by Viki Storm
The only comfort I have is knowing that she will be ready soon enough. As her body absorbs my seed, she will undergo her own bonding process. Human females cannot help but bond to the males who ejaculate inside of them. I could feel it in my bedchamber. My chest felt bright glowing heat that had nothing to do with my color change or the heat of the sunslight or anything else.
Soon.
I’m going to have to keep telling myself that.
I start the long climb up the stairs to the council chamber, again cursing the founders for their high-minded ideas about leadership. Seventeen flights of stairs is no good when you’re hungover and it’s really not good when you’re rock hard underneath your breeches.
I open the doors and am relieved to see that I’m the first one there. Good.
If Resa is going to be the High Queen then I should start acting like the High King.
As the council members start to arrive, I greet them in traditional fashion but I can tell that they are staring at my purple torso. Hanyz, the High Healer, sees me and gives me a genuine smile and a hearty clap on the back. He’s a sentimental old fool, but most of the healers are. When the High Weaponsmith enters, however, he sneers at me, as if bonding with my mate is some sign of weakness.
I hold my head high and ignore the comments. This is a good thing, a proud day that their king has found a queen and mother for his heirs.
I start the meeting and announce that I’ve mated and consummated and that they can expect heirs shortly.
“How shortly?” Noxu, the High Merchant, asks after the polite applause dies down. “The Fendans are a fussy lot and I wouldn’t be surprised if they want to renegotiate or cancel the mineral contracts.”
“Human females gestate approximately three and a half months,” the High Healer says. “However, their estrus cycles are often affected by leaving Earth, where their satellite moon influences their reproductive cycles. She might not become properly fertile again for some weeks while she adjusts to the influence of the orbit of our planet’s satellites.”
“Still,” I say.
“Yes, we all know that you’re proud of the fact that you copulated. You’re glowing purple for the love of the Void. You don’t need to brag like a young warrior on his first trip to the pleasure house,” the High Weaponsmith says.
“You will address me as High King,” I say through gritted teeth. I cannot stand that he mocks the strong protective feelings that I have for Resa. Though they are caused by nothing more than a hormonal surge, they are real and true and the only good thing I’ve had in my life. “You will not mock me in open defiance or I will demand your removal from the council.”
No one speaks. High Councilors are appointed for life with nothing but grave respect and honor. To remove one from his seat has been unheard of in all the years since our Founding. I realize the weight of my words—that if he ever makes an off-hand jibe during the council session I will be forced to keep my word and remove him from his position. I’m not sure what the consequences of such an imperial edict would be, but it wouldn’t be good.
“My apologies,” Uctin says. It doesn’t go unnoticed that he does not call me High King. I will let that slide since I have not been coronated yet.
“Accepted,” I say, “as for the Fendans and their mineral rights, send an envoy. Go yourself if you must. But we must not lose access to their mines.” This is true. Those minerals fuel our space travel. Our space travel is essential to the Zalaryn way of life. It’s how we get our supplies, our food, our mates.
“Ahem,” the High Weaponsmith says. I nod, giving him the floor. “We could spend more time discussing how to placate those weakling Fendans. Or we could be devising a strategy to go in and take their damned minerals. That is the Zalaryn way. We are warriors. Fighters. If we see something, we take it. We don’t negotiate and say please.”
There is a murmur of assent from some of the ministers. I can’t say I disagree with him. Taking things is the Zalaryn way. We take Earth females. We take crops from the outposts on Mars. We take livestock from the outer satellites of Juno and Jupiter. We take timber and glass from the races of people who are skilled enough to work with them. We take these things and give nothing in return except our pledge not to burn and destroy and plunder.
But the qizo minerals are a different story. We cannot gamble with the minerals. Without the minerals we cannot get the females or crops or livestock or glass or anything else.
“The minerals are the backbone of our livelihood,” I start to say.
“Yes,” the High Merchant says. “We cannot just go in and take them the way we take semiconductors or timber. The minerals have to be mined. Mining takes time.” I’m grateful that someone is taking my side, even if it is Noxu, the greedy merchant.
“Foolishness,” the High Weaponsmith says. “Programming semiconductors and comm-panels takes time. We tell the other races to make them for us. Why not go into Fenda and tell them they have two choices: mine the minerals and deliver them to us or else face fire and the electrified ends of our anankahs.”
“You imbecile,” the High Merchant says. “Without minerals we cannot fly to Fenda and deliver on our threats. Mineral mining is the one area we must accept as our weakness.”
“Zalaryns have no weakness,” the High Weaponsmith shouts to cheers from the council. Except me. I know this is folly. This is something my father would have said. And look where he is now.
“We do,” I say. “High Merchant Noxu is right. We must broker the deal. There is no surer way.”
“The new generation,” the High Weaponsmith spits. “Concerned with safety and risk. Where is your honor and love of glory on the battlefield? Is it replaced with caution and care when you bond with some weak female?”
“Only a fool spurns the use of caution,” the High Healer says in his sedate tone. “This matter has already been voted upon. It is pointless for us to waste time.”
“Bah,” the High Weaponsmith growls. But he is silent.
Luckily for me, the rivals on the council who are most opposed to negotiations and caution are the ones who are most traditional and who respect the hierarchy of the council. And the king.
“High Weaponsmith Uctin has a point,” the High Sheriff says. Traxu is cut from the same cloth as the High Weaponsmith. I knew it wasn’t going to be that easy. “We could bring this back up for discussion. Our ancestors would be ashamed. We have the store of qizo minerals in reserve. We can prepare a raiding party the likes of which the Zalaryn race has never seen. We can land on their planet and take over. We can capture the workers and enslave them to the mines.”
“We don’t have the manpower,” I say. “We haven’t had the manpower since the Sickness. We can hardly breed fast enough to replace the proud warriors who give their lives in raids.” I’m emboldened by the nodding heads around the table. “What he’s proposing sounds glorious and mighty—the things the drunkards sing songs about in the taverns—but it is unfeasible. We already run outposts on Earth, Mars, Juno, Jupiter and other planets. A Fendan outpost of this magnitude is unfeasible. We would have to overthrow their king, supervise the mines, quash rebellions. Mining is time-consuming and labor-intensive. We need the Fendans as our long-term allies if we want to be able to fuel our space travel for generations to come.” A little cry erupts from the councilors who agree with me. I get begrudging nods from those who don’t. But nothing but stony stares from the High Weaponsmith and the High Sheriff.
“You are not thinking like a true warrior,” High Sheriff Traxu says. “What you propose—establishing another outpost on Fenda—that is quite unfeasible.”
“Then why the argument?” I say, throwing my hands up in frustration.
“It’s simpler than that,” he says. “We don’t have to subdue their entire population. We can just kill them.”
At some point during the evening, a motor whines into life. It startles me and I jump in my seat, my pencil scratching a deep line into my sketch. Damn it. The maid, a sick
ly girl named Khiza, came earlier, showed me how to work the water basins and comm-screens and brought me some clothes. She wasn’t sure what I wanted to wear. I wasn’t sure either, so I told her to just give me the plain rough-spun robes that I see the Zalaryn females wearing. She was horrified by this request, but I am a princess now (that sounds so crazy I can hardly believe it) and she had no choice but to obey me.
Now as the screeching reaches a high pitch that threatens to pop my eardrums, I abandon my drawing and rush to the window. I wasn’t alive during The War, but my grandmother told me plenty of stories about how it started, the burning and the explosions coming without warning to every city on planet Earth.
I look out the window, expecting to see destruction and death, but instead there’s a magnificent display of engineering. In the distance, a large metal disc floats into the sky. It is late—I still have no concept of how time passes here, but it is well-past the last evening meal—but the two suns are still high and bright in the sky. They are not perfectly aligned anymore. It is hard to tell because it hurts to look at them for long, but they are side by side, a bright figure-eight shape. The metal disc rises and then I see it is actually two discs. They part and track the suns, covering all but the faintest glow of the corona light.
Just as I recover my nerves from the surprise noise of the mechanical discs, the door bursts open. It’s him. Xalax. My mate. He talks about it like we’re just mindless animals, pairing up and screwing and spitting out offspring.
“Hello,” I say. I feel my cheeks burn. The way he’s looking at me again, it’s that same hungry look. Except if he was hungry earlier when he stripped me and threw me on the bed, then right now he looks starved—positively famished.
All I can think is: he’s seen me naked. He knows what I look like between my legs, bare and spread open.
It’s a silly thought, I know, especially when a horde of alien males has seen me without my clothes. But it’s like those other faceless customers at the auction house don’t count.
He’s different, a voice inside my head pipes up. Because you care what he thinks.
Maybe. But maybe not. It’s probably just because I was acting so foolishly earlier. Getting hot and wet for this stranger like a common whore.
My face is burning again. I hope he doesn’t notice. See, that voice again, you care what he thinks.
“How do you like it here?” he asks. He peels off his boots and throws them in a pile by the door. His torso is still purplish. What did he call it? A rut? Isn’t that what it’s called when deer and goats go around locking antlers and getting into fights until they can find a female to stick it inside?
But he didn’t stick it inside me. That’s another thing that’s causing my face to flush red. I know he wanted to. I know he was half-mad with desire. But he held himself back, not wanting to hurt me.
What did he say? That we had to exchange genetic material to complete the bonding process? Sounds like a bunch of alien superstition to me. For a race that’s mastered intergalactic space travel, they are quite primitive in a lot of ways. Like those crumbling stone idols in the palace, casting an eerie pall over the royal seat of power.
“It’s weird,” I say. I can’t help but tell the truth. He surprises me by laughing. It occurs to me that I haven’t heard any of these Zalaryns laugh.
“I’ll bet,” he says. He drags a chair next to mine and sits down. “What’s this?” he says. I make a move to cover my drawings, but his reflexes are quick and he gets the paper away from me. I don’t know why, but I always hate showing people my drawings. My grandmother said that false modesty is half the sin of pride, but I’m not sure what that means. I’m genuinely uncomfortable with people examining my work and offering praise.
“Are these the Founders?” he says. I can’t read his voice. He always sounds so stern and… powerful. An image flashes through my mind, how he threw me on the bed and pulled my legs apart, like a man who takes what he wants.
And wants me.
“Founders?” I ask. “They’re the statues in the palace.”
“Those are the seventeen Founders who settled the planet,” he says.
“They’re in pretty bad shape,” I say. “How old are they?”
“No one knows,” he says. “The Founders conquered the planet and built the fortress and set out the seventeen rules. Beyond that, no one knows.”
“Sounds like one of our Earth religions,” I say.
“This is no religion,” he counters. “They existed. I am descended from one of them, the line of the High Kings is unbroken since the Founding.”
“Oh,” I say lamely. I’m not sure what to make of all this, but it’s certainly more interesting that our schoolhouse lessons. Because your school teachers never made you come, my evil, sneaky voice says. But there’s no argument to that.
“These are really good drawings,” he says. “That’s the problem with having so few females on our planet.”
It’s true that there aren’t many females, and the ones that I have seen are sickly or deformed. I asked Khiza about it earlier, not able to hold my curiosity. She told me that when a Zalaryn male mates with a human female, the healers give her mixtures to drink to ensure a male child. But it doesn’t always work and sometimes a human female births a Zalaryn female. She looked away from me when she added that the birth of a female brings great shame upon both the mother and the father. But what does that have to do with artwork?
“What do you mean by that?” I ask.
“Females are creators,” he says, as if I just asked a really stupid question. Maybe I did. “Males create too, but mostly we like to destroy what others have built. Females create life—that sort of power makes them suited to all other creative tasks. The Sickness started many generations ago and claimed our females slowly at first, after we discovered how to use qizo minerals for long-voyage space travel. Now every female is afflicted some way or another.”
“I noticed,” I said. The few females I have seen are all deformed or disabled in one way or another. I thought the maid who came to me today was in relatively good shape… until I noticed that one of her ears looked like a useless lump of red candle wax and that she walked with the use of a mechanical leg below the knee.
“At the height of our empire, the males ranged and raided while the females made weapons, grew crops, raised livestock, tinkered with electronics. They were the musicians, artists, poets. Now…” he trails off.
I know what he’s thinking. I know what it’s like to live in a world in decline, the ruins of a once-great society. Unable to fully rebuild because the greatest minds and muscle are gone. Surrounded by the crumbling reminders of how much better things used to be.
“Can I get some clothes?” I blurt out. I want to change the subject. And the robe I’m wearing is so damned itchy, I don’t know how anyone can stand it.
“Certainly,” he says. He reaches out a hand and tweezes a bit of the rough fabric between his fingers. “This isn’t suitable for your delicate skin. Zalaryns are tougher.”
“I noticed,” I say. I don’t want to be a burden, don’t want to act like I’m demanding exquisite and fine things just because I’m some sort of princess now. Am I? Would these aliens confer rank and privilege like that to a lowly human?
“I’ll have some garments brought up tomorrow,” he says. “For now, why don’t you take it off?”
But he’s not asking. I flush all over, hot and instant. I feel my nipples stiffen under my robe, scraping against the rough woven fabric. Between my legs, my clit is pounding and I know it’s swelling with something that is part desire (remembering how good it felt when he touched me), part shame (the childish embarrassment of being naked in front of a savage stranger) and part… something else.
He’s your bonded mate, my stupid, sneaky irrational voice says. That’s the other part of the equation. It’s the chemicals or hormones or whatever. You’re responding to him.
I stutter, not sure how to respond. I don’t hav
e to. He reaches out and with a quick flutter of his fingers, he unlaces the intricate knot that fastens the robe closed. I instinctively clutch my hands to my chest as the robe slips from my shoulders.
“Stand up,” he says. “Hands down.”
I obey. My legs feel numb, my hands tremble slightly. But I obey. With a whoosh, the robe falls to a heap around my ankles.
“I love looking at you,” he says. “Especially that little pleasure-nub between your lips. I want to touch it and hear you make those wild noises again.”
I didn’t think it was possible, but I flush even hotter all over. My head is spinning, between my legs is a swollen, throbbing beacon broadcasting my wanton lust.
“Bathe,” he says. “I will not force myself on you. Though I desire you greatly, I have mastery over my urges.”
“Okay,” I say. I’m confused now. I had assumed he was going to claim my virginity, fully consummate our relationship. Or whatever this is.
“I will not take your purity until you beg me,” he says. He’s smiling, but I notice his chest is the darkest purple I’ve ever seen in nature. “I can control myself. But just wait and see. You will not be able to.”
He takes my hand and it’s like a static shock, the heat I feel radiating off of his skin. He leads me into the washroom and there is a large white tub. With the push of a button, hot water starts pouring into it. The tub is large enough for me to sit inside with the water up to my shoulders.
I could definitely get used to this.
The tub fills quickly and I step inside. The water goes up to my shoulders and I feel so much of my worry and stress melt away. In my village, in my drafty house, I have to heat up pot after pot of water just to fill a washtub where I can only fit if my knees are up underneath my chin.
He is watching me and I decide that I like it and I don’t care. All my life the kids my age in the village treated me like I had leprosy. My own parents emotionally disconnected when they got the results of my DNA test and knew I’d be going off-planet on my twentieth birthday.