Only the Open

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  “True,” Lisinthir said. “I should create a character who isn’t local to the world but who might have reasons to visit, and then take several guides with me who might advise me on how to keep from breaking my persona.”

  “This should be good.” Meryl leaned back in her chair with her arms behind her head. “Let’s hear the plan.”

  “And don’t tell us you want us to pretend to be your pretty Pelted slaves,” Na’er drawled.

  “Not you, no,” Lisinthir said, and looked at the two Chatcaava.

  For a moment, complete non-comprehension. Then the Knife exclaimed, “Us? But we are no less suspect than the Chatcaava we have rescued from the flagship! I was a palace harem guard, and known to be involved with the refugee flight! And Uuvek has surely been flagged as part of the team I requested on the throneworld!”

  “I didn’t say you should come with me as Chatcaava,” Lisinthir said.

  “He wants us to Change,” Uuvek said dryly.

  “What!” the Knife yelped.

  “The Change?” Uuvek said again. “That thing you have always wanted to try but have never had the chance to for lack of some aliens to Touch? I thought you’d be excited.”

  “I want to know the shapeshifting, yes, but I do not want to learn it in order to impersonate an alien slave!”

  “Even to save your Emperor?” Na’er said, ears flicking up.

  The Knife opened his mouth and then his head sank, shoulders tightening.

  “How would it work?” Uuvek asked Lisinthir, curious.

  “I would presumably create a persona who would have slaves,” Lisinthir said. “Then you would accompany me as my personal possessions, and I would use my ability to read minds to consult with you at intervals. That way you could warn me of any impending pitfalls during my conversations with the local personalities Laniis has mentioned.”

  “Madness!” the Knife exclaimed.

  “It could work,” Meryl said, thoughtful.

  “It’s the only thing we’ve got so far,” Na’er said. “I guess we could sleep on some alternatives?”

  “But we don’t know if this plan will work because we don’t know yet if they can Change,” Laniis said. “They never have, it sounds like. What if they can’t figure it out?”

  “We can!” The Knife sounded offended. “It is part of who we are. It is genetic!”

  “It takes practice, the Queen said,” Lisinthir said. “But that is well. We have several species of Pelted on board, so you can try taking patterns at least five times.”

  “I have not agreed to this yet!”

  Uuvek guffawed. “Yet.”

  The Knife glared at him. “This plan also involves you, you know.”

  “Yes,” Uuvek said. “I admit to curiosity about what it will be like to Change. I don’t have your religious interest in it, admittedly, so maybe I’m freer to think of it more objectively.”

  “I am not taking this personally.”

  Uuvek gaped a grin at him.

  “So when do we want to try this?” Na’er said. “If we’re not sure the Chatcaava can even do it? We should know that sooner rather than later or we’ll have to figure something else out.”

  “Now, perhaps?” Lisinthir said.

  “Now!” the Knife exclaimed. “But—”

  “Now is a good time,” Uuvek said. “Who would like to volunteer?”

  “Does it hurt?” Meryl asked.

  “No,” Lisinthir said. “In fact, you won’t feel anything at all.”

  “Then I volunteer.” Meryl grinned at Uuvek and the Knife. “Come on over, aletsen, and let’s turn you into a proper species.”

  “Can we watch?” Na’er added, dropping his chin on his palms and beaming.

  “There’s not much to see,” Lisinthir said. “They touch some part of your body—your hand suffices—and they learn something from it, and then it’s over.”

  “Well, sure, the stealing the pattern part,” Na’er said. “But the shapeshifting part… that’s gotta be exciting!”

  “I’d like to see that,” Shanelle agreed.

  “We would too,” Uuvek said. “Right, Knife?”

  “Right,” the Knife said, wings sagging. He pushed himself away from the table and walked over to Meryl, who offered him his hand. The stare he leveled at it would have been better reserved for something fell, but he gathered it into his finally and drew in a long breath, closing his eyes.

  They waited.

  “Don’t stare at me,” the Knife muttered.

  “We’re not staring,” Uuvek said cheerfully.

  “You’re lying,” the Knife said without opening his eyes.

  “Well, yes.”

  The Knife’s eyes slitted open, just enough to glare at Uuvek, then closed again.

  Meryl was watching the Chatcaavan. After a few minutes, she glanced at Lisinthir and raised her brows. He lifted one shoulder in a partial shrug. It had not taken the Queen so long, but the Queen had Touched before. He assumed that practice conferred speed as well as accuracy, and he was unwilling to distract the Knife by making suggestions.

  It was Uuvek who said finally, “You have no idea what to do, do you.”

  The Knife’s wings sagged. “You try?”

  Uuvek sighed and left the table to join the other male by Meryl’s side. He took her palm, turned it to look at the back, pressed on the ball of her hand to watch her knuckles and fingers move. “How does it work, then? You press your skin against the skin of your target. And then what? Is there an organ involved, beyond the brain and the skin? A muscle you flex?”

  “I don’t know,” the Knife said, irritated. “If I’d known that, I’d be doing it.”

  “You have read extensively about this process,” Uuvek said. “Presumably there was some description of it.”

  “Yes, but it was all… all poetry, Uuvek!”

  “So, tell us the poetry.”

  The Knife grimaced. “The metaphor, overwhelmingly, is sexual.”

  “Is it?” Lisinthir said, surprised. At the Knife’s glare, he offered, “I was not under the impression that any of your kind romanticized sex.”

  “These are historical documents,” Uuvek said. “And religious ones. You’ll note they are considered antiquated.”

  “If not dangerous,” the Knife muttered. He looked at Meryl’s hand, head sagging. “I wish… I would very much like… to know the Change. I am sorry.”

  “Maybe,” Lisinthir murmured, “you can, still.”

  “How….”

  He ignored the protest, walking around the table to join them. To Uuvek he said, “Move to one side, please?” And then he stood behind the Knife, tapped one of the wings. “Spread these, if you would. I need to be behind you.”

  The Knife glowered at him over a shoulder.

  “If you don’t trust me at your back now, all this is useless, yes?” Lisinthir lifted his brows.

  The Knife sighed and cautiously opened the wings. They were nicely made. The Emperor had had longer ones, but the Knife’s had fewer scars. Lisinthir moved behind him, pressed his chest against the Chatcaavan’s back and waited for the Knife to react. When he didn’t, Lisinthir reached over his shoulders, setting one hand on the male’s chest and reaching with the other for Meryl’s hand. “All three of us now.”

  “This should be interesting,” Meryl said. “What are you trying to do?”

  “I remember what it felt like when the Queen took my pattern, and when the Emperor did,” Lisinthir said. “I can transmit that feeling to the Knife. Perhaps that will help him fumble toward whatever procedure is required.”

  “That sounds implausible, but what about this doesn’t? Let’s give it a go.” Meryl rested her palm on the Knife’s again, and Lisinthir placed his on hers. Practice had made it possible for him to avoid sensing the feelings of others through skin, but he thinned those shields until he tasted the clarity of her curiosity, the calm of it. It was like birdsong on a clear spring morning.

  The Knife’s emotions
were a jangle: yearning so intense it felt like a blow to the gut, like desperate thirst; embarrassment at his own failure; skepticism and fear that this would come to anything. Also, irritation at being touched by an alien; he manifestly misliked having the Eldritch leaning into his spine this way. The insides of the wings were erogenous zones for him, from the flavor of that mislike—well and good, if the metaphor in ancient texts was sexual. Lisinthir flexed his fingers against the Knife’s chest. “Are you both ready?”

  “I’m good,” Meryl said.

  The Knife shifted his wings, his shoulders. “Yes. I believe.”

  “You will feel me in your mind,” Lisinthir warned. And before the Knife could object, sank into the Chatcaavan’s thoughts, ignoring them. He sought his gentlest memory, decided the Slave Queen’s was best, and drew it forth. Felt again the fear and the urgency of his petition, the way it had made his heart race. Took in the fear and the willingness with her hand as she touched his fingers, and then Touched his fingers. The ecstasy of that, the deep knowing of it, the falling forward into someone and becoming. The rapture when the pattern completed.

  In his arms, the Knife gasped… and so did Meryl. The Chatcaavan reached for her, and Lisinthir went with him. Here, he whispered, know her. Love her.

  Is this love? The Knife whispered. And then, sensing the edges of her pattern, he exclaimed, Oh, but it must be! And fell forward, and took Meryl with him, and Lisinthir as well.

  Another gasp, in triplicate, and the Knife staggered back. Meryl grabbed his wrist to keep him from toppling into Lisinthir, and as the Chatcaavan swayed forward he Changed, because after the Touch the Change was natural, was consummation of glory. He fell onto his knees, head striking Meryl’s lap, and there at their feet was a dark gray Hinichi, and when he lifted his face the shape was perfect. Not even the Queen’s had been so complete.

  “Oh my God,” Meryl whispered, her pupils dilated.

  “That looked amazing!” Na’er said. “Can I do it next?”

  Meryl burst out laughing. Reaching down, she grasped the Knife by the shoulders. “Up. Get up! Let’s have a look at you!”

  Lisinthir stepped away so the male might have the room to rise, and the Knife stumbled on the way back to his feet, hands out. Like the Queen and the Emperor, he seemed to find the lack of wings to counterbalance himself unsettling, but once he was upright he stayed there, wide-eyed and utterly convincing, other than his newborn lamb body-speech. The fur, the ears, the tail, and particularly, the face were indistinguishable from any other Hinichi’s, given the variation within the species. But he also looked like the Knife, somehow, and not because of coloration: he’d ended up with a brindled version of Meryl’s coat, more gray than gold. Something about his face and his mannerisms revealed him.

  “Beautiful,” Lisinthir said.

  The Knife’s ears flicked toward him, and he grabbed them, startled. “They move!” And then, in wonder, “They hear better than mine!” And then with fingers to his face, “My mouth is wrong!”

  “Your mouth looks fine to me,” Meryl said with a laugh. She was flushed still but in high spirits. “Holy God, but that was something. You look fantastic! Can you flip back, or will the Ambassador have to show you that too?”

  “No, I know how,” the Knife said. He touched his mouth again. “My voice is the wrong pitch as well!”

  “And yet there is something reminiscent of you in it anyway,” Uuvek observed, fascinated. “The rhythm, maybe.”

  “Prosody,” Laniis offered. “The prosody.”

  “You are so tall!” the Knife exclaimed, and ran his hand up his arm, his neck. “And so furry! And so... so... astonishing, Uuvek, you must try this! And I must try it again!”

  “Me next,” Na’er said firmly. “You’re not leaving me out of the good time.”

  “Shall I teach you?” Lisinthir asked Uuvek.

  “No, I think I can,” the Knife said. He rested his larger Pelted hands on the Chatcaavan’s shoulders. “Dive the way you have always dove into your computers, but with your mind, into another person. Flex your wings.”

  Uuvek’s eyes narrowed. It was the first dangerous expression Lisinthir had seen from him—merited, no doubt, for what Chatcaavan liked to be reminded of any of his weaknesses? And Lisinthir didn’t need to be told that Uuvek’s stunted wings had hampered not only his ability to fly, but his ability to protect his social standing among other males.

  “It is exactly like that,” the Knife said, quieter. “But you can do it without fear.”

  Surprisingly, Uuvek did not say he feared nothing. He only canted his head and looked at Meryl.

  “I’m up for another round,” she said. “Though I’m guessing it might not be as intense without an Eldritch linking everyone’s minds together.”

  “Possibly not,” Lisinthir conceded.

  And it wasn’t. It was, in fact, anticlimactic for everyone involved, because Uuvek was a phlegmatic male, and not given to the Knife’s more obvious displays. His reaction to claiming the pattern was to open his eyes suddenly and then narrow them and look at Meryl.

  “Yes?”

  “Yes,” he said. And added, “How fascinating it is, from the inside.”

  “It’s even more fascinating from the inside-inside,” the Knife insisted. “Try it!”

  Uuvek’s Hinichi was not as good a facsimile—the eyes, as usual, were the most likely to show the differences, and Uuvek’s were a little too draconic in the pupil and the color and shape. But he could pass, Lisinthir thought.

  “Me now, finally?” Na’er said, laughing.

  “Yes!” the Knife said. “All of you, if you are willing!”

  “And then,” Laniis said, ears flipping back, “You get to pick one of these shapes to be when we collar you, strip you naked, and send you downstairs in the Ambassador’s wake. On a leash.”

  The Knife’s ears and tail fell in comical dismay.

  Unperturbed, Uuvek said, “That is the role we’re supposed to play. If we go with this plan. Does that seem likely?”

  “It seems a lot more likely now that we know you can shift,” Meryl said. “All we have to do is get the roquelaure to whip up a credible Chatcaavan alter-ego for the Ambassador and you should be good to go.”

  “Other than crafting the personality,” Laniis said.

  “And the body,” Lisinthir said. “Since unlike the Chatcaava I can choose what I look like.”

  “My palms are not furred,” the Knife said, turning his hands. “But the backs of my hands are. Why is this? It is nonsensical. But fascinating.”

  “Are you sure he’s going to be able to concentrate on the mission?” Na’er asked, amused.

  “Once the novelty wears off, I’m certain he’ll be fine,” Lisinthir said. “Yes? Knife?”

  “What?” The Knife’s ears pricked. “Shall I do the longer-eared shape now?” He eyed Na’er. “Is your hearing better than this body’s because your ears are longer?”

  “I dunno,” Na’er said, offering his palms. “Let’s find out.”

  Meryl joined Lisinthir against the wall. Quietly, while the others conferred, she said, “You trust this Admiral-Offense to do what he says he’s going to do?”

  “Find allies for the Emperor?” Lisinthir looked up at the ceiling. “If he’d wanted to betray him, he’s had ample opportunities. This seems an unnecessarily convoluted way of doing so.”

  “Will you check anyway?” Lisinthir looked at her and she met his eyes steadily, finished, “Will you go into his head and pull it out?”

  Perhaps she was expecting him to have some moral objection to the request... but he was part Chatcaavan, and he had threatened torture and worse to the males in the court. Had killed them after mutilating them. Had run a knife up the wing finger of a technician on a Chatcaavan vessel to drag the information about that ship’s oversized complement out of him. Compared to those things, evaluating the loyalties of a male by doing absolutely no harm to him, other than invading his privacy, seemed minor. And
even that could be mitigated—he could ask for permission. Asking would tell him something on its own.

  Was he evil for this? He met Meryl’s eyes and thought of them extinguished, thought of millions upon millions of Pelted civilians slain or enslaved.

  “I must,” he said. “There is too much at stake.” He managed a crooked smile. “Is that too much expedience for you, Captain?”

  “I think we have to be able to live with ourselves at the end of the day,” Meryl said. “And everyone’s got a different threshold for how much end justifies how much means.”

  “And yet you asked.”

  She snorted softly. “I know where the line is for me, alet. I’ve been out here long enough to decide.”

  Watching the Knife assume the shape of an Aera, Lisinthir said, “So have I.”

  Unlike the Knife and Uuvek, the Admiral-Offense and his party had not been allowed the run of the vessel. Fortunately they did not seem insulted by their confinement, had even commented that the cabin to which they’d been assigned as a group was ‘luxurious,’ which, given the typical Chatcaavan vessel, was certainly true. Lisinthir left the shapechanging party behind to present himself at the door to that cabin, and was admitted by a wary male who followed him into the second room, where the Admiral-Offense was sitting on a chair. Backwards: the Pelted chairs were not comfortable for winged creatures, so the male was leaning over the back of the chair, straddling the seat. When Lisinthir entered, he raised his scarlet eyes but not his head.

  “So. Your alien allies have told you I wish to go.”

  Lisinthir inclined his head.

  “And now you wonder if I should be allowed to leave.”

  “I told Captain Osgood that you had many opportunities to betray the Emperor already, and that it struck me as unlikely that you would choose this method to do so.”