by Viola Grace
“Well, I wanted to make conversation, and it is a subject of interest.”
“Ah. Well, I look at things and see what can be done to make them perfect. If they are already sound, I can see all the components that make up their form and disassemble them in my mind, identifying the components individually for their optimum versatility.”
“And you can use those components.”
“Of course. Even if I only have primitive tools, I can still take most things apart. They simply part in the precise weak points that I identify. It just takes practice.”
“How did you alter the torture harness?”
“Trial and error, combined with terror that a friend would be paralyzed for life if I didn’t succeed.” She shrugged. The redesigning process was a bit of a blur. The wound in Niika’s back was never far from her mind, and she had just acted. No thought required.
“You can create on instinct?”
“I don’t create. I never create. I just redesign using components at hand.” She shrugged. Her mind was running through her inventory and coming up with components to create a set of wings. There was no stopping it; she was going to build them. She had no idea if she would ever have the nerve to try and use them.
She opened the door to her home, and he came in, gasping in shock. Ula smiled and kept moving. “I will just pack a bag. You can dig around and play with whatever you like.”
She heard a few of her machines click and twist as he examined them.
Shaking her head and thinking about boys and toys, she grabbed a bag and shoved in a few days’ worth of clothing. She usually wore leathers to work. It cut down on fire from sparks when she welded. No one wanted to run around the house while on fire.
She looked around and shrugged, returning to Deniir before he found her fire extinguisher.
She paused when a shout and a hiss preceded the white cloud of vapour that tumbled down the hall toward her. “Breathe through your mouth for a moment. The taste will fade.”
When she turned the corner, his gold hair was sticking up straight, his face betrayed his shock, and the expression on that face was priceless.
He closed his mouth, and it took him a few attempts to speak. “What in the name of the first feathers was that?”
His mouth sounded dry, so she moved to the side of her workspace and poured him a glass of water out of her storage canister. “Drink this.”
He shuddered and swallowed rapidly, obviously running his tongue around the edges of his mouth.
She stifled her grin. “That is the fire-suppression system. It is an herbal extract that Emharo found for me in some underwater plant life. I powder it and then put it under pressure in a canister.”
He blinked. “So I see. What was the cloud of gas?”
“It absorbs all heat in the area, including the heat from open sources. Fortunately, it does not take heat from anything biological. I don’t know how it works, but it does.” She shrugged. “I just design and build things, I don’t always know how they work.”
He blinked. “That doesn’t seem right.”
Ula snorted. “Welcome to my world. Are you ready to leave?”
He carefully put down the canister and nodded. “Yes, please. I am terrified of how you get rid of household pests.”
She chuckled as they exited through the front door, and she armed her defensive systems. No one was going to get any of her projects without blowing the entire house to hell and back. There was nothing safer than a pile of radioactive matter blasting up through the floor to dissolve the floor if the right code wasn’t entered.
“Will your workshop be secure?”
She laughed. “I think so. It has the best lock I could design.”
“In that case, I believe we should be on our way.”
He offered her his arm, and she inclined her head. “Thank you, but contact is not necessary. I have heard that your kind is sensitive to it, and I don’t want to take any chances.”
Deniir looked a little put out, but she merely smiled and walked down the narrow path that led away from her home. She heard a sharp chirp from behind her and turned.
Deniir had folded his cuff back and was typing rapidly with two fingers. “There. We should be seeing the pick-up in a few minutes.”
“You have shuttle clearance for the interior?”
“I do. The engineers have been providing your people with any number of handy devices. They are appreciative.”
She snorted. “Just watch it. They can turn on you before you know it.”
Ula rubbed the back of her neck and looked at the sky. A tiny speck appeared, and as they continued to walk down the path to the plateau, it grew larger in the sky until she was being pummelled by the blasts of air that it gave off in its effort to land.
Deniir stood between her and the landing shuttle and opened his wings, creating a windbreak.
She spit out a few bits of grit. “Thank you.”
“It is a hazard on loose soil like this. How is it that you live in a dormant volcano?”
“Oh, it was the hardest place to get to; so after a while, the politicians stopped sending parties up here to negotiate with me.” She kept her eyes closed and waited until the jets of air stopped trying to knock her over.
“Please come with me. We are about to leave for the mother ship.” He lowered and snugged down his wings again, covering them with his cloak.
She nodded and dusted her features as she headed to the ship. Her leathers creaked slightly as she walked up the steps, and a voice spoke in peculiar, liquid tones.
Deniir responded and then translated. “Our pilot is Lenur of the Water People, and he has apologised for the landing. He was not expecting the sediment.”
“Tell him it is fine. If I couldn’t handle dirt, I wouldn’t have gone into my current line of work.”
The pilot spoke rapidly again, and there was no mistaking the amusement.
“He says thank you for your graciousness, pretty lady; now, take a seat before take off breaks your nose.”
Blinking, she followed Deniir’s lead. When they were settled in seats and strapped in, the ship rumbled under them, and Ula felt the peculiarity of take off.
Her hands gripped the arms of her chair, and she occupied her mind by looking around the cabin for materials and design flaws.
She found seven design flaws and thirty-two pieces that she could remove and use in her workshop. By the time she finished calculating where to place the items she had located, they were on their way to the mother ship through empty space.
Ula could see Gaia beneath her, and she had to admit, it was a beautiful planet.
“How are you taking to spaceflight?”
She jumped at Deniir’s voice as his breath heated her cheek. He was peering out the window beside her.
She studiously pointed her face toward the window and kept it there. “I think I am adjusting fine. I have found any number of things to occupy my attention.”
“Like what?”
“I have identified seven improvements in this space that would make it more efficient and comfortable.” She chuckled.
“Can you make me a list?”
She blinked. “Are you serious?”
“Of course. The Nine are always seeking means by which we can change and improve. We would welcome a few new designs.”
“That is refreshing. Can I choose what changes to include?”
“Of course. It is your design.” He smiled and directed her to look away from Gaia toward the huge ship surrounded by tiny buzzing shuttles. “Welcome to the mother ship of the Nine.”
She looked forward, and her talent kicked in. There were enough tiny changes to be made to keep her designing for a lifetime.
Chapter Four
“You have guest quarters assigned to you. Would you care to see them first?” Deniir watched her carefully as she disembarked from the shuttle.
“Yes, please. I can drop my bag and wash my face and centre myself. It should only take thr
ee minutes or so.” She smiled hopefully.
“Of course. This way.” Deniir bowed slightly and gestured for her to accompany him.
They walked through the halls, and several men bowed as they passed. Deniir inclined his head but didn’t stop to talk.
She asked, “You have a rank here?”
“I am a master engineer, second only to my father, Darthuun. You will meet him when we go to the research and development department.”
“I am guessing that you have a rank beyond that.”
He grinned and shrugged. “The ranks of my people do not matter here. That is not how our hierarchy works.”
She registered what he had said. “You work with your father?”
“Yes. It is not always easy, but I enjoy it. He is an excellent engineer.”
She sighed. “You are very lucky.”
They passed a couple, and she blinked. “Is she a tree?”
“One of the Forest Folk, yes. Like the ambassador on Gaia.”
“I haven’t actually met Daphne’s husband. I haven’t seen any of the Nine either. This is all quite interesting, but please, tell me if I am staring.”
“You are doing very well so far.” He chuckled.
A man with fluttering fairy wings was coming toward them, and as he passed, he drifted in close to Ula.
Deniir moved so swiftly, she only heard the snap of his wings as he flared them, flicking the other man away from her before she could even shift her weight.
“Back off.”
The fairy held up his hands and stayed back.
Deniir waited, with the man pinned to the wall by his wingtip. When he received some signal that Ula couldn’t see, he released the other man and snapped his wings together behind his back. He didn’t flatten them but left them raised and the arches framed his head on either side.
As they started to move again, she asked, “What was that?”
“There are far more men than women on board. You are a new female and therefore worth trying to claim. The women of Gaia are prized mates here.” He smiled slightly.
“I see. What was his species?”
“The People of the Air. They are generally harmless unless they are in a thwarted bond.”
“How does that work?”
“Well, I will have the instruction manual for dealing with the Nine forwarded to your quarters.” He smiled, “Your planet-mate, Ziggy, is the Potential of Gaia, and she has created a species-by-species information sheet for any of your kind on the mother ship.”
“That was thoughtful of her.”
Of course, Ula had heard of Ziggy and her ensconcement on the mother ship. While she didn’t let her friends visit, she did communicate via com system. She knew who had married what; she simply had no images of the species that her friends were now sleeping with.
“It is. Apparently, our etiquette is a little hard to master.”
Ula snorted. Gaians were fairly tactile, and being told not to make skin-to-skin contact was awkward for them. Having the members of the Nine bond to them without contact was even more bizarre, but there was nothing to do about the pheromones. Matches were made on the chemical plane, and there was little that would deter a determined member of the Nine.
“Yes, sure. You could say that.”
They headed to a rail that ran into the wall, and at his guidance, she stood on the platform. A small pod came along, and he gestured for her to precede him.
Ula settled in the pod, and he tightened his wings again to fit in next to her. With quick motions, he entered something into the pod’s computer, and the next moment, they were off.
“I have just programmed the path to the VIP quarters where you will be housed for the duration of your stay. This pod will take us to the nearest station, and we will walk from there.”
“Sounds fine.”
The rest of the trip consisted of Deniir being curiously tense and Ula staring out the window as the interior of the ship whizzed past.
The pod glided to a halt, and Deniir got to his feet, waiting for her to join him.
She stepped out with her bag still slung over her shoulder. The feel of the ship had gone from port to residential neighbourhood.
She walked with him past two guards at the side of a corridor with strange markings over the archway. Deniir identified himself and introduced her then led her into the hall, to the quarters set aside for her.
Ula stepped into the rooms cautiously. The entryway was large, echoing and opening into a larger communal dining and living room. It was larger than anything she had seen in her life.
“How is it that there is so much space allocated to one person?”
“Well, these are my quarters. Your room is this way.”
She blinked rapidly. “I beg your pardon?”
“As you will be working exclusively with the engineers, it behooves us to keep you safe. Nothing is safer than these quarters.” He walked with her to the wall. “This room is my father’s, the next room is mine, the third room is yours.”
“You live with your parent?”
“We do. We learn from our gender parent. My sisters remained with my mother to learn civic engineering and politics.”
“When do you leave your gender parent?”
“When we form a family of our own. Many mates remain together, but my father wanted to leave on the mother ship, so I went with him as a matter of tradition.” Deniir cocked his head. “Do you not have a relationship with your parents?”
She swallowed and shook her head. “They were lost in the first Tokkel raids.”
“I am sorry for your loss.”
“Well, that loss triggered my talent, so it isn’t all bad.” She tried not to be maudlin, but she missed them and the families of her friends were salt in the wound. She loved them, but it hurt to be with them.
“This is your room. You may come and go as you please, but it would be better if you waited for one of us to accompany you. We do not wish you to run afoul of any of the Nine males on the hunt for a mate.”
She nodded tersely. “Please get me that information sheet. I want to know what I am dealing with.”
She opened the door and quickly did what she had to do. She figured out how to use the en suite and scrubbed the grit from her features, quickly putting down and then binding up the red hair that she had been given courtesy of her mother’s genes.
When she was ready, she left her room and nodded to Deniir. “Okay, we can go now.”
He nodded. “Your data station has the list and descriptions of the species of the Nine as well as a list of the subspecies that are emerging.”
“Good. Now, take me to your engineers.” It wasn’t the historical take me to your leader, but she supposed it would have to do.
Chapter Five
Research and development on the mother ship of the Nine was a wonderland of half-finished inventions that left Ula’s mouth watering. She wanted to dive in and finish everything.
“Master Engineer Darthuun, this is Ularica Forniel, Master Designer of Gaia.” Deniir smiled as he made the introductions.
Ula winced. “We don’t actually use titles like that.”
Darthuun looked at her with a calculating smile, his golden eyes were measuring her. “Are you the one who repurposed the torture straps?”
“I am.”
“Then, you are a Master Designer and that is how you will be addressed during your stay on the mother ship. Has Deniir taken you and shown you your quarters?”
“He has. They are very suitable. I only need a place to sleep after a day’s hard work. With no sun to tell me what time it is, I am depending on you and Deniir to tell me when to stop and sleep. Is that acceptable?”
Deniir nodded. “I will maintain a schedule for you.”
Darthuun looked between them. “Deniir, take her on a tour and find out where she would like to start while she is here.”
Deniir winked. “Yes, Father.”
He jerked his head and she pattered after him,
ready for her tour of the wonderful works that were coming together on all the workstations.
“You have no interest in weaponry, do you?”
She shook her head. “That is not an area I have any interest in.”
“Right. We will show you the healing units and move on from there then.”
She grinned and rubbed her hands together. It was time to play on a scale she had never imagined.
The man working with the healing units smiled. “Welcome, Master Designer. I am Engineer Trull.”
She kept her hands at her sides and inclined her head. “Pleased to meet you, Trull. What are you working on?”
“A portable tissue regenerator that can tell the difference between muscle and veins. So far, I am not having a lot of success.”
“May I have a look?” Ula was fighting the urge to go up on her toes to look over the man’s shoulder. Trull had all the charm of a block of granite, so Ula was guessing that stone had something to do with his people.
Deniir cleared his throat. “We will complete our tour first, and then, you are welcome to choose any project you wish to work on and whatever you need will be brought to your workstation.”
She perked up, “I have a workstation?”
“As you mentioned, it is not really common for the sexes to mix within the ship. We have prepared a station where you can communicate with the engineers and still remain free of any…interference.” He twisted his lips.
Engineer Trull nodded. “Sound thinking, Master Deniir.”
Deniir continued on their tour. They saw propulsion units, survival kits, emergency limb replacement as well as food-service equipment and prep units. There was literally something for every mood, and Ula couldn’t wait to get started.
Her stomach growled and Deniir grinned. “Thank goodness. I was beginning to suspect that you didn’t eat. You seem indefatigable.”
She snorted. “No, just very excited at the prospect of working on something without having to scrounge for parts. Where can we eat?”
“My father is making dinner for you. He wishes to speak with you at his leisure, and since you are staying with us, it will make for an entertaining evening.”
