His eyes narrowed. “I think you do andyou are,” he said in a low, accusing growl.
Ultima swallowed with an effort. “Itwas designed to connect body and mind as one entity.” Shehesitated. “As we are.”
That comment startled him. He frowned,clearly suspicious. “You are born as a physical being, are younot?”
“We are, but research hasshown that our consciousness ‘leaks’ here from another dimension.There has never been research to confirm that theory, to prove it,but for many years it was believed that certain medications causedus to sleep deeply when surgery was performed. In time, doctorsrealized—through sleep research—that we were actually not sleepingat all. When the body achieved a certain rhythm, the consciousnesssimply vanished and then returned when the patient was ‘awakened’.So we believe we are separate entities that have a symbioticrelationship.”
He looked disbelieving. “And so—now weare—as far as I can determine—permanently entangled—me and theentity that shares this body with me. For we are three, not two. Itrusted that you meant no harm. It was misplaced.”
Ultima gaped at him in horror. “Itwasn’t! Nothing I did should have caused any harm! It should havedone nothing but unite the consciousness with the body as one andfreed it to make its own decisions.”
“Except that we alreadywere individuals. And you knew that.”
Ultima felt sick to her stomach as shestruggled with that. But as guilty as she felt, she couldn’t findprior knowledge within her mind. Prior suspicion, yes, but nocertainty that she would cause any harm. Not even suspicion thatshe might. “I suspected, yes, because of the way you behaved. But Ididn’t know and I couldn’t know that it would have any adverseeffect.” She bit her lip. “There was no time, no chance to test it!I didn’t know if it would have any effect at all beyond theoriginal intention of passing information.”
Tau studied her coldly for severalmoments. “We will die here. Cut off from our ownpeople.”
Ultima couldn’t decide what made herfeel worse, the sense that she’d betrayed men who had only meantwell toward her, or that she’d betrayed the trust of her own peopleand it would be for nothing.
She thought, all in all, it waseverything but worse because the three men had faces and thoseexpressed their anger, confusion, and fear of the unknown she haddoomed them to.
No, what actually made it worse wasthat when they had lain down to rest and she was shivering with thecold, Tau moved closer to her and curled around her to share hiswarmth. That brought tears to her eyes and a hard knot to her chestand throat.
* * * *
Ultima woke to find Tau staring downat her, almost nose to nose.
He was aroused if the hard objectdigging into her hip was anything to go by.
But then again, was it, shewondered?
He relieved the doubts and the vaguefear fluttering around in her mind by drifting slowly closer untilhis lips vibrated against hers with his ragged breaths. And then hecaptured her upper lip and sucked at it experimentally and then thelower.
His breath was more ragged when hewithdrew. She sensed he was teetering between want andrejection.
And then one of the others stirred andhe moved away, rolled into a sitting position and then stood up andwent outside.
Ultima couldn’t decide if she wasrelieved or … what?
Disappointed?
Unnerved that he wasexperimenting—with her?
She didn’t have a lot of room tocomplain considering what she’d set in motion.
Not that she had addressed thatpossibility in her wildest imagining—the sensual side of giftingbeings with self-awareness when they’d had none before.
And even Tau and Xi and Quan had notbecause they had not been beings corporally.
They would not have experienced any ofthe needs of the body.
She’d tossed them into amaelstrom.
Snatched everything they’d knownbefore from them and handed them an entirely different set ofrules.
They appeared to be handling it well,but what did she really know about it? She couldn’t even begin toimagine what it must feel like to suddenly feel everything whenthey must have been pretty much insulated against feeling anythingat all.
Sensory overload was as devastating tofeeling creatures as deprivation.
