Page 41 of Touch the Stars
“Try this.”Baatar offered her a chunk of meat coated in a pink sauce between his thumb and forefinger.
She leaned forward and closed her mouth over the morsel, and sucked until he released it.The flavor was almost like salmon, but its texture was closer to ham.
“Mmm.Delicious.”She gave him a smile as she skewered a piece of meat with the pointed shadak.“My turn.”
At first, it’d been weird eating with what looked like a single, sharpened chopstick, but after so many meals, she’d come to prefer it and the shovel-like shagat over a fork and knife.
She brought the morsel to his mouth, and he pulled it off the utensil with his teeth.A small ache stabbed at her heart.This was what she wanted.Someone to talk to, be serious with, and play with.Someone to share her life with.Someone like Baatar.
No, not someonelikehim.Just Baatar.
She breathed out a resigned sigh and set the shadak so it was balanced across her bowl.“We have to decide now, today, what we’re going to do.I don’t want to be empress, but I’m not going to let your family die either.”
He gave his chin the smallest of upward jerks in an affirmative.“My faith in the grand emperor’s motives is now lacking.”
“Me too.Him and your Ancient Ones.Who are the Ancient Ones, anyway?”
“What we are taught as children is that they are entities, the last twenty souls of a long-dead race who inhabited Ghara.”He set the bowl of salmon-ham on the floor.“Their physical bodies perished millennia ago, and now their souls reside in a vessel…a holy crystal called the Empire’s Heart.”
She twisted her mouth to one side.“So, they’re some sort of immortals or something?”
Who might be a little control-freakish.
Baatar shook his head as he moved more dishes from the bed to the floor.“No one knows for sure about their mortality.Our teachings say that they were chosen from among the existing Gharans to remain in this dimension so they could continue to help right the wrongs their people brought upon the Nineteen Planets.”
“Seriously?”That must have been one helluva fuck up.“What’d they do?”
“The original Gharans were a highly advanced race who ventured into the galaxy to search out other races, and to unite with them peacefully.They found nineteen other planets, and shared pieces of their advanced knowledge equally with all.”He shrugged with his hands.“Some of those worlds used the gift to help their societies prosper.Others used it to gain power, eventually turning on the peaceful ones who flourished.Soon, wars raged between all of them.
“To restore order, the Gharans presented a treaty for all.An ultimatum, really.Any planet who did not agree would be stripped of their gifts of technology and left to fend for themselves.The prospect of not having the tools to protect themselves against their more advanced neighbors did not appeal to anyone, so even the most war-like planets agreed to the Ancients’ terms.This was how the empire was formed.We have been at peace ever since.”
“Wow.”She drew up her knees and hugged them to her chest.“I don’t get why there are only twenty Ancients left.What happened to the rest of the Gharans?”
“Ah, good question.Each being was chosen to represent one planet in the empire, including Ghara.Collectively, they became known as the Ancient Ones, and have served as counselors to imperial leaders of the empire.They also are responsible for choosing the imperial heir from one of the nineteen member planets…”
A furrow appeared between his brows as his words trailed off.Then he shook his head as if dismissing whatever he was thinking about.“As for the others of their race, they simply disappeared.”
“Like, poof?Into thin air?”Nobody just did that.
“The accepted theory is that they left their bodies behind to move to the next level of existence and attend to all who had suffered and died because of their poorly thought-out explorations.”He picked up the last bowl and speared the piece of meat at the bottom.“I wish I understood why the Ancient Ones decided to add a new planet to its fold.”
“You mean my planet?”
He nodded as he met her gaze.“Yes.”
“Maybe because Earth has a lot of water?”There were a shit-ton of sci-fi invasion stories about that.
Baatar chuckled, low and rumbly.“This is unlikely, as two-thirds of the planets in the empire have as much or more water than yours.One is at least ninety-five percent water.”
“Oh.”So much for that idea.
“I checked the handheld to see if it had obtained any new information from the freighter.”He held out the meat to her, and she leaned forward and pulled it off theshadakwith her teeth.“The only interesting thing was that they were to make an unscheduled stop within the Gharan Empire.”
The meat turned to leather in her mouth, and she forced it down with a hard swallow.“Where?”
“Ragat.”
“You mean,Rocky the Asshole’splanet?Something stinks here, Baatar.”
