by Amber Stuart
Still, I knew when they brought him in.
I didn’t look up as they passed with him, watching only peripherally as Nihkil made his way down the sloped ramp towards the central dais. I didn’t look up when he reached the cavern floor, either, or when he began to ascend the dais stairs, surrounded by guards.
Then he stumbled, and my eyes seemed to jerk up on their own.
Nihkil straightened at the top of the steps, a line of soldiers on either side. He glanced back in the same handful of seconds, and then he was staring at me, his light gold eyes like lanterns. He seemed to have no pupils at all as he looked at me, and for a moment, his eyes were all I could see.
The guards jerked him backwards then, pulling him towards the table by his bound wrists.
Those gold eyes didn’t leave mine, though.
His face looked borderline gaunt, despite the relatively short amount of time that had passed since I’d last seen him. Some of the marks and bruises on him looked fresh, but not all of them; they clearly came from more than one beating. From the way the clothes hung on him, he’d lost weight since we’d left the ship, maybe as much as twenty pounds. His hair was midnight black, as straight as mine, and the shortest I’d ever seen it.
But none of that made it difficult to hold his gaze.
I felt a whisper of his presence through the lock we shared, the same one I’d been pretending wasn't there for days, despite what I dreamed every night... or maybe because of it.
Feeling and seeing him him didn’t exactly help.
All it did was further confuse the already conflicted feelings I’d been carrying around about Nik for the past several weeks since I’d last seen him. Remembering the look on his face when he left me back at the room that night, and the way he’d stared at me when he asked me to forbid him from taking any more cards, that tight feeling in my chest worsened. I stared at him helplessly as I realized something else, too.
I loved the irritating, alien bastard.
I really loved him.
I just had absolutely no idea what that meant. Not for either of us, really.
A guard laid a hand on Nihkil’s shoulder, forcing him down to the bench.
He was still staring at me.
Nik’s expression hadn’t moved, but I panicked at whatever I sensed behind that stillness. I found myself wondering if we could still be linked via our implants, then realized it didn’t matter, really, given the connection we shared via the lock. Using the code he’d given me to open our private implant channel, I hesitated again.
"Are you all right?" I said through the link. "Nihkil?"
He didn’t answer.
I started to switch frequencies, wondering if I should ask Mai-rhani if she could talk to him, when that rush of his presence hit me hard in the chest again, along with a heat that took my breath. The intensity behind it shocked me.
It also made me wonder again, just how connected we really were.
But I heard him through the implant then. His words held more of that intensity, even as that denser heat worsened in my chest, growing almost unbearable.
"Dakota. Please, Dakota... I need to speak to you, please...”
I admit it. I panicked.
I shut him out, almost without thinking about why.
But I knew why.
I could feel it on him, and in his attempts to reach me through the link, and then through the lock itself. He'd felt me thinking about him. He’d probably felt my realization about how I felt about him, too, right around the time I had it.
The certainty only worsened when I felt that conflicted warmth intensify in my chest, and realized he was still trying to reach me.
When I looked up, he was still staring at me, too, his face expressionless.
"Dakota." Mai-rhani’s words grew sharp via the implant. "Whatever you did just now... do not do it again."
I glanced over, feeling my face warm, in spite of myself.
I could barely make myself look at Nik at all after that.
Hell, I couldn't even unclench my hand.
Slowly, everything else trickled back into my awareness from the last time I’d seen him. The silence from him after he left me in that room. Seeing the woman in moonstone-colored cloth lounging in front of me was like ice water thrown over my head.
Mai-rhani's voice remained curt, "He is ill, Dakota."
“Yeah?” I said, staring at the red-haired woman. “And how is that my fault?”
Nihkil was still trying to reach me.
I felt the other morph around me shifting uncomfortably in their seats, and fielded a few stares from supernaturals, too. I still felt Nik fighting back, bashing against the closing in me. When he didn't stop, I felt shock ripple the collective morph presence.
Somehow, Nik was breaking the rules... and not in a minor way.
My attempt at nonchalance faded.
“Ill?” I muttered.
I glanced at him as surreptitiously as I could.
For the first time, I looked at the rest of him... meaning, not just Nik’s face and eyes. The back of his neck had been wrapped in some kind of gray material, not unlike the bandages they used on his shoulder after those Malek soldiers stabbed him. I felt Nik trying again to reach me through the implant and winced, remembering what Ledi said about drugs, too.
“Ill in what way?” I muttered, glancing sideways at Mai-rhani.
She looked at me, and that time, her expression seemed puzzled.
“From you, of course,” she said, as if that should have been obvious.
“From me?” I repeated, staring at her. “What is that supposed to mean?”
I felt her shushing me though, along with the supernaturals who ringed both of us in a rough circle.
Not long after, I felt Nihkil being forced to back down by the morph and supernaturals of the delegation. He still didn’t feel apologetic. A guard snapped a command from behind him in Pharize, something that sounded like “position!” I watched as Nik raised his bound wrists, moving like an automaton, his eyes still on me.
I watched as two humans bolted him to the table, too.
Even if he was drugged, he moved like the motions were familiar. More familiar than they could be from just those past few weeks.
At the thought, I felt another pain in my chest.
Mai-rhani touched my arm. "I apologize, Dakota. We do not normally intervene in personal matters... but there are things about my brother of which you are not aware."
I muttered, “More than one, apparently.”
I reached for a cup someone put in front of me, hoping like hell it held something approximating alcohol. I took a drink and immediately grimaced.
“Can’t I get mukte here?” I said, holding up the container.
The female morph made a line with her finger, a clear no.
“Figures.” I wiped my mouth, hand trembling.
A man wearing a tall hat shaped like a Roman pillar took his place at the head of the table.
As he did, the surface of the black metal brightened.
Other bodies appeared along the table's edge in the next few seconds, melting out of the air like liquid. I counted fifteen Pharei-looking humans on one end, sitting directly across from Nihkil like some kind of inquisition squad.
I took in their faces, one by one, wondering if the formation of their seating was meant to be an emotional scare tactic, when the outlines of what had to be three morph materialized in a much smaller ring across from the humans. All wore identical, off-white shirts with dark green pants, making Nihkil stand out with his all-black uniform in the center.
The oldest-looking morph sat directly opposite the man with the pillar hat.
His face fell on the dark side, I noticed, in terms of coloring, and he looked old despite his relatively unlined face. Silver hair hung back in a loose knot, accenting high cheekbones and a prominent jaw, making him look significantly different from the Pharei. Teardrop-shaped
eyes stood out in the contrast of his light hair and dark skin, vivid even with dark-blue irises.
Despite his age, his face remained almost shockingly handsome, if in that alien kind of way. Truthfully, he reminded me a little of my Cuban father, who'd been a bit of a ladies' man in his younger years.
Well, if mom could be believed.
"Who is he?" I asked Mai-rhani.
Mai-rhani looked at me, her eyes showing a faint glimmer of surprise.
"Inid... our father. Did Nihkil not tell you he would be here?"
I stared at her blankly. I felt my face warm, but more in anger.
“No,” I said.
The announcer continued to speak in droning tones.
“...Inid of Xveascret who seeks audience as genetic owner of the registered mate of said object, to be identified and assessed...”
A silence fell, pregnant while unanswered.
Then an equally mechanical-sounding voice rose.
“The Court acknowledges this as legal.”
Blue light erupted from a floating machine that I hadn’t noticed. About the size of a small bird, it hovered chest-level with the group of morph sitting around Nihkil. That same light enveloped the silver-haired morph first, flickering over him in a few quick swipes, as if the man were a barcode in a supermarket.
The blue light clicked off.
“...Speaker is acknowledged. He is who he claims. Proceed.”
Another form materialized, sitting in the remaining open stretch of table that lay between the morph on one side and the Pharei on the other.
I stared at the new person's double chins and his oddly-round shape wrapped in velvety robes, unsure at first if I was looking at a male or female.
Male, I decided after a few seconds more, and Malek... just from the pointed chin above the folds of flesh and that oddly orange-tinted, white, straw-like hair standing in tufted spikes on top his head. He had those dark eyes I remembered, too, rimmed by a near-crimson color, and his skin was the same reddish-brown I'd seen on the fitter representatives of his race.
Feeling my jaw harden as I remembered what happened to me and Nik on that purple-sky planet, I couldn’t quite suppress a swell of hostility towards this fat, worm-like version, too.
“...Representation from Mydara whose government seeks audience as interested party to the decisions over claim content by the accused. The royal family sends scion to its heir, Albret Aredi Ut. To be identified...”
The blue light scanned the Malek’s squat form.
“...Representation from Mydara is allowed. He is who he claims. Proceed.”
“I protest, sir.” Pillar hat guy slapped the table. “These proceedings should be closed until ownership is determined!”
There was another silence while the Court conferred.
“Denied,” the voice from the walls said. “The object belongs to Nihkil Jamri.”
I wrapped bare arms around myself, feeling my mouth tighten more.
The pillared man smacked the table again. “Reconsider. He belongs to us. He is bound by contract... and to his own family, the morph. His autonomy is suspect.”
A silence fell, this one longer.
“Denied,” the voice said again. “The Council’s claim that the owner lacks autonomy is invalid. He has as much autonomy as any of his race, contracted or not.”
I saw Ledi give a low snort at this, even as he raised an eyebrow at Nihkil.
Nihkil’s face didn’t move.
Turning, I touched Mai-rhani’s sleeve. "I thought this was about ownership," I said quietly through the link. "How have they decided already?"
Mai-rhani gestured negative.
"A host of rights exist. The Pharei can still make claims, since Nihkil is under contract. However, as they legally censured his actions in bringing you back through the gate, they have made their subsequent claims that he acted under their instruction suspect. Further, they have bound themselves with this censure in regard to your own status. They cannot say he found you in the course of assigned duties.”
Sighing a bit, Mai-rhani gave a subtle wave of her fingers.
“More significantly,” the morph added. “When Nihkil made his claim of you, and you took over ownership of his lock, they lost primary status as his handlers... and therefore, as your handlers, too. Control over a morph's lock must legally be viewed as 'consensual’... at least from the outside. They have been unable to coerce Nihkil to release his attachment to you. Attacking his autonomy was a second attempt to accomplish the same thing."
I frowned a little, running through the morph’s words. I nodded towards the man who looked like a giant, velvet burrito.
"What about the Malek? Why are they here?"
Mai-rhani made a softer sound.
"They say the Pharei interfered by taking you off the colony on Trinith. They say that the Pharei attacked their sovereignty. The Malek claim they had legally bound a trespasser who had committed murder and property crime against them... that Nihkil should have his autonomy revoked. They further claim rights over your home world, since they claim that their morph operatives made contact with Earth prior to Nihkil’s arrival there. They argue their discovery rights predate my brother’s claim... and therefore his rights to you."
“Is that true?” I said.
“Unknown,” Mai-rhani replied, giving me another of those subtle waves. "Such an argument would normally be quite strong, but both gates are gone, and with them, any proof that Nihkil arrived there after the Malek. Testimony alone is not sufficient for ownership claim unless it has been fully validated... although your control over Nihkil's lock forms an indirect proof that he had contact with you prior to the Malek. The fact that Nihkil attempted to kill for you during that capture only serves as evidence in terms of his ownership rights, in that morph don't normally kill for humans––"
"Kill for me?" I cut in, my voice sharpening. "What are you talking about?”
“He attacked a supernatural, did he not?” Mai-rhani said. “He attempted to kill her?”
I stared at Mai-rhani’s now-gray eyes, remembering the supernatural I’d bashed on the head with that chunk of volcanic rock.
After noting my expression, Mai-rhani went on.
“...For testimony to be admissible in a disputed claim, the supernaturals would have to obtain evidence from at least five witnesses. Commonalities are then culled and weighed for consistency. In this case they have only my brother... and he is not cooperating."
I hesitated, glancing at Nihkil up on the dais. “The other Malek aren’t talking? The ones who captured us on that planet... ?”
"They are dead."
“What?” I stared, then realized I’d spoken out loud, and switched back to the implant. “Dead? All of them? Did the Pharei––”
"No," Mai-rhani said through the link. Then, as if thinking, she amended her words, making the tiniest of gestures with her head. “...Not that has come to light. Their ship had a coil malfunction. We have no evidence to suspect foul play by the Pharei." Mai-rhani made another inclination of her head. "In default, the High Court was forced to label your origins ‘unknown,’ thus negating the Malek claim to prior discovery."
"So the Court does know about me, then?"
"The Court is the authority conducting this hearing,” Mai-rhani said. “Their involvement is the other reason the representative from Mydara was invited. Most dispute claims require the presence of all potentially-affected parties, in order to be deemed valid.”
I stared up at the dais, thinking about the men who’d beaten Nihkil, who wanted to do worse to me. Remembering that didn't exactly make me feel better about them all being dead, but it didn't make me feel worse, either.
“That’s a pretty big coincidence,” I muttered. “Them all being dead.”
"Yes," Mai-rhani agreed. "It is."
I considered pursuing that, too, then didn’t.
“So what’s the worst that could happen?�
�� I said, speaking aloud again.
"They could declare you a partial ward of the Court," Mai-rhani answered promptly. "They could deny you passage from this world, or any other... making you a prisoner in truth if not in name. They could also claim ‘superior threat’ to the human race and usurp some portion of genetic ownership under the auspices of finding a solution to their breeding problems. They could use your non-sentient status to declare your agreement with Nihkil Jamri void, thus requiring that your consent be decided through another venue. This would not impact ownership, but may cause your reproductive capacity to be parceled as a separate right... again, for the perceived good of the whole."
My mouth grew into a harder line. "Sorry I asked."
Mai-rhani laid gentle fingers on my arm. "We have contingencies in place, Dakota."
I started to ask. Via the link, Mai-rhani sent me an impulse not to.
“...You needn’t feel dependent on my brother either," Mai-rhani added. "If he dies, the claim would fall directly to my family. We are assured our rights would be honored in this, assuming his claim itself is honored. The contingencies exist for other purposes.”
Turning, I stared at her. “That’s the second time someone’s mentioned Nik getting whacked. Something you’re not telling me?”
Mai-rhani’s face remained placid.
“It is a risk,” she said gently. “However, none of the human tribes wishes for that outcome now... not until his claim rights are decided. If you were owned by us, we would revoke all secondary rights. Nihkil is contracted to the military of Palarine. Even as primary owner he cannot do this, for it would be in direct conflict with his agreement to protect their people."
I swallowed, nodding. “Okay. Sure.”
The hearing had continued during our brief conference, and now I felt like I should be paying attention. Currently, the many-chinned servant of Prince Ut of Mydara was speaking, his voice surprisingly high-pitched, even through the translation program.
