"Will you two stop talking as if I'm not here?" Zical spoke between gritted teeth. It was bad enough he had to deal with the fierce needs coursing through him, worse that Dora knew exactly what was wrong, but then her adding insult to his desire by ignoring him was stoking his temper into the blow-his-top zone.

Dora spoke in algorithmic equations, adding a touch of quantum physics, and then as she extended her equations into logistical matrix ketrometry, she left him behind, with two aching heads. He rubbed his temple and swore under his breath, careful not to disturb Dora and Ranth.

"So I was right." Dora turned to Zical with a beaming smile.

"About what?"

"That light beam was a form of communication."

Chapter Seven.

"Communication?'' Zical stared at her, heat in eyes and arousal in his loins, signs Dora wished she could attribute to his desire for her. But she knew better. Last time the golden light had shone on Zical he'd the exact same reaction-and he'd been alone.

She would have liked to believe that could handle situation the same way she had before, by ignoring his aroused condition, but this time heat rose up her neck into her checks. She longed to run her fingers over his angled cheekbones his bold nose, his tight mouth, until he relaxed. Just thinking about his need for a woman made her stomach flutter and heat pool between her thighs.

To counter her physical reaction, she turned down suit's temperature, but it had no effect. She couldn't stop wondering what having all his simmering, sauntering, swaggering desire focused on her would be like. Odd, how golden light hadn't stimulated her, but the dilation of Zical's pupil's and the slight flaring of his nostrils had her pulse speeding, her mouth dry.

"Dora?" Zical eyed her in a way that made her heart hammer foolishly, because despite his discomfort, he was obviously concerned about her. "You sure you're okay?"

"I was thinking," she prevaricated, and hastily switched subjects since she wasn't reacting to the golden light but to his proximity. "When you entered this complex the first time, the golden light was an attempt at communication- but it was unsuited to human form, too strong. However, its creators programmed in a learning function and after the machine deduced you didn't understand the first contact, it tried again, adjusting the light, lowering the intensity, and slowing the pulsations."

Frustration heated his tone. "But I still didn't understand the message. And I've been here almost every day for several months and the machine hasn't tried to communicate again."

"After so long a pa.s.sage of time, the machine may not be functioning at the highest efficiency level. It's almost a miracle that it still works at all."

Zical rubbed his forehead again. I'm aware that different species communicate in various ways, through sonar, sound waves, telepathy, and psi. Although I've never heard of pulsing light instead of speech, I can't discount the possibility. You believe the vibrations are a form of communication?"

"We'll know for certain after Ranth finishes his calculations-"

"I've decrypted the data." Ranth's voice remained calm but he wouldn't have interrupted unless urgency required it. Unlike Dora who'd been a sentient personality

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for centuries before meeting up with the Terrans and Rystani, Ranth was a new personality. He followed his programs and subroutines more often than Dora ever had.

"Tell us," Zical demanded.

"Mount Shachauri was hollowed out by the Perceptive Ones and the machinery is an automated communication center. Your entrance into the complex triggered a chain of events that the Perceptive Ones likely didn't intend."

"What are you talking about?" Puzzlement washed over Zical's face and Dora sensed bad news coming. While their information about the Perceptive Ones was very limited, the machines they'd left behind were powerful, their purpose not always understood.

She took his hand, and when, be didn't pull away, she, realized the measure of his concern. But after all, they'd always been friends and friends supported one another during times of stress. And she was also stressed, just not in the same way as Zical. The golden beam of light hadn't aroused her. Instead, she'd realized how much she feared being human. When Tessa had dared her to take a human form, Dora had thought she'd considered all the ramifications. Bui she hadn't expected how vulnerable she'd feel in her new body and how that fear colored her every thought and action. She suspected the Perceptive Ones might have programmed their message to make the recipient fearful, and in her case, the fear had transferred to her deeper concerns over how she would live life as a human.

"Ranth," Dora asked, "who did this complex communicate with?"

"Apparently, eons ago, the Milky Way galaxy was threatened by the invasion of a race called the Zin, who penetrated almost to the Perceptive One's homeworld here on Mystique. The Perceptive Ones fought for a millennium, ousted the Zin, and built a machine called a Sentinel to guard the galaxy against future attacks."

"And?" Zical prodded, his voice tight and tense, his jaw angled as if braced to take a punch.

"Your entrance inside the complex recalled the Sentinel." Ranth gave them the news in a firm tone that reflected his certainty.

'The Sentinel still exists?" Zical spoke in shock and Dora worried about how he would take the news that he might have accidentally invited an ancient enemy back into their galaxy by recalling the Sentinel who guarded them. Zical was a warrior, a man of strong principles, and to cause harm to his people, even inadvertently, would not sit well on his shoulders. She squeezed his hand, trying to will her support through her fingers.

"The signal's, reception was confirmed. My a.n.a.lysis indicates the Perceptive Ones didn't intend for the Sentinel to be recalled unless repairs were necessary."

"Are repairs necessary?" Zical muttered, his hand tightening on Dora's "I don't know."

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"And the Zin?" Zical asked, his voice choked with regret, his shoulders tense under the mental burden of such terrible news.

Dora wanted to embrace him, protect him from the blame he was sure to cast on himself. But she bad no doubt he would refuse her comfort and her sympathy. He'd made it quite clear that he didn't consider her... kissable.

"All I can say for certain is that the awakened machinery has recalled the Sentinel, and if the Zin still exist, the Milky Way has lost its protector."

"What can you tell us about the Sentinel?" Dora asked since Zical seemed too stunned to do more than squeeze her hand almost painfully tight.

"The Sentinel is a very large, complex machine. Data indicates the Sentinel was stationed between our galaxy and another. Since we don't have drive schematics, I cannot estimate how long it will take for the machine to return to Mystique.''

Zical shook himself cut of his shock. "Can we communicate with it and send the Sentinel back?"

Ranth was silent a few moments. Clearly he was checking a variety of sensors and data before he could reply. "The machinery can no longer send a communication over such, a vast distance."

"Why not?" Zical asked.

"It could take decades to ama.s.s sufficient energy to send another communication."

"Let me get this straight." Zical frowned in apparent fierce concentration, horror seeping into his expression. Yet a minor tremble from his handhold revealed he had yet to fully recover from the golden light. "The Perceptive Ones built a Sentinel to guard the galaxy from the Zin. And my presence inside this mountain accidently recalled the machine, and now we can't send a message to tell it to go back and guard us?"

"Correct"

"Why can't we send the Sentinel a message using our own communications?" Dora suggested.

"The machines aren't compatible. Our machines use energy waves, the Sentinel uses psi."

"So do we."'

"But we can't use our psi over such enormous distances," Ranth explained.

Dora understood that Ranth had simplified the situation, reducing it to the most elemental explanation. But if she hooked into Ranth's system, she might and a way to solve the communication incompatibility problem. Now, more than ever, for Zical's sake as well as everyone else's, she needed to attempt to plug into tie Perceptive Ones'

machines. She could possibly obtain knowledge critical to contacting the Sentinel.

"Why did Dora pick up the message and not me?" Zical asked, his thoughts on other problems.

Dora answered. "I recognized a mathematical pattern in the pulses. Surely you heard them too?"

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Zical nodded, his face grim. "I heard the pulses but didn't recognize a pattern. We should take this information to Kahn and Tessa. They'll probably notify the Federation council. Meanwhile, there must be something I can do."

The news had knocked all l.u.s.ty desire from his system.

His face looked drawn, his eyes forlorn, as if a dark shade had pa.s.sed over his soul.

Recalling the Sentinel back to Mystiques was not his fault. No one could have antic.i.p.ated the consequences from an innocent exploration of a cave. Still, he was taking this hard. She ached to console him, to soothe the cloud on his soul, but she suspected he wouldn't accept more from her than holding her hand.

Still she tried. "We don't know if the Zin still exist or if they continue to be warlike.

They may have moved on, like the Perceptive Ones."

"And they might still be there. Just waiting for a chance to invade," Zical countered, his eyes hard with determination to face the consequences of his actions. "d.a.m.n it. This is all my fault."

"Stars!" Hearing him blame himself caused Dora's stomach to knot. "The Perceptive Ones' machines were faulty. You didn't recall the Sentinel."

"I triggered it." Anguish pinched his mouth and clenched his free hand in a fist.

"You couldn't have known what would happen."

"But you warned me not to enter the cavern, I should have listened."

"My warning was due to concern over your safety, nothing more, No one could have antic.i.p.ated-"

"Nevertheless, I am responsible." He glared at her with determination. "I need to fix the Sentinel."

"That may not be possible," Ranth warned. "The Perceptive Ones hid the Sentinel's location. The communications beam radiated outward from Mystique, like a ripple in hypers.p.a.ce. We don't even know in which direction to look."

Zical released Dora's hand, angrily marched to the ledge that overlooked the crystals that had now lost their bright scarlet hues and lay dormant. Sensing his wish to be alone to contemplate the situation, she didn't try to console Him * * *

Knowing his l.u.s.t for adventure might eventually bring down the Federation and open the galaxy to an unknown enemy weighed on Zical, leaving a terrible tenseness in his body and a cold knot in his gut. His love of the hunt had resulted in Summar's death. Now his mountain climbing had led to another disaster. Rystani warriors were taught to put the greater good before their personal needs. Without such ingrained sacrifice, they might never have survived the Endekian invasion. His latest actions might have brought worse down on their heads. While no one could have predicted the

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outcome of his exploration into Mount Shachauri's interior, that didn't absolve him of responsibility.

Inside a mountain stronghold older than the Rystani race staring unseeing into the dying light of the alien scarlet crystal, Zical felt an overwhelming need to set his world right. His people had fought too long and too hard to survive, going so far as to give up their homeworld to colonize Mystique. For it the first time in five thousand years their future looked promising... and his action may have ruined their current prosperity.

He'd debated his future for months, and doubts had kept him from making a decision whether to join Mystique s.p.a.ce defense or work as a star pilot to ferry cargo and again try to become a husband. But within moments of learning about the Sentinel, he had a new goal a certainty that he could make a difference. He'd gone to Mount Shachauri contemplate his future and make a decision about his life and now as a consequence of his discovery, neither of those other choices seemed adequate.

Somehow he had to find way to undo the damage he'd inadvertently caused. He had to find, contact, and reprogram the Sentinel, and send the machine back to guard the Federation-a seemingly impossible task. But he couldn't live with any other choice.

Perhaps his destiny had been to call forth the Sentinel, perhaps not. He wasn't a deeply religious man, but he lived in free will, that one man could alter the future. His quest through the galaxy could lake a lifetime.

The Milky Way was a vast place made up of between 100 and 400 billion stars, planets, thousands of cl.u.s.ters and nebulae with a ma.s.s of almost one trillion solar ma.s.ses and a diameter of 100,000 light-years. To make his search for the Sentinel even more difficult, The Milky Way belonged to a local group of three large and over thirty smaller galaxies, and he no idea from which galaxy the Zin originated. And even if they could find the location of the threat from the machinery the Perceptive Ones left behind, there were no guarantees the Zin hadn't migrated during the ensuing eons.

The daunting task made him appreciate the resources he would ask Kahn and Tessa to put at his disposal. First and foremost, he'd require a starship capable of sustaining inter flight through hypers.p.a.ce and beyond, a crew, plus dedicated scientists, preferably those with few family ties- since they had no idea when they might return.

Dora placed a hand en his shoulder and he jumped. If there had ever been a possibility of a relationship other than friendship forming between them, it was over before it had a chance to begin. Already antic.i.p.ating leaving behind everyone he'd come to care for, with the possible exception of his loyal crew, he began to withdraw into himself.

From the reddish spectrum in Dora's gaze, the sight of triumph on her mouth, he suspected she'd come to have him follow up on his promise to kiss her since she'd discovered the purpose of the machines. However, when made that offer, he'd never expected the information to be so devastating.

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"I'm going with you, "Dora told him as if she realized his next step would be to return to the family headquarters to talk with Tessa and Kahn, then immediately recall his crew.

"Fine." He started walking back to the skimmer.

"You mean it?" Dora's voice rose in excitement. "You aren't going to argue?"

"About?" He suddenly suspected they weren't talking about the same thing.