by Rayann Marse
"She killed her male," he said. "She found a blade of some kind and stabbed him one night, not long after you all arrived here. She was put into a cell while the Mindseat decided what to do with her. It seems she has been talking to some of our females, making friends, turning them to her side. I heard a rumor that they helped her escape, and now she's on your ship."
Aurora listened to all this, feeling faint.
"Jesus," she said, breathlessly, turning back to her bathing bucket. "Jesus fucking Christ, Sybil... What can I do, Ignu? What should I do?"
"She must be left for the Mindseat. You must allow them to determine what to do with her. Most likely, she will be executed. There is a small chance they will allow her to return to Earth as an exile, unable to interact with the Menin ever again. She would lose out on every opportunity to work with us during our future relations with humankind. For a woman like her, that may be enough of a punishment."
He stepped around the bucket to get a look at her. After seeing the pain and conflict on her face, his soft side made a rare showing.
"I will go and speak to them," he said. "The Mindseat listens to all appeals. I can try to convince them to exile her, rather than take her life."
"Please do," said Aurora.
"But you can do nothing," he added. "You can't be seen doing these things without me, you understand. You can't go behind my back and make inquiries of your own. It will make me look weak."
"You, look weak?" She stepped towards him, tapping his nose with a soapy finger and leaving a thin trail of suds behind. "I don't think that's possible. But I'll do what you say. I'm yours, after all. And you are mine."
He smiled, stepping forward and pulling her naked, wet body into him.
"Wait," she said, pushing away. "What about Kozue? You never told me about her. She's small, even smaller than Stella, but not so... shapely. She has dark hair. Cute little face. Super shy, but she'll kick the living shit out of you if she has to. Ring any bells?"
"Kozue," said Ignu slowly, doing his best not to butcher it. "That is why I was so happy when I came in. But you won't be happy, now..."
"Why? What have you done?"
"Her male is Amnay. He's Agron's brother. I've always wanted to kill him, but he never had a concubine, and so I could never challenge him. And... I've always had respect for Agron. I would not take his brother from him. But now Agron is dead."
"You challenged him?" asked Aurora, her voice growing husky, her eyes narrowing.
Ignu, though he was over seven feet tall and about three times wider than Aurora, seemed to shrink until he was the size of a mouse. But he didn't back away.
"Yes," he said.
"Then you have to cancel it. Take it back. Rescind. Whatever you want to call it."
"I can't. A challenge cannot be undone except in the event that one of the participants dies of another cause, or is chosen to be a colonist."
"God damn it, Ignu! What did this Amnay say? Did he accept?"
"A grace period is allowed. He will have to answer me within twenty-four hours. But he must accept. If he doesn't, he will be killed, anyway."
"So accepting is the only hope he has. Christ, Ignu, why didn't you tell me about this first?"
"Because I can do as I want. I belong to you in some ways, but I still must be my own man. There is no trouble here, Aurora. Kozue will belong to me. She will be safe."
She sighed, letting go of her anger and melting into him. "I'm sorry."
"There is no reason for apologies. Things are as they must be. As I want them to be."
Chapter Six
What was the meaning of life?
For some reason, that thought kept popping up in Stella's mind. She supposed it was caused by her loneliness, her lack of purpose, her growing depression and the monotony of her days spent wandering and waiting for something to happen.
Naturally, in such conditions, the human mind turns to existential thoughts. She knew logically the she was no closer to answering the eternal question than anybody in history, or future, but she kept feeling like she was right on the edge of figuring it all out. There had to be something here, some truth to be found in this alien world full of wonders. There was deep history, tales and truths going back much further than humanity's records. If she went deep enough, she thought she might find clues.
But the Menin couldn't know more about the reason for their existence than she did. They were animals born on some planet, evolved from lesser creatures over the course of eons. They were further along the river of evolution, paddling fast through the rapids as humankind dragged itself onto shore to dry off and craft a better boat. But that didn't mean they had the answers to the great question; how had the universe gotten here, what was beyond it, why did life exist? Where did it all come from?
She felt determined to find out. Or at least make decent headway, get a good start on the work that future generations could finish.
But for now, the main quest was to find Kozue. She had to know her friend was safe before she could do anything else.
She had already been searching for hours. She was tired and bored and hungry. She was sweaty, smelly, and needed a bath. It was time to return to the room, the lonely place where Agron had once resided, and rest up for another round of hunting.
When she reached her room, the door opened up, and her friend the male servant came out, looking a little frantic. When he saw Stella, he wiped sweat from his forehead and jogged over to meet her.
"We must go fast," he said. "Follow me."
She fell in behind him, running on sore feet. He matched her speed, staying just ahead of her.
"I found your friend," he said. "And I have learned that Amnay has been challenged by a male named Ignu."
Stella had been terrified this would happen. During her searching, with a translator for speaking with various Menin she encountered, she had heard stories about Ignu. He was on a tear, challenging and killing his way through all his peers, completely unopposed.
"Amnay has no chance," Stella said.
"No. Not against anyone, but especially not Ignu. We must get there. I don't know what we'll do, though."
"You've done enough," Stella said between little, stuttering breaths. "I'll try and think of something."
He seemed relieved by that. Stella felt confident that, if she asked him, he would help her to break every law in Menin society. But that didn't mean he was suicidal. And she couldn't use him like that.
"How much farther?" she asked.
"Far," he said.
She groaned, but kept running. But the male had already stopped. She skidded to a halt, turning to see what was the matter; he stepped forward and scooped her up into his arms.
Like a man carrying his sleeping child to bed, he went lumbering down the hall. Stella kept track of their path, all the twists and turns they made. After about ten minutes, the noise of arguing voices reached her ear.
Her friend set her down, gesturing further up the corridor. A few Menin stood outside a door, talking energetically at each other. One of then was tall, ugly, and scarred, horrific to behold. Stella recognized him from before. This must be Ignu, the challenger.
There was no blood that Stella could see, no Menin corpse or crying Kozue. However, the door of the room had been thoroughly destroyed. Dust and debris littered the hall, spread in a perfect cone outward from the doorway.
"Something is wrong here," the servant said. "Stay. I will go and ask."
She did as he said, waiting where she was while he hurried up the hall. As the other males, armored and grizzled, turned to look at him, he commenced a series of little bows. They spoke for a minute or two, answering the servant's questions, and then he came back to Stella.
"The challenge will not take place," he said.
"What, did Amnay decline?"
"Yes. As far as I can gather, Amnay met with Ignu a short time ago and told him that the challenge was not accepted. This enraged Ignu; he came with some of his friends. They threw gren
ades into the room..."
"Like, explosive grenades?"
The servant nodded. "They first confirmed that Amnay was inside. And Kozue was there, too. And they threw the grenades. Any living thing in that room would have been obliterated, but evidence would be left behind. Blood and scraps of flesh. Particles of bone. Hair and skin. But there's nothing in there. Amnay and Kozue did not come through the door, as Ignu and the others were standing just outside. But somehow, they vanished. One of the males claims to have seen something remarkable. He says that he watched Amnay and Kozue stepping through the wall."
Stella felt something tickling and perking at the back of her mind, but try as she might she could not bring it into the spotlight of conscious thought. It was a hunch, still cooking; in a little while, it might present itself.
"Can I see the room?" she asked.
The servant nodded, waving his arm down the hall. Stella began to move past him, had a thought, and turned back.
"I get the feeling we might be seeing a fair bit of each other," she said.
He nodded. "I wouldn't mind that."
"What's your name?"
He looked at her like she had just asked for his blood type or shoe size. He probably wasn't used to answering personal questions. She was just starting to think that maybe he didn't even have a name, that the servant class was stripped of all identifiers, when he opened his mouth to answer.
"Gyrch," he said. "My name is Gyrch."
"Like the pickle, but without the 'in' part at the end," she said, nodding to herself, then laughed at the doubting look on his face. "Never mind. We just have these things called gherkins that we... ah, who even gives a shit. I'll have to have you write your name down at some point. So I know how to spell it."
He smiled at that and once again fished the medallion out from under his robes. He turned it around, showing the opposite side. There were Menin symbols carved into it. The alien script. Stella looked at it, pursing her lips as she realized how difficult it would be to learn. It was somewhat like Arabic, letters and accents smeared together into waving strings of words, almost impossible to differentiate.
"Is that your name?" she asked.
Gyrch nodded. "And yours? I would like to hear you say it."
She smiled. "Estela Florentina. But everyone calls me Stella. That's kind of what happens, when you grow up in white suburbs."
He accepted all this as though it made perfect sense to him. "Estela Florentina," he said, doing an admirable and admittedly quite cute job of it. "You should go look, now."
"Right." She turned and walked down the hall, shaking her head, trying to figure out how she always ended up going for the geeky, awkward ones. She determined that it must be their own fault, for being so damn adorable.
But her friend was in danger. There was no time for fawning over boys, or Menin, or whoever happened to catch her eye.
The males watched her approach. The one called Ignu gave her an especially piercing gaze, but she did not get the same vibe from him as she did from Agron. Rather than lustful, Ignu just seemed curious. And perhaps a little relieved, even. Though she couldn't puzzle out the reason for that. Fighting Amnay would have been easy for him, like stepping on an ant.
As Gyrch had said, the room was devoid of any evidence of violence.
It was covered in a thin layer of dust. Pulverized floor, wall and ceiling material. The spot where the grenades had fallen before detonation was obvious, from little craters on the floor, but beyond that the destruction had a certain beautiful uniformity. Layers had been stripped from every surface, leaving raw yet glass-smooth material behind. The further from the grenade she looked, the less material had been scoured away, and so the floors, walls and ceiling had a slight slope to them.
Such an effect, she thought, could only be achieved by a great but perfectly balanced concussive blast and an enormous quantity of heat.
She bent to touch the floor and see if there was still warmth in it, when she felt a weird sucking at her feet. Looking down, she discovered that a layer of her rubber soles had melted, fusing to the floor. She quickly straightened up and danced backward out of the room, leaving black footprints behind.
When her feet touched down in the hall, the liquefied rubber picked up a thick layer of dust from the floor. It made a horrible crunch when she moved, but it formed enough of a barrier between rubber and floor that she wouldn't stick as she walked.
Like chewing gum dropped on the ground, she thought.
Turning to the males, who still spoke to one another in quiet voices, she held up her translator and said, "Which one of you saw them stepping into the wall?"
The males looked at each other, like exasperated fathers trying to figure out how to discipline a misbehaving child, but without the energy necessary for actually doing anything.
Finally, Ignu gave one of his fellows a nudge, whispering something into his ear. The male stepped forward, bending to speak directly into the translator.
"I saw it," he said. "It was like a window there, to another room. They went through. After the blast, the window was gone."
"Which wall?"
"The one to the right, when you walk into the room."
Stella nodded. "Okay. Did you check out the room next door?"
The male shook his head then shot a meaningful look back toward Ignu. Apparently, Ignu was running this show. The other males wouldn't do anything unless he told them to.
"I'll take that as a no," said Stella and walked away.
Stella passed the room with the destroyed door, following the wall, her hand running over it. She went fifty yards, a hundred, a hundred and fifty. She went around a corner and followed the wall further. Finally, she came to another door. She opened it and found a tiny room, apparently used to store implements of hygiene. There were stacks of sponges, firm and bright and new, and buckets. There were taps in the wall, like strange nipples growing out of the metal or plastic or whatever the walls were made from.
Stella searched the closet, moving things aside, running her hands and eyes over every available surface. Searching for a seam. She had an idea of what might have happened here. The kernel of it had been planted by something Gyrch had said to her. It was a wild idea, beyond all comprehension and reason, but she couldn't get it out her mind, and she knew herself well enough to know this was a sign that she should pursue it. However, before she leapt headlong into what would probably amount to a ghost hunt, she would need to rule out all other explanations. However silly.
The thought that there was a false wall in this closet was silly, indeed. She was therefore quite surprised when her fingers found a seam and then, a moment later, a little handle. She pulled at it; the wall came away, revealing a cubby beneath. But it was just a tiny box, full of valves and meters. A utility panel, nothing more. Sighing, Stella closed the hatch and stood back, hands on her hips.
This was the closest room to the wall in which the male had claimed to see a window. They had all seen Amnay and Kozue in the room and confirmed that the door they guarded was the only way out. So, how had they gotten away?
She was still standing there several minutes later when Gyrch arrived and knocked at the door. She jumped, turning quickly.
"You startled me!" she said.
"That was not the intention."
"Well, I think I'm about as far from actually solving this mystery as a girl could be. But before I can be sure, I have to check through that room thoroughly. I'll have to wait for the damn place to cool down, though." She lifted her feet, showing the soles to Gyrch. "These are the only shoes I have right now."
He stared at the melted rubber and layers of disintegrated floor, frowning.
"Ignu wishes to speak with you," he said.
Stella pressed a hand to her chest, feeling a flutter of anxiety. "With me?"
Gyrch nodded and stepped out into the hall. She followed, hobbling along on legs that moved of their own accord. She couldn't help but think of what Gyrch had said before, about t
he good possibility that a male would simply take her if she spent too long wandering around alone.
Please don't be as bad as Agron, she thought.
Ignu was alone now, standing exactly where he had been before. The other males had gone. Gyrch gave the other male a bow, then took off down the hall. Stella watched him go and was greatly relieved when he stopped and waited thirty feet away.
"I see you have a translator," Ignu said.
His deep voice made her heart thump. "Yes."
"So do I. But not with me."
His voice, itself, was frightening, but his tone and words were not. Nor was the way he held himself, confident and assured but preoccupied. He wasn't even looking at her now, which gave her an opportunity to study him and try to recall the events of their first meeting.
It had all happened so fast...
But Aurora being carried away had kicked it all off.
She had been lifted up and taken by the tallest of the males, a giant with many scars. A brute, but not Agron.
"How's Aurora?" Stella asked, proud of her deduction skills.
But Ignu didn't seem to notice that she had done anything impressive. He kept staring off into space, mouth slightly open, tongue darting across his teeth. Deep in thought.
"Aurora is perfect," he said.
"She seemed... rather excited about the prospect of being your concubine," said Stella. "I won't pretend like I understand her, but if she's happy..."
"She is."
"Then I'm glad for her. Can you tell me where she is?"
"My room. I can take you there, if you want."
"Really? Just like that?"
He looked at her now. "You are not concubine to anyone else. So it wouldn't be wrong to bring you into my private quarters."
"I see. Gyrch... the servant." She gestured down the hall. "He warned me that I could be taken by a male at any time."
He smiled, pushing air loudly through his nostrils. "It won't be me who takes you. Aurora has asked me not to interfere with the affairs of the other humans."
"Really? Well, I'm touched. I hear you haven't been shying away from taking other concubines, though."