Nepenthe Read online

  “They will not be hybrids,” he assured the group, “and there will be no live birth. Your people will only need to fulfill surrogate roles until our eggs develop.”

  The female made her eyes narrow. “And then what?”

  Her questions persisted and grew intricate, and a portion of the Magistrand grated at the slowing of the negotiation. But would he, himself, have been satisfied with less, in the humans’ position?

  “The eggs will produce a hormone that will trigger their egress from your body,” he said. “They will complete their final stages and hatch in the ship’s nursery.”

  This information caused a ripple of quiet talk among the humans, from the sounds of it, less agitated and more considering, but their leader pressed him to elaborate. “How many eggs?” she said. “How long are we supposed to host them?”

  This female was bold. She would settle for no vague assurances when it came to the wellbeing of her people. Dae Keth suppressed the urge to snap that perhaps she might like to carry his eggs, if only to discover the details firsthand. Instead he gave her a rational answer, though her confrontational tone was plucking at instincts he’d best ignore, here and now.

  “We implant somewhere between ten and twenty during a mating,” he told her. “I do not know how humans measure time cycles, to explain how long the incubation period will last.”

  Dae Keth’s own attempts at joining with a mate and securing a safe growing environment for his eggs had failed miserably, and that had been cycles and cycles ago, back on Nepenth. Now, his position as Magistrand guaranteed him a host from the first round of surrogates his people could find. Should the humans agree to the terms, he would not have to depend on the chance of the lottery, as would nearly all the rest of the crew.

  Perhaps he would enjoy implanting his eggs, given the opportunity. These human females were not built to maim the way his own kind could. The mating act might not be such a contest for survival. Without question, the Ptolarch had been enjoying himself when Dae Keth had tracked him down him on the surface.

  As if cued by the thought, Io Rae spoke from behind his Magistrand. “From the feel of it,” he said, “my sense is perhaps two, nearly three of their normal hormonal cycles for our eggs to mature. Not nearly as long as a human gestation.” Dae Keth turned his head in time to see the High One make a doting gesture toward his chosen host. “And do you see one of your own already carries for us?” he said to the humans. “I have chosen her as my Ptolara.”

  It was unlikely these beings knew the meaning of titles like Ptolarch and Ptolara, and their leader eschewed any sort of awe in favor of uncomplicated facts.

  “So three months per compatible woman”—and here Dae Keth learned this new term for a female human from the associations her mind projected with the word—“and you provide for us until we find a colony planet?”

  “Correct,” said the Magistrand.

  She narrowed her eyes again in a way Dae Keth was growing to associate with the thoughts of skepticism that accumulated around her like small clouds. Rather than question him further, though, she turned and took a knee to debate with the others.

  He tried to maintain patience. They were a paltry lot; the last of their kind, and no more intimidating for it than were his own crew. None were sized small enough to be younger than adults, as far as he could tell, though there were a handful who might be elders. They were surviving in the moment; doing their best to adapt in dire circumstances.

  Whispered arguments rose and fell within the cluster of humans like waves. Occasional voices escalated, resonant, only for others to shush them with nervous looks at the surrounding Nepenthe. The Magistrand did well in his projection of thoughts to his crew, warning them to remain quiet and relatively still, so as not to provoke or terrify the aliens on which they were pinning their hopes.

  After a time and what felt like a condensing of the hushed exchanges between the humans, the same female—the woman—rose to her feet again and faced Dae Keth.

  “Before we agree,” she said, “we have conditions. I have conditions.”

  Something about her last statement made the tips of a few of his arms twitch in amusement. Yes, if this one was going to take on a role as leader—a role her actions and demeanor appeared to suit her for, even as he sensed she’d had less opportunities to adopt such a position before the current crisis—then it was natural she might place the burden for some of the group’s demands on herself.

  The Magistrand was growing to like this human.

  “You speak for your race?” he said.

  Her head bobbed once. “I do.”

  “And what name to do I call you, Leader of the Humans?” There were some murmurs from the group at this, but Dae Keth had no idea what their formal titles might be. If they had and insisted upon them, he would no doubt learn in short order.

  “My name is Yesmín,” she said.

  At last. One of them aside from the Ptolara had a name.

  “Then, Yesmín of the Humans,” he said, “I am Dae Keth, Magistrand of the Nepenthe. Our Ptolarch is Io Rae.” He waved an arm toward the High One. “Speak your demands.”

  After eyeing him and Io Rae, and after a final glance at the group behind her, the woman spoke.

  “First,” she said, “any one of our people who wants no part of this will be allowed to return to the surface. They know their own risks for survival.”

  A reasonable request. Dae Keth did not have to consult any of the others before answering. “We are not a conquering race,” he said. “Any who wish to live out their days on this planet are free to do so. We will not prevent their leaving.”

  An honest answer, if not lacking in motivation. The Magistrand felt the thought pool of the humans stir at his choice of words. ‘Live out their days.’ This water planet was a death trap for both their peoples. Some might choose to leave, but they would not last long.

  “Second,” Yesmín said, “at least one of us who agrees to stay will still be allowed to go back down there and collect our data cores before this ship leaves the planet. And before any more of this ‘hosting’ begins.” She glanced at the Ptolara, behind him. “We can’t leave behind all the collective records of our race. None of us agrees to survival at the cost of that kind of erasure.”

  Again, reasonable. His own crew was smaller than it should have been, as the remaining Nepenthe had sacrificed their own precious escape time and lives to secure similar records for their colony ship.

  “Agreed,” said Dae Keth. “We can provide an escort, if you require assistance.”

  The woman dipped her head at this. “And third,” she said, “I’m allowed to speak to her. In private.” Her eyes returned to the Ptolarch’s chosen and did not leave.

  This made the Magistrand pause. He turned to Io Rae, who exchanged a look with his chosen. The pale female stood. She wore some loose protective garments now, as her race seemed to prefer, and as she’d insisted upon the Ptolarch scavenging for her before she’d remain calm among his kind. When she stepped forward, the High One inclined his head.

  “Agreed.”

  “And one last thing,” said Yesmín, pushing forward as though the very Ptolarch had not just addressed her directly. “I go first.”

  Dae Keth studied her available thoughts and found them a weave of self-sacrifice and second-guessing.

  “None of these women are having anything ‘implanted,’ ” she said, “until one of us has gone through the process and reported back to the group. And that ‘one’ is going to be me.”

  The Magistrand found this last condition prudent on her part, but Io Rae spoke up from his side. “But one of yours has already ‘gone through the process,’ as you say. Will you not take the Ptolara at her word, when the two of you speak?”

  Yesmín was not cowed. “We will take the word of someone who volunteered,” she said. “We have no way of knowing whether her mind has been compromised by all this.” She nodded in the direction of the Ptolara.

  “And how do
you know your mind won’t become compromised?” said the High One. His tone held amusement, but none of it bled over into the human.

  “The condition stands,” she said. “I go first, I determine if it’s safe—physically and otherwise—for our women, and I report back. Either agree or don’t.”

  Dae Keth watched Io Rae for his reaction to such an ultimatum, and the High One was achieving an impressive imitation of one of the humans’ smiles with the facial structure he mimicked. Approval radiated from his leader.

  “Then we agree,” the Ptolarch said.

  Low conversation rose up at this among humans and Nepenthe, both. A great many eyes remained fixed on the opposite race while they whispered about what was to come.

  “There is but one thing left, Yesmín.” Io Rae’s voice was no louder than normal, but it rolled through the cargo hold and silenced the murmurs again. The leader of the humans blinked at him.

  “You must choose from among us,” said the Ptolarch, with a wide gesture. “We are the last of our kind. There is no one of our number who would not be honored to have you as their host.”

  The Magistrand saw what his leader was doing. A calculated move to diffuse some of the woman’s mistrust: allowing her the choice when he’d given his Ptolara none. Even as the High One spoke, many of the Nepenthe crew ringing the hold’s walls were either shifting their appearance to imitate the humans, or refining the mimicry they’d already begun, all in hopes of attracting the favor of their first volunteer host. The one, it seemed, who would decide whether there would be more.

  Yesmín did not bother to scan the room.

  “Him,” she said to the Ptolarch while keeping her eyes locked with Dae Keth. “He’s going to do it.”

  Rich waves of satisfaction spread out from Io Rae. “You choose to be the Magistrand’s host?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  The Ptolarch smiled. “Excellent.”

  Dae Keth stared back at the woman, and she folded her arms across her chest. What her plan was in choosing him over any of the others, he didn’t know. But it seemed he would be filling her with eggs, after all. And from what he’d seen of her mettle thus far, she might just be worthy.

  * * *

  It had been an exasperating day and night, but the humans’ conditions—as set out by their new leader, Yesmín—had been met.

  The Magistrand had taken note: none of them objected to her stepping into the role. They didn’t bicker among themselves or divide into factions to put forward another to vie for the authority. Perhaps the majority of the survivors were simply too tired, too depleted to be anything but grateful one of their own might stand up and shoulder the responsibility. A great many beings, Dae Keth had learned throughout his cycles, thought they very much wanted to assume command. To make decisions. That was until, of course, they actually had to do it.

  Three of their number had made the decision to return to the water planet. Two had been a mated pair, from the looks of them, and their thoughts as they said their goodbyes carried glimpses of grim determination for some final attempt at survival. They had also projected a fierce mutual possessiveness that had given Dae Keth some inkling as to why they might refuse at all costs to partake in the incubation process. The rare pair bond among his own people made minds irrational at times, as well.

  The third to leave had been an elder female. Some of the others had pleaded with her not to return to the surface. They worried about her chances of survival for any length of time and—in their thoughts, but not aloud—about the knowledge they would lose as this woman left the group. She was some sort of engineer, it seemed, and even Dae Keth could admit regret at seeing such a mind leave. But this had been one of the conditions, and the woman waved off protests with a gnarled hand. She’d had enough of new struggles. This world was where she would pass the rest of her days.

  Among the others, there were few connections the Magistrand could see. His crew had rescued them from island outposts scattered over at least a third of the planet. They’d found very few survivors in the same location, and from the patterns of their thoughts—which they did not guard at all—and slices of their conversation, he’d gathered that these were researchers. Workers. Almost none had familial ties to the others. A colony population like his own; they had not yet taken those risks.

  Once the three had departed, that had left the Nepenthe with forty-two human refugees to support and, of those, twenty-two were female. Ea Nir would still need to determine how many of those women were capable of incubation.

  A contingent of four of the remaining forty-two had returned to the planet’s surface with an equal number of his crew to locate sites still running on emergency backup power, and to extract their data cores, as agreed. Dae Keth knew nothing of this race’s data storage methods or capabilities, so he couldn’t say when the team returned carrying only a dozen or so cannister-like objects between them, whether this was an impressive amount of information they brought with them, or not.

  Data cores and the departing trio had been the least of the Magistrand’s concerns, however. He’d boiled around the cargo hold while the Ptolarch himself had escorted Yesmín to one of the unused sleeping quarters on another of the ship’s decks, so the woman might have her private conversation with the High One’s chosen mate.

  Io Rae had returned without the women, as unconcerned and amused by events and he nearly always was. It was Dae Keth who had to worry about things. Whatever the Ptolara told Yesmín, whatever impression the shrewd human left with, would determine the future of their peoples. The High One acted as if no possible thing his mate could tell the humans’ leader would endanger their chances at all.

  In the meantime, he’d had to direct his crew to procure supplies for a temporary encampment centered in their cargo hold. Not only would the humans not be taking their place among Nepenthe until the Ptolara’s dreaded interrogation was complete, but should Yesmín be satisfied with that, they would then also have to wait while she vetted the implantation process.

  Until Dae Keth proved to her the Nepenthe were not out to deceive or injure.

  So much rested on so little. He’d been about to tangle his arms in a knot with all his restless circling of the hold, when the pair of women returned.

  The Ptolara’s thoughts projected concern. Had Yesmín had understood what she’d been trying to convey or not? Would the last of her race choose to leave her alone among the Nepenthe? Her hand splayed low under the swell in her middle where the Ptolarch’s eggs grew, even now.

  And Yesmín showed no more certainty in her own thought patterns than when she’d left. From what Dae Keth could glean, the human had more knowledge now than before, but it had satisfied some curiosities and irritated others.

  Io Rae moved to be in physical contact with his chosen, hovering again at her shoulder in the assumed human form that seemed to put her at ease. The small female allowed the touch; even leaned into it, but it was Yesmín who had the Magistrand’s full attention.

  She stepped forward and spoke to her people, who halted in the arrangement of their makeshift living quarters to hear the first of her verdicts.

  “It’s not ideal,” she said, making her voice carry, “but we also have to be practical. Our odds of survival are much better if we leave with the Nepenthe, than if we stay and hope to discover solutions to the rejection virus problem. We have to keep open minds.”

  The last she said with thoughts mirroring some kind of resolve on which she was barely maintaining a grip, and a few of the listening humans leaned close to whisper to one another. Yesmín stood straight and met Dae Keth’s eyes.

  “If I don’t come back in a day,” she told her people, “don’t waste time hunting me down. Get off this ship. Defend yourselves if you have to. Open-minded is one thing. Blind trust is another.”

  With a sweeping look for the cargo hold, the woman approached the Magistrand. For the first time in the Creator knew how long, Dae Keth had almost nothing in the way of a plan.

/>   “You will allow this?” he said, looking down at the smaller being.

  Her thoughts were a cacophony, and her jaw moved as though she silenced objections. “Before I change my mind,” she said.

  And those words were what propelled them from the ship’s hold, Dae Keth leading and the lone human following along in his wake. A knowing gaze from the Ptolarch as they left did nothing to lessen the Magistrand’s concerns.

  Almost as high within the strata of the ship as they could travel, the woman fell in behind him as he passed through the portal to his personal quarters. When he closed the portal behind them, the silence in the space—and her wary stare—nearly suffocated him.

  When Yesmín managed to pull her suspicious glare away from Dae Keth, it was to cast it around the chamber. They stood just inside the portal on the only fixed flooring surface in the space. Only the Ptolarch’s quarters surpassed the Magistrand’s for size and quality, but all private spaces upon a colony ship were, by necessity, compact. Like every such space, there were compartments built into the walls for his material possessions. Discreet facilities for waste. Collapsible surfaces for any eating and drinking one might want to do in private.

  And, like every place his people rested or relaxed, the remainder of the space—at least three-quarters of the room’s total area—consisted of a deep pool of water. Transparent, retractable floor covered the waterberth when it was not in use to avoid debris and other contaminants falling in, and it was at this feature of his quarters that Yesmín cocked her head.

  The many fine ropes of her hair, reminiscent of his arms in some inert way, splayed themselves over her shoulders. Some tension in her muscles drained—perhaps his space on the ship was not whatever alien horror she’d been imagining—and she turned her attention back to Dae Keth.

  “You don’t change your appearance like some of the others,” she said. “Hypatia told me your leader came to her looking like one of us.”