CHANGELING: Book Two in the Weaver Series

by Vaun Murphrey

  Just like the first day of school, Mez was on the edge of his group of friends laughing and cavorting. As we passed him Cass discreetly bumped him with an elbow and kept walking. We resisted the urge to look behind us. Randomly on every tier there were study nooks for students who wanted to sit back and rifle through their memories of class. Who needs a book when you have the built-in biological computer of the mind?

  Each area held lounging couches with a rock ledge over them to set your belongings. We never used them because they were too high off the ground for us to reach unless we stood on the furniture. Cass dared a look back just before we darted into the nook. Mez was only ten feet away. Out of sight, we engaged a light field. With both hands I pulled our black robes high. Combining our will we jumped over the fat blue cushions and up onto the smooth polished granite shelf. Our right knee hit the wall and we almost lost our balance but my twin got us steady. The flow of blood through our veins was filling with adrenaline-fueled excitement. Ears straining we listened for the sounds of our quarry’s approach.

  Mez came around the arch and stopped. A few black-robed students that weren’t Aniy went past as he stood scenting the air delicately. His arms crossed over his middle and he took one step forward as if a decision had been made. He needed to move just a little further in.

  Chin raised Mez spoke. “I know you are here, Leoght Theof.”

  At that declaration he took the final step we needed. With an extra punch of power we kicked out from our elevated position. Our heel scored on the side of his right shoulder. We didn’t break anything but he stumbled and fell into a sitting position. Cass let our light field shred to bits.

  “We didn’t steal anything, Butthead. The light bends for us the same as you.”

  Mez cupped his injured shoulder and rotated his right arm. The dim nearly gloomy atmosphere made his eyes blend into his face. The only thing betraying their ocular existence was the faint glitter of his flickering nictitating lens. His easy carefree confidence—Cass would say arrogance—was gone, replaced by wary consideration.

  Before he could retort I carried on. “If you ever mess with us while we’re in the Web again I’m gonna infect you with chicken pox. You’ll writhe in agony for weeks as you try to scratch your skin off.”

  Mez dropped his shoulder. “Do you threaten me?”

  Cass smiled. “Yes,” she replied, her voice sibilant with heated anger.

  “Don’t mind my sister, she just hates you and hopes you die a horrible death,” I added.

  Smiling hugely, Mez leaned back as if completely relaxed.

  Intrigued I jumped us down to bounce neatly on our butt; legs crisscross applesauce, keeping a hand to each knee so we didn’t flash any skin. Cass was fuming inside at his casual dismissal of our threat. She held up one of our hands and slowly started to wiggle the fingers of our glove loose.

  Instantly Mez sat straight. “You bluff.”

  I held out our naked hand. “Care to make a bet and shake on it?”

  Mez sniffed flaring his nostrils. I couldn’t help but notice his features. Fid Tal’s aquiline olfactory equipment had missed him. In fact, his nose resembled Kal’s rounded one and the shape of his brow was the same as our guardian’s. Before I could stop myself I said, “Are you related to Kal?”

  Cass spouted mentally, “Seriously? You’re asking ancestry questions? I thought we were warning him off, not starting peace talks.”

  Words tight he muttered low, “My mother would say no.”

  “Are you his illegitimate love child?”

  Mez tugged at the shoulder seams of his black robes, reinforcing his likeness to our guardian. “What is this ‘illegitimate’ you speak of?”

  Sometimes things didn’t come across in translation very well.

  “Were your parents not married when you were conceived? It would certainly explain why Her Highness despises Kal—a woman scorned and all that,” Cass said as she pantomimed two bodies coming together with the base of our palms.

  “Wow, Sister, your maturity amazes me. Usually I’m the tactless one.”

  Mez laughed without humor. “She would kill anyone who suggested she slept with her half Imini brother. It is bad enough that he exists. Why do you care?”

  Both of our wrist alarms began to go off announcing our respective classes were about to begin. I answered honestly, “I don’t have many friends here. The Imini are much easier to get along with than the Aniy. You interest me though.”

  Mez’s dark brown neck undulated as he showed his teeth in a white grin. “You said me.”

  “So?”

  Cass unfolded our stiff legs and slapped our feet on the hard floor with so much force the soles stung. “Adios, Butthead. Unless you wanna itch so bad you cry for your mommy you better leave us alone. Silver may be curious about you but I’d just as soon see you jump off a cliff.”

  My twin stared him down as she fussily pulled on our glove.

  When Mez stood he did so gracefully. As he approached his gaze never wavered. With his eyebrows raised, he paused within touching distance and raised a long fingered hand.

  When Cass would have pulled away I said, “Let him, Sister.”

  Softly he picked up a strand of our dark brown hair and rubbed it between his thumb and index finger. “It is as soft as I thought it would be.” Mez didn’t stop there. Bending low he brought the clump to his nose and inhaled. “I would know you, too, Silver Rainbow.”

  I wanted to spout something sarcastic about the creep factor of smelling a person’s hair but my mental fountain died to a trickle.

  Cass threw a tangled lump of emotions my way, the most predominant of which was disbelief. I shot back at her, “Better a friend than an enemy. It’s not like I’m saying we should sleep with the dude…he’s huge, he’d crush us. Besides, don’t you remember the Axsian biology lessons? I don’t even know how we’d make his junk work with our junk!” Crap on toast, I was babbling.

  Mez took one last deep breath then sauntered away.

  Dumfounded, I watched him emerge into the brighter light of the walkway and disappear into the increased student traffic as if he were a figment of our imagination.

  Irritated that our anticipated fight had turned into something so unrecognizable, Cass groused, “I refuse to have this conversation right now.”

  With that she closed her mind from me.

  Classes passed in a blur. Every lesson had a minder who watched the time and ‘woke’ the instructor. Time didn’t really have as much meaning in the Web. Those students that were too foreign to grasp the concepts of things expressed in words could look to the teacher’s visualizations for understanding. We’d learned an awful lot about different belief systems and ways of living from observing our classmates.

  One student in particular, from a planet Kal had called XO21, looked like a barely fleshed skeleton with an insectoid head. He or she, it was hard to tell, only clicked and whistled for speech and the translators wouldn’t work on their physiology. In the Web though the sweeping mental pictures and memories they shared were breathtaking. The cities on XO21 had spired cathedral-like structures that nearly pierced the atmosphere.

  For as much as everyone interacted mind to mind, once the dull cloak of our mortal shells resumed we barely made contact. Like stayed with like if they had a choice and that made me sad. Cass didn’t care one way or another. The way she figured it, we were learning and experiencing things no human ever had so why should we complain?

  Something inside was let down. I guess I’d thought that an advanced civilization like Axsa’s would be more…progressive. Did anyone here seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge or were they all too hide-bound by their own preconceptions of the Universe to truly submerge themselves in anything outside their ken?

  The person who was the closest to fitting that description was Sil. Today should be another lab visit. I looked forward to it and dreaded it at the same time. If Sil ran his tests and nothing had changed with us again we would have to see
the barely concealed disappointment ripple under the mask of his politeness.

  Light beamed down from above, interrupted here and there by clouds which made for little islands of shadow on the Atrium floor and its milling occupants. Flotsam and Jetsam broke off their conversation as we drew near. Per the usual they positioned themselves to our front and back diagonally from one another. No one had ever threatened us with bodily harm. I got the feeling our guards were getting bored.

  Cass brought up the serene mirrored surface of our mental lake as Flotsam curled her fingers around our left bicep in preparation for a teleportation. Because of the stringent DNA protocols of the lab we wouldn’t be taking a direct path unless Pez showed up. Some days he came and others he conveniently forgot, forcing my guards on a Web hunt. In front of us Jetsam jabbed an index finger at the massive entry arch of the Learning Hub. It was the end of day for students and teachers alike so the bodies were wall to wall. Like the currents of motion in a raid of army ants the crowd shifted, revealing Pez in his powder blue robes, hands tucked securely in his indigo sash as he ceased his conversation with someone who looked vaguely familiar to us. We only got a side view of the face but the departing person had a limp.

  The prudent thing would have been to meet him halfway but Flotsam and Jetsam gave one another a look and stood their ground. The only thing the four of us were united in was a distinct dislike of Guild Member Pez. How someone so contemptuous of any life form other than himself could be assigned to a Guild that handled delicate world to world communications was beyond us. Maybe that was why he’d been given this assignment. Earth wasn’t a member of the Galactic Alliance so he couldn’t really screw anything up.

  He finally navigated the bodies, drawing to an abrupt stop almost on top of Jetsam. She looked down in disgust at her forearm where his sleeve had brushed against her. Pez was oblivious. A niggling spark of alarm was flashing at the back of Cass’s brain and mine at the exact same time. That man who’d turned away—he was from the rebel attack in Sil’s lab. His limp had done the trick more than the glancing look we’d gotten of his profile because we were responsible for the injury. Pez spoke jogging us out of our revelation. My sister kept our face straight as we eyed him with wariness. Kal had said tell no one we could put a face to the rebel’s so sharing with Flotsam and Jetsam was out.

  “Let us be about our way. I have more important things to do than escort you around.” His mouth was slightly up at the side and his black eyes looked dull and disinterested.

  From behind us Flotsam spoke.

  “You are as important as Fid Tal says you are…Pez.”

  His lips parted then curled as he made to respond but Jetsam interjected, “Enough. I would be done with the day.”

  In a blink the porous gray walls of the lab were around us. Sil rose from his work area causing Zik to hustle back to avoid his boss’s chair. Zik kept his place silently as Sil strode toward us, waiting for further instruction in the background.

  Partway to our little group of cheer he paused and waved a hand in a shooing motion at our guards and Pez. “You will wait outside until I call.”

  Jetsam ground out, “Fid Tal gave orders for us to stay and observe. You have not had us leave before.”

  Her chin gave a tilt toward Pez and I got the feeling she just didn’t want to wait around with Stupid. Sil always kicked him out. My sister was wound tight after seeing one of our attackers so boldly walking around in public. We had hoped for some reason that the rebels were from a different city. He hadn’t seen us see him though, so that was a bonus.

  Sil laughed. “There is no one to overrule me here, Fai. I have let you stay, now go.”

  Flotsam and Jetsam had made it a point not to introduce themselves to us. So Jetsam’s real name was Fai. I wondered idly if Flotsam’s was Fee and they had sisters named Foe and Fum.

  Cass snorted at my joke earning a flicker of annoyance from Jetsam.

  Flotsam dropped our arm and plucked the white sleeve of her sister’s tunic as a warning. When one sister argued for a fight the other argued for temperance. They had a balance that my twin and I had yet to accomplish although we were light years beyond where we’d been at the compound with Maggie and Gerome.

  The thought of James and Kara floated to the surface from Cass. I knew she spoke with James in the Web but neither of us had heard a peep from Kara. There was a problem there but James was resistant to talking about it. For some reason he thought it was his responsibility to handle. I was fine with that as long as he actually did handle it. Men, whatever the age, tended to shy away from emotional upheaval if there wasn’t a logical fix. Overriding fear was what I could sense from Kara. She’d never gotten over being lost in the Web. If we weren’t off planet this would’ve already been fixed, but it was what it was and we had our own fish to fry at the moment.

  Cass jumped when the sound of Sil’s voice finally broke through our inner meanderings.

  “Ah, you are back! I inquired into your day twice then decided to wait when I realized you were interacting internally. What concerns you this day, my friends?”

  He motioned toward the examination table which was thoughtfully lowered to a more convenient height, probably by Zik because Sil wouldn’t have thought of it. Little things like that always escaped the absentminded doc’s notice.

  Cass cranked our neck around side to side to make sure it was just the four us in the lab before she sat down on the table top. The Igors were missing today. They never spoke much anyway. It was on the tip of her tongue to share about Pez’s conversation with one of our attackers but I warned solidly against it. Kal said no one and that meant no one. Hydraulics hummed until we were eye to pupil-less eye with Sil.

  My twin changed tack at the last second.

  “I have a hypothetical question. What does it mean if an Aniy stalks you? Lil seemed to think if said ‘Aniy’ pulled tricks in a certain way and followed you around they might…like you?” Mentally she added in, “Even if they almost kill you.”

  The scientist in Sil stood to attention. “Interesting. It would not be the first interspecies pairing of a casual nature. Likely it will be a passing thing. How do you feel about it considering you are literally of two minds? Has this ‘Aniy’ the ability to tell you apart?” His arms were busy waving instruments around us.

  Cass squirmed. “He likes Silver.”

  Sil stopped mid-motion. “Have you interacted in the Web with this Aniy for him to know this? How much have you spoken? Do I assume he is a student at the Hub?”

  I intervened. “There’s been a little…antagonism to put it mildly. Since the first day of school he’s been on us—mainly because of his mother and her attitude toward us. Maybe that was enough to tell us apart. My voice is deeper than Cass’s. You don’t have any trouble telling the difference, Sil.”

  He lowered his voice and continued with his instrumental information gathering but in a distracted way.

  “Does this Aniy happen to be the son of Fid Tal, nephew of Kal?”

  It was my turn to squirm. “Possibly.”

  Something on one of his screens caught his eye and Sil turned away with his eyebrows pulled together. Zik ghosted over and manipulated the controls to lower the examination table. Cass smiled in thanks before she followed Sil to his desk and plopped down in the hard chair beside it. He was still absorbed in the data, dashing one finger so quickly over the flat surfaces that he looked like he was finger painting a masterpiece.

  “I take it there’re changes in our readings?” Cass said dryly.

  “What? Oh yes. If you hadn’t asked me your hypothetical question I might have missed it. Your hormonal levels are fluctuating, which is not unusual for your age I think, but they are mimicking an Aniy condition in their pattern. Have you touched this boy, skin to skin?”

  We both thought hard. At no time that we could think of had we ever permitted unprotected contact with anyone at the Learning Hub. Ever.

  Cass shook our head after a moment. “Nega
tory.”

  Sil made a face as if he were swallowing something that didn’t want to go down. “I do not usually tell other’s tales but in this case I think I should. Has Kal spoken to you of his family life?”

  I sighed. “Kal doesn’t talk about much of anything personal.”

  “There are reasons. His childhood was not happy. He is the offspring of the only recorded Bindao between an Aniy and an Imini. Rarely, amongst Aniy, two will be called to one another and bound all of their lives. There is no refusal of this honor that Annis bestows.”

  His lens flicked whip-fast over his eyes several times before he continued.

  “Kal’s father had many wives and many children, as is proper for a man of his fine genetic heritage. One morning he woke to find himself in a field of wogs on the surface. An Imini woman was close by, delivering a calf. When their eyes met, it was done. Kal’s father severed ties with all of his other wives—Fid Tal’s mother among them. This did not bode well with any of them or their children.”

  I didn’t know how I felt about this story yet.

  Cass was confused, since we’d thought of Aniy culture as more matriarchal and now Sil was telling us that Kal’s father had more than one wife? That sounded too similar to male dominated societies and religions on Earth. The Imini were really all we’d had to judge day to day Axsian ways of life and they were monogamous. There was no way we’d ever sign up to be someone’s one of many—that much we knew about ourselves.

  I raised a hand like a child in elementary. “Um, do the women have more than one husband as well? We’re a little confused.”

  Sil smiled. “Of course they have more than one husband. Do they not on Earth?”

  I raised one eyebrow. “Not usually, no. We operate like the Imini most of the time.”

  Sil’s face filled with something akin to pity. “How sad for your genetic lines. A myriad of possibilities are cut off in the development of your population when you limit your procreation to just one other life form of your species. Perhaps with the evolution of your society through time you will eventually see the light and humanity will grow stronger.”