After nearly two years at the research station, Zara had
grown accustomed to the social mores of the Icarians. She
accepted their blunt nature, their forceful personalities and
their inability to understand many human customs. Still,
however, she found their preference for nakedness to be
disconcerting.
It wasn't that their muscular, long-limbed bodies weren't
exquisitely beautiful by human standards ... no, in fact, that's
exactly what it was. Next to Icarian females she felt
underprivileged in the height department and in the breast
department as well.
Lined up with the rest of the staff from the station, Zara
kept her eyes locked straight ahead and her jaw clenched
tightly when the Icarian delegation arrived, swooping out of
the sky like condors on their fifteen-foot wingspans.
Jidar landed first. His feet hit the green sand with an
audible thud, and he bowed slightly to Dr. Danson while the
blue-feathered wings of his symbion folded of their own
accord and rested against his naked back.
Zara's muscles tensed involuntarily. The leader of the
Icarians commanded everyone's attention. Even standing
silently while he waited for his mate, Namara, and another
female to land behind him, he seemed to be broadcasting his
innate power and superiority.
Zara would never have admitted to anyone that Jidar
frightened her just a little bit. Though the Icarians did not
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wage war and their society had almost no crime or violence,
the coiled power in Jidar's massive frame made Zara's knees
a little weak. After today's ritual, Jidar would effectively
become Caleb's master in all things. He would have the final
say in where Caleb would live, what role he would play in the
Icarian tribe and ultimately whether or not he mated with an
Icarian female.
Despite his kindness and keen intelligence, Zara hated him
at the moment.
"Caleb Faulkner, step forward." Jidar's voice boomed
across the beach, and Caleb left the head of the line of
assembled humans and approached the Icarian. A few steps
before he reached Jidar, Caleb dropped to one knee. He
bowed his head and extended his arms, fists tightly balled,
behind him in the Icarian posture of respect and
subservience.
Behind Jidar, Namara landed and dropped immediately
into the same position as Caleb. The Icarian co-leader's long,
white hair hung down like a curtain over her body, modestly
shielding her voluptuous form, at least for the moment.
One pace behind Namara, another female, this one dark-
haired, landed and knelt. Zara recognized Arilani. A healer
and an expert in symbion physiology, she was Raymond
Danson's counterpart among the Icarians. Together the
geneticist and the tribal doctor would see to it that Caleb's
bond with the symbion bird went smoothly.
Once Namara and Arilani had folded their wings, Jidar bade
them rise and they joined him in a semi-circle in front of
Caleb.
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"You may stand, young one." Jidar placed a hand on
Caleb's shoulder and took his hand to help him stand up in
the soft, uneven sand.
"Young one?" The question came from somewhere in the
line-up of human observers.
Danson shushed his colleague, but Zara offered a
whispered reply. "This ritual is usually performed at age ten,
just before an Icarian enters puberty, so in essence, by
Icarian standards, Caleb is still a child."
Silence fell over the assembled crowd again, and after a
brief exchange with Jidar and Namara in which Caleb pledged
loyalty to the tribe above all else, he dropped back to one
knee. Once the bonding was complete, as an adult Icarian
and a full-fledged member of the dwindling tribe, he would be
given the right to vote in tribal decisions, campaign for
election to the administrative committee that helped Jidar
rule, and accept or decline the mate Jidar offered him.
Assuming, of course, he survived the bonding.
began to churn in her stomach when two male Icarians took
shape in the brilliant sky, carrying between them one of the
huge winged animals. Everyone on the beach turned to watch
the symbion and its handlers land. It was strange to see just
a huge pair of wings held between the two Icarians. Several
specimens of the headless birds, both living and dead, had
been brought to the research station for study, but this was
among the largest and most impressive Zara had ever seen.
Though they lacked a disarticulated head and feet and
bore only vestigial eyes, the birds were quite beautiful and
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Icarus Rising
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extremely graceful. At the upper end of their bodies, they had
large, beakless mouths designed for scooping fish from the
Icarian ocean, and at the lower end of their bodies they bore
reproductive organs for laying perfectly round, fist-sized eggs
which they incubated for several months in their conical-
shaped nests. In between, nestled in the tightly woven
feathers of their elongated thoraxes, lay a bone-tipped siphon
which they used to link their bodies permanently to a host.
Zara swallowed hard and closed her eyes. She wasn't sure
she could bear to watch the next part of the ritual as Caleb
prostrated himself in the sand at Jidar's feet. The male
handlers carried the huge, gray-feathered symbion toward
Caleb and settled the creature on the back of its future host.
It only takes a moment, she told herself, clenching her
fists until her nails dug into her palms. It only takes a
moment, and Caleb will cease to be completely human.
Zara waited, blind to the climax of the bonding. It would
all be over soon, and Caleb would take to the air on his first
flight.
"Perfect," Danson whispered. "It looks like—" The
geneticist's proud comment cut off abruptly when a deep,
primal scream tore across the beach.
Every nerve in Caleb's body burned. White hot flames
seemed to emanate from the point just below the nape of his
neck where the symbion had plunged its siphon into his spinal
column.
This was supposed to be safe and painless! His panicked
brain supplied only snippets of his conversations with
Raymond Danson and Arilani.
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The average Icarian is ten years of age when they are
joined to a symbion. The process takes only a few moments
and appears to be completely painless. Danson's words
echoed, mixing with Arilani's assurances.
The siphon pierces the sheath around the spinal cord of
the host and creates an instant connection. Within minutes,
the young Ica
rian gains control over the symbion wings and
launches into the sky for his or her virgin flight.
Through a blurry haze of shock, Caleb registered the feel
of hands on his body, turning him over, wiping sand from his
eyes and his lips.
Someone shouted his name. Danson. Bastard. Caleb
wanted to wrap his hands around the man's throat and
choked the life out of him for this. Fortunately for the
geneticist, Caleb couldn't so much as control his own
breathing at this moment or he would be homicidal from the
pain.
"Don't move him. Let his body and mind adjust." Jidar's
deep voice cut across the jumble of worried exclamations that
filled the air. Was that Zara crying? Caleb tried to look for
her, but all he managed to do was flop his head to one side
and spit salty liquid into the sand. Blood. Had he bitten his
tongue? Or were his insides dissolving from the fire racing
through his veins?
Vaguely, he registered movement on each side of him. The
violet-tinged gray wings of his symbion flapped ineffectively,
throwing wet sand in all directions. A naked Icarian female
held one of the quivering limbs in her hand and administered
an injection.
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Icarus Rising
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Caleb felt it. The slim needle pierced flesh and muscle that
had only moments ago belonged to a separate being. He
screamed again as ice flowed from the injection site, numbing
the wing and that entire side of his body.
Someone sat on his legs, and he couldn't imagine why
until he began to convulse. His body heaved against the half-
dozen people now holding him down. Each movement
stripped his nerves raw as though he were being flayed alive.
The sand under him felt like a million diamond-hard
blades. The salt breeze stung his eyes like acid.
A gentle caress on his thigh brought him instantly aware in
a different way. A surge of desire spread through him,
tightening his abdominals as female hands slid over his skin.
Pain became pleasure so intense he moaned and shifted his
hips toward the sensual touch. He smelled her arousal, a
willing mate so close he could see her, yet his eyes refused to
focus. His brain told him he needed her to complete him. He
needed her body wrapped around his, eager to receive the
seed that drew up inside his cock, and pulsed to a shuddering
orgasm... Hot semen spewed over his belly and his legs and
in his ear Zara's sweet voice whispered to him.
The violent release left him temporarily weak and light
headed. His body ached all over from the exertion brought
about by no more than her fingers brushing the taut muscles
of his leg.
Oh God. Oh God. He'd just come in front of every single
member of the research team.
"We'll take care of you. You'll be all right. We'll make it
stop."
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He wanted her. He wanted her so badly that he would die
without her. "I nee ... I need..."
"Give him air. Let him talk. Caleb, what are you feeling?"
Danson's voice grated like screeching turbines in his ears. He
snarled a response, and some of the hands clamped over his
limbs loosened their grip.
Something in the back of his mind told him it was time to
fly. Being held against the ground was unconscionable
torture. He had to get away. A burst of raw power erupted
from somewhere in his ravaged brain, clearing the numbness
from the left side of this body. For an instant he was
invincible.
He tore at the hands clutching him and heaved himself up
on shaky legs. Figures crowded around him, Icarian and
human. They blurred together in one homogeneous threat.
Only Jidar was smiling.
Caleb spread his wings. His wings. They'd always been his,
and they always would be. He crouched, and before anyone
could make a move to stop him he launched himself into the
air. The alien part of his brain rejoiced. "We are free!"
"We are finally free," he agreed. "And they will never
control us again."
He circled the beach once, swooping low just to hear the
startled exclamations of those assembled. Some scattered,
others ducked. The Icarians only stared, expressions of
triumph and curiosity blending on their faces. At the edge of
the crowd, though, one figure stood alone.
Tears glistened on Zara's face as she pressed two fingers
to her lips and raised them into the wind.
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Icarus Rising
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He wanted her. And when he returned, he would finally
have her, but for now he had to go as far away as he could or
risk taking revenge on the people who had tried to kill him.
[Back to Table of Contents]
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Chapter Three
"I postulate the ejaculation was a response to
overstimulation of the limbic system and a direct hit to the
left anterior cingulated cortex. As stated in my earlier
research, the symbion uses its siphon both to ingest spinal
fluid from the host and to inject a complex mixture of its
supercharged hormones—" Dr. Danson stopped speaking
abruptly as soon as his roving gaze caught Zara's.
She'd just come in from the beach, exhausted and wet
from running through the surf, scanning the horizon for signs
of the Icarians who had all taken off in pursuit of Caleb. Her
hair was plastered to her face like a net of salt-encrusted
rope, and her legs wobbled from too many hours trudging
through the sand.
She glared at Danson. "The ejaculation? That's what you're
concerned about?" She flung an arm toward the window of
Danson's lab, which overlooked the spot where the bonding
ritual had taken place. "Your experiment just brutalized a
man's nervous system. He could be dead for all we know, and
you're in here calmly recording your observations about his
ejaculation?"
" Doctor Abbott." Danson set down his hand-held recorder
and placed his hands in front of him on his desk. "You of all
people should understand the risks that were involved in this
undertaking. Weren't you brought here specifically to help
prepare Dr. Faulkner for the possibility that the joining might
have an unfavorable outcome?"
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Zara seethed. "Don't tell me my job, Doctor." She
emphasized the title just as he had, sarcasm dripping like
venom from her words.
Since the moment Caleb had screamed in pain, her heart
had been firmly lodged at the base of her throat. She couldn't
swallow, could barely take a deep breath around the sharp
ache of fear that constricted her chest. She'd been prepared
to give Caleb up to science, to the Icarians for the future of
their race. She hadn't allowed herself t
o consider she might
lose him to death.
Danson rose and came around the corner of his desk, his
expression softening. "Zara, I'm aware you're upset by what
happened. We all are, but we can't let it stop us from doing
what needs to be done. I have to record every detail of the
ritual, and I need to be prepared to deal with whatever
injuries Caleb may have sustained."
"Assuming he survived."
"I have every confidence he's still alive."
"Maybe, but is he functional? I saw his eyes, Ray. He was
gone. He didn't recognize us. He looked ... like a caged
animal, terrified and in agony. Who knows what he'll do to
himself."
"Jidar will find him, and we'll deal with whatever effects
the joining has had on him."
"And if his mind is destroyed?" Zara's jaw clenched as she
bit the words out. How could she handle seeing Caleb reduced
to nothing more than a mindless body? How could she deal
with her own failure to talk him out of giving up his humanity
for Danson's experiment?
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"I won't jump to any conclusions, Zara. Right now, we
need to concentrate on Caleb's physical state. I have no
doubt you will need to work with him extensively to get him
to fully adjust, but—"
Zara held up a hand. "Don't patronize me, Ray. If Caleb
has suffered a psychotic break because of the overdose of
symbion hormones, my services won't be needed. There
won't be anything left of his mind to work with."
Danson sighed. "Can we just wait and see? I expect Jidar
and Namara to return with Caleb any moment. There will be
plenty to keep us all busy, so why don't you ... get cleaned
up, have something to eat and try to remain calm?"
The sound Caleb had made before he sprang off the beach
into the air plagued Zara's mind. It had been a cry of
desperation, and she wished she could make that same sound
now. Words alone could never communicate to Danson the
depth of her outrage at his cavalier attitude. He'd assured
them all the bonding would be safe.
"This wasn't supposed to happen, Ray. Tell me you didn't
know this would happen."
Shock widened Danson's eyes for a moment. "No. I didn't
know. I swear it. When I first came here ten years ago, I
witnessed hundreds of Icarian bondings during their last