A Promise Made Page 2

  I noticed that those with guns were examining us carefully as we were quickly patted down for weapons and my medical bag was searched. They also took a quick look inside the shuttle.

  Well, this wasn’t supposed to be a friendly visit, I decided. We should be happy we were getting anything from these people.

  Then a tall, thin man bounded over to us. He had light blond hair that was fairly long around his ears, in the fashion of most of the men in the hangar, and a slightly crooked smile on his face. Something about him appealed to me, in spite of his Gaian uniform.

  Appealed to me in a way I found most unexpected. I wasn’t the kind of woman who got hot when she met a good-looking man, but this one had me tingling all over.

  When he saw me, his whole face lit up, and his grin grew wider. “A woman?” he said. “I didn’t expect them to send a woman.” He looked at me so appreciatively that I couldn’t help but smile back. His admiration was refreshing after the way most men ignored me.

  It was also kind of nice that he was so tall that to smile back I actually had to tilt my head up to do it.

  “How nice to see you, welcome to the Promise,” he said coming closer. His voice was deeper than I expected, with rich overtones. “I’m Dr. Jeffrey, chief medical officer.” He came close enough to reach out one hand.

  I stepped forward and took his hand with mine. “Dr. Karen Masters, chief medical supply officer of the Hope.”

  At least that’s what I began to say. I didn’t get more than “Dr. Karen” out before I noticed Dr. Jeffrey was having trouble breathing. His face turned a rich purple, and he bent forward noticeably. Fear gripped me that the man was having a heart attack or some sort of seizure.

  I pushed him to the floor, where he went without protest.

  “Call medical, Emergency team, stat!” I cried, kneeling beside him. There was a flurry of activity around me, but I ignored it while working on my patient.

  When I felt for his pulse it was irregular but strong, so I ruled out a heart attack. As his breathing continued to labor, I decided to try mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on him. I leaned over him and barely put my lips to his, when I felt his arms go completely around me.

  He pulled my body down on top of him, and I landed hard, sprawling across his chest. Keeping his mouth firmly on mine, Jeffrey rolled, pinning my arms until I was lying beneath him. Then he stretched out, lining our bodies up in a familiar, if not something I’d done recently, way.

  Too shocked at first to fight him, I realized that he was kissing me very passionately, and from the lump at his crotch, that he was clearly very aroused. Horror gripped me that I was about to be raped. I tried to push him off me, but before I could several other men were there as well, pulling him off me and dragging him over to the side, a couple of others helping me to my feet.

  The rest of the hangar cleared out, the men with weapons still held them, but they too had moved well back of me. The men from the Hope who’d come with me had been grabbed by the Gaians and pulled back as well. Only the men who held me were within thirty feet, and even they looked as if they didn’t want to be there.

  Captain Symon showed up a few minutes later. He looked astonished at seeing his medical officer still in the grip of the other guards, and at me. I must have looked at shocked as I felt. Quickly I pulled myself together.

  “Captain, I protest this.” I pointed to the doctor, still being held. “He attacked me!”

  “What happened?” Symon asked one of the men beside me.

  “Well,” the man began hesitantly, “if I didn’t know better, I’d say the doctor attached to this woman.”

  “Attached? Really?” Captain Symon looked surprised, then inexplicably pleased. He walked over to the man still laboring to catch his breath. “Jeffrey, is this true? You attached?”

  Dr. Jeffrey’s face cleared as he stared at the captain. He looked startled for a moment, and then a slow smile took over his face. “I guess so. I’ve never done it before, but I’m surely suffering the symptoms.” He looked over at me and the smile faded, replaced by a look that was joy, appreciation, and sheer longing all rolled into one.

  I felt that look--I felt like it reached out to me and went through my body all the way to my toes. I could still feel the way his lips had touched mine and the firm grip of his arms, and the memory wasn’t at all an unpleasant one.

  It had been a long time since I’d had a man hold me like that, and I realized that I’d missed it. I looked away from him, now feeling very confused, particularly by my reaction.

  Jeffrey looked back at Symon, his eyes dark with concern. Brown eyes, I remembered that, and I shook my head at the memory. Why did it matter to me what color the man’s eyes were?

  “She didn’t do anything. Please don’t hurt her.”

  Symon shook his head. “Oh, don’t worry. Hurting her is the last thing I’ll let happen.” He gestured to the guards holding his arms. “Take him to security for now.”

  They turned to walk away, but before they did, I saw Symon turn his head for one last look at me, another of those toe-tingling looks, only this one spent a little time between my thighs, and I realized that in spite of everything I was actually more than a little turned on.

  What a day this was turning out to be. Bandage rolls in the morning and a spine-tingling kiss before noon.

  When they were gone, Captain Symon approached me. He motioned to the men holding me, and they let me go. “I’m sorry that this happened. It was unintended, believe me. Why don’t you come with me?”

  “What about the men who came with me?” I asked, still very unsettled.

  He glanced over at my security men who continued to stare at me. I wondered what they were thinking and even more what would be said about me when we returned. Whatever had happened between the doctor and me wasn’t going to improve my standing on the Hope--that much I knew. Right now I didn’t want to think about what Javinson would do to me for kissing a Gaian officer, even if it hadn’t really been my fault.

  “They can start loading your shuttle while we talk,” Symon said. “The goods you asked for are right over there.

  He indicated a large pallet of containers, clearly more than enough to replace the missing supplies the Hope had needed. In addition to boxes of pre-measured medicine applicators and emergency respirators, I noticed several cartons of the dreaded bandage rolls, which meant at least that issue would be solved. Perhaps I could hide how many the Gaians had given us and make up the shortfall back on the Hope.

  “You are very generous,” I told him. “I didn’t expect that from our enemy.”

  Symon looked at me seriously. “Earth and its military is our enemy,” he replied. “We have no quarrel with you or anyone else who doesn’t attack us. Hopefully we can convince you of that. In the meantime, we have bigger issues. I need to talk to you about what happened with our doctor. Please, come with me.”

  I told the men who’d come with me to load our shuttle and followed Symon to a small office near the hangar. There was a short woman waiting, also in a Gaian blue uniform, with dark hair, bright black eyes and a very nice smile. “Hello, I’m Bethan, chief executive officer of the Promise. I see you have met my husband.” She indicated Symon, who smiled in return.

  Bethan was the first woman I’d seen on the ship--I hadn’t noticed any in the hangar. That differed a lot from Earth Force, which was close to twenty percent female. I had been wondering if the Gaians didn’t let their women fight.

  Perhaps that was why their doctor had ... well, done what he’d done. Kissed me in a way that I still couldn’t think about without getting hot and bothered.

  “;So what did you want to talk to me about?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t showing my discomfort.

  “Well,” Symon began slowly, exchanging long glances with his wife. “We have an unusual situation here. It isn’t your fault, but we need your help to rectify it. I’m assuming you’re an unmarried woman?”

  I was surprised at this, but it was such a direc
t question that I answered him. “I’m not married. I’m not even involved with someone. Why?”

  Bethan nodded. “That would be compatible with what we’d expect. Even if she is from Earth, only an unattached woman should elicit that kind of a response in one of our unmarried men.”

  “What kind of response is that?” I asked. I guessed that they were talking about Dr. Jeffrey, but I still didn’t understand what was going on.

  They looked at each other. Bethan spoke. “I guess you need to understand a bit about Gaian biology. I assume you don’t know what I’m talking about?” When I shook my head, she continued.

  “On Earth ... men and women ... Oh, this is difficult!”

  I couldn’t help a smile. “Yes. What about men and women on Earth?”

  “Well ... your people go through puberty in your early teens and once that happens they can become sexually active.”

  “Of course,” I replied.

  “Well, Gaians are a little different. You see our men grow and mature, but the sex drive is dormant for long past puberty.”

  My jaw dropped. “Past puberty?”

  “Yes. A man doesn’t experience....” She looked over at her husband, but he didn’t seem to know what to say either.

  “Arousal?” I prompted.

  Bethan smiled in relief. “That’s right. He doesn’t experience arousal until he meets the right woman--an unmarried woman. Then he attaches to her, and if she is willing, they become mates, husband and wife.”

  This was pretty hard to believe. I stared at her for some time. “You’re serious?”

  Bethan nodded earnestly. “I’m very serious.”

  Oh my. And that’s what had happened in the loading dock. Well, it was a good story, I had to give them that. I considered it for a moment. Everything that had happened told me that Jeffrey had been as shocked as I had. “So, you are saying that Jeffrey ‘attached’ to me? Does that make me his wife or something?”

  Symon grinned. “She’s quick, isn’t she?” Then he turned back to me. “No, you aren’t his wife, but he is attached to you.”

  “So what’s expected of me? Surely you don’t expect me to marry him!”

  Again there were those long looks between Symon and Bethan, and I wondered if that wasn’t just what they did expect. From bandage roll counting, to capture by the Gaians, to a potential marriage, and it was barely past mid-first-shift. This day wasn’t getting any less strange.

  “No,” he said finally. “We don’t expect that an Earthforce officer would want to become a wife to one of our men. But even so, we need to deal with it. The problem is that when a man is attached and it isn’t going to work out, then the best thing that can happen is for the woman to reject him. If that happens, then he will detach and go back to normal. Otherwise we have to use drugs to force detachment, and that can have severe side effects.”

  Suddenly all I wanted to do was return to my ship and recount the bandage rolls. “So you want me to reject him? Fine, he’s rejected, can I go back to my ship now?”

  Bethan smiled slightly. “It isn’t quite that simple. This needs to happen in person. We’ve put him in the next room, and what we want is for you to go in there and talk to him.”

  “You want me to go to him, alone? Are you sure he won’t attack me again?” Despite how thin he was, Jeffrey was quite strong and he’d frightened me when he’d grabbed me earlier. Okay, maybe not really frightened, but he’d startled me at least and that was good enough. From what they were telling me, he was still pretty much in the same mood he was in before, and it didn’t help that my mood wasn’t all that different from his.

  “No, Karen, you’ll be perfectly safe. Jeffrey is actually a very good person, and besides we’ll be just outside the room. If there is a problem, call us. Really, all you need to do is tell him ‘no’, very firmly, and that will start the detachment process.”

  “Just say no, huh.” Nervously I eyed the door they indicated, but then decided that I might as well do as they asked. The faster I took care of it, the faster I’d get back to my ship. “All right. I go in there, tell him no, he’ll be fine, then I can go. Right?”

  “Of course,” they assured me, their relief so obvious it made me even more nervous than before. I walked to the door and put my hand on the touch pad that opened it.

  I remembered that I’d been excited before about meeting a Gaian face-to-face. I should have been more careful about what I’d wanted.

  Chapter Three

  When I entered the room, Jeffrey was standing with his back to the door. He spun around as it opened, and when he saw me, he smiled and rapidly strode toward me. I put my hands up and backed up, and he stopped.

  His brow furrowed a bit, and when he spoke it was with hesitation. “I see they told you what happened.” His voice was soft, gentle, and in spite of everything I still liked the way it sounded.

  “Yes,” I replied. “I guess I’m here to ‘get you off the hook’ as they say.”

  Something in his face changed, realization, then remorse, and finally resignation. I didn’t like the sadness in that look. But he didn’t let it show in his voice. He simply nodded and sat on the desk with a quiet sigh. “You’ll reject me, then I’ll go back to normal.”

  “You don’t sound too enthusiastic,” I told him.

  He smiled at me wistfully. “Let’s just say that I rather like the way I’m feeling now. I just wish it could last.” Sitting on the desk, Jeffrey gazed off in the distance, not looking at me at all. “Most of us on the Promise are unmarried, but we have a few married couples as well. We watch the married ones all the time, those like Symon and Bethan, and we wish we could be like them. It is wonderful to have someone to care about, to love, and....” Here he looked awkward again.

  “And, well, someone to make love with.” He looked at me so intently that I looked away, knowing my cheeks must be crimson. One thing about these people, they certainly got to the point quickly. “You are so beautiful.”

  I stared at him. Beautiful, me? It was true that I had a good figure for someone as tall as I was, and the short haircut that was standard issue for Earthforce had actually done me a favor. It turned out that my dark brown hair turned curly when cut so short and the style actually became me. But otherwise....

  I laughed. “You’re flattering me. I’m scarcely beautiful.”

  “You are to me,” he said, so serious that I could not continue to laugh. He smiled just a little. “It’s funny, when I first saw you, you reminded me a bit of one of my sisters. I have three of them, and I haven’t seen them in a while.”

  “You think of me like a sister?” I asked, trying to tease him a bit.

  Jeffrey moved closer, and his brown eyes bore intently into mine. “I said you reminded me of my sister. She is tall like you and has brown hair. But no, I have no interest in treating you like a sister.” He reached his hand out and stroked my cheek with the back of his hand, very gently. I batted his hand away and moved out of reach. The sensation that I had felt when he had touched me lingered, a warmth that spread across my face. A warmth that spread throughout my groin as well, warmth I had no intention of exploring further with a man of the enemy.

  Sexually turned on, I tried to think about another man, someone I could bunk with on returning to the Hope, but none of the faces I imagined appealed to me at all. In fact, my stomach turned queasy the minute I thought about them.

  I had to admit, I was attracted to Jeffrey. But I was here to help him get over this attachment he had for me and not be drawn into what was clearly a completely unrealistic fantasy of him and me together.

  He must have gotten the idea, because he pushed himself up to his feet. “But that isn’t going to happen, so we might as well get this over with.” Again he hesitated. “I do thank you for doing this, it is better to do it this way, rather than ... well....”

  “They told me what the alternative is. I’m a doctor, it’s in our code to help if we can.” I spoke primly, although being prim wasn’t w
hat I was feeling.

  “That’s right, you told me you were a doctor before. Dr. Karen, is that not correct?” he asked.

  “It would be Dr. Masters, not Dr. Karen, but for now, I guess you should just call me Karen.” I was getting impatient for this to be over with, but he seemed to be intent on keeping me talking. I guess he really was reluctant to do this detachment thing. “Listen, maybe we should just do this, so that we can both leave here. Is that all right with you?” I asked him, almost pleading.

  A look of disappointment took over his face. “Very well, Karen, we will do this.” He came closer, and I felt that funny feeling again, the one I had felt earlier when he’d been near me. But now it was stronger, making me feel almost a little faint.

  “So, what is it I need to do?” I asked him.

  He frowned a little. “I’m not really sure how it works. I think I just touch you like before, and when you feel like it, push me away and tell me ‘no’. That will start my detachment.”

  “Touch me? You mean kiss me again?” I wasn’t too sure I wanted this man kissing me, not the way I was reacting to him.

  He shook his head. “I won’t kiss you this time, that would be too much, I think. In fact we don’t usually kiss at first. I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t kissed me first.” He suddenly looked puzzled.

  “Why did you?” he asked.

  He thought that was a kiss? “I didn’t! I thought ... you were having trouble breathing ... and I was trying to help you ... you know, rescue breathing.”

  Jeffrey blinked at me for a second, then burst into laughter. “Rescue breathing? Oh, all right, I see,” he said in between guffaws. “Breathing problems, yes, you were going to help me breathe. Oh, that is wonderful, wait until I tell them.” Jeffrey had a terrific laugh, very infectious, and even I could see that my interpretation of the problem had its funny side.

  I even began to laugh myself.

  Still chuckling, he reached out to me and said. “Just give me your hands, and we will take it from there.”

  I gave him my hands, and he pulled me closer. He looked at me steadily, still smiling that slightly sad smile, then raised my hands to his mouth to kiss them both gently. The thrill that shot through me at that simple gesture shook me, and I gasped aloud. He then took my hands and put them on his shoulders and started guiding them along his body to his chest.