Chapter 6
SIX
ARTURE
My mistress comes to see me daily. I live for the moment when her hand presses against the glass and I see hints of her beyond. Golden light surrounds her, rich and glorious, searing her outline deep into my mind. My hearts beat for her, only for her.
One day she comes but does not put her hand on my glass. I see her vague outline, a tantalizing impression just beyond the confines of my tube, and strain toward her.
A roar overwhelms my ears. Loud, too loud, deafening.
The water surrounding me, supporting me, drains away. I no longer float in warmth but have to stand on two limbs in the cold, sagging against the clear glass separating me from my mistress.
The glass dissolves, cold air rushing in, slamming against my scales. I crumple, hitting the floor hard.
My eyes focus on the beautiful feet of my mistress. I struggle to look up into her face at last, twisting my neck upward.
Her eyes are hard, her face severe.
My chest tightens. Have I displeased her?
Fingers curl into my hair, tipping my head side to side and displaying me to her. I have eyes only for my mistress, she who stands before me resplendent in gold. My scales harden, trying to match her glory, and hope unfurls in my chest. She came for me.
“And they're totally loyal?” she asks someone behind me.
“Completely, Prif. As you instructed,” a female voice reports.
The mistress—the Prif—smiles, and oh, how it lights up my whole vision. She lowers herself down to my level, holding my chin with the edge of her sharp nails.
My eyelids flutter in absolute bliss.
“I cannot be sure. Start the training,” she orders.
Training? Whatever it is, I’ll complete it. For her.
“But… they're completely loyal,” the female behind me stammers.
“Are they? I'll test that for myself.” Her nails drop from my chin and she steps back. “You. Come here.”
The way she walks, with purpose and confidence, is wondrous.
I look down to find my own arms and legs, limbs that shake in the cold.
I put my feet underneath me to match her stance, pushing up as hard as I can.
Slowly I teeter to my full height, towering above my mistress and her helper, an older woman with white scales.
My mistress beckons with a finger and I stagger toward her. She leads me over the hard floor to a raised surface with straps on either end.
I run my hands over the surface. “Table,” I mumble, the words dropping into my mind. One day, I’ll speak as beautifully as the mistress.
“Get on,” she says, and I obey, lying down. My mistress walks away.
Her helper slides straps over my arms and legs, tightening them with ruthless efficiency. “There's no need for this,” she mutters. “I'm sorry, Alpha.”
Her face is blurry to me. White hair around her deeply lined face, her scales milky with age. Not as perfect and beautiful as my mistress.
I stare after my mistress’ back until her helper lowers a helmet over my face, shutting me in darkness. I shout out, straining against the straps to take it off so I can see the mistress again, when pain lances from the helmet deep into my skull.
“You are mine,” the mistress whispers in my ear.
I jerk in place. Is it really her, or a recording?
“You are my tool to use. You will never defy me.”
Why would I ever defy the most perfect mistress? Electricity thunders into my head. I scream, but I can't hear myself.
“You are mine,” the mistress whispers again.
I know, I know! I try to reassure her, but she continues, “You are my tool to use. You will never defy me.”
I would never, I—
Another jarring blow, like a sledgehammer smashing my jaw.
“You are mine, Arture.”
I scream.
“Arture, wake up.”
I startle upright. My hearts, already pumping hard to maintain the Selthiastock form, are about to burst out of my chest.
You are mine, Arture.
“Hey. Are you okay?”
Snapping out of the lingering echo in my thoughts, I turn toward Nic-coal's irate voice.
She's standing on the other side of a rusted metal grate. I can’t smell any traces of blood, so she’s found some kind of healing.
Forcing my eyes to focus, I see she's got some mud on her forehead—Graxus mud, my Selthiastock encyclopedic knowledge confirms—so that'll be taking care of the cut and bruise there. The cut on her hand I can’t see, so I’ll check that as soon as I can.
Rolling closer, I continue looking her over to check for new wounds elsewhere, if she's hiding anything from me.
Her robes are torn and there are complex straps hugging her body.
I take in the Nexas bridal raiments she's wearing.
It's not true to the culture, because she should be naked underneath them, and those straps of leather look less like a proud warrior garment and more like restraints pinning her in place.
My chest aches even further; someone put her in a cell.
Junk walls press in, bars between me and freedom. Ah. It's me in the cell.
I stretch my arms over my head. “Well, hello, Mrs Greharm Nexas.”
She scowls. “Fuck you.”
That’s a lot of vitriol. I get up, head swimming, and grasp the bars. “What's happened? Has he hurt you?”
The human looks away. “No. Not that you care.”
I frown, scales on my eyebrows prickling. My mission hasn't changed, I have to get Nic-coal to Oloria, and even if I don't know why, I assume she has to be in reasonably good shape. That’s why I care. Right?
My hands tighten around the bars, as much as a Selthiastock can squeeze something. “Where is he?”
She sticks a thumb over her shoulder.
In the corridor behind her, all I can see is rusted metal, bits of rubbish… and a nest of blue-black crystals peeking from around the corner.
As if a Nexas has fallen there and all we can see is his fist.
“Ah. Let me guess, he got the sedative treatment.”
She bites her lip, cheeks flaming red. “You are so fucking annoying. The Arture I knew was quiet, demure, thoughtful.”
“He was seconds away from a mental meltdown, and no one even realized it,” I fire back. Fuck, even thinking about the Pranastock makes my blood run cold.
We glare at each other across the divide, neither backing down.
I relent first. “Look, if you let me go, I'll get you out of here. I assume that's why you're here, right? You can't—” I choke on the word ‘pilot’ “—operate the ship without me.”
She leans on one hip, away from the bars, arms crossed. “If I let you go, you need to take us to Earth.”
I grin. How's she going to make me? Promises are as easy to break as they are to make. “Very well. I swear.”
Her mouth twitches. “Well. That was easy.”
Too easy, ha. It's almost too much to take advantage of her.
She unlocks the door and I push it open for her. I let the Selthiastock go, swelling back to my proper height, shoulders pushing out. The little human looks away, as if she's giving me privacy, but when I rest my hands on the walls for a moment she quickly spins to face me.
“You okay? Dizzy?”
“I'm fine.” Moving past her, careful not to brush against her, I prowl into the bowels of the Nexas’ ship.
It's hot in here, sweat dripping off me in rivers. Nic-coal must be overheating, and I have no idea how Greharm stands living here while swaddled up in layers of furs.
Something smells good down a corridor. I take a deep breath. “What's that? It's delicious.”
“Nothing, come on.” She tugs my arm to our ship, then points at the remains of our door. The tiny cubes lie scattered across the shiny floor. “How are we going to fix that?”
“A Grammatostock should work.” It's been a while since I've encountered one of those, but the memory of how to shift into one seeps into me as I concentrate on bringing up their essence.
My legs lengthen, back arching as I stretch into the gangly clone.
They have excellent night vision and long dexterous fingers.
I wriggle the fingers of my left hand, the right one slow to match it.
A significant drawback to my shifting ability is I have to accommodate my metal eye and arm.
My eye does nothing except relay visual information, and my arm only flicks into different modes in response to my mental commands, it can't change shape.
It was never designed to. I can't remember how I got the arm, but I know that much.
She takes in my new form slowly, rich brown eyes tracing from my new shoulder down my bicep to those long fingers. “How do you do that?”
“I can only shift into clones I've got a sample of.
A part of them seeps into my genetic code from there, and I can call on it when needed.
It's easier with clone types I use frequently, as if muscle memory plays a part, but I never fail to shift perfectly no matter how long it's been.” I hunker down and pick up handfuls of the door.
“It's ultra magnetic betrillium cuboids, and all he did was scramble the polarity of each one. Simple, really.”
“Oh, good, so you can fix it?”
“I said it was simple, not easy. We need a magnetizing source of some sort. I don't think there's one on the ship.” And I only want to turn into a Pranastock to check as an absolute last resort.
Nic-coal gestures into our ship. “Gerharm left all kinds of machines in here. I think he was planning on cannibalizing the ship.”
We take a look. Most of the machines are designed for cutting and slicing, but there are some suited for the more advanced tasks of ripping the guts out a spaceship without being electrocuted, such as siphoning off gasses and deactivating failsafes.
I pat a squat scanner with enough of a magnet to be useful. “This’ll work if I reprogram it.”
“How long will that take?” Nic-coal’s frequent glances into the bowels of the hunk of metal the Nexas calls a ship reveal her nervousness.
“If you keep him sedated for three Earth hours, that should cover it.”