by Lyn Gala
She shook her head.
“You’re asking for advice about sense from someone who doesn’t make any? Tom, that’s not one of your better moves.”
“She makes sense,” Tom said in her defense. Who knows how long she’d been trapped in her own head with other people’s feelings pressing so close that they’d made her lose herself? She didn’t deserve to have Ramsay pressing on her with his certainty that she was helpless and crazy.
“Prisms of orange,” Da’shay muttered.
Ramsay looked at her and then back to Tom. “So, does that make sense? Are you so good at understanding your new owner that you can read her mind?” Ramsay’s tone made Tom grit his teeth.
Tom spent a good minute glaring at Ramsay and trying hard not to throw a punch. “It ain’t about me reading her mind. It’s more about her being able to read us. She says Becca is yellow and orange most of the time, so I think she’s either calling us overly smart or overly excitable.”
“She…what?” Ramsay looked at Da’shay and then back to Tom.
Da’shay leaned into Tom’s shoulder. “Can’t think some days. Diamonds cutting all the flesh, colors darting everywhere,” she admitted, and from the tone, she was ashamed of it.
Becca came into the room and sat in the chair Eli had left. Tom hadn’t even seen her behind them, but then he’d been a little distracted with being pissed at the captain. “That just ain’t possible,” Becca said.
Tom looked over at her, trying to judge whether she was saying that because she thought he was wrong or because she didn’t want to think about what that might mean. He couldn’t tell. Da’shay smiled at Becca. “Yellows through all the teal.”
Ramsay leaned on the table. “Tom, I know you seem to be better at figuring her out than most, but this…”
Tom licked his lips and tried to think where to start. “She said diamonds were always distracting her and it seemed like the only time I really got a reasonable answer out of her was when we were in the desert. She said there were fewer diamonds out there and she sure didn’t have any reason for dragging us deep into the desert. We camped for one night, she told me about the doctors cutting on her brain and then she has us come back. I think there were too many people around for her to focus unless we went out there.”
“Or she was isolating you,” Ramsay said. Tom thought about that. It was a reasonable tactic if you were trying to make a captive emotionally dependent on you. The fact was, he’d started feeling softer toward Da’shay after that night, but it was reasonable to have kinder thoughts about someone once you understood them.
Da’shay looked at the captain. “Diamonds turning, new grays out of old, orange and blue in the dark. Cat’s cradle drops a strand.”
“You really think that means something?” Ramsay asked. It was funny—Ramsay had always been telling him to give Da’shay a chance, but he didn’t seem to be willing to do it himself. Then again, up until this moment, Ramsay could pretty well call her a woman and a victim and just carry her from one planet to the next while trying to keep her safe. Tom didn’t think that’s what Da’shay wanted, but the captain did have a bit of the frontier chauvinism to him. Women died in greater numbers in the colonies, victims of childbirth and lowered immune systems after giving birth, and that led to some coddling them more than women really wanted. Certainly Da’shay didn’t need any coddling.
Tom nodded. “I think so. It’s not that different from learning code. Cat’s cradle is that kid’s game with the yarn. It’s real easy to get all tangled up in it—ruin the yarn and end up with fingers knotted in it to boot. She uses cat’s cradle to mean that something is confused. Prisms and colors seem to be some sort of emotion that come from diamonds. I’m guessing she’s saying that something’s going on that’s confusing all of us.”
“She’s got the confusing part down,” Becca agreed softly. Tom blew out a breath, more relieved than he’d expected that someone believed him. “Captain, now that I think on it, she does seem to talk colors in a certain pattern. She always tells me the engine room’s teal when we’re getting ready to drop down on a planet and I’ve painted out about every bit of teal in the room because it made her so sad to talk about. I’ve got yellow and pink and blue and orange down there, but no teal.”
“Teal staining the air now,” Da’shay said as she looked around at all of them.
“But how could she…not unless…” Becca stopped. “Oh sweet saints and gods of every color.” She breathed the words so reverently that Tom almost expected her to start crossing herself. “Captain, don’t go getting all upset now, but I need to ask Da’shay something and I need you to not go completely unreasonable on us.”
“Me?” Ramsay sat up. “Tom’s wearing slave cuffs, you’re buying the idea that Da’shay can read minds and you’re worried about me being unreasonable? Eli, you seeing any problem with this?”
Tom gritted his teeth. He’d been with the captain longer than Eli had been in the service, but Ramsay was turning to him and that cut deep. Da’shay’s fingers found his arm and held tightly. “My mate. Never letting go,” she whispered so softly that only he could hear, her breath stirring his hair and tickling his ear.
“Listening doesn’t do any harm,” Eli said.
“Da’shay,” Becca said quietly. She waited until Da’shay was looking at her before she continued, “Do you have any casslit genes?”
Tom could almost feel everyone in the room holding their breath. If she said yes, the captain was going to toss them out the ship, no question, and Da’shay wasn’t particularly good at lying. She shook her head. “No.”
Becca sagged in her chair. “Oh. I thought maybe… We know casslit communicate through touch, through neurotransmitters on the skin, so I thought maybe if she was part casslit, that might explain it.”
“And explain why she lacks the bulk of a genta,” Eli added. “It was a logical question.”
“Ask another question,” Da’shay said. She stared at Becca, but Becca only looked back in confusion.
“Like what?”
“She can’t go talking about the bits the doctors took out,” Tom pointed out. “Asking her what to ask about ain’t likely to be much good.”
“If there even were doctors,” Ramsay said firmly.
“Vultures picking at scabs, pulling out words and skin,” Da’shay said firmly. Even if Ramsay ignored the words, the tone made it clear she was agreeing with Tom. Da’shay turned to Becca again. “Ask another question.”
“What kind of question?”
Tom frowned. “You were talking to her about genetics. Maybe try something genetic.”
Becca sighed. “I swear. Just because I’m the only one of us that got through university tech, that does not mean I know everything about all sciences.” She sounded aggravated, but she also looked as if she was trying to think up questions. “Okay, do you have genta genes?”
“Yep,” Da’shay agreed, as if her blue skin didn’t give that one away already. That was slightly stupid. The captain was looking at Becca as if he was thinking the same thing.
“Do you have human genes?”
“Yep.”
“Do you have more human genes than genta ones?” Becca leaned forward, but Da’shay was already shaking her head.
“No.”
“Do you love Tom?”
Tom snorted so hard in his surprise that he got spit going the wrong way up his nose and had to rub the sting away.
“Yep,” Da’shay agreed. “Warm brown spinning in circles.” She smiled at him and leaned into his arm, her fingers curling around him.
“That ain’t funny,” Tom said with a glare for Becca.
“Nope. I think it’s real cute. Don’t you, Captain?” Becca asked with a smile for Ramsay.
Ramsay crossed his arms. “I might if Tom weren’t wearing new slave cuffs that I know he didn’t have on last night.”
“Oh.” Becca’s mouth drew up into a pucker.
“You haven’t figured out the right question yet. Keep ask
ing her on genetics,” Tom said before someone could start lecturing.
She sighed. “Um, do you have something other than genta and human genes?”
“Yes.” Da’shay tightened her hold on Tom’s arm until he winced and then she let loose some.
“You do?” Becca looked confused. “Okay, so you do have something. Oh please tell me it’s not meaiai.” She wrinkled her nose, but then most humans did when they thought about those aliens.
“No.” Da’shay laughed. “Would make a bad spider. Not enough crazy.” She tapped her head and Tom noticed that even Ramsay had to smile at that.
“Well that just don’t make any sense,” Becca leaned back and crossed her arms. “You’re not casslit or meaiai, but you’re something other than genta or human?”
“Yep.”
“Something sentient?”
“Yep. Thinking, self aware, totally and completely fucking crazy people.” Da’shay said it proudly, looking from Tom to Becca and then looking around the room to take in Eli and Ramsay. Tom was fairly sure from the blank stares and open mouths that everyone felt the same way he did.
“Your completely crazy people are some new alien?” Tom asked, and while he hadn’t prayed in a while, he was praying she was about to call him stupid for even thinking that.
Instead she looked at him, her head tilted as she tried to figure something out. “Yep,” she agreed.
“Aw, fuck.” Ramsay’s curse pretty much said it all.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Protocol says this is a priority message. We should send off a burst,” Eli said. Tom didn’t even bother pointing out that doing anything that stupid was like putting out a bright red flag that said, “Spy ship here.” He couldn’t figure out if Eli was trying to get them killed or if the man was so in love with his rules that he didn’t stop to think things through. Da’shay sat quietly, her fingers stroking up and down his arm and Tom’s cock was starting to think on sex, even if most of his better sense was thinking on how screwed they were.
“And tell them what, exactly?” Ramsay asked. “Our crazy genta says there’s a new alien species, but she can’t exactly talk about it because parts of her brain are gone? We don’t know anything and I’m starting to find it mildly irritating how everyone is suddenly believing Da’shay.”
“She’s not making it up,” Tom said firmly. “Her having some sort of ability to read us means that her story is about the only thing that makes sense.”
“Tom…” Ramsay sighed and leaned back. “This isn’t the time to debate sense. We’re looking at a war starting and we’re on the wrong side of the lines. From the looks of it, the dock isn’t going to kick us loose any time soon, either. Could be we should focus on that.”
“It just don’t make sense, Captain,” Becca said quietly. “I know engineering focuses more on the ships and tech than the people, but you’ve been to officer training. Does a genta go around blowing people up?”
“Explosions don’t fit their psychology,” Eli said. “I just finished a class on genta aesthetics in art and everything in the genta world is about control.”
“Aesthetics?” Ramsay looked up with a sort of horror on his face. “Thank the stars that I got my rank during war when it was more important that you knew how to blow shit up.”
“Aesthetics?” Tom asked. That wasn’t a word he’d run across before.
Eli nodded. “Art, music, architecture…what they find attractive and desirable.”
“Art?” Tom asked, not sure if he’d heard that right because it seemed like a mighty stupid thing to study. If being an officer meant studying art, he’d been right to avoid the whole hassle.
Ramsay gave an amused snort when he saw Tom’s expression. “I think officer school just might have to drop that requirement if we’re going to war. Fuck.” Ramsay slapped his hands against the nav table and then flew out of his seat. He ended up standing near the quantum readouts and he stared at their blank screens. “If that school is telling you that genta don’t kill, they’re more stupid than I ever suspected.”
“Of course they kill.” Eli sounded defensive. “But they admire a sharpshooter who can place a bullet in exactly the right place. They’ll garrote someone or admire very precise knife work. Explosions are messy and unpredictable and the definition of uncontrolled. Hou wouldn’t send a bomb. He’d hire sharpshooters and then demand proof that each target was killed by a single bullet through the eye. That’s the sort of assassination a genta would appreciate. But sir, Command has to know there could be a new alien species. If they come flying in and then find out there’s an alien presence—”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” Ramsay whirled around, and if Tom liked Eli enough to care, he would have warned the man that Ramsay was not in any mood to have his orders questioned. “We don’t know anything.”
Normally Eli was quiet enough that he didn’t really make much of an impression. He was passably good with a gun and had a talent for staying alive, so Tom had some respect for him, but more than that, he’d never been one to try to push his opinions on others. But now Eli stepped forward, his back so straight that his neatly tailored clothes made him look as if he were modeling them.
“We know enough, sir. We’ve seen a piece of tech that probably came from them, and the aesthetics of that recording device could provide insights on their beliefs. We’ve seen an image, and that gives us cause to think they might be related to the casslit in some way. There’s a similar body structure. Hell, we might have been looking at some genta-bred hybrid of a casslit. And if we believe Da’shay, we know they have an alternative communication structure, something that allows them to read us in some way. I think that’s enough to send a burst to Command. If you don’t agree, you could leave the Kratos, take shelter somewhere else and I could send the burst.” Eli clenched his jaw until it bulged and stood so stiffly that Tom expected him to start saluting. Becca was holding her breath and Ramsay…he just looked tired.
Tom glanced down at where Da’shay had seated herself. She was working the communications and he frowned, wondering if she was sending the burst. If she did, they’d never get out of the Kratos without getting captured and there wouldn’t be any rescue coming, not if Command was preparing for war.
Tom edged closer and angled his body so that he was blocking some of what she was doing. If this new species was dangerous enough that she’d give up her life to warn Command, he could respect that. She paused and looked up at him with a small smile before tracing a finger down his arm to his slave cuff. If they were looking at capture, Tom hoped she’d end it quick for him. He was having trouble enough dealing with the sort of slavery Da’shay offered him and he was well aware that she wasn’t really treating him like a slave.
If the ship was captured, the others might be prisoners of war, but Tom would be a piece of property to be sold off along with the ship and any property that came off. He couldn’t deal with that. He couldn’t go back to living when there wasn’t a soul who looked at him as anything other than a tool to be used or beaten. He’d decided at seventeen that dying was better than that.
“So, you’re ready to commit suicide based on what Da’shay says?” Ramsay asked. “Does anyone else here remember that she’s a survivor of slavery? We don’t know how long she was in those slave pens or what happened to her before a Command ship found her.” Ramsay focused on Eli. “You’re telling us that genta are about control, so tell me, how would a genta react to being treated like a thing—like a cow that a farmer gets the milk out of before taking it out to shoot it for the meat? How would that fit into a genta’s aesthetic? How sane would she end up?”
Ramsay turned toward Tom so fast that Tom tensed up, his fight instincts on high. “And assume you’re right, Tom. You’re saying that she can ‘read’ us, tell what we’re thinking or feeling. If that’s true, what would it do to her to be trapped in the middle of a hundred slaves, every one of them feeling desperate and trapped? If she can taste emotion, how much pa
in and fear would it take to drive her insane?”
Tom stared back. The fact was that he didn’t know if she was sane, but then he’d had doubts about himself and Ramsay for a long time and that had never stopped him from getting the job done.
“What’s she doing?” Ramsay asked as he noticed Da’shay in his seat.
“Don’t know,” Tom answered honestly. He also avoided looking down so he wouldn’t have to know. If she was sending the burst, that meant she knew something and it had to be done. Becca turned her chair toward them, but Tom didn’t move and that meant she couldn’t see either.
“Tom,” Ramsay warned. Tom looked at the captain. If he was going to burn a bridge after serving the man for six years, he was going to burn it good. Otherwise he would just want to come back to the Kratos because this was the first home he’d found in twenty years. But he knew Ramsay was wrong. He knew it and he didn’t have the words to explain it any more than Da’shay did.
Ramsay strode across the small room in three steps and looked down as Da’shay finished whatever she’d done and wiped the display. “What did you do?” he asked.
She looked up at him. “Pinch and pull the cat’s cradle until the string makes candles.”
“Candles?” Ramsay looked down at her as if she’d lost her mind.
“Candles…it’s one of the shapes you make with the string if you’re doing it right,” Tom explained.
Ramsay sighed. He pushed on Da’shay’s shoulder and she let herself be shoved out of the chair. A few commands and the display lit up again. Ramsay frowned as he studied the settings. “She sent a communication.”
“To Command?” Eli asked with a hopeful tone in his voice.
Ramsay swiveled the chair around and started at Da’shay. “To Hou.” Tom looked at Da’shay in surprise. That didn’t seem to make sense. “Becca, get in here and tell me what she sent him.” Ramsay got up from his chair and looked from Da’shay to Tom.
“She’s got to have a reason,” Tom said firmly even though this surprised him just as much as anyone. “Cat’s cradle is her way of saying things are confusing, but she’s trying to make a pattern.”
