Sleeping With the Enemy

    Granted, it was soothing to the beating his ego had taken from the look of horror on the Earth woman’s face and Myune was an attractive female, but the thought and a flicker of interest had no sooner crossed his mind than her pheromones struck him like a sledge hammer.

    She was in season, looking for a male to breed with her.

    “Breeding is prohibited at the present time,” he said coolly. “See the med-tech after your shift, soldier.”

    Heavy handed and clumsy, he thought in disgust when he saw the look of outrage cross her face. She hadn’t actually even invited him-not verbally anyway-and it was uncouth to point out her scent, especially publicly and he had a bad feeling Inge’s presence made it too ‘public’ to excuse himself on those grounds.

    “I already have, Sir!” Myune responded with bare civility. “I know it’s prohibited right now with stores rationed.”

    Discomfort flickered through him. “Good. I need the transmissions intercepted between the alien craft and their base. Transfer them to my quarters.”

    “Their base has been trying to hail the craft for over an hour, Sir,” Inge volunteered. “Should we block the incoming?”

    Anka felt his belly clench. “For now, just ignore it-record it. If you pick up anything suggesting they might be sending a rescue, let me know immediately.”

    Inge shrugged. “As slow as their ships are it would take them weeks to get here.”

    “Even so,” Anka said tightly.

    He was somewhat easier in his mind once he’d listened to the transmissions back and forth between their home base and the ship several times. They’re relayed their preliminary findings, but those, fortunately, didn’t include the intelligence that they’d spotted either their base or the terra-forming units.

    So maybe capturing them the moment they showed signs of making a descent wasn’t the stupidest thing he’d ever done? Particularly when a calculation of their path of descent had put them landing less than a mile from terra-forming unit three?

    It was just pure bad luck that they’d picked that spot. They hadn’t seen anything to report and he would’ve had to capture them regardless since the odds were almost astronomical that they could’ve missed it completely. They couldn’t afford to let the humans know-yet. Undoubtedly, they were already suspicious, though, or they wouldn’t have sent a ship to check it out.

    The problem was, what to do with them now that he had them?

    Send them back with a warning? It would be a bluff, but he was almost certain the humans weren’t in any position to call it. Could they afford an ‘almost’ certainty though?

    Inge had pointed out that their space flight capabilities were still limited. They could count on having a month, at the least, to prepare themselves, but at the rate their situation was deteriorating that would only mean they would be less prepared to fend off an invasion, not more prepared.

    He was tempted to drop the matter in the laps of the politicians, but discarded the notion after a very little thought. They might not be in a position to launch an offensive war, but they sure as hell couldn’t allow the humans to know that and he didn’t trust the politicians to convince the humans it would go badly for them if they did attack.

    So, the only option was to try to play politician himself.

    Wryly, he thought it wouldn’t be hard to frighten them away if the women were any indication. Sybil had merely looked at him as if he was a monster. The other woman had had hysterics and had to be sedated before he could even get around to questioning her.

    It rankled. He’d tried to convince himself it didn’t, but it bothered the hell out of him.

    Research had shown they were prone to view anything new to them with deep suspicion if not outright fear and hostility and he knew the humans had never seen any of the ferils. Their reaction was to be expected.

    He thought he had been prepared for it. He had, in point of fact, approached them himself for that very reason-because he had wanted to throw them off-balance and keep them that way.

    And yet he realized he hadn’t really anticipated the depth of their reaction to seeing him. He supposed that was because, although he had never actually met a human face to face, he’d grown accustomed to the way they looked from the years of research that had been done on them. But the fact was that he’d never been repulsed by them-not in a general way, anyway. Not surprisingly, some were far more appealing than others. They were certainly strange in many ways, but the similarities between the two species was such that they weren’t nearly as alien to him as some of the species they’d discovered and, because they weren’t, he’d been able to adjust his perception of them fairly easily.

    But perhaps that was the problem? The similarity raised the expectation of familiarity and the differences between them seemed more freakish and monstrous because of that?

    Possibly, he decided, not a comfort or much salve to his ego, but that likely explained it and it was for the best when all was said and done. Wasn’t it?

    He considered that, not on a personal level, but as benefited them all. Would it be better to inspire fear? Or would that in itself become a threat to the people?

    Given the time to establish themselves and grow stronger, the humans would not be a real threat to his people’s survival. Technologically, they were a hundred years or so more advanced.

    They had been, at any rate, before the fall of their civilization, he thought in disgust. They’d lost so much, though, so many of the people that had built their civilization, built their technology-who was to say they could count on any of the advantages they’d had?

    The likelihood was slim, he realized. They were already struggling to rebuild the things they’d had before that were completely familiar to them. Not one thing they’d had to do had been simple or easy. The handful of mechanics and engineers they had now had had to pour over manuals and instructions for hours, days, weeks and sometimes months to figure out how to fix whatever it was that needed fixing. Then, they’d spent hours, days, weeks, and sometimes months searching for a part that would work or could be modified to work.

    Life had become an unending nightmare. None of them had realized just how easy life had been for them before and that had been yet another thing to contend with-the fact that they’d become lazy and lax, unused to hard labor, unaccustomed to having to scratch out a living, to having to ‘make do’, to doing without. They’d had to put down more fights over rationing their resources than anything else.

    Regardless of the problems the humans had themselves, an alliance with them could ease things for them considerably, but did they dare try it? Was there any chance, at all, he wondered, of forming one?

    Despite their typical behavior, the aggressiveness and territorialism he’d pointed out to the woman, their studies had shown that the humans could be amazingly generous hearted when moved by the plight of their neighbors. It was incomprehensible, something they’d never understood about the humans as long as they’d studied them, but they’d displayed that behavior often enough it couldn’t be denied that they had empathy for the hardship of others.

    They were at their most dangerous, though, when they knew the weaknesses of anyone they considered an enemy.

    Could they achieve a balance? Could they appeal to the humans for some of the things they so desperately needed and, at the same time, convince them that they didn’t stand a chance of defeating them and taking what they had?

    It was an idea worth exploring, he decided.

    The question was, how could they begin?