I sighed. At only eighteen years old, there was a lot about the galaxy that Nichols had yet to learn. “His species is Vangravian,” I explained, keeping my voice low enough that Kade wouldn’t be able to hear me. “Dimari is more like his job title. It’s a Eumadian word that means slave, but a very particular type of slave. The Eumadians capture them as children and then brainwash them. But it’s not just training and positive or negative reinforcement. They have neuro-engineering technology that changes the structure and chemical functioning of the Vangravians’ brains. That’s how they get them to imprint on their masters. Once a dimari has been activated, they imprint on the first person they see, and then they’re irreversibly compelled to obey them for the rest of their lives.”
Nichols plopped down onto the ground beside the fire, then looked at the half-eaten protein bar in my hand. “Where did you get that?” he asked, sitting up straighter and leaning forward.
“Kade had a small supply of food with him when I found him. We brought what we could fit into our packs.”
I half expected him to ask if he could have one, but he switched back to his previous topic. “How do you know all about the dimari? I’ve never even heard of them before today.”
“Do you actually watch any of the news channels?” I asked, suspecting that I already knew the answer. Men his age wanted to know about the latest private space shuttle designs or the best hoverbikes, not which species were committing galactic code violations.
Nichols shrugged. “Sometimes. But not very often. But you said there are dimari living on Rendol 4, right? Then I should have at least heard of them.”
“There are only about a hundred on the entire planet,” Kent informed him, finally deciding to rejoin the conversation. Hopefully, that meant he was over his little tantrum and was willing to accept that Kade was here to stay. “In a population of a hundred million, that doesn’t make it very likely that you’re going to run into one.”
“And a lot of their owners keep them behind closed doors,” I added. “Either because they’re ashamed to have them, or because they don’t know what to do with them, so they leave them at home.”
“And why don’t they survive very long?”
“You could just look this up on the grid,” Kent told the young man. “There’s a wealth of information if you bother looking for it.”
“I could just go and ask Kade,” Nichols said, moving to stand up.
“Sit down,” I snapped, a little more harshly than I’d intended. “You will not, under any circumstances, be interrogating Kade about his status or his history. Or telling him anything about the situation with dimari on Rendol 4.” I glared at him, but I also knew that if he was going to listen to the advice, he would need to know the reasoning behind it. “Without exception, dimari bonded to Alliance owners commit suicide within a couple of years of arriving here. We don’t know why. Every couple of months, there’s a news report about another one that’s killed himself, and a heart-wrenching interview with the owner, stating that the dimari just kept getting more and more depressed, no matter what they tried to do to care for them.” My gaze flickered across to Kade and my gut lurched. He seemed so at ease today, confident, focused, even amused at times. Was I going to be forced to watch him deteriorate, until he eventually found life to be too horrendous to tolerate anymore?
“Do all dimari do that?” Nichols asked. “I mean, even the ones that aren’t with the Alliance?”
The question stopped me in my tracks. It was something I hadn’t ever really thought about. “I don’t know,” I said dumbly.
Nichols frowned, tilting his head as he thought about it. “It wouldn’t make much sense if they did,” he declared, after a few moments. “Why would the Eumadians put in all that effort to train them if they’re just going to self destruct within a couple of years? And why would anyone buy one? It would be like buying a hoverbike, knowing you could only use it for two years before it exploded.”
It was a somewhat insensitive analogy, but the point Nichols was making made a lot of sense. I pulled up my comm, adding in a reminder to look up the question once we arrived back at base. A weird little glimmer of hope flitted through my mind. If he was right, if other species who bought dimari managed to keep them for longer – for decades, maybe? – then perhaps the answer to how to look after them lay within the other species’ treatment of them.
“Why can’t we undo the imprinting?” Nichols charged right on, and flaming hell, the kid needed to learn to read a news report. I added another reminder to my comm, to speak to Colonel Henderson about implementing some sort of general knowledge education for Nichols, and perhaps for the other recruits at the same time. Alliance education was very thorough on the topics of Alliance politics and technological advancement, but anything that happened outside Alliance space was generally considered not important enough to fit into an already over-stuffed curriculum.
“Mind control technology is illegal in Alliance space,” Kent said. “Which is good, because it means that none of our colonies are going to start enslaving each other. But the downside is that it means none of us have a clue how the Eumadians actually achieve the results they do, therefore we have no idea how to reverse them.”
Footsteps got my attention, and I glanced up to see Kade and Vosh on their way back, having finished securing the tarp. “Don’t talk to Kade about this,” I reminded Nichols sharply. The kid was unpredictable at the best of times, so I was relieved when he merely nodded.
CHAPTER FIVE
Kade
My master’s conversation with the other two soldiers ended abruptly as Vosh and I approached the camp, and I took that to mean they’d most likely been talking about me. I was aware of the sideways glances and curious stares I’d been getting ever since my master had introduced me to his teammates, and also aware that Kent in particular didn’t seem happy with me being there. Perhaps it was a lack of confidence in my training. Perhaps he was jealous of my commitment to my master, given my occasional refusal to defer to Kent. Jealousy was something I’d been trained to deal with, though, and it had been a simple effort to ask for his advice on a few menial issues, attempting to make the point that I recognised his overall authority on this mission, even if my loyalty remained with my master.
Thankfully, it seemed that either my efforts or my master’s ability to talk him down had been effective, as he offered me a tight smile as I sat down beside my master and said, “Thank you. You’ve been a big help this afternoon.” I nodded genially to him, but said nothing else.
Vosh and Nichols hadn’t yet eaten dinner, so they both rummaged in their packs until they came up with food packets. Nichols opened his, but scowled at the contents. “Hey, Kade?” he asked, looking up at me. “Can I have one of your protein bars? I’m sick of jerky.”
I glanced at my master, not sure what to make of the request. He gave Nichols a pointed look. “Two of his protein bars are worth one of your meal packets. You can trade him, but you can’t just take what’s his.”
Nichols looked disappointed for a moment. Then he shrugged. “Trade you?” he asked hopefully.
With a grin, I dug two of the bars out of my pack and tossed them to him. I wasn’t fussy about what I ate, and swapping the food seemed likelyto improve my overall level of acceptance within the group. Nichols seemed like an earnest kid, if rather inexperienced.
I caught the cloth-wrapped packet he tossed back to me and opened it out of curiosity. Inside, there were strips of dried meat – something I’d eaten plenty of times before – and a large handful of some sort of bulky seed. They weren’t something I’d seen before, though I’d eaten plenty of seeds from various plants on Eumad.
“Jerky and nuts are generally what we’re sent out on missions with these days,” my master explained, seeing my examination of the packet. “They have the best calorie-density-to-weight ratios of anything we’re able to grow here.”
I nodded amiably, then stowed the meal in my pack. I’d already eaten tonight, and the food would be a nice variation from the protein bars tomorrow.
