Vaya shrugged all four arms. “Thought it might ease her transition. And it sounds nice!” She winked Rae’s direction. “Plus I can pun about being Garr’s handy second-in-command.”
Garr bristled. “She’s transitioning fine.” He pointed into the jungle. “Lead.”
Vaya’s face fell and she nodded. “Sir. There’s a slight problem.” She was back to the Ythirian tongue. “Did you notice a presence in the deep part of the forest when we arrived?”
Garr frowned and glanced back into the murk. “It was quiet.”
“Unnaturally.”
“A predator in the forest.” Garr set his jaw. “Probably Lyr keeping watch.”
“Yeah.” Vaya wrung two hands together nervously. “Probably.” She scratched the back of her scalp absently with a third hand.
“We’ve communed and asked Lyr permission. She may be fickle, and unused to Ythirians inside of her, but she isn’t murderous.” Garr glanced at Rae. “Provided my mate behaves, all will be well.”
Great. Kidnapped and trapped in a forest who might not like me. Glancing worriedly at the unfamiliar jungle, Rae had little choice but to follow her captors—at least for now. She needed to figure out a way to escape.
Chapter Three
The nautilus spire was a corkscrew-shaped mineral formation the size of a high-rise, and they walked atop the vine-strewn corkscrew ridges. Clusters of bioluminescent orbs hung off the bottoms of each corkscrew band, illuminating their path in weak green light.
When overgrown thorn bushes with fishhook barbs blocked their paths, Garr would swat them down by summoning a thin sheet of otoya, shaping it like a machete in his hand. His clothing could turn from supple cloth to liquid and then to sharpened alloy at the flick of his wrist.
Sometimes Vaya led and Garr stayed at her side. They never left her without an escort. It wouldn’t do much good anyway, since Rae had no viable escape route.
Yet.
Hoping something would fall into place, Rae kept asking questions: what are the deposits made from? Why did Lyr let them cross her boundaries? Vaya was more forthcoming.
She didn’t know much about the Skorvag, but Lyr was apparently a “wild domé” who had no Ythirians living in her borders, no prime, and protected her territory with vicious wildlife.
It put the picture together for Rae. The domé were all part of the Skorvag, but also separate entities competing with one another, using Ythirians like white blood cells to keep out foreign organisms. The planet’s dominant life form—the Skorvag—had a symbiotic relationship with the Ythirians.
From an evolutionary standpoint, breaking the Skorvag into regional entities who competed or cooperated with one another according to their needs would produce a more adaptive, probably healthier planetary life form.
Rae wondered if there was a greater mind; wondered how competitive versus how cooperative each domé was. Most of all, she wondered if she could appeal directly to this “Kaython” entity who ruled Garr. Seemed logical a domé would have veto power over the biological equivalent of her gut bacteria.
And Rae nursed the wild hope that Kaython identifying as feminine was no accident. True, techno-organic forests didn’t necessarily adhere to “sisters before misters,” but to the extent Kaython had an opinion on trivial matters of mating, maybe her feminine identity signaled a different point of view than Garr’s.
Or it was quite possible Kaython was a giant, dendritic bitch.
Once Garr had a lead around the nautilus spire and was nearly out of sight, Rae glanced up at Vaya, whose rangy strides always made her hard to keep up with. “If Kaython’s so powerful, why does Lyr control the portals to Earth?”
Vaya frowned at Rae, eyes narrowing.
Oops. That question might have been too obvious.
The giantess knelt, a top arm wrapping around Rae’s shoulder, the lower one pointing to Garr. “See that guy?”
“Of course I—”
“He’s the prime. If I mess up, I answer to him. So enough with the friendly questions that are plainly designed to glean enough information to make your escape. ’cause I like you, short-stuff, but I work for Garr, and I take my job seriously.”
She had severely underestimated Vaya. Why was it she just assumed huge, athletic people weren’t as sharp as her?
“Not saying I don’t love me a schemer.” Vaya’s English was so good it was clear she’d spent time scouting on Earth. “The best taliyar are always schemers.”
“I don’t know that word.”
“It’s sort of like first lady. The prime’s girl.”