Sarai

by Jarli Grey

  “Trick?” the Adan frowned, “but that would not be honorable.”

  Jamie sucked in a deep breath and leaned back on the couch. He’d forgotten that the Naferi tendency for literal-mindedness.

  “If something seems too good to be true, it probably is,” he parroted from memory, before adding hurriedly, “But that’s an argument for another day. What we have to concentrate on is ensuring my people believe you can help them against the Zill. This is what I think you should do…”

  ________________________

  THE OVAL OFFICE actually seemed a little larger than Jamie thought it would, but he kinda thought that was because he was, you know, in the White House - well, not the White House, as such, but in a bunker, which looked like the White House - to speak with one of the most powerful people on Earth. The tall grey-haired woman now staring at them from her seat behind the large desk.

  The President slowly put her pen down on the desk and stood up.

  “Gentlemen,” she said politely, “generally, on this world we knock before we enter a room.”

  Her dark eyes assessed them. They rested for a slightly longer moment on Jamie and his swollen baby belly.

  Jamie flushed and nudged Alekyn, who nodded at him and blushed. “Er, we come in peace and felicitations on the seasons.”

  Jamie stared at his mate in amazement. “No, you idiot,” he snarked. “That is so not what we need to say. Madam President — ” The President’s lips were twitching slightly as if she was trying not to laugh. “Please ignore my Sarat. He has never met a president before. Nor have I,” he added conscientiously, “but I think I can do better than sounding as if I’m an extra from a B-grade movie. And I’m sorry we didn’t knock. That was pretty rude of us.”

  Alekyn huffed and ran his hand through his hair. Behind them they could hear the sound of feet pounding along the corridors and alarms wailing. Someone somewhere was yelling something, but the composed woman before them gestured gracefully to one of the large sofas in the room.

  “Never mind. Gentlemen, please take a seat.”

  They sat. So did the President, her large brown eyes steady on their faces. “You must be James Munroe, who disappeared in late summer.”

  “Yes, ma’am. That’s me, except I’ve always been called Jamie,” he groaned internally - god, he sounded so lame. “Alekyn here,” he gestured at his Sarat, “rescued me from the Zill, oh, and a couple of Keinyn -

  “Three.” Jamie stared at Alekyn incredulously, who muttered, “There were three Keinyn, majesty, but one escaped.”

  The President smiled. “Not “majesty,” Alekyn, not in this country; we have a different system of government.”

  “Apologies,” Alekyn shook his head. “Earth’s system of governing is hard to understand.”

  “Indeed, many of us spend decades trying to work it out to no avail,” brown eyes twinkled at him. “Now, Jamie, suppose you tell me why a pregnant human male with his…Naferi husband —”

  “Sarat,” supplied Alekyn. “Jamie is my sarai.”

  “Ah, yes. A sarai. The current sticking point for us. That and the notion of a protectorate.”

  The twinkle had disappeared. Jamie sucked in a breath. “Well, ma’am, that’s why we’re here. To persuade people that it’s not quite so awful being a sarai…it’s not, you know,” he glanced up at Alekyn. “I mean, I thought it was at first, but it’s actually rather…special. And,” he said proudly, “I’m having a baby.”

  Alekyn smiled and lifted his sarai’s hand to his lips. The President quirked her eyebrows.

  “So I see. Congratulations,” she paused, picking her words carefully. “I never thought to see a pregnant male. It’s a bit confronting, but less confronting than knowing an alien species is destroying millions of lives as we speak.”

  “The Zill,” Jamie leaned forward. “They will win, Madam President, if you don’t persuade the people of the world to ally themselves with PanGal. I’ve seen what the Zill can do, what they’ve done. They will keep coming until there’s nothing left, not one damn thing.”

  “And you think surrendering our world to a confederation of aliens is preferable to fighting for our own freedom, let alone handing over thousands upon thousands of young men and women to be indentured sex slaves on distant worlds?”

  “No!” Jamie responded sharply. “I don’t. Not at all. But, ma’am, you’ve got to listen to us. I know it’s hard to believe, but the Naferi and PanGal mean well - well, mostly they mean well. I’ve met one or two who were pretty darn redneck and prejudiced, but mostly they want exactly what they say they want — us to survive as a species. We’re not going to turn around and discover they’ve double-crossed us.”

  The President looked deeply troubled. “The thought of giving over so many of our rights is disturbing. Surrendered rights are never returned. That desk behind me,” she gestured over her shoulders, “was built from the timbers of warship called the Resolute. It is a symbol of the resolve we all must have to honour freedom and defend it with our last breath. If I accept help at the cost demanded of Earth by PanGal’s diplomats, the men and women who have sat at that desk in the past will condemn me from beyond the grave —”

  “No, I don’t think they will, ma’am,” Jamie interposed earnestly. “I think they’d know that you’re facing — the world is facing — the end of days. If we can survive the Zill - if we accept PanGal’s help to save the Earth from them— we will live on as a species, with courage and with the hope of a better future.”

  “At the cost of consigning thousands of humans to slavery. No-one will accept that. I would not see my child carted off to an unknown future.” The President’s voice broke slightly. “Better we die together than to see that happen.”

  “With respect, ma’am, it doesn’t have to be like that. When I was taken - was rescued - by Alekyn, for ages I thought I was only going to be a slave but I didn’t understand. It’s not just the words we used, it was the context that confused me — oh hell, it’s too hard to explain.

  “Look, the Naferi and, god forbid, the Keinyn are hopeless as diplomats, but the Naferi would take only true mates, sarai - it’s a spiritual bonding; a marriage decreed by the fates. Alekyn would die for me a thousand times over; he will never mistreat me, never hurt me in any way. He’s a bit weird about some things but he listens — at least he listens eventually. I matter more to him than anything else. He’ll give me whatever I need, whatever he can give me. I’m even studying to be a healer, which is what I always wanted…one day I hope to return to Earth to practise medicine. I’m still working on that one with Alekyn and his pard. My children will know their human relatives - ma’am, this is a way forward to a future, maybe not a better future, but a future in which we still exist. Maybe that future is not the one we expected, and there may be problems and rough times ahead, but I truly believe allying ourselves with PanGal will serve a greater good than letting people die screaming silently in a Zill feeder chamber, with a queen’s proboscis sucking all their insides out while they’re still alive. You owe the people of Earth more than your own misbeliefs - you owe your own child more than that.”

  The President paled and looked sick, but rallied. “I can’t simply take your word for it that would happen. Can you prove what you’ve just said?”

  Jamie shook his head. “I could show you vids - videos - and holograms of victims, but you’d probably say they were faked. But ask yourself this: the Zill have already destroyed hundreds of thousands of lives — people are now fighting in the ruins of our cities, fighting and dying with no hope of victory, what would they really want their leaders to do? Hold fast to an ideal that will see the ultimate extinction of the human race? I don’t think so, Madam President. Right at this moment, parents all around the world are seeing their children snatched away to deaths so horrible we can’t imagine anything worse. I think,” he rubbed his belly, soothing the child within, “I would give anything, do anything, to see my child survive, because whatever the cost, survival m
eans living, and living means hope for a better tomorrow. You can’t take that option away from people.”

  “The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” the President retorted. “I will not sell my people into an uncertain future.”

  “Better an uncertain future than no future at all,” Alekyn interposed quietly. “Ma’am, my sarai and my leader both have some suggestions that may help alleviate the worst of your suspicions. Will you listen to him?”

  For a moment Jamie waited, breath caught in his lungs. This was the tipping point — the time after which there was no going back. Would the President listen? Would she accept his arguments? The pause seemed to go on forever, and then the President, her eyes still shadowed, nodded.

  “Listening won’t hurt. Tell me what you know, Jamie Munroe.”

  Jamie exhaled. Thank you, God, he thought.

  “Yes,” he hesitated. “Ma’am, the Adan, the hereditary leader of the Naferi, has given me permission to speak on his behalf, and I reckon he will ratify anything we agree to personally, so that if necessary we can put a joint position to the United Nations and the people of Earth.”

  “I see,” the President looked around the Office. “I presume this meeting is being surveilled?”

  “No, ma’am,” said Alekyn. “Not without your permission.”

  “Well, in that case we’d better arrange it.” She rose and returned to her desk, pressed a button discreetly hidden on a console, and then smiled. “Everything said by everyone needs to be open and transparent.”

  “No secret deals,” agreed Jamie. “Ma’am, the Adan’s on one of the star cruisers orbiting the moon, just waiting for the call to talk to you.”

  “Call him then, young man. We have much to discuss, starting with how we handle sarai taking.”

  EPILOGUE

  JAMIE EYED HIS REFLECTION nervously. He thought he looked okay. Persuading the Naferi that the traditional sarai costume might be a bit confronting for humans had taken a lot of argument, but he thought the compromise of the well-cut trousers and fitted jacket was the right touch.

  Yeah, his hair was a bit long, but the manbun was pretty hipster so he figured it would be okay. The faint sparkle of gems threaded through his hair probably would raise eyebrows. It did look a bit princessy but he liked it, while his silver and pale green wrist bands played enticing peekaboo with the rich brown material of his jacket. He flicked a cuff back to admire how the bands looked, which was pretty spectacular, if he did say so himself.

  “Jamie, are you ready?” Alekyn was standing behind him, tall, impossibly beautiful and infinitely desirable.

  “Yeah, dude. Where’s Rune?”

  “Bram and Eled are playing with him.”

  “They’d better not be getting him too excited. The last thing we want is baby sick all over the floor of the East Room —that’d be a great way to start the covenant celebrations!”

  “I am certain, my sarai, that your White House has seen worse things on its floors.”

  The covenant between the humans and PanGal had come into being mere hours after Jamie and Alekyn had met with the President. Officially called the Naferi-Human Relations Act, it established the Earth Protectorate and laid out rules for Naferi bonding with human sarai.

  Mostly people on Earth called it the Taking, which made Jamie uneasy. However, by the time the remaining Earth governments had agreed to it, most surviving humans hailed it as a godsend.

  The conditions of the Taking were pretty benign.

  Jamie brooded a little on that — almost anything could be perverted by greed or ambition, but he thought he, the Adan and the President had locked the sarai taking down to a reasonably safe and mutually acceptable option. Only true sarai could ever be taken, and then only if the humans were unmarried and between the ages of nineteen and thirty. There were some exemptions — only children nor those who were the sole support of their parents or siblings, for example —and human families who wanted to could relocate to Naferis to be near their offspring. He suspected the latter wouldn’t happen all too often, despite the fact that void travel made transiting to Earth the equivalent of a trip between New York and Los Angeles.

  Once the covenant had been framed, even before it was ratified, PanGal forces had immediately swung into action, joining the exhausted human forces — a mixture of surviving defense force personnel and civilians — against the Zill. Little by little, each new day brought more victories than losses, and a spirit of optimism infused humanity as it became evident that the end of days had not yet arrived. The Zill feeder stations were dismantled and slowly, cautiously, millions of beleaguered and frightened people emerged from hiding places or were rescued from feeder bots, traumatized, terrified but alive.

  It hadn’t been easy. For some reason the queens, instead of retreating, had ordered their drones and slave fighters to continue attacking. PanGal scientists speculated that the queens knew that the humans, with their unique genetic compatibility with the Naferi and the other Foretimer species variants, represented a greater threat to the Zill than had earlier been realised.

  Jamie wasn’t sure it was such a good thing taking Rune to Earth with them, given that not all the Zill threat had been neutralised, but he seriously wanted to show his fellow humans how beautiful Naferi-human babies were - and Rune was pretty darn gorgeous in his opinion.

  He actually considered his little son, now nine months old — he’d been born just as the covenant was approved — to be their best secret weapon.

  With his button nose and dark curls, at first glance Rune mostly looked like Jamie — until you saw his bright blue eyes and pretty tufted ears and you realised he looked like Alekyn.

  Once he smiled, of course, Rune was his own self, and no-one Jamie knew had so far been immune to him.

  Yeah, Rune would win hearts and minds, could persuade the humans — his people, he reminded himself — that they’d made the right decision trusting PanGal and the Naferi. He only hoped Matt and Theo wouldn’t make too many jokes at his expense when they finally were reunited.

  If they were reunited. Commander Tain, knowing how anxious he was about his brothers and Glynn, had issued executive orders for their recovery. Matt had been located pretty quickly by the Naferi-human joint command forces — they hadn’t spoken yet, but Jamie knew he’d been fighting against the Zill in one of the cities in the north of their home state — but there was no sign of Theo anywhere. Apparently he and Matt had been separated early on after the invasion in a battle near the farm, which had become a sort of Zill ground zero.

  Jamie’s heart contracted. He couldn’t bear to think that Theo, with his sweet smile and gentle disposition, had ended his life silent screaming in agony in one of the Zill feeder stations, like so many millions of other humans and other Earth creatures. As for Glynn…

  “My dearest one — ”

  Showtime, he thought, putting his sad thoughts away and turning to join his Sarat, his beloved Sarat. “You grab Rune from his uncles.”

  They met Arakin in the communications centre. He looked a bit nervous, but Jamie thought he hid it well. His hakama was a gleaming obsidian black, highlighted with diamond pins at the waist. His swords were sheathed crossways across his back and he looked the image of a controlled and disciplined Nafari battle thane. He winked roguishly at Jamie who grinned back. Arakin really was a sexy beast, with his cascading golden-red hair, his wicked dimples and the flirtatious sparkle of his pale green eyes.

  His own sexy beast moved closer to him, placing a possessive arm around his shoulders and glaring at Arakin.

  Tain, standing nearby, chuckled. After a moment Alekyn flushed and then laughed. Rune, picking up the humour, giggled adorably.

  “Okay,” Jamie said tartly, “now we’ve got the cock flexing out of the way, we should probably get going.”

  Rune reached out chubby hands to the Adan’s brother, who lifted him out of Jamie’s arms and tickled him ferociously.

  “Who knows, Jamie — maybe my own sarai
awaits me, and I’ll soon have a little one like this, too.” He tossed the baby into the air. “I can’t wait!”

  The End

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jarli lives in Tasmania with a small clan of bossy cats. She loves exploring wilderness areas, hates housework, reads voraciously and has a day job. When her cat masters allow it, she likes to watch wallabies from the windows of her small house overlooking the mountains.

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