Captivate (Alien Cadets Book 2) Read online

  Claire stayed frozen as he came up the ramp, her mind blank, just taking in the details. The way a human walked, placing each foot in a forward motion, was so different than the swaying hips of the Merith or shuffling, four-footed Spo. The sound of his voice rose above the hum of machinery, and it was so acutely human. The sound that came from human vocal cords was like ivory to the Spo’s rusty iron, Claire thought. It was like marble to the Merith’s flat clay.

  As the man reached the flat landing nearly underneath her, he ran a hand through his hair just like her dad used to do. Claire’s throat got heavy with tears. She hadn’t realized how affected she would be merely by seeing another human.

  Stop it, Claire told herself. This was her chance, and if she blew it she would never forgive herself.

  A flash of what could be filled her mind’s eye. She saw herself climb down from the catwalk and the man's surprise and confusion when he saw her - quickly followed by explanations and surely an offer of help. She saw herself going home, escorted and safe. She saw herself running up the path to her parents’ house and banging on the door and her mom opening it a crack and then screaming and throwing it open...

  And then she realized, one of the Merith just behind him – it was Faal.

  Claire was poised to stand, her muscles clenched, but she went absolutely rigid when she saw him. What the hell? Were they together? No way. How would Faal get a human to help him? What story could he possibly tell?

  Her eyes darted between the two, forcing sense into the scene. Faal looked coldly serene, surrounded by his five personal bodyguards. The man was a few steps ahead, still talking with the Spo, though occasionally glancing back towards Faal. They all paused beneath her, and Claire held her breath.

  If any of them looked up into the shadows above, looked hard, they would see her.

  The man couldn’t be with Faal, but...

  He leaned forward to hear something Faal said (darn it, she couldn’t hear!) and then nodded. “Probably so,” he said in English.

  Claire’s jaw clenched while he and Faal continued to talk until the ship’s steward arrived.

  “The human left the ship already.” The steward bowed to Faal. “We had no intention of insulting you by harboring a criminal.”

  So much for Claire’s hope that the Diarena might pretend she’d never been here.

  Faal looked the steward over. “As a matter of personal property and theft, I demand to know where the fake has gone.”

  Claire sucked a small breath in shock. Faal claimed she was a fake, a Rik. If this man believed the lie, would he help her?

  She desperately wanted to make herself known, this was the first human she’d seen in years! But as strongly as she wanted an ally, she dreaded exposing herself to Faal. She didn’t know what the man’s position was, but she was very unnerved by his camaraderie with Faal.

  Kitteh came up to the group just then, and they turned away from Claire’s hidden spot to speak to her.

  Claire used the moment to ghost silently and painfully further down the catwalk to the narrow metal ladder. She climbed down as quickly as she could and concealed herself behind a crate. She saw Kitteh’s eye flicker, watching her hide.

  Claire froze. Kitteh had been kind to her, for the most part. Would she betray her now, too?

  “You must allow me to search the ship,” Faal said. “I have a personal grievance with this thief–”

  Kitteh cut him off. “With all due respect, you will not search this ship. All personnel are hired under private contract and I have no obligation to show you the contract or my crew.”

  Claire let out her breath. Kitteh was magnificent.

  “What you will do is kindly leave this ship,” she continued. “If you think the Diarena will allow Faal of Merith II to search a ship of her passage, you are mistaken. And I will make sure she knows, if I must.”

  Faal glared at her. “The Diarena has taken temporary residence on Selta. The ship no longer falls under her domain.”

  “Her servants are still removing her belongings. As long as they remain on the ship, it is technically her ship.”

  Claire smiled despite her tension. She never would have expected Kitteh to champion her like this.

  The man began speaking, but his voice was quieter than Faal and it was muffled by a burst of noise by the ramp. “... authorized by Spo... fakes and criminals.”

  “I don’t have any fakes or criminals, Rik or otherwise,” Kitteh said. “You too will exit the ship.”

  Claire bit her lip. She didn’t want Kitteh to get rid of them both. Now that she’d seen another human, Claire couldn’t bear to go back to being alone. And she couldn’t go search for the man once he left, for fear Faal would be waiting.

  “Orgat!” Kitteh called. He was Kitteh’s bruiser, a Merith male that made even Kitteh’s hulking presence seem delicate. He was using a huge crow bar to open a slightly melted pod, and at Kitteh’s call he came over to them, swinging it like a walking cane. Claire didn’t blame the guy for stepping back. The alien looked vicious, like the original giant Cyclops in the flesh.

  Orgat began to swish his crowbar with more intentionality, and Faal snapped his beak.

  “Very well. I will take this up with the Diarena if I must.” He limped back toward the ramp, along with his guards. The cop followed.

  Claire gritted her teeth; she was losing her chance! She gripped the sharp edge of the crate with painful intensity, and with a sharp, unnatural twist of her neck, Claire made up her mind and ran after them.

  “Um, wait! Hey!” she said. Her voice fell thin and weak in front of her, and the nearest crew froze, watching her. “HEY! Don’t go!”

  Kitteh made a sharp sound, motioning her back, but they’d heard her. The man spun around and Faal did also. He almost lost his balance.

  Claire stopped, ten feet from them. “Uh, hello. Don’t – don’t let him near me, please,” she pointed to Faal. “I can explain to you, but don’t let him take me.”

  The guy looked younger from here, maybe in his early thirties. His eyebrows were up in surprise and he took a step toward her. For a second, his face changed. She thought he might smile at her, but then his eyes locked on the tattoo on her face. He clenched his teeth and strode toward her.

  Claire took an instinctive step back, putting her hands up, palms forward. “I know what you’ve been told, but I’d like to explain. I’m not Rik and I’m not a thief. I haven’t been on Earth since –”

  The man grabbed her arm and twisted her around, forcing her wrist up behind her back. Her bruised ribs protested.

  “Ouch! No. What are you doing? I need your help.”

  He grabbed her other arm and brought it back. Claire felt a handcuff clip around one wrist and then the other.

  “Shut up,” he snapped at her. “I am in no mood to listen. I already have enough proof to take you in.” He flicked her tattoo with his fingers and she could tell he barely kept it from being a slap.

  “But, but, I’m –” Claire floundered with words as he pulled her towards the ramp. She’d expected a slightly longer window to explain herself.

  The man forced her in front of him, pushing her down the ramp, towards Faal.

  Faal’s claws began extending from his feet, digging into the rubbery surface of the ramp.

  “You injured me,” he said to Claire in Merith. “You insulted me intolerably.”

  Claire shied sideways, away from him and his claws.

  The man pulled her back to the middle of the ramp. “Oh no, you don’t.”

  “I wasn’t trying to run away! Faal is threatening me, he –”

  Faal grabbed her shoulder, pulling her slightly closer. She could feel his claws barely pricking her shirt.

  “This is the thief I am looking for.” He’d switched to English, which he’d mostly learned from her. “Will you relinquish her into my care as you indicated? Along with the stolen items?”

  Claire gasped.

  “I believe... I need to process her
at the embassy before I sign her over to you.”

  “That was not my understanding.”

  The cop hesitated. “I apologize, but as the situation is unusual, I must insist. Also, I do not see the animal she allegedly stole from you.”

  Claire could feel Kit's stiff little body against her back; he was scared.

  “The weskit is very small,” Faal said. He looked at Claire carefully and then laughed harshly. "It's right there," he said, gesturing at the lump Kit made in her shirt.

  The cop looked surprised, apparently he hadn't noticed.

  He jerked his head at Claire. "Get the animal out."

  Claire shook her head. She couldn't do it with cuffs on anyway.

  "It is the stolen animal," Faal insisted.

  "Fine," the cop snapped. He unceremoniously stuck his hand down the back of her shirt and dragged Kit out.

  “You stole this?” he said, holding Kit in a tight grip, at arm's length.

  “I didn’t exactly steal him, I... Well, yes. I stole him, alright? But Faal is just using that as an excuse to get me back.”

  “Do not flatter yourself,” Faal said coldly. “Your visit was already over.”

  To her surprise, Kit gave a little chuckle and nimbly slipped out of the man's grasp and scampered up onto his shoulder. The cop, to his credit, didn't flail about in surprise but just looked measuringly at the animal now two inches from his face. Kit stroked the cop's thick hair with one tiny hand and then tapped the man’s chin politely.

  “He’s hungry,” Claire said. “He wants you to feed him.”

  His face twitched, and this time he did actually smile, but it was clearly involuntary.

  “That is the animal. It is rare and extremely valuable. She will be prosecuted on Merith II for the theft.” Faal tightened his hand on Claire's arm.

  “I must... be sure of the diplomatic policy on this crime,” the man said, his smile gone while he tried unsuccessfully to grasp Kit again. Every time he got a hand around Kit, Kit would dance out of his grip and hop onto his other shoulder. He gave up trying to dislodge Kit and instead pulled Claire away from Faal.

  “I apologize for the delay. I will contact you as soon as I have authorization to release her.”

  Claire stumbled down the ramp, profoundly relieved. This guy thought she was a Rik, which was not ideal, but he was taking her away from Faal and that was plenty. Surely she’d have time to convince him of her identity before he gave her back.

  CHAPTER 12

  Basher put a hand on the girl’s – the fake’s head and pushed her into the back of his car. The little lemur thing on his shoulder nimbly climbed down and settled in her lap before he shut the door. He didn’t have the first idea how to deal with that.

  At least she was being quiet now, which he was glad of. He was already edgy from his run down with the fake last week, and if this one provoked him he wasn’t sure he could control himself.

  She looked so young. That was all he could think when she ran out of the shadows of the loading bay. She didn’t look more than eighteen or nineteen, which meant the Rik probably took her when she was only ten or eleven.

  He slid into the front of the car and placed his hand on the plate to start it. His fingers were trembling slightly.

  A quick glance in the back showed the girl, the fake, looking back over her shoulder to the ship. Her curly brown hair was tied back with a rubber band, but several strands of it lay against her cheek, brushing the Spo tattoo. Her skin was a medium brown and he couldn’t immediately place her ethnicity – Creole, perhaps? The tattoo stood out pure white against her skin.

  It was the Spo cadet mark, and how dumb was this Rik to get that tattoo instead of the wrist one? She – It – must have been out of contact with the other Rik for a while, to make such an obvious mistake. Regular humans out in the galaxy received a wrist tattoo, to prove that they were really from Earth. Basher had one, as did the other detectives who worked at the various embassies. He’d seen a few Rik with fake wrist tattoos, but it was fairly easy to tell the difference.

  He was still surprised at how young this one was. He hadn’t caught any fakes under thirty until her. Usually the Rik preferred to steal adult bodies when they switched, because the brain kept a lot of its working memory – particularly language. An adult’s vocabulary and experience gave them a lot more to work with than a child.

  Sometimes when Basher thought about his job too hard he felt ill. And he had had every intention of passing this Rik off to Faal right away, as a sort of good will gesture. He’d checked with his superiors on Earth, and they had no inclination to harbor a Rik who’d been engaging in criminal activity against another species. “Let the Merith have it,” had been their consensus.

  Basher had wondered if they were more motivated by fear of a political conflict with a powerful Merith than they were willing to admit, but overall he agreed with them. The Rik were troublemakers wherever they went. It wasn’t his job to protect them from the consequences of their actions.

  “Thank goodness,” the girl said suddenly, as they edged into the descent tunnel, and began to drift downwards in the antigravity shaft. The huge shipping cavern was lost from view, and she finally turned around to face forward.

  “I know you think I’m lying,” her voice was halting, as if she couldn’t quite remember the words. “But I needed to get away from Faal. So thank you. I – I can’t tell you how good it is to talk to another human. I hardly – I haven’t – wow, it’s been so long since I’ve spoken English –”

  “Save it,” Basher said. “Let me guess. It’s been so long since you saw humans that your language skills are rusty? And goodness, you may just have forgotten some details about your life on Earth. Some mean alien tricked you into fleeing Earth, but you’ve been trying so hard to get back. Am I close?” His voice was sharp and sarcastic.

  He should have passed this one off to Faal, but when he’d seen her, he just couldn’t. His first reaction to her had been as one human to another, and though he’d almost immediately realized she must be a fake (the Spo kept vigilant records of their cadets), he couldn’t shake off that feeling. It had made him prevaricate to Faal and put off the inevitable.

  Silence in the backseat. They drifted straight down, with that sinking elevator feeling, and he watched the cars in adjacent tunnels drifting upward.

  “Is that such a common story?” she asked.

  “It’s such a fake story, is what it is.” He settled back into his seat as their car began to slow, queuing above the eight exit slots. “I’ve heard too many variations and I’m not going to have that conversation. You’re not doing yourself any good.” He forced himself not to look at her again. Her wounded expression was an act. He wasn’t hurting her.

  “But there must be some way to prove I’m not a Rik.” Her voice was getting stronger. “You must have some objective way to show it or you couldn’t prosecute me.”

  She paused, but Basher didn’t reply. The innocent act was nauseating. He steered the car toward the Spo embassy.

  “Idiots,” she said suddenly. “The Spo are such idiots. I was with them for months and they never thought to warn us that there are body-stealing aliens out there? They were all, ‘We can give you the best education of the sentient worlds, blah, blah, blah.’ We were supposed to be so freaking grateful for the opportunity. And yet they forgot to add, ‘Hey, watch out for backstabbing instructors and body-stealing Rik.’”

  Basher flicked another glance at her. “Really? That’s the story you’re going with? That you’re one of the Spo cadets? They keep records, you know. They don’t just let cadets wander off.”

  The girl was breathing heavily now, angered. It was a very good effect.

  “I hope they do have records! Then I can prove that one of their horrible instructors sold me to Faal. He’s a collector of exotic animals, and he’s angry that I escaped.”

  “Well, as you stole one of those exotic animals I hardly blame him for being angry.”


  He heard the girl grind her teeth as the car slowed to a stop in front of the formal entrance to the Spo embassy. An arch of white rock towered over the door, and two Spo guards squatted on either side.

  Basher opened the back door and held the fake’s arm as she awkwardly got out, still handcuffed. She whimpered as she straightened and Basher wondered if she was trying to gain his pity.

  The lemur climbed up onto her shoulder and looked around with large, unblinking eyes.

  It was cute, he had to admit. It didn’t really look like a lemur, the proportions of the body were wrong. It was more rodent-like, similar to a squirrel, but with a skinnier tail. And the eyes and hands were too big...

  Basher shook his head. It was an alien animal. If he tried too hard to make it fit a terrestrial pattern he'd make himself crazy.

  One of the Spo guards stepped forward to wrap his long fingers around the girl’s other arm so that Basher could let go and get his token from his pocket.

  The girl misunderstood, and jerked away from the Spo. She tripped on Basher’s foot and fell backward, tumbling to the road. The lemur thing jumped off with a yelp as she fell, and perched on top of the car.

  “Don’t leave me with the Spo,” the girl said. “Faal will force them to give me back! There must be some way I can prove to you that I’m human.” Her voice was panicked, and he instinctively put a hand under her elbow as he helped her get back on her feet.

  “I’m not leaving you here. I just have to unlock the door. Then I’ll escort you to a cell and you’ll have time to prove you’re human.”

  She looked like she was on the verge of tears, and Basher forced himself to look away. If the woman last week had been a good actress, this girl was phenomenal. It would be horribly easy to believe her.

  When the Spo had hold of her again, Basher pressed his electronic token to the spot on the door where it would read his electronic signature.

  The girl took a shuddering breath, then another, as Basher opened the door.

  He kept her in front of him as they walked down the hall, and she seemed to have recovered her self-possession. And for some reason that he didn’t analyze too much, Basher found himself talking.