“How? Tell me!”
“I’m not sure. I’ve never participated in the king’s experimentation with aliens, nor do I ever wish to. I am only familiar with the initial examinations.”
I slowly dropped onto my right hip and lay with my hands pillowing my head. I drew in each knee until they were parallel with my belly button. The cold stone floor brought a bone-deep shiver through my body, and I blinked several times to stop my tears.
“So much I wanted to do,” I said softly. “And now I’ll never… What does it matter anyway?”
“It matters to me,” said Garran. He mimicked my position, shifting gracefully until he was horizontal and across from me. “Please tell me.”
Why tell him and torture my already heavy heart? But there was sympathy in his words, and as I peered through the fuzzy screen at someone more foreign to me than anyone on Earth, the urge to tell him bubbled through my body.
“To buy Rock n’ Robusta. Judith, she’s the owner, plans to sell it in five years. By then I’d have my degree and enough money saved up to buy it. Then a few years after that, I’d open up two more locations.”
“An entrepe… I, I don’t remember the word.”
“Entrepreneur. But not quite. I’d be just a business owner.”
“Just? Managing a business requires an intense work ethic, the ability to solve problems, and manage a staff. It is a position of authority, one to be respected.”
“I wish my mother could have seen it that way.” I laughed. “She wanted me to become a doctor. Her brother, my uncle, is a doctor. I had the grades for it. I was accepted to John Hopkins—that’s a university with an excellent pre-med program—but in the end, I opted for San Diego State and majored in Business Administration.”
“And your mother did not approve.”
“Yeah. When I enrolled at State, she pretty much flipped out, and I tried to calm her down by pointing out that the tuition at state was more doable for her and for me, and I’d also be able to afford my own apartment.”
“She should understand that you are capable of making your own success and in the career of your own choosing.” I closed my eyes and imagined Garran squeezing my hand with those words.
“I know, but she did have a point. Fifty percent of all businesses fail in the first year. She was just watching out for me. Up until my sophomore year in high school, all I talked about was being a doctor one day, so she was shocked when I changed my mind.”
“What happened during your sophomore year?”
“Fetal pig dissection.” The sick smell of formaldehyde filled my nostrils as I recounted how each preemie pig’s rubbery tongue extended several millimeters from the pig’s mouths, and how Jimmy Bradley, my lab partner, cut off the tip and tossed it at me. “I almost puked and had to sit in the hall of the science building for the rest of the period. In fact, I had to sit in the hall for the rest of the week until the last day of dissection. After that, I knew I could never make it through med school.”
“I understand,” said Garran, and he chuckled. It was an odd chuckle, human-like but infused with a click when his lips met, but it was sort of cool. “I avoided intergalactic biology for the same reason. One of the course requirements includes the live dissection of a…” He rolled onto his back. “There is no English translation for the name, but it is a small, thick-shelled, four-legged creature. When in pain, its labored, high-pitch screech forces one to wear protective ear caps.” He turned back to face me. “I could not perform such a task, much to my father’s disappointment.”
He moved his arm, letting it slip from his side to the floor in front of him, and as he did so, I caught the crisp outline of his body, his wide shoulders and narrow waist.
“Does he also want you to become a doctor?”
“No, a scientist, a researcher, and eventually…” He sighed. “Like your mother, he believes his chosen path for me will lead to optimal happiness and achievement. I’ve avoided following his course, but my destiny is set. My choices are limited, and I cannot go against my father’s wishes. If I could change the manner in which he conducts his practices, it would be different. That’s something I want to do, but…”
“Is this true for everyone? Are careers pre-selected by parents?”
“No, but things are different for me. My family is…” He lifted up onto his forearm. “My family holds important positions, positions that are filled by the next generation.”
“Like a family business?”
“Yes.” He lowered his upper body back to the floor.
“So, if not a scientist or researcher, what do you want to do?”
“I want to be a pilot.”
“And fly a ship like the one that brought me here?” The bit of hope Garran gave me doubled.
“Yes, and others, the entire royal fleet of flyers.”
“Royal fleet? You mean flyers for the king?” I rose up onto my elbow. Maybe he had more influence upon the monarchy than he’d led me to believe? “Can you fly one now? Take me home?” Tears rose on my lashes and dripped to my cheeks. “Please.”
“I cannot. I do not have the code that will override a shell scan.” He sat up. “I wish I could.” He abruptly stood and brushed off his body with his hands. “But I have no means to do so.” He shook his head. “My time with you has expired. I need to go.”
I jumped to my feet and faced him through the sludge of wall. “So this is it? The end? The next time I’m taken from my cell, I’ll be…”
But I couldn’t say the last word and only uttered, “I’m a prisoner on death row.”
And I was being punished. For what? For being a human, and that was all? Maybe I’d die before then. I could continue starving myself, and then like a fetal pig, my body would be opened and explored by curious and cruel beings.
Garran remained silent. I dropped back to the floor and rolled onto my stomach. With my face against my hands, I cried, not caring how each sob became louder than the next and that each time I caught my breath, my body heaved and buckled against the cold stone.
After several minutes, I took in a long, controlled draw of air. My crying subsided, and my body relaxed limply against the floor. My hair wet and sticky with warm tears, I turned my head toward the cloudy wall.
Garran was gone.
Chapter Ten
Garran
“If only the code into the lab would also open her cell. I need to find a way to get inside,” I said the next morning as Lestra and I studied the lab’s updated files on the monitor in my quarters.
“Why? You talked to the thing. Isn’t that enough?”
“No, I want to see her before… I’m not sure how many days she has left.” I ached to see her, to comfort her, to touch her, which brought pleasant but strange feelings I felt not only in my heart but in my body, something that made my lower plate tingle. But I wasn’t ready to share that with Lestra. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with her reaction.
“Well, that’s not going to happen. You know that would take a shell scan. I helped you get into the lab, and I distracted my brother for you each time, but I can’t be a part of helping you enter its cell. If I get caught, I’ll be reassigned to a palace substation.”
“I’ll order you to help me. Then if we get caught, you won’t get in trouble.”
Lestra’s lower jaw plate dropped, but she didn’t say anything. Like mine, Lestra’s shell was ecru, but in the light of my room, my exposed shell slightly yellowed and shimmered naturally, a royal trait, while Lestra’s appeared dull and ashen.
Like I said before, she was a pretty girl, though. Her eye sockets were large, and the plates around her mouth naturally curved upward at its corners, giving her a sexy smile even if she didn’t mean to. Her face was slightly contoured, her nose a minimal projection with small nostrils, and the shell surrounding the well of her ears expanded delicately and deeply into her ear canals, another desirable characteristic. She’d certainly make an attractive wife for another high-ranking servant.
> “If we get caught? Don’t you mean when we get caught? We’re lucky we didn’t get caught last night. I can only keep my brother away from the monitors for so long. I was afraid he was beginning to suspect something.”
“Yeah, too bad Remlin wasn’t assigned to her cellblock instead. He’s as dumb as shell.”
Lestra’s lip plates buckled. Being related by blood or marriage to our primary staff, Remlin was either one of Lestra’s cousins or another one of her brothers.
“I don’t want any of my family members involved in this, especially Slaine.”
“We won’t get your brother in trouble. Don’t forget the authority I have,” I said, giving her upper arm plate a squeeze with my cupped hand. Not that I had a lot of authority at this point in my life.
She yanked her arm away and pointed to the screen. “That’s odd. Three pithes of human blood were added to the laboratory’s blood-housing unit two days ago, and another three were added this morning.”
“Not odd, she was taken and examined twice.”
“But now there are twenty-seven pithes of human blood in storage.”
I opened my eyes and mouth so wide I thought I would be the next dumb-ass Enestian to crack my shell and get rushed to one of the two in-lab emergency rooms at the palace.
My insides knotted as I imagined America’s frail body, a clump of shadow through the wall. Six pithes within only a few days’ time was a lot of blood, but twenty-seven? “I don’t think a human could survive that amount of blood loss.” I was shaking so hard my shell plates clacked. I didn’t want her to suffer. I needed to be with her, see her, hold her.
“Humans are feeble and vulnerable. They probably bleed all the time, and it doesn’t affect them.”
“I don’t think so. Unintentional bleeding isn’t mentioned in their writings,” I announced, gripping my stomach. “That means America isn’t the first human abducted by my father. Why did he take her? Why did he need another one? I want to help her. I don’t want her to die like the others.”
“Help her?” asked Lestra, closing the file. “That would require breaking every security protocol and defying your father. Talking to it has to be enough. You can’t do anything more for it.”
She was right. I crossed my arms, clacking my shell hard.
“And you shouldn’t care if that thing dies anyway. It’s an inferior being. It’s disgusting,” she continued.
“But I do care, now that I’ve communicated with her.”
“I shouldn’t have told you about the human,” she scoffed.
“Then why did you?”
“I don’t know.”
She didn’t need to give me an answer. I knew exactly why she told me. She was hoping to become my personal adjutant when I saw the turn of my twenty-third year. Though part of the servant class, royal adjutants were among the most highly regarded and respected citizens in the entire galaxy.
A royal’s personal adjutant shared the same meals as his or her royal, were given comparable living quarters, and ruled his or her own set of loyal subjects—a team of lesser servants.
For Lestra, stretching her role of palace maid into a semi-friendship with me brought her closer to this appointment. She’d never say “no” to me even if she wasn’t under my direct orders, and on top of that, I could trust her. She was a Timuary, after all. It wasn’t just tradition; it was in her blood to be my confidant. And because of that, I also didn’t have to worry about her telling my father or anyone else that I’d compromised lab security and visited the human.
“I want to actually see her, not her gray figure. I’m going to find a way to get into her cell no matter what.”
Maybe once I saw her I would understand why I felt more attraction to her than Lestra, who powdered her shell for me. Why my plates tightened when I imagined holding her. Why her impending death affected me more than it should. We shared an interest in music and films, something I didn’t have with anyone else on this planet.
Or maybe it was merely because she was so different. None of the girls in my class interested me. They were more concerned about their shell makeup and fashion than they were about getting an advanced degree. America wanted to graduate, save her credits, and own a business. I respected that. She wanted to make something of her life just like I wanted to be king to change how we established our dominance over the Millennius.
I tossed my virtual generator to the floor, commanded it to display a replica of the palace, and enlarged it until the research lab engulfed the center of my room. “I need to avoid the shell scan. There has to be an override code.”
Lestra tapped her jaw shell and tilted her head. “If there is, I don’t know how to get it. I’m not supposed to know about her, either. My brother would never open her cell in front of me, so it’s not like I could copy another code onto my shell, and—”
“And I would never ask you to do that. I would have never allowed you to do that the first time.”
“Well, I can’t just ask my brother for it, so you’re just going to have to be satisfied with talking to it before it dies and not actually seeing it.”
Why all the secrecy when it came to this girl human? Why were humans different from his other intergalactic specimens? But I couldn’t ask my father for unbridled access into the lab and its cellblocks without a good reason. The last time I demanded entrance into the lab he had told me, “Young princes are not privy to all palace matters, especially those involving our facility’s private research endeavors.”
He still resented the fact that my chosen course of study did not involve domestic and intergalactic research—his passion, or should I say, obsession. My father, a quizzical man with a sardonic mind and a hard heart, could sever the limbs from a conscious Sallentarian without as much as producing a watery eye or grimace.
As the future king, I thought my father would be pleased when my choice of advanced curriculum involved galactic politics, combat strategies, and alien languages, but “a king,” my father once told me, “only needs a thorough understanding of his enemy’s minds and bodies, inside and out, to remain the most powerful ruler in the Millennius, my young prince.”
Young prince? Damn him! Why did he always insist on calling me that? My shell plates were hard and fused, indicating I was well beyond puberty and ready to take my fated position as a royal ambassador to Enestia. It was time for all palace matters to become what mattered to me, especially this one.
I couldn’t turn to the queen for her support and influence on my father. As with tradition, their marriage had also been arranged. It was obvious they’d never fallen in love, but like a dutiful queen, she gave him two heirs despite the fact that my father’s outward affection for her only went as far as a pat on the shoulder—and even that was rare.
She purposely distanced herself from all palace affairs, including my father, to the extent of taking one long galactic vacation after another. Currently she was on Verla Three, enjoying their low-thermic atmosphere, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if her enjoyment also included another man’s company.
Murelle wished she was vacationing on Verla, too, but I didn’t. Verlians were friendly, passive beings—too passive for me. I was always in the mood for a little conflict, and I certainly didn’t want to lie around all day on the lake shore under the harsh Verla sun. That was paradise to my mom and Murelle, but to me it was a solid bout of boredom.
The only thing I was missing out on was checking out all the Verlian girls. It’s a well-known fact that Verla is home to some of the hottest females in the galaxy with their naturally-glistening shell plates and eyes like purple flux.
But I couldn’t think about Verlian girls right now, not when there was an Earth girl suffering in cell fifteen, weak from blood loss and a lack of food.
“Hey,” said Lestra, turning her attention back to the human’s files. “Her file was just updated. Another meal was delivered to its cell.”
Finally they brought her more food.
“It is now schedu
led to get three meals a day,” she said after a few taps to the simulated screen.
“Breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” I said in English and under my breath. Meals were scheduled? That meant they planned to keep her around longer than I suspected.
“And there is something else.” Lestra sucked in a deep breath. “Her final examination has been arranged. It’s in fifteen days.”
Fifteen days? That was a long time. My father never kept specimens in the lab for that length of time.
Fifteen days… King Seiljan from Terinow— He was going to be visiting our planet in just over two week’s time. Now it made sense.
My father was saving America for Seiljan’s arrival, so Seiljan could watch—a private demonstration of my father’s power and what he was capable of if anyone in the Millennius ever challenged him. My father was a sick man.
Chapter Eleven
America
“America,” came a voice from the other side of the watery curtain.
“Yes?” I said.
“Are you okay?” My heart smiled at the sound of his voice. I wanted to rush into his arms, have him hold me. And more. I wanted more.
Garran’s blurry figure lowered to the floor in the same spot where he had sat the day before.
I eased down across from him, and the bruise on my hip exploded with pain as I met the cold floor, reminding me that his people were responsible for my fate. “No! I’m not okay,” I snapped, angry that he’d let this happen. “My hip still hurts from whatever they did to me.”
“Bone marrow extraction,” he said.
My bottom lip trembled, and I drew it into my mouth while sucking in a deep breath to stop my tears. How could I allow myself to feel anything for him when he let them hurt me? Because I believed he was as powerless to intervene as I was to get out of here.
“Standard procedure for all specimens. I would have stopped them if I had the authority.”
“That’s what I am,” I said weakly. “A specimen.”
“Yes, to all Enestians except for me.” He tilted his head, and I yearned to see him. To see if the sincerity in his voice was mirrored in his face.
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