by Gemma Voss
“He’s sleeping like a rock. Can it wait a bit longer?” My chest pangs at the thought of waking my peaceful alien and seeing his face turn back to stony look of guilt and self-hatred.
“Oh, so you wore him out?”
“Jen,” I protest.
“Who’s gonna worry about whether I’m sleeping, hmmm?”
“Jen,” I plead. “This poor guy is so emotionally constipated sometimes I think his head will explode. He told me… this horrible, sad story of what he’s been through in the war and I’m pretty sure it’s the first time he’s even spoken about it. Now, he’s finally relaxed and asleep. You want me to wake him up and tell him his planet may very well be under enemy occupation?”
“You sound suspiciously like someone who is infatuated,” she says flatly. “Which I’m going to ignore, because I’m assuming you understand how stupid it would be to get attached to him. Right? Right. Great. Glad we’re on the same page. Let him rest, and then get his gray ass over here.”
“Fine,” I mutter. “Bye, Jen.”
I don’t want to risk waking him by traipsing through my room and making noise in the bathroom. So, I thank my slobby tendencies and find my discarded sweater and jeans behind the couch. I eat leftover Chinese takeout and settle into my usual Sunday line-up: a good book, noise-canceling headphones, and my feet up on the coffee table. But unlike my usual Sunday, my mind wanders over recent memories. I find myself replaying Kila’s words and envisioning the look on his face when he came inside me. The plot of my book is not quite enough to distract from the growing feeling that I am as infatuated as Jen accused me of being. More than infatuated— I am hurtling, falling, veering into dangerous territory.
***
KILA
When I open my eyes, I feel as though I’m floating above the clouds. My chest feels light as air, and all I see is white fluff.
Ah, I recall now. I am in Ella’s bed, surrounded by pillows. I have half a mind to demand just what one human female needs with so many pillows. She only has one head, after all. I wonder if she keeps them because she anticipates male partners. This riddles me with jealousy, but she has even far more pillows than two lovers could need, so I quickly push that fear aside. It’s the mania of having her and yet not knowing everything about her. I do not think she’ll appreciate it if I interrogate her on her prior sexual partners. In time, maybe I will know. But time… I do not know if I have much time.
I punch one of the innocent pillows and feel a thread of satisfaction. This is my life now: a never-ending maze of infuriating emotions. But to shut them away with a new chip? That would mean losing her, wouldn’t it?
I stare up at her ceiling. This is where she lays every night. If I remove our mating bond, will she lay here and think of me, long for me? This is all assuming that such a thing could ever be removed. The way my heart pounds harder just by conjuring an image of her… I wonder if this could even be stopped by my suppressor after what we have done. I roll out of the bed, mourning the absence of her warmth.
It does not take long to find her in this small living space. She is on her couch with a huge headset on and a book hiding her face from me. I slide in next to her, and she smiles at the sight of me.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” she coos, pulling the headset from her ears and letting it rest on her shoulders. “How are you feeling?”
“I am well,” I say. “Are you working here while I rest?”
She blinks. “Working?” She holds up the book and laughs. “This is a story. It’s just for fun. Not work. There’s nothing informative in here.”
“A story? In a book? How strange,” I comment.
“It’s pretty normal on Earth,” she shrugs. “There’s tons. Millions.”
“What is the story?” I ask, just wishing to hear her talk.
“There’s a wizard without a heart, and young girl that gets turned into an old woman. She lives with the wizard in his magical castle that moves around while she tries to break the spell,” she says.
“Very strange,” I murmur, trying to understand. “How does he live without a heart?”
“Well, it’s a book with magic so that’s part of it. It’s not literal. I’ve seen a movie of this story, and I liked it so now I am reading the book,” she explains.
“You are telling me that you already know the end? Why read it?”
She laughs even harder at that comment, though I am perplexed. She slips a piece of paper in it and sets it down on the low table in front of her. “I think any book worth reading had better be more interesting than just finding out what happens at the end. Books are about feeling what the characters are feeling. Experiencing it through their eyes.”
“How does it end, then? Does the girl turn young again and fix the wee-zard’s heart?” I am enjoying the way her eyes glisten as she tells me about it. I creep closer and run my hand over the back of her head, caressing the soft dark strands of hair.
“Yes,” she says. “The girl finds out that he traded his heart to a demon for magical power. And when she gets it back for him, the demon breaks her spell for good. And, of course, they fall in love.”
“And what does this mean, ‘fall in love’?” I wonder aloud. The way the words are translating, it sounds like they have fallen into pleasure. “Is this like mating? Another Earth phrase?”
The light of laughter in her eyes fades. “There’s no translation for love in your language?”
“This word translates to pleasure,” I say. “It is different than this? Different from mating? Similar to your word ‘happy’, perhaps?”
She looks utterly distraught, like I have insulted her. But then she says, “Never mind that.”
“I see I have upset you,” I sigh. “What can I do? You don’t wish to explain it to me?”
“There aren’t any words to explain it. You just have to feel it. It’s more than lust and happiness. It’s something all its own.” As she tells me this, her eyes fill up with water again briefly. I am afraid she is going to start leaking from them and become very sad again, but just as quickly as they appear she wipes them away. “Jen called me. We have to go back to the facility immediately. I told her we’d come when you woke up. They … they’re worried Kar’Kal is in serious trouble.”
I nod. I gathered this much from the first moment Pakka and I discussed the possibility that my chip was malfunctioning. I point at the book. “You said this will explain the feelings of the girl and her wee-zard. I will take it and study it, so I can understand for you.”
“You want to do that?” she asks, her eyebrow arching up.
“I can tell that ‘love’ is important to you. It is the least I can do to be familiar with this concept,” I insist. “You have learned many parts of my culture already. Even though you do not like some of them.”
She clucks her tongue. “You got that right. Well, it’s cute that you want to do that. But there’s a lot in here that will really go over your head.”
I scoff. “Ella, I have advanced scores in experimental biology and biotechnology, among other things.”
She rolls her eyes. “Well, Big Head, you don’t know shit about wizards and fairy tales. I’m going to give you the movie, if that’s all right by you.”
“Of course,” I agree, amused by her exclamation.
“Get dressed while I find it so we can go. Otherwise Jen is probably going to come hunt us down by herself.”
I chuckle, knowing that particular female could make quite the frightening pursuer if provided the right weaponry.
Chapter 16
ELLA
We climb into the driver-less car I ordered to take us back to the research facility. Kila clutches the DVD box I gave him, eyes flickering over the colorful cover with childlike fascination. I’m too exhausted to tell him that love is a little more complicated that watching one cartoon movie.
“Hey, Kila.”
He looks up and tucks the DVD inside the Kar’Kali jacket he wears, a tactical zip-up with many pockets and an
attached snood that pools around his neck. “Yes?”
“You’ve said this phrase a couple times, while we were…” I am tempted to say ‘making love’ but I know it would only confuse him further based on our recent conversation. “While we fucked? It didn’t translate for me. Kava… Kavin…?”
He grins and repeats the words: “Ka’Vinna ma oti?” I still get no readout from my translator chip.
“Eh, this will be hard,” he says, scratching his head. “Do you ever burn your dead?”
I squint at him. “Like, cremation?” Does my naked body really bring burning corpses to mind?
“Yes. When a warrior dies and a funeral can be held, the body is burned on the Ka’Vinna. What do you call this in your language? The mound on which the dead is burnt?”
“A funeral pyre? Where the hell are you going with this?”
He snickers. “A funeral pyre, then. I said, ‘Carry me to the funeral pyre.’ This is a common phrase suggesting your end is near. It can be used as a joke. Or in my case, I used it as an expression of disbelief. An expression that meant the sight of you would kill me so I must be carried to the funeral pyre.”
I sniff. “I guess that’s not so bad. I didn’t know your people had many jokes.”
He elbows me gently. “The Kar’Kali way is about separating oneself from emotion to enable efficiency and strength. It is not about destroying all happiness, as I think you might believe.”
Happiness without understanding love? That just seems delusional to me, but I say nothing. I don’t think either of us have the strength to start up again with the same conversation from last night. I watch out the window for the rest of the ride, zoning out until we finally pull through the outer gates of the facility. The driver-less car is mapped to stop at the bus wait station. As we hop out, I notice the employee parking lot is surprisingly full for a Sunday. In theory, the only cars there should belong to security staff, Jen, and Hassan.
“What’s going on?” I murmur.
A crowd is gathered outside the inner gates, and I notice many of the same faces and signs that assemble daily from the protest group. But there are others, too—all clogged around a central hubbub. As we approach, I realize there is a reporter with a news van and cameramen setting up to film with the facility as their backdrop. Kila hovers behind me, and I can feel him tense up.
“We should just push past and get inside,” I whisper to him.
He nods. But before we can get very far, Vic rears his ugly head by bobbing in front of me.
“Ella!” he greets me as if we are old friends and claps a hand on my shoulder. I glance over to gauge Kila’s reaction. His nostrils have flared but he does nothing. “Did you come back to find out all the gory details? Or is your work somehow related to all this? I kinda thought you were more of a desk jockey?”
“What are you talking about?” I demand. I watch as Vic’s eyes finally slide over to take in Kila, who stands at my back like a bodyguard.
“Breaking news,” he says, eyes shining with excitement. “An entire planet’s population in Sector 5 was wiped out by some kind of biological warfare. The kicker is, reportedly, that the tech was designed here using Alliance funding and then sold by a defector— or well, stolen— we just don’t know… to the Azza.”
“What?” I rasp and then whip around. Kila’s eyes have gone absolutely black and he seems to reel from the influx of information.
“Kila!” I call to him. “Kila, shhh, calm down… It’s okay. Let’s go inside and find out what’s going on—”
“Woah, Ella,” Vic interrupts and pulls me away from Kila. “I wasn’t gonna say anything, since you work here and all, and I figured this guy worked with you, but he looks a little dangerous and I’m not sure you should be—”
“N-no! You don’t really understand, Vic,” I say, tugging my arm from his grasp. He blocks me with his body. I’m guessing he means to protect me from Kila, but well, that’s just stupid in every sense of the word.
“Unhand my female,” Kila snaps.
“Your female?” Vic puffs out his chest. He thrusts out his arms to chivalrously trap me behind his back. “Not cool, man. If you want at Ella, you gotta go through me first.”
I weasel out of his arms and rush to Kila’s side. Vic looks pretty flabbergasted by this turn of events. The crowd that was gathered has now turned around to watch us instead of the reporters. I am expecting the worst, bracing for him to hulk out and beat Vic to a pulp. For far too long, his black eyes glimmer menacingly, right on the edge of madness. Then, just as I’m wincing, he throws back his head and laughs. The sound of it is all wrong and hollow.
“Pathetic human male,” he seethes out the words like a demon. “The fact that you think to stand between me and my Ella as if I would harm her is comical. If you so much as think to touch her again without permission I will snap your neck before you have the sense to regret it. As for the news that you so blithely reported to us… If it is true…The next time you stop to treat the extermination of a species as an entertaining turn of events, consider this— by the time the Azza turn to you and your planet, ready to crush you like an insect, they will have mastered the act of destruction while you slept safe in your bed and made posters. Then, you will only have yourself to blame for the ease with which they brutally end you.”
Kila takes the frozen hand I had placed on his forearm and begins a furious march across the remaining length of the lot. I do my best to keep up with him, with only one chance to look back and take in the stunned expression on Vic’s face and the gaping mouths of the people in the crowd.
***
KILA
Within the past twelve Earth hours, I have traveled from the lightest moment to the darkest. To think that when the sun was down, I was deep inside Ella, in bliss and unfettered by my guilt and anger. Now as the sun is high in the sky, I am paralyzed by rage, receiving a grave briefing on how my home has been ravaged by death.
When Jen ushered Ella away from me, her wide blue eyes were watching me with undisguised terror.
It is only to be expected. I knew this was bound to happen. My outburst in the lot outside the gate was the perfect example of how dangerous I am in this emotional state. I managed to control my desire to swat that presumptuous human, the one who so gleefully told us the news of my species’ fate. I had been seeing blood behind my eyes at the realization that he might be speaking the truth… and then he dared to touch her and push her, ignoring her words of protest.
I could have killed him. And Ella saw the truth in my eyes. I was one thread of self-control from stabbing my fingers into his tender eyeballs until he screamed for mercy.
I sit in a conference room in the basement of the research facility with my crew and an Alliance investigation team. They arrived with a Starvax droid transmission bearing the findings of a Sector 5 probe and a dossier on the defector that designed a bio-weapon powerful enough to eradicate my species. A defector that had been in this very facility only months prior to our arrival on Earth.
“How is that we were not made aware of this?” Pakka demands.
“The Kar’Kali board of generals was kept up to date on every aspect of our intel regarding this technology…. And its leak,” the lead investigator explains anxiously. She is an arachnid life form know as a TinTac, and her eight eyes are looking appropriately somber. “They did not want the security threats to distract from your research project goals. They made it clear to us that your team was not privy to the investigation.”
“What I would like to know is how such a project came to be borne from this facility, which claims to approve only peace-seeking or life-saving medical research,” Mori adds.
“The original project goal was to create a solution that would improve the polluted atmosphere on Earth. Testing on one solution indicated that the atmosphere would be repaired but that it posed a danger to the health of human life-forms. The team determined that the solution would cause immediate damage to their endocrine system because it w
as based on the pheromones of a Mitskaa fog monster that triggers an overreaction in all internal glands… They then theorized that such a solution would be deadly to a Kar’Kali, as your endocrine system is far more sensitive and complex, not to mention that hormonal self-regulation is impossible with your suppressor chips activated.” The TinTac female taps the tabletop with her pincers as she finishes the explanation. She is very nervous. Nervous because she now sits in front of war refugees. That is what we are now, I suppose.
“But our chips are not active,” Kiva says with a twinkle of hope. “This must mean they de-activated the regulation system in preparation… Would this not help the situation? Are there survivors?”
“No. Unfortunately, we will not know whether de-activating the chips would have saved any Kar’Kali. The Kar’Kali council determined that de-activating the chips would cause a mass panic. They focused their efforts on stalling the manufacture of the drug and preventing any opportunity of dropping it in the Kar’Kal atmosphere. When these efforts failed, the population-wide spike in hormonal activity from the pheromone gas caused the system failure. As for survivors… the probe collected no signs of Kar’Kali life forms remaining on the planet, but it was destroyed by the Azza not long after arriving. Once the Azza took the planet, they fortified there and defeated the Domestic war ships nearby. By our estimation, your population is at critical endangerment. The living number of Kar’Kali is likely confined to prisoners of war, Deviant exiles, a few interplanetary ambassadors, and of course… the five of you.”
“The people responsible for this must pay,” I growl, gripping the edge of the table so hard that the wood creaks under my force. “We need to be made a part of this investigation, because the biomedical manufacturers cannot be allowed to continue producing this gas. We will form a command unit and seek them out—”
