Raised to Kill

All of them looked strange to Allara. They were dressed in colorful gowns but they themselves were colorful as well. One had yellow hair, one had brown hair, the third had red hair and all three of them had strangely pale skin. The fourth female looked a bit more normal. She had skin tones about the same shade as Allara’s own and long black hair. But her eyes were a pale amber color that seemed odd in her pretty face.

The red-haired woman talked to her again in the strange language and Allara shook her head. She couldn’t understand anything they said—why had she not thought of this? Why had no one told her that the evil ones would talk in a tongue she didn’t know? In retrospect, it seemed a fairly obvious thing, but somehow it had never entered Allara’s mind—or apparently—the minds of her aunt or father.

“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t know what you’re saying.”

The alien women talked among themselves some more and then the girl with long, yellow hair held out her hand, offering Allara a pink, cylindrical thing and a glass which appeared to have water in it.

Hesitantly, Allara took the pink, oblong thing and examined it. It was as big as the last joint of her little finger. What was she supposed to do with it?

The woman with yellow hair mimed putting something in her mouth and swallowing it. Then she pointed to the pink thing and pointed to Allara.

Allara looked at the pink thing uncertainly. So it was some kind of medicine. Was it a poison pill, like the tiny black one sewn into the hem of her wedding gown? But why would they try to kill her at once? They would want her to be wed to the evil one first, so that he could defile her, Allara reasoned.

The woman with yellow hair mimed taking the pill again and then pointed to the glass of water. It seemed they weren’t going to give up until she took it.

What else can I do? I don’t think they would try to kill me until after the wedding at least. Maybe it’s some kind of sacrament to them. A holy ritual one must partake of before the ceremony.

Feeling reckless, Allara moved her veil aside, popped the pink pill into her mouth, and washed it down with the glass of cool water. She gave back the glass and held out her hands expressively.

“There, I’ve done what you asked. What more do you want of me?”

The woman with the red hair looked at the one with the yellow hair and began to speak in their strange, foreign language again. But then, all of a sudden, it seemed that she switched to speaking Allara’s own tongue.

“She comes from a fascinating people. Did you know that even though the Q’ess are humanoid in appearance, all of their organs are reversed?” the yellow-haired woman said.

“Reversed? What do you mean?” the red-haired woman asked.

“Well, for instance, their heart is on the right side of their body instead of the left. And the liver is on the left instead of the right—it’s all like that,” the yellow-haired woman said. “On Earth when somebody has that condition it’s a disease—Situs Inversus. But for the Q’ess, it’s perfectly normal.”

“Fascinating, doll,” the red-haired woman said dryly. “I could hardly find anything at all about their customs to help me plan the wedding but you were somehow able to dig up the fact that their hearts are on the wrong side of their body?”

“It’s not the wrong side for them,” the yellow-haired woman said. “And I only found that out because there were some autopsies done on a couple of Q’ess pilots who had crashed their ships in Kindred territory. Really interesting reading.” She frowned. “Besides, I thought you found something—some article to help you—by a Tenebrian sociologist who went undercover to study them or something?”

“I did but it turned out to be nothing I could use,” the red-head said. “I thought it was going to be good because the title was, Customs of the Q’ess, but it turned out to be about some kind of weird brainwashing religious ceremony—something about a vow you can’t break, no matter what. Nothing that could help me at all, planning the wedding.”

Allara looked back and forth between the two of them. Though they appeared to be speaking her language, she wasn’t sure she was understanding them at all. What was all this talk of medicine and customs? And why were they saying it while looking at her?

“She’s a tiny little thing, isn’t she? How long do you think it will take the pill work on her?” the red-haired woman asked, switching subjects.

“It should have kicked in by now,” the yellow-haired woman replied, frowning. “This new strain of Translation Bacteria they’ve developed in the lab is supposed to be amazingly quick.”