by Nadia Hutton
Thegn appreciated Elias’ attempt at the pronunciation and explained, “We serve the Goddess as does your species here called bees. I read about them before I came. They have a queen and drones who serve. I serve the Goddess as a drone serves his queen.”
Elias frowned. “The drones impregnate the queen and die.”
“It is not perfect, but there is truth in that. I will mate with the Septun, the living Goddess. Then I must be killed. The child of the Goddess can only have one parent. I serve other functions and tasks, but that is my final task.”
“Is that how all ghelu die?”
“It is how we are meant to die. My Septun let me come here knowing I most likely would not come back. My people are to give another to her in appeasement.”
“Your people are different from her?”
Thegn paused and then realized there was no harm in telling them, “There are three other species you have not yet seen that are part of the Council that sent me here. The Septun are always Elchai, the faith originated with them. When my people met theirs, there were converts. The Mokai, my people, give males, as do the other two, to match the Elchai males. It has been the way for two standard centuries. I am always Mokai, but I am one of the ghelu first. I always will be.”
“And they can all … they’re all compatible?” Elias asked.
Thegn realized he did not know enough of the language or the science to really explain the answer and simply lied, “Mostly.”
Elias nodded, taking a bite from his fruit. He offered a slice to Thegn, but he politely refused. He could smell the acid in it and he was not sure if his two stomachs would be able to process it without growing ill or it fermenting.
“So you were sent here to study us?” Elias asked.
“I was sent to document and preserve,” Thegn explained. “The Council has had … concerns about how the Mokai have handled your people. They wish to preserve what is left.”
Elias smiled darkly. “Without actually doing anything to help. To send a priest to write down what was left of the great culture they can mourn after the war. No, perhaps we are not so different after all.”
Thegn asked for clarification, but Elias gave none.
Thegn continued, “They threatened intervention if what I brought back showed abuse of your kind, but it is appeasement. All knew.”
“So why you?”
“I was Mokai. I would not frighten you as another Council species might. I am ghelu, my allegiance is to the Goddess, not my birth race. There were only five of us who fit that description. I was the furthest from my final service and the best at learning languages. I was simply the best candidate.”
Elias said, “I don’t believe you.”
“All those facts were true.”
“Why did you want to come here? Not why they sent you. Why did you want to be here?”
Thegn admitted, “I saw a video capture. They said you were not sentient and that you ran on instinct. That you were animals. But I saw a Toola female rescue an older woman. She bared her teeth, but it was to frighten the guard, to give them more time. When I saw it, I thought of my own people. Many years before I was born, my people were invaded by the Elchai. I willingly chose the Goddess. Many of my people did not. Sometimes … sometimes people forget. We lost much of our culture, our way of life. Many died. I did not want another species to go through the same.”
“Even if it turned out we weren’t sentient?” Elias asked darkly.
“Would we be having this conversation if you weren’t?”
“You’re hypocrites,” Elias said, running his hand through his hair, “which should not surprise me. But why here? What do they want from us?”
“They want nothing from you. They want your land, your resources. There are things here you don’t even know how to mine or process. They are things their people need. There are new substances they could not even have dreamed of. Your people are simply in the way. You are an interest, a diversion, but you are not the reason they came here. Your people have an amazing genetic diversity, their scientists wish to study it, and there are collectors who are interested in you.”
“You keep saying ‘they’ and ‘their’. Do you not feel any responsibility? Not one little piece of guilt? Aren’t you one of them? Or is this an act so you can live with yourself?”
“Yes.”
Elias paused, “Yes to what?”
“Yes to all,” Thegn admitted.
Elias sighed, picking up the plate, “Thank you for everything you have told me.”
Thegn said, “Wait. Elias. Thank you. For the meal.”
Elias left the room, locking the door behind him.
*
By his reckoning, no other Toola spoke to him for three standard days. Each day he prayed that Maria would come back to him. Each night he dreamt of the Mokari singing to him from the deep waters. On the third night, he asked them to give him more time; he was not an old man yet. He felt he was betraying the Goddess by interacting with them, but it gave him an odd sense of peace. He was not forgotten. Not even here.
Chapter Eighteen
On the fourth day, Maria returned to him. She was dressed as the others and approached him apprehensively. Her affection toward him felt diminished. He felt she saw him as a monster now that the others could offer her more than he had.
After his discussion with Elias, he felt that she might not be wrong.
This time, she had brought a soft piece of cloth, a bar of something she called soap, and a bowl of water. She indicated that this was meant for washing. It occurred to him that after days of captivity, his body was beginning to smell unpleasant. For a moment he thought he should ask to be freed, to call on his prior kindness to her.
Yet as he reached out for the supplies and she flinched back, he decided not to push this connection. He would rather she come back to his side of her own accord. She once felt safe with him. Perhaps he could earn that trust again.
Instead he asked quietly for something to read. When she looked at him in surprise, he explained that he merely wished to learn more of the written French word. He could see her think through her decision. Elias must have told them about their conversation, as Thegn had assumed he would. Without a word of acknowledgment, Maria nodded, leaving the room and locking the door behind her. Thegn sniffed the soap. It consisted of animal fat, but nothing toxic to his skin. It would be good to feel clean again.
*
It was only a few hours later when the door was opened again. Elias was before him, offering a hand to help him off the floor. Thegn did not need the assistance, but took it as a sign of trust.
Elias brought Thegn back to the artificial garden, and he sat down in the grass again. Once he was settled, he saw the male and female Toolas from before enter the room. They must be group leaders, but of how many, Thegn did not know.
The two of them argued again, the male leaving the room, throwing his hands up in the air while the female Toola ignored him.
She kneeled down in front of Thegn, her eyes fixed on him as she began to speak to him in choppy French.
“You’re going to need to learn English,” she said, not showing any sign of fear. “Maria will give you whatever materials you need. Mandarin will be good for you to know as well. Elias will have to coach you on that, but we have very little written material in it. In return, you will work with us and give whatever information you can on your people to use to our advantage. I don’t want to hurt you, but I want my people to be able to survive. Is that understood?”
Thegn nodded as best as he could as the female stared at him.
“Another thing,” the female continued, “We are not Toolas. We are humans. People. I don’t care what you call us, just don’t use their word for us.”
“You would prefer ‘human’?” Thegn asked.
The female nodded.
�
�You are the leader among them,” Thegn stated.
The female responded, “As much as anyone is, I guess.”
“What should I call you?”
“Lena,” she replied, stretching out her hand. Thegn remembered this gesture and took her hand, shaking it cautiously as to not hurt her. He saw her flinch as she felt his skin, but to her credit, her gaze did not leave his face.
Thegn practiced her name out loud. He was still having trouble with some of the vowels in the two languages. There were fewer breathy sounds in his language. She seemed pleased when he managed it and rose to her feet.
“You may not leave the compound, but you may explore it with a translator. Doctors Beverly-Anderson and Boulos will be conducting other tests on you, but nothing evasive. The better we understand your kind’s anatomy, the better…”
Lena let the sentence trail off, but the meaning was still clear.
As Thegn was brought back to his room, a brief thought passed through him that he might be a traitor. He knew there was nothing he could do except to try to learn as much as he could. That was his mission and he had found himself in an opportune spot. Yet he felt that he might be orchestrating more death if he helped them, and that was against his vow to the Septun, to the Council.
Within the hour, Maria came to his room with a bundle of reading material, volumes of paper, and a few datapads in her arms. As she handed them to him, she rested her hand on his. He looked up at her in hope and she replied quietly, “Your skin is too smooth. They think it feels like silicone, like plastic. It makes you feel unreal to them. That is why they flinched.”
“And you?” He asked quietly.
“I have had time to adjust.”
Their eyes met and Thegn could not speak as she left the room, closing the door behind her.
*
Thegn was allowed into the common space of the compound the next day. He understood vaguely as the two doctors pointed at various parts of his body, explaining functions as best they could with a bit of help from Maria. The humans watched him with a mixture of expressions. A small child near his feet seemed genuinely interested in the webbing between his fingers.
The child crawled up to touch Thegn’s hands and an adult reached out to pull him away. Thegn indicated it was acceptable and the child was allowed to come closer, its tiny finger investigating the long fingers and triple joints. It turned to ask the adult a question and the others in the room laughed slightly.
Another adult came closer, touching Thegn’s hands as he held them out. Others came, examining his body more closely. He felt slightly uncomfortable, but he wanted them to understand him, not to fear him. Now that they knew he carried no disease that would hurt them, there was no reason to be afraid any longer.
He looked up as he saw Lena kneel in front of him, her hand reaching out and exploring his fingers. He felt his skin pale and saw her skin redden and flush as their eyes met once again. He studied her face, a strange sensation moving through his blood. When she caught herself and pulled back, the others followed the unspoken signal, backing away from Thegn.
Thegn was brought back to his room by Elias, who gave him what the humans called a smirk. When Thegn inquired to the meaning of the expression, Elias merely said that he was amused. Thegn pondered this between his studies.
*
Two days later, Thegn was allowed to work on his language skills out in the common area. Between Maria and Elias, his French and English were improving greatly. They let him do quiet work by himself, having brought in a cushion for him to sit on the floor comfortably.
Occasionally, he would ask for clarification and they would answer in return for an answer to one of their questions. Since most of this was based purely on curiosity, he was more than happy to oblige.
“What does this dash in between the words mean?”
“It’s called a comma. It means you need to make a space between the words, take a breath so you don’t say them all at once,” Elias explained. “How old are you?”
Thegn pondered this for a moment, “In standard years, I am 40 years old. In your years, 24 or 25. Approximately. Calculations have never been easy for me.”
“How long does your kind live?” Elias asked.
“In standard years, 150 or so. It depends on the Mokai. 90 or so in your years.”
“Very similar to us then,” Elias commented, surprised.
“Of all the species we have encountered,” Thegn replied, “I believe humans are the most similar to us. Esthetically as well as functionally. Perhaps we had a common ancestor. Perhaps our planets are similar enough. I do not know. I am not a scientist.”
The male human leader walked in and said, “That’s too bad. Now that would have made a worthwhile prisoner. I said it myself when we captured you. We finally caught one of the bastards and he had to be a priest.”
Thegn paled slightly as Elias spoke softly, “Sometimes those are the most dangerous of all, Kozol.”
Kozol laughed darkly and Thegn tried to meet his eyes as an act of submission. He glared in return and said quietly, “I don’t care how much you play along. You’ve been here less than a week. Your kind has been killing us off for over two years. I don’t care if you’re the messiah, if you hurt one of my crew, I will kill you myself and leave your corpse for the bastards to find. Is that understood?”
Thegn nodded as Kozol left the room.
Thegn turned to them to ask what two of the words had meant, but both shook their heads in quiet response.
Elias patted him on the shoulder, “I think our lesson is over for the day. You should go back to your room. I’ll leave you some reading materials.”
For the first time, Thegn really felt like a prisoner.
Chapter Nineteen
Thegn was woken roughly, dragged from his room by two others he had not seen before. He tried to protest, but was slapped across his face. He protested no further.
He was thrown into the medical bay. He had been here only once in the past few days, for a rather invasive test they were not able to complete in his room. His cell.
He saw Kozol looming over a human wrapped in thermal blankets and breathing shallowly. Kozol looked up at Thegn, the two doctors standing beside him.
“What did your people do to her?” Kozol demanded.
“I’m not a doctor,” Thegn protested.
“We need your help,” Dr. Beverley-Anderson insisted, “I’ve never seen this sort of injury before. She may die if we don’t figure out how to treat it soon. Please, do what you can.”
Thegn nodded and stepped forth, pulling back the thermal blankets while weapons were pointed at his head. He took a deep breath and looked down at the injured human.
It was Lena, shivering, and bleeding from her side. She looked up at Thegn with bloodshot eyes and his ghele softened, beating slower in a response of sympathy. He kneeled down to get a better look, sniffing the wound for traces of poison. He saw them then, the fragments of the metal embedded in her skin. He sniffed them to confirm his suspicions.
He came back to his feet, struggling to explain what the substance was. It was not local to Toola, a metal that was not even local to his home world. It broke apart when it hit biological material, slowly burning its way into flesh, seeking heat. It would make its way to a heartbeat, eventually stopping it.
As Thegn struggled to explain this, the doctors looked at each other in confusion. He could not understand all that they spoke back and forth to each other. Kozol spoke to another male hurriedly, no doubt about the material itself.
Janiya asked, “How do we stop it?”
Thegn paused. He did not know. He looked down at Lena again, her bloodshot eyes meeting his. She was a stranger to him, yet he felt a sense of responsibility. She had given him a chance. He wanted to return the favor.
“My body can expel it, take the toxicity and expel it
as a harmless material. You can study it then, find a way to prevent this from happening in the future,” Thegn said finally. “We need to transfer it to me. You must have noticed if you try to remove the pieces with any tools, it simply buries further in. You need someone with a stronger heartbeat. Let it pass into me. I have two organs that process blood. I can survive if it stops my heart. My body will process it through my ghele and you can repair the damage in hers.”
“What if it kills you?” Kozol asked.
Thegn looked up at him with a smile, copying the priest’s smirk, “I think you would rather have her alive than I. What have you to lose?”
Thegn looked at the two doctors, raising his hand, “I’ll need an open wound. If one of you can slice open this vein, it will be enough to take the metal. She might have a slight reaction to my blood, but it will be not enough to hurt her further. She may have a … rash. The red marks on your bodies? Yes, a rash. If one of you would, of course.”
Janiya stepped forth, taking his hand carefully in her own. She brought out a scalpel and drew it across the vein in his palm. The pain shot through him and he thanked her for her assistance.
He kneeled down again, holding his bleeding hand together until he could line up his vein with Lena’s wound. He waited, feeling the metal embedding in his own skin. He tried to raise the beat of his own heart and ghele, tried to make them as attractive to the metal as possible. Her eyes met his as the first piece made his way under his skin. He winced and she breathed a slight sigh of relief.
“There’s four,” she whispered. “I can feel the other three still.”
He nodded, “Try to slow your heartbeat down. Relax and be calm. Slow your breathing. I will stay as long as it takes.”
Lena blinked, her eyes beginning to whiten again, slowly. She breathed slowly and deeply, Thegn losing himself in the sound as the second piece of metal entered his body. He let out a slight groan of pain, feeling the first move to his bloodstream. He felt his body cooling, a chill going through his very bones.