The Druid Gene

by Jennifer Foehner Wells

  Darcy extinguished her light.

  The slit of Hain’s mouth pulled down into an angry gash. Jerkily, she turned and tapped the screen with her tablet again.

  The display shifted. Now it said things like Female Drudii Subject and Preliminary Bioelectric Assessment, with a rendering of the electrode dots Hain had placed on her in three dimensions, sketching a rough outline of Darcy’s body. Next to each electrode was a numerical value.

  “What unit of measurement is this?” Darcy asked.

  “Let’s continue,” Hain enunciated slowly.

  Darcy turned to face her with an expectant expression.

  Raub interjected, his voice sounding like a warning, “It will be meaningless to you, Leebska.”

  That was probably true. She didn’t care. She kept staring at Hain.

  Hain’s gash of a mouth was turned down on one side. “They’re cipa units. Do I really need to teach you a lesson in basic electronics just now?”

  Darcy turned back to the screen and let the light flare in her chest, watching as the numbers skyrocketed and colors bloomed across the display. Her body warmed. She focused and pushed the light outward slowly, down her arms. She could control it inch by inch, if she wanted.

  She lifted her arms away from her body so that she wouldn’t create static arcs that could disorient her. Her fingers tingled as the energy flared inside them.

  Hain watched, mouth opening again, revealing what looked like a yellow flower. “Astonishing. I had no idea.” She seemed to come to herself. “This is so very rare. I must document all of this. Is this your maximum potential?”

  Darcy came to a decision. “No, I can do more.”

  Hain tapped on her tablet furiously. “Go ahead.”

  Darcy brought her energy back down to an ember. Based on their reactions, it was clear that both Hain and Raub lusted to know more about the extent of her abilities. That gave her a small amount of leverage and she was going to use it. “Not until you bring Adam Benally here, so that I can see him. I need to know that he’s okay.”

  Hain’s gaze flashed at Raub. His jaw clenched. His eyes were hard and angry, but he didn’t speak.

  Darcy felt tense. She glanced from Hain to Raub and back again. There was some unspoken conversation going on there.

  Hain put some distance between herself and Darcy, but her body language was suddenly more relaxed. She glided across the floor, her fingers dragging languidly over the workbench. “This Adam Benally was the male we found you with on your homeworld?”

  Darcy didn’t like the sudden shift in Hain’s mood, and it wasn’t lost on her that Hain had just put a very large object between them. Fear stabbed at her heart. “Yes.”

  “He was your mate?” Hain blinked slowly and folded her willowy arms like she was speaking to a small child.

  Darcy’s mouth went dry. Her eyes blurred. There was a roaring in her ears. “Was?” Energy swept through her. She burned.

  Faintly, she heard Raub command, “Control yourself, Leebska, before I do it for you.”

  “Stay back!” she warned him. To Hain, she said, “What did you do to him?”

  Hain tilted her head to one side. “I sold him, Darcy. Many, many standard solar days ago.”

  21

  “Did she give you any trouble?” Hain asked, her expression innocent.

  “You pushed the girl too hard.” Raub slammed his fist into the bench top. It cracked with a satisfying splinter.

  She flinched.

  He pulled back his fist, flexing it. He’d just come back from escorting Darcy to their quarters, where he’d taken the precaution of locking her in her sleeping cell, just in case she got any crazy ideas now that Hain had let slip what she was capable of. He didn’t dare leave her alone for long. She’d gone strangely silent and those disquieting, watery “tiersz” were dripping out of her eyes again.

  Shedding light on her abilities had been the plan—to empower her, ready her for what was ahead, allow her time to think, to experiment, to become resourceful while still relying on him, for now, anyway. The recent conversation had accomplished the polar opposite.

  Hain raised her chin and stared him down. “You miscalculated her attachment to the male.”

  She was getting too independent. It was time to remind her of what was at stake. “I miscalculated? You would do well to remember our contract, Hain. Do not forget that I own you. I know the location of your homeworld. If you do not value your own life, value the life of the Mother. Think of the money I could make on all that furniture, harvested from all that lovely, sentient wood.”

  Hain did not answer. She stared at him blankly, then turned back to her samples, though she did not work. The stink of ozone offended his nose. He’d gotten through to her.

  He continued. “She agreed his destiny was separate from hers. There was no need to create this little drama, Hain. Do not second-guess me. From here on, you will stick to the script.”

  Hain fluttered her fingers to dismiss what he’d said. “Apparently she lied to appease you. What was I to do? I couldn’t produce the male.”

  He glowered at her. “Reinforcing my message to her would have sufficed.”

  Hain turned back, her mouth puckered slightly in a way that he’d come to know as defiance. “I’m not her progenitor. It cannot be wise to coddle an adult with platitudes. Besides, that wouldn’t have worked. She’s queried various individuals about this Adam Benally on dozens of occasions. I’ve made you aware of this. This species is not as logical or opportunistic as one would expect. We must take care not to make assumptions about her behavior. All of the humans were giving us trouble. That’s why I sold them off as quickly as possible.” She paused, the only way she could give her words emphasis. “We must be realistic if this is to work.”

  He growled. She made logical points. He didn’t like conceding that Hain might be right. She was too clever for her own good.

  Hain sidled a little closer, probably sensing that he was calmer. “She will recover quickly from this, just as she has from every other incident. This was a good time to discover she’s not as transparent as we had thought. She’ll be able to let thoughts of the male go now, be fully engaged in the present. This was fortuitous.” She looked ruefully at the bench, then turned, placing her palms together. “Now, as to those plans, I have—”

  The deck rocked under their feet and a call to arms blared over the communication system. Hain’s face went blank as she mentally connected with the telepathic network created by the kuboderan navigator. Instantly she turned to Raub, her expression grave. “Local system border-patrol net. We, of course, have not filed trajectories with the local authorities nor paid any fees to pass through local space.” Her mouth parted a fraction. “It’s Level Seven.”

  Raub swore viciously. He raged, “I would have expected more care to be taken to avoid such inconveniences. You know how important this undertaking is.”

  She lifted her head a fraction and met his gaze. “It must be new. It’s not on any of our maps. We’ve heard no reports from our associates. We cannot avoid what we are unaware of.”

  Logic. He curled one hand into a fist, barely holding back from delivering a punch to her face.

  If it were a Level Four net or less, they’d have no trouble breaking free. A Level Seven would be dicey. Hain might lose everything, including the ship, and end up in custody herself. Perhaps that was where she belonged. He was beginning to wonder if she was as loyal as he’d thought.

  Some things on the ship could be easily hidden or camouflaged. These backwater constables usually had plenty of ballistic tech, but little in the way of sophisticated detection. There was no way to hide the thousands of individuals in the cargo hold, however. That would be a substantial loss, unless the officials could be bought.

  There was a chance all the merchandise might be freed on the spot—and a fairly equal chance that they’d be moved through a less-than-savory sales venue to make a quick chit for some corrupt local authority. This far f
rom a trade hub or busy port, there was little more than a semblance of law. The net might have been put in place by the government of a planet in the nearby system or by a neighborhood magnate looking to expand their wealth. Out in the fringes it was every individual for themself. No one was above reproach. They were all out here for a reason.

  And if they found the girl and realized what she was…

  He wouldn’t let that happen.

  His nostrils flared and he didn’t bother to quell a roar of frustration. “All this planning ruined by some greedy pless. I’d like to get my hands on them.”

  “It’s salvageable,” Hain stated as she opened a drawer and pulled out a handful of laser-deflecting shield generators as well as a small CO2 cartridge, efficiently attaching them to premade slots in the dense encrustations upon her skin. The tough, symbiotic lichens served as body armor in hand-to-hand combat, but weren’t enough to protect her in a firefight. The CO2 was in anticipation of a possible loss of atmosphere in the short term. It was a precaution most wouldn’t have thought of. Hain always planned three moves ahead. “The tern is ready. It’s outfitted with plenty of weapons, fuel, and food for a long excursion. We prepared for any contingency. You just have to find the right planet. The onboard computer is capable of giving you all the options in local territories in any direction. There will be something you can use.”

  She tested the shield generators. They hummed to life. “They aren’t wasting any time. There are three vessels en route, closing fast.”

  “She’s not ready,” he growled.

  “Wherever you decide to go, you’ll have plenty of time to finish the training during the journey. I’ll find you before you put your boots on the ground and wait for your signal.”

  He would have to adapt to the circumstance or risk losing the prize. He picked up an instrument and threw it.

  Hain didn’t flinch this time. “They’re hailing. I must respond quickly or they’ll get suspicious.”

  “You’ll fight?”

  “If they attempt to board? Yes. We’re only partially disabled. They don’t know the full extent of our capabilities. We look like a cracker hauler to them. We have all the proper codes. They should let us pass.”

  That was true. It was a clever disguise. But there wouldn’t be many food-supply ships this far off the main routes. “Tell them you’re lost to buy time. You’ve had a bad jump with a sick kuboderan. That’s believable.”

  She nodded and started for the door, then turned, listening intently to the hymenoptera chattering over the kuboderan network. “The aft hangar is clear. Go immediately.” With that, she turned on her heel and left, motioning for the two hymenoptera in the hall to join her as she headed for the command deck.

  Raub strode swiftly in the opposite direction. The timing couldn’t be worse. The girl had just suffered an emotional blow and would likely be skittish.

  Now, he’d see what she was really made of.

  22

  Darcy held back a sob, her mouth open in a silent scream. She lay curled on her side, pressing her face into the cold, hard surface of the sleeping cell as if that could push back the raw despair. Tears and drool pooled under her cheek.

  How could she ever have let herself hope that she and Adam would escape, get back home, and live out a normal life? How childish that had been. A fantasy.

  The truth was, she didn’t even know how to begin to accept this new reality. It felt like a living nightmare. The rules kept changing before she could adjust. Nothing was what it seemed to be.

  If Hain was telling the truth, then Adam was gone, possibly forever. Her rock. Her biggest cheerleader. Her heart. That knowledge tore at her. What could she do? How could she begin to know what to do next?

  She had all this power stored inside her, and she hadn’t been able to save him. She’d failed him and probably was incapable of saving herself.

  She had two choices now. She could put her head down and accept that she was going to be sold as a weapon, and that she would possibly be forced to kill people by her new master, who would most likely turn out to be some kind of terrorist or dictator. Or she could put her trust in Raub, who was probably a criminal, and definitely dangerous and unpredictable, in order to attempt to escape the ship.

  There were no good choices.

  She turned it all over and over in her mind. But she couldn’t really think clearly. Her thoughts kept snarling in pain and despair and couldn’t get much farther than that.

  She didn’t want to think anymore. She wanted the oblivion of sleep. She’d think about it all tomorrow. Maybe it wouldn’t seem so bad by then.

  But she couldn’t turn her brain off.

  There was one thing that always put her to sleep. She closed her eyes and thought through the sequence of the citric-acid cycle, so necessary for aerobic metabolism. She visualized each molecule and its enzymatic conversion into the next step in the metabolic chain, careful not to forget the three points at which NADH was formed, or how that molecule would later contribute to the production of ATP—the powerhouse of cellular energy—all of this taking place inside the mitochondria of every cell of her body.

  She tried not to think about the apochondria Hain had told her about. Or wonder how they processed and stored energy.

  If she forgot her place, she just remembered the mnemonic, “Can (cis-Aconitate) I (D-isocitrate) Keep (alpha-ketoglutarate) Selling (Succinyl-CoA) Sex (Succinate) For (Fumarate) Money (Malate), Officer (Oxaloacetate)?” It was a stupid, misogynistic memory device, but she’d never forget it, ever.

  She was just drifting into that twilight space between sleep and wakefulness when a loud buzzing sound startled her back to alertness. She’d never heard that sound on the ship before. It sent a frisson down her spine.

  Something was wrong.

  She got up awkwardly on her knees, hunching to stay upright, her head bumping into the ceiling of her tiny cubicle. She scrubbed at her face with her hands, sniffing deeply to clear her airway of the congestion the tears had generated. Then she scooted forward and pressed on the door. It wouldn’t budge. That asshole Raub had locked her in.

  She sat back on her heels and frowned. The raucous buzzing silenced itself. Her ears rang with echoes of it. She was sure something was happening. She didn’t want to be trapped inside the sleeping cell any longer. Who knew what was going on out there?

  If everything Hain had just told her was true, she shouldn’t accept any kind of unfavorable circumstance. She had the power to change things. She shouldn’t just sit back and wait for something to happen to her anymore.

  She had to do something.

  She possessed abilities. Surely one of them could get her through this door. She sorted through all the traits the woman in the video had described. Speed, endurance, agility…no. Bursts of light, manipulating magnetic fields, camouflage, electromagnetic pulses. No. Dammit. It was a mechanical lock. None of that stuff was going to do anything to it, even if she’d known how to do any of it.

  She put her hand to the door. Someone like Raub might be able to use brute force to break it, but she could too easily hurt herself attempting something like that and still remain trapped. There had to be a way.

  Wait a minute. The byproduct of energy production was heat. Whenever she practiced using her energy she got so warm sweat would stream off of her, and afterward she had to drink large volumes of water to slake her thirst. Heat might actually get her out.

  She decided to try something she’d never tried before. She called up her energy, focusing it on the tip of her index finger, and slowly slid that finger along the crack of the door where she’d seen the lock from the outside, allowing her pent-up energy to blaze, but not be released. Her finger grew hot, but she didn’t let up.

  The heat became painful. She didn’t falter, even as she smelled the scents of cooking flesh, a hot metallic tang, and smoke. She drew her finger to the bottom of the lock and shoved her shoulder into the door hard.

  It gave way, springing open a
nd banging with a loud clang against the other cubicles. She almost lost her balance and tumbled out. She scrabbled to push herself back and change her center of gravity before she fell, then hopped down and hit the lights. They didn’t come on at full power, just a dim glow. She looked at her hand. It was darkly discolored and hurt like hell. There wasn’t enough light to see the extent of the damage she’d done to herself.

  She slipped into the small room that served as their mess hall. She clicked the button on her sleeve and shoved a hand into the fabric of her malleable garment, sculpting a large pocket into the side, then filled it with the small amount of leftover food cubes. It seemed like a good idea to be ready for anything.

  She turned and nearly jumped out of her skin. Raub was standing there, silently watching her fill the pocket. His expression was inscrutable.

  “It’s time,” he said.

  She wondered if he’d done something that set off the alarm. She eyed him warily. “Time for what?”

  Then she looked over his shoulder and down the long, wide hallway lined with sleeping cubicles. The door that led out to the rest of the ship was still open from his arrival. There were no hymenoptera in sight. She turned back to him, confused by their absence. “What did you do?”

  “There isn’t time to explain. We’ll take advantage of the chaos to get away.”

  So her suspicions were correct. Something was happening. “What chaos? What’s going on?” What terrible thing had he done?

  “This ship is under attack.”

  That was not what she’d imagined. She’d thought maybe Raub had killed Hain or some of the hymenoptera or something.

  He grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the door.

  She resisted. She needed to know more before she just followed him. But it was like trying to stop a semitruck with a feather. He was determined to go and take her with him. She was already uneasy. There was an urgency about his manner that was freaking her out. She dug in her heels and pulled at the hand that held her arm. “Quit keeping me in the dark. If you want my cooperation, you have to tell me more! If the ship is under attack, someone could be trying to rescue us!”