Her wit and her fine tastes suggested a rare kind of woman. What was she like inside her shell? If only he could catch a glimpse of her. Perhaps she possessed beauty of kind to which he could become accustomed? And her to him. They were in every other way in tune.
On his next visit though, Kyne became concerned. As the strains of a Vivaldi concerto faded, Sarin uttered a sound that could have been a sigh.
“You seem sad,” he said, taking care to frame it as a statement.
“I miss .”
Kyne took a moment to consider that. “Your language is quite beautiful. And should I try and guess, I would say that the reason you were found by the pirates so far from your home is because you were on a quest of some kind, perhaps a rite of passage. It’s common among far-traveling species that the young are sent out to find maturity through discovery. I believe your sense of longing is for lost opportunity to return home with some kind of prize.”
Sarin’s crystalline sarcophagus took on the rosy hue he’d grown to understand meant agreement.
“Your insightfulness is outstanding, Just Kyne. You must be from a superior subgroup of your species,” she said.
Kyne’s cheeks warmed. “I am trained in a specific area of social behavior. Internal realities are my special interest area. Understanding external cues allows me to make intuitive conclusions about how humanesques think.”
“But I am not a humanesque,” said Sarin.
“And yet it appears that I understand you. I could share more of my theories with you, Sarin. We could see how closely the architecture of our minds is aligned.”
“I look forward to that, Just Kyne. I look forward to you. Will you come again soon?”
Kyne’s heart tapped a little faster in his chest. The idea that she wanted him brought him unexpected joy.
Later, in his rooms, he lay on his bed thinking about Sarin. Her last words to him had been in the form of an interrogative. Did that signal a shift in their relationship?
His body throbbed in answer and the arousal surprised him. How long since he’d felt so stirred? And how absurd that he’d found intimacy in this situation!
Yet his feelings were as tangible as the bedsheet rubbing against his foreskin. Regardless of how hideous or repulsive Sarin’s real form was, he knew he was losing his heart.
He fell asleep dreaming of her but was woken a few hours later by his M-A.
Professor Kyne, you have a call from Stationmaster Floraboden, it informed him.
He jolted upright. “Yes, Stationmaster?”
“I apologize for interrupting your rest, Professor. Your interviews with the A-Class have been terminated. Thank you for your service,” said Floraboden without preamble.
“What?” exclaimed Kyne. “But I haven’t finished. Sir, you must—!”
“The A-Class has been declared a hostile and is no longer available for study. Please send your final report through in the morning. Good night, Professor. Thank you for your work.”
Thank you for your work?! Kyne sat on the end of his bed, his outrage growing. How dare Floraboden terminate his study!
He paced, fuming over it.
Until, slowly, fear began to replace anger. What had suddenly changed? If Sarin been declared hostile, what was Floraboden planning to do to her?
Kyne knew the regular security protocols. Declared hostiles were ejected from the station into the black.
His stomach lurched. No! He couldn’t let that happen.
He sprang up, hurried into his office, and opened his specimen fridge. On the shelf above the preserved samples lay containers of formalin. He retrieved a couple and two hypodermics patches from his equipment cube.
Sarin, I’m coming!
Wild thoughts swirled in his mind as he ran along the passages to the airvator. He must find her. He must change Floraboden’s mind. She was… they couldn’t… this had to be stopped!
He entered the shaft, panting and trembling, and closed his eyes, taking a moment to recall the sequence. He’d made this trip so many times that he knew exactly how long it took. If he counted, he should be able to locate the correct floor.
Ready… now… 771… 659… 578… 430… 335… 242… 191… stop!
Kyne placed his finger on the emergency tab and the airvator stopped so quickly that he stumbled. He opened his eyes and with shaking hands, loaded the vials into the hypo patches. He had to be quick. Forceful if needed.
“Open,” he told the concierge when he was done.
He walked quietly down the cool, familiar corridor to the interrogation cells, expecting at any moment to be stopped. To his surprise, he found no one guarding them.
Suddenly panicked again, he burst into the interview room. “Sarin! Where are you?”
But the room was also empty, and the viewing window was inactive.
He went over and hammered on it. “Sarin! Sarin! You’re in danger!”
But the window didn’t change, nor did she reply.
The agitation inside him coalesced into something monstrously aggrieved. Where was she? His love… what had they done to her? The pressure in his chest made it hard to breathe. How dare they interfere with his work. His life—
“Professor Kyne,” said a clipped voice from the doorway. “The A-Class is no longer available to you.”
He turned and glared at the soldier. Vaguely, maybe, he recognized him. One who’d been pushy with him in the past.
“Where is she?” Kyne demanded.
The soldier ignored his question. “Place the hypos on the floor in front of you. NOW!” He closed the visor of his helmet and lifted his weapon.
A haze of emotions blinded him. Frightened, he launched at the man, and thrust the hypo against the soft skin under his helmet strap.
A soft gasp escaped the guard’s lips.
They were locked together, for an instant, struggling in a tight circle. Something whirred. The guard’s weapon had activated.
He tried to wrench it away. As he twisted, it discharged a pulse of heat that burned deep into Kyne’s chest. He staggered back, his vision clearing for a moment.
Movement flickered on the viewing window. As if she was watching.
“Sarin!” he choked out and fell.
Floraboden welcomed everyone to the virt-meet; sector stationmasters were present, as were senior members of the Orion League of Sentient Species—OLOSS. He had to play this right. The meet would remain on record for analysis.
“Proceed with your evaluation, Stationmaster Floraboden,” said the OLOSS facilitator’s avatar opposite him.
“We captured an A-Class alien on a JetShift trader close to Bellatrix. It took the form of a crystalline sarcophagus, which protected the actual entity inside.”
“And the traders handed the A-Class over to you without quibble? I’d like to have seen that!” said one of the other stationmasters who favored an avatar with a thick fringe and large ears.
Floraboden glanced at the speaker’s name: Cobb from Cobb-Vermont Station out near Saiph. They were rivals with Leto for the next round of OLOSS maintenance grants. It would suit Cobb well for Floraboden to look bad in this.
“The traders were all dead, S-M Cobb. By murder and suicide, we determined,” he said.
Cobb grunted. “Mutiny then?”
“Of a kind. Yes. We verified the A-Class as a threat, based on the situation we found.”
“Which was?”
“The bodies were within the proximity of the crystal casing. It had shot out crystalline threads to attach to them.”
“Feeding off them?”
“There was evidence to suggest it had absorbed amino acids from the corpses. So, yes.”