by Amber Stuart
Maybe he hoped some of the other morph––meaning, the ones who hadn’t actually killed Nik’s friends and family––might have more luck.
Seeing them all together, I couldn't help feeling a twinge of nerves at the sheer size of Razmun’s group. Razmun may not have been exaggerating when he said his numbers had grown exponentially over the past year. At least eighty soldier-types now stood armed at the base of the ship's ramp. From listening to Oslep talk, there were a fair few morph on the planet already, too. I had no idea how many of those actually followed Razmun... but just now, Oslep mentioned they had people in the regular security teams, and implied that no one would turn Nik in while he traveled in the segment of the city occupied by the morph.
That meant Razmun had support, at least.
Complicity, maybe... if not outright devotion.
Given that I could still see movement in the darker areas of the ship's hold, I knew this couldn’t be all of the morph traveling with Razmun, either... but it was certainly enough to overpower the handful of Pharei and Malek soldiers I saw lingering around the checkpoints leading into and out of the hangar.
I couldn’t help wondering how numbers like these weren’t a pretty big red flag to the human authorities that they may have a problem on their hands.
“Most of them have probably been bought,” Nik told me quietly, leaning closer to my ear. “Those who aren’t morph, themselves.”
I nodded, still focused on the checkpoint gates, but I swallowed at his words.
Nik tugged on my arm.
When I turned my gaze back towards our crowd of morph guards, I found that the pack had indeed begun to move.
Razmun stood closer to us again, sandwiched somewhere in the middle of the black uniforms with me and Nik. The morph leader walked at least four people ahead of us, though, talking to a number of new morph in civilian clothes that I only now realized had met us in the hangar, as well.
Following after Nik, I continued to watch Razmun and his entourage, trying to understand what I was seeing. I saw Razmun clap Oslep on the shoulder and give him a one-armed hug. His arm remained slung around the larger morph’s shoulders as Razmun walked with Oslep towards a wide opening in the rock wall of the hangar. I saw him chatting with several other nearby morph in a friendly way, as well.
Weirdly, though, I still felt like he was putting on a show. Like the genial leader guy was just another mask he wore, along with General Advisor Ledi and the terrorist Zarwin and whatever else. Right then, I couldn’t decide if the current show was for me, or Nik... or for Razmun’s actual followers... or if it was meant for all of us.
I suspected all of us.
Although it did seem aimed at Nik, in particular, I noticed.
I gave a last glance at the erensyi mural, then turned my back on that, too.
"Did you know?" Nik said to me, following my gaze to the decorated wall.
"Know what?" I said, puzzled.
"Elegrin made that. Razmun's sister." Glancing at me with piercing blue eyes, Nik studied my expression, his own close to cautious. "I thought perhaps you knew. You kept staring at it. And then you were staring at Oslep...” Nik let the thought trail, then shrugged when I didn't know how to answer the implied question.
"It was created back when I still lived here,” Nik added. “Before the colonial authority established a permanent presence. It is meant to be a depiction of all of us... meaning us as erensyi. Razmun, Elegrin, Oslep, Dulei, Yanna, me. We were quite partial to that form in our youth. I am the one in the middle."
I looked back at the mural, feeling something in my stomach clench a little. I stared at the cat-like form in the middle, noting its light green eyes, and a familiar quality to its face, something that may have actually been there, or that I may have imagined.
"Elegrin," I muttered. "Your ex-girlfriend, you mean?"
"Yes. She was to be my wife."
I nodded to that, too... but only after a too-long pause.
I found I was biting my lip in the seconds that followed, even as another irrational surge of irritation hit me. I refused to voice it, even though I saw Nik watching my face.
His eyes bled caution once more. For a few seconds, he seemed almost like he might say something, too, but he appeared to drop it, right before he averted his gaze.
As we passed through the checkpoint without being stopped, Razmun slowed his steps until he strode alongside us, pacing Nik’s and my steps.
Razmun took it upon himself to play tour guide for me, too, explaining the dual faces of the city and the transformation of the layout as the planet shifted from one season to the next. I had already seen a lot about this in the histories I devoured during the second half of the trip. It was still interesting to hear the details from a local's perspective, though, especially since I was now looking at the actual places and structures being described.
Again, however real-seeming the virtual versions, something felt very different about actually being in this place. Especially given all of the battles I’d studied, and could now almost picture happening inside these rock walls.
Like Palarine, the structure I looked at appeared to be older than the current civilization.
Unlike Palarine, morph were the original inhabitants and architects of this city, and it still wore evidence of their distant history, as well as the battles that took place following their first contact with humans.
The city was unique for at least one other reason, as well.
The underground structure had been built specifically to accommodate the planet's two main seasons, roughly titled “Sun” and “Rain”...or “The Dark” and “The Light,” depending on the exact translation. Two entrances led into every dwelling and two storefronts existed for every store, restaurant and meeting hall. One of those entrances accommodated the indoor markets and passageways designed for the time of Rain, the other got opened up and aired out when the outdoor markets and gardens that came to life in the season of Sun, or Nagai... which was also the name of the smaller and brighter of the two suns over the planet.
Now, it was the first month of the season of Rain, known locally as Wulve.
Truthfully, I was pleasantly surprised by what I witnessed once we entered the main promenade of the underground city.
Even after everything I'd seen and read, I'd really half-expected something a lot like Palarine, but the underground Quisieri Settlement bore little to no resemblance to the Pharei version, and not only in terms of appearance. The entire feel of the place was so different that, really, the only thing that could be said the two cities shared in common was the fact of them both being underground.
A wide throughway, miles in length, bisected the four main quadrants of Quisieri City.
Warm, earthen tunnels left that main corridor on all sides, giving the impression of a series of rabbit warrens dotted with underground parks and open spaces.
The main thoroughfare widened as we walked, until it was large enough that I found myself thinking how easy it would be to get lost down here. The sheer number of plants kind of blew my mind, honestly, given that we were underground... but I’d read how even in the distant past, the morph found ways to mimic sunlight well enough to keep their gardens alive down here, year-round. Shorter trees covered in lush blue and green leaves filled the spaces between columns of old-growth trunks. Many of the latter disappeared up through the stone and earth ceiling, presumably for their upper branches to reach the surface of the planet above.
The effect reminded me both of a forest and a sculpture garden––an odd mixture of intentional design and seeming wildness.
Restaurants with stone tables wound all through the deceptively simple structure. I also saw play areas, swimming ponds, waterfalls and what looked like art exhibits, all connected by grass lawns and flower beds under sun-like lamps.
We passed through several different forests with various types of trees, along with a rushing river lined with lamps and coral sculpt
ures, miniature landscapes that stretched for thousands of square feet with drink stands and stages placed discreetly at regular intervals. I saw benches and what looked like game boards, fields covered in birds and flowers and even a narrow lake filled with small boats. Kiosks and small stores wound around pillars with display tables and hand-painted signs, tables for dining and some of the oldest machine terminals I’d seen.
Well, since coming to Nik’s part of the universe, anyway.
I overheard Oslep tell Nik that, despite improvements in the structures of the underground caves, everyone still abandoned them every summer, moving to the outdoor gardens that circled the grass and tree-lined embankments aboveground. Businesses switched entrances at the season’s end, pretty much within the same set of days every year, putting all of their tables out under the twin suns and cleaning off the stone sculptures, gardens, pools and playgrounds that lived above-ground.
I walked the busy thoroughfare with the rest of them, hands in my pockets, humming to myself as I zig-zagged between storefronts and what reminded me of coffee shops back home.
I watched as older people played odd games involving hand-sized clay pieces and what looked like live lizards. I watched teenagers flirt and hold hands where they sat on the grass, sniffing flowers. Kids chased one another around kiosks as their parents laughed over food and colorful drinks. I even glimpsed what might have been a play going on in one alcove of the widest tunnel, with puppets and live animals.
I heard singing, too, and musical instruments that made me strangely nostalgic, despite their unfamiliar sounds. I also saw a group of people kneeling before a long panel of colors that might have been a virtual painting, or the equivalent of a movie, maybe... or maybe something else for which I had no exact reference.
I started violently when a kid transformed into a miniature dragon right in front of me, huffing fire out its nostrils as it ran, grinning, after his (its?) friend.
Recovering, I burst out in a laugh when he caught his friend’s pants on fire.
My laugh caused Nik to look over at me with a puzzled smile. He squeezed my hand when he saw what I was looking at, smiling at me more genuinely before resuming his conversation with Oslep, who once more walked beside him.
I continued to watch the kids, chuckling when the first one got his friend in the butt a second time, causing the other to transform into a dragon, too. I giggled as he let out a very baby-dragon-like yipping sound, right before he turned to chase after the first kid, belching his own jet of fire and beating his small, webbed wings in the other’s face.
Staring around in wonder, it hit me that nearly all of these “people” were likely morph, probably in human form to appease the local authorities... or maybe just out of habit, since they’d likely been wearing human forms as a default for a few decades now.
Even as the thought struck me, I caught a few others in mid-transformation and realized it was happening fairly often, now that I was looking for it. The children seemed to do it the most often and the most spontaneously, but I saw a few teenagers playing around, too.
I watched a group of them turn into giant, bear-like creatures right before they started wrestling on the grass. I saw another girl, too, who looked maybe seventeen in human years, turn into a giant, white-plumed bird that flapped its wings energetically, nearly knocking down her companion, who laughed, turning himself into a small version of one of those black, cat-like creatures with the long necks giraffe-like legs before he started swiping at her legs with his paws.
Nik let go of my fingers once we passed the first wide turn, so I took the opportunity to wander off slightly from the group, even as I stayed within their basic perimeter.
Still erring on the side of caution, I kept Nik in visual range as I paused by a few of the open carts, sniffing spices and soaps, looking at jewelry and food and odd lighting devices and hand-held machinery. I paused a little longer in front of a store tucked in a corner of one of those underground forests, pulled by a row of tables covered in throwing knives and other local weapons, including what looked like a sophisticated cross-bow and a deadly-looking two-bladed sword with bloodstains on its wrapped handles.
Storefronts were mostly built into rock, but a few more modern, virtual interfaces also caught my eyes. I saw a few that looked like something out of a kid’s storybook, the way they had been built into the earth itself, camouflaged by grassy sod and with brightly-painted wooden doors and windows dripping with flowers.
At point point, I finally paused a little too long.
I’d stopped to stare at a wilder-looking version of an indoor wood, complete with a fish-filled stream dancing with tiny, frog-like creatures who plopped happily in the current. Above me stretched giant fern trees that looked like something from Land of the Lost.
Vines hung down from the ceiling above like heavy snakes, dotted with white flowers the size of my head and covered in birds that lived in hanging, net-like homes woven through with bright green grasses. Mesmerized by the utter peace of the scene in front of me, I watched the animals leap around in the spray, knocking into one another in mid-air, even as I breathed in the smell of warm flower blossoms and wet earth.
When I looked up next, Nik stood beside me.
He met my gaze when I turned, his eyes cautious.
"I am sorry," he said in English.
I quirked an eyebrow at him. "Really? Why?"
"You know why," he said, exhaling. "I was jealous. But I still shouldn't have said it." Pausing, he studied my eyes more closely. "Are you all right?"
"With you having an ex-girlfriend?" I said, giving him a wry smile.
He shook his head. "No. Are you all right with this... with us being here." He paused. "I know you don't trust Razmun. Neither do I."
I glanced over my shoulder reflexively.
No one stood anywhere near hearing distance, so I took a breath.
"Yeah,” I said. “I’m all right... for now, anyway. And yeah, you’re right... I don’t trust him.” My eyes met his. "What are we going to do, Nik? Do you know?"
Nik glanced over his shoulder just as I had, his eyes narrowing as he took in the line of morph waiting for us, about twenty yards behind where we stood. Frowning, he didn't seem to come to any definite conclusion before he turned.
"I want to know if they can really control this third gate," he said finally, taking my hand in his. "I want to know if it really does open to all of the worlds of the other two gates.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Why is that?”
I half-expected him to hedge on that part, but he answered me at once.
“I want to know if it might allow me to return you to your home,” he said.
I blinked at him in surprise.
Nik studied my expression, his own wary once more.
"Don't you want to know this, too?" he said.
I just looked at him for a moment, then felt my shoulders unclench.
"Yes,” I admitted. “But will it do us any good, even if the gate does lead to Earth?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“And what would you do?” I said, frowning a little. “Razmun’s made it pretty clear he wants you with him. Are you really just going to leave with them, Nik? Work for Razmun?" I hesitated, trying to decide if I should say it, then blurted it out anyway. “I want you to come with me,” I said. “I want you to come to Earth, Nik. With me.”
He looked at me, and something in his eyes flickered.
I couldn’t discern the emotion there, though. I was about to say more, when he leaned closer, kissing me lingeringly on the mouth. He didn’t kiss me hard, or use his tongue, but something about the kiss stole my breath anyway.
“I know,” he said, ending the kiss with a sigh. He looked out over the stream, his eyes shifting to a darker blue-green color as he pursed his lips. "As for your other questions, I don’t have an answer yet, Dakota."
He met my gaze, his eyes holding more of a troubled cast.
"I know you said you don’t want to,” he said. “And I appreciate that, Dakota... I really do. But I need to ask you a question. I need you to answer me honestly. Would you go alone, if you had the option?" Watching my face, he clutched my fingers tighter. "Would you leave me here, and go back to Earth... if I could arrange to get you through without me?"
I felt myself frown at the question.
It was the same question I'd asked myself on the trip from Palarine to here.
Over and over, in fact. Apparently I hadn't been the only one who'd considered the ramifications of either answer.
"I don't know, Nik," I said finally. "I guess I don’t know what that would mean exactly, given the whole lock thing. From what I understand, you don’t always have control over who you give the lock to... or whether you can sever that connection.”
“That is true,” he said, his voice emotionless.
I looked at him, once more trying to read past the caution in his eyes.
When I couldn’t really, I sighed.
“Would you even want to live there, Nik?” I said. “On Earth. Assuming we could get you away from Razmun and his goons, would you really want to go with me? It’s still a planet filled with humans.” I looked around at the gardens, remembering the kids I’d seen, transforming into dragons and birds. “...You’d be alone,” I added. “It wouldn’t be like the two of us staying here. You wouldn’t have anyone else like you on Earth. Wouldn’t that be too hard for you?”
Nik glanced around where we stood. He focused briefly on the small stream and the waterfall above.
When he looked back at me, his eyes held a denser edge.
"You are so sure there is anything for me here?” Nik said. “...Anything I want?"
I sighed, tugging on his fingers. "Is that really the best reason to go to a whole new world?” I said. “Because things suck here? What about your family? Don't you have friends here, Nik? Even if the police want you, you might––"
