She felt like she’d just been thrown into a museum of human civilization.
All that was missing were stuffed humans themselves, maybe scattered among the tables where the Nirreth patrons now ate and talked, their tails swishing between the clink of glasses and plates and utensils.
Jet stood obediently by Trazen’s side as she took in the Nirreth faces and clothes, noticing they were a lot more varied than what she generally saw in the center. These Nirreth didn’t look poor exactly, but they were definitely more casual in manner and dress. There was something less pristine and freshly-scrubbed about the Nirreth here, too.
She didn’t move as Trazen signaled for a female Nirreth, or when he spoke to that same Nirreth after she approached, letting her know who they’d come to meet.
Trazen had been right, though.
Jet didn’t recognize the name he mentioned.
She was still standing there, her fingers clutching Trazen’s thick arm, when the female Nirreth motioned for them to follow her. She walked them right into the center of those crammed together tables and Jet crossed the room without meeting anyone’s gaze, hoping not to be recognized in here, especially after Trazen’s cryptic comments before they came inside.
She was still walking, huddled more or less against Trazen’s side, when she felt eyes on her, intensely enough that she flinched.
She turned without thought.
Squinting in the direction of the stare she’d felt, Jet caught a glimpse of a form behind a patterned rug that hung over a doorway just beyond another row of life-sized human statues. She couldn’t see much about whoever it was, other than the fact that there’d been more than one of them...and at least one had definitely been Nirreth.
She frowned, staring in that direction until a prod from Trazen got her to look away.
When she faced forward once more, it was just in time for Trazen to lead her through another rug-covered doorway. He escorted her past where their Nirreth guide held the rug up for them to enter, then steered Jet down a more dimly-lit corridor decorated with real candles in cast-iron sconces.
Jet was looking around at the white stucco walls when another rug was pulled aside in front of her, and she found herself being led into a room lit only by real flames, this time in the form of a giant fireplace. The outside of that fireplace was strangely rounded, blackened by smoke, and appeared to be made out of the same material as the outside of the building. It gave the hearth an igloo-like look to her, even with the thick rug lying on the tile floor just past the reach of the thick hearthstone.
Turning away from the fire, Jet focused on the table that stood in the center of the room, directly under a wrought-iron chandelier also covered in real candles. Seeing the Nirreth sitting there, waiting for them, Jet sucked in a breath.
It was Laksri.
THE CHALLENGE
Jet fought to breathe, unable to do anything but stare at first.
She looked at him, at the armored clothing he wore, the dark red cloth tied around his head, hanging down between his shoulder blades. She stared at his dark eyes as they drank her in, the star-like flecks in the black irises, the long fingers where they rested on the wooden table next to where he sat, his tail coiled around the wooden bench.
She couldn’t speak at first.
She couldn’t even think.
It didn’t occur to her anywhere in that pause to wonder at Trazen’s lack of reaction at her side. She caught the grim look on Laksri’s face as his eyes flickered from Trazen back to her, but she didn’t really understand that, either.
She jerked from Trazen’s fingers before she knew consciously what she would do.
She walked right up to Laksri. Her mind still fought to catch up. It still fought to put pieces together in the background...more slowly than the less-conscious part of herself that stalked towards the reclining Nirreth. That second part didn’t hesitate.
Reaching him, she swung her fist, hard.
She hit him in the side of the face.
The hit hurt her hand, but she barely felt that either.
She wound up, ready to hit him again, but before she could, Trazen wrapped himself around her from behind. His tail and arms encircled her even as he pulled her back. She struggled against his hold but his mouth only lowered to her ear, hissing to her even as he poised his tail, pressing it to her side in the unequivocal threat of a sting.
“Remember what I said!” he hissed in English, shaking her in a single rough jerk. His muscular hands and arms squeezed her tighter. “You belong to me in here. Do not make me enforce that ownership...or you will not be a part of this reunion in any meaningful way, Jet.”
She fought to make sense of his words, breathing harder.
Something about the end of his tail pressed to her side and the remnants of the venom in her blood hit Jet at an instinctive level. It was enough to get her to back down. Temporarily, at least.
It was enough to keep her from fighting Trazen, anyway.
She went almost still in his arms, her eyes pinned to Laksri’s face.
Laksri himself remained seated. She saw his face grow taut as he looked at her and Trazen. She saw his eyes flicker towards someone who stood behind her too, presumably in the doorway, even as he closed his mouth, as if forcing himself not to speak. He didn’t stand, but he sat forward now in the chair, as if forcing himself to remain seated, too.
His eyes finally flickered away from that door.
Only then did he stare at Jet herself. He raised one hand, his fingers stroking his long jaw where she’d hit him, his eyes growing more stone-like as he watched Trazen hold her.
“Release her, Trazen,” he said, his voice low.
Trazen didn’t.
Instead he wrapped his arms around her tighter, pulling her more deeply into his body and coiling his tail around her waist.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Do you, Montan?” Trazen said in a growl.
It was the same name Jet heard Trazen give to the Nirreth at the entrance.
Trazen’s voice got even lower, holding a colder anger. “I don’t know how the hell you expected her to react.”
Laksri didn’t answer.
He seemed to be assessing Jet again with his eyes, watching her glare at him from where Trazen held her. Something Laksri saw in her face must have changed his mind; after another few seconds, he agreed to Trazen’s words with seeming reluctance, flicking his tail sideways before he waved a hand for them to sit.
“Please,” he said. “We haven’t much time.”
Trazen pulled Jet forward with him. She let him, moving stiff-legged until she stood by one of the wooden chairs on the opposite side of the table from Laksri. When Trazen lowered himself into the chair next to hers, his tail still coiled around her waist, one hand gripping her arm, she let him pull her down at the same time. Her eyes never left Laksri.
Even so, her mind had caught up. A little, anyway.
Trazen. Laksri.
Just like Anaze and Laksri...the two Nirreth weren’t really enemies either. Or perhaps they had been enemies and now they’d come to some sort of agreement.
Either way, clearly Trazen knew Laksri hadn’t been killed in the scene they’d staged on Astet...the one that ended with Jet in a prison cell under the Retribution grounds, and eventually as Trazen’s slave. She didn’t know how long Trazen had known, but clearly this wasn’t his first time learning that information.
More to the point, Laksri had known.
He’d let that happen to her on Astet. He’d left her there.
She didn’t take her eyes off his face as she thought all of those things.
She also didn’t speak. She didn’t trust herself to be able to speak, not to either of them...and she wouldn’t let herself get in the way of learning more about what was going on. Right now, she wanted information. Later, she could think about how she felt.
“You have something for me?” Laksri said, his voice a low hiss. He was speaking to Trazen. “Some messag
e that could not wait?”
Trazen nodded. Reaching into a pocket on the inside of his tunic, he pulled out what looked like a folded up piece of paper. Very thin, almost silk-looking paper.
Jet sat motionless on the chair, watching as Laksri unfolded the note carefully with his jointed fingers, then spread it out over the table. She watched his eyes as they flickered over the writing there in Nargili. He appeared to read it twice.
Then, exhaling in what sounded like anger, he crumpled the thin paper in one hand, and tossed it into the fireplace. Frowning, he continued to stare into the flames, not speaking, while the paper blackened, crinkled and burned.
Jet could tell he was probably thinking about whatever he’d read.
Even so, the silence, however long or brief it was in actuality, went on longer than she could stand. She felt her anger ratcheting up the longer it stretched, until she bit her lip, hard enough to taste blood. She found herself thinking she would end up attacking one of them again, if someone didn’t break that silence soon.
They at least needed to tell her what was in that damned note.
Trazen must have felt some portion of her thoughts through the remaining venom.
“Jet, I will explain everything,” he said softly in English. “But not here.”
“Sting me,” she said, still staring at Laksri’s face. “Sting me enough that I can understand some part of this...at least the bare bones.”
Trazen made a low growling sound in his chest. “I cannot.”
She turned, glaring at him. “Why?”
Trazen tightened his hold on her with his three-fingered hand, his longer thumb coiling all the way around her wrist. He tugged her closer as if unconsciously, his eyes avoiding hers even as they glanced back at Laksri.
“I cannot,” he said only.
“Why?” she said again, her voice harder.
But it was Laksri who answered.
“Because he didn’t take the drug,” the other Nirreth said, obvious irritation in his voice. He turned away from the fireplace, glaring at Trazen with his dark eyes. “That is it, isn’t it, Trazen? You did not take the drug to counteract the venom on this day?”
Trazen gave Laksri an equally angry look, his tail coiling tighter around Jet’s waist. He didn’t answer Laksri aloud, but Jet felt the truth of Laksri’s accusation through the Nirreth’s skin.
“You’ve been drugging yourself,” she said. Her voice held disbelief, but also understanding.
“Of course he’s been drugging himself,” Laksri hissed softly, giving Trazen another irritated look. “Do you think I would have ever agreed to him holding you in such a way if he was not drugging himself, Jet?” He glared openly at Trazen. “Why did you not take it?”
Trazen glanced at the door. Jet followed his eyes.
No one stood there now.
Even so, Trazen kept his voice low. “The supply has become...difficult.”
“Meaning what?” Laksri said coldly.
“Meaning,” Trazen growled, looking over at him. “Any drugs to counteract venom, whether for humans or for our own people, are being confiscated.”
“Since when?”
“It started a few weeks ago,” Trazen said, exhaling. “The sale of said drugs is being blocked or closely monitored, which means I have to find a new means of procuring them, if I am to continue as before. I must be very careful in this, if I am not to call attention to myself...”
Laksri frowned, flicking his tail in a harder arc.
Trazen went on before he could speak.
“...It is part of the First Son’s attempt to control the human population,” the Ringmaster said, pulling Jet closer to him with his tail, again seemingly unconsciously. “He says it is ‘unnatural’ to block the effects of our venom. It is part of their ‘Old Ways’ campaign.”
Trazen’s voice grew lower as he leaned over the table, watching Laksri’s face.
“It will continue to get harder to procure such things...Montan,” he hissed softly. “As you already know, our new First Son Isreti would very much like to see the human and Nirreth condition altered significantly on Earth...both inside the Green Zones and outside of them. He intends to enact similar edicts on other worlds where a once-dominant species has been colonized. But he has a particular issue with humans. The announcement is not long off, on these changes in policy, but much is already occurring behind the scenes...”
As Trazen finished speaking, he looked back at Jet.
That time, the expression in his eyes held more meaning.
Jet felt pieces of additional information through him where he gripped her arm. It felt almost like he pushed that meaning into her, into Jet’s very skin. She didn’t get words, like she did when the venom connection was strong. She got information instead, information that seeped into her awareness without having a specific set of words on which to pin that knowing.
The new First Son had an issue with her...with Jet herself.
He didn’t like what she symbolized.
He didn’t like her popularity with the humans...or the Nirreth.
He wanted her killed in the Rings.
Preferably soon. Preferrably as bloodily and publically as possible.
He’d already asked Trazen to arrange it.
With Trazen’s reputation as anti-human and abusive to his human consorts, First Son Isreti assumed willing compliance from Trazen in this. Moreover, he’d insinuated that the rewards for Trazen himself would extend well beyond any financial compensation he might receive for losing a favored pet and plaything. He also assured Trazen that they would compensate him well for what she might have earned for him in the Rings.
Isreti saw them as being of like mind, as the human saying went.
Trazen told the First Son Isreti that he would arrange it, once Jet was well enough to fight.
Jet had just shown herself to be well enough to fight.
She struggled as the last piece of information reached her mind, but Trazen’s tail wound around her more tightly, holding her in place. Her muscles remained taut, but she didn’t fight him openly that time, either. There would have been no point.
Anyway, there was still too much she didn’t know.
Her eyes returned to Laksri, sitting across from her. Something else hit her as she studied the other Nirreth’s face.
The note. This meeting. Trazen arranged for this meeting in part to warn Laksri about First Son Isreti’s request to have Jet executed. The note had been, in part at least, Trazen telling Laksri what Isreti had asked him to do.
The realization made her light-headed.
“What about Richter?” she said, her voice low. She looked at Laksri, flinching a little when she gazed on his face. She still couldn’t quite believe he was alive. “What about Anaze?”
Again, it was Trazen who answered her.
“Both are alive,” he said, his voice equally low.
She fought with what to ask next. A part of her wanted to ask how she would die...but she knew that already, too. She knew from the venom what they had planned.
A challenge match, with the giant woman. She would be killed in a supposed challenge match with Bukka Rudhi, the genetically-created human and Nirreth hybrid, who could probably crush Jet’s skull with her bare hands.
Bukka looked like Jet though, oddly enough.
Meaning, she had the coloring and facial characteristics of a skag from the same part of the country where Jet grew up. They could almost pass as sisters, in terms of facial features, skin and hair. But Bukka had a body weight easily three of Jet’s. Jet knew from training next to her that Bukka’s shoulders were bigger than those of the vast majority of human males Jet had ever seen. Bukka’s arms were the size of Jet’s thighs, her neck a solid trunk of corded muscle.
She had a strange name...for a skag, at least.
Then again, Bukka wasn’t really a skag.
Al-En Mosque likely named her himself, after creating her in one of his Nirreth labs.
Jet
found herself looking at Trazen at the thought. Back when Bukka first made her appearance, Richter, Anaze and Laksri had thought Trazen was behind her creation and entry into the Rings. Or, given this meeting, maybe they’d only pretended to believe that. Back then, Richter, Anaze and Laksri all wanted Jet to believe they thought of Trazen as an enemy.
“They did not pretend,” Trazen said aloud, in English.
His voice held a pale warning.
When Jet looked over, Trazen gave her a grim look.
“They did not pretend, Jet,” he repeated. “They believed that.”
Again, via the venom, she understood more than he said aloud.
Trazen approached Laksri later. He’d come to him not long before they left for Astet, warning Laksri that his life was in danger. Prior to that time, Anaze and Laksri believed Trazen’s guise in the Nirreth world. They’d believed that he was anti-human, possibly working for Isreti and his fanatics. They’d definitely believed Trazen was working against them.
The thought echoed there, in Jet’s mind.
Trazen’s mask.
He’d let her glimpse behind that mask once before.
While he stung her in Laksri’s recovery room after the attack by Anaze, she’d seen a whole different side to the Ringmaster. Trazen let her see behind the mask briefly again, in the control room of the Rings Operators, after he’d used the image of her brother, Biggs, to mess with her during a Rings run. He’d let her glimpse him, even before he showed any part of himself to Lakrsi or Anaze. He’d done it almost because he couldn’t help himself.
Feeling this, Jet felt her mouth harden more.
Trazen’s emotions receded, growing distant once more.
She could feel him wanting her to remain silent however, to not voice any of what he’d just shown her aloud. Deciding to do as he said, she pressed her lips together with an effort. She did it partly because she could feel from Trazen that they might be overheard, and that the danger to her own life was real...in addition to Trazen’s life and Laksri’s.
She did it partly because she didn’t want Trazen to stop telling her things.
Alien Apocalypse: The Complete Series (Parts I-IV) Page 69