His jaw hardened perceptibly.
He looked away a few seconds later, biting into the mong and chewing more deliberately than before. I saw anger shift over his expression, along with what might have been frustration, turning his angular features more taut.
“So why not just ask me now, Nik?” I said.
“I just did,” he said, his voice as cold as his eyes.
“Fine,” I said, my own voice harder. “Then I forbid you. No more cards, Nik. I forbid you to take any more. Clear?”
He glanced up at me.
I saw surprise flicker across his expression, even as his eyes darted over my face, maybe trying to determine if I was serious.
“Will you document that?” he demanded.
“Document it?” I said. Bewilderment reached my voice. “Document it how?”
“With Ledi,” he said. “Will you say this in front of him? Forbidding me?”
I threw up a hand, not hiding my puzzlement that time, either. “Sure. Okay. When?”
Nihkil’s expression relaxed visibly, right before he looked away.
“I will tell him,” he said. “We will arrange a time.” He glanced at me again, his eyes still showing faint glints of that surprise. “You would do that for me?” he said. “Why, Dakota? I thought you were angry with me. In this area, especially.”
I stared up at him. “Why wouldn’t I?”
The question seemed to stump him.
For a moment both of us just stood there, neither of us really looking at the other.
I took the mong stick from his fingers a second time when he offered it to me, biting a more generous portion off the end that time. I fought to think as I chewed on it slowly, trying to decide if I wanted to ask him more.
But it really didn’t seem like the right time. Not now, anyway.
“So we’ll talk more about this later?” I said casually.
“Yes.”
“You won’t forget?”
He gave me a longer look, his eyes holding more that time, more than I could really catalogue, even through the link we shared.
“I won’t forget,” he said.
I chewed on the end of the mong stick, forgetting to give it back to him. I barely noticed when he pulled out another, chewing on that one with equal care.
My mind continued to whirl around our previous conversation, but I felt myself starting to let it go, too. He was right, of course. We needed to get through this first, before we worried about whatever was going on between the two of us. As I thought it, and before I could second-guess whether it was the best idea, I took another generous bite of the mong, closing my eyes briefly when the effect gave me a mild head-rush.
Nihkil had already admitted to me that he chewed the things to relax around the humans.
He seemed to forget I was human, as he said it.
I wasn't sure if the mong would have the same effect on me, but at that point, I was willing to try anything.
Anyway, being a little buzzed on the ground in this place was no longer feeling like such a terrible idea.
15
A RED ROCK PLANET
A LOUD GRINDING noise beat at my ears as the thick metal doors slowly began to open.
I blinked, holding up one hand to shield red, dust-filled sunlight as it poured through the widening crack in the bulkhead.
Standing on the edge of the opening, I clutched at Nihkil’s jacket for balance, gripping him harder when a gust of wind tunneled through the new opening. He glanced down at me, his eyes a deep black, holding an intensity that nearly made me flinch.
I couldn't help noticing the humans in Ledi's crew watching us, too.
They seemed transfixed on Nihkil more than me, but I still got the feeling they watched the interactions between us more than either of us alone. I found myself wondering about that again, then shoved it from my mind as it occurred to me that I really needed to be focused right then.
Nihkil's few, cryptic words stayed with me, though... enough that I already found myself wanting to talk to him again, sooner rather than later. I had a list of follow-up questions kicking around in my head, just from our recent chat in the hangar.
I wanted to ask him about the “cards” he’d finally admitted to me, cagily or not. I wanted to ask him about his request that I order him to not take any more, and why he considered that a favor. I wanted to ask him what humans thought of morph, exactly, that made them stare at him like they did. I wanted to know why Nik thought I was mad at him before.
I also wanted to know why he got so jealous of Ledi when Nik himself was sleeping with half the women on the ship.
I wondered what he wanted from me, precisely.
But yeah, his latest request probably stumped me the most. If the cards were just a proxy for sex, why did Nik want me to forbid him to do it? Did morph hate sex, like some of the vids I’d seen implied? Or was there some other reason?
I didn’t really want to think about why that bothered me so much, either.
Nihkil seemed to feel some portion of my thoughts, or maybe he just saw the conflict on my face. He glanced at me, but barely.
"They will have supernaturals, Dakota," he said, his voice low. “Please try to remember what that means.”
The wind almost carried his words away, but I nodded, hearing them in spite of the sound of machine gears grinding in the doorway in front of us.
Supernaturals could read minds.
He was right. I needed to be careful.
A fissure formed in the bulkhead as I thought it, opening from a height reminiscent of airplane hangars on Earth. My eyes smarted as more red, dust-filled sunlight poured through the crack, a harder, warmer gust of wind tunneling through the opening.
That time, I gripped Nihkil's jacket with both hands to keep my balance.
When I did, he glanced down at me.
I wondered if he’d tell me to let go of him, but he didn’t do that, either. I felt a kind of resignation in him, instead, as if that battle was one he’d already decided to lose.
I even understood.
It was difficult not to touch him at times, even when I was angry with him. I knew I wasn’t the only one who struggled with that problem, either. On the other hand, I didn’t really want to think about what that meant for me and Nik more generally.
Well, not right then, anyway.
Ledi had already left the ship ahead of us, but two human technician-types stood at a near distance. Closer, another four soldiers lurked, dressed in similar uniforms as Nihkil. Branch-like weapons coiled around the wrists of each of them, aimed at either me or Nihkil, but they hadn't bound his arms, and I got the feeling the weapons were more for show.
Glancing out the door again, I turned to meet Nihkil’s gaze, forcing a smile.
“Sure,” I joked. “Why not a completely red planet? We’ve got Mars, right?”
Nihkil didn’t answer.
He continued to stare out the door instead, and even though we were side-by-side, I felt that protectiveness on him again, as if he were shielding me from some force only he could sense. I watched him measure the soldiers with his eyes, one of whom, I realized, was blatantly checking me out. I'd noticed that kind of thing more lately, too, the male guards sizing me up, but I’d basically ignored it, just like I did in Seattle.
Still, I wondered at the change. Maybe sleeping with a morph made me an intergalactic slut in their minds?
Snorting a little, Nihkil glanced at me, rolling his eyes, Earth-fashion.
The look on his face made me wonder again just how connected we were, even as I caught the irritated glare he trained on the other male.
I decided now wasn’t the time to wonder about that, either.
Nihkil started to walk towards the opening in the ship’s hull. Keeping my face still, I followed. Almost the instant we reached the different-colored platform near the opening, a paper-thin ramp extended from the lip of the hangar floor, reaching for the ground a hundred feet below. Wind rippled the plank’
s surface, causing it to buckle.
Then it touched down and stiffened.
Once it had, it appeared to be the consistency of rough-surfaced glass.
I took a breath, stepping to the very edge and peering down.
Nihkil was watching me again. When he spoke, he used English without the translator, and for the second time that day, it occurred to me to wonder just how good he’d gotten at my native tongue, and almost without my noticing.
"There have been many wars," he said, gesturing over the arid landscape. His tone bordered on apologetic. “...But the sunsets can be beautiful.”
I nodded, gazing out over the world, trying to make it real.
In terms of the terrain itself, I immediately saw what he meant.
The place looked like it had seen a few wars, and maybe a few natural disasters, too.
Web-like cracks marred the valley floor, as if the planet had been dropped from an enormous height, broken open only to be baked in the low-hanging red sun. Only a few stringy clouds interrupted the arid monotony of sky, which curved overhead in streaked swaths of color made up of more yellows and oranges. The bright but dusty colors darkened to red near the horizon, so that the sky merged seamlessly into the faraway terrain, making it difficult to tell where the planet began and the sky ended.
I saw no plants, no trees, nothing but scorched red rock in any direction.
The sun itself looked old, hot only by virtue of its nearness and size.
A shadow flitted across its blood-red surface on webbed wings; it was the only living thing I saw that didn’t wear a uniform. Squinting at it, I tried to make out the shape, but the glare and then shadows swallowed it completely in some segment of faraway cliff.
My mind turned that shadow into a dragon.
Below me, rows and rows of soldiers spread over the high mesa.
Wind fluttered ribbons and wrapped metallic banners around poles, but I didn’t see a single, solitary soldier change position from where they stood on the stretch of stone.
In the other direction, towards the hangars and the stretch of sky over the twin cities, ships dotted the landscape like white birds, giving a semblance of life without managing to break that deeper silence that lay over it. I watched those ships as they moved in the distance, feeling lost inside a post-apocalyptic computer game, even as the dust in my nose and mouth and the smell of sunlight on rock made everything feel sharply and shockingly real... more real than anything on the ship had felt in all of the weeks I’d been stuck there.
A rumbling punctuated the amber sky from nearer-by, drawing my eyes up.
I stared at the massive ship that hovered there, again feeling everything as both too real and not real at all. A giant wheel rotated sideways, blocking my view of the gold expanse of sky as that same wheel returned to a horizontal position.
Lights blurred past my eyes along a skin-like hull. The hull itself caught the sunlight in sparkles and ribbons, like the scales of a giant lizard. The ship seemed to encompass the length of a city, or a narrow moon, but once it was past, the sky opened up once more, leaving a heavy glare and forcing me to shield my eyes.
My free hand gripped Nihkil’s with white-knuckled fingers.
I wasn’t sure when I’d taken his hand, if it had been me to reach for him or the reverse, but I didn’t let go. I glanced back at him instead, and he stepped closer to me, his eyes still that forbidding black color.
"What if someone hits me?" I said. "Can I fight back then?"
His eyes remained inert.
He tugged on me to follow him down the ramp, still grasping my fingers. I let him lead me forward, thinking he probably wouldn't answer, at least not here.
"That won't be an issue," he said, surprising me. Glancing back, he hesitated before adding, "If someone hits you, you can hit back, Dakota... but only if I am not with you.”
“Why only then?” I said.
He raised an eyebrow at me, as if the answer were obvious.
“You won’t need to if I am there," he said after that pause.
“Really?” I said dubiously. “And why is that?”
That time, he didn’t answer.
Despite my annoyance, I tightened my fingers around his.
I noticed as many staring at me now as him, and wondered how the two of us must look from their perspective. Maybe it really wasn’t so crazy that everyone thought me and Nik were sleeping together.
"Dakota."
I jerked my eyes back to his.
He looked large to me suddenly, and not only because of his height. His presence seemed to surround me, even before he went on speaking.
“Remember that I am not human,” he cautioned. “Legally, there is almost no constraint on what they can do to me, if they wish. If they perceive one of us as a threat, they would try to control that threat through me... but it could affect you negatively, too, even without the lock. For that reason, I ask that you only resort to such a thing in a dire emergency." He hesitated again. "You must let me help you with this, at least until you understand how things work here. If they are given any reason to think I have corrupted your mind, that we are actively conspiring against them, or perhaps working for some disloyal faction—"
I waved him off, nodding even as I fought to keep my expression still.
“I understand,” I said, and that time, I almost did.
We were already halfway down the ramp.
"Yaffa is a prick," he said then, still in English.
Startled, I faltered a step, then had to fight not to laugh.
Nihkil either didn't notice my reaction or chose to talk over it.
“...Do not react to what he says,” he added. “And do not let yourself be alone with him. I am filing the necessary paperwork to make it illegal for any of them to be alone with you... but all of that is for naught if you allow them to break the rules."
Again, I nodded, my smile fading as quickly as it had arisen.
We’d already traversed the entire length of the angled ramp by then. We stepped out onto the deck a second later, level with the lines of humans standing in perfect formation across the stone landing area. They still looked less like living beings to me and more like very lifelike and weirdly-designed mannequins.
Still, I could see them breathing.
Forcing myself to breathe, too, I fought to keep my breath even so I wouldn’t pass out.
Despite my nerves, which seemed to worsen with every step, I managed to walk without having to concentrate too much on the mechanics. Taking a half-stride extra for every one of Nihkil’s, I studied face after expressionless face as we passed.
It didn’t really help, though, looking at them.
Each face stared straight ahead with large, wide-set eyes and blank expressions. Neither the men nor the women had much in the way of chins, and something about those faces continued to remind me of fish. Before I could dwell on that for long, Nihkil spoke to me again, still using his strangely precise English.
“They are separating us, Dakota,” he said. “Tonight. Like they did on the ship.” As if feeling my reaction, he tightened his fingers in mine, without looking over. “...I do not like it, either,” he said, his voice neutral. “They claim it is an attempt to expedite the hearings, but the interrogation aspect feels redundant, which makes me think it is likely a ruse, possibly an excuse to get you alone, or a means of disposing of me and making it look like an accident.”
I stiffened, nearly stopping in my tracks, but he spoke before I could, without altering the pace of his steps.
“...I have provided as many legal protections for you as I can, in the event of my death,” he said. “I made it public that I have bequeathed your ownership to my clan, as well, if something were to happen to me.”
As if feeling something from me that time, he turned.
His black eyes studied my face, but again, I could see no expression in them, nothing I recognized at all.
“...You are showing too much emotion,” he said after a
beat, his voice a touch softer. “Do not let them see you emote, Dakota, not if you can help it. Especially in relation to me. It will not win you any points here, if they think you feel anything for me at all.”
He said it with so little emotion that I had trouble making sense of his words.
Even so, almost without knowing I did it, I found myself gripping his hand tighter and also taking his advice, making my face and even my walk as business-like as I could.
As a result, I found myself reverting back into my city walk, too. My strides lengthened, growing both heavier and more carefully placed. I held my head high, my face taut but not overtly unfriendly, my arms loose but my shoulders tense, as if I was ready for a fight.
Almost without my realizing it, my city posture came close to mirroring Nihkil’s, and I felt his approval when his fingers tightened on mine, then loosened without releasing me entirely.
Even so, his words echoed in my mind, making it difficult to breathe.
They might kill him? How had he avoided telling me that?
I found it difficult to think about what my situation might look like here, without Nihkil. He was all I knew here... literally... and as little as I understood him at times, I did trust him. In all of the important ways, I trusted him.
I trusted him to try and keep me alive, at least.
He perhaps felt some of that on me, too.
“It is unlikely, Dakota,” he told me. “I am valuable to them, too.”
I nodded, still fighting my reaction off my face.
Three figures stood apart from the mass of uniforms, and looked very clearly to be waiting for us. I recognized two of them.
Ledi stood on one end and that female supernatural, Yulen, stood on the other.
The human between them was a foot shorter than both and stretched more than the width of them together. He reminded me of a different sort of fish, with his too-white skin and dark, overly round and widely-spaced eyes. His head looked like it had been forcibly shoved inside a Catholic tabernacle, his pudgy cheeks and several chins framed by drapes of red cloth that hung to either side like long hanks of hair. A spongy-textured robe squared his shoulders, but only seemed to emphasize the flaccid roundness of the rest of him.
The Morph (Gate Shifter Book One) Page 18