Chapter Seven
The first morning after Amelagar had discovered her, she opened her eyes and found him standing next to the bed, bend over her, his forefinger tracing her ryhov from her jaw down her neck. Sensation rippled through her body, everywhere the ryhov ran. And it ran everywhere. Swallowing she pulled the covers higher to hide her response to his touch.
He straightened and stopped touching her, but didn’t move away. “I will ask you a question and you will answer positively and truthfully.”
He had a strange expression on his face and he opened his mouth and then closed it and pressed his lips together. It was as if he needed to say something, but didn’t have the courage. Or maybe he struggled how to say it. “Where did you live on Tundra?” He said it in a rush, as if he substituted the words for what he really wanted to say.
She blinked. “Uh … my family were allocated a place in the red zone.” Bitterness settled in her stomach. The clones called it a home, but it was little more than a shack. Clones lived in large mansions that resembled temples, but they begrudged her people the air they breath simply because they prefer to procreate naturally.
“Give more information.”
“Like what?”
“Why the red zone?” He seemed to think about it. “What is the red zone?”
Why did he want to know? Should she reveal so much of herself? “The clones said we were privileged because I showed an aptitude for science and math. They trained me and allowed my family quarters in the red zone.” They made it clear that her family would have quarters there if she toed the line. What if the clones killed her family when they realized she’d disappeared with the stolen ship? Maybe with the cyborgs revolting, the clones won’t have time to worry about her family. Maybe they would even need to employ more real Tunrians if they did not trust the cyborgs. “The red zone was made up of slums, but better slums than the other areas allocated to non-clones.”
Would her family blame her if the clones retaliated against naturals for the ships stolen by the cyborgs?
He stared at her and she wiggled uncomfortably. His stare was so fierce she had a hard time figuring out if he was staring at her or glaring. That glare was the one big difference, apart from their grey color, that was different from the clones.
He spun on his heel and left her staring after him. What was that about?
She opened her mouth to ask the doctor if she could use the bathroom and then she reconsidered. If she started asking permission for every little thing she did, they would expect her to continue doing it. She’d learned that lesson the hard way from the clones. If she hadn’t frequently disappeared into the crawl space the captain would’ve seen her and ordered her to his stateroom. She got up and took fresh clothes from her belongings that the cyborgs had allowed her to keep.
The doctor said nothing, but watched her until she could close the door behind her. She leaned against the door, her heart beating overtime and then she looked at the shower and hurriedly threw off her clothes and got into the bathing stall. After weeks of only washing with a cloth, it was like the luxurious paradise the goddess promised for those who remained faithful. Typical of clones, even the infirmary bathroom was the height of luxury.
She emerged feeling better able to face her situation. She tried not to think about never seeing her family again. It was too horrific to contemplate.
“Eat.” The doctor threw something on the bed next to her. She sighed and picked up the tube. Field rations. It was the one thing, well actually one of many things the clones did that she did not understand. Why develop field rations meant for soldiers when they have never been involved in a war. Except for wiping out the people on Tunria’s moon centuries ago? They built space ships and talked about exploration, but the ships were built for war. There was no mistaking that.
She squeezed some of the paste out and licked it out of the tube and shuddered. It was horrendous. It tasted like rotten vegetables. Back home a temple would sometimes malfunction and produce food that was unfit to eat. Now she knew what they did with the spoiled vegetables. Gingerly she squeezed out some more and forced herself to swallow it. She was going to need her strength.
Two hours later she was about ready to climb the wall. At least while she hid from the cyborgs she’d been able to keep herself busy learning earth languages and spying on the cyborgs.
“I know you have been into more systems than the regeneration unit,” Hamurabi said.
“I … uh—”She should’ve come up with a plausible excuse.
“Do not sit there. Make yourself useful and run a diagnostic of the regeneration systems.” He turned and went back to the adjacent office.
She jumped off the bed and went to one of the computer stations. Maybe if she made herself useful and gained his trust, he might allow her to assist with the new cyborgs they created. The cyborgs she wasn’t to know about. The cyborgs she very much feared were going to come online very, very wrong.
The door opened and Amelagar stepped into the infirmary. He stormed up to her, stood there glaring at her. She got the impression he did not know what to say. Or that he had something to say, but did not know how to say it.
“Do you have offspring on Tundra, clone?” he barked.
“No.” What was it with him and these questions?
Like that morning, he turned and stormed out.
She moaned softly and then forced herself to concentrate on the computer. Never in her life had she been as scared of anyone as this cyborg who’d casually broken the neck of the captain. And the thought that he saw her as a clone was not reassuring. If he became enraged, she would be the first one he went for. Did he get like that easily, or was it just the years of oppression that had made him turn into a killing monster?
She went back to pretending running a diagnostic while she updated the organic component of the ship. It needed to be improved because she was not going to be captured by clones.
She settled in for the night, wishing she had her own room. Maybe she’d wait another week or so and then request her own quarters. She was drifting away when his breath wafted over her ear. “Why did the clones allow you to work on the ship?”
She sat bolt upright and he jerked back before she could hit his chin with her head. “You scared the temple out of me.” How did he manage to walk all the way up to her without her noticing. At the very least she should have felt danger in the air.
“Answer me clone.”
“I am qualified in most of the Bunrika sciences. They needed my skills.” She eyed him carefully. One thing she’d picked up from spying on them was that they had massive insecurities. “And I’m not a clone,” she mumbled.
“What did you say clone ?”
“Nothing,” she muttered, wishing she had the spirit to take him on.
“How is it that a natural is capable of working on a space ship?”
She sighed. “I showed some ability with the sciences and they trained me to work for them. When they started the ships, they sent me there to work on the hybrid wiring.”
After watching her with narrowed eyes for several moments he stormed out. But he was back the next morning after she’d had breakfast. What did it say about her character that she was glad to see him while he looked as if he wanted to murder her. After she’d seen him kill the captain in cold blood. No, not cold, in a hot savage rage.
He stalked closer and it took every inch of her self-control not to flinch back. He stopped flush against her and leaned down, staring into her eyes and then looking at her face with an intensity that made every inch of ryhov on her skin tingle.
His lips pulled back in a sneer. “Clone.” He turned around and stormed out again.
Agrippa stared after him. Something was going on, but she had no idea what. It couldn’t be that he tried to interrogate her. Could it?
The next day he arrived right after she had showered. She’d showered the previous evening and was seriously considering taking one three times a day just to do something. The monitoring and adjusting she did on the ship took very little time. They did not give her deep access. Improving whatever of the ships systems she could gain access to didn’t take that much time.
Again he stormed up to the bed. She looked up at him tried not to flinch when she looked into those emotion filled eyes. At first she’d thought it was hatred glittering at her, but it was something else. An intensity so fierce, it cold almost be hatred.
He stormed up to her. “Good morning, clone.”
They were greeting now? “Good morning Cyborg 321?”
She held her breath. Would he retaliate, punish her?
He leaned down until his face was mere inches from hers. “Why are you small, natural ?”
She should be afraid, but she was fed up with his dislike of her. After all, she wasn’t the one who killed people with her bare hands. Or stole space ships. She lifted her chin higher and stared into his eyes without blinking. “We were both oppressed by the clones. Why would you call me by a name they imposed on us. A name every Tunrian finds offensive?”
“Why would you consider it offensive. You are a natural?”
He was clueless. “No, I am a Tunrian living the way Tunrians have lived before the clones tried to impose their unnatural ways on us. How would you like it if I keep calling you by the number the clones gave you.”
He wasn’t blinking and she wasn’t going to do it first, but her eyes burned with the need to bring down her lids. “Try it,” he said softly.
“Cyborg 321.
***
Outside the infirmary, Amelagar scowled at the cyborg standing there. “What?”
“Did you ask her?” Arakhu asked.
“No. You are acting like a nosy clone.”
Arakhu shrugged off his taunt and said. “You fear asking her?”
“I do not fear anything.” But he did fear her answer. “I will make her give me a soul.”
“How?” Arakhu didn’t try to hide his scepticism.
“I will order her to give me my sould. And I would make it clear there will be consequences if she refuse.”
“I am interested to know if that will work.”
***
It was the fourth day that he floored her with a demand that really scared her. He walked into the infirmary in that storming the temple kind of way and came to a stop in front of where she sat with her legs dangling of the bed.
“You will give me my soul. Now.” He planted his palms on the bed next to her thighs. Caging her, making her tremble with a mixture of fear and something she did not want to acknowledge.
If his demand didn’t scare her this much, she would’ve loved having him cage her in like this. It was like some of the fantasies she had about him. Except in her imagination, he desired her too.
He thought she might be able to give cyborgs souls? What would he do to her if she said no, she couldn’t? “You think you can have a soul?” She wanted to pluck out her own tongue the moment the words left her. It came out all wrong.
He grew bigger and his hands moved to her hips in a clasp so firm it was almost painful. “You think to deny me? You think because I am a cyborg I am not worthy of a soul? You think I am backward.”
Backward? “No, please, I did not mean that at all.”
“Then tell me exactly how you will put my soul in my body.”
Agrippa was speechless. But she’d better come up with something quick. “Uhm, I’ve never done it before. I need some time to prepare.” She had rudimentary knowledge of cloning. After persecuting the naturals – she hated being called that – for refusing to be cloned. Now they jealously guarded the technology and were only interested in persecuting her people. Allowing them to be cloned has been taken off the temple contract. It didn’t take a genius to figure out it was because the clones feared the naturals who did not have to deal with the outcome of being copies of copies.
Amelagar’s hand moved up her side, briefly brushed against the side of her breast and then clasped her neck. Her ryhov flowed to where his hands touched her. “I will return tomorrow.” He stared at her, unblinking, as if deep in thought. Should she just sit there. Stare back at him or maybe sidle away?
He gave one slow blink and said, “when I return you will tell me the procedure to give me my soul.” She wanted to scream at him that there was no reason for him to sound so suspicious. She’d never said she could give him a soul.
Amelagar leaned down. “We will practice conversation when I return.”
Whatever that meant she wasn’t about to argue. “All right.”
“We will practice kissing now.”
“All r … wait what?”
He pressed his lips against hers and then stepped back. As if he didn’t just press his lips against hers, he looked like the cyborg that had killed the captain with savage efficiency. “I have seen a cyborg receive his ryhov, do not try and fool me.”