A broad-shouldered man of young middle age stood between the armed guards. He didn’t wear the same clothes as the others, and he was smiling.
"Ledi," Nihkil told me.
His voice was so close I jumped, then turned.
Nihkil didn’t react to my startle. He leaned down a second time, his mouth not far from my ear as he pronounced the name a few more times for me.
“Ledi,” he said. “Lea-dee. He is human.”
"Human?" I looked away from Nihkil, staring at the approaching group, even as it hit me that I'd never considered that any of them might be anything else. "Just how many other kinds of creatures do you have running around in your world, Nik?”
Nihkil hesitated, looking at me. I noticed only then that his hand now rested on my shoulder, its weight heavy, but not unwelcome.
“...He is safe," he said finally.
I glanced up at him, frowning. “That didn’t sound convincing. And it’s not what I asked."
"They have a supernatural with them."
My gaze returned to the group approaching us. That time, I saw the other being walking with them. Studying her face above a billowing, dark-blue robe, I sucked in an involuntary breath, backing into Nihkil. He gripped my shoulder tighter in his good hand.
"It is all right," he said. "It is not her."
I stared at the bulbous head, the opaque orange eyes nested in deep sockets above overly-large cheekbones. As if to remind myself, I glanced at the broken body of the hybrid on the rocks, reassuring myself that she was still there. She was.
Nihkil was right. These two didn’t even really look the same. For one thing, the new hybrid’s skin shone nearly blue. Still, she’d looked similar enough to the last one to freak me out for those few seconds.
"So these supernaturals," I muttered to Nihkil. "They're some other race? Not human?"
“Half-human. Supernaturals are an anomaly. Rare.”
“How rare?”
Nihkil exhaled, as if I’d asked a question with too many ramifications for a simple answer.
“Perhaps one in several hundred thousand births,” he said. “...Perhaps closer to a million. I do not know the exact statistic. They are an anomaly.”
I wondered if he thought repeating the same words to me would eventually cause them to make sense to me. If he did it enough times, that is.
So far, it wasn’t working.
Maybe he read some portion of my frustration on my face.
"I will explain later," he said.
When I glanced back, Nihkil’s eyes remained trained on the small group approaching us. I was still studying his face when his fingers tightened on my shoulder, pulling me closer to him.
In what felt like no time at all, Ledi halted a few feet in front of us.
Standing there without speaking at first, he looked from Nihkil to me and back again. His mouth twitched in what might have been the beginnings of a smile. When neither I nor Nihkil moved, his gaze shifted more directly to Nihkil.
That time, his facial expression grew into a question.
I flat-out ignored him.
As much as I could anyway.
"Who is she?" I asked Nihkil, watching the supernatural, instead. "Do you know this one? Better than the one that tried to kill us just now?"
"Yulen," he said. "I do not know her... not how you mean. I do not interact with them."
"Assholes, eh?" I said with a wry smile, still watching her.
Nihkil's voice came out puzzled that time.
"It is not allowed,” he said. “I am not allowed to interact with supernaturals, because I am morph. But in this case, she works for Yaffa, the same as I do. We report through the same command structure. On occasion, it is appropriate that we interact where expedient in the course of our duties. But I thought you were asking if I knew her personally. I do not."
I nodded, almost as if I understood what the hell he was talking about.
Again, I noticed that Ledi guy staring between me and Nihkil.
His previous amusement had been entirely replaced with puzzlement now. I also saw what might have been a faint thread of irritation.
Then his eyes found and focused on Nihkil's hand on my shoulder. Somewhere in that brief pause and appraisal, his eyebrows rose a bit higher.
Finally, the suspense seemed to be too much for him.
"What is this?" he said to Nihkil. "Will you tell me?"
Again, I understood him, even though his lips didn't match the words I heard in my head. Feeling Nihkil stiffen behind me, I nudged him with my shoulder, pulling his attention back to me, even as I continued to ignore the other man.
"How do I understand him?" I said. "That's not English, is it?"
"He engaged translator," Nihkil told me. “...To be polite. That is how you understand. It is how you understand me, as well."
"Some kind of machine?"
"It is alive... but yes."
“Alive?”
“I can explain this later.”
Not sure how to pull that apart, I did my best to shrug it off.
I was tabling a lot right then, and while my reality meter was getting stretched and bent all over the damned place, I didn’t really see how I had much choice.
Mostly because, whatever Nihkil said, or however he tried to reassure me, I didn't feel at all safe right then. Not by a long shot. And this guy, Ledi, might be okay, but I wasn’t going to engage another alien here until I absolutely had to.
Maybe because of that, I didn't move away from Nihkil, but stayed right with him.
For his part, Nihkil hadn't let got of me since that supernatural got shot.
Even as I thought it, his eyes swiveled directly to Ledi's.
"I register a claim," he said.
Ledi's smile flattened a touch. He cleared his throat, glancing at me.
"Clearly," he said, giving Nihkil a taut smile. He paused, frowning a bit more as he glanced at me again. "Is that the first thing you say to me, friend?" he asked Nihkil.
Nihkil bowed his head politely to the other man.
I watched Ledi's face while he did it, and only saw a deeper frown in those light green eyes. He didn’t want deference from Nihkil; in fact, Nihkil’s formality seemed to irritate him. Those green eyes turned then, regarding mine, almost as if he’d felt my stare. Ledi’s dark brown hair hung down his back in loose waves caught by the wind and something turbine-like in the ship's engines. Multicolored threads decorated his clothes, spirals like what I’d seen in Aboriginal paintings. He wore rings on four of his fingers.
"His name is Ledi," Nihkil said again.
"I got that." I glanced between the two of them, trying to understood what I felt. Something between the two of them had tensed in those few seconds. That something had a flavor of testosterone... unless I was even more off my game than I realized.
I fixed my eyes on Nihkil.
“What is he?” I said. “What is he really? Another like you?”
"No," Nihkil said, his eyes still trained on the other male. "Human. Pharei," he added.
"Does 'Pharei' mean human?"
"No. It is the name of a civilization of humans. A...” Nihkil’s words briefly phased, as if the translation program couldn't find a word for my mind. It picked up only a beat later, so I didn't have much time to dwell on what word could have gone missing. “...of humans. The others, those who caused pain were...” Again, his voice changed, as if the translation spat out a word on its own, one I couldn't translate. “...Malek," he said. "Mydara. From Mydara. It is a place, a planet. These are different humans. Ledi and the others. They come from a different place.”
“A nationality?” I clarified. “A type of human?”
When I looked up, Nihkil blinked, twice.
My eyes studied his. “Does that mean yes?”
"Yes." Nihkil repeated the blinks. “...You are correct. I apologize. Ethnicity. Type. Only here it is planet, sometimes region or even colony. Origination. This is different from race, species. These t
wo kinds of humans are at war... Malek and Pharei. Is that clear?"
“No.” Seeing that he intended to go on, I added, “But good enough.” Thinking again, I asked, “How many? Planets, I mean.”
He regarded me, his brow wrinkled as if the question baffled him.
Then, just as quickly, his expression cleared.
"You mean inhabited,” he said. “Yes. Approximately twelve full colonies, including moons and...” (meaning lost) “...pre-established, meaning prior to the second expansion. Another nineteen post-secondary settlements with varying degrees of infrastructure...”
Waving him off, I swallowed, nodding. “Okay. Good.”
“Good?” He pronounced the word, and that time, his lips moved with the sounds, as if he were tasting English himself, trying it out. “...Was that a question?" he said, using the translation program again.
Ledi spoke to Nihkil, interrupting us.
"What language is that?" he said. "I can barely understand her... even with the translation."
Nihkil hesitated, giving me the barest glance. Seeing the question in that look, I sighed, folding my arms without moving away from him.
“English,” I said.
Nihkil pronounced the word carefully back to the human, again without the translator.
“English.” Ledi enunciated the word, too. He switched back to the other language, looking at Nihkil. "Wherever did you get her? Was she involved somehow in...”
I lost a whole big chunk of meaning in there somewhere.
Folding my arms tighter, I remained close by Nihkil, feeling almost through his fingers that he didn't want me to separate from the contact he had with my shoulder.
Even so, he answered the other man, his voice sounding more formal again, almost as if he were reading some kind of military report.
"I was attempting escape,” Nihkil said, matter-of-fact. “I was having trouble with the lock, and I encountered Malek operatives there...”
"Morph?” Ledi said.
“Yes. Of course.”
“Did they bring any supernaturals through?”
Nihkil made a different gesture with his fingers. "Not that I saw."
I noticed his answer seemed to bring relief to Ledi’s expression.
Nihkil went on to explain how he found himself on Earth.
I watched the eyes of the new man light up as Nihkil described going through the same passage he'd taken to get to Earth, only to find himself on a different planet than the one he’d left, which was the one he’d mentioned on Earth, called Udael. Nihkil called this place, meaning the planet we were on now, Trinith, or maybe Trineeth, I couldn’t tell for sure.
Nihkil also described pain in his chest, around something he called a lock, or something that got translated as lock in my head.
I listened as the two of them spoke back and forth, trying to follow as much as I could, filing away what I couldn’t in the hopes I might figure it out later. Most of their conversation consisted of the new guy, Ledi, asking Nihkil questions about how he got to this world, what it felt like, and what he'd seen on Earth before he’d been forced to flee.
That part of the Q&A completed, Ledi asked Nihkil to describe how he met me, and what happened to us after we came through the portal, which they both called a “gate.” Ledi seemed particularly interested in how I came to be here. He also wanted to know whether I’d suffered any physiological effects from the process of following Nihkil through the gate.
“None that I’m aware of,” Nihkil said.
Finally, Ledi asked Nihkil what he thought about the gate taking him here, to this Trinith place, instead of back to where he’d started on Udael.
“What is your opinion, Nihki’?” the man said seriously, rubbing his jaw. “What do you think took place here, with these two gates?”
"A bridge perhaps," Nihkil said, after some time staring off into the trees. "A cross-over between the two places. With openings to all three. The place is human. Almost solely human, which is somewhat rare... but the technology is not advanced. Still, the bridge effect is curious. This new world is perhaps...” He hesitated, glancing at me, as if remembering I could understand them. "Perhaps it is somehow significant. To your search. A clue, perhaps."
He said the last words almost reluctantly, I noticed.
Ledi smiled, however.
His eyes shone in a muted enthusiasm when he glanced at me again. He looked as if he were trying to hide his true reaction from both of us, and failing pretty spectacularly.
"I see," he said only.
Nihkil’s fingers once more tightened on my shoulder. Ledi’s eyes fixed on the morph’s whitening knuckles, but he did not speak.
"If the door is closed now, it may not matter," Nihkil said, his voice matter of fact. The fingers of his free hand made a gesture that looked almost like he was waving off his own words. “...We cannot go back. Or if we do, it will need a new way there."
He paused, still watching Ledi warily.
"Is the portal on Udael closed, too?" he said then.
"It is." Ledi’s eyes swiveled back towards me, spending a little too much time on the hand Nihkil had clamped on my shoulder. "They want you to answer for this, my friend. As you must have expected."
"Answer for it?"
I felt Nihkil's fingers tighten still more.
Nerves practically bled through his hand to my shoulder, causing me to step back into him, although I couldn’t say why, exactly. A thread of protectiveness might have lived there, though. Given everything, I guess I didn’t want anyone messing with him, physically or psychologically. But the move closer to him had a different component, too, one that was almost instinctual.
Whatever the cause, it didn’t go unnoticed.
I watched Ledi observe our change in positions with narrow eyes. I also felt that creepy woman's eyes on me now, too, the one Nihkil called a supernatural.
I wondered how accurate of a translation that word was.
Nihkil seemed to be covering over his nerves with more words.
“...I saw nothing extraordinary there, in that place," he said. "True, I was not there long, but the change might not have the significance we all suppose. It could have stemmed solely from some mechanical failure in the portals themselves... a glitch. It is possible we are reading too much meaning into this thing. It is possible she is simply a regular human."
Ledi folded his hands in front of him, not speaking. His eyes held more than a faint thread of skepticism, however.
I couldn’t tell if Nihkil noticed or not.
If he did, he didn't let on.
He continued to speak in that emotionless voice, giving a more technical discourse on the gate-thing itself. That was harder for me to follow, frankly. Nihkil seemed to be describing a tear in reality, or maybe some kind of space-time thing, like a wormhole.
His words remained as precise as a machine’s, yet it didn’t take me long to pick up on the vagueness underneath. After a few minutes, it hit me finally that he really had no idea how the gates worked, much less why they’d closed. He didn't know if someone put the gates there, or if they’d occurred naturally. The way Nihkil talked, it was pretty clear that none of the other people here knew the answers to those questions, either.
Listening to Nihkil describe his complete lack of understanding of either the location of Earth or how he got there, or whether anyone would ever be able to go back, I felt my first glimmers of real fear.
As if feeling my reaction, Nihkil paused in his explanation. He glanced at me.
Ledi did the same.
"How much does she understand?" Ledi said. His full lips pursed. "She seems calm. Is that shock? You said her world is primitive, yes?"
Nihkil’s fingers pulled me closer still, so that I leaned on his chest. "What will the Court say? About what I told you. Will I require reeducation for this?"
I didn't like the sound of that.
Nor did I like the way Nihkil's fingers tightened as he said it.
Le
di noticed the hand on me again, and the fact that I now stood with my back flush to Nihkil's body. Still he only gave a short incline of his head, his arms crossed.
"Unknown, my friend,” he said. “They have been far more concerned with the closing of the gates... and the maintenance of legal claims on the object. We need a pretext to bring her in. The Council on Palarine is working on that now." He paused, glancing thoughtfully at me. "If she really is the only known sample we have from that world, and the doors are really closed, they will risk retaliation for what you did to the Malek. It will help you, Nihkil... but may also cause you some grief in your claim."
When Nihkil didn’t answer, Ledi’s face hardened.
"Nikhi'... this isn't some personal religious quest, relevant only to you. Why did you bring her here? You cannot possibly tell me this is merely due to a fondness you have for the creature? Does she even know what you are?"
Nihkil made a vague gesture. "I have been explaining."
“Really really badly,” I muttered.
Nihkil glanced down at me, but his face didn’t change.
The supernatural took a step closer. "What does she understand, morph?"
I backed into Nihkil again, making up the distance.
"I cannot know for certain," Nihkil admitted. "The humans of her world had no awareness of other places... or species that are not like theirs, other than the indigenous animals, which they eat and use as an expendable resource. She knows nothing of our civilization here."
All five of them were staring at me now, making me feel a lot like a bug under glass. It was the supernatural, Yulen, who finally broke the silence.
"She may not understand," the orange-eyed woman conceded. "Yet she has chosen you. It is obvious, morph. And your lock seems now to be connected to her will... no longer that of the Republic. You will have to answer for this. You were not authorized to take one in a personal manner such as this... it is not allowed. Particularly not in a case such as this, given her probable significance."
I looked to Nihkil that time, maybe for clarification. Seeing his face, I did a double-take. His skin had darkened. He removed his hand from my shoulder in a very awkward-seeming pause. Staring up at him, I couldn’t help thinking he looked embarrassed.
“What does that mean?” I asked him. “Chosen for what? And what the hell is this lock thing everyone keeps talking about? What does it mean, you're 'connected to my will'?”
The Morph (Gate Shifter Book One) Page 9