The Druid Gene (9 page)

Were they all lost? Had they all given up hope? Then she saw that individual’s eyes travel down to her hands and widen, his or her apathy transforming into surprise.

In that split second Darcy looked down too, and felt the same way. Her fingertips were alight and crackling with blue flame.

It wasn’t over. Hain had just told her she had powers of some sort. She should be able to use them somehow, right? Desperate times…

No more time to think. They were closing in. There was nowhere left to run.

She switched gears and changed direction again, heading straight for the hymenoptera in direct line with the nearest door. Instinct hurtled her into them, hands palm-out before her, energy surging through her. As she closed the gap, blue sparks jumped from her fingertips and arced across the distance between her and the hymenoptera. It felt like slow motion as she watched their shiny green bodies seize up and fall in a heap.

She darted around them, but her feet fell heavily and were difficult to pick up again. Her energy flagged. Momentum kept her going, but her limbs were too leaden to lift and her muscles felt like rubber bands. It was like she’d been swimming too long and was emerging, exhausted, from a pool. All buoyancy gone, the weight of the world was pulling her down.

She tumbled like a rag doll. She tried ineffectually to bring her hands up to protect her head as she body-slammed the second hymenoptera. He creaked under her weight. There was little give there. His chitinous exoskeleton was dense and tough. She rolled into a limp heap on the other side, panting.

Some energy returned to her limbs and she forced herself up on hands and knees, turning toward the door. She gritted her teeth and struggled to her feet.

But she had taken too long to get back up. She felt a pincer close around her arm and froze before it clamped down hard enough to rip her flesh. She turned toward her captor and tried to summon the energy again. Her fingers tingled with it.

Then she felt the shock stick poke into her ribs and everything went white.

I
t had
to have been days since they’d shut her up in a box only slightly bigger than a coffin. It was dark and soundproof like a sensory-deprivation chamber. She didn’t bother to scream for help. She knew there was no help coming.

Logically, she could see their dilemma. They couldn’t leave her in the same room with the others and they wouldn’t kill her because she was worth something. So, clearly, they’d attempt to break her spirit.

Let them try.

At first she’d just huddled at one end to keep warm, shifting and moving as parts of her got painful or went numb, dozing and trying not to think too much. She spent a fair amount of time talking herself out of going nuts from claustrophobia, sometimes out loud.

The interior of the box was smooth. It felt like it was made from plastic-coated metal. It was cool to the touch and seemed to steal her warmth wherever it made contact with her bare skin, though the ambient air temperature was just shy of comfortable.

After a number of hours she clicked the button on her garment and loosened it until it was as big as she could make it and then cocooned herself in it to keep warmer. It didn’t make the hard floor of the box any softer, but being warmer was a significant improvement and she grew accustomed to sleeping curled up in the corner with her head against the wall.

She felt every square inch of the box several times with her fingers, looking for any kind of weak point. There were a couple of places where holes had been cut out and covered with plates. She pressed on those, leveraged her whole body against them, tried kicking them in so hard that she was afraid she’d broken a toe, but they weren’t giving. She never even made a dent.

She spent hours doing isometric exercises, isolating and naming each muscle group, working it to the point of quivering cramps to keep her mind busy and her body from seizing up from inactivity. She’d move on from there to other systems, reciting all the facts she’d been cramming into her brain for the past two-plus years.

She was afraid to think about the power she’d manifested before they locked her up, and did whatever she could to distract herself from thoughts of it. It was difficult, though, not to replay that moment over and over in her mind while clenching her hands into fists as if that could prevent the tingly sensation in her fingertips from ever returning.

Once she felt something very strange. She didn’t know what it was, but it seemed to shudder through her body in a wave. She couldn’t be sure she wasn’t imagining it.

Occasionally someone shoved food in and shut the door before she could react, and she ate the tasteless food silently in the inky blackness because there was no other choice.

She considered different strategies she might try and ultimately settled on pretending to have learned a lesson in hopes that they’d put her back on the floor with the other prisoners. That would afford a greater chance of maintaining her sanity and the best opportunity for another escape attempt.

Darcy heard something and opened her eyes, blinking against a sudden influx of dazzling light. The door had swung open and, unexpectedly, stayed that way.

“What?” Her voice croaked from disuse. She cleared her throat.

“Well, come on, now.” The voice sounded impatient, but the individual had stepped back from the door and she couldn’t see who was speaking yet. It wasn’t one of the hymenoptera. This was someone new. The voice was low-pitched, with an accent she hadn’t heard before. It sounded male, but she was afraid to assume anything. “Do I have to ask twice?”

“No!” She scooted quickly toward the opening.

The voice drawled on, lazily, “There’s no point in zapping me, by the way. I’m locked in here with you. I’m a prisoner too.”

She got to the point where her feet were sticking out of the door and hesitated. Prior to this moment, she’d never even gotten a glimpse out that door. She had no idea how far she was from the floor, and she couldn’t sit up to look because there wasn’t any clearance. If she went out feetfirst, she could break an ankle. She started to pull them back in so she could ease around and see what she was heading for.

“Hold on. I’ve got you.” The voice sounded exasperated. She flinched as large, cool hands slapped her legs and got a firm grip on them.

“I—okay.” If this person was letting her out of that hellhole, then she’d just have to trust.

“Slide down. You won’t fall.” The voice sounded dry and slightly annoyed.

She slid down and found herself in the embrace of a large and extremely hirsute individual. He smelled strongly of musk and his body was hard with corded musculature. He set her feet on the floor and she took a couple of steps back from him, wrapping her loose garment around her like a robe, seeing all of him for the first time.

“Oh, you—you are—you—”

“Yes?” He shrugged listlessly, eyeing her lazily with cobalt blue eyes.

“Your anatomy is like mine—similar, at least, I think.” He wasn’t human, that was for sure, but very close—certainly he was the most human-looking individual she’d seen since this nightmare began.

She cataloged their similarities and differences. His face was masculine with a square jawline and a sandy-brown complexion. He was a lot taller than her and solidly built. He wore a white jumpsuit like most of the other captives. An almost-leonine mane topped his head like some kind of eighties guitar hero. It, as well as the downy hair covering most of the rest of his exposed body, was the same dusky tan shade as his skin. Most notable was his eye color—such a vivid shade of blue, they stood out starkly against his otherwise monochromatic features.

He frowned. “It’s unlikely that we could breed.”

Her mouth opened for a few seconds before she could even speak. “Oh, I—no, no, no, no, no. That’s not what I meant.”

He eyed her skeptically.

As she looked closer at his face, she realized his skin had a blue undertone that also colored his lips and the whites of his eyes. She remembered he had been cool to the touch as he helped her down. She began to wonder if he was ill, perhaps needed treatment. “Are you cold? I mean, your lips are blue.”

“Your lips are red. What does that signify?”

“I—”

He looked bored. “We may have similar lineages, but my people evolved on a colder world than yours, with low oxygen pressure and little environmental iron. My blood primarily carries oxygen on hemocyanin. So most of the time it’s blue. Yours is red.”

Most of the time?
She blinked. “Oh, that’s fascinating.”

“If you say so.”

She had to stop staring. She turned to take in the rest of the space. It was long and narrow, basically a hallway with a door on each end. The side walls were punctuated with openings in rows and columns. Each led to a cell like she’d just emerged from.

Hers was the only one with a door, and it seemed clear that the door had been added as an afterthought, to imprison her. The rest of the pods were open to the hallway. It reminded her of pictures she’d seen of Japanese capsule hotels. She stepped closer to inspect one at eye level. There was something in there coating the inside that rounded the interior out. Was it some kind of insulating material? She furrowed her brow and touched the dark-grey lining. It crumbled under her touch, releasing an earthy scent. It was a claylike substance.

She turned back to the man, who was standing there with a questioning look. “What is this place?”

“These are overflow hymenoptera quarters. The cell they stuck you in was the only one that hadn’t been used yet. They didn’t want you stinking up one of their chambers. There is a cell down there incubating eggs.” He gestured toward the end of the short hallway.

Her eyes widened. “Eggs? Hymenoptera eggs?”

He didn’t answer. She assumed that was confirmation.

“Can I see them?”

“You are a curious little thing, aren’t you?” he said with a slight crook of his lips. “That could get you in a lot of trouble.”

“My name is Darcy.”

“I know.” He folded his arms and watched her with half-lidded detachment.

“Do you have a name?”

He sighed like the formality was a waste of time. Finally, he shrugged and said, “The name given to the juvenile I once was, was Raub.”

That’s a weird way to tell someone your name.
She continued to look at him expectantly, but he wasn’t forthcoming with more information.

She wandered down the hall, peeking into every cell until she found the eggs. They were slightly larger than footballs, mostly opaque, and to her surprise they weren’t completely stationary. She could see dark, amorphous shapes in there. The little critters twitched occasionally, causing the entire mass of eggs to vibrate sporadically.

“When do they hatch?”

“Not for a few spins.”

“Spins?”

“Standard days.”

“Then what happens to them?”

“You seem to be more curious about their fate than your own, Leebska.”

Leebska?
The word didn’t translate. Everything he said seemed to be loaded with a sneer. She probably didn’t want to know what it meant, but she asked anyway. “Leebska?”

He screwed his mouth up and eyed her thoughtfully. It seemed like there was a hint of humor in his gaze. “It’s a term for a youth, a student, in my native language.”

She frowned. His assessment wasn’t inaccurate, so she didn’t have a foundation for any kind of retort. “What is to be my fate?”

“A question for the ages. I’m not a philosopher. In the short term, I can offer you sustenance, cleanliness, and sanitary relief.”

He took her by the arm and led her to one end of the hallway. She followed gratefully. She’d been holding it for what felt like days and she was extremely uncomfortable. The door opened and they went through. This was a hub with several doors. He tapped another door control next to one of them and gestured toward it. “Relieve yourself, clean up, and then I’ll meet you back here for a meal.”

She stepped toward the open door, then turned. “Why have they sent you, instead of a hymenoptera, to tend to me?”

He narrowed his eyes. “You really don’t know?”

“No.”

“There’s a reason you don’t see many hymenoptera electricians, Leebska. Their primitive central nervous systems can’t handle even minor electrical discharges.”

She stopped breathing. She felt the blood drain from her head. “What?”

“You killed three hymenoptera in your escape attempt.”

She stumbled into the washroom until she felt the wall at her back.

His voice was cold. She barely registered it. He said, “Take your time.”

The door closed between them.

S
he stared
at herself in a mirror mounted to the wall. A look of utter shock was reflected back at her.

I have murdered.

Her hand moved to cover her mouth.

I didn’t mean to. I didn’t. I just wanted to be free.

A sob escaped from her lips.

I’m a murderer.

A tear trembled on her lashes.

How can I even process this? I’m supposed to do no harm. I’m supposed to help people, heal people.

The tear fell, followed quickly by many more. She watched them and made no move to wipe them away.

It was an accident.

She trembled violently.

Was it? Or was it arrogance? I didn’t think it through. I didn’t make a plan. I didn’t try to practice using this power to see what it was all about. I just leapt with both feet like I always do.

She sank to the floor. She hugged her knees to her chest as tightly as she could.

It was instinct, self-preservation.

She began to rock.

Except I wasn’t in any immediate danger. I didn’t know where I was going or what I was doing. In that moment, my pride was threatened, not my life.

It all felt so hopeless. In her desperation she’d been so reckless. She just wanted her life back. She wanted to wake up from this nightmare, to find herself in her cozy apartment in Phoenix with her sleep mask over her eyes because the morning sun coming through the east-facing window in the bedroom that she shared with Adam was so relentless.

Oh, God…

The day in the gorge when she’d touched the stones haunted her. She dreamed about that moment incessantly, her body pinned to the stone and something happening that she couldn’t understand—still didn’t understand. Everything had changed in that moment. It had brought her here somehow to this place. To these circumstances.

She wanted so desperately to go back and refuse to go on that hiking trip.

But the stones hadn’t made her impulsive. That was on her. It was the part of herself that she hated most. Now more than ever. She’d never intended to be careless. It just seemed to happen. She got caught up in feelings, in the rush of the moment. How could she stop doing that? How could she change? How could she keep herself from being so rash in the future?

Thoughts churned relentlessly, tumbling over and over themselves as she sought to make sense of what she’d just been told. She twitched violently as a heavy thud sounded on the exterior door. She heard Raub’s muffled voice coming through it. “I said take your time, not take an epoch. Delay much longer and I’ll come in there and scrub you clean myself.”

She scrambled to her feet, swiped her face with her hands, and smoothed the resultant wetness over her jumpsuit. She slipped the jumpsuit off and threw it in one of the purifying tumblers that resembled a front-loading washing machine. It was exactly the same as the one she’d used in the infirmary. By the time she was done bathing, it would be clean.

She used the facility, then pressed the button that would produce the thing she’d come to think of as a yellow cleaning cube. It was dense, spongelike, and moist. She wiped herself down with it from head to toe, parting her hair carefully with her fingers and daubing it over her scalp, then she threw it down a recycling chute in the wall. Some of its moisture was left on her hair and skin, but primarily it left her with a mild static charge. All her hair prickled on end uncomfortably until she stepped onto the grate inside the ionic sanitizing enclosure. It sensed her weight and warm, ionized air whirled around her naked body, leaving her feeling clean and refreshed.

She shook her head. These ablutions, which had once felt so foreign and strange, were beginning to feel routine. Normally they induced a short-lived, nearly euphoric state. Not today, though. Today, her stomach churned and her heart thudded heavily as she removed her jumpsuit from the tumbler and settled it back into place. If she could no longer live with her thoughts, at least she could stand her own scent again. She’d gotten very ripe during the confinement. She felt much better in body, if not in spirit.

She avoided looking in the full-length mirror again, running her fingers through her hair absently, feeling for tangles, then pulling it back into its ponytail and going to the door to let herself back into the hub.

Raub lounged against the wall with his eye on the door. When she appeared, he straightened and turned without a word to open another door. There, a long, narrow counter-height bench occupied a room. At one end lay a pile of food cubes, a pair of squat plastic cups, and a couple of stools that were a bit short for the table. Raub sidled up to it and stood there, as though waiting for her to approach and join him.

His eyes bored into her. “There’s no need to be rude. Is there something amiss with the meal? I thought perhaps you’d like to eat like a civilized person. Was I wrong?”

She came forward, feeling numb and wooden. She didn’t know what he expected of her, but surely he wouldn’t drop a bomb like that and think she’d be unaffected. She sat down and Raub immediately sat as well, watching her expectantly.

She couldn’t meet his gaze for long. She kept looking up to the ceiling, hoping the tears she was fighting would drain away before they spilled over her cheeks.

“How long will you keep me waiting, Leebska? Is this some custom on your world—to delay consuming nourishment until your table partner is ready to consume you?”

“I—no. I don’t know your social customs. The…the…ah…” She darted a glance at him. His brow was raised.

She tried again. “The hymenoptera.”

She noticed for the first time that his eyelids were so thin as to be somewhat transparent. She could see a network of blue veins through his skin.

She felt a hot, fat tear slide down her cheek. Her lip quivered and she fought to tighten her lips. “I’ve always eaten alone until now.”

He stood suddenly, his stool clattering noisily to the floor. He grabbed her face, jerking it up and tilting it one way and then another, roughly. “What’s this?” he growled.

She pulled at his fingers, but he was strong and they wouldn’t budge. “What?”

“Your eyes are running sores.” He dropped her face and turned away, swearing soft and low. He turned back to her. “Hain will not be pleased if you aren’t kept in optimal condition. She will want to see this, run some cultures.” He grabbed her arm and moved stiffly toward the door.

“Wait!” She tried to pry his thick fingers from her arm. “I’m not sick.”

He turned and cocked a fuzzy brow at her.

“You’ve never seen tears before?” The word “tears” didn’t translate. It came out in English.

“Tiersz?” He looked skeptical. “Is this some kind of druidic self-abasement ritual before meals?”

She felt weary. “No, it’s a human expression of emotion.”

He steered her back to the table and stood there, aloof. “Human? They told me you were drudii.”

She sank back down onto the stool, shaking her head. “I guess I’m that, too. It’s complicated. I don’t really know who or what I am…or what I’m capable of.”
I’m black. I’m white. I’m human. I’m druid. What else am I?

He sat down and frowned at her. “Most individuals are capable of far more than they imagine.” He pushed a food cube at her. “Eat and then tell me of this human ‘tiersz’ emotion, if you must.”

She ignored the food. “I’m not hungry.”

He heaved a sigh that turned into something like a growl toward the end. “Can you at least take one bite, Leebska? I’m not permitted to eat unless you do.”

“Oh. I didn’t realize.” She broke off a small corner of the food cube and put it in her mouth. It tasted like sawdust. She chewed out of habit and let her hands fall to her lap.

“Finally,” he grumbled, tearing a chunk off of a dense cube and shoving it in his mouth. He eyed her malevolently for a moment, then said, “You’re like an adolescent, off your rock for the first time. I’ll try to remember that, though I have little experience with adolescents and less patience.”

She squirmed uncomfortably. After days of solitude, she finally had some freedom and company, but now she wanted nothing more than to grieve privately. “Why did they put you in charge of watching me?”

“That seems fairly obvious. You’re valuable, but can’t be left on the floor to stir up the stock. Normally they’d have either spaced you or confined you here under the care of hymenoptera, but Hain doesn’t want you killing the crew left and right and wreaking havoc all over the ship. I’m strong enough to keep you under control and more resistant to your…impulses than the bugs.”

She furrowed her brow. “But you said you’re a prisoner, too. Why do they trust you?”

“They don’t. They’re watching us, Leebska.” He gestured vaguely at the walls, as though they had eyes. “I’ve been on the ship a long time. They haven’t found a buyer yet that wants to pay what Hain has decided I’m worth. Like you, they couldn’t keep me on the floor with the rest.” He raised an eyebrow at her. “I killed a few more of the bugs than you did. But we’ve come to an accord. I remain docile as long as I receive certain perks. All bets are off when they find a buyer.”

A lump formed in her throat. She eyed him furtively. Every instinct she had from the moment she’d laid eyes on him told her to be wary of him. He moved with menacing catlike grace and a vaguely predatory air. His words had just confirmed that. He was a killer by choice.

She felt compelled to draw a distinction between them, to let him know that they were not the same. “That was an accident. I didn’t know what would happen when I… I…didn’t think it would kill them. I didn’t
want
to kill them. I just wanted to be free.” More hot tears escaped.

His eyes narrowed on her. “That was your first kill?”

She whispered, “Yes,” and buried her face in her hands.

His voice was cynical. “This emotion that makes your eyes leak, this is regret?”

She didn’t know why, but that made her laugh—a dry, humorless guffaw. It was just so ridiculous. “Yes. Regret. Sadness. Anger. Lots of emotions. Too many.”

He looked perturbed. “I see. This washes the emotions away?”

“Not exactly, but to a degree, I suppose that’s accurate. It’s more of a release.” She tilted her head at him. “How do your people cope with strong emotion?”

“Strenuous physical exercise is the preferred method to clear the mind and refocus. Some escape into sims. Others use drugs to alter the mind. I prefer to hit someone or kill something.”

She looked down at her hands to conceal her expression. He was disturbing.

He seemed to sense her thoughts and pressed on them, like a finger gouging into a tender spot, with his next words. “Death comes to all.”

“I know that!” she said hotly, then softened her tone. “I was training to keep death at bay. I was supposed to be a medical doctor, not a murderer.”

“When one agrees to be complicit in pursuits such as slavery, one accepts that life may be capricious.”

She frowned. That made sense, but didn’t make her feel any better. “I suppose.”

“And they were just bugs, after all.” The way he said “bugs” made her think it was a slur. She’d heard that tone before and she didn’t like it. He watched her steadily.

Her head snapped up. “I don’t believe that. Different doesn’t mean inferior.”

It was so disappointing to find out the rest of the universe was just as full of greedy, amoral, bigoted bastards as Earth. Apparently achieving interstellar travel did not automatically mean that a species was morally evolved.

“Interesting. It seems their perception of you is skewed.” He popped a bite of food cube into his mouth.

His comment only confirmed what she’d suspected. The hymenoptera gossiped about her—and they all thought she was one of those bigoted bastards. It also told her something else. Raub was in their inner circle. She shook her head emphatically. “I—we got off on the wrong foot.”

“I don’t know about feet, but your legs are certainly as prickly as theirs.” His lips twitched. Was he suppressing a smile?

“What?” The fingers of her right hand slid down to her outer calf and she cringed. “I can’t shave them here like I normally do.”

He looked surprised. “You remove your body hair? For what purpose? For speed gain in sport?”

Her eye was drawn to the velvety hair covering his beefy arms and the strange juxtaposition of that. “No, it’s a cultural thing. For beauty.”

“Beauty? How is such a contrivance beautiful? Nature is beautiful. Why alter yourself in such a manner? Do all of your people do this?”

She absently brought a crumb to her lips. “No. Just the women.”

“Adult females only? Does this signal estrus to the males?”

She accidentally inhaled the crumb and started coughing. He watched her with narrowed eyes and shoved one of the cups filled with water closer to her. She took it gratefully and sipped carefully between coughs.

Her face felt hot. “No. It doesn’t signal anything. It’s just expected. If a grown woman doesn’t shave her legs, it’s considered odd. We begin to do it around puberty and never stop.”

“This is a consequence of oppression, of patriarchy?”

She wanted to say no, but she found herself nonplussed. She’d never questioned it. It was just how things were done. Now she was free of bras and shaving, but she was in a far worse situation. She’d gladly embrace both of them, if she could just be home again.

She decided to ignore his uncomfortable question and ask her own instead. “Is your culture a patriarchy?”

He nodded as if she’d answered him in the affirmative and was slow to reply, taking his time chewing another bite of food. “No. It is not. Within my species, the genders are of comparable size and equally fierce fighters, though fighting style may vary greatly. There’s virtually no dimorphism between the sexes. Females need no protection during gestation, nor assistance rearing young, though one may form a cooperative if that is her inclination. There’s equal representation among our leadership, such as it is.”

That sounded amazing, except for the fighting part. She couldn’t help but wonder what a female of his species looked like. She tried to imagine him with a slightly more feminine appearance. Perhaps, she mused, the females simply looked more feline. She shouldn’t have been staring so hard, but it was hard not to. Her thoughts raced with questions about his anatomy and physiology, his culture, his world, and how he had come to be on the ship.