Chapter 2
TWO
DOM
My scales crawl with sweat as I heft a heavy stone block up and onto my shoulder.
Settling under the weight, I check the sensations I’m sharing up the bond connecting me to my wave brothers.
I don’t want to send them the ache of my muscles, but I’ll pull Arik’s weariness into myself so he feels better.
And he does, sighing next to me. ‘Deep gratitude,’ his mental voice implants into my conscious thoughts. Arik’s emotions vibrate with excitement, tinged with a yellow as bright as the flowers blooming around El-len’s farm.
‘Of course,’ I reply. Arik and I are the Bases grounding our Apex, Nevare. He’s as oblivious as always, humming to himself while he moves the blocks. I’m steadily taking his exhaustion too, flexing my muscles to check it’s not too much for me. It won’t be.
His mind is a swirl of impressions exploring the miles around us, riding in the clouds with a flying lesser life form, before listening intently to the wavelengths of light the humans use to send out primitive comms. I can only skim the surface before my head hurts; I'm not much of a psychic, except when Nevare helps me.
My Apex straightens up, the block of stone he holds carelessly slipping out of his fingers. I drop my own load and lunge for his, but I’m too late.
It slams onto his foot.
I divert the actual physical damage from him to me, and my foot throbs with a flash of agony.
“Drok na,” I mutter.
‘Hm?’ Nevare is still distracted.
‘Nothing,’ I send to him, limping to the wall so I can lean against it and inspect the damage.
The adjusted force crushed some of the small bones at the top of my foot, but the healing nanites crawling around my circulatory system are already making their way toward it to fix them.
They don’t give out much psychic energy, but I track them as they pulse in my body, collecting together to travel down my calf to the break.
While I’m still, I catalogue how many uneven blocks we have left.
Gara will need to produce more using the plascrete laser in the craft we landed in.
Correction: crashed to this planet in. Meant to deliver us to our exile and then return, the shuttle has advanced manufactory technology not found on this world.
It allows us to ‘print’, as Arra-bellah says, the materials that we need to build this barn to the female’s specifications, a mission I am dedicating myself to.
But once we’re done, what then? The pain lessens in my foot, and I wish it wouldn’t. Having it focuses me on the present.
‘Arra-bellah.’ Nevare sends us a picture of the tiny red-headed human, along with an impression of her thoughts, too fast to follow and nauseating to sit in for long. ‘Coming.’
My chest tightens. Women are the reason for our existence, they're our rightful leaders and task-setters.
They’ll know what to do.
Nevare hums. ‘Thoughts of green Gara at the top.’
Oh, no. When a female’s contemplations turn to one of us, that’s only bad news for the clone in question.
Arra-bellah told us—no, shouted at us—that things were different on Earth, but how different?
The uncertainty on the exact nature of relationships between females and males on this planet makes me feel I’m walking on shifting sands instead of solid, plascrete ground.
Being in a place I don’t understand, with no position, causes my emotions to churn, distracting me.
If I can’t stay alert and calm, I won’t be able to balance out Nevare when he needs me most. Arik and I could lose control of him.
‘Nevare going nova is not a certainty,’ Arik rebukes me quietly.
Drok na, I was broadcasting my secret fears.
‘Deep apologies,’ I send to him before snapping up my mental walls between us.
He shoots me a look, eyes as sad as the day we were banished. “Dom, don’t pull away from me.”
“I’m not,” I reply with a grunt. I’m protecting him. The weak link in our trio is me, and I need to find mental equilibrium in myself so I don't risk destabilizing my wave brothers.
Before Arik can argue with me, Nevare’s powerful psychic signal blasts us. I’m glad I’m leaning against the wall, because I would be falling from the power Nevare shoves our way.
It’s a series of images, snatches of mental snapshots. Golden hair blue eyes straight back sharp steps red lips.
“One of the other females,” Arik confirms, rubbing his temples, and I snatch that pain from him. My head pounds with a double headache, but at least Arik’s face is clear.
“It’s Oh-Law-rah,” I say. “She must be coming too?” I look at Nevare for confirmation but his mind has already wandered away.
I glance around our workstation. It’s as ordered as a construction project can be, stones stacked in one corner and the substance we’re using to bond the blocks together in a bucket.
The floor needs to be swept clear of dust, so I brush my hands on the plascrete mix, scraping away flecks of stone and dirt.
It burns my palms a little, but I let the sensation soak into me.
That, and the throbbing pain from my foot, help bring me out of my head and into my body.
Just as I finish, female voices ring out from the yard, coming toward us.
I snap silent orders to Arik and together we gently take over Nevare’s body, making him move to one side.
We are so practised at this, Nevare barely even knows it's happening. By the time the females reach us, we’re lined up along one edge of the wall in attention stances.
“Knock knock,” Arra-bellah says, bounding in. “Don’t mind us, we’re here for a look-see.”
Nevare eyes the tiny human. He touched her mind purposefully once before and it made us all nauseous with how fast it zips around.
‘Steady.’ I send soothing mental images, like the calm silver surface of the swimming lake in the afternoons, and he settles with a sigh of cobalt blue relief. Both Arik and I loosen our hold on him, the psychic movements synchronized from a lifetime of managing our Apex.
A clipped clicking heralds Oh-Law-rah’s arrival, and then she steps up onto the plascrete base of the structure we’re rebuilding. Her foot dressings are shiny and blood red, pointed in the front and arching up so her heel rests above a dangerous looking spike.
Perhaps she’s a warrior-type of human, as these are the only weapons aside from El-len’s shovel that I’ve seen them carry.
She wears dark circles on a piece of metal to obscure her eyes. Her golden tresses fall like a sunset-lit waterfall, mostly straight with a few waves. Each strand gleams even in the shadows, and my gaze tracks her as she explores the building.
Even though her attention seems to be on the structure, I feel I’m the subject of a personal inspection.
“You like the orangery I added?” Arra-bellah gestures to a low-walled area. “Once it's filled with glass, it'll be the perfect breakfast room.”
“Ellen's planning permission doesn't allow for this.”
Whatever that means, I can tell from Oh-Law-rah’s voice she’s displeased, and my stomach curls.
Laura continues, “Her planning permission is for the barn to be restored, yes, but in keeping with how it was originally. These additions… the council won't like them.”
Arra-bellah goes still. She’s constantly moving, so to have her frozen in place is an oddity, but I can comprehend why. I too would crumble at even the light condemnation in Oh-Law-rah’s tone. Hot discomfort lodges in my chest as if squirming to hide.
“I understand, but we can't have the aliens seen, right?” Arra-bellah gestures toward us, as if this is somehow our fault.
On Oloria, it would be. I prepare for the order to discipline my wave brothers. I’ll take the damage from the lash on their behalf.
But instead Arra-bellah continues, “The council won't know, will they? They're not psychic.”
Oh-Law-rah shakes her head, flaxen locks tumbling around her shoulders. She wears a crisp white covering highlighting the golden tone of her skin. “Only one person has to tell them, then you'll have to knock this down.”
Arik splutters. “Knock it down! I'd like to see them try.”
I elbow him sharply in the gut. ‘Silence,’ I command him.
“Ow,” he says, rubbing his stomach. Immediately I pull the pain from him, and my own stomach aches from the pressure of my blow.
“Well, it's good construction. It won't knock easily,” he gripes.
The females stare at us. The heat in my chest spreads up my throat.
Oh-Law-rah’s profile turns to her friend. “The construction isn't the issue. It's the design.”
“I, er… I’ve got to go.” Arra-bellah’s face and eyes redden, and she turns to escape. We’re left alone with a displeased female.
Drok na.
Oh-Law-rah turns her back to us, scuffing her shoes along the plascrete and murmuring, “Oh, Arabella.”
I get the impression we aren’t supposed to respond to that, but what else should we do?
Uncertainty in orders makes a prickling feeling start up in the back of my throat, wrapping around to choke me if I don’t understand quickly what I’m expected to do.
Parthiastocks aren’t meant to think for themselves or make decisions: we’re built solely to follow clear directives.
‘What do we do?’ Arik sends to me, an edge of panic to his mental voice.
‘Stand still,’ I tell him, and a blissful calm spreads like sunrise across the bond at the certainty my order has given him.
But I have no such peace myself, because I’m the one making decisions. What if I give my wave brothers the wrong order and send us to our doom?
Oh-Law-rah turns to face us, and this time her searching gaze turns onto us properly. Her blue eyes take us all in, and I lock my shoulders square, hoping to assuage her somehow.
“It seems you’re keeping your promise to be good,” she says.
“Yes, female,” I bark, staring over her golden head.
“Hm. Rather enthusiastic.” She pulls her eye glasses into her hands, revealing a blue gaze that pins me to the wall. She clicks the metal arms together as she watches me. “What do you want to do once you've fixed your ship?”