Page 7 of Scars & Starlight
Her eyes bug out, but she doesn’t shrink away when I take a seat opposite her. So far, so good.
“Our longevity allowed us time to experiment and learn what allowed for those very rare couples to conceive.”
When the AU finishes interpreting, the woman’s eyes flit between Lirael and me. “And what did you find out?” she asks.
“The particulars of the gene sequencing are unimportant for this conversation,” Lirael takes over. “But we took samples from every remaining Avaren. And realized there aren’t enough matches to ensure our species remains viable. We may not age the way you do, but we’re still vulnerable to physical injury if caught unaware.”
Like she caught Zaiem unaware. An incredibly lucky strike. When her eyebrows climb up, I start suspecting she knows where this tale is heading.
“So you had to find matches,” she says, not a question, but a statement.
“Indeed,” I continue. “We went from planet to planet, following the Ghorvek, liberating the occupants, and then testing them.”
Her nose wrinkles. I’m not sure which part disgusts her, but I feel uneasy. “And if they were a match?” she asks.
I blow air out of my nose. My cousin doesn’t spare me, blinking at me slowly with a neutral expression. “If they’re a match, we introduce them to their Avaren counterpart,” I answer. “If they’re on Avaris, we ask whether they wish to travel there to meet them.”
The human audibly grits her teeth. “And if they say no? If they’re married or simply unwilling?”
I lift my hands, palms up. “I believe you saw what happens to Avaren who don’t respect a rejection. Not that it was accepted before, but since the Ghorvek, rape only has one punishment. Death.”
When the mech finishes speaking, she shudders and hugs herself, rubbing her arms to chase away the chills. Since I set the room to the perfect temperature for her human body, not far from our own, I know it’s the memories of what almost happened that haunt her.
“You really just let your rare matches go on their merry way?” Her words come out dry, disbelieving.
“We really do,” Lirael says. “Though the preservation of our species is our primary biological imperative, we didn’t stop believing in the emotional components of partnerships.”
I cover my hand, where my neural filaments began blinking. When my cousin purses her lips, I shoot her a cold look.
“How are people from other planets even a match?” the human asks with furrowed brows. “We’re visibly different,” she continues, pointing at my eyes and the glowing lines on my cheeks. “Are our parts even compatible?”
Now her eyes drop to my lap, partially hidden by the table between us. When she realizes what she’s looking at, she quickly looks away, but my blood has already been set afire. I can feel myself thickening under my uniform and quickly lean forward.
By Seris, I don’t remember a female ever eliciting these intense feelings of intrigue and uncertainty from me. I have to fight the urge to impress her.
She could be someone else’s match, Kairen, I tell myself.Rein it in.
Lirael gently clears her throat. “With research, we’ve come todiscover that we had identical inceptions,” she begins. “We believe that our mutual creators planted us on habitable planets across the universe as some kind of experiment. While differences come from varied environments, at our core, we’re all the same.”
After the AU is done translating, the human shakes her head in disbelief. “Even the Ghorvek?”
My cousin tips her head in acknowledgment. “Even the Ghorvek. We posit that a disaster, perhaps irradiation, altered their appearance much more than ours. But they have roughly the same organs as we do. They have four hearts to our two, and your one.”
“What’s your name?” I blurt out, tired of referring to her as ‘the human woman’.
She’s momentarily taken aback by my sudden question, but quickly recovers. “Tara,” she says. “Tara Novak. What’s yours?”
“Kairen Veyrath.” I tip my head to Lirael. “And this is Lirael Veyrath. Cousin,” I add quickly, before the AU translates and Tara can process that we share a family name. According to the data Kael keeps sending me, humans practice sharing a family name between partners as well, though they almost without fault pick the male’s family name, while for us it’s a thing of agreement.
Lirael kicks my foot under the table. I ignore her, keeping my eyes on the blushing woman. Tara.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Tara,” I say. “Now, how about we talk without the mech between us?”
5
TARA
Itake my eyes off the gorgeous alien with some difficulty. I can’t believe he just caught me eyeing his space junk, and I don’t mean the stuff floating around Earth. But the way he let me know the stunning female is his cousin and not his wife makes me think that… he might like me too? Though if the rest of the Avaren females look anything like Lirael, I don’t see how that’s possible. I’m just an average tawny-eyed and tawny-haired, pale-skinned, short Slovenian. I mean, I used to be pale-skinned. Living in California for almost a decade brought out the gold in my complexion. No matter how much time I spend under the Ventura sun, though, my skin will never be as luminous as that of the handsome extraterrestrial in front of me. Those cool glowing lines aside. It’s like they’re blessed by the moons I saw circling Avaris.
