Then both fall down into slumber, still pressed tightly against one another as the sweat from their bodies slowly cools.

*

When Kirsten next awakens, it is the morning of the third day after the events of the sweat. She finds herself cocooned beneath Koda’s dead weight just as another soft knock comes to the door. “Just a minute!” she calls, her voice sounding as harsh as a frog’s dying croak. “Koda. Sweetheart, could you—? Unh. Okay, that’s not gonna work.” Her deeply sleeping lover is as boneless as a ragdoll, and it takes all of her strength just to free one leg. With some leverage, she is able to roll Koda to her back, where she stays, head lolled to one side. In the dawning light of the new day, Kirsten carefully looks her lover over. Most of the deep color has returned to her face, but dark circles continue to take up residence beneath her eyes. Despite the heat of the room, her flesh still retains a disturbing chill, and as Kirsten rises from the bed, she carefully tucks the scattered quilts around Dakota’s still form.

The knock sounds again.

“I’m coming!” She finds herself blushing deeply at the words. “That’s what I’ve spent the past two days doing,” she murmurs under her breath, then blushes again. Her body is sore, but it is the pleasant soreness of one well and wonderfully loved. “Jesus,” she whispers, shivering as the memories pass in a merry parade through her consciousness. “Alright, Kirsten, deep breath in, deep breath out, good. Now….” She raises her voice. “Who is it?”

“It’s Tacoma. Lieutenant Jimenez, one of your techs, is here to see you. He has something from that suicide bomber android he needs to show you.”

“Ok,” she says, her eyes darting around for clothes, or a robe to cover herself with, and coming up empty. “I’ll be right out. I have to—.”

“Take your time. We’ll be in the living-room when you’re ready.”

“Thanks.” Lifting an arm, she takes a quick sniff, then winces and coughs. “Shower. Now.”

The master suite contains a tiny half bath with enough room for a toilet, sink, and a stall shower. The spray is bitter cold as she turns on the tap, and, gritting her teeth, she steps inside. “I gain more respect for you military types every day,” she mutters, shivering as she grabs the soap and begins quickly working up a lather. Longing for the days when a steamy hot shower was both luxury and necessity, she completes her washing in record time and gratefully turns off the tap.

A thankfully non regulation towel is her reward and she dries off quickly, then wraps it around herself as she stalks back into the bedroom. “Damn,” she murmurs, looking down at the scattered pile of clothes she’d worn three days before, wrinkled beyond salvaging. “Now what? I’m certainly not gonna entertain guests in a towel.”

Shrugging, she steps over to the battered dresser where she’d seen Koda draw forth clothes. Opening a drawer, she rummages through until she comes up with a plain black t-shirt—overlarge, which is good since her bra has been reduced to two matching strips of useless cloth—and a pair of cargo shorts that, once she pulls them on, resemble Capri pants given the difference in height between herself and her lover. “Ah well. They’ll just have to learn to deal with it.”

Running Dakota’s brush through her hair, she deems herself as presentable as she’s going to get, and makes a final check on Koda, who is sleeping peacefully, burrowed beneath the layers of blankets covering her. “I’ll be back soon, sweetheart,” she whispers, gently touching Dakota’s cheek before turning and leaving the room.

*

Jimenez and Tacoma come to their feet as Kirsten steps from the bedroom. She waves them back down, not one to stand on protocol in her own home—and truly, for the first time, that’s what she thinks of this place. She gives each as much of a smile as she can muster, then comes around to the couch and gingerly perches on one arm, hoping neither can see the slight wince she gives as she does so.

“So, what do you have for me, Lieutenant?”

Jimenez lifts his briefcase and props it on the table, sliding the latches and exposing the interior. Picking up a small, labeled plastic baggie, he hands it to Kirsten, who swipes her glasses from the endtable and slips them on. A pair of tweezers follows, and Kirsten accepts them with a nod and opens the baggie, drawing out a tiny object no bigger than the half moon of a fingernail. She turns the blackened object this way and that, a smile blooming over her features. “Oh, this is good. This is very good.”

“Thank you, Ma’am,” Jimenez says, beaming with pleasure.

“Was this separate from the other pieces or did you extract it?”

He lifts another baggie from the case and hands it to her. “We took it out of this, Ma’am.”

The metallic square he hands her is half the size of a pack of cigarettes and weighs less than two ounces, by her reckoning. Kirsten feels her heart race at the discovery. Though blackened, melted, and quite damaged, the piece she holds is the nerve center of the android; something no one save Westerhaus and his flunkies has ever seen. “You may just have made the second biggest mistake of your life, Pete,” she murmurs, grinning a shark’s grin. Then she looks up at Jimenez. “Any other nice surprises for me, Lieutenant?”

“Back at the lab, Ma’am,” he says, chest so puffed with pride that Tacoma spares a brief second to wonder if he’ll soon burst, leaving Air Force blue bits of himself scattered about the house. He stifles a chuckle in deference to the man’s obvious sincerity, though his eyes share a wicked grin with Kirsten, who’s successfully hiding her own mirth. “Will you…uh…will you be returning with me, Ma’am? To the lab, I mean. Corvallis and I really could use your expertise. Ma’am.”

“I’d like to, Lieutenant,” Kirsten remarks, carefully slipping the square back into the baggie and zipping it closed, “and I will, but right now, I have to….”

“…get yourself to the lab with this young gentleman,” Wanblee Wapka states, stepping through the door. Asi, who he’s been trying to entertain, pushes past him and, yodeling with joy at finally seeing his Mistress, all but leaps into Kirsten’s arms as he covers her face with wet, sloppy dog kisses. “Dakota should be awakening soon. I’ll keep an eye on her while you tend to your own needs.”

“But—.”

“Go. Please. She will be fine, and it will do you good to get out for awhile.”

Kirsten still looks unconvinced. Oh, she believes that Wanblee Wapka speaks the truth; he knows about these things much better than she does, after all. But there is a churning, gnawing feeling inside of her which makes her wonder if, rather than Dakota being okay without her, she will be okay without Dakota.

“Go,” Wanblee Wapka repeats, smiling. “You don’t have to stay long.”

Finally, reluctantly, she nods and, with a final pat to her lovelorn canine, slowly rises and follows the young Lieutenant from the house.

When she leaves, Tacoma also rises from his place on the couch. “If it’s alright with you, Ate, I think I’ll head back to the power plant. Bernstein and Jove are just about to do the first test with the windfans we’ve installed. I’d like to be there if anything goes wrong.”

Wanblee Wapka nods.

“She will be alright, right?” Tacoma asks, eyeing his father closely.

“She’ll be fine, chinkshi. But you know that already. You’ve always been closer than cekpapi.”

“I do know,” Tacoma admits. “But it’s always nice to have it confirmed.” He smiles. “Thanks, Ate. I’ll be back soon.”

“Be off with you then,” he orders, lowering his long frame onto the couch and patting his lap. Asi obligingly puts his head in the indicated spot, and begins to groan as his ears are firmly scratched.

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

DAKOTA BATTLES UP from the deep levels of her sleep; her body burning, aching, bone deep. She reaches for her partner, only to come up empty-handed. Her eyes flutter open, dark with arousal. “Kirsten? Canteskue?”

Only silence answers her call, and she scrambles up to a sitting position, flinging the heavy covers off of her burning flesh, then groans as her head all but explodes from the abrupt change in position. Her hands fly up to cradle her skull. The mother of all headaches seems to have taken up residence in her brain and she grits her teeth against the urge to cry out in pain. “Gods,” she grits out, trapped between the splitting fire in her head and the throbbing need in her body. “What’s happening to me?”

Slamming her eyes shut, she takes in several deep, slightly labored, breaths, trying to restore some semblance of control. The deep breaths are a mistake. Kirsten’s essence, the commingled essence of their passion, lies heavy in the room, causing her whole body to clench with unmet desire. She bolts to her feet and walks on unsteady legs to the one small window. Throwing it open, she breathes deep of the springtime air. Her headache pounds, sending sharp spikes of pain down her neck, behind her eyes, and even through her teeth. She groans and clamps hard fingers to her skull once again. “Thunkashila, help me,” she prays, her words slipping into the breeze that cools the sweat on her skin. “Please.”

Slowly, gradually, with the speed of forever, a small measure of calm steals over her, allowing her to straighten somewhat, which helps lift the strain from her overstressed muscles and bones. “Thank you,” she whispers, taking in a final deep breath before turning away from the window and heading for the small bathroom to take care of other, readily apparent, needs.

The shower beckons, and she turns on the tap and quickly enters. What little calm she’s managed to attain is immediately driven from her by the first blast of icy water on her skin. Her headache trebles in strength, driving her to her knees with its force. All of the muscles in her body simultaneously cramp, and an agonized cry sprouts forth, fully bloomed, from between tightly clenched jaws.