by Zaires, Anna
“Oh, I see,” Mia said, as if that told her anything. A technology whizz she definitely wasn’t. Studying the sheet in her hands, she saw that it was actually made of some plastic-like material.
“This is something you can entertain yourself with,” he said, sitting down next to her. “It’s a little like your computer tablets. You can read any book – human or Krinar – that’s ever been written, and you can watch any kind of film you want. This will also work with verbal commands, so you can just tell it what you want to see or read.”
“Can I use it to learn more about the Krinar? To read some history books or something?” asked Mia, staring at the object with excitement.
“Sure. You can use it for whatever purpose you want.”
Mia grinned. “That’s great, thanks!”
He smiled back at her. “Of course. I don’t want you to be bored here.”
Something suddenly occurred to Mia. “Wait, you said it works by verbal commands, but I’ve never seen or heard you using verbal commands on anything. How do you control all your technology?”
“I have a very powerful computer that essentially allows me to control everything through a specific type of thinking,” Korum explained, holding up his palm. “It’s a type of highly advanced brain-computer interface. I use some gestures too, but that’s just out of habit.”
Mia stared at him. “So you control electronics with your mind?”
“Krinar electronics, yes. Human technology is not designed for that.”
“What about the others? Is that how they do it too?”
Korum nodded. “Many of them, yes. Some still prefer the old-fashioned way, which is voice commands and gestures, but most have switched over. The majority of our technology is designed to accommodate both ways of doing things because our children and young ones only use the first method.”
“Why?” Mia asked, looking at him in fascination.
“Because their brains aren’t fully formed and developed, and because there’s a learning curve involved with using brain-computer interfaces. That’s why I’m setting up everything with voice capabilities for you for now – it’s much easier for a beginner to master. Later on, when you understand our technology and society better, I can set you up with the new interface.”
Mia’s eyes widened. He would give her the ability to control Krinar technology with her mind? The possibilities were simply unimaginable. “That sounds . . .”
“Like a little too much right now?” Korum guessed, and Mia nodded.
“Hence the voice commands for now,” he said. “Your society has advanced far enough that you can easily understand that type of interface, and it’s very intuitive.”
“So for now, I’ll be like one of your children?” Mia asked wryly.
His lips curved into a smile. “If you were Krinar, you would actually be considered an adolescent, age-wise.”
“I see.” Mia gave him a small frown. “And at what age do you become adults?”
“Well, physically, we attain our adult characteristics right around the same age as humans, somewhere in the late teens or early twenties. However, it’s only around a couple of hundred years of age that a Krinar is considered mature enough to be a fully functioning member of our society – although it could be sooner if they make some type of extraordinary contribution.”
For some reason, that upset her. Mia didn’t know why it mattered to her that she would not be considered a fully functioning member of Krinar society at any point within her lifetime. It’s not like they would ever view a human as such anyway. And besides, she had no idea how long her relationship with Korum would last. Still, it rankled her somewhat, the fact that Ks would always consider her little more than a child.
Not wanting to dwell on that topic, she asked, “So did the trial today go as you expected?”
Korum shrugged. “Just about. Loris will try to twist everything, to make it seem like I made the whole thing up. But there’s too much evidence of their betrayal, and I don’t think anything can save them at this point.”
“What does complete rehabilitation mean?” Mia asked, unbearably curious. “Everyone seemed shocked when you suggested it.”
“It’s our most extreme form of punishment for criminals,” Korum said, his eyes narrowing slightly. “It’s used in cases when an individual poses a severe danger to society – as these traitors clearly do.”
“Okay . . . but what is it?”
“Saret can do a better job of explaining it to you,” Korum said. “The exact mechanics of it fall within his area of expertise. But essentially, whatever it was that made them act that way – that personality trait will be thoroughly eradicated.”
Mia’s eyes widened. “How?”
Korum sighed. “Like I said, it’s not my area of expertise. But from what I know as a layman, it involves wiping out a lot of their memories and creating a new personality for them. It’s only done when there’s no other choice because it’s very invasive for the mind. The rehabilitated are never the same afterwards – which is exactly the point in this case.”
“So they wouldn’t remember who they are?” That did seem pretty horrible to Mia.
“They might remember bits and pieces, so they wouldn’t be completely blank slates, but the essence of their personality – and that part that made them commit the crime – would be gone.”
Mia swallowed. “That does seem harsh . . .”
His eyes narrowed again. “It’s better than what your kind does to criminals. At least we don’t have capital punishment.”
“You don’t?” Mia wasn’t sure why she was so surprised to hear that. Perhaps it had to do with the popular image of the Ks as a violent species, arising primarily from the bloody fights during the Great Panic.
“No, Mia, we don’t,” Korum told her sardonically. “We’re really not the monsters you’ve imagined us to be.”
“I never said your people were,” Mia protested, and he laughed.
“No, just me, right?”
Mia lowered her eyes, unable to bear the mockery in his gaze. “I don’t think you’re a monster,” she told him quietly. “But I do think it’s wrong for you to treat me like a possession just because I’m human. I’m a person with feelings and desires, and I did have a life before you came into it –”
“And now you don’t?” Korum asked, tilting her chin up until she had no choice but to look him in the eyes. Noticing the deeper gold surrounding his irises, Mia nervously moistened her suddenly dry lips. “You think that I mistreat you? That I keep you from the fascinating life you enjoyed before?”
“I liked the life I had before,” Mia told him defiantly. “It was exactly what I wanted. It might’ve seemed boring to you, but I was happy with it –”
“Happy with what?” he asked her softly. “Studying day and night? Hiding behind baggy clothes because you were too scared to actually try living? Being a virgin at the age of twenty-one?”
Mia flushed with anger and embarrassment. “That’s right,” she told him bitterly. “Happy with my family and my friends, happy living in New York and going to school there, happy with the internship I had planned for this summer –”
His expression darkened. “I already promised that you will see your family soon,” he said, his tone dangerously flat. “And I told you that I will bring you back to New York for the school year. You don’t trust me to keep my word?”
Mia took a deep breath, trying to control herself. It probably wasn’t the wisest move on her part, arguing with him like that in her circumstances, but she couldn’t help it. Some reckless demon inside her had awoken and wouldn’t be denied. “You’ve lied to me before,” she said, unable to hide the resentment in her voice.
“Oh really?” he said, his words practically dripping with sarcasm. “I lied to you?”
Mia swallowed again. “You manipulated me into doing exactly what you wanted,” she said stubbornly. “I didn’t want any part of it – all I wanted was to be left alone . . .”
He regarded her with an inscrutable expression on his face. “And do you still?” he asked softly. “Want to be left alone?”
Mia stared at him, caught completely by surprise. Her mouth opened, but no words came out.
“And don’t lie to me, Mia,” he added quietly. “I always know when you’re lying.”
Mia blinked furiously, trying to hold back a sudden rush of tears. With that one simple question, he had stripped her bare, laid out all of her vulnerabilities for him to exploit. She didn’t want him to know the depth of her feelings for him, didn’t want her emotions exposed for him to toy with. What kind of an idiot was she, to want to be with someone like him? To hate and love him so intensely at the same time?
His lips curved into a half-smile. “I see.” Leaning toward her, he kissed her on the mouth softly, his lips strangely gentle on hers.
“I’ll see what I can do about getting you an internship,” he said, pulling away from her and getting up. “And I’ll introduce you to some other human girls in this Center – maybe you’ll meet some new friends.”
And as Mia looked at him in shock, he smiled at her again and went into his office, leaving her to digest everything that had just happened.
Chapter 7
Three hours later, Mia was lying on the bed, completely absorbed in the story of the early evolution of the Krinar, when Korum walked into the bedroom.
“We’re going to dinner in twenty minutes,” he told her, “so you might want to get ready.”
Startled, Mia looked up at him. “To dinner where?”
“Arman is an acquaintance of mine,” Korum explained, sitting down on the bed next to her and placing his hand on her leg. “He invited us over to his house when I told him about you. He also has a charl, a Costa Rican girl who’s been with him for a couple of years now. She’s very eager to meet you.”
Mia grinned, suddenly very excited. “Oh, I’d love to meet her as well!” She couldn’t wait to talk to another girl in her situation and learn about Ks from the perspective of a human who also knew them intimately – and much longer.
Korum smiled back. “I figured you would. How’s your reading going so far?”
“It’s fascinating,” she told him earnestly. “I had no idea you had also evolved from an ape-like species.”
He nodded. “We did. There were many parallels in our evolution and yours, except there ultimately ended up being two different species on Krina: us and the lonar – that’s the primates I told you about before. We were bigger, stronger, faster, longer-lived, and much more intelligent than the lonar, but we were tied to them because we needed their blood to survive.”
Mia stared at him. She’d just learned all that as well, and she couldn’t get the images of the early Krinar out of her head. The book had gone into some very vivid descriptions of how the ancient Ks had hunted their prey, with each male Krinar staking out his territory around a small group of the lonar and fighting off the other Ks to preserve the blood supply for himself and his mate. Once inside a K’s “territory,” the lonar had very little chance of survival, as they would be constantly weakened by material blood loss and traumatized by the experience of being preyed upon. Ultimately, their numbers had dwindled, and the Krinar were forced to adapt, to learn new strategies of feeding.
At that point, the Krinar were still a primitive species, little more than hunters-gatherers. However, the rapid reduction in the lonar population meant that the Ks had to evolve beyond their territorial roots, to learn to collaborate with one another in order to preserve what remained of their critical blood supply. The next hundred thousand years were a time of rapid progress for the Krinar, marking the birth of science, technology, medicine, culture, and the arts. Instead of hunting the lonar, the Ks began to farm them, creating favorable conditions for them to live and reproduce and doing their best to feed only on those who were deemed to be past their prime reproductive age.
These efforts managed to temporarily arrest the decline in the lonar population, and the Krinar society began to prosper. Even with the low birth rate, their numbers began to grow as fewer Ks perished in violent fights to defend their territories. Innovation began to be highly valued, and the Ks invented space travel shortly thereafter. It was the first Golden Age in Krinar history, a time of tremendous scientific achievement and relatively peaceful coexistence among the different Krinar tribes and regions.
“I just got to the point where the plague began,” Mia told him. It was apparently the event that ended the first Golden Age, nearly wiping out the entire lonar population and plunging the Krinar society into panic and bloody turmoil.
Korum smiled. “You’re making good progress on our history then. What do you think so far?”
“I think it’s very interesting,” Mia answered honestly. It was also a little scary, how savage they had been in the past, but she didn’t want to tell him that. She tried to picture Korum as one of the Krinar primitives, hunting down his prey, and it was a surprisingly easy feat, requiring very little imagination on her part. She could see many of the predatory characteristics still present in his species, from the sinuous way they moved to the territorial traits she’d seen Korum display in regard to her.
“You can continue later,” he said, absentmindedly stroking her thigh. As usual, his touch sent a shiver of pleasure through her body. “We shouldn’t be late to dinner – it’s considered highly insulting to the host.”
“Of course,” Mia said, getting up immediately. The last thing she wanted was to offend someone. “Should I dress up somehow?” She was lounging in the jeans and T-shirt that she’d been wearing when she arrived in Lenkarda yesterday. Somehow, the house had already managed to clean them because she’d found them fresh and folded on the dresser in the bedroom.
Korum was apparently two steps ahead of her because he was already opening the door to the walk-in closet. “I created a wardrobe for you,” he explained, “so you don’t have to rely on me for every outfit. Here, let me show you.”
Curious, Mia walked over to take a look, and her jaw nearly dropped. The closet was filled with beautiful light-colored dresses, shoes ranging from barely-there sandals to soft-looking boots, and various accessories. “You made all of this?”
Korum nodded. “I had Leeta send me all of her fashion designs. Aside from working in my company, she dabbles with clothing creation.”
Leeta was Korum’s distant cousin, and Mia had briefly met her a few times back in New York. She wasn’t the warmest and friendliest individual, in Mia’s opinion, but her clothing designs seemed quite nice.
“You mean you’re not a fashion expert?” Mia pretended to be shocked, comically widening her eyes. He’d certainly been eager to get rid of her entire former wardrobe back in New York.
He laughed. “Far from it. I do know when clothes are being used as a shield, though,” he said pointedly, referring to her tendency to wear ugly but comfortable clothes when left to her own devices.
Mia fought a childish urge to stick out her tongue at him. “Yeah, whatever,” she muttered.
“For tonight, you can wear this,” Korum said, pulling out a delicate-looking light-pink dress.
Mia put it on, secretly pleased by the heat in Korum’s eyes as she changed in front of him, and walked over to look in the mirror. Like all Krinar clothes so far, the dress fit her perfectly, ending just above her knees, and didn’t require any kind of bra underneath. There were no sleeves, and her back was left entirely exposed. However, her shoulders were covered with wide ruffled straps, and the square neckline at the front was surprisingly modest. The color was beautiful, giving her pale cheeks the illusion of a rosy glow.
“I’ve noticed you don’t wear any kind of bright or dark clothing,” Mia commented, wondering about that peculiar fact. “In general, you seem to favor light colors in everything. Is there a particular reason for that?”
Korum smiled, looking at her with a warm glow in his eyes. “There is. Bright or dark colors have historicall
y been associated with violence and vengeance in our culture, and we prefer not to have them around in the normal course of daily life. Of course, when we leave our Centers and interact with humans, we usually wear human clothes – and we don’t care about the colors as much for that. In fact, some of us enjoy clothing that we’d never normally wear here or on Krina – like the bright red dress you saw Leeta wear in New York. If she were to dress like that among the Krinar, everyone would think she’d gone crazy and was planning a vendetta of some kind.”
Something clicked for Mia. “Is that why the Protector was wearing black at the trial? Because he’s on a warpath?”
“Exactly,” Korum said. “He’s making a statement that he believes he’s been wronged and that he intends to seek revenge.”
“Seek revenge how?” Mia wondered, and Korum shrugged, apparently not in the mood to discuss politics right now. Since they didn’t have much time, Mia decided to let it go for now and focus instead on the upcoming dinner.
“Here, you can wear these shoes,” Korum said, handing her a pair of soft ivory booties. Like all K footwear, these seemed to have a flat sole. Apparently, the concept of high-heeled shoes was not as popular among Krinar females as it was among human women.
Mia pulled on the boots – which immediately conformed to her feet and became comfortable – and tried to tame her hair a bit with her fingers. After lounging for hours, she had a serious bedhead look going on, with her long curls tangled and sticking out in all directions. After a couple of minutes, she gave up on the hopeless cause. Even with the regular use of Korum’s wonder shampoo, her hair would never be as straight and sleek as she’d like.
“It looks beautiful, Mia. Leave it,” Korum said, observing her efforts with quiet amusement.
Mia couldn’t help smiling at him. It was one of the things she found peculiar about him: he actually seemed to have a thing for her hair, often touching it and playing with the curls. Since she’d never seen a curly-haired K, she assumed he simply liked it because of the novelty factor. “Okay, then I’m ready, I guess . . .”