Awakened by the Giant: Brides of the Kindred Read online

  He was so strong but always so careful of her that she had absolutely no fear of her gentle giant anymore. And since both of them loved studying animals—and Maddy enjoyed caring for them as well—it was almost a perfect life.

  Well, perfect except for the Mentats, Maddy thought with a shiver as she tried again to get her hair into a bun. Though she and Calden attempted to stay away from the big, scaly aliens, there was no avoiding them completely. They would still pass some of them in the long, circular hallways of the station as they went from Calden’s quarters to his lab and they occasionally still saw one or two at the enzyme baths.

  Grack-lor, especially was liable to be lurking around wherever they went. At least the big Mentat didn’t say anything to them anymore, Maddy thought to herself. He just stared—which was almost worse, in a way—but still better than him trying to start a fight or get one of the other Mentats to start a fight with Calden.

  “Ignore him,” Calden had advised her. “He cannot do anything without FATHER’s permission and we have given FATHER no reason to censure us.”

  “So you’re saying he’s harmless?” Maddy had asked.

  Calden shook his head.

  “No—don’t ever make the mistake of thinking that. The stories of things he has done to females from his home world…the things he brags about…” His stern features twisted in disgust. “Just the thought makes me ill. No—he’s not harmless. Whatever you do, don’t ever be alone with Grack-lor, Madeline. That would be a grave mistake.”

  “I promise I’ll give him a wide berth,” Maddy said. “You don’t have to tell me twice that he’s bad news.”

  But other than the silently hostile Mentats, the only thing that brought her down was the fact that she knew that Snuffy, the littlest brantha, didn’t have much more time.

  Madeline had tried not to get attached to the furry little guy but it was no good. Every time she came into the lab he ran to the edge of the enclosure and tried to climb over the side, trumpeting and burbling through his tiny trunk as he begged to be picked up and held.

  Though she tried to hold out, Maddy caved every time and found herself holding and cuddling the sweet little animal. Snuffy was a little like a dog in his desire to be loved-on and she had always been a dog person. Though Maddy knew she was setting herself up for heartache, she couldn’t help getting attached.

  Thinking of the little animal made her wonder anxiously if he was all right. Since it was getting close to a week since Snuffy and the rest of the brantha brood had been cloned, she had started getting anxious every time she went into the lab. What if they died during the night and she didn’t get to say goodbye? It was a terrible thought, although she wasn’t eager to have the little brantha die in her arms either, as Calden had told her had happened to him.

  “How many times have you cloned them then—the branthas?” she’d asked, as they worked in the lab together.

  He had frowned. “This is only the second time, although I have, on occasion cloned some subjects multiple times if I felt that I didn’t have enough information to complete my study of them.”

  “Isn’t that cruel, though? Maddy had objected. “Bringing them to life only to watch them die every time?”

  “It can be difficult, especially if you allow yourself to get emotionally attached to a specimen,” Calden had admitted. “But they do not die in pain—it is more like going to sleep and not waking up again. And while they live, I try to be certain they are well cared for and have as happy and complete a life as I can give them.” He had gotten that wistful look on his face again as he spoke. “Though I do wish I could keep some of them alive for their natural life spans—like your little Snuffy there.”

  “I wish you could too.” Maddy had been holding the little brantha in her arms and a few tears had rolled down her cheeks and fallen on the animal’s soft, orangish-red fur. “Do you think you’ll ever figure out why your clones die so early?”

  For some reason Calden had looked uncomfortable.

  “It is an ongoing problem,” he admitted stiffly. “One I have been unable to rectify.”

  His sudden stiffness had surprised Madeline but she’d thought that maybe he was touchy about the subject because he had been working on it for so long without success. She had let the matter drop and they had talked about something else instead.

  As though thinking about Calden had called him to her, she heard a knock on the door of the bathroom—or the “fresher” as he called it.

  “Madeline? Are you all right in there? You haven’t fallen in, have you?”

  Maddy smiled to herself. It was a valid question, considering that his toilet was built for someone his size and not hers. She’d had several narrow misses back when her hands were nearly useless. But now, after nightly treatments with the “slime gloves” as Maddy thought of them, her hands were pretty much back to normal in terms of fine motor skills. She still lacked strength in her fingers and palms but that was coming along too. In fact, Calden estimated that one more night in the gloves might completely restore her back to where she’d been before she was injured in the wreck of the Kennedy.

  “I’m okay,” she said, opening the door to let him in. “I’m just trying to get my hair up so it doesn’t get into the enzymes when we go to the baths—I think they’re drying it out too much.”

  “Your hair looks beautiful to me,” Calden rumbled. “Do you need some help with it because of your hands?”

  “No, it’s more because I can’t see what I’m doing,” Maddy grumbled. “I’ve never been in a bathroom without a mirror before. I would ask how you fix your own hair but I guess you just leave it in braids and let the enzymes clean it.” She smiled at him shyly. “Although I’d love to see it down sometime. I’ve always liked long hair on a man if he knows how to take care of it.”

  “I will take it down for you tonight, if you like.” He smiled at her. “But as for seeing yourself, I have no mirror but will a 3-D viewer do?”

  “A what?” Madeline frowned.

  “This.” Reaching far above her head, he pressed a small, recessed button which was the same color as the scale-like tiles around it—no wonder she hadn’t seen it before, Maddy thought. As soon as the button was pressed, a soft humming sound began and a long, thin, horizontal strip of silver began to push out of the wall below it. Calden grasped the strip and pulled it down, revealing a mirror-like surface that showed Madeline from the waist up to the crown of her head. He pulled at the sides of the mirror and two more silver panels came out, at an angle to the first one. They showed Maddy from the sides and then, a third panel, which appeared at the top of the first one, showed her back.

  “Wow…” She looked at herself from all angles. “I never knew you had such high-tech mirrors here. I just assumed…wait a minute.”

  “What’s wrong?” Calden asked, looking anxious.

  “My freckles…” Maddy leaned forward, taking a closer look at the girl she saw reflected in the mirror. It was the first time that she’d caught more than a fleeting glimpse of her reflection since she’d gotten out of the slime, she realized. It seemed funny to think of but there really weren’t any mirrors or many reflective surfaces at all at the Mentat station. Now that she was finally looking at herself, she wasn’t sure what to make of what she saw.

  “What are you talking about?” Calden asked. “What do you mean ‘freckles’?”

  “They’re little brown spots of pigmentation,” Maddy explained. “In most people they’re hereditary but with some—like me—they kind of pop out when you’re exposed to the sun too much. I was always outdoors walking my dogs when I lived on Earth so I had about a ton of them. Now…” She frowned and leaned forward again. “They’re just…gone.” She looked up at Calden. “What happened? Where did they go?”

  He was getting that uncomfortable, tight-lipped expression on his face again.

  “Madeline—” he began but just then a tinny, disembodied voice interrupted him.

  “Calden,” it said, so