6. Chapter 6
Marissa could tell she was getting to him. Unfortunately, she was irritating herself, too. Something about pointing out all the things wrong with their situation so they both had to face it head on was at war with her desire to get to know Cooper better.
His ship was amazing. The little bits and pieces she could tell he’d picked up locally fascinated her because it gave an insight to his mind. She wanted to know all about who he was, where he was from, how he’d grown up and what his people were like. For a scout stranded behind enemy lines, he had a fantastic sense of humor and an upbeat attitude she didn’t think anybody else could match.
She had so many questions for him and she resented that she needed to use her time with him to goad him into giving her up.
“What can I say? I like planting things,” she said with a shrug. “What made you want to become a scout? Did you keep getting into things you weren’t supposed to?”
He shook his head. “No, my clutch was destined to be soldiers of some variety. Mostly because our Egg-layer was a highly decorated recon scout, and we were her only clutch that hatched successfully. With as much work as they’d put into developing her, there wasn’t any other choice.”
Marissa stared at him for a long moment. “I don’t know what’s worse,” she said. That I understood what you were saying or that I am simultaneously pissed off and intrigued by how you were raised.”
“It’s a bit different from a human childhood,” he agreed.
“Different? It’s completely…” Her voice trailed off at the obvious finish to that thought.
“Alien?” he suggested.
She flushed. “Yeah, that.”
“Well, what a shock that I, an alien to your planet, would have an alien childhood,” he said.
“Sounds like you’ve got a pretty firm grasp on sarcasm,” she said.
“Sarcasm is universal, as far as I’ve been able to tell.”
“Fine, so you were destined to become a soldier from, what, the egg?” At his nod, she continued her questions. “But why a scout? Why not, I don’t know, do your people have some kind of paperwork position?”
“We do,” he said. “But they’re not exactly highly sought after positions. If it’s your first job after maturation, it usually means that you didn’t finish the way they wanted you to.”
“Okay, who’s this ‘they’ that you keep referring to? Who makes these decisions? Older Chelions? Some kind of advanced AI?”
“The Dragor, mostly,” he said. “They’re the ones who developed the important technology, discovered the second maturation process, and guide the rest of the planet. In turn, the Chelions make up the bulk of the military and labor positions. The Ranel who can manage to interact with the rest of polite society tend to do the rest.”
“So it’s a caste system,” Marissa said, dread building in her belly.
“Not the way you think of it. It’s not arbitrary. The Dragor who presided over my hatching and guided my clutch as nymphs also guided our Egg-layer and hers before her. He knows what skills we need to learn and train from the moment we open our eyes to become the best expression of our genetics. And when my sisters are ready to be Egg-layers, he’ll induce their second maturation and find them an appropriate donor.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Marissa said. “You guys are bred in a lab? You didn’t know your parents at all? How did I trigger your extra special adult puberty if it’s supposed to be done by some guy in a lab?”
“I don’t know how you did it,” Cooper admitted. “I know, in general, that it’s possible for it to happen naturally. If a Chelion hasn’t ever left the planet or missed the blockers during their first maturation cycle, they can be triggered by another Chelion in the same situation. It’s how we find whole clutches of Chelion raised outside of the cities. It’s incredibly rare, though, and most of those nymphs end up with such terrible deformities that they die during their first maturation. And even if they don’t, they haven’t been guided in such a way that they’re able to take their place in society.”
Everything about his explanation felt wrong but Marissa couldn’t put her finger on why. If it worked for them, why did she want to rampage through the entire system and kick it over. It was on another planet and didn’t involve her at all.
“And you think I’m your mate because I triggered this second maturation for you,” she said slowly.
“Yes,” he said.
“What does that mean, exactly?”
“For me, it means that I’m physically able to release my seed to fertilize your eggs. For you, it means that you can release eggs that can be fertilized by my seed.”
Marissa struggled with her next question but it just came out as a shaky “How?”
“Well, I’m still working out how certain parts of the human female anatomy works but I understand your species does release eggs.”
“Technically yes,” she said. “So, what, that means that we’re theoretically physically compatible? Genetically?”
“Oh, more than theoretically,” he said. “Once you triggered my second maturation, my body started doing everything it could to make sure we could produce offspring. It will be easier once I’ve incorporated some of your genetic material into my own and-”
Marissa jumped to her feet and backed away from him. “What the fuck? What do you mean incorporate my genetic material? How the fuck does that work?”
He looked confused at her panic. “The same way it works for humans, I think. What else is the purpose of kissing?”
“Kissing?”
“Yes, kissing. I understand there is a great deal of meaning and ritual around the process but it seems to trigger the same exchange of genetic information that my people use to introduce an appropriate donor to an Egg-layer.”
“Yeah, that’s not exactly helping,” she told him.
Cooper started pacing again. “I’m explaining it badly,” he said. “Your reactions tell me this is outside of your experience and I understand that but it’s not weird and should not be off-putting.”
“Dude, your people don’t mate for life, they are introduced in a lab by exchanging specimens. And you need so much care growing up that you’re raised by scientists and doctors instead of parents. Nothing about that sounds appealing or like a good reason to kidnap me.”
“No, that’s just it, the scientists and doctors are there to make sure we don’t mate for life. When a second maturation is triggered spontaneously, unless there is immediate intervention, Chelions will bond with the person who triggered their maturation and no one else. Ideally, that would guarantee happy pair bondings the way your people have romanticized, but it ended up with predatory harems. Males who would seek unprotected females to force into their second maturation and force them to carry clutch after clutch. Females who would create armies who were slavishly devoted to her for the chance to have their own nymphs hatch.”
“So, who triggered the Chelions at the center of these harems?” Marissa asked. ”And how did they do it?”
“What?” Cooper stopped pacing and stared at her.
“If they only bond to the person who triggered their second maturation, it would stand to reason that they couldn’t bond to anyone else, right? So they had someone who triggered their second maturation but didn’t bond them which let them trigger a bunch of others who ended up bonded to them but who they didn”t bond to exclusively.”
It was a thought he’d never had before. She could see it in his face, feel it in his reaction to her, and it started others. The cascade of emotions that poured through his expression told her he needed more than a few moments to process her questions.
“I don’t know,” he finally answered. “But they were horrible for everybody involved and the Dragor figured out how to stop them. Doing it this way has been better for all the Chelions.”
“And the Dragor have free reign to develop their ideal soldiers, and workers, and servants all the while being hailed as heroes for doing so. Winning all around, sounds like,” Marissa said. “But what does that have to do with me?”
“Ah,” Cooper let out a shaky breath. “That’s where it becomes a little complicated. See, part of the Chelion pair bond is psychokinetic, which means that I feel what you feel and vice versa. The closer we are, the more we feel it. So when you hit me, you felt it the way I did. I can block it a bit but the longer we’re together, the stronger the bond will get.”
“So even without an exchange of genetic material, we’re already bonding,” Marissa said. “Obviously, the Dragor have figured out how to avoid this when they”re introducing a couple. Is there any way to stop it once it”s been triggered?”
“Not with the supplies I have with me. Maybe if we could get back to my planet in time someone could break it but it would be unpleasant and there’s a chance one of us wouldn’t survive the process. Probably me, actually. I didn’t know humans could create this kind of bond and I doubt anybody else did, either.”
“Well, that’s kinda fucked up,” Marissa said. And meant it. Everything he’d told her about how his people manage procreation gave her the creeps. And she didn’t exactly want to meet any of the Dragor at this point, either. If they lived as long as Cooper implied they did, it couldn’t mean good things for the people they experimented on.
“You take the good with the bad, really,” Cooper said with a shrug.
Marissa was about to retort when his brow creased and he pulled his phone out of his pocket. It was still attached to the alien thing he’d stolen from the base.
“Well, that didn’t take long,” he said.
“Is that your ride?” she asked.
“Nope, it’s yours.”