I mean, I have a vivid memory of writhing on his nude body. I know the weight of his balls, how his cock feels in my mouth. I know his taste and the fullness of taking him while arching my back.
But this is different.
That was then. I didn’t know what I was doing then.
This is now. When both of us clearly have our senses.
Although I guess he had his senses then too. I’m the only strange one.
He retreats.
I straighten awkwardly. The cut does feel better.
He gives me back the tube, capped. “It’s deep. You’ll need another application. And start treatment for Eruvisans parasites. They take a few goras to mature, but bloodworms will eat your skin off.”
That’s good to know.
My mind is reeling. I pull on a clean dress. It has a loose drape similar to his, but the closest color I have to oil-slick gray is eggshell blue. My feet slide into my flats.
He waits at the doorway. “Come.”
I grab the medical kit and carry it like a clutch. I wish it was ten times bigger and made of steel, but I’ve heard their blades can slice through literally anything, including plasma.
We stand abreast. I dare to look up.
He must have pulled back his cowl to peer into my nether regions, because his face is exposed again.
It is not what I expect. Smooth cheeks. Blunt, almost too-large nose, flat eyebrows tapered to a point at his temples, and a well-proportioned mouth. He’s not handsome, but ordinary. With his black hair, he’s almost Desi, maybe mixed. If it weren’t for the gray of his skin, I wouldn’t be surprised to pass him on the street.
But his eyes are too light. Pashtun.
“Show me the other rooms.”
“Of course,” I murmur, hardly knowing what I’m saying. “I’ll show you anything you want.”
He holds my gaze for a second too long. His eyes are silver-gray. Like his cowl, like the rest of him.
Then he turns away.
And I get this weird feeling. Yes, I assaulted the deadliest alien ruling the universe. But maybe, just maybe, I’m going to survive.
Four
Sithe
She unnerves me.
We walk through the hall of the cruiser. I keep her on my right within easy scything distance. Dividing my attention this way is a product of long training, but I do not remember such heightened awareness since my trials.
I still feel her fingers on my skin.
A shudder crawls up my spine.
This cruiser has the bilateral symmetry of a pollinating insect, which is why this type is called a harvester. The oblong open cavity in the center is surrounded by a colonnaded hall. Smaller storerooms, which these lessers have unwisely transformed into sleeping quarters, are the pollen seeds. They are supposed to be filled with raw materials to support space travel. A ship modified like this has nowhere to store supplies. It must make frequent stops.
Whoever sleeps in a storeroom that is breeched will not survive.
I enter the next storeroom. Again, it is not filled with supplies but with a puffy shelf, an odd moisture box that she called a shower, and assorted smaller objects.
She pauses in the doorway. “This is the bed of the housewife…” A delicate frown crinkles her forehead and makes my fingers twitch. Her brow clears. “Lia.”
Then she looks at the blades showing in my wrists and steps back.
Yes. Keep your distance.
You will not catch me unawares again.
She swallows.
I prowl through the room. Like the rest of the cruiser, it smells vaguely of lusteal, but there is no clear source. This room is largely identical to hers, down to the small square image of people baring teeth in some frozen rictus.
“That’s Lia’s husband and daughter.” The lesser’s voice remains even. “Her family.”
Such a strange concept. Family.
She backs away from the doorway, and I pass her, continuing around the colonnaded hall. Retracing my steps, I realize I am a different person from when I entered this cruiser.
In an emergency, the ship should lock down along the colonnades, sealing off each storeroom from the hallway and sealing the hallway from the central cavity.
Foul liquid drips from the pirates’ hull cracker; it was inserted at the rear where the hallway is narrowest, preventing the host ship from cutting off access to the inner cavities.
She wrinkles her nose.
I will keep my hood closed.
Slight vibrations under my feet indicate the engine room. I kneel and rest my hand on the square door, and the picture of what’s beneath appears on my tactical display. The combustion engines will have had to work harder to combat the moisture and environmental effluvia flowing from the Eruvisan ship, and also vacuum from my entry, because their breached airlock is likely not perfectly sealed.
Is it worth opening the engine room? I glance at her for the answer.
She titters awkwardly. “You want to see? I don’t know anything about the engines, but I can do my best.”
I do not know anything about engines either. “Is there anything strange about your fuel?”
“Fuel? I don’t think so. I could read about the engine, or we could pull in the captain’s pod. She can answer any questions so you can go away happy.”
I complete the circuit of the cruiser.
There is only one entrance to the bridge.
It smells worse now that the bodies have settled. Are there no cleaning robots on this cruiser? This mess will foul their ship as badly as the Eruvisans’.
She stays in the doorway while I operate the magnet that will pull in the escape pods. “Which is the captain’s?”
“Hm? Oh, it was the last one to leave the ship.”
The one floating closest, then.
The magnet controls do not respond.
They’ve been modified, like the cleaning routines.
And like the cleaning routines, that decision will kill them.
The decision to use the pods was bad anyway. They’re designed for limited use in atmosphere. No one should ever leave a ship in space. Better that salvagers find your charred body and mark your name on the list of the fallen than you drift, a deserter, to become a new asteroid among the stars.
As lessers, perhaps they do not share my fatalism. All life seeks to prolong itself just a little bit longer. Just on the off chance that they thwart fate and survive.
I expected to feel the compulsion of lust again inside this room.
However the Eruvisans passed the metal aphrodisiac from their stolen cargo to this lesser, it should have left residues in this room. On their bodies.
But I feel nothing.
Somehow, they deposited the lusteal within her without leaving a trace.
What does it mean?
More questions pile up.
There is a strange ache in the base of my spine just above my hips.
Questions like why don’t bother me very often.
But I am also never trapped with a creature I can’t trust or assaulted by impulses I can’t understand.
I am a blade. I am control. I fear nothing. Others fear me.
There is no more to be gleaned from this room.
“Did you call the captain’s pod back?” she asks as I pass, giving her a wide berth as always.
“No.”
“No?” Her pitch rises, and she lurches. “Why—”
I whirl. Bracers up, hood down, fingers spread so my blades are obvious and crossed.