Two Moons of Sera (11 page)

Inside, the room was dark, but the light from the common
area fell onto Elgon, who was sleeping on the bed. His head was on the pillow,
making him a parody of what I had expected Erdlanders to look like. To my left,
Tor sat crouched in the corner. He faced away from me, sitting still.

“Tor? Ada brought us clothes.”

I pulled the first of the two bags into the room and then
the other. I was tired, and my muscles strained from the weight of the bags.

When both duffel bags were in the room, I closed the door,
shutting out the light. Instead of our room falling into darkness, a familiar,
eerie glow permeated the space.

“Tor?”

The light flickered, but he didn’t move.

I sat on the floor against the end of the bed. Its low frame
supported my exhausted body. Quietly, I watched the light against the wall. It
threw color and shadow art all around me. The room shifted from bright and
cheerful to dark and ominous as Tor’s orb changed under his command.

I laid my head back on the bed. Elgon shifted so his body
stretched along the bottom of the mattress, his head resting next to mine.

“Tor, what are you doing?” I asked.

His response was silence and a flare of orange light.

“The people out there, the Erdlanders, they have been nice
to me all night, but I don’t think they’d be very understanding if you set the
pod on fire. Can you put it out?”

“Not yet.” His low voice sounded strained.

I lifted my head and moved until I was sitting against the
wall across from him. He was still facing the corner and didn’t look at me, but
the orb floating over his hand outlined his dark profile.

Its magic was vibrant: red, yellow, and orange laced
together to create the ball of fire before me. Tor’s face tightened as he
focused on the orb. Warmth emitted from the flames, but it wasn’t hot or
unpleasant. Just a soothing heat, like lying on the beach in the noonday sun.

Keeping my voice as gentle as I could, I asked again, “What
are you doing?”

“Huh. I’m... I’m burning off energy, I guess.”

“I don’t understand.”

The orb sparked then shrank in size until Tor could wrap his
fist around it, pulling its essence back within his flesh. We were thrown into
blackness. Without his light, the shadows reached out, laying claim to every
inch of space. My eyes tried to make out the shapes around me, but my other
senses oriented me.

We sat in the silent dark. Tor shifted so he was leaning
against the wall next to me, still nestled against the corner.

“I miss home,” he admitted.

I didn’t turn to him. I didn’t have to. The pain in his
words mirrored my own. “Me too. I miss the stars.”

“Do you think we can go back?”

“They’re already looking there. It won’t be long before your
cave is found.”

“I don’t want to be here, Sera. I... it feels like I’m
drowning.”

His admission was so raw it broke me. I hadn’t just kept us
alive: I’d thrown us into the nexus of everything both of us had spent so many
years avoiding. Exile had been imposed on me, an accident of birth, but he had
run away from people just like these, and now I had forced him back.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“No, you did the right thing. You probably saved our lives.”

“I hope so.”

Elgon stretched and climbed off the bed, coming to lie in
front of us. He rested his head between our hips. Simultaneously, Tor and I
reached out to pet him. Our hands touched, and the tingling sensation ignited
within me, flowing through my body. A spark flashed in the air.

“I’m sorry.” Tor jerked his hand back from mine, holding it
close to his body.

“You said in the cave that you could control the fire. Can
you really?”

“Yes. I... I could when I was alone.”

“You were burning off energy in here?”

“Yes,” he breathed without voice.

“It’s the fire, isn’t it? You have to use it? It’s not just
convenient?”

“No. I mean, yes.” He pulled his hands up to his face. “Huh.”

I watched as he struggled to find the words, pulling on the
roots of his ropy hair in frustration. He hadn’t done that since the beach,
since he had started speaking again. It wasn’t the words that wouldn’t come,
but understanding.

“Stop.” I turned, folding my legs so I could face him.

“I don’t have to use it.”

“Okay.”

“But when I’m upset or, I don’t know, emotional, it flares
and—”

“It flared when you touched me, though.”

“I know.”

“It’s all right.” I reached to him and took his hands in
mine, lowering them.

A small ember of light burned behind his eyes as he stared
back at me. “Sera, I’m so afraid it will happen again. That I won’t be able to
control it, and someone will get hurt.”

“Like when you were younger.”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

He shook his head in the darkness, his long hair moving in
waves. “I don’t want you to get hurt,” he mumbled.

His words worked along my skin, and my breath caught. I
couldn’t see anything but his eyes—the blackness around us was too dense—but I
heard the slow beating of his heart and felt the heat pulsing from him, to me,
and back again.

An eternal loop.

My fingers lingered on his hand. The rough skin of his
knuckles played beneath my fingers, and I followed the curve of his bones until
I found the softness of his palm.

“Why are you doing this?” He pulled his hand away. His tone
was sharp, and something snapped back into place, returning the barrier between
us.

“What?”

“You don’t like to be touched. Why are you touching me?”

“I... I don’t know.”

“Then don’t do it.” He pulled his legs up against his chest
and wrapped his arms around them. He stared ahead, refusing to turn to me.

The room was thick with things unsaid. I didn’t know the
words. I didn’t know why his eyes scared me or why I longed to touch his skin.
If I thought about it for too long, I would disappear in the mystery.

“Tomorrow, Ada wants us to try working with the others,” I
began.

“I don’t like them.”

“Tough.”

“Huh,” he grunted.

“We have to. I know it’s hard. It’s hard for me, too, but we
have to blend in. At least until we know what we should do next.”

“I still don’t like them.”

“Look, I’ll go with Lock to Linguistics, and you’ll go to
Agro. I don’t know what that is, but Ada said she’d come back in the morning to
tell you more. Oh, and you can take Elgon.”

At the sound of his name, Elgon lifted his head and laid it
in my lap. I reached out and scratched his jaw, eliciting a contented sigh. His
breathing slowed as he relaxed into me, fading into the silence.

“I’m just not used to being touched,” I offered.

“Oh.” Tor exhaled, making me question his concern.

“It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s just... Sualwets don’t
touch much, and my mother, she was very Sualwet.”

“Sera—” he hissed.

“What?”

“Someone might hear you or, I don’t know, be listening.”

“I really doubt it, Tor. Everyone is asleep.” I rolled my
eyes.

“Still....”

“Okay. Well, she wasn’t much for touching, and it’s just so
strange the way they all hold hands and sit so close and....”

“Kiss,” Tor finished with a word I’d never given much
thought to before today. It sounded strange, hanging in the air between us.

“Yeah,” I whispered into the black.

Tor’s body relaxed, stretching his legs. He exhaled a loud
breath but didn’t speak. I continued to scratch Elgon’s ears and leaned back
against the wall. The sweet warmth of the mountain hound’s body was enough to
lull me to sleep, so I settled back and closed my eyes.

Sleep resisted the return of my consciousness. Dreams of the
ocean, open and unending, clung to my mind, not wanting to disappear into the
abyss. Asleep, I had moved in three dimensions, swimming out and down to the
Domed City of the Sualwet. It was a place I’d never been in real life. In my
dream, my mother stood inside the ancient temple, a pale dress fanning out
behind her in the water, her arms open with love.

Warmth spread all around me, like I was wrapped in a
blanket, but the stiffness of my muscles reminded me that I hadn’t gotten into
bed last night. Opening my eyes, I was greeted by the sparkling green of Elgon’s
gaze.

“Thhhhhrrrrr.” He nuzzled his oversized head against my
chest.

~
Morning, Elgon
.~

His tail thumped as I scratched his head and attempted to
rise.

My head was resting on something soft, so I lifted it and
rolled over. Tor was asleep on his back, his arm stretched out beneath me, and
I was tucked up against him. We had slept in the corner of the room together.
The stubble on his face had returned, leaving a dark dusting around his jaw. I
wanted to touch it, see if it was as soft as Elgon.

Facing him, the warmth of his body burned against my chest.
I breathed in his scent and was reminded of the sea and the wildness of the
forest. He smelled like freedom.

What did it mean to be Matched? What was this thing everyone
assumed Tor and I shared? I had seen Elle and Sal, the way they looked at each
other, the way they touched, and I wondered what it would be like to touch Tor.

Tentatively, I rested my hand on his chest. His breathing
remained steady, and I could feel the heat of him radiating through his
clothes. The tight shirt clung to his body, revealing the definition of his
muscles, the ones that had shone in the sun as he’d bathed outside the cave.
But then, I’d turned away, embarrassed by my desire to look. Now he was asleep,
and no one but Elgon would know how the rise of his chest and slope of his neck
enticed me.

I traced along the neckline of his shirt, allowing my
fingers to skim his flesh. The roughness of his hands didn’t reflect the
natural texture of his skin. He was so soft. As I ran my fingertips along his
neck and jaw, the smoothness called to me. Leaning closer I brought my face to
his neck, inhaling another distinct fragrance.

All Erdlanders smelled different, but there was something
that connected them, made them the same. Tor had a hint of that, but there was
another scent which set him apart. Whatever it was, it spread through the heat
of his skin, within me, until its flames licked at my sanity.

The tingling of my nerves, the allure of his scent, combined
with the thrill of all the
newness
around me, made me bold. Everywhere
my body made contact with him felt alive, inflamed. I moved closer, my breasts
against his side, my leg draped over his hip.

With a breath, I banished my insecurity and all the rules I’d
been taught, and traced the hair on his face, my eyes transfixed on his shape.
He exhaled shakily but didn’t move. Asleep or awake, I no longer cared. I
needed more.

His scent was stronger where his jaw line met his neck, and
I leaned in, inhaling. I took as much of his smell into myself as I could.

A low rumble came from Tor.

“Sera,” he whispered, pulling me closer.

Being face to face, with his chest pushed against mine,
drove me out of my mind. Nothing about being this close to him made sense. The
fever burning inside my body was unsafe.

My hand was still on his face, and I brought the other to
his cheek.

When his lips touched mine, I forgot to breathe. Every piece
of me awoke—my heart, my soul, my body. All it took was Tor’s gentle touch. He
knew
exactly
what I was. Knew the danger of being with me, of even
knowing me, and risked it all just to share one tentative kiss.

Breaking our contact, he stared at me with desire.

“You are beautiful,” he whispered.

I looked away, hating the difference in me.

“Don’t.” He lifted a hand to my chin, pulling my attention
back to him. “They’re exquisite.”

“They’re
Fishy
,” I admitted, dropping my arms from
around his neck.

This time, when I looked away, he let me go. The reality of
what I was proved too much. Even for the man who could start fires, I was too
much of a freak for him to hold onto.

He lay next to me, impossibly close, yet not close enough.

He watched as my tears tried to fall, but I kept the
membrane in place, trapping them. I didn’t want him to see just how different I
really was.

“Sera, it’s okay. You can cry.”

“It’s not that.” I sniffled.

“What?”

“I don’t want you to see.”

“See what?”

I turned back to him and took a leap, trusting that maybe we
weren’t that different after all. I lifted the membrane covering my eyes,
letting him see me without the barrier for the first time. My tears fell as my
silver eyes shone free in the morning light.

Linguistics was located in one of many tall, gray buildings.
Row after row filled the sky until the abyss of the camp disoriented me.

Lock and I rode a platform through a chamber deep below the
building. Speeding through space, I had no idea how far we had gone, but the
air was cool and moist. It felt so good against my dry skin. I’d never gone
this long without being in the water before.

The chamber ended in a dimly lit hallway, stretching out
before us and into blackness. Lock strode forward, silence surrounding him, and
I ran my hand along the wall, absorbing any moisture lingering on the surface.

Lock wasn’t speaking to me. He kept his eyes ahead and
maintained a distant demeanor. This morning when Ada came to the pod, Lock had
been friendly, his usual self. Then, she asked to speak with him privately.
They disappeared into his room and a few moments later she returned alone.
Since then he hadn’t been quite the same.

I was desperate to ask so many things, but my mind swirled
with the threat of discovery. Tor and Elgon had gone with Ada to Agro. Ada said
they wouldn’t return until dinner—much later than other assignments—because it
was his first day, and he needed to be trained. I didn’t like being without
him. I was just getting to know him. Together, we were safer.

The lights above us flickered as we walked.

“Sera,” Lock said under his breath.

I nodded, not looking at him and keeping the appearance of
disinterest. Inside, I was shaking. Waiting had never been a strong suit for
me. I never liked waiting for Mother to return from her adventures, for my food
to cook, for anything. It seemed my whole life was based on having to wait for
the next thing to happen, and I hated it. Mother had always told me stillness
was the fastest way to get to where you were going. I still had no idea what
she meant.

“I told Ada you were fluent in Sualwet. That’s correct, isn’t
it?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t be surprised if that gets you attention. Not many of
us are fluent. It’s a clumsy language, and we tend to stumble. But I figured it
was easier for you to be good at it already than to feign ignorance.”

“Thank you.” I inhaled sharply and bit my tongue. I listened
to his broken, guttural words as he insulted my native language. Clumsy! The
Sualwets didn’t do anything clumsily! They wouldn’t know how.

“Today you’ll be tested,” he said. “Tomorrow you’ll be
assigned a project, and then you’ll get to work.”

“Tested?”

“Don’t worry. It’ll just be on your comprehension and
language skills. This isn’t Medical. Try not to get everything right.” Eyes on
the next patch of light, he hedged before saying, “I am right about you, aren’t
I?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do.”

“I thought you didn’t want to know,” I answered, unsure if I
could utter the words out loud. How would I phrase it? I’m half one of you and
half your enemy? That seventeen years ago, someone in a basement just like this
one had tortured and experimented on my mother? And I was the result?

“No, I guess I don’t.”

“What about you? Where will you be?”

“Me?” Lock’s pace slowed for a moment before he responded. “I’ll
be here for another week, helping you get settled, and then I’m being
transferred.”

“What? Where?” My voice was high and squeaked in my attempt
to remain quiet. The sound bounced off the walls, reminding me that everything
we said had the potential to be overheard. The panic of being alone built
higher, threatening to crest the dam of my courage.

“Shhh. I’m going to Life Services, like Ada. I guess they
finally gave up on finding me a Match.”

“Why? You could Match. Even if they don’t find you one,
right? A natural Match?”

“But I don’t want to. Even with the meds I didn’t want to,
and since I’ve stopped taking them....” Lock’s eyes remained trained on the
expanse ahead of us, but I couldn’t look away from his face. It was well
masked, but the lines of pain were as clear as the hardness of his jaw.

“I don’t understand. What do the meds do?”

“You really have no idea, do you?”

“No. Why don’t you take them? Why did you say Tor and I
shouldn’t?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” he spat under his breath before
shaking his head and glancing over to me at last. “I’m sorry. You have someone.
It was even natural. That’s a good thing. I’m just not destined to have that. I
don’t even want to, really. I guess I knew this was coming, I’d just hoped—”

“What?”

“Nothing. The door up on the right is Testing. Come on.”

Past the next patch of darkness, Lock stopped and faced a
blank wall. After placing his palm on the surface, he pushed his fingers into
it. They sank and grabbed the circle that had appeared where his hand was. He
twisted and turned it to the right. When he reached a quarter turn, he stopped
and gave me a weak smile, his features softening, before he pushed in farther.
A section slid back and to the side, revealing a brightly lit white room.

The glare blinded me as I adjusted to the contrast from the
hall. The room we entered was small and had only a couch along one wall.

“Sera, you sit there. Someone will be here to take you in
soon.”

“What?” I blinked and turned to Lock. “You’re leaving?”

“I have to get to my station. I still have work to do.” His
eyes had gone cold, drained of their kindness.

“You can’t just leave me alone in here.”

He turned and stepped back out into the hall, the door
sliding into place behind him.

The room was small, too small to be without windows. I was
frantic as I turned around, trying to understand where he’d left me. Now that
the door was closed, I could no longer tell where it had been. The wall was
seamless. Everything was so white, I soon lost track of where the walls ended
and the floor began. It all blended together until I was trapped within a pearl
of emptiness with no way to escape.

Waiting and more waiting.

Panic rose, closing in as the lack of color expanded into
infinity. I ran my fingers along the smooth walls and found no indication of
the door. There were no shadows, nothing to delineate the space, so when I
found a corner, it was a surprise. It seemed like it should just continue
forever.

The only defining object in the room was the couch. Inhaling
deep, measured breaths, I sat, hoping to calm myself with its solidity. As soon
as I lowered my weight, its soft cushions pulled me into it like the couch was
trying to envelope me, swallow me.

I jumped, irrationally worried that the piece of furniture
was carnivorous. There were animals in the sea which masqueraded as rocks to
lull unsuspecting prey to come near, and I preferred to support my own bones,
anyway.

A deep breath calmed my heart and expanded my senses,
pulling on my ability to perceive space underwater and “see” beyond the space
that trapped me. The molecules in the room bounced about, finding nothing
beyond the walls and man-eating couch to displace their movement. Beyond the
walls I was blind. My sense of sound and perception couldn’t penetrate them.

Sitting on the floor, I crossed my shod feet beneath me. The
pants Ada had brought fit perfectly, and the shirt I’d chosen was long-sleeved.
The fit was snug, but I would have liked the sleeves to be longer, so I could
hide as much of myself as possible from Erdlander eyes. My hands did not
announce my difference, but the less of me they saw, the safer I felt.

The Erdlander clothes Mother and I had worn were so
different from what I was issued here. I was used to the flowing dresses of the
women who rode on ships and lived in the cities. The camp appeared completely
separate from those people. How had they gotten here? It struck me that I hadn’t
seen any children or elderly. Instead, everyone I had met was about my age, and
those who were older were in Life Services, like Ada. What exactly
was
this place?

Time slid by until I couldn’t count back the moments, until
the air began to swim before me.

I jumped up when, next to the couch, a panel slid open to
reveal a small man in a brown suit. Despite being desperate for my time in
purgatory to end, his appearance jolted me. Short brown hair with streaks of
gray hung limp across his forehead, and he was broad in the shoulders. He wore
the kind of shoes I had expected Erdlanders to wear, not the boots Tor and Lock
had. This man was not from the camp, or at least he didn’t live here. I
wondered if he had a small home somewhere, with a small wife and even smaller
children. Although he was only two or three inches shorter than me, something
about his stature made him seem much less threatening than I’d anticipated.
Whoever he was, he had me alone and at his mercy.

~
Greetings
,~ he said in Sualwet, with the throaty
accent of an Erdlander.

~
Many tides
,~ I replied, bowing my head in
acknowledgement, the traditional Sualwet show of respect.

“My, you are fluent, aren’t you!” The small man switched
back to Erdlander and beamed at me as if my fluency somehow reflected on him.

I nodded and held my hands together in front of my body,
waiting for whatever would happen next. The man had no sense of the danger I
feared or the panic I had experienced while locked in this room. My mind spun
with new experiences, and I couldn’t think of anything to do but stand still
and wait.

“Come with me,” he announced. “We have to test you out. See
how much you understand.”

The small man walked into the light beyond the open panel.

I followed, fearful of being locked in my prison forever.
Once I was through the opening, I found myself in an equally bright hallway.
Here the floor was gray, however, leading a trail through the white. It made me
think of riptides and the stories my mother would tell about swimming along the
current:
All you have to do is stay in its path.

It was impossible to know where I was in relation to the
world above ground. Was I even still beneath the Linguistics building, or had
we traveled so far I was somewhere else entirely?

I missed tracking the passage of time by the movement of the
sun and the soft ebb and flow of the tide. Things from nature were predictable,
dependable. This artificial world of the Erdlanders did not inspire the same
confidence.

“I’m Dr. Vaughn,” the man introduced himself as we walked.

I trailed behind him a little but heard every word.

“I run the Decryption Team. When Ada told me we had a new
team member who was fluent, I made sure to test you myself. We have piles of
documents and recordings we simply cannot figure out. With the war, it’s more
important than ever to have the best intel. I imagine you came from Dr. Rhine’s
training program?”

Vaughn’s voice was low, and he spoke fast, forcing my mind
to work to distinguish each word from the next.

“I—”

“Dr. Rhine is the only one who ever gets those kinds of
results,” he interrupted, continuing to lead me through the vibrant hallway. “Makes
sense, since he’s the only one who ever studied with a real Sualwet.”

“Is that so?” I said, hoping to keep him talking. Perhaps
Rhine had known my mother. Perhaps he had been kind to her or helped her
escape. My mind drifted to the dreams children might have, but I knew if Rhine
had known my mother, he had not been a prince.

We turned left then right and continued walking through the
glowing emptiness.

“I’d have loved to have been there when they caught it,”
Vaughn said. “How they got it to talk and teach them Sualwet, I’ll never know.
But now we have students like you! Maybe one day we’ll even be able to mimic
their accent. Now that would be a success! Sending out messages to lure them in
and catch them like the Fish they are, one by one....”

Vaughn laughed before stopping and facing me. His dark brown
eyes peered up at me from beneath his brow. “Ready?” he asked.

Before I could reply, he slid his hand over the wall and
revealed a panel. His fingers moved across it with ease as he typed something,
and another door, larger than the last, slid open to reveal the testing room.