Holly’s brows rose. “That’s where you went!”

    Sybil grimaced. “Not that I think the guys won’t be able to control themselves-there certainly isn’t anything sexy about the t-shirt and panties!-but I’d be a lot more comfortable with clothes.”

    Holly nodded. “Why did they take it off, do you think? Did they…?”

    Sybil’s stomach rolled, more because she knew immediately that the others were speculating about the same thing than because she felt that she had. “It was droids that examined me. I doubt anything happened.”

    “But you were unconscious.”

    “What’s that supposed to mean?” Sybil demanded angrily.

    She could tell from the guilty look that Holly tried to hide exactly what was running through her mind. “Nothing. I’m just saying you don’t know and… maybe that’s a good thing.”

    Sybil’s lips tightened. “Suggesting they couldn’t contain themselves? I doubt very seriously that they find us the least bit attractive,” she said dryly, if not with complete truth. She’d felt Anka’s arousal. She didn’t think she was mistaken about that. “Anyway,” she added, looking away, “from what he said, there are women of their species here. I can’t believe they would consider fucking an unconscious woman-especially a different species and one, moreover, that they must consider of inferior intelligence given their advancement.”

    Shock registered on Holly’s face and Sybil felt a touch of satisfaction that she’d elicited it. “There’s no need for that kind of language. I find it offensive.”

    “Too bad,” Sybil said tightly. “I’m an adult and free to say whatever the hell I like. And I’m offended by your insinuations. You think you’re the only one entitled to be offensive?”

    Anger flickered across the other woman’s face. “I didn’t mean to be offensive. I was just… concerned.”

    Liar, Sybil thought. Titillated, more likely. “Well I appreciate that,” she said caustically.

    Holly’s lips tightened. “We won’t get anywhere being hostile to each other. We need to stick together.”

    Except they’d already closed ranks, leaving her on the outside. They’d decided she was ‘tainted’. They’d seen her flight suit was missing and instantly drawn their own nasty conclusions, and it hadn’t helped that she’d willingly followed Anka off.

    Fuck her! And fuck them! “I won’t argue that, but I’m damned if I can see that it’s going to be much help. There are only five of us and no telling how many of them. Aside from the fact that not one of us has a damned weapon, exactly what do you think banding together is going to do? You think we can overpower them? Escape? Where the hell to? Don’t tell me they conveniently brought the lander with them so we’d have a way to escape.”

    She could tell from the look on Holly’s face that they hadn’t.

    “They have ships,” Holly said pointedly.

    Sybil uttered a laugh that lacked humor. “And you think there’s a chance we could get to one, steal it, and actually pilot it home?”

    “It isn’t beyond the realm of possibility,” she said stiffly.

    “But it isn’t likely either.”

    “What do you suggest, then?” Holly demanded.

    Sybil frowned. “Negotiation. If they wanted to kill us, they could have. There’s some reason they’re keeping us alive.”

    “To study us?”

    Sybil’s belly clenched but she rejected the idea. “I’m not saying that isn’t a possibility, but why bother? What do you think they haven’t already learned? They can speak our language. They understand it and that means a lot more than simply being able to translate from their language to ours. They’d have to understand us-our customs, our civilization-all of it for the language to make sense to them. Think about it! If they didn’t know what a… home was, they wouldn’t use that word and Anka did.”

    “He told you his name?”

    Sybil looked at her in surprise. “You didn’t hear that?”

    Holly shook her head. “I was staying as far from him as I could and neither of you were speaking very loud. We were wondering what the conversation was about.”

    Sybil frowned, thinking back, but she hadn’t realized that none of the others had been close by when she’d spoken to him. She’d been too focused on him, she realized. She shrugged after a moment. “He’s Commander Anka l’Kartay. That’s what he said anyway. I don’t know why he’d lie.”

    “Or tell us anything.”

    Sybil had wondered at that herself, but she didn’t acknowledge what Holly was suggesting. She didn’t see any point in arguing when neither one of them really knew if he was being truthful or not.

    “What else did he tell you?”

    Sybil frowned, trying to recall. The truth was she’d been so on edge she couldn’t remember anything very clearly. “He just said it was cool because they’d moved the facility to the dark side to cool it from the heat. He said sometimes they would pull into the sunlight because they missed home and it was… depressing to always be in the dark.”

    Holly didn’t say anything for several moments. “It seems like he said quite a lot.”

    She was fishing and it irritated Sybil. “Yes, we took a stroll around the facilities and he explained everything-even told me how many soldiers were stationed here and where they were stationed,” she said sarcastically. “He was just being… polite.”

    “If you say so.”

    Anger flickered through Sybil. “Why don’t you just go ahead and let me in on the workings of your mind? I like to know what I’m being accused of. It makes it a little fucking easier to defend myself.”

    “You don’t have to be so defensive. It was just a comment.”

    With undertones. Sybil wondered if Dr. Rains just thought she was too stupid to catch the subtle insults and insinuations. “He was courteous enough to take me to look for my clothes,” she responded tightly. “I don’t see that responding with hostility will get us anywhere.”

    “I’m not sure being friendly is a good idea.”

    There it was! The accusation she’d been expecting. “Why don’t you handle things the way you think you should and let me worry about my behavior? You aren’t my mother or my superior.”

    Her lips tightened. “I’m just saying it could put you in more danger-all of us.”

    Sybil stared at her in disbelief. “You’re telling me you think being friendly is more dangerous than being hostile?”

    “I don’t think being hostile is a good idea either. Being cautious is.”

    Sybil sighed, leaning her head back against the wall. She supposed a lot of her anger was aimed at herself. Being cautious was the best idea-not being friendly to the point of offering an opening for sexual congress! Maybe it had been an unconscious prompting of her survival instincts?

    And maybe not. She just damned well didn’t know. All she did know was that her reaction to him disturbed her more than his reaction to her… if possible.

    She dismissed it, tried to eject the memory from her mind even though she knew she wasn’t going to be able to. So it was stupid! It wasn’t as if she didn’t know that herself. In any case, Holly Rains was just worried about her own ass! The comment about endangering all of them was telling and at least part of it, she thought, might be hostility because she thought Sybil might be trying to use sex to save herself and it might not work for her.

    Not that she thought for a moment that it would for her!

    So maybe, deep down in her subconscious mind, she’d resorted to the age old weapon women had always tried to use to protect themselves, but it certainly hadn’t been conscious!

    What worried her was that it might not have been that subconscious prompting. She hadn’t really been aware of any attraction to him. She hadn’t acknowledged it anyway, but there was no getting around the fact that she was acutely aware of him. She’d put it down to fear, understandable fear, and yet even though she’d been scared she couldn’t recall even a moment of being repulsed. Shouldn’t she have been?