Thalmin showed a swatch and smiled. “This is a sample from a reed found by Team Vel. So is this vegetable-based silk. We use heat and one of the saponification plants to create threads.”
Athena felt smug.
Etska glanced at her. “For a moment, I had forgotten how I found you to begin with. Team Vel has quite the history of useful discoveries.”
She smiled. “My family came from a poorer background, and I grew up on tales of foraging and scavenging from the soil. My grandmother trained me to bite and spit, then figure out what the taste was. Even poisonous plants have a specific taste. The results aren’t fun, but you get over them in a week or so.”
He frowned. “You ate poison?”
“No, I bit poison and spit it out. There was occasionally swelling.” She chuckled.
He pulled her in and wrapped his arms around her. “I got to you just in time.”
Thalmin waited until she was released, and then, he looked at her. “You were on Team Vel?”
“Until a day or two ago, yeah.”
Thalmin lunged forward and grabbed her hands, his pattern excited. “Your assessments of the plants have been exceedingly useful. What is your name?”
“On Team Vel, I am Theena. Athena Fox to others.”
Etska growled and pulled Thalmin’s hands from hers. “Lady Theena to you now, researcher. Contact is not an option.”
Athena blinked. “That isn’t polite, my lord.”
He gave her a serious look, picked her up, and whispered in her ear. “We have not yet completed our link, and I will not have anyone interfering with your scent until we have time to ourselves. Do you understand?”
She nodded. “It still seems stupid. I hugged my team this morning.”
“And I can smell them on you. The pre-existing association is all that is keeping you from being stripped and wearing your hair. Do not mistake my patience for indulgence. The next person to touch you will be dropped into a lava field.”
Athena leaned back and glanced around the lab. Everyone was frozen and staring. His last sentence had been said at a normal conversational volume.
“Fine. No one touches me. Great. I hope you are a good tailor because the last time I checked, someone needs to size things for clothing design.”
He slowly set her on her feet again. “That is what three-dimensional scans are for. They can make the designs to your scanned measurements.”
She grimaced. “That is very creepy.”
He grinned. “Oh, we have just gotten started.”
Chapter Six
She stood in the middle of the textile lab, and with her boots removed, she peeled off her socks and then stepped onto the scanning platform. The assistant was apologetic. “All of it, please.”
Athena peeled off the coveralls, the underwear, and panties. She shoved them off the platform with her foot.
“Hands at your sides, fingers about four inches from your thighs, please.”
Athena lined her feet up with the marks on the platform and stood with her shoulders, back, head high, and hands away from her sides. The assistant smiled slightly. “The scan is starting.”
The unit came down from the ceiling, and the light hit her in bands that took rapid measurement. She felt like they were making a figurine.
The unit went for a second pass, and when it was done, it retreated into the ceiling.
The assistant murmured, “Okay, we are done. How did you get him to get the others to leave?”
Athena shrugged and got dressed again. “I asked him. I also said that when he did see me fully naked, he would probably want to do something about it, and this was not the appropriate venue.”
She closed the coveralls and exhaled in relief. It wasn’t armour, but it felt like it.
Athena took her socks and boots to a nearby station, and she put them on.
“I haven’t seen him much. He does have an aura of power about him, doesn’t he?” The assistant looked toward the closed doors and sighed.
“If that is what does it for you, sure.” She finished her closures, checked everything, flipped her hair out behind her, and nodded. She walked to the door and opened it. “It’s safe now. My naked body is officially digital.”
The assistant stood well back and said, “The copy is being generated right now.”
The researchers were let back into their lab. The next hour was spent going through fabric swatches and rubbing things against her skin. When she finally had it down to the final six out of forty, Etska picked each swatch up and rubbed it between his fingers in a way that Athena found equal parts disturbing and intriguing. He narrowed the selection down to two. “These ones. Tolr will forward some patterns to craft with, including yardages. If you need extra materials for this, let me know.”
She looked at the samples and stroked the seed silk and the buttery floral linen. “How do they take dye?”
The assistant who had scanned her smiled. “Very well. We have managed to get them to hold blues, greens, and creams without bleeding.”
Athena was interested. “How much do you have on hand?”
The assistant checked and said, “Thirty metres of the silk, twenty of the linen. Both are looking to wear very well.”
Etska smiled. “Good. My assistant will be in touch.”
He didn’t say anything else but picked her up again and carried her out of the lab. She covered her eyes as he headed back to the lift, and he chuckled. “Get used to it.”
“Bully.”
“I am simply using this as a reminder to not leave you behind. I will be keeping you near me for some time, and only then will you be allowed to take a rider out with a tracker on you.” He glanced down as he touched the button for the roof. “This is new for me as well. Having found a companion, I don’t want to lose you.”
It was a touching sentiment until he grinned. “You are very expensive.”
She made a fist and was going to punch him but then remembered the fact that Hmrain were worshipped as gods on many worlds. With the mixed population on Hyrnan, she had no idea what the result would be if someone caught her smacking the overseer.
The guard was there to open the door, and he still stared at her as she was carried past him. Etska took a few steps and opened his wings, taking flight as he launched them off the building.
Athena kept her eyes closed as they headed back to his home. Tolr was there to greet them in the garden when they landed, and he took the briefing about the fabric and nodded respectfully.
“I will send them the design specs for traditional companion clothing designs. What pallet would you prefer the colours in?”
“Corals, soft pinks, dark charcoal, and ocean blue.” Etska smiled. “Those would be nice.”
“Yes, my lord. At once, my lord. I have already found a seamstress among the colonists, and she will be able to assist the design teams in creating fastenings that are suitably convenient for her activities.”
Athena was standing in front of Etska. “What activities?”