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.Nodoubt they were on the main ship, in his holds, to be traded the next time the gods damned bastardstopped.As angry as he was about it, he dismissed it.The garments would be something to cover them with, atleast, some protection from the elements.It also occurred to him that it might be for the best all the way around.It was probablynot a good ideato enhance their beauty at all.It was going to be difficult enough to ignore them as it was.At least withthe shapeless things it would not be as hard to overlook the shape beneath & he hoped. I need the device to test the food. Reluctance flickered across the trader s face, but he motioned for Khan to follow him and went inside,digging through his stores until he found a scanner.Khan watched him suspiciously while he programmed it and then told him to give him a demonstration.Supposedly, the requirements of thefemales had been programmed in and also the elements detrimental to them.He had no way of beingcertain, of course, but once he d been shown how to use it, he tested it on plants he d become familiarwith and saw that it noted plants he knew to be poisonous or edible to the Hirachi.He would have to trust that the trader wanted to trade with them again badly enough that he wouldn tdeliberately create a problem by killing the females.Stacking his goods together, he headed back to the compound.When he reached it, he set his goodsdown and paused long enough to close the gates.He would barricade them when he d found somethingheavy enough, he decided, but he thought the gates themselves were heavy enough the women probablywouldn t be able to open them not without several of them pulling at them anyway.Most of the women, he saw, had moved down to the beach.The one with red hair and green eyes was surrounded by Hirachi.His gut tightened.Anger surged through him even though he realized that Adar and Gerek were there togive her food and water, just as he d told them to, and that Teron was trying to tend her wounds.It was theway they were attending her, he finally decided, that spawned the resentment, the sense ofpossessiveness.Or maybe it was the fact that she was smiling at them?He didn t know, but he didn t particularly care for the gut churning anger that arose in him.Struggling Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlwith it, he picked up the goods he d set down when he d closed the gates and started toward theintimate little knot just as Adar and Gerek finally took themselves off.It eased some of the sense of possessiveness, but he discovered he didn t really like the way Teron waslooking at her either.And he sure as hell didn t like the way she was looking at Teron.Grinding his teeth, he stalked toward the pair, dumped the stack of gowns beside them and strodetoward the beach, certain that the sooner he put distance between himself and that red headed female thebetter off he d be.Chapter SixAs much as it disturbed Miranda that they might ve shaken what had seemed to be a buddingunderstanding with at least one of the Hirachi it occurred to her almost as soon as he disappeared into thewater that there wasn t a single Hirachi in sight.Certain she must be wrong, Miranda scanned the entirecompound more carefully, searching for any previously unnoticed vantage point where they might haveguards placed. They re gone, she said to no one in particular after she d searched the area for several minutes.The other women, who d been engaged in low voiced conversations all around her quieted a few at thetime as the comment made the rounds.They began to scan the compound as Miranda had, a fewgrowing bold enough to get up and walk around a short distance from the group. They all went into the sea, Deborah said after a few minutes. Did anyone see any come out again? No one had.Curious now, everybody who could got up and moved cautiously closer to the beach tostare out over the water.Miranda pushed herself to her feet and hobbled toward the gate.Dismay filledher when she saw it had been closed, and irritation.What had she been doing that she hadn t noticed,she wondered?Khan had dropped the gowns practically on top of her, she remembered.She d been surrounded byGerek, Adar, and Teron before that.It must have been Khan who d closed the gate.She hadn t noticedbecause she was too busy watching his angry departure and then Teron had carried her down the beach. Shit! she muttered under her breath, wondering if it was even worth the effort to check it.Deciding itwas, she paused to rest a few moments and, alternating between an awkward hobble, hopping, andresting, made her way down the wall until she d nearly reached the gates. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlThey were thrust open just before she reached them.Halting abruptly, she stared at the panel, waiting tosee who, or what, was entering.Khan strode through, glanced almost casually in the direction where everyone had been sitting, andpinned her with his gaze.For a split second, there was surprise in his eyes but it took him less than fiveseconds after that to correctly assess why Miranda was standing within a few yards of the gate, one leglifted like a stork, her hand braced on the wall, her eyes wide with the most innocent expression shecould manage.His face turned stony, his lips flattening into a hard line.Instead of approaching her, however, he turnedand grasped something and lifted it
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