CHAPTER TWO
When she awoke the next time, it appeared to be morning again. She’d apparently slept through yet another day and night. Aydarr was gone. Sitting up to stretch, Jill picked a leaf from her short hair, flicked it away and checked the cave. There was no sign of Aydarr or the other warriors.
One of the cadets was tending the fire. Realizing she was awake, he said, “We saved you two pieces of fruit. And there’s a bit of leftover meat.”
She climbed from the makeshift bed, taking the blanket to use as a bulky cloak and walked to the fire, accepting a curiously shaped yellow fruit and taking a cautious bite. The sweetness of the juice was welcome on her tongue. “Thank you. I’m Jill, and you are?”
“Pratym.”
“Nice to meet you.” She tugged on the edges of the pelt to cover as much of her as possible, on general principles. She trusted Aydarr, but he wasn’t available to intervene. “I see I’m not the only one who got wounded the other day. What happened to you?” She pointed to his heavily bandaged leg.
Pratym grimaced, averting his eyes as if embarrassed to admit to a weakness. “We were hunting, and I tripped. The beast gored me before the rest of the pack drove it off. But I can maintain the required pace.”
“Life appears to be pretty risky here,” she said. “Not boring for long anyway. I’ll be ready for breakfast in a minute.” She headed for the cave entrance.
Immediately, he rose to block her path. “The Alpha didn’t say you could leave the cave.”
“Unless there’s a bathroom in here someone forgot to show me, I’m going outside.” She sidestepped around him and kept walking. She wondered how they’d dealt with her needs when she’d been so out of it with the poison and the antidote, but decided not to think about the subject too closely. Timtur was a healer, practically a doctor, right? Whatever was done was in the past.
He grabbed her arm, and she pulled away from him, clutching at the fur, adrenaline surging in case she was going to have to fight in a minute.
“Pratym.” Aydarr stood in the entrance, frowning. “I gave no permission to lay hands on the woman.”
“She was going to—”
“I’ll escort her.” He moved aside to let her leave the cave then directed her toward a small stand of nearby trees. “You can have privacy here, but I’ll stand watch. We’ll be heading toward Intake soon, to answer the summons. Fortunate you’re much recovered today, so you can travel more easily.”
“What’s Intake?” She picked a likely spot in the bushes and checked to make sure he wasn’t watching and none of the other Badari were in the vicinity. As he’d promised, he was gallantly facing the other direction, rubbing his arm where the bracelet sat.
Rejoining him a moment later, she strolled toward the cave and he followed.
He waved one hand at the rolling grasslands and groves of trees. “This is the Preserve.”
“Yes, I remember you called it that the other night.”
“It’s an enclosure with force field boundaries.”
She rubbed her lower back. “Yeah, I ran into one on my first day.”
“The Khagrish allow us time in the Preserve after a successful deployment, like a treat for being well behaved.” His lip curled and his voice was sarcastic. “We believe the scientists watch everything we do here, that it’s included as part of the experiments.”
Jill stopped in midstep. “Experiments? These Khagrish are treating humans like—like zoo animals? Lab rats?”
He nodded. “Yes, they think we’re animals and no, we Badari aren’t human.” He rubbed the bracelet again.
“Is it bothering you today for some reason?” She pointed at his wrist.
“Don’t you feel it? The summons?” Eyes narrowed, her stared at her.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“To my knowledge you’re the first human brought here from the Sectors. Perhaps the techs failed to properly calibrate the bracelet to your physiology.” He leaned closer and spoke softly. “Take any advantage you can get. Do your best to hide the fact the bracelet has no effect on you.”
“As if I wasn’t scared enough already, you’re ramping up my anxiety with all this mystery. But thanks for the tip.”
He nodded. “The summons increases in intensity until it’s so painful my pack and I can’t resist the command. We have to report to the intake portal or die in agony, the weakest first.”
“How do you know?”
His mouth set in a grim line. “Resistance has been tried.”
She glanced at the opening of the cave where all the others waited outside.
“Can you walk today or do you need to be carried?”
Jill realized she hadn’t felt any pain from the deep cut on her foot and the dizziness from the venom had subsided. “Whatever you and Timtur did for me seems to have worked. Let me walk unless there’s a problem.”
He halted her with a gentle pressure on her shoulder. “Promise me you’ll speak up if either wound begins to bother you. Carrying you is no burden for me.” He laughed. “I have a suspicion—even on our very short acquaintance—that you can be stubborn, and there’s no need.”
“All right, I promise.”
“We have to make a side trip on the way, a duty we need to perform, but which we deferred since you were so ill. We couldn’t tend you properly on the march.”
“I’m sorry,” Jill said.
He shrugged as he directed her to sit on a handy tree stump so Timtur could check her injuries. “The situation couldn’t be helped. The intake summons is still low level, so there’s probably time for what we desire to accomplish.”
The pack set off as soon as Timtur had a chance to briefly examine her leg, wash off the remaining poultice and declare her fit to move. After asking Aydarr if there were any spare clothes or less bulky blankets she could use to create a more practical garment, and receiving a puzzled negative, she took her fur cloak.
The pack walked for several hours by Jill’s estimate, based on the position of the sun overhead. Aydarr had her hike in the center of the formation, and he called for a halt often which, she gathered from the expressions on her companions’ faces, was unusual. But she couldn’t bring herself to urge him to extend the time between rest stops because she was having a challenging time keeping up the pace. The Badari had immense stamina to go along with their imposing physiques. Pratym was assigned to walk with her and hand her the water gourd periodically. Try as she might, she couldn’t get him to talk to her.
Aydarr joined her and waved the boy away as another rest stop was declared. Sitting beside her, he said, “You look annoyed. Has the cadet committed an offense? Insulted you?”
“Just refuses to make conversation. There are so many things I want to know, about this place, about where we’re marching to…about you.” Jill gave him a sideways glance.
“First of all, he’s never been in the company of a non Khagrish female—”
“What are you guys, monks? I wondered where the women and the kids were.”
Aydarr was silent. She noticed his knuckles whitened on the gourd and she saw a flash of the deadly talons. “There are no women, no children among the Badari.”
She reached out to lay her hand on his arm. “I’m scared, and I’m trying to figure out what I’ve fallen into here. I’m not your enemy. It’s dangerous for me to walk into the situation at this intake place without understanding any of the background. Please, won’t you explain at least a little of what’s going on?”
Brows drawn together in a frown, he stared at her. He might have told her at least a few things, but Mateer, the senior enforcer, came up and interrupted the conversation. “We should be on the move. Most of the men are experiencing heightened symptoms, as we’re moving so slowly for her benefit.”
“All right, tell the pack there’ll be no more stops. By the landmarks, we’re close now.” As Mateer walked off, Aydarr rose from the boulder he’d been sharing with Jill. “The welfare of my pack comes first with me and, until I know why you were placed in my territory by those who keep us prisoner, I can’t extend the trust you ask for.” He touched her cheek fleetingly with one finger. “I’ll do my best to protect you, I gave you my word.”
As he walked away, she called after him, “I like to protect myself.” Rising, she joined the group. She couldn’t really blame Aydarr for his reticence. She’d have to remain in intelligence gathering mode for herself and stay nimble. These mysterious Khagrish had underestimated her once already, apparently, on the effectiveness of the bracelet. The enemy might make other mistakes that would work to her benefit.
The sun was close to the horizon when Aydarr called a halt, in a grove of towering, blue leafed trees. “We camp here and, at moonrise, we’ll conduct the ceremony.”
The men scattered, four going off to hunt for dinner while the cadets built the fire. Others stood watch on the perimeter of the grove,
“Are we expecting an attack?” Jill nodded toward the sentries.
“Out here we have to be ready for the unexpected,” Aydarr replied. “Anything can happen, from wild animals to another Pack being sent to test our readiness.” He flashed her a grin. “Or the arrival of a mysterious but beautiful woman.”
From the heat in her cheeks, she knew she was blushing, so she changed the subject. “What kind of a ceremony were you talking about earlier?”
“Pratym and Dekan have recently come into the Pack, promoted from the learning module. We welcome each new member properly, bind them to us and pledge ourselves to them in the eyes of our god.”
The idea sounded attractive to Jill, a lone human in the midst of an alien unit. She missed the camaraderie of her military days, the comfort of being with people who understood the galaxy the same way she did, and who would have her back unquestioningly. “Lucky Pratym.”
Eyebrow raised, Aydarr gave her a skeptical look.
“No, I’m not making fun of you—I get that this is a serious thing. It’s great to belong. May I watch?”
“Of course. We have nothing to hide from anyone but the Khagrish. This is a celebration.”
The triumphant and jovial hunting party swaggered into the cave with a brace of fat game birds, which were promptly spitted and positioned over the fire to roast, with members of the pack alternating on turning the spit as needed. The meal was delicious but eaten quickly, then the pack formed up to hike to the grove of nearby trees. Jill walked beside Aydarr as usual but, once they’d entered the ring of trees, he directed her to sit on a boulder.
The pack formed a loose circle with the two cadets in the center and Aydarr himself taking a position aligned with the northernmost star. The moon was rising. It served as a symbol of their Great Mother goddess, whose existence had come down to them through the ancestral memory encoded into what he preferred to think of as the original DNA, the men his people had been engineered from. Timtur, who had the best voice of all of them, and who was most closely connected to the spiritual essence of the pack’s beliefs, sang a chant that resonated in Aydarr’s bones. The words were Badari, or what they believed to be their true language.
Not for the first time, he wished with angry frustration he knew more things about his people for sure. So much of what he held close, the beliefs and secrets he and the others thought were true from the time of the first men kidnapped to become the foundation of what he and his packmates were today, might or might not be reality. How much had those previous seven generations of Badari embellished? Or lost?
His attention kept wandering to Jill, sitting perched on her rocky seat, respectfully paying attention, hands clasped in her lap. The ridiculous pink garment glowed in the moonlight like a beautiful sea shell’s most intimate surface, accenting her attractiveness and curves, making the blood rush to his groin. He was glad of the shadows under the trees his predecessors had designated as their open air temple. A growl rose in his throat as he assessed the pack circle, the unbidden concern coming to mind whether any of the other males dared to eye her. The depth and ferocity of his reaction to her, and the sheer possessiveness burning in his gut, startled him.
Certainly, when the Khagrish brought in females on the infrequent compulsory visits, he’d never experienced this feeling about any of them. Those women were like the Khagrish lab techs to him in many ways—impersonal, there to do a job that was biological in nature but to be accomplished in the minimum amount of time.
He wished he had days alone with Jill. If she was willing, of course.
Her scent drifted to him on the breeze, delicate, floral, and he breathed deep. She was watching him, he saw with pride and a little consternation over his intense reaction to her, even at this deeply meaningful moment for the pack.
Mateer had finished lecturing the two cadets on the tenets of being a pack member, including the requirement to sacrifice their own lives if required to save another. Both young men had spoken their agreement.
Aydarr shook off his unprecedented preoccupation with Jill. He stepped forward. “Who sponsors these men?”
Mateer brought Pratym forward and Reede escorted Dekan. The enforcers stood behind their cadets as the younger men knelt in front of Aydarr. He let his claws and fangs extend and, as the moon rose to its zenith for the night, he said, “I will have your oath of fealty.”
“I swear to accept you as my alpha from now until death, obeying your orders in all things, fighting at your side, protecting the pack from enemies, keeping the Badari secrets.” Pratym spoke the vow in a strong, calm voice, and Dekan echoed him a bit more tremulously.
“In turn I give you my promise to put the welfare of the pack above all else and to rule as a just and fair leader, preserving the Badari tradition. Accept my mark and pledge your fealty to me.”
The cadets bared their necks, with their mentors stepping in to hold them steady as Aydarr blooded first one and then the other.
“It is done,” he said. “Welcome to the pack.”
The men cheered and rushed in to slap the two cadets on the back and congratulate them on achieving full warrior status. Mateer spun into the opening steps of a ceremonial dance, with much yelling and full throated song, and the others joined in. Aydarr watched the celebration before he pivoted almost without making a conscious decision and walked to where Jill sat.
“That was extremely moving,” she said as he came close. “Thank you for allowing me to watch. Should I congratulate them?”
He checked the activity. “Not right now. Everyone’s in a heightened mood. Tomorrow will be fine.” He plucked her from the rock and set her on her feet in front of him. “You didn’t find it off-putting? Odd?”
With a tiny frown, she looked up at him. “No, I thought it was solemn and appropriate. I can see what a strong bond you all have with each other. I envy you.”
“I’ll escort you to the camp now,” he said, taking her hand.
“Shouldn’t you stay with them? Celebrate?”
“You’re cold, even with the fur,” he said. “And still recovering from the vermore poison. I’m concerned about you. The others won’t mind.” He felt compelled to offer her a bit more explanation. “The alpha is part of the pack and yet separate.”
“Lonely, being in command,” she said.
Pleased she understood, Aydarr had to fight the odd temptation to bend his head and steal a kiss in the moonlight.
Next morning, the pack was up and marching early, with no breaks. After several hours of this, Jill toiled up one more in an endless series of rolling hills to join the silent line of Badari. A complex of buildings had appeared in the distance. Gleaming in the sun, the facility appeared high tech . As she shielded her eyes with her hand, a flitter spiraled in for a landing on the other side of the building.
“The labs,” Aydarr said to her. “Our true prison.”
Sure he wouldn’t answer any question, she nodded and trudged down the side of the hill. As the pack drew closer, sirens blared, and seven sentients emerged from the building to wait for their arrival. The first three didn’t look too imposing—humanoid in form, as were so many of the races to be found in the galaxy. They had pale skin, pink-yellow-white hair gathered into peaks on their heads and cascading over their backs in tightly controlled braids. Two were male and one was female. Four guards in full body armor, visors closed, carrying serious weapons, stood flanking the trio.
“Are those the Khagrish?” she asked Aydarr as she walked next to him, away from the hill and toward the waiting group.
“Yes. Don’t be fooled by their pretty appearance,” he said. “A more cruel and unprincipled race of beings never existed, as my people know to their cost. Stay close to me.”
“I consider myself duly warned.” Heart beating faster, she walked next to Aydarr.
The Badari came to a stop ten feet away from the waiting Khagrish, taking a position on a black line painted on the surface of the patio extending from the building. Aydarr took his place at the head of the formation, drawing Jill to stand between him and Mateer.
The woman appeared to be in charge. “You idiots,” she said to her two underlings, while the guards stood unmoving, their weapons now aimed at the line of Badari.
Jill blinked. The Khagrish scientist wasn’t speaking Basic, but her language was apparently close enough to something Jill had been hypno implanted with during her military days that the translator implant was able to make sense of the words. Lots of weird things rattling around in my brain, thanks to the Special Forces. The Sectors military liked to implant enhancements into their soldiers and nothing ever got removed. She wondered if Aydarr and his men understood Khagrish, but now wasn’t the time to ask.
Gesturing at Jill, the woman said, “The Sectors humans are not for this experiment. They weren’t brought here to be mixed into other, already established protocols. What the untranslatable is she doing in the Preserve? Mingling with the animals?”
One of the two men fidgeted. “We were bored. The animals don’t do anything new. We thought it would be amusing… um, scientifically enlightening to introduce a new factor into their playtime.”
“And there were so many humans delivered, we figured no one would miss one.” The other glared at Jill. She fought off the desire to take a defensive stand, keeping herself loosely at attention the way her companions stood. Was the entire population of my colony kidnapped? Her heart beat faster with dread, realizing her sisters, her friends and colleagues were held captive in the massive building, maybe already being experimented on.
“And you expected the Badari to do…what with her?” The female was contemptuous. And pissed, Jill concluded. “Fight over her? Tear her to bits? Assault her?”
The man evidently didn’t read emotions as well as Jill did. He nodded eagerly as if expecting praise for his enterprise, his ridiculous crest of hair bobbing. “Exactly. Any or all of those possibilities.”
“We were ready to take notes,” the other added. “We had the recorders running.”
Without warning the woman slapped him hard. “So you were hoping to make credits on the black market.”
Holding his cheek, on his knees, the tech cringed. “We’d have cut you in on the deal.”
“We made a huge balance on the vid of two of the animals fighting to the death, after we jacked them up on the right drugs,” the female scientist said thoughtfully. “The question is timing, you fools. Anything like this has to be done while the boss is away so the traces can be sufficiently covered up.”
Jill calculated her odds of reaching one of the guards and grabbing a weapon. The situation was getting worse and worse. She barely controlled her involuntary startle when Aydarr touched her hand ever so lightly with his fingers. She wished she could look at him as he linked his fingers with hers. Was he telling her to wait? To go for it? Trying to reassure her?
The woman paced from one side of the pavement to the other. “You’re lucky the director of the lab isn’t here right now. We can probably get away with destroying the human, as you said, there were so many delivered, losing one shouldn’t matter. We can’t put her back, since she has to be considered contaminated now for any new experiment. But we’ll have to delete all evidence of her presence. We can think about how to do this safely at a later date.”
“Won’t the animals talk about it?” The tech gestured at the Badari as he rose to his feet.
The scientist strutted right up to Aydarr, staring him in the face. Although the alpha towered over her, he lowered his gaze to meet her challenge. “Not if they’re properly incentivized.” She tapped him on the chest with one long finger. “801 here cares more about keeping his pack alive than he does about one random human.”
“What’s going on here? What do the animals need to be incentivized to do? And why is there a human woman standing there?” The newcomer who’d emerged from the building and stood blinking in the sunlight was larger than the other Khagrish, his hair darker, with much more red, and he stood with his hands on his hips, head thrust forward aggressively. Several other sentients followed him onto the paved area, and Jill gasped, despite her best efforts to remain silent, as a tall, gray-skinned Chimmer joined the gathering.
If the Chimmer were involved, then their Mawreg overlords had an interest in this place, and the Mawreg were the deadliest threat to humans known to exist. What the seven hells have I been dropped into? The odds of surviving plummeted even further. The Sectors needs to know about this. But it was highly unlikely she’d survive long enough to find a way to sound the alert.
Eyes widening, an expression of sheer terror crossed the female scientist’s face as she looked at Jill, then she wheeled. “We made a change to the experiment protocols, Dr. Gahzhing. My team and I felt it would be useful to see how the animals react to a Sectors human outside of the combat scenario.” Her voice was calm as she uttered the lie to protect her staff and probably herself.
“I authorized no such revision,” he said, voice low and dangerous.
“What data was gained?” The Chimmer came forward.
“We—we just began the effort—”
“Three days ago.” One of the techs rushed to fill in the blank.
The newly arrived boss made a leisurely process of checking Jill out. She resisted the urge to cover herself with her hands, acutely conscious of her skimpy nightgown. His lascivious gaze was lingering on all the wrong places, and his uniform displayed a growing bulge below the waist to attest to his arousal. “Terminate the experiment. Send the human to me for debriefing and processing. Give your notes to Dr. Sheyall.” He waved a hand vaguely in the direction of a woman with pale pink hair, who’d arrived with him. “She’s going to take oversight on this pack until we’re finished.” He eyed the first woman scientist. “My intent was to promote you and your team to a newer study, Dr. Cwamla. Something more critical, prestigious. But this lapse in judgment makes me question the decision.”
“If you recall, sir, you gave me feedback at my last review to show more initiative.” Her tone was placating almost to the point of whining.
“Within reason—don’t cross the lines too far,” he said. “The matter is decided. Bring the human woman to me. I’ll discuss your new assignment with you tomorrow. In the meantime, Dr. Sheyall will take over this pack.”
Two of the guards stepped forward, moving toward Jill. Aydarr grabbed her wrist and yanked her behind him, while Mateer and Reede moved to stand on either side of him. The rest of the pack clustered close.
“No one will touch my mate,” Aydarr said, his voice nearly unrecognizable, low and pitched in a snarl. “I’ve claimed this female, she’s part of my pack now. Put one hand on her and die.”
Peering around him, Jill was wide-eyed at the immense talons he and his enforcers now displayed.
“You don’t want to challenge me, animal,” Gahzhing said as the guards halted, looking to him uncertainly for orders. “Your life will become even shorter if you don’t stand down.” He gestured to the guards. “Proceed as instructed.”
Aydarr moved fast. He slashed the closest guard open from chest to pelvis, the talons tearing through the body armor as if it was paper. As the man crumpled to the ground in a bloody mess, Jill expected Aydarr to go for the weapon, but he didn’t. Instead, he stood tall and glared at the scientists. “I said she was mine, Gahzhing.” The other guards crowded him, weapons inches from his body.
Fists clenched, Jill was surprised he wasn’t dead already. I have to defuse this or they will kill him. “Please,” she said in Basic, “Don’t hurt him. I’ll go quietly.”
Mateer looped his arm around her waist, preventing her from taking a step. “The Alpha said you were his, so you stay.”
The Chimmer stepped forward. “This ad hoc experiment has interesting aspects. Is she breeding?”
The female scientist came as close as she dared, holding some kind of instrument at arm’s length, waving it in Jill’s general direction. “No.” She retreated, nearly tripping on a seam in the pavement as Aydarr growled and bared impressive fangs at her.
Smoothing one eyebrow with a fingertip, head tilted as he considered his options, Gahzhing looked at the Chimmer. “We’re always happy to pursue any scientific avenue the client wishes to learn more about.”
“The ultimate target is the Sectors so it may be useful to conduct a limited test on compatibility. Interesting how quickly the male bonded to the female. Allow this scenario to run for now. But don’t add to the sample size. We have plans for the other humans, male and female.”
Gahzhing bowed his head. “Of course, as you wish. Dr. Sheyall, you’ve heard the client.”
“Yes, sir.” The new scientist in charge moved closer, staring at Jill and Aydarr.
“My staff and I’ll pay close attention to the aspects of this mating.” Gahzhing cleared his throat. “Now, if you’re ready, we can go tour the new lab facilities in Building Three. “
He and the Chimmer disappeared into the building accompanied by the extra guards.
Dr. Cwamla heaved a sigh and addressed the other woman, Dr. Sheyall. “All right, now he’s gone I’ll show you the best way to control the subjects for future reference.” She must have pushed a button or taken an action Jill missed because the next moment all the Badari crumpled to the pavement. Belatedly, she realized it probably had to do with the mysterious bracelets and she let herself fall next to Aydarr. That bitch enjoyed demonstrating her power over us.
His eyes were open and angry, glowing golden.
Dr. Sheyall walked hesitantly closer to the fallen pack members. “I can’t assess their physical condition properly, lying on the ground.”
“Right, right.” Dr. Cwamla toed Aydarr in the ribs. “You’ll have other opportunities, of course. But this shows them who’s in charge. 801 may call himself their alpha all he wants, but the reality is I hold his life in my hands. His defiance today was completely out of line—don’t tolerate it, is my advice. He must really be lusting over this human to risk punishment for her.” Dr. Cwamla leaned close to Jill, who forced herself to remain motionless. “I don’t understand the attraction myself.”
“This one’s injured,” Sheyall said, bending over Pratym and pointing at the crude leaf bandage.
“Well, he’ll have to be culled from the pack then.” Dr. Cwamla joined her newly arrived colleague. “Use a higher intensity setting. You want to be careful not to activate the wide band or you’ll kill them all and then the boss and the client will be upset. This pack isn’t scheduled for termination yet. They have at least one more deployment test to run.” She fiddled with her controller. “Key it to focus on the individual you need to put down.”
Pratym moaned and his body contorted as if he was having a seizure.
Chilled by their discussion, infuriated at the casual approach to ending a man’s life, Jill rolled over and leaped to his side, knocking the small device from the scientist’s hand. “Stop it, turn it off, you can’t kill him for a scratch on his leg.”
Mouth open, Cwamla retreated. “You should be paralyzed like all the others.”
Confused by Jill’s outburst and her mobility, the guards aimed their weapons her but refrained from firing.
Sheyall retrieved the controller and thumbed the button in the opposite direction. Pratym relaxed. “I’m curious, human,” she said in Basic, “Why do you care what we do with this subject? Are you bonded to him as well?”
Jill heard a throaty growl from Aydarr’s direction, perhaps at the question implying she had a relationship with Pratym as well as with him? “My name is Jill, and he’s just a kid, he didn’t make any move to threaten you people. He did nothing out of line or wrong, he’s got a wound that’s healing right on schedule—he doesn’t deserve to die.”
Sheyall tugged on her colleague’s sleeve. “I think it best to maintain the pack as it was when the human was introduced, at least for now. If the experiment results are to have any validity, we can’t alter too many parameters too rapidly.”
Cwamla dusted her hands off. “Not my problem. You’ll be responsible for this pack from now on. Any problems resulting from lack of proper discipline will go onto your record, not mine.” She stalked toward the building, gathering her two minions as she went.
A team of techs emerged as Cwamla left, bundling the dead guard onto a stretcher and carrying him away.
The surviving guards stayed, weapons at the ready.
“Thank you,” Jill said to the remaining scientist, hoping to form a connection with potential to benefit herself and the pack.
Blinking, making fidgety gestures, a flustered Sheyall retreated a step. “My decision was based purely on proper scientific standards.” She sought help from the nearest guard. “What’s the next step?”
“Normally the animals are escorted inside, shower and change before reporting to their holding cell,” he said. “You’ll have to turn off the paralysis effect, doctor.”
“Oh, of course.” Sheyall fumbled with the controller, glancing at the paralyzed men.
“I’d step away first, doctor.” The guard’s voice was patient as if he’d had to coach many a rookie scientist through their first encounter with the “test subjects”.
The Badari stirred and rose warily to their feet. Jill grabbed Pratym’s arm and helped him until Aydarr and Mateer came to give him support.
“Thank you,” the cadet whispered to Jill.
Aydarr took her by the hand, pivoting to face Sheyall. “My mate is not to be observed by other males while she showers and changes,” he said. “Not the members of my pack, nor your guards and lab techs. She requires privacy.”
Jill swallowed hard. It hadn’t occurred to her there’d be a communal shower.
Sheyall seemed surprised by the demand. “Well, of course.” She appealed to the guards. “How do we accommodate the requested condition?”
“We’ve, uh, never had a female test subject, doctor.” The man exchanged looks with the other guards and shrugged. “She’ll have to wait until the others are finished. But there are monitoring devices in the lab showers.”
“Can the vids be turned off?” asked the scientist.
“Not to my knowledge. We—that is the staff—observe the animals all the time. It’s protocol.”
“We’re not animals,” Jill said, anger making her tone sharper than she’d intended. “We’re sentients the same as all of you. We may be your prisoners, but we deserve decent treatment.”
“You maybe. Not them,” said the guard, swinging his weapon in Aydarr’s direction. “Not by any standard.”
Aydarr shook his head, staring at Jill, his golden eyes glowing warmly. “There’s much you don’t understand yet, although your valiant heart does you honor.”
Sheyall said, “There’s a staff shower close to my office. Have the area cleared out, and I’ll escort her there this time. We’ll have to figure out alternative arrangements if the experiment runs for an extended period with her as a factor.”
The guard saluted. He and his comrades marched the Badari inside the building at gunpoint, while Sheyall sat on the retaining wall. Not seeing any reason why she should remain standing and because her injured foot was aching a bit, Jill joined the scientist, sitting a few feet away. One guard remained, weapon unslung, watching her carefully. She calculated whether she could take him. But then what would I do? I don’t even know what planet I’m on, much less where the other Sector citizens are being kept.
“This is not the research I was expecting to do,” Sheyall said, almost to herself. “I signed a contract for one thing, and I get here and find these animals—”
“They are not animals.” Jill protested again.
“They aren’t human either, I don’t know what you’ve heard or been told so far, but the test subjects are genetic constructs, experiments, grafts onto a root stock DNA, with bits of this and snips of that. Created in tanks, trained to be nothing but killers.”
“I don’t care how they arrive on this fucking world—those are men, sentients. Aydarr, Mateer, the others think, they have feelings, they bleed—we’re all genetic experiments to some extent or another. Your people call them animals to make yourselves okay with whatever perverted kind of science you carry out here for the Chimmer. But don’t try to fool yourself—those are people as much as you and I are.” Jill was practically spitting by the time she finished, so angry she was shaking. “You don’t own them.”
“Names? The subjects have names for themselves?” Sheyall’s eyes opened wide. She pulled out a data pad and made notes.
“Seven hells, of course they do. You didn’t know?” And I hope it was okay for me to mention. She remembered the conversation about the constant surveillance and felt better. Surely the lab staff was aware the Badari had given themselves names. But she resolved to be more careful with information from here on out.
“We’re ready for you to escort the human subject to the shower now, Dr. Sheyall.” One guard had returned.
“I’m happy to escort Jill,” she said, with emphasis on the name. “Shall we go?”