by Chloe Garner
Cassie considered for a moment as Jesse watched her.
“What was life here like before the war started?” she asked.
The look he gave her was one she couldn’t identify. She went to look in one of the posts for material for a cot, letting Jesse go and seating herself on the stretch of skin.
“What else have you got to do?” she asked. Jesse looked amused, but he kept it to himself.
“I’m a soldier,” the Adena Lampak finally said. “I’m not going to sit here and gossip with you like a retired city-builder.”
“I’m a soldier as well,” Cassie said. “And I know soldiers tell stories. Where did you grow up?”
“You’re a soldier,” Benth said, skeptical.
“I am,” Cassie said. “Do you have…” she frowned and looked at Jesse, her vocabulary failing her. “Do they have a version of wrestling here? Any rules for something like that?”
“Underwater,” he said, supplying her with the word.
“What are the victory conditions?”
“Both arms pinned behind your back,” Benth said, evaluating her for a moment. “You think you can beat me?”
“I’m worried more about beating you without hurting you,” Cassie answered. She rolled to the side out of the cot and stood, glancing dismissively at Jesse. “You’re a soldier. I understand that. He never will. He’s a scientist and a diplomat and a meddler. I want you to know what I am so we understand each other.”
Benth’s attention went to Jesse.
“You’ll hold true that this is not ill-treatment?”
Jesse’s eyebrows went up, and he walked sideways over to Cassie’s cot, throwing himself into it.
“I say she asked for whatever she gets,” he said, weaving his fingers behind his head. Cassie faced Benth, sizing him up. He would be difficult to grip, but at least he was dry. And whatever difficulty she had, he would also have. His skin had a micro-fur to it that slicked water one way. If she needed purchase, she would have to look to push the other direction, against the grain of the fur.
She thought of Aland’s concern that she would injure Jeen, putting pressure on an open wound and hoped they were more robust than that, as a species, but Benth seemed unconcerned, sliding along on his split tail fins like an octopus. His arms were longer than hers. It was going to have to be a very close-quarters fight for her to press any advantage at all.
So she made the first move.
How do you fight a creature that’s solid muscle?
His hand slid around her wrist, coiling tight, and if she’d been any lighter, he’d have simply flipped her away. She hadn’t counted on that. As it was, between her momentum and the slight weight beyond what he could lift, she slammed her shoulder into the gummy muscle that would have been his chest. It caved like a soccer ball, reforming to its original shape with an elastic spring that sent him off balance. Cassie nearly fell to the floor as her feet tangled with his legs and his grip on her arm pulled her over, but she had always had quick feet.
Wrestling hadn’t really been a sport in the barracks since they’d been teenagers - after that, they grew up - but she had always been the quick one.
She let her knees fall, relying on the combination of Benth holding her up and her own ability to catch herself as she spun, making for Benth’s back. He swiveled with unexpected speed, trying to find her other arm.
It was an odd game, she realized. With the degree of flexibility they had, they would both want to get a grip on each other’s arms; after that, it was a swimming game to try to get behind one another.
On land, Benth was having to improvise.
Fins flicked and writhed, looking for grip, and Benth pulled her back onto her feet, in close. She got her elbow levered in between the fin that held her wrist and his side, levering herself rotationally around him again, then realized she’d exposed her back.
That would have been the kiss of death, in an underwater match.
Against an invertebrate.
Cassie flung her mass around, levering hard against his side, getting her other arm wrapped around his back while she pinned his fin between her chest and the ridge of his spine.
He spun.
She held on.
He started trying to pull his fin loose, but she wrapped her hand up and around it, pinning it with her chest.
A wild thought flew by that this was pretty much why they’d stopped wrestling in high school. Cassie didn’t pay attention to inappropriate, when it came to winning.
It was like the old story of having a tiger by the tail. She wondered if they had a timeout for stalemate, then shifted, getting a better grip around Benth as he tried to wrap his far arm around her side to pull her free.
She put her feet down.
Caught his tail with her toes and wrapped her foot around it, then, with a sense that this may have been their version of hitting below the belt, stepped on it.
The sudden stop to his ability to rotate wasn’t something Benth had planned for, and he tipped, falling with Cassie on top of him. The floor came up hard, and Cassie’s body made it worse. He put out his free hand to stop himself, and that was her window. She caught the fin as they fell, getting her wrist through it and taking all of the slack as the space between his body and the floor went to nothing.
It was exactly like landing on a dry fish.
She mentally winced, hoping again that he’d known what he was getting himself into, but grabbed the free fin and pulled it alongside the pinned one.
They were still for a moment.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Get up,” he grunted, wiggling. She loosed his arms and found the floor with her knee, then scuttled sideways, trying not to step on him. He pulled himself upright and stretched his arms out, then rolled his body to one side and then the other.
“I’ll feel that, tomorrow.”
“You’re stronger than you look,” Cassie said.
“You’re meaner than you look,” he answered. They faced each other for a moment, then he nodded. “Good match. I’ll warn the others that if they want to beat you, they should drown you.”
“Thanks,” Cassie said sardonically. He pulled the cot next to the door and leaned into it, then stood.
“I’m going to go get something to eat. Do you want anything?”
“Just water,” Cassie said. “Thanks.”
He nodded, glancing once at Jesse, then left. Jesse was shaking his head at her when she turned to look.
“Let me guess,” he said. “You just made a friend for life.”
Benth brought them back a plate of food, not quite as diverse or careful as what Aland and Jeen ate, but clean, fresh, and adequate. Soldier’s rations. He was quiet while they ate, but it wasn’t the same stony behavior he’d had before. They were equals, now, even if they were - to his mind - on opposite sides.
A soldier is not a believer.
He is not a follower, in a religious or a cult sense, though Cassie had heard a few triggers that had made her think that there was at least some cult mentality underlying some of what had happened here.
He is not evangelist nor champion. No, not a soldier.
Every planet was full of its own version of barefooted spear-carriers. Men who were handed a gun on the first day and told that they were going to kill people with it. Soldiers were the ones who looked at it and thought, yes, I will.
It’s hard to manipulate such people because, as emotionally vested as they may or may not be in the reasons behind their commands, they follow chain of command because there’s no other way.
Cassie liked soldiers.
The problem was she needed him to talk.
She needed data.
“Where are you from, Benth?” she asked.
“Here,” he said, “in the South. A city called Onnas.”
“I’ve been there,” Jesse said. “Deep sea there. Dark blue. Place has got soul.”
Benth nodded.
“I’ve been to the Centrals a
few times, with their shallow water and their big cities…” Benth said, shaking his head.
“When did you join up?” Cassie asked.
“What?” Benth asked.
“It’s what his people call committing,” Jesse said. Benth nodded.
“Six years ago,” he said. Cassie looked at Jesse and he wiggled his hand, indicating ‘sort of’.
“Close as matters to your years,” he said. She nodded.
“I’ve been in for nine,” Cassie said. ‘Trained before that.”
“You a lifer?” Benth asked. She shrugged.
“Don’t know yet. But they all say that, don’t they?”
Benth laughed and nodded.
“You have kids?” she asked. Benth turned his head away and Cassie frowned. “I’m sorry, was that wrong?”
“You really don’t know, do you?” he asked.
“I’m an outsider,” Cassie said. “Only heard their side, so far.”
He shook his head.
“Three years ago, our eggs stopped hatching. You crack them open and there’s a perfect little baby in there, but it’s dead.”
“What’s causing it?” Cassie asked. He shook his head.
“We don’t know. The Commander fought with the Url for two years for help, because the Centralists’ eggs continue to hatch like normal, but nothing changed. We sent our caretakers away, early on, because it was obvious they weren’t doing something right, and we started the largest program in our history to raise our eggs without caretakers. The Url said we were mad. Refused to help until we stopped playing God with our eggs.” He looked away. Cassie was almost certain she read shame. “So we forced them into the same circumstances.”
“You killed their caretakers so that they would help with your science program,” Jesse said. “And you sent away the only ones who could tell you what was going wrong.”
“We did no such thing,” Danth said. “I loved my caretaker as much as any Adena Lampak. It tore at me to see him go. But we had to face the future. We had to do something. Even now, the Url sits, staring at the face of extinction with its damned composure.”
Jesse shook his head.
“I need to speak with your leader.”
Benth glanced at Cassie, setting his face.
“That won’t be possible,” he said.
“Could I examine one of the eggs, then?” Jesse asked.
“What good is a second Palta going to do?” Benth asked, standing. “You’re wasting your time, asking for access. You are prisoners until the Commander says otherwise.”
Jesse sighed. Cassie glanced at him.
“Is there anything else you need to know?” she asked in English.
“No,” he said. “A lot of people are going to die while we’re stuck in here.”
She shrugged. There was nothing she could do about that right now. She looked back at Benth.
“Back home, we play cards. What do you do to pass time?”
Benth taught her a simple game, not entirely unlike dominoes, that they played for hours in the following days. Twice, he left for assignments he wouldn’t tell them anything about - Cassie knew better than to ask, but that didn’t stop Jesse - and a different Adena Lampak would replace him for a day or so. The darkness came and left several times. Cassie got pretty decent at the game.
And then the Commander sent for them.
“Why are you still here?” he asked. Mab stood behind him, glancing once or twice at Cassie, but eyes trained largely on Jesse.
“I told you,” Jesse said. “I want to understand and do what I can to prevent the extinction of the entire race.”
“And why do you care?” the Adena Lampak asked.
“Where is your mate?” Jesse asked. The Commander had always had a soldier’s alertness, but the abrupt change in his intensity as he looked at Jesse told Cassie that Jesse had hit a nerve. A raw one.
“Why would you ask me that?”
“Did you lose him in the war?”
“You have no right to ask such personal questions.”
“Is he off at another tower, another outpost somewhere?”
The Commander replied with a hard silence. Mab looked amused.
“Or here? Is he here, and I just haven’t picked him out?”
Still nothing.
“That’s not it, is it?” Jesse asked. “Your woman left you to go with the caretakers. Three-way relationships are funny like that, aren’t they?”
“You speak of him like that again, I swear to you, I will kill you.”
“The decree went down, and you expected him to be the good little soldier, like Cassie here. That’s exactly what Cassie would do. Pack up everything, leave everyone he cared about, and go where he was assigned. You expected him to go along with it. You made such a strong argument. You were going to save the race. But not your mate.” Jesse paused, reading the Commander as he walked a slow arc in front of the Adena Lampak. “Your mate, and an awful lot of others, too, I’d wager. They left with the caretakers. Weren’t willing to leave the caretakers to their fate.” There was another pause, this one deadly. “Loved them too much, didn’t they?”
The chair went crashing backwards as the Adena Lampak lunged at Jesse.
“I’ll see you executed.”
Mab crossed her arms.
“You didn’t,” Jesse said. The Commander froze.
“What?”
“You didn’t send them away to die,” Jesse said, looking over at Mab. “You couldn’t talk him into it.”
“You will not address the Palta,” the Commander said. Jesse shrugged.
“Fine. You sent them away, but you sent them someplace safe. Where is that? How could they be safe outside of a city…?”
Jesse looked around.
“They all know. You faked killing every caretaker in your civilization, and every one of your soldiers know it. You’re the kind of Commander who likes to be on the front lines. The closest city to Calenna. You shouldn’t have been here. It’s risky. But here you are with your Palta advisor and… You’re directing the raids against Calenna from here, yourself. What an egotistical bastard you are.”
“Get him out,” the Commander said.
“You came up with a way to keep them safe. Found some old form of civilization where they could live…” Jesse grinned. “And you sent your mate to watch over it. All those Adena Lampak who left when you sent away the caretakers… They’re keeping them safe. Somewhere about the midpoint between here and Calenna? Tactical. Something they wouldn’t look for. But you could stage raids from there in half the time. They’d never see you coming…”
He looked at Mab again.
“You didn’t know.” Cassie looked at the blond woman, finally catching the flicks of fire in her eyes. Jesse laughed, tossing his head back. “You didn’t know. He didn’t trust you, my dear. After everything you did… What did you do? What have you been doing here?”
“Get him out,” the Commander yelled. A pair of Adena Lampak grabbed Jesse around the waist, and Benth came for Cassie. She put her hands up.
“That isn’t necessary,” she said, following behind.
“What did he promise you?” Jesse called from the hallway. “What did he say he’d do for you, Adena Lampak? Are you sure they weren’t all lies?”
“He shouldn’t question the adviser,” Benth murmured.
“You say you’re close to hatching the eggs yourselves?” Cassie asked. Benth glanced over his shoulder.
“Yes.”
“And how much did the Palta contribute to that?”
They turned a corner and started down the stairs.
“We owe the woman the life of our species,” Benth said. “The Commander wasn’t willing to let all of the caretakers die, but they weren’t hatching, either. We needed a new plan.”
“And you killed all of the Caretakers that the Centralists had… why?”
There was a long silence.
“Orders.”
Cassie gave him a long loo
k, then sighed and nodded.
“I understand. Where I come from, we’d try you for war crimes and execute you, after it was all done. I hope the Url show mercy.”
Benth was quiet most of the way back to the room where they’d been kept. The other two Adena Lampak tossed Jesse rudely to the floor and left. Benth glanced back at them.
“I hope it matters, by the time it’s all over,” Benth said.
“What does that mean?”
“We still can’t hatch eggs. Neither can they. Who cares who wins the war, who punishes who, if in the end we can’t hatch eggs?”
They were alone.
Jesse rubbed between his shoulders.
“Why is Mab here?” he asked.
“Helping with the eggs isn’t enough?” Cassie asked.
“Our race was eradicated or enslaved six years ago, depending on how you look at it, and three years later she’s hanging out here, trying to help prevent a natural disaster?”
“You’re wandering the universe with a random human,” Cassie said. Jesse tipped his head to the side, an acknowledgment.
“That would be what I would do,” he said. “But not Mab.”
“So what would she do?” Cassie asked. Jesse shook his head.
“I would have expected her to take a shot at saving us.”
“Could she have done it?” Cassie asked, kneeling to try to see Jesse’s expression better. He shook his head.
“No. It would have just taken her, too.” He rubbed his shoulders again. “She knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That the Commander was hiding the caretakers from her. But she wasn’t supposed to know. It still makes her angry that he didn’t do what she told him to.”
“So what does that mean?” Cassie asked. Jesse rolled back onto his elbows.
“You tell me.”
“Means they both know they aren’t on the same side,” Cassie said. “They’re using each other.”
“Or they don’t trust each other,” Jesse said, “though I suspect you’re right.”
“The Commander is using her to help with their attempts to hatch eggs without the caretakers,” Cassie said. “What does she want?”