Imperfect Judgment

By Janet Miller

Diam isn't happy with his nomadic life on Gallia and wishes for better. When a new colony ship arrives from Earth he is at first intrigued by what the Newcomers have to offer, but when his sister becomes ill as a result of a virus in the soil disturbed by the new colonists, Diam learns why his people became nomads in the first place. A tarot reading by the village witch sends him to find a way to force the Newcomers to leave Gallia before anyone else gets sick.

Diam doesn't count on hurting himself or falling in love with Justina, the new colony's doctor as a result. The passion they stir in each other reaches beyond the barriers of language and background to bring them together but even with their new love they can't ignore their people's fate.

The judgment card in Diam's tarot reading promised success, but it is Diam and Justina's judgment and skill that will be needed if all of the Gallians, new and old, are to have the life they deserve.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Janet Miller
• Release date: Mar 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476468877

Janet Miller

Janet Miller, often known as Cricket Starr, is the author of over twenty-seven titles at Ellora's Cave, Samhain, Red Sage, and New Concepts Publishing. These titles include the 2004 PRISM award winning Violet Among The Roses, 2011 PRISM award winning Bad Dog and the Babe, and 2006 EPPIE award winning All Night Inn. She has two Romantic Times Top Picks and nominees for the RT Reviewers' Choice Award for Beloved Enemy under her Janet Miller name, and Fangs For The Memories by Cricket Starr. Janet specializes in futuristic romance under her own name and futuristic, fantasy, and paranormal romance under the pen name Cricket Starr. Not all of her books are erotic, but she knows a good love scene when she reads or writes it.

Book preview

Praise for Imperfect Judgment

4 Cups! - Coffee Time Romance

… a great book about how people can bridge the differences between them selves to find a solution to a common goal. The characters are well written, and easily believable. I as the reader was pulled right into this story, and was sad when I reached the end. I really enjoyed reading this book, and if you like futuristic type stories you will as well - LeeAnn

Imperfect Judgment

By Janet Miller

www.cricketstarr.com

Copyright 2012 Janet Miller

Cover Art Darleen Dixon

Ebook Edition

Electronic book Publication March 2012

ISBN 9780985999414

Electronic Book Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously. This book was originally published under the name Cricket Starr and has been edited for content for this edition

More Science Fiction Romance by Janet Miller

Gaian stories:

Promises To Keep

Beloved Enemy

Beloved Traveler

Beloved Stranger

A Promise Made

The Girl In The Box

Preface

The Judgment card, sometimes called The Last Judgment or Day of Judgment, is often depicted with angels blowing trumpets and the dead rising from their graves. When I first started writing Imperfect Judgment I took the card very seriously and was making the story about a man looking for revenge on behalf of his people. But as the story evolved I realized the deeper meaning of Judgment and the plot evolved with it. Judgment is about examining what the dead—meaning the past, old ideas and traditions—can do for us when we take the trouble to study them carefully.

When the Judgment card comes up in a tarot card reading it usually signifies great change or a hard decision that needs to be made. It can mean healing and renewal, it can mean forgiving someone, or starting a new life. In the case of my story, Imperfect Judgment, these themes of change, of building a new life, of healing and of facing the buried past come up frequently. When I picked the title I did so knowing that whenever there is a change to someone’s life the result is rarely perfect…but better an imperfect change or judgment than the stagnation of no change at all.

This is the first time I’ve used tarot cards in building a story and I found it fascinating how using the cards helped me shape the plot. The process was insightful and quite a bit of fun. I hope the reader enjoys the result.

Chapter One

Diam paused outside the small building on the edge of the village and hesitated before knocking. Consulting the witch wasn’t what he wanted to do but it was the only option he had. His sister was seriously ill and he needed direction on finding a cure—he needed a reading from Wynalya.

Resolutely he raised his fist and pounded on the doorway’s edge, the frame being the only solid part of the hide and stick structure. Like the rest of the homes in his village, the witch’s hut was made for easy takedown and portability…a necessity in the nomadic life of his tribe.

Come in. The woman’s voice within was deep with more than a touch of sultriness. Diam’s heart sank. He knew what that tone of hers meant—it meant the witch was in a particular mood and would want something other than price he had wanted to pay for her help, a freshly killed lamb or the well-cured fur under his arm. Food and furs weren’t what was on her mind.

The witch was horny.

Many would say that there were worse fates than having to make love to a beautiful woman. Trouble was that what Wynalya wanted wasn’t really lovemaking…nor was she someone he wanted at all and that meant he was going to have to do some fast-talking if he wanted to avoid her bed.

Diam hoisted the fur and pushed aside the skin that made up the door, entering the dark interior.

Diam! Wynalya’s cry of welcome sounded heartfelt. Probably it was, but Diam couldn’t help wondering if she wouldn’t give an equal welcome to any of the young men of the village. The witch’s appetite for sex was well known and anyone would do to slake her hunger. He didn’t like being anyone for a woman.

Her gaze landed on his crotch with sharp interest and he knew that was one reason she might be particularly happy to see him. He was the best-endowed man in the village—as many a young woman could testify to. Unfortunately none of his past liaisons had resulted in a relationship that lasted outside of a bed.

Just once he would have liked to have the attention of a woman who was interested in more than the size of his rod. Someone unfamiliar with his most obvious asset, someone he’d have to romance to get close to.

There would be no need to romance Wynalya, one of the many reasons he wasn’t interested. She laughed, a sweet woman’s laugh from a woman Diam had never seen sweetness in. She was exotically beautiful with her long unbound hair, dark against the paleness of her skin. Unworldly beautiful, but there was always a strange coldness in her as well.

Unique, cold and strange. She was dressed only in a loose fur robe, the inside of her dwelling warm from the firepot in the corner. Her robe slipped open, revealing the tops her breasts, and without willing it Diam’s rod rose at the sight of them. Her woman’s scent drifted to him in the warmed air and the smell of her made him hard and when she leaned closer to him, her high, heavy bosoms practically touching his chest, his rod wept in response.

Wynalya smiled knowingly and nodded at his rod. Is that why you’ve come to see me?

No, he said before he thought twice about it. His rod might have other ideas but sex wasn’t in any way his purpose in coming. I need your help. That is, my sister needs it.

A look of what might have been disappointment appeared on the witch’s face then she shrugged as if it didn’t matter. Ah. Tamalin, is it? She’s got the cough?

The witch didn’t seem the least bit surprised and Diam knew why. Many of the village had developed an illness marked by a hoarse choking cough in the past few weeks. So far there had been few deaths, only a couple of older people at the end of their lives already, but more and more of the younger people had taken to their beds, unable to move as the cough stole their breath. Only a few had recovered full strength and then only after a long time of suffering.

Now his six-year-old sister had joined the ill and Diam worried that she might be the first youngster to die. She’d never been that strong and he’d worried over her since their parents had died two years ago. She was his only family now.

He needed to find a cure for her and he hoped the witch could provide it.

I brought the cards. In his pocket he had the well-thumbed divination deck that belonged to his family. Handed down from generation to generation, the ancient cards dated back to before his people had become nomads on this windswept world.

Divination cards were used to answer questions about the future and direct the actions of whoever held them. The witch would read them for him and tell him how to find the cure for his sister’s illness—once she’d gotten her payment.

He willed down his erection. Wynalya eyed its shrinkage with disappointment.

It has been a long time since we’ve been together.

Diam shrugged. I worry for my sister’s life. Under the circumstances it would be hard for me to satisfy any woman, he said glibly.

The witch rolled her eyes. What did you bring me?

He held out the skin, the softest and finest of this year’s hunting. He knew it was ample payment for a reading.

With a sigh she pointed to the pile of furs she used as a bed. Put it there. At least I’ll have something of you to warm my bed.

From his pocket he took the deck. Can we read the cards now?

She gave him an unreadable look then shrugged. Of course.. Wynalya picked up the cards and with practiced efficiency shuffled them before laying them out facedown before her. A five-card spread for the present, the past, next step, future and conclusion.

She turned the first card over, the present card. It was the image of a man wearing bright colors juggling the stars and moon. The Fool. A man of innocence who goes on a journey. He’s looking for something. She glanced at him. You, I think. Answers to curing your sister’s illness. Perhaps answers for other desires as well.

No surprise in that. He was definitely the seeker looking for answers to help his sister. He was surprised Wynalya would think he had other wants that he wished satisfied but she’d always been able to see people better than anyone expected.

Truth was he did want more than a cure for his sister, although that was his top priority. For instance for some time he’d wanted to find a woman of his own, someone who, like him, wanted more than the nomadic life his people had always known.

Wynalya turned the second card over and Diam was taken aback to see it. It was the image of a tower with small human figures falling from it.

She nodded as if she’d expected that card to show up. The Tower. Disruption and a change to a way of life. She tapped it. This card speaks of the Newcomers.

Now Diam was truly astonished. The ones in the north?

The witch nodded and Diam sat back in wonder. Since their arrival on Gallia over a hundred cycles around the sun before, Diam’s people had lived alone on their lands. But a few months ago strangers had arrived in a large metal flying ship.

The ship had flown overhead on its way to a landing place so Diam had seen it himself, a huge vehicle belching fire from behind. Since landing the strangers had remained in the normally unused lands to the north. Diam, as well as others, expected that they’d come from Earth as well, but no one knew for certain.

Split into small roving tribes, the Gallians avoided contact with other people if they could help it. There were no large gatherings, and outside of the occasional inter-tribe marriage, people rarely mixed. Curious they might have been, but not enough to flout the rules of isolationism.

Why the rules insisted on the tribes staying separate was unknown. It was just the rule. Diam had always been told when he’d questioned it.

A few Gallians had gone to see what the Newcomers were up to but very few had made direct contact with them, only a couple of men who’d briefly spoken to them. Those men had spread the word about the new people.

Diam’s people were herders and nomads, moving their village and flocks to new territory when the natural grasses no longer supported the animals. They lived in harmony with the land, had done so the past hundred years, but from what had been reported the Newcomers were different.

They’d brought machinery that created turmoil in the earth while building their homes. Those who’d watched the longest even said that they dug up the land around their village, putting plants in the ground and tending them.

They built homes that weren’t designed to move and grew food that could stay in one place—things strictly forbidden to the Gallians. But Diam was intrigued all the same. He was tired of moving all the time and either gathering food from