Afterburn

M ajor Shon Valtas removed his mask and breathing gear as he waded out of the surf, just in time to see two ’Zangians dive into the depths from the cliffs overhead. One of the native aquatics was a large, dark-hided male; the other a small, silvery female. The twin suns outlined them with a halo of amber-orange light before they made graceful arcs of their streamlined bodies and plummeted down toward the churning waves.

Jadaira and Onkar were too engrossed with each other, Shon saw, to notice him or the paw he had lifted in greeting. He didn’t mind. Shon’s interference in Dair’s life had nearly killed her more than once, and she deserved the happiness she had found with her mate. Shon was grateful that she still considered him a friend, although that was all, as she had once kindly informed him, that she would ever feel for him.

Unlike the ’Zangians, Shon was not at home in the water. He had to wear a breathing rig whenever he swam, and he could not dive deeper than one hundred feet without risking injury or death due to the immense pressure of the ocean depths. Shon’s homeworld was not K-2, but oKia, an icy-cold world of tundra and thick forests, where his people had evolved from the fiercest and most successful of lupine predators. The oKiaf’s element was snow; rugged cliffs and dark valleys their natural territory.

Water streamed from his long black mane and ran over his sleek shoulders, the dark hair partially covering the two parallel golden marks on his chest pelt. The thick brown and black hair that covered the rest of Shon’s body began to dry in the breeze, turning faintly white from residual salt. He wore only a pair of abbreviated trousers and the flipper-shaped footgear that allowed him to move underwater more efficiently, but were awkward on land. Walking in them always made him understand why the aquatic ’Zangians disliked being above the surface so much. He could kick off his footgear, but they were permanently stuck with their flukes.

It was hard to remember that only a few months ago he had feared and hated the water. Now he hated being away from it for longer than a day or two, and had entertained the idea of applying for a permanent transfer to K-2 so he wouldn’t have to leave the sea.

Shon looked out at the horizon, where a group of dark dorsal fins cut through the waves above the seamount ridge. The coastal pod coming out to greet Dair and Onkar, as they did to anyone who entered their territory. Oddly, it made him feel lonely, to watch the ’Zangians mass. He had never felt alone until he had come to this world, and been exposed to the ’Zangians’ friendly, communal way of life.

There were none on oKia; that much Shon knew. He had done the unthinkable by disobeying his father’s wishes and leaving his homeworld, and then the unforgivable by joining the military and undergoing SEAL alterforming. His manhood notches on the family totem had been chopped out of the wood by now; his name rubbed from all the hunting story hides. He would never be mentioned, or welcomed, or wanted among his tribe and, looking as he did, no other would have him.

“Major Valtas.” A colonial security officer stumbled a little as he made his way down a sand dune toward him. “Sorry to disturb you, sir, but you’re needed back at colony.” He held out a towel.

“Not an option, sir.” The officer, a placid-looking Psyoran, made a flutter of regret with his rainbow-colored frills. “I was ordered to personally transport you to Chief Norash’s office.”

The officer’s colors shifted, a sign of increased emotion among the Psyoran. “I can’t say for absolute sure, sir, but I think it might have to do with the twenty or so Skartesh that have been waiting outside your office all morning.”

The security officer’s glidecar waited at the edge of the cliff, and from there he drove Shon back to the colony. As they passed the new construction and restoration projects, Shon absently scanned faces and assigned species. More new transfers were coming in by the week, many from planets in other quadrants. One peculiarity caught his eye; a one-legged Omorr male having a spoken conversation with a tall, slim Terran female.

Shon didn’t comment. With a few exceptions like Dair’s stepmother, Shon didn’t care much for Terrans, who were mainly ignorant, obnoxious xenophobes and tended to create trouble wherever they transferred. He was interested in the Omorr, however, whose formal and occasionally inflexible manner didn’t detract from their universally respected intellect, or their other, more mysterious talents.

The glidecar slowed as the officer at the controls gawked at the unusual couple. “She isn’t spraying some sort of body fluid around him, is she? I’ve never actually met a Terran, but my brother told me that’s one of their defense mechanisms.”

Shon glanced back at the unlikely pair. The Omorr seemed perplexed, but the female had a benign look about her. “The skin on the front of their heads usually turns red or purple first. She’s not changing color. Keep going.”

“I should have been watching where I was walking,” Emily Kim said as she bent to pick up the last of the alien’s cases. “I do apologize for bumping into you.”

The alien, a male judging by the cut of his tunic, regarded her with round, dark eyes. “That is not necessary. Had I been attending to my path, I should have been able to anticipate yours and keep myself out of it.”

He was not speaking in Terran, but the tympanic insert she had been issued at Main Transport allowed her to understand him perfectly. Still, this was not the sort of encounter she had long imagined having. She had hoped to freely discuss environmental and cultural differences with her first alien contact, not collide blindly with him and end up sprawled over his luggage.

“Should we keep blaming ourselves and making apologies to each other, or may we exchange names?” Some species, Emily had been told, required more formal or ceremonial introductions, while others reserved the use of personal names for family or species members. In any case, it was always wise to inquire first.

“An exchange seems suitable, under the circumstances. I am Hkyrim, of Omorr.” He scanned her from head to footgear. “Please do not interpret this as an insult if I am incorrect in my preliminary identification of your species, but you are Terran?”

“I am. My name is Emily Kim.” She made the polite palm-up gesture the attendant on the jaunt from Terra had taught her. “I just arrived on colony this morning.”

“So, too, have I.” Hkyrim made the same gesture with one of his three arms. He didn’t have fingers, but the delicate membranes that webbed the ends of his spade-shaped hands seemed to serve the same purpose. “I will be working at the colonial medical facility. What, if I may ask, is your assignment?”

Goodness, he was a polite one. “I’m slotted to serve as a personal assistant in Administration.” She had been disappointed to discover she had been assigned to work with another Terran, but surely one who had spent twenty years on K-2 couldn’t be the usual sort. “It’s not as exciting as medical, but I enjoy the work.” And she was good at it; her employer back on Terra had tried everything to keep her there, including an offer to double her salary.

“I am assigned to process pathologic and forensic specimens for the medical examiner.” His gildrells made what appeared to be agitated movements. “This sometimes requires my participation in and performance of autopsies.”

“I never hear complaints from my patients.” The Omorr looked as if he might say more, and then his expression became shuttered and polite again. “Do you require any further assistance?”

“No, thank you.” She had chattered on too much; he was obviously bored. Or maybe he was worried about her spitting on him. She really couldn’t tell. If only Terrans didn’t have such a rotten reputation off-world. “It was very kind of you to help me up.” As well as interesting to discover how strong he was—he had lifted her without effort, using only one arm.

“As I knocked you down there, I could do no less.” The Omorr bent over from the waist, and it took a moment for Emily to register that he was actually bowing to her. “I must now report for my newcomer orientation, and then find the colonial archives. I wish you well, Emily Kim.”

She murmured an appropriate good-bye and watched Hkyrim hop away. His species only had one leg, so he bounced more than walked. It didn’t seem to bother him, however.

Did I stare too long at him? That marvelous fringe of prehensile tendrils covering the lower half of his face had mesmerized her; she had thought it a beard until she looked closer and saw what appeared like a nest of white snakes, or three-foot-long fingers. She had wanted to ask what their function was, but that was the sort of thing that offended another life-form, or so she had been told.

Emily checked her wristcom. Her own orientation did not begin for another hour, so she still had ample time. Her living quarters, while a little small, were adequate for her needs. She had dumped all her cases there so she could do some exploring.

The sight of so many exotic alien beings walking about—so freely and openly—had entranced her. Being spellbound, not Hkyrim, had been the actual cause of their collision. But how could anyone who had spent her entire life among her own kind not be plunged into a daze by the gorgeous variety of life here?

Not everyone on colony seemed equally delighted at the sight of Emily. More than one alien had made rather obvious efforts not to come in close proximity to her. Others stared with what seemed like angry expressions, but at times it was difficult for her to tell. Alien countenances were completely new to her, so she might have been mistaken in her interpretation of them.

Hkyrim hadn’t smiled, and his voice had come through her TI with something of a cool tone, but that might have been his natural manner. She wished she knew more about the Omorr so she could tell. He appeared to be a very pleasant person. That, and she was dying to know what he used that beard of tendrils for.

A short walk down one winding path led to a glidebus station and a bank of public access terminals, the latter of which were all occupied. Emily stepped behind one immense, gray-furred being and waited for her turn.

A red eye—the alien only possessed one—turned on her. A narrow slit appeared in the fur below it and growling sounds emerged. Her TI translated the rough voice as saying, “What do you want, Terran?”

She made the palm-up gesture again. “I would like to use the terminal, when you are finished.” If he took too long she would simply board a glidebus and take it to orientation.

The furred alien seemed to understand it, for its red eye shifted to meet the arachnid’s black eye clusters. “You know they’re as miserable as the Skartesh.”

“Not alwayz. Leave her alone. Zhe izn’t threatening you.” The three-foot-high spider female turned and lifted two of her legs toward Emily. “I am finizhed here, Terran, if you wizh uze of thiz terminal.”

“Thank you.” Emily stepped up to the terminal and engaged the locator system. She was approximately five minutes from Colonial Administration. While she studied the most direct route to get there, a message flashed on the screen indicating she had a priority signal waiting to be opened.

“Welcome to Kevarzangia Two, Miss Kim,” the alien male said. It sounded the same way someone would issue a death threat. “I am Carsa, the administrative assistant whom you will be replacing. By now my transport has left K-2 so that I may attend to a family emergency on my homeworld, so there is no need to reply to this relay.”

“I am extremely reluctant to leave K-2 at this time,” Carsa continued, “but I feel confident that with your qualifications you can serve Administrator Hansen as adequately as I have.”

“I have left a detailed disk of ongoing projects and negotiations in my console storage unit for your review. You will wish to pay close attention to those items that concern the Peace Summit. Delegates from the Ninrana, Skartesh, Ylydii, and ’Zangian species will be meeting in orbit above K-2, hopefully to settle their differences and address the immediate planetary needs of this system.”

Emily had read a little about the recent, aborted coup on Ninra, but the Terran news agencies reporting it had given it their customary contemptuous spin, even suggesting that the Ninrana’s looming extinction was deserved.

Emily wondered if the colonial archives would provide a more enlightened view of the conflict. She could go and check them after her own orientation, and perhaps see Hkyrim again while she was there.

“As for Administrator Hansen,” Carsa said, “I can personally attest to her kindness and infinite capacity for patience, and I believe you will find her a fair and understanding supervisor. However, if you wish to win her confidence, it would be best to display some initiative. Review the data I have left for you and learn the organization systems. The administrator finds strong emotions trying, as she has empathic talent, so keep calm. I would advise you bring her coffee, frequently, during the early-morning hours of your shifts. She seems to need the artificial stimulation it provides most at that time. Ah, and if a silver-haired Terran male named William Mayer pays a visit to the administrator, I advise you not disturb them. During such times, I usually leave to take a break or a meal interval.”

“My family matter bars my return to K-2, but I have embedded my personal relay code in your desk terminal. Please use it should you have any questions. Fare well, Miss Kim.”

A shadow passed over the terminal, and Emily glanced over her shoulder to see the passage of a nine-foot-tall being as it trudged toward a restricted-use glidebus. It seemed to be a cross between a humanoid and a killer whale—minus the white spots—and it wore a pilot’s flightsuit.

Burn’s natal pod dwelled in the warm waters off the coast, some fifteen kim from the outskirts of the colony. The short trip gave him time to hook up his lines to the bus’s storage tank of seawater—carried exclusively for the ’Zangians’ use—and think over what he was going to say to the others.

He knew Saree and the other pilots would likely resent him for the unhappy end result of their training session, but that wasn’t his fault. Dair had deliberately kept him in the dark as to the copycat maneuver. If he didn’t hold that against her, then the pilots’ pod should be just as forgiving toward him.

Burn watched as the terrain gradually sloped upward from the relatively flat land-dwellers’ territory to become a wall of rocky cliffs. A familiar tingle of excitement sizzled along his nerve endings as the air grew moister and saltier. He had his flightsuit unfastened before he climbed down the glidebus’s exit ramp, and dragged it off his body by the time he reached the edge of the cliff’s uppermost plateau.

Before him stretched out the largest of K-2’s oceans, what the land-dwellers called the Western Sea. Four thousand kim wide and twice as long, it contained so many major reef formations that they were visible from orbit, and was thought by the land-dwellers to be populated by nearly all the aquatic species found on the planet.

He dropped his uniform and skin seal on the rock and looked down. The tide had rolled in, deepening the water of the diving inlet to a dark blue. He breathed out, flattening his lungs, and then leapt off the edge of the cliff, somersaulting head over flukes before straightening out at the last possible moment to enter the water like a dark gray bolt of lightning.

Cool blue enveloped him, flooding his gill vents and driving the last bit of air from his lungs. Burn dragged in as much water as he could expel before touching off the bottom silt with a kick and swimming out for the seamount ridge. Although he had barely disturbed the surface with his dive, and swam silently, dark figures were already gathering in the distance and heading his way.

’Zangians were capable of communicating with others in three different forms of language: clik, fin, and balaenea. Clik, a collection of tonal sounds and pulses, relayed brief, necessary communication to any member of the pod within a kim. Fin, made of wordless, soundless body gestures and movements, was used and understood by most intelligent aquatic species. The ’Zangians’ most evolved language, balaenea, used elements of clik and fin along with subtler, more sophisticated sounds and gestures to relay the most complex and lengthy interactions.

Most of the pod turned and left at the sight of him, while the few ’Zangians who bothered to acknowledge his presence treated him to a few stiff fin gestures of distant greeting or simple recognition. The reception didn’t qualify as an outright insult, but only just.

Burn refused to allow it to bother him. He might have violated protocol and upset everyone, but that was the price to be paid for creative thinking. Whatever his friends or Dair thought, destroying the raiders had been his primary mission, and he had carried it through to a successful completion.

Burn. Madura, one of the few pilots who had not been assigned to the training exercise, swam up to greet him. It’s about time you returned. She turned slightly to look back at the retreating pod. Why is everyone calling you Pod Killer?

Znora mu V’ndema, one of the largest and oldest matriarchs of the coastal pod, swam up and circled around Burn in an agitated fashion. Are you injured? Curonal said how that leech-hided runt caused you to be thrown from that wretched contraption she forces you to endure.

I am not injured, Mother. Burn felt impatient with Znora’s nuzzling and glided past her. Dair is not white anymore, either. You will have to think up a new name to call her.

Perhaps when you cease behaving like one, I will not. His mother swam closer. What is the matter with you? You are hungry, of course. She nudged him. Come, let us go and feed.

He didn’t wait. He shot off into a nearby lateral current, using the energy to boost his speed. By the time Znora could turn to follow, he was almost out of her sight, and he kept swimming fast until he hit the colder waters above the black rock labyrinth of the northern reefs, where the coastal pod seldom came.

His mother would never follow him here. Cold water gave her joints trouble, and she disliked being separated from the pod. Then again, so had Burn, at least until recently. He had started coming here about the same time he grew so long that he couldn’t see his flukes in the water anymore.

He was larger and stronger than Dair, than his mother—than anyone—so why did the pod insist on treating him as if he were still shedding his belly spots? Would his mother never stop acting as if he were still taking milk from her mammary glands? Duo, didn’t she ever look at him properly? He was a meter longer than she now, an adult. Large enough to mate, if he desired a female, or to brave some of the outer currents.

Tiny bubbles turned the current around him milky as a large wrill bloom encompassed the reef. The miniature crustaceans were too small to chew and provide a proper meal, and Burn disliked the taste of the bigger ones, but he moved through the cloud and ate them until his gullet was full and his belly stopped cramping.

A fat, indolent gnaldrof slithered out of its cramped hole in the reef to investigate the unusual feeding activity. Its bulging eyes inspected Burn the same way it would its nemesis, the doowtasquid.

See what I’m reduced to? Eating garbage food. He cast a resentful glance back in the direction of his home waters. I wager they didn’t turn their back fins like that on Dair.

Burn should have been glad that the eel considered him beneath its notice. Gnaldrof venom never caused permanent damage, but it smelled like rotflesh and made anything thin-hided itch unbearably for hours. Yet even the eel’s indifference infuriated him.

All Burn truly wanted was to be a pilot. It had been his ambition ever since he had followed Dair into the military. Well, perhaps not always—when he was younger he had been distracted by all the lovely weaponry and armament the League had given him to play with—but surely he was old enough now to be trusted with more important duty. And there was nothing finer than taking command of a ship and facing off with the enemy, flying into battle with engines screaming, outwitting the lizards and anything else fool enough to put itself in his path.

Frustration made him flip in the water, dispersing the wrill bloom and clearing a path to the outer edge of the reef. Beyond the ragged curve of the rock-builders’ abandoned carapaces lay darker, colder water where no ’Zangian swam. Burn darted forward and then halted as if he had bumped into an unseen wall.

Like space, the region of the sea beyond the warm coastal waters was vast and empty; far too dangerous to support anything but the most mindless, uncivilized life-forms. Mogshrikes, the ’Zangians’ only natural predator, spent their lives stalking the freezing currents for migrating masses and wandering rogues.

I could survive out there. Burn had grown large enough to present a danger to smaller, younger ’shrikes, and he could certainly outswim the older, more dangerous ones. Onkar did, for years.

The only reason ’Zangians entered the outer currents, however, was because they had been outcast from their natal pod. Burn might have made fools of the other SEALs during their training session, but they wouldn’t drive him out for doing that. They wouldn’t dare.

Burn didn’t waste any time debating the matter with the gnaldrof, or himself. It wasn’t fear that made him turn away from the column of dark water, or put a little extra speed into the swim back to warmer, brighter currents. He would simply sort things out with the other SEALs and put this matter behind them.

Liana swam quickly away from the threat. Behind her lay something shapeless, dark, and menacing, but ahead there was brilliant light and the promise of haven. Colors glowed around her and, as she moved closer, delicious trills from fresh, eager food vibrated against her hide. She was so hungry; she could not remember the last time she had fed. The petite veils of her lateral fins ached to be released, to spread their multihued webbing and lure something tasty into their barbs.

Liana ignored the pleasures and temptations around her. Slowing and listening carefully were imperative, if she were to send a summons. This place might offer permanent refuge, something she felt the Ylydii needed desperately right now, but she would not be careless and risk others’ lives.

Part of her hated that—she had never wished to rise this far—but she had been born of the green. With the green came terrible responsibilities, especially toward the one who mattered most. The one who had sent her here, the one who had forced her to keep silent and keep moving. The one she had left back in the cold darkness.

Liana slowly swam through the light. She could not yet see the great schools of rextab and brevlisgre, but she felt their massing and movements. The water tasted clean, almost sweet on her tongue. No threat came to confront her, nothing disturbed the currents but that which could warm empty bellies.

Now she could, at last, relax and enjoy her surroundings. Had she ever swum waters this soft and warm? In the quiet cove where she had been born, perhaps, or while exploring the shallows above the sunken cities. She saw no sign of her grandmothers or the time-worn ruins; only green and purple columns of light streaming down from the star-dappled surface. Wherever she was, Liana felt completely at ease and wholly protected. Her sisters within the synchrony would soon join her, and call to their sequestered males, and they, too, would revel in this place.

Liana thought about releasing her veils, but decided to wait for the other hunters. Luring worked better when there were many webs to link together, and of course the males would need to be fed first or they would whine and screech like infants.

An odd taste filled her mouth. It was only the slightest trace of something strange on the current, but she couldn’t identify it. Whatever it was, it made the ridge that ran the length of her long dorsal fin stiffen. Her veils remained furled and cool, but their fluttering tips tingled as the sensory organs there, too, sampled the current. Something about this place had changed, and that was of deep concern to her. She had summoned the others; she had to find the source of the odd taste before they arrived or risk their lives as well as her own. She would send her bodyguards. . . .

Liana had never been alone, not since she had slipped from her mother’s birth canal and all the whelping throng had immediately seen the green monarch’s ring within her eyes. Born of the green, she carried the rarest, royal affliction, so highly prized among her kind, and she had been pampered because of it from that day forth.

The grandmothers and aunts and cousins had done their best for Liana, and had kept close until she had enough strength to make her own kills. But feeding was not meant to be done alone, and neither was exploring, not even for one meant to rule.

Liana had never been alone, could not be left alone. The waters closed in around her, squeezing on all sides. Had she fallen into an abyss? Been caught in some narrow cave? Her mother would be frantic.

Liana was pulled from the tight restriction and out. The water was still around her, but it was dark and too cold. She could see nothing, not even the smallest glimmer of light. She heard no sound but the harsh voice snapping out words she did not understand. Something jabbed her in the side and she released a pulse crying for help.

Liana’s sore, bruised hide told her what her eyes could not. Someone had wrapped her body in cords. Another, much wider cord covered her eyes. Her veils strained at the confinement, but the cords were too thick and made of something that cut into her hide when she twisted.

It was not her mother who answered her, but Nerala, the female captain of her mother’s transport. We have been boarded by mercenaries, my lady, she told Liana. They have taken over control of the ship.

The strange taste was still strong on Liana’s tongue, but she knew what it was now: Ylydii blood. It made her want to retch, but she clamped her throat shut and held it so until the surge passed.