by Julie Ishaya
"My dear," Rai Jinn said to the girl, a hand coming up to rest on her shoulder, "won't you introduce yourself?"
She looked uncomfortable. "I'm Siri," she said in thickly accented Nexian, "daughter of the Shiv kai. On behalf of my father and my people, I hand you sincere greetings in hopes that we may learn from each other and—"
"Excuse me?" Kieriell arched one brow, not sure how he should take the girl's greeting.
She blinked timidly at the interruption and started again, "I hope that we may erect a lasting friendship as we work together to save my race from—"
"Absolute extinction?" Kieriell finished for her, grinning wryly.
She frowned as if perplexed that he could be so insensitive and rude.
Rai Jinn guided her aside and reached up for the doorframe so that Kieriell glimpsed a crystalline object in his hand. A moment later the field collapsed. The kai's second stepped into the chamber ahead of Siri and approached Kieriell. Leaning in close, he grasped the Nexian's elbow and squeezed. "Lady Siri," he whispered viciously, "is under the impression that you were sent to us via an arrangement with Nex."
Kieriell dared to bring his face closer to Rai Jinn's, bearing his teeth, not quite making eye contact. "So she can't tell the difference between a prisoner and a guest?"
Rai Jinn pulled the prince toward the passage with a snarl under his breath. "Unless you want to spend most of your time here in an unconscious state, I suggest you cooperate. We have many ways of subduing the rebellious; you have already sampled two of them."
With a snarl of his own, Kieriell jerked his elbow free, feeling Rai Jinn's nails scratch him through his shirt sleeve. Rai Jinn glared anew and gave a nod to the guards. They stepped aside. Then he motioned for Kieriell to pass.
Keeping his arms at his sides, Kieriell cooperated and moved out into the corridor. Pausing before Siri, he looked down into those golden eyes and resented her ignorance. "My lady," he commented before the guards inconspicuously nudged him into a walking motion.
Siri fell in beside him. Out of the corner of his eye, he examined the gleam of the ornaments on her ears and cheekbones. Cabochon stones of varying sizes in deep reds and purples contoured along the edges of her jaw line, not unlike the appearance of the scale formations of the shift. It was exotic, even alluring Kieriell mused.
"Please forgive Rai Jinn's behavior," she said, her voice small, intimidated. "He can seem overbearing sometimes."
"Is that a fact?"
"Are you feeling better?"
He tossed her a questioning look. "Huh? Am I feeling better, did you say?"
"I'm sorry if my father resorted to drastic measures when you got off the shuttle. You did make us all a little nervous. Nexians are known for their ferociousness."
"Really?" he said dryly. He kept in mind that she was already misled as to the means by which he had been brought here. He thought about the situation, how the kai had ruined his people's last chance for survival through unification with Nex. Suppose they all have no idea, he thought. The Shiv themselves probably thought the negotiations were still happening, and like Siri they were under the wrong impression concerning Kieriell's presence in the hive.
The corridor became more spacious, and glistening vines came back into view, sprouting from the walls, lumpy and malformed as they tangled around each other. Some of them moved, nuzzled into each other. More of their corded fingers reached out into the pathway.
Siri looked ahead, a free lock of hair sweeping over her forehead and cheek. "I want to thank you again for your aide, especially since you aren't here of you own choosing."
He gritted his teeth and didn't respond to that. "Where are we going?"
"My father wishes that you attend a private dinner with him while he briefs you on our customs."
Kieriell noticed Rai Jinn glancing at him. He stared back until the kai's second faced forward again, leading the procession out onto a bridge over a brilliantly lit cavern.
Kieriell looked over the railing into a canyon that dropped further than the eye could see, shrinking into a crack of darkness. Other bridges crossed below. The metal flooring felt firm, and Kieriell was thankful for that when the entire foundation shook again.
"This trench is one of many running into the fusion well," Siri explained. "The entire thing feeds upon itself, and occasionally it groans."
The bridge fed into another corridor and the procession ended at a solid door with rippling design work on it inlaid with chips of black stone. The door slid up, and Kieriell was gestured forward. He passed Rai Jinn, aware of the bent yellow gaze watching his every move. Stepping into the open doorway, he observed a warmly lit chamber cramped with bookshelves of black stone and bright colors of collected trinkets set here or there. Beaded veils hung from the ceiling. The left wall was opened with three arching windows cast with the glare of orange light from some greater opening beyond.
In the center, the Shiv kai sat at a small but long table of dark-stained wood with place settings for two, including plates, silverware, and goblets. A covered silver dish sat in the center table along with a pitcher. There were no breads or fruits laid out, no dishes of sweet meats or the spiced-blood courses that Nexian's favored.
Kieriell centered on the kai already nibbling at something on his plate.
The kai gestured to the one other chair. "Please, come in and sit."
"I hope we may speak more later, Prince Shyr'ahm," Siri said and gave an airy bow.
Kieriell nodded vacantly to her and approached the table. He heard the door grind closed behind him and he knew that he was alone with this creature. The closeness of the room indicated more of a private chamber than a dining room; perhaps it was the kai's personal library, or a reading lounge attached to his other chambers.
"I've been waiting to dine with a transcendant for a long time," the kai said. "Ah, but I have waited a long time." The last he said with a calculating edge on his voice.
Kieriell clenched his jaw. He eyed the substance on the kai's plate, a filmy, jelly-like square. Unwittingly he drew his face into a scowl.
"What's wrong?" the kai asked. He remained seated. "It doesn't meet with your satisfaction? I know you've dined on fresh meats and hot breads. The Shiv once had such luxuries." He reached out to the center table and uncovered the dish, revealing more of the congealed film. Hot steam rose from under the lid, carrying with it a bittersweet smell that Kieriell could only describe as synthetic. "It is a protein-based nutrient compound," the kai explained. "Not much is added for taste, but it's better than starving."
Kieriell was sickened by the very idea of putting something like that on his tongue. The Nexian diet might primarily consist of raw meat, but this stuff was entirely different. "No, thank you." Mechanically, his eyes rolled upward to force contact with the kai. He expected to witness another mindsting for his ill manner toward the food, but nothing happened.
The kai sat back, irritation watering his eyes as his mouth flattened into a grimace. "Whether you take your nutrition by mouth or through a tube in your neck is up to you."
Kieriell ignored that and strolled over to the windows, sensing the kai's gaze on his back as he looked down through the dirty glass into an extensive well shaft. Balconies lined the upper wall, but the lower wall extended down so far as to be lost within a brilliant vortex of orange light. Various sizes of crag and uneven rock coursed the wall and cast long shadows upward opposite the reaches of the light.
A new rumble shook the shaft, vibrated upward and rattled the glass in the panes.
Seeing the cause of the rumbling for the first time, Kieriell murmured, "The fusion well."
"Yes."
He made out a series of square-cut openings in the wall, vents extending downward in a spiral around the shaft until they, like the rest of the well, were lost in the light. He deduced that they were hot air shafts. They probably branched into hundreds of areas of the hive and provided the heat necessary to grow low-light vegetation. "How much of the planet is colon
y?"
"A third. The other hemispheres were abandoned centuries ago. The rock of the northern ground was soft enough and suitable to be drilled for the core energy."
"And when that is gone?" Kieriell asked. He turned from the window and looked evenly at his host.
The kai stared back, silent for a moment, one finger scratching delicately at a spot on his chin.
Kieriell returned to the window and his vision traced the circles of balconies leading up the shaft. He leaned in closer to the glass and for the first time noticed how one of the balconies below and across extended a little out from the wall, with a great alcove carved from the rock. Twin passages led out onto the wide walkway, which encircled a one-step dais. In the center of the dais, against the back of the alcove, sat a wide chair carved from rock and facing out into the shaft.
"Your throne?" Kieriell asked, but the kai still didn't answer. As his gaze moved upward again, Kieriell noticed the figures of courtiers on the other balconies, some grouped in conversation, others moving along, attending some unknown duty or other. He thought he saw Siri in her blue dress, moving slowly along the walk across from him. But the distance was too great for him to really be sure that it was her.
He almost jumped when he felt a hand lay on his shoulder. He spun around on instinct and grasped the hand, prepared to bend the wrist back beyond the joint's flexibility, but he found he held the kai's cy-netic hand, which was too strong for him to move. The hot metal drew sticky sweat to the surface of his palms.
"Tell me about your ability," the kai said softly with fascination. He leaned closer, a small part between his lips revealing yellowed teeth. There were tiny blister-like formations in the hollows of his eyes, but it was the silence on the face that put Kieriell most on edge. This was no Nexian mask, and there was a certain danger to be detected in a face that could hold that still for so long.
Kieriell expected to be psionically probed, but nothing intruded on his consciousness. Nothing touched him but the steady stream of the kai's rank breath against his cheek. "Why don't you sting me?" he asked, finding a calm state of his own. The kai's body, so close, radiated a half-heat as though the life behind it faded.
They stared at each other until the kai pushed away, turning his back.
Kieriell waited. Then all at once it occurred to him that perhaps the inhibitor did more than prevent him from tapping his psionics. "Ahhhh," he sighed, wanting more than anything to know he was right. The kai's shoulders tensed, the motion a betrayal in itself. "The inhibitor may keep my psionics in, but it also keeps yours out."
"So it does," the kai resigned lightly. "But that will not prevent me from learning everything about you that I need to secure the future of my race."
"Your people don't even know that you've ruined the negotiations for them, do they?"
That broke the kai's mask and renewed irritation blazed in the eyes. "My people want the easy way out of their decrepit state by seeking Nexian aid, but the only true freedom is evolution, and we must labor for that."
Kieriell couldn't contain the harsh chuckle that burst out. "You don't have time for evolution. The negotiations were your real hope."
"Stop talking about the negotiations!" Without warning, the kai stepped forward and clutched Kieriell around the throat with his cy-netic hand.
The metal tingled acidly against Kieriell's skin. He grasped the fingers, pried at them uselessly. He became ever so aware that the blade could extract from the palm and stab right through his neck. Then before he could stop himself, his mind veered toward the need for defense, dug deep into his consciousness to manifest his shadow blade.
The resulting pain swarmed through his skull, down his shoulder, and into the hand where the blade would have emerged. His entire body convulsed against the kai's grip. The kai merely dropped him when he cried out. He hit the floor hard but felt nothing but the overwhelming surge of violent wave patterns zing from head to toe and curled up on his side.
The kai knelt. In a mocking gesture, he reached out a gentle hand to wipe hair from the prince's face. "It's an ingenious device, the inhibitor," he whispered. "I don't have to sting you. All I need do is push you to defend yourself. Your own instinct is what hurts you."
Kieriell clasped a shaking hand against his stomach as his throat muscles spasmed. Empty bile pooled into his mouth, burning his tongue. He struggled within for an insult to spit at the kai, but as his eyes wouldn't focus and he couldn't think.
The kai stood and went to the door. It opened at his silent command and he signaled to the two guards without to enter. "It's time to see our guest to the slab."
"Sl. . . slab?" Kieriell whispered, managing to roll onto his elbows. Just as his last thread of strength broke and he started to collapse again, the guards grasped his arms and hauled him to his feet.
"Remember," he heard the kai say behind him, "it will only hurt as much as you make it hurt."
They took him down a winding stairwell lit by dim energy sconces that emitted a chorus of buzzes. He got his feet under him, allowed the guards to do the rest of the steering. The pain in his head died to a low throb. The steps ended on a wide landing boxed in by the stone walls and a multitude of those slimy, crawling neural vines.
The door ahead slid up, revealing a field like the one in Kieriell's cell chamber. Moments later, it faded out, and Kieriell blinked his eyes into focus. The guards dragged him into the expansive room, and he almost stopped breathing in defense against the strong chemical odor that met him. The circular chamber wall was covered with the thick neural vines, winding in and out of each other, veined on their fleshy surfaces. Some were more grotesque, swollen and glossy as if filled with fluid. Ropier vines tangled over the fat ones, contoured around each other. A mechanical apparatus, installed in the ceiling, supported various tube modules that looped down and up from its exposed circuitry.
Following the guards and the captive, the kai gestured to several Shiv working around the room at consoles that emerged from the vines as though half-swallowed into the wall. He spoke in rapid Shiv, hissing various words.
Kieriell craned his head around as far as he could to see the others. They wore black skinsuits overlaid with matching black tabards tied at the waist with sashes. Some had the addition of a utility belt with pouches and tools. Many had hair cropped close to the skull so that their long ears were accentuated.
Kieriell turned his attention to the walls again and found that the vines parted in several sections where screens were installed. The largest of the screens was divided into six sections, each alive with a view of a membranous, pulsing object inside a pinkish, fleshen chamber. He had seen the neural core of the Dyssian tabernacle enough to know that he was looking at something similar. Gleaming trunks of vines branched out from the thing and joined with the walls of the chamber. Tubes and wires fed the core the nutrients and electrical flow necessary to keep it operative.
Overall, the structure looked tattered. There were brown pits in the surface that resembled bruises, and remnants of the outer tissue hung torn along some of the wires which had apparently snapped and never been removed for the possibility of disrupting more of the tissue. The Dyssian core was far healthier than this pathetic construct, which hung onto life as its creators forced it.
Kieriell recalled the psionic event two and a half years ago, which had brought him and Rai Jinn to meet, and ultimately led to this whole abduction. It had all begun with this sad, corrupted thing.
Before Kieriell could ponder it further, he was pulled toward an area of the wall where the population of vines extended outward and looped back. He cried out as the clothes were stripped from him, his limbs pulled in each direction.
He fought at the guards, but with the effort his head began to pound again, and fighting reduced to mere squirming. They spun him around and pressed him backward into the vines. He gasped hopelessly as his arms were spread and raised, and the vines responded, slithering down and curling around his wrists. Others slid over his shoulders
and down across his chest, around his waist and between his legs where they constricted around his genitals.
Tears of humiliation burned his eyes, and the sensation of pigment flow told him he was flashing a serpentine glare. His talons extended, clawing at the vines within reach, but more of the soft, wettish tissue slipped over his palms and pulled his fingers back tight. Another made its way around his head through his hair, leaving a gooey trail on his scalp. It wound around his forehead, avoiding the psi-inhibitor, and pulled his head back and up. He felt tinier fingers sprout up between his toes to meet the larger ones winding down around his legs and ankles.
Just when he thought they would engulf him entirely, they stopped moving and left some parts of his body bare, particularly his neck, inner arms, his torso, thighs, and knees. He looked out from the entrapment at the kai and the attendants, all gazing back emotionlessly. Then his body began to grow numb as the vines made a slurping noise and he felt something oozing over his skin.
The kai watched as the subject was finally adjusted before he spoke again. "The neural flesh is designed to hold a test subject safely and comfortably. Right now you should be experiencing the balm which they are secreting. It's a powerful anesthetic."
Salty water rivered off Kieriell's face and spattered onto the vines branching across his chest. "Damn. . . you. . ."
"My technicians will be taking various tissue samples, blood and other bodily fluids. In addition, I would suggest that you volunteer some of your experiences with teleporting."
Too shocked to speak any more, Kieriell felt a cold stone swelling in his chest, his hopes falling away from him. He could never have expected this. He closed his eyes tight, squeezing out the last of the tears. First came the needles and tubes that were inserted into his neck and arms. A tube was forced into his mouth and down his trachea to regulate his breathing.