Raash looked at Natasha for a second. She’d crossed her arms and was looking kind of pouty, but she was listening.
“My only apology will be to my former masters. Just by being here, cooperating in this cabal, I’m performing an act of treason against them. This is a dishonorable act, and I only hope that when I sleep the final sleep, I will be forgiven.”
“That’s it?” Natasha asked incredulously. “That’s his apology?”
I shushed her gently. “He’s got a different culture, girl. Have some respect.”
She huffed at me.
Floramel seemed unimpressed as well. Her literal mind had been triggered by Raash and his odd viewpoint. “Your statements are nonsensical, Raash. You’re not even dead at the moment, much less permed.”
“It is only a matter of time. Half of my essence is already missing—the physical half. My body is not my own. It’s an obscenity.”
“Why?” Natasha asked. She seemed curious despite herself.
“Does this heinous shade not scream dishonor? I’m the color of water—or the sky. No member of my clan could wear a skin of this hue without shame.”
“What?” I asked. “Hold on, what’s so wrong with blue? It’s a nice color.”
“Only the lesser beasts of my planet can be born with this shade. You should know this, McGill. You fought on Steel World long ago.”
“Huh? Oh… yeah.” And I really did remember what he was talking about.
There were two sentient species on Cancri-9, better known as Steel World. One race was made up of raptor types, like Raash. They were smarter and more humanoid. The others… well, they were straight-out dinosaurs. Big monsters with lots of teeth and huge skulls.
“You’re telling me that there aren’t any saurian raptors that are blue?”
“No. It’s a slave-color. A lesser being deserves this shame. I’m disgusted by my own scales, and I’ve never been so artfully humiliated.”
“Well now, I don’t think the Investigator did it on purpose. It was an honest mistake, I’m sure. He’s never been to your planet, see. He’s never met your people. All he had to work from was some scraps of DNA.”
“This revelation deepens my disgust and depression. If true, you’re suggesting my body is a melding of flesh between two species—one higher, and one low.”
“Oh…” I said, and I stopped talking. I figured he was probably right. The Investigator loved to tinker with cells and genetics. He might have done damned-well anything to the lump of meat that Raash was walking around in right now before we animated it with Raash’s mind.
“If you don’t like your skin,” Floramel said, “perhaps we can dye it, or maybe scan you, do some genetic work, and revive you again.”
Raash put up a set of splayed claws. “Please don’t. I’m a pathetic mutant already. I wouldn’t want to deepen the agony of my soul with further unspeakable alterations to my form.”
Natasha watched all this with growing interest. She was still pissed, mind you, but she was also becoming intrigued.
I knew right off what the story was. She was a sucker for new tech. We were talking about tinkering with genetics, and that had her radar up and humming, I could tell.
Immediately, my fertile mind generated a helpful idea.
“Say Natasha, I get it. You want out, and I totally understand how you feel. I won’t blame you one bit if you do an about-face and march right back to the barracks. We could really use your help, of course, what with all these new ground-breaking discoveries going on—but if you’re too bitter to put aside the unhappy memory of Raash’s mood-swings, well—”
“He frigging murdered me, James!”
“Yes, yes—we all know what happened. But we’ve established that Raash feels real bad about that, don’t you, big guy?”
Raash shrugged. It was one of the human mannerisms he seemed to know best.
“So that’s my apology? Seriously?”
“James,” Floramel said, “let her run off. She’s out of her league. How much help could she provide? She’s not even an officer.”
Natasha’s face had been red before, but after this untimely comment it down-shifted to purple.
“James…” she warned. “If you want to continue being my friend, you’ll tell me what’s going on here. If I leave now I’m gone forever.”
I hesitated. It’s been my instinct and life-long practice, when someone lays down an ultimatum, to step over that line in the sand immediately. But this time we really could use Natasha, so I sighed.
“Okay, you have some catching-up to do. Let me explain what’s going on.”
I proceeded to fill her in on about a hundred important details. I told her about my investigation, my little trip off-world, and how I ran in to Raash and Armel—the works. She was dumbfounded by the end of it.
“So… this saurian is an illegal revive? A walking Galactic crime?”
“Well… sort of. No one knows about it, so that’s like it never really happened, right?”
“No James, it’s not the same at all. At least four people know the truth at this point, and that doesn’t even count the Investigator. What if one of us blabs?”
“No one will, girl! That’s just not going to happen. Who here would want to tell the Galactics something that could get the Earth permed?”
Raash raised a single claw. “It might be an improvement for the universe. A final benevolent act of atonement for me.”
“Shut up, Raash,” I told him. I looked back at Natasha and pointed a finger through my palm in Raash’s direction. I lowered my voice to a loud whisper. “He’s a bad grow, and he knows it. If we can just recycle him, see, I bet he’ll come out right as rain afterward.”
“Your fantasies will not come to fruition, deceitful human. I will not permit it.”
Natasha wasn’t looking at either of us. She was
