They obviously have prepared for my arrival, as there are drinks and nibbles on a table to one side, the room has been beautifully decorated, and there’s a guy who looks a bit like a giant lizard stood menacingly in the corner. The Dravosic bodyguard, I guess.
It’s funny, because he has similar colouring to Dhak, and similar scales. Only the Dravosic’s scales go all the way down his arms and up on to his face. His teeth are sharp, his fingers end in long claws. Everything about him is like Dhak but really scary. I don’t understand why this guy is preferable. But maybe that’s just me reacting unfairly to how he looks. Perhaps he’s a teddy bear on the inside.
I’m ushered in to a chair, and a mini fashion show starts, several young Vetruen girls modelling the clothes. They’re clearly designed for Vetruens, the cuts all straight lines. But Dhak said the adjustor that made my dress fit was a Vetruen thing, so maybe all these clothes will have it too.
“These are the latest fashions,” the shopkeeper says. “The height of sophistication.”
I think they look like extras on an Elizabethan comedy, but that’s my Human fashion sense. Perhaps the fifteen hundreds will be in again on Earth one day, too.
Still, I don’t actually want any of them. Don’t want to look like a frilly Vetruen. My clothes from Denestra are fine. And if I’m just going to tell Dhak the truth about everything when I get out of here, then what’s the point in all this anyway?
“Maybe…” I start to talk, but the shopkeeper barrels over me.
“You like this one?” she says, referring to the dress that happens to be walking towards me right now. “Excellent.”
She snaps her fingers, and the girls who were doing the fashion show suddenly shift to shop assistant mode, one going to fetch a fresh copy of the dress to try on, the other two ushering me towards a changing room with an efficiency that’s hard to resist.
I can try one on, I figure. It feels less rude, somehow, than not bothering to try anything.
The shopkeeper sits in the changing rooms while the girls strip me out of my Denestran clothing. For all they’re about modesty and propriety, these Vetruens sure don’t mind taking all my clothes off without asking.
“Yes, Tesson was right about you,” the shopkeeper says. “You are quite beautiful, aren’t you.”
It doesn’t feel like a compliment, so I don’t say ‘thank you’.
“Poor thing,” she says, proving my feeling correct. “That must be hard. People everywhere wanting a little piece of you. Or even a big piece. How are you coping with that hybrid for a bodyguard?”
“I’ve heard they’re awful,” one of the girls says as she threads a sleeve over my right arm. “Full of lust.”
She says this like it’s the most terrible thing in the world. I think of the lust in Dhak’s eyes when he looks at me and nearly blush.
“Oh, Shevni, you’re absolutely right,” the shopkeeper says. “Can barely control themselves around women. That’s why I won’t have him in my shop, my lady. I won’t have him near my girls.”
The girls all preen.
I feel sick.
“He hasn’t done anything bad to me,” I say.
True by my standards, if not theirs.
“Probably knows it’s more than his life’s worth if he touched you, my lady,” the shopkeeper says. “Even hybrids have the brains to be afraid of a life sentence on Renza Seven. Prison planet,” she adds, when I look blankly at her.
One of the girls who isn’t Shevni leans forwards. “Is it true they’re little more intelligent than animals.”
“It’s true,” the other girl says, fiddling with the adjustor on my dress. “Should never have been born, that’s why. It’s not right, crossbreeding that way. Brain damaged from birth, all of them.”
As the adjustor cinches in the material of the dress, it starts to feel too tight. I pull at the neckline, and there’s plenty of give, but my skin is hot, clammy.
“I don’t think this suits me,” I say.
The shopkeeper nods, and then the three girls are stripping me down again.
“I just don’t understand what the Protectorate thinks they’re doing giving jobs to these abominations,” the shopkeeper says. “Especially jobs of such responsibility as a UP-LE officer.”
Captain, I think.
“He’s ex-military,” I say. “Surely that qualifies him?”
The shopkeeper gives me a smile like I’m painfully naive. “The military is a good place for his kind. Somewhere they can get their aggression out. Fighting the enemy on the front lines. Better them than a young man of good breeding.”
“My lady,” Shevni says, eyes bright, “you could report him to us. We’ll report it to the local UP-LE chapter, and they’ll have him arrested.”
“Yes,” one of the other girls says. “Then you could have a proper escort. Someone more fitting.”
“But he hasn’t done anything,” I say.
All three girls giggle.
“He doesn’t have to have done anything, lady,” the shopkeeper says. “It’s your word over his, and no one will believe a hybrid.”
I take a deep breath.
“Could I have my clothes please?” I say, trying hard to keep my voice steady.
The girls try to put them back on me, but I snatch them away from them with shaking hands and dress myself. The shopkeeper frowns the entire time, the three girls exchanging glances like I’m the strangest thing they’ve ever seen. When I’m fully dressed, I turn and throw open the curtains that section off the changing room from the rest of the store.
“Would you like to look at some different choices, ma’am?” the shopkeeper says, and I don’t know if she’s acting like she doesn’t know I’m about to storm out, or if she genuinely doesn’t know. She has a little confused look on her face and I want to punch her.
“I’m leaving,” I say, stalking past the Dravosic body guard. He doesn’t move, just tracks me with his eyes as I walk to the front door.
“You’re leaving, my lady?” the shopkeeper says, putting a hand to her heart with horror. “But why?”
I turn. Give her my best fake smile. “Because your clothes are fucking ugly. Just like your souls.”
And with that, I turn and walk out.
“No good?” Dhak says, rising from his perch on the wall as I stomp outside.
“Even if the clothes were beautiful, I’m not giving them any money,” I say.
He gives me a look caught somewhere between concerned and amused.
“Did you want to try somewhere else?” he says.
I look round. The shop is on a square, and there are a lot of people milling about. I didn’t pay much attention to anyone before, too busy imagining my future with Dhak, but now I see them. People pointing, whispering. People flat out staring, frightened looks on their faces. People ushering their children past.
No one on Denestra behaved like this. But Jaxran was in charge of Denestra. I bet Chasira has someone like Commander H’Varak in charge of it. Some hateful, nasty idiot.
Suddenly so many of Dhak’s hang ups make sense. His insistence that no one ever found him good looking. He strange shyness about his body. The way he acts sometimes like me touching him is some great gift, like I’m special and not the other way round. The way he puts up with all that shit from the Commander and other people.
“Charlie?”
I turn to face him.
“Dhak, what’s a hybrid?”
I watch as his face falls, colour draining out of it, his features setting in that blank configuration that just breaks my heart.
“Princess, I…”
I shake my head, more at the fact that he called me ‘princess’ than anything, but thinking about it, it’s probably not sensible to have this conversation here. Not where anyone could overhear what we’re saying. Not where I can’t be honest with him about how all this is making me feel.
Bloody awful. That’s how I feel.
Awful for Dhak and the shitty way the Univer
se treats him.
Awful for me, too, because I realise it’s so much worse than Dhak losing his job.
He doesn’t have to have done anything.
The shop girl’s words echo round in my head all the way back to the hotel. I have screwed him. And not in the fun, mutual pleasure sense of the term. The lie I’ve kept living for far too long has screwed him.
Because however the truth comes out, he’s going to take the blame. I play a dozen different scenarios through in my head, but the damning factor in every one is that the people with the power are predisposed to find ways to blame Dhak so they don’t have to take responsibility for their mistakes, so they don’t have to deal with the fallout.
And there will be fallout. How expensive is it to chauffeur someone across the universe? Plus the money for the clothes on Denestra, the money they would have spent on clothes for me here. Diplomats travelling to meet me - more time and money wasted.
I never thought, never even stopped to consider the wider implications of keeping up the lie. Just thought about that ice box and how terrified I was to go in it. I’m every bit as horribly stupid and naive as everyone always said I was.
It’s more than his life’s worth to touch you.
Well, they would never find out about that from me. I’d take the secret with me to my grave.
Or the machine they use to wipe my memories, anyway.
But if touching me is enough for a sentence on a prison planet, I can’t believe this mess I’ve got him in isn’t.
The Commander won’t want to take the blame.
Dhak is the perfect scape goat.
The Commander will blame Dhak and the Universe will just nod and agree.
He’s just a hybrid, he doesn’t matter, he’s stupid and aggressive and brain damaged.
Dhak will go to prison.
And it will be my fault.
This realisation hits me like a physical blow, and I’m hard pressed to keep the tears from breaking free.
I lied at first because I had to. Anyone could understand that. But though I can blame my fear of the ice box, the Abbarax toxin, my distraction due to Dhak’s kisses - the fact remains. I should have told Dhak at the earliest opportunity, should have explained my reasons and not been such a fucking coward.
I have to make this right.
I can’t bear the thought of him suffering because of me.
There has to be a way I can fix this.
And then it hits me. The one thing I can do. The one card I have left.
I keep going. I keep the lie up. And when we meet with the diplomats, I do what I’ve always done. Use the one skill my mother imparted to me.
I pretend I’m more stupid than I am.
Pretend that I just went along with all this because why not. Pretend there’s nothing more complicated going on than a girl who wanted to go home and pick up some nice things along the way. If I’m convincingly empty headed and stupid, they won’t believe me capable of hiding anything, won’t believe me capable of manipulation.
I can brag about tricking Dhak. Brag about how he never knew the truth. Call him a dumb soldier that just follows orders. Talk about how H’Varak was the clever one. Play their prejudices against them.
I know you’re a bit thick love…
It will have to be a performance worthy of a god damn Oscar, but I’ve been practising all my life.
Is there any chance of it working?
I have to hope so.
It’s the best chance, the only chance I’ve got to save him.
But it means no ‘I don’t actually want to go home’ happy ending.
It means no memories of any of this at all.
Chapter 25
Dhakhar
The first thing Charlie does when the hotel room door closes is throw herself at me. Her arms go round my neck, her mouth pressed hard against mine. I respond instinctively, kissing her back, until the taste of salt cuts through the haze of lust and I realise she’s crying.
“Charlie?” I say, drawing back just enough to give me room to speak. “Charlie, what’s the matter?”
She just shakes her head, then buries it in my shoulder, sobbing. I sweep her up into my arms and carry her over to the bed, setting her down on it. I grab a chair and sit across from her, because despite the fact that she just kissed the hell out of me, I still remember the look on her face when she turned round and asked me what a hybrid is. I have to tread carefully.
“Charlie, do you want to tell me what’s going on?”
She swipes at her cheeks with her hands, brushing away the tears. “How do you put up with it? The way they all treat you. It’s horrible.”
I’ve got used to it over the years. It’s worse here on core systems, where the prejudices run deep. Where many of the people have never traveled beyond the core, never even met someone else who has. Most of these people haven’t seen a hybrid. Certainly haven’t spoken to one. All they have is information they’ve been fed for years by the Vetruen propaganda machine. That we’re stupid, simple, aggressive, incapable of controlling ourselves.
“I admit,” I say. “I wasn’t expecting it to be quite this bad.”
I haven’t been to a core system since before the war ended, and before the war I hadn’t been to one ever.
“But you knew it was going to be bad,” she says. “You warned me in advance.”
“Charlie, I’m a hybrid,” I say.
“What does that even mean?” she says.
“It means my parents were of two different species. Interspecies relationships aren’t illegal any more, not under the Universal Protectorate. But they were under the Vetruen Empire. It was a power thing, I think, at least initially. The Universe has three layers - the core systems, like Chasira, the outer systems, like Xentra and Denestra, and then everything else. The outer systems are largely made up of terraformed worlds, places where we’ve manipulated the atmosphere until the planet can support life. They were for outsourcing labour. Take the farms and the factories off the core systems, put them on the outer systems so high born Vetruens don’t have to look at them. Away from the Vetruen rule, though, people on those outer systems started living just like you saw on Denestra - integrated communities, interspecies relationships, hybrid children. And the thing about Empires is, there are a hell of a lot more people doing the farming and the factory work than there are highborns reaping all the benefits.”
“They had to keep them down,” Charlie says.
“And what better way to do that than to declare interspecies relationships illegal, the children born of them invalid. Massive groups of the population suddenly had no identity, no right to work or travel.”
“Didn’t anyone protest?”
“This all happened hundreds of years ago and history is written by the people in charge. Maybe there were protests, but the way the Vetruen Empire paints it, it was just accepted. And they’ve had centuries to perfect their lies about hybrids being stupid, aggressive and all the other things they say about us. To strengthen the divisions between the core systems and the outer ones. The Protectorate is trying to unpick all that. It’s why I’ve got my job as Captain. They were actively looking to employ people like me, trying to break down the prejudices and the barriers. But these things take time. Centuries of ‘truths’ don’t get rewritten in a year.”
“But… there was a whole war,” Charlie says. “A whole war because the way Vetruens treat people is wrong.”
“Yes, there was. And the war helped, for sure. People’s strongly held ideals started going out of the window real fast when their cities were under attack. You’re not going to refuse rescue from a guy just because society has deemed him lesser for whatever reason. And highborn or low born, hybrid or not, everyone has to go through the same basic training. You don’t go through all that without forming bonds. People too precious to work as a team don’t last long. Jaxran, believe it or not, is from a highborn family and would have been raised with the same prejudices that you saw today
. Fighting alongside people different from yourself shows you that we all bleed the same, we all fear the same, we all mourn the same.”
I sigh. “That’s why I was expecting it to be a bit less awful than it has been. Chasira isn’t a planet that saw a lot of fighting. The Prenetashi were very successful at infiltrating the core systems, but they were also strategic about which ones they went for. They had to either be easy to take, or advantageous in some way. Chasira’s in a system with three other heavily populated planets, and their only positional advantage is that they’re between Nova and Zeno Gates. But the Prenetashi just blew most of the gates - it would have cost them too much to try to hold them.”
She’s quiet for a long moment. Then, “I thought you didn’t look like the people on that documentary about Garvenia. I figured there was another society on the planet somewhere that the documentary didn’t cover.”
I almost manage a smile.
“I’m half Garvenian,” I say. “My mother is Garvenian, my father… He was Dravosic. The Dravosic are a warrior race, very closely linked with the Vetruen Empire. They live for conquest, but the Vetruens reigned them in, giving them roles as ‘protectors’ - bodyguards, security, that sort of thing, just like the one in the shop. They’re part of why the Vetruens stayed in power for so long. You don’t want to have a fight with a Dravosic warrior. They’re tough and mean and have no compunctions about killing.”
“But they can’t be all bad,” she says. “If your mother… Oh.”
My face must say it all.
“Shit, Dhak, I’m so sorry,” she says.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “Believe it or not, I actually had a great childhood. My mother loved me very much, in spite of everything. And when she met and fell in love with a Garvenian man, he treated me as if I was his own. She… She couldn’t have any more children after. The birth was difficult. I never really asked for details… hated the thought that I’d hurt her.”
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