by Amber Stuart
Of course, when Nik took me out with him, it tended to feel a lot more like work.
Seeing it as an extension of the language lessons he'd ramped up alongside our efforts with the lock, Nihkil had me practicing Pharize with humans every chance he got, and pushed me to watch the news broadcasts that covered the common room walls, quizzing me on their contents every five or so minutes.
He pushed me to order drinks and food from the humans, too, and to ask for materials I wanted. He even bugged me to go through the laborious process of trying to carry on social conversations with humans lounging and staring at the two of us in the common spaces. He'd pushed me to learn phrases covering everything from refusing sexual advances to getting through a military interrogation without pissing off human officials, and what to say to cover my ass legally if I’d been caught doing something wrong.
Some of the things he taught me sounded downright iffy.
In any case, I strongly suspected Ledi hadn't sanctioned a good chunk of Nihkil's lesson plan, as it seemed to posit the Palarine military as a potential threat more often than not.
As for Nihkil himself, he turned into some kind of bizarre, morph taskmaster in the weeks following my field trip to the ship’s bridge.
Constantly muttering under his breath that I had to be “ready” for Palarine, he never really specified what that meant.
Nor did he specify what, specifically, worried him about me.
The best I could do was try to pick up clues based on what he pushed me the most often and the hardest to learn. The big ones seemed to center around language, etiquette, and making sure I knew my rights as a human being.
He had me repeat my sentience rights and blood categorization until I had all of the legal phrases associated with those rights memorized backwards and forwards. He instructed me around when and where to recite those rights, which seemed to include just about any time I might be questioned, according to Nihkil, “in a way I found potentially problematic.”
He never really specified what that meant, either.
In any case, Nihkil and I had been joined at the hip for the last two months.
While I found myself leaning on him still, in a variety of ways, we’d also gotten comfortable enough with one another that we’d started to relax some of our stranger-politeness.
We’d also started to bicker.
And argue.
Sometimes, those arguments turned into drag-down fights.
Half the time, however, I wasn't entirely sure what we were arguing about, other than the fact that we both got frustrated when we couldn’t understand one another. Nihkil also seemed to have a bunch of rules around behavior that struck me as significantly less intuitive and clear-cut than either one of us would have liked. As we grew to know one another better, he also began to have zero qualms around making his feelings clear, too, especially when it had anything to do with the overly broad rubric of my “safety.”
He also seemed to be inordinately paranoid, in my mind, about “the humans,” and what they might do to either or both of us.
Again, getting specifics from him, in terms of what, exactly, he feared might happen to me on Palarine if I broke one of his rules––as well as what ways I shouldn't portray the two of us in order to not tick off the Pharei––was like getting blood out of a stone.
I'd finally approached Ledi on the latter, since he'd made no secret that he found the two of us amusing... if not out-and-out puzzling, in terms of our dynamic. Ledi dodged my questions at first, but when I persisted, he finally smiled at me shrewdly, and said something along the lines of, "Let's just say, Nihkil is trying to do you a favor, Dakota."
He still pronounced my name with unnerving precision, but that time, I barely noticed.
"A favor, how?" I pressed.
Ledi sighed, giving me an apologetic look.
"While many fraternize with the morph in various ways, to appear to be intimate with one, even if the relationship itself is entirely innocent, can be detrimental to your own reputation.”
At what must have been an irritated look from me, Ledi leaned forward, clasping my hand. His eyes and voice grew more insistent.
“Do not think too little of my words, Dakota. If enough people took issue with your interactions, you could be deemed a race traitor. You could be prosecuted for conspiring."
“Conspiring to do what?” I said, staring at him.
Ledi shrugged, releasing my hand as he leaned back in his chair.
I squinted at him over the table.
"What’s really going on?” I said finally. “There’s something else, isn’t there? About Nik. Something you’re not telling me.”
Ledi sighed a little.
Still, from his furtive look, I got the sense he knew exactly what I meant. Apparently, he hadn’t forgotten that awkward interaction in the ship’s corridors that day, either.
I watched Ledi think, as if trying to decide what to do.
“I’m not really at liberty to say, Dakota,” he said finally.
“Bullshit,” I blurted, unthinking. “What is it? Something about Nik and women, right?” I said. “Are you seriously going to tell me I don’t have a right to know?”
Ledi gave me a sharp look at that.
Sharp enough that I wondered if I’d gone too far in my familiarity with him. Remembering the look Nihkil gave me when I told him I was going for a walk with General Advisor Ledi without him, I sighed a bit, running a hand through my hair.
“Look,” I said. “I want to know. It’ll help me understand Nik, right?”
Ledi seemed to dial down his emotional reaction, too. After a moment, he nodded, his eyes thoughtful once more, if still conflicted. When he next spoke, however, he seemed almost to be changing the subject.
“Many have noticed that Nik is different since you got here, Dakota,” he said after another pause. “I, myself, barely recognize him in some respects.”
“Barely recognize him?” I said, feeling my jaw tighten a little. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Ledi made a dismissive gesture, giving me a mysterious smile.
“You would have had to know him before, Dakota, to realize how much he has changed. Unfortunately, most of the humans on this ship were familiar with Nihkil’s previous demeanor, before he met you.”
“And what was that, exactly?” I pressed.
Ledi's eyes and voice grew vague. "It is not important, Dakota. My point was, he is trying to help you, not hurt you."
"It's a little important," I countered. "Does it have something to do with the women we saw that day? Those two humans?”
Ledi gave me a warning look, glancing around the space of the common room where we sat. “I was not implying that Nihkil’s changes were your fault,” he said, that warning still in his eyes.
Seeming to see something in my expression, he sighed.
For a few seconds, he watched two humans sharing a meal in a darkened corner of the space.
"Most of it is mistaken perception, Dakota," he said finally. "You must be aware that they think Nihki’ has taken you as a lover?"
I felt my skin flush. "What? Why?"
Ledi firmed his lips and fluttered his eyelids, the equivalent of the local eye-roll.
I felt my mouth harden. “Are those women jealous, then?”
“Most probably... yes,” Ledi said simply.
“Was Nik sleeping with them? Before I came, I mean?”
Ledi hesitated, tapping his fingers on the table top. Then, he surprised me, giving a vague sort of shrug, one I knew to mean yes.
Even so, his words surprised me more.
“He has done so on this flight, Dakota,” he said simply.
“What?” I felt my face grow cold. “What did you say?”
Ledi gave me a level look. “Nihki’ has spent time with each of them... and one other human, I believe... during this flight. He did not tell you?” Pausing, he studied my eyes. “It is r
ecorded. Legally, he must record all of his trysts with humans. You could access the records, if you like. Any human has access to these things, unless such access is specifically denied by one of the human participants. As far as I know, none of them have done this with Nihkil. Not recently, anyway.”
I gaped at him, sure again that I’d misheard him.
From Ledi’s expression, it quickly grew apparent I had not.
I shut my mouth with a snap.
“Nihki’ did not tell you about this?” Ledi said again.
“Must have slipped his mind,” I muttered.
“Would you like to see?” he said politely.
“No,” I said, giving him an incredulous look. “No way. Are you kidding me?”
Ledi smiled, but it lacked humor that time. When I continued to stare at him, he only shook his head, his expression holding a faint puzzlement again.
“Nihki’ hasn’t told you about the cards yet, Dakota?” he said finally.
I stared at him. “No. What cards? What does that mean?”
Ledi flicked his fingers at me, in a dismissive gesture that time, indicating he either didn’t want to answer, or simply wouldn’t for whatever reason.
When I pressed him again, all I got was more vague gestures and a lot of repeated comments along the lines of, “I've said far too much already,” and “please keep this conversation to yourself, Dakota,” and “Nihkil would hardly thank me for having spoken of this at all,” and “really, you must ask Nihkil.”
None of which exactly cleared things up.
In fact, each subsequent comment only managed to irritate me more.
I didn’t ask Nik about it, either. Not directly.
I meant to.
Hell, I got halfway through imagining the conversation in my head on my way back to our room, but I never went there, for a number of reasons, I guess. The main one being that I could feel on Nik that he knew immediately that I knew. I assume it was some kind of lock thing, but something in his face when I got back told me he knew exactly what Ledi had told me.
He felt entirely closed, for one thing.
For the rest of that day, his face remained more unreadable than I’d ever seen it. On the other hand, I don’t think I’d ever felt so much anger on him before, either.
I could tell most of that anger was aimed at Ledi.
Even so, both of us were pretty cool to one another for a few weeks after that.
I still found myself more likely to deliberately push his buttons.
Like now.
I’d known for some time that Nihkil was looking for me. Despite that fact, I’d decided to let him find me the hard way, instead of giving a shout-out to let him know where I was. That was probably the real reason for the irritation I felt through the lock... not the obstacle course he currently navigated in crossing the storage bay to reach me.
I myself stood among a teetering maze of black, basalt-looking boxes at the forward end of a football-field-sized cargo hold. Normally the entire area lay plunged in darkness, eerily silent, and holding only that still, waiting quality of a giant room floating in space.
I'd stumbled across the hold purely by accident, not long after they first let me out of the room. Guards in tow, I'd wandered through the dark aisles in fascination at the sheer size of it, even peering inside a few of the crates until the guards told me to cut it out.
After a few more exploration trips in the giant hold, I returned here sometimes when I just wanted to be alone––even ditching the human guards when I could manage it, until they used the implant to find me again.
After Ledi’s revelation about Nik’s extracurricular activities, I found I needed more space from him than before.
I was also quickly learning that Nihkil's relationship to the concept of “privacy” was iffy at best. I got my first clue when he barged right into the bathroom cubicle while I was showering. After I chewed him out for that one, he'd tried standing outside the open door to talk to me, and even bugged me to recite something he'd assigned me to learn the night before... until I threw a few handfuls of cleaning powder at him to get him to go away.
I found out only later that each washing cubicle came equipped with only a small amount of water. Most people used the cleaning powder to scrub dirt and detritus off their bodies and hair, since it was a lot lighter to carry than the amount of water needed to accomplish the same. Water was generally for drinking... with only a small amount allotted for other uses, even in a ship of this size. We’d used pretty much all of that water up the first night, when Nik doused me in the cubicle to try and snap me out of shock.
Anyway, I’d never brought Nihkil to the cargo bay with me.
I would sit by one of the view ports and think when I came here, or just gaze into that starlight, watching patterns form and reform along the hull of the ship before melting back into the darkness. Usually, it was pretty meditative for me.
As in, I enjoyed the silence, my mind close to empty.
Today, the cargo hold felt like a different place entirely.
Instead of being dimly lit with low-burning, gold-colored running lights, the stadium-sized cavern appeared stark and bright with white-hot overheads, including a wall-length glow-worm sac affixed to the upper bulkhead that radiated a sharp, green-tinged glow.
Members of Ledi's crew rode loaders up and down the various aisles, pulling boxes down with coordinated, crab-like pinschers they operated with metal gloves. Like many of the machines here, I found the basalt-black, mobile units vaguely insect-like, more like big, stupid pets than machines. The crew seemed to ride them that way, too, arguing with them and cursing them out as often as they noticeably worked the controls.
Since talking to Ledi that day, I’d made more of an effort to listen to the human gossip, too, especially about me and Nihkil.
My Pharize still pretty much sucked, though.
As a result, I didn’t learn much. I did hear a few things about how they viewed Nik differently since I’d been around, but I sensed they were reacting more to a feeling than anything Nihkil was actually doing.
That, and a number of them had seen Nik touching me.
Publicly, I assume... since he was clearly touching some of them a lot more than he touched me. Apparently public contact between a human and a morph was unusual enough that it elicited a fair bit of theorizing.
And Ledi hadn’t been lying; they all thought I was sleeping with him.
“Dakota.” Nihkil appeared in front of me, somewhat out of breath.
Seeing him up close, I couldn’t help but stare.
A black, form-fitting uniform shirt clung to his upper body, different from anything I’d seen him wear up until then. Its high-necked collar showed just above the edges of a tailored-fit, black jacket. The pants I recognized as the same style as the thick, ribbed pants he wore whenever he left our room without me, except this pair was spotless, a deep black with no burn holes, stains or grease marks from his penchant for crawling under machines.
The only spot of color on him came from his eyes, which were currently green, and his belt. A pale white ribbon wound around one jacket sleeve, which I knew marked him as a full-blooded morph.
For the first time, I noticed that he’d gained weight... a fair bit of weight, actually... and it wasn’t fat. Nik looked almost athletic.
It struck me to wonder if he could do that to himself as part of his morphing abilities, or if he'd done it the normal, human way, meaning via exercise. If it was the latter, I had to wonder again what he’d been doing with himself when he wasn’t in the room.
Besides the one thing, that is.
His hair had grown, too; it nearly reached his shoulders. He pushed it behind one ear even as I noticed, and when I glanced back at his face, he returned my gaze sharply. His eyes, which were already darkening, looked borderline defensive.
“What?” he said.
“What do you mean, what?” I gave another cursory glan
ce to his clothes and his hair, frowning. “You were looking for me, right?”
Nihkil shook his head, his lips firming as he looked away.
“Yes,” he said finally.
Fumbling in his jacket, he withdrew a mong stick packet, offering one to me. He’d finally stopped hiding that little habit from me, too. I’d smelled it on him off and on for weeks before I figured out what the hell the smell meant. Everyone on the ship seemed to chew on the damned things. I had no idea why he cared whether I knew that he did, as well.
I shook my head to his offer.
Mong sticks were kind of like supercharged caffeine and gave me a buzz, which made my hands shake, too. Given where we would be in just a few minutes, I wanted my head clear.
At the very least, I didn't want to risk falling on my face.
“We need to talk, Dakota,” Nihkil said.
I couldn't help noticing he spoke English, and without the translator.
Clearly he didn't want to be overheard. His English had improved a lot in the past few weeks. Almost a scary amount, truthfully.
“...We are landing in a few hours," he added in the same language, giving me an odd look. "You need to understand a few things, first. Things I've held off on telling you, because I didn't want you to worry."
"So you tell me now," I muttered, folding my arms. "When I have no time to adjust to the information whatsoever."
Ignoring my words, Nik took a bite of the mong stick, after kneading the end with his fingers. Immediately, the sweet-smelling aroma filled the air. "They are going to react to you down there... badly, I suspect, once they see your age and sex.”
I quirked an eyebrow. “They don’t know those already?”
Nik didn’t meet my gaze. “Ledi told them the basics. That is not what I mean precisely.”
“So what do you mean?” I said.
“I mean they will find you attractive, Dakota,” Nihkil said, blunt.
At what must have been a startled expression on me, he averted his eyes, muttering under his breath in another language, not Pharize or Merensic.
Shaking his head, he said in English, “It will not be an advantage, I assure you.”