Tarren’s grip tightens. “Do not mention that vecking piece of excrement to Riya. You dishonor her purity by bringing him up.”
I blink rapidly, a cold feeling gripping my chest. “I want to learn about your past. Tell me?”
“He was a dishonest thief who does not deserve to share the same air we breathe. His deception and betrayal cost us dearly and hurt Zandians we care for greatly.” Tarren’s voice is hard. “He was running the crystal out on every excursion we took with him. We had no idea he was lying to us. Zandians never lie.”
Jax massages my toes, something that usually makes me moan with pleasure and melt into the covers, but this planet rotation I’m stiff. “That’s horrible.”
“Prison is too good for him.” Tarren’s body tightens, before he relaxes. “He will never be forgiven, as long as he and I live.”
I nod. “I guess some things… are too big for forgiveness.” I’m amazed my voice doesn’t tremble.
Zandians never lie. How will my warriors ever forgive my deceit?
“Can you pull up a cover? I’m feeling cold.”
Ronan jumps down and retrieves my favorite fleece blanket from the side couch he favors. His jaw is red as he spreads it over me. “I like sleeping with it,” he admits. “It smells like you. I don’t mind at all that you sleep with Tarren most nights, but I sleep better with your scent near me.”
I reach out and run my fingers through his hair. “You can sleep with it always. I just want it right now.” Even with the cover over me, the cold won’t leave my bones.
9
Riya
My breath comes faster as I step outside the dome and look past my gardens, and I squeeze the hand-knife in my pocket to make sure it’s still there. Hoisting my canvas sack to my shoulder, I take a deep breath. The scent is of wet earth, moist from a recent rain, and the green smell of my sprouts. My mates are all gone for their daily assignments, and I have plans of my own.
I look back at the dome, seeing the marigolds reflect like fire through the rippling glass, undulating in my field of vision like carpets of orange. I learned the secret to make them grow.
Once I requested the ancient texts to be sent to our comms unit, I began the arduous work of translations. English is a dead language, not just dead but forgotten, but some beings in the galaxy have collected libraries of old things. Scripts from Alexandrine, a galaxy that exploded eons ago, after a small group escaped by pods. Scrolls from the Tarrhexian planet, obliterated in a battle that’s long since been forgotten by history. And tomes from Earth, books that long ago expired into dust, but were scanned into electronic form to live on as long as some being deems them worthy of space on some galactic server.
I’m no genius. But I knew I could teach myself to cipher, and I did it. King Zander mentioned that all humans would receive training in time, once a program was created later, but allowed me to try on my own.
I spent hours toiling over the strange symbols, using a word list to translate the archaic phrases into my tongue. Slowly the words came alive, burst into three-dimensional color, as I unlocked—line by line—the advice from human farmers, planters, like me who lived so many years ago.
I have so many things I can teach my friends, but first I need to make sure my gardens are reliable, that what worked once will work time and again. And right now, I need some plants that grow only here, because the mixture of old Earth seeds with Zandian plants is proving to help strengthen the Earth salves and lotions a dozen-fold.
Tarren has forbidden me to go past our property boundaries without him or another mate and has told me I may definitely not—ever—travel alone, until this vipn outbreak is understood and contained. Why the population is moving toward the edge of the forest is a mystery, one that is not as interesting to the Zandians as the rehabitation projects.
I need to get bark from the Argrax bush. I heard rumor that it contains a powerful medicine—salicylic acid—that helps reduce fever and inflammation. If it’s true, I am positive that if I can extract acid from the bark, I can include it in a salve that will increase Zandian healing time by five times.
It’s just that the bark is located in the forest where I’m not supposed to go. Still, I have my knife for protection, and, tucked into my sack, an acidic mixture I created, which I keep tightly capped in a glass vial. Chemical warfare for one. I would be loathe to hurt a living being, but just in case…
In the back of my mind an idea grows, imagining this fluid sprayed large-scale onto an enemy ship, weakening the metal, causing the thing to split open like ripe seed pod in fall, brown and brittle. Maybe I will become Jax’s warrior general, after all, someday.
I shake my head and regrip the knife. It’s silent but for the trills of the Barillia, brightly plumed birds whose raucous call awakens us in the morning, birds that are not for eating, as their flesh is bitter and caustic. Their eggs, however, are divine—and I’ve discovered the shells, crushed into a fine powder, make a good fertilizer for herbs.
A sound makes me dart my head around, but it’s just a branch blowing in the wind. My pace is fast, my legs strong on the uneven ground. The woods are only seven miles away from the dome, but it’s another world, a place I never get to see. Even though I’m nervous about disobeying, and on constant lookout for vipn, the exultation of a solo adventure fills me with giddy joy, and I whoop and race ahead, feeling my hair stream out behind me, as free as I’ve ever been.
Medic work made me strong, and my daily tasks keep my muscles toned and tight, and I find that running a distance isn’t taxing. Yet as I approach the dark, misted reaches of the forest, I slow down, panting, and look around for danger. Seeing nothing extraordinary, I approach, keeping my footfalls soft and easy, eyes looking for my prize.
The Agrax is an epiphyte; it grows wound around other trees, roots exposed, absorbing what it needs from the misty air, using the host as a prop to stay off the forest floor. They favor the forest entrance, where the sunlight is stronger, but not the direct edge, because it’s too dry. I’m not too worried about the beasts, because they prefer the other part of the woods, where it’s darker and more protected. Still, they’ve been venturing out further these days
, so I need to be on the lookout.
Another slave told me on Earth, all those thousands of years ago, my ancestors tracked animals on foot, using prints, tracks, scat, and crushed grass to tell the path as clearly as if the animal stood up and called out the location. If only I could do that for the plants I need.
I hold the knife at the ready, my fist tight, ready to strike if necessary, but nothing comes, and as I advance slowly into the gloom, my heartrate calms, and I’m able to look around me and examine the area as a botanist.
Moss on the sides of the trees—all the same side. Needles from trees, leaves underfoot, making a cushioned mat. Bright blue fungal growths snarled in protruding roots—could that be Lissa, a mushroom that’s toxic when raw, but when cooked, releases a potent medicine that can aid sleep? I crouch down and cut some with my knife, allowing it to fall into a clean container that I seal up, then cleanse the knife on moss. I know better than to touch it with my bare fingers.