“How long does this venom last?” she said finally.
As soon as she said it, she wished she hadn’t, but it was too late.
Anaze’s features turned back to stone.
“Why?” he said angrily. “Do you still want his tongue down your throat?” He motioned angrily towards her. “It’s not enough that he’s marked most of your neck...?”
Jet clenched her fingers into fists, in part to keep from using them to cover the bruises she could feel Anaze staring at. Biting back anger once more, she forced herself to shrug, her expression flat.
“Well,” she said easily. “Am I a rape victim in need of your protection, Anaze? Or some kind of whore? Or are the two basically the same thing in your mind?”
Even as she said it, she was trying to assess her own brain, to get some idea of whether she was still under the influence of the venom or not. She felt clear enough, but then, she had the night before, too, at least for most of it.
“Are you staying here from now on?” Anaze demanded, rising to his feet.
Jet shrugged, stepping back slightly in spite of herself. She covered it up by leaning down for her shoes. “You know this was your dad’s idea, right?” Jet said. “You know he made me choose, right? Prince Ogli or Laksri? Pardon me for not being too thrilled with the idea of being a Nirreth child molester...or stuck as one of the Prince’s well-trained pets...”
The anger on Anaze’s face worsened, right before he glowered at the door that led to the main room of Laksri’s apartment. When he looked back, most of the emotion had leached from his eyes, but the frustration Jet could feel coming off him was almost palpable.
“Speaking of the prince...aren’t you due there now?” he said, his voice as flat as hers.
Jet glanced at the clock in the ceiling, which now showed the sun and clouds and blue sky, instead of the stars. Seeing that she was already two minutes late for her standard meeting time at Prince Ogli’s chambers, she cursed under her breath.
Hesitating only another half-breath, she walked to the door adjoining the two rooms and jerked it open, without letting herself think too much about who might be waiting on the other side.
THE RINGS
“Higher!” Alice said, her voice a snarl.
When Jet leapt up, catching hold of the ring with one hand, the woman gave an approving nod, albeit with seeming reluctance. She shook her head a bit more sharply, her posture and expression exuding impatience when Jet continued to hang from the rotating bar, grinning.
“Come down now!” the woman commanded with her crisp accent. “You are target for every thing they might want to throw at you...” She complained louder, when Jet didn’t obey her right away. “This thing is for quick escape. Quick only! Grab...then jump. Grab...then jump. Understand? You are being a fool...”
Jet jumped down, still grinning a little, at least long enough to catch Tyra’s eye.
The taller woman winked at her, snorting a laugh.
Things had gotten a lot easier between Jet and the other woman fighter in the past few weeks. Tyra came up to her pretty much within minutes of Jet showing up at the changing room, the day after she and Laksri went to the aquarium restaurant and got publically ‘seen’ as a hybrid couple or whatever. Given that Jet really hadn’t spoken to the woman before...as well as the fact that she was pretty conked out from the night before...it startled her a lot when Tyra came bounding up to her, a big smile on her face.
“So you got de-virginized, I hear,” Tyra said, grinning from ear to ear. “By that big bodyguard of yours? We’d all been wondering...I’d heard a rumor that he was the reason they didn’t match you with a Nirreth trainer. They said he bribed someone on the Board to make sure you got a human female instead...the dog! We all wondered if it was true...”
Jet couldn’t help wondering which ‘we’ Tyra meant. Grinning, the other woman motioned around her, but she and Jet were the only two people in the cavernous room.
“...So how was it?” Tyra asked, without missing a beat. “Is he as good as he looks? I was thinking he was kind of a hottie, your guy. I wondered how long it would take you to stop saying no. It was pretty obvious he was into you...”
Jet found herself completely at a loss for words.
She never in a million years would have imagined having this conversation, even a month ago. The idea that Tyra, or really any human, could embrace the idea of living side by side with the Nirreth was a little beyond her.
It also made her think about Laksri in a way that was more than a little uncomfortable. Although she’d had most of the day to think about it, she still couldn’t seem to get as angry at him as she knew she probably should be.
Luckily, Tyra didn’t seem to require Jet to keep up her end of the conversation.
“...I’ve been with my trainer for awhile. Anslom,” the woman added. “...It really helps with the training...that whole communication, empathy thing lasts for a good twenty hours or so after you’ve been stung, and improves your memory, too. A lot of the trainers take their human combatants as lovers, to up their chances in the Rings. It also helps with the whole political aspect, as you’re a lot less likely to piss the Board off on accident if you know the ropes well enough through feeling how a Nirreth feels...the kinds of things they react to, and so forth...” Shrugging a little, she added, as if thinking, “...Wonder why they gave you a human one? Whether your guy bribed them or not, it really tanked your odds on the rankings, I hear. I thought there was some rule about that...only Nirreth trainers for the humans and only human trainers for the Nirreth, something like that...”
Jet started to attempt to answer, but again, Tyra kept on speaking.
“...Maybe you can get your hunk to help you out, now that you’re playing footsie,” Tyra suggested. “He looks like a fighter...and all of the Nirreth know the Rings. The myth is that humans gave them the idea, but Anslom told me they had something really similar back in their old world...even in pre-colonial days. Only most of the contestants died back then and it was all Nirreth versus animals and other Nirreth.” She rolled her eyes, still grinning. “...According to Anslom, humans only gave them the idea to use some of the players more as recurring figures. Kind of like sports heroes, I guess...or boxers, maybe?”
She smiled, as if they were talking about the weather, instead of a sport that would probably at some point result in one or both of their deaths.
But then, Tyra really wanted to be in the Rings. She wasn’t just faking it. She didn’t even seem to be overly obsessed with the freedoms she might gain as a result of being a regular player...at least from hearing her talk. As far as Jet could tell, to Tyra, it was about winning. It was about being at the top of the heap as a star player of the Rings.
If she got rich or ended up living free and large as a result, all the better.
Jet wondered if Tyra had any family she would bring to the Green Zone, in the event she racked up enough points and wins. If she did, she didn’t mention that to Jet either, or in any of her interviews by the Nirreth media, at least not the ones Jet had seen.
Jet had the first of those scheduled in a week, too. Everyone was curious about the first two human female candidates, and Jet was owned by the Royals, which made her an added novelty. For now they were concentrating more on Tyra though, presumably because she’d be the very first female human ever to run in the Rings.
“...They have all these giant lizards living on their home world,” Tyra added as Jet thought about all of this. “...or they did, anyway. Anslom told me that the whole ‘lizard skin’ thing actually predates humans, too. It’s an insult they have for one another, meaning a kind of cave man or barbarian. I guess back in the old days, most of them actually wore lizard skins, so...”
Tyra laughed, showing perfectly white, straight teeth. They were so straight and white, Jet actually wondered if Tyra had been raised in the Green Zone herself, and been eating clean Green Zone food and seeing Green Zone doctors her whole life.
“...Anslo
m says the Nirreth haven’t changed much, really, but the Royals like to think everyone’s more sophisticated now. They only eat animals below a certain level of intelligence and have all these rules around taking humans as mates...I guess all of that is new with Earth and one other colony, though...”
Jet couldn’t help wondering what the other colony was like, and what the beings looked like there. It struck her as strange, suddenly, that the Nirreth would take mates among the species they conquered. Why? she wondered. Why wouldn’t they just mate with their own kind?
It also struck her as strange that they didn’t import humans to their other worlds, and vice versa. She’d heard somewhere, maybe from Anaze or maybe from her uncle, that Nirreth could live in far greater extremes of cold and heat than humans could survive, so maybe humans would simply die in that other place.
“...Even so,” Tyra warned, bringing Jet’s eyes and attention back to her. “Watch your back, hey, Jet? I hear that prince has got a real thing for you, and he might be young, but he’s still a prince. Tell your guy to be careful, or you could wake up next to a corpse one morning...or find yourself moved to the prince’s quarters in the middle of the night...”
Jet swallowed, but felt her jaw harden.
“Noted,” she muttered.
Tyra grinned at her, slapping her on the back. “Well, nice miss on that one anyway. I know their kids are supposed to mature sooner than humans, but I wouldn’t want to end up playing nursemaid to that spoiled little brat...” Tyra rolled her eyes, blowing at her bangs. “I don’t envy you, girl. I’m glad I’m not owned by the Royals. That whole family’s nuts, as far as I can tell. They can take their ‘social status’ and stuff it, as far as I’m concerned...”
Sighing a little, Jet nodded, hands on her hips.
“Yeah,” she muttered, noncommittal.
She found herself thinking about Tyra’s words afterwards, though, and the few things Laksri said that stuck with her from the night before.
Towards the end of that day, Jet still struggled with the whole empathy thing and why she wasn’t more angry with Laksri. All she could muster was a fair bit of irritation...embarrassment, of course...and a small amount of shame. But not a whole lot of honest-to-goodness anger, at least not of the variety that Anaze had aimed at her in the last twenty-four hours.
She had no idea what Laksri himself was feeling, if anything.
He wasn’t there by the time Anaze and Jet left the bedroom. She hadn’t seen him at Prince Ogli’s chambers that morning, either, at his usual post of chaperone. He hadn’t even been there to pick her up for lessons while the prince himself was shuttled off to class.
Instead, she’d had some middle-aged, female Nirreth waiting for her outside Ogli’s room, wearing an exotic-looking skirt made of colored, reed-like fabric and a tight, silk-like top of pale pink. The female Nirreth drilled her for over two hours on Nirreth customs and history, reacting at every wrong or muddled answer as if Jet’s very life depended on her full comprehension of every nuance and particular. When Jet finally just said ‘the heck with it’ and asked the female Nirreth where Laksri was, the other frowned, a faint glimmer of what might have been sympathy in her bluish-black eyes.
That was another thing Jet noticed that day, incidentally.
The Nirreth no longer all looked the same to her.
Not just Nirreth she’d gotten used to seeing and picking out of the crowd, like Laksri, Ogli, Tyra’s coach and so on...but all of them. Their faces now looked so different from one another to Jet that she had trouble understanding how they could have all looked the same to her before.
“He’s with the Royals,” the female explained, her mouth still curled in that small frown, the perfect opposite of the half-moon smile. Her voice held some sympathy, too. “...He has to answer for this...for taking Prince Ogli’s companion. The divine son of kings has lodged a formal complaint with his parents...he claims that Laksri took you with full knowing that Prince Ogli intended to do the same once he had gained your trust. He has accused your friend, Laksri, of an informal but knowing poaching of his desired friend...”
“Poaching?” Jet muttered, doing a bad job of hiding her frown.
She didn’t want the female Nirreth to stop explaining though, so she prompted her with another question, rather than reacting further.
“Is Prince Ogli likely to win this argument?” Jet said. She chose her words carefully, even though the Nirreth’s English was impeccable, or perhaps because of it.
The female Nirreth purred, her palms held up. “I do not know. Your Laksri, he claims he thought the prince too young to be harboring such wishes. He tells the Royal parents that he thinks Ogli’s affection for you is more that of a relative, or a close friend...a sister, maybe...” The female seemed to be thinking how to translate a particular word. “...perhaps a mother. Or a neighbor of some kind...?”
Jet refrained from snorting at the ‘mother’ reference.
“So will he win?” Jet pressed. “Ogli?”
The Nirreth sighed, once more holding up her hands.
“I do not know,” she said again. “Normally, in such a case, the first contact would take precedent, unless the one chosen was forced...” The female Nirreth gave her a slightly more appraising look, nearly a question in her quirked lips. “...I am told Prince Ogli more than once tried to get you to say you were forced this morning, in front of witnesses...and that you denied such a thing...?”
Jet nodded, feeling her cheeks flush at the female’s knowing look.
“I see,” was all the Nirreth said. “Yes, well...I would not worry, then. This law of consent and pairing is the Queen’s. She would not like to see it broken. Also...” She hesitated, then leaned closer to Jet, her face and voice close to conspiratorial. “...I think the Royal Mother is thinking that Prince Ogli is too young for this love he feels for you. She has been quite relieved when he did not ask this of his last attendants...particularly the most recent one, before you came into service. I have heard it said that she would like to see him mature a bit more before he does this binding with a mammal...” Seeming to realize what she had said suddenly, the female’s eyes widened in horror. “A thousand apologies, beloved guest of the Royals! I am meaning no offense! I merely spoke without contemplating the fullness of my words...”
Jet waved her off, more annoyed that she’d missed the last part of what the female had obviously meant to reveal than offended by the use of the word ‘mammal.’ Anyway, if the Nirreth thought calling her a ‘mammal’ was an insult, it was an accurate one, at least.
“No problem,” she said dismissively.
“Please do not share this with your blood-connection! He might take this as an insult, and it is rumored he has a short temper when it comes to––”
“Blood connection?” Jet said, baffled. “Who would that be?”
The female looked just as confused. “Your companion. The one they call Laksri...?”
“Laksri?” Jet continued to stare. “Why would he be offended? Anyway, in case you hadn’t noticed, I am a mammal. So what?”
Jet had to reassure the Nirreth a few more times before the female calmed down.
Even when she left, she’d still seemed upset, or at the very least, nervous about what Jet might do. Obviously, Jet hadn’t done anything with it, except kick herself for ruining her chances to find out more about what was going on with Ogli and his parents.
Anyway, all of that had been almost two weeks ago, and Jet had more pressing things on her mind. She was to have her first televised match in the Rings Saturday night. She wouldn’t be fighting Tyra, or even competing against her, which was a relief as she’d already started to really like the other girl...or, woman, really, since she was at least five years older than Jet. She’d actually strongly considered trying to bring Tyra over to their side, but the one time she mentioned the possibility to Anaze, he’d looked completely and utterly horrified.
“She’s got a Nirreth mate,” he said, staring at Jet
like she’d lost her mind. “He’s a Rings trainer...which means he was probably Royal Guard before, or at least in one of the branches of their military. If you tell her anything, he will know at once...the second he stings her again, which he probably does every night. You must know that, Jet...by now, anyway!”
Realizing what he was referencing and hearing the bitterness under his words, Jet frowned at him, her hands on her hips.
Then, thinking about his words, she realized something else.
“I never had any real choice, did I?” she said, staring at Anaze. “They said it could be Ogli or Laksri...but it was always going to be Laksri, wasn’t it? You just said it yourself. If it had been Ogli, he would have known everything...pretty much the moment he’d gotten enough venom in me to feel my mind...”
Anaze’s face grew unreadable once more.
“They considered Ogli,” he said finally, after a long pause. “He’s young, impressionable, and you would have been his first, most likely...or one of them, anyway. They thought maybe you could influence him. Gain his trust. Then, if we didn’t tell you too much, perhaps manipulate his feelings in various ways...”
Jet felt a little sick, but only nodded, not wanting to shut him up.
“Was it ever really up to me?” she said.
Anaze shrugged again, but that time he didn’t seem to be able to hold her gaze. Even so, his expression remained carefully noncommittal.
“I don’t know,” he said finally, and it sounded truthful. “My father says it was. He said they would have worked with your decision, either way...but he also didn’t seem to think it had been much of a choice for you, really.”
“Do you believe him?” Jet said, her voice skeptical. “You don’t, do you?” she said accusingly.
Anaze still didn’t meet her gaze, not directly anyway.
Alien Apocalypse: The Complete Series (Parts I-IV) Page 24