She pulled herself out of her musings and shrugged. “That’s all.” She glanced at Chin-Sun, who nodded. Her brown eyes were earnest, and she seemed to have been listening with the utmost attentiveness.
“I see,” Itembe said, smiling. It stood out brightly against the dark skin of his face, like a sliver of glacier in a mountain crevice. “No one has ever left here feeling dissatisfied. I guarantee that you won’t either.”
The rhythm of his words rushed over Genevieve’s skin like warm honey, and the confidence of his smile made Genevieve feel hopeful. She knew her hosts were doing their best to be reassuring, but she still remained skeptical of their ability to deliver on their promises, however powerful they might be.
“Feel free to relax this evening and explore the resort. And tonight, get plenty of sleep,” said Chin-Sun, collecting the file from the table and rising from the sofa. “Your vacation will begin first thing in the morning.”
A flutter of excitement—just a little one—beat against the inside of Genevieve’s chest. “Okay. Um, what should I wear tomorrow?” She rose from her seat, as did Itembe.
“Wear whatever you like,” said Chin-Sun. “You won’t even have to worry about it. You’ll see.”
Genevieve frowned. “Why all the mystery? There’s only so many things I could be doing at a resort like this.” The spa or laying on the beach came to mind. Then again, this was no human resort she was visiting. Her hosts were Mahrid Jinn who had powers which were kept highly secret. It was rumored that they had unlimited powers, but Genevieve highly doubted that.
Chin-Sun shook her head, the dark strands of her hair glossy in the low light. “Just rest assured that we would never schedule anything mundane for you. Many have given us reviews stating that they were glad they knew nothing ahead of time about their experience. So you see, its unexpected nature is an intrinsic part of its impact. As Itembe said, your satisfaction is guaranteed.”
Genevieve pursed her lips and shrugged. “Okay. I suppose if anyone could surprise me, it would be the two of you. We’ll see. Just don’t forget that there will be consequences if I am disappointed.” She tucked her purse under her arm and turned to go. The waitress was approaching right at that moment with her order, which was perfect timing. Genevieve took the glass from her tray, toasted her hosts with narrowed eyes, and left bar.
Chapter Three
Genevieve was jerked from a dream about silky sheets and platters of delicacies by the sound of a door banging open and the glare of a light snapping on overhead.
“Get up,” said a raspy voice. “Put your things on and line up. Do your best to look sexy. It’s time to find your salvation.” This was followed with mocking laughter.
Momentarily blinded by the light, she rubbed at her eyes as she clutched what felt like rough blankets to her chest, anger rising within her. She sat up and glared as best she could through squinting eyes. “How dare you interrupt my sleep! This kind of treatment is outrageous! If you think a wakeup call of this manner is suitable for a luxury resort—” The rest of what she’d been about to say sputtered, forgotten, on her lips as the door banged shut and she took in the space that had formerly been her hotel bedroom.
All around her, haggard-looking women rose from the floor and began adjusting their hair and clothing. A few of them gave her strange looks and tittered among themselves. Genevieve looked down to see that the king-sized bed she’d lain down on last night was now a thin pad. The dirty blanket she held clutched in her hand, no better than a rag. It had the consistency of burlap and carried the faint odor of sweat. She pushed it to the side in disgust and rose from to her feet.
She gasped when she saw the outfit she was now clad in. Gone was the flowing royal-blue fairy-spun nightgown that Tashi had given her as a gift on her last birthday. Black pants with pockets on the legs and a gray tank top were now in its place. The sturdy construction of them and the dull-colored fabric already felt constricting. The room they were in had no windows, just metal walls and bright lights overhead. Was it some kind of prison? The dank air and musty smell told her it had been a while since a breeze from the outside had swept through. She wrinkled her nose.
The other women in the room were rolling up the pads they’d slept on and stacking them on shelves that ran along the far wall. Then they lined up next to the door. Every single one of them looked homely, as though the unkindness of the first half of their lives had embedded itself into their skin. But though their hollow cheeks were pale and fine lines webbed the edges of their faces, their eyes glinted with excitement.
“Finally!” said a thin blonde woman. “I can’t wait to feel some earth between my fingers again.”
“And a man between your thighs,” an older lady cackled. “Just pray you get one with adequate equipment.” The group tittered at her remark.
“I don’t care if he’s fat and snores every night. As long as he’s nice, I’ll be happy,” said a willowy redhead.
“How could he possibly be fat when the entire galaxy is running out of food?” the blonde returned.
“I suppose that’s one bright side to the crisis,” the redhead said.
Their banter had a well-worn sound to it as though it had been followed many times. Obviously, this group had been together for a while.
Genevieve knew two things at once: that these women were all human and that she didn’t belong among them. In fact, she shouldn’t be in this scenario at all. Chin-Sun and Itembe had made a very large and grievous mistake. “Chin-Sun? Itembe? I know you can hear me. There’d better be a good explanation for this,” she called out, and crossed her arms over her chest to wait. The humans stared and whispered loudly, but she ignored them. It didn’t matter what they thought. All of this would melt away like the bad dream it was once the Mahrid stepped in.
But seconds passed by and they didn’t appear. Instead, the door swung open and a short, wiry man entered. “Ladies, welcome to Garrulus Four, your beautiful new home, a land brimming with opportunities!” His loud, sarcastic announcement echoed through the room, and he spoke with an accent that was unfamiliar to Genevieve. “As some of you already know, I’m Will Stoker, captain of this ship.” He winked at a petite dark-skinned girl and she simpered and giggled. “In a few moments, you’ll be going outside where—”
He was cut off by Genevieve’s insistent tap on his shoulder. “I need to speak with you this instant.”
He looked her up and down, his beady gray eyes lingering insolently on her curves. “Well, love, you’re looking at him. What do you want?”
“There’s been a mistake. I don’t belong here,” she said. “This isn’t what I paid Chin-Sun and Itembe for. You need to take me back to the resort.” If he was in charge here, then he would be the one who knew how to get her back in touch with them.
He raised his scraggly light-brown brows so high that they almost became part of his hairline. “A mistake? You need me to take you back to the resort, you say?”
She gave a curt nod in response to his condescending tone. “Yes. Immediately.” The room was silent and the intense beam of stares from the group began to make her feel warm.
“All right,” he drawled. “I’ll get you sorted out.” He strolled over to the foam pad she’d slept on. “First things first though. This your bed?”
She sneered. “I wouldn’t grace it with that term but, yes, I awoke on it.”
“Then you need to roll it up along with the blanket and stow it just like all the others have done.”
Unbelievable! Manual labor may be for the others, but it wasn’t something someone of her station did. “I don’t really see the point of that. It’s wasted energy. Filth belongs on the floor.” She made a mental note to report to her hosts that someone on their staff would even suggest she do such a thing.
He put his hands on his hips and glared at her, displeasure twisting his angular features. He strolled closer to the mat, glanced down, and stooped to pick up a pair of black boots on the floor next to it. “If this was
where you were sleeping, then I guess these are your shoes.”
Before she could answer, he threw them at her. They struck her in the stomach and hip, making her reflexively wrap her hands around them as she cringed back. The impact of the boots was only minorly painful. It was more the shock of such treatment that caused the blood to drain from her face. Still, she managed to say in a low hiss, “Do you have any idea who I am?” Her family could cause him pain of a magnitude that his small mind was completely incapable of imagining. And after that, they could curse his descendants for all time.
“I know exactly who you are. You’ve been nothing but a fissure in my crew’s assholes since the day we picked you up from Altria,” he said. “You’ve had food, shelter, clothing, and transportation to a new and better life. And has there been one word of thanks from you? A shred of gratitude? No.”
He stalked closer, right into her personal space, and stopped so close that the tip of his nose was just centimeters from hers. The pores of his skin came into sharp focus along with the pockmarks on his cheeks. Genevieve clutched the boots to her chest defensively, but she kept her back straight and proud even though Will’s aggressive manner made her want to pull away. Beads of sweat lined his forehead, and she watched as a one began its slow slide toward the scar on the outer corner of his eyebrow.
“Well now, it’s time for payback,” he said in a low dangerous tone.
He glared at her with his dull gray eyes and she glared right back.
“I can’t wait to see who you get saddled with. No doubt he’s going to wear you out in ways you’ve never imagined.”
Will’s rotten breath blew into Genevieve’s face, making her cringe away, but she held her ground.
His tone shifted to one that was lethally mild as he said, “Now, I have no idea what you’re going on about, and I don’t care. We’re going to go outside and you’re going to help collect the credits you owe me as agreed in the contract you signed. And just so you know, love, there isn’t anything even resembling a resort within ten galaxies from here.”
He jabbed her shoulder with his finger just once, but hard, and she couldn’t help yelping and clapping a hand over the spot. “How dare you!”
Will straightened and, looking down at her condescendingly, continued in a mock-pleasant tone, “Now you’re going to get in line with the others, shut your trap, and pick one of the highest bidders so you can satisfy our agreement. That was the deal, and I expect you to honor it. If not, I’ll take you to a different planet where the regulations are a bit spottier and you won’t have a choice. Because, one way or another, I’m getting what’s owed me. You got that, you ungrateful bitch?”
The insult scraped across Genevieve’s pride, and suddenly the shock and the foreign impulse to cry vanished. She was Jinn! And the daughter of one of the oldest, most powerful Afrit families! Her bloodlines could be traced back a millennium. And this piece of garbage human thought he could treat her like filth? Rage zinged up her spine to her mind in a tsunami of red. Without even thinking, her fingers tightened on the boots and she whipped them in a short, tight semi-circle to smack the thin nose in the center of Will’s sneering face.
Chapter Four
Colin Affeter stood at the back of the group of men. Already they were teeming with excitement and tossing bawdy jokes around. From their current behavior, no one would have been able to tell they were a group of top-notch scientists and agriculturists. Though he was surprised at the churlish transformation to their personalities, he was glad to see them in high spirits. With the way the mission had been going, they certainly needed the moral boost.
Colin hadn’t really wanted to come into the square today. There was plenty to occupy him back at the lab. But he, too, was in need of a distraction. Isolation was the price they paid for the honor of solving the food crisis and establishing a colony on Garrulus Four. Every single one of them was here not only for the chance to make history but also for the opportunity to earn a fortune in credits.
Colin actually found Garrulus Four to be quite beautiful, though the others complained. The landscape, though jagged and never ending, was soothing to him in its simplicity. There were sections of sand dunes that were smooth, sinuous, and windswept. In other areas, vast oceans of clear blue seemed to be a continuation of the amazing sky. The great canyons nearby had walls that were layered in beautiful deep purples, rusty oranges, and blood reds. And the two suns with their combined light brought a clarity to everything that made the colors pop in general.
He was the kind of man who enjoyed quiet and space, which was why he’d had his housing unit placed a good distance from the square and from his lab. It allowed his mind to entertain thoughts of infinity, which sounded like a strange thing to think about. But he liked the way it reminded him that there was so much more to life than whatever tiny concerns burdened him day to day. With little to do on this planet aside from work, there was more than plenty of that to go around.
“Hey, Colin.” Brace clapped him on the shoulder with one of his big, calloused farmer’s hands. “How’s it going with the new splices?”
A knot of tension formed in Colin’s forehead as he thought of the seedlings in his lab. “Coming along. They’re growing but ... still sprouting small, as usual,” he said. “I just planted a whole new series. We’ll see what happens.”
That was an understatement. Miniature would have been a better word. He’d been able to at least get the various seeds to sprout and emerge from the soil, which was a breakthrough, but their fruit was coming out the size of pebbles. It was a conundrum. In general, a hybrid or polyploid tended to produce larger fruit, not smaller. But in this case, he was getting the extreme opposite result of what he’d expected.
Brace nodded. “Yeah, I’m still having that same issue no matter what I do.” He was in charge of the orchard. He’d been experimenting with different combinations of soil composition and nutrient additives in the water. So far, the fruit that had grown on the stunted trees had been too small to be edible. In the meantime, the trees wasted far more valuable resources than their bounty was worth.
Everyone was having their own problems with the crops, including him. With double suns making up the center of this galaxy, days on Garrulus Four lasted seventy-two hours, which should have been ideal but now Colin wasn’t so sure. The soil composition presented other issues, as did the added gravitational pull. The combined challenges those elements created were preventing his team from getting Eardian plant life to prosper on Garrulus Four. Sure, everyone had had full knowledge of these obstacles prior to accepting the mission. But Colin, being the head of the team, felt the most responsible for the lack of significant progress. Perhaps he’d been overly optimistic when he’d influenced the committee in their selection of a planet. But with his history of success and scientific breakthroughs on other worlds, it was possible his pride had become a bit inflated. And now, as a result—unintended though it was—the survival of their race rested squarely on his shoulders with ever increasing pressure.
Because his focus was hybridization, most of his time was spent in the lab splicing key gene sequences of the various plants they were trying to grow with those already existing on the planet. Making plants grow where they normally wouldn’t was the sort of work that took not only finesse but time, often a year or more. Genes were finicky things. And, even if he got them all together in one package, they would up- and downregulate for frustratingly indeterminable reasons. He’d been at it over a year and a half already. And so far, they’d had only minimal success creating a viable hybrid with all the qualities the team sought.
In the beginning, they’d been excited when their assigned crops had begun to sprout on Garrulus Four. That was usually the beginning of rapid success. But then disappointment set in as, no matter what they did, every single crop mutated shortly after poking above the soil. Things had gotten only slightly better seven months in. One of the soil scientists had had a breakthrough with a special mixture of nutrients and th
e additives. But though that had helped make the plants looked more recognizable, they were still stunted in various ways.
Colin was interrupted from his musings by the robust cheer the men gave as Will Stoker strolled to the center of the platform they used to receive deliveries from supply ships. The trader bowed to them and waved his hands in a settling motion. There was a large, deep-purple bruise on his cheek near his nose, but the man sported his usual slick smile despite it.
“All right. All right. Let’s get started shall we? Sorry it’s been so long since I been by, gents, but collecting the sensitive sort of cargo I have in my possession can take time.”
They gave another cheer.
Will was an opportunist who traveled to remote planets to sell items not normally available to colonists for whatever reasons. It was often black-market sort of stuff, but not always. These days, more normal items were becoming precious. Last time Will had come by, he’d been selling freshly ground meat. But though fresh, naturally grown food was in short supply everywhere, none of them had been willing to take a chance on it. Who knew where it had come from and what had been mixed in there as filler?
Following that, Will had tried to tempt the men with illicit drugs and been asked to leave. He’d gone with a cheeky grin and a wink that time. “I know what the men want,” he’d announced. “They’re lonely. Anyone can see that. Don’t worry lads, I’ll be back with what you truly crave.” He’d been instructed that he was not allowed to land again without first declaring the contents of his cargo and also undergoing an inspection immediately upon landing.
So this time, Will had shown up with approval from their mission director for his current cargo. Colin had made sure to chat with the director himself via a Holo-Connect after receiving the notification to make sure the trader wasn’t pulling a fast one.
Genie's Awakening Page 2