Venus Rising by Flora Speer Read Free Book Online Page B

learned.
    She blew an errant lock of hair out of her
eyes. While it was not as unbearably hot under the trees as it had
been on the desert, it was still warm, and much more humid.
Delicate red-winged insects darted here and there. She swatted at
several, feeling irritable. She did not want to think about
uncomfortable subjects. She wanted to get safely back to the
Capital and be reassigned to another spaceship, to the life she had
prepared for and accepted.
    And enjoyed? a small voice in her
heart asked relentlessly. No, she told herself, enjoyment had
nothing to do with it. She was pledged to duty. The uneasy question
was Commander Tarik’s fault. He had a way of shaking her resolution
with his artfully insidious suggestions.
    Tarik. A walking puzzle. A man from an
important family who had attained high rank in the Service, who
freely spoke treasonous thoughts. Under normal circumstances she
would have continued to avoid him as she had done aboard ship. And
yet, thrown together as they were, he became more and more
interesting, the disturbing things he said only increasing his
peculiar appeal. As for the way he had touched her as though she
belonged to him, she could not think of that without beginning to
blush again while her blood raced through her veins.
    She watched him just ahead of her as he led
the way along the stream. He paused, holding back a stocky bush so
Narisa could squeeze between it and the edge of the water.
    “Have you noticed the odd assortment of
growing things?” he asked.
    “No, I haven’t.” Squeezing by the bush meant
brushing against Tarik. When she slipped a little on a patch of
mud, he caught her arm to steady her, drawing her closer. Narisa
caught a whiff of his body scent that had so dazzled her while she
had wrapped his broken ribs, a fragrance compounded of sunshine and
green leaves.
    She pulled away from Tarik and stepped onto a
flat rock that overhung the stream. He joined her and stood looking
into the thick growth surrounding them.
    “Look there,” he said, pointing. ‘That kind
of tree once grew on Earth, and those, too, I think. Those over
there are giant Demarian ferns, and that triangular bluish-green
plant is from Ceta. There are others I recognize from other
planets.” He named a few, and Narisa followed his pointing finger
to look at each in turn. Then he stood watching her
expectantly.
    “How can they all be growing on one planet?”
she asked. When he did not answer at once, she found the
explanation herself. “It’s unlikely they would all grow here
naturally. Someone must have brought them here.”
    “And?” He was watching her the way her
favorite teacher used to do, waiting until she worked out the
problem in her own mind and found the solution for herself.
    “That means there are intelligent life forms
here.” She paused, looking at the tall trees. “Or once there were.
Those trees have been growing for a long time. But if the people
who planted them are still here, it means our chance of finding
someone with communications equipment is fairly good.”
    “Can’t you just enjoy the journey?” he asked.
“Narisa, look around you. Are you blind and deaf?”
    “I’ve been on guard, Commander Tarik.” That
was not entirely true. She had been thinking, and not paying much
attention to where they were going. It was the journey’s end that
interested her.
    “Being on guard means being observant.” Tarik
caught her shoulders and pushed her to the edge of the rock. She
knew he was annoyed with her and briefly she thought he was going
to throw her into the stream, but instead he held her at the very
brink and made her look into the water. ‘Tell me what you see,” he
commanded.
    “Water. And rocks. A few green things growing
in the water. That’s all,” she said stubbornly. But something
caught her eye. “Wait, what’s that? That silvery thing, there by
the round stone.”
    “Fish. There are schools of them in every
quiet pool,” Tarik told her, and