Chapter 38

chapter 38

CEPHARIUS

Our 'qa was nearly perfect now. Neither of us had anything to hide—and so I knew that she was tired, at the same time I also knew she wouldn't want to go to bed just yet, because she wanted to be with me.

So I asked her questions about all of her fictions and TV . It was so strange to me that most humans could not use magic, and yet they had so many shows about it—and it was in their imaginary futures, too.

"It's all kind of the same, if you think about it," she explained, curling up on her side, and smiling out the window at me. "There's this famous quote that any sufficiently advanced technology seems like magic, and I think that it's true."

I considered this along with her. "In any case, it makes for good stories."

I had no idea two-leggeds were so imaginative, but I supposed that, without always having a sense for the thoughts of others of their nearby kind, they needed something to fill their minds with.

And then she explained all the other kinds of 'qa replacements humans had—like books and the internet.

"And what do you use that for?" I asked her.

Elle pondered this for a moment. "Mostly cat pictures and pornography."

I waited before responding to her. "I cannot tell if you are joking," I said, and she laughed, which was the opposite of how she felt. "So you are not joking?" I asked, attempting to clarify.

This time, her laugh was pure. "I mean, I am, but in one of those terribly injured trauma ways."

We talked for far longer than I should've kept her up, but I couldn't help myself—and before I left, I sang her to sleep with a different lullaby, then I swam back to where the spaceship was.

There were no lights, there was no doorway—but all the writing on the side was the same.

And the next symbol had already been added—this time the circles were together again.

I went back to hover in front of where the doorway had been.

"I don't know what you're trying to do," I thought out at it. "But you are not allowed to take her away from me."

Nothing seemed to change though—so I went back to be near Elle and rest.

That morning her mood was complicated—she still had to interact with the other humans, who had clearly lied to her—but she was elated every time she thought about me, and I remained so close to her on our 'qa that I could feel it, her eager thoughts returning to me and last night again and again, like so many fish nibbling on algae.

But we both waited until we were past the line where the others might hear her before thinking plainly—and the first thing she did was take my hand.

"What is this?" I asked her, after she did it—and then I answered my question in her mind. "Ah! It is because you do not have lower-arms! "

"Yes, silly," she said with a grin. "Also I just wanted to touch you."

I could sense what she got of me through her tactimetal suit .

It wasn't much—but it was better than the glass was.

"Teach me how to get better at going through your memories? And maybe carry me to the ship, because you're faster?"

I picked her up in my arms to do so at once. "Going through my memories should be easy. Everything inside my mind is real. Yours—" I clicked my beak, and she laughed.

"It's hard though, Ceph. I don't have frames of reference for a lot of your life. Like you sleep sideways, on purpose."

"Is that a problem?"

"No, it's just—I've never slept sideways before in my life. Or eaten live fish, or"—her mind raced off, zipping through a hundred things she'd never done before like thrown a well-weighted spear, wrestled with a friend, talked to sirens—"Oh my gosh, Ceph, is your brother really a king?"

"Ugh," I said, setting her down in front of the spaceship. "Yes. But don't remind me."

The first thing she did was go over to where the symbols were, and point at the one I'd seen last night. "It is you!" she exclaimed, but then frowned and started thinking. "But how does it know we were together?"

"I am uncertain." I felt motion in the water though, and knew to shield myself and her half-a-second before the lights turned on again.

This time we both got to watch the gantry come down.

"Are you still decided?" I asked her, even though I could already feel the answer in her heart.

"Yes," she said—so I picked her up and carried her.

The inside of the spaceship was as we'd left it—except now there weren't any floating corpses, and there was a new opening along one wall, apparently leading to a second glowing room.

"What happened to the bodies?" Elle wondered .

I'd had a chance to do more research in her mind on her white blood cells the night before. "Did it eat them?"

She gave me a look inside her helmet. "There'd be easier ways to get nutrition down here than waiting for humans in pressure suits to show up."

I made a scoffing sound. "Maybe it has limited locomotion."

She went up on her tiptoes, kicked up to float alongside me, and then ever so carefully tapped her helmet against my cheek. "That was a kiss," she explained. "And we're going down that hall."

"Goddammit," I thought at her, repeating back her favorite curse word, and felt her laugh as I began to follow.

We only made it halfway down the hall though, until her forward progress was thwarted.

She'd reached the end of her umbilical cable.

I sensed a surge of disappointment, as she looked behind herself. "No. It's too soon—I can't believe they didn't make these longer!"

All I could feel was a vast sense of relief. Finally this madness would be through, and my mate would be safe, inside the habitat, where she belonged.

Her disappointment lingered, however, so sharp that it began to pain me.

"I will go ahead and look for you. But only this once."

"No!" She grabbed for my hand again.

"Why not?" I asked, but then felt it from her. "So you admit that it's dangerous!"

She made a face at me inside her helmet. "Of course it could be. But also, I can't lose you." She put a fist to her stomach. "I get that now."

"So you know how hard these past few days have been for me."

"I do," she said, looking up—then she let go of my hand. "Just look a little bit. Be careful."

"I will do my best," I said, choosing to creep forward using my suckers on the ground, rather than jet. I had seen all sorts of fictions in Elle's mind last night as we'd been chatting, plus I could feel her thoughts now, so I knew she was worried about booby traps, lasers, and rolling boulders for some reason.

The next room seemed the same as the first had. Mostly gold light, with occasional flickers of other colors, like the sun itself was shining down from above. I went back to go tell Elle that, and then I stopped with a gasp.

The entire hallway she was in was bathed in the light that she shone for me, like she was in the center of a never-ending crystal—and the door behind her was closing.

I rushed and grabbed her, jetting us toward the exit at full force, but by the time I got there the gap was already too narrow. I set half of my tentacles through one side, half on the other, trying to push the door back open so I could eject her safely.

She was screaming—both from surprise, and at realizing what was happening—and I was fighting like my life depended on it, because it did. Then a force plucked me, and through me, Elle, who I was holding, and pulled me back.

I shouted in surprise and fear, and wound all of myself around Elle as the door slammed on her cable and I saw it snap.

"My pearl, my pearl, my pearl," I said, rocking her.

Her mind was frantic, but she managed to say, "I'm here."

"You are not dead?" I asked her, unwilling to believe.

Perhaps I was, then. Maybe we had both died, and this was her heaven —another strange concept the two-legged had, that we did not.

"I don't think so. But I'm scared."

"Me as well," I said, slowly unwinding. I kept strong hold of her cable though, unsure if the fact that I had it cinched in my lower-arms was the only thing keeping her alive. I looked back the way I'd come, and found that entrance closed as well.

We were trapped inside the ship.

"Did you trigger something, in the next room over?" she asked. "What was it like? What did you see? "

"Nothing," I said—but I'd forgotten she was with me now, riding with me on my 'qa.

"Don't lie to me, Cepharius," she complained. "And don't make me go through your memories either."

"The next room looked like the first. But when I turned back and saw you—you were bathed in—in—light." I didn't have a word I could give her for it, just a concept of great beauty, like the inside of a shell.

"Why?"

"I cannot begin to guess."

"The ship knows all the wavelengths you can use to see."

"Oddly, that knowledge does not bring me pleasure."

She frowned, tapping a finger against the glass of her helmet. "It's not even alarming—and my bail-out bottle hasn't gone off."

"Did the other humans sabotage you?"

"I doubt it. Although—maybe the spaceship's doing something weird to my systems?" I saw her eyes flicker, as she read the inside of her face shield's screen. "It says the pressure of this room is changing."

"That is untrue," I said. "I feel no change."

"And the salinity," she went on. "And—the oxygen levels. Ceph, are you all right?"

"I am fine—but you are experiencing the madness that struck those other men."

She took my concerns seriously at least. "Am I? I don't understand—everything in here says I can take off my suit. It's not totally back to the pressure I'm used to topside—but it says my surroundings match the habitat."

"Whereas I am here, swimming, telling you, you definitely should not do that, as your mate."

She looked over her shoulder, forlornly, at where her cable was snapped—and at the fact that the space we were in didn't have any apparent doors .

"What should we do?" I asked her, as between the two of us, she was the Outer Space expert.

"Wait to be eaten?" she said, as a tense tease.

I made an unaccommodating sound and squeezed her more tightly. It was all I could do—that and watch her eyes flicker, reading and re-reading the inside of her helmet's screen.

"But seriously...there'd be easier ways to kill us. Like whatever it did to the first team."

I could feel her bright mind thinking, and I already knew I would not like what she would suggest next.

"I think I can get out of this suit, Ceph."

"No," I said, winding about her more thoroughly.

"It says the atmosphere here is breathable for me."

"You saw what happened to the others!"

"I did," she said, with a strong nod. "But none of them tried to take off their suits. So this is different."

"Why?" I pressed. "Why would this ship treat you even remotely differently?" I was trying not to shout at her, because I didn't want to injure her like I had the other day, but I was running out of options.

"Because—it showed you me. Right?"

I frowned strongly. "I would've never said anything if I'd known it'd lead to this."

She squirmed up in my embrace to touch her helmet to my cheek again in another distanced kiss. "I'm not getting air in through my cable, Ceph, and my bail-out oxygen hasn't released, so either way, I'm fucked. Unless..." she said, slowly wriggling her arms free—and I felt forced to let her. "Close your eyes."

I stared down at her instead. I knew she was about to do something foolish, and if had to hold another mate's corpse in my arms it would break me.

"I know, Ceph," she whispered on our 'qa. "So close your eyes. I love you."

I snapped my eyes shut, and felt her taking her helmet off .

I was preparing myself for agony while wrapping myself around her for as long as I could hold her, physically and mentally both, when I heard her calling my name. I only opened up one eye a sliver—and found her smiling at me, her hair flowing around her head like she was a siren. "I told you I could breathe here! My helmet was right!"

"How?" There was no possible way we could coexist in the same place.

"I have no idea. Magic? Science? Both?" She pushed away from all my arms. "But if you let me turn around, you can help me get out of this!"

I lowered my head quickly, running my cheek against hers, seeing as I still had the rest of her trapped. I felt the heat of her skin, and the contact made our 'qa light up.

"Oh," she gasped, feeling it too.

I turned her at once, my tentacles searching for her suit's fastenings.

"Up at my neck," she directed. "And then there's buttons you push at each hip."

I did all these, and helped to hold it still till she'd shed it like a sea snake's skin and was swimming in front of me with a scrap of clothing still on.

"I'm breathing!" she said with delight, swimming up, and then swimming down again. "And I'm not dying!"

She laughed, and I laughed too, one born of relief. I sent a seeking tentacle after her, catching her by an ankle to pull her near.

"None of this makes sense, Elle."

She caught my face between her hands, flutter kicking to hold herself aloft, sending pleasurable waves from the motion across all of my lower-arms. "I like it when things make sense too, Ceph, believe me—but in this one case...does it have to?"

Whatever light source was shining in the room got brighter, and all of her was glowing—like she was meant for me.