by Amber Stuart
"His name is Ledi," Nihkil said again.
"I got that." I glanced between the two of them, trying to understood what I felt. Something between the two of them had tensed in those few seconds. That something had a flavor of testosterone... unless I was even more off my game than I realized.
I fixed my eyes on Nihkil.
“What is he?” I said. “What is he really? Another like you?”
"No," Nihkil said, his eyes still trained on the other male. "Human. Pharei," he added.
"Does 'Pharei' mean human?"
"No. It is the name of a civilization of humans. A...” Nihkil’s words briefly phased, as if the translation program couldn't find a word for my mind. It picked up only a beat later, so I didn't have much time to dwell on what word could have gone missing. “...of humans. The others, those who caused pain were...” Again, his voice changed, as if the translation spat out a word on its own, one I couldn't translate. “...Malek," he said. "Mydara. From Mydara. It is a place, a planet. These are different humans. Ledi and the others. They come from a different place.”
“A nationality?” I clarified. “A type of human?”
When I looked up, Nihkil blinked, twice.
My eyes studied his. “Does that mean yes?”
"Yes." Nihkil repeated the blinks. “...You are correct. I apologize. Ethnicity. Type. Only here it is planet, sometimes region or even colony. Origination. This is different from race, species. These two kinds of humans are at war... Malek and Pharei. Is that clear?"
“No.” Seeing that he intended to go on, I added, “But good enough.” Thinking again, I asked, “How many? Planets, I mean.”
He regarded me, his brow wrinkled as if the question baffled him.
Then, just as quickly, his expression cleared.
"You mean inhabited,” he said. “Yes. Approximately twelve full colonies, including moons and...” (meaning lost) “...pre-established, meaning prior to the second expansion. Another nineteen post-secondary settlements with varying degrees of infrastructure...”
Waving him off, I swallowed, nodding. “Okay. Good.”
“Good?” He pronounced the word, and that time, his lips moved with the sounds, as if he were tasting English himself, trying it out. “...Was that a question?" he said, using the translation program again.
Ledi spoke to Nihkil, interrupting us.
"What language is that?" he said. "I can barely understand her... even with the translation."
Nihkil hesitated, giving me the barest glance. Seeing the question in that look, I sighed, folding my arms without moving away from him.
“English,” I said.
Nihkil pronounced the word carefully back to the human, again without the translator.
“English.” Ledi enunciated the word, too. He switched back to the other language, looking at Nihkil. "Wherever did you get her? Was she involved somehow in...”
I lost a whole big chunk of meaning in there somewhere.
Folding my arms tighter, I remained close by Nihkil, feeling almost through his fingers that he didn't want me to separate from the contact he had with my shoulder.
Even so, he answered the other man, his voice sounding more formal again, almost as if he were reading some kind of military report.
"I was attempting escape,” Nihkil said, matter-of-fact. “I was having trouble with the lock, and I encountered Malek operatives there...”
"Morph?” Ledi said.
“Yes. Of course.”
“Did they bring any supernaturals through?”
Nihkil made a different gesture with his fingers. "Not that I saw."
I noticed his answer seemed to bring relief to Ledi’s expression.
Nihkil went on to explain how he found himself on Earth.
I watched the eyes of the new man light up as Nihkil described going through the same passage he'd taken to get to Earth, only to find himself on a different planet than the one he’d left, which was the one he’d mentioned on Earth, called Udael. Nihkil called this place, meaning the planet we were on now, Trinith, or maybe Trineeth, I couldn’t tell for sure.
Nihkil also described pain in his chest, around something he called a lock, or something that got translated as lock in my head.
I listened as the two of them spoke back and forth, trying to follow as much as I could, filing away what I couldn’t in the hopes I might figure it out later. Most of their conversation consisted of the new guy, Ledi, asking Nihkil questions about how he got to this world, what it felt like, and what he'd seen on Earth before he’d been forced to flee.
That part of the Q&A completed, Ledi asked Nihkil to describe how he met me, and what happened to us after we came through the portal, which they both called a “gate.” Ledi seemed particularly interested in how I came to be here. He also wanted to know whether I’d suffered any physiological effects from the process of following Nihkil through the gate.
“None that I’m aware of,” Nihkil said.
Finally, Ledi asked Nihkil what he thought about the gate taking him here, to this Trinith place, instead of back to where he’d started on Udael.
“What is your opinion, Nihki’?” the man said seriously, rubbing his jaw. “What do you think took place here, with these two gates?”
"A bridge perhaps," Nihkil said, after some time staring off into the trees. "A cross-over between the two places. With openings to all three. The place is human. Almost solely human, which is somewhat rare... but the technology is not advanced. Still, the bridge effect is curious. This new world is perhaps...” He hesitated, glancing at me, as if remembering I could understand them. "Perhaps it is somehow significant. To your search. A clue, perhaps."
He said the last words almost reluctantly, I noticed.
Ledi smiled, however.
His eyes shone in a muted enthusiasm when he glanced at me again. He looked as if he were trying to hide his true reaction from both of us, and failing pretty spectacularly.
"I see," he said only.
Nihkil’s fingers once more tightened on my shoulder. Ledi’s eyes fixed on the morph’s whitening knuckles, but he did not speak.
"If the door is closed now, it may not matter," Nihkil said, his voice matter of fact. The fingers of his free hand made a gesture that looked almost like he was waving off his own words. “...We cannot go back. Or if we do, it will need a new way there."
He paused, still watching Ledi warily.
"Is the portal on Udael closed, too?" he said then.
"It is." Ledi’s eyes swiveled back towards me, spending a little too much time on the hand Nihkil had clamped on my shoulder. "They want you to answer for this, my friend. As you must have expected."
"Answer for it?"
I felt Nihkil's fingers tighten still more.
Nerves practically bled through his hand to my shoulder, causing me to step back into him, although I couldn’t say why, exactly. A thread of protectiveness might have lived there, though. Given everything, I guess I didn’t want anyone messing with him, physically or psychologically. But the move closer to him had a different component, too, one that was almost instinctual.
Whatever the cause, it didn’t go unnoticed.
I watched Ledi observe our change in positions with narrow eyes. I also felt that creepy woman's eyes on me now, too, the one Nihkil called a supernatural.
I wondered how accurate of a translation that word was.
Nihkil seemed to be covering over his nerves with more words.
“...I saw nothing extraordinary there, in that place," he said. "True, I was not there long, but the change might not have the significance we all suppose. It could have stemmed solely from some mechanical failure in the portals themselves... a glitch. It is possible we are reading too much meaning into this thing. It is possible she is simply a regular human."
Ledi folded his hands in front of him, not speaking. His eyes held more than a faint thread of skepticism, however.
>
I couldn’t tell if Nihkil noticed or not.
If he did, he didn't let on.
He continued to speak in that emotionless voice, giving a more technical discourse on the gate-thing itself. That was harder for me to follow, frankly. Nihkil seemed to be describing a tear in reality, or maybe some kind of space-time thing, like a wormhole.
His words remained as precise as a machine’s, yet it didn’t take me long to pick up on the vagueness underneath. After a few minutes, it hit me finally that he really had no idea how the gates worked, much less why they’d closed. He didn't know if someone put the gates there, or if they’d occurred naturally. The way Nihkil talked, it was pretty clear that none of the other people here knew the answers to those questions, either.
Listening to Nihkil describe his complete lack of understanding of either the location of Earth or how he got there, or whether anyone would ever be able to go back, I felt my first glimmers of real fear.
As if feeling my reaction, Nihkil paused in his explanation. He glanced at me.
Ledi did the same.
"How much does she understand?" Ledi said. His full lips pursed. "She seems calm. Is that shock? You said her world is primitive, yes?"
Nihkil’s fingers pulled me closer still, so that I leaned on his chest. "What will the Court say? About what I told you. Will I require reeducation for this?"
I didn't like the sound of that.
Nor did I like the way Nihkil's fingers tightened as he said it.
Ledi noticed the hand on me again, and the fact that I now stood with my back flush to Nihkil's body. Still he only gave a short incline of his head, his arms crossed.
"Unknown, my friend,” he said. “They have been far more concerned with the closing of the gates... and the maintenance of legal claims on the object. We need a pretext to bring her in. The Council on Palarine is working on that now." He paused, glancing thoughtfully at me. "If she really is the only known sample we have from that world, and the doors are really closed, they will risk retaliation for what you did to the Malek. It will help you, Nihkil... but may also cause you some grief in your claim."
When Nihkil didn’t answer, Ledi’s face hardened.
"Nikhi'... this isn't some personal religious quest, relevant only to you. Why did you bring her here? You cannot possibly tell me this is merely due to a fondness you have for the creature? Does she even know what you are?"
Nihkil made a vague gesture. "I have been explaining."
“Really really badly,” I muttered.
Nihkil glanced down at me, but his face didn’t change.
The supernatural took a step closer. "What does she understand, morph?"
I backed into Nihkil again, making up the distance.
"I cannot know for certain," Nihkil admitted. "The humans of her world had no awareness of other places... or species that are not like theirs, other than the indigenous animals, which they eat and use as an expendable resource. She knows nothing of our civilization here."
All five of them were staring at me now, making me feel a lot like a bug under glass. It was the supernatural, Yulen, who finally broke the silence.
"She may not understand," the orange-eyed woman conceded. "Yet she has chosen you. It is obvious, morph. And your lock seems now to be connected to her will... no longer that of the Republic. You will have to answer for this. You were not authorized to take one in a personal manner such as this... it is not allowed. Particularly not in a case such as this, given her probable significance."
I looked to Nihkil that time, maybe for clarification. Seeing his face, I did a double-take. His skin had darkened. He removed his hand from my shoulder in a very awkward-seeming pause. Staring up at him, I couldn’t help thinking he looked embarrassed.
“What does that mean?” I asked him. “Chosen for what? And what the hell is this lock thing everyone keeps talking about? What does it mean, you're 'connected to my will'?”
After a short silence, Ledi smiled, although he appeared to be trying to hide it.
"You are unsuitable for her," the supernatural said. "You must see that."
Nihkil gave me the barest glance. "Of course."
"If you feel this need... if it is that time for you, you will be assigned someone on Palarine. It cannot be her. You cannot choose thus, morph. You must understand this."
Nihkil’s eyes showed him to be only half-listening.
"Refuse her, morph," Yulen insisted. "Do it now."
He looked at me. Searching my face, he opened to me in some way I could almost feel, a near question on his face as he looked at mine. I saw a whisper of longing touch his eyes, along with something that might have been anger.
In any case, he suppressed both before they could linger for long in his now lighter, almost cat-like eyes. His irises shone a light blue at first, but as I watched, they turned brown again, almost gold, until they were almost the color of mine. I was still staring up at him, watching his eyes start to lighten again, decorated with flecks of green and blue, nearly hazel, when his fingers sought out the edge of my hooker-wear blouse, clutching it in his good hand.
Looking up, seeing his eyes on mine, a dawning understanding reached me.
“Hey, wait a minute,” I said. “Nik, chill, okay? Whatever you think I was doing, following you here, I wasn’t looking for any kind of––"
Nihkil’s eyes shifted back to the supernatural. "No."
“No, what?” I said.
Nihkil ignored me, looking only at the supernatural.
"It is too late," he said. "I did not do this. I did not initiate it. But it is done." He hesitated, glancing for the barest breath at me, then looking away just as quickly. “...It is not her fault. Sometimes it happens... this way. It is no one’s fault."
"It cannot be too late," Yulen insisted. "You will refuse. It is required of you."
"I will not." After another silence, Nihkil shrugged, his eyes avoiding mine. "I cannot. I apologize... but you have asked too late. I retain my right to claim."
Ledi raised a hand, hiding another quiet laugh.
When Nihkil glanced over, Ledi flicked fingers at him apologetically.
"It does not solve the problem of what to do with her," Ledi said next, making his eyes and face serious, right before he cleared his throat. "Although, it does give the Council some pretext for bringing her in with her blood still unverified. I can label her an unknown biological for now, register Nihkil as her mate. He already owns her, at least until her genetic background is determined. It may get us past quarantine without risk of confiscation."
I felt my mouth tighten a little, even as my muscles tensed under Nihkil's hand, which continued to hold my shoulder firmly in his long fingers.
A few of those words really stood out from Ledi's little speech.
Like “own” and “mate.”
Truthfully, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what they meant, at least right then. I didn’t look at Nihkil himself. I bit my tongue instead, forcing myself to remain silent... if only because I still got the sense he was trying to protect me in some way.
On the other hand, I wasn’t sure how successful he was being.
I also wasn't sure why I trusted him.
I found that I did, though. In fact, something about that probably should have struck me as a hell of a lot stranger than it did... and might have, if I wasn't already facing a space ship and a woman with opaque orange eyes who stared at me like I was a mouse she wanted to pick apart with her claws. As things stood now, I could wait. I could wait for questions, for explanations, for opportunities to observe these people, a chance to talk to Nik alone, whatever.
I learned a long time ago that it’s almost always better to keep my mouth shut in dangerous and unknown situations... at least until I had enough information to act.
There were exceptions, of course, but not many.
“...I will teach her," Nihkil was saying now. "Once we verify parentage, I kno
w the Council will want influence over the direction of her education, and that she will require human tutors. But for now, I am the obvious choice.”
He looked to Ledi, as if for approval.
Ledi cleared his throat, still containing amusement. "Will you document your agreement with her, Nihki’?
I fought to remain silent that time, and failed.
“No.” I looked at Nihkil, warning him with my eyes. “No ‘agreements’ in my name. Not in writing. Not until we talk.”
Nihkil looked at me silently. Then he turned towards Ledi.
"No," he said in their language.
Ledi bowed, flicking his fingers sideways. He grinned then, aiming the smile at me.
Before I could react, his eyes darted away.
He made a chirping sound, motioning towards the four guards. I had all but forgotten them while Nihkil and Ledi talked. Now they stepped forward, between me and Nihkil, moving with a kind of fluid skill that unnerved me. Two of them maneuvered me aside before I knew they had ahold of me, using their bodies and their gloved hands. Once I was out of the picture, they began binding Nihkil’s arms behind his back again.
Ledi clucked as the morph winced, but they didn’t appear to be trying to hurt him.
Ledi’s words grew more difficult for me to follow, too, even with the translator.
“...Specimens captured to verify your story in regard to the last few jumps you've made, and to confirm the problem with your lock," he said at one point. " We'll do our best to log testimonies from those witnesses at both gates and when you join us on...” (words missing) “...you must of course submit to...” (I lost meaning completely for a few beats) “...you will of course retain full rights in regards to the finding of said object, regardless of the outcome of...” (another long blank nothing).
Nihkil grunted a response. There was no resentment in it.