January 24, 2363 AIA

The Colibri

The Colibri was classified as a medium ship, though most people would have called her small. Compared to the battleships, warships, and colonizers, she was undoubtedly tiny, but Tennama never felt confined.

He remembered Ryan Barnes and his friends laughing about the classification system.

“A ship is small when you can’t get away from the people that annoy you.”

By that definition, the Colibri was easily large enough for the crew she carried.

Vas had gone to check on Reyer over an hour ago and hadn’t been seen since. Jane and Ciro had decided to get ready for bed, so Tennama was alone in the main cabin. He was sitting on a side bench, staring at nothing. The notebook Reyer had given him was lying closed on the table.

When Jane stepped out of the minuscule shower, wearing her pajamas and still squeezing water from her hair, she accidentally let the door crack shut behind her. She saw Tennama glance up at the noise. His eyes met hers, then, without saying anything, he returned his gaze to the bit of nothing he’d been staring at before.

The biologist felt her temper rise. She didn’t like being ignored. She’d worked all her life to make sure people couldn’t ignore her.

She crossed the room and sat down in the seat beside Tennama.

The xeno shifted away so they wouldn’t be touching shoulders.

“How did you do it?” she demanded.

For a long time, there was no response. Jane wondered how far he’d go to pretend she didn’t exist.

Then, finally, “What do you mean, Doctor?”

“I saw your hands when you came back in from passing Lynx the emps. They were white as paper and already malformed. Then you rappelled down into a live-fire situation. How? You shouldn’t have been able to do that!”

“And who are you, Dr. Bonumomnes, to tell me what I should and shouldn’t be able to do?”

Jane put a hand to her forehead to hide her grimace, then started to fidget with the damp towel in her hands. A half a minute passed before she spoke again.

“I looked up who Dr. Mengele was.” There was a shorter silence. “Is that really how you see me?”

Tennama didn’t answer.

“I never worked on human-xenos, you know.”

“Would you have? If you’d had the chance?”

“Not like that! I wouldn’t have killed them.”

“You killed dozens of us.”

“We’re social creatures, just like you. Do you get that? Mice? Rats? Fine. But someone that can look at me and talk to me? No. It’s not noble, but that’s the truth. It’s about what triggers our empathy.” Jane put her elbows on her knees and leaned forward. “And I did have the chance.”

Tennama looked at her out of the corner of his eye.

She went on, “Lucy isn’t the only one who worships you. I would get emails. All the time. People offered to give me their bodies so that I could have access to a human-xeno—or, really, so they could become a human-xeno.”

“Didn’t they know it would kill them?”

“Oh, they knew. If they read my site, they knew.” She took a breath. “Sometimes we feel like we go on after death if we’re a part of something bigger than ourselves.”

“I know, Doctor.”

“Yeah, you would know.”

“You never took them up on it?”

“It would’ve been illegal, but even if it wasn’t, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. If you want to commit suicide, that’s your business and I won’t stop you. But they weren’t committing suicide. They were asking me to murder them.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Passive and active, Tennama. To watch someone die is hard enough. To kill them yourself? That’s much harder.” Jane leaned back and pulled her foot up onto the bench. “You won’t like me saying this, but it’s you and the second queen.”

Anthony buried his face in both hands.

Jane’s voice was soft, but she went on, relentless: “I doubt you would’ve been able to kill her yourself, but you could leave her there to die—”

“Please stop.”

The doctor’s head jerked once in a nod of grim satisfaction. “I’m sorry, but I wanted you to see that you and I aren’t all that different. I get you. I get it. When I read about Mengele, I felt sick at the idea of someone experimenting on humans. I understand why you’d hate us—hate me—for experimenting on your people.” She paused. “People? Creatures? No, not creatures. Not all the time. Beings, maybe? Is that right?”

Tennama let out a subdued laugh. “It’s better than goop.”

Jane’s lips twitched in a brief smile. “We’ll go with beings. I like that. It has dignity.”

“Dignity? Was calling us goop nothing but jealousy, Doctor?”

“Why not? I think the xenos are the most amazing beings in the galaxy.”

“I never would have thought you were a worshiper.”

“Not me, but I don’t think you have to be all-wise to be amazing.” She hesitated, then said, “Tennama, whatever I did to you and your kind, I didn’t do it out of malice, and I’m sorry it caused you pain, but I’d be lying if I said I regret it.”

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“Why did you do it, Doctor?”

“Curiosity. Wonder. That’s what humans do—we acquire knowledge. That’s how we survive.”

Tennama leaned his head against the bulkhead. “I know. And I can certainly understand the desire to survive.”

Jane watched him for a moment, then blurted out, “How did you do it, Tennama? How did you save Alix? I was wrong about something.”

“You thought I’d kill her.”

“I thought you wouldn’t be able to stop yourself.”

“Human-xenos can choose when we take new bodies. It’s harder to control when our hands change, but our reason can override instinct, just as yours can.”

“But I saw them afterward—your hands were fine! They hadn’t changed at all, but your adrenaline level must have been insane!”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Doctor. It was different. I wasn’t thinking about the danger. I don’t know if I was thinking at all. The only thing that mattered was rescuing her.”

“You weren’t afraid?”

“I honestly don’t remember.”

Jane felt her thumbnail tap against her teeth and deliberately brought her hand back down. “I underestimated how the complexity of our brains would impact you.”

“Your education has served you well, Doctor. That was a very fancy way of saying you’re confused.”

“Whatever.”

Tennama smirked.

“But thank you for answering me,” she said. “May I ask you something else?”

“As long as you understand I’ll answer at my discretion.”

“How did you escape? Like, you personally.”

“Don’t you already know?”

“Why would I know that?”

“I would’ve thought the Rising would want you to have access to my interviews with Miss Reyer.”

Jane tried to keep her voice even. “I haven’t looked at all the recordings.”

Tennama took some time to gather up his thoughts before he began.

“It was my second mission. The battle of Bayden Hey. The Uprising had managed to entrench themselves, and it looked as if the campaign might go on for months. I was supposed to take over one of the command staff, then use that identity to undermine their plans and smuggle out as much information as possible. My handler was a spy—a turncoat. As he was guiding me into the Rising camp, the Supremacy attacked. One of their bombs hit close-by. I was hurt so badly the turncoat left me for dead.

“I laid there for hours. Then the Rising retreated, and the Supremacy came through to check the bodies.” Anthony closed his eyes. “I took the body of the boy who was leaning over me to see if I was still alive.”

The xeno opened his eyes again and stared at his hands. There was a sardonic tone to his voice, but it sounded forced. “Vincent Fable only had himself to blame for what happened. They taught us to blend in, change into their clothes, hide the old body. It was the only way we could be useful to him, but it was much more useful to us.”

“You went back as the Supremacy soldier?” Jane asked.

“It took a month of scheming for me to get back to Geonon One.” There was a huff of laughter. “That might have been the only time Harlan was glad to see me. We agreed it would be better if I could stay close to the project, so we searched for a suitable person to take over.”

“Why Anthony Tennama?”

“He had no family that might notice a change, and he was one of the few humans who worked on Project 32 that didn’t have his DNA regularly checked. It was nothing but a practical decision.”

“But…he means a lot to you.”

“Ah. You watched that recording.”

Jane didn’t bother correcting him. She stood up. “I don’t have many friends, Tennama. Thank you for saving Alix.”

When she went to leave, Tennama called out, “Dr. Jane.”

She turned.

“You’re right. Being human is complex. I don’t think of you as Dr. Mengele. Not…most of the time.”

Jane nodded, then went into the passageway. Before she could retreat to her room, she heard a noise. Vas was coming out of the captain’s cabin. She left her own door and walked up to him.

“Is Alix still asleep?” Jane whispered.

Adan nodded and ran his hand through his hair. It was never neat, but now it was completely disheveled.

“Does she need another dose before I go to bed?” Jane asked.

“Thank you, Doctor,” Vas said, “but I can get it myself if I need to.”

There was a rueful smile on Jane’s face. “You’re probably pretty used to this, aren’t you?”

“Sadly, yes.”

“What would she do without you, Captain?”

“Probably find a more efficient way to get herself killed.”

Jane laughed and leaned back against the bulkhead. “You know, you and Tennama are both sexist pigs.”

“What?”

“He said almost the same thing about her trying to kill herself.”

“If it involves Tennama, can it be sexism? He’s been a woman before.”

“Then it must be”—Jane snapped her fingers—“a hero-thing. That’s what Alix calls it. It’s perfect too.” The doctor shook her head. “The galaxy’s biggest hypocrite.”

“Me?”

“Her. And maybe you. And Tennama. You all risk your lives, and that’s saving people, but when other people do the exact same thing, you accuse them of suicidal tendencies.”

“To be fair, Alix never calls trying to save someone suicide, even when other people do it, so she’s not being hypocritical about that. When she calls someone a hero, it’s a very specific insult. It means they don’t think before they act. She always thinks things through, then decides to do it anyway.”

“Bet you a ten coin that no outsider would be able to spot the difference.”

Vas bit back his smile. “I think I’ll let you tell her that.”

The captain waited for Jane’s response, but there was none. She was looking toward the main cabin.

She faced him again. “Vas, can I ask you a question?”

He glanced past her. “You talked to Tennama?”

The biologist nodded.

“Is he in there?”

She nodded again.

Adan motioned to the fore of the ship. Jane followed him. Once they were at the end of the passageway, he leaned against the observation window. Jane sat down on the stairs.

“I assume you looked for any claw marks when Alix got back on board?” Vas asked.

“How did you know?”

“You forgot Lynx was connected to the control-com. I heard your orders to him. I heard everything.”

He’d turned his head as he spoke, as if to gaze out at the stars, but it didn’t completely hide his expression. Jane felt her heart ache when she saw it. For a man who was used to being in the center of the action, only being able to listen must have been a special kind of hell.

“He didn’t hurt her,” Jane assured him.

“Believe me, I know. I checked.”

“I asked him how he did it—I mean, his hands weren’t even pale! There was no transformation at all.”

“What did he say?”

“He doesn’t know for sure, but he says that the only thing that mattered was saving her—that he wasn’t thinking about the danger. He doesn’t remember being afraid. Is that…is that what it’s like?”

“Huh. He really is the hero type.” Vas crossed his arms. “Yes, Doctor, that’s what it’s like. It’s a kind of tunnel vision where you’re hyper-aware of everything going on around you, but at the same time, you can only really see the person you’re trying to save or what you’re trying to do.”

“It happens to you?”

“Sometimes. Alix gets it more than I do. She gets it—she used to get it during most of her missions. Maybe that’s why she trained herself to think before she went in.”

Jane gazed at the deck between them. For some reason, this bothered Vas.

“Why so thoughtful, Doctor?”

“I wonder if Tennama is starting to see some of us as part of his group.”

“What group?”

“The people that he identifies and connects with. It’s the people we’d die to protect.”

“Xenos don’t like to die.”

“They’d die to protect their queen.”

“Alix is not his queen.”

“Obviously. That’s not what I meant. You don’t want to die, do you? But you’d risk your life in a heartbeat to save Alix or your brother. That’s because those social ties are more important to you than your life. That’s a human thing, and he’s mostly human, but thanks to his xeno nature, he’s got an extra dose of need-for-social-cohesion and some bone-deep programming to protect something.”

“Fine. Does any of that make a difference?”

“I’m a scientist, Vas. I like to understand things, even if it doesn’t make a difference. But…I think it means we can trust him.”

“You thought we couldn’t?”

“I was worried about what would happen if we got into a dangerous situation. Now I have less to worry about.”

“Less to worry about is not nothing to worry about.”

Jane used the rail to pull herself up. “You’re right. Tennama was never actually hurt. If his body is ever critically wounded, I don’t know if the results would be the same.” She stepped down to the deck, but she didn’t seem to want to leave. There was a series of metallic clicks as she tapped her nail on the rail. “Vas, did the Rising keep any recordings back from me? From the interviews between Alix and Tennama?”

“No, Doctor. Not one.”

“You’re sure?”

“I would’ve been the one giving the order to have it held back. I don’t know if you’ve watched them all, but you had access to everything.”

“The only ones I didn’t watch were the ones where I was there while they were being recorded.” With a final tap on the rail, she left. “Good night, Vas.”

“Good night, Doctor.”