“So there’s really no surveillance in here?” Jet said, deciding to ignore his rather cryptic comment about dinner. “You’re sure about that?”
“I am sure,” Laksri said, and he sounded it. “We sweep this. Richter and I. There are machines for this.”
“And they’re foolproof?” Jet’s voice held a trace of sarcasm. “Really? That’s nice.”
Laksri’s voice grew blunt again. He didn’t quite cut her off, but managed to make it clear he’d noticed her avoidance.
“You hear me?” he said. “About meal?”
“We should go out,” she said, glancing at him.
He remained by the door, his long arms folded over the light gray shirt he wore.
“Yeah, I heard,” she said, looking away. “So? You think we need to be seen together, is that it?”
“More than seen,” he said, his voice holding a faint warning. “You need to be stung. Then out with me.”
“So you lizard-skins like your girlfriends high when you take them on dates?”
Jet meant it to sound like a joke, but it didn’t really.
When she looked at Laksri, she got the impression it didn’t sound like a joke to him, either.
There was an awkward silence.
Jet half-expected him to sting her right then, so she found herself reluctant to get too close to where he stood. She hadn’t really realized how tense she’d gotten until he spoke and she jumped, jerking back from him, enough that Laksri did the same, his tail lashing back and forth in one or two aggressive arcs.
What he’d said was, “Do you want different clothes first? Before we start?”
After they both flinched, Jet just blinked at him.
He’d said it politely, but something in his words struck her as more than a suggestion.
Looking down at herself, Jet realized that she was wearing the same clothes she’d worn that morning, in the stables. Anaze already warned her that the Nirreth sense of smell was about ten times stronger than that of humans.
Supposedly, that contributed to their fondness for bathing, despite their inability to swim.
Elaborate, underground baths––shallow, of course––lived under the main common spaces in most parts of the palace compound. Most of those baths looked out over gardens that lived still deeper underground, and consisted of waterfalls and rock formations, birds of course, which Jet was learning filled most of their common spaces, despite the near lack of them under the larger dome. They also cultivated flower and fruit trees.
She had come to realize that the Nirreth adored recreating nature in its various forms.
They did this both underground and inside the wider dome, under the artificial sky and sun amid the parkland of trees and grasses they’d built over the landscape of the New Mexico desert and its ruined sky.
Again, Anaze illuminated her some on their quirks around this.
According to him, the Nirreth’s home world sky wasn’t blue, not even before it had been ruined by some kind of cosmic event that rendered it unbreathable for the Nirreth or most of the indigenous animals of Astet, what they called that home world.
Earth’s sky behind the dome wasn’t really blue either, not anymore, but they’d patterned their artificial landscape on what they hoped the Earth would look like, once they’d completed their “environmental repair plan,” something which they seemed to believe would take close to one hundred years to complete.
Nirreth favorites had been thrown into the mix as well, in terms of flora and fauna, despite the meticulous detail some of the Nirreth architects employed in hunting down previously indigenous life forms to complete their largely fictitious yet eerily familiar-feeling “Paradise Earth.”
Jet supposed they justified those Nirreth plants and animals by saying their vision of the future involved a perfect blend of Earth and the best of whatever they could salvage from Astet, the Nirreth home world.
Still, she couldn’t help thinking it was more of an Earth amusement park than Earth itself.
It reminded her again of those old human movies––more fantasy than reality.
“Change?” Laksri said, his voice a bit more prodding. “New clothes? Then we go out. This is okay?”
Jet looked at him.
Laksri’s mouth had curled in that half-frown she knew indicated displeasure. His tail flicked more sharply behind him, too. He probably thought she’d been deliberately ignoring him, or at the very least, spacing out.
“Change into what?” she said, once she’d collected her thoughts. She heard the taut edge creep back into her voice. “What kind of clothes should I wear?”
Laksri motioned towards one wall, his four fingers flat.
Hesitating only a few seconds, Jet walked to where his hand had pointed.
She examined the blank surface. At least now, she had some idea of what to look for, even though her and Anaze’s room was equipped with more human-like furniture, including a floor chest and a taller wardrobe filled with racks for clothes.
Jet had seen the wall storage units Nirreth used, however, including in Prince Ogli’s private chambers the one time she visited.
She’d also seen them in the massive, Grecian-looking changing room attached to the Rings’ training center. That same changing room housed a communal bath the size of a small pond, with hot and cold jets, soapy scrubbers and knee-high water that stood a dozen feet from the rows of drying cubicles between stone-like pillars.
So it only took Jet a few seconds longer than the average Nirreth to find the faintly glowing spot to the right of a curved stretch of unbroken wall.
Laying her palm on that spot, Jet was rewarded by the wall breaking into four segments that retracted seamlessly, revealing an opening taller than she stood. Shirts hung in rows on branch-like hangars, and next to those, rows of form-fitting pants in various colors and with different designs hung as well.
After a few seconds of staring, Jet noticed that not a single one of those garments had been made to fit Laksri’s proportions.
In fact, every one of them was about three sizes too small.
“These are for me?” she said, startled.
She turned around when he didn’t answer her immediately.
Laksri watched her, his dark eyes appraising as she examined the clothes, as if assessing her reaction to them. It occurred to Jet that he might be trying to interpret her facial expressions and verbal cues as much as she was his.
“Laksri?” she said, letting her voice grow a touch sharper. “The clothes. Are they supposed to be mine?”
He nodded, in that jerky, awkward style of a Nirreth imitating human mannerism.
“You and Richter did this?” she pressed, wanting to understand the full meaning of the clothes already being in his room. She wasn’t sure what exact information she wanted off him, only that she wanted more information than she had.
Laksri only shrugged, his eyes flat.
When she continued to stare at him, he blew air out of his lips in a short burst, a near whistle.
Jet knew that sound, too; it meant he was likely annoyed.
“I do it,” he said, his voice gruff. “Need clothes. Both places. Richter no good with Nirreth clothing… what is right… so I not ask him. There is a problem with this? Bad clothes? Bad size?”
Pausing, he articulated more clearly.
“You not like?”
“Wrong size,” she corrected him, unthinking. “And no, it’s not that. It’s just––”
“What?” he said, impatient again. “I want food. Anything on that side…”
He made a jerking motion with his hand, one copied by his tail as he motioned towards the right side of the closet.
“…That is fine. For this. For out. The rest is in. Inside. Or training. Maybe in barns with Ogli. Other types of outside. But not good for this. For public. Understand?”
He pointed his finger down, towards the floor, but at an angle so that it aimed at the closet as well.
“Same with fee
t. Right is good. Left is no good. Understand?”
Jet looked down, and realized he meant shoes.
She honestly couldn’t tell much difference between the two categories he’d outlined, other than the fact that those shoes on the right appeared to all be close-toed, whereas those on the left were mainly open-toed.
Both looked like the regular sandals all Nirreth wore, at least when dressed in civilian wear and not the booted uniforms of the cullers, or another branch of their military.
She considered asking what the deal was with the “good” and “no good” thing, regarding the shoes and the clothes, then decided it could wait.
She was starving, too. Nirreth only ate two meals a day, one around ten o’clock in the morning and the second around four or five p.m. It was edging past five now, at least if Jet’s stomach-grouchiness was any indication.
Of course, most of the clocks weren’t Earth-based clocks, but Nirreth clocks, although they’d started using both to some degree, in the Palace at least, likely to acknowledge the different lengths of days and nights of Earth as compared to Astet.
Anaze had been the one to clue her in on the fact the Nirreth home world was a good two times the size of Earth, and therefore had significantly longer days and nights. Jet had only a vague idea of the conversion method, and didn’t really care all that much, frankly.
She still found herself thinking in Earth times out of habit. The Astet clock made no sense to her, so she pretty much didn’t bother to learn it.
Once again, Laksri blew air out his lips in a short, yet somehow expressive burst.
Irritated that time, Jet grabbed the first shirt and pair of pants that her hands found on the right side of the closet.
She could argue fashion with the Nirreth later; better to get this dog and pony show over with so she could go to sleep and wake up herself again.
It was only after she’d pulled the shirt off the hangar and compared it to the others still on the rack that she noticed that all of the shirts on the right side had symmetrical designs down each long sleeve. The pants appeared to have similar designs down the outside and inside of the cloth legs. Those on the left side appeared to be more uniform in color, or containing more random designs built into the fabric itself, especially with the long shirts.
When Jet turned around, Laksri still stood where he had been standing since they arrived, but now his expression appeared calm. He’d turned his head politely so that he faced completely away from her. At her silence, he motioned towards her with one of his hands, without turning his head.
“Change,” he grunted. “I am hunger.”
“Hungry,” she corrected.
That time, instead of looking annoyed, he made that low, snorting sound that she associated with amusement.
Probably his version of a Nirreth laugh.
“Hun-gree,” he enunciated, acknowledging her words. “You are still not changed,” he added, motioning his fingers at her a second time, still staring at the door.
Hesitating only briefly, Jet shrugged, then pulled the barn-smelling shirt over her head. Dropping it on the floor, she donned the new shirt after tossing the clean pants and now-empty hangar onto the shoes to free her hands.
Tugging the new shirt over her head, she slipped out of the dirty pants in the same set of motions, a little more self-conscious that time. Dumping the pants on the floor, too, she tugged the new pair on hastily. She didn’t bother to arrange the fabric around her legs until she had the pants mostly up and over her hips.
When she glanced at Laksri, he remained stone-faced, still staring in the opposite direction.
The lack of underwear with Nirreth clothing was something Jet had been forced to grow accustomed to.
The bra thing bothered her more than underwear.
Not like she was super big on top, but during the Rings training especially, she had enough upstairs to be uncomfortable. Her mother always helped her sew halters at the skag pit, like most of the skag girls and women did, at least until Jet could do it herself. She tried to explain the problem to the Nirreth who saw after her and Anaze’s clothes, but the male Nirreth had been visibly baffled, above and beyond his spotty English, and Jet’s even worse Nargili.
Jet finally had to approach Alice.
It was one of the few times she felt sincerely grateful to the Rings’ trainer.
Alice dealt with the issue somehow, and Jet found four halter-top style bras of some stretchy fabric in her chest of clothes the next day. Each of them fit perfectly, so Alice must have had her own chat with the Nirreth tailor, or else found someone who could teach him how to make what Jet needed.
In some ways, the problem wasn’t that surprising. Not a lot of human women had been trained in the Rings before now.
None, actually. Not before her and Tyra.
It was a sobering thought.
Once Jet had the patterned fabric all aligned on her legs and arms, she started looking at shoes. Pulling out one pair covered in light blue stones, she set them on the floor and began shoving her feet into them.
“You can look now,” she told Laksri. “What do you want me to do with the dirty clothes?”
When she glanced up that time, she jumped violently.
Somehow he’d managed to cross the room without her hearing a single footfall.
He stood over her now, and once again, she was reminded just how tall he was. Compared to every human she’d ever seen, even in the Rings on the pirated stations, even compared to other Nirreth, Laksri was just really danged tall.
She watched as he picked up her dirty clothes, wrinkling his nose, even though he did most of his breathing through the narrow slits in the lower part of his neck.
Apparently, the smell part lived roughly the same place as it did on humans.
It struck Jet that Nirreth could probably breathe through three different parts of their body, not just the two humans had. Four, if you counted each set of gill slits separately. She wondered if their ancestors had ever been able to breathe underwater, the way Chiyeko told her humans had once been able to do, before they crawled out on land.
It was an odd thought, that humans might have that in common with the Nirreth.
It would explain their endless fascination with water.
Carrying her soiled clothes gingerly with two long fingers on each hand, Laksri brought them over to another segment of wall and pressed a knuckle into a bright spot on the smooth surface. A second opening appeared, this one much smaller, and nearly round. Laksri shoved her clothes through the opening and they disappeared.
Then the hole disappeared, too.
He walked back to Jet while she was finishing buckling her second shoe.
He touched the discolored panel next to her wardrobe, and the sectioned doors closed simultaneously. The lines disappeared back into the eggshell white and featureless wall, as if they’d never existed.
Jet found herself looking around, taking in the overall space of his room for the first time.
Every surface seemed to be the same pearly white in color, with no real features. The ceilings were absurdly high, at least by skag standards, at least twenty feet at the apex.
The only large piece of furniture was a low couch covered in flat, dark-green cushions over a white, hard-looking back.
Jet noted a low table, also white, covered in various mechanical devices. She could only identify one of the four or five lying there, a kind of portable view-screen the Nirreth used to talk to one another, and to share information. The screens folded up into a variety of shapes, the most common being a bracelet-type band that they wore around their wrists.
Looking around, Jet wondered about sleeping arrangements.
Laksri didn’t sleep on that bench-couch thing, did he?
Come to think of it, Jet couldn’t remember what kind of bed the prince slept on, either. She wondered if, like the closets, the bed lived somewhere inside the walls. The one, small door she could see on the far side of the room looked awfully
low for his height––more like a tunnel than a regular door.
Jet had seen a few bathrooms with doors like that, so she figured it could be the same. Compared to the dug holes around the skag pits, the Nirreth cubicles for washing, toilet, and general cleaning were pure heaven, but still nothing like the porcelain seats and deep bathtubs she’d glimpsed in a few of the old Earth movies and picture books.
“Are you ready?” he said.
Once more, Jet found herself glancing at the tall Nirreth.
Looking up at him, her heart pounded faster.
She heard the undercurrent in his words, and knew what it meant.
She was out of time.
6
Venom
Exhaling a breath in the hopes that it might unclench her muscles, she thought through her options, maybe for the last time.
“I really can’t fake it?” she said, hearing the doubt in her own voice.
He gave another of those low snorts, but his expression looked slightly less hard.
“No,” he said simply.
Jet shook out her arms, feeling like she was gearing up for a fight.
“All right,” she said. “Knock yourself out.”
Laksri’s eyes grew faintly puzzled at the last, but he moved closer.
Reaching towards her cautiously, he caught hold of her hips, after holding his palms up briefly, like one might do when trying to reassure a wild animal. Jet supposed that wasn’t far from the truth, at least from Laksri’s point of view.
Rather than stepping towards her again, he pulled her closer to where he stood, his eyes watching her face.
Jet couldn’t really hold that black-eyed. She found herself watching his tail instead. She remembered it had hurt the last time––a lot, at least until the venom kicked in. She remembered it feeling like a knife had been inserted between her ribs, along with the pressure of the venom being forced into her system as he injected her.
On the side of her body where his tail coiled in lazy circles, Laksri slowly lifted her shirt to expose the bare skin, moving cautiously enough that he almost seemed to be asking permission. Realizing why he was lifting her shirt, Jet didn’t fight him.
The Complete Alien Apocalypse Series (Parts I-IV Plus Bonus Novella): An Apocalyptic, Romantic, Science Fiction, Alien Invasion Adventure Page 24