The beasts seemed almost to regard him as one of their own – something for which he was very thankful, considering their size and strength – and were nothing but gentle and reserved in their disposition toward him.
Sighing as he scratched one of the curious beasts behind an ear, he turned toward the morning sky and wondered what lay beyond it, in the depths of space. He fantasized that a human fleet was even now on its way here…
Then he sighed with resignation. There would be no Confederation Marines coming to his rescue. No Navy battlewagons were coming to save young Reza Gard from his blue-skinned alien captors. He was alone and would have to fend for himself. As it so often seemed he had.
He looked at the knife, the trophy from the warrior he had defeated. Only this morning, when there had been plenty of time to look at it, had he discovered that it was human-made: a Marine combat knife. Itself a grim reminder of his plight, it was the only physical link he had left to his own people. Everything else he had ever had, even the little silver cross that had been a gift from Nicole, had been taken from him. The knife’s edge, while not as advanced as Kreelan blades, was nonetheless a testimony to human craftsmanship. It was razor sharp, exquisitely tailored for the act of killing another living being.
And that is what he had to look forward to, he knew. This race lived and died by a code of conduct based on the glorification of mortal combat, and he had to adapt to that code and make it work for him if he wanted to survive.
* * *
He awoke the next morning to the familiar smell of cooked meat, and opened his eyes to see a plate, a real china plate, sitting centimeters from his nose. It was loaded with properly cooked meat, fresh fruit, and the wheat cakes he had come to detest but forced himself to eat anyway. Esah-Zhurah, sitting next to him and watching him with her feline eyes, held a cup of ale for him.
Reza saw that the wounds on her face were all but healed.
“That is impossible,” he breathed. He reached out a hand to touch her face, to make sure it was real. “How can your wounds be healed already?”
“Our healers make short work of such trifles,” she said blandly, pushing his questing hand away.
Reza shook his head. Such a feat was well beyond anything he had ever read about for human medicine.
“How do you feel?” he asked, curious about her condition.
“Well enough,” she said, bowing her head to him slightly in acknowledgment.
She looked into his eyes, her own glinting in the morning sun. “You must have fought well, human,” she said, “for the priestess to take such an interest in you.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, grabbing one of the tangy fruits and biting into it eagerly to satisfy his loudly-complaining stomach.
“Tesh-Dar, the priestess of this kazha, this school of the Way, has adopted you into the ranks of her pupils.” She paused. “It is something for which there is no precedent. You should be very honored.”
Reza glared at her. “How can I honor the one who killed my parents, who helped destroy my homeworld, who attacked yet another world to bring me here?” He broke a piece from the cake he held in his hands, half of it crumbling in his angry grip. “Maybe if I had not been so terrified,” he muttered bitterly, “I could have rammed my father’s knife into her brain instead of just cutting her face.”
Esah-Zhurah leaned forward, her eyes wide. “You made the scar over her eye?” she whispered in awe.
Reza nodded, opting to stuff more food in his mouth rather than say anything more, trying to avoid those painful memories.
Esah-Zhurah silently pondered this newest revelation as Reza ate. When he was finished, she asked another question. “Why did you not let the warrior kill me?”
Reza stifled a bitter laugh. “If I would have let her kill you, where would that have left me?” he asked. “Alone on this world, without a single friend or ally, I cannot even blend in with your people in some vain hope of camouflaging myself, for my skin is not blue, nor do I have talons or fangs.” He gestured at her chest. “Nor am I female.”
“There is more to your actions,” she said, her eyes noting the small nuances in his body language that she had been studying for so long.
He sighed at her probing of his motivations, but did not think it worthwhile to try and avoid answering her. “I do not consider you a friend,” he said, looking her in the eye, “but you have kept me alive, for whatever reason. And for that, perhaps I am in your debt, and maybe by taking care of you I might increase my own chances of staying alive,” he looked away, “until I can return home.”
“That, human,” she said slowly, “you shall never do.” She swept her arm about her. “This is your home, now, for however long you may live. You shall never venture far from this place, and certainly shall never leave this world.”
“Then what am I doing here?” he asked angrily, his hopes of a future fading to a dim, lifeless gray. His finger traced the edge of the china plate, now empty, that carried the words C.S.S. Arizona stenciled around the edge, and had the old battleship’s crest emblazoned in the center. The Arizona had been destroyed in a horrendous fleet engagement near Kyrie the day Reza had been born. There had been countless fleet battles during the war, but that one had made it into the school history books. The irony was not lost on him.
“From this day on,” she said, “you are to learn of the Way, as if you were to become one of us.”
Reza opened his mouth in protest, but she silenced him with her own words, having anticipated his response. “You need not worry about serving the Empress, human,” she said derisively. “We do not ask your allegiance to the Way, for you are not of it. You are here to satisfy Her curiosity, to see if animals such as yourself have a soul.” Her voice left little doubt as to her own beliefs. In her mind, Reza was as much a spiritual being as the snorting magtheps in the stalls behind them.
“You do not believe I am your equal, do you?” he said. It was more a statement than a question as his mind grappled with the implications of what she was saying.
“No,” she responded curtly. “I do not.”
Reza smiled at her, baring his teeth as he had seen her do sometimes. “You will,” he said, “even if I have to prove it to you.” He leaned closer to her, his eyes burning fiercely. “In fact, I will prove that I am better than you. All you need is the courage to give me the chance.”
The girl grunted, unimpressed. “That,” she said, “the priestess has already granted.” Her mouth crinkled in a Kreelan grin. “You will have ample opportunity to demonstrate your superiority, animal.”
She gathered up the plate and cup in one hand and took Reza’s leash in the other as she stood up, signaling an end to the conversation.
“Come,” she ordered, leading him out of the barn. “You smell like the animal you are.” Her nose wrinkled in disgust. “It is time for you to learn civilized ways.”
* * *
Reza spent most of the morning trying to wash in the freezing water of a nearby stream under Esah-Zhurah’s steady gaze. Modesty had long ceased to be a factor in their relationship, whatever it might otherwise be called. Esah-Zhurah gave him some kind of soap that he put in his hair to kill off the mites that had attacked his scalp, but the stuff burned his skin so badly that he almost would have rather left the tiny parasites in peace. When he finished, he stumbled out of the water, looking for the skins he had washed earlier and hung up to dry in some nearby bushes.
They were gone.
“Where are my clothes?” he asked her, shivering with cold, the breeze against his wet skin making him even colder than he had been in the water.
“You will need them no more,” she replied cryptically. She stepped close to him and ran a hand over his chest, marveling at the blue cast of his skin. “Why do you change color?”
“Because I am freezing!” he answered testily, rubbing his hands over his arms to get his circulation going again. “No blood is reaching my skin,” he explained through his chattering teeth
. “That is what changes the color.” He was less than amused by the inopportune disappearance of his clothes, but he forced himself to have patience. His keeper often worked in mysterious ways.
She humphed to herself and led him naked from the stream. He had never had anything on his feet since coming to this world, and now it seemed that the rest of him would go naked, as well.
“Damn,” he cursed under his breath, too low for Esah-Zhurah to hear.
After a short brisk walk they found themselves at the entry to one of the many buildings of the kazha, a school that was as large as most human universities, ensconced here in the forest.
As Esah-Zhurah opened the arched door and ushered his naked, shivering body inside, he saw that it was an armory. Weapons ranging from short stilettos to pulse rifles and many others that he had never seen before were arrayed in orderly rows in racks on the walls flanking the well-lit main corridor. She led him down to the second archway on the left, and Reza temporarily forgot the cold that had been wracking his body. He saw nearly a dozen figures robed in black, fitting armor to several young female warriors, each of whom was clad only in the thin black gauzy material he had seen under his keeper’s armor.
But this armor was not the same as that worn by the Kreelans in the city, Reza saw. It had no adornments of any type, no scrollwork or runes. It was completely utilitarian, and the robed Kreelans, the armorers, fitted each piece with exacting skill and precision. This armor was going to be used for its intended purpose, and their honor was at stake in its fitting.
Two of the girls were finished at the same time. After bowing to the armorers, they brushed past Reza with a hiss and bared fangs.
Esah-Zhurah bowed and then spoke briefly and rapidly with the senior armorer, gesturing toward Reza. The woman disappeared from the room.
“Stand here,” Esah-Zhurah ordered, ushering Reza toward where four other armorers waited. Hands clasped inside the fabric of their robes, they eyed him – particularly his maleness – curiously.
“What–”
“Silence,” Esah-Zhurah said sharply. “You will answer any questions they may put to you, but you will not ask any and interrupt their work. They must concentrate, or your armor may be less than perfect.” She paused. “That would be an unfortunate situation in the arena.”
While Reza worried about the ominous reference to the arena, one of the armorers unclipped his leash with her clawless hands, a trait Reza had not noticed before. Others began measuring his arms and legs with what looked like nothing more impressive than an ancient-style fabric tape measure that some human tailors still preferred to use.
After interminable measuring, one of them disappeared into another room, emerging an amazingly short time later with one of the black undergarments for Reza while the others continued their tasks.
“My thanks,” he said fervently. He was grateful to finally have something to put on over his freezing skin.
They then measured him again, after which they began to test fit various pieces of leatherite armor, taking away the ones that were not perfect for reworking and refitting.
After several hours, Reza stood in a full complement of matte black leatherite, including sandals with wraps that came nearly to his knee. They had very tough soles and were without a doubt the most comfortable footwear he had ever worn. It was ironic that here, among the enemy of his race, his clothing and footwear was custom made; in House 48 he could never have even dreamed of such a luxury.
He flexed his hands in the black gauntlets that fit as if they were a second skin, feeling natural despite the metal claws that had been added to the fingers to even the odds against his naturally-endowed counterparts. Standing in this armor made him feel like he might have a chance of survival after all.
The armorers finally stepped away, except for two who bore the breast and backplates that shielded the wearer’s vital torso area. Reza had fully expected to have two conic projections on the breastplate, such was the pervasiveness of the female form. He was amazed to see that, like everything else, the armorers had crafted plates just for him. They fit his chest perfectly.
Finished at last, the girl saluted the armorers, and Reza bowed his head to them, omitting the crossing of the arm. It was a ritual mandated by the many commandments they followed, but since he was not of “the Way,” it did not apply to him. Yet he still wanted to show his respect.
The armorers, apparently somewhat less apprehensive or bigoted toward the alien among them than were the warriors, returned his gesture with no discernible malice.
“Come,” Esah-Zhurah beckoned, leading him away by the arm. The leash had been left behind in the fitting room. Their trust in him to obey – and his understanding of that trust – was now implicit.
Once outside, she guided him to a secluded patch of grass in the midst of a stand of trees. They sat down, cross-legged, facing one other.
“Tomorrow,” she told him, “you will begin a new life. All that has gone before, all that you have known and believed must be pushed aside, purged from your mind, if you wish to survive. There will be little margin for error, and no allowance made for weakness. You asked for the chance to prove yourself; so shall you have it.
“From now on,” she explained, “you will learn to live and fight as we do, as have the warriors for the last twenty-seven thousand generations who have passed through the gates of all the kazhas such as this one. You are about the size and strength of those entering the intermediate combat training that is taught here. Thus you will be handicapped, for you have not had the training given the young ones, and you will be given no allowances for this shortcoming. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” he said, wondering just what kind of nightmare he had fallen into.
Satisfied, Esah-Zhurah continued. “You will be taught in the ways of the Desh-Ka, the order of the priestess who brought you here. And I,” she said with audible resignation, “am to be your tresh, your… partner.”
“My partner?” he asked incredulously.
Esah-Zhurah shrugged. “There is no better description of it that you would understand, human,” she said contemptuously. “The bonds of the tresh are much deeper than mere partnership or your concept of friendship. It is beyond your understanding. Besides,” she added, “I doubt you will survive long enough for it to become an issue.”
“We shall see,” he said coldly.
Esah-Zhurah went on as if he had remained silent. “You no longer have a leash, yet you must be with me always, and I with you, unless I tell you otherwise. This is not because you are human; it is simply the way of the tresh. We will eat, learn, fight, and live together.”
I am so looking forward to it, he thought sarcastically.
“For at the end of every cycle,” she went on, “all of the tresh take part in The Challenge, a competition among the peers that begins the process of our adult ranking in the Way. Those who do well, rank highly. Those who do not… sometimes do not survive. Those tresh who die leave their partner standing alone, for tresh are bound for life to one another, come what may.”
That thought hit Reza like a slap to his face. “So,” he asked tentatively, “what would happen to you should I die?”
“I would be left alone,” she said bitterly, “as I have been since my real tresh died two cycles ago.”
“And what would become of me should you die?” he asked quietly. “What is to prevent one of the peers from taking any opportunity to kill me outright?”
“My death would be consistent with the Way: you would be left to fend for yourself, alone. It is an unenviable existence for any tresh, but especially for you, human.
“As for the peers trying to kill you, it is very unlikely unless they become careless or overzealous in the arena. The priestess demonstrated the good will to bring you here, and has given you armor from her stores, food and drink from her commissary.” She gave him a hard look. “You do not understand the honor that she has accorded you, human, but perhaps you will learn. I do not believ
e she would look kindly upon anyone who killed you without just cause. Your life rests under her authority now, and it is much more powerful than any power I shall ever boast. Why she has intervened in your life is something she will reveal at a time of her own choosing, if she chooses to at all.”
She leaned closer to him. “But beware,” she warned, “for while her benevolence has kept you alive, it may just as easily get you killed. Death comes easily in the Way of my people. From my studies, I do not believe you will find life pleasant here. You will suffer extraordinary physical pain and exhausting hardships with little to hope for but to take yet another breath.”
She leaned back. “Our training begins each day at dawn and ends at dusk. You will be subjected to tests of the body and the mind, and the price for failure will be pain or, worse, humiliation before the peers. And, like all things among the tresh, your partner will suffer with you until your learning is complete or one of you dies. I will suffer pain gladly,” she said, “but do not humiliate me, human. Ever.”
Reza could not believe how much today differed from yesterday. Then, he had been something between a slave and an animal, and now he was to learn how they lived, had been given a chance to survive. He did not care about the girl’s warning of hardship and pain. He welcomed it. He had hope, tenuous though it might be, that he might someday, somehow, get back to humanity again.
But he was nagged by a persistent thought: would he still be human?
“If you teach me well,” he told her, “I will not fail you, or myself.”
Her eyes gleamed at the challenge in his voice. “Then let the new day come forth,” she said, her fangs reflecting the red glow of sunset.
* * *
Reza lay awake, unable to sleep. His mind drifted from one thought to another as he pondered the coming dawn. He had asked Esah-Zhurah to explain more about what would happen, but the details she would not say.
He rolled over in his hide blanket to look at her, asleep nearby. What humiliation must she be enduring, he wondered, to be the tresh of a human, an animal? How must she feel, having to sleep outdoors in the forest rather than in the shelter of the dormitory buildings because Reza was unclean, and she was bound to him?
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