My eyes darted to Felicia, who had approached but hadn’t quite pushed herself into the camera’s view yet. I couldn’t help it; I felt a shard of guilt lance through me when I answered Chen’s question. “Yes, I believe I have.” Then I explained the Burrower’s behavior, the energy signature I’d found, and how I’d located the ship.
I could not bring myself to mention Felicia, because I was suddenly struck with the fear that they’d take her away from me if I did. Theyhadsent me to the North Pole as punishment for interfering with humans, after all—to prevent me from interacting with the newly freed ones and from finding my mate.
“Where are you now?” Frearsosh asked midway through my explanation about the ship’s engine powering up and the Burrower coming after it. I drew in a deep breath and felt a tingle of pride even though I hadn’t technically done this, Auby had. I’d found Auby and accidentally turned him back on, though, so it was a little because of me.
“Aboard the Burrowing Revenant. It’s called a Digmaster 6-20D; I know this because I also found a much smaller Revenant that had its access codes.” I turned my communicator around to show the bank of consoles and screens, before finally angling it toward Auby, sitting on the tip of my tail. He had his six legs splayed wide around him, and he was swinging the front and back ones back and forth, tapping them against his middle legs with little clicks.
“That’s a Revenant?” Chen asked. “It looks just like a Vakarsa calf.” Auby rolled his lavender eyes in a manner I’d only ever seen a human do, Nala, when she thought something her mate said was ridiculous. How had Auby learned that? I swung my eyes to Felicia, but I was certain she hadn’t done it. Perhaps behind my back, when I couldn’t see?
“Correction, I am a companion bot, Vakarsa Calf model 3-Z-54,” Auby said, in typical Auby fashion. I muffled a laugh; Felicia chuckled with more abandon than I did, and I was certain that, at the very least, Erish would have heard it and recognized that it couldn’t be me. The sound was too high-pitched, too feminine.
“We call him Auby. It’s short for the human word aubergine, which describes the color of his fur. Or so I’ve been told, the naming was done by the human I recovered from the ship.” There was no avoiding that topic now; Erish had already opened his mouth to say something, and it was always better to come clean yourself. Always.
Then I had to explain Auby and Felicia, and I hesitated to show her, feeling an odd amount of possessiveness. The old males had no interest in my female, not in that way. They were not rivals. Rationally, I also knew they were extremely unlikely to removeher from my care. When I showed them my blooming mating marks, Chen even laughed and called me lucky. “Some things are just fated,” I told them haughtily. It made Frearsosh frown in a way that made my scales itch, but Erish was so hearty in his congratulations that I knew, at least in this, it would be all right.
“You didn’t tell them the biggest news yet,” Felicia reminded me. She might not have realized that the Elders could understand her, because they’d treated a human at the Amaratha last summer—a male named Reid. At the sound of her voice, and the very intriguing comment, all three of them leaned in.
“That is true. Felicia is talking about the Naga we encountered—a Clan. We only saw males, but they were very savage and hostile. There is no record of a pale Clan of Naga with pelts, is there? These had pelts instead of scales.” It was silent for a very long moment, the three Shaman Elders exchanging looks, huddling close as Erish whispered something I could not hear.
“I have no record of Nagas with pelts either,” Auby announced into that silence. His eyes glowed faintly, not quite that blue from before, but definitely glowing in a way no true Vakarsa eye could. He was accessing his records, as it turned out. “I do have a reference in a journal about the Naga genome that indicates a geneispresent that could be expressed as fur under the right circumstances.”
“The Revenant is correct,” Erish said. “I have come across such a mention regarding Naga genetics on several occasions as well, but as far as I know—and that is not saying much—it has never occurred in our known history. It is assumed our very ancient ancestors might have needed such an adaptation to survive.” Erish could launch into a very complicated and technicalexplanation on genetics if you let him, and I was not the only one ready to cut him off before he got truly started.
“Yes, this is a triple discovery of astounding proportions. The ship, you have disabled it? We’ve been monitoring the situation. There was an EM spike an hour ago, but all is calm now.” I nodded, my arm finding Felicia because I saw her mouth grow tight. She did not like being reminded of having to turn her engine off and abandon her ship. When she tucked herself into my side like she had always done that, my chest felt two sizes too small. She was perfect; I just needed to convince her to stay.
“Then you must stay with the Burrowing Revenant to study it. We will send another Shaman to your camp to assess the situation with this lost Clan.” That was Chen, smoothing over the moment and quickly giving direction. Frearsosh nodded, said nothing, but I knew Chen would not have spoken if he did not think the oldest of the three agreed.
“Stay on the Revenant, okay, we can do that,” I agreed. I checked the screen where the energy lock was displayed, my eyes roaming the depicted landscape. “It appears to be headed straight down across the continent right now, toward a smaller energy spike similar to Felicia’s ship. This energy signature is located in the Serqethos Desert.”
“Perfect,” Frearsosh said, his voice dry as dust and grinding across my senses like the droning of a machine. He creaked, he moved slowly, he was ancient, but he knew everything. “Your home turf. You’ll have the advantage.” It wasn’t my home turf in the sense that I was born there; my birth Clan came from clear across the continent we were on, but itwashome. I had missed Serqethos, missed the desert heat and the dry sand. I could notwait to show it to Felicia. I hoped she’d fall in love with the sand dunes and the oasis by the lake as much as I had. I hoped that if I could not convince her to stay, maybe Serqethos could.
Chapter 10
Felicia
Seeing the Shaman Elders on Levant’s communication device was a bit like a kick in the nuts. They were aliens, real, honest-to-God aliens. I’d already gotten so used to Levant’s presence that he didn’t seem nearly as strange to me as these three men did. Hell, seeing those savage Naga on the ice hadn’t even made me go, yup, these are truly alien creatures. Staring into the ancient, strange faces of these three Elders did, though.
Perhaps it was because some of the ways in which they’d aged were so human, and that reminded me of my father—how I’d seen he was getting old just before I boarded theFutureand, unbeknownst to me, had sailed into the future with its experimental FTL drive. In other ways, these aging males were so very different, and it was that uncanny valley between the two that made them stand out. No wrinkles, yet their scales had gotten thinner, paler. Their hair had grown pale as well, like they’d turned gray, just like my dad. The bone structure of their faces seemed more exposed, and the proportions were slightly different: sharper, more angled. If I looked at Levant’s face, I could see the same, except his was still more padded out with muscle and flesh.
When Levant ended the call, I drew in a relieved breath, even though I knew it hadn’t all been the news I wanted. For starters, they seemed very happy that Levant had found his fated mate, and they meant me. That felt very final, very… like I’d just woken up after a trip to Vegas and discovered myself married. I’d never done that, but I knew a friend or two who had. It felt weird, andfinal in a way a Vegas marriage wouldn’t. Like still wanting to leave was letting Levant down in the worst way. I tried to picture what it would be like to take him home with me and couldn’t do that either. I might have hopelessly dreamed of discovering alien life out in space for as long as I could remember, but I also knew Earth wasn’t ready for that kind of thing. Taking Levant home with me was impossible.
My dad would like him, though, very much. Levant was so caring and sweet, but clever and protective at the same time. A man with a rebellious streak but a sense of honor, exactly the kind of man my father admired. And that brought me to another of the conversation points that made me ache. My dad was dead, gone; his bones turned to dust. That knowledge made my chest ache so badly that I struggled to breathe. In a way, I’d been prepared for it, and had known as soon as I’d opened my eyes and realized the sorry state my stasis pod was in.
Did I even want to go home knowing all that? What would I achieve? Nothing would be familiar to me after a thousand years, and they might not even care about my return. I’d just be a footnote in history. Very bleak. They’d probably perfected the FTL drive without me, and my dad would have died lonely and disappointed.
Staying with my ship gave me purpose, but now it appeared we’d been ordered to stay on for the ride aboard this machine. To study, observe, learn. Every passing moment took me further away from theFutureand all the obligations it entailed. I sighed, trying to shake that final thought. Where had it come from? Obligations? It made it seem like it was a duty I no longer passionately supported.
Levant still held me in his coils, not holding me in a way that kept me pinned, but supporting me like he was my personal bean bag. Very comfy, warm, and safe. He moved around the control room as if he needed to keep himself busy, and also as if he could not contain the curiosity bursting through his veins. He liked this task the Shaman Elders had given him. He liked being asked to study the Revenant we’d boarded by a sheer fluke of luck.
“Hey, Auby,” I said. The little robot cow was clomping after Levant everywhere he went and offering insights and explanations as far as his knowledge appeared to go. At the sound of his name, the companion bot flicked his tail, and his ears went back. He trotted over with a little skip in his six-legged gait, like he was a child having fun. Auby wasn’t the only one who had instantly turned all his attention on me. I felt the golden stare of Levant’s eyes, and it made my nipples perk inside my snug sports bra.
“How did you end up outside the Burrower, I mean, Digmaster? And if your previous companion was supposed to be on it to control it and search for my ship, where did he go?” I asked. I didn’t really like the idea of a body possibly rotting somewhere in here with us. Of course, a thousand years was a very long time; it wouldn’t be rotting at this point, but just a pile of bones, perhaps even dust.
“She,” Auby said. “My previous companion was also female. She was a very gifted technician, and she volunteered to go on the Digmaster even though it might be a one-way trip.” Auby hesitated, and then his eyes flickered and light spilled out, blue and bright at first, but quickly resolving into an image. I gasped, caught by surprise, and so did Levant. He curled closer, and hisarms came around me as we watched the scene unfold that Auby was now projecting.
It felt very comfortable and familiar to have him shelter me against his wide chest the way he was. Like we were a couple already—so familiar with one another that casual touch was a given. It was fast to feel that way; I’d never moved that fast with a man before. Heck, my longest relationship had lasted three months. Being with Levant felt different, very different. A bit, dare I think it, like it was meant to be. It could just be the high-pressure situation, but I didn’t think so. I’d never felt the urge to jump the bones of any of my combat buddies, and I’d been in plenty of high-pressure situations with them.
The image Auby showed was a bit confusing at first, but that was because he was showing us the control room of the Digmaster. Since we were in it, it seemed for a moment like everything was doubling up, and it made my vision dance. Then a voice—female and light—came through, as if Auby were speaking himself. “Are you recording, Calf?” she said. Her voice was not at all what I expected. It was so normal when Levant’s weird translator device translated for me. She sounded like she was speaking English, and could have been my neighbor or something.
