"Zical. Talk to me. Are you hurt? Do you require-"

"Give me a minute."

"I've already given you sixty."

He wouldn't consider rolling over until the suit finished countering his arousal.

Luckily, Dora hadn't seemed to notice, or no doubt she would be asking personal questions for which he had no reasonable answer. Thanks to the suit's giving men control over their pa.s.sions, Rystani males did not have erections unless they were ready to have s.e.x.

Stunned by the tierce sensation of need, need that had no way do satisfy at the moment, be winced and lost track of the conversation. "Say that again, please?"

"My portable unit would have summoned help but communications are still down."

"And you sensed no immediate danger?" he guessed, rolling to his side and sitting up cautiously as he avoided putting pressure on tender areas, pleased his suit had done the job. His head pounded as if the entire Rystani army had tromped through, muddling his thoughts, scrambling his impressions. And yet his skin tingled as if stroked.

"Are you ill?"

"I don't think so, but..."

"But?" she prodded.

Stars. He wanted a woman so badly that he'd almost said so-a clear sign he was thoroughly rattled. Perhaps Dora's discussion about breast size right before he'd

30.

blacked out had remained in his mind and stimulated him. Yeah, sure. More likely, he'd put off for too long a visit to a holosim, a holographic simulator that would relieve his needs, so the first time his consciousness relaxed, his body felt as though he'd gotten a weekend pa.s.s to play. However, with Dora expanding her circuitry into every business on the planet Zical couldn't be certain his time with the holosim Xentos would remain private. The idea of Dora's knowing about his personal business, with a holosim disturbed him, so he always left his portable unit at home during his infrequent trips to that part of town.

"What happened while I was out?"

"Nothing. Your respiration and pulse remained within normal limits. You remained flat on your stomach, unmoving. Why?"

At the sound of a skimmer outside the portal, Zical staggered to his feet. Nothing hurt but his bones throbbed in a way he'd never experienced. Something odd had happened to him when the golden beam had struck. He would have thought he was simply suffering from the aftereffects of repressed s.e.xual desire, but he recalled images, images so erotic that he suspected they couldn't hare originated with him.

Zical peered toward the portal. "Who's here?"

"My communications still aren't functioning. But my mainframe may have sent a rescue party when-"

"Zical?" Kahn's voice shouted through the portal.

"Stay where you are. I'll come out." Zical straightened, b.u.mped into a panel, and swore under his breath. Machinery rumbled, clicked. Zical's scalp p.r.i.c.kled, stopping him in mid-curse.

"Let's get out of here." Dora's voice deepened urgency.

Overhead, a fanlike noise whirred and fresh air wafted inside the cavern. Zical tipped back his head and spied what looked like a ventilation system, then the lines of the grill formed the shape that reminded him of the sensual sway of a woman's hips.

He felt lips pressed to his neck, but no one was there. A wispy soft breast brushed his cheek, yet he was alone, his suit in proper working order. Not p.r.o.ne to fantasizing while at work, he blinked, stared hard, now saw only the grill from the ventilation system. What in Dregen h.e.l.l was going on?

"Zical," Dora's tone commanded with authority. "Come on. Move."

His muscles pulsed. His bones vibrated strangely as he forced one foot in front of the other. He put down the fantasizing to the aftereffects from his knock on his head.

Had his presence, his b.u.mp into the machinery, or the rescue party's arrival brought the machines to life? Were they about to undergo another attack of golden light? Would the portal close and trap him?

Kahn poked his head into the corridor, one thick arm blocking Tessa from entering.

In a sweeping, intelligent gaze, Kahn took in the hum of machinery and Zical's unsteady steps.

31.

Without hesitating another moment, Kahn entered the cavern, approached Zical, and placed a steadying arm over his shoulder. '"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Zical rubbed his forehead again as another jolt of s.e.xual need coursed through him. "Everything. I don't know."

Tessa slipped to Zical's other side and together they helped him stand and go outside. "Dora, what happened?"

Concisely, yet her tone revealing her relief that Zical appeared to be all right, Dora reported the pertinent details, including that Zical's portable computer unit was undamaged and again in contact with the mainframe now that they outside. She concluded her a.n.a.lysis with the suggestion, "Zical should undergo a full physical exam."

"I'm fine." What he needed was an hour with Xentos to take the edge off, a night to douse the flames of desire from his system. He hoped the sensation would abate when they left the cavern. It didn't.

And for some d.a.m.n reason, even time Dora spoke, images of her with a body, erotic images flooded his mind. Dora dancing naked for him. Dora kissing him, her mouth sultry and warm. Dora's hands busily stroking... d.a.m.n. The golden light must have put those images in his head, no matter how much he tried to focus his thoughts on the ancient machines and their purpose, he failed to get Dora out of his head.

With Tessa, Kahn, and Zical standing outside in the niche, the spot was so crowded, he couldn't move. Zical closed his eyes and mere erotic images of Dora filled his mind, images similar to those that he'd dreamed while unconscious. Dora with a s.e.xy neck, large b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and sensual hips. Dora with a body like Xentos, his holosim. lf he shared this odd information with Kahn, he'd hot only have to suffer through a psychical, but he'd also have to withstand a psych evaluation. And he hated nothing more than talking to a therapist, resented anyone probing his mind, digging into old and painful wounds better left alone.

He could imagine the therapist's questions. Did he fulfil his needs with a holosim, not a real woman, because he couldn't put aside his failure to protect Summar? He would honestly answer yes, but no good would come of tearing open old wounds. The fact remained that Summar was dead, and while he'd unconditionally loved the baby inside her, he'd always had deep reservations about his child bride, resented their arranged marriage from the beginning when he'd recognized they were a poor match.

After her death, he'd tried to numb his grief and forget his failure to protect his family by accepting one war mission after another. And if he was reluctant to involve himself another woman, he could blame his people's need for competent starship pilots and his busy schedule.

Tessa peered at him, her concern showing in eyes as green and deep as the valley far below, as her voice pulled him away from painful memories. "Do you think the golden light is a weapon?"

32.

"Rays of golden light cut through my suit like a starship through hypers.p.a.ce."

Slowly, the thrumming ebbed, leaving him certain that if the creators of the technology inside Mount Shachauri had wanted him dead, he wouldn't still be breathing. "I'm not hurt. Maybe it was a welcome?"

"A welcome that knocked you out?" Kahn muttered sarcastically.

"Dora says these machines are ancient. The builders couldn't possibly have antic.i.p.ated what effect their technology might have on beings other than themselves,"

Tessa countered, peering around Kahn to the interior.

The Terran's curiosity brightened her eyes, made her muscles taut with eagerness to explore. Kahn, always cautious and protective around his wife, seemed torn between wanting to explore and keeping Tessa safe. Four years of marriage had taught him to word his concerns with care.

"Why don't we comeback tomorrow with a team of engineers, scientists, archaeologists, and-"

Tessa slipped around him and entered the cavern. Kahn swore and followed. Zical kept his gaze carefully averted from Tessa. In his highly charged state, he didn't want Kahn thinking that he was ogling his wife. Zical loved Tessa like a sister, nothing more, but right now he didn't trust his reactions.

Tessa hurried forward as if aware Kahn would attempt to stop her progress.

"There's no point in sending in a team until we know if it's safe."

"Specialists, should decide," Kahn argued, but he too seemed fascinated by the ancient machines that amazingly still worked. Apparently, one system could turn on the next Lights blinked. Dials glowed. Crystals flowed like rain across monitors. Deep within Mount Shachauri, engines stirred, their vibrations seeping upward through the stone like a hibernating animal that slowly stretched, yawned, and awakened.

Zical scowled. "We have no specialists on the Perceptive Ones."

"Not true," Dora piped in. "Several Zenonities are experts."

Was Dora trying to make her voice sound even s.e.xier than normal? Or had the golden light altered him in some way to make him more sensitive? Turned on by the sound of Dora's voice, Zical tried to keep both desire and irritation from his tone. He also had to stiffen his suit around his tavis to prevent his blood from engorging the sensitive area. "Zenonities rarely leave Zenon. Besides, even if one of them consented to come to Mystique, he would take days to arrive."

"These machines have been here for eons. They aren't going anywhere," Dora countered, then announced, "I have solved our communication problem from within this structure. We maintained contact with my mainframe."

"Good." Zical felt better knowing Dora's vast resources could now work on the problem of helping to figure out exactly what they'd found. Part of him throbbed with guilt for holding back his unusual thought patterns. And part of him-just throbbed.

Despite the suit that prevented his desire from showing, he ached, his b.a.l.l.s tingled, and his tavis is zinged with intoxicated, unruly desperation.

33.

"Did you lower the force field?" Kahn asked Dora.

"I found a back door through the shielding. The field is still intact. In fact, I'm currently using a portion to communicate thorough a network that's similar to but much more advanced than my neurotransmitters."

Zical stopped start, his thoughts wild and furious. Had the golden light temporarily changed his brain waves? His hormones? Perhaps it had been the knock on the head.

Either way, he was having difficulty focusing beyond a driving need for s.e.x that he ruthlessly squelched. The systems alive?"

"That would depend on how you define life."

Kahn, Tessa, and Zical strolled through the corridor. The golden light didn't reappear. Perhaps only the first person to break the portal's seal was welcomed or examined or whatever by the golden light.

Kahn peered at crystals floating along one wall. "Have you anything in your data banks that's similar to this equipment?"

"The machines are mostly constructed of bendar. Those monitors are likely used to view data, but of what sort, and whether they still work, may take years to discover.

The complex is over three miles wide and twenty-five deep. Zical, you stumbled into the apex. There are four more similar portals at the same alt.i.tude."

He should speak up and tell them about his sudden, strong, and vivid s.e.xual fixations before some poor other unsuspecting soul strode under another cone of golden light. If he'd known for certain that the alien beam, not the knock on his head and the fall, had caused his sudden cravings and inexplicable fantasy about Dora, he'd have spoken up- embarra.s.sing subject or not-but if the effect was short term, in time, he could ascertain that for himself. While the suit hid his condition, be remained uncomfortable, and he fully intended to see Xentos at the first opportunity.

Zical left his portable computer unit and Dora behind, stepped off the street into a private retreat and prayed that Dora's spy-in-the-sky satellite sensors hadn't picked him out from the hundreds of other pedestrians on foot who were out for a good time. Of all the cities on Mystique, this was the oldest, and the capital-a busy s.p.a.ceport, a business center where anything could be bought, for a price. Mystique's wealth had filtered down from the planet's owners to create an affluent middle cla.s.s. Storefronts with luxury items, restaurants with gourmet foods, and entertainment center were plentiful amid towering apartments, wide boulevards planted with flowering shrubs, colorful b.u.t.terflies and exotic birds that emitted a pleasant trilling hum.

The first time Zical had sought out a holographic simulation, the establishment's owner had a.s.sured Zical that the holosims at the hotel didn't tie into planetary systems -not so much to ensure the customer's privacy as to keep out the authorities and overly inquisitive spouses, family, and friends So if his luck held, Dora would have no idea where he was.

34.

"Good evening, sir." A gorgeous holosim greeted Zical from behind the front desk.

"What's your pleasure?" She gestured to a monitor.

Zical ignored the machine and removed a credit chip from his suit. He'd made his choices upstairs. Although charges began when he unlocked a door to his private room and ended when he exited, most customer apparently wanted their companion preferences decided beforehand to maximize time in their room. He'd gladly spend the extra credits in return for privacy. As impatient as he was for release, once he reached his room, Zical still put thought in what land of holosim suited him. Tall-his chin height. Slender but curvy. Big b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Funny, he'd always chosen women of medium- sized proportions until Dora had put the suggestion of large b.r.e.a.s.t.s into his head.

Cinnamon hair. Amethyst eyes. He moved on to the personality traits.

Eager?

Of coa.r.s.e-a man would have to be a savage Endekian to enjoy forcing a woman.

Self-confident?

Absolutely. Zical didn't want anyone who reminded him of Summar, his child bride, one so terrified of s.e.x that after she'd conceived when they consummated the marriage, they'd never had marital relations again.

Adventurous?

Hmm. Not today. He was too on edge to bother being inventive. He simply needed to take c are of business.

Talkative?

He marked one notch above the minimum. He didn't require conversation. But dead silence seemed so... unnatural.

Aggressive?