Free The Phoenix Code by Catherine Asaro Page A

should stay just the way you are."
    Raj drew her to a stop. "What did you say?"
    Megan couldn't tell if she had offended, startled, or puzzled him. She gentled her voice. "You're fine the way you are."
    He brushed back a tendril of her hair that had curled onto her face. His finger trailed along her cheek. Then he dropped his hand as if her hair had burned it. Flushing, he turned and strode down the hall.
    Megan touched her cheek where his fingers had brushed it. She wasn't sure which bewildered her more, his gesture or his retreat. What had she said? You're fine the way you are. She supposed people didn't tell him that often.
    He was well up the hallway now. She considered trying to catch up but decided against it. If he wanted to be alone, she wouldn't push. They would be working closely together in the next months. Better to give him the room he needed.
    Raj reminded her of a jaguar she had seen in a wilderness preserve years ago, during a vacation to Mexico. She had stood on an observation platform next to her guide, watching the jungle with binoculars. The jaguar had stalked through its realm, incomparable in its sleek, powerful beauty, unaware of them. It went about its life, an existence they could never truly know, only admire from a distance. But if they ever trespassed in its territory, it would strike back, as deadly as it was beautiful.
    He turned a corner up ahead, vanishing from sight, Megan didn't see him again until she came around the bend. He stood a few yards away, leaning against the wall across from the elevators for Levels Two and Three. His scuffed jacket and old jeans made stark contrast to the decorous ivory walls and blue carpet.
    She stopped by the elevator. "Were you waiting for me?"
    He watched her warily. "I'd like to talk to Aris now."
    "That's fine." Usually his face revealed his emotions in detail, but right now she had a hard time reading him. "You can go to his rooms anytime you want."
    Raj pushed away from the wall, his lithe movements taut with contained energy. "You should come. He doesn't trust me yet."
    "Okay." She could have watched Raj move all day.
    "Why are you smiling?" he asked.
    "Smiling?" She flushed. "I was just thinking that, uh, it was good to have another expert here."
    He tilted his head, considering her with raised eyebrows. Then he came over and touched the elevator's call icon. The doors opened with a hum.
    They rode down to Level Three in silence, Raj standing with his hands in his pockets again, as if that posture warded off danger. Megan wondered what he was defending against. Her?
    When they stepped out of the elevator, Raj said, "I'm glad Major Kenrock left."
    She walked down the hall with him. "I had the feeling you two didn't hit it off."
    "Sometimes he seems more mechanical than the robots I work with." Raj thought for a moment. "But that's not true, is it? When he was talking about his children, he sounded human."
    "He's a good man."
    "You think so?"
    "Yes, very much. You don't?"
    He walked a ways before answering. "I don't trust people who don't know me and yet think I'm going to do something wrong."
    That reminded her of Sean, her brother. Outwardly, he and Raj were a universe apart. Sean joked with everyone, an outgoing young man with wild red curls and blue eyes. But Megan knew his other side, the shyness that made it hard for him to interact with people. He compensated with his outrageous humor, but underneath all that he was painfully self-conscious. Raj's oblique nature struck her as similar, in his case a protection against a world that for some reason he distrusted.
    "Richard Kenrock doesn't know you well enough yet," she said. "He'll loosen up. I think you remind him of his oldest son, Brad, a high-school senior."
    Raj snorted. "I'm almost Kenrock's age."
    "But you look younger. Brad dresses like you, rides a motorcycle, and mouths off to Richard every chance he gets."
    "Good for him."
    Megan gave him a look of mock solemnity. "Do I detect a problem