by Amber Stuart
They died because they didn't have all of the safety nets of a civilized world... safety nets that were developed over time to keep people alive.
So yeah, going with Zarwin’s merry band of terrorist-slash-colonists didn't appeal to me at all, even assuming they didn't pick a place that would kill me upon arrival.
Truthfully, none of the possibilities appealed to me much.
Well, except one, and I wasn’t ready to broach that subject with Nik.
I didn't want to ask Nik what he thought at all right now, honestly, not when I knew every word would be heard by Zarwin and his robot-like followers. I knew Nik probably hadn't asked the question of me for the same reason.
That, or maybe because he already knew what I'd say.
Maybe it was thinking about all of these things that made the trip go fast... in the ways it did go fast, that is. I was conscious of when they slowed the ship for course changes by dropping out of the field they used to create wormholes, or whatever it was that Nik tried to explain to me about their engines.
Even so, it took me by surprise when Zarwin came to tell us that his pilots were currently navigating the asteroid field that cluttered the orbit of Vilandt.
* * *
WHAT SEEMED LIKE only a few hours after that, I found myself standing at the top of a long, narrow ramp, looking down over an underground hangar.
The ramp slanted steeply down from the ship, but it was no where near as long nor as narrow nor as slippery-looking as the one I'd faced upon landing on Palarine.
The real difference was the view, though.
Everything I could see breathed with some kind of primordial life.
Stained with mold and water deposits, the curved, stone walls looked about as different from the hangars of Palarine as they possibly could have, despite the fact that both settlements lived primarily underground.
On Vilandt, I found myself in the equivalent of a giant animal burrow.
Instead of a blood-red sky, a mosaic of tiles curved across a high-ceilinged but strangely quiet space. People bustled on the ground around and between numerous ships, but the sound carried strangely, making voices echo as if underwater, in a way that retained that feeling of overarching quiet. Fading but still-colorful murals covered the tile and rock walls, while rows of gray and drab-looking ships covered the hangar floor itself. A further scattering of one- and two-person kiosks dotted the floor between ship slots.
The presence of those kiosks, along with people walking around in more nondescript clothes, gave the whole hangar a more “Earth-like” feel than any place I’d seen up until then... although, in a way I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
I watched as a few crew-person types walked away from the nearest kiosk, carrying what looked like dripping water skins, along with a few bags of what might have been grain.
So yeah, probably food.
I figured those must be supply-stations then, rations for travel for shorter trips, versus stuff for people newly arriving here.
Although, they could have carried both things, I supposed.
The hangar's ceiling stretched to a dizzying height, but it didn't carry the sense of space that the landscape of Palarine had; instead, it made me think of the dank, aged and mysterious flavor of an old pirate cave.
I ended up with a mental picture in my head that combined amusement park rides with a trip I'd once made to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico with Jake and my mom.
I didn't look away from the hangar until Nik was led out.
I no longer saw the net thing on his chest, and the binders had been removed from his wrists and ankles. He also seemed to be walking better, so the majority of his injuries must have healed. Although he looked stronger than I’d seen him since we first arrived on Palarine, he blinked around at the dim space like a mole entering the sunlight after weeks underground.
Reaching out, he grasped my hand once he got close enough, holding me firmly in his fingers.
"Are you all right?" he said.
I nodded, feeling my own relief in that simple touch, more than I felt comfortable showing, at least right there. I squeezed his fingers back, even as I returned my gaze to the hangar, trying again to get a sense of the place.
It struck me, looking around, that most of my impressions were positive so far. It also struck me, as I looked around, that Nik had grown up here.
This wasn't a strange place to him. It was home.
I glanced at him as I thought it, and he gave me a faint smile.
“Yes,” he said. “It is true.”
"Is it good?" I said. "To be back, I mean?"
He didn't answer me, but I felt a deeper flush of warmth off his skin, strong enough to warm my cheeks. I couldn't interpret the meaning behind it exactly, but I felt the reassurance there, along with a flood of affection for which I didn’t know the precise cause. Whatever it was, the intensity and transparency of feeling coming off Nik managed to embarrass me.
Not really in a bad way, though.
My embarrassment didn’t seem to bother Nik at all, in any case.
Glancing dismissively at Razmun on my other side, Nik began to walk.
He aimed his feet directly down the steep ramp, taking me with him.
I followed willingly enough, happy to be moving, clunking along down the ridged metal on the heels of my Pharei military boots. I found it strangely easy to relax into the rhythm of Nik's stride, as though we'd walked hand-in-hand together for years, instead of the maybe three or four times that had actually happened since I’d known him.
No one stopped us.
Instead, Razmun’s guards followed us, but at a distance. Despite the room they gave us, they all still struck me as being a little too focused on Nik.
I decided to ignore that, too... and them.
Truthfully, I felt pretty good.
The land of Vilandt had broken my mood in a way that a thousand virtual landscapes, historical recreations and three-dimensional topographical maps never could have. Zarwin must have known that somehow, since he invited me to join him on the observation deck as his ship got ready to break atmo. He explained they would need to ready Nik for being moved, anyway, so I might as well get a look at the planet from the air.
Since they’d already taken Nik back to the med labs, presumably to uncuff him, remove that net thing and get him to walk around enough to ensure his limbs were all still in working order, I agreed... albeit reluctantly, since it meant being alone with Razmun.
I ended up being glad I did.
Nihkil and Razmun's home world of Vilandt could not have been more different than Palarine. That much was clear long before we reached the underground hangar.
Once Zarwin’s ship escaped cloud cover, visibility dropped to almost nil.
They’d warned me it would, but even so, the difference shocked me, even as it reminded me instantly of home. Apart from virtual terrain reconstructions, there was nothing to see but long stretches of green blurred under torrential rain. Despite that fact... or really, partly because of it... I spent the entire descent with my face pressed against the transparent pane, my eyes tracking every break in the gray I could glimpse.
The idea of being on a planet with real animals and plants meant more to me than I knew how to articulate, even to Nihkil, when we'd been alone earlier and he’d been describing Vilandt to me. For weeks now, I’d been lost in a way, stuck in some weird stasis of terrarium life that didn’t feel quite real. Without being fully conscious of it, I'd hungered for anything that reminded me of home. The desire for some kind of Earth-like reality sharpened into a full-blown obsession by the time I got my first glimpses of Vilandt, even with every inch of its mountains, fields, coasts and rivers blanketed in clouds and rain.
Nihkil once told me, while we were still on the ship to Palarine with Ledi, that Vilandt had long been famous for its natural beauty, at least in the season of light, or Nagai, which was also the name of one of the planet’s two
stars.
There would be nothing to see for months yet, according to Razmun, who knew where Vilandt stood in their two-season weather cycle. Despite his warning, I still strained for any hint of white foam waves breaking... or the blue-green forests that Nihkil had described to me in such detail that, for a while, I found myself dreaming about them.
Even in the rain and fog-obscured haze, I saw enough that the landscape took my breath, and resonated with what Nik had already told me about the place.
Where peaks reached high enough through the clouds, rain turned to snow, leaving icing-like fingers of glacier over their craggy tops and in the ravines down their steep edges. From what I’d seen and read, at those heights, the native trees grew stunted, with rock-like bark to protect against glacial ice.
Lakes dotted deep valleys filled with waist-high grasses. Snake-like branches and white trunks jutted from cliffs made of marbled and deep-black earth. At one point, I swore I saw a herd of fat, dinosaur-sized creatures standing in a field, hunched against the buffeting wind.
I tried to remember the name Nik had given them, but couldn’t.
Now, inside the domed hangar, I squinted up at one of the stone mosaics as I followed Nik's steps down the gentle slope of the ramp, glancing down only long enough to avoid tripping on the higher ridges between segments.
Black, cat-like faces stared back at me from the same wall.
When I let my gaze drop next, I saw a man standing at the bottom of the ramp.
His brown hair was on the long side, and not tied back or up in one of those odd ponytails like a Pharei. His thick body was well into middle age, but I didn’t see any fat on him; instead, he looked bear-like, with olive-toned hands and broad shoulders.
An attractive man, I thought without thinking about it really. He might know he was attractive, too, but he wore it un-self-consciously.
Nik craned his neck, giving me a pointed look.
Laughing, I tugged on his arm. "Jesus, Nik. Is that jealousy?"
"Yes," he said, glancing towards the man waiting for us. "Why are you looking at him?"
I laughed again, shaking my head in disbelief.
Nik looked as though he might say something else, but stopped when he abruptly seemed to realize something else about the man waiting for us at the end of the ramp. I watched him do an obvious double-take, just before a thread of bewilderment rose to his expression.
It struck me that Nik knew this guy, too... or thought he did.
Nik dropped my fingers, letting go of me just in time for the bear-like man to envelop him in a thick hug, crushing him against the larger chest. Nik accepted the embrace, but I got the feeling it was more because he wasn’t sure what else to do. The look his face wore remained closer to stunned than anything approaching affection.
"Oslep," he murmured.
The large man let him go, laughing aloud as he clapped Nihkil sharply on the back.
The man Nik called Oslep began speaking rapidly to him in Dengue. I only caught bits here and there, not enough to make sense of the particulars, but I got the overall vibe of a long-awaited reunion, as if they had once been friends, possibly even close friends, but had not seen one another in many years. Anyway, I remembered the name from Razmun's story.
Oslep had been the one to impersonate the conscription authority's neuro-scan guy.
Which meant he'd probably killed the real guy who fulfilled that role.
It also meant he was likely still a member of Razmun's army.
Wherever he stood on the ideological spectrum, Oslep himself didn’t react at all negatively to me. In fact, he returned my stare with an open curiosity in his eyes. Letting go of Nihkil's arm, he let his rapid speech fade long enough to meet my gaze, then look over the rest of me more leisurely.
"Your new lock-mate?" he said to Nihkil, politely switching to Pharize.
Nihkil glanced at me, then nodded, as if reluctantly. "Yes."
I jumped down the remaining segment of ramp, since I’d still been trailing slightly behind Nik due to my gawking. Once I had, I was surprised when Oslep threw his thick arms around me in a warm hug, too. When he let go, he was still smiling, but I saw something else in his gaze, too.
Nik, on the other hand, looked irritated.
"She's pretty, Jamri," Oslep said, still looking over my face and body. "Don't suppose you're partitioning rights?"
"No," Nihkil answered coldly. "I’m not." As if to emphasize the point, he took my hand in his, and that time, I couldn't fail to feel the possessiveness in his grip. “...We have not discussed this, however,” he added stiffly. “You would have to ask her, if you want a different answer."
Oslep laughed, looking at me. “And am I likely to get a different answer?”
I gave Nik an incredulous look, then glanced back at Oslep.
"No," I said. “Probably not.” I gave Nik a pointed eye-roll. "Of course, I’m making a bit of a leap, assuming that was even a real question."
"It was," Nik said.
Still smiling, Oslep gave me a slight bow.
"It is Dakota, yes? Dakota Mayumi?"
I nodded, still giving Nik a somewhat bemused look. "Yeah. That's right." When Oslep continued to stare at me, and at my hair, I stuffed my hands in my pockets, nodding up at the mural, if only to break the awkward silence. “Erensyi?”
Oslep and Nik both followed my eyes up to the mural.
Oslep's gaze cleared first, then his smile widened.
"Yes," he said. He turned then, winking at Nihkil. "Did they brief you on your aliases here?"
Nihkil's expression lost some of its anger. Or, at least, it changed to reflect a different kind of annoyance. "It is a folly,” he grunted. “No one will remember me here. Few ever even saw me as human, of those who would remember. And those who do know me as such won't be fooled by a new name." Grunting at Oslep, Nik made a vague gesture towards his body, using the hand not holding mine. “I scarcely recognized you, in this form.”
"We had to register you, Jamri," Oslep said, still smiling at him. "Did you think, after what happened on Palarine, that we could register you as Nihkil Jamri? You are a wanted criminal these days, my friend... just like the rest of us."
Nihkil didn't answer, but I felt his fingers tighten in mine.
Oslep glanced up and around as Razmun’s guards slowly began to edge closer to where we stood. They’d finally finished making their way down the ramp after me and Nik, but seemed to be watching us as humorlessly as before.
They also continued to maintain what appeared to be a cautious distance.
I guess, after all that, and after Razmun’s one-track mind around the whole third gate thing and trying to manipulate Nik, Oslep was kind of a relief.
He seemed like a real person, anyway.
“...The names are really only for the conscription authority," Oslep added, winking at me before he looked back at Nik. "No one here would turn you in, Jamri, even if they did recognize you. But the human powers must have their finger on every morph. As you know, there are a lot more of them here now, than there were in our day. You can’t get away with taking the form of a warsel, like we used to do, eh?” Oslep’s eyes grew more serious.
“You have to blend, Jamri,” he said. “More and more, that means taking a human form, although there’s a whole other set of risks that go with that.”
He clapped Nik on the shoulder again, smiling at me.
“...We took the precaution of disabling all of the security on this end of the compound,” Oslep added cheerfully. “In the morph quadrant, you should be fine to travel as yourself. But you’ll still have to disguise yourself in some areas of the settlement, or there’s a risk that their image trackers could ID you as Nihkil Jamri, too. We can use the malfunction excuse for a few days, if we end up staying that long. But eventually our people working in the security tech teams will have to bring those back on line, as well...”
“If we end up staying that long?”
I muttered under my breath.
I felt Nik hear me, but he didn’t look over.
Frowning, I tried to decide if I should ask Oslep, but I didn’t when I got the distinct feeling that Nik didn’t want me to.
"So you are Vaug Prelan," Oslep said to Nihkil, grinning a little. He handed him a card of some kind, about half the size of a credit card. Oslep glanced at me, then, studying my face with a faint smile. “...Which makes you his mate, a human from Sansre called Jilri Cilek. You can remember this, friend of the morph?"
He handed me a second card.
I took it, giving him a short nod.
Feeling the peace offering alongside the subtext that hadn’t diminished, I rested my hands on my hips once I'd stuffed the card in a back pocket, hiding my reaction to his grin by looking back at the giant cat mural on the curved wall.
I felt both men watch me do it. It occurred to me that Oslep wasn’t hiding his interest, and that Nik really didn't like it at all.
Irritated, but also flustered for some reason, I found myself thinking that both of them were acting like idiots, even as I wondered if I'd started this somehow, by staring at the guy in the first place. Folding my arms, I kept my voice neutral when I said,
“The name's fine. But I doubt I can pull off being from that world, if we run into anyone who would know the difference.”
"It is unlikely here, Dakota Mayumi," smiled Oslep.
I only nodded, but found myself wondering why they'd bothered with aliases at all since they seemed to like saying my name every chance they got.
I glanced at Nik, who, I couldn't help noticing, continued to stare at Oslep, his expression a strange mixture of hostility and wonder, presumably at the man's identity, or maybe the fact he was alive at all. He seemed to be trying to reconcile the two feelings, somewhere in that confusion, but I couldn't get a sense of whether he was succeeding. It seemed more like his attempts just intensified both ends of the spectrum.
Razmun and the remainder of his personal guard stood around us now, too. Razmun himself seemed to be hanging back somewhat, presumably to give Nik some time to adjust to seeing Oslep... although that was a pretty big leap on my part really, since I had no idea what he was doing. I could guess that he wanted Nik to feel like a part of the group, though.