Captivate (Alien Cadets Book 2) Read online

  CHAPTER 24

  Faal left the residential block, aware that Basher watched him with intensity until he was out of sight. The whole building smelt unappetizingly of dead Rik. How had no one noticed the dead Rik until now? Even with their inferior sense of smell, the Vel and Tergre who lived in the building must be unusually apathetic.

  Faal exhaled sharply as he reached the public corridor, but it did little to dislodge the smell. His robes were no doubt inundated with it; he would dispose of them.

  He compulsively twisted another knot into his sash. Was there no end to the inconvenience Claire would cause him? First, she dishonored him by injuring him on the day of her release. Next, she took refuge with the Diarena, curse the cow, who’d taken Claire off Merith II in direct contradiction of his standing order. Then, Claire had gotten the human hound, Basher, to take her back to the embassy. Faal had known then that it was only a matter of time until they realized she was human. He understood the Spo had developed a new blood test program that was being tentatively tested at several embassies. Her regress to the embassy had been another source of frustration, but not as great as Basher probably assumed.

  Faal had already made plans to access the Spo embassy on a completely unrelated matter and Claire’s presence only added a second layer to that necessity.

  Her escape from the embassy, in fact, was rather exasperating. He would have found a way to remove her from the embassy soon enough, but now he had to go to the trouble of tracking her down in Lower Selta. And despite what he had said to Basher, even his contacts might have trouble locating a single alien in the warren of that sprawling city. They might discover her tomorrow, but it was more likely to be several weeks if not months.

  In the meantime, Claire had caused him to significantly alter his strategy with Basher, which threatened to complicate his meticulously laid plans.

  Still, he was Faal of Merith II. He raised kingdoms with a word and ended lives with a frown. He would not be thwarted by her.

  Faal spat on the ground, both in disgust at the lingering death taste in his mouth, and the memory of Claire’s incredible rudeness.

  His bodyguards paused for him and Faal noticed that he was now passing a Merith sushi restaurant. They must have reached one of the Merith sections of Upper Selta, Faal could feel the slight differences in the air of the corridor that mimicked the salty, argon-rich atmosphere of Merith Prime.

  “I will rest here,” Faal said. He gestured for two of his men to accompany him into the tiny sushi place.

  The inside of the restaurant was pseudo-posh, with strings of fake jewels sewn in the synthetic curtains. There were clean but threadbare cushions on the lounge chairs, and small chipped tables between each. Eleven Merith already occupied the small space, which had the sole benefit of informing Faal that the food was not terrible.

  He sat in the one available chair, and his men stationed themselves behind him. All eyes were on him, of course, no doubt shocked that a Merith of his obvious substance was to dine there. Faal did not often patronize such places, but he had had a somewhat wild period in his youth when he gained great familiarity with the low places of Merith society.

  A server appeared and bowed low to Faal. He correctly did not address Faal, however, but spoke to his servants. “What may I have the honor of serving your master?”

  His bodyguard nodded. “Whatever of your offerings is the best. Faal of Merith II has not yet had his midday meal.”

  The skin around the server’s eye blushed red as he took in the identity of the guest. “Absolutely. The chef has just received a fresh shipment of fish from Comboda, if Faal would care to wait for a fluted gretish?”

  Faal waved his hand, “That will do.” He was not sorry to have some time to rest his leg. It still pained him when he traveled more than a small distance. He did not allow the pain to dictate his movement, but a small rest would improve the walk back to his residence.

  Soon he would call on the Spo embassy to initiate the next step in his current plan. It would take particular care to accomplish his goals now that Basher saw him as an adversary. Though of course, Faal chuckled grimly to himself, he had to admit that this was the sort of game he enjoyed. It was child’s play to manipulate someone who saw you as a friend. Manipulating a person who knew you for an enemy was much more satisfying.

  The server returned with a slightly bubbling beverage in one hand and a tall, cold goblet in the other. Faal could smell herbal tea and a sweet scratchwet.

  “I don’t suppose you carry any of the new Melifeuran wines?” Faal inquired.

  The server bowed his head abjectly. “I’m afraid we do not.”

  “Then take this mess away. I’ll have mineral water.”

  “At once!”

  Faal pondered his course of action. The explosion of the space station had gone excellently well. With that part of his plan he was quite pleased. So far no serious suspicion had been directed his way, despite his immediate proximity to the space station. His Council status and his immediate help to find survivors had closed the first window of suspicion, and he would arrange the coming evidence to point more damningly than ever at the Rik.

  The most perfect part of the plan was that the Rik actually had committed the sabotage. He’d blackmailed them into it, not difficult for a Merith of his sway against eight nearly powerless Rik. In fact, he probably could have bribed them into it, but he found the idea of bribing a Rik morally distasteful. He would demean himself no more than necessary.

  The server returned with his mineral water and Faal sipped it delicately with his beak.

  He’d planned for the actual perpetrators to die, of course. They knew the truth and they should have known that Faal would never let them live with even that much power. Nor did he want the humans to think the sabotage had been the result of a small conspiracy. That would do him no good, and the humans were just irrational enough to ‘forgive’ that sort of crime and continue their abominable sponsorship of the Rik.

  No, Faal wanted the Rik/Human alliance destroyed, and so the sabotage must appear to be an organized attack by the entire Rik government. He had the evidence in place to lead Basher to that conclusion, and if Basher proved slow to take the clues, then Faal would make it plainer. He had no great expectation of that, however. Basher appeared to be quite astute for a human, which was all to Faal’s good.

  Basher also showed a palpable distaste for the Rik, which Faal found most promising. His desire to make a breach in the Rik/Human alliance was as much for the humans’ good as it was to punish the Rik. The humans were not a bad species. Indeed, they had a strength of purpose and resilience he found refreshing. Even Claire, as inexcusable as her actions were, displayed a boldness and intelligence he grudgingly respected. When he caught her, she would be punished as an enemy, not a slave. Faal smiled cruelly, reflecting that she would probably not appreciate the difference, though she should.

  Regardless, the humans were a species with promise, and Faal had been genuinely interested in their future until they’d made that ridiculous and irrational treaty with the Rik. Sam Locklear, the human boy who’d somehow brainwashed the Spo into allowing him to run the trial, was a perfect example of humanity’s instability. He had accomplished wonders during that trial.

  He had proved the Spo emperor’s son to be a traitor. He had uncovered a Rik plot to assassinate the cadets and even wrung a confession from one of their assassins. To top it all off, he’d even managed to show proof of the Rik fleet closing on Earth. The boy had annihilated the Rik prosecutor and everyone knew it.

  Faal had the intense dislike for the Rik that nearly all rational beings felt for the body-stealing thieves. He had been more than pleased to see them lose the trial in favor of the humans.

  And then! Then Sam’s humanity betrayed him and he threw it all away by allying with the Rik. His ostensible reason had been the valuable expertise the Rik could offer to humanity, as well as partial ownership of their large space fleet, but that was idiotic. The hu
mans could have taken whatever they wanted from a gutted Rik populace. There was no reason to link their success with that of humanity, and it was that which made Faal uneasy. The humans were just crazy enough that they might gain considerable success despite the young age of their species. And as they climbed the ladder of galactic society, they would inevitably drag the Rik up with them.

  Faal had not immediately decided to undo this ill-favored alliance, but when several other pieces fell into place, he’d wondered if he might not try his hand at it. It would be a benevolent kindness toward the misguided humans, as well as serving his own purposes.

  The server finally returned with his meal, setting the deceptively simple dish on the table at Faal’s left hand. It was a medium size fish, about two of Faal’s fists, and did indeed smell fresh, which he had somewhat doubted. The fish had been filleted, and skewered with hot glass rods. Most of the rods had been removed, though two remained for him to hold. A pure, bacterial-fermented solution had been poured into the ‘flutes’ or holes seared into the raw flesh by the glass rods. A sprinkling of sea salt and, he noted with approval, flakes of silver, topped the light pink flesh of the fish.

  “May I bring your master anything else?”

  Faal waved his hand. “I have everything I require.” He bit into the fish and the strong sauce squirted across his tongue and dripped from his beak. It was not quite as pure as it should have been. The flavor of the gretish was almost entirely dependent on the quality of the fermentation, and this one was slightly lacking.

  Faal grimaced and took another bite. Many people thought he was above compromise, but they were wrong. Every good strategist knew that obsessing about a small loss was a way to lose sight of truly important things. Self-control was essential to perspective, and Faal had excellent self-control. He took another bite of the gretish.

  His other reason for orchestrating the destruction of the space station was purely personal. There were rumors and mutterings of a strange computer installed in the space station. It was said to be a Rik experiment, or perhaps a human one, that mated a biocomputer and a human brain. Faal had immediately pictured the trial, when the human cadet, Natsuki, had arrived in the nick of time. She was nearly dead of asphyxiation, and yet she’d maneuvered a ship through several tricky jumps and eluded a Rik fleet in the meantime. She’d also apparently had time to scour the sealed records of the Rik ship and discover evidence of their original attack on the Hadron Collider. It had strained credulity.

  However, if she had not been alone, but had rather been accompanied by a new and rather remarkable computer, perhaps there was an explanation. Faal had put tentative inquiries out, and begun to arrange things.

  The destruction of the space station had not merely been to implicate the Rik, but also to uproot the computer. Faal had hoped to retrieve it himself from the wreckage, but unfortunately two of the cadets, the same Sam and Natsuki of the trial, had personally carried it to an escape capsule.

  While frustrating, their action confirmed the value of the computer. Humans were not known to risk their lives for soulless technology. And as Sam and Nat were now on Selta, as Faal had intended that they should be, he could be reasonably hopeful that the computer was here as well. He would have confirmation of that soon enough, when he visited the embassy.

  CHAPTER 25

  After nearly two weeks of serving the high-end aliens that came to Francois’s restaurant, Claire woke in a cold sweat. She’d dreamed of Faal, and she stumbled from her bed in a panic. Where was she? She knew Faal was in the dream and not here, but it was so dark, and where was she now?

  Claire stumbled into a wall and fell to her knees. She felt an open door to her left and scrambled through it. There was a pale light and she pushed herself up and tripped toward it. She collided with a waist high cabinet and a light automatically turned on. Claire saw her wild reflection in the mirror and was half-surprised that it was not Jenelle.

  But now she could see her surroundings, and she remembered where she was. The restaurant, the bedrooms, the bathroom.

  Sage came to the open door, blinking in the light and looking concerned. “Claire, are you alright? I thought I heard someone fall.”

  Claire laughed, somewhat hysterically. “No, I’m fine... just a bad dream.”

  She touched the plate to turn off the light and Sage stepped back to let her come out.

  He put his hand on her forehead. “Do you think you might be sick again?”

  “No, I -” Claire broke off into a sob. The soft feel of a human hand, from someone who knew her name and cared whether she lived or died was too much. “I just...”

  Claire stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Sage, hugging him tightly. She was crying in earnest now, and she muffled her sobs against his shoulder.

  He rubbed her back and murmured something about it being okay. Claire nodded, choking down her tears.

  “No, it’s probably good to cry,” Sage said. “Your body is finally releasing some of the stress.”

  After a while, Sage stroked her hair and said, “You should get back to bed, though.” He led her by the hand back into the ‘girls’ room and Claire sat on the edge of her bed.

  “Thanks, Sage.”

  He nodded and turned to go, but then looked back at her. “Do you want me to stay?” he whispered.

  Claire knew she should probably say no. She’d already clung to him and cried, she knew she was not keeping the kind of emotional barriers up that she should. But... Claire thought of Faal and shivered. Damn emotional barriers.

  “Yes... while I go to sleep?”

  She couldn’t quite see Sage’s face in the darkness, but she thought he smiled slightly. “Sure, move over.”

  Claire woke in the morning to the sound of an argument. She was alone in the bed, facing the wall.

  “– doing with her?” Old Twin said in a low voice.

  “That’s none of your business,” Sage said.

  They were in the small common room between the ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ sleeping rooms, and the door was open a few inches.

  “I know you want to be human, but you can’t do that and keep experimenting,” Old Twin said.

  “I’m not experimenting. I really like her.”

  Old Twin snorted.

  “You would have let that guard kill her,” Sage retorted. “You lost your right to interfere.”

  “That would have been cleaner.”

  Claire heard Sage start down the stairs, his feet on the creaking steps. “She likes me too. You’ll see.”

  Claire closed her eyes when she realized Old Twin was coming into their shared sleeping room. Old Twin pushed the door open roughly and walked over to grab her clothes.

  Claire supposed they were talking about her, and she worked to keep her face blank until Old Twin left. She couldn’t deny that it felt good to know that Sage liked her. She’d literally thrown herself at him last night, in her desperate need for human reassurance. Hearing him say that, when he didn’t know she was listening, made her stomach feel strange, sort of overly-sugared. She smiled involuntarily.

  But she knew he was an alien. Why didn’t that totally turn her off? Maybe something was wrong with her...

  She heard the shower turn on in the bathroom, which meant Old Twin was occupied, so she swung her legs over the bed and sat up, hugging her pillow.

  Sage is an alien. She made herself say it out loud. “Sage is an alien.”

  Hmm. Still nothing. It’s not that she didn’t care about the people who they’d stolen... but Sage hadn’t done it himself. If they’d turned the offer down, those bodies would still have been used, they’d just have gone to someone else.

  Still, they should have turned it down... if they really cared about killing people.

  But on the other hand, they were taught that it was perfectly okay to take another body. Surely the fact that Sage had developed a conscience, even if it was a little late, was evidence that he was a good person.

  Claire looked out
the tiny window in their room. It was only about a foot high, and looked out on the strange pedestrian walkway in front of the restaurant. The roof over the walkway extended diagonally down from just above her window to the far side of the street, meeting the ground at a sharp angle.

  Nobody could walk in the last three feet of that space, where the roof was so low. At ‘nightfall’, when the streetlights switched from yellow/orange light to green light, aliens would come and spread out blankets and sleep in the crack. If they were on Earth she would assume they were homeless, but she didn’t know if that was the case here. Maybe they rented the space. With the constant climate control on every bit of Selta, it would never get too cold or rainy or windy to sleep ‘outdoors.’

  While she waited for the shower, she watched two Tergre wake up and pack up their bedding. She’d seen them before, they always laid out one bed and lay very close to each other, like two dogs curled up in a single doggie bed. This morning the reddish-furred female began to stir first, and Claire watched her rub her mate’s furry back with her long ant-eater snout until he woke up. Even from up here, looking down on the two of them, she could see his eyes open and a sleepy smile lift his eyes.

  So what if Sage was an alien? Clearly lots of aliens were affectionate and kind and... Claire turned away from the window, and sank her head back on her pillow. She needed to get a grip on herself. She’d overheard Sage say that he liked her and she was already picturing growing old with him. She was an idiot. She yanked her blanket up to her pillow, ruthlessly straightening her bed.

  Yes, he was kind to her. Yes, he said he liked her, but that shouldn't mean anything for her. For heaven’s sake, Faal had liked her – she’d been one of his favorite zoo animals for a while, like a favored dog - and that was just degrading. She wasn’t going to be any alien’s pet – even if Sage was a whole lot hotter than Faal.

  Claire groaned. She needed to get a grip. She was sure a psychologist would say she was vulnerable to anyone who showed her affection after her long incarceration in the zoo. Only somehow that knowledge didn’t change how she felt.