Sarai Read online

  “They were caught between their humanoid form and their animal form.”

  Which made precisely no sense to Jamie, but then what else was new?

  “Okaaay — so the wolf things were not…not their normal selves,” he suggested diplomatically. “And the insect things…?”

  “The Zill,” Alekyn supplied helpfully.

  “The Zill were attacking me — why?”

  Alekyn moved towards him but stopped abruptly as Jamie instinctively stepped backwards, his back pressing against the window casement. He waved a hand at the chairs clustered in front of the room’s fireplace.

  “Let us sit down, Jamie, and talk. I know you are confused and there is much you need to know —

  Starting with what he was doing here, Jamie thought. Aloud he said, “I agree, but first you need to know that I have to get home — my brothers…the house has been in our family for generations…they’ll think I died in the fire — ”

  Alekyn shook his head. “I cannot take you back to your home. “

  Jamie stared at him blankly. “Cannot or will not?”

  Alekyn’s face tightened. “Both.”

  “I don’t understand,” Jamie said tersely. “Why the hell not? Why would you keep me here against my will?”

  The catman sighed.

  I’m dreaming, Jamie decided, and I’m dreaming some weird trippy stuff. Maybe he’d had a psychotic break but if he had, would he know?

  That jogged his memory. “At that place, that doctor, the healer —”

  “Ah, the medcentre,” Alekyn supplied.

  “The medcentre,” Jamie agreed impatiently, “that doctor…what the hell was he doing, man — he probed me, like a character in some bad scifi movie —”

  “I do not understand scifi movie,” replied Alekyn, “but I know you found the examination…unsettling.”

  “More than that. It hurt! He didn’t have the right to do that to me. It was just wrong.”

  Alekyn nodded. “I understand you found it unsettling and I am sorry it was uncomfortable for you, but you must understand we needed to know as much as we could about you as quickly as possible.”

  Jamie stared at him. “Why?” he asked finally. “What was so important that the doctor, the healer, had to, darn it — stick a probe up my arse?”

  Alekyn gestured to the chair opposite his.

  Jamie sat down and leaned forward, his face earnest. “It was awful. He shouldn’t have done that to me.”

  “I agree, but we did not know how it would affect you, Jamie,” Alekyn paused, choosing his words with care. “All of us were just so excited by you, by how you looked — you are more than just my sarai — your species represents hope not just for my kind but for other members of PanGal.

  Jamie stared at him, bewildered. “I understand the words you’re using,” he muttered, “but I haven’t a clue what you mean. You need to explain from the beginning — what’s a sarai? Why am I one? Why did those creatures — the Zill and the…the Keinyn — attack me?”

  Alekyn sighed and sat down. He gestured for Jamie to sit beside him — he’d teach his sarai about sitting at his feet later. Jamie ignored his invitation, seating himself in a chair closer to the window. Alekyn decided to ignore his disobedience for the moment.

  “This may take some time, sarai, but I ask you to listen with an open mind. You know you are not on your home world?”

  Jamie nodded. “I think you told me that in the medcentre, when I woke up. I’ve got a choice between believing you or thinking I’ve gone mad, although I think I’d prefer to believe I’m nuts rather than this is real.”

  Alekyn frowned. “What is nuts?”

  “Never mind, just tell me your story. Then I’ll decide whether nuts needs to factor into it.”

  “As you wish,” Alekyn leaned forward. “Jamie, your species is not as advanced as ours, so some of this will seem strange to you — ”

  “No kidding, Sherlock.”

  “Who is this Sherlock?”

  “No-one you know. Keep talking and make it fast.”

  Chapter Five

  ALEKYN RAN THE LAST FEW WORDS back through his mind. His sarai and he seemed to be using the same language, but they were definitely not communicating. Maybe there was something wrong with the language implant? Damn it, he’d just have to do the best he could and hope that things sorted themselves out as they talked.

  “My species are called Naferi. We live on a planet similar to your own but far larger. The Zill are our enemies — not just ours, but the enemies of all sentient life in the universe —”

  “This universe or all universes?”

  Alekyn blinked. “Ah, so your species knows about the multiverse?”

  “The cosmos is unending — yes, we know. Get on with it, dude.”

  “Dude? My name is Alekyn, not Dude.” Alekyn sighed. This tendency his sarai had to cause distractions was…distracting. He pulled himself together and said patiently, “Throughout our universe the Zill are considered a plague species, predatory and expansionist. Although we have tried to negotiate with them for more than fifty years, since we first became aware of them, the Zill have not responded to our overtures. They are a hive species, but they do not create, they take. We do not know where they came from, but it’s likely that they migrated from another universe.

  “Since they reached our universe, they have destroyed hundreds of worlds that we know of — consuming resources and all the species, whether primitive or technologically advanced, that existed on those worlds. Whole solar systems now consist of dead, empty planets because of the Zill.”

  Jamie’s eyes were huge as he listened. “The Zill did that — those chittering wasp things that attacked me?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

  “Which means they’ve discovered Earth — my home?”

  Alekyn nodded, his face impassive. “Yes, Jamie, they have.”

  Jamie jumped to his feet. “I have to get back. I have to tell people, warn them.”

  “No, Jamie, you don’t.”

  “I damn well do,” Jamie stepped towards him, his stance aggressive. “Get off your butt and take me to your bosses, because I need to get home now …”

  Alekyn breathed in through his nose and exhaled slowly. “No, sarai, you are wrong.”

  He raised a hand, as Jamie started to say something more. “No, hear me out, please.”

  Jamie glared at him. “If they’ve already found Earth, we don’t have much time — I have to go home now!”

  “Matters are already in hand, sarai — your help is not required.”

  Jamie gaped at him. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that the Adan and the High Council have already contacted the PanGalactic Federation, and it was decided at an emergency conclave yesterday that your planet would become a protected world under Naferi rule.”

  Jamie stared at him. “Naferi rule?” he whispered. “Like a colony? Earth is going to be colonised? You’re going to invade my planet?”

  “No, not invade. Earth will become one of our protectorates,” Alekyn responded, as if this was nothing important. “The machinery for the change is already in place — representatives have already contacted the leaders of your world.” He paused, looking a bit confused. “We have had some difficulties working out who your leaders are. Nobody on Earth seemed to know either.”

  Jamie ignored that. “So your people have already contacted my people to tell them they’re going to be ruled by a bunch of aliens?”

  “Well, not aliens,” Alekyn replied. “Us, the Naferi, under the auspices of PanGal; the Keinyn have also requested to be part of the mission. This is a good thing, sarai — your world will be safe, and at such a small cost to your people.”

  “Peoples,” Jamie replied, his eyes dark with emotion. “We may be one species, but we are many peoples, and we don’t — we won’t — take kindly to losing our independence, no matter what your representatives or your king or your fucking Galactic Planetary — ”
>
  “PanGalactic Federation —

  “Whatever-the-fuck-it-is says will happen won’t happen, because that’s not how were made. You think we’ll let any of you just walk in and take over?” He shook his head. “No way — we’ll resist you as well as the Zill.”

  Something else occurred to him. “What cost? You said “cost,” what cost?”

  Alekyn leaned back in his seat. “It is very reasonable,” he observed. “Simply that others of your kind will become sarai.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” Jamie snapped. “You keep calling me that, but I don’t know what you mean!”

  Alekyn stood up, towering over Jamie. “You are a sarai, Jamie — my sarai.”

  “Nope, still not registering. I’m guessing some kind of servant. I heard the doctor — the healer — say I’d carry your luggage.”

  “Luggage?” Alekyn repeated, confused himself. “Why would you carry my luggage? We have perfectly good personal transporters for that.”

  “Huh?” Jamie stared him. “But that doctor, healer, whatever — he said I’d carry your kits …”

  Alekyn inclined his head. “Yes, you will carry my kits — my pardlings, my sarai.”

  “Pardlings?” Jamie repeated blankly. “What the hell are pardlings?”

  ____________________________

  THE CONVERSATION WITH HIS SARAI was not going well. Alekyn surveyed Jamie, admiring the rosy flush blooming on his pale cheeks. “My offspring — and yours, of course.”

  He wasn’t expecting the sudden explosion of mirth from his sarai. Once he started, it seemed Jamie couldn’t stop laughing.

  “God,” he spluttered eventually, holding his ribs, “for an instant I thought you really meant that I’d have your children…"Mars needs our women"!” He scrubbed a hand over his eyes. “Anal probes and babies.”

  “Well, yes,” Alekyn responded seriously, “although I’m sorry about the anal probe — it is a standard test the healers give whenever they examine a new species, or so Healer Tiff told me.”

  “Done now,” said Jamie, with the air of forgiving all sins. “I guess I can live with it. But pardlings!”

  He chortled again, “Dude, you picked the wrong variety of human for that.”

  Alekyn cleared his throat nervously. He had briefly surveyed some of the internet material Bram had uploaded — it was voluminous and mostly rubbish, as far as he could see, but it did tell the Naferi researchers some interesting facts about their Foretimer cousins.

  “Jamie,” he said carefully, “we know that your species is closely related to ours.”

  “Yeah, sure, man,” Jamie was still chuckling. “Except for the cat-thing you’ve got going with the ears and the tabby stripes.”

  “Cosmetic differences only, mere adaptations to dominant prevailing planetary conditions.” Alekyn tried not to be offended by Jamie’s levity, knowing his sarai had no idea of the diversity of life beyond his small blue home planet.

  “Sure, whatever, dude,” Jamie nodded. “Evolution, right across it, man, stands to reason similar biological imperatives would apply across the universe…”

  Alekyn was relieved. At least his sarai understood the basics. “I’m glad you understand.”

  He paused. The next bit was going to be a tad more awkward to explain. “Jamie,” he began cautiously, “I know from your internet —”

  “You have the internet?” Jamie asked excitedly. “Great! My brothers, Theo and Matt, have Gmail accounts…let me email them to let them know I’m okay.”

  Alekyn shook his head. “That will not be possible, my sarai.

  “Oh.”

  The single syllable contained a wealth of disappointment. Alekyn felt awful, as if he’d stolen candy from a pardling.

  “No,” he responded carefully, “but we will be able to contact your brothers later.”

  “When?” Jamie insisted. “I mean, you’ve already sent representatives from your GalPan-whatever thingy …

  “PanGalactic Federation,” Alekyn corrected patiently. “PanGal for short.”

  “Whatever. But why can’t you let me contact my brothers?”

  “Later,” Alekyn insisted firmly. “Jamie, listen to me, please. There is much to explain and you keep diverting me —”

  He sucked in a big breath and let it out slowly. “We know your species — humankind — has three sexes — male, female and transgender, and that there is an enormous variability in the expression of those genders.”

  “Yeah, all of that. So what?”

  “My species — the Naferi …er…has only one gender.”

  Jamie felt his jaw drop. He tilted his head to one side, examining Alekyn’s tall form with great interest. Were the Naferi hermaphrodites? No, wait, there were some species on earth that bred by splitting in half…was that what Alekyn meant? Did the Naferi split top to bottom, right down the middle? Or did they become amorphous blobs that divided like cells?

  Urgh, just imagining it was revolting. He shivered and studied Alekyn discreetly. Neither of those options seemed likely and right at this moment nothing disgusting looked like it was going to happen.

  “One gender,” he sucked in a deep breath. “Okay.”

  He wasn’t sure what to say next, but agreeing generally with what Alekyn was saying seemed the best way to go. “What does that have to do with me or with humans?”

  “The Naferi are much more advanced than your kind — technologically, I mean.”

  Well, that was pretty unarguable.

  “We’re a bit behind you,” Jamie conceded, “but we already have interplanetary travel to our moon and Mars, and soon maybe the planets around Saturn and Neptune. And we’ve made great advances in genetics and physics and —”

  “Yes, genetics,” Alekyn interrupted, “just what I was getting to — I’m not a scientist, mind, just a soldier, but it’s possible — well, more than possible, because it’s been done for a long time, just not with your species, but with other species that have given us sarai —”

  “Sarai…that’s what you called me, when you said that I was your mate.”

  “Yes, my mate — you are my sarai, my life partner.”

  Jamie stared at him, eyes huge and suspicious.

  “Go on,” he said hoarsely.

  “Jamie,” Alekyn reached over to grasp Jamie’s hands, “from the moment I touched you, smelled your scent, you became my life— my everything, my reason for being…”

  Jamie was shaking his head slowly, disbelievingly. Alekyn hauled him out of his chair, cradling him against his chest. “I knew, Jamie, that from that moment onwards and forever you are mine.”

  “No!” Jamie struggled to pull free. “That’s not how it works for me, for humans,” he said desperately. “We mate, but often not for life and it has…it has to be mutual — you can’t just decide that I belong to you and keep me.”

  “Jamie, I’m afraid that’s just what it does mean…you are my sarai and without you I will not properly live. I can never let you go.”

  “No, that’s not true!” Jamie pulled a hand free and bunched it into a fist. He hit Alekyn as hard as he could and then whimpered, shaking his hand. What was the alien made of — rock? “Dammit! You’re going to let me go home, and you’re going to do it now.”

  Alekyn stood up, hefting Jamie easily to his feet as he rose.

  It was time his sarai understood his place. “Sarai—”

  “Stop calling me that!” Jamie roared. “I’m not your bloody sarai; I’m not anything to you —

  Alekyn’s patience was rapidly expiring. “Enough — enough, sarai. You will listen to me!”

  He shook Jamie slightly, his massive hands tightening around Jamie’s biceps. His residual claws extended; he saw Jamie flinch as they penetrated the skin of his upper arms. He forced himself to back down. His sarai was in shock and needed reassurance and comforting. He began to softly croon a calming song his own bearer had sung to him when he was a pardling.

  It seemed to work. His sar
ai’s breathing slowed; he could feel the rapid tattoo of his heartbeat becoming more regular. Without being aware of it, he found himself nuzzling the soft skin of his sarai’s throat. Ah, so delectable, so sweetly scented, and all his. He mouthed upwards, found Jamie’s soft lips and kissed him, deep and penetrating. His sarai seemed to go limp in his arms. He stared down into huge green eyes and the pressure at his groin grew, a throbbing demand to take his sarai, to fill him with his essence, mark him as Alekyn’s for all Naferi to see.

  JAMIE STILLED, suddenly aware of Alekyn’s strength and size compared to his own. His heart began a rapid tattoo-beat of sheer disbelief. He suddenly felt breathless and — god, he couldn’t understand this, any of it — he felt frightened, scared like a little kid…

  He shook his head. He had to calm down, use his intelligence. There had to be a way out of this, surely? Then something else registered — Alekyn was crooning a soft little purring song. Jamie’s heart rate began to slow — it was like kangaroo-cuddling a premature baby, he realised — slow soft heartbeats regulating the staccato thumping of his own heart rate, settling his anxieties. He sighed and was struck by a sudden need to lean against his captor and beg him to set things right.

  It seemed Alekyn understood. Claws now retracted, he gently stoked Jamie’s cheek.

  “It’s all right, Jamie,” he murmured. “I know this must be frightening for you, but you see, my dearest one, I need you more than you could ever imagine —”

  A dam burst inside Jamie, words pouring out in a torrent of confusion and panic. “But I need to go home — my brothers, this place — the house — it burned down!”

  He wasn’t making sense, he knew it, but he couldn’t help himself. “And babies — you think I can give you babies, and I can’t!”

  Alekyn wrapped him tightly in his arms, pressing his face against his mate’s soft hair. “All will be well, my sarai. Trust me, please.”

  “I have to,” Jamie whispered brokenly. “I have no choice, but I want to go home to see my brothers — please, Alekyn, please — they have to know I’m all right.”