Star Trek: Enterprise - 017 - Rise of the Federation: Uncertain Logic by Christopher L. Bennett

Author:Christopher L. Bennett [Bennett, Christopher L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction, TV; Movie; Video Game Adaptations, Literary, United States, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Science Fiction, Adventure, Alien Invasion, First Contact, Military, Space Opera, Movie Tie-Ins, Literary Fiction, Action & Adventure, Star Trek
ISBN: 9781476779126
Amazon: B00LD1OMOK
Publisher: Pocket Books/Star Trek
Published: 2015-03-24T07:00:00+00:00

14

May 26, 2165

Iatu Vista Station, orbiting Delta V

FOR SOME REASON, none of Devna’s tricks worked on the Deltans. No matter how studiously she played the innocent and strove to make herself alluringly vulnerable, she received nothing but apologetic rebuffs from the men and women she approached. The paradox was bewildering. The Deltans were anything but a sexually reserved people; she’d come across numerous duos and groups availing themselves of the romantic lighting from the shimmering rings and auroras, blithely permitting her to watch their playful yet intricate lovemaking. Yet when she offered to join in, she was politely but firmly turned down.

It had been that way since Parrec-Sut had first brought her, Ziraine, and Rilas aboard the station, extoling the sensual wonders his women had to offer, a sample of which they would happily provide by demonstrating the galactically famous dances of Orion. The women had had their work cut out for them trying to draw the Deltan tourists’ attention away from the glorious dancing colors of the rings of Iatu—not to mention the vast, swirling auroras that adorned Iatu’s poles with shining red crowns. Indeed, even drawing the tourists’ attention away from one another had been a challenge, for they were a stunningly beautiful race, and the men and women alike were attired in loose, scanty, or diaphanous garments in many lively hues.

Still, she had given it her all, and not just for the sake of the mission. Dancing was Devna’s favorite part of the seduction game. It was a chance to express herself, to wield the potentials of her body entirely on her own rather than at the whims of a master or client. True, it was a tool, an advertisement of herself as a commodity; yet it was the one small part of her life where she was allowed, even encouraged, to be creative. Since she did not have the curves or the raw animal frenzy of Ziraine and Rilas, she had learned to emphasize her grace, her suppleness, her sensitivity. Although she wore as little as her slave-sisters, she was demure, restrained, and teasing in comparison; yet what she held back compared to her dance partners often made her audiences crave her even more intensely. When something was not given freely, after all, it was generally presumed to be more valuable.

Of course, she and her dance partners had the added weapon of their pheromones, which the stimulation and sexual display of the dance prompted their bodies to secrete in abundance, and which their movements were carefully designed to distribute through the air. Although Devna could see the effects of the Deltans’ own pheromones on one another just by watching the casual intimacy of their interactions. She could feel the allure they radiated, a sensory aura as stimulating as that which she felt from more pheromonally potent Orion women—when they were in a friendly mood toward her—yet not as overpowering. That was strange: The Deltans had the means to wield influence, but it remained unfocused, unutilized.

Moreover, watching the Deltans’ interactions had given her no sense of their hierarchy.

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