“Bea, I don’t want you to worry about Juan Carlos. That has nothing to do with our relationship. We’ve always been friends and we’re going to stay friends forever. No man can change that.”
Beatrix’s face brightened and they continued their trek along the edge of the gorge, the ethane-filled tributaries churning far below them.
ENCRYPTED Med. Journal Entry No. 225 by Dr Juan Carlos Barbaron: Adsorption: The first step in macromeiosis is the penetration of the headtail fibers into the specific pseudo-protein receptors of the passive Wergen’s tether. Enzymes quickly dissolve the base plate, the tethers become one, triggering significant changes to the aliens’ body chemistry. (See Journal Entry No. 6.)Cara lowered her head and trudged forward into the driving pink snow. Her boots sank into the slushy drifts as she made it over the bend and Beatrix’s hearth came into view. The dwelling resembled the upper half of a metallic egg with two arched openings on opposite sides. The Wergens had a very rigid conception of exits and entrances.
Juan Carlos, her fiance, had wanted her to spend the day visiting with his parents, but she’d grown increasingly concerned over the fact that she hadn’t heard a word from Beatrix in over a week. It wasn’t like her. Usually the problem was keeping Beatrix from calling too often—something else Juan Carlos bitterly complained about. But Beatrix couldn’t help herself, Cara had explained to him for what seemed like a thousand times. She was Wergen, after all. Juan Carlos didn’t want to hear it.
Cara stepped through the archway, stomping the snow off of her boots. Her blue-tinted bodyfield clicked off automatically.
The welcoming bots skittered at her feet, unlaced her boots and laid out slippers for her on the scale-patterned floorboards.
This was the only time she could remember visiting the hearth that Beatrix hadn’t been waiting for her at the entranceway. Could her friend be jealous? Is that why she’d stopped calling? When last they spoke, Cara had told her that Juan Carlos had finally proposed and that she had accepted. After expressing some confusion over how an engagement differed from dating or from marriage, Beatrix had asked whether it still meant that they would someday join a human-Wergen expedition and go colonize some strange new world together. Cara had reassured her that she and Juan Carlos had promising careers at CE and that they were both on track to join the colonization efforts.
Beatrix emerged out of the fireroom in the center of the dwelling and Cara staggered backward.
In all the years she’d known her, Cara had never seen Beatrix without some head covering. Usually she put on a
“Cara!” Beatrix said, smiling. “I’m sorry that I haven’t returned your messages. It’s just … these past few weeks have been a very private time for me.”
Cara pointed to the tether. “You … you’re …”
“Yes, it was my time.” She looked at the floor, embarrassed.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Bea?”
She rubbed her shoulders nervously and didn’t answer.
Cara understood that Wergens were notoriously private about their reproductive cycle, but this was her best friend. She felt wounded by the fact that Beatrix hadn’t confided in her. Then she remembered what Beatrix had told her all those years ago about the absorption of one Wergen into another based on their genetic makeup, about encorporation.
“Bea, tell me you’re genetically dominant. Please!”
Beatrix continued rubbing her shoulders.
A moment later the Wergen at the other end of the tether entered the room. He was shorter than Beatrix, with gray-flecked scales he covered with a dark blue robe.
Ambus.
Cara gasped. “But …”
“A pleasure to finally see you up close,” he said.
But there was no pleasure in his voice, no Wergen servility. Only an undercurrent of hostility.
Cara turned to Beatrix, eyes wide. “Your brother?”
“Of course. There are very few of us on Titan. And we’re genetically compatible. We can safely interbreed for another generation.”
“You don’t owe her any explanations, Beatrix,” Ambus said.
“I apologize for his tone, Cara,” Beatrix said. “When he saw you approaching our hearth he took a dose of the suppressant. He’ll be more himself in a few minutes.”
“What does it feel like to hold so much sway over another person’s life?” Ambus said to Cara. “Do you realize how unfair you’ve been to her? That she’s your loyal slave because she has no choice?”
“She’s not my slave!” Cara said.
“Your people and ours are at war. A secret war. We’re all soldiers in that great battle and don’t even know it.”
“Bea,” Cara said, “I just wanted to make sure you were all right. I really have to get back to Juan Carlos.”
“What, you’re leaving before we can bow down to you and wash your feet?” Ambus said.
Cara stepped into her shoes and walked back through the archway to the hearth, which reactivated her bodyfield.
“Cara, I’m sorry,” Beatrix said. “Don’t leave!”
“Look, I can’t … I can’t deal with all this. I can’t believe you’re with him.” The sight of the tether repulsed her.
“Cara!” Beatrix shouted from behind her. But Cara marched ahead through the gusting snow without looking back.
ENCRYPTED Med. Journal Entry No. 226 by Dr Juan Carlos Barbaron: Tether contraction can commence as early as six months (Terran) after adsorption and accelerate, bringing the passive and dominant mates ever closer together. This triggers the growth of nerve fibers on the dominant Wergen’s dermal scales in anticipation of the final stages of corpus meiosis, i.e. encorporation.Cara floated through the thick liquid hydrocarbons with her eyes closed. It felt like she had left the present behind, like she had traveled back to when was ten years old, hunting perpuffers for the very first time. She broke the surface of the waters and threw her head back.
Beatrix sat on the shore, hugging her knees and watching her. She had said that it might still be possible to swim despite her tethered status, but that she preferred not to because Ambus didn’t much enjoy the lake. He sat about twenty-five feet to her left, clutching their bunched-up tether and examining a bot. They could move almost fifty feet apart given their cord’s length and elasticity. But Ambus couldn’t be far away enough as far as Cara was concerned.
In all the years that she’d known Beatrix, her friend had never seemed more alien than she did at that moment with the flesh-colored cord dangling from her head, snaking across the shore toward Ambus. Poor Bea. How much time did she have left?
Cara descended again, peering through the natural muck of the methane. Something caught her attention. A circular shape pulsed by her feet. She reached down, pushed her hand through the ring and the creature instinctively contracted on her wrist.
Cara rose up out of the viscous methane and raised her fist in the air, flashing her find to Beatrix. A phosphorescent-purple perpuffer.
Beatrix clapped her hands and shouted, “Well done, Cara! Well done!”
How many times did they dive together for perpuffers, searching for the elusive purple one, the top prize? Cara couldn’t imagine ever doing this without her best friend at her side.
She swam back to shore.
Ambus moved as far away as his tether would allow, sitting on the other side of a dune with his back to them.
“Cara, it’s lovely,” Beatrix said, fingering the perpuffer.
Cara sighed happily. “After all of these years, I was beginning to think the purple ones were just a myth.”
“Are you going to dive for more?”
“No, I have to go meet Juan Carlos for lunch.”
