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entry hall, but it was easy to disarm them; they were using her energy, after all.
    She didn’t want to speak to Utolian, so she placed her hand on his arm. His energy rippled through her, so she jerked her hand away. He really was a walking aura in a physical body. It was the most surprising development so far.
    Avina knelt and coaxed her energy into parting from that of Yartu. Once her power was separate, she pulled his into her with a snap and sent it out to eliminate the bits of herself that were waiting for her to set off the trap.
    She heard his bellow of shock when his traps were destroyed. She only had to wait, and he would come after her.
    The bellow was on the astral plane, and she could feel the heavy thuds of his feet through the hollow station.
    Avina shifted her stance to a fencer’s footing. It could be disorienting, being in the physical and the aural world at the same time, but as Yartu appeared, she was very focused on his every move.
    She needed to make contact with him to take back what he had stolen, but as he grew larger, Utolian stepped between them.
    To her shock, he moved with the grace of a bullfighter, grabbing the Grafthian as he ran past and pulling him up short, just a few inches from Avina.
    She wasn’t stupid; she grabbed at the aura with hands and senses, pried her own power away from him and embedded it in the walls of the station. It was simple enough to shatter him in the next moment, leaving Utolian holding nothing.
    Avina shrugged, dusted her hands off and told her separated energy that it would be a good idea to do a scrubbing of the station, aura-wise. She couldn’t control her lost power, but she could coax it along. It was fairly agreeable to suggestion and another Aura Speaker would be able to coalesce it into a living ghost. It wasn’t the first ghost that Avina had left behind somewhere, and she doubted it would be the last. When the station was occupied again, her ghost would fade.
    Utolian paced out with her, back into her ship and through the airlocks. In the second airlock, he asked, “Why are there two?”
    “Because, if an aura piggybacks me in here, the second round of locks will notice it. It checks my brainwaves for invaders.”
    “Why is it letting me in?” He was genuinely curious.
    “Because, my mind isn’t registering panic, fear or uncertainty.” She smiled as the cycle chirped its completion.
    Including her unconscious time, they had only been at the station for four days. It was a pretty good turn around. Time to file her reports, and then, Teklan waited. Explaining Utolian was going to be one heck of a report.

Chapter Six
     
     
    The first day of travel with someone else in the ship made her jump at every turn. It was a stroke of genius to teach him how to fly. Once he had checked out on monitoring the autopilot, it was just a matter of scheduling her sleep around his frolicking.
    His conversation was lightly flirtatious and that made her a little uneasy. Utolian could have surrendered his body already if he wanted to, so why was he still in it?
    His attentions were enough to make her very uneasy. The problem was they felt too right. Each brush of his hand on hers made her want to turn her hand over to hold his for a moment. When they slid next to each other at the dispensing station, the bump of hip and elbow turned into early foreplay. Avina had no idea what was happening to her, but she wanted it to stop.
    Her life was boring and her best friends were disembodied. She wanted to keep it that way. Change wasn’t something she was prepared to deal with.
    The only time they had to be together was when they reached a jump site. He was interested in the technique, but she couldn’t really explain it. It was an instinct by now.
    She managed to keep them apart until they were on their way to Teklan. There was no way to avoid him when she had to take him through administration and medical.
    “So, I am guessing that you are uncomfortable with this new