Twisted: Brides of the Kindred 23

by Evangeline Anderson

  “I see it. Heading there now,” Malik said grimly. He maneuvered the ship into position and they dropped neatly onto the designated landing area.

  “All right, now what?” Nikki murmured, looking around.

  “Now we get ready.” Malik rose from the controls. “Come on, we have a few things to bring with us.”

  Back in the living area of the ship—which was extensive and luxurious—he found a hidden panel located in the elaborately carved headboard of the plush bed. Pressing some of the carvings in a certain combination caused a small space to pop open. As Nikki watched, he reached inside and drew out several items.

  One was a silvery shard of milky-white crystal, about as long as her hand and shot through with rainbow colored veins in every imaginable shade of red, yellow, blue, green, purple, orange and every shade in between. The second was a tiny figurine that looked a little like a fertility goddess carved by an ancient tribe from some rough black stone.

  “Which one is the Shannom-rah?” she asked, looking at the two objects cradled in Malik’s big palm.

  “This one.” He handled the crystal shard carefully. “There are trillions of complete personalities encrypted into this one device— it’s priceless.”

  “Wow…”Nikki touched the shard carefully and noticed that its surface was extremely rough. “It looks so small to hold so much,” she said. “What kind of crystal is it? I mean, what kind of mineral is it made up of?”

  “It’s not a natural crystal at all—it was bio-engineered by the Jai’linm from a crystal on their home world that was already extremely porous. The secret to making it has been lost but according to my old mistress, despite the number of personalities already captured here, trillions more could fit.” He nodded at the crystal. “She even added her own personality to it—for posterity, she said,” he added dryly.

  “That’s amazing and also kind of creepy—to think that so many people are stored in one place.” Nikki shook her head.

  “Not really people—just a complete recording of their personalities,” Malik corrected her. “In fact, I believe that some of them might even be from Earth, your home world.”

  “Really?” Nikki eyed the crystal with even more surprise. “How?”

  “Remember you told me about people from your planet who claimed to have been taken by aliens?” Malik asked. “Well, according to my old Mistress, after they had recorded all the personalities of their own planet, the Jai’linm roamed far and wide searching for more to add to the Shannom-rah. And I believe they were supposed to have spent considerable time in your sector of space.”

  “Okay, that is too weird. I don’t want to think about it.” Nikki shuddered, thinking of the tales of alien abduction she had heard. “The idea of all those poor people actually being kidnapped and scanned or whatever and then put back down on Earth and nobody ever believing them about such a traumatic experience is just sad.”

  “No one believed them?” Malik frowned. “Why?”

  “Because before the Scourge and the Kindred came to Earth, we had never made contact with an extraterrestrial people,” Nikki explained. “We thought we were alone in the universe…boy, were we wrong.”

  “You certainly were,” Malik said dryly. “There are trillions of other species in the universe—though admittedly only a small percentage of them are sentient and only an even smaller percentage have developed space flight. But still, your people were never alone.”

  “We know that now.” Nikki pointed at the crude female figure with its pendulous breasts and full belly carved from the rough black rock. “So what’s this?”

  “This appears to be a dominance token—one carved by the ancestors of the original Yonnites,” Malik explained. “Many Mistresses carry them as a symbol of their culture and beliefs. So it won’t seem strange for you to bring it with you as Mistress Hellenix.”

  “What is it really, though?” Nikki asked in a low voice.

  “The device given to me by the Time Warden. This…this is going to change everything.” He handed the tiny figure reverently.

  “You said that before—but how?” Nikki asked.

  “It acts as a time-reverser,” Malik explained. “It will take me back ten years into the past, just before the Knower deployed its first attack and then act as an incendiary device that blows its main core and destroys it utterly by erasing its central code.” He frowned. “Of course this is going to cause a planet-wide crisis for a while since the Knower controlled all of the communications systems by that time. But it will prevent the gas attacks from happening and my people will live instead of being wiped out.”

  “But if you’re changing the past, that will also change the future,” Nikki pointed out. “What’s going to happen in the here and now? Will I suddenly find myself on an inhabited planet instead of an empty one? Where will you be?”

  “To be honest, I might be trapped in the past,” Malik admitted. “Or, what’s much more likely is that I will dissolve. My past self will remain, but he will have no memory of what happened—the Time Warden wasn’t completely clear on those details.”

  “He wasn’t? Don’t you think it’s kind of important what happens to you?” Nikki demanded.

  “Not as long as my people and my planet survive and are restored,” Malik said quietly. “But I don’t want you to worry about your fate, Nikki. According to the Time Warden, anyone who is with me during the moment the device is deployed will be placed back in their own timeline automatically.”

  “What does that mean, though?” Nikki asked. “Will I suddenly be back on Earth and nothing will have happened?”

  “Not exactly.” Malik frowned. “You’ll be back on the ship, I believe, but there will be a different slave with you.”

  “There will? I don’t understand? How will that work?” Nicole shook her head, frowning.

  “The way the Time Warden explained it to me, changing time at a particular place is like dropping a rock into a pond,” Malik said. “At the point of impact—in this case, Uriel Two—the ripples will be intense. They will affect every single person native to the planet. But as the ripples widen out, they make less and less of a splash.”

  “Okay.” Nikki nodded. “I’m with you so far.”

  She supposed that a few days ago she would have thought the things he was saying sounded like the plot of a science fiction movie. But so many strange things had happened to her in the past forty-eight hours—including being dragged across the universe and switching places with an alien dominatrix—that anything seemed possible.

  “So how will it affect anyone not native to Uriel Two?” she asked Malik.

  “Your own home planet, Earth, is far from here. So the time-reversal won’t affect you nearly as much,” he said. “You and Mistress Hellenix will still switch places because of the E’lo stones but a different slave will help you get back to your own world. The events of the past two days will still happen but I will be taken out of the equation completely.”

  “You will?” Nikki put a hand to her throat. “But that means…”

  “You and I…” Malik cleared his throat. “We will have never met, Nicole.” He took her hands in his. “I’m sorry—more sorry than I can say for that.”

  “Oh…” Nikki felt like someone had punched her in the gut. “Will…will I remember you?”

  “I’m afraid not.” He shook his head. “The Time Warden did allow for the possibility of time-echoes—shadow memories from the time-line which no longer exists—but only for the people most affected. I might remember you—if I even still exist. But you will almost certainly forget me completely—because you will have never met me.”

  “Oh.” Nikki felt like she was going to cry. Her throat was tight and her eyes stung. But she couldn’t cry—couldn’t put that guilt on him, she told herself. This should be a happy occasion for Malik—he was going to get his planet back and he was sacrificing everything—maybe even his own life—to do it. How incredibly selfish would it be if she told him she didn’t
want him to go—that she wanted him in her life at any and all costs?

  It would make me a monster, she thought, swallowing hard at the tears that wanted to come. There’s a whole planet at stake—millions and billions of lives that were ended too soon. That’s way more important than the fact that I’ll never see Malik again. Even if I did stupidly let myself go and fall for him.

  “Nicole? Are you all right?” Malik was looking at her in concern.

  “Sure, I…” She swallowed hard again. “I’m just fine. I guess…guess we’d better get going down there.”

  “I wish it didn’t have to be like this.” He cupped her cheek and turned her face up to his. “I met the right female at the exact wrong time in my life.”

  “I…I feel the same way.” Nikki sniffed. “But if I let myself start getting upset about it I’m going to have a hard time functioning. So I think we should just go…go get all this over with.”

  He nodded. “Agreed. And thank you again for being willing to help me with this. I couldn’t do it without you.”

  “You’ve worked so hard for this—sacrificed so much.” Nikki turned her face towards his hand and planted a gentle kiss on his big palm. “And you’ve given me the most incredible adventure in the process. Even if I don’t remember it—or remember you—I can’t help thinking that I’ll keep you somewhere in here.” She pressed a hand to her chest. “My mind might forget but my heart won’t. You’ve changed me, Malik.”

  “And you have changed me.” Suddenly he crushed her to him and buried his face in her hair. “Gods, Nicole…I wish I could keep you with me. I wish it so damn much.”

  “I wish it too,” she murmured. “But I have kids to take care of, remember? Even if they are ungrateful sometimes, I love them—I’m a mom first, before anything else.”

  Malik drew back and nodded. “It’s right for you to put your children first—just as I must put my planet first,” he said. “I’ll always be grateful that the Goddess brought us into each other’s lives, even though we couldn’t stay together.”

  “Yes…” Nikki felt tears threatening again and she sniffed and lifted her chin. “Come on—we’d better get going before I lose it.”

  “Agreed.” Malik sighed heavily and then straightened and squared his shoulders. “Let’s go bring back my planet.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Stepping onto the surface of his home world after ten long cycles was coming home to Malik. And yet, it was like no homecoming he had ever expected or experienced before.

  The planet was so changed. It had been a nature sanctuary before—a careful balance between manmade creations and the beauty the Goddess had created for her people. In fact, the Knower had been developed as an AI in the first place in order to help facilitate communication across the planet without building more artificial structures. It was also helpful in planning construction, so as to lessen the impact on the natural beauty of the planet. Little by little it had been given more and more responsibilities, more and more power…

  And look what happened, Malik thought, looking around the sterile, empty city of glass and metal and concrete—all of it meticulously clean and orderly and dead. Why had the Knower built this planet-wide city when it had no one to populate it? Unless it had built it for the SORs, but they were a soulless bunch—barely capable of humanoid understanding.

  It was one reason—so Malik had heard through the grapevine—that the attack by one of them on Commander Sylvan of the Kindred Mother Ship had failed. Apparently the SOR wasn’t lifelike enough to fool him and he had dismantled it before it could kill him. Malik was glad of that—he had risked much to send warning of the attack to the Mother Ship commander.

  The sun was setting, casting the endless city into gloom and shadows. Malik couldn’t help remembering standing in the twilight on Uriel Two—in the forest that adjoined his family’s land. They were close to a Sacred Grove, where the priestesses worshipped the Goddess and the wind sighing through the trees with their green and purple leaves would caress his face, bringing the scent of growing things with it. Sometimes there was a hint of moisture in the air, as it often rained around sunset but the breeze was always cool and refreshing, a reminder that the Goddess surrounded them with peace and goodness.

  The dry, barren, hot wind that touched his cheek now couldn’t have been more different. The scent of it was sterile—concrete and metal—and there wasn’t even a hint of moisture. The whole planet had been turned into an urban desert and for what? Why had the Knower done this? What purpose could it serve?

  As if in answer to his question, a dot of bluish light suddenly appeared in front of his face. The dot expanded rapidly and became a figure that might have been a man or a woman—it was impossible to tell. It had medium length hair, pleasant, generically attractive features, and eyes that were somehow soulless.

  Also, it was completely naked. But this was no help in telling its sex—it had a flat chest but the place between its legs was flat and smooth as well.

  “Oh!” Nicole jumped a little and put her hand in Malik’s, as though for reassurance. “What is that?” she muttered. “And why does it look like the Malibu Ken doll I had as kid?”

  “Greetings.” The naked, sexless, humanoid figure made a bow to them and then straightened up to its full height—which was that of a short male or a rather tall female. “I am the Knower,” it said, directing its words to Nicole. “I am pleased to have you on my planet, Mistress Hellenix.”

  Malik gritted his teeth to keep from saying anything but inside he was seething. How dare the Knower call Uriel Two its planet? How dare it claim ownership of that which it had committed mass genocide to gain?

  “Um, hello.” Nicole lifted her chin and Malik saw her assuming the role of Mistress Hellenix more fully. “I’m glad to be here,” she said. “I’d love to make a deal with you, Knower.”

  “But of course—that is why you are here. You are the first organic being I have allowed through the kill-field that surrounds my planet in over ten cycles,” the Knower informed her.

  “And I’m very honored by that,” Nicole said, “But I’m also a very busy woman. I thought you asked me here to make a deal?”

  “Of course. But it is late—nighttime is when organic beings such as yourself and your bodyslave sleep—is it not?” the Knower asked reasonably. “I do not wish to tire you. I insist that you will be my guest tonight. Tomorrow when the sun rises and your biological rhythms are in harmony, we can make our deals.”

  “All right,” Nicole said, shrugging. “I’m sorry we came so late. This was just the only time I could get away from Yonnie Six. But we can spend the night in our ship and then start the deal tomorrow.”

  “By no means,” the Knower said earnestly. “I said that I want you to be my guests and I meant it. You must come and tour the facilities I have built to host organic beings. Your opinion of my designs will be greatly appreciated as you will be my first humanoid guests.”

  It was clear that Nicole didn’t like the idea of spending the night in the Knower’s facilities and Malik didn’t like it either—not one damn bit. But what other choice did they have? He caught her eyes and shrugged minimally as if to say, “What else can we do?”

  “All right,” Nicole said at last, nodding. “I would be honored to be your first guest. Um—my bodyslave can stay with me too, right? I need him with me,” she added, casting a worried look at Malik.

  “Of course. Whatever makes you comfortable.” The Knower nodded graciously. “Come this way.” Then it turned and floated away from them, leading the way from the flat-topped roof where they had landed through a burnished metal door and into the darkness beyond.

  Malik felt Nicole squeeze his hand and lean in close to use their privacy bubble—which was really coming in handy. His Mistress had bought the expensive privacy technology so that she could conduct negotiations for illegal items with no worries of being overheard or recorded but she had never used it half as much as Malik and Nicole had in their sho
rt time together.

  “I don’t like this,” she whispered to him. “I don’t like spending the night here with that thing. It’s so weird—it gives me the shivers.”

  “I’m sorry but I don’t think we have a choice,” Malik murmured. “Don’t worry, Mistress—I’ll keep you safe,” he added, squeezing her hand.

  “I know you will. I just…don’t like it.” She straightened up and sighed. “But you’re right—what choice do we have?”

  Together they stepped through the doorway and into the darkness beyond.

  * * * * *

  Nikki wasn’t liking this one bit. After all, for all its courteous manners, the Knower didn’t exactly have the best track record when it came to taking care of living beings. Yet she was afraid if she refused the accommodations it had offered Malik and her, she would offend it and it would refuse to deal. So there was nothing she and Malik could do but step through the creepy, dark doorway and into the dim, echoing space beyond.

  Luckily, as soon as they stepped into the dark space, a dim light came on overhead so that Nikki could see they were in a kind of stairwell. A set of broad, metal steps led downward and the Knower was already floating down them.

  “Do come this way,” it said, turning its head to face her, though its body was still pointed in the other direction, down the stairs. “The living facilities are in the basement of this building.”

  The sight of its glowing blue holographic body floating in the dim stairwell with the head turned completely around was so much like something out of a horror movie that Nikki’s heart seemed to freeze in her chest. She had never liked scary movies, ever since her older cousin had made her watch The Exorcist during a sleep-over when she was a kid. She especially didn’t like movies where a seemingly human body moved in ways that were impossible—the scene where the possessed little girl crab-walks down the stairs backwards had given her nightmares for months.