by Lauren Esker
Lyr shifted again, and suddenly she had her arms around his serpentine neck. His eyes danced just the same in his dragon form as he lifted his head and arched his wings above them.
"Yes yes, thanks for the reminder that some of us don't need bathing suits."
*Come and swim with me, Meri.*
"You're persuasive, I have to admit."
She pulled off the loose shirt and pants, stripping down to the wraparound garment that functioned as alien underwear. Lyr, meanwhile, waded into the ocean's edge. He ducked his head to meet the oncoming waves and snapped at them like a puppy playing in the water.
"Oh, it's cold!" Meri gasped as the edge of the waves washed over her bare toes.
*It's not that cold. Within human tolerances. You'll get used to it if you get deeper.*
"Easy for you to say! I think I'll just stay on the beach here."
Lyr twisted his head around. *I don't want to leave you alone.*
"I'll be fine." She wrapped her arms around his enormous muzzle and kissed him on the tip of his snout, where the skin was surprisingly soft. "I'll be right here where you can keep an eye on me, and I can call you if I need you."
*I think I might try to catch a fish. I need protein and Skara is taking forever with lunch.*
Meri's stomach grumbled. "I'm hungry, but not that hungry. Have fun."
She climbed up to the sun-warmed sand out of reach of the waves. Sitting with her knees under her chin, she watched Lyr playing in the waves.
It was really extraordinary to see him so expressive and playful. He dived under the water, folding his wings, then surfaced farther out with a tremendous splash, water streaming down his scales. A silver fish glistened in his jaws. He flipped it up into the air and snapped his jaws on it. The fish vanished down his throat in a single bite.
"Ewww!" she yelled across the waves.
*It's excellent. You don't know what you're missing. Also very good for you. Grows healthy bones and scales.*
"I prefer no scales, and I think you're going to have to brush your teeth if you expect a kiss later, buddy."
*Germs can't survive the shifting process.*
"It's not germs I'm worried about—well, okay, it partly is, but mostly it's just the ick factor."
Lyr dived beneath the surface again, and splashed out closer to shore. *Are you sure you wouldn't like to come in? If the water is too cold, I could shield you.*
"Would that work?"
*Come here and I'll show you.*
Intrigued now, she came down to the ocean's edge, until waves purled around her toes. Lyr rose out of the water in front of her, glistening in the sun, and held out a clawed forepaw. The cuff glistened on his wrist. *Take my hand.*
She laid her hand on his scaled arm, noticing as she did so that the cuff was considerably larger than it had been when he was human-sized. Or, no—it had simply grown thinner and longer. "How does that work?" she asked, touching it. "It can change size?"
*Nanometal. It's meant to accommodate itself to users of any size, because there is such a wide variety of different shaped people in the Empire.*
"One size fits all," she murmured. "Where do your clothes go when you shift, anyway?"
*I don't know. It's just how my people work. There is a theory that we obtain the energy for shifting from some other dimension, a different plane of reality, and our clothes and anything we're carrying go there while we're shifted and come back when we change back.*
"But the cuffs don't?"
He shrugged, a ripple passing across his scales. *Metal can't cross the barrier, so it stays in this reality. Jewelry, say, or my metal implants, or—*
He stopped before saying collar, but she could still read the thought in his mind, along with the memory of despair. Meri squeezed his wrist. "That's over now," she told him firmly. "And my feet are getting cold, so go ahead and show me what you had in mind."
*Yes. Of course.*
Her skin tingled as the faint green glimmer flowed over her body, and suddenly her feet were no longer in the water. She could still feel its coolness and a slight tickling sensation as the waves flowed around her feet, but it was oddly distant, almost like her feet were numb.
*Now get on my back.* Lyr obligingly lowered his belly to the sand to make it easier for her; waves rolled around his sides. *Stay in contact with me or the shield will drop.*
"Um ... okay." She climbed on. "What are you going to do—oh!"
Lyr began to wade deeper. Water surged around her thighs and then around her waist, the sensations still weirdly dulled, as if she felt them through a layer of cotton.
*It's all right.* She felt reassurance coming to her through the link. *With the shield around you, you'll be able to breathe underwater just fine.*
"Wait, we're going und—"
She broke off and clamped her mouth shut instinctively as Lyr ducked downward and water closed over her head. She also squeezed her eyes shut. But her face didn't feel wet, and after a few seconds she opened her eyes, squinting.
A submarine world stretched around her in both directions, filled with an ambient blue-green glow as sunlight filtered down through the water. The ground beneath Lyr's feet was the same pale sand as the beach, with patches of seaweed waving lazily and little schools of fish flitting about.
*You can breathe. There's plenty of air inside the shield. Trust me.*
She did trust him, so she took a cautious breath. The air seemed perfectly normal.
*There is still some oxygen/carbon dioxide exchange through the shield, so you shouldn't run out of air, but let me know if you begin to feel lightheaded. Would you like to go deeper?*
"I ... I'm not sure." It felt strange, speaking out loud underwater. Her voice echoed oddly. She could feel the buoyancy of the water tugging on her, trying to lift her, and she clutched with both hands at Lyr's spiky mane and clamped her thighs firmly around the barrel of his body.
*We can surface if you become uncomfortable. Just let me know.*
"Okay," she said, speaking to herself as much as him. "Okay. Let's go."
Lyr kicked off from the bottom in a swirl of sand, startling her. For some reason she'd been expecting him to walk. But of course there was no reason to; he hadn't been standing so much as drifting below the surface with his feet in light contact with the sand.
He swam with a twisting motion, kicking occasionally and using his wings to steer. His body undulated beneath her in a way that was odd at first, but she adjusted quickly; it felt almost like the water was carrying her along, except for the steadying pressure of his body against her.
*Are you enjoying this?* Lyr asked.
"Oh, yes," she breathed.
The water was very clear around them, fading to deeper aqua in all directions. Tiny creatures darted about their business, not just fish but a variety of other things, including some she was pretty sure were jellyfish (or something similar) and things she couldn't identify at all, like an undulating square that resembled nothing she'd ever heard of on Earth.
*Are you cold?*
"Not at all."
He circled back around to the shore at last, and his back surfaced out of the water while his feet settled on the sand. Meri blinked; it hadn't been that dim under the water, but now the sun seemed very bright. The shield winked out around her, and suddenly she could feel the warmth of the sun on her head and shoulders, and the water rushing past her legs as the waves rolled in and out. Her toes were brushing the sand.
Lyr twisted under her, and then she was holding Lyr the man, standing waist-deep in the water with his clothes billowing around him. He kissed her; his lips were salty.
"I tried so hard not to love you," he whispered. "But now I think I loved you from the first time I saw you."
"You mean when I was running and being chased by pirates?" It seemed so long ago now.
"When you were fighting back bravely and impressing me with your courage and spirit? Yes." He brushed his hand across the side of her face and stroked his fingers
through her hair, untwisted now into a fluffy cloud floating around her face. "Yes, I loved you then and I love you now."
"I love you too." Her soul seemed to lift with each word. "I love you. I love you."
Lyr's face melted into a soft-edged smile, and he leaned down to kiss her again.
"Hope I'm not interrupting anything!" Skara's clear voice carried across the dunes. Meri broke the kiss and looked up just in time to see a violet-edged portal winking out, leaving Skara behind with a picnic basket and a blanket thrown over his arm. "I see you two have found ways to entertain yourselves," he added.
"While you were taking days preparing our meal?" Lyr called ashore, his tone very dry. "What a surprise."
Skara spread the blanket on the beach, out of reach of the rolling waves. "Fine, if you don't want to eat ..."
They splashed ashore and Meri grabbed for her shirt, all too aware that the clinging material of the undergarment had become semitransparent in the water. She wasn't that crazy about getting dressed over wet underwear, but there were dry clothes back on the ship, and the sun was warm.
They sat on the blanket and used warm flatbreads to dip from bowls containing different things—some were like oddly spiced curry, others had beans or rice in them. Skara spread out little pots of various condiments and Meri watched carefully to see how they were supposed to be used and combined, then cautiously tried them herself. Once she got used to the unusual flavors, she stuffed herself; there was plenty of everything.
"I can't believe this is the first time I've had actual alien food since leaving Earth. Your actual, traditional food, I mean. Except for those awful ration packs."
"Aren't they terrible?" Skara said, making a face. "Supposedly they have every nutrient you need to survive. You can live on them for years—indefinitely, even, according to the packaging."
"I think I'd almost rather starve."
"They're not that bad," Lyr said.
Meri poked him with a flatbread. "You ate a raw fish. I don't think your opinions count here."
"Ah yes, the hunting peoples of the galaxy," Skara remarked with a small shudder. "The Galateans are like that as well, and Rei's folk. My people are more civilized. I like my food cooked."
"Thank you," Meri said, holding out a fist. Skara looked puzzled, and she explained, "You bump it with yours. Earth custom. It means 'right on,' or 'me too.'"
"Ah." He bumped fists. "Where did you find her, brother? She's wonderful. Is she really unmodified, completely and totally?"
"Yes," Lyr said with weary patience, "but you may not have her genetic material, now or at any other time. It is not for sale."
"Oh, I don't know," Meri remarked thoughtfully, reaching for another flatbread. "I might want to sell my DNA to inbred Galateans someday, but if I'm going to do it, I'll sell it myself, got it?"
"I could act as your middleman," Skara suggested. "A cut for me, most of the profit to you. I know the black market, I have the contacts ... you need me."
"Don't make me turn into a dragon and bite you in half," Lyr growled.
Skara laughed. "It's so good to see you, brother. I missed being threatened on a daily basis. Now we can have a regular reunion, if I can just figure out where Selinn's gotten off to these days—"
"Wait." Lyr's face was a picture of shock. "Selinn's alive too?"
"Of course she is." Skara looked genuinely astounded. "I didn't realize you wouldn't realize—Who do you think got me out?" He raised a hand in the unzipping gesture that he used to make portals. "I didn't have my little friend here yet. No, Selinn and Kite did it for me, once Selinn figured out how to portal without setting off her collar—"
"Kite's alive? Are they all alive?" Lyr looked dazed. Meri put her hand on his arm. "All of them? No," he corrected himself. "Not Haiva. I watched her die. She was shot in front of me."
"Haiva is really dead," Skara said. He leaned forward, his sharp, guarded face softening. "Lyr, I really am sorry. I know it couldn't have been easy. We just didn't have any safe way to get in touch with you."
"You've all been alive. All these years. Where were you?"
"Around," Skara said. "Hiding out, while we made plans for Selinn to portal in and grab the others. She finally got her shot at Rook, but we—that's me and Kite—think something went wrong. We haven't heard from her since. Kite's worried as hell."
Lyr shook his head. "Wait, wait. Back up. Rook and Selinn—"
"She portalled into his pod and grabbed him right before the pod blew up. At least, that was the plan."
"I felt him die," Lyr said, his face blank. "No ... I felt him vanish. Rei as well—was she going to grab Rei too?"
"I don't know what happened. Kite and I have been trying to find them."
"You let me think you were dead."
"We had to," Skara said, his face serious. "There simply was no other way. We had to fake each death as completely as possible, because if the Galateans ever got the slightest idea we might be alive, they'd never stop looking. The only way we'll all be free and safe is if they never think to look for us."
Lyr made a hissing noise like steam escaping a teakettle.
"We would have told you if we could have," Skara added gently.
Lyr looked away, staring out to sea, and then glanced back at him. "So your brilliant plan was just to have Selinn portal away each of us, one at a time?"
"It worked, didn't it? At least up until Rook and Rei. We still don't know what went wrong there. I don't think they're dead, they're just gone, but it means we've lost our teleporter." He wiggled his fingers. "And that's why I have my portally little friend now."
"Yes, where did you get that? I thought Selinn's people were the only ones in the galaxy who had them, and it's a very closely guarded secret. They never give them to outsiders. In fact, they don't even talk to outsiders, ever." To Meri, he said, "Selinn's the only one of her kind I've ever met, in fact one of the only ones I've ever heard of outside the Rhuadhi homeworld."
"I stole it," Skara said casually.
Lyr stared at him. "You ... stole a symbiote that allows you to teleport, from a planet of xenophobic teleporters who never leave their homeworld."
"Pretty much, yeah."
Lyr blew out a breath. "Only you, brother. Only you."
Skara grinned, a bright sharp-edged grin, and then he rose to his knees and leaned forward to clasp Lyr in a quick hug. Lyr looked utterly flummoxed, and was still looking stunned when Skara released him and sank back into a cross-legged seat at the edge of their picnic blanket.
"I did miss you, you know," Skara remarked, picking up a flatbread. His voice was casually playful as usual, but Meri was close enough to see his hand tremble and then steady. "For one thing, I'd forgotten how much fun it was to watch you get that look, yes, that one, when I tell you about things like—ooh, do you want to hear about how I had to scale a thousand-foot cliff in a hurricane to break into the—"
"No," Lyr said flatly. He raised a hand to surreptitiously dash at his eyes.
***
By morning Tamir was awake, but Meri refused to let him out of bed.
"It's your own fault for fighting pirates and dinosaurs with a broken pelvis," she told him when she brought him breakfast. The life-support web had been disconnected, but he was still bundled in blankets and weak enough he could barely sit up. "And that's a sentence I never thought I'd hear myself say, believe me, but I mean it."
Tamir smiled at her in between wolfing down the food she'd brought him. Breakfast was a sort of wrap-type thing involving fresh fish from the sea and frozen vegetables that Skara provided from the ship's stores, crunchy red and purple carrot-like things. Meri had had her doubts about serving fish tacos to a recovering patient, but she'd forgotten how hungry both Lyr and Tamir got when they'd been healing.
"You want more?" she asked when the food had been reduced to crumbs.
"This will do for now. I'll want meat later, if we have any."
"I'm sure we could get that for you."
Tamir nodded his thanks, but then he turned hesitant. "Skara is here, correct? That wasn't a dream?"
"He's here." She hadn't thought until that moment, seeing the tentative hope on Tamir's face, that Tamir must have been as close to the rest of Lyr's sept as he was to Lyr. "You know the others are alive, right? Someone must have told you. I hope someone told you."
"Lyr did. It's still hard to believe." Tamir plucked at the crumbs of his meal with claw-tipped fingers. "Next time you see Skara, if you could ... send him up, perhaps, I'd appreciate it."
"There's an easier way. He's been with Lyr all morning." With that, she sent a mental question to Lyr, and got a visual answer back. The two of them had their heads together over an open engine access panel. It looked like Skara was showing Lyr how the ship worked.
*Lyr, can you tell Skara that Tamir wants to see him?*
*Just a second,* Lyr said. *I'll send him over to the medbay.* Meri sensed a fierce satisfaction behind the words, and Lyr left the link open so she was able to see Skara blanch when Lyr said, "Tamir wants to see you, brother. Pity I won't be there to see you get the chewing out you deserve."
*Tamir's not calling him up here to yell at him, Lyr. Don't be cruel.*
*He deserves it.*
Meri rolled her eyes and broke the connection. She noticed Tamir watching her curiously. "Lyr says he's on his way." He was still gazing at her, until she asked, "What's wrong?"
Tamir shook his head. "Nothing's wrong. Things are right, maybe, for the first time in a long time."
Meri hesitated, and then sat on the end of his bed. "What about you? What are you planning to do next?"
It took him awhile to answer. "I ... don't know. I have a duty, to my people and to my clan."
Meri's heart clutched. "To turn us in? To turn Lyr in?"
"No!" The answer was quick and vehement. "No," he added again, more quietly, looking at the white wall of the medbay rather than at her. "I just haven't figured out how I'm going to explain any of this. And as for Skara—"
"Taking my name in vain?" Skara asked lightly from the doorway, where he was lounging casually against the doorframe. Meri hadn't even noticed when he got there; she had the feeling he'd taken the time to arrange himself for maximum casual-draping effect and then awaited his moment before he said anything.
