Heart of a Warrior

36

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IF BRITTANY DIDN'T HAVE SPECIFIC MEMORIES OF EACH and every day, she could almost think she'd slept through most of that trip, time flew by so quickly. She'd marked the days to begin with, but after two weeks and then a month passed, she had to give up the notion that they had a short time limit for convincing her. She was forced to conclude that the time involved was part of the project, to determine just how long it would take for her to crack. She was obviously just a test subject, after all. When they got around to doing this to their real objectives, they'd want to have a good idea of a time frame for it.

So much time spent on just her? Maybe not. The "ship" was certainly big enough that there could be dozens of others just like her there at the same time, and they just managed to keep her from running into them.

She had gotten that tour of the "ship" she'd asked for. And she had ended the day being even more impressed by the immense scope of this project, and the immense expense involved. Even if that lift wasn't really taking her to different levels of the ship, was just taking her back to the same floor where walls had been changed to make her think she was seeing different rooms, it was still a mind-boggling expense, the creation of all this. And she wondered if she was the only test subject who had yet to be convinced even partially, let alone fully.

They never lost patience with her disbelief, never tried to double their efforts to change her thinking. She was grateful for that, because it let her enjoy her time with them. It was almost like reading a book. Once she looked at it in that light, she found it an amusing pastime, to make them flesh out their story, to ask all kinds of questions about their part of the universe.

She learned that Dalden's mother was a heroine on her own planet, that she was also the one to first discover Sha-Ka'an and bring it to the attention of the rest of the universe. She knew that his planet was closed down to off-world visitors, that anyone arriving there had to stay in the Visitors' Center and conduct their business from there, that few exceptions were made to this rule. That wasn't always the case, but "tourists" had caused too much trouble in the early clays of discovery, apparently, enough to make themselves unwelcome.

She spent a lot of time with Shanelle and learned that it was Falon's family that was ultimately responsible for ousting the visitors from their world. After his sister had been raped by one of them, they'd been ready to go to war if the planet wasn't made off-limits to off-worlders. Brittany figured this was a very good excuse to not show her very much of Sha-Ka'an, but Shanelle had assured her that exceptions got made for lifemates, that she was a Ly-San-Ter now and so one of them.

From Shanelle she also learned that like her own world, each country in Sha-Ka'an was somewhat different from the next, some with different rules and regulations, some with different philosophies, and in some the people looked different as well, though the amazing height and brawn were apparently a planet-wide thing.

Shanelle's lifemate and his brother were examples of that. From a far distant town, they were black-haired and blue-eyed, while everyone from Dalden's town fell into the golden to light-brown hair and eyes category. The women from Falon's town apparently weren't quite as restricted, either, as they were in Sha-Ka-Ra, but that was one aspect of Sha-Ka'ani life that Brittany did not want to learn about yet.

She became friends with Shanelle. At least, the feeling was there that they were friends, even if it was all pretense on the younger girl's part. She even became friends with Martha, amazing as that was, when she had yet to meet the real Martha, and had to wonder if she ever would. But Martha had a dry sense of humor that Brittany took to-after she stopped allowing it to annoy her. And Martha was still her main source of information. Because she was faceless, Brittany could ask her things that she wouldn't ask the others.

One of those things was their differences in speech, which had confused her from the beginning. Several weeks into the journey she finally got around to asking Martha, "Why do you and Shanelle talk-I guess normally is the word I'm looking for? While Dalden, and Jorran's people as well, for that matter, sound foreign? If Shanelle is his sister, why doesn't she talk like him?"

"Dalden speaks pure Sha-Ka'ani. What you hear is his translation of your language. The same with Jorran, who speaks pure Centurian. Shanelle and I, however, speak Kystrani, and not pure Kystrani, but their Ancient dialect, which includes slang. We speak it because Tedra has a fascination with her Ancients, to include using their slang, and my main dialect is set to be identical to her preference. "

"But why would that be different, if you're using a translation as well?"

"Because of the similarities that we've found between the Kystrani Ancients and your people. Your history has closely followed theirs, so closely that even your slang is mostly the same. So in effect my language, the one Tedra prefers, is already the same as yours in basic content, as in same meanings, same slang, even same phrases. If I tell you that you got your socks knocked off when you met Dalden, you know exactly what I mean, don't you? A normal Sha-Ka'ani wouldn't have a clue, however, since they don't have a similar phrase in their language."

"Why didn't you say Dalden wouldn't have a clue?" Brittany had asked.

"Because he would. I told you Dalden is unique, a product of two cultures, though he'd prefer it were only one. Both of Tedra's children received a major part of their education from me, but only up to a point. Shanelle wanted to know everything and continued to learn, Dalden didn't. After he made the decision to follow his father's path exclusively, he wanted no more teaching from me, and he's tried to forget everything he'd already learned about the rest of the universe. He can talk just like Tedra, he just won't."

"So he took after his father, and she took after her mother?"

"In speech, yes, but women tend to be better at adapting, and Shani is a shining example of that. She can be the absolute perfect Sha-Ka'ani daughter, obedient in every way but one, or she could move to Kystran and take up the life career of flying ships for trade or world discovery-she spent a year there learning those careers."

"Back up. Every way but one?"

"Come on, kiddo, common sense would tell you that since she's been educated on how things are elsewhere, she's not going to like every aspect of how they are at home. Ignorance is bliss, as the saying goes, and she's not ignorant, which is why she learned to fly. She had every intention of leaving home to find a lifemate on some other world-until she met Falon and got her socks knocked off just like you did."

"And she's happy to stay at home with him now?"

"Oh, yes." Martha spared a condescending chuckle. "There's something about that love emotion you people have that makes you perfectly willing to be where your mate is, whether you like where that is or not."

"Is this finally my preparation for not liking Sha-Ka'an?" Brittany said suspiciously.

"Not at all. You may love the heck out of it, once you get used to it. No crime as you know it, no fear as you know it, no worries about war, disease, sickness, Jobs, or anything else you're used to worrying about."

"Utopia with a catch?"

More chuckling. "If everything was absolutely perfect, doll, you'd get bored real quick. Now back to Shani. She'd make an ideal ambassador for Sha-Ka'an, actually, because like Tedra, she's well versed in every known language in the universe, and respects each species for its own uniqueness. They both fully support the League's hands-off policy on underdeveloped planets, even though they might wish it were otherwise for Sha-Ka'an. They agree that a species must be left to develop at its own pace, for good or bad, that its full potential won't be reached otherwise. It's been proven by low-tech worlds that once they start trading with more advanced cultures, their own development stagnates, setting them back centuries in the way of personal growth."

"Why?"

"Because their creative people will naturally feel that anything that they could envision has already been created, so why bother."

"How is that avoided?"

"It's not, it's happened time and again. So now when the League discovers a new high-tech world, they rejoice, but when they discover a primitive world, they step very carefully. Trade gets restricted to the mundane, space travel isn't offered, educating the primitives on what's out there is minimal. A few non-League planets and rogue traders might break this policy, but for the most part, it's abided by."

"That doesn't sound like what happened with Sha-Ka'an," Brittany pointed out.

"They were an exception, because one of their natural resources is so greatly needed by the rest of the universe. But that's worked out well because they finally restricted off-world involvement themselves, so they get to progress at their own pace, while the League protects them from invasion by advanced worlds. And the League has a good representative there in Tedra. She's the perfect go-between, because she wants what's good for both sides."

In a contained environment like the Androvia, Brittany had expected to get bored pretty quickly, but she never did. She learned to play some of the games in the Rec Room, which really amazed her. She wasn't up to date by any means on computer-type games, never having owned a computer herself, but being able to control what seemed like real people in simulated wars and watch the action on movie-size screens was impressive. It was like watching a movie, but you were the director of it, or the master puppeteer in control of the actors.

And she had discovered a crafts room and ended up spending a lot of time there. It was for the crew, which the Androvia currently didn't have, or for people who might have personal hobbies they didn't want to give up just because they had elected space travel careers. Most of the stuff in the room made no sense to her, but the small section with stored wood and tools certainly did.

She cluttered up Dalden's quarters with her creations: a new table and chairs, and a nightstand-and she insisted the bed remain out at all times for it. She made a double-seated rocker that he'd never seen the like of and was sturdy enough for him to sit in with her. They used it each evening, sitting in front of the bank of windows, staring at the stars and the occasional streaking comet, and once, another ship that freaked her out until Martha's soothing tones assured her it was just a passing trader.

No, she was never bored. Corth II amused her a lot, too. He had a keen sense of humor and often used it to try and annoy Dalden, successfully. Martha explained that while Dalden had never experienced jealousy before and would discount it as being an emotion he wasn't capable of, he wouldn't experience it where other warriors were involved because he fully trusted them, while Corth II was a different matter, and unpredictable.

Which was why Dalden didn't mind her making friends with one of the young warriors who had an interest in woodworking. Kodos had always had a desire to make things with his hands, but had never come across anyone who could teach him how-until her. That was his story, anyway, and one she chose to accept, because teaching him was something else to keep her busy and her mind occupied on other than the end of the project.

No, Dalden didn't mind at all her counting Kodos as a friend, but he did mind any time she spent with Corth II, who was an outrageous flirt. His flirting she didn't take seriously. And Martha's insistence that he wasn't a real man but an android that she and her good buddy Brock, another Mock II, had mutually created, Brittany filed away with another mental "yeah, right." If Dalden knew he wasn't a real man, why would he be jealous?

Martha, of course, had an answer for that, too: because an entertainment unit had been used for the android's body, he was fully capable of sex-sharing like a normal entertainment unit, and Dalden knew that. But Corth II was anything but normal, was apparently a free-thinking computer that wasn't restricted to stationary housing, and answerable only to Martha and Brock.

Brittany had wanted to know why Martha hadn't given herself legs, since that was possible. Martha's reply was that you didn't tamper with perfection. Brittany had a good laugh over that.

She had made a point of not asking about things that she figured were going to upset her. Why rock an unsteady boat, after all? The rules and laws she'd been warned she would hate fell into that category. But the journey was coming to an end, so she was forced to finally put the matter to Martha.

"Isn't it time for me to learn their laws?"

"Not really." Martha used a bored tone, which was actually reassuring in this case. "As long as you're with Dalden, he's not going to let anything go wrong. When you're left to your own devices, then you'll need to know what you can and can't do alone."

"I am going to be told before I break any, right?" Brittany persisted.

"Tedra wasn't, but then Challen was just like you, convinced that she had to be from his planet and so already knew everything about his planet, including all laws. He refused to believe in off-worlders-actually, he knew she was telling the truth about who she was, he just didn't want to believe it. Sound familiar?"

That had annoyed her. They'd shown her some pretty fantastic things, or they would be fantastic if they were real. She just didn't believe anything was real.

So she wasn't the least bit apprehensive about arriving on ShaKa'an. If she thought she would be meeting Dalden's real parents instead of actors representing them, she'd probably be a nervous wreck, worried about all the normal things one worried about when meeting the family of the man she had committed to.

And she was fully committed. After spending nearly three months with Dalden, there was no doubt that her heart wouldn't be whole now without him. The thought of losing him when this was over and she was rejected as unconvinced, was so painful that she couldn't face it. Nor had she been able to seek reassurance or ask what was going to become of them when this was over, because he would just insist there was never going to be an "over" for them.

She sometimes thought that Dalden was actually as brainwashed as they were trying to make her, that he really did believe everything that had been told to her. She preferred to think that was the case, rather than that he was deliberately lying to her for whatever "good" reason. Lying would mean an end when the truth was finally admitted. And what would that end be? Go home, we're done with you? Or stay with me and be part of the program? Could she agree to put other people through what she was undergoing? She didn't think so, because bottom line, it was cruel to tamper with emotions to this extent.

But the journey was over; the announcement had already been broadcast that they'd be home in a few hours. And now she'd find out how they could possibly depict an entire planet-that was, if they were going to try. No studio could be that big. She'd have to be contained in a small part of it. But how would that be convincing? And they'd made the mistake of telling her that there was plant and animal life unique to Sha-Ka'an, that even the air was different, edenlike, it was so pure and pollutant-free. Hard things to fake.

So was this going to be the end, then? When she stepped off the 'ship', would they tell her, "You failed, you can go home now."?