by L. M. Moore
CHAPTER 3
LATER THAT EVENING Kye came back and we grabbed the dog and headed to her suite where dinner was waiting. She said she didn’t want to eat in the noisy main hall. But I could tell she didn’t want me distracted. She wanted me to think about charging another companion.
Dinner was pleasant but quiet and I was positive we were both thinking about the same thing.
I knew I had plenty of time, possibly years. But I already knew my answer. It was simply who I was. It was my nature, every part of my being encompassed serving and protecting others. I could no more change this fact than I could change the color of the sky. I had the opportunity to possibly save a dying race. It would be selfish and cruel not to try. And this time, there may not be any pain at all.
We had just finished dinner and I saw no reason to keep it to myself.
“I’ve made up my mind…”
Kye was picking up dishes from the table but put them back down slowly. I sensed a tension building in her.
“That was quick, you don’t want more time?”
I heard a slight tremor in her soft voice.
“I want to try and charge another hybrid.”
She dropped the fork in her hand back onto the table. I guess it wasn’t the answer she was expecting.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” She said.
“It’s not about want, but yes I want too. I just feel I have to. It wouldn’t be right if I didn’t.”
She flew across the room and jumped into my arms. Her eyes filled with tears as she hugged me tightly. I tried not to hug her too hard and stroked the back of her head.
“We will keep you safe. I promise. And you can change your mind at any time.”
“I know,” I said. I placed her back on the ground and gently wiped the tears from her face.
Kye then went to the com screen next to the door as I started to clear the table. She punched in four suite numbers and four faces populated on the tiny screen. It was our small group and one other Tanjennian that I didn’t know. I could hear them greeting her.
“He said he’d try,” she said.
I heard Danel say, “excellent!”
Aaron said, “fantastic.”
And someone else said, “this is great news.”
Then Collin spoke, “Timing must be perfect on this. When does he want to start? It takes 24 hours to reanimate them.”
Kye looked at me for an answer. I walked over to the com and bent down so everyone could see me.
“The sooner, the better,” I said.
“Okay, we’ll go down tomorrow morning to start the process. Everyone wear something warm. Tonight I’ll prep the clone room,” Collin said.
Everyone agreed and switched off their screens. Kye was beaming with excitement and I felt like I’d given all of them a new hope. I knew I made the right choice. She hugged me again and proceeded to clean the table.
“Who was the other Tanjennian?” I said.
“Kuyen, he’s an Elder like Danel. He came here the minute Danel told him that you charged my core. I heard he had a companion too once. He’s older than Danel and runs station 10, artillery. I’ve never actually met him until he arrived here. Up until now this station has been pretty much vacant.”
“But you know of him?”
“Yes, he’s Rigden’s boss. And Kuyen, Danel and Ben, were at one time very close. It was Rigden who brought the coverts from station ten when the Drid came.”
Drid. How did I know this name? I searched Ben’s memories and found it. The Drid were those horrible black creatures that attacked us. I pushed the thought back quickly as an icy shiver ran over me.
“They called them the Drid back on their home planet.”
“Yes, Danel told me about it,” she said.
“Did he tell you everything?”
She was finished doing dishes and sat down in her favorite Queen Anne chair.
“You mean about how the Tanjennians were their food. How the Drid travel from planet to planet consuming everything. And how they blew up their suns attempting to kill billions of the Drid. Yes, he did. He told Aaron and Jessica too. Collin already knew. When he woke up from merging with Alma, he knew everything. And his memories weren’t jumbled like yours. He had many questions for Danel. But not all of the children know, so please there’s no need to tell them. The Drid are all dead.”
“I have no intentions on stirring up the past. I’m just shocked he told you,” I said.
“Even Danel, can do the right thing, sometimes.” Then a smile rolled across her face at what she’d just said.
She then started peeling off her red suit piece by piece and headed to the bedroom. Of course, I followed.
CHAPTER 4
WHEN WE WOKE the next morning, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I didn’t even know if the other hybrids were human looking like Kye. I had on a thick sweater and jacket and was already sweating, but not in a human way. Kye was wearing jeans and a long sweater that was wavy in the sleeves. She looked fantastic as always.
After a quick bite we headed to the clone lab and our little group was already there and waiting. Jessica, Aaron and Danel were all wrapped in coats and jackets. My eyes were then drawn to the other person in the room. I turned to the side and almost gasped when I saw him. It was Ben. The same height, same eyes, same curve of lip on the left side. He walked toward me and held out his hand and I thought I was hallucinating but I didn’t care. I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed him tightly. I didn’t realize how much I missed him.
“I thought you were dead, are you a clone? It’s me. It’s Lewis. This is what happened when I absorbed you.”
He hugged me back and everyone in the room was staring at us. Kye put her hand over her mouth for a second. She seemed shocked at what I’d just done. She’d obviously forgotten to tell me something.
“It’s refreshing to see and feel the compassion you had for my brother. My name is Kuyen.”
He then let me go and my wall was immediately back up blocking my emotions. I was completely embarrassed. And I was baffled by my own feelings. I did miss Ben, even though he’d murdered almost all of the companions.
“They don’t look that similar, Kuyen is much younger than Ben,” Kye said.
She was right there was a difference, but it was slight. He didn’t radiate the same colors as Ben. His glowing circular veins were almost all white. Of course, I could only see them on his hands and neck because he was bundled up like the rest of us. But his face looked just like Ben’s and the eyes were the same too. But she failed to mention that they were brothers. I gave Aaron a, how the heck did you know, look and he only shrugged his shoulders at me.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s alright. I wish all of my introductions were that pleasant. Being the head of station ten, doesn’t make me a lot of friends. Some don’t believe weapons are necessary at all. Even after the Drid attacked your station,” he responded.
I stepped back a little still embarrassed and Kuyen let me link with him. He was not like Ben. He was strong emotionally. I felt no weakness inside of him or despair. He was very controlled. He could sense Ben inside of me and memories started to flash in my head.
Ben and Kuyen fought. They fought over the clones, the hybrids and weapons. It wasn’t really fighting. Tanjennians don’t do that. But from a Tanjennian perspective, it was like a bar fight. Kuyen was yelling, actually yelling and slamming his hand down on the table.
Quickly, the memories faded away and I realized that Kuyen wasn’t like the rest. And I wondered what flipped the switch in him emotionally. Besides Danel, he was the only Tanjennian that I heard yell. I knew it was just a memory but it was so real, it felt like he was yelling at me. I searched Ben’s memories a little more and I did find some good ones. Although, there was love, I sensed it was Kuyen that convinced his people to blow up the suns back on Tanjenna.
I pushed my wall back up and cut my emotional link with him trying to shake Ben’s memories
from my mind. I was getting much faster at this. It only took a second this time. I nodded at him and he nodded back.
“So you appreciate firearms?”
“Yes, everyone has the right to protect themselves,” I said.
“You should visit station ten sometime. You could see the weaponry we have. I think you’d be impressed. We’ve designed our weapons so that only our race can make them operational, you must be able to link with the equipment.”
This was an interesting thought; linking with weapons.
“I would like that, thank you,” I said.
“How do you link to something that doesn’t have a living core?” Aaron said.
“Who said the weapons weren’t alive?”
Of course, Aaron’s face beamed with delight.
“I would like to discuss this more later, if that’s possible?” Aaron said.
“I’m sure I can make time. And maybe you can share with me why Lewis survived the merge with Ben. I’m very interested.”
“Well, so far it’s a mutation in his DNA that we have yet to replicate or find another example of.”
This was startling. They were trying to replicate my mutation and no one had mentioned anything to me about it. I wasn’t sure what this meant, but in the long run, it suggested they intended to merge with humans. I didn’t know if I liked this idea. I gave Aaron a slight frown and he raised his eyebrows and gave me the, what did you expect, look.
“Gentlemen, the pleasantries are over. Can we please descend to the companions?” Danel said, holding his hands out in an impatient way.
Danel was bearable now, but still kind of a jerk and we were all lighting up the room because we were sweating so much.
Collin hit a button and the clear wall separating the clone lab from the cryo dome slid down as frigid air released into the room. I followed Kye as she walked out onto the platform beyond the glass and I tried not to look down into the abyss.
I’d seen part of it once, the day when Kye showed me the clones for the Elders, but I’d never been in it. It was beyond cold. It was almost freezing. I could see my breath and Kye’s.
“How long has it been since you’ve been down here?” Kye asked Danel.
“Two hundred and thirteen years,” Danel said.
The lift we were on was only large enough to fit a few people so everyone crammed in pretty close and I was pushed back to the edge of the rail. Now, I felt sick. There was only one rail about three feet high and everything else was exposed. I gripped it so tightly that I thought I would rip it off.
The lift ran down the side of the dome wall and when I looked down, there was nothing but blackness. I knew we were hundreds of feet high. I felt vertigo kicking in and unfortunately so did everyone else, except Aaron. The rest gripped the rail at the same time and the fear of the falling rippled over us all. Quickly, I pushed my wall up and Danel and Collin straighten themselves.
“I didn’t know you suffered from acrophobia. How did you clean the ventilation system two months ago?” Collin said.
“Well, I kind of laughed myself through it, like in a crazy way, plus, I had a harness.”
I took a deep breath and Kye grabbed my arm. It was a real bummer that being genetically altered didn’t fix my fear of heights. As the lift started to move down, the side of the dome lit up at each section we passed and it seemed that we passed over twenty sections.
The lift just seemed archaic for such an advanced species. But what it lacked in appearance it more than made up for in speed. We were moving down at an incredible rate. It was so fast and smooth that I couldn’t tell we were even moving except for the blue lights that flashed on every time we passed another level. Every couple levels the lift would slow a little, then glide along horizontally before we started moving down again. And my heart was pounding until we were twenty feet from the bottom.
The dome was massive. When we reached the bottom, a relief swept over me that we were on the ground but it was clear that something wasn’t right.
We walked off the platform and headed down a dim row of units mounted on the walls. Only twelve of the units were lit. Collin activated the side panel next to them and the thirteen dark oval cryo units blinked on for two seconds and then blinked off. Instantly, my stomach turned. The lights were on just long enough for everyone to see the remains of thirteen dead companions.
Collin and Danel both exhibited subtle hints of distress. Collin tapped the screen again and all thirteen units lit up and this time they stayed lit.
They looked almost mummified. Bodies with skin sunken to the bones, hallowed sockets for eyes, mouths gaping open. Some of them still had hair on their heads. Danel and Collin’s emotions seemed to saturate the air with disappointment.
I wondered if the containers were opened, if their remains would just turn to dust when the oxygen hit them. They were lifeless, with their heads hanging to one side or the other. I looked at Kye and a hint of sadness slid across her face as Collin examined the units.
I couldn’t shake the image. Their white cryo suits were hanging off their skeletal bodies. The suits were fastened inside to the back of each cryo unit suspending their limp remains.
“The units in this dome are on alternate circuits in case the ship was ever damaged in flight. These thirteen were on the same one,” he said, tapping on the screen. “Looks like one of the dishes topside malfunctioned.”
“You never checked on them?” I said.
“We couldn’t expose them. It was hard enough just to keep the emotions to ourselves,” Danel said.
Danel seemed irritated by my question as if the answer should’ve been obvious.
“But it was only Ben that you had to hide them from. Surely someone could’ve monitored them,” I said.
Danel then turned and looked at me shaking his head, “true Tanjennians do not need to be physically close in order to feel each other’s emotions.”
This was, of course, directed entirely at me, the untrue Tanjennian. I tried to ignore him then I felt Kuyen’s surprise and gratitude when he saw the last cryo unit at the end of the row was still functioning. It affected him greatly and the others seem to take notice also. He walked up to it and immediately masked his emotions. It had me thinking that maybe it was his companion. I caught no emotional hints from Danel who was studying Kuyen. I looked to Kye and she shrugged her shoulders.
The view of the other units disturbed me. They only live for 3 days without a charge. For three days, they waited for someone to come and get them and no one did. From what Kye told me, being unable to charge is agony. If a hybrid’s core isn’t charged it starts to consume them. It wasn’t just sore muscles and shortness of breath. It included blurred vision, incoherent thoughts, severe migraines and the inability to use their digestive systems. She’d experienced it when Danel was too weak to charge her on multiple occasions. She described it as having every ounce of liquid slowly being sucked out of her body.
“Computer, start the reanimation process for the functioning units on this level,” Collin said.
Each one started lifting off the ground, still attached to the side of the dome and slowly moved up toward what use to be the clone room. This happened again and again and we all stared at them as they rose as if ascending to the heavens.
“Twelve is better than none,” Kuyen said.
Everyone looked a little disappointed except for Kuyen he was reserved now. And I was worried, because they just activated all twelve and I only promised to try with one. Collin had sent all of the units up and I couldn’t tell if it was from eagerness or confidence. Or maybe he just didn’t want to come back down here, a sentiment I shared.
Not much else was said. We climbed back into the lift and everyone heard me sigh because I knew I would start to feel sick again once we reached around twenty feet in the air. Kye moved over to me and her hands were glowing.
“Let me interrupt it until we reach the top,” she said.
I’d almost forgotten she could stop my brain
from firing all those messages, possibly even the ones that made me sick.
“Please do,” I said.
I saw nothing but the orange light all the way up and I felt no sickness or fear, but I still white knuckled the rail the whole way. Out of habit, I guess.
By the time we were at the clone lab it was filled with the functioning units and a robotic arm, a very alien looking arm was attaching them to tubes filled with an orange liquid as they hovered in the center of the room.
“How many will be revived at the same time?” I had to ask. I wasn’t going to spend all night guessing.
“I’ll make sure that they are revived in two week intervals that way we don’t put too much stress on your body. Putting them in stasis was the only way to stop their emotions, to truly keep them hidden,” Collin said.
I stared at all the units that surrounded us and wondered if I could really charge all of their cores. It seemed impossible. I rubbed my forehead realizing what I’d gotten myself into, but I didn’t entertain the consequences, I was well aware of them. I looked at Aaron wide eyed and he seemed to acknowledge my fears. I didn’t know if this would work. I would try but I couldn’t promise anything. And I was really hoping that they were right; that Kye could reach inside of my body and pull the hybrid out of me if anything went wrong.