by J. S. Fields
Nicholas wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so he decided against saying anything. Instead, he prodded Emn’s leg with his toe. When she looked over, he shrugged his shoulders and put his hand on the wall next to his face. “Maybe you should check it out,” he whispered. “Just in case.”
Neek called out again. “Hey, Emn, could you come over here and see if you can help me find the navigation controls?”
“That almost sounds like the old Neek,” Emn whispered to Nicholas as she squeezed past Salesblob. Although they shifted a bit to let her pass, her hips still pushed into their form, indenting the side of their body.
Not wanting to be stuck in the hall, Nicholas squeezed past behind her, avoiding the blob entirely. Once inside the cockpit, he realized why Neek was taking her time with the interface. On first glance, the interior looked flawless. The ceiling was high and arched, and the three separate chairs, complete with shoulder harnesses, were designed for bipeds. The walls had been painted a soothing yellow, and the upholstery on the chair cushioning was a somehow not-blinding lime green. The colors should have been hideous but, combined with the paler yellow of the interface console, were more comforting than anything else. Someone had customized the interior, he realized. Someone probably with money and a lot of time on their hands.
“—Keft.” The last of Emn’s sentence caught his attention. She was standing next to Neek at the interface, pointing to some scrolling text he couldn’t make out. “The indents here, next to your hand, Neek, are a fingertip interface. Ship says they need a conductive gel to work, but since it’s Keft-made, maybe your stuk will do the trick.”
Neek backed from the console and looked wary. “This isn’t a telepathic interface, is it?” she asked. “I can’t deal with anything else in my head right now.”
“I didn’t realize my presence was so problematic,” Emn returned. Her tone sounded serious, but Nicholas thought he caught a hint of humor. Neek apparently missed it.
“Emn, that’s not what I meant!” Her face reddened.
The younger woman took Neek’s hand and placed it back on the panel, aligning her fingertips with the depressions. “I know, Neek. I’m only joking. Here.” She tapped the area next to Neek’s fingers, and the interface lit up. “You command with one hand—drive with the other using gentle movements from your fingertips. Sort of like the Pledge, except this system was intentionally designed to be complex.”
“Complex, or intuitive?” Nicholas asked. He stepped closer and watched Neek scroll through menu options, or what he assumed were menu options due to their layout. He probably should have studied more of the Neek language when he was trapped there with the crew several weeks back.
“I like it,” Neek said finally. She turned back to the blob. “Let’s take a quick tour of the rest, then talk paint. Also—” She narrowed her eyes and rapped her knuckles against the nearby wall. “—I want to negotiate overage. Our pod is in perfect working order and spotless. This skiff is obviously older. Let’s talk about some ways to make up the difference.”
SEVERAL HOURS LATER, Nicholas found himself staring at a magenta skiff with white piping and the name Scarlet Lucidity scrawled across its hull, while Neek carried two large sacks—one of clothes and one of foodstuffs—into the ship. Emn elbowed him in the ribs and chuckled.
“Relax, Nicholas. It really was the better color option. The green was hideous.”
“No,” said Nicholas resolutely. “The better color option was to leave it the color it was. Another possibility would have been to cover it in dirt.” He shuddered and smacked his hand against the hull. “Seriously? Neon-colored clothes, fine. I can get onboard with that. But a ship? Are we trying to stand out everywhere we go?”
“All packed,” Neek called as she descended the plank and rejoined Nicholas and Emn. “Blob said we could leave the ship here for a bit if we want to look around. Any interest?”
Nicholas tore his eyes from the grotesque paint and rubbed his forehead with his palm. Since they had no new coordinates to try, poking around a space hub seemed as reasonable a plan as any. If it kept Neek in a good mood, all the better. He did not mention the paint.
“Sounds great,” Emn said.
Nicholas nodded in agreement. “I’d really like some fast print,” he added as they made their way to the exit and into the main plaza. “Could we make that a priority?”
“Agreed,” Neek yelled over the sudden din. Outside the shipyard, the noise was staggering. The hub was only the length of a Risalian cutter, but Nicholas wasn’t able to get an accurate count of the number of levels it had. Some shops, like the shipyard, were housed in pods just off the main core. Mostly, from what he had seen when they first landed, the shops were smaller and similar to the ones on Craston.
There was nothing dim or quiet about this spaceport, however. Weaving in and out of the masses as he tried his best to follow Neek and Emn, Nicholas saw more species than he could keep track of. Most were bipeds and quadrupeds, but there were Mmnnuggls too, a number of phase-shifting beings, and at least three types of gelatinous creatures that may or may not have been the same species as Salesblob. Some beings were sticky when he brushed past, most had significant body odors, and he was certain at least one had gotten grabby with his posterior.
“To the right!” Emn shouted as she stood on her toes to get a better view. “I see a glowing cellulose image and something next to it that looks like a very short, fat Yorden. Could be food.” She took Neek’s hand and the lead, pushed through a group of tall quadrupeds, and sidestepped two bubbling puddles before stopping at the entrance to a small shop.
Nicholas peered inside. A Terran man—except as far as Nicholas knew, Terrans did not generally have purple hair—winked at him from the back. Nicholas cleared his throat and looked away. The interior of the restaurant was brightly lit, with seven print stalls in a row and a dozen round tables at varying heights. Only a few were occupied, which meant either the print quality was low, or it was not a standard eating interval.
“Want to try it?” Neek asked. “I don’t how we’ll read the menu.”
“Don’t care,” Nicholas responded. “At this point, I could eat anything. I just hope they take diamond rounds. I know we only have the few Chen gave us.” He led the way to the first empty printer and stared at a scrolling, anthropomorphized cellulose chain as it wound around the screen. Its mouth gobbled glucose molecules as it went, increasing in length until it filled the screen completely and the image restarted.
Too hungry to be amused, Nicholas tapped the screen. The moving chain broke apart into six different stylized chemical structures, each with a number of diamond rounds and what Nicholas thought might be sapphires under the picture. He studied his options and then tapped the second down on the left.
“No chlorines on this one,” he said. “Probably won’t kill me—at least not directly.”
Neek fed the required number of rounds into a slot in the top, and a whirl of cellulose spun into motion in a clear tube just to the right of the machine. After a few seconds, the whirring stopped and a door to the tube opened, revealing a flat slab of something fluffy and yellow, perforated into four parts.
“Classic perf,” Nicholas said. He picked up the slab, which was denser than he had anticipated, and pointed to an empty table. “I’ll hold the table. See you two in a minute.”
“SO, YOU THINK it’s just the Keft and the Neek, then?” Nicholas asked between bites. He’d broken his meal across the perforations and given half to Neek to try. He’d already had half of hers, which tasted slightly worse than corrugated cardboard. Emn had flat out refused all of it.
“Enough, Nicholas,” Neek responded in a weary tone. She grimaced at her remaining slice of perf and then took a large bite, chewing and swallowing quickly. “It was nice of Captain Effin to let us keep the analyzer, but we need to consult an actual geneticist before we get too worked up about the results.”
Nicholas wiped his hand on his leg, sending crumbs everywhere.
“It’d be nice to talk about it at least a little,” he said, mouth full of perf. “Especially since the fingers and hair thing isn’t consistent across either the Neek or Keft populations, but the stuk thing is.”
“Do you want my suspicions,” Neek asked, giving up on her remaining piece and pushing it away, “or do you want facts?”
Nicholas grinned at Emn. “When have facts bothered any of you? Let’s go for suspicions.”
Neek eyed the perf, pulled it back in, and took a tentative bite, considering. “The older family lines, the ones with the well-charted genealogies, have three fingers and don’t manifest any shade of red in their hair. At this point—” She looked apologetically at Emn. “—I suspect some form of interbreeding when the Ardulans came. It would work with the Keft double phenotype system as well. I think the Ardulans must target genetically compatible species, though how they do that I have no idea. They target them, interbreed, and plant andal—or change the genetically similar andal already on-world.” She frowned. “They genetically conquer both the land and the people.”
“You think empathic mucus is the link?” Emn wrinkled her nose and pushed away the small piece of perf Nicholas offered her. “Like it is some kind of marker?”
Neek shrugged. “Maybe. It’s just a hypothesis.”
“So the Ardulans and Neek are genetically compatible.” Nicholas tried desperately to suppress his grin. “Subspecies can totally interbreed. That’s…interesting. Right? Useful information?” Although he was staring at Neek for her reaction, he caught Emn suppressing a smile from the corner of his eye.
Neek missed the implication entirely. “I wonder if the stuk helps with interbreeding with genetically distinct individuals. I suppose I’m making an assumption that Ardulans have stuk, which, considering Emn doesn’t have any, might be a leap.”
“Yeah.” Nicholas rolled his eyes. “That’s exactly what I meant.” He leaned over and poked Neek in the shoulder. “So we’re looking for a planet of conquerors?”
Neek nodded absentmindedly as she finished the perf Nicholas had given her. “It also means there is almost certainly a ‘there’ to find,” she muttered. Standing from her chair, she brushed the crumbs from her lap and inclined her head towards the exit. “Want to get moving?”
“Are we in a hurry?” Nicholas stood as well and the three moved back out into the throng of beings. He preferred the quietness of the print shop but knew there was little chance of Ardulum’s coordinates dropping into their laps while they sat around and crunched on bland food.
“No, but I see another neon ship sign. I wouldn’t mind checking it out, especially if it is a travelers’ pub. We could use some practical Alliance guidance.”
Together, the three bumped and jostled their way across the hub to what appeared to be a bustling entertainment hall. A tall biped—several heads taller than Nicholas—stood to the side of the door and checked the wrists of those entering. Checked the wrists of those that had them, anyway. Nicholas watched one potential patron have her hind right hoof lifted up and prodded before being allowed entrance.
“How are we supposed to get in?” Emn asked. She wrapped her bare arms around her chest, and Nicholas wondered if she was suddenly feeling self-conscious about the markings all over her body.
“Try,” Neek responded absently. Nicholas followed her gaze past the bouncer to the main stage area. Inside, a raised circular platform sat in the middle of the room. Beings sprawled across cushions, water tanks, chairs, and bales of grass, sipping drinks and chatting over the music.
“Why are we going in?” Nicholas asked. He came up behind Neek and put a hand on her elbow. A thick quadruped pulled the drummer from the stage by its teeth and a band of golden spheres—maybe Mmnnuggls?—began to play levitating woodwind instruments.
“We are going in because these are our people,” Neek responded. “Look at them! Dirty. Carousing. It might not be a pub, but it is the next best thing. We should be able to ask some questions once we get inside.”
Neek began to push towards the bouncer, but Nicholas stepped in front of her, his hands held up to his chest, palms out. “Neek, whoa. Hold on, please.” When Neek glared instead of pushing him out of the way, he raised his voice so that it would carry. “We could ask questions anywhere. We could find a nice restaurant where they serve cooked food on glass plates. We could talk to people at a museum, or whatever passes for that here. This—” He pointed at the interior of the entertainment establishment. “—is not our only option. It is likely the loudest option, and the dirtiest, but not the only one.”
“I didn’t realize you had extensive experience in reputable versus disreputable establishments!” Neek yelled back over the noise. She moved to the side and strode past him. “I’m going in. Stay out here if you like. Same deal with you, Emn.”
Neek took another two steps and then turned back and looked at the younger woman, her face conflicted. “Sorry. I meant you’re welcome to come in, or stay here. Whatever you want.”
A barking laugh drowned out Emn’s answer. Nicholas saw the musicians turn their attention to the far corner of the room. One of the instruments clattered to the platform. The other performers fumbled the rhythm, and the music fell apart into a chorus of laughter from the audience. Another glass went sailing across the crowd.
Nicholas looked back to ask Neek what she thought was going on, but instead watched her gracefully sidestep the bouncer, who was busy arguing with a pair of Mmnnuggls adorned in bright lilac paint. The closest one rotated to face Nicholas, tilted ten degrees left, and then turned back to the bouncer.
“Neek!” he hissed after her, hoping his voice was both somehow loud enough for her to hear, yet soft enough that she wouldn’t get caught. When she failed to turn around, Nicholas looked to Emn.
“Can you call her back?” he asked, unsure whether or not to follow. “There is no way we’re getting past the bouncer.”
Emn frowned, and her eyes unfocused. “She’s not listening. She’s already started talking with another of those blob beings. I think—”
Emn’s pocket chirped.
She shook her head at Nicholas’s questioning look and reached into the pocket on her dress. From inside, she pulled out a flat, metallic disc the size of her palm.
“Remote to the Scarlet Lucidity,” Emn said, staring at the disc. Little, red lights illuminated the circumference. “Neek asked me to hold it when she was signing the purchasing papers and filling out the name registry for the ship. I forgot to give it back.”
Nicholas poked the device. It was warm to his touch and vibrating ever so slightly. Another chirp sounded. “What’s wrong with it?” he asked.
“Nothing. I think it…” Emn flipped it over and then held it between her thumb and first finger. She squinted, bringing the disc closer to her face. Nicholas had to suppress a laugh.
“That help?” he asked.
His question went unanswered, but Nicholas didn’t press. The color was gone from Emn’s face. Her hands began to shake. The disc fell to the ground, and while Nicholas scrambled to pick it up—not wanting to think about the repercussions should it be crushed or lost—Emn stood still and straight, her focused gaze unblinking.
“Emn?” Nicholas asked. The disc was firmly back in his hands, but the lights had gone out.
“It’s a communication,” Emn said slowly, the words sounding thick on her tongue. She turned her head towards the bar where Neek had disappeared and then looked back to Nicholas. The din of the spaceport quieted, as if every being were listening to Emn’s next words. “It’s a message from the Eld of Ardulum.”
Chapter 11: Research Station K47, Ardulum
Cultures destroyed, famine, ecological ruin! The Ardulans take what is not theirs, rule what they cannot take. Throw off the yoke of your oppressors, beings of the Charted Systems! Do not fall prey once again to a species of fools.
—Excerpt from a broadband conference to the Charted Systems from just outside Risal, December 14th, 2061 CE
ARIK THRASHED AGAINST the plastic strips that held his arms loosely above his head, strapped to the titha wool pad.
The guard had led him from the commons without a word before his first meal had been served. They’d walked only a few meters down a corridor before entering a pale blue room with pads lined evenly across the floor. One of the others, the male whose room was right next to Arik’s, had been strapped into the far-right pad, unmoving.
That image had been enough to send Arik into a panic. He knew what was coming. Kisak, Waiketh…they’d all shared images with him of the testing. He’d seen this room a dozen times in fragmented minds and fevered dreams that bled into his andal forests and saplings. He didn’t want this. He didn’t deserve this. He needed help. If he could only get away and get someone to listen—
Additional guards had been called. It’d taken three to calm Arik’s thrashing and get him to lie on the pad and a fourth to strap him down.
The plastic ties cut Arik’s skin and were now stained maroon from his blood. He barely registered the pain anymore.
“Does it give you a sense of control to further desecrate your body?”
The small room was empty now save for Arik, the unconscious man, and a tall gatoi healer. Arik stilled. A gatoi, in this place. He couldn’t imagine what would possess the Eld to assign a gatoi to a prison. Had zie done something to offend the Eld? Perhaps committed some crime and this was zir punishment?
“Bit of sense still left then. That’s good to see.” The healer pulled a plastic tablet from zir pocket and began to type on the glass screen. “Tell me—telepathically, of course—how your markings feel at this exact moment.”
The question sounded in Arik’s head as well. The tone was crisp, but Arik’s mind rearranged the words, made them come out of his talther’s mouth instead. Moisture collected in Arik’s eyes, and he blinked it back, determined not to cry.
“Did you hear me, Arik?”
