduced to a lizard queen in a remote corner of the galaxy?

  For that matter, when was the last time you heard of any­thing interesting happening to a piano teacher? I mean to the teacher herself, not one of her students who went on to find fame and fortune as a result of her outstand­ing musical instruction. Think about that for a minute. Have you—ever?

  Well, I certainly hadn't, so when I ran across an ad for teaching the daughter of an offworld queen, I was intrigued. So what if the locals were all reptilian? It still seemed preferable to teaching the sons and daughters of no one in particular here at home. Interstellar travel had long been common, but I'd never been offworld before, and the idea of space travel appealed to me. It was a chance to see other worlds and other species, because if my information was correct, Darconia was a very long way from Earth.

  Maybe the fact that none of the musicians I knew— even those who participated in the galactic music scene—seemed interested in the job should have been the first clue that I should have avoided it myself. But sometimes, you just have to go with your gut instincts, and my gut was telling me to go for it. If nothing else, it would look good on my resume—I mean, my student would be a princess, after all—and if I ever wanted to get beyond teaching at the primary school level it might be helpful.

  I'd been teaching for all of the ten years since I left college armed with a degree in music education. The of­fers to teach at the university level hadn't exactly been pouring in, largely due to the fact that I'd never gotten up the courage to apply for that level of job—and I had yet to teach anyone who was even minimally gifted. De­spite having been hailed as a promising new talent in my own school years, I hadn't built up enough of a reputa­tion to attract any really good students, and since I was going nowhere, I figured I might as well go nowhere somewhere else—if you catch my drift.

  I had no love interest to leave behind, either. Love and I were virtual strangers, and though I'd been through the usual series of unsatisfactory relationships most girls experience, there had never been one that I truly regret­ted having lost. I guess I should have known that giving piano lessons wouldn't put me in the way of meeting many eligible bachelors, but that never occurred to me when choosing my life's work.

  I doubted that I would find true love in my new job, either, but I would at least get a taste of what life was like on different planets, and that sounded romantic enough. I'd done some research—though the informa­tion I'd found was a bit sketchy—and it all sounded fine to me. Darconia was a relatively peaceful planet and, although having royalty in power rather than an elected government seemed a bit backward, the fact that the Queen wanted her child to learn to play piano spoke of at least some degree of culture.

  The strange thing was that while keyboard players weren't uncommon on any world, the ad had specified that the Queen wanted a well-qualified, young, and unat­tached Terran female. That was me. Why the requirements were so limited was a mystery, but I decided that a Queen could afford to be as choosy as she liked.

  None of that mattered on the morning I waved goodbye to my parents and embarked for Darconia. I was leaving Earth for the first time, and no matter what happened, it was exciting! It was raining heavily, and my flight was delayed due to technical difficulties—but I was young and resilient and not particularly superstitious. My fellow travelers and I waited for what seemed like hours before the ship was finally cleared for takeoff, but at last we were on our way.

  Once the ship was in space and we were free to move about, all I heard from just about everyone was, " Where did you say? Darconia? Never heard of it." It was no surprise that I'd never heard of it before, but the fact that it was unknown to most other travelers was unnerving.

  I rechecked the database at my earliest opportunity and assured myself once again that, yes, Darconia did exist, and, no, I was not making a huge mistake by going there to work. I made a holocopy of the documentation— even showing it to a blue-skinned showgirl from Edraita who had been initially impressed when I told her that I would be teaching a princess, though, according to her, Darconia was such an out-of-the-way planet that even royalty didn't count for much. Later on, I learned that everyone—and not just the showgirls—on Edraita was notoriously snobbish.

  This particular woman was tall and shapely with a bril­liant mass of red hair, which contrasted nicely with her blue skin—and since her chief manner of dress seemed to be strings of beads of various shapes and sizes, I can assure you that she was blue all over. While her jewelry didn't cover enough of her to leave anything to the imagination— or keep her particularly warm—the jingling noise it made as she moved did encourage you to look in her direction, and once you did that, it was difficult not to stare.

  Her name was Nindala, and we were as different from one another as two women could possibly be. She was confident and sensuous, while I was timid and would never have walked around wearing nothing but beads!

  Despite our differences and her inherent snobbish­ness, Nindala and I became friends during the trip, which lasted nearly six weeks for me, though only about half that time for her. She was joining up with a troupe of acrobatic entertainers who were performing throughout the quadrant. I learned a lot from Nindala; for example, did you know that the men on Salurna Zebta have two penises and always have two wives? One for each cock, she explained. I tried, but I couldn't imagine what kind of evolutionary twist would account for such a variation. I mean, males wouldn't suddenly sprout a spare just be­cause the women of their species outnumbered them two to one, would they? I came to the conclusion that this must have been the result of an extremely popular mu­tation, or it was genetically engineered at some point in the planet's history—though such practices were gener­ally frowned upon.

  I met another nonhuman traveler by the name of Garon, who overheard me telling Nindala where I was headed and tried to discourage me from ever setting foot on Darconia. When I tried to pin him down, all he would say was that he didn't care for lizards—which was pos­sibly because with his pale, translucent skin, bulbous head, and glowing red eyes, he looked like a grub worm just waiting to become lizard food. I told him I didn't care what they looked like as long as they didn't stink or eat their food while it was still alive and wriggling. I also hoped that their hands were similar to those of hu­mans, or I was going to have one helluva time teaching any of them to play the piano.

  This particular man—at least, I assumed he was a man, although it was difficult to tell—also informed me that if

  I was looking to start a family, Darconia probably wasn't the best place to do it, since Darconians were egg layers and therefore couldn't cro
ssbreed with mammals. When I replied that I wasn't looking for love—and had yet to find it on a whole planet full of mammals—Garon seemed skeptical. Given my previous track record, it would have been just my luck to fall in love with a lizard, but since I tended to prefer men with hair and skin, rather than scales, this was doubtful.

  Nindala seemed to think that I'd be very popular on her planet, though I thought it was due to the fact that I would have been an oddity there, especially if all the women were as stunning as Nindala. She disagreed, say­ing I was more attractive than I gave myself credit for, and, what was more, that my lizard-hating friend had been hitting on me.

  "Oh, surely not!" I exclaimed. "He's much too alien for that!"

  Nindala shrugged, a gesture which caused her bare blue breasts to bounce slightly. Informing her I had no inten­tion of having sex with some slimy little alien grubworm, I left it at that—not mentioning the fact that I'd rarely had sex with anyone else, either. "Garon was probably looking at you, anyway," I said ruefully. Even without her exotic makeup and bizarre hairstyle, I was sure all of that blue skin would have stolen any glances which might happen to fall in my direction—and not just those of the male gender. I found it difficult not to stare at her myself, and I had no homosexual tendencies whatsoever.

  "No, Kyra," she disagreed firmly, "he was not."

  "Then I guess I should have left home years ago," I declared. "I might have been the toast of whatever planet he's from. I don't suppose you know what it's called, do you?"

  "No," she replied, "but I have seen his kind before."

  "And he's definitely a he?"

  "Oh, yes," she replied knowledgeably. "The females have blue eyes. That one is male."

  I nodded absently. I didn't really care one way or the other, but it was nice to know that it had at least been a male alien who'd been hitting on me—if that was what he'd truly been doing.

  With the possible exception of a meteor shower to liven things up a bit, the rest of our journey progressed without incident. To pass the time, Nindala did some remarkable things with my hair—she was fond of re­ally big, spiky styles, though they suited her hair texture much better than mine—and taught me how to put on makeup the way she did. I doubted I'd ever have much use for it, but Nindala disagreed, insisting that I might want to entice someone someday, and that it would be useful to know how. I didn't want to hurt her feelings, but I really didn't think I'd be trying to entice anyone on Darconia.

  My first look at a Darconian did nothing to change my mind. As we drew nearer to their planet, we picked up sev­eral of them in the neighboring star systems. Garon's as­sessment had been correct, for looking at those downsized, snub-nosed versions of the Tyrannosaurus rex—though with broader shoulders and longer arms—filled me with no more desire than would your common, garden-variety gecko. Nindala's efforts to improve my allure would be wasted on their planet. I did not find them attractive in any way, and the prospect of having to fight off amorous lizards was enough to make me wash the makeup off my pale face, restore my dark hair to its customary braid, and consider wearing a very concealing cloak.

  When at last Nindala disembarked, she promised to look me up if she ever made it to Darconia. She seemed to think there was a possibility that her troupe could add another planet to their tour of the quadrant, if she could get their booking agent to comply.

  "If we do come, I promise to look for you at the show," she said. "But from the stage, it is difficult to see."

  "Well, you shouldn't have too much trouble picking me out of the crowd—any crowd," I said dryly. "After all, it's a pretty safe bet I'll be the only non-reptile on the whole planet."

  As it turned out, I was wrong about that.

  Chapter 2

  The heat was oppressive, but it was a dry heat, and I wondered if there was enough water on the whole planet of Darconia to keep me alive. I learned later that this was only the desert sector and that there were other, more verdant areas, but you certainly couldn't tell it from where I stood on the landing platform at the spaceport. I consoled myself with the fact that there were at least some mountains in the distance to break the monotony of the horizon, but the rest was a sea of rocks.

  The scenery may have been drab, but the lizards of Darconia were quite colorful, with scales ranging in hue from yellow all the way to purple. Like Nindala, they didn't wear very much—which made sense for a lizard living in the desert. But I did wonder how you could tell the Queen from the others; without royal robes and a crown, she would look no different from her subjects.

  The best I could tell, most of what the Darconians wore was utilitarian—belts or harnesslike straps around the upper body, etc. They did have a decorative aspect: some adorned themselves with jewels, while others wore badges of a sort. I had no idea whether this had a particular significance or if it was simply a matter of personal preference. I hoped that someone would explain all of this to me, and I was counting on an ex­tensive orientation period. My biggest fear was that I'd make some sort of cultural faux pas on my very first day, and I realized that I should have insisted on a visi­tor's information packet to go along with my boarding pass and letter of introduction.

  By the time I left the ship and had walked the short distance to the cavernous spaceport building, I was al­ready welcoming the opportunity to get out of the sun. Waiting in the shadows while the crew dumped the lug­gage from our flight in the middle of the stone floor, I let everyone else get theirs first so I wouldn't have to dig for mine, and then just stood there wondering what the hell I should do next. The words, "Take me to your leader," popped into my head, but I suspected I would have to go through all sorts of underlings before I met with the Queen, if, indeed, I ever saw her at all.

  Pomp, formality, and proper etiquette weren't the sort of things I normally had much use for, but I'll have to say that a letter from the local queen is a darn good thing to have in your hand when you land on a strange planet, and the huge teeth of the locals made me wonder if the Queen's seal of approval was the only thing that kept me from being eaten alive. Darconians had lower jaws that opened much wider than mine did; the guy who came to inspect my letter could have gotten his jaw around my whole arm—perhaps even my leg. My only consolation was that they walked upright and didn't slink around like snakes or crocodiles—and they didn't smell particu­larly bad, though they did have a characteristic odor.

  This one certainly looked official, with lots of little carved stones stuck to his breastplate, and I was pretty sure he was male because no female of any species would ever have consented to be that ugly—or that big. I'm fairly tall, myself, but this guy towered over me, the top of my head only reaching the middle of his chest. He spoke the Standard Tongue with a slightly raspy voice, clipping off his words in a brusque manner that led me to assume he was no diplomat or official greeter, but was either a member of the police force or the military.

  Not knowing the proper etiquette for meeting some­one on Darconia, I wondered if I should have bowed or saluted or something, but he took my letter without pre­amble. Having perused it briefly, as though to confirm what he'd already expected, he gave it back to me with a hand whose fingers would have spanned nearly two octaves on any keyboard instrument in the galaxy.

  "I am Wazak, Chief of Security for the palace," he said. "You are the teacher, Kyra Aramis. You will ac­company me now."

  Nodding dumbly, I reached down for my bags, never dreaming of saying no for even a moment. I couldn't imagine that there would ever be any problems with crime or breaches of security with him around, because one look at Wazak was enough to make anyone want to walk the straight and narrow forever. It occurred to me that I ought to have offered to shake hands with him, but I had an idea that his grip would have ended my career as a pianist.

  "You will not touch that!" he said sharply, and for a moment there, his hand seemed to edge toward the hoistered pulse pistol that hung from his belt.

  I glanced around briefly to see what important piece o
f official property I'd inadvertently touched, and, not seeing a thing, I looked up at him with as blank an ex­pression as I possess, and asked, "Touch what?"

  "That," he said, pointing to my luggage. "They will see to it."

  I nearly jumped out of my skin as I realized that I was now being flanked by two more Darconians, not as big as Wazak, but still quite imposing. They picked up my heavy bags with no more effort than it would have taken me to pick up a silk scarf, and despite the heat, I found myself shivering. There went faux pas number one, and I hadn't even left the spaceport!

  Wazak started off, and I followed him with all the cheerful demeanor of one who was marching off to be fed to the lions—or, in this case, the lizards. Then I went from wondering if they were going to eat me to what they might be intending to feed me in order to fatten me up a bit before grinding me to a pulp with those teeth. I hoped it wasn't animals or insects. Call me squeamish if you will, but I didn't think I'd care for crunching on beetles or crickets, and I never had eaten meat. Plants were what I preferred, but all I saw were a few bristiy-looking things sprouting between the cracks in the rocky pavement— nothing green anywhere. The wiggling grub worm image ran through my mind again, and I shuddered with revul­sion, but I didn't see any of them, either. What did they eat? I didn't dare ask Wazak. Aside from the fact that he didn't look like the type you'd ask "What's for dinner?" something told me that I wouldn't care for his reply.