Harem (Alien Authority 2)

“Tess?” Tethys’ voice intrudes on my thoughts.

“Yes?”

She is always around, poor thing. Bored out of her mind, probably. There’s nobody for her to play with, nobody to educate her. She seems intelligent but I cannot imagine that three years of being locked in a house with Sithren has helped her intellect.

“Will you come to the library? I like to read. Do you like to read? Would you read me something?”

She asks the questions rapid fire. In many ways she has the demeanor of a younger child. It’s trauma that does that, locks a person at a certain age in some respects. I cannot imagine how devastated she must be on the inside, and how much nurturing she will need to overcome it. I do feel pity for this innocent. It is not her fault that she has the misfortune to be her father’s daughter.

“I will come,” I agree. “Let me get dressed.”

I have now been provided with a wardrobe. It may not be in my style, but it does fit. I choose the simplest of the gowns, noticing that the midsection has elastic properties. Sithren has picked out maternity clothes for me. He too can count the weeks, he too knows what I know and yet have not said.

We go then to the library, a peaceful room with scrolls and tomes hung throughout on shelves. The Dinavri maintain the importance of physical media even though they have tech nearly as advanced as any the Authority has.

“I like this room,” Tethys says. “It used to be the one quiet place, because you have to be quiet in the library. Now everywhere is a quiet place.”

This girl is a walking narrator of tragedy. I wonder if she knows what she’s doing, or if she’s just had such a hard and miserable life everything out of her mouth speaks to it.

When I was spying for the Authority, access to a room like this would have been one of the apexes of my infiltration. There are histories here that will no doubt shed great light on the Dinavri culture. I wonder what Sithren would think if he knew I was here. Would he chase me out like an Authority spy, or would he allow me to immerse myself in his culture as that is what he wants long term? I pick carefully through the shelves, noting that many of these documents are handwritten. These must be the works of his family, or perhaps Sithren himself.

“Father says you want to leave.” Tethys pipes up.

“Yes.” I am not going to lie to her. I want to keep expectations appropriate so she is not hurt by my leaving. I will be pleasant to her while I am here, but I will not take on the burden of her raising.

“Why? Don’t you like us?”

“It’s nothing to do with liking or not liking. It’s got to do with the kind of life I want to have. I am used to being free, going where I want to go and doing what I want to do.”

“That’s a lie. You’re used to being sent to do missions that will likely get you killed, or worse.”

I didn’t see Sithren reading in the corner. This is starting to feel like a set up. And as though I am losing my touch. How do you miss a massive, scaled Dinavri lord sitting in the corner? He does somewhat blend in with the scaled tapestry behind him, but that’s no excuse. I should have sensed him the second I came in here. I am a spy, and a spy should never be surprised.

“At least I could go outdoors.”

“You’re free to go into the gardens. Just not to wander the streets. I would have thought you'd had enough of the streets of this city,” he says, raising a brow at me as he makes reference to my initial shameful experience here.

“In my world,” I tell Tethys, “women can choose to be part of society in whatever manner they like. There are women who captain great starships, and who lead armies.”

“Why would they want to do that?” She screws her face up at me. “The women here never had to fight anybody. They got to eat as much as they liked, and read poetry, and sew clothes, and have babies.”

“That’s nice too,” I say, feeling rather crestfallen.

“Tethys,” Sithren says.

“Yes. I know, go play somewhere else,” she sighs and leaves us be. A guard meets her at the door and ushers her away. This was a setup. For what? Conversation?

“You're not going to indoctrinate Tethys,” Sithren smirks. “She is a product of her mother and this world. She has the sense of a child to know that a woman who must do battle with men loses all the wonder and benefit of being a womb bearer.”

He’s unspeakably sexist and irritatingly logical within his own frame of reference.