Chapter 3
THREE
NICOLE
My hand stings, but it’s not too bad, a scrape only. I hide it behind me. It’s my ticket out. “Let’s go get those medical supplies.”
He offers me his arm, but I tug at my robes to make sure they’re in place and walk past him, keeping my cut hand away from him so he can’t tell it’s not that serious.
He follows and overtakes me, moving more smoothly than when he was a pilot. While his gait has always been like a pacing tiger, now he's unleashed a confidence to match.
He leads me back into the main room, and, yep, there’s the panel in the ceiling I damaged earlier. Crossing to the big glowing cylinder, he lays a hand on it and closes his eyes, a metal lid sliding shut over the mechanical one.
What’s he doing? My pulse gallops being so close to him, because he holds the keys to my imprisonment, and I can't fuck this up. Light collects around his hand, and he takes a sharp breath in.
“Are you okay?” I blurt.
He opens his eyes, gaze raking slowly over me. His mechanical right eye blazes blue, like he wants me to notice it. “Checking the ship records. Hm. You didn’t even try to run.”
“Where would I go?” I make my lower lip wobble. I've got to appear helpless and cowed without being too much of a pushover, so he doesn't think he can take liberties.
In truth, the medical supplies will be a treasure trove of useful items to take him out. Maybe my heart is beating so hard because I’m excited to get my hands on some useful compounds.
Letting his hand drop from the cylinder, he nods to the single breakfast bar cupped around an area with lots of cupboards and shiny surfaces. “After we see to your hand, I’ll make you a meal.”
Food. My stomach snarls with agreement.
Arture steers me toward one of the doors out of the atrium, waving his left, organic arm at the top so the door melts open. Perhaps he’s got them keyed to him somehow. Yet another hurdle to my “take over the ship” plan.
But they’re just hurdles. I can overcome them, once I'm free to move.
The medical facility is all smooth surfaces and metal walls like the inside of a silo. Dominating the center of the room is a huge orb hanging from the ceiling, glinting gold and red like the malevolent eye of an iron giant.
I stop dead when I see it.
“What’s the problem?” Arture asks.
I wave toward the machine. Thing. “This isn’t what I expected. I need medical supplies, bandages. Pain relief.”
He raps the wall next to us and a table glides out at waist height for him, and it's as high as my sternum for me. “Get up on there, it’ll scan you.”
I back away. “I don’t need a scan; I know what the problem is. I want to fix it myself.”
He drums his fingers on the top of the metal, making a series of soft clangs. “Do I have to lift you up here?”
I recoil. “No.”
He looks down at my leg, then back to the table. “It’s a big jump for you.”
“I’m not going on it.” Irate, I turn my back to him and start running my left hand down the walls, looking for hidden cupboards or more tables to spring out like a jack in the box.
Folding his arms over his bare chest, he leans against the doorway. “The med facility won’t dispense anything without a diagnosis.”
Oh, horseshit.
I scrabble harder and my nails catch on a panel. I get some more purchase and give it a yank, like I’m tugging a knot out of a tail.
He chuckles. “You'd need to be a Gerverstock to pull that free.”
Taking a step back with a huff, I push stray strands of hair behind my ears. “Well, go on, then.”
At first, he just looks at me, one eye an uninterpretable black, the other flashing blue.
I meet his gaze squarely. “I've seen you take other forms. Ilia's the Gerverstock, right? I saw you match him.”
“I didn't match him specifically. All Gerverstocks look alike.”
“Whatever. I know you can do it.”
He shrugs one shoulder. “Seems a shame to break a nice ship, doesn't it?”
“Oh, so you can't change into one. No problem, then.” I return to prying the tiny finger hold.
“I didn't say that.”
I gesture to the panel. “Well?”
He doesn't move for five long seconds, then he saunters forward.
Guy moves like he's shaking his hips in slow motion with every step.
As he does, his chest scales flatten and swell, turning petrol blue tinged with green, and his jaw gets blockier, nose elongating slightly, his strides harder.
By the time he reaches me, Ilia, the leader of the aliens, stands in front of me.
It'd be fascinating if it wasn't super disturbing that he'd used this chameleon ability to hide among the others.
“Please move, esteemed female,” he rumbles. Shit, even the voice is the same, like he ate a bag of gravel. He smirks at me, and the illusion is ruined. Although I didn't spend a lot of time with the aliens, that mocking expression doesn't belong on Ilia's face.
I move back to watch. His arms flash with deep crimson underneath the scales, like I can see all his capillaries, and his biceps pump up even more, muscles growing and bulging.
He gets his meaty fingertips into the small ridge I'd been working on, and gives a single yank. With a tortured screech, the whole metal wall bends and then pops out in a single panel, revealing a silvery treasure trove of glass and plastic behind it.
“Ooh, lovely.” Now I can pull out all the secret hidey holes, looking for anything I recognize. If these aliens are sensible, they'll put all their analgesic pain relief together, and the same for their anesthetics. My fingers fly across the tops of the bottles. It's like a futuristic apothecary.
He shrinks down, rubbing his chest as it turns black as pitch, and his face twists as if he's tasted something sour.
“You definitely seem to feel some kind of pain when you come out of a, uh… what do you call it?”
He frowns down at me. “Shift, transformation. There's not really a word for it. And it doesn't hurt, not exactly. You try swelling up or shrinking down sometime, you'll see.”
“Fine.” What do I care if he's in denial? He's not my patient.
I turn back to the rows of glass. The labels are etched into each tube and bottle, and of course I can't read them. I can try to decipher them, though. They have to be laid out in some kind of pattern.
He might not be talkative, but I do need to keep him amused while I look for what I need.
“So,” I say casually, “Where are we heading?”
“Oloria.”
My stomach leaps like a bucking horse. I'd suspected as much. “Why are you taking me there? Aren't you exiled from your planet? Won't returning cause you problems?”
He shrugs. “All your friends have been. It's nice weather this year, zero percent chance of rain. Thought you'd like to see the sun for once.”
As he speaks, he rolls the shoulder of his mechanical arm, as if he's easing it off.
I haven't studied it in detail: a cap connects it to his shoulder blade and collarbone, but the bicep, elbow, forearm and hand look to be completely metal.
It's got the broad shape of his other arm, except black with silvery blue metal struts encasing what I assume are alien hydraulics.
“I suppose our weather irritated your prosthetic?” I nod toward it.
“Only a lot. How do you live there and not have gills?” Gaze flicking to my shirt, he smirks. “Unless you do, under there.”
I turn away quickly, chest tightening. I'm no match for him strength-wise, so I don't want him wondering what I look like under my clothes. His metal fingers are blunt right now, but I saw how lethal his claws were when he slashed at his crewmates.
I swallow hard. Gotta distract him, and I'd rather he was pissed at me. “Were you lying the whole time on Earth?”
“Lying?” His voice carries a lilt of amusement.
“Yeah. Pretending to be someone you're not,” I goad, holding up a tube to the light. The liquid inside is pale green, not something I recognize. “Judging by the utter surprise on everyone’s faces, they didn't realize you could change your appearance.”
“It was utter surprise, wasn't it?” He sounds pleased with himself, as if gouging chunks out of his friends and spitting acid in their faces was a great prank. “And no, they didn't know, because I didn't know.”
“What do you mean?” I dig in the back of the shelf I've pulled out. More green tubes. Argh.
“On Earth, I had no memory of anything previous to meeting Ilia and the crew. It was a vague fog, but I had no interest in questioning or exploring it.” He shudders, but it's rather theatrical, his scales clattering together and shimmering into pale golds and greys.
“I was trapped in the body of a bloody Pranastock.
I'm going to inform the intergalactic community that living as one of those clones is a form of cruel and unusual torture.”
“Is there an intergalactic community?”
“No idea. I'm sure if there is one, the Prif is part of it.”
There's a reverence to how he says the title. “That's Prif Samara, right?”
“Yes.”
I shoot a quick glance at him. He gazes misty-eyed into the middle distance with a contented smile on his face, the way I'd look thinking about my horses. Guess he's a huge fan.
I rifle through the jars quickly. There's blue ones further in, kept in thicker glass with more colorful warning labels. This might be the good stuff. For now, I'll keep him talking and learn what I can. “You shouted something about being a Samarastock. So is Samara your… mum?”
“Of course not. I'm still of the All-Mother's genetic material, but the Prif oversaw our development, adding traits she wanted.” The mistiness in his eye fades, a furrow digging in his brow, like he's just remembered he left the stable door open. His jaw tightens, and he looks away.
I wave toward him. “Just so I understand, is this… the real you?”
Immediately his disquiet drops and that cocky smirk is back. “All real, farm fresh, grade A material.” To emphasize, he brings his arms up and flexes, making his deltoids bulge, even the one with the metal cap.
I snatch my gaze away. I'm getting nowhere trying to guess what these bottles contain without experimenting, but I really want to know what the compounds deep inside the shelves are. Given that it's got more safeguards on it, I must be getting close to potent stuff.
I extract another one and hold up a bottle. “What does this say?”
He cocks his head. “Shuganitrous serum.”
Aw, pants. I didn't factor they'd have their own names for stuff. I bite my lip. “I was hoping for a helpful chemical formula.”
His eyes drop to my mouth and back up again. Then he turns green all over, cheeks and jaw getting pointier as he shrinks. Now he's only six foot instead of seven and change, and standing across from me is the dour surgeon alien, Gara.
“Shuganitrous serum, a pretty heavy-duty sedative. Only useful if you needed to sleep for a human week. For a laceration and contusion, I recommend…” His hands dance among the shelves, grabbing bottles and passing them to me.
I hardly hear him, clutching my prize to my chest. This'll do nicely. I slip a couple into the pockets of my technical t-shirt, then another, and another.
I fumble the last one when he turns to me with eight vials, but fortunately he's distracted. He starts loading them into my arms. “A basic low-level analgesic, a dose against what you'd call tetanus, and a coagulant to stop the bleeding.”
His scales shift, turning darker. He's changing again, and he's always staggered afterwards.
This is my chance. I need to lift my arm and smash him in the face with my sedative. As much as I don't want to hurt anyone, I have to get home.
Gold spreads across his chest, his form rippling.
Now.
I throw the bottle in his face. It shatters, liquid covering his face and fumes wisping up, just as a piercing alarm blares through the ship.
Then the floor bucks, tossing us both across the room.