With another glance at Challen, who looked nothing at all like the uniformed warriors still in control of Goverance Building, Rourk hit it on the nose. “Their mother planet? You actually found their mother planet? Where?”
“Not in Centura Star System, that’s for sure. I believe we named their system Niva, but they don’t call it anything, not knowing too much about other worlds, theirs or anyone else’s. I was only the second sky-flyer to pay them a visit, you see.”
“The first being?”
“Those miners who made the mistake of thinking captured Sha-Ka’ani would make good slave labor. By the way, according to Challen’s father, who is a Guardian of the Years, it was a penal village that got taken. All they knew was the entire village disappeared three hundred years ago. Naturally, they weren’t too upset to have their worst element taken off their hands.”
“Criminals?” Rourk laughed. “Sha-Ka’ar founded by criminals? No wondertheykept no records of where they came from.”
“Yes, well, they might have been criminals, that original bunch, but they were still Sha-Ka’ani warriors to start with. And their descendants might be familiar with advanced worlds, but they haven’t advanced all that far themselves. They’re still sword-wielders, and what better way to defeat sword-wielders than—”
“With sword-wielders,” Rourk finished for her, beaming. “Do you really have more like this one?”
“This one has a name,” Challen said stiffly.
“Ah, sure, Challen,” Rourk said uneasily. “You’ve just been so quiet, I—ah—”
“Don’t stick your foot in it.” Tedra chuckled. “If my warrior’s not saying much, it’s because he’s suffering a little cultural shock. He saw visuals of modern cities on the Rover, but it’s not the same as actually being inside one with air cruisers and fleet-wings flying all over the place. We Transferred down right to your front door, but that one brief look really-”
“You have made your point, woman,” Challen complained gruffly, a little too gruffly as far as Rourk was concerned.
The Kystrani forgot Challen’s earlier annoyance over his familiarity with Tedra and pulled her aside to whisper, “Are you nuts, teasing him like that? The man’s a farden gia—hey!”
He got picked up this time, and held up, and Challen was about to shake him, too, when Tedra got mad. “Dammit, warrior, that’s my friend you’re scaring the hell out of! Put him down right now!”
“Tedra, really, it’s all right,” Rourk insisted, more alarmed by her ready-to-fight tone. “Let him do whatever makes him happy.”
“It would make me happy did you keep your hands off my woman.” But Challen set him down as he said it.
“Sure. Whatever you say. I don’t evenknowher.”
“Cut it out, Rourk,” Tedra said in disgust. “And as for you”—she poked a finger in Challen’s chest—”you’ve got to get this thing under control before someone gets hurt. Now, I love it that you’re capable of feeling jealousy, but it’s groundless. Rourk is to me what Tamiron is to you, no more, no less, so I think you owe him an apology.”
Rourk almost choked on that one. “Tedra, please—”
“For Stars’ sake, Rourk,” she cut in, exasperated, “will you stop thinking the man’s going to flatten me? He’s not, you know. He’d die before he’d even put a bruise on me.”
“He would?”
“Certainly I would,” Challen said indignantly.
Rourk frowned then, at both of them. “What the hell’s going on here? And what is it with all these possessive ‘mys’? Did you adopt him, Tedra?”
“Real cute, babe. Give the man a little reassurance and he gets nasty. No, I didn’t adopt him. I signed up for double occupancy.”
“You didn’t. You did? Withhim?”
“I don’t know if I like your tone, Rourk.”
“But, Tedra, he’s—”
“Yes?” Her tone got menacing.
“He’s-”
“Yes?” Her tone got really menacing.
“Well, I don’t know how you could miss it. He’s a farden giant.”
