by C. Gockel
Volka gulped and tried not to imagine the unimaginable.
16
Unimaginable
Planet Luddeccea
Alexis sat at her dressing table. Coming up behind her, Alaric said, “We don’t have to go if you don’t feel up to it.”
She wasn’t sure if he was referring to the day before and what happened, or didn’t happen, between them, or if he was concerned for her after last night. Markus had woken six times. When Alaric was away, she’d slept with Markus beside her, but one wasn’t supposed to burden your husband with a baby in the bed. It was dangerous for the baby as well. A drunk husband could smother your child. Not that Alaric drank. And not that it had been safe when Alexis had nearly dropped Markus on the floor in exhaustion. She’d wound up sleeping on the rug in his room and was sore as well as tired. “It would be unimaginable to call off this late,” Alexis said. Even if she felt hideous.
Putting his hands on her shoulders, he kissed her cheek. “Whatever you want.”
Keeping her head high, even though she wanted to fall over and sleep, she powdered her nose. He took the hint and didn’t ask again.
She managed not to fall asleep in the car, but when the valet drove it away and she stared up at the long flight of steps to the main entrance, her confidence failed.
“I’ll carry you up them if you want me to,” Alaric said, like someone might say “the sky is blue.” His gaze was hard and cold.
“You can’t be serious,” she whispered.
“I am.”
“That would cause a spectacle,” she whispered, nervously appraising the bishop and his wife at the top of the stairs chatting with Holly and her admiral husband. The admiral stood so close to Holly as they spoke; they seemed like one person, not two. Alexis couldn’t make out their exact words, but she could hear how they passed the conversation between themselves, not just with ease, but with the joy of children passing a ball.
“I don’t care if it does cause a spectacle,” Alaric said, snapping her back to her own relationship, rocky and fraught as it was.
“I do,” Alexis said, gathering her dress’s many layers of skirts in her hands and stepping up onto the first stair. Reminding herself that she was girded with proper undergarments for post-delivery incontinence and bleeding, she sucked in on her lips to keep from wincing at the first stab of pain from her horrible stitches. She told herself the discomfort would at least help keep her awake.
Alaric’s jaw hardened, but he took her elbow and escorted her up the steps.
When they reached the landing, she managed to plaster a smile on her face for Holly and her husband despite her discomfort and her fatigue and relished the small victory.
“Sir,” said Alaric, holding out his hand and bowing slightly.
“Well met, Darmadi,” the admiral said, taking the hand. The admiral was getting on in years and was balding slightly, though what was left was neatly groomed. He was a little round in the gut, and just a little taller than his wife. Alaric wasn’t a huge talker, but Alexis got the feeling that Alaric looked up to him figuratively, if not literally.
“So nice to see you again. How have you been?” Alexis said to Holly while kissing her cheek.
“Oh, we’ve been fine,” Holly replied.
Her husband broke in. “She’s been more than fine. She passed her midwife exam.”
Holly rolled her eyes.
Alexis’s mouth fell open in shock. “I think I heard something about you studying. I had no idea you were done.” It was one of the few occupations open to women and was only below a doctor in its difficulty.
Patting her husband on the stomach, Holly said, “You don’t have to tell everyone, Charles.”
“But I’m proud of it,” the admiral replied in a tone that suggested that Holly wasn’t proud enough. It made Alexis’s heart hurt. As they left the couple and entered the mansion, Alexis found herself murmuring, “It’s amazing,” and she wasn’t sure if she meant Holly obtaining a degree so much later in life, or an admiral being so free in showing his regard and affection.
Pausing, Alaric asked. “Have you ever wanted to do something like that?”
Alexis shifted uneasily on her feet. She had once thought of being a teacher, much to her parents’ irritation. It was a job for poor and plain girls, not for someone from their distinguished family. Alexis always loved children, and it had seemed like a way to be around them without the complications of marriage. It also seemed like…freedom. Her parents would have cut her off if she’d pursued it, but she wouldn’t have needed them either. She would have been poor but self-sufficient.
Alaric hadn’t moved. She glanced up and realized her husband was waiting for a response. The correct response for a good wife was, “Don’t be silly,” to show that she’d never thought of anything but him and their family…Wasn’t it? Maybe it was exhaustion, but she couldn’t manage it. “I don’t know,” she said before she realized how inane that comment was.
Alaric’s eyebrows lifted, but he began gently leading her through the crowd again. They were in an immense reception room, surrounded by New Prime’s elite. A crystal chandelier cast a warm yellow glow on the building’s beautiful marble floors, the walls with their exquisite moldings, and the guests. On either side of the room were curved staircases that led up to the second floor. On the landing sat a beautiful white cat with brilliant blue eyes, gazing down at them imperiously.
“Sir, madam?” The words brought Alexis’s attention back to earth. A human caterer had stopped in front of them with a tray of drinks. Weere wouldn’t be used for food at such a grand event—their taste buds were attuned to rotting rats, not fine cuisine, and they shed everywhere. The tray in the man’s hands held a few shots of whiskey from the cold, desolate northern province Alaric grew up in, and Alaric took a glass when he heard the drink’s origin. There were also fizzy, fruity non-alcoholic juices for women. Alexis took one gratefully and then quickly covered her face with her hand to hide a yawn.
A familiar voice rang above the murmur of the conversation, and Alaric said, “It’s Ran. I should go over and congratulate him on his promotion.”
Alexis nodded. “Of course,” she said, glad that they had a mission and wouldn’t have to stand quietly without speaking to one another.
Ran was standing among a group of men and women, saying, “It doesn’t weaken us to unite with the Galacticans against a common enemy. We’ll maintain our identity and our strength, just as the Spartans maintained their culture when they joined with the Athenians to defeat Persia. Later, when the Athenians provoked the Spartans and they fought the Second Peloponnesian War, who won?”
It was the fizzy drink, the nearly hypnotic murmur of the crowd, and maybe that Alexis was just too tired, but she blurted out, “The Persians!” loud enough that she was actually heard. It was a joke—the Second Peloponnesian War had so weakened and divided Greece that the real winner was the Persian Empire—and it was highly inappropriate. She froze, fizzy drink at her lips.
Ran scowled at her as though she were a bug that had flown into the room, but Alaric chuckled. “I think she’s got you there, Captain,” he goaded, using Ran’s new rank.
Ran rolled his eyes. “I think you’re siding with your wife to stay on her good side.”
Someone tittered, which made Ran smile. To his audience at large, he said, “The Persians sold the Spartans boats. They weren’t in the war.”
Alaric cocked his head. “Come on, man, when you look at the big picture, the Persians did win.” Ran thankfully was momentarily distracted by a caterer offering a drink and didn’t hear—or pretended not to.
Grabbing Alaric’s arm, Alexis whispered, “Don’t make a scene out of it.”
Blue eyes meeting hers, Alaric whispered back, “But you’re right.”
Alexis felt a strange warmth in her chest and wondered if the drink had been alcoholic after all. “It’s not worth it,” she said.
A muscle in Alaric’s jaw jumped. “Right.” And then
her husband who never drank tipped back his whiskey glass and downed the liquid in a single gulp.
By the entrance to the dining room, the most wolfish weere man Alexis had ever seen said, “Ladies and gentlemen, we are ready to begin seating.” His voice was thick coming from a wolf-like snout, but he wore a butler uniform—part of the house’s full-time staff, obviously, not serving food but here to help. The crowd began moving into the dining room, but when Alaric led her forward, Alexis hung back. He looked down at her with a raised eyebrow. “I’d like to use the facilities,” she said. There were bound to be speeches before the dinner began, and she didn’t want to have to leave in the middle of one.
“I’ll wait here,” Alaric said.
“No, no, go congratulate Ran and find our seats,” Alexis said. “I’ll find you.”
Alaric’s brow furrowed, but he said, “Of course,” and left.
Looking for the butler and directions, Alexis spied Holly and the admiral, speaking to a husband and wife pair who looked distinctly out of place. The woman’s dress was too simple, only falling to mid-calf and too short for such a formal occasion. The man’s suit coat had patches in the elbows. Alexis blinked and recognized them. The poorly dressed man and his wife had been honored recently for developing a new breed of oat that tolerated colder temperatures and had more lysine…an essential amino acid. The conversation seemed to be going beyond mere politeness; both the admiral and Holly seemed riveted by the couple and were peppering them with questions.
The low gravelly voice of the weere butler made her jump. “May I help you, ma’am?”
Realizing she’d been staring, Alexis stammered, “Ah…I just need directions?”
Pointing toward the hallway on the left with a finger tipped with a claw, the man said, “Just down that way to your right.”
Gathering her skirts, Alexis took off without a word or errant glance at Holly and the admiral.
As she was returning to the reception room, Alexis’s eyes caught on the beautiful white cat on the landing above her. It seemed to have acquired a friend—a long-haired golden werfle. Standing on its hindmost paws, it was chittering to the feline, who was seemingly boredly licking a paw. She smiled at the scene, but then subtle but noticeable accents caught her attention. Her eyes dropped and she saw the strangers. There were eight of them. Standing by the door to the dining room in a group, they were tall, all without a single blemish on their faces, the men among them with hair too long, the women with hair that was too short, all dressed in clothing that was at first glance alien. The men all wore suits that were not in the Luddeccean style—although they were high-necked, they were double breasted, and the material had a dull glint like pewter. The buttons on the coats were like polished steel. The women wore floor length, fluttery gowns with strange asymmetrical cuts. The gowns were made of colorful ombré fabrics that on closer inspection were slowly swirling.
One of the men, the only one who appeared to be older than twenty, was speaking with a Luddeccean Alexis recognized as the premier’s own secretary. Determined not to stare and to get to her table, Alexis lifted her head and prepared to walk by the group. She was within a few steps of them when she heard what the premier’s secretary was saying. “No weere were invited as guests to the party.”
Alexis blinked, confused, and then the two men leading the party of Galacticans shifted and she saw her.
The weere woman—Alaric’s weere—was not at all like Alexis had expected. She had expected someone like one of her father’s weere mistresses—someone who was outwardly mostly human. The weere woman with the Galacticans had short gray fur on her head that turned to even shorter velvet where it covered her wolf-like ears. Her eyes were yellow, the pupils wolfishly ovoid, and they were lined with dark pigment. She wore a red dress with a maroon hem that swirled and crept up the skirts and sleeves as though they’d been dipped in ink. The gown revealed how slight her frame was—delicate, petite, and yet wiry...like a wild dog, or a wolf. An instant after Alexis saw the woman, her yellow eyes locked with hers. Alexis had the sense that the woman knew instantly who she was, and for a moment she stood transfixed, wondering how that could be so. And then she remembered herself and what that…thing…was.
Breaking free of the creature’s gaze, Alexis strode past the Galacticans and into the dining room, her heart pounding, a flush rising in her face and bile in her mouth. The secretary said again, “She cannot enter here, sir,” and Alexis’s shoulders loosened. The encounter still stung, and she felt as though she’d just been released from the jaws of a trap, but the weere would not enter, could not enter here. Alexis was safe…and she would not run or look back, even though behind her she thought she heard a growl.
Volka recognized Alaric’s wife as soon as she smelled her—or rather him on her. She smelled like Alaric, breast milk, and blood, and was everything Volka wasn’t. She was nearly as tall as Alaric, and she had glossy black hair that fought with the pins that kept it upswept. Her neck was long, her skin milky white, she was the voluptuous Luddeccean ideal, and she was younger than Volka by a few years. She was the kind of Luddeccean lady who looked past weere as though they didn’t exist; and indeed, she swept past the Galacticans in a cloud of skirts as though they didn’t exist, either.
An elbow hit her arm, and beside her, Sixty began humming.
One of the consular officers whose name Volka could never pronounce looked back at them sharply.
“Sorry,” Sixty said, “I just have a song playing in a loop in my…uh…very carbon-based brain.”
Scowling, the consulor officer turned back to the ambassador and the Luddecceans he was arguing with.
Leaning down, Sixty whispered, “Volka, I think you were having a software malfunction.”
“What?”
Dipping so close his breath tickled the top of her head, Sixty whispered, “You were growling at that woman.”
“That woman is Alaric’s wife,” Volka hissed. And then she heard it. Her own growl. Volka smacked her hands over her mouth.
Sixty hummed again. Loudly.
The consular officer glared at him.
Giving him a tight smile, Sixty said, “Oops. Carbon-based brains. What can you do?”
“I don’t belong here,” Volka murmured.
“You are necessary here,” Sixty said.
Volka looked past the ambassador, the consular officers, and the Luddecceans blocking their entrance. She could see a grand dining room with many tables. Their presence was just catching notice. People were looking back curiously.
The secretary withdrew into the dining room. Volka heard an older woman say, “What is the meaning of this?”
Starcrest and the consular officer met each other’s eyes and stepped into the room...just a few steps, but with all the staff that gathered on the other side, you’d think a fortress wall had been breached. The ambassador’s hands were behind his back, and he gestured with his fingers for the rest of the party to follow.
“Would keeping his wife out of your view help?” Sixty whispered.
Volka hoped they’d be turned away, but she nodded. If they did enter in the cloud of perfume, aromas of food and drinks, and personal scents, Alaric’s scent and…that woman’s…would be hard to pinpoint. Sixty slipped behind her, took a place on her left side, and took her arm. “You can do this,” he whispered, and led her into the room.
She looked up at him, and her heart swelled. “Thank you, Sixty.”
He raised an eyebrow and gave her a smile that probably slayed any woman looking at him, and more men than would admit it. “You’re my friend,” he said lightly, and then whispered, “Do you smell ptery soup? I have a data dump on ptery soup if you want to hear it.”
The ambassador was saying something to the older woman who’d come forward and the Luddeccean man, but the consular officer shot a dark glance back at him.
Rolling his eyes, Sixty whispered, “A data dump that I gathered by reading musty old encyclopedias, over and over and over, commi
tting the details to my disorganized carbon-based brain.”
Sixty was trying to distract her. She smiled up at him, never more grateful. “I think I would like to be enlightened as to the origins of ptery soup.”
“The first ptery soup was an accident,” Sixty began, keeping his voice hushed. “It occurred when one of the First Wave settlers left a pot of water unwatched.”
“What is the coat check weere girl doing at my party?” cried Stella Tudor, somewhere beyond the forest of tall humans in front of Volka.
Sixty’s head rose in Stella’s direction, his flirtatious expression becoming suddenly serious. She needed him to not be serious. She needed to be distracted.
“I have, upon occasion, checked coats,” Volka whispered, squeezing Sixty’s arm. “It’s a useful thing for a weere or human to do.”
Sixty’s eyes met hers. Sometimes Galacticans colored their eyes with contacts or dyes. They were easy to spot because the coloring was too uniform. But Sixty’s eyes had flecks of gold and hazel, and the left and right, although they matched, weren’t carbon copies of each other, either. He put his free hand on top of hers, but his expression didn’t lighten. His hand felt heavy, his gaze felt heavy, but then, at that moment the air felt heavy, too. Volka looked away.
Starcrest bowed. “The invitation included my senior staff. Ms. Volka is my attaché and senior staff.”
That was the moment Volka noticed the weere staff standing at the sides of the room. Their eyes were all on Volka, and she gulped. All the conversation in the dining room had ceased.
“She may eat in the kitchen,” Stella said.
Starcrest bowed again. “We apologize, but if Ms. Volka cannot attend the dinner, the rest of us will have to leave.” He turned one foot to the side as though preparing to do just that.
