by Lauren Esker
"I've had worse." Not much worse, but he didn't want to think about that right now. He hopped up onto the medbed beside her. "I'm not sure where to begin."
"How about the beginning? That's usually a good place."
"Well, to start with, I was born about twenty-three standard years ago—"
Claudia smacked him in the arm. "Don't be an ass," she said, but a smile was attempting to peek out around the corners of her mouth.
Skara grinned back, rubbing his arm. Someone should teach her proper self-defense, because she was pretty strong for an unmodified and untrained Birthworld human; she'd be good at it. "Okay, so I'm being an ass, but only a little bit of one. This does start in my childhood. At least that's when I first found out about symbionts. You want to hear this, right?"
"Yes, please." She grimaced. "We should probably get back to that place where they were holding us, though."
"Screw them. They deserve a reminder that we can portal out whenever we want. Not to mention an important lesson in guest hospitality. Where was I?"
"You were born twenty-three years ago ..."
"Right. When I was a child, I was part of a training group of Galatean war-slaves. Lyr and Kite were part of it too."
There were eight of us in all. Lyr was the oldest and he was in charge of the rest of us, as you can tell from the annoying air of big-brotherly responsibility that hangs around him all the time. I'll tell you about the others later, my brothers and sisters. The important one for my story is Selinn.
Selinn was from a race of people you haven't met yet called the Rhuadhi. They're a very reclusive bunch. Tall, slim, green hair, a little bit like you might expect a mermaid to look, though they're not actual mermaids, of course; those are from the Ingri system.
And they can make portals, which makes them quite hard to capture or to hold. Though not impossible, as you have discovered.
They aren't really empire-builders. They stick to their own little star system on the borders of Galatean space, and so far they've managed to avoid being conquered because quite frankly they're more trouble than they're worth. You try conquering a world where a significant percentage of the population can teleport around your ship killing your strike force and teleport out before you can do anything about it. Turning the Rhuadhi into a guerrilla army would be the absolute worst thing the Galateans could do, and they know it. No one would ever be safe again, including their Sun King, the figurehead of their Empire. And there's nothing in the Rhuadhi star system they really want, so in their own best interests, they leave the Rhuadhi alone and go on about their business elsewhere.
So basically you almost never see Rhuadhi in Galatean space. I don't know where Selinn came from or how many captives like her there are. Clearly the Galateans are not above trying to get their hands on Rhuadhi to use as assassins, and that's what Selinn and I were trained as—Selinn for the portals, me for my ability to shapeshift and imprint on people.
My people, in case you were wondering, are even rarer than Selinn's, because we don't have a star system of our own at all. Some say we once did and were conquered so long ago that our homeworld's original name and location have been lost. Others say we never did, that our people have always been what we are now, a small number of space nomads using our shapeshifting abilities to blend in with the people around us. Even our name as a people, Iustrans, doesn't refer to a place. It means "the changing ones" in a very old language.
The only thing that's kept us from dying out as a people is our ability to recognize our own kind, no matter what shape we're in, and to imprint and find each other again. I've heard that there are entire villages of my people, secret villages like the slave village here, but I've never been to one. I don't know anything about my own parents either. I assume I'm an orphan. All I remember is bouncing around between different institutions before I ended up getting contracted to the Galatean military and fell in with Lyr's training group, which in its own way was the best of a bad bunch of options—but anyway, why am I talking about me? There's no point in telling you this. Selinn is who I was talking about.
Selinn and I worked as partners for years. She opened portals, I told her where, we went through and did what we'd been ordered to do. But we were always looking for a chance to escape, even more so than the rest of our group, because we had a much better shot at it than the others. The reason why Selinn couldn't just teleport away was because we all had to wear slave collars that would kill us if we got outside a specific, programmed area. Unlike the rest of us, she also had to wear an implanted tracker in addition to the collar. But she and I worked together trying to find away around both of those things. I'm good with mechanical stuff, and she was convinced she could find a way to leave the collar behind when she portaled. And every time we went on a job, we were alone and unmonitored for a short period of time, which gave us the opportunity to experiment as long as we were very discreet about it.
We couldn't tell the others what we were up to. We especially couldn't tell Lyr, which is tricky since he's a telepath, but he can only scoop the most superficial thoughts and emotions—at least he claims so—and he's too honorable to do it without permission. That sense of honor is why we couldn't tell him. Unlike the rest of us, Lyr wasn't with the Galateans against his will. He was given to them by his people as a diplomatic hostage. They couldn't hold him if he wanted to leave; he's a dragon. He's too powerful. The only reason why he didn't just go home was because honor wouldn't let him. And similarly, we were afraid if he found out, he'd tip off our masters and we would never get another opportunity.
(Yes, I know, he's not with them now. It's complicated. Let's just say he found a different rationalization for his honor, or perhaps a different purpose for it.)
In the end, it took years of planning, but we pulled it off. I found a way to turn off Selinn's implant, she figured out a way to portal away without her collar, and we rigged an explosion to make the whole thing look like a training accident. I couldn't go with her because our initial plan needed an inside man to make sure the explosion went off as planned and everything looked good. So we set it up so she could take Kite. Kite and Selinn were—are—together, romantically, I mean. Selinn didn't want to go without her. I didn't blame her.
Claudia, I've done a lot of hard things in my life, but rigging Selinn and Kite's fake death was the hardest. Because I didn't know. For obvious reasons, we couldn't do a test run. If any one of a dozen things went wrong—if her fix for the collars or my fix for the implant didn't work, if the timing wasn't down to the split second—then she and Kite would die. And I would never know. Selinn had promised to get in touch if she could, afterwards, but they also were going to have to lie low for a long time. She was hoping that if it worked, we could do the same thing with everyone, and fake each of our deaths one by one.
But if I never heard from her, I would never know if she just couldn't get back in touch with me, or if any of the many things that could go wrong had gone wrong, and she and Kite were dead.
So after the explosion, while everyone was shocked and grieving, I kept my part in it to myself. Not gonna lie, it was pretty damn convincing. I was most of the way convinced myself. I figured it was good odds that not only had we just lost our friends, our family, but I was the one who had killed them.
So I didn't tell anyone. We grieved together, and I think Lyr might have suspected that I felt guilty about it, but he never knew why.
And then, about two years later, I saw Selinn again.
There was no warning this time. She had been waiting and waiting for an opportunity. She portaled in, grabbed me, and portaled out in the middle of a battle. Next thing I knew, my battle pod had blown, I was presumed dead, and we were free.
Talk about a shock, I'm telling you, when a woman I'd been halfway convinced was dead for two years suddenly showed up and whisked me off to freedom.
Selinn was awfully pleased with herself. She figured she could do it with the others the same way. But three deaths in our trainin
g group in two years was too many. Those of us who were still in captivity ended up getting split up, assigned elsewhere, and in most cases sent to the front, where Selinn and I couldn't get close to them.
So we fought back in our own ways. I got the Discordia—long story—and harassed Galatean shipping. Selinn and Kite, I later found out, worked in the escaped-slave underground, forging connections that have really come in handy for making Haven work out.
And somewhere along the way, I got to thinking ... wouldn't it make things easier if we had a second person who could teleport? Selinn couldn't use her snatch-and-grab technique too many times or the Galateans would get wise to it, and it really only worked if they thought the people she portaled out were dead. Plus, anyone who sees a Rhuadhi knows they're a teleporter. But having two of us in the underground who could do the same thing would give us twice as many chances, and if I could combine my ability to emulate a person of any species with the ability to open portals ... just think about the possibilities. I sure did.
The problem was, I needed a Rhuadhi symbiont. They don't just give them away, you know.
So I stole one.
"You what?" Claudia said, as everything he'd just told her spun around in her brain. Her impression of Skara was getting rearranged by the minute, it seemed.
Skara grinned at her, looking very pleased with himself. "I stole one. The details are far too complex to go into, but let's just say, I did what as far as I know, no one has ever successfully done before. I went to Rhuad and I got myself a symbiont."
"Are you saying," she began, her voice shaking with growing rage. She gestured vigorously to her middle. "—that this symbiont in me, which I never had a choice about, I might add, is stolen from some poor person who died a horrible death because you ripped it out of them—"
"What? What? No, no, no!" Skara waved his hands wildly. "It doesn't work like that! I mean, in the grand scheme of things I don't even know why I ever thought it'd work to get it back from you. It shouldn't have gone to you in the first place. A symbiont traveling from one living host to another is a thing that just doesn't happen. Or at least it's not supposed to. Selinn filled me in on the details of how they're transferred from one person to another on her homeworld, at least as many details as she knew. Normally, a symbiont lives a long and happy life with its host. When the host knows they're going to die, they go to a place they call a sanctuary, which is really more of a symbiont collection center. The host passes away in hospice care, and the symbiont is collected—don't ask me for details there; Selinn didn't know—and put in a tank-type thing, where it lives while a new host is found. Come to find out, the Rhuadhi really don't want outsiders knowing this, since their entire continued existence as an independent planet depends on being perceived as scary teleporters, but only a fraction of them have the ability to make portals. Maybe ten percent or so.
"This is another reason why Rhuadhi rarely leave their homeworld, especially Rhuadhi with symbionts. If they die offworld, their symbiont dies with them. And they can't make more. The symbionts they have now are all the ones they've ever had."
"And you took one," Claudia said, glaring at him.
"One! Just one! I really needed it. Look, they have thousands of available ones. Tens of thousands. No one's going to miss one."
"That sounds like self justification to me."
"Why do you care if I live an ethical life or not?" Skara demanded.
She had, in fact, been trying not to ask herself that question. "I care because you got me involved in your life, and now your terrible decisions are affecting me," she snapped
And she tried not to think about how it had affected her seeing him fold up and collapse like that. Tried not to think about the gentleness of his hands on her body, or the fact that he'd been running his own secret supply line to keep this village from going under. He might be a thief and a liar, but she thought that the universe would be a worse place without Skara in it.
Not that she had any intention of telling him that.
Skara looked more amused than offended. He also still looked wan despite the fact that she'd just watched him shoot himself up with what was probably the equivalent of an outer-space cocktail of morphine and meth. "Okay, so now that we've established that I'm pond scum—"
"If you don't care about stealing them anyway, why don't you just steal yourself another one?"
Skara looked at her. He blinked.
"You cannot possibly tell me the thought hadn't occurred to you."
"I ... Look, in my defense, my brain isn't working very effectively right now, and I had been completely focused on getting that one back from you, because that one is mine—"
"You really hadn't thought of it," Claudia said, staring at him.
"Bounty hunters! Chasing us! I haven't had time to stop and think! I went back to Earth planning to get that one back from you."
"But you can't," she said. A shudder wracked her. "You can't take it out without killing me."
"No," he said gently. "I don't think I can. I don't think anyone can."
She waited for horror to set in. But oddly, it didn't. Instead she thought of eye-searing blue-violet light blossoming at her fingertips. She could wave her hand and walk from Seattle to Louisiana with a stray thought. From Earth to space, and back again.
All her life she'd been ordinary. Claudia Webb, an ordinary girl with an ordinary name, the child of divorced parents, a competent but not brilliant graphic designer in a city glutted with graphic designers. She hadn't lost her virginity until less than a week ago; she'd never even dated a guy for more than a few weeks. She was overshadowed by a more beautiful and successful and confident sister. She occasionally fantasized about having adventures, but always balked at actually quitting her job and doing any of the things she daydreamed about (traveling the world, joining the Peace Corps, teaching English as a second language in some foreign country).
And then adventure had come along anyway and seized her in its teeth.
The last few days had been absolutely terrifying. She'd almost died any number of times. And now here she was, Claudia Webb, on a terrifying alien world with terrifying alien powers, and she ...
She kind of liked it. No, more than that.
She liked it a lot.
"Skara," Claudia said thoughtfully. "I want to point out that I still think this is unethical and terrible, but what do you think of us going to the Rhuadhi homeworld and getting you another symbiont?"
Fourteen
He had watched her face change: the slow dawn of realization as it sank in for this sheltered Earth girl just exactly what he'd gotten her into.
He waited for loathing to join the shock.
Instead, excitement spread across her face like the warm glow of a sunrise. He thought for a moment that he'd heard her wrong.
"You want to go steal a symbiont with me."
"Well, not exactly, because stealing is wrong," Claudia said promptly, though her eyes were still bright with excitement. He was nearly overwhelmed with a sudden urge to kiss her. "We could maybe just explain the situation to them—"
"That I broke in and stole one of their highly valued symbionts and now losing it is killing me?"
"... oh. You're right. They probably wouldn't be very sympathetic to that, would they?"
"Probably not."
But her infectious enthusiasm had re-energized him. "We could do this. I got in once. I can get in again." He caught Claudia by the shoulders. "This is do-able. I might not die!"
"Good! I don't want you to die!"
He kissed her before he could stop himself, capturing those soft-looking lips for one quick, indulgent moment. Claudia's eyes widened and then closed, and when he jerked away and hopped off the medbed, she blinked dazedly.
Skara began pacing the medbay, three quick steps one way and then the other, excitement thrumming under his skin.
"And ..." Claudia started to raise her fingertips to her lips and then dropped her hand into her lap. "We can figu
re out if there's a way to separate me from the symbiont while we're there, I guess? If anyone knows how, it's those people."
Oh. Right. Some of his elation seeped out. Of course, this was more about fixing herself than helping him. Why would he have thought anything else? Everyone was motivated by their own self-interest. And it wasn't like he could complain. He'd gotten her into this. He owed her an earnest attempt at trying to fix what he'd broken.
"Yes, of course," he said, and ran the tip of his tongue over his lips. He could still taste her; it was pleasant, though distracting. "We can fix both of our problems at the same time. How to do it, though? This isn't going to be easy. Security will be extra tight since I already did it once."
"How did you do it the first time?"
"Just made myself look like a local, walked in, and walked back out with it. Easy as you like. Okay, so getting to the planet was the hard part, but once I was actually there and got the lay of the land, I was in. It's not going to be that easy a second time, not if they've figured out a shapeshifter stole the first one."
"Could we buy one?" Claudia asked.
"They don't sell them."
"Oh. Damn. Well ... I can teleport, right? Couldn't I just portal in? No, wait, I'd have to see it first. You could maybe, like, show me a picture—"
"Won't work. Don't forget, this is a planet where teleporting is common. They have technology to block it. Tech the Galateans would very much like to get their hands on." He tapped his finger against his lips. "Hmm. Since we're there anyway—"
"Oh no," Claudia declared. "No way. You just told me the only thing keeping them safe is that the Galateans are scared of them. I'm going to help you for one reason only, and that's because you need a symbiont to survive. I am not helping you steal something they need to survive, just so you can get rich off it."
"Fair enough." He turned and looked at her, taking in the brightness of her eyes, the eager energy that fed his own. "You really want to do this."
