Farseek Mercenary Series

Sigh! Just discovered a horrible review on Faigon's Mate. More people liked it than not so I guess I shouldn't feel bad. Such blatant criticism leads me to believe the reader didn't realize why the series was written in the less than polished style it is presented.

The Farseek Series was my first attempt to write from alternating viewpoints in first person. It was deliberately written as an ordinary soldier or refugee without polished literary skills might write it in their personal journals about what happened to them. 

The events in the stories, with the exception of Faigon's Mate, are about soldiers and rescues of Dreadnaught One. Some of the individual stories overlapped because they were told by different characters experiencing the same events. That's why it seemed like the same story retold, when it was actually a different experience of the same event.

Do I think that explanation is going to make people who have panned my story to like it better? Probably not. I just wanted to put it out there so they might get a different perspective. I've been writing and publishing long enough to know that some people really like my stories while others seem to take perverse pleasure in telling the world via reviews on Amazon they suck. 

It makes me wonder. Was it really that badly written or just not the story the reviewer wanted it to be?

My next undertaking will be to remaster and re-edit the series into a box set for release in late fall. 

Argen's Mate Farseek Mercenary Finale

AMAZON

Argen

        Argen Trematu was home on leave from Farseek Brigade when the Sargan’s attacked his home world. After they destroyed the Farseek colony, Argen was scooped up with the rest of the survivors and sold into slavery. Uatu warrior, Lieutenant Commander Trematu didn’t make such a good slave. He rebelled at every turn which landed him on the Julconi prison planet fighting in the pit.

He thinks his life is over until an old friend comes to tell him the Farseek Mercenaries were coming to the rescue. Argen never thought landing on the prison world would be his lucky break.

…. And he never expected to meet her on the rescue ship.

Zoey

Zoey Addison was kidnapped from Earth to be sold into slavery. She rescued with four other Earth women by the Farseek Mercenaries. Zoey joined the Mercenaries with her three friends because they had nowhere else to go. Her friends all found their soul mates among the crew and Zoey was feeling left out.

….Until she was checking in the rescues from Julconi. Dressed in rags and so dirty she could barely discern what color he was Argen walks up to her table and takes her hand. The attraction between them all most crackles.

The two share the dreams of the rest of the Farseek Mercenaries to return to Farseek with their people and build a life together never sure it will really ever happen…

Preview:

Argen Trametu

The stench of unwashed bodies and smoke hung heavy in the air. The crowd was a noisy bunch, and a lot of them were drunk. If one didn’t know better, they might think they were in a rowdy bar in a seedy port city. But it was a prison planet, and we were all prisoners.

I was in the fight pit. It was my second fight of the night and his first. My last match didn’t last nearly long enough. I needed to punch someone or something for a lot longer than I got to punch him. I thought Alarian warriors were a tougher lot than that. Our match barely went three rounds, and most of his punches didn’t land. He smelled of rotgut whiskey, so maybe he was drunk. But I pounded him without mercy.

Even that was not nearly enough to assuage the rage I still felt at landing here on the prison planet of Julconi. I am a Uatu warrior from Farseek, and I had done nothing to warrant going to a prison planet for the rest of my life.

I was on leave visiting Farseek, my homeworld when the Sargans attacked and left our world in ruin. I remember walking with mother at the open-air produce market in the town square.

My next memory was waking up strapped to a bunk on a slave ship. I was no slave! I am an Uatu warrior of the Farseek Brigade! I escaped every chance I got.

They punished me, tortured me every time, and every time I did it again. I didn’t know the slavers put a tracker chip under my skin. I could never get to a starport to steal a ship and get off world.  They used flying drones to track me. The drones had shockers that shot me and dropped me wherever I stood.

That was painful enough. Then the punishers shackle me naked by my wrists and ankles to what can only be called a torture frame. I’ve been whipped, beaten, and repeatedly shocked until I wished they would just kill me.

I hated being helpless to defend myself. The Sargans knew I would kill them had they left me unrestrained. They always tortured me unconscious before they took off the restraints and threw me in a cell until they could sell me off.

Finally, they must have grown tired of torturing me, so they sent me here. At least now I could fight back, sometimes three fights a night. So, far I haven’t lost, though sometimes I take a good beating before it’s over. Sometimes the pain is better than feeling nothing at all.

The next fighter was new and looked more evenly matched. The first round we danced around each other throwing and blocking punches. He was pretty good, but I was better. He clearly had training in hand to hand combat, but few styles compare to that of an Uatu warrior. I toyed with him for a while letting him think he was actually blocking me. The next round I made my move landed more blows than he could block. I pounded him and roared like a crazed animal when he fell, and the rules said I had to stop.

The rage just welled up inside me. He was no innocent. Duck, block, punch, pivot kick. He lasted five rounds, and I knocked him out. Then I got a thirty-minute break. The next guy was bigger and meaner and had horns.

This one was hard to beat, and I took a lot of hits, but so did he. We each got in two knockdowns but I got the last one in the twelfth round, and he didn’t get up for another.

No, I didn’t kill him. I really had no grudge against him. He was just someone to hit… to pound out my rage at what the Sargans had done to my family and my world. It was not enough. It would never be enough!

The next day everything changed. I dragged out of my hovel to find some food and fill my plastic jug with water at the community well.

Then I heard someone call my name and I turned to see who it was,

“Trametu, is that really you?”

“Pegitu, what the hell are you doing here?” I murmured, hardly believing my eyes.

He nodded his head, silently asking me to go with him, so I did. He was probably the only man on Julconi who I would trust.

* * * *

It was midday before I saw Argen again. He was downright handsome all cleaned up and rested. I couldn’t help smiling up at him when he came and stood in front of my table. I felt giddy as pleasure and attraction bubbled up inside me at his presence.

“Hi sweetheart,” he said. “I had to see you. Do you think we could have third meal together in the mess hall today? I would so like to get to know you better.”

“I would like that. You look much better. Did you rest well?”

He shrugged.

“Sometimes it’s hard to rest in a new place. I’ve only been here a couple days myself. The accommodations are actually nicer than mine on Dread One, but the bed’s not the same. And the smell is different.”

“It’s a new ship,” Argen said.

“It is. We stole it from Tegliar Station,” I told him.

“I wish I could have been there for that,” he grinned. “I hope they don’t catch up to us.”

“You and me, too.” I smiled.

It was hard not to smile while I was talking with him. I knew he was handsome under all that dirt but cleaned up he looked so good I could hardly stop staring. All the Uatu men were stunningly attractive even with their odd colored skin and hair.

His skin was a pale lavender, and his hair was a darker lavender color. It had been pretty long when he came on board, but now it was clipped close to his head in what seemed to be the universal military cut.

I hoped the way I was looking at him made him feel as good as I felt at how he was looking at me.

“We’re finished here. Would you like to go to the mess and get a cup of tea?” I offered. There was no such thing as coffee out here, but the tea had about the same kick as coffee, and it tasted good.

“I need to stop at my cabin on the way, but I would love to have tea with you,” he grinned.

Farseek warriors were seldom demonstrative in public. Argen walked beside me down the corridor to the lift to level three where his cabin was. When we got there, he invited me in, and I fell right for it.

As soon as the door closed behind me, he pivoted and held my head between his large hands pressed those sexy lips to mine. I just melted against him and put my arms around him like I wanted to do the first time I saw him.

Solmatu! As soon as our lips touched and my arms went around him, I knew it was true. I felt such elation just to be in his arms for the first time. His tongue slipped between my lips, and I opened for him, giving him free reign to stake his claim. Mine! Mine!

Copyright © 2018

Clarissa Lake 

Rader's Bride

AMAZON

Available on Kindle Unlimited

      Skye Carter’s life changed abruptly when the Drayids attacked Earth and cut a one-mile section out of a dozen cities all over the world. The hole they cut in Washington, D.C. took out the bookstore/internet café business that she had worked five years to build. It was all gone, leaving her a mountain of debt. She decided to sell her house and look for a job to pay for her losses. Then she found an ad for the Narovian Interstellar Matchmaking Service. It promised a ninety-nine percent guaranteed her match would be her soulmate. 

      Rader Knight was a cyborg warrior in the Alliance Defense Force, retired after thirty years’ service to a backwater colony with a shortage of females. He applies to the service hoping they will find him a soul mate. After two years, they found Sky Carter, and she was willing to make a leap of faith and accept his proposal and take a three-month space journey to be his mate.
Did Skye Carter really know what she was getting herself into?


Excerpt: 

     Rader was on patrol when he received Skye’s acceptance of his mating proposal from the matchmaking service. The usually calm and stoic cyborg commed Makus excitedly after he had reviewed the acceptance several times to be sure his new emotions were not causing him to misinterpret the message.

     He now had a mate, and she was coming to Glasica to be with him!

     Impatiently, he signaled Makus’s com a second time, and the other man answered.

     “Yeah, Rader. What’s up?”

     “Skye Carter from the dirt planet has signed the mating contract, and she’s coming on the next ship. It will take three months.” Rader said grinning.

     “Man, that’s great Rader, I am happy for you. Jhenre will be almost as excited as you are. She wants you to be as happy as we are. I don’t know much about Earth---just that the people are human like we are. But I’ve heard only good things about the matchmaking service. It could be rough getting to know each other at first, but you’re smart. You’ll figure it out.”

     “I have studied everything I could find about Earth culture of the people indigenous to the area around our base there. They seem a lot like us but low tech. But Glasica is very much Earthlike. It will all depend on how we do together. I worry that she might not like me in person.”

     “Don’t do that, boss. Jhenre said any woman with half a brain will see you have a lot to offer in a relationship, not to mention that all you cyborgs are good to look at.”

     “Jhenre thinks I am attractive?”

     “She does, but she’s mine,” Makus chuckled.

     “Of course, I know that. If Jhenre thinks I am attractive, then Skye may think so too.”

     “Right,” Makus said. “Don’t forget that you will be able to com with her interactively once she leaves Earth. That will give you time to get to know each other while she is traveling here.

     “I have not forgotten. Is it normal to have this much apprehension about the esteem of a female?”

     “I believe it is.”

     “Life was so much simpler when all I had to do was kill the enemies. I really want this female.  I feel like she is intended to be mine.”

     “Apparently Narovian Matchmaking came to the same conclusion. Don’t worry Rader. After she comes all this way, she can’t just turn around and go back. She could have the same feelings about this as you.”

***

     “Are you crazy?” Janie squealed when Skye confessed her plans. “You’re going to another planet to be some man’s wife you never met?”

     “But the service said he is my soul mate. They match people by DNA.”

     “Why are you doing this? Is it because of the attack last month?” Janie asked.

     Skye sighed. This was exactly the reaction she expected and the reason why she’d waited so long to tell her. “That’s part of it. Janie, I lost everything in that attack. When I was looking online to see what had happened, I found the matchmaking site. Then I thought why not?”

     “Why not use one of those dating sites here? Skye, you’re beautiful. You should be able to find a husband right here on Earth.”

     “I haven’t had a date in two years. I can’t even remember how long since I got laid,” Skye told her. “I’m twenty-eight years old. I don’t have that many more years to have kids. If I started dating a man right now who I could marry, it might be two more years before that happened.”

     “They couldn’t find a man here on Earth out of seven billion people?”

     Skye shrugged. “There might not be that many in their database from Earth yet. I don’t know.”

     Skye took out her smartphone and scrolled through her pictures until she found the ones of Rader. “Here, this is him.” She handed Janie the phone.

     Janie took it and groaned as she looked at Rader’s handsome face and broad shoulders. “Well, they sure picked you a pretty one. Ooh, wee. But still, three months in space to another planet. I wouldn’t do it---not even for this handsome hunk.”

     “Well, I am. I’ve already signed the mating agreement. It’s all arranged,” Skye said. “Anyway, I didn’t call you here to have you talk me out of this. I wanted to see if there’s any of my stuff here you want before charity comes to pick it up. I’ve got kitchen stuff, clothes, any of the furniture. The appliances are staying.”

     “When are you leaving?”

     “Day after tomorrow,” Skye said with calm determination.

     “What about the closing on your house?”

     “The lawyer will handle it, and the money will be deposited in my account. It will be converted into Alliance funds as will all my savings.”

     “Will that be enough to get you home if you find you have made a colossal mistake?”

     “Possibly,” Skye said, “Or it might be enough for me to start a new business on Glasica.”

     “That’s the planet name?”

     “Yes.”

     “Will I ever see you again?”

     “Possibly not, but we can keep in touch on the internet.”

     “I’m going to miss you.” Janie suddenly hugged her.

     “You are one of the few people I will miss,” Skye said blinking against the sudden prick of tears. Janie had always been more than an employee. She had been with Skye since the beginning five years ago when it was just the two of them running the “Books and Data Stop.”

     After their hug, Janie started looking through the clothing on the living room sofa that Skye was getting ready to pack in boxes for the charity pick-up. Janie picked a few things, and Skye packed the ones she rejected into boxes.

ARGEN'S MATE - Farseek Mercenary Series Book 4

AMAZON

Argen

        Argen Trematu was home on leave from Farseek Brigade when the Sargan’s attacked his home world. After they destroyed the Farseek colony, Argen was scooped up with the rest of the survivors and sold into slavery. Uatu warrior, Lieutenant Commander Trematu didn’t make such a good slave. He rebelled at every turn which landed him on the Julconi prison planet fighting in the pit.

He thinks his life is over until an old friend comes to tell him the Farseek Mercenaries were coming to the rescue. Argen never thought landing on the prison world would be his lucky break.

…. And he never expected to meet her on the rescue ship.

Zoey

Zoey Addison was kidnapped from Earth to be sold into slavery. She rescued with four other Earth women by the Farseek Mercenaries. Zoey joined the Mercenaries with her three friends because they had nowhere else to go. Her friends all found their soul mates among the crew and Zoey was feeling left out.

….Until she was checking in the rescues from Julconi. Dressed in rags and so dirty she could barely discern what color he was Argen walks up to her table and takes her hand. The attraction between them all most crackles.

The two share the dreams of the rest of the Farseek Mercenaries to return to Farseek with their people and build a life together never sure it will really ever happen…

Excerpt:

Argen Trametu

     The stench of unwashed bodies and smoke hung heavy in the air. The crowd was a noisy bunch, and a lot of them were drunk. If one didn’t know better, they might think they were in a rowdy bar in a seedy port city. But it was a prison planet, and we were all prisoners.

     I was in the fight pit. It was my second fight of the night and his first. My last match didn’t last nearly long enough. I needed to punch someone or something for a lot longer than I got to punch him. I thought Alarian warriors were a tougher lot than that. Our match barely went three rounds, and most of his punches didn’t land. He smelled of rotgut whiskey, so maybe he was drunk. But I pounded him without mercy.

     Even that was not nearly enough to assuage the rage I still felt at landing here on the prison planet of Julconi. I am a Uatu warrior from Farseek, and I had done nothing to warrant going to a prison planet for the rest of my life.

     I was on leave visiting Farseek, my homeworld when the Sargans attacked and left our world in ruin. I remember walking with mother at the open-air produce market in the town square.

     My next memory was waking up strapped to a bunk on a slave ship. I was no slave! I am an Uatu warrior of the Farseek Brigade! I escaped every chance I got.

     They punished me, tortured me every time, and every time I did it again. I didn’t know the slavers put a tracker chip under my skin. I could never get to a starport to steal a ship and get off world.  They used flying drones to track me. The drones had shockers that shot me and dropped me wherever I stood.

     That was painful enough. Then the punishers shackle me naked by my wrists and ankles to what can only be called a torture frame. I’ve been whipped, beaten, and repeatedly shocked until I wished they would just kill me.

     I hated being helpless to defend myself. The Sargans knew I would kill them had they left me unrestrained. They always tortured me unconscious before they took off the restraints and threw me in a cell until they could sell me off.

     Finally, they must have grown tired of torturing me, so they sent me here. At least now I could fight back, sometimes three fights a night. So, far I haven’t lost, though sometimes I take a good beating before it’s over. Sometimes the pain is better than feeling nothing at all.

     The next fighter was new and looked more evenly matched. The first round we danced around each other throwing and blocking punches. He was pretty good, but I was better. He clearly had training in hand to hand combat, but few styles compare to that of an Uatu warrior. I toyed with him for a while letting him think he was actually blocking me. The next round I made my move landed more blows than he could block. I pounded him and roared like a crazed animal when he fell, and the rules said I had to stop.

     The rage just welled up inside me. He was no innocent. Duck, block, punch, pivot kick. He lasted five rounds, and I knocked him out. Then I got a thirty-minute break. The next guy was bigger and meaner and had horns.

     This one was hard to beat, and I took a lot of hits, but so did he. We each got in two knockdowns but I got the last one in the twelfth round, and he didn’t get up for another.

     No, I didn’t kill him. I really had no grudge against him. He was just someone to hit… to pound out my rage at what the Sargans had done to my family and my world. It was not enough. It would never be enough!

     The next day everything changed. I dragged out of my hovel to find some food and fill my plastic jug with water at the community well.

     Then I heard someone call my name and I turned to see who it was,

“Trametu, is that really you?”

“Pegitu, what the hell are you doing here?” I murmured, hardly believing my eyes.

He nodded his head, silently asking me to go with him, so I did. He was probably the only man on Julconi who I would trust.

* * * *

     It was midday before I saw Argen again. He was downright handsome all cleaned up and rested. I couldn’t help smiling up at him when he came and stood in front of my table. I felt giddy as pleasure and attraction bubbled up inside me at his presence.

     “Hi sweetheart,” he said. “I had to see you. Do you think we could have third meal together in the mess hall today? I would so like to get to know you better.”

     “I would like that. You look much better. Did you rest well?”

     He shrugged.

     “Sometimes it’s hard to rest in a new place. I’ve only been here a couple days myself. The accommodations are actually nicer than mine on Dread One, but the bed’s not the same. And the smell is different.”

     “It’s a new ship,” Argen said.

     “It is. We stole it from Tegliar Station,” I told him.

     “I wish I could have been there for that,” he grinned. “I hope they don’t catch up to us.”

     “You and me, too.” I smiled.

     It was hard not to smile while I was talking with him. I knew he was handsome under all that dirt but cleaned up he looked so good I could hardly stop staring. All the Uatu men were stunningly attractive even with their odd colored skin and hair.

     His skin was a pale lavender, and his hair was a darker lavender color. It had been pretty long when he came on board, but now it was clipped close to his head in what seemed to be the universal military cut.

     I hoped the way I was looking at him made him feel as good as I felt at how he was looking at me.

     “We’re finished here. Would you like to go to the mess and get a cup of tea?” I offered. There was no such thing as coffee out here, but the tea had about the same kick as coffee, and it tasted good.

     “I need to stop at my cabin on the way, but I would love to have tea with you,” he grinned.

     Farseek warriors were seldom demonstrative in public. Argen walked beside me down the corridor to the lift to level three where his cabin was. When we got there, he invited me in, and I fell right for it.

     As soon as the door closed behind me, he pivoted and held my head between his large hands pressed those sexy lips to mine. I just melted against him and put my arms around him like I wanted to do the first time I saw him.

     Solmatu! As soon as our lips touched and my arms went around him, I knew it was true. I felt such elation just to be in his arms for the first time. His tongue slipped between my lips, and I opened for him, giving him free reign to stake his claim. Mine! Mine!

More About Korjh's Bride

I have somewhat eclectic tastes in the books I read. A few months back, I started reading cyborg romances of several different authors, and I was hooked. Then my publisher asked me if I could write a mail order bride alien romance. But I was gearing up to write my first steamy cyborg romance, and my heart was set on it.

Since I had already laid the groundwork for interstellar matchmaking in the Narovian Mates Series, I decided to use that universe to start this new series. The Narovian Mates series began in a hypothetically contemporary world where Earth has just joined the United Galactic Alliance of Worlds. With the change in status from a protected world to a member world, it gave the Narovian Matchmaking Service the opportunity to publicly open for business on Earth.

With my heart set on writing a steamy cyborg story and my publisher’s encouragement to write an alien mail-order-bride story, I decided to do both in the same book.

Korjh Benjegt was not always a cyborg. He was a Narovian natural human living in a backwater farming colony that was attacked by aliens who killed his family when he was just fifteen landing him in an orphanage. As soon as he was old enough, he joined the Alliance Defense Force to fight the Drayids alongside cyborgs who were created to augment the volunteer military force. After suffering catastrophic injuries in battle, Korjh was converted to a cyborg to save his life.

He was completely reborn. The difference between Korjh and the test tube cyborgs was that he remembered growing up in a family:

Zara Maples wants to escape her lackluster life and find her soulmate, so she applies to the interstellar Narovian Matchmaking Service which finds people’s soulmates based on genetics. Korjh, a Narovian cyborg, retired from battle, once a full human, longs a family of his own like the one he lost as a boy in an alien invasion.

Retired to a backwater colony of Modonne where he can’t get a date because he is a cyborg, he applies to the Matchmaking service to find his genetic complement, his soulmate, because unlike Narovian felines he cannot recognize his fated mate. After two years they find him a mate on that “dirt” planet recently accepted into the Alliance.

Cyborgs are dangerous, aren’t they? Only an ignorant human from a planet called Earth (translated as dirt) would come across two sectors to Modonne to mate with a cyborg. But to her, he seems warm and caring and so attractive as they correspond. Of course, it can’t be quite that easy. While Korjh can be sweet and considerate, he can also be scary and aggressive.

Was he the man of her dreams or nightmares?

Korjh’s Bride A Cyborg's Mail Order Bride (Interstellar Matchmaking Book 1) Excerpt:

Korjh commed about a half hour after first meal and had her blushing with his first words,

“Hello, my beautiful wife,” he began with a smile. “I can hardly wait to hold you in my arms and claim you in every way a man claims a woman.”

“Korjh,” she protested weakly. “I am looking forward to our first kiss, and to feel your arms around me.”

“You are just so beautiful and sexy,” he said with a heart-melting grin.

“I could say the same of you,” she said with a soft laugh.

“And you have a wonderful laugh,” he added. “This is so much better than one-sided conversations.”

“It is,” she admitted.

“Have people said things to you about me?” His expression grew serious.

“They think I don’t know what I’m getting into---I don’t understand why. Being a cyborg doesn’t mean you’re not human.”

“And I have never killed a human or even a humanoid, just Drayid bugs,” he asserted. “I swear on my life, I would never harm you in any way.” The expression in his eyes softened as he looked at her.

“I believe you Korjh,” she assured him. “I have believed in you all along, or I wouldn’t be on this ship coming to your world.”

“I hope you will be happy with me, Zara, because once I hold you in my arms, I don’t think I could give you up.”

“I don’t give up that easily. Besides, the matchmaking service considers us soul mates genetically speaking,” Zara remembered. “They don’t differentiate because you are a cyborg. You passed the psych profile. Besides, every marriage takes some adjustment. I am coming to you with the belief I will fall in love with you.”

“I will do my best to make that happen. I’ve waited a long time for the service to find you because I am a cyborg and because I’ve been a warrior most of my life.”

“But you were cleared psychologically,” she reminded him. “You wouldn’t have been cleared to settle on Modonne without it.”

“That mean’s nothing to a lot of people who have never fought to survive. My cybernetics make me sub-human as far as they are concerned. The nanites have altered me genetically,” Korjh said, “and they will change you as well.”

“I know, but they’ve assured me these changes aren’t harmful. In fact, they said the nanites will keep me healthy and make me heal faster,” Zara said. “I’m ready to get some of those little buggers.” She smiled at him.

“That’s my girl,” Korjh chuckled. “They will also slow the aging process and ensure that we can make babies together.”

Korjh went on to talk about his day and show pictures of his horses and his farm and a beautiful sunrise. He had already given her a video tour of his home which had been excavated from the rock four feet under the topsoil. Most of the house was comprised of modules transported out into the desert.  There were also more rustic rooms with rock walls of granite smoothed and polished.

It all made Zara long to be there with him. When they finished their com-chat, she went back and played back the recording. His words and the look in his eyes made her long to be in his arms with her body pressed against his.

She wouldn’t let anyone convince her that he was going to be anything but the love of her life. She believed in Korjh. It didn’t matter if any of them did or not.

******

“Before I came here, I had a job and friends and time for things I like to do,” she said. “Now that I’m gone Ellie doesn’t even email me, and I haven’t seen or talked to another woman since I got here. I miss those things.”

“You knew things would be different here, that we would be isolated out here with no close neighbors. I told you this,” he said.

“I didn’t know I would feel so homesick and like I have nothing useful to do. That my friend wouldn’t keep in touch with me.”

“So, I am not enough for you,” Korjh said, frowning.

“This isn’t about you. I changed my whole life to come here and be your wife,” she said. “I didn’t realize I would feel this way. Face it, there isn’t that much to do here. You have machines doing everything. Just about all we do is eat, sleep, and have sex.”

“And that makes you unhappy?”

“No---yes. It’s like we are on a permanent vacation. I need something useful to do.”

“Sex with me makes you unhappy?”

“No, you’re not listening,” she protested.

“That’s what you said,” he reminded.

“That’s not the way I meant it.”

“Then, what did you mean?”

“That there is more to life than bodily functions. I need mental stimulation and a sense of accomplishment,” she said. “Like when you built this house and this farm. I need to make something of value, myself!”

“I’m not stopping you from doing that. You have your drawing screen, and you brought your sewing things,” he said.

“But it’s hard to be creative when you are hovering over me every minute,” she said. “I feel like I should hurry and finish and give you attention.”

“I don’t understand,” he admitted reluctantly.

“I know you don’t,” she said and got up from the table and went to him. “Things here are so different from Earth. If we lived there, you and I would have jobs, we wouldn’t have all this time with just each other.”

“You are not happy here,” he said and frowned.

Zara gripped his big hand in hers. “I want to be here with you. I’m just a little homesick and lonely for my friend.”

“Do you want to go back to Earth?” he asked, staring down at her.

“No,” she said after a moment. “I just need you to give me a little space.”

“You are mine, I have to take care of you---make sure you have everything you need. Isn’t that what a husband is supposed to do.”

“It is, but not every minute of every day. Don’t you have things you want to do by yourself?”

“Not when I can be with you instead,” he replied. “If there are, I can do them when you are sleeping.”

“You really don’t get it. You’re like a stalker watching every move I make.” She let go of his hand and walked a few steps away then turned back to face him.  “You’re making me crazy!”

“I will take you back to the Medical Clinic. They have gene therapy for that,” he said solemnly.

She gave an inarticulate shout of frustration. “You’re the one who needs therapy! It is perfectly normal for a woman to want a little time to herself,” she knew her voice was raised, but she didn’t understand how he could be so obtuse. “You need to find something to do on your own while I am working on my designs---a couple hours a day…”

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