Star Wars_ Tales of the Bounty Hunters - Kevin J. Anderson [46]
“Did you enjoy my dance?” she said.
“You were very good. In fact, I’ve never seen anyone as good,” Dengar said. “How did you learn to dance like that?”
“It’s easy,” Manaroo said. “On Aruza, we use our cybernetic links to share our feelings. We’re tech-empaths. When I dance, I know what pleases my watchers, and so I practice those moves they love best.”
“But you can’t give yourself to them fully,” Dengar said.
“Why do you say that?”
Dengar struggled for the words. “Because, when you danced, I wished that you were dancing for me alone. I assume that every man must feel that way about you.”
Manaroo smiled, looked up into his eyes. Her own eyes were so rich, so black, that he could see the glow globes that hovered near the ceiling reflecting in them. “You’re right. I always dance for my audience as if all that I did were to please them, but inside, I dance only for myself.”
She surprised him by reaching out to take his broad hand, and he was embarrassed. His hands were so large, so powerful, that he felt as if they were paws, and he were some huge, alien animal beside her.
“You seem to be doing well here,” Dengar said.
“Do I?” she whispered, and once again Dengar was surprised at how rough and husky her voice could be. “I’m not. I’m terribly alone. I’ve never felt so … empty.”
“How can that be?” Dengar asked. “I’m sure that there are many men who would seek you out.”
“Of course, there are many men who want me,” Manaroo said, “but few are willing to share themselves with me fully. I feel that we are all strangers, encased in our shells.” She squeezed Dengar’s hands tightly, desperately. “On my world, when two people love each other, they share more than their bodies. They do more than take pleasure with each other. They bond with the Attanni, sharing their thoughts and emotions completely, sharing their memories and their knowledge. All of the subterfuges between them are stripped away, and they become one person. On Aruza I was bonded to three good friends, but now …”
Dengar found his heart beating more rapidly, for he could see the hunger in her, the need for this, and he knew she wanted it from him. “I’m afraid that you won’t find people here who are willing to bond with you that way. Our thoughts and emotions are frightening things, and so we conceal them, hoping that potential lovers will never uncover our weaknesses.”
“But you have no emotions to conceal. You told me on your ship that you have no emotions, that the capacity was cut out of you by the Empire.”
Dengar indeed remembered having told her, one night as they ate in his stateroom. Manaroo had seemed curious about the concept, seemed to feel that it would be like sleeping, a comfortable emptiness. But Dengar did not see it that way. Instead, it was an inconvenience. He sometimes did not know if his words or actions would offend or annoy others. Indeed, his solitary life was not something that he’d sought. He lived alone on his ship because few others could endure his presence, his demanding ways. He’d told her this.
“I sense few emotions,” Dengar said. “Rage, hope, one other.” She looked at him quizzically, as if demanding to know what other emotion held him sway, but he shrugged her question aside. “That is all the Empire left me. But what of my memories? What of my deeds? I suspect that you would find them … monstrous.”
She searched his face for a long moment. “Bonding with you would make me more like you. Perhaps I need that to survive, here in your world.”
Dengar considered, looked away out the window to the billowing Tibanna gas clouds. Bonding with him would teach her much that no one should know. It would open her to all of the pain and madness he’d lived through since the Empire first began molding him into an assassin. “I would rather spare you that.”
They ate a leisurely dinner, made Smalltalk, and Manaroo excused herself,