Chapter 23 #2
“Oh, is that all?” I laughed. “I promise I wouldn’t have assumed you found me less appealing.
I remember all the things you and I did yesterday before the subject of fertility even came up.
I think it’s pretty clear you want to be deep inside your mate every chance you get—oh, hells.
” I scowled and pointed at the recording devices.
“Make sure this conversation disappears from these records. If this experiment with the tendrils ends up in an archive or being reviewed by masses of scientists and the public because we’ve discovered a new life form, I don’t want the whole damn galaxy to know about…
” I waved my hand at the air between us “…any of this.”
“I will take care of it.” He took a deep breath, exhaled, and crossed the roof to my side, his spine straight and wings folded. The urge must have passed.
Tension I hadn’t realized I’d been holding left my shoulders. His well-being had become essential to my own. I supposed the same was true for him but to a much greater extent. He didn’t seem to mind, though—very much the opposite.
“I am still your dragon, little mate,” he murmured, kissing the top of my head. “Even when I am not deep inside you. And yes, I will delete this part too.”
“Thank you.” I touched his hand. “Back to work, Dr. Husiorithae.”
He gave me a perfect Fortusian bow—the kind I had given him when I arrived at Nova Cal, when I received no response because unbeknownst to me, his life had been changed forever in that moment.
“Of course, Dr. Regis,” he intoned.
Damn it, now I associated my title and name in his voice with my lesson.
He smiled like he knew what I was thinking and went back to his recording devices. I scowled at his broad back and those big, pretty wings that gleamed so brilliantly orange and red in the morning sunlight.
No tendrils came during setup or after we placed the tiles and recording equipment, and no korae appeared in the atmosphere. The morning was peaceful and quiet.
As we waited for visitors to arrive, we sat in the grass just close enough to reach out and touch each other every so often.
Ardruc reviewed recordings and data from last night’s korae displays and I resumed my study of my lichen specimens, searching for anomalies.
We worked in comfortable silence listening to the wind in the forest.
Forux, for his part, dozed on his back between us, his tummy skyward to soak in the suns’ warmth. Whenever he snuffled and wiggled for attention, we took turns scratching his head and belly. I tried not to be offended that Forux purred louder when Ardruc rubbed his belly than for me.
The fact Forux had accepted Ardruc meant a lot.
In addition to their empathic abilities, arvals possessed a strong intuition for deception and ill intent.
In a way, I trusted his instincts more than my own.
I didn’t suspect Ardruc of being untrustworthy or duplicitous, but it was good to know he had Forux’s trust too.
That thought made me recall Forux’s endless growls and snarls every time we’d interacted with Ardruc before he admitted the truth.
Arvals didn’t like lies, and Ardruc had been living a lie from the moment we’d met.
What I’d interpreted as simple dislike on Forux’s part had been a much more complicated response.
If only arvals could talk, the last four months might have gone very differently. Whether that would have been for better or worse, I wasn’t sure. Maybe events had played out exactly as they were supposed to.
What a strangely unscientific thought. I harrumphed at myself and gave Forux extra ear scratches by way of apology for my lack of understanding.
After nearly two hours of waiting for the tendrils to appear, Ardruc set his korae data aside, methodically stretched and warmed up his fingers and hands, and opened his lat’sar case.
As soon as he began playing scales, I set my datapad in my lap and started watching for visitors, my heart racing in both anticipation and nervousness.
We wanted and needed answers, but part of me was just as afraid of what they might be as the possibility of not being able to find a way to communicate.
Mixed feelings about getting answers to scientific questions wasn’t like me at all, but rarely if ever did those questions have such a personal importance.
Ardruc paused mid-scale and leaned over to kiss my temple. “All will be well,” he murmured.
Why was he so sure? Instinct? Or had finding his true mate given him so much comfort that our situation didn’t trouble him as much as it troubled me?
I heard and sensed him starting to coo. “No,” I said, raising my hand. “Not right now. I want to feel what I’m feeling. I need my instincts.” I managed a fleeting smile, hoping to take the edge off declining his offer in case suppressing his coo gave him a painful twinge. “But thank you.”
His low song faded. With a gentle smile, he drew his bow over the lat’sar’s strings. “As you wish.”
Though he didn’t coo, when he began playing, his music had a similar soothing effect. Unlike yesterday, he played what was unmistakably a composition rather than improvising. The song was light and airy and made me think of a gentle waterfall or a light rain.
He played the entire song, and then another longer, much more complex and difficult piece, and then another, but the tendrils didn’t appear.
Despite how beautifully and masterfully Ardruc played, my initial sense of comfort gave way to stomach-churning anxiety. I caught myself rubbing the mark on my chest without realizing it and dropped my hand back to my lap.
When the third song ended, Ardruc closed his eyes and breathed deeply. I thought he was experiencing another spike of the mating frenzy until he drew the bow across the strings in a beautiful chord that somehow seemed in harmony with the wind in the trees.
The compositions might have been a masterpiece by most listeners’ standards, and he played them masterfully, but I found them a pale facsimile of his improvised duets with the world around us.
Maybe I wasn’t the only listener who thought so.
One by one, and then in pairs, brightly colored tendrils appeared, rising from below our line of sight to hover just beyond the roof’s meter-tall, vine-covered perimeter wall. They swayed and bobbed along with Ardruc’s music.
Were the tendrils uninterested in the compositions Ardruc had played?
They hadn’t responded to Ardruc’s scales either.
Maybe they thought the compositions were like scales—some kind of warm-up or practice rather than music.
I tapped my lower tip with my index finger.
Maybe to them, improvisation was true music. True art.
What evidence did I have to support my theory? We’d witnessed the tendrils emulate and dance along with korae, the size and shape of which were determined by a host of factors that changed with each occurrence. An argument could be made that was nature’s version of improvisation.
So I could see an analogy between the korae and Ardruc’s improvisation and by extension why the tendrils found both to be art by their reckoning, while more structured forms—scales, compositions, and the station’s humming power conduits—didn’t register with them as such.
It was just a half-baked theory right now, but my gut told me I was onto something.
My heart wanted me to ask Ardruc to take me flying with the tendrils.
Our flight yesterday was one of the most wonderful experiences of my life and had led to many very pleasurable and satisfying hours.
And I had a new fantasy I wanted to ask Ardruc about—one that involved yet another kind of claiming.
Something told me he would be interested in this one too.
I loved watching the tendrils dance to Ardruc’s beautiful music too, but we needed to get them to respond to the tiles. Everything else would have to wait.
For nearly an hour, Ardruc played and I waited and watched and listened. If the tendrils noticed or were interested by the tiles, I saw no sign of it.
Research and scientific inquiry required a lot of traits and skills, especially patience. Ardruc seemed content to play and let the tendrils dance, but even his music and their shimmering movements couldn’t soothe my restlessness.
Watching the tendrils, I had a sudden, wildly ridiculous idea.
Maybe my theory about improvisation and art forms could help persuade the tendrils to respond to the tiles.
But it would require me to risk embarrassing myself in front of Ardruc, whoever might watch these recordings later, and what might be several dozen sentient tendrils of plasma.
I sighed. Oh, well. It would be worth it if we got the answers we needed. And it wouldn’t be the first time I had to take a risk in the name of science. At least I didn’t have to worry about injuries caused by sub-zero temperatures or flying debris—just wounds to my pride.
I’d already removed my boots so I could better enjoy the warmth and hum of the grass. I rose, untied the sleeves of my jumpsuit from around my waist, and slid the garment down my legs and the rest of the way off, leaving me once again in a tank top and shorts.
Ardruc raised his eyebrows and played a little surprised trill of notes that made me chuckle despite my nervousness.
I closed my eyes, rocked back and forth to lose myself in the music and the cool breeze, and took deep, cleansing breaths.
I raised my hands over my head, arched my back, and twirled on the ball of my right foot.
I hadn’t done this in a very, very long time, but in a way that made it easier.
I didn’t want to dance with technical perfection and precise movements, in the way I’d been taught by instructors growing up on Fyloria.
In fact, according to my theory, I needed not to dance like that if I wanted to find a way to connect and hopefully communicate with the tendrils.
So I followed Ardruc’s lead and just…improvised.
In tempo with his music, I twirled, leapt, spun, swayed, and moved my arms and legs in whatever way felt right.
Afraid I’d become self-conscious if I saw Ardruc watching me, I avoided looking in his direction and instead focused on the grass, sky, trees, and tendrils.
Forux joined in by running around the roof in happy, albeit confused circles.
Ardruc played joyfully, with no hint of the melancholy tones he’d favored yesterday. Maybe he liked watching me dance. The wind swirled, the trees swayed, and the tendrils twirled and danced as well.
A green tendril drifted onto the roof and began to mimic my movements.
My heart was already racing with exertion, but it sped up as the tendril moved back and forth.
A small red tendril—possibly the one that had burned me, since it was the only small red tendril I’d seen so far—joined the green one.
We danced for a while, and then I took my chance.
I picked up the tile with my image and information and held it in front of my chest. “Elena,” I said, pointing to the image and then to my face. “My name is Elena. I am a human.”
The tendrils swayed back and forth but didn’t react in any way I could see.
I put down my tile and picked up the one with the first question composed by the linguistics system, inscribed in five languages: What is your name?
I set the tile on the grass and moved back, swaying to the music.
The tendril closed the distance between us, moving so close that my skin tingled. Ardruc continued to play, but he stood and watched the green tendril with undisguised concern.
The tendril hovered for several seconds, and then extended a single thread of itself to the tile’s surface. I took a deep breath and held it. Please let this work.
The tendril inscribed something on the tile.
Moving slowly, I circled to my left until I could see the inscription. The markings resembled but did not match my tattoo.
The light around the edge of the tile blinked, indicating the linguistics system was working to translate.
The tendril moved to the next tile, paused, and then inscribed a series of marks before going to tile number three. My heartbeat pounded in my ears. Was it working?
The lights on the first tile stopped blinking and turned solid. Words in Alliance Standard glowed across the surface.
I made a choked sound. Ardruc’s lat’sar fell silent.
I am Ka, the tile read.
And beneath that:
We are the Vorsa.