by Amber Stuart
"They will have supernaturals, Dakota," he said, his voice low. “Please try to remember what that means.”
The wind almost carried his words away, but I nodded, hearing them in spite of the sound of machine gears grinding in the doorway in front of us.
Supernaturals could read minds.
He was right. I needed to be careful.
A fissure formed in the bulkhead as I thought it, opening from a height reminiscent of airplane hangars on Earth. My eyes smarted as more red, dust-filled sunlight poured through the crack, a harder, warmer gust of wind tunneling through the opening.
That time, I gripped Nihkil's jacket with both hands to keep my balance.
When I did, he glanced down at me.
I wondered if he’d tell me to let go of him, but he didn’t do that, either. I felt a kind of resignation in him, instead, as if that battle was one he’d already decided to lose.
I even understood.
It was difficult not to touch him at times, even when I was angry with him. I knew I wasn’t the only one who struggled with that problem, either. On the other hand, I didn’t really want to think about what that meant for me and Nik more generally.
Well, not right then, anyway.
Ledi had already left the ship ahead of us, but two human technician-types stood at a near distance. Closer, another four soldiers lurked, dressed in similar uniforms as Nihkil. Branch-like weapons coiled around the wrists of each of them, aimed at either me or Nihkil, but they hadn't bound his arms, and I got the feeling the weapons were more for show.
Glancing out the door again, I turned to meet Nihkil’s gaze, forcing a smile.
“Sure,” I joked. “Why not a completely red planet? We’ve got Mars, right?”
Nihkil didn’t answer.
He continued to stare out the door instead, and even though we were side-by-side, I felt that protectiveness on him again, as if he were shielding me from some force only he could sense. I watched him measure the soldiers with his eyes, one of whom, I realized, was blatantly checking me out. I'd noticed that kind of thing more lately, too, the male guards sizing me up, but I’d basically ignored it, just like I did in Seattle.
Still, I wondered at the change. Maybe sleeping with a morph made me an intergalactic slut in their minds?
Snorting a little, Nihkil glanced at me, rolling his eyes, Earth-fashion.
The look on his face made me wonder again just how connected we were, even as I caught the irritated glare he trained on the other male.
I decided now wasn’t the time to wonder about that, either.
Nihkil started to walk towards the opening in the ship’s hull. Keeping my face still, I followed. Almost the instant we reached the different-colored platform near the opening, a paper-thin ramp extended from the lip of the hangar floor, reaching for the ground a hundred feet below. Wind rippled the plank’s surface, causing it to buckle.
Then it touched down and stiffened.
Once it had, it appeared to be the consistency of rough-surfaced glass.
I took a breath, stepping to the very edge and peering down.
Nihkil was watching me again. When he spoke, he used English without the translator, and for the second time that day, it occurred to me to wonder just how good he’d gotten at my native tongue, and almost without my noticing.
"There have been many wars," he said, gesturing over the arid landscape. His tone bordered on apologetic. “...But the sunsets can be beautiful.”
I nodded, gazing out over the world, trying to make it real.
In terms of the terrain itself, I immediately saw what he meant.
The place looked like it had seen a few wars, and maybe a few natural disasters, too.
Web-like cracks marred the valley floor, as if the planet had been dropped from an enormous height, broken open only to be baked in the low-hanging red sun. Only a few stringy clouds interrupted the arid monotony of sky, which curved overhead in streaked swaths of color made up of more yellows and oranges. The bright but dusty colors darkened to red near the horizon, so that the sky merged seamlessly into the faraway terrain, making it difficult to tell where the planet began and the sky ended.
I saw no plants, no trees, nothing but scorched red rock in any direction.
The sun itself looked old, hot only by virtue of its nearness and size.
A shadow flitted across its blood-red surface on webbed wings; it was the only living thing I saw that didn’t wear a uniform. Squinting at it, I tried to make out the shape, but the glare and then shadows swallowed it completely in some segment of faraway cliff.
My mind turned that shadow into a dragon.
Below me, rows and rows of soldiers spread over the high mesa.
Wind fluttered ribbons and wrapped metallic banners around poles, but I didn’t see a single, solitary soldier change position from where they stood on the stretch of stone.
In the other direction, towards the hangars and the stretch of sky over the twin cities, ships dotted the landscape like white birds, giving a semblance of life without managing to break that deeper silence that lay over it. I watched those ships as they moved in the distance, feeling lost inside a post-apocalyptic computer game, even as the dust in my nose and mouth and the smell of sunlight on rock made everything feel sharply and shockingly real... more real than anything on the ship had felt in all of the weeks I’d been stuck there.
A rumbling punctuated the amber sky from nearer-by, drawing my eyes up.
I stared at the massive ship that hovered there, again feeling everything as both too real and not real at all. A giant wheel rotated sideways, blocking my view of the gold expanse of sky as that same wheel returned to a horizontal position.
Lights blurred past my eyes along a skin-like hull. The hull itself caught the sunlight in sparkles and ribbons, like the scales of a giant lizard. The ship seemed to encompass the length of a city, or a narrow moon, but once it was past, the sky opened up once more, leaving a heavy glare and forcing me to shield my eyes.
My free hand gripped Nihkil’s with white-knuckled fingers.
I wasn’t sure when I’d taken his hand, if it had been me to reach for him or the reverse, but I didn’t let go. I glanced back at him instead, and he stepped closer to me, his eyes still that forbidding black color.
"What if someone hits me?" I said. "Can I fight back then?"
His eyes remained inert.
He tugged on me to follow him down the ramp, still grasping my fingers. I let him lead me forward, thinking he probably wouldn't answer, at least not here.
"That won't be an issue," he said, surprising me. Glancing back, he hesitated before adding, "If someone hits you, you can hit back, Dakota... but only if I am not with you.”
“Why only then?” I said.
He raised an eyebrow at me, as if the answer were obvious.
“You won’t need to if I am there," he said after that pause.
“Really?” I said dubiously. “And why is that?”
That time, he didn’t answer.
Despite my annoyance, I tightened my fingers around his.
I noticed as many staring at me now as him, and wondered how the two of us must look from their perspective. Maybe it really wasn’t so crazy that everyone thought me and Nik were sleeping together.
"Dakota."
I jerked my eyes back to his.
He looked large to me suddenly, and not only because of his height. His presence seemed to surround me, even before he went on speaking.
“Remember that I am not human,” he cautioned. “Legally, there is almost no constraint on what they can do to me, if they wish. If they perceive one of us as a threat, they would try to control that threat through me... but it could affect you negatively, too, even without the lock. For that reason, I ask that you only resort to such a thing in a dire emergency." He hesitated again. "You must let me help you with this, at least until you understand how things work here. If
they are given any reason to think I have corrupted your mind, that we are actively conspiring against them, or perhaps working for some disloyal faction—"
I waved him off, nodding even as I fought to keep my expression still.
“I understand,” I said, and that time, I almost did.
We were already halfway down the ramp.
"Yaffa is a prick," he said then, still in English.
Startled, I faltered a step, then had to fight not to laugh.
Nihkil either didn't notice my reaction or chose to talk over it.
“...Do not react to what he says,” he added. “And do not let yourself be alone with him. I am filing the necessary paperwork to make it illegal for any of them to be alone with you... but all of that is for naught if you allow them to break the rules."
Again, I nodded, my smile fading as quickly as it had arisen.
We’d already traversed the entire length of the angled ramp by then. We stepped out onto the deck a second later, level with the lines of humans standing in perfect formation across the stone landing area. They still looked less like living beings to me and more like very lifelike and weirdly-designed mannequins.
Still, I could see them breathing.
Forcing myself to breathe, too, I fought to keep my breath even so I wouldn’t pass out.
Despite my nerves, which seemed to worsen with every step, I managed to walk without having to concentrate too much on the mechanics. Taking a half-stride extra for every one of Nihkil’s, I studied face after expressionless face as we passed.
It didn’t really help, though, looking at them.
Each face stared straight ahead with large, wide-set eyes and blank expressions. Neither the men nor the women had much in the way of chins, and something about those faces continued to remind me of fish. Before I could dwell on that for long, Nihkil spoke to me again, still using his strangely precise English.
“They are separating us, Dakota,” he said. “Tonight. Like they did on the ship.” As if feeling my reaction, he tightened his fingers in mine, without looking over. “...I do not like it, either,” he said, his voice neutral. “They claim it is an attempt to expedite the hearings, but the interrogation aspect feels redundant, which makes me think it is likely a ruse, possibly an excuse to get you alone, or a means of disposing of me and making it look like an accident.”
I stiffened, nearly stopping in my tracks, but he spoke before I could, without altering the pace of his steps.
“...I have provided as many legal protections for you as I can, in the event of my death,” he said. “I made it public that I have bequeathed your ownership to my clan, as well, if something were to happen to me.”
As if feeling something from me that time, he turned.
His black eyes studied my face, but again, I could see no expression in them, nothing I recognized at all.
“...You are showing too much emotion,” he said after a beat, his voice a touch softer. “Do not let them see you emote, Dakota, not if you can help it. Especially in relation to me. It will not win you any points here, if they think you feel anything for me at all.”
He said it with so little emotion that I had trouble making sense of his words.
Even so, almost without knowing I did it, I found myself gripping his hand tighter and also taking his advice, making my face and even my walk as business-like as I could.
As a result, I found myself reverting back into my city walk, too. My strides lengthened, growing both heavier and more carefully placed. I held my head high, my face taut but not overtly unfriendly, my arms loose but my shoulders tense, as if I was ready for a fight.
Almost without my realizing it, my city posture came close to mirroring Nihkil’s, and I felt his approval when his fingers tightened on mine, then loosened without releasing me entirely.
Even so, his words echoed in my mind, making it difficult to breathe.
They might kill him? How had he avoided telling me that?
I found it difficult to think about what my situation might look like here, without Nihkil. He was all I knew here... literally... and as little as I understood him at times, I did trust him. In all of the important ways, I trusted him.
I trusted him to try and keep me alive, at least.
He perhaps felt some of that on me, too.
“It is unlikely, Dakota,” he told me. “I am valuable to them, too.”
I nodded, still fighting my reaction off my face.
Three figures stood apart from the mass of uniforms, and looked very clearly to be waiting for us. I recognized two of them.
Ledi stood on one end and that female supernatural, Yulen, stood on the other.
The human between them was a foot shorter than both and stretched more than the width of them together. He reminded me of a different sort of fish, with his too-white skin and dark, overly round and widely-spaced eyes. His head looked like it had been forcibly shoved inside a Catholic tabernacle, his pudgy cheeks and several chins framed by drapes of red cloth that hung to either side like long hanks of hair. A spongy-textured robe squared his shoulders, but only seemed to emphasize the flaccid roundness of the rest of him.
I shifted my eyes back to Ledi.
It struck me again that compared to the others, Ledi looked almost... normal.
Despite his King-Lear-meets-sand-mystic clothing, something about him still made me think of the cute guy at school, like the captain of the football team and student body president all wrapped in one. This, in spite of the fact that his overall build appeared more compact than conspicuously athletic. His body looked more like Nihkil’s, in fact.
Ledi’s features didn’t match the rows of Pharei, either. Instead of wide and dark, his eyes appeared sharp, almond-shaped and bright, as well as being set relatively close together.
His hands and much of his weight rested on a bone-like cane.
Yulen’s appearance provided the usual slap to the face in terms of not being in Kansas anymore. Her skin shone a near-purple in the red sunlight. Transparent lids moistened her orange eyes, and never had I seen a living being stand so completely still. A robe swirled around her muscular body like black liquid.
I felt the woman’s eyes on me even before my gaze drifted that way.
Something about the woman’s stare felt almost physical.
I found myself remembering a job me and Irene got hired for in San Francisco. It involved a creepy shaman and his cult of strung-out followers who all thought they could read minds. Their leader threatened to “get me” through my dreams when I informed him that one of his ex-followers hired me to stop them from harassing her for having the temerity to leave his fucked up little “family.”
I still don’t know if it was some kind of mental suggestion thing or what, but I didn’t sleep for shit until they caught that Charles Manson sicko molesting one of his underage “students.”
Not long after that, they finally put him behind bars.
Irene got even more messed up by that whole thing than me. She claimed the guy was sending her terror sweats, even after they put him in prison. She threatened to quit if we ever went near any “sorcerer-types” again, as she put it. Granted, it was a red-letter day, getting that guy off the street, but I pretty much agreed with her.
Nihkil’s voice reached me in a murmur.
“Dakota,” he said. “You are behaving well... but for your own sake, try not to give her ammunition if you can.”
“Ammunition?” I murmured back.
“Your fears. You are broadcasting your fears... specific ones. Things she can use.”
It took another few paces for his words to sink in.
“She’s reading my mind?” I heard the note of panic in my own voice. “Already? How can you tell?”
Nihkil’s fingers tightened on my wrist, that time a more overt warning.
“Mind reading is not the most precise term,” he said. “But it is useful to think of it this way, yes, as
information can be garnered by her that would suggest such a skill.” At what must have been a flat look from me, Nihkil frowned. “She is not being rude... yet. But do not give her more reason to go looking in your mind and memories, Dakota.”
He gave me an apologetic look, shrugging.
“...I know you are not trained in such things,” he added. “I apologize for that... but I felt it was more important that we try to regain control over the lock, first. Before I confused that with yet another unfamiliar skill set, for which you had no reference point on Earth.”
I started to speak, but again, Nihkil preempted my question.
“That is different,” he said, softer. “What occurs between you and me... that is not telepathy. That is from the lock.”
“What’s the difference?” I murmured.
“We can only do it with one another,” he said at once.
I paused on that, too. I could tell he didn’t want to say any more on the subject right then, but it was really damned hard not to ask.
After fighting it back and forth in my head, during which time it occurred to me that we were almost within hearing range of our welcoming party, I let it go.
Seconds later, Nihkil came to a halt, and me with him.
I watched in surprise as Nik bent forward, bowing so low that his fingers trailed the stone.
When he straightened, Ledi broke into a smile.
”My friend!” he said. “You look much better at this meeting. Marriage suits you!”
Stiffening, I glanced sharply at Nihkil and saw his skin darken a shade. I knew the word for “marriage” in Pharize. I didn’t know if it meant exactly the same thing as it did in English, but either way, Nihkil had some serious explaining to do.
It occurred to me in the same set of seconds that Ledi spoke as if he hadn’t seen Nihkil in weeks. Perhaps he even hadn’t seen him in weeks, maybe since our walk up to the ship’s bridge that day. Or perhaps Ledi and Nihkil simply wanted the fat man with the tabernacle on his head to believe that Ledi hadn’t seen Nik in weeks.
I’d already guessed that the fat guy with the weird headgear must be Yaffa.
Whoever he was, he cleared his throat.
Ledi smiled in the direction of his several chins, bowing in apology.
