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A WIDE GASH TORE THROUGH the earth; all around her dirt lay in disturbed piles, a formerly peaceful forest wracked by unknowable destruction. Naomi looked for the source but saw nothing that could cause such damage. She could feel its absence, feel that something had once stood here, something dangerous, something that never should have existed.
But where was here?
She wasn’t on Oscavia, the planet she had called home for most of her life. It looked similar enough, but the scent of the forest around her and the shape of the trees was wrong. She’d seen plenty of different planets in visions like this and had long ago learned the small tricks for telling them apart.
Beneath her feet the ground rumbled and the air shimmered around her as the vision shifted, and suddenly she was far from the forest, far from any planet, suspended in the air on some kind of ship, chaos around her as metal crashed to and fro and panicked voices called for help.
Did this have something to do with the forest? Or was this vision different? It was all jumbled up inside of her, a confused mishmash of pictures and noises and sounds, more mixed up than what she usually saw. More violent too, but the visions could be that way sometimes. She didn’t know why she was seeing this. It had nothing to do with what she was supposed to be looking for.
The ship she was observing might have been Oscavian in make but she hadn’t been on a ship out of orbit since she was 12 and she couldn’t say for sure. She tried to memorize little details, knowing that she would be grilled about them when the time came. But there was too much to memorize it all.
She saw a man in the middle of the wreckage—not Oscavian, not any kind of alien she recognized. From what she could make out his skin was blue and he was shaped like a human with dark hair and broad shoulders. She was too far away to make out his expression, but from the way he was moving he looked desperate. And when he shuffled away from the console he was standing in front of she thought she understood why. A woman stood up, a human woman, and they shared a glance. Naomi should not have been able to see the expressions on their faces, but visions were strange like that and she could read every hope and every fear they let show. Something had gone terribly wrong and both of them feared that the other would not make it home. They shared some kind of deep connection, something she could feel in her gut though she’d never encountered it before. Something that bound them soul to soul.
Something that made her ache deep inside.
Something that wasn’t for her.
A wall fell away, but neither the human nor the blue alien looked that way and Naomi was pretty sure it was just another way for her vision to shift. She caught a glimpse of teal skin and dark hair with an arm dotted with dark marks in vaguely triangular shapes. Her heart lurched and she angled her body towards the figure but as she tried to move, the vision cracked into a thousand pieces and shattered.
She opened her eyes and dragged in a gasp of air, breathing deep until her lungs hurt. Restraints dug into her wrists tight enough to make her normally brown skin red. Even knowing that the restraints wouldn’t give, Naomi fought against them, trying to loosen them a little bit. The doctor working with her was new and was following the instructions in her file to the letter, rather than trusting her when she said that he could leave her loose and she wouldn’t hurt herself. She hadn’t done that in years.
Her heart raced, and despite the restraints, her fingers shook. That vision was far more intense than normal and she wasn’t sure what she should do about it. The interrogation was about to start and she didn’t want to share what she’d seen.
Strange.
Normally she didn’t care. Visions were visions and she’d been having them for years. They showed her everything from war to profit to city plans to family drama and celebration and everything beyond. But it wasn’t her family or her city or her war and the doctors working with her knew that. They didn’t care what she saw, they cared that she saw. So why were her instincts screaming at her to stay quiet? She hated the word ‘psychic’, but it was the only one that fit for someone who could look into the past and the future with only the power of her mind. And it would be foolish for someone as psychic as her to ignore her instincts.
“How are you feeling, Naomi?” Dr. Konnor asked. His voice grated, a bit too high and somehow sounding like each word was strained through some kind of sieve. Maybe it was just that he was new and she wasn’t used to him. New doctors didn’t work with her that often, not when there was an entire staff dedicated to helping her and studying her. “Would you like something to drink?”
She wiggled her wrists again and waved her hands towards him. “Would you undo the restraints please?” She didn’t like the way the Oscavian doctor looked at her while she was tied up, like she was some specimen that he owned. She was an equal partner in this endeavor, had been working with these people for years, and just because they got to tie her up sometimes didn’t mean they owned her.
Dr. Konnor looked at her wrists for a long moment and Naomi was scared that he would leave her there, but finally he smiled and nodded. “Of course. Your file noted that you broke your arm during a vision once, and I don’t want there to be any more accidents.”
“When I was sixteen,” Naomi grit out as he undid straps. She rubbed her sore wrists once they were free. “I fell out of my chair and landed wrong. It could happen to anyone. That’s why we have this bar on the chair and the extra deep seat.” A restraint bar fell across her chest almost like an infant’s highchair. It clicked into place but didn’t lock. With her hands free Naomi lifted the bar and slid it into its resting place.
Dr. Konnor nodded. “I’m sure once we work together more I’ll become more confident. But until then I hope you’re willing to put up with me.”
He looked sheepish, like he was a bit embarrassed to be following the rules so closely. Naomi decided to give him a break. He was new, he was learning. And even though her accident had happened ten years ago, that didn’t mean the doctors should be careless of her safety. Visions could cause unexpected responses, and since he wasn’t used to what could happen, keeping her restrained was the safest option.
For now.
“If that’s what you want,” she conceded. She held up her wrists and showed them to the doctor. “But next time a little looser, please.”
Dr. Konnor winced and his purple cheeks got even more purple with a blush. “Oh my. I’m so sorry. Yes, of course. Now shall we get to the questionnaire?”
Naomi nodded.
The doctor scrolled for something on his tablet and held it in front of him. “Time frame of the vision?”
Naomi closed her eyes and breathed deep, summoning the memory of what she’d just seen. Sometimes she was lucky enough to see a calendar or something else that gave her a clear idea of when the vision was taking place. But the forest and the ship had nothing of the sort and she had to rely on what her instincts were telling her. Past? Future? No, neither of those felt right. “Um, I think... Now?” Whatever she had seen was happening somewhere far away, but it wasn’t a memory and it wasn’t a premonition.
“What do you mean? Can you please elaborate?” Dr. Konnor asked.
Another reason to dislike new doctors. The ones she usually worked with would know exactly what she meant. “I think I’m seeing something that’s going on now. Or possibly just happened. There was no indication of the date, but I can sort of feel the when of things. Past, present, future: they all taste a little different.”
“Taste?” he asked.
Naomi shrugged. “That’s not the exact word, but it’s not a smell or feel either. The closest sense I can liken it to is taste.”
“Interesting,” Dr. Konnor said as he made a note.
So clearly he hadn’t read all of her files. Naomi was sure that she had described the taste of a vision before.
“And what did you see?”
She still didn’t want to tell. Why the hell didn’t she want to tell? Konnor wouldn’t let her out of here until she gave him something. “I was in the forest, and then the vision shifted and I was on a space ship. They might be connected. I didn’t recognize the planet. The trees had brown bark and green leaves and the dirt was brown. The ship was huge and it might have been Oscavian. I didn’t hear anyone say anything, I don’t think there’s anything actionable.” She kept her mouth shut about the teal alien at the end. She didn’t know who he was, but she didn’t want to give him up. For now he was hers.
Dr. Konnor made several notes, but before he could speak again the door to the small office they were in slid open with a hiss and a familiar Oscavian scientist walked in. She was shorter than most Oscavians, with light purple skin and light green hair. She wore a dark coat and slim fitting pants and Naomi could not have been more happy to see her.
“How is the session going?” Morgyn asked. Technically Naomi should have called her Dr. Pitner, but Morgyn had been there for her for the past fourteen years, had found her when she was twelve years old, orphaned and lost on the edge of the Oscavian Empire. She’d given her purpose and a home and been the closest thing to a mother that Naomi had had since hers had died. And she had the best sense of timing ever.
“I think we’re about done?” Naomi looked at Konnor and dared him to contradict her with her grin.
The doctor scanned his notes before agreeing. “It was a very interesting session. I look forward to our next one.”
Morgyn looked at Konnor for a moment before inclining her head towards the door. Konnor left and the door slid shut after him. Morgyn took his seat. “How do you like the new doctor?”
Naomi gave Morgyn a look and hoped it conveyed every ounce of her frustration.
It must’ve worked. Morgyn laughed. “He’s new and he’s eager. Brilliant too, based on the papers he’s written. Give the guy a shot. If you’re still feeling this way next month we’ll revisit, okay?”
Brilliant? He was running scared and didn’t know how to deal with her. But Morgyn must’ve seen something in him and Naomi trusted her judgment. “Fine. A month. But if he straps me down like a prisoner again I’m going to complain.”
Morgyn looked at her wrists and grimaced. “Ouch. I’ll talk to him. And thank you. I think he could really open up some avenues we haven’t explored yet. Maybe even get that fine tuning we’ve wanted for so long.”
Naomi hadn’t been born psychic. Or at least, she didn’t have visions. She’d always had strong intuition, a strong sense of good and bad things about to happen. She could clearly remember the days leading up to her parents’ fatal final flight and the way her stomach had curdled every time she thought of the journey they were about to embark on. She had spent an entire day curled up in bed crying and getting sick while her parents packed. And her parents had thought it was a simple fear of temporary separation.
They were meant to be flying out to a mining camp to send a report back to their employer. A week-long trip that they’d taken a dozen times before. Normally Naomi had accompanied them, but they had enrolled her in a local school and didn’t want to take her out during an important exam week. Mechanical failure led to the crash and Naomi was left alone, the only human in an Oscavian school on the edge of the empire. Morgyn had seen her potential and Naomi’s instincts had screamed at her that the path Morgyn offered was the one she needed to take.
Fourteen years and a lot of work later, and Naomi no longer just had strong instincts. Now she got visions of the past, of the future, of the faraway present, things few people were able to see or understand, especially with their sanity intact. But she didn’t have much control. Sure, she knew the conditions most likely to induce a vision, which was what the session with Dr. Konnor entailed. But she couldn’t recall the specifics, couldn’t make herself see who would win an important sports match or battle. For the past three years Morgyn had been working on ways to make it happen.
“You really think so?” She’d like to have a little bit of control. Not because she wanted to know everything that would ever happen, but because staving off some of the more horrifying crap would be worth whatever ordeal Morgyn put her through.
“I really do.” Morgyn smiled and reached out to pat Naomi on the arm, careful to avoid her tender wrists. “But we’re going to need to take a peek at your brain again. Minimally invasive.”
Naomi’s hopes crashed. She almost reached up to touch one of the scars running along her skull. Her gift had come at a very steep price. She couldn’t count the number of times Morgyn had opened up her skull and tinkered. “We can’t just do a scan?” Even the most minimally invasive brain surgery left her in a fog for days.
Morgyn was already shaking her head. “Not this time, I’m afraid. It’s perfectly safe. Shouldn’t take long either. We just need a look.”
How many surgeries was enough to repay the life that Morgyn had given her? Naomi didn’t know where she would’ve ended up as an abandoned human girl left in an empire far from home. “I know it’s safe, but I just feel...”
“Our research is saving lives, Naomi.” Morgyn spoke over her, her voice firm. “You have a gift, do you really want to waste it?”
“Minimally invasive?” That didn’t sound too bad. They’d just take a few pictures and be done with it.
“You won’t even know we were there,” Morgyn promised.
Naomi didn’t need her psychic powers to know that was a lie.
***
AS THE CALL RANG, SHAYN worried that it wouldn’t connect. He didn’t know what time it was back on Honora Station or what shift his brothers would be working today. Time was a funny thing across planets and space stations, but just as he was about to give up hope, the call connected and his brothers’ smiling faces showed on the screen of his comm. Shayn smiled back. They were light-years apart, had never been this far apart before, but with this connection it was like they were right next to each other.
He could see Dekon jostling Braxtyn out of the way while Brax glared back at his brother. The twins were a lot younger than him, twenty-three to his twenty-eight, but ever since they had left home the kids had grown up fast and it was hard to remember a time when they got to enjoy their youth. Of course, youth didn’t last long for a Detyen, not even half-Detyens like them. They were barreling ever closer to a terrifying deadline with little hope of survival. And that was why Shayn had taken this trip.
“Are you there? What’s the Oscavian Empire like?” Dekon asked. Though Deke and Brax were twins, Shayn never had trouble telling them apart. For one, their clan markings were completely different, and their attitudes as well. Dekon was a sunny boy, always smiling and optimistic, while Brax walked around with the weight of all the worlds on his shoulders.
“It’s very... shiny. Lots of tall buildings, vehicles zooming everywhere. Nothing like home.” Shayn winced as he said it. They didn’t talk about home, not if they could avoid it.
“Sounds interesting,” said Brax, ignoring Shayn’s blunder. “Have you had your appointment yet? What did they say?”
Shayn hadn’t left his brothers and his job as a security guard on Honora Station to take a vacation. He was there to save their lives. Maybe. Their mother was Oscavian and their father had been Detyen, and none of them knew which side of their ancestry would determine their fate. Detyens died at the age of thirty if they didn’t meet a fated mate, a denya, in time. It had happened to their father, who had loved their mother with his whole heart despite the fact that she was not his denya. And as Shayn crept ever closer to thirty he grew more concerned.
Would he die? He didn’t want to, but if it was just him he wouldn’t be here with the desperate hope for answers. His younger brothers had time, and he wanted them to have all the time in the world. So he needed to know. And that brought him to Oscavia, the central planet of the Oscavian Empire, the very heart of it. They were looking for rare species and there was no one more rare than a Detyen. Sola Corp might be able to give them answers so they could do whatever tests they needed if it meant he could give his brothers a real future.
“My appointment is later,” he answered. “I wasn’t sure what time it was there and wanted to make sure I caught you.” The trip to Oscavia had taken more than a week and due to gamma radiation and interference he’d been unable to get a call out to Honora Station. He’d never gone so long without talking to his brothers, and he never wanted to again. They were all each other had in this galaxy and he would do anything for them.
“Have fun while you’re there,” Dekon encouraged him. “How many times do you get to go someplace like Oscavia? I wish you’d let me come with you.” Beside him Brax was nodding
When he told them of his idea to offer himself for testing, both of his brothers wanted to come. But Shayn didn’t know what it would entail. It could be painful, it could be debilitating, and he was more than happy to risk himself. But he wouldn’t let his brothers sacrifice the lives that they’d carved out on Honora Station when he could do it himself.
“I’ll take plenty of vids, I promise. And I’ll be back before you know it. But I have to go now, they’re expecting me.”
His brothers bid him farewell after demanding gifts upon his return. Shayn smiled as he put his comm away and looked across the street at the towering building that would be his home for the next month or so. The outside shined as the sun hit it, metal and glass as tall as a mountain. From pictures that Shayn had seen of big Oscavian cities, he had expected dozens of similar buildings, but this edifice stood alone, surrounded by flowering gardens for blocks on either side. It was a little strange, the mix of technology and nature, but he liked it. He hoped he was allowed to soak up the heat in those gardens, he could see himself lazing there when he wasn’t busy with whatever tests they would want him to undertake.
Shayn crossed the street and entered a brightly lit lobby where he greeted the android at the front desk and gave his name. He was directed through another set of doors, following glowing lines on the floor until he made his way to an office with a placard on the door that said Dr. Pitner.
He knocked on the door and it slid open. A short Oscavian woman sat behind her desk and rose when she saw him. She waved at him. “Come in, come in. I’ve been expecting you. Shayn NaZade, the Detyen. There was a lot of excitement when your application came through. Please have a seat.”
Two plush chairs sat opposite her desk and Shayn sank into the closest one while Dr. Pitner took her seat again.
“Excitement?” Sure, Detyens were rare, but Shayn was about as ordinary as it came.
“A Detyen hybrid? I’ve never heard of it. And with so few of your species left it’s quite a treat.” She winced and shot him a guilty look. “I’m sorry, that was incredibly callous. What happened to your people was a tragedy. And while we do look forward studying you, you are much more than just a specimen. We’ve made great advances at Sola and the more people we can help, the more people we can study, the better we can do.”
It sounded like she was reading from a marketing statement. And not for the first time Shayn wondered if he was doing the right thing. Sola was the only corporation he had found that was doing this kind of research, but Dr. Pitner had already stumbled and talked about the genocide of his people as if it were a mere inconvenience.
A hundred years ago his people had flourished on the planet of Detya. Though his father had never seen it, he’d had plenty of stories that he had passed down to his sons as they had been passed on to him. But the story that Shayn knew best was about the planet’s destruction. No one knew who had perpetrated the crime or why, but one day the planet went up in flames and billions of people died. The only survivors were those close enough to ships to escape in time, or those already off planet. Their numbers had dwindled over the years and now their population numbered in the thousands. There was no accurate count, the survivors all scattered to every corner of the galaxy. From time to time Shayn heard rumors, the most outlandish about a legion of warriors looking for those who had destroyed the planet.
But his father was the only full-blooded Detyen he’d ever met. And all he had to share with his brothers about their people was the stories his father had told him.
“So you think you can figure out if I will need to pay the denya price?” That was the poetic term they used to discuss the death sentence. The price for a fated mate. Too high a cost as far as Shayn was concerned.
“We’ll be able to do more than that,” Dr. Pitner promised. “Our gene research is years, if not decades, ahead of anything you’ll find in the empire or outside of it. We’ve done some amazing things with gene manipulation and life extension. I’m sure we can help you and your brothers if that’s what we need to do.”
“Really?” There was a legend of Detyens escaping the denya price, but their fate was even worse than death. Could science really circumvent all that?
“I don’t want us to get ahead of ourselves.” Dr. Pitner looked down at her desk before waving her hand at the side and bringing up a holographic display. A picture of a Detyen hovered before him, one that Shayn didn’t recognize. He didn’t know if it was a regular person, or just a model. “We’ve done several studies of the Detyen genome and more than we can count of Oscavians. Now, no two people are alike, so until I get a direct look at what’s inside you I can’t say what you are for sure. But we can make some predictions, and ever since you agreed to your stay we’ve been playing around with the data we have. I must say, you look much more Detyen than Oscavian.”
It was true. Oscavians were pretty much all variations of purple with electric blue eyes. Shayn and his brothers were all blue like their father with clan markings and dark Detyen eyes. But unlike their father, whose eyes had turned red when he felt strong emotions, Shayn and his brothers had eyes that went blue.
“And your main concern is the shortened lifespan? The so-called denya price?”
“It is,” Shayn confirmed. “My parents were not mates. My father died when he turned thirty and my mother and I watched it happen. My brothers deserve more than that. And chances of any of us finding a mate are slim to none. There just aren’t that many Detyen women left.” That’s what his father had said. A slew of tragedies in the wake of the destruction of Detya had seen the number of female Detyens dwindle, and for some reason more males than females were born in the century since then.
“Clearly, Detyens are genetically compatible with more than just other Detyens,” Dr. Pitner noted. “I do wonder if you would even be able to sense a denya given your status. Or if your denya would even need to be Detyen. Something to think about.”
Shayn jolted his seat. Not be able to sense a denya? Was that even possible? He had never met another Detyen female, but he had assumed if he ever did and if she was his mate he would know it. If he didn’t, did that mean he would survive beyond his thirtieth year? It was called the denya price, after all. And if he had no denya, would he have to pay it?
Dr. Pitner stood up from her desk. “It looks like you have a lot to think about. We’ll start tomorrow with some initial tests. Nothing invasive. We just need to get a baseline, figure out what you are, what you need. There’s an excellent staff here and by the end of the month there won’t be any question that we can’t answer about your genetic makeup.”
That was a little terrifying, but Shayn kept that thought to himself.
He followed Dr. Pitner out of the office as she led him to an elevator and up several stories to the dormitory. They passed a red door with a giant X on it and Shayn couldn’t help but stare. “What’s that?”
“Restricted section,” Pitner responded. “We do have some... fragile patients that we don’t want to disturb. Only authorized personnel. Anytime you see a red door or an X, please keep away. It’s for your own safety as well as that of our other residents. There is an entertainment block on the third floor and you are free to roam the garden as much as you want. Just please allow enough time for your appointments. You may have food delivered to your room or you may join the other patients in the dining room. We do have you on a specific meal plan for now just to make sure that nothing interferes with our initial testing. I promise the food doesn’t taste too horrible, I usually eat it myself.” She stopped in front of a room with a plaque bearing Shayn’s name. “The sensor outside will respond to your hand print. The other patients do not have access, though certain staff and security members do.” She pressed her hand to the sensor and the door opened.
Shayn’s bags were already sitting on a small table. The room was at least three times the size of his quarters at Honora Station, but that was to be expected in a terrestrial building. Bright sunlight came in through the window and he could see buildings in the distance. His room back home didn’t have any windows, merely a viewer that simulated whatever he wanted to look out on. He’d grown up on planet, but in the years since he’d left he’d gotten used to the limitations of living in space. The feel of real gravity rather than artificial was something of an unexpected adjustment.
“I have enough time to take you on a short tour,” said Dr. Pitner. “But I understand if you would like to postpone it.”
The room was huge, but he didn’t want to be behind closed doors at the moment. “A tour sounds wonderful.”
They left his room as it was and headed back to the elevator. Dr. Pitner showed him the entertainment block and Shayn was sure he would find something in the library or the vid player to keep him entertained. But when she led him out to the garden he felt like he could finally breathe. His mother had grown flowers on the barren patch of dirt outside their house. The sweet scent reminded him of his past, of home. The memory was bittersweet. He couldn’t go back there, and she had refused to leave with her sons. He missed her every day and hoped that all was well.
Dr. Pitner seemed oblivious to the emotions swirling in Shayn’s heart. “If you continue on the stone path there’s a small pool where several of our residents love to swim.” She checked the watch on her wrist and grimaced. “I have a call I have to make. There are some more things I would like to show you. Shall I meet you back here in an hour or so?”
Shayn nodded, not quite able to speak as he imagined what his mother would think of the greenery all around.
Pitner didn’t see anything wrong with his response and left.
Shayn wandered around, running his fingers over delicate petals and breathing deep of the sweet air. Something deep within him tugged him deeper in the garden and down the path to the pool. He didn’t know where he was going or what he would find when he got there, but he had to move. The path split and Shayn followed his instincts, heading right and further into the greenery. He came to an abrupt stop when he saw the woman walking back towards the building.
Human, with brown skin and brown hair and a serious expression on her face. Recognition tore his insides to shreds as everything he thought he knew about himself was remade. She was impossible, just as impossible as him. And yet he knew what she was without a doubt.
And in that moment his hopes and fears for himself and his brothers and their futures grew tenfold. He had come to Oscavia for answers, and the sight of her changed everything.
Denya.
