Entanglement Bound: An Epic Space Opera Series (Entangled Universe Book 1) Page 13

  Jeko held out a heavy arm in front of the cylinder, blocking Am-lei from opening it. "But she's—"

  "I know," Am-lei said softly.

  "It's private," Jeko insisted, her tone like a sousaphone trying to whisper.

  "It's not private," Am-lei said. "If she were on Leionaia, she'd be hanging from a tree in the Grove of Changes, caressed by wind and rain, visited by the families of all of the other young ones changing."

  "This is not the same!" Jeko's sousaphone voice stopped whispering.

  "No, none of her life is the same." Am-lei put her two right talons on Jeko's thick arm and helped her lower it. "If it were, she wouldn't have grown up on Crossroads Station, and she wouldn't have you for a mother."

  Jeko dropped her nose from where it lay possessively against the cylindrical cargo crate and coiled it tightly around her own neck as she turned away. Her small eyes looked bright with tears, and she tilted her large, flappy ears to shield her face from view.

  Am-lei punched a long code into a small keypad on the side of the crate, and a green light blinked three times. Electronic and mechanical sounds issued from inside the crate; the sound of latches unlocking. Am-lei took hold of a handle on the side of the crate, and a panel nearly as tall as the crate swung open.

  Am-lei gestured to the open cylinder with four arms and said to her audience—one robot who'd kidnapped her, the robot's swarm bodyguard, and Clarity—"My clone-daughter."

  Inside the cylinder, hung an oblong shape, large enough around that Clarity could have wrapped her arms all the way around it, and its tapered tip didn't quite reach the bottom of the crate. A silky cluster of glue held the thicker, lopsided top of the oblong form to the ceiling of the cylindrical crate.

  At first glance, the shape seemed crystalline in form, but after only a moment, Clarity could see blue and purple veins pulsing beneath the translucent outer shell. This was pure biology. The longer Clarity stared at the form, the more she made sense of it—she saw folded twiggy legs, shining darkly like obsidian through one side of the crystalline vase, and at the bottom, she saw silver faceted eyes on a face like Am-lei's. But on the other side, beneath the crystal skin, this sleeping creature was all colors, folded and squished, still forming inside of a chrysalis shell.

  "You do have wings..." Clarity said with wonder, remembering the first moment she'd met Am-lei and how much the physicist had reminded her of a butterfly-like alien she'd once known. But Clarity tore her vision away from the chrysalis and looked back at the giant black insect standing outside of the cylinder. She did not have wings. "I mean... I'm an idiot, I'm sorry. I don't know what I'm saying."

  "I did have wings," Am-lei said.

  "You did?" Clarity said, confused. She tried to remember the name of her roommate from so long ago. Except for the wings, she'd looked exactly like Am-lei. The more Clarity thought about it, the more sure she was of that.

  "My species cuts their wings off," Am-lei said. She held a single talon delicately up to the crystalline form of her daughter's chrysalis and traced the curve of the growing wing, rich with amber and shades of plum. "They're vestigial."

  Carefully, lovingly, Am-lei closed the bio-matter crate and punched the long code back into its keypad, locking her daughter safely away. "I cut them off. That's what my species normally does." She turned toward away, antennae trembling. Her voice got low. "It's funny though, I didn't hesitate to cut off my own wings. But..."

  Jeko turned around, flappy ears splaying away from her face. She reached out with her nose and Am-lei folded herself against her wife's much larger body. "It's okay," Jeko cooed, her face pressed closely against Am-lei's delicate form. "It's okay to miss the pudgy green caterpillar, and it's okay to mourn the wings she won't keep. Lee-a-lei will be beautiful with them for one day, and then for a lifetime she'll be beautiful without them. Like you."

  "Lee-a-lei!" Clarity exclaimed, startling everyone—except for the robot, who possibly could not be startled, or at least could not display it. Mazillion displayed their surprise by drifting out of shape into a formless, buzzing cloud for a moment, but the swarm reshaped quickly, mimicking Clarity's own shape. "That was the name of my roommate when I first came to Crossroads Station," Clarity explained.

  "You know my mother," Am-lei said. "Our daughter is named for her."

  "Only for a few weeks," Clarity admitted. She didn't add that it had been thirty-some years ago. "I knew you looked like her. Exactly like her. Why did she still have wings then?"

  "I told you my mother was raised by a human," Am-lei said, stepping away from Jeko. She stood on four legs now, only two of her twiggy limbs acting as arms. "Grandma Amy didn't know lepidopterans cut their wings off. My mother suffered the... physical inconvenience of a vestigial organ for many years before discovering they should have been cut off in a ceremony on the day she emerged in her adult form."

  Clarity didn't know what to say. It seemed wrong to gush about how beautiful her roommate's wings had been, but it seemed wrong to say, "I'm sorry," too. They had been beautiful wings, like stained glass windows come to life. Though, as Clarity remembered, they'd always been knocking things off tables, and Lee-a-lei had often complained of intense pain in her lower thorax.

  "We want our daughter to emerge from her chrysalis on our species' homeworld," Am-lei fluted, proboscis uncoiling. "Surely you can understand."

  "I can," Wisper agreed in her expressionless hum. "And I'm sure she won't mind if the entire planet is swallowed up by a collapsing universe within a day of her emergence. One day of wings; one day of homeworld; one day of adulthood." Wisper turned on her heel and stalked out of the ventricle room, once again stomping her feet in a way that would have clanged thunderously on The Serendipity.

  Mazillion funneled out of the room after their robot master.

  Clarity chased after Wisper and Mazillion. They were heading back toward Cassiopeia's cockpit. "What the hell?" Clarity yelled when she caught up with them in the vein-like hallway. "That is not how you get someone on your side!"

  "I don't need her on my side," Wisper said. "We have her daughter. She'll do what we need her to do when the time comes. She'll have to, or her daughter will die."

  "Cold," Clarity said, feeling the full force of the fact that she was talking to a creature with an entirely different type of intelligence than her own—one who was completely non-biological, based in circuit boards and programs and dark technological magic that Clarity didn't understand.

  "Practical," Wisper said. "If you want to try to make the proud parents feel better, you're welcome to go back in there and continue explaining how their daughter is in danger no matter where she is inside the universe."

  "Though, come on," Clarity said. "She's probably in more danger some places than others, and we're heading straight into the eye of the storm."

  "The sooner we get there, the smaller the storm might be." Wisper was done with the conversation and continued on down the hallway.

  The robot was right though—Clarity didn't want to spend more time arguing with Jeko and Am-lei about the safety of their daughter either. She wanted to talk to the only person in this crazy ship—no, the whole entire universe—who she could trust. She needed to find Irohann.

  16 Secrets of the Future

  When Clarity found Irohann, leaning against the valve-like entrance to Cassie's airlock with two spacesuits laid across his lap, her heart leaped. His fluffy orange mane flowed over his unbuttoned collar, and the tendrils of fur just under his ears were slightly frizzy, as they got in warmer weather. He was her bright orange sun; the center around which her universe rotated. Her heart.

  Here was safety. Here was what she had left of home.

  Clarity sat down beside him and leaned her head against the soft orange cloud of his fur. Her green hair blended with his red fur in a cheerful, Christmassy way. She didn't often celebrate the holidays from her childhood, but maybe after all of this was over, she'd throw together some sort of holiday celebration for her and Irohann. P
resents, overly sugary food, and music. Maybe even dancing, like in her dream. But no tree; Irohann didn't like plants that reminded him of the sentient trees who were his reason for being on the run.

  Clarity would find something else to decorate. Maybe she would decorate him. Irohann would look good dripping in tinsel, glittering strands of silver and gold hanging over his ears and nose; blending with his long mane fur like her own hair was doing now. Clarity laughed at the image in her mind.

  Irohann brought his long muzzle close to her face. She could feel his breath on her cheek, but when he spoke, he didn't ask what she thought was funny. He said, "I'm sorry."

  "It's not your fault," Clarity said, nuzzling in closer. "Any of this."

  "It is," he said. "And I'm sorry."

  A cold chill ran through Clarity's core where she'd felt warm and cozy a moment before. "What do you mean?"

  "I told you I wanted to sell The Serendipity," Irohann said.

  "Because we couldn't afford it," Clarity said, pushing away from Irohann, far enough to look up and see his face. "That's not your fault. We weren't using the space."

  "We could afford it." Irohann turned away from her, causing the long fur of his mane to brush against her face. He pointed his muzzle upward, and his ears tilted back. From this angle, she could see the short yet silky white fur along his throat, just above the puff of his mane. "I rearranged the finances to make it look like we were losing money."

  Anger flared inside of Clarity. She'd believed she'd been irresponsible, not noticed the money slowly leeching away. Instead, her best friend had lied to her. "You made me feel like an idiot."

  "I was afraid..."

  "Of what?" Clarity only knew one thing that scared Irohann, but the Doraspian Empire had had no way of discovering The Serendipity's registry. In thirty years of gallivanting, they'd never come close to uncovering Irohann's new identity.

  "We were growing too attached," he said. "Too comfortable. If Queen Doripauli found me... You wouldn't have wanted to give our spaceship up. You wouldn't have come with me, if I'd had to run again."

  "You're already running," Clarity said. "You've been running as long as I've known you, and I've run with you for all that time."

  "You know what I mean," he said miserably.

  "I don't," she said, pushing herself further away from him, far enough that his fur didn't touch her. But she could still feel Cassie's flesh against her back, beneath her feet and rear, and under the palms of her hands. She could hear Cassie's singing white noise. It echoed in her ears like water closing in all around her, drowning her, stifling her.

  "If the Doraspian Empire discovers my identity," he said, "I'll have to go to the genie shop again—get my phenotype altered to an entirely new species. I think something with antlers this time."

  "This time," Clarity repeated, trying to summon the outrage those words should cause. But she was too tired. Too knocked flat on her back. "You're already planning what you're going to change into when the Doraspians find you, even though they've never come close in thirty years."

  "Yes," he said. "I have to."

  "You don't," she said. "They won't find you, Irohann. You're safe." She laughed, a hollow sound that rang through the hallway, mingling with all the thrumming musical sounds of Cassie.

  What an absurd thing she'd said. There was no such thing as safe anymore. It had exploded with The Serendipity and her menagerie of dolls, well, most of them. Safe had been destroyed by a bunch of scientists she'd never met when they put the whole universe in danger, setting in motion an intricate piece of clockwork that brought a rogue AI to her spaceship door.

  "I'll never be safe, Clarity," Irohann said. "Not after the crime I committed against them." He'd committed treason against the queen, his lover, by supporting a rebel army. He'd learned that Queen Doripauli had planned to burn an entire continent of sproutlings, in order to make more space for the older generation to continue to grow. He'd felt empathy for the sproutlings when he learned Doraspians gained full sentience before uprooting from the ground. He'd aided the rebellion and marked himself a traitor for life. "I have to be ready to shed this identity and become someone new the very moment they connect me to the name Sloanee. And this time—"

  Clarity glared at her dearest and oldest friend.

  Irohann changed his words, "Next time, I won't be able to continue traveling with you—if they discover Irohann; they'll discover Clarity. If you were to run with me, you'd have to change yourself too. New name. New identity. New body."

  Clarity thought about that.

  Of course, she'd thought about the question before—when she was young and this was all new. The universe was new to her, and she was new to herself. She'd imagined becoming a Heffen like Irohann had, or becoming the amphibious species he'd been when they'd first met. She'd imagined trading her smooth skin for fur and becoming all sorts of different fuzzy mammals, or even a scaly, green reptilian alien. She loved the color green. She'd even imagined switching genders, like Irohann had, but Clarity didn't think she'd want to do that. Sometimes, she wondered how he'd managed such a total and complete change of his exterior self without it destroying who he was on the inside.

  Clarity had lived in her own skin too long to change it now. She'd earned the way her middle had thickened and her arms grown just a little more plump; the contours of the skin on her face; every freckle and the little white scar under her knee that she didn't remember getting—those were all her. Sure, she could change a little here and there. She loved the gene-modded photosynthetic cells growing emerald green in her hair now. But she was human. A human woman, edging up toward middle-aged, even with the increased life spans devised by Wespirtech scientists with their gene-magic. She couldn't change herself, even for Irohann.

  Even more than The Serendipity had been her home, this body was her home. It was the only thing in the universe she could truly hold onto. "You're right," Clarity said. "I won't go to a genie shop with you. I won't change."

  Irohann said nothing, but the breath caught in his throat. Not a sob. Maybe a swallowed word. Clarity wasn't sure.

  "What I don't understand," Clarity said, "is why did you go along with all of this—" She gestured all around at the belly of the space whale who'd swallowed them into a totally unnecessary and really upsetting adventure. "Why agree to take on passengers if it was all a ruse? Why?"

  Irohann drew in a deep breath, rustling his own fur. "I thought... it would be a disaster, and you'd admit we should sell the ship. Or maybe, maybe I felt guilty and wanted to change my mind and keep The Serendipity. I don't know."

  Clarity stood up and grabbed one of the spacesuits laying across Irohann's lap. She stuffed it into the duffle bag, still slung over her shoulder. "Lucky for you," she said, "you don't have to figure it out, because The Serendipity is gone. And you won't have to go to a genie shop, because there's no way the Doraspians are going to find you. Less lucky for you, I don't know if I'll ever talk to you again after you got my ship destroyed, because you were afraid I was getting too attached. I guess it doesn't pay to get attached to anything, so maybe I should get over feeling attached to you!"

  Clarity hadn't thought she could lose any more after The Serendipity exploded. But she'd lost Irohann. She stormed away. Irohann was either too smart or too stupid to follow her. She wasn't sure which.

  17 Commitment to the Cause

  There's only so much good crying can do; a full night of sleep helps a lot more. At least, that was Clarity's theory as she cried herself to sleep in the corner of the ventricle room she'd chosen for herself earlier. The room was outfitted with a bed, complete with a cozy-looking comforter decorated with red and yellow geometric shapes—little triangles, squares, and hexagons scattered over an eggshell-white background. Clarity wasn't sure if it had been hand-stitched or simply synthesized to look that way. Either way, a lot of time had gone into it.

  And Clarity rejected the time and effort some Wespirtech scientist—or another employee of Wespirtech
—had put into making the belly of a space whale homey. Instead, she curled up directly against Cassie's almost-rubbery flesh.

  Clarity didn't want to feel comfortable when so much was wrong; and yet, she couldn't help acknowledging inside herself, through the sobs and tears, that Cassie's deep purple flesh was far softer, warmer, and more giving than the cold steel walls of The Serendipity had been. She didn't want to feel grateful to a childlike space whale who was wrapped up in all of her troubles; nor did she want to agree in any way with the mad scientists who'd conscripted Cassie into this life.

  And yet, there it was: Cassiopeia made a comfortable ship. The musical white noise—slightly higher pitched in this room, more like tuning violas than cellos—lulled Clarity to sleep, in spite of the lump of fury inside of her and the tears wracking her. She was exhausted, and she needed the sleep.

  Clarity dreamed that she awoke bright eyed and bushy tailed, literally. She dreamed she went with Irohann to the genie shop, selected a squirrel-like species, and let the genies work their gene therapy magic on her. But when she awoke, covered in downy gray fur and with a giant fluffy tail, Irohann was gone. He hadn't changed into a different species. He'd changed into nothing, and left her alone, without even herself.

  When Clarity awoke for real, she didn't feel bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, even figuratively. She felt like a cargo-lift truck on Crossroads Station had driven over her and left her as a smear on the metal cargo bay floor. Fascinating aliens walked over her squished body, paying no mind to the flattened human under their feet.

  Why should they? The aliens on Cassiopeia didn't care about her concerns. The elephant and wingless butterfly had their own concerns; the rabbit man too; the stolen robot and swarm of mosquitos were inscrutable; and her big, red wolf was a traitor.