Heart of a Warrior

37

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"IT IS TIME." Brittany was staring out the bank of windows in Dalden's quarters at a very large planet that didn't come close to resembling hers. Hers was two-thirds ocean. This one had a lot of green, but very little blue. A nice computer simulation, like everything else she'd seen out those windows. And yet it looked so real it gave her chills.

"We aren't close enough to land yet," she pointed out.

"We are. For a ship of this speed, it is a matter of moments."

Dalden's massive arms came around her from behind to draw her back against his chest. It was comforting and frightening at the same time, because he could be preparing her for their last moments together. The thought brought tears to her eyes, and she swung around to hug him tightly.

"Tell me this isn't going to be the end of us," she said in a voice that was as close as she could get to pleading.

Dalden lifted her face in his hands. His thumbs gently smoothed away the wetness on her cheeks. His own expression was intense.

"I feel your pain. What causes it cannot be allowed to continue. After today, there will be nothing else for you to fear."

"I hate to break it to you, warrior." Martha's voice suddenly floated about the room. "But you are not reassuring her."

He turned a chagrined look at the wall monitor. "What must I do to ease her distress?"

"Take her home, to her new home. Get her settled in. Introduce her to the family pets." Some positively wicked-sounding chuckling was inserted over that last suggestion before Martha continued. "It's really too bad this ship didn't come equipped with solaray baths. Three months of squeaky-clean without a speck of water might have done some convincing. But she's only had inanimate things to go by here, which she has discounted as being 'tricks' or things her own people could have invented. Fifty giantsized warriors didn't impress her, when men can reach that height on her world. She thinks she's been on a simulated ship, thinks she's going to step off it and still be on her world. But you have things to show her now, live things. Living, breathing, unique, can't-be-shoved-into-the-'trick'-category things."

Brittany stepped back, bristling a bit with indignation. She really hated it when she got talked about while she was standing right there listening.

"I hate to break it to you, Martha, but you aren't reassuring me, either," she said testily.

"Wasn't trying to, kiddo. I'm just telling the warrior what it's going to take to end your delusional state. But then I did toss you a bone; you just didn't catch it."

"Excuse me?"

"New home. 'Settled.' Sounds like a beginning rather than an end, don't it?"

It did, but words could be deceiving, or outright lies. She glanced at Dalden again, her skepticism plain. His own look turned determined, and she figured out why when he took her hand and marched her out of the room.

"You're taking me off the ship?"

"Indeed."

"Why not take me off the same way I was brought on?" Brittany asked.

Martha chose to answer, from the comm-link Brittany had been given a few days ago. She'd been warned to keep it with her at all times until she ran out of questions.

"Transfer can't be done here until we've actually landed," Martha said. "Sha-Ka'an is surrounded by a global shield that prevents access by ships without permission. A hole in the shield is opened above the Visitors' Center if permission is given, but even that opening contains a contamination shield. There is at least one meditech in each town, but that isn't nearly enough to help if disease gets introduced to the planet by visitors. The second shield the ship passes through scans for contamination and, in the process, interferes with Molecular Transfer."

"But aren't we about to pass through it?"

"Yes, and I could send you straight to the palace once below the shield, but do you really want to miss out on seeing the sights on the way home? Your first ride on an airobus and then an hataar? The architecture in the countryside? Your first view of Sha-Ka-Ra from afar?"

"Things you think are going to make me a believer?" Brittany guessed.

"You betcha," Martha said in smirking tones.

Brittany snorted for Martha's benefit, but she was starting to feel some excitement. A beginning-that implied a life shared with Dalden. And she had reached a point of not caring where they shared it, as long as they shared it. She simply couldn't bear the thought of losing him now. But on another world? How could she accept that as being real?

Martha seemed to think she'd have no choice but to believe it pretty much said the same by the end of the day. Dalden had thing, that she'd have nothing else to fear after today. But where did that leave her? With Dalden, surely, but also with the fantastical concept of living on another world-and meeting his real parents. Oh, jeez.