Rae made a belch face. She didn’t want to be first lady of anywhere, let alone an overgrown alien Christmas tree. She’d have taken “chief researcher,” “tenured faculty,” or “senior scientist,” but first lady? Ick. “How about I take your job and you can mate with the arrogant prick?”
Vaya snickered. “Don’t be absurd. I’m not a mating-class female anymore.”
“Mating class?” Rae’s voice came out sharper than she’d have liked. “I’ve been classified? Based on my fertility? That’s disgusting.”
“Relax. It just means you can mate and I can’t. Fertility’s a separate thing.”
That was worse, not better. “So it’s just about who can have sex?” She shook her head. “You had to give up sex to be a soldier?”
Vaya shrugged, a more elaborate gesture for someone who basically did it twice at once. “Naturally.”
Naturally! “I hate this world.”
The criticism plainly stung Vaya, who stood and prodded Rae forward. “It probably hates you right on back.”
Rubbing her poked ribs, Rae turned back to the path and realized she’d just lost the esteem of the only person on Ythir close to liking her. On the other hand, she’d come out with vital information: if Vaya’s afraid I’ll use information from her to escape, that’s good. It means escape is possible.
And increasingly, Rae realized her path home had nothing to do with Vaya, Garr, or even Kaython. The one who controlled the portals and her way back to Earth was none other than the wild domé Lyr.
***
They stopped to eat in a forest clearing. Rae had learned the mineral formations covered in scales were called “crags,” similar to Earth’s stony counterparts.
The honeycomb alcoves were “divots.” There was no English word for the scaled plates that felt like warm sandstone, and so they were translated as squama.
A tablet of crag with divots sprouting soft toadstools took up the clearing’s center. Nearby trees bore a fruit in a hard, turtle-shell shaped rind and while Garr and Vaya had no trouble with theirs, Rae was left pounding hers against the crag to get it open.
Garr shifted nearer, took the shell from her hands, and popped it open with slight pressure from his thumbs. He offered it, and for a few moments Rae burned while staring at the shiny, orange marbles of fruit clustered inside the rind.
She took it from his hands and it seemed to satisfy him somehow.
Sneering at Garr, she nibbled on the fruits inside, which had a sweet citrus flavor.
Vaya used the lunch break to commune with Lyr for further instructions. The Ythirian giantess knelt with eyes shut in a meditative pose.
She cast pinches of sand into the air, seeming to interpret its direction as the way Lyr wanted them to go. Rae was surprised by the shamanistic ritual.
Were she a domé, a simple command line interface would have sufficed.
***
How, precisely, would Rae talk to a sentient woodland? She’d been to church as a girl, but wasn’t really a meditative, free spirit type. Nevertheless, she had to try something.
Her opportunity came while working their way along a rocky goat path that ran parallel to a steep ravine, an earthen wall rising sharply on her left and sloping off to her right.
If she was going to escape, there was a relatively quick, largely gravity-driven route available. That maybe wasn’t the best idea, but it had the obvious merit of being her only one.
It might have helped if Garr hadn’t taken rearguard while Vaya scouted ahead. She could feel the rake of his gaze whenever it caught her. Sparing a backward glance, she noted his attention’s focus on her foot placement and the narrow path. Worried his chattel will get injured, she fumed.
He met her gaze. The intensity of his black eyes made Rae reflexively lower her head. She hated herself for the show of submission, trying instead to meet his stare head-on.
Garr’s eyebrow rose at the challenge. He stalked toward her. “Staring at a prime only means one thing.”
“A challenge?” she asked, inclining her jaw.
“For females, an invitation.”
Rae tossed her braid over one shoulder. “From me, it’s a challenge.”
He narrowed his eyes.
Pricking his ego seemed to get a rise from him. She decided to keep pushing it. “I’ve got your species figured out. Your domé is the advanced intelligence. Your lot seems a few generations behind humans, to be honest.”
He started toward her. “Watch where you’re stepping. There’s—”
Ah, but that was also part of her plan. Fake a tumble off the ravine wall, so that it looked like an accident instead of an attempt to get just a few moments alone to speak with Lyr.