"Why did I take you?" A smile twisted his lips. "You really don't understand how valuable you are, do you? The only reason Zon got you for as cheaply as he did was because everybody was too afraid of him to challenge him. Didn't you wonder why you were attacked in the forest?"
"You sent them?" Lisa's eyes widened. "After me?"
The man shrugged. "Not me, but people in my line of work."
"We thought that they attacked because of Zon," Lisa mumbled, drawing back as the man came forward. "But me? Why? What… Are you going to put me in some rare zoological collection? Do you want to return to my home planet to strip our resources?"
"Mining asteroids is easier than dealing with an inhabited planet." The man shook his head. "No. We're not after your planet or your people, or to put you in a zoo. It's you. Do you have any idea how rare universal DNA is?"
Lisa remembered the auctioneer saying something about her universal DNA. "What is that? It doesn't make any sense, every species has its own DNA—"
"With shared traits. Universal DNA is when an individual, such as yourself, shares all of its base pairs with other species." The man paused. "For instance, you share 100% of your DNA with my species, with most species, in fact. All of your base pairs are present in my DNA, but not all of my base pairs of present in your DNA. Universal. You… you are more than a rarity. You are an impossibility. It's almost as if… almost as if you were human."
The bottom of Lisa's stomach dropped out. Almost as if she was human? What was that supposed to mean? What he was saying… it was impossible. Genetics simply didn't work that way. His species couldn't have extra DNA that she didn't have, it had to be different. How could they share any DNA in the first place? He was from another planet!
Lisa swallowed dryly. "And what do you want with my universal DNA?"
"It can be used for many things. Cures for genetic diseases, reversing infertility. Proving religious dogma. But all I'm going to do is sell you. You are going to make me a very rich man." He set the bowl down on the ground and smiled. "Try to eat."
He left without another word. Lisa pressed herself against the far wall, shivering. Her brain skittered around, finally settling on one thought. Zon was dead. She had nothing left out here to stay for. And so she was going to return to Earth or die trying.
Chapter Six
The next time the alien came to give her food (vegetables this time), Lisa was able to learn that they were still orbiting Senett. Since she was an exotic species, they had to find the right security personnel to bribe into letting them go without putting her in quarantine, which could end in her death. Knowing that they were still near the planet gave her hope. Even though every time she fell asleep she woke sobbing, either because she dreamt of being home or with Zon, she knew that if she could only find a way off this ship, then perhaps she could make her way back to Earth.
She was sitting on the floor, sharpening the edge of a spoon into a shiv so she could at least have a weapon, when she heard the screams.
Her head jerked up, her heart stilling. The low zings and loud explosions of weapons echoed around her small room. Screams of pain and shouts for backup rang over the din and Lisa jumped to her feet. Was it another group coming to steal her? She gripped her spoon-shiv tightly. Whoever it was, if they made it to her room, she would be ready for them.
Stab and run, she told herself, her grip tightening. Stab and run.
The door opened. Lisa's shiv clattered to the floor. Her eyes widened, her heart stopped. Disbelief flowed through her, and the next second she ran forward, crying out with joy. Zon stumbled as he caught her. He leaned against his sword, clearly worse for wear.
"How did you—"
"No time," he grunted, wrapping an arm around her. He pushed his sword into her hands; it was heavier than she expected, and she could hardly keep a grip on it. Zon slapped his thigh–his robotic thigh–and cursed. A panel shot from it, revealing a glowing screen that showed a red dot on an orb. Before Lisa could take a closer look at it, Zon had pressed a few buttons and the sound of a tornado filled her ears.
She felt like she was going to die. Her body was being ripped apart, turned inside out. All her memories flashed before her eyes. She screamed.
"Quiet!" Zon slapped a hand over her mouth.
Lisa blinked. The agony was gone, just the ghost of memory. They were laying on the ground, staring up at leaves in shades of red and orange.
"Teleportation," she mumbled. "Wow… I always ascribed to the belief that it would be theoretically possible, but that it would scramble the body too much to ever work in practice."
Zon grunted as he got to his feet. His leg was blackened and there appeared to be chunks missing, revealing shiny machinery inside. "Teleportation takes a serious toll on the body, yes. But it was the only way we were getting off that ship."
Lisa scrambled to her feet. Blisters were rising over his shoulders and down his side. His hair was shorter, with that distinctive ragged, rough texture that came from being singed. A large, black circle was burnt into his skin directly over his heart, scorching away the tattoos that had been there. Her fingers trembling, Lisa touched it.
"How did you survive?"
"I'm trained to take a blast or two and keep going."
"But they leveled the outpost."
Zon nodded, anger flashing over his face. His normally devil-red skin was pale; any paler and he would turn pink. "I knew they would, so as soon as I could move, I got out. There wasn't time to calculate the transporter to get to you right away."
Did he feel guilty? Lisa ducked under his arm, trying to help support him even though she knew that she wasn't strong enough for that. He was massive, and it was like trying to hold a rhinoceros up. "What are we going to do now?"
"There's a place where my family used to go in emergencies. I restocked the supplies and defenses before I found you."
"Bought me," Lisa shot back.
"More like rescued you."
She hesitated. "Maybe."
Zon shot her a crooked grin and chuckled. "You sounded like your teeth were getting pulled there."
"I don't like admitting that I'm helpless. Now let's get to this emergency shelter before they find us."
Zon nodded. They made their way through the jungle, the massive T'Shav warrior leaning on her and his sword for support. Fortunately, they didn't come across any of the local fauna, although there were times when Zon had to slice a flower in two because it was a dangerous mammal-eating plant.
If I had my lab equipment… Lisa though sadly. And there wasn't anybody after us.
Hours later, they reached the shelter, a tunnel with a tiny opening that wound deep into the ground. Eventually, they were in a large room with two dusty beds. Shelves of preserved foods lined the walls, and there were thankfully two vats of water, purifiers humming beneath them.
"Did you spend a lot of time here?" Lisa asked, retrieving the supplies she recognized as a first aid kit. "As a child, I mean."
"Yeah." Zon lay down on the bed, groaning. "T'Shav are not welcome most places in the galaxy. We had drills, every month, where my father would separate the three of us and we would have to find our way here."
"You had to face the jungle on your own as a child?"
"It made me strong." He yanked his robotic leg onto the bed, grunting. "I'm going to need this repaired."
Lisa moved over to sit beside him, first cleaning the blast mark on his chest. The black flesh smelled like burnt hamburger and had a similar texture as well. Choking down her gag reflex was difficult, but Lisa cleaned it up the best she could. Upon Zon's insistence, she scraped off the dead skin until the tender flesh beneath oozed, then slathered it with fleshseal.
Through it all, Zon didn't move. His breathing didn't hitch. He must have been in great pain, but he didn't show it. It was the only way she could get through it.
Eventually, though, all his injuries were tended to. Lisa had to admit that he looked far better than he had. The red color of his s
kin was returning, and he even sat up to take off his robotic leg and fiddle with it, repairing what damage he could.
To her surprise, Lisa felt heat pooling in her as she watched him. A flush rose in her cheeks and she turned away. This was hardly the most appropriate time for sex! They had just escaped people who wanted to kill Zon and sell her; even if Zon wasn't injured…
"What's wrong?" His voice was soft.
"Your musth is still affecting me."
There was a long pause. "I'm not in musth anymore. I've been out for nearly a standard week."
Lisa's blush deepened. "I don't know what that means."
"It means that you should not still be feeling the effects."
"It's the rush of endorphins from being rescued, then."
Zon chuckled. "Can't admit that you find me irresistible, huh?"
"Those people who had me on their ship," she blurted, trying to change the subject–yes, she found him very attractive, but that was all there was to it. Maybe that was why she was feeling desirous. She knew she couldn't have an emotional connection, and a sexual connection was the next best thing.
"What about them?"
"They said I had universal DNA. They told me what that meant, but it's impossible. I'm a genetic scientist, I know DNA. It's impossible for one species to share all its DNA with another species, but the second species to have a little extra it doesn't share. Evolution doesn't work that way."
Zon shrugged. "I don't know much about DNA and genetics. Sounds like a load of gushlot if you ask me."
"They said it was like I was human." Lisa held her breath, watching Zon closely. To her surprise, he laughed. Actually threw his head back, laughing so deeply that it turned to coughing.
He put a hand to his chest, bringing himself under control, and shook his head. "Don't worry about that. Humans don't exist."
Lisa's jaw dropped. "But they do."
"Your species believes in them?" Zon looked intrigued. "I'll admit, it's odd that so many planets have similar origin stories. The myth is that we all originated on a single planet, but a great war released geo-nuclear radiation and changed us, and our ancestors all left on ships, hundreds of ships that got lost from one another and eventually settled on various planets, rebuilding their populations."
Geo-nuclear radiation? Lisa's heart thumped hard in her chest. That was what she had been researching, its effects on human DNA, when she was taken. And she had been stored in a cryostatus, going at light speed. Who knew how much time had passed… She choked back bile. It couldn't be possible. It just couldn't.
"The name of this mythical original species always translates to human." Zon shrugged. "I don't buy it. If we were all from the same planet—"
"Earth," she blurted, hands trembling.
"Yeah. Some people claim to have found it…" Zon looked up at her and trailed off into silence. He frowned and reached for her. "What's wrong?"
Lisa stared at him. How could she say what she thought was true–knew was true? Her world was gone. Her home was gone. She had universal DNA because… because it was all true.
"I am human," she whispered. "I'm from Earth."
Zon's eyes widened.
"I thought that… that the aliens that took me from Earth were probably around here somewhere. But they aren't, are they? That was… it must have been thousands of years ago. We had only just traveled to the moon in 1969. I was born in 1987. I'm twenty-nine years old, it was 2016 when I was taken. But… but if humans are myths, if they left Earth long enough ago to develop into other species…"
A hesitant hand grasped her wrist. "It doesn't mean that it was your Earth, Lisa. There are other explanations."
"What explanations? Universal DNA. The fact that all you different species are humanoid and mammalian, not to mention that you do share some DNA, means that you came from the same source. And if human is the word for your creator species, if you came from Earth in ships… I was found in a ship going at light speed. Relativity means that I could have been there for what was only years for me, but thousands out here. And that's not even taking into account that I was in cryostatus, and there is no telling how long I was there."
"Lisa—"
"Earth is gone. My home is gone." Lisa huddled on the bed, wrapping her arms around herself. "What am I supposed to do now?"
Chapter Seven
If Zon hadn't assured her that they were miles underground and that the planet had a natural radiation that was harmless to organic organisms but made scanning difficult, Lisa would never have felt safe enough to fall apart the way she did. Even though she had had no idea about how she would get back to Earth, she had clung to the belief that she would, somehow, return. Now she knew that wasn't going to happen, and she curled up in bed, crying.
Zon sat beside her, stroking her hair silently, letting her grieve her planet, her family, her life. She occasionally wondered if he had ever been planning to take her back, but never asked. It didn't matter now.
"Senett is my home planet," he told her at one point. She didn’t know how long it had been since they had retreated to the cave. "The T'Shav home planet was destroyed hundreds of years ago. An asteroid collided with the moon, sending it off course. Only a tenth of the population was evacuated. The survivors had to take whatever work they could to survive or turn to piracy. It's why we have a reputation as being mercenaries. Because that's what my ancestors did to survive."
"Those people who took me said that you were a warlord."
"I command a fleet. A dozen fine warships, an army of strong soldiers."
Lisa rolled over and stared at him in surprise. "Then why are we here, alone?"
"Revenge is something one does on his own."
"You also die on your own," Lisa muttered. She wiped the remnants of tears from her face. "So… you are a warlord. A criminal."
Zon's brow rose. "Criminal? No, I make sure all of my services are legal. I might have criminals in my fleet, but our services are contracted by oppressed people to fight wars they can't fight themselves. I suppose I do police a rather large area. There are plenty of corporations and governments that want me dead because of it, but I also have a lot of allies, and the United Species is on my side. Most times at least."
"And here I am, just a scientist," Lisa said.
"A beautiful, intelligent scientist," Zon amended.
"Beautiful. Big boobs and big butt." Lisa ran a hand over her voluptuous curves. Too big, at least according to her last boyfriend. "I know a lot of my coworkers think–thought–that I only got the position and grants I got because I'm beautiful. And they were probably right, to a degree. There was a high premium on beauty in my culture."
"Did beauty matter more than skills?"
Lisa thought a moment and shrugged. "In a way, I guess. I mean, actors and actresses were always beautiful, and they got paid ridiculous amounts of money, especially compared to how much people like nurses and teachers were paid. You'd think people responsible for health and teaching the future generations would be worth more… maybe that's why our society collapsed."
Zon held her tightly and kissed her forehead. "When we get back to my fleet, I will make sure you have all the research facilities you want. Your science might be a little behind ours, but you're very intelligent, and I'm sure that you will be able to absorb it quickly."
Sighing, Lisa buried herself deeper into his arms. The science here was so beyond what she knew. Teleporters. Universal DNA. Cars that could reflect landscape but not living beings. It was going to take her a lifetime to figure it all out.
At least I have a lifetime to devote to it now.
The thought didn't really cheer her up, but with Zon's arms around her, she did feel a little better. "Did you contact your fleet?"
"Yes. They should reach Senett soon. A few more days at most. We'll be away soon enough. Before you know it, we will be flying through the stars. I can't wait to show you nebulas and supernovas."
"That sounds good. Nebulas and supernovas…" She
raised her face to his, brushing her lips against his. It seemed like sex was the only thing powerful enough to distract her from the shambles her life was in. "In the meantime, can you show me stars?"
***
The next morning (at least, she thought it was morning), Lisa threw herself out of bed, grabbing the nearest container. Her stomach emptied into it, leaving her weak and shaking when she was finally done. It had been happening ever since Zon had rescued her from the traders, and like every other time he held her hair back from her face and rubbed her back soothingly until she was done vomiting.
"I don't like this," he said. "I understand that stress may have been responsible for the first few times, but it's been long enough, you should have recovered by now."
Lisa moaned, wiping her mouth. "Maybe it's the food. Maybe my system just can't handle it."
"You were fine before." Zon carried her back to the bed and took care of the vomit, all the while shaking his head and muttering. "I want to do a medical scan. There is a risk that it will cut through the radiation and alert them to where we are, but you're having difficulty keeping anything down. We need to find out what's wrong."
As always, the nausea faded rapidly after she had thrown up, and Lisa wrapped her arms around herself. "Shouldn't we wait until your ship gets here?"
"If they did something to you, or if the teleportation did, then we need to know now, so we can start to combat it. Space travel can be very dangerous for those who are sick. The ship has to generate tachyon particles, which infuse in both organic and non-organic matter, and some people have an adverse reaction to the saturation."
Tachyons. Lisa shook her head. Another thing that had been argued to be theoretically possible, but actually impossible as far as the science of her day was concerned. She was going to have to read up on that when she had the chance. In the meantime, she lay down on her back while Zon pulled out the medical scanner. It looked very similar to something you'd find on Star Trek, a wand wirelessly connected to a cellphone-sized tablet that showed the results. The technology that was hidden in this hidey-hole was obsolete by Zon’s standards, though, and the scan emitted its own type of radiation that could be easily picked up from space.
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