by Sara King
“These people are sick,” Ragnar muttered.
“Can we go now?”
“Just wait. I think the worst part is over.”
It was. They carted off the boy’s body and two Strangers wiped up the blood. Then the Emperor returned to the pedestal, looking down upon the naked adolescents who were just beginning to stir.
To the survivors, he said, You were not chosen. The ceremony is over. You may go home.
The teenagers on the floor jumped to their feet, hugging each other and crying. Anxious parents rushed out onto the platform and embraced their children, laughing. The Emperor turned and left the arena.
At that, people in the stands began to get up and head toward the exits.
“That was an hour of my life I could’ve done without,” Stuart managed, on the very brink of vomiting.
Ragnar grabbed his host’s arm and pulled him out of his seat. “It’s obvious you’ve never been to war, little man. Come on. I bet they’re all heading to dinner.”
“You can still think about food after watching that?!” Stuart cried, aghast.
Ragnar turned back to give him a hard look. “Maybe you can’t understand this, parasite, but compared to what I feel after a yeit, that boy had it easy.” He rounded and blended into the crowd, giving Stuart the choice of following the shifter or losing track of him forever.
Even the shifters call me a ‘parasite,’ Stuart thought, following Ragnar unhappily. Like it’s a goddamn hair color.
He wasn’t a parasite. He was a symbiont. There was a difference. A big one. Like the difference between a coelacanth and a dolphin. Yet none of the peabrained species he’d run into seemed to be able to grasp that concept. They saw his useless little body, saw what he had to do to survive, and decided that his presence was automatically unwelcome.
Well, dammit, it wasn’t his fault that he wasn’t being given a chance to goddamn shine!
It wasn’t his fault he was stuck in a body that didn’t want him. If it had been his choice, he’d have made the bond with the first human he’d found and that would have been that. But no. The whole universe was suspicious, egotistical, and mad. They saw his helpless little body and automatically assumed the worst. Even shifters told him he had the right to fight to survive…and then told him he was just a useless sponge, surviving off of the good graces of another species. Well, he was getting so damned fed up with their hypocritical horseshit!
Stuart had worked himself up into a near-froth of indignant rage by the time they found the kitchens, exactly where Stuart had thought they would be, on the lowest floor of the Wall.
Of course, Ragnar had made them search through another two dozen floors before he would finally concede to checking the bottom floor, as Stuart had first suggested. At least, once they did find the kitchens, Ragnar had the decency to look abashed. If he hadn’t, Stuart would have lost it right there, and left the hypocrite to find his own way back home.
Unlike a human’s temper, however, after it had made a brief appearance, Stuart’s was very quick to subside. After all, it had shown itself—and had thus been duly noted for what it was. An emotion, a raw gut reaction, a visceral response to a stimulating situation. Evolutionarily, his anger didn’t need to have any more control than that. To allow it to do so could have been disastrous for both suzait and harra alike. Unlike his current host species, who only thought and acted for one, Stuart had been taught that a suzait should always make decisions for two, and that training had stayed with him throughout the ages to come.
As useless, Stuart thought bitterly, as that training had turned out to be.
Well, until he’d met Dallas. Compared to what he had faced before, Dallas had been an escape into paradise. He’d finally been able to relax, to ease up control, to rest without worrying that his host was going to pick up the first weapon he found and blow them both away. It had been utter bliss. His first taste of a true host since his harra had died to a hunter’s bolt, so many millennia ago. He’d enjoyed the company, the banter, the silly threats. He’d enjoyed the shared secrets, the inner fears, the little outrages. He’d loved being the watcher, the advisor, the counsel. He loved being a suzait, not a parasite.
But that had only lasted for a few short weeks, just as he had known it would. The whole experience had been bittersweet, and it left him with an agonizing welling of longing in his gut.
Seeker, he missed Dallas.
He often found himself wondering if she would have let him stay, had he asked. She had seemed so hesitant to see him leave…
Again, pangs of longing radiated from his core, agonizing his soul. Why had he given her up? What had possessed him to give up the one bit of peace he had earned in his long lifetime of fear and persecution? Was it his own guilt? His own sadism? What?
Bitterly, Stuart wondered if he would ever find another human as compatible as Dallas. He doubted it. Five thousand years and he hadn’t had a human willingly give him a place to live until now.
And he had abandoned it. Moved on. Given it up like the coward he was.
Yet, deep down, Stuart knew that their mutual survival had required him to take another host. He’d been forced to make that decision for two, to save them both.
At least, that’s what he told himself. Sometimes, he wondered if he hadn’t just been afraid. Afraid of her finally deciding to move on. Afraid of her growing tired of him…
“Hey, wiggly, catch!” Ragnar snapped, shattering his train of thought with the efficiency of a high-speed brick catapulting into a crystal goblet. Stuart grunted as a large fish smacked him in the face, then flopped to the floor.
“I said catch,” Ragnar growled, piling more fish into his arms. “Not, ‘drop my dinner on the floor.’”
Stuart made a face and bent to pick it up. “You’re about to eat raw fish. Who cares if it fell on the floor?”
“I do.” He tossed another large fish, and it, too, fell on the floor.
The bastard was just being hard to get along with, now.
“You know I don’t have the dexterity for fine motor movements after making a transfer!” Stuart cried, bending to retrieve the fish. “Stop throwing things at me, you fool. Let’s just take the whole damned cart.”
Ragnar hesitated, then glanced down at the base of the cart. His face reddened when he saw the wheels. “Uh. Right.” He dumped the armload of fish he’d been collecting back into the cart’s trays, clearing his throat with what must have been shifter embarrassment. “Let’s go somewhere I can do this fast. My nucleus feels like it’s on fire.”
Stuart tentatively dropped the fish back onto the cart and gave Ragnar an askance look. “That sounds uncomfortable.”
“You have no idea,” Ragnar growled, jerking the cart into motion.
Then, as if the shifter had every right to do so, he simply pushed the cart out of the huge double-doors of the kitchens, through the busy thoroughfare of the cafeteria beyond, and brazenly out past the food lines to a forgotten stairway a few hundred yards out of sight. Stuart watched, impressed. He had always been amazed and a little envious at the balls the shifters had, sometimes. If it had been him, he would have taken the back route, pushing the cart through the kitchens until he found an abandoned hallway, then inconspicuously made the fish disappear, possibly in several trips.
Instead, Ragnar picked up the entire cart—perhaps four hundred pounds in all—and carried it up the stairs to the next level, where he found an empty room and began to eat.
Stuart watched the shifter with mixed pity and revulsion. Ragnar ate everything—even the fish bones and the scaly gray skin. When he was finished, it was impossible for him to hide the enormous bulge of his stomach cavity. The shifter pulled his shirt over his abdomen and leaned back against the wall, sighing.
“Oh praise the gods. That’s the first time I’ve actually been able to get full on this cursed planet. Human tastes disgusting uncooked.”
Oh please don’t tell me he actually just said that. Swallowing hard, Stuart sai
d, “You know, with a quick change of anatomy, you could make it look like you’re pregnant.”
“I’m not going anywhere for a couple hours,” Ragnar said. It sounded final.
“Uh,” Stuart said, glancing at the door to the room, of which they had no idea to whom it belonged. “Maybe it would be safer—”
“Oh, stop being a whiny little suzait for just one minute and relax while I digest,” Ragnar said.
“You just said it would take a couple hours…” Stuart pointed out.
Ragnar narrowed his eyes. “It was a figure of speech.” He waved a dismissive hand at the door. “Besides. If anything interrupts us, zap it. Then drag it over here and I’ll add it to the collection.” He patted his stomach pointedly and grinned up at him. Stuart felt nauseous.
“Do you always eat that much?” he managed. If he did, no wonder the humans wanted to get rid of them. Ragnar just ate as much in one sitting as thirty men in an entire week.
“Only after a yeit,” Ragnar said. “And I’d made several. I had to make up half my original body-mass.”
Wincing, Stuart said, “Looks like you did it.”
“Yeah.” Ragnar was leaning forward and twisting over his enormous stomach, looking around the room. Stuart found himself wondering if the shifter could even move, if it came down to it. “Hey,” Ragnar said, after a cursory look, “do you see a can around here?”
“A can?”
“A bucket. A barrel. Something I can take a dump in.”
“There’s a toilet down the hall.”
Ragnar scoffed. “For a load this big?” He patted his stomach. “No, I don’t think so.”
Stuart grimaced. Shifters were utterly disgusting. “I’ll go look.” He left Ragnar in the room and went looking for a good-sized container. Taking up an entire sunward side of the Wall, Stuart came across a greenhouse. Inside, acres of agriculture lay unattended, the room itself lit by the lightning and the dim light of dawn. It almost looked like the rain was ebbing.
Stuart found a bucket of compost set against one wall of the room, dumped it out, and carried his prize back to Ragnar. He shut the door and handed it to the shifter. “Will this do?”
Ragnar peered into the bucket, wrinkling his nose. “It smells like rotten fish.”
“They’ve got a horticulture room a ways down the hall. Growing all sorts of stuff in there. I guess they compost their fish scraps and use it on their plants.”
Ragnar grunted and took the bucket. “I didn’t even think about saving anything for you.” He nodded at the ravished handcart.
“That’s okay,” Stuart said, eyes catching on the bulge of the shifter’s stomach. “After the little pre-dinner show down in the basement, I don’t know if I’ll eat for a week.”
Ragnar peered at him. “For something that hijacks other species’ brains, you’re kind of squeamish.”
…that hijacks other species’ brains… Stuart fought down another wave of irritation and said, “I’m not squeamish…” He frowned, gesturing at the palace around them. “I just don’t get it.”
“Get what?”
“Why species would kill their own like that.”
Ragnar laughed. “Not everybody’s critically endangered, suzait.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Take a good look at human reproductive habits. They’re crowding themselves off of planets so bad they have to take over other species’ planets to survive. There’s so many of them they have to cull themselves. That’s why I don’t feel too bad about getting you a new host here and there.”
“Then why are you fighting the Utopia?” Stuart asked, confused.
Ragnar frowned. “What?”
“Marceau is the only real damper on the human growth rate,” Stuart went on. “He makes sure the Utopia restricts its members’ breeding habits to practically nothing. Cuts human growth down to one or two percent a century. Besides, when only top-rated citizens are given the opportunity to breed naturally—”
“It’s crap.”
“What?”
“Crap. The traits authorities consider unwelcome—aggression, ambition, intelligence—are the same traits that define humanity’s greatest heroes. They’re trying to turn the human race into a plague of drones.”
Stuart frowned. “But maybe humans wouldn’t have so many problems if they weren’t as aggressive, ambitious, or intelligent,” he pointed out. “Maybe they need a more centralized leadership.”
“…a more centralized…” Ragnar choked. “You see?” he snarled. “That’s typical suzait talk, right there.”
“It is?”
“Yes. You’re avoiding conflict.”
“Of course I avoid conflict,” Stuart said, genuinely confused. “Conflict gets people killed.”
“Things don’t change without conflict,” Ragnar growled. “Now I was trying to give you a hint earlier, but you didn’t take it. I’d like some privacy. This is pretty personal.” The shifter motioned at the bucket.
“Oh,” Stuart stammered, blushing. “Sure. Sorry.” Stuart backed hurriedly out of the room and closed the door. As soon as the odd squishing sounds started on the other side of the woven seaweed, however, he decided to go see if Athenais had gone to the roof as she had planned. He spent the next few hours wandering the halls, looking for her.
He was on his way back when the intercom came on.
It seems I have unwelcome guests infiltrating my home. Because of that, we’re going to go about things a little differently from now on. I have Athenais. You are all aware of her condition. If you do not come forward and turn yourselves in, I am going to drop your captain in the deepest part of the ocean hugging an anchor. The oceans on this particular planet can get over ten miles deep. If you still refuse to come forward, I’ll follow up with Colonel Howlen and his girlfriend. By now you know I do not make idle threats.
Stuart picked up his pace, and almost ran into Ragnar as the shifter burst from the room, looking panicked. The shifter was noticeably larger, now, towering over Stuart by over a foot.
“You hear that?” Ragnar demanded.
Stuart pushed the shifter back inside and shut the door. “Yes. Think she’s lying?”
“There’s no telling with that woman. I know how to find out, though.” He was already moving past him, into the hall.
“How?” Stuart asked, his host’s arthritic knees struggling to catch up.
“Ask her,” Ragnar said, without slowing.
Athenais did not sleep that night. As far as Juno would tell her, the shifters had not shown themselves. Athenais gave it a fifty percent chance, however, that Ragnar and Stuart had turned themselves in and Juno hadn’t told her about it. The bitch liked mind-games like that.
Thus, when the twelve Warriors came for her at dawn the next morning, Athenais was wide awake. “Morning, fellahs,” she said, from where she had sat the night out against the wall. “We going somewhere?”
“Our Guiding Light would like us to escort you to your ship.”
Athenais perked up. “My ship?”
“The ship that will be carrying you to Blue Ravine.”
“Blue Ravine? Where’s that?”
“It’s a deep rift under the ocean.”
“Oh.” Athenais stayed in her seat. She felt her hands start to shake.
“Shall you come freely or by force?” The Warrior gave her no pity, no emotion. Just a flat, inhuman stare that reminded her of his mistress. A well-trained little puppy, that one.
Sighing, Athenais got to her feet, fisting her hands to keep Juno’s hounds from seeing them tremble. Two Warriors smoothly stepped up to her and each took an arm, and it was all she could do to keep from trying to tug her arms free. Juno was going to do it. The psychotic termagant was actually going to do it. It was everything Athenais could do to control herself at the thought of being under that much water, eternally. They both knew the Potion wouldn’t create her gills. It would simply keep her alive. Alive, and alive, and alive…
&nbs
p; But she refused to let Juno see her fear. The damaged whore was probably watching the entire thing on camera, masturbating. Juno loved terror like a kid loved ice-cream.
Trying to hold up an air of jaunty camaraderie, knowing that the only way out of this situation was to convince Juno the idea of eternally choking on seawater didn’t scare her, Athenais grinned as the men led her out of the room. “I can barely remember the last time I had such a flashy escort,” she said, eying their golden armor as they turned right and led her deeper into the palace. “Must’ve been when I assassinated the governor of Fjord. They had laser rifles and stun batons, though.” She frowned, remembering. “And they were a little too liberal with the batons.”
The Warriors ignored her, staring straight ahead as they led her down the hall.
“You twelve must be pretty good, to serve Juno herself. What, did you go through a special academy or something?”
They said nothing.
“She isn’t really planning on dropping me in the ocean, is she?”
No response.
They marched her down to the lower level and out onto a large concrete dock that had been partially annihilated by the storm despite being in a protected cove. Even then, a work party of Strangers was ferrying gravel and rebar back and forth, reshaping the damaged areas.
At the end of the dock, Juno waited with dozens more red-and-gold-garbed minions, their colorful robes billowing in the breeze. Behind her was a ship.
She’s just trying to scare me. Athenais lifted her head and walked down the pier. “Don’t you have better things to do with your time, June-bug? Or are you really that bored?”
Juno’s face darkened at her old moniker. “Nice morning to go for a swim, wouldn’t you say?”
“Shut up.” Athenais was so sick of this damned woman. As soon as she got back on Beetle, she was going to come back here and spend a week or two blowing things up. She tried not to think about how long that might take.
Juno’s face twisted into a contemptuous smile. She pursed her lips in mock commiseration. “Oh, Attie. Don’t be angry with me. Be angry with those two aliens you thought were your friends.”
