Whoever I was, back then... I'd never be that person again.
My lens shifted.
The stars grew colder, more physical. I tried to force myself to somehow feel what lived on the other side of that glass. The hugeness of that void stopped my breath, balled my hands into fists. The night sky pulsed and sang inside my head in unfamiliar tones and frequencies, filling spaces so empty and huge I couldn’t categorize how any of it made me feel. Disjointed lights combated harmonious ones, waves and pulses of energy with properties I didn’t recognize, violent shards of light and warmer flames, rocks and gases and exploding coronas...
Nihkil moved closer to me again, as if reminding me of his presence. Refolding his hands, he stood close enough that I was forced to feel him there.
"I asked Ledi to bring you here," he said, soft. "I thought maybe it would be good."
I nodded, unable to speak.
When I glanced behind me, I saw the humans still staring at me.
Fighting to ignore the fear that tried to rise, I turned back to the glass. I looked for holes in what Nihkil was showing me, anything that might indicate that this wasn't real.
I couldn't find them.
Glancing back over my shoulder, I met the gaze of the girl in the ceiling harness. Her catlike pupils narrowed, right before I heard her speak, her words seeming to come from inside my own mind.
"Dirty, off-world bitch... should kill her where she stands... morph bringing dirty female here. No way is she from the First World. Why the hell would he mate with her? He is one of the explorers... the chosen ones. Yet they say he takes her as a permanent mate, even with––”
Ledi snapped a command at the female pilot.
Immediately, the voice faded from my mind.
"I am sorry," Ledi said, approaching us hastily from behind. "I had forgotten she was equipped with a translator. I should have remembered both pilots have these. I am sorry, Dakota...”
I nodded, but still fought with the emotional reaction that had risen in me.
Hatred. It had been a long time since I’d heard the kind of hatred I’d heard in the other woman’s voice. Whatever changes had happened in me since I'd stepped through that circle of white stones, they hadn't been nearly enough... not if this was my new normal.
I needed to open Nik’s lock.
I needed to learn more, or I’d never survive this place.
In any case, the tattooed and bejeweled female no longer reminded me of Irene's little sister. Truthfully, nothing here really reminded me much of anything back home. None of the good parts of home, anyway.
Well, I thought, glancing ruefully at Nihkil.
... Except when I desperately needed it to.
14
RUMORS AND A PERSONAL FAVOR
"DAKOTA...”
Nihkil's voice came through my implant link, via the private channel code he'd given me over two weeks ago now. He'd given me my own translator over the same period, then took it away when he decided it was making me “lazy” about learning Pharize.
And yeah, okay... he was probably right.
The implant link got in the way of learning Pharize, too, of course. Nik seemed to think it had other compensations that made that acceptable, however... and anyway, I could only use the link with him, not with the other humans and hybrids of the crew.
The link itself, which was a connection between my implant and the implant of whoever I shared the connection code with, wasn’t triggered by actual speech, I’d discovered... but by the speaker’s thoughts. It was easy to forget that while using it.
It was also easy to forget to shut the danged thing off, especially when I didn’t want Nik hearing every thought running through my head that was loud enough to trigger the danged thing. Using the link was more personal than the translator, too, in that the link often carried more than just the precise meanings of the words we used.
Nik also intimated a few times that it was closer to how the lock worked, so better for me to use as practice than the way the translator functioned.
Like now, I could feel his mind sharpen, so that his thoughts carried an edge.
It was almost like hearing an irritated voice in my head.
"Dakota... please, come here." Abruptly, he seemed to change his mind. "No, wait. Wait there... right where you are."
Sighing a little, I watched him make his way across the winding cargo bay, fighting not to smile when irritation continued to seethe off him. Folding my arms, I studiously ignored the human guards I felt watching me from several sides. I refused to return their insistent stares even when I could tell they wanted me to look back at them, following Nihkil's progress across the hold with my eyes instead.
They'd started letting me out of the room something like six weeks ago.
I hadn't been able to see much.
I'd also been forced to tolerate guards tailing me wherever I went, even when I had to use the facilities, but I’d been permitted to go to several of the common rooms with Nihkil, as well as to a number of the less-restricted areas in the rest of the ship.
I'd even been allowed to wander the main corridors, although Nihkil hadn't liked it much when I did that without him.
Of course, when Nik took me out with him, it tended to feel a lot more like work.
Seeing it as an extension of the language lessons he'd ramped up alongside our efforts with the lock, Nihkil had me practicing Pharize with humans every chance he got, and pushed me to watch the news broadcasts that covered the common room walls, quizzing me on their contents every five or so minutes.
He pushed me to order drinks and food from the humans, too, and to ask for materials I wanted. He even bugged me to go through the laborious process of trying to carry on social conversations with humans lounging and staring at the two of us in the common spaces. He'd pushed me to learn phrases covering everything from refusing sexual advances to getting through a military interrogation without pissing off human officials, and what to say to cover my ass legally if I’d been caught doing something wrong.
Some of the things he taught me sounded downright iffy.
In any case, I strongly suspected Ledi hadn't sanctioned a good chunk of Nihkil's lesson plan, as it seemed to posit the Palarine military as a potential threat more often than not.
As for Nihkil himself, he turned into some kind of bizarre, morph taskmaster in the weeks following my field trip to the ship’s bridge.
Constantly muttering under his breath that I had to be “ready” for Palarine, he never really specified what that meant.
Nor did he specify what, specifically, worried him about me.
The best I could do was try to pick up clues based on what he pushed me the most often and the hardest to learn. The big ones seemed to center around language, etiquette, and making sure I knew my rights as a human being.
He had me repeat my sentience rights and blood categorization until I had all of the legal phrases associated with those rights memorized backwards and forwards. He instructed me around when and where to recite those rights, which seemed to include just about any time I might be questioned, according to Nihkil, “in a way I found potentially problematic.”
He never really specified what that meant, either.
In any case, Nihkil and I had been joined at the hip for the last two months.
While I found myself leaning on him still, in a variety of ways, we’d also gotten comfortable enough with one another that we’d started to relax some of our stranger-politeness.
We’d also started to bicker.
And argue.
Sometimes, those arguments turned into drag-down fights.
Half the time, however, I wasn't entirely sure what we were arguing about, other than the fact that we both got frustrated when we couldn’t understand one another. Nihkil also seemed to have a bunch of rules around behavior that struck me as significantly less intuitive and clear-cut than either one of us would have liked. As we grew to know one another better, he also began to have ze
ro qualms around making his feelings clear, too, especially when it had anything to do with the overly broad rubric of my “safety.”
He also seemed to be inordinately paranoid, in my mind, about “the humans,” and what they might do to either or both of us.
Again, getting specifics from him, in terms of what, exactly, he feared might happen to me on Palarine if I broke one of his rules––as well as what ways I shouldn't portray the two of us in order to not tick off the Pharei––was like getting blood out of a stone.
I'd finally approached Ledi on the latter, since he'd made no secret that he found the two of us amusing... if not out-and-out puzzling, in terms of our dynamic. Ledi dodged my questions at first, but when I persisted, he finally smiled at me shrewdly, and said something along the lines of, "Let's just say, Nihkil is trying to do you a favor, Dakota."
He still pronounced my name with unnerving precision, but that time, I barely noticed.
"A favor, how?" I pressed.
Ledi sighed, giving me an apologetic look.
"While many fraternize with the morph in various ways, to appear to be intimate with one, even if the relationship itself is entirely innocent, can be detrimental to your own reputation.”
At what must have been an irritated look from me, Ledi leaned forward, clasping my hand. His eyes and voice grew more insistent.
“Do not think too little of my words, Dakota. If enough people took issue with your interactions, you could be deemed a race traitor. You could be prosecuted for conspiring."
“Conspiring to do what?” I said, staring at him.
Ledi shrugged, releasing my hand as he leaned back in his chair.
I squinted at him over the table.
"What’s really going on?” I said finally. “There’s something else, isn’t there? About Nik. Something you’re not telling me.”
Ledi sighed a little.
Still, from his furtive look, I got the sense he knew exactly what I meant. Apparently, he hadn’t forgotten that awkward interaction in the ship’s corridors that day, either.
I watched Ledi think, as if trying to decide what to do.
“I’m not really at liberty to say, Dakota,” he said finally.
“Bullshit,” I blurted, unthinking. “What is it? Something about Nik and women, right?” I said. “Are you seriously going to tell me I don’t have a right to know?”
Ledi gave me a sharp look at that.
Sharp enough that I wondered if I’d gone too far in my familiarity with him. Remembering the look Nihkil gave me when I told him I was going for a walk with General Advisor Ledi without him, I sighed a bit, running a hand through my hair.
“Look,” I said. “I want to know. It’ll help me understand Nik, right?”
Ledi seemed to dial down his emotional reaction, too. After a moment, he nodded, his eyes thoughtful once more, if still conflicted. When he next spoke, however, he seemed almost to be changing the subject.
“Many have noticed that Nik is different since you got here, Dakota,” he said after another pause. “I, myself, barely recognize him in some respects.”
“Barely recognize him?” I said, feeling my jaw tighten a little. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Ledi made a dismissive gesture, giving me a mysterious smile.
“You would have had to know him before, Dakota, to realize how much he has changed. Unfortunately, most of the humans on this ship were familiar with Nihkil’s previous demeanor, before he met you.”
“And what was that, exactly?” I pressed.
Ledi's eyes and voice grew vague. "It is not important, Dakota. My point was, he is trying to help you, not hurt you."
"It's a little important," I countered. "Does it have something to do with the women we saw that day? Those two humans?”
Ledi gave me a warning look, glancing around the space of the common room where we sat. “I was not implying that Nihkil’s changes were your fault,” he said, that warning still in his eyes.
Seeming to see something in my expression, he sighed.
For a few seconds, he watched two humans sharing a meal in a darkened corner of the space.
"Most of it is mistaken perception, Dakota," he said finally. "You must be aware that they think Nihki’ has taken you as a lover?"
I felt my skin flush. "What? Why?"
Ledi firmed his lips and fluttered his eyelids, the equivalent of the local eye-roll.
I felt my mouth harden. “Are those women jealous, then?”
“Most probably... yes,” Ledi said simply.
“Was Nik sleeping with them? Before I came, I mean?”
Ledi hesitated, tapping his fingers on the table top. Then, he surprised me, giving a vague sort of shrug, one I knew to mean yes.
Even so, his words surprised me more.
“He has done so on this flight, Dakota,” he said simply.
“What?” I felt my face grow cold. “What did you say?”
Ledi gave me a level look. “Nihki’ has spent time with each of them... and one other human, I believe... during this flight. He did not tell you?” Pausing, he studied my eyes. “It is recorded. Legally, he must record all of his trysts with humans. You could access the records, if you like. Any human has access to these things, unless such access is specifically denied by one of the human participants. As far as I know, none of them have done this with Nihkil. Not recently, anyway.”
I gaped at him, sure again that I’d misheard him.
From Ledi’s expression, it quickly grew apparent I had not.
I shut my mouth with a snap.
“Nihki’ did not tell you about this?” Ledi said again.
“Must have slipped his mind,” I muttered.
“Would you like to see?” he said politely.
“No,” I said, giving him an incredulous look. “No way. Are you kidding me?”
Ledi smiled, but it lacked humor that time. When I continued to stare at him, he only shook his head, his expression holding a faint puzzlement again.
“Nihki’ hasn’t told you about the cards yet, Dakota?” he said finally.
I stared at him. “No. What cards? What does that mean?”
Ledi flicked his fingers at me, in a dismissive gesture that time, indicating he either didn’t want to answer, or simply wouldn’t for whatever reason.
When I pressed him again, all I got was more vague gestures and a lot of repeated comments along the lines of, “I've said far too much already,” and “please keep this conversation to yourself, Dakota,” and “Nihkil would hardly thank me for having spoken of this at all,” and “really, you must ask Nihkil.”
None of which exactly cleared things up.
In fact, each subsequent comment only managed to irritate me more.
I didn’t ask Nik about it, either. Not directly.
I meant to.
Hell, I got halfway through imagining the conversation in my head on my way back to our room, but I never went there, for a number of reasons, I guess. The main one being that I could feel on Nik that he knew immediately that I knew. I assume it was some kind of lock thing, but something in his face when I got back told me he knew exactly what Ledi had told me.
He felt entirely closed, for one thing.
For the rest of that day, his face remained more unreadable than I’d ever seen it. On the other hand, I don’t think I’d ever felt so much anger on him before, either.
I could tell most of that anger was aimed at Ledi.
Even so, both of us were pretty cool to one another for a few weeks after that.
I still found myself more likely to deliberately push his buttons.
Like now.
I’d known for some time that Nihkil was looking for me. Despite that fact, I’d decided to let him find me the hard way, instead of giving a shout-out to let him know where I was. That was probably the real reason for the irritation I felt through the lock... not the obstacle course he currently navigated in crossing the storage bay to reach me.
I'd stumbled across the hold purely by accident, not long after they first let me out of the room. Guards in tow, I'd wandered through the dark aisles in fascination at the sheer size of it, even peering inside a few of the crates until the guards told me to cut it out.
After a few more exploration trips in the giant hold, I returned here sometimes when I just wanted to be alone––even ditching the human guards when I could manage it, until they used the implant to find me again.
After Ledi’s revelation about Nik’s extracurricular activities, I found I needed more space from him than before.
I was also quickly learning that Nihkil's relationship to the concept of “privacy” was iffy at best. I got my first clue when he barged right into the bathroom cubicle while I was showering. After I chewed him out for that one, he'd tried standing outside the open door to talk to me, and even bugged me to recite something he'd assigned me to learn the night before... until I threw a few handfuls of cleaning powder at him to get him to go away.
I found out only later that each washing cubicle came equipped with only a small amount of water. Most people used the cleaning powder to scrub dirt and detritus off their bodies and hair, since it was a lot lighter to carry than the amount of water needed to accomplish the same. Water was generally for drinking... with only a small amount allotted for other uses, even in a ship of this size. We’d used pretty much all of that water up the first night, when Nik doused me in the cubicle to try and snap me out of shock.
Anyway, I’d never brought Nihkil to the cargo bay with me.
I would sit by one of the view ports and think when I came here, or just gaze into that starlight, watching patterns form and reform along the hull of the ship before melting back into the darkness. Usually, it was pretty meditative for me.
The Morph (Gate Shifter Book One) Page 16