Adrift
The Sirilians
Nicole Krizek
Copyright © 2016 Nicole Krizek
Cover art by Aaron Krizek
Photograph by: Gstockstudio/123RF
Edited by Lessa Lamb
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
ISBN-10: 1533040303
ISBN-13: 978-1533040305
Other books by Nicole Krizek
The Arathian Series:
Alien Savior
Alien Rescue
Alien Incursion
This book is dedicated to my readers. Thank you for being so patient while I wrote it. I hope you’ll agree that it was worth the wait!
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER 1
Several years ago on the planet of Siril…
“Relax,” Aevum told herself for the thousandth time. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves and stared at the building in front of her. Standing a few stories high and made of the same composite material as the rest of the city’s structures, it wasn’t impressive to look at. But inside it, Aevum knew that people’s lives changed forever.
This was where someone who elected to be paired met their assigned mates for the first time.
It was still difficult for her to picture herself being assigned a partner based on a scientific algorithm, although she knew that it was becoming increasingly more prevalent in Sirilian society. Aevum had passed by the building hundreds of times, but had never believed that she’d have a reason to enter.
Her parents had met by chance at the department where they both worked. She’d always assumed that she would Pair Bond with a man in a similar fashion: they’d meet randomly, get to know one another, slowly fall in love—or maybe not so slowly—then decide whether they wanted to commit to one another and start a family.
Aevum and her entire family had been shocked when she'd been contacted by the Assembly for Eugenics and told that they’d matched her with a man who apparently did want to be artificially paired.
She was the first person in her family to be chosen by the Assembly, but Aevum knew that it had nothing to do with her personality or professional skills, and everything to do with her DNA.
Every citizen born on Siril had their DNA mapped. Normally this information was kept in private medical databases; the only department outside of Medical that could view this information was the Assembly for Eugenics.
When a person reached adulthood they could petition the Assembly to compare their DNA against the rest of the population to find an optimal genetic match. The Assembly was extremely selective and sometimes took years to match two people’s genetic traits with one another. But once found, if these individuals decided to Pair Bond and produce children, those children would have optimal chromosomes. The hope was to create “Ideal Citizenry”—or so the Assembly’s mission statement read.
She looked up at the seemingly-generic building again. Somewhere inside was the man who was the best genetic match for her.
What the hell am I doing? she thought to herself.
Aevum had always been wary of the entire practice of pairing people based on their genetics, but she was consoled by the fact that the Assembly couldn’t force her to spend the rest of her life with this man. She was also… curious. Who wouldn’t be? And she figured that it wouldn’t hurt to at least meet the man.
Aevum checked her wristunit and saw that she had spent more time outside than she’d thought. Taking one last deep breath, she headed for the front doors.
The foyer was open and flooded with natural light, which illuminated the clear consoles standing throughout the space. She walked to one and placed her wristunit near the clear surface.
“Welcome, Aevum Nikhil,” the computer said in a pleasant voice. “You’ve been assigned to room 02-04.”
“Thank you,” Aevum replied automatically before she headed to the lift and took the short ride to the second floor. She easily found room four and placed her hand on the panel beside the door. It opened soundlessly. She got a welcoming feeling from the room, but her attention was immediately captivated by the male occupant who sat at the only table.
She stepped inside and got her first look at the man with whom she’d been matched.
The first thing she noticed were his piercing gray eyes, which were locked onto her. He had no hair atop his head, but his white eyebrows were drawn together slightly, as if he wasn’t happy with what he was seeing.
His square jaw and shoulders were tightly locked, forearms braced on the tabletop; but even so, Aevum got the impression that if he were to lose the stern expression, he’d be quite handsome.
His azure skin was a paler blue than her own. That could be indicative of any number of things, she told herself, but from his too-perfect features and the details on his clothing, she could guess that he was from the upper class.
“You’re late,” he said without preamble. His voice had a deep resonance to it.
“I’m aware of that, and am sorry for keeping you waiting,” she apologized.
He nodded his head once, as if to accept her apology.
She crossed to the table and took her time removing her jacket while nervously glancing around the room. It was painted in neutral colors and had objects staged throughout. There was a pitcher of water and glasses on the table, soothing art, and a wall comprised of a large screen where any image from the database could be displayed.
It currently showed the East River flowing slowly.
She laughed to herself; the entire room had been carefully designed to reduce anxiety and promote a positive atmosphere, wherein people were more likely to bond. The Assembly of Eugenics left as little to chance as possible, but even they couldn’t prevent a bad first impression.
Aevum wasn’t happy to be there, but neither had she been raised to be rude. She was late—as he was so quick to point out—so she figured it was her job to right the discord she could feel emanating from him. She sat in the chair across the table and smiled.
“Hello, I’m Aevum Nikhil.”
“I know,” he replied.
“Oh… good. What’s your name?” she asked a bit uneasily. Is he always like this?
“Karincin Notanichalla of the family Abishek.”
“That’s quite a mouthful,” Aevum joked in an attempt to lighten his mood. He did not laugh or smile.
Aevum cleared her throat and tried to think of something to say. Unfortunately, when she got nervous all she could think of was easing the tension with humor. She got the impression he wouldn’t care for that.
When the silence continued, Karincin tapped the table before them to activate the built-in console feature. He enlarged a prepared file and took a moment to read it. Aevum watched him curio
usly, and wondered what in the world he was doing.
“How old are you?” he suddenly asked startling her. His tone made her spine stiffen, as if she were being interviewed.
“Thirty,” Aevum replied quickly.
“I am thirty-two,” he stated while continuing to read the file. His eyes jumped back to her. “Where do you live?”
“In sector six. You?”
“I reside in sector two.”
He looked back at the file, and Aevum knew exactly what he was doing.
The Assembly for Eugenics had established “Suggested Guidelines” to help ensure that the couple formed a bond with one another and chose to marry. She had glanced at the file they had sent her a few days prior, but had quickly dismissed it. To her, things like prepared checklists were making the population rely on prefabricated files, which left no room for spontaneity.
She swiftly reached across the table, closed the file, and turned off the console. Karincin looked up at her, confused, and she did her best to smile reassuringly.
“Let’s try getting to know each other without it.”
His brows knit together once again, but he didn’t outright object. Aevum glanced around the room to avoid his gaze, and her eyes caught on the back wall that still displayed the slow-moving river. She got up from her seat and moved towards it.
“Did you chose this image?” she asked as she walked.
“Yes.”
Thankfully he rose from his seat and moved towards her, accepting the change of pace. Aevum watched him approach and got her first look at the rest of him.
He stood over six feet tall and was more lithe than she’d thought. His shoulders weren’t as imposing now that he wasn’t bracing his arms on the table, and she found herself admiring him. He came to her side, and as he looked at the image of the river, he slid his hands into the pockets of his tailored pants. It was a good sign.
Without her prompting, he continued, “My family had a home on the southern bank of the river. We used to entertain guests there when the High Council wasn’t in session.”
It was much more than he’d previously said, and Aevum liked the sound of his voice now that it didn’t contain the note of ire. She wanted to keep the conversation moving so that she could hear more.
“I’ve never been there. It looks like a peaceful place.”
To her disappointment, Karincin didn’t reply.
“Are your parents on the High Council?” she asked, hoping that the topic of family was a safe one.
“Yes, both of them are.” He turned his body to face her, and the effect was a bit intense. Standing this close to him she became acutely aware of how attractive a male he was. His eyes were a light gray, almost silver in color, and seemed to pierce into her. His shoulders and chest were muscular, and she had an impulse to run her hands over his shirt. The feeling was foreign to Aevum. It excited as much as it scared her.
“That fact was in the prepared biography the Assembly sent us. Did you not read it?”
Aevum thought quickly to try and avoid the pitfall she was about to tumble down. She hadn’t even glanced at his files, but she was positive that he’d read hers.
“I didn’t,” she admitted but quickly added, “but that’s because I prefer getting to know someone in person. I didn’t want anything to cloud meeting you for the first time.”
He stood silent while considering her words, and Aevum was grateful that he didn’t outright criticize her preferences. She didn’t want to admit it to Karincin, but unfortunately she did have assumptions about him; she couldn’t help it! As an anthropologist she’d studied Sirilian history and culture extensively. She knew more about the different social classes than most, and after one look at Karincin she could tell that he had been raised in the upper class. The fact that both of his parents were on the High Council solidified that theory.
He would have been raised far differently than she had been, so she was surprised by his next words.
“I propose that we exchange information in order to communicate regarding the date, time, and place for our First Meeting.”
She found herself nodding in agreement and giving him her direct contact information. Going on a date with him couldn’t hurt, right?
*****
Karo watched as the door slid closed on the automatic transport Aevum had just entered. She waved to him before it sped away and slid seamlessly into an open space in traffic; just one of a thousand white autotransports chauffeuring citizens within the city.
He held his hand high, and another immediately came to a halt in front of him. Karo entered the vehicle, placed his wristunit near the console, and selected “home” from the screen. It sped off towards his family’s residence, and Karo sat back into the seat.
His mind reeled from meeting Aevum, the woman whom the Assembly for Eugenics had decided was his match. She seemed… very different than him.
Throughout Karo’s entire life he’d followed the regimented guidelines that people in his family had been following for generations: he’d attended all of the correct schools, won the worthy awards, participated in athletic events; he’d done everything in the correct way to ensure that he was successful in life. That also included staying away from women.
Women were viewed as peers, competition—at worst, distractions. His father Rifka had spent many hours lecturing Karo on the importance of controlling his body’s natural reaction to females, and on remaining chaste. It would only be acceptable to have an intimate relationship after he was paired, and even then it was beginning to become taboo.
Karo longed for the day when he’d be able to be affectionate with a woman. He had friends—his best friend in fact—who’d had relationships with women. Constantly. Reus had gained some sort of strange satisfaction with telling him about his encounters, and about the women. He’d regaled Karo on what they did and in what positions, what she sounded and felt like… it drove Karo crazy! He longed for—and dreaded—those stories. Listening to Reus made him feel like keeping himself chaste was unnatural.
Needless to say, he had applied to be paired with a female by the Assemble for Eugenics on the first day he was eligible—his thirtieth birthday.
Since the introduction of Pair Bonding generations ago, every person in the Abishek family had applied and spent their lives with their matches. They weren’t unusual; nearly everyone in the upper class met their mates through the Assembly, since it gave the best chance of producing offspring with ideal genetic dispositions.
Karo’s society had been altering the DNA of gametes for decades, but they had learned the hard way that the less DNA was manipulated, the better. Therefore the Assembly of Eugenics had been created to find genetic matches for individuals. He’d been raised to have faith in the process, but now he was doubting their decision.
How could Aevum be my match? he thought. Her genetics may be ideal—she was surely attractive—but he wasn’t convinced that her personality complimented his at all.
Unfortunately, Karo knew that in the end it didn’t matter: he was expected by his parents to find a mate through the Assembly’s pairing—especially since his case was more abnormal than others’.
For the rest of the Abishek family, their match had been found within their social tier. But for Karo, the Assembly had been forced to search out three degrees of separation to find Aevum Nikhil.
First degree would have been anyone that Karo already knew—nearly all people in high society. Anyone those people knew would be second degree, and so forth. It was nearly unheard of to have to search three degrees beyond one’s social circle, a fact that had caused Karo to become self-conscious.
Was his genome deficient in some way? Is that why they’d had such a difficult time pairing him?
Karo didn’t care that her family wasn’t powerful or wealthy, although there would be those in his family that did. He cared that most of the people outside of his social class didn’t agree with their choice of reproduction and Pair Bonding. Most Sirilians selecte
d mates themselves and produced children naturally, without regard for the genetic traits that they were passing to them. These people dated, had intimate relationships, and risked getting pregnant.
Karo couldn’t wrap his mind around it. Why not give your child the best possible chance at life? At success?
He was afraid that Aevum may have been raised too differently than he had, and that it would create too high a barrier for their pairing. Doubt blossomed in his mind.
If you don’t bond with Aevum, then who? a part of himself asked. Are you going to force the Assembly into searching even further for someone else? Hasn’t the extraordinary time it’s taken already been an embarrassment to you? To your parents?
Not for the first time, Karo felt trapped by his family and their expectations. He knew that he had to give their pairing a fair try.
When the autotransport neared his family’s building the large doors opened to allow the vehicle to enter the residence’s vestibule. Karo exited the transport and made his way through the oversized double doors into his home.
He was immediately stopped by his parents, who both stood in the entry waiting to greet him.
Great.
“You took longer than expected,” his father stated. His voice was neither friendly nor angry, just factual.
“Did you have a problem?” his mother chimed.
“No, I did not. The meeting took longer than expected because we took a moment to talk.”
His parents shared a look.
“It’s highly unusual to speak outside of the pre-appointed topics,” Rifka pointed out.
“I am aware.” Karo hoped his tone implied that he didn’t wish to speak on the topic further. He already knew that he and Aevum’s pairing was not going as typically prescribed, and he wasn’t exactly pleased with that fact. The last thing he needed was for his parents to add further comment.
Thankfully his father got the hint. “When will your First Meeting occur?” he asked instead.
Adrift (The Sirilians Book 1) Page 1
