by Amber Stuart
“I am sorry,” he said. “You are right... this is inappropriate.”
“What is?” I said, a little sharper than necessary. “What is inappropriate?”
“I am jealous,” he said. “I do not want you to be alone with Ledi.”
I stared at him, sure I’d heard him wrong.
When I realized I hadn’t, I let out a disbelieving sound, not quite a laugh. Still staring down at him incredulously, I threw up my hands.
“Damn it, Nik,” I said. “Are you serious? I don’t want to sleep with Ledi. I want to punch him in the face! At the very least, I want to know why he’s letting his people use you as a damned piñata! I thought you said Ledi was your friend!”
Understanding reached his eyes, along with a less-guarded surprise. As he looked up at my face, I saw Nihkil’s own expression relax, just before he let out another sigh, that one close to a rumble in his chest.
A more peaceful note returned to his voice.
"Ledi has a duty, too, Dakota,” he said gently. “Ledi is also contracted to the Pharei, even if he is human. He works for Yaffa... he cannot go against him in this. Yaffa cannot get to you, because legally, I will not permit it. Therefore, he must go through me, try to control me, since he has some legal claim on me.”
Giving me a more serious look, Nihkil added,
“Ownership is non-transferrable, Dakota. I own you, according to the Pharei. But they still own me. Understand? Owning me does not give them rights over you. But they do not acknowledge morph law, either... so to them, legally, I am still the property of the Pharei military.”
Sighing again, probably at my confused expression, Nihkil resettled against the curved wall. I couldn’t help seeing his eyes tighten as his obviously hurt back made contact with the smooth surface of the glass tiles.
"They know we are working on the lock, Dakota,” he said simply. “They are trying to get me to shift. They want to break the lock before you can gain control over it."
"Yeah, but how? By beating the crap out of you?"
He gave a disinterested shrug. "It works sometimes. Fear. Survival. It can cause us to shift."
"But you didn't? Shift, I mean."
"No." He shook his head. He surprised me then, smiling a little, a glint in his dark eyes. “...It makes them angry that I do not. But there is nothing they can do about this. I feel it, even if they cannot. You hold the lock. What they do to me... it does not matter."
Taking in his expression, I gave a low snort, folding my arms.
"You're enjoying this,” I said in disbelief.
He gave one of his characteristic shrugs. "I like that they cannot control me, yes," he conceded. "Wouldn't you, if you were me?"
"But I control it now, right?" I said, still watching his face. "How is that better? Especially since I don't even know how it works?"
"It is better," he assured me. He patted the cushions next to him, an invitation to sit. "Morph do not mind this kind of control, Dakota."
Ignoring his invitation, I continued to stare at him, fighting to puzzle through his words. Tugging my black hair up into a rough ponytail at the back of my head, I finally settled on the interpretation that made the most sense to me. Or maybe the one that I felt most comfortable with, especially given the way he was looking at me now.
"So it's different because I'm not military?" I said. "Because I’m not some racist Pharei, who wants to use you like a piece of equipment? That's why you don't mind?"
Nihkil gave a noncommittal shrug.
He didn’t argue or agree, but I saw the evasion in his eyes. I also saw his gaze shift to my neck. I wore the pendant inside my shirt, but somehow, I knew that's what he was looking at, or maybe for. I found myself wondering why I wore it, what made me put it on that morning, along with every other morning since that first one on the ship.
Maybe not surprisingly, my mind skirted around details pertaining to that decision, too.
Before I could ask, he looked up again, smiling at me faintly.
"Did you save food?" he said.
Studying his face, I let out a short laugh. "Yeah, I saved food." My lips curled into another frown as the significance of his words hit me. "Why, Nik? Did you tell me to do that? Through the lock?”
His eyes remained unapologetic.
“Yes,” he said simply.
I thought about that, and the unconscious way I’d held aside some portion of my dinner the last two days, as well as my breakfast that morning. Frowning deeper, I looked back at Nik. I considered pressing the matter, then didn’t.
Sighing, I folded my arms, instead.
“They didn’t feed you, either?" I said.
"They fed me," he assured me.
"How much?"
"Enough," he said, his expression evasive once more. "They want me to eat with them. This is how the lock ownership sometimes works. If they can get me to look to them for food, it is good for them. They want me to look to them for all things."
"Does it work?" I said. "Making you hungry?"
Curiosity reached my voice that time, even as I walked to the opposite side of the bed, where I'd left the held-aside food on a piece of cloth under the bed, in the hopes the guards wouldn’t see it. Pulling it out, I unwrapped the covering, smelling it.
It smelled about the same as I remembered, not like I’d know the difference.
“You really asked me to do this?” I said, suddenly dubious.
“Yes,” he said at once. “It is better to practice now,” he added. “With the lock. I tried talking to you many times this way. Whenever they weren’t beating me,” he added, as if remembering. “I did not wish you to feel that.”
Seeing my expression, he seemed confused by whatever he saw there.
“A few times, you were asleep,” he said, almost apologetically. “I tried not to be invasive. I tried to show you more about my people. About where we are going. And language... Pharize, mostly. The language spoken by the humans of Palarine.”
Feeling glimpses of this, I found myself making connections, in spite of myself. I didn’t really know how to react to that, either. Biting my lip, I let my mind turn over his words.
"About the food thing,” I said a few seconds later. “When they feed you, I mean. Is it making you look to them, Nihkil? Like they want? Or does it just make you hungry?"
He glanced up, as if pulled back from some other place.
"No," he said.
"No to which one?"
He hesitated, as if weighing different answers. Finally, he shrugged, giving me another smile. He leaned forward, motioning again for me to join him. I saw a more insistent look in his eyes that time, and it didn’t seem to be aimed at the food I held carefully in my hands.
“Come here,” he finally said, his voice bordering on impatient. “Please.”
“You’re not going to answer the question?” I pressed.
"I will not eat with them," he said. “Come here, Dakota.”
When I didn’t move, he seemed to sigh.
Tilting his head in a sideways shrug, he leaned back against the wall. He remained there when I stepped closer, watching me almost warily as I lay the cloth filled with foodstuffs next to him on the bed. Straightening without moving away precisely, I watched him pick up a small, green-skinned fruit, of a kind I thought tasted a bit like an apricot back home.
Taking a bite, he studied my eyes.
"I do not want to eat with them,” he added. “Is that all right?"
Frowning a little, I puzzled through his words.
"So you refuse to eat there," I said. "Then you come back here, wanting me to feed you?" At his short nod, I let out a disbelieving laugh. "Doesn’t that just piss them off?”
"Yes," he said.
At my involuntary, if humorless, laugh, he glanced up once more, that glint back in his eyes, which were now a dark, midnight blue.
"They do not like it, yes,” he said, smiling faintly. “Does t
his make you angry, Dakota? That I defy them?”
I frowned, but something in his smile leaked over into my mood, too, like a contagion. Eventually, I found myself smiling with him, almost in defeat.
"No,” I said, sighing. “Not angry. But you're a little nuts, Nik. You know that, right?”
Smiling more, he took another bite of fruit, chewing without taking his eyes off mine.
Eventually, I found myself looking away from him.
“So this whole subservience thing with you,” I said. “It’s all just a big act, isn’t it?”
“Subservience?” he said, his voice curious.
“Yeah, you know. You pretend to toe the line, but when it comes down to it, you don’t like being told what to do. So you fight them, even when you pretend you’re not fighting them.” I folded my arms. “You’re a rebel, Nik. You’re just pretending you’re not.”
Nihkil hesitated where he’d been about to pick up another piece of fruit. That wary look returned briefly as he studied my face, right before his gaze flickered down the rest of me.
“Would you mind?” he said finally. “If I was... a rebel?”
Laughing again, more genuinely that time, I shook my head.
“No,” I said.
“Why not?”
I answered honestly. “Because I guess I’m one, too,” I said, thinking aloud. “Even if I don’t always follow through.”
His eyes remained serious as he studied mine, unmoving for a few seconds apart from his chewing. When he finished that bite of fruit, he swallowed, then nodded, his eyes thoughtful.
“Good,” he said finally, taking another bite.
13
SECRETS AND STARS
WE WERE SLEEPING the next time that door in the ceiling swiveled open.
Nik had fallen asleep before me.
Truthfully, he’d fallen asleep before I’d even joined him in the low bed, probably because I could tell he wanted me to join him there, intensely enough that it made me nervous, at least once I’d admitted that feeling to myself.
Not that I was entirely adverse to the idea, really... or even that I thought he’d necessarily try anything. Even so, the mere fact of feeling that wanting on him was more than I could really deal with right then.
I’d taken his words around the lock seriously, though.
I found myself trying to open it on him again, even after he fell asleep. I was also kicking myself a little that it hadn’t occurred to me that I could try even while the Pharei guards held him somewhere else in the ship.
Eventually, though, I crawled into bed next to him.
I must have fallen asleep.
When I opened my eyes next, I lay curled up against Nik’s body, his arm around me, and my arm wrapped around his. We were fully clothed, and maybe for that reason, or for some other, it didn’t feel particularly strange to find myself there, with my head leaning on his shoulder, my back against his chest.
I felt a lingering comfort in the position, even after I returned to consciousness, so it took me a few seconds more to realize something outside the two of us had caused me to open my eyes in the first place.
The clanging sound overhead repeated.
Nik’s arms tightened around me when I lifted my head. I didn’t try to break free of him, but held my breath, peering up through the gloom.
Neither of us moved enough to trip the motion sensors, apparently. It was still dark inside the room when whoever it was finished unlocking the hatch. When they opened it, flooding the blue-glass room with light, the difference was shocking... and blinding. Reflections from the glass bounced off the walls, causing me to raise a hand to shield my eyes.
Untangling myself from Nik’s arms and body, I crawled quickly off the cushions to reach my feet. Feeling and hearing Nihkil getting out of bed behind me, I stepped in front of him, moving again when he started to get around me. The morph towered a good foot plus over me, but when he tried it a second time, I put a hand on his chest, glaring up at him.
"No," I said.
I turned, staring up at the feet descending down the ladder. I spoke the word I’d heard Nik use in their own language, shaking my head at whoever climbed down.
"No!” I said in Pharize, switching back to English since I only knew the one word. “You're not taking him again... no! He just got back!"
Just then, my eyes adjusted enough that I could see the man who now stood at the base of the ladder. He still gripped an eye-level rung lightly in one hand.
It was Ledi.
He smiled at me.
His eyes held an open amusement before they shifted to Nihkil, where the look grew into that nuanced puzzlement I remembered from when I’d first met him on Trinith.
I held my ground, though, and Ledi didn't attempt to move any closer.
"She is protecting you already, Nihkil?” Ledi said, his words translating jerkily in my head. “You will have the rest of us jealous... or more jealous, perhaps."
Nihkil said something to him. Whatever it was, he didn't translate it for me.
So he could control that, I thought. I’d wondered. I was still frowning, standing between the two of them, when Ledi held up a reassuring hand.
"I am not here to hurt your morph, my friend,” he assured me.
"Your thugs did a number on him already," I retorted. "Or are you going to tell me you weren't aware of their habit of using him as a punching bag... ‘my friend’?"
"I am aware," Ledi said, his voice cautious. "Are you aware that Nihkil agreed to these tests, in exchange for our leaving you alone?"
I stiffened, glancing over my shoulder at Nihkil.
Nik frowned at Ledi, his blue-gray eyes holding irritation.
When neither of them spoke for a few seconds, Nihkil stepped closer to me. His hand fell on my shoulder, almost like it had on that planet, Trinith. Again, I felt the possessiveness there, what might have been an overt warning, although about what, I had no idea. When the staring contest between the two of them didn't abate after a handful of seconds, I felt my jaw harden. I looked at Nihkil, then realized he wasn't going to answer my glare, either.
"What do you want?" I asked, turning back to Ledi.
Curiosity shone in the human’s eyes, even as they slid between me and Nihkil. After another pause, he smiled, but that shrewder, more puzzled look never left his expression. His eyes shifted to the pile of data chips on the floor, resting on the hand-held monitor before they shifted to the bed. His green eyes returned to mine.
"We are nearing a course change." Ledi said. At what must have been a confused look on my face, or a blank one at any rate, he clarified, “...We are slowing the ship. We must approach standard to change jump trajectories. It is required. I wanted the two of you to be aware."
“Why?” I said blunt.
When he didn’t answer immediately, I shifted my weight, folding my arms aggressively across my chest. Ledi’s gray eyes crinkled with more amusement, turning into a full smile when Nihkil pulled me closer to him with the same hand that held my shoulder.
"I was thinking you might like to see, Dakota," Ledi said.
My brow crinkled. “See what?”
"Where you are," he said.
* * *
I POKED MY head out of the hatch.
I found my eyes at about shin-height as I looked both ways down the snake-like hallway.
Green metal curved in both directions, ends disappearing at around fifteen yards on either side. Nihkil stood above me already, his long form motionless, his fingers barely touching one edge of the wall. He wasn’t looking at me, not that I could tell, but somehow I felt his eyes on me anyway. When I glanced up at him, he caught my gaze and motioned subtly with one hand for me to climb the rest of the way out.
I did so, and regained my feet, exhaling as I rubbed my hands together, fighting nerves.
In front of us, Ledi stood in the ribbed corridor, still watching us openly.
The expression on his face bordered on amused, if still somewhat puzzled; both emotions still appeared to stem from the dynamic between Nihkil and me. I grew conscious of how we must look, with me in Nihkil's dark shorts, tied at my hips with string to keep them up.
Over those, one of Nihkil’s long-sleeved shirts dwarfed my upper body. They seemed to have forgotten to supply clothes for me, though, leaving things only in Nihkil’s size, so I had to make do. I wondered if they still had my leather boots, rotting away in some storage bin in the medical labs. I hadn't seen my favorite foot gear since my first trip to that lab, so I figured they’d taken them off my feet while I’d been passed out.
The hooker wear, I did not miss.
I watched Nihkil use a booted toe on a pressure pedal to close the door. The hatch swiveled up and to the side, then back down, screwing into the floor like the cork in a wine bottle. It happened nearly silently until the end, when a lever crossed over the top, presumably the hatch’s lock, making that clanging sound that woke me before.
Nihkil walked over to where Ledi stood, almost as if he'd felt my self-consciousness about his nearness to me. Glancing at me a second time, he gave me a swift once-over, not smiling, his expression somehow transparent all the same.
He didn’t really want me outside the room. It made him nervous.
He didn’t really want the other humans to see me.
A little startled by the clarity of the impressions, it occurred to me I’d probably felt them through Nik, and through the lock. I tried to concentrate, to feel more, but I didn’t get much. Some sense of his concerns having to do with my safety... or maybe his. Either way, I felt something akin to a warning when I continued to listen, and abruptly stopped.
Nodding, to myself that time, maybe, I moved closer to the two of them, conscious of the cold metal floor on my bare feet. It was strange to realize how much my feelings of physical confidence had to do with clothing. Standing here, half-naked and barefoot, made me feel about half my usual size, even apart from the two men who each had at least a foot on my five-foot-three height.
Rubbing my arms through the thick shirt, I followed when Nik made another subtle motion, right before he turned and began to walk, Ledi at his side.