Matushka

He was stirring now, in the bedroom that was separated by a few meters of distance and by several bulkheads (no, Katy, they're walls!) from the terrace where she was sitting. She could feel him starting to think in his usual controlled fashion, realizing she was not beside him physically and wondering where she had gone and why....

And then, of course, his mind touched hers and he relaxed again. She felt morning desire rising in him, stronger in the Morthan male than in the human male; and she smiled as she finished her chocolate, and drew her robe tighter around her in a shiver that was partly from the morning's autumn chill and partly anticipation of what would happen to her when she returned to the bedroom and took that robe off and lay down to be held in her husband's arms.

It was a mutual gratification that would have to be delayed, because the front door opened while she was padding through the living room to dispose of her empty cup in the kitchen. Two people entered.

One was a red-haired but swiftly balding man, large and broad-shouldered and human. The other was a tall woman, her body shrouded in a cloak and her face obscured by a scarf that was beaded with Narsai's morning mist.

"Dan!" Romanova said, and let her thoughts touch her mate's mind with a mixture of apology that their intimacy couldn't happen as usual this morning-and of pleasure that someone they both loved was here, unexpected but always welcome.

"Hello, Matushka," the man said, and gave his informally adopted foster mother a tired grin. "Are you and Linc ready for some trouble? Because I'm afraid I'm bringing you plenty of it."

* * *

"This is Rachel Kane," Daniel Archer said, as he sat beside the woman who when she removed her cloak proved to be wearing a Star Service uniform that was tight in the front to a ludicrous degree. That had to be uncomfortable. Yet the woman's face was expressionless, which matched the way she moved-mechanically, and as if every use of muscle required a conscious effort. "You remember me talking about her, don't you, Matushka?"

The kitchen was warm, and it was fragrant now with coffee and chocolate and sweet hot cereals. Yet the tall woman with the fair hair and the green eyes was shivering, and she continued doing so even after Lincoln Casey went back to the bedroom and got an afghan and deftly wrapped it around her shoulders.

Unlike most Morthan hybrids, he could not sense the feelings of just any other sentient being who happened to be near him. There was only one other person whose emotions he could sense, and that connection had taken him years of constant and close association to develop. Nevertheless he had learned his Morthan mother's habit of taking care of the people who surrounded him, so he was the one who saw to it that the new arrivals were fed and that the room was made warmer when he realized that Rachel Kane was still shivering even after he brought her the afghan.

Catherine Romanova was nodding and answering her foster son, and relying on her mate to do the things he always did. "I remember," she said, and reached out to take the younger woman's hands between both of hers. The flesh she touched was cold. "You were the first officer on the Archangel, when Dan was posted to her as chief engineer."

"Yes. That was me." Kane spoke at last, in a raspy voice and so softly that if Romanova hadn't been leaning toward her already she doubted that she could have made out the words. "I'm sorry, I was alone for so long that I'm having trouble communicating now that I'm with people again. And it was so cold...." Her shivering turned into a shudder.