Page 83 of Tribute
He gathered his thoughts and concentrated. “We can’t produce offspring in one day. Conception is not guaranteed. Do you understand?”
There was no reply from his hosts, and anyway he was too busy trying not to scream as his cock tried to come and had nothing left to give. Silence fell in his head, but the pulsating chamber around them filled with his desperate moans. He let his eyes close, and only Anna’s soothing hands on his shoulders maintained their emotional connection.
He had no idea how long they were left in the darkness until lights flashed on and something inserted itself through the membrane into their space. He instinctively tried to put Anna Lee behind him as the tangled mass of reddish tentacles settled in front of them. Two probes whipped out, capturing them each around the throat.
“Tell me about the process of procreation.”
He repeated his story, and Anna joined in with the pertinent information about female cycles and the likelihood of conception.
“You need more eggs.”
Anna shook her head. “We can only release one or two unfertilized eggs every cycle. You took my eggs, didn’t you? Why haven’t you replicated a human in your lab?”
“Unsuccessful.”
Aled put his arm around her. “We cannot be expected to endure this every day. It is pointless. If a female isn’t ovulating, all the seed in the world won’t make a baby.”
Anna nudged him hard and he shut up, letting her continue. “And you haven’t taken into consideration that humanoids procreate more successfully with their other halves—just like you.”
“We do not require a ‘mate’ to procreate. It is a primitive function.”
“But you are two entities that work together, yes?”
“Other.”The two distinctUngrichvoices spoke as one.
“Aled and I are not Other. We cannot share our thoughts, and we can’t survive for very long without our other halves. We will die. We belong with Rehz Akran and Kai Mexr. They are our Others.”
“We know of these males.”
“If they were here, the chances of Aled and I successfully mating and producing offspring would be far higher.”
Aled let out his breath as theUngrichreleased the mind lock and disappeared back through the thick membrane protecting their air.
“Do you think it will work?”
Anna curled up against his side. “I don’t know. Rehz will be coming for me anyway. I just hope that if they believe us, he might be allowed to get through alive.”
Kai turned to see Rehz coming up behind him. He positioned himself by the controls to the door of the vault.
“I’ve rigged it up to let us in and then automatically close, but not lock.” He frowned down at the control panel. “Well. Ithink that’s what I’ve done. According to the schematics, there is a manual override on the inside of the door as well, so we can technically get out either way.”
“Good.”
“I’ve also sent a secure message to the head of the military and the president about what has happened. I don’t know if the whole government is in league with Palk, but if they aren’t, they might come looking for us. It certainly can’t hurt.” He looked up to see Rehz stripping off his weapons. “What happened to your arm?”
“I did a little doctoring on myself.” Rehz inspected the line of black stitches where the blood was still oozing out. “Let’s just call it our insurance policy.”
“You’re attempting to conceal a weapon?”
Rehz’s grin was lethal. “It’s not really a weapon. It’s something I got out of the military archives. It’s old tech and might not be spotted.” He continued to take off his clothes. “Come on, we need to do this. We’re already hours behind them, andUngrichtime moves differently.”
Kai stripped off, shivering in the cold confines of the rock cavern. He tapped in the prepared codes and walked slowly up to the portal, which was beginning to open. “I don’t fucking want to go back in there.”
“Then don’t. I’ll get Anna. You can stay here and let us out.”
He raised an eyebrow at his friend. “And leave Aled?”
“You really like that male, don’t you?”
