Chapter Three #2
“Ra was the first, Kethen the second, and then there were four more. All of the first elders drink blood from their mate.”
“So saving on the food budget. Understood.” She held her arms out and looked down her body. “Oh, that’s where they drink from.”
They smiled weakly. There wasn’t anything they could say to that.
“Would the assembled care to know anything? I am getting better at this.”
The finned woman raised her hand, and Aubrey smiled. “The boy and three sisters will hatch on time, despite what they endured.”
The woman covered her mouth, and her fins moved rapidly. “Thank you.”
“You have four months before they show.”
The woman laughed happily.
The rest of the council raised their hands, and one of the older males made her pause. “I see a slow walk with crimson flags. Faces are sober, and children are quiet and being carried.” She focused. “There is a Hmrain carrying a woman who is limp in his arms.”
The man sighed. “Presko’s companion of seventy years has become tired.”
“What?”
The finned woman said, “It is what is said when a consort or companion no longer wishes to live. They release their ties to this world.”
“Oh. Oh no.”
The man collected himself and said, “Do you know when?”
“She is already gone. My vision was of the ceremony.”
“Ah. They will have the ceremony in seven days. He will honour her body for what it has provided for him; her name will be recorded on cenotaphs around the world. Songs will be sung, and the people and her Hmrain will remember her.”
“That is sad.”
“My people do not have long life spans. When we first met Presko, we lived until thirty. With his efforts, we increased our lifespans to fifty. I am forty, and I am looking forward to the last ten years with my grandchildren.”
“So, the honoured companion was about one hundred?”
“Correct.”
“That is the outside option for my species. We begin losing our strength around sixty and decline after that. Of course, if you are female, your cycles stop between forty-five and fifty-five, and you go crazy for quite a while before it all grinds to a halt.”
They blinked. A pale woman on the side said, “You are all rapid cyclers?”
“We are. Well, if a woman is healthy and everything is normal, which it hasn’t been for a lot of women after surviving.
If we lose too much weight, it all stops; if we gain too much weight, it doesn’t stop, but it isn’t easy.
Fat issues hormones that mess with things.
It is still possible, but never mind. I am sure your doctors can tell you by now. ”
They smiled gently. She smiled. “I am a wait-and-see case.”
One of the men said, “Oracle, this is highly unusual, but would you consider speaking to some of your people? Some of them are highly agitated, and we are having a difficult time calming them down.”
She smiled. She suspected she knew who they were referring to.
“Adults or children?”
“Adults and children. The adults are stirring things up as they go through orientation.”
“I see. I can speak to them now if you like. I will need to take at least four guards in when I do. Two or more will attack me.”
The council looked startled and called in the head of her guard.
They were briefed as to her next stop, and Aubrey got up, inclined her head, and walked out with her new elf-style robes fluttering.
She felt quite pretty and very flammable, but pretty.
Sleeves and skirts fluttered with every movement, and the dress was cut to expose her new marks.
They walked to the orientation area, and she sailed in without pausing until she got to the person in charge of the room. The humans all went quiet.
The organizer sighed in relief. “Lady, there are some here who are insisting on being set free immediately. They don’t seem to grasp that we are on a space station.”
“I understand. Shall I speak to the group at large?”
“Please.”
She was handed a delicate wire and spoke into it, in English. “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I am here to answer questions that you may have about the station and what happens next.”
Avery stalked forward. “What the hell did they do to you?”
“Ah, Avery. My little sister. They did nothing. My fondest wish was not to be mistaken for you anymore, and they made it happen. Of course, I inherited the genes that made it possible, and yours are dormant. Too bad, so sad.”
Avery stared. “You...”
“You have used me to hide any number of illegal activities over the years. Always claiming that I was the perpetrator and crying when Mom and Dad asked questions. They are still alive, you know. They are on Huraxia. They run a small beverage shop, like a boba stand.”
One of the rougher men from the back said, “I want out of here!”
Aubrey looked at him. “The only thing outside of this vessel is space. If you don’t believe it is space, you are welcome to jump out an airlock, and your dead and frozen body might return to Earth. Maybe.”
She addressed the room and said, “Everyone here has survived the end of the world. This is a new start. What you must remember from here on out is that you are the minority. You are expected to learn the language of your new world. Learn the customs of your new world. Learn to work on your new world, and that trying to keep the bloodlines pure is a stupid idea. Humanity as we know it is over, and unless you end up on a breeder colony where you have a partner for a set amount of time until you generate a child, and then you and your partner break up and go to opposite ends of the new world so that you can each have another child with a new partner, and repeat it four or five times until the males are neutralized and the females are retired, with their children being registered and put in a creche. In that case, you will literally be a human factory. Oh, and you will still need to hold down a job.”
The folks looked appalled.
“Now, what the station is going to do is prepare you like you are going on an international exchange program, except it is one way. They will give you languages, education for a variety of occupations that you actually have an aptitude for, dance, deportment, food, and clothing. This comes at a cost. This station is not a charity. A world that wants you on it contacts the station and offers to pay your bill. The bond price. What you do when you arrive with a registered bond is get to work. The majority of bonds are earned out in less than five years. At that point, if you want to, you can save to switch worlds and go to join friends and family if you can get the travel access. Worlds don’t want you if you can’t be useful. ”
A teen girl raised her hand. “What if we aren’t adults yet?”
“A caretaker will be assigned. Someone that you trust. Someone whose bond depends on making sure you are fed, clothed, and educated. Basically, someone who will be a space nanny until their own bond is complete, usually when the child becomes an adult. You won’t be alone.”
The girl smiled and looked at some other unaccompanied minors.
“The price of being a caretaker is fairly high, so any single person would earn their bond out fairly quickly.”
Avery’s cronies were busy staring at Aubrey, so Aubrey said, “Ask questions; I will answer them. Ask the oracle anything.”
She answered questions for two hours and then had to stop for a check-in at medical. Several of the ladies opted to come with her. The humans were all calmer.
The humans had their own escorts, and they were walked through the facility to the waiting medical bay.
Today, she was getting her formal Hmrain compatibility assessed.
Aubrey sat as the male with yellow skin and silver eyes approached and asked to touch her hand. She gave permission, and waves of heat washed through her mind and formed an inferno between her thighs.
The assessor lifted his hand and swallowed weakly. “I have never said this before, Lady, but a perfect score. If I did not know better, I would say you were one of the old ones yourself.”