(1 staryear = 1.5 earth years)
Chapter 1–The Gambit
Well, vooking flick me, the youngster, Quant thought as she lay flat on her back looking up at the practice room ceiling twenty feet above her head. The bright overhead lights reflected off the room’s white walls in a way that made her third, nictitate eyelids slide over her silver eyes to dim the glare.
Why is it that I always end up on my ass whenever Salara and I spar? If it weren’t for her, I would never have known what the ceiling looked like.
“Mauk-Quant,” the deep voice of the elder instructor said, “when you’re done indulging yourself, can you explain why you persist in making a simple exercise into such a chore?”
“Space you to a cold death,” Quant swore under her breath as she heaved herself up from the floor. She tugged her wrinkled, black vest down over her yellow belly and blinked her third eyelids back into the inner corners of her eyes before she glared at the ring of cadets, who held their faces carefully blank of expression, looking at her. She loomed over the smaller, humanoid Grenians, a homogenous race of golden skin and black-hair people. Their species’ scent was that of newly-cut grass, but she had long ago become “nose-blind” to that smell, unless extreme emotions like sex or anger or fear, brought forth the person’s individualizing, secondary scent; a flowery scent for the females, a spicy scent for the males.
Quant was species amphibian, resembling a newt. Born on her homeworld, Isaar-Prime, she stood six feet tall. Her skin was tan-colored and nubbly as an avocado, her five-inch long muzzle hid white shark-like teeth. Her ears were dimples on the sides of her head, her nose two flexible round holes at the top end of her muzzle. Above her muzzle was her round, silver-colored eyes, close-set and forwardly focused. External gills, several long pale filaments that gave her the illusion of having hair, were pulled back and secured at the base of her skull with a strip of leather. Two brawny arms hung at her sides, with four-fingered hands tipped with two inches of amber-colored talons.
Her three-foot long, tapered tail lashed from side to side, betraying her only sign of irritation at the speaker of those words, the Grenian Chief Instructor of the Zy’Kaar Academy, Ra-llel H’axel.
Publicly, the Zy’Kaar Academy was a respected educational institution, highly sought by wealthier families. Secretly, it was a training ground for the Zy’Kaar family’s assassin mercenaries, the Elite Security Section.
Quant narrowed her eyes and shot a glance in the Chief Instructor’s direction.
His lean, clean-shaven face was inscrutable, giving no clue of what might be going on under that closely cropped thatch of white hair. Wearing a sleeveless black bodysuit similar to theirs, he looked as slim and lithe as any of his students, his species-common, vestigial wings on his back, but the Chief Instructor was old, one hundred staryears or more. Excepting his white hair and the lines around his small, dark eyes, his age didn’t show.
Once, he’d been the top assassin in the Zy’Kaar family’s private army; the best on the planet some said. Now retired, he taught the next generation of elite killers. His dark, almond-shaped eyes that appeared to miss nothing caught Quant’s covert look.
“Perhaps my verbal instructions were inadequate,” he said. There was no sarcasm in the calmly spoken words, but to Quant’s ears, his quiet tones held a note of censure and it took all of her willpower to keep her shoulders from jerking up in a cringe of humiliation.
“Perhaps a demonstration might be better,” he continued, “watch carefully as Irion does it.”
At Ra-llel’s words, a tall Grenian male detached himself from the double line of cadets and stepped forward. His glossy black hair, pulled back in a low ponytail, displayed a widow’s peak. His eyes were large and the small lines that radiated from the outer corners suggested he smiled a lot, but now his amber-colored gaze was absent of any emotion. He wore the required sleeveless black bodysuit and it showed a muscular body in top physical condition.
With grim amusement, Quant moved off to the side and watched him walk toward her former opponent, Salara Ni’bal.
Looking older than her fourteen staryears, Salara was three inches shorter than Irion’s five-foot 10in height. Though her lean body displayed a wiry grace, she looked out-matched by Irion’s powerful build.
Judging from the calm expression on her face, she didn’t appear worried about the disparity of brawn. Her hooded, cat-yellow gaze never left him as he approached and she tossed her head to clear her eyes of the heavy bangs and her lustrous black hair, cut into a very short dutchboy bob, was flung up to reveal a triangular-shaped face, wide cheekbones dwindling to a small pointed chin before her ebony hair fell smoothly back into place.
Irion stopped ten feet from Salara, squared himself into a defensive crouch and the two began circling each other warily, their small vestigial wings twitching nervously as they each looked for a chink in the others’ defense.
“Wait,” Ra-llel’s voice called out. They halted. From the side of his black, calf-high boot, Ra-llel pulled out a six-inch dagger and tossed it towards Irion, the knife pin wheeling through the air, the metal blade flashing bright reflections from the overhead lights. Irion caught the blade by the handle, the wood hilt hitting his palm with an audible slap.
Quant smirked, thinking that ought to have been a major clue for Irion: the weapon given to him, not to the smaller, younger Salara and wondered if he’d gotten it.
“That will make it more interesting,” Ra-llel announced. “Begin!”
Irion glanced at the dagger, then returned his gaze to Salara. The room was quiet as the cadets watched; no one moved, they barely breathed. Suddenly, with an abruptness that made them jump in surprise, Irion sprang into action
He leapt forward, a black and gold blur of motion crossing the space between him and Salara, thrusting the dagger towards Salara’s stomach with one leg lunging forward to propel hard muscle behind the attack. He was incredibly quick and the cadets gaped at him.
Except Quant, her attention was on Salara. She watched Salara’s swift defense of swaying to one side and clearing the thrusting dagger by inches. With both her hands, Salara grabbed his wrist, her fingertips sinking into pressure points and wrenching his limb around in an arm-breaking twist.
The dagger fell from Irion’s nerve-paralyzed grip and onto the mat with a soft plop as he demonstrated the correct way to fall; something Quant hadn’t managed to do. She watched him hit the mat, freeing his arm from Salara with a quick, 270-degree rotation forcing her to release him or go down also.
Salara jumped back, stomping on the dagger so that it bounced into the air, her hand catching it with a quick motion. He rolled out of her reach and was on his feet before Salara’s boot could stomp down in a spine-paralyzing blow, her foot hitting the mat with an echoing thump.
“Halt!” Ra-llel said and the two students halted. He switched his glittering black gaze to Quant. “That is how it should be done! Speed! If you go down, get up quickly! It could mean the difference between life and death. Do you understand? You cannot lie there wallowing in your anger.” He turned to Irion. “Well done, Irion. Return to your place.”
Ra-llel turned away and as Irion walked back into his place in line, Quant saw him dart a commiserating smile in her direction, his amber eyes crinkling at the corners. She ignored him.
“Quant,” Ra-llel beckoned to her. Conscious of every eye on her, Quant shuffled forward onto the mat. “Get the weapon.”
Obediently, she took the dagger from Salara’s offering hand, risking a quick look at the young Grenian. Salara’s hooded yellow eyes were cold and empty, her expression revealing nothing.
Hah! ‘Best trainee in the Academy’! I’d love to show her up just once! Quant thought, thoroughly irritated as she watched Salara back away.
“Let’s see if you’ve learned anything. Attack Salara,” Ra-llel said.
Quant hefted the dagger and found it perfectly balanced for throwing. Not exactly, part of the game plan but—. From narrowed eyes, she cut a glance at Ra-llel. She’d show him what she had learned.
Quant charged at Salara, taking satisfaction in seeing the young girl backpedal hastily to put distance between them. Then, as suddenly as she’d burst into motion, Quant stopped and hurled the dagger, the simple weapon becoming a whistling, blur of death aimed at Salara’s center mass.
Salara back-flipped onto her hands, eluding the dagger that whizzed between legs and hit the far wall with a solid thump, buried to the hilt from the force of Quant’s throw.
Long before the knife hit the wall and with a rapidity unexpected for her size and bulk, Quant charged Salara again, hoping to catch the Grenian while she was still twirling in the air.
She reached Salara just as the girl was completing the back flip that would land her upright. As the Grenian’s feet thudded back down on the mat, Quant tasted sweet victory as her arms swept out to enclose the girl in a bear-like hug.
Her arms closed on empty air.
From behind her, Quant heard the thump of a landing body and whirled around in time to receive a solid kick to the stomach, the impact gushing the air out of her lungs and doubling her over. Then, Salara’s hands clamped around her wrist and executed a twisting, tortuous motion forcing Quant flat on her back to save her arm from snapping in two.
“Stop,” Ra-llel called out. Salara immediately released Quant’s arm and stepped back.
Ra-llel strolled over, his five foot eight inch height now towering over Quant’s panting, supine form.
“Who can tell us where Quant erred?” he asked the class.
“Too much force!”
“No planning!”
“She wasn’t supposed to throw the dagger!”
“She was trying to best Salara, not do the lesson!”
“Enough,” Ra-llel said, holding up his hand and the class quieted. “Yes, throwing the weapon with intent to harm is against the rules of these practice sessions, but of course, Maktus Quant was never one to follow rules. And yes, there was no plan of action, just incautious anger. When Salara halted her, Quant was unprepared.”
“And what was I suppose to do with her breaking my arm?” Quant growled as she sat up and rubbed her throbbing shoulder.
Looking down his aquiline nose, Ra-llel regarded her with cool dark eyes. “That is for you to discover and I’ll expect you to know “what to do” by our next practice session.” He looked up at the cadets.
“Class is dismissed,” he said, then turned and walked out of the training room. Conversation sprouted as the thirty cadets broke rank and exited in twos and threes, flowing around Quant like a river around a boulder.
Feeling sulky, Quant remained, massaging her shoulder, her gaze downcast until a pair of boots stopped in front of her. She expected the cadet to move on, but when they didn’t, she looked up. Past knees, past sinewy thighs and a washboard stomach topped by a broad chest, up to Irion’s smiling face.
“Flick Ra-llel and his games! He’s the one I’d like to go after with a knife and I’d bet you’d agree with me,” he said, his voice deep and his pained expression echoing his annoyance as he held out a hand to help Quant up from the floor.
She ignored his offered hand and heaved herself up unassisted. Standing, her six foot height overshadowed him by a few inches and he was tall by Grenian standards. He looked up at her, his smile faltering at the sight of the anger smoldering in her narrowed silver eyes, but he pressed on.
“Of course, I didn’t expect to best the almighty Salara Ni’bal. “ He paused and shrugged disparagingly. “All right, so maybe I did expect to! She’s a child, but she’s good! Maybe even better than me and I’ve been an active field agent for three staryears. Don’t feel bad about—“
Quant turned away and walked off.
Irion was only briefly flustered. Hurrying, he caught up with her, walking at her side as she plodded across the long room towards the exit.
“Where are my manners? Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Irion E’kiva, here for a refresher course. I’ve seen you around and I thought it’d be pleasant to meet you. Do you have a kronon to—? “
Quant stopped and whirled to face him so suddenly, he found himself backing up a step.
“What do you want?” she spat out, her tenor voice carrying in the echoing room.
A few heads turned their way to look and the remaining cadets exited quickly, some almost running. Irion noticed and wondered if he should be following their example.
“Steady, Quant,” he said, holding up both hands, palms facing her. “I just wanted—“
“I’ve seen you watching me! Stop it! Leave me alone!”
Her carnivore breath was hot in his face and her too-close shark’s teeth glimmered white in the dark maw of her muzzle. At that moment, he became very aware that she could take half his head off in a single bite and from the anger in her silver eyes; she looked almost ready to do it.
“I just want to talk to you,” he finished quickly.
“I don’t want to talk to you, so flick off!” she said and then turning on her bare heel, left him standing there.
Irion gazed after her retreating figure. Her strides were long for her short, heavily muscled legs and her tail lashed with indignation. As he watched her cross the room and exit through the wide double doors, he thought about what the other cadets said about her.
Quant was undisciplined and dangerous, with the sudden explosive temper common to all Isaarians. She was also very talented but her abrasive personality and rebellious nature held her back from the praise her skills deserved.
She had no friends and no enemies, a surprising situation for the Academy. Here, where the fever of competition ran dangerously high, temperaments and egos often collided and exploded into combat.
Minor scraps and scrapes were ignored by the Academy’s High Command; they expected their potential assassins to be resourceful enough to handle any trifling disagreements or personality conflicts.
The Medical Unit repaired broken bones, cracked ribs and gaping wounds with no questions asked, but mangling and killing stirred quick reprisals.
He knew that if Quant had no enemies, she’d already made an example of enough cadets to make her point: intelligent people did not challenge an Isaarian to the point of combat. Their prowess at barehanded fighting was legend throughout the Consolidated Stellar Systems.
Intrigued, he had watched her: the only alien in the company of Grenians. Alone and probably lonely, he guessed, and she much too proud to show it. His interest was purely the detached curiosity borne of his assassin training: anything out of the ordinary prompted a second, more discerning look. However, ultimately, he knew that Quant’s life and how she lived it was none of is concern.
Until the time he’d looked up from a crowd of friends and saw her watching. Perhaps it had been that sad silver stare and how quickly she turned away to hide it that finally stirred his interest beyond the academic.
Deciding, he loped out of the empty room after her.
The Academy was a sensory-deprived atmosphere intended to demarcate the cadets from their past lives of simple, pleasure-bent citizens into their new, disciplined life of an assassin. In contrast to the colorful, humid world outside, inside it was dry and cool. The wide, windowless corridors felt more like tunnels; white floors and ceilings with white walls lined intermittently with white doors. The hallway doors held no signage, gave no indication of what lay on the other side. A cadet had to know where to go, what doors to open and how to open them. Revealed by a hand press on a specific, door-side panel, the hidden number pad needed a coded input and it allowed only one try. A wrong code meant the cadet faced a lockout and had to obtain the services of a Unit Leader for an override code.
Code changes were frequent and verbally announced in the morning classes for the students to memorize. A cadet had either to pay attention or rely on a classmate for the new code, if that classmate could be trusted because every lockout was a demerit. Too many demerits meant the cadet washed out of the Academy. Everything in the school was a training device to weed out the weak and cull the inferior, leaving only the best.
Catching up with Quant at the lift capsule, he followed her inside the seven by six foot, metal compartment, slipping in past the closing doors to stand next to her in the gap of space that separated them from three other cadets behind them. When she saw him stand at her side, Quant glared at him. He beamed a smile up at her displeasure.
“Look,” he said before she could speak, “I’m really not a bad guy once you get to know me.” One of the cadets snickered. Quant twisted her big head around on her thick, twelve-inch long neck and rumbled a warning snarl. The giggles stopped in mid-chortle, ending in a fearful gulp.
The lift doors opened at the second level. Quant stepped off and strode down the white, door-lined corridor to her room, her tail shifting her hips from side to side with a hypnotic motion that wouldn’t let him release his gaze. Irion slipped sideways past the closing lift doors and followed her.
“Look—uh, Mauk-Quant?” he said, stumbling over the foreign name, pronouncing it ‘More-Quant’ instead of ‘Mawk-Quant’.
“Have I done something? Broken some code of Isaarian conduct I didn’t know about? If I did, I’m sorry. Won’t you please give me another chance?”
She stopped to glare at him over her shoulder. “Leave me alone! Tell your stupid friends I’m done amusing them! Leave me alone or I’ll rip you apart!” she said in half a snarl and turned away to stomp down the hallway, her tail swishing from side to side in angry swipes.
As he trotted after her, Irion wondered why he persisted. He was known for being stubborn but this time he even amazed himself since there was no doubt in his mind that Quant possibly could carry out her threat, if angered enough.
I’ll take my chances, he thought. She was almost to her door when he caught up with her.
“Wait! You may as well talk to me; I won’t take no for an answer. Quant? “ he said and reached out to touch her. A hand on her shoulder turned round a demon.
He saw a flash of silver eyes, heard something cutting through the air with a whooshing sound, and a brick-like hardness slammed into his chest, knocking the breath from his lungs and his feet off the floor as he went flying backwards.
He twisted his body around as he hit the opposite wall, relaxing his leg muscles enough to keep bones from breaking, and ran two steps up the wall, somersaulting backwards to land on his feet in defensive crouch and facing Quant
Except for his chest heaving with his rapid breath and his pulse pounding in his ears, he didn’t move. Quant stood as still as he, her silver gaze meeting his. It was another ten seconds passing before the rage faded from her eyes. When he saw it completely vanish, he straightened from his fighting stance.
“I guess you do mean what you say,” he said with dry humor, then followed her lowered gaze down to his chest. His bodysuit was sliced open, revealing the razor-like cuts left by her two-inch claws. The slashes ran three thin rivulets of red blood down his stomach, and dripped onto the white tile floor. He shook his head in negation as he looked back up at her.
“I guess you do like being alone and lonely, no friends and no one to talk to. I just thought you needed a little understanding and patience. Call me a jeak; was I ever wrong! This cost me a new workout suit and these things aren’t cheap you know. Now there’s this big, bloody mess on this sterile-looking floor and I’ve heard that Ra-llel hates messes in his precious, pristine Academy—“
Quant came to life. She turned her head away, slapping the side panel of the wall to reveal a number pad and tapped in her access code with a claw tip. The door whisked open. She looked back at him, stretched out her arm and grabbed him by the wrist.
“Stop babbling and get in here,” she snapped.
Her palm was warm and her grip strong as she pulled him inside, the door closing behind them with a soft thump, shutting off the sight of the blood-splatters and the humming sound of the round, white maintenance robots coming to clean the area.
The windowless dorm room brightened as they entered. It was a typical cadet’s lodgings: small, white, warm and efficient with a larger than regulation bed, a desk with a computer terminal and communications system. Not typical was the 100 percent humidity level.
Almost immediately, his clothing became saturated, his sweat stinging his wounds to a burning sensation. Quant released his arm.
“Wait here. Don’t move,” she ordered, crossing the room to the bathroom, the door closing behind her.
The sight of Irion’s bloody chest had snapped Quant out of her fury. She hadn’t meant to hurt him, hadn’t meant to use her claws or so much force. She’d only wanted to push him away.
Quant leaned against the bathroom door and sighed. Even though she was only thirteen staryears old, she was easily twice as strong as the average Grenian male. Repeatedly warned about miscalculating her strength when dealing with Grenians, she had tried tempering her forcefulness, but when she got angry, her body reacted instinctively and over the staryears, she’d sent too many shredded and bloody cadets to Medical to have it sit well with the High Command to be doing it now.
Why did this Grenian keep pestering her? He’d been a cadet once. He knew better than to try to strike up a friendship in such a competitive atmosphere. They were taught to never fully trust anyone; a friend one day could turn into an enemy the next.
The rare friendships made usually took seed when cadets first joined the Academy at fifteen staryears, the legal age of adult status, and became forged through the two to three staryears of grueling training.
A small percentage of cadets, like she and Salara, started training at ten staryears old. Though much younger than average, she and Salara were the two top students and trained with the adult cadets because they were that good. Irion, an active field agent, had to be much older.
Nonetheless, she’d seen him mixing in with the younger cadets as though he were of their age, incurring her contempt, his blatant stares arousing her annoyance. Who did he think he was gawking at her as though she were some freak oddity? Long ago, she’d taught her Grenian classmates not to gawk at her and it vexed her to have to do it all over again. Who was he anyway, besides some minor assassin here for some tune-up training? She growled softly in irritation.
But now, since she’d come so close to cleaving open his chest, she had to be pleasant and make sure he wouldn’t go running to High Command about it.
All right, I’ll talk nice, bandage him up and get him the vook out of here as quickly as possible, she decided.
She opened the bathroom storage, grabbed an antiseptic patch and a large self-sticking bandage from the plentiful supplies and hurried to the door.
The door began to slide open and she sniffed, scenting a strange ginger smell, saw Irion, stopped and gawked.
Irion looked up when he heard the bathroom door open and saw Quant stop her forward rush to stare at him, her silver eyes looking even bigger and rounder.
“I’m trying not to make a mess by bleeding all over your clean floor. Somehow, I knew you wouldn’t like that,” he said, one hand stretched over his wounds, his bodysuit peeled off and puddled around his ankles to catch dripping blood.
He saw her gaze flick to his nudity, then back to his face before she again approached him. He felt a tingling in his loins, accompanied by a sudden twitching of inner flesh. He glanced down at himself and saw his penis poking out from its genital flap, the pointed head, rose-gold.
“He likes you,” Irion told Quant, his smile wide. Quant stopped her approach an arm’s length away.
“Your body parts are separate entities?” she asked.
“Just this one,” He felt more of himself uncoil to rise from his genital flap and gain rapid tumescence. “And yes, he certainly likes you!” he finished, nodding his head in grinning confirmation.
“Move your hand,” she said, flatly. He dropped his arm to his side and she rubbed the damp antiseptic patch over his wounds.
He was surprised by his body’s reaction; he hadn’t realized he was sexually attracted to Quant. The thought intrigued him to a full erection, his sex emerging from between his legs.
“It’s warm in here. I forgot how much Isaarians need the humidity—for your skin, isn’t it? To keep it from drying out?”
Quant nodded very slightly, her eyes looking over his left shoulder, avoiding his. “It feels much more comfortable with fewer clothes on, as you must know…”
As he spoke, he slowly reached up his un-bloodied hand and with fingertips only, stroked the arm that held the sterilizing patch to his chest. He noticed her skin was softer than it had been outside her room, the nubbly texture now pleasantly sleek to the touch.
He waited for a reaction, particularly a bad one, but she didn’t move, gave no indication that the caress was happening at all.
Since she had nearly sliced him in half for touching her in the hallway, he took it as a good sign.
“Have you seen a naked Grenian male before?” he asked, his voice low.
“Of course.” Her answering voice was gruff and she still did not meet his eyes.
“Seen one sexually aroused—like this?”
He kept his gaze on her face as he motioned with his other hand to his erection swaying between them.
“No.”
Her reply was a little less gruff this time, her gaze over his shoulder as she tossed the antiseptic patch into a nearby waste bin, his touch on her arm terminated and his hand dropped to his side. She peeled the adhesive backing off the twelve by fifteen-inch bandage and gently pressed it over the claw marks, her palm flat against his chest, moving in a circle before she dropped her arm to her side.
For several seconds they stood there, frozen and silent. Then, she slowly looked down into his eyes. He smiled at her, the corners of his eyes crinkling.
“I like you, Quant. I like you very much and I’d like to be your friend if you will let me,” he said quietly as his hand lifted to her neck. There, her skin was thin and baby-soft. With light fingertips, he stroked the yellow underside of her throat, feeling the rapid pulse rippling under his touch.
Something about Irion’s amber gaze froze Quant’s mind and paralyzed her body and like the good assassin she’d been taught to be, she tried to analyze it.
Was it that enticing ginger scent she smelled and tasted on the roof of her mouth? Was it because he stood so close to her, his hands stroking her throat with a languid grace?
But she couldn’t think, couldn’t move, almost; forgot to breathe as she saw his face come closer and closer to her own, his expelled breath cool on her skin, until his lips touched her cheek in a kiss.
His lips were soft and warm, his ginger scent of a pungency that stirred peculiar feelings inside her loins and made her stomach flutter. She wanted to gasp, but her breath caught in her throat, startling her and she started to jerk away from his touch.
Irion felt Quant’s neck muscles tighten and knew she was about to pull away from him. He didn’t want that, so before she could move, he dropped his hand and leaned away from her, trying to look as innocent as possible. That left them still very close together; she staring down into his eyes and he up into hers, watching the round nostrils on the end of her muzzle flare with her sudden, rapid breathing. He had felt her tremble and wondered if he had made the connection he’d wanted with her.
“Quant?’ he questioned softly, unable to read the thoughts behind the silver eyes.
“Are you seducing me?” she asked, her voice quiet.
“Yes.”
“You ever been with an Isaarian before?”
“Yes.”
The unexpected reply shook Quant. It destroyed her planned rebuff and left her feeling uncharacteristically vulnerable.
When she answered, he saw something falter in her eyes and it prodded him to question her.
“Have you?” he asked.
“Been with an Isaarian? No.”
“With a Grenian?”
“No.”
“With—anyone?”
There came a brief pause before she said “No,” and Irion felt his desire shrinking with his erection.
“What’s the matter with your friend?” she asked, a touch of sarcasm in her voice. She motioned to his deflating sex as it retreated inside the flap of flesh hidden between his legs.
“How old are you, Quant?”
For some reason, she lied. “Almost fifteen.”
“And you’ve never…?”
“I didn’t have many offers in here. Yours is the first.”
She said it uncaringly.
Too uncaring, Irion thought and a wave of pity washed over him.
“I’m sorry,” he said in real sympathy of her staryears of aloneness. She gave him a puzzled look.
“Why?
He didn’t answer. Instead, he gave a soft sigh as he reached down and pulled his blood-dampened bodysuit up to his waist. Quant felt a strange pang tighten her chest.
“Changed your mind?” she jeered. He looked up at her. His amber eyes were devoid of the revulsion she had expected to see.
“To be your first lover—that’s a great responsibility,” he said solemnly. “It’s not something to jump into.” He saw her lift her lip in a sneer, showing white shark’s teeth and he hurried on. “But I do want to be your friend and I believe I may have a battle tactic that would allow you to beat Salara.”
As he hoped, his last words made the scornful expression vanish and she looked at him with new interest. He continued.
“I was going out to eat. Come with me and we’ll talk about it.” Her look went from interest to skepticism and he could see the imminent refusal forming in her eyes.
“Please,” he persisted with all the charm at his command. “What have you got to lose? If nothing else, you’ll get a free meal out of it, and next starweek, a way to have Salara down on that practice mat instead of you. Come on, Quant! Come with me!”
Her silver eyes narrowed with doubt, then opened to roundness and she sighed in a way that said acceptance.
“All right,” she said, “but if this is another sick joke, I’m going to tear off your ears and stuff them down your throat.”
End of chapter 1
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