Omega Games by S. L. Viehl Read Free Book Online

without preparing a meal for them. Men were also more at ease with each other if they shared food as well as talk.
    It also gave me something to do besides imagine what would happen if my husband’s friend had grown
    “Duncan.” Long legs clad in black trousers climbed down the ladder from the upper hatch. Davidov jumped down the last two feet and peered around him. “Is this a fighter made to look like a launch, or do your Jorenian friends have a sense of humor?”
    My husband clasped hands with the Terran. “It is good to see you again, Alek.”
    I stood back, out of Davidov’s line of sight, so that I could have a private look at him. The two men might have been brothers, so similar were their height, build, and coloring. Then the subtle differences became more apparent to me.
    Davidov had darker, thinner hair, which he wore shorn like an Iisleg female’s. Above a wide-bridged nose, two night-colored eyes shifted all around, taking in everything. An angle-shaped scar on his cheek pointed to his left ear. His ready smile thinned his full lips around pretty teeth, but his good humor did not lighten the flat blackness of his eyes. I disliked people who manipulated their facial expressions to make others think they felt something they did not. I breathed in and became even more unsettled.
    Although Davidov appeared Terran and healthy, I could not smell him at all.
    The Terran seemed to be looking for something other than Reever, his fingers splayed as if prepared to grab it. His next words confirmed my impression. “Where is this woman of yours that I’ve heard so little about?”
    I stepped out of the doorway and came to stand beside my husband.
    “This is my wife, Jarn,” Reever said. “Jarn, my friend Aleksei Davidov.”
    “Call me Alek,” the Terran said, regarding me as a jlorra might a limping stray. This two-legged snow tiger did not pounce, however, but offered a paw. “You are a lovely little thing, aren’t you?”
    I briefly touched his hand but didn’t answer his inquiry. I was small, but I didn’t consider myself particularly lovely. Among the Iisleg, I had been regarded as a skinny runt. Ensleg also had a habit of asking useless questions to which they did not expect answers.
    “Show me the rest of this interesting plasteel can,” Davidov said to Reever.
    I waited in the corridor as my husband escorted his friend around Moonfire . As the ship’s systems were limited, it didn’t take long for the two men to return.
    “Terran, obviously, but not the usual sort,” Davidov was saying as the men rejoined me. “Jarn, your husband won’t tell me how you two met. Did he purchase you from one of his old enemies, or were you so desperate that you had to settle for the likes of him?”
    I raised my brows. “Reever and I met during the rebellion on Akkabarr. He was battle blind, and I repaired the damage to his eyes. Later, I threatened to kill him, but he talked me out of it and showed great courage. For that reason, and another, I agreed to be his woman.”
    “Really.” He bent down, putting his face closer to mine to whisper, “Do you have an unattached sister, perhaps?”
    He was attempting to use humor to flatter me, but among my people men did not compliment women, and women did not laugh at men. Reever did not respond to jests of any kind, so he also remained silent.
    “I have prepared food and drink for you in the galley.” I gestured. “This way.”
    Davidov spent the next hour talking about his recent sojourns, pausing at times only for breath. Reever responded now and then, briefly, but seemed content to listen. I refused to eat and drink with the men and stood to one side, observing. On Akkabarr females did not eat until all of the males were finished and had left the shelter. An act of deference, but also an excellent way to learn what the men would otherwise never tell us.
    I no longer had to follow those customs, but I wanted to watch the Terran. Something about him did not feel