Page 77 of Fighting Gravity
He took a deep breath and transferred his weight to one leg, placing a hand on the corner of my shower stall next to where I was standing.
“Humans give up their ability to reproduce?” Rhone said, an uncharacteristically gentle undertone in his voice.
I shrugged. “When you’re a few billion over capacity, you start looking for ways to lower the numbers. Our government pays people to give up the ability and pushes virtual sex so we don’t have too much physical contact. We don’t have another planet to go to, remember?”
“But you became pregnant anyways?”
“That’s what the evidence says.”
“So, you have a mate waiting for you?”
“No.” I narrowed my eyes. “Is this your stupid way of asking if I’m single?”
“No. I wouldn’t care if you weren’t. I’ve just come to realize I don’t know anything about you.”
I rolled my eyes, feeling a stress headache coming on. “Ok, what do you want to know? ‘Know thine enemy’ right?”
I prepared for questions about human biology, behavior, and culture. Instead, he threw me through another loop.
“What happened to your child?”
“What do you mean, what happened to it?” I said, getting heated. “I was told to get rid of it, so I did.”
“Who had the authority to make that decision?”
“The guy paying my bills at the time. What the hell do you care? Shouldn’t you be asking more useful questions?”
“What kinds of questions do you think are useful?”
“I don’t know. How long do humans live? How do our weapons work? How many languages do we have? How many of them are trained in the military?”
“I’ve asked you many questions about humans and you never answer. When you said you’ve been through the wringer, what did that mean?”
“This is ridiculous,” I said, shaking my head.
I shoved past Rhone and headed for the new set of clothing, unfolding a pair of leggings made of some thick yet pliable material and a loose, t-shirt type of top with sleeves so long I would have to roll them three times to get them off my hands. Considering he’d seen me naked so many times, I stripped off my grimy old clothes and got dressed in the new ones, withholding a sigh of relief to feel clean clothes on my body again.
“Let me askyousomething,” I said, turning to face him where he was leaning up against the wall with his arms crossed. “What’s the weird humming thing you do? Your ‘Thel’ or whatever.”
The corner of his mouth curled up in a way that made me hot and pissed at the same time.
“Most gek’tal males produce their own frequency.”
“Most?”
“Not all. We’ve come to take it as a sign of good genetics.”
“Why do you have it?” I tried to look bored, but my imagination was going down a dangerous road.
“It’s used for many things. To attract females. To frighten opponents. To encourage subordinates to submit.”
I scoffed. “So that’s why I’ve been hearing it so much? You’re trying to scare me? Get me to submit?”
His smirk flattened. “You should not even be able to hear it.”
I almost laughed. “That’s funny considering how loud it is.”
The way he looked at me made me think he was serious. I shouldn’t have been hearing it at all and yet I could. Not only could I hear it but there was no doubt that it did things to me. I wanted to ask why but I also didn’t want to outright say that his little “Thel” thing made me wetter than a tropical rainstorm.
