Stellarnet Rebel (9 page)

He turned to the wall and crouched into a fighting stance. His phoenix knight, head intact again, also crouched.

“’K, thanks.”

He didn’t turn around, but he waved. The incarnation also waved. “Bye.”

When she reached Duin’s block a few minutes later, she used her new key to enter his private hallway. It was similar to her—now destroyed—hallway except that the wall didn’t seem to be working. And instead of LEDs, the ceiling was covered with more of those little glow balls he shared with the children. Several crates and odd piles cluttered the floor. One pile looked like a person, but she didn’t get close enough to find out.

The data key would let her into his compartment too, but he didn’t know that, so she lifted her hand to knock on the door. Before her knuckles touched metal, it opened.

“You are here.” He waved for her to enter. “I heard you in the hallway. Come in, come in.”

The smell was what she noticed first. As Taya predicted, Genny got used to the feculent odor of the colony. But, walking into Duin’s room, the contrast was so abrupt, it reminded her how much the rest of the settlement stank. In here, the air was crisp and dewy, with the faint scent of curry.

Duin had changed out of his damaged suit into something like a toga, but umber-colored and embroidered with complex patterns. Some of the threads glimmered in the light when he moved. “This is different,” she said, touching the fabric where it draped over his shoulder. Her fingers drifted to the lustrous, exposed skin of his neck.

He took her roaming hand in his, kissed it, and returned to preparing the meal. “It’s called a
bava
, woven from long fibers of a
bav
plant.”

“On Earth, only rich people can afford organic textiles. Everyone else wears synthetics. You would make a lot of money if you exported it to Earth. Do you know how to make it?” Genny wouldn’t be surprised. He seemed to know everything.

“No, no, I never learned. There were always many
bava
weavers. Now…” He waved his hands. “As with so many things. Gone. Lost. Dried up.”

She looked around his compartment. It had the same layout as hers—berth to the left, table and Asternet wall to the right, kitchen corner, storage closet on one side of the back door and a bathroom opposite. But his bed was buried under a mountain of blankets and pillows, which spilled onto the floor. Little tufts of unidentifiable plants were tucked throughout the room. The table was covered with a clutter of objects. And there were papers everywhere, across the table, on the floor, shoved in the shelves, even stuck to the walls.

The wall displaying his Asternet access was as cluttered as the room. In the overlapping windows, she identified Leonardo Da Vinci’s drawings, the United States’ Declaration of Independence, diagrams of early Industrial Era inventions, various mythological creatures, weapons schematics and several religious symbols. “The Wind That Shakes the Barley” was playing in the background.

Duin shoved a stack of papers aside to make room at the table. Fascinated by the rustling sound they made, Genny picked one up to examine it. The sheet was a golden color, with fibers running through it, and covered with little splashes of color. “Is this Glinnish? I saw similar symbols on your translator.”

“Yes, see here.” He ran his finger down, reading in columns from top to bottom. “It says,
I will arise and go now, for always night and day, I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
”

“What is that?”

“One of your poets, Yeats. I’m translating it, to share with my people. It describes how I feel here in the colony. When I stand in the thoroughfare, I still hear the water of Glin in my heart.”

The way he stood, wrapped in his
bava
, Genny thought he looked like one of those marble statues in museum simulations. Even with his gray-green skin and strange eyes, the intense, melancholy expression on his chiseled features seemed ancient and wise. She reached out and touched the hand he held over his heart. Duin put down the paper and placed his other hand over her own heart. They stood there like that, looking at each other, for several seconds, listening to each other’s heartbeats, feeling each other breathe.

When Genny closed the distance between them, he said, “Here, I have something else to show you.”

He took her to the back door of his compartment. It led into the area that would have been the garden in Genny’s block. But Duin was on the bottom level of the colony, without access to natural light. Instead, his garden area was full of those bioluminescent orbs, like the ones in the front hallway, casting ethereal shadows throughout the chamber and causing the misty air to sparkle. Everywhere she looked, she saw bits and pieces of hundreds of different Earth objects—wires, circuits, furniture, wheels, sparkling pieces of glass, chains, pipes and tubing—assembled into works of either art or science, she couldn’t quite tell. Portions of the walls were covered in fabric, mechanical parts or knick-knacks, in bizarre combinations. She could hear water gurgling, and an intermittent, musical chime.

“Look, look. This is the water clock I built. Those are all of my extra water tanks over there. Here, I put in a fish pond. You see, I did
not
eat all of your tilapia. And I’ve been experimenting with steam-powered machines.” He pointed out various contraptions. “I’m also working on an orrery of this star system.”

“When do you sleep?” It was a legitimate question. He spent most of his time with her or with Mose’s children. Or so she’d thought.

“Whenever I am tired. What’s most exciting is
this
.” Duin held up an object that looked like a crude cutlass wrapped in barbed wire.

“Kick ass. What is it?”

“It’s a way to extend the range of my zap.” With a lunge, he jabbed at the air. Bolts of lightning danced along the length of the weapon, snapping between the prongs that bristled along the length of the blade. “Now, if I could figure out how to extend my zap by three
hundred
feet, not three feet,
that
would be useful.”

He chucked the zap-sword onto the table. It made a heavy thud, rattling everything else on his work bench.

“Where did you get all of this?” Knowing the Glin perspective on ownership, or lack thereof, she had to wonder how many of these things would be considered stolen.

“In the recycling blocks. Or lying around.” He swirled his hand in the air. “Now, the potatoes should be mushed severely enough for you.”

They returned to his compartment, where he set out a platter, a bowl and a dull knife, all carved from the bones of a
labbud
. They were covered with beautiful patterns that represented various plants and creatures on Glin.

“Tib carved them. Tib is my second descendant. There were more dishes, but these were all I could find after the Tikati came.”

“I wish I could take vids of them, they’re beautiful,” she said. “Hopefully I’ll have my bracers soon. We should try to get a device for you, too, so you wouldn’t need all of this paper.”

He served her mashed potatoes, lentil curry and bananas. None of which he shared. He watched her with a contented smile while she ate.

“Aren’t you going to have something? We think it’s rude to eat in front of someone else.”

“It makes me happy to watch you eat, to know that I have provided something you need.” He laced his fingers together, resting his elbows on the table and his chin on his hands.

“Well, stop it,” she laughed. “You’re making me feel weird.”

He activated the tabletop keyboard. “Then I’ll update the blog. There are thousands of emails to answer, discussion threads to address. We haven’t posted an update in hours.” He opened several more windows on his busy wall. “I’ll help you compile a database of the people who sent donations and you can use one of your mass-mail permits to thank them.”

“No.” She set down the knife, which she’d been using like a spoon to scoop up potatoes.

“No?”

“I’m done, Duin.”

“You haven’t eaten much.”

“I’m done
waiting
.” Genny got up from her chair and moved into his lap. With one hand, she slid the
bava
fabric off of his shoulder.

“Oh
.”

There was another hunger. With relentless lips and hands, they consumed each other. She didn’t just want, she demanded him. Genny removed her clothes and Duin wound the
bava
around them both, cocooning her against his bare skin as he held her in his lap.

“I don’t know much about Glin anatomy,” she reminded him.

“I do have an advantage. There’s a deluge of information on the Asternet about human mating.”

“It’s called porn, Duin.”

“And it’s very helpful. Though there are some things I don’t understand.”

“I’ll teach you anything you want to know.”

Duin closed his eyes, reveling in that blissful sentiment. Genny kissed his eyelids, his lips, his throat. His hands moved over her legs, and then between them. She moaned.

“You are wet
everywhere.
” His tongue ran over her skin, tasting the pathways beaded with sweat. The more he touched her, the wetter she became.

Straddling his lap, she slid onto him and could feel him throbbing inside of her. With each pulse, he grew until he filled her completely. She moved, and his response was ecstatic. But just as she was reaching her fall, he stopped her, grasping her hips and holding her to him.

Grinding into her, he made her forget any intention she might have had to explain or ask or compare their sexual differences. Words fled, unneeded. They pressed together into one being, one heartbeat, one mind, one soul. It was the most powerful feeling she had ever experienced. She was falling into him, even as she drew him into herself. Waves of pleasure washed through her.

She didn’t know how long they stayed together, it seemed like forever, until the last shudder subsided. And they remained together for a long time, even after. Still sitting in the chair, still wrapped in his
bava
, she rested her head on his shoulder.

“Is it like that every time, for Glin?”

“We call it
merging
when mating goes beyond the physical act. But no, it doesn’t happen every time. That was very…unusual.”

“I still feel like you’re inside of me.”

“I am.”

“It’s detachable?”

The shock in her voice amused him to no end. “Great Ocean, no,” he said, trying to stop laughing so he could explain. “Glin have thicker blood. Other fluids are thicker, as well. I suspect it’s yet another adaptation which Dr. Geber could explain to you.”

“Oh. But it will come out eventually, right?”

“Eventually, for Glin females at least. Or that’s going to be an interesting visit to the med-block. Are you worried?”

“No, not really. I feel… I don’t know. Safe. Right. For the first time in my life, I don’t care what anyone thinks of me. Isn’t that odd?”

“Not at all,” Duin said as he held her. “What matters is what you think of yourself, J’ni. That’s always what determines your fate.”

“Duin? It’s Blaze. You there?”

He was, with J’ni beside him. The colonel’s voice woke her, and she sat up enough for Duin to pull his arm out from under her and leave the bed. He wrapped the
bava
around himself and activated the netcam.

Duin checked the time on the wall. “Good afternoon.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know where I could find Genny, would you?” The question was mere courtesy. The officer hadn’t shifted in yesterday, after all.

“Yes, I think I can locate her.” Duin glanced over his shoulder.

“Good. I need to talk to the two of you, in my office. Now.”

“I’ll collect J’ni.”

Blaze’s window disappeared.

Duin turned to the bed. J’ni peered at him over the top of a large, embroidered pillow.

“’Lo,” he greeted her.

“’Lo, Duin.” The way she spoke his name sounded different. There was a sort of sigh in it that made him want to ignore the colonel and stay in his compartment with her for the rest of the day. Duin sat on the bed and ran his hand down her back. She rolled onto her side, exposing even more places for his hands to explore.

“You are fuzzy. Like a
neep
.”

“You mentioned neeps before. Is that a kind of fruit?”

“It’s a worm.”

“How romantic. Shall I compare thee to a wiggly worm? Thou art more fuzzy and invertebrate. That’s exactly what Shakespeare should’ve written.”

“I’m sure he would have, had he been a Glin.” Duin laughed. There was a promise in her flesh, in the warm rivers of blood that rushed under his touch, in the passion that surged in her eyes. He knew, without a word, that this moment was a storm waiting to break as soon as they returned to his compartment.

She kissed him and climbed out of bed to get dressed. Duin had not repaired his
wallump
suit yet, but he had a vest which covered the damage. As for his injury, there was only a faint scar.

A short while later, they were being escorted through the military zone by two Airmen. Duin greeted them by name. “Hello, Mirek. Rachael.”

“Hello, Mr. Glin,” said Mirek.

“I’m
from
Glin,” he explained, as he explained every time he visited the military zone. “It’s not my name.”

They entered Blaze’s office, and the two Airmen took sentry positions inside the door. The colonel gestured for Duin and J’ni to sit down.

“’Sup, Blaze?” J’ni asked.

The look on his face was stern. “After what happened to your block, you are being ordered to return to the Solar System. For your safety and ours.”

“What? No! Why?”

“Ordered? By whom?” Duin demanded. “Who has the right to control her?”

“INC,” she answered. To Blaze, she said, “Does J.T. want me to come back? Will they let me bring Duin?”

“It’s not INC,” Blaze said. “It’s the U.S. Security Department. You’re being taken to Titan.”

Water filled her eyes and her voice rose to a stormy pitch. “Titan? You mean the Adiri Detention Center on Titan. Oh, my god. Did you tell them I’d been attacked? Did you tell them that we were almost killed in the explosion? I didn’t do anything
wrong
.”

Duin was shaken by her reaction. “What is
Adiri?
”

“It’s a military facility on one of the moons of Saturn…” Blaze began, but J’ni cut him off.

“It’s a hole where they put people to forget about them,” she said, and the thought stung Duin to the core. “I could be there for years.”

“Why?”
Angry little zaps crackled over Duin’s palms. “Who would put her there? What is this department?”

“The Security Department.” The rank insignia flickered on the left arm of the colonel’s suit, and he banged on the armored plating. The insignia stopped flickering. “Used to be Homeland Security but that got changed when we started off-world colonizing. It’s part of the United States government.
Her
government.
My
government.”

“Any government which assumes its constituents guilty is evil,” Duin declared.

“She’s not assumed guilty,” Blaze insisted.

“Then
why
would they relocate and imprison her?”

“You need to understand something,” said Blaze. “There’s a whole mess of bureaucrats on Earth who think she set off that bomb.”

“
Why?
Why in the world would I do that?” she asked.

“For your goddamn blog. Because you’re some kind of crazy activist.”

“But it’s not
true!
” Duin roared at the colonel.

“I know that!” Blaze yelled back at him.

“How do they know
I
didn’t do it?” Duin asked. “Why don’t they take
me
to Adiri?”

“That cat was cooked but no one would eat it,” said Blaze. “Aside from several Gardener politicians who still claim—despite all the evidence—that you’re nothing but a simulation, there’s the fact that Glin don’t have explosives. Your world’s waterlogged and y’all are brick-shittin’ afraid of fire.”

“I could have researched incendiary technology on the Stellarnet,” Duin suggested.

“No, you couldn’t,” said Blaze. “That kind of information has been banned since 2025.”

“So,
that’s
why I couldn’t find anything.”

“I’m fucked,” said J’ni.

“I’ve been told to take you into custody immediately and—”

“Awah na glem!”
Duin stood up so fast his chair toppled over.

“Sit down,” Blaze commanded.

“I will
not.
”

The two guards moved toward J’ni, but Duin intercepted them. Rachael jabbed at him with her electroshock pole, which he knocked aside causing her to stumble and hit the wall. Her shocker sparked and the windows went haywire behind her.

“Damn it, cease and desist,” ordered Blaze. “Duin, sit down.”

Mirek stabbed at Duin as well, and J’ni tried to grab the sentry’s arm. The pole connected with Duin and a crackling sound filled the room.

“Duin!” J’ni screamed, but he didn’t so much as twitch. Duin grabbed the end of the shock pole and yanked it out of Mirek’s hands, then sent it clattering across the room. His own hands flared with bio-electricity as three more Airmen rushed in from the hallway.

Blaze leaped over the desk, tackling Duin and slamming him to the ground. He held Duin by the arms, grinding a knee into the middle of the Glin’s back. Duin’s hands flashed, but the zap was deflected by the colonel’s body armor.

“Put her in the H-16 holding cell,” Blaze ordered, and the Airmen dragged J’ni, flailing and screaming and calling Duin’s name, out the door.

“J’ni!”
Duin’s eyes were so thick he couldn’t see them taking her away. He would kill Colonel Blaze Villanueva. The human was strong, but Duin needed only to touch his exposed head or neck and zap until the man stopped moving. Then he would get J’ni and take her away in the Tikati ship. Duin had already lost his family and his river. He wasn’t going to lose her, too. Not like this. Not at the hands of those whose highest laws promised
against
unreasonable seizure, imprisonment without trial and cruel punishment. Humanity was his hope for Glin’s freedom. Had this hope been misplaced?

Blaze crouched down and said, “Trust me,” so only Duin could hear.

Duin stopped struggling.

Blaze let go of his arms and got up. “Get him out of here,” he told Rachael and Mirek, who had recovered their electroshock poles. Blaze straightened up his desk and sat down.

The two airmen pulled Duin to his knees. But when they reached the door, they stopped and stood there. It took Duin a moment to realize that they weren’t going anywhere. He blinked several times, as his eyes readjusted and the cloudy membrane thinned. Turning, he saw Blaze typing on the tabletop.

“Come here.”

Confused, Duin didn’t move.

“Damn it, you screwy alien, we don’t have much time. You want my help or not?”

Duin picked up the chair he’d knocked over and sat down in front of Blaze.

“Yes.”

“The people who monitor my office feed are watching me fill out paperwork like the paperwork I filled out at 1635 on January 10. But that’s only going to last for about four more minutes—any longer than that and they might run it through a dopple-checker and discover the ruse. So, let’s come to the point. Can you take Genny off this rock?”

“Short answer, yes. But the long answer is, she won’t be safe. My ship is stolen, Colonel.”

“Well, no shit.”

“And if the Tikati find it… or they find her with me on Glin… she would be safer on Titan.” He didn’t like the thought, but it was the truth.

“So, that’s it? You’re just going to let her go?” Blaze’s voice was dripping with disappointment. “Hellfire, I thought you had more gumption than that.”

“Whatever
gumption
is, I assure you, I will have oceans of it if it will help me save J’ni.”

“There’s our tenacious outlaw. Any ideas?”

Yes, but he didn’t know how Blaze would react to the knowledge that there was a
third
alien race in the area. “I have some friends who might be able to help. But I’ll need to contact them from my ship.”

“What, you got a whole fleet of plundered ships? Never mind, don’t tell me. My people will take you to the edge of the military zone,” Blaze nodded to Rachael and Mirek. “Then you’re on your own. But as soon as you hear something, return to your compartment and wait. Don’t contact me. I’ll contact you.”

“You have my utmost gratitude, Colonel.”

“Don’t thank me, yet. My help comes at a price.”

***

She was taken to a military block filled with small compartments and thrust into one of them. She resisted the entire way, though she had no idea where to run even if she did break free. They couldn’t find her by her locator, because her bracers were still with Hax, but they could see her on the colony netcams. The ones that worked, anyway. Goddamn useless netcams. If she knew where they all were—and which ones were broken—she might stand a chance of hiding.

The door closed, sealing her inside an eight-foot-square metal cell with nothing but a toilet, a sink and a shelf for a bed. The only light in the room emanated from a glowing Air & Space Force logo on the wall. Though she didn’t expect it to work, she tried touching the wall. No, there was no Asternet access.

She sat down on the shelf, curling her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. Squeezing her eyes shut, she thought of Duin and felt the burning tears as she relived her last memory of him being tackled by Blaze and screaming her name. The anguish in his voice was what haunted her, and she couldn’t make it stop echoing in her head.

What will they do with him? Where is he? What a rat bastard Blaze is, and the whole goddamn U.S. government. What the hell is wrong with these assholes?
Not having her bracers, not being able to ticker updates or vent her indignation and anger in a blog post, not being able to email J.T. at INC or her parents—for all the good it might do—and not even knowing how much time was passing, it all made her sick with frustration.

Would her followers have any idea what had happened? The colony netcams would show her leaving R-51 with Duin, but netcams in the military zone were restricted. When would someone figure out she was missing? Maybe they would assume she’d been given a new compartment for her own protection. How long would J.T. wait before he wondered why she wasn’t posting an update? What would he do—what
could
he do—for her from Earth?

She could not remember ever being so alone and disconnected.

But Duin was inside her, in every way. There was some comfort in understanding that this sense of frustration was what he lived with all the time. Shut off from everyone and everything he knew, truly powerless to act against a power that was the enemy of truth. She remembered Duin telling her the reason why he did not give in to despair.

Love.

Resting her head in her hands, she inhaled and smelled the faint scent of his skin on hers, a heavy, dusty scent that reminded her of the damp moss around her fish pond.

Too much had happened, with too little sleep, in the past twenty-four hours. She lay down on the hard bunk, pillowing her head on her arms, and gave in to exhaustion.

***

Duin left the military zone and went to his ship in Sector W, Level One, the hangar for non-military vessels. He sent a message, and he waited for a reply. But he didn’t have to wait long.

Yes, if Duin could get her out of the station, they would rendezvous with him and take her to
Wandalin
. Of course.

Then, per the colonel’s instructions, Duin returned to his block to wait.

His compartment echoed with memories of her. The remains of dinner. Her new Mysteria shirt. Her shawl, black with his own dried blood. The chair where they merged. The bed where their anatomy lessons continued. Her cup from dinner, half full of water, which he placed on a shelf.

He sat down, logged into her blog and typed.

To Humanity I’ve made my arguments and my pleas, borrowing the words of your own great thinkers, in the hope that the familiarity of those speeches, and the similarities of our conditions, would move you. With Genny’s help, I have told you my story. But, today, this will be the most difficult thing I have ever said to you, because I will say it on my own, in every way.

I love Genevieve O’Riordan. And, while that love remains within me, its object has been removed, and my anguish is beyond my ability to use your language. The Air & Space Force is holding her in the military zone of Asteria Colony, on the presumption that she is guilty of destroying her own block. They call her a terrorist, this compassionate, equitable individual whose only crime is that she believed in me and in the hope of a free Glin.

She is to be relocated to Adiri. I don’t know when.

Yesterday, she told me of her faith in humanity. I marveled at how this faith endures, in spite of humans attacking her, in spite of them destroying her block and injuring her. I wonder, today, how she feels about humanity. I wonder how I feel. I haven’t had time to give it much thought. Until now, all of my hopes had been pinned on you. This bright, brave race, which has risen, a thousand times over, to prevail against oppression, illness, environmental disaster, even death itself. You grow plants in the air, dream massive dreams together and sail the sky ocean between worlds.