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  Alara followed meekly and hopped up on the table that she was directed to.

  "Hold still as the scanner tracks your brain activity." The physician was quick to start the scan and Alara cooperated as best she could, keeping her breath shallow and her head still.

  A group of doctors gathered to one side of her and murmured together. The beeping of the scanner ceased and she sat up to watch the display of what went on in her head.

  "What have you been doing, talent J'tak?"

  "Nothing. I simply had breakfast and then spent time in the common room. Your scanners have seen everything I have said and done. Nothing out of the ordinary." She swung her legs from the edge of the bed and cocked her head. "What are we looking at?"

  "A strange configuration in your temporal lobe. Your mind is radiating with energy. The odd thing is that this energy wasn't there this morning. It is the same sort of activity we saw when you slept." The physician was speaking absently, but his view on the screen was intent.

  "That is a little creepy, but you mentioned monitors?" Her visions had shown her several images of her with small dots attached to her temples and neck. It was one of the likely possibilities and she suspected that it was related to Brodin's peculiar effect on her senses.

  "Yes, yes, of course." He waved absently to a technician who immediately approached and began to cleanse the areas where sensors were to be applied.

  "Can I shower with these on? I really hate running around with bedhead." She held still as they were attached one by one.

  "Yes, they will remain fixed to your skin until a mild solvent is used to remove them." The technician spoke in quiet tones as she carefully set each node in place.

  Alara raised her voice, "Good. Can I return to my cell for a shower and a change of clothing or is that beyond my daily activities?"

  "That will be arranged. Did you really outrun a horde of beetles?" The tech smiled softly as she set the last of the dozen small pods in place.

  "I did, well, almost. Tosha opened the ground and created a chasm to swallow the little ones before they could get to us." She laughed and it drew the attention of the physicians.

  One of the doctors asked, "If you can see your future, why did you not avoid the bugs from the beginning?"

  Alara scowled at him. "If you don't know what the options are, your choices to avoid a small discomfort can lead to a large disaster."

  He gave her a considering look. "You consider being taken into custody a small discomfort?"

  "Given the option of having both me and my cousin in custody, I would say yes. Are we done here?" She kicked her feet idly while the doctors looked at her nonchalant attitude with suspicion.

  She sighed and told them what they wanted to hear. "I am here because I am supposed to be here. Anything else will unfold with time or not. I have dozens of futures stretching before me and something as silly as putting my shoes on the wrong feet will make one sharp and the others dull. I never know what will change it."

  The tech moved her tray to one side and helped her off the table. "Are we changing it now?"

  "I won't know until I dream. For now, I want a shower." She touched the monitor pods and shook her hair back over her shoulders. "Can I get a hairbrush and toiletries?"

  The tech smiled and threw her a wink. "I will gather them myself."

  Wired for sound with a room full of physicians watching her go, Alara walked back to her cell with the peacekeepers at her side.

  Every thought she had was being reported in an electronic readout and she grinned to herself as she imagined the result when Brodin touched her again. Their little displays would light up and blow apart and she was really looking forward to it.

  Now, she just needed a shower and the toiletries so she could get pretty for him. While he may suspect they were meant to be together, she knew it. In a thousand possibilities, they were always together. She simply wanted to look her best while their souls collided.

  Chapter Five

  The lab tech was right, the monitor pods stayed stuck to her skin no matter how much she scrubbed. She may have foreseen them on her skin, but that didn't make them comfortable.

  With her hair finally washed and dried as well as braided into a monitor-concealing coronet, she felt ready to rejoin the common room.

  Her peacekeepers were at the door the moment that she poked her face into the window of her cell. It seemed that her journey to the common room was something of an experiment. She didn't care. It was time for lunch.

  Brodin was not in the common area when she arrived and her heart sank. He had probably made more of a fuss than she had hoped and been stunned into unconsciousness.

  She bit her lip and got a tray full of food. She sat next to some of the ladies, but they didn't involve her in conversation and she was simply content to wait.

  She thought of Isaro and wondered how her new friend was getting on. The security was stiff and the doctors humourless, but Alara didn't think they would torture an off worlder for their own amusement.

  She was sitting back and watching the news feed, the truth sensor of their prime minister standing out like a beacon now that she knew what to look for. She also spotted an illusionist who was most likely working to make the prime minister look far less like a sack of tubers.

  Years of watching newsreels with the spectral characters in the background suddenly made a perverse sort of sense. Talents were everywhere in public service. Despite their being decried publicly by the government as dangerous, they were used in hospitals, public offices and quite possibly the armed forces. All of these positions were stealthy, but they were there.

  Alara sat quietly for two hours when a tingling in her extremities alerted her to a new presence in the common room. Brodin came and sat next to her, sending her every nerve into shrieking awareness.

  "So, those monitors are attractive, are they trying to find out what makes you tick?"

  She blushed. "I believe I have figured that out already. They won't be far behind."

  Sitting next to her on the couch, he brushed his fingers against hers and her mind spun forward into her future.

  Realizing that the lab was watching every firing neuron, she jerked her hand away. "None of that. No hand holding, no touching my face, no happy smiles, nothing. They are watching everything that runs through my mind. Literally."

  He chuckled.

  "No chuckling." Her lips twisted in a smile.

  "So, what did you used to do for fun around here?" Brodin propped his feet up on a nearby occasional table and folded his fingers behind his head. The black waves of his braids with their metal bandings swung as he shifted and settled.

  "Tosha and I would go on trips. Whatever took our fancy. We would try anything from tea parties to white-water rafting. After we lost our Gran, we did almost everything together."

  "It sounds similar to my childhood with my cousin Kassil. Every day was something stupid." He chuckled and then sobered, "I grieve for the loss of your parents and those of your cousin. It is horrible to lose a loved one at any time."

  "Thank you. I would hug you for that, but that would give the scanners another treat." She sighed and smiled at the memory of some of the hair-raising events that they had embarked on. Each season had been a new trip through the wilds and cities of Dalpha. A new experience was around every corner when they had been out and about.

  "What do you do for fun on Teklan?"

  He shifted and narrowed his eyes. "Fun is a relative term. I hunt, am building a small lodge off to one side of the base and we occasionally have group events and dinners in the crystal castle that Esur built for Roxanne, but most of the events are held on base."

  "They live in a castle?"

  "Yes. Esur is one of the sleeping Drai that woke when his mate was nearby. It is a fairly good method for finding your match, as long as you can survive the sleep. He built the house centuries ago and is still trying to convince Roxanne that living there is a better idea than living at the base."

&n
bsp; "How many people live at the base?"

  "Enough. The Teklan Guardsmen as well as support staff." He looked as if he wanted to continue, but the lights flicked on and off as the room flooded with peacekeepers.

  "It is time to return to your cells for the night. Please leave in an orderly manner."

  Brodin got to his feet and extended his hand to her. Without thinking, she took the offer of help and let him assist her to her feet. Sparks whirled while time spun around her, extending beyond her own life.

  Tosha's career in the Guard spun out ahead of her, the tears, those she was unable to save, but always with Vortex at her side.

  Alara saw fights, children, an extended family that stretched far beyond anything she had ever imagined…and then Brodin was taken away.

  "No contact between talents." A peacekeeper was standing where Brodin had been and her Dheman was walking with six peacekeepers and drawn stunners surrounding him.

  She trailed her fingers over the contact point where he had touched her hand. A residual tingle remained in place.

  Her peacekeepers jerked their heads and she followed them back to her cell. New packs of clothing were waiting as well as fresh towels in the lav. It seemed that her keepers were planning on keeping her comfortable.

  She could barely wait for her new life in the stars to begin.What was taking it so long?

  * * * *

  Finder scowled at the assembled Guardsmen. "Why don't we just go in there and get them?"

  The monitor flared to life and Relay's face filled the screen. "Because we are engaged in negotiations with the Dalpha. The moment that those negotiations fail, and they will, you have permission to go in."

  Frost put his hand on her shoulder, but she scowled and batted it away. "How did they catch Might to start with?"

  Relay grinned. "He was in a malfunctioning vehicle. He was forced to land on Dalpha and seek repairs. Apparently, the sight of him lifting his own shuttle was enough to garner the attention of the local military."

  Finder groaned. "So this is a tremendous setup?"

  "Something like that. The people of Dalpha have been enslaving their talents without formal decree while attempting to gain entry into the Alliance. That one particular point is something we need to confirm before we go charging in. Might is trying to determine it, but he has backup. If either of them get confirmation, we will go." Relay rubbed her temple. "I don't like it any more than you do, but the tip came from Dalpha itself and has already added one talent to our ranks. It can definitely be trusted."

  The other Guardsmen muttered and shifted with excitement. It was always nice to have another talent working to patrol the thousands of worlds that were under their purview.

  Finder sighed while she tried to work it out. "Who sent the signal?"

  "A woman with a talent for foresight at an untapped range, or so Commander would have me believe."

  Commander and Pilot nodded. "We checked into her potential and the Dalphaic are so close to the Dheman's in physiology it is scary."

  Finder blinked at Commander's comment.

  "Are you saying that we have amassed a collection of war ships, the contents of Station 13, Morganti, Teklan and Udell, all to be here so that Might can get a date?" Finder's tone was approaching a shriek and she knew it.

  Relay grinned. "In a nutshell, yes, now get to it."

  Finder sat back and crossed her arms over her chest. "Fine then, but I hope we are invited to the wedding."

  Chapter Six

  Brodin was at breakfast before she was and waved her over to join him at one of the tables. She nodded, gathered her food selections and slid into a chair across from him.

  "Good morning, Brodin. Your horns are looking exceptionally shiny today." She tucked into the items on her plate and grimaced at the flavour.

  "Thank you and I agree. I thought it was just the foreign food, but it does seem to have a certain tang that shouldn't be there, doesn't it?" He poked at his fruit suspiciously.

  "They are probably doping our food." She shrugged and kept eating.

  "Yet you eat?"

  "It is this or starving and keeping alert fades in the face of a full belly. I have skewed priorities." She grinned and finished her meal.

  They were making polite chitchat over tea when a dozen peacekeepers surrounded them. "You will come with us."

  Brodin raised a brow. "Which one of us?"

  "Both of you. You are required in the lab."

  "We weren't touching."

  "You are still needed in the lab. Come with us." The peacekeeper pulled his stunner. "We will not ask again."

  Alara got to her feet and muttered, "You didn't ask the first time."

  The strike of the stunner made her scream as her nervous system overloaded with agony. She heard a roar from Brodin and the world went dark.

  "Talent J'tak, wake up."

  A light tapping on her cheek woke her from the spasming silence of the stunner.

  Alara was strapped to a table in the medical facility, a heavy thudding coming from the background. The friendly technician from her sensor placement was monitoring her vitals and taking her pulse.

  "How long was I out?"

  "Two hours. The peacekeeper who stunned you has been disciplined. The recordings revealed that he reacted out of fear at his proximity to the alien, but that was no excuse for his stunning you for a simple comment."

  The tech lifted the edge of the scrubs that Alara was wearing and checked the stunner site. "That looks nasty."

  "Thank you. Nothing I like better than waking up nasty. Where is Brodin? I heard him getting upset when I went down."

  The tech grimaced. "Do you hear that thumping?"

  "Of course."

  "That's him. He said he won't stop until you are able to talk to him. The doctors were refusing, but since he has almost pummelled his way through the wall to the medical centre, they have reconsidered." The tech chuckled softly.

  "Am I still wearing the monitor pods?"

  "Not all of them, they were interfering with your recovery, so I removed most of them. Only the two at your temples remain in place."

  A few keystrokes and the table gradually tilted into an upright position. The tech unlatched the restraints and took her by the hand. "Come along. I don't want him chipping through the wall into isolation."

  The tech led her through an empty hall, which ended at a high security door. The tech nodded to the peacekeeper and he opened the door for Alara.

  Looking at them suspiciously, she stepped into the room and whistled low. The rubble lining the walls showed the impact of powerful fists with a Dheman-sized hole leading toward medical. The rhythmic thudding was coming from that hole.

  "Brodin! Knock it off!" She called down the hole and repeated her request.

  The thudding slowed and she yelled again. "Brodin!"

  It stopped and she felt him coming closer. He smelled of musk and sweat with the tang of blood in the air.

  "Ah, Brodin, what did you do?" She lifted his right hand and pressed a kiss to the cut and bloody knuckles.

  "I was worried. I was coming to check on you." His words were whispered in her ear as he bent toward her.

  She looked up and found his face less than an inch from her own. She acted on impulse and leaned up on her toes, placing her lips to his in a kiss that took the variety of echoes in time and coalesced them into one line of possibilities.

  He tasted right, spicy and wild. She kept her grip on his hand as she took her first kiss from this man from across the stars. Dazed, with a pulse that was throbbing through her from head to toe, she pulled back and he growled in denial.

  Brodin pressed her against the battered wall and took her mouth in a kiss that was far less exploratory and far more intense than its predecessor.

  Her lips tingled when he leaned away from her. His voice was low and had a husky tone that sent blood pooling into her centre. "That was educational."

  She couldn't manage words for a long moment.
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br />   "I have finally found a way to quiet you. I will be sure to remember it."

  She swallowed and licked her swollen lips. "I think they did this on purpose. They wanted to see what kind of bond we were developing."

  "I hope I gave them plenty of data to observe." He lifted his fists and the cuffs he was wearing blinked rapidly.

  "I bet you did, but I think they wanted to see how my mind focussed when we are together. The stunner was just a catalyst."

  "How is your mind focussing?" His tone was low and he curled one of his battered arms around her waist.

  She reached up and grabbed his locks, pressing her lips to his slightly pointed ear as she explained what he needed to do to get them off Dalpha and back to the Sector Guard.

  The empty high-security cell was filled with peacekeepers and doctors when they emerged. Alara sighed, "Well, he has stopped his excavation, can we go back for lunch?"

  The doctor who appeared to be the head of the facility stepped forward. "You were holding out on us, talent J'tak. You have far greater control over your abilities than you first demonstrated."

  "I beg to differ. I have no control over it. Let Brodin return to his people and I agree to whatever you wish." Alara spoke calmly to the physician and waited for the answer.

  "That will not be acceptable. Your talent is linked to contact with him. You grow stronger when he is with you. That means that he is required for your talent to function fully. He will remain here. Indefinitely. "

  Alara looked up at Brodin and noted his feral smile. "Is that what you needed?"

  He looked into her eyes, smiled and made a fist. He slammed his right fist into his left hand. A short crackle broke free as something within his palm snapped.

  The peacekeepers pointed stunners, but were unsure of what to do next when Brodin spoke. "As the commander of Sector Guard Base Teklan, I hereby charge the people of Dalpha with unlawful enslavement of their talents. Release the talents to our custody or have those who wish to leave removed by force."