CHAPTER FIVE
AIDEN
By the time half past eight rolled around the following morning, I was an absolute mess of nerves.
Doctor Kyle Scrim had arrived just half an hour ago – the doctor who was adopting the dimari nurse – and we were currently in a meeting room across the hall from the conference rooms, wrapping up my final briefing to Kyle as to what to expect when he met his dimari.
Kyle was a Solof, with dark, plum-coloured skin and I had a hunch that he was more nervous about this than he wanted to admit, given the way he kept fiddling with the end of his long, violet braid.
At the far end of the table, Soka and Colonel Henderson were waiting quietly, trying not to interrupt the conversation.
“Give Nik as much detail as you can about his new life,” Kade was explaining, while Kyle listened intently.
“Dimari are sent out with not only no idea who their new master will be, but no idea which part of the galaxy they’re being sent to.
Tell him which sector we’re in, and what planet, and where on that planet we are.
Explain what your job is and how his skills will fit in with your duties.
It’s also likely that he may not recognise what species you are.
Since Alliance species don’t buy dimari, we aren’t trained to know anything about you.
And then explain that you’re going to take him back to your house, and that you’ll give him more information about his duties once you get there. ”
“It’s also important to ask him if he has any questions,” I added, when Kade came to the end of his instructions. “In the early stages of a relationship, some dimari won’t ask questions unless they’re specifically invited to. As he gets more comfortable with you, he’ll likely open up a bit.”
Kyle nodded, though he didn’t ease up on his attempts to strangle his own braid. “I just have this fear that he’s going to know straight away that I don’t have a clue what I’m doing,” he admitted.
“He won’t,” Kade said, with far more confidence than I was feeling. “You know his name, you know his profession and so long as you look pleased to see him, he won’t think twice about the rest of it.”
Even after a year and a half, I still felt a flush of embarrassment at Kade’s words.
At the point that I’d met Kade, I hadn’t known his name, nor his training specialty, and I hadn’t looked even remotely glad to see him.
It was both fascinating and disappointing to know how badly I’d screwed up that initial meeting.
But the fact that we were now many months down the track and thoroughly comfortable with each other was proof that even the rockiest of starts could be overcome.
“Any other questions?” I asked Kyle, doing my best not to rush him.
Kade and I still had a mountain of work to get through today, as well as two dimari we still didn’t have even tentative masters for, and as patient as I was trying to be, there was a part of me that wanted to bustle Kyle into the room with his new dimari and be done with it.
“No, I think I’m all set,” Kyle said, straightening his shoulders and pursing his lips. “Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?”
From her seat at the end of the table, Soka stood up. “I’ll go and get him ready to be activated,” she said, giving Kyle a reassuring smile. She headed out the door and Henderson brought up the link to the conference room camera on his comm, projecting the image onto the rear wall of the room.
As we watched, Soka stepped into the conference room and loudly announced, “Nik? Your master has arrived. Please come with me.”
All the dimari were once again standing at ease at the ends of their beds – Jai included this time – and a dimari with pale blue scales stepped away from the mattress at the far end of one of the rows and moved towards Soka.
She led him out of the room, and Henderson hastily switched over to the camera in the room next door.
It was an almost identical conference room, with a row of tables down the centre.
Soka led Nik to the far side of the room.
“Stand with your back to the wall,” she instructed him.
Then, just to make absolutely sure we had the right dimari, she asked, “What is your name?”
“My name is Nik,” the dimari replied stiffly.
“What is your training specialty?”
“I was trained as a nurse,” he said, just as robotically.
“Wait here,” she instructed him. “Your master will arrive shortly.”
She left the room and we watched the door close. She’d been instructed to lock it, then to let us know that everything was ready to go. A moment later, the door to the meeting room opened. “All set,” Soka reported, coming back in and closing the door. “Over to you.”
The next bit was Henderson’s part in the process.
He activated the intercom function on his comm, accessing one of the speakers in the room.
Then he read Nik’s activation sequence, in a slow, clear voice.
Initially, I’d been concerned that we might accidentally activate more than one dimari, if there was any way for those in the other room to overhear, but Kade had assured us that was impossible.
“Each dimari has a unique activation code. Even if another dimari hears it, they won’t be activated by it,” he’d said.
“Your name is Nik,” Henderson began. “Activation sequence Alva Tervus Delic Rontolan. Be awakened. Be bonded. Your reason for drawing breath will walk through the door, and your soul will know them as Master.”
Holy fuck, I felt like we’d jointly just condemned an innocent man to hell.
I clenched my jaw and blinked back tears.
There was no other path forward for the dimari.
Leaving them masterless was a death sentence.
But even knowing that, I still felt like I’d just sent a man to the gallows.
With a few simple sentences, we’d stripped him of his free will and placed him at the mercy of another person for the rest of his life.
But regardless of my guilt, on the screen in front of us, the change in the dimari was both immediate and fascinating.
His shoulders relaxed and he looked around the room in a series of nervous movements, as if waking up from a dream.
Then his gaze landed on the door. He stood up straight as he focused on it, then he gave a little bounce.
As we watched, he made a visible effort to calm himself, then resumed his at-ease stance.
But it was clear he was having a hard time staying still.
Every few seconds, he would fidget, adjusting his clothes, smoothing over his hair.
I glanced sideways at Kade, curious as to what he would make of the behaviour.
“He wants to make the best possible first impression on his master,” Kade said, giving me a coy smile. “It’s a very emotionally fraught time. Once a dimari is activated, they are desperately keen to meet their master, and it’s very difficult to control that excitement.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Is that how you felt just before you met me?” Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked.
The meeting itself had gone less than smoothly, partly because I’d had no idea there was a dimari in the crate I’d foolishly opened, and partly because I was in the middle of a mission rapidly heading south, which had quickly devolved into a gun fight right there in the doorway to Kade’s crate.
But Kade grinned. “When I heard your footsteps moving around outside, I got an erection,” he admitted bluntly. “Then I had to work very hard to make it go away again, since I didn’t think greeting my new master with that sort of salute would be appropriate.”
I glanced at Kyle, wondering how he was reacting to the information.
And perhaps it was a consequence of him being a doctor that he didn’t seem particularly embarrassed.
A lot of the dimari owners I’d spoken to had been rather horrified about the whole sexual service side of a dimari’s life, and I’d rapidly had to get over my own embarrassment at the idea that I was some sort of father figure giving ‘the talk’ to my teenage children.
“Ready to go?” I asked Kyle.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” he said, standing up.
We’d transferred a code to unlock the door to his comm earlier, and the hallway was being monitored by security, to make sure there was no risk of anyone else wandering into the middle of our unusual procedure.
“Wish me luck.” He headed for the door, head held high, and we turned our attention to the screen, waiting for him to open the door into the conference room.
It took a few seconds, and I suspected he’d paused to take a couple of deep breaths in the hallway. But then the door on the screen opened and Kyle stepped inside.
Nik’s body snapped to attention, his back ramrod straight, and even via the screen, we could tell he was breathing fast. Kyle smiled at him, and we heard him say, “Hello, Nik. My name’s Kyle. I’m going to be your master. I’m so very glad to meet you.”
Nik wriggled, his gaze dropping to focus on the floor. “It is a pleasure to meet you, master.”
“Come and sit down,” Kyle said, gesturing to one of the chairs, then he sat down opposite Nik.
We listened as Kyle carefully explained to Nik that he wished to be called ‘sir’, instead of ‘master’.
We watched as he gave him a brief history of the Alliance and where in Alliance space Rendol 4 was.
Nik was hanging eagerly on every word, his expression attentive, and by the end of the session, he was starting to gain a little confidence, sending his master bashful smiles and a little coy flirtation.