by Amber Stuart
“...My liege then petitions freedom for the morph, Nihkil Jamri.” The Malek smiled with thin, wet lips, looking more and more like a fat salamander. “My liege, Prince of Mydara, discerns that Nihkil Jamri has suffered abuse. He feels this treatment does not bode well for Nihkil Jamri or his mate under the so-called 'protection' of these barbarians from Palarine. My liege wishes to offer a more enlightened solution to the care and management of this morph and his mate. My liege requests immediate release from contract for the servant, that he might consider...” The chins smiled at Nihkil along with the lips. “...Other options.”
The man with the pillar hat turned bright red.
“Revoke!” he spluttered. “Revoke these words! We operate legally in relation to every single aspect of High Court law in the control of violent morph. We have conducted ourselves with the utmost restraint in our attempts to discern the truth of these matters... the truth itself being something in which the Malek Prince and his fat friend perhaps have no interest... !”
The Malek frowned, multiplying fleshy chins.
“This is words,” he said. “Nihkil Jamri has refused to open agreement with his wife... this is to punish. This is to force him to comply with your wishes to provide her with human breeding partners, perhaps. Perhaps yourself, Prime Delegate of Pharei... ?”
Sweat dropped on pillar hat’s cape. “His treatment has no relationship to his status with the primitive female, about whose origins we still know next to nothing!”
The fat man waved a bored hand.
I folded my arms, shifting in my seat. My eyes slid briefly to the half-dressed woman in moonstone cloth. When I looked back towards the dais, I caught Nihkil staring at me.
His pale eyes shifted to the woman also.
It occurred to me suddenly that I hadn’t seen Nihkil's hair change color since we'd left the ship. Like now, it remained the exact same, impenetrable shade of black as mine. I'd inherited my mother's half-Japanese hair texture, not the wavier hair of my dad, and Nihkil's hair reflected that, too, even at its short length.
His eyes remained his, though, shifting in minute shades even now.
His father, Inid, raised a hand, drawing my eyes.
I wasn’t the only one to turn.
The room, both virtual and physical, fell silent.
“The morph agree with the representative from Mydara that Nihkil Jamri should be released,” Nik’s father said in a deep voice. His tones carried further than anyone else who had spoken. “My son has clearly suffered degradation and abuse and it weakens the Pharei claim. And yet...” He raised his hand again when the guy with the pillar hat started to sputter. “...We also respect the meaning inherent in the words of the Prime Delegate of Pharei. Nihkil Jamri requires education, if he is to be a fitting mate to any being, human or otherwise. His violence shows a weakness of character that cannot be tolerated in one so situated... and would not, if he were to be released into our custody.”
I glanced at Nihkil, hearing the real rebuke behind the elder morph’s words.
I saw that Nihkil clearly heard it also, although his expression didn't change.
“That is lovely sentiment,” said the fat Malek. “But also could be excuse to take your morph son and his mate for yourself, Inid of Xveascret? Selling her ovum to the highest bidder, her genetic anomalies to the rest of us, piece by piece... ?”
I glanced at Mai-rhani, but her expression didn’t flicker.
I turned back towards the dais when Inid spoke up again.
“I, of course, want my son with me," Inid said, bowing his head. “...I do not deny such, honorable servant of Prince Ut. But we are amenable to any controls that the Court deems appropriate. While complaints about my son’s racial status bear weight, it cannot be denied that the two of them represent both of our people in this joining. Nor can it be denied that his passion for the creature might be made into an advantage... once channeled in appropriate directions.”
I folded my arms tighter. I didn’t look at Nihkil at all that time.
The Malek nodded, grudgingly. “We have no complaint, as long as any offspring are not bound.”
Hearing his words, I turned to Mai-rhani.
"Seriously? They’d let me go with you? Why?"
Mai-rhani gestured a light shrug. "Likely they want you relocated away from Palarine. They often underestimate non-humans' ability to protect their charges."
I sat back on my heels.
I tried hard to listen as permutations of the same arguments wound on, but my attention flagged as protests and counter-demands and insinuations and accusations all began to blur.
At one point the room grew dark and the Court began projecting logs gleaned from the supernaturals who had been interrogating Nihkil. Before I fully understood the translated words, Nihkil’s mind loomed on three-dimensional screens over several points of the room.
I saw Earth, what looked like a long stretch of grass all cut to the same length.
The golf course, I thought.
I saw Mount Rainier and the Seattle city streets, and Nihkil trying to find food, examining newspapers and even the internet as he attempted to blend with local humans. I saw myself inside those shifting images, standing in that ridiculous hooker outfit and wearing too much make-up, my hair sprayed up so that I looked like a bad stereotype of a Jersey girl. Only the beat-up leather boots I wore looked remotely familiar on any part of my body.
Seeing my home world and my old life gave me an odd pain.
Nihkil must have felt that, too.
When I glanced down from the screen, he was staring at me again. I only took that in for a few seconds, though, before I looked back at the monitors.
Other images flickered across the screens, more confusing ones.
I saw things that I could have sworn I'd dreamt about while I shared a bed with Nihkil on the ship: burning fields, skies filled with ships, a town of people working by sandy dugouts, thick-trunked trees and black cats the size of giraffes or long-legged elephants.
I saw what might have been pieces of Nihkil’s life before he found me on Earth, maybe even before he worked for the Pharei. Faces swam by, landscapes. I saw battles, Nihkil’s blood-stained fingers working frantically to reload some kind of weapon, a room with rich, tapestry-like cloths hanging from the walls and bowls filled with fire rimming six corners of a cavernous room. I saw other beings laughing with him, sitting around fires, their teeth white in the gloom.
I could almost smell...
Another sky exploded overhead, guns hanging from the undersides of ships, and I flinched, feeling his fear through the immediacy of the holograms.
Not long after, men and women screamed from cages, their eyes wild. Animals held in similar restraints crouched nearby, and something in their faces told me they weren’t just animals. Self-awareness lived there, an eerie but obvious sentience. A few even appeared to be locked in the middle of a transformation, half human and half... something else.
One tried to gnaw off her own wrist.
There was something wrong with them, something Nihkil understood better than I did.
His emotions rose as he stared around at that morph zoo, until everything he saw seemed to make him sick, unbalanced with grief and excess emotion. Whatever those feelings, they were too intense for words, even for a scream.
Not long after, I saw Nihkil in a windowless, gray room, surrounded by men who looked like those medical technicians I remembered from the ship. They had Nihkil cuffed to a chair, clearly drugged. I saw him looking down at his own wrists, vision blurry, staring at the cuffs there. His fear came through the implants too, dulled only somewhat by the drugs. They showed him images of corpses, and of flower-filled fields, smiles next to grimaces of pain, war scenes, scenes of torture and comforting images of love and home.
Somehow, I knew this had to be the reprogramming I'd heard about... the same reprogramming required of any morph whose emotions spiked outside of what they
considered “safe” parameters.
The Court watched it all with me, debating, pointing, speculating.
Gazing up at the three-dimensional depictions, I felt like I was witnessing a rape. I could feel Nihkil in it, past the drugs they had him on and past the differences between his mind back then and now.
The vulnerability behind his presence nearly took my breath.
"Why are they allowing this?" I sent, turning on Mai-rhani. "This is too public, evidence or not. Aren’t there laws against this kind of thing?"
Mai-rhani’s face didn’t move. "They do not apply to morph."
For the rest of it, I shut my mind, staring at the floor.
I didn’t look up until the lights rose, and by then it felt like hours had passed. I wondered if there was any way I could excuse myself without causing more problems for Nihkil.
Before I could ask, Mai-rhani touched my arm.
"They are taking a break."
I nodded, still fighting to control my facial expression.
Mai-rhani added, "I have been asked to relay that your breeding partner requests an audience with you, Dakota."
I turned. “What?” I switched to the implant. "Where?"
"Here, Dakota. He cannot leave."
I glanced up at the dais.
The group had already broken.
They stood around the black, metal table, talking and stretching limbs. One man rubbed his back on a pointed bit of trellis, reminding me of a farm animal. The Pharei leader had removed his pillar hat and was talking loudly to one of the female supernaturals, his hair wet with sweat and sticking up strangely around his semi-bald head.
Ledi stood over Nihkil, his sharp, green eyes glinting like bits of glass as he spoke to him rapidly in a language that may or may not have been Pharize.
Of everyone, Ledi looked the least worse for wear.
Nihkil glanced at me then, and I realized he’d been watching me. Waiting, maybe.
“Okay,” I heard myself say. “Tell him all right. Tell him I'll talk to him.”
19
A CARNIVAL AND AN ATTEMPT TO COMMUNICATE
I FOUND MYSELF standing on the dais within minutes of my agreeing to see Nihkil.
Not alone, of course. I’d walked there surrounded by robed supernaturals and two more militant-looking morph, or so I surmised from their clothing. One of those guards was Hunsef, I noticed, and he stood closer to me than the rest.
Once I climbed the steep staircase up to the dais itself, a handful of human guards met me, and when I finally straightened, I had probably nine people clustered around me of various races.
From the other end of the table, I felt Nihkil's stare.
I saw his eyes shift to Hunsef then, and something in them changed.
Not a lot, but enough that I flinched.
I kept my attention focused on the unlined faces of the supernaturals after that, along with their dark eyes, expressionless mouths and bodies mostly hidden behind the dark blue robes bearing the gold insignia of Palarine.
Distracting myself with them couldn’t last long, of course.
That motley group led me to the other side of the table, where Nik sat.
Then, as if by silent signal, my escorts turned to leave.
Only Hunsef lingered a beat longer, as if trying to decide if he should leave me alone with Nik or if he should stay. Then Hunsef’s head and neck jerked sharply, turning so that he peered over his own shoulder, looking after the others.
It was as if someone had just smacked him on the back of the head.
Hunsef turned to leave after that. I saw his faint scowl, however, as well as the warning glare he gave to Nik before he left.
“Call us if you need us,” he said to me, gruff.
I nodded, but had to fight not to laugh.
I watched them descend the stairs. The supernaturals themselves walked as if their movements had been choreographed, hands folded, robes trailing, feet silent. I watched them reach the main floor. Then I watched them ascend back up that ramp, until they finally once more circled Mai-rhani on the slanted floor.
I noticed only then that the humans attending the court session in virtual were vanishing from around the table. The morph delegates left seconds after that.
The old one, Inid, winked at me as his outline melted.
Nihkil and I were alone.
I actually felt alone with him, too, which I hadn’t expected.
I also knew it couldn't possibly be real, given where we were.
Even forgetting about the standard surveillance, the morph guard with Mai-rhani, Mai-rhani herself, the supernaturals and a heck of a lot of observant humans likely watched us from different areas of the stadium-like floor, as well.
Pushing all of that from my mind, I sank to the bench, conscious suddenly of how much skin the dress exposed. I felt Nihkil notice, too, but instead of meeting his eyes, I searched the table until I noticed a tray sitting there, not far from his hands.
When the silence stretched, I gestured towards it, still without looking at him.
“You should eat,” I said in English.
There was a silence.
Lifting my eyes when it stretched, I managed to avoid his by looking out over the crowd. “Go ahead, Nik. Eat. I won’t watch, if you'd rather I didn't.”
He didn’t move.
After another minute, I felt compelled to turn.
My throat closed when I looked at his face, when I saw how bright his eyes were. I reached out without thinking, clasping his arm.
“Hey, Nik. It’s okay.”
Turning his head, he wiped his face on the shoulder of his shirt. I saw him look at my feet under the table. Pretending not to notice, I tugged on the thick, metal cuffs encasing his wrists. It occurred to me that he probably couldn’t eat, not easily anyway.
“Do you want help?” I said.
“No. Dakota.” He seemed at a loss. “No.” He gripped my arm, tight enough to startle me. He spoke English, too. “Please, can we...”
He didn’t go on, but just looked at me, his expression close to helpless, and again holding so much grief I had trouble holding his gaze.
After another beat, I forced a smile, shaking his arm a little.
“Hey. Come on. You’re starting to look a little goth, even for you.”
Leaning over him, I reached for the tray, tugging the food closer. Thinking about our eating games on the ship, how much it both amused and annoyed him when I started hassling him about his food quirks, I found myself swallowing past a tightness in my throat.
“We can finish our game later,” I said. “This one won’t count, okay?”
“Dakota. Are you angry at me?”
Picking up the spear-like utensil, I jabbed at a piece of meat. The end had been dulled, just like in a prison back home. Forcing my mind off that, I thought about his question.
After another pause, I sighed, still pushing food around on his plate.
“I guess so," I admitted. "Although you’re not making it easy.” I lifted the spear, meeting his eyes. “Can’t you be a dick or something? I like consistency in my emotional spectrum. At least when it comes to the men in my life...”
He seemed about to refuse the food, then hesitated, glancing at it, as if second-thinking the decision. After another pause, he opened his mouth.
Without waiting, I put it in, then looked down while he chewed, sawing the spear into another chunk.
“I’m beginning to think you drug me,” I added, quirking an eyebrow. “Or maybe manipulate my mind, confusing me on purpose, like the supernaturals do.”
He took another mouthful of meat when I offered it.
I could feel how hungry he was; I also felt the guards, and realized abruptly that they’d left him the food like that on purpose. They'd meant it as a taunt, not an actual meal.
Once the thought solidified, it occurred to me that I might not be doing him any favors.
“No.” Nihkil swallowed, indicating with his head he wanted more. When I gave him another spear-ful of meat, he touched my fingers with his, and I felt gratitude. "No, I need the food. You're right about them, but it's all right, Dakota."
“Why are they doing this?” I said, making my voice quieter. I risked a glance at the guards. “Why are they––”
“I don’t want to talk about that.”
I felt my jaw tighten, but let him drop it. Giving him another bite of the food, I thought suddenly that he might be thirsty, too.
“Do you want water?” I said.
Before he could answer, I'd already laid a hand on the table, murmuring a word in Pharize.
The smooth surface reconfigured, bringing up a container with a long, thin neck that tapered up to the height of his mouth. I pushed it towards him and he bent down at once, putting his lips to the reed-like end. I watched, feeling a little sick again as I saw his throat moving in rapid swallows. His thirst felt like a tangible force by then, urgent enough that I realized he'd been having trouble eating before I offered him the water.
Feeling my face tighten in anger, I looked down, focusing my attention back on working the dull edge of the spear into more of the meat.
After a few more seconds, Nihkil raised his head, wiping his mouth on his shoulder. He accepted another forkful of the meat, chewing and swallowing before he spoke to me again.
“Dakota, are they treating you all right?”
I gave him another spear-ful of food while I considered an answer. He wasn’t really chewing much anymore, so I turned back to the tray, focusing on that with my eyes and hands.
“If by leaving me in a room and ignoring me you mean ‘all right,’ then sure... I’ve no complaints.” When he swallowed another chunk, I hesitated.
“Hey, take it easy. If you throw it up––”
Nik shook his head, indicating he wanted more.
While I worked on getting another piece of meat on the dull implement, I said, in the same light tone, “Ledi stops by. Not always in person, but he checks in on me when he can.” Feeling a flush of reaction from Nihkil, I fought not to flinch, but the intensity of it took me off guard. “...I’m not sleeping with Ledi, Nik. Sex,” I clarified. “We’re not doing that.”
