Part 10

An Illustration of How Poor I am at Picking up Cues

           Adventure. Patriotism. Heroism. Supposedly you get a shot at all of these and more if you volunteer for military service. Don't buy it, ladies and gentlemen, because it's a load of bull. Service in the military as far as I'm concerned is all about being captured, being tortured, killing lots of people, and being crammed into very small spaces for long periods of time. Claustrophobes, pacifists, and people with any common sense need not apply.
           This time it was a plastic crate. I could sort of move, yes, but I was knee-deep in foodstuffs. Mushrooms, to be exact. Probably either of the poisonous or mind-altering varieties. Not only that, but I was also in a cargo bay with zero lighting. I remembered the plan that Naia had laid out for me bitterly.
           "It's perfect," she'd promised, "No one is going to find you here. The organic food all around you will mask your scent, and these mushrooms can dampen your heat signature." Never mind that she poured most of them out so that I could fit inside.
           "'Remember, this is only temporary', she says. Well, it's been temporary for long enough, dammit!" Naia seemed to have a thing for locking people up in small spaces. I just hoped that Hrasi customs protocols didn't involve checking the cargo, or I'd be dead. Did this crate even go off the ship? I was worried enough that the mushrooms weren't going to suppress my scent too well.
           For what felt like hours I sat there while being jostled by adjacent carts. Too bad the Hrasi didn't bother with restraints on their cargo. When the ship finally hit atmosphere it was immediately noticeable. Noticeable as in the ride got rough as hell - whoever the pilot was obviously hadn't had a whole lot of training in smooth re-entry to planets, or maybe he just didn't care. The buffeting continued until the ship flattened out, leaving me to flex my muscles and find the new bruises that I'd just acquired. There were few minutes of calm flight with nothing but the whistling of wind on the hull, then a horrible crack that shuddered through my entire body. I hoped, really truly hoped that we'd just landed, as opposed to, say, losing some hull.
           I sat completely silent, listening carefully to the sounds outside my crate. The air whistling had ceased, so we had to be grounded. Hoo-rah. And in one piece - not bad for a pilot who'd made a re-entry that rough.
           For a moment I thought I'd heard footsteps, but they dissipated into silence. The cargo bay felt like a tomb: no light at all, no sounds, and a stale, dead smell. Every so softly, footfalls tapped between the cargo crates; I could feel them in my bones. A smooth, sliding sound of metal on plastic buzzed about a foot away and my heart stopped.
           "Get out of the crate," a rough Hrasi voice growled. I didn't dare move. How could they know? If they did, why not take me during flight? They couldn't have known I was there. There was no light anyway. Hrasi night vision won't work in true darkness, so they wouldn't have been able to see me. That meant they chose the right crate at random, unless…
           "I said get out of the box, human. I know you're in there; I can smell you." I didn't budge, suppressing a random urge to whisper 'no one in here but us shrooms!'. "Think you're hiding, animal? I said I could smell you. You [reek?]. You might as well be standing in front of me [shouting?]. Now get out of the box before I shoot you."
           He's bluffing, I thought, grinning, otherwise he'd come in and get me. Got to stay cool. For a few tense seconds both my assailant and I listened hard, trying to find the other. He was above me, but I couldn't tell more than that. Finally the Hrasi growled. "Damn. Why couldn't that [ ] have [ ] him somewhere [ ]? If he's gone, he could be anywhere right now…" the guard spat in disgust. "Going to get myself killed if anyone [ ] about this."
           With considerably less stealth the guard banged his way to wherever he had come in through, and stopped to turn and shout irritably back into the bay. "Hey, if you're in there, you [ought?] to give yourself [up?]. In a minute I'm going to close this door and [vent?] the air before I open the bay to the [outside?]. I'd hate to be you when the [oxygen levels?] in here start to get low…"
           Bastard! I gritted my teeth but didn't move. It was far better to die there than be captured and tortured to death. The Hrasi left and there was a hissing of the door closing shut. Silently I berated myself, having realized that I'd just gotten myself killed. I started breathing fast, deep gulps in what was probably a highly futile effort. With an electric hum the lights came on and I stopped hoarding air long enough to simply dread the inevitable whine of the ventilation system sucking the life from the room.
           That never came, though. Instead there was a great shudder as the far side of the cargo bay groaned. A thin beam of golden light split in a vertical path through the middle of the wall, then widened. The prospect of pure sunlight and an end to days spent traveling in a crate, not to mention a free pass out of sudden death, brought my spirit back to life. No, that's an understatement: It was like being born again, just without the religion.
           I punched the crate's walls repeatedly until finally they gave way and collapsed to the floor. A second later the thought that perhaps there were security cameras on the premises occurred to be. I scrambled to my feet and ran through the docking ring.
           "Aaron," a voice hissed as I landed solidly on pavement, but I ignored it so that I could get an idea of what Haras looked like.
           It was midday on a surprisingly earth-like world, except that there weren't all the huge buildings and pollution of Earth. I was in a grey loading bay on a hill or mountain that had a great view of some city - probably the capital - just past where the ship had landed. The voice was coming from behind a crate of rusted canisters in the loading bay's far-left corner. I ran there quickly to find Naia looking at me worriedly. "I was afraid you'd been found! Usually they open the doors as they hit the ground."
           "I almost was. Funny, somehow they knew I was onboard. I came too way close to being captured. Too close." Naia's eyes shifted away from me.
           "That… was my fault. I'll explain later. We better get going." She set her jaw into a worried scowl. "Better switch into some decent clothing. That military uniform might attract some unnecessary attention…" She beckoned me to follow her out of the loading bay, which turned out to be a single building, and took me out back behind the structure. On that side was an incredible view of raw forest: the city apparently didn't extend past the mountain we'd landed on. To someone from Earth, that was like Eden. ICA has underground cults that believe the afterlife is such a place as I was looking at. Naia showed little interest, but nudged me and pointed to a brown lump on the ground.
           "God, what the hell is that?"
           "Your clothes," Naia muttered morosely. I pushed it over, then nearly wretched. A young human man about my size and age lay dead, covered in a brown cloak and bleeding from a single slit across his throat. "Hurry up, before he stains them. People will be able to smell the blood." I looked at the body solemnly.
           "Is this what I've become a part of? Naia, I hate to have to have to tell you this, but we're not supposed to be the murderers! We're the good guys, remember? Killing innocent people isn't going to win us any friends, not to mention that it's wrong!" To her credit, Naia's ears dropped in shame and she turned away.
           "It was you or him. I know what I did, and I'll take whatever consequence fate hands me. Right now it's more important that we not get caught. You and I need to go somewhere and meet someone… important." I stared at her incredulously.
           "I hope so, if people are going to die over it. Important, huh?" Naia looked away, unable to meet my eyes, and spoke softly with an upset voice.
           "Yeah. It's real important. You won't forget it any time soon. So just get the clothes on before someone finds us."
           "You're insane, Naia. You know that, right?" I asked, and suddenly she growled fiercely.
           "I said let's go! This is serious! And speak Hrasi. You need the practice." I looked back down to the dead man. He looked innocent enough. Did he really deserve to die? It didn't really matter, did it? Oh, hell, I could tell myself that all day and it'd still be wrong. All the same I pulled the man's cloak and shirt off and changed quickly.
           "Alright, Naia. Should we go?" She stared at me, eyes downcast. "You're right, we have to go. Let's go," I encouraged, and she gulped, then held that breath. It was like she was about to say something, but she shook her head instead.
           "I hate this, Aaron. I want it to all be over. Yes, let's go. We'll take a car." She walked back the way we'd come with myself at her side, then across some brush to a limestone trail. "This goes to the main spaceport," she said confidently. "If anyone asks, you're my slave."
           We stepped down the trail together, wandering left and right as it swerved. A brisk wind picked up, whistling through waxy seven-point leaves. The trees were barkless and chalky white, with low brushes surrounding them and stiff grass that sprawled everywhere. Little patches of grass grew even in the limestone cracks - resilient little species, it was. Burs extended on blossoms everywhere, which annoyed me to no end, but caused Naia even more problems. Her pelt was covered in less than a minute.
           Unrestrained growth littered the path Naia had us headed down. There were so many trees and brushes that I couldn't see where we were headed. I trusted Naia, though. Hopefully she knew where we were going. Once the trees cleared I lost my breath and stood back, making Naia smile.
           As a native of industrial Earth I can't begin to describe the view. We'd landed at the top of a frigging mountain and now we were standing on its edge. From the edge of the trail there was a multiple-hundred-foot drop into a lush green forest. Green, yellow, and red trees ran up our mountain's length in a huge forest. Maybe a half-kilometer away a huge, glistening spaceport stood in a large, probably artificial clearing. It was undeniably a spaceport: there were circular landing pads, runway strips, ships protruding from hangars, and three independent radar dish arrays surrounding the complex.
           "Nice place," I complimented, feeling short of breath. Naia nodded. "Maybe you could take me around some day." But she shook her head.
           "No, I don't think so…" I acquiesced with a nod, but she'd already turned back onto the trail. "Come on, Aaron." I followed behind her.
           The trail twisted around back and forth. Rocks littered the path annoyingly, as did sharper and nastier plants. They hurt! Birds flew through the skies, but they either had scales or lots of legs. Different evolutionary paths, I guess. Oh yeah, and the dominant species were giant talking cats instead of giant talking hairless monkeys. Very different evolutionary paths.
           We emerged from the forest quietly, looking from side to side. Nobody was around. Naia straightened out and surveyed the plain. There was a parking lot to the far rightmost edge of the main spaceport building. "We can hire a [ ] there," Naia pointed, so there we went. An extended roof provided some shade, thankfully. It lowered the temperature a good ten to twenty degrees. "Remember," Naia growled lowly, "You're my slave. Stay behind me and call me [mistress?]." I made a mental note to.
           Each car on the lot was a pale blue, and most were occupied. Naia beckoned me over to the nearest one and poked her head through the driver's seat window. "You taking [ ]?" she asked.
           "Yeah. It's twenty credits [ ]," A male Hrasi grumbled from inside. "You pay first. Where do you want to go?"
           "Downtown. The [ ]." She glanced back at me, then to the driver. "I'm bringing my slave. How much is it going to be?"
           "Ninety-five. You have it?" She pulled some slips from her pocket and pushed them through the window. "Alright, get in."
           The back door slid open and Naia daintily stepped in, followed by myself. Immediately the door clicked back into place and the driver pulled onto a gravel road. Naia shivered in the car's cold air conditioning and turned to me.
           "Aaron, there are [burs?] in my pelt. Take them out, will you?" I rolled my eyes, but sidled over to her and started picking out her burs. With no trash bin available I had to pocket them. From in front the driver whistled, an odd whirring noise from a Hrasi.
           "Nice slave. He's got a great [ ]. Is he as good [ ] as he looks?" Naia glanced lazily at me, watching for some sign of recognition. There was none, of course. For some reason I got the impression that I really didn't want to understand what had been said anyway.
           "I wouldn't know. I use him [ ] for taking burs out of my fur." The driver snorted.
           "Ha. That's a [waste?] of a [ ] slave. You want to sell him?" There was a threatening glance from Naia towards me, but there was also a twinkle in those eyes.
           "I don't think so. He likes being my slave, doesn't he?" The question was plainly directed at me.
           "Yes, mistress." She purred delight and rolled into me so I could more easily pull out the burs.
           "You shouldn't do that, miss," The driver warned, "it's dangerous. He can hurt you if you lay like that with your neck [exposed?]." Naia chuffed.
           "He's not stupid. Are you, Aaron? If he kills me someone else will become his mistress. He'll never be free, so he stays my slave because I'm [ ] with him. I don't have to worry." Oh, really?
           "Mistress," I murmured, "A bur on your throat." I pinched her throat and twisted a little bit. Not enough to permanently hurt her, but something fairly painful. She yowled sharply. "I'm sorry, mistress. I didn't mean to hurt you."
           The rest of the ride was uneventful. More burs came out of her pelt pretty much anywhere where there weren't any clothes. I got to pull out another fifty or so, then stroked her fur back into place at Naia's soft command. Trees ran high, but there wasn't much in the way of wildlife. What was nicest was the very abrupt switch from city to forest. There was less than six feet separating urban skyscrapers from thick, wild growth. It must have been wonderful to live in that city, where you could go out and hike or hunt in feral jungle after only a five or ten minute drive out from your home or workplace.
           Inside the city was beautiful too, in a way. The Hrasi were definitely not into conquering nature, but instead seemed to coerce it. Huge buildings were usually completely sealed from the outside world (to help protect from orbital bombardment or surface weaponry), but unlike the thick armor plating on sprawling human supers-structures the Hrasi buildings all had solar panel roofing and transparent armor that revealed vines and greenery all over the walls. Blue and white were the colors of choice, with lots of jutting arcs, buttresses, and passive solar design. Hardly the demonic world I'd always dreamed about; it was actually much more utopian than any world I'd ever visited.
           We were dropped off near a fountain at a central point in town. There were people, so many people walking down the streets. Mostly Hrasi, admittedly, but a few humans too. By far the majority of the humans had a brown cloak or robe like mine on, and either strode behind a Hrasi or scurried along nervously. One thing that they and some brown-clothed Hrasi had that I did not was a collar. Leather, jewelry, or chain adorned their necks, some with leashes and a few without. Naia pulled me to the fountain's edge and sat us down side by side.
           "I don't have a collar!" I quietly insisted in English, then went back to Hrasi, "I'll be found!" Naia twitched her whiskers and batted an ear.
           "Wrong. It just means that I trust you [implicitly?]. Don't yell, move fast, or argue here, alright? [Pretend?] you're a good slave." She brushed her mane back and stared at me intensely.
           "Is something bothering you, Naia?" I asked in plain English tones. "You've been really… tense lately. You look miserable." She opened her mouth in disbelief.
           "I… No, forget it Aaron. Don't worry yourself. I'll be fine." She looked down. "I wanted to take you somewhere today, but maybe it can wait until morning. I want to spend the rest of the day with you. You know, maybe show you around. You said you wanted to." She looked hopefully at me, so I grinned.
           "Sure. You be the slave, though." Relief flooded her face, making me that much happier, and she even grinned at me with the old devious look.
           "Oh, but you being the slave is half the fun."
          

---v---

           Little red vials stood up on props in a glass case. In the diagrams below there were drawings of double helixes and cells undergoing meiosis, but the actual text was all in Hrasi.
           "So what's this?" I asked naively. Naia turned away from the medical history timeline we'd been studying to give me a hand.
           "Those are… the first four completely artificial blood samples. One Hrasi, one animal, and two human blood samples were created. It says here, hrn… Uh, The realization of many a geneticist's dream came in the form of completely artificial cells. The first samples to be created were the simplest: normal red blood cells. Since the earliest beginnings of the art that these four samples represent, new types of cells have been copied. Nerve cells, muscle cells, something-I-can't-translate cells, and even the 'potential' cells in our bone marrow can be copied.
           "Of particular interest is the application of this technology to the human genetic engineering program. Now genes from several donors can be combined to create master sequences with optimum gene patterns. This process allows us to control intelligence, strength, height, eye and hair color, as well as many other attributes, although it limits natural mutation - evolution. A similar program involving Hrasi was discontinued for ethical reasons, but the human program continues strongly.
           "What lies in the future of artificial cellular creation? A new, quickly advancing field is that of original cell creation. With total mastery over sub-cellular processes, scientists can now create or innovate upon nature's design to make new cells with new purposes. We may someday be able to re-code our genome to build cells that work more efficiently, making people everywhere stronger, faster, smarter, and less susceptible to disease. A more controversial use of the technology would be to try to adapt human bodily systems so that they may be transplanted into Hrasi. Watch for developments in both fields in the future."
           Naia shrugged. "Cellular manipulation, basically," she commented. We were speaking solely in English now that no one was around. My Hrasi vocabulary wasn't up to translating most of the words here anyway, so I was wholly dependent on Naia's astounding fluency. "We've always excelled as a species in biology. It's the one area where our superiority really is absolute. I think that since this exhibit was made they've been able to grow human organs adapted to function in Hrasi children, but the religious nuts threaten doctors and patients too much for the procedures to become mainstream."
           "Good," I argued, horrified, "kids can't be 'harvested' for their organs so that others can live. If you do that then you're saying that one child is more important than another." Naia smiled.
           "Aaron, have I mentioned that the humans here are a subjugated slave class?" Oh… right. I had forgotten about that. "Come on, I want to show you something in the space-aeronautics exhibit. You won't believe it, I promise." I frowned, unsettled by the prospects of what Naia's people had been doing, but obeyed and followed.
           Apparently Naia's idea of showing me around town was to take me to the biggest museum on the planet. Sure, it was interesting, but I could only take so much of spacious, still, and very cold rooms. Mostly it seemed she was showing off the Hrasi's development, which was indeed expansive. They could erase memories and then write over them as you might with a computer, they could regenerate most wounds (albeit at a very high price), and they were like gods when it came to genetics. And now what was I going to learn?
           We went up two floors via a wide staircase - Hrasi detest heights - and traveled across the building to the Hrasi space engineering department. "Now you'll see something few humans ever do," Naia whispered, and pulled me through the exhibit's entrance gateway into a dark labyrinth.
           Supposedly the halls simulated space, I guess. Black lights were everywhere, lighting up Naia bright purple. Little white points of light drifted around the ceiling and floor. Inset into the walls were pictures and movies of space objects: gas giants, stars, nebulae, supernovas, colliding galaxies, stellar dust-bunnies (roaming gas clouds), and other such things. Nothing I hadn't seen in person before.
           "This is idiotic, Naia. We're spacers; we've had some experience with these phenomena. If I see another holo-nebula I'm going to be sick." She held up a hand.
           "This part isn't why we're here. I brought you to the museum so you could see this one thing. Trust me, you won't regret staying." I sighed long and protractedly, but kept going. There wasn't anything interesting yet, but I held on.
           After a hundred feet of nauseatingly kiddy space science we managed to get to the 'historical perspective' section. Those were my two new words for the day, because every exhibit in the museum had a historical perspective station. "They're the first things in here. You'll be amazed," Naia promised as we walked through. I shook my head and snorted, the brushed past her to get a good look at whatever was in there.
           Amazed was an understatement. It was more like heart-stopping.
           Around the corner of the doorway in a glass case was a gray metal cylinder with a radar dome on top and two booms, both broken off after about 3 feet of worn, rusted steel. A red, white, and blue rectangle was emblazoned on the side, an emblem that every man and woman on Earth knew, an emblem that identified this one metal trashcan from all others. A single half-scratched-away word was written in English alongside a roman numeral, but they were unnecessary.
           "Care to explain," I coughed, trying to get my heart back into beating at a regular tempo, "exactly why the Voyager II probe is sitting in a museum on Haras?" Naia grinned and spun me around by the shoulder, shattering me even farther. Hanging from the ceiling was a vintage USSR Mig, the right half of a late twentieth-century US B-2 stealth bomber, and the cockpit of the Discovery II space shuttle. "What the hell?" I growled, stepping away, "What the hell is this?" Naia stood and watched me with an ironic expression.
           "It's what jump-started Hrasi culture. The first thing to land was Voyager, a good 1700 years ago. When it hit the mountaintop lake Ukareh the lake became a basin and two clans were utterly wiped out by the ensuing mudslides. We were shooting at each other with pointed sticks back then. Haven't you wondered how it is that two races millions of light years apart could be within ten years of one another in terms of technology?"
           "Impossible!" I cried, "Voyager was built less than a thousand years ago! Besides, it didn't have a conversion drive. It would've taken, god… hundreds of billions of years to drift that far? And wouldn't it have drifted towards something more massive?"
           "No one knows. Maybe something distorted the conversion point in your system to allow travel through some odd space-time route. The small fighter actually landed in a field outside a southern town a hundred years later. It supposedly had a pilot inside, but no one knows where he was buried. The black airplane materialized two hundred years later in a burst of fire. Both pilots were dead.
           "It was only until, oh, three hundred years ago that the spaceship crashed on our world. We were finally able to make sense of what these things were then, because the onboard computer was still operational and we had a single survivor to interrogate. From there we reverse engineered up to your level and built a great fleet to conquer your homeworld before it realized there were aliens."
           "The Discovery II had conversion drive theories stored in its memory banks?" Naia signed 'no'.
           "Actually, the surviving spacer was tortured into revealing her ideas. She was a brilliant physicist who wrote out plans before dying. All the computers said was that she had such theories."
           "So you built your fleet," I said, piecing the puzzle together, "But it was obsolete? You attacked us with 300-year old space shuttles carrying nukes?"
           "Exactly. But even in defeat we escaped with prisoners who started the genetics project and raised our 'tech levels to yours. You develop and then we steal. That's how our advancement has worked so far, except that now we have our own scientists counter-developing as well." I shook my head.
           "This is strange. If you received Voyager 1700 years ago, then, let's see… Naia, Voyager hit Haras before we had our renaissance. We didn't even have castles. Your people should be hundreds of years ahead of us." Naia rocked back on her heels and held out her hands.
           "You're right, but what my did my ancestors go and do? They built a religion around the things falling from the sky, and didn't so much as allow anyone to touch the specimens. It was only after the space shuttle and the work of a brilliant Hrasi linguist with the human that we determined the religion was a false one. By then it was too late to really surpass you." I walked under the hanging planes.
           Crazy stuff. This was really crazy stuff. Yeah, okay, I'd known that the Hrasi had been ripping off our starship designs for a long time, but I didn't know it went back that far. But it made sense, in a perverse way. If Alexander the Great had found a practical starship design, an example of nuclear weaponry, an example of conventional projectile weaponry, and a map to an unsuspecting civilization, wouldn't he have done the same thing? Too bad that astronaut hadn't been properly taught interrogation resistance.
           "This is insane, Naia. I'm scared that I have to believe it. So what happens now?" From the corner there was a hrumph.
           "Who knows? We could lose the war and be exterminated by your people, we could finish the job and totally enslave your race, or just maybe we could settle somewhere in between. I don't rule out co-existance as a possibility. Humans are so wonderfully mechanical and Hrasi are equally biological… working together we could easily expand our empire throughout the galaxy. Our races are very compatible: I think the fact that we're capable of enslaving one another proves that, abhorrent as it may be."
           "Actually, I was thinking mores within the magnitude of 'what's for dinner?'" Naia laughed at me, purrs encroaching upon her chuffs. I've always loved hearing that laugh.
          

---v---

           Lights came in waves as our train zipped past the precious sections in the tunnel where there were windows instead of steel. I slouched in the uncomfortable plastic seat provided in the orange section. My opinion of the modern Hrasi culture was quickly dropping. They were the most segregated society I'd ever seen. Take the inter-city metro for example: there were three color-coded sections. Blue for Hrasi, yellow for human, and orange for either in between. The accommodations were considerably better in the blue and considerably worse in the yellow.
           Naia sat in the window seat beside me, entirely used to the trip. She was idly playing with her tail, batting it as it quivered it front of her. I was bored as hell, having been reduced to analyzing the advertisements posted on the ceiling. I think they tried to teach us how to read into such messages in college English, but I didn't remember the process. Still, you could glean something without reading the ad.
           Up at the blue front the ads had nature scenes or pictured things that people with money could buy. In my section there were pictures of war glorified: human carriers being blown up, planets being bombarded, etc. If you only looked at those posters you might actually think the Hrasi were winning. In the yellow there were mostly written posters, but there was the occasional angry Hrasi face or pointing finger. I honestly had no idea what those were about.
           The train rumbled to a stop inside a building on maybe the tenth floor, but Naia didn't move. Obviously this wasn't our stop. The door did open though, and several Hrasi came onboard. Government types, mostly: they all had some color of uniform on. All but one settled down in the near-empty blue section and sighed. The one who didn't was a chestnut-colored female who sat down directly in front of me and turned around to smile warmly.
           "Hello, Miles. I didn't know you were going to be out so [late?]," she purred, blinking her eyes. Beside me Naia paused in her tail-batting, but pursed her lips and continued. "I thought you said you were going back [ ]. This must be that new slave we were talking about, Kyaruin. You were right, she's very [ ]. But why have you two [traded? / switched?] clothes?" Now Naia had stopped playing to watch me with a very small smirk. It's just my luck that someone would recognize me.
           "I'm sorry, miss, but I'm a slave myself," I apologized, trying to speak as generically as possible. The woman wrinkled her nose in distaste.
           "Oh no you don't, Miles. You call me by my name: Huri. I hate it when you say miss. And no, you're not a slave. I've told you that eight hundred [times?]." I stared at her.
           "No, miss Huri, I'm not Miles. My name is Aaron. I'm this woman's slave." I pointed to Naia, who nodded. "This is my mistress, Naia. I'm sorry, miss Huri." The woman frowned, looking between us.
           "You're not joking?" Naia shook her head.
           "He's mine. I'm sorry if he's [ ] you."
           "No, no. I like humans who are [ ]. He reminds me of a human [ ] of mine. I'm sorry to have bothered you." She turned away, then jerked back. "You do look like him, though. I'm the head of the genetics [ ]. What's your [ ]?" At my confused look she elaborated. "Your [ ]. Like one-[ ], two-[ ], or three-[ ]." I blinked and she sighed with exasperation. "Show me your right arm." I gulped, but Naia shrugged helplessly, so I did as I was told. "That's odd," the woman growled with confusion, "you don't have one."
           "I never bothered to get a [ ]," I lied, and her ears went back. All the way back, like I'd admitted to murder. Ah shit, not again…
           "You can be killed for that," she hissed softly, "I [suggest?] you come by my [office?] tomorrow and get a [ ] before anyone else notices." Naia leaned in to rescue me.
           "I'm sorry, miss, it is my [fault?]. I have not taken him to be [ ]."
           "That was not [wise?]. Do so as soon as you can."
           "I will," Naia promised, and with a huff the woman turned around. 'Close call' I mouthed to Naia in English. She nodded and looked away.
           Huri got off at the next stop, but we stayed on. The train then went into the valley's wall, squirming and twisting in knots as it stopped in several underground stations. I'd never expected them to be so accepting of subterranean life. When the train surfaced outside of the valley we got off and stood on the observation balcony. Here we were on the other side of the mountain range, on the edge of a basin. There must have been an incredible network of these mountain ranges isolating the plains from one another.
           The forest thinned out for a half-kilometer as the mountain gently became the edge of a vast plain. There was no horizon: the earth seemed to stretch into the sky with mountains in the distance no matter which way you looked, even as far as twenty miles away. We truly were in a giant bowl. Down in the plain's center was a river / lake system that stretched out five miles in every direction. The sunset was beginning to turn the sky yellow-orange, making the clouds of mist hovering over the water turn bright colors. Naia pointed to the nearest lake, maybe two miles away. "We're going there," she said.
           "It's beautiful," I told her, "I don't think Earth ever had something so spectacular. It looks like an artist made it."
           "Funny you say that," she purred. "It's called the Painter's Lake Basin, and we're going to spend the rest of the day there, where nobody else will see us." She pulled me by the sleeve. "Come on."
           We went to a shop nearby that rented camping equipment. The idiots there all commended Naia on her decision to bring a pack animal, but warned that I was not to be left alone or given a chance to be dangerous. Many people had lost their slaves and / or been murdered by them that way. She assured them I was docile as she loaded my rented backpack down with a tent, sleeping bags, lantern, food, and kilos of other useless stuff. If she overloaded that backpack we'd see who was docile alright…
           Fortunately, by the time we had gotten to the trail the sky was a quickly darkening purple. This meant that the temperature had dropped to a wonderful 65 degrees. Two miles for a couple of spacers was nothing - maybe a fifteen-minute jog. I could have done it in 10, but then I would have had to carry Naia. Granted she was more fit than I, but no Hrasi can do something for any sustained period of time: the stamina just isn't there. We were mostly silent, as we were wont to be, but after a couple of minutes I had to say something.
           "You seem awfully familiar with this area," I told her. She panted her reply.
           "I spent some time here after mother died. It's my favorite place: the capital is beautiful, and so is the basin."
           "You seem like you've been just about everywhere."
           "Not to Earth. Not yet."
           "Oh, you wouldn't like it there," I warned, "There are only three species left: humans, rats, and roaches. No plants except in pots. You can't see the sun unless you're at least as far north as Old Canada because there's no sky. The clouds are dark brown from all the smog. If you go outside for longer than an hour you'll die from heat stroke, and if you breath the air outside you'll choke to death. It's a nasty place."
           "I know, but it's still Earth, the place where everything began. I want to see the ruins, compare them to our own." I snorted.
           "Which ruins? The ones destroyed by war or the ones melted by the acid rain? Oh, you could see the Atlantic depression where the ocean used to be! No, trust me, you don't want to go there."
           "I guess so," Naia answered quietly.
           "Come on, Naia. We fit thirty billion people on one planet. You need second-degree gas giant armoring just to land in a storm. You want to go there? I like this planet more."
           "Yeah…" She agreed, and let it go.
           Ten minutes later we got to the water's edge. "Uhn," Naia groaned, still panting, and spread out her arms. One of the roaming mist clouds swept over us, temporarily blinding me. It froze me, but Naia was shedding heat left and right. The cloud blew past and I found Naia sitting down on the riverbank, pulling her legs up to her stomach. "I love this place. Get out the food, will you?"
           "Don't act like I'm your slave, will you?" I teased, but threw down the pack and pulled out foil-wrapped food, still warm. "What is this?"
           "Chicken. Hrasi chicken." I sat down beside her and started unwrapping things. Indeed, there was white meat in the packages and yes, it did taste like chicken. "You're so nice, Aaron. You'll pitch the tent too, right?" I glared at her good-naturedly before getting up.
           "Yes, mistress Naia." I opened up the tent frame and starting clicking the support struts into place. Naia didn't move, but instead watched the river ripple back and forth. "What're you thinking right now?" She sighed.
           "I'm thinking about how big this place is… You could just run away in the night, you know. Forget about the war and disappear into the woods. Live like one of the ancients. It'd be rough, but there wouldn't be any more fighting. You want to just leave, just get away from everything?" I started poking the struts into the sandy soil, but looked over to her to see her ears. They were far forward.
           "No, I don't think so. I'm a spacer, not a woodsman. Besides, if I don't do something, who knows what'd happen. My forest could be burned to the ground by human bombs in a year, for all I know." Naia turned around.
           "That's never going to happen. ICA will never get that far. Even now the Yusuurans and Haigh would fight side by side with the Royal Army to protect Haras."
           "What, you want me to run away? Sorry, but I think I still have a part to play in the war." Naia looked down at the river and flicked an ear my way.
           "Going to save the universe, huh? Me too. I hope we both survive." The tent was done: I zipped the gray dome's door open and tossed in the sleeping bags, then started to light up the oil lantern. Stupid thing - why do we use anything besides fusion and solar power?
           "Is that what's been bothering you?" I questioned, coming back to sit down and finally firing up the lantern. Its bright yellow beacon shone out across the light, turning dark blue mist clouds yellow again. Some shadows of little bushes showed up on the other side of the lake, flickering back and forth.
           "Yeah, I guess that's it." She blinked at me, ears laid back a bit. Her pupils had narrowed to slits, her brow had furrowed and wrinkled. I smiled at her and reached a hand to scratch the flat of her nose. She smiled wanly and took another bite of he 'chicken'. "You're a nice guy, Aaron," she chuffed. "Too bad Amara got you first. You can tell her I said that if you ever see her again."
           "I think I will," I said, ripping a hunk of meat to wolf down. Naia smiled honestly.
           "I hope you do," she murred. We took more bites, finished the meat, and threw the wrapping into the backpack. "Going to go to sleep," Naia yawned. "Maybe I won't see you in the morning?" I grinned and pulled her tail.
           "Don't worry, kitty. I'll be there." She glanced at me oddly, then shook her head and ducked into the tent. I stayed out a little longer, drinking in amazing Haras' Mother Nature. She was stronger than Earth's was, for sure.
          

---v---

           Early light found me face down in synthetic animal fur, snoozing away. Rough paws knocked me around the chest. In the haze of drowsiness I mumbled protest and rolled onto my back. The abominable snowman was leering over me. I rubbed my eyes and they refocused. Mr. Snowman slowly condensed into something more recognizably Naia-shaped.
           "Still here," she observed. "I guess that means we're going to see my father's friend."
           "I guess so," I replied, still only half awake. I was pulled out of my wonderfully warm cocoon and thrown onto cold, bumpy tent floor.
           "Wake up, Aaron. It's late; we've overslept. Wake up, damn you!" Playful nips tugged at my ears, but I dreaded what I knew was going to happen next. A big, cold, wet, Hrasi nose stuck itself into my ear and rubbed inwards. I was wide-awake in less than second.
           "I really wish you wouldn't do that. We have food?" Naia flared her nostrils and shook her tiny mane.
           "No time. It's back to the rail station for us. If we hurry we might catch one on its last morning pass. Remember to speak exclusively Hrasi once we get back."
           So hurry was exactly what we did. Naia huffed rapidly, unused to the more strenuous pace I had set. When she really began panting like she was overheating I offered to carry her. "You wish," she grunted, forcing her smaller body forward.
           "You're going to hurt yourself," I warned.
           "I know," she hissed back. Without a second thought I scooped her up in one arm, hoping we could cut our time if I sprinted hard. It was a big mistake. "Let go of me, damn you!" she cried, swinging extremities in all directions with claws out. "Let go or I'll kill you!" I set her down, startled, and she backed away with a menacing hiss.
           "Naia, it's -"
           "I don't care," she spat, "nobody decides where I go! You keep your own damn pace and I'll keep mine!" Without waiting for a reply she ran ahead. Well, so much for the idea of a night in the heart of nature calming her nerves. She didn't like planets too much, I guessed. I didn't blame her, though: planets can really shake a person up. They're so natural - even Earth - that you start to get a little shaken up.
           I caught up with her and apologized, but she was giving me 'the back'. Morning though it was, Naia really did seem a bit overworked at her chosen pace, so I dragged behind a bit until she slowed down. We barely turned in our equipment and boarded the very last morning train as a result.
           The railway was much the same as the hiking. Naia sat directly next to me, but wasn't speaking. More Hrasi lined the blue section, on their ways to work presumably, so I had to depress my personality again and switch into pure Hrasi. This meant a lot of 'yes sir', 'no sir', and 'I'm very sorry, sir'. Maybe if the corporate 'fatcats' weren't oblivious to anything without a tail they wouldn't have bumped into me so much…
           We got off at an underground station in the city. The whole disembarking process was very simple; with absolutely no advance warning Naia got up and walked off the stationary car with myself running to catch up. Her pace was brisk and unrelenting; the unsubtle hint there was unquestionably that I should get lost. Jeez, how was I supposed to know I was going to offend her so much?
           "Hey, Naia," I called, "Er, Mistress!" She slowed down a tad enough as to let me catch up, twisting around to regard me darkly with ears set back and eyes fixed predatorily on me. I moved up to walk beside her. "Mistress, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you." I fixed her with a hard stare. "I didn't know that you hated being picked up. I'm sorry, alright?" She turned away and hissed.
           "Shut up, Aaron. I'm not mad at you, but I'm worried. Just shut up and do what I tell you to. It's a long story that I don't want to talk about."
           "Alight," I whispered, shadowing her. Maybe I should've pressed further and then again maybe I shouldn't have. Should've and shouldn't have are academic notions, though. What really matters is what I actually did, which was follow her along a sunny sidewalk in a utopian city. Utopian except for the segregation and enslavement, if you want to be precise about it.
           Naia's course was set. She walked single-minded forward across a street, then to the right and down to the end of that sidewalk. There was an offish air about her I hadn't seen before. No invitation for conversation was in that mood. On the contrary, she looked like she'd bite my hand off if I touched her. We were not paying a visit to anyone she was overly enamored with, then.
           "There," Naia clipped in a short growl, pointing to a building across the street. It wasn't just your ordinary office building, being maybe 70 stories tall and a kilometer wide, but I'd seen much bigger.
           "Is that supposed to be intimidated?" I scoffed, and she looked over at me with a twitch of the ears and an unfathomable expression on her face. We crossed the street and headed up the three flights of the stairs needed to get to the entrance while she visibly searched for a reply.
           "I'd be intimidated if I were you," she settled on. "This is the kind of place you and I should feel intimidated in."
           "Nothing on a planet scares me," was my confident affirmation.
           "Then you're a fool," came the reply. As we brushed through glass doors I glanced at her. She looked deadly serious. Coldly the doors swung closed behind us, blowing a bit of morning chill from outside back at our heels like a silent retort. Inside was what looked like a corporate lobby: guards, stone pillars, security checkpoints, and space everywhere. Two Hrasi guards in black and blue armor advanced on us from the left, one holding out a hand.
           "I'm sorry, but you two can't come in here without a [permit? / ID card?]" Naia blew him off, bee-lining for the elevator with me closely trailing behind.
           "I'm here for Hersajh. Tell him Naia's coming," she hissed, not so much as making eye contact with either of the men. The elevator doors opened as we approached, and both of us hopped in. Before the guards could stop us (although they didn't put up much of an effort) the doors were closed and Naia had punched a mid-level button on the floor-selection panel.
           "Was that a good idea?" I asked. She didn't reply, but stared straight ahead. "Hey, Naia?"
           "I know what I'm doing," she hissed. "Don't bother." When the door opened it was to a luxurious hallway. Carpeted wood floor, stone walls and ceiling, tapestries, tables with floors: it was decked out with the works. Wooden doors were closed on the other side, but there were enticing golden handles on them. Naia didn't even notice, just plowed ahead. I jumped out after her and followed. When we got halfway down the five-hundred-foot or so hallway the elevator doors hissed closed and Naia - directly ahead of me - stopped to bury her face in her hands.
           "What is it?" I asked, immediately concerned for her. Slowly she turned around and stared at me between her furry fingers, then dropped her hands. She didn't look too happy.
           "I'm sorry," she mewled, and the lights went out. I flailed wildly, suddenly unable to see.
           "Naia?"
           "Naia, where are you?"
           "Naia?"
           From somewhere ahead of me I heard a soft, almost inaudible snuffling, and then something struck me across the back of the head hard.
          
           End Part 10