Alliance: An Intersolar Alien Romance, Book 6

28

The permafrost meadows and moss gave way to the Dawn”s Razor within half a day of straight riding. At first, the trees were overrun with moss, bowing like elders in thick cloaks beneath the weight. Then tall straight trees with black trunks and long limbs peppered with skyward-facing scaly whips took over the terrain.

I was awed by the sight of them. They were regal—a hundred or more feet tall—and reminded me of Gothic Christmas trees with their austere, other-worldly grace. When the breeze blew through the boughs, their whipping fingers shivered and swayed like cattails. I wanted to remember every moment of this journey, with Fásach at my back, his broad chest and thick fur keeping me warm.

We entered the Razor with the sun still at its peak between the mass of Big Blue and the horizon, but its bright pink and orange light dimmed immediately, unable to penetrate the tall canopy as anything more than a bloody red glow. The wind died too, with no way to penetrate the thickest part of the forest.

”How long will we be in here?” Fásach asked, his hold on my waist tense. I focused on the beam of light preceding the needle, my brow drawn in concentration as I dodged boulders here and there.

”According to maps, Dawn”s Razor is thousands of miles long, circumventing the cap all the way around,” I told him. ”But cutting across it is quick. We”ll be on the other side tomorrow.”

He breathed a sigh of relief. ”Good. There are other hunters in here. I don”t want to give them a reason to test their luck.”

”You can tell?” I asked, looking back at him over the mass of my curls. His ear twitched.

”I can smell something. Big, with fur. Its musk is strong. If I had to guess, whatever it is has a den nearby.”

[Analysis] I considered our speed and the remnants of the trail ahead that hadn”t been maintained. ”If we camp four miles away, will that be far enough?”

”Not really, but I”ll keep watch. The engine might be enough to deter it for now. And it could be nothing.”

We found a place to camp an hour after the sun”s red haze faded into Big Blue”s eerie glow. Fásach set up our bedroll behind the needle, hoping its exhaust and fuel would deter any predators that might get curious. I checked the charge on my Slab4. My internal charge was gone once more.

I was hardly surprised. My model was designed to live happily imprisoned in a brothel bedroom, able to charge every day during off hours. The rut hunt that morning had taken a majority of my charge, and the upper body strength to control the needle had sapped the rest.

My abdomen tightened, stealing a glance at Fásach. He gazed lovingly at Safia and Misila”s holoscreens, revealing the gentle side of him that felt so distant from the fever we”d indulged that morning. If I let him know I was thinking about him, would that look change in a split second? Would he call me his thuais again?

I didn”t know if it had been said in the heat of the moment or not, but I knew what it meant thanks to my database. True North. It was the yiwreni equivalent of beloved, a life partner. [Warning] I ached for that to be true, but a sense of foreboding tickled my LMem. Confusion made my chest feel tight. Was it because I was worried he would say it wasn”t true?

Or was there something else? The silence of having no echoes nearby didn”t bother me as much as it had on the tundra. Was I losing some part of me the closer we got to the colony?

[Priority] That thought died immediately. No, what a silly notion. I had so much to gain by getting to Renata. The faster, the better. Important things awaited me there. Things Rosy had left behind and even more that I wanted to do myself. A bucket list, she would have called it. Playing with the kids on the playfield. Eating human food, especially a cubano on a crisp roll with mustard, sharp pickles, and hot pork. My mouth salivated thinking of all the things I would be able to try for myself, regardless of Rosy”s memories.

But the looming dread persisted.

Fás joined me moments later on a boulder as large as a house. I pointed through the trees to a sliver of red visible in the distance, where the sun had yet to set.

”That”s the jungle,” he awed. I nodded. ”We”re so close.”

”End of tomorrow, if we”re lucky.”

Fás smashed a bag of broth, heating it up between his palms as we watched that glittering red sea of foliage. ”Do you know which way to go once we”re out of the Razor?”

The glittering of the foliage sharpened, and I looked away, taking the hot soup when he offered it to me. ”I see a lot of data echoes skirting the tops of the trees. I can”t hear them from here but there are some radio frequencies popping in and out of my transmission range.”

Fásach dropped his ration bar, then scooped it back up with surprise. ”Already?”

I nodded, then opened my mouth. Shilpakaari pop music faded in and out, popping from loud to quiet, depending on the direction I turned my head. I closed it and ran my tongue over the walls of my cheeks, trying to abate the unpleasant tingle. ”I don”t know what it means, except that there are people that way when there shouldn”t be. None of the maps Traveler gave us have shipping routes this deep over the jungle.”

Fásach abandoned trying to eat his ration, his hands falling limp in his lap. ”Scocite.”

My brows stitched together. ”Fás... I think I was doing something bad on the antenna. I... I think Gil was right to shoot me.”

His ears twitched, then they flattened against the sides of his skull. He knelt in front of me, pressing his palms into my silk, and I relaxed into hands that made me feel every sensation as if I were a live wire.

”You”re your own person, remember? I can hear it in your voice. You didn”t go up there with bad intentions.”

”I went up there to complete a task I don”t remember,” I argued. ”I know the echo and the voice, but I can”t remember—” [Warning] I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to recall the file from my LMem, then shook my head. ”When I pull up my recording, it”s encrypted. What if...” I licked my lips, gathering my strength even as my heart leapt up my throat. ”What if I want to go to the colony because part of me is corrupted?”

Fásach straddled my thigh and pulled me into his fur with a comforting huhuhuh rolling through his chest. ”You”re your own person, Roz. You”ve proven that you can deny your coding as much as you please.” He brushed my curls away from my face. ”I know it”s new, but trust in your free will. Don”t give up on yourself. I can hear your truth louder than anything.”

I squeezed my thighs together with a sense of urgent fullness and he snapped his teeth, brushing his palm up my leg. ”Do you want to prove how free you are again?” he simmered, his eyes blowing out until those horizontal pupils were nearly round. “Let me beg you. Deny me to the edge of sanity.”

”I feel like I”m going to burst,” I admitted with a grimace, shaking my legs and squirming. Fásach leaned in and I stopped him. ”It doesn”t feel like the same thing. I feel something... urgent?

“Urgent?”

Near a panic, I wondered to myself if this was how I was going to expel the corruption I felt. ”What if-if... What?!”

Fásach”s ears were perked, a boyish, playful smile lifting his features as he bit his bottom lip with bright white teeth. Then he pressed on my abdomen with a chirp, and I gasped.

”No, now it”s worse!”

Fásach rocked back on his heels and laughed, full belly. His face lifted to the black and looming trees, his mouth spreading open wider than a human”s ever could, showing every ridge and point of his incredible teeth. I smacked his arm, on the brink of dying.

”Roz, sweet melody, I think you just need to pee.”

”P-pee?” I shorted, shocked. ”I don”t have that bodily function.”

”Are you sure?” One of his ears flopped sideways as he tilted his head, leaning his jaw on his knees. Never had I seen him so full of youth and joy. And at my expense. I should have been happy, but instead I was miffed.

”How do I pee?”

He shrugged. ”It”s a lot like sleeping, I guess. You relax, and then your body will do the rest.” He stood, offering me a hand. ”Find a tree close by and pull down your pants first though.”

I couldn”t stand up straight, hugging where my bladder shouldn”t be, but a system check revealed that my parumauxi had grown one anyway, taking over a section of my fluids filtration system. Which my vitals deck now also called kidneys, even if they were a single tube with several filtered chambers and not biological kidneys at all.

Unable to think about it any harder, I slid down the boulder and shuffled behind the closest tree trunk while Fásach watched with amusement from his perch.

?

”Nothing”s happening!” Roz called from behind her tree. Fásach could just see the corner of her bare knee poking out from behind the black trunk.

”Relax!” he called back. Silence.

Fásach”s smile fell. He creased his brow, considering Roz”s concerns about herself with oily worry. Opening his holotab for the first time in days, he looked through his notifications and found, predictably, nothing. Still, he needed to reach out to Vin and Novak again. Sizzle too, if it was possible.

But all of their comms were offline. It was so unusual that unease settled into his chest and wouldn”t let go. What was happening that no one would log in to the guild network? He pulled up Vindilus”s profile and sent a quick voice comm.

”Hey, Vin. I ah, fuck. I need you to pick up. I need to talk to you. I”m on Yaspur and bringing the girls to the colony. If you get this, comm me.” He kept his voice low so that Roz couldn”t hear the strain in it, then sent it priority through the guild”s encrypted pathway. It was the best he could do. He opened Novak”s name next, then Sizzle, and did the same.

”Fás! Fás!” Roz called from the trees. She jumped up, wriggling her pants back on. ”I did it! I peed!”

His smile came back, loopy and warm. ”Good job, gold star,” he called out.

She gave him a nonplussed look from around the tree.

That night, when they laid with his front to her back on the bedroll, he snuck his hand around her throat and nipped at her ear. She pushed his pants down and let him in, silent save the mingling of their foggy breath.

He didn”t need her to speak a single word to know that they were in perfect harmony.