After the death of a suspected Ramaxian-hybrid geneticist, Sorority of Defense operative Sofita Kul must determine if the deceased man dabbled in Femarctic bio-sciences.
Kuril Base North
Raxuta`acarol (Pacific Ocean)
1 Yubol 2249 0130 Hours
Unlike the other young men before him, he didn’t dive for a dark corner when she entered the room, or collapse to the floor sobbing.
Bare feet left a spotty trail over the dark polar tile, leading her to the room’s lone bench, where he lost himself in the hazy depths beyond the glass. She moved her fingertips over the climate-control pad, dulling the room’s oppressive heat.
Red-blooded helovx ran cold under the sea, one of many obscene differences between them and her kind, the femmar.
Laxum Jyr finished her high-administrative duties early to make this visit. Her high-formed hair bound tight in a turban, she aimed a commanding finger at the door, provoking the observation sphere that hovered in the room’s corner to reveal itself. It whirred past her as she sat beside him, the sea outside casting dull patterns over his naked body, giving him the allure of a proper hide.
“How are you today, Wu?” she asked in his native Hamgyong.
Laxum wrapped her hand around his upper thigh, his skin pebbling beneath her touch while the spindly Wu kept still. Helovx males were often stingy with their affections, yet this one proved more accommodating than most.
Early in his captivity, he confessed that her hide reminded him of the sharks that stalked his childhood houseboat. Visible through her open robe, the color of her impressive streaks, inherited from her kermatic maker, were a mystery; being of the hizak genetic caste, she’d been born color-blind.
His admission had struck a nerve. The vilest folklore regarding the origins of her kind claimed them sharks gone bipedal. Sharks eliminated the weak and devoured the dead—they weren’t sentient enough to warrant comparison to the southern polar femmar.
Laxum took a moment before speaking. Hizaki employed intricate wordiness that their sister femarctic castes’ tolerated, but most helovx tied intellectualism with class distinction, rendering the average person a simpleton.
“Our doctor informs me that you’re sixteen today,” she said, pulling a cloak from the bag and shaking out its fold. “I’m a citizen of the Tenth Generation. That means I’m fifty-three.”
His dark eyes remained focused on the water outside.
“I’m aware of the chill you endure this far down.” She draped the cloak over his naked shoulders, her knuckles feathering the soft protrusions on his chest. “Wu, I’d like you to tell me about the last birthday you celebrated.”
“I was twelve,” his airy voice pleased her. “My mother took us to the mountains,”
“Who is us?” she asked.
“Me and my sister,” he said. “I was excited. I’d never seen snow before.”
Laxum spent her entire life under the snow.
“On the way home, we stopped at a roadside stand. A plane flew over our heads, and tiny balls of light chased after it.”
His cropped scalp tickled her palm.
“The lights moved so fast, and they were very loud. It sounded like someone blowing a whistle beside me.” Wu inhaled when she lifted his hand to her lips. “The lights chased it over the ridge, and my mother turned to us and said, ‘I want you both to know that I love you very much.’”
Laxum detached, his hand dropping between them.
“The clouds got sucked down over the ridge,” his voice dulled to a whisper. “The ground shook beneath my feet, and black smoke shot up like a blooming flower.”
Laxum began admiring her new manicure.
“Who saved you from the impact wave, Wu?” she asked.
“This man. He dragged us down into a ditch. Mother screamed when the winds took her away.” Wu blinked as if woken. “Why am I here, Ambassador Jyr?”
Laxum stiffened.
“My name isn’t enunciated like the English word, jeer. It’s pronounced like the English word, year. Now, repeat my name, Wu, and this time, do it properly,”
Wu did as commanded. “Ambassador Jyr, why—”
“You were part of a team whose strategy entailed sinking an explosive onto our outer hull.” Laxum had tired of repeating this story. “Your team failed to assess the proper depth. The pressure imploded your device before it could succeed.”
Wu petted the cloak. “This material is strange,”
“That material is called gwobix,” she told him with a smile. “It’s like your silk,”
“From Antarctica?”
Laxum didn’t mind him saying the helovx name for Ramaxia so long as he didn’t mind her never using the term human.
“It has a hole for my…” his voice trailed as he fondled the fabric in his lap. “Is this for men from Antarcti—”
“—no, Wu,” she interjected, her heart mourning. “We femmar do not produce males,”
His gaze shifted to her open robe. “How are your babies born?”
Laxum loathed his curiosity. “Explaining the complexities of engineered reproduction would be lost on the likes of you,”
“We make fish,”
“Using our technology, yes, you now have hatcheries.”
He closed his eyes. “We made you—”
Laxum’s hand palmed the back of his head, driving him to the floor.
“I’ve worked so hard in my resolve, Wu,” She rose to her feet, her shadow darkening his bare buttocks. “I’ve progressed in my attempt to interact without resorting to abuse.”
His frightened eyes fixated on her hands.
Marixi, the femarctic warrior caste, displayed legendary cruelty during Ramaxia’s scouting between the poles. Helovx males, called men, were masters at escalating verbal conflicts with these larger, bald femmar. ‘Fear the Fist’ was a term born from altercations between them, physical fights that often ended with a clenched fist in the rectum.
Laxum was no brute, but her kindness withered before witlessness.
“This obscene tale you helovx perpetuate about creating us,” she railed. “Your kind was barely cloning cattle when we awakened under the ice!”
Wu lay spread on the floor, his face turned away. Agitated by his indifference, she wedged her bare toes beneath his testicles and pressed a naked heel into his back.
A soft cry came, an utterance of defeat.
“Rise, Wu.” Laxum stepped clear and strode to the bed. “I don’t keep you alive to hurt you.”
The boy lay dazed beneath the larger polar female.
Such is the world’s way, even on dry land.
The troublesome tingle in its snout ebbed as it left the trench. Many miles through the blue became a stretch of coral-crusted ruins. Calm ruled these shallows where brighter waters held nothing untrue.
No fish roamed here, for the sun touched these ruins daily in the low tide hours. A cluster of large metallic shells lay tucked within the flattened crags. Behind the white metal coursed weak pulses that drew it closer to the slender glass.
Several moments passed before its brain processed realities unknown to others of its kind—this glass was a window, and these shells were residences.
Footsteps drummed over a beating heart. It found him through the narrow glass, and when he looked at it, he dropped the paper bags in his arms and fled.
Palpable fear spurred its desires. It raced over the structure, forcing its heft through narrow paths until memories found where it wanted to go.
Snout inches from a fatter glassy patch, its senses mapped the darkened room within, where the man’s heartbeat beckoned…
FEMITOKON SERIES BIBLE STUDY
- Ramaxia
- Timeline: Time of Transition (Femmar)
- Laxum Jyr