“We know where humans came from on Earth,” I said, thinking aloud. I turned back towards Nihkil. “We evolved from lower primates. They found fossils.”
Nihkil gestured dismissively with one hand, but gave me a faintly warning look.
That one seemed to have more charge behind it.
"The First Planet is an important mystery for the humans here to solve," he said, still pulsing that warning from somewhere in his body. "It is not only a scientific question, but a religious one, too. Many people will be interested in you because of this. At least until they are able to confirm that your planet is not the First."
"You think it isn't the first, then?" I said. "Earth?”
Nihkil hesitated.
I saw him aim a sharp glance at Ledi, right before that warning intensified.
"I think it is extremely unlikely," Nihkil said, his eyes lightening perceptibly. "It is far more likely Rovers put your people there, just as they put people on Palarine and Mydora and the other worlds we have discovered through the gates. Your planet is too young to be the First. Further, it does not fit some of the basic parameters."
"Young?" I frowned, wrinkling my nose. "No, it isn't."
Nihkil snorted. He gave me a look that made it clear that he didn’t see me as an authority on the subject.
Biting back my irritation, I hesitated, then asked it anyway. "What are Rovers?”
I felt Nihkil's reluctance to answer that question, too, or maybe just to answer it right then.
I felt my jaw harden more.
“How would you know how old my planet is?" I pressed.
Nihkil gave me another bare glance. "Partly from the star,” he said. “The age of the star indicates the age of the system... thus the age of the planet. More or less."
My lips pursed, but I only nodded.
Following a little behind them in the tunnel, I wrapped my arms around myself, realizing again how cold it was on the ship. I paused a few times, touching walls with my hands. The material felt smooth, almost wet, but my fingers were dry when I took them away.
I glanced up to find Nihkil and Ledi waiting for me. Nihkil's face was far more difficult to read, his expression polite. When I caught up to them, he again slowed his strides to match mine, falling behind Ledi. His eyes remained fixed straight ahead.
"Full-blooded morph are relatively rare in the fleet," he said. "I am the only one on board, for example. But there are many more here with morph blood." He glanced at me, then pointed to a woman with dark skin standing in an alcove. "She is low-level morph. Too low to be given security designation... she cannot change any significant part of her anatomy. Only voice perhaps, and perhaps some of her surface features... eyes, hair, skin. Still, that she manifests any of our abilities at all is unusual. Most hybrids do not."
"What?" I said, feeling a kind of shock run through my system as something else clicked. "Are you serious? Some of the humans here have morph blood? Are you saying––"
"Morph can cross-breed. With humans. Others, too."
I stared at him. "Others? Like what kinds of others?"
Again, I caught a snort of amusement from Ledi where he walked in front of us.
“I told you about the supernaturals...” Nihkil began in a low voice.
“Yeah, but you said they were anomalies, right? Like one in several hundred thousand?”
“Yes,” Nihkil said. “I meant that several hundred thousand mix-breed births do not result in a supernatural,” he clarified. “...Therefore, they must result in something else, yes? In terms of numbers, the vast majority of those are mixed-blood morph with predominantly human characteristics and no manifestations of morph abilities whatsoever.”
“We think of them as humans with morph blood,” Ledi clarified humorously. He made a smooth gesture with one hand. “...Not sure if you catch the difference?”
I continued to stare between the two of them, trying to wrap my head around this.
Hell, I was trying to decide if Nihkil was pulling my leg.
“Humans breed with morphs?” I said. “Like... commonly? Really?”
“Like horny teenagers,” Ledi joked.
He chuckled again, glancing back at us with a grin.
Nihkil didn’t even look at him.
His eyes remained fixed expressionlessly on my face.
"I can show you images, if you want... pictures," he offered stiffly.
I nodded, feeling my face flush for some reason, even as I heard another chuckle from Ledi.
Nihkil’s expression didn’t change, but I distinctly felt the mood in the corridor shift.
Actually, it more took a nosedive.
Ledi and the other humans seemed to feel it, too.
I saw the humor evaporate from Ledi’s expression right after he glanced at Nihkil. I followed his eyes to the morph, too, wondering at the sudden tension I felt around him. It wasn’t irritation I felt coming off him, or even anger, at least not in the usual sense.
Instead, I distinctly got the impression that I'd managed to truly offend Nihkil, or maybe embarrass him... something I honestly hadn't been sure was even possible.
In any case, he hadn't liked something I said.
At all.
I took my eyes off him, figuring I’d wait on asking about that, too.
I faced forward as we passed through another hexagonal tunnel divider. Walls, pipes, ladders and doors all appeared to be constructed of the same ice-blue metal, only here most of it was too scuffed and dented to reflect much light. Doors appeared as darker rises in floors and ceilings. I saw burn marks in a few places, almost as if someone had shot at the walls.
We passed a lone human standing at an open access panel.
Several instruments clamped around different parts of a jelly-like substance the man had hanging out of a cylinder. Slimy filaments arched like worms, wrapping around his fingers until he pushed them aside with a gloved hand.
The engineer stopped his work to stare at me, especially my eyes and hair. Lit goggles and a shag of dark hair eclipsed his round face. The goggles made his eyes look fish-like, weirdly vacant.
I could feel Nihkil wanting to say something, and glanced over at him.
"They think you are from this First World," he said, his voice still a few shades cooler. "Curiosity will be worse on Palarine. You will likely have to submit to a number of indignities because of it."
"Indignities?" Again, I stared at him. "What kind of indignities?"
"They will want to display you. You will be forced to attend banquets... other events. They will want to speak with you, to broadcast your face to others."
"What do you mean, display me?"
For a moment Nihkil only stared at me blankly.
Then his expression seemed to clear.
"You will not be required to do so without clothes," he clarified.
"Damn straight," I muttered.
Even so, another flutter of stress-induced nerves hit me.
I wasn’t used to having so little control over my physical circumstances. I also wasn’t used to being so thoroughly outside of my element. Rubbing my abdomen absently with one hand, I fought again to focus on my surroundings. I touched the walls as we passed, hearing a low hum emanating from several of the longer panels.
Since being here, I’d heard so little ambient noise my ears felt overly sensitive.
When I looked up, I caught Nihkil watching me again.
When the pause lengthened, he took my hand carefully in his. The usual caution I felt on him had returned, only now tinged with mistrust. Whatever he felt towards me, though, he didn’t let go when I wound my fingers around his.
Instead, I saw him exhale visibly, right before he turned back towards me.
"One hundred and ten people inhabit this ship," he said, apropos of nothing. "Thirty-six are mixed breeds. The rest, apart from me, human."
"Thirty-six?" I said. "Why so many?"
Nihkil shrugged. I got the sense he was trying harder not to be offended
that time.
"There are few morph,” he said. “Mixed breeds can sometimes change. They can sometimes do low-level work as morph... depending on the parents."
I found myself understanding. "So the humans try to make more morph by breeding them with humans? Is that it?"
"Yes," he said. “But that is only part of it.” He glanced at me, his face still somewhat stiff. "This is a complicated subject, Dakota. Humans also breed with morph to increase the number of humans. They base their racial category on proportion of blood and manifested traits. The mixed-breeds here are all categorized as human, in terms of their citizenship status. It is a risk some humans are willing to take."
“A risk?” I said, confused. “What risk?”
“That they might lose their child,” he said emotionlessly. “That they might lose social status, if their child is declared of high morph proportion, and that information goes public. When that happens, Dakota, then their child is no longer considered ‘theirs,’ in the strictest sense. Their child becomes property, therefore able to be bought and sold.” He paused, then looked directly at me. “Because of this, humans usually give birth to offspring of morph or half-bloods in secret. Depending on the results, they introduce the child into society... or sell them before it becomes known that they gave birth at all.”
Shrugging at my incredulous stare, he kept his expression flat.
“It is a calculated risk,” he repeated. “But the urge to procreate is strong. That is true of all species... even if one must compromise.”
“Compromise...” I muttered.
I stared at him, sure I’d heard him wrong, or misunderstood. When he only returned my look, his eyes dark and impossible to read, I looked away, swallowing.
"So how rare are you?" I said. "Morphs, I mean. Full-bloods."
He made a noncommittal gesture, tilting his head in a way that I hadn't yet learned how to interpret.
"More rare than humans," he said finally. When I rolled my eyes, about to make a sarcastic crack, he added, “...But that could change, too, Dakota.”
My attention was jerked forward as Ledi stopped in front of a blank wall.
He touched his foot to a pedal in the corridor floor, much like what Nihkil had done to close the hatch leading into our room. Instead of the door opening, though, a panel appeared to one side of its rounded frame. Ledi's long fingers tapped out a cadence that suggested keys, but I saw no buttons or breaks in the smooth surface.
Nihkil took my hand again, startling me.
When I looked over, he squeezed my fingers.
"Don't touch anything,” he murmured, leaning close to me. “Don't talk to any of the humans. Stay close to me. Please, Dakota."
I nodded, waving at him dismissively, but didn't miss the eyebrow quirk we both got from Ledi, right before his eyes slid down to our entwined fingers.
Before I could give Ledi a hard stare in return, the ice-blue doors started to open, revealing rotating and flickering lights moving through a darkened space.
I looked up and saw seats dangling from the high ceiling, moving as if on greased rails before a giant, pitch-black wall, taller than any I’d seen in the ship so far. Legs hung down from those same seats, but not helplessly. Foot rests and arm holders seemed to serve as pedals, swiveling the harnesses in several different directions.
Ledi entered the room. Nihkil gently tugged my hand to get me to follow.
I did, wordlessly, but without taking my eyes off those dangling people.
I felt something in Nihkil's demeanor shift again, as soon as we crossed the threshold. It took me a few seconds to make sense of the change, but once I did, I found myself staring at him. He didn’t move any closer to where I stood, but I felt his presence envelop mine anyway, as if to hide me from the rest of the room.
Surprised by the overt protectiveness I felt, I tried to decipher the other thing I felt there, too, an almost exaggerated maleness I'd never discerned on him before. Nihkil didn’t return my look; his symmetrical face remained empty, but his eyes trained hawklike on the people in the room, as if scoping for hidden threats.
His expression reminded me more of when I'd first met him, in that alley near Pioneer Square.
I stepped closer to him, in spite of myself.
Heck, maybe he knew something I didn’t.
Just then, a lithe body swiveled in a harness, jerking my eyes upwards.
Cat-shaped irises narrowed down at me from large, hazel eyes. The female had cropped black hair, muscular arms, and a delicate, almost elfin face. Her skin carried a golden fawn pattern, dramatic against the paleness underneath those reddish spots.
A dark red stone flashed from her upper arm, as if embedded directly into her flesh.
It dawned on me suddenly that she was young, maybe only in her early twenties. She reminded me of Irene's little sister, the one who was always dating speed freaks and wanting Irene to bail her boyfriends out of jail. The alien girl's hands gripped black metal controllers on either side of her body, her fingers pale as milk.
The door closed, leaving the room in near-darkness.
Me and that girl continued to stare at one another.
Nik didn’t like it. Some part of me noted his dislike of my interest in the girl, but I didn’t look away from her face.
"Pilots," Nihkil said in a low voice, again speaking right next to my ear. "Both are human." He gestured subtly at the cat-eyed woman, and again I felt that reluctance on him. "Nagre." He gestured towards the second chair. "Artro. It is what they are called."
"You know their names?” I said, turning to him. “All of them?”
Nihkil shrugged. "Not all... but some, yes. We all work for Yaffa in some capacity."
I'd followed his gesturing hand towards the other pilot by then. A man, maybe in his forties, sat in the right-side harness. Salt and pepper hair stuck up unevenly around a square face with mismatched eyes.
He smiled, giving me a half-wave with his fingers without letting go of the controls. Brown hair grew on his thick arms. He was the first person I’d seen besides Nihkil since we’d been on the ship who didn’t have skin the color of an albino mole. While not exactly tan, he was a familiar, sunless beige. I smiled back at him, disarmed by his simple friendliness.
Ledi gestured for us to join him, by a section of black wall.
Only then did I give a sweeping glance around, taking in the rest of the space. People lined all three of the walls facing that larger, taller black one that took up the length of the oval-shaped room. Most of them bent over machines that turned their faces a sickly blue.
When I glanced back at Ledi and Nihkil, I found Ledi watching me again. While I looked, his eyes drifted down to the hand held by Nihkil, holding a darker scrutiny.
I was still staring when Nihkil's voice jerked my eyes back to his.
“Look,” Nihkil said in English.
The darkness of the wall by Ledi faded.
The wall became a window, then a high, glass dome, filling the space with light.
The blue-white glow threw the horseshoe of control stations into stark relief, making me realize they circled a much wider room than I’d realized. The eerie, bluish faces grew more distinct, as did the two pilots hanging from their harnesses in front of the expanse of transparent wall. The starlight washed out the girl, Nagre's, pale skin, making the pattern on top darker and more distinctive.
I barely gave them a glance, though.
My eyes found the window and became glued there, instead.
Night stretched into an endless black before me.
That night was filled with uncountable stars that exploded in a tunnel-shaped tube detailed with intricate patterns. Light cascaded down the curved sides of that tunnel of light, shocking my eyes, causing my breath to clutch in my chest. Starlight spiraled, seemingly so close to where I stood that I flinched, stepping into Nihkil's side. The multicolored light appeared to impact the transparent walls of the ship itself, pooling in iridescent patterns, streams pulling
into abstraction once they got close enough for the ship’s speed to be apparent.
Nihkil watched my face, as if hesitant.
"We are in a pre-jump phase,” Ledi said, from my other side. I turned, giving him a blank look, but he didn’t seem to notice. “This is how the field looks during a course change,” he explained. “We are lucky. With the new drives, it is not necessary to exit the field entirely, so we do not have to expose ourselves in standard. This is good, given that the Malek have likely reported our transport of you back to the central worlds."
I nodded, as if what he'd just said made an iota of sense to me.
I watched the balls of light fly past, trails exploding in different colors. My mind fought with the immensity of it, tried to make it real, then tried to make it into a movie.
I pretty much failed at both.
Nihkil gestured towards me, indicating for me move closer to the glass.
"Touch it," he urged. "It is not a projection... nor anything fake. You are seeing a real view outside... real sky. You should look closer, Dakota."
Feeling what he was trying to help me with, I nodded, swallowing.
Releasing his hand, I walked forward, feeling the humans’ eyes on me, including Ledi’s.
Ignoring them, Nihkil followed me soundlessly.
The entire bridge crew watched the two of us now, not just Ledi and the pilots. I could almost feel the intensity of their interest, not just in me, but in me and Nihkil, and whatever they thought was going on between the two of us.
Forcing that out of my mind, too, I approached the curved bulkhead and placed my hands lightly on the transparent pane. I brought my face closer, like Nihkil suggested, touching my forehead to the cold surface as I stared down the curved sides of the ship, watched the lit lines of starlight follow the smooth, whitish hull. More windows appeared below me, artificial light flickering in warm contrast to the stars.
I felt my chest clench.
I tried to think about my apartment in Seattle, about Irene and Gantry and my brother, Jake. I tried to think about the stockbroker who’d nearly killed me during my last job in Seattle, and my favorite coffee shop on Capitol Hill. I tried to think about all of the people I’d left back home, my boxing coach and my neighbors and all of my friends, but all of it felt unreal somehow, as I stared down the side of that ship.
The Morph (Gate Shifter Book One) Page 15