Helix (3 page)

“You are going to have to grow a thicker emotional skin, Harmony. They are going to pursue you.” Nero muttered it in her ear as they walked past a male who looked her over before he nodded politely to Nero.

“I don’t want to be pursued. That implies that I am running and I hate running.”

“You did fine on the machines.” His tone was wry.

“You know what I mean. Why aren’t you like the others?”

He blinked at her. “What do you mean?”

“Why aren’t you slobbering after me?”

“You are in my care. It would be inappropriate for me to abuse the attachment that you feel to me because I am your caretaker.”

She made a face. “I rather think my attachment is currently to your body.”

He was startled into laughing, but they had reached the dispensary. He slid his hands into the scanner and waited. The machine provided a meal suiting his current physical requirements.

Harmony twisted her lips as she put her hands under the scanner. The tray that appeared was fully loaded, and when she moved it aside, another appeared.

Nero raised a scarlet brow. “Not hungry?”

“Shut up and pick a table.”

He laughed and found a table nearby. She deposited her first tray and then returned for the second. “I don’t know how I am going to eat all of this.”

“It would not have given it to you had you not been able to eat it. Now, eat.” He gestured with his eating prongs.

The generator had given her a fork and spoon, just like it always did. It read not only her caloric requirements, but also her preferences and points of familiarity. In the four days since she had been popped out of the tank, she had only had one small dish of food that she could not stomach. It had not appeared on her tray again.

She tucked into her meal, and she could feel the eyes on her from various parts of the room. Harmony stiffened her spine and glared at the men around her who were eyeing her with proprietary gazes. “Knock it off, gentlemen. I have weeks of recovery yet, and no one who has pursued me aggressively during my recuperation has any chance with me. Take the hint and wait.”

Several men who had closed in on her during the previous day’s breakfast paled and looked at their companions in confusion.

Nero grinned. “Well done, but what are you going to do when you are loose?”

“If I refuse to run, I am going to have to fight. You have the rest of my acclimation time to get me into fighting shape.”

“Oh, so now it is my responsibility? Well done again.” He raised his glass and winked.

She laughed and poked at the fruit on her tray. “Well, you are my caretaker and so you must do your utmost on my behalf.”

“You played that very neatly. Well done.”

“Thank you. It is a different skill than what I am used to using, but I am getting good at it. Now, what do you think I will be assigned to do once I am free to run around the cities?”

He shrugged and finished his meal. Nero sat back and flicked his braid over his shoulder. “I don’t know. You said you were a courier on the other side, so it could be something as prosaic as being a local pilot.”

She nodded. “Twice now, I have seen a ship streak toward the rift and return clutching a broken vessel. What is that job?”

He winced. “Catchers. They grab the fallen and try to get them to the ground in time for the retrievers to do their work. Once the retrievers have the fallen, they come to me.”

“Retrievers?” This was news to her. She had not really thought much of how she had arrived in the tank other than her body being searched for viable DNA.

“Retrievers create a seal on the exterior of the ship and go inside to find the fallen. If a citizen were to try and open the ship, the fallen inside would burst into flames the moment that the new atmosphere was introduced.”

“Ouch. I remember lightning and then fire. I remember burning, but it felt like it was from the inside out.”

He nodded. “Radiation. That is why the fallen have such a low success rate. Their bodies are torn to pieces by exposure, and it is a struggle against time to find something whole to build on.”

“So, catchers, retrievers, restorer…what else?”

“We have a number of trades, clothing, farming, that sort of thing. You don’t seem suited for that sort of thing.” His lips twisted in a smile.

“How do I find out what I am going to be assigned to?”

“We go to the selection tower and we wait. A display will show all assembled your assigned station. From there, you will get training, and then, you are on your own. You will live in your assigned situation for all eternity…or until you jump into one of the rivers. That might just kill you as well.”

He spoke of suicide so casually that she could imagine it had passed his thoughts more than once.

“How many restorers are there?”

“Just one. We have never needed more. The success rate for viable DNA is less than one in twenty. It varies on the part of space that our rift appears in.”

She rubbed her forehead. “I remember a gaseous storm, lightning and a bright light. My nav computer couldn’t see it. I tried to get away, but it grabbed me.”

He blinked. “It reached out for you?”

She nodded. “Yup. Now, tell me about the singing.”

Harmony had never seen someone go from amused to horrified in an instant. She was going to have to get to the bottom of this.

“You are hearing singing?” Nero spoke precisely.

“Every moment that I relax, the song swirls in my thoughts.”

He leaned forward and whispered. “How is it making you feel?”

Harmony cocked her head and stacked empty plates on her tray. “At first, it was distracting, but now, I find it comforting. I like it. The songs are unfamiliar, but I know them all. It is very strange.”

She smiled slightly and sat back. “It started that first day, during our walk, but I think I heard it while I was in the tank.”

Harmony knew her face had taken on a dreamy cast, but it was how she felt when she thought about the song. It was more than music, it was the sound of a soul reaching out to hers and wrapping her in comfort.

Finally, she noted the worry on Nero’s face. “What is wrong?”

He looked around. “Not here. Are you done?”

Harmony looked down and her trays were empty. The dispenser had won again. “I am.”

They cleared their table and set their trays in the mechanism once again. They disappeared as quickly as they had appeared.

They didn’t return to the restoration building. He took her to a library near the public square of the medical neighbourhood. Inside, they climbed several sets of stairs until they reached a room at the top.

Within the room at the top of the library, there were thirty portraits, some old and two quite new.

Windows gave them a view that looked out over the entire expanse of the city. Nero said softly, “This is the memorial to the song. Every man on those walls has heard that song, and it drove him mad within a year.”

The song trilled in her mind, offering support.

Harmony smiled, “I am not worried.”

Nero leaned back against a solid space between windows. “Why aren’t you worried?”

She walked toward him and pressed him flat to the wall, “Because my name is Harmony. Songs are in my blood and bone.”

Before he could say anything else, she kissed him. To her surprise, the contact sent another note through the song. A dark note wrapped around the song, and though Nero hesitated for a moment, as he leaned forward to join her in the kiss, the second thread of melody intensified.

She broke the kiss and the other music stopped. “You hear it too, don’t you?”

He shrugged. “I do not hear the bright music, I hear the dark. It lets me know when a fallen is on the way and keeps me interested in life.”

“All that from a sound in your mind?”

“A little more than a sound. It is a feeling, an urgency that takes me over. It drives me when I would relax and keeps me roving forward when those around me fade.”

She leaned against him, and he put his arms around her, stroking her spine. It was one of the only parts of her completely exposed.

Harmony asked, “You once said that the city had a maximum population of twelve thousand or so. How many is it now?”

He sighed and rubbed his chin against her ear. “Three thousand or so. Eternity without purpose is a burden.”

“And life without purpose is just existing.” She chuckled. “That is the idea that got me here.”

“What?”

“I was back on my home world and the Alliance asked for volunteers to leave the Earth and try their hands at blending in with the other species in space. I signed up, didn’t think I had a chance and ended up getting an interview.”

“You charmed them with your personality?”

“No, I spoke frankly and passed all of the navigation exams. My mind registered as suitable for extended solo periods in space, and I have a fixation for adherence to the job at hand that made me ideal for a courier position. I have chased dawn on three dozen worlds, and now, I am on a planet where the light doesn’t move.”

He chuckled. “I have been meaning to ask you, why do you measure things in twelve when you have ten digits?”

She leaned back, “You know, it is a good thing I looked up the answer when I still had access to my history. Twelve is used for commercial goods because it can be divided easily into two, three, four or six. It is a bit of Terran trivia that I treasure.”

Harmony wrinkled her nose at the alliteration.

“So why do you use it to count?”

“I learned how when I was a child and since foodstuffs are one of the first exposures to numbers, I counted eggs. On Earth, we sell eggs by the dozen.”

“What is the name of your home? You say Earth and then you say Terran.”

He wrapped an arm around her waist and turned her so that they both looked out over the city.

“Our planet is called Earth, but the Alliance has designated it as Terra. Ironically, both words mean dirt.” Harmony smiled.

“My world was called Kell. It also means dirt. I think most planets have that distinction.”

“Kell. I have never heard of it. Which sector was it in?”

“I don’t know. We had only begun our spaceflight, and I was one of the first pilots to leave our world. The storm took me, pulled me in and I woke up two years later with Drennor walking me through my first breaths on this world.”

She blinked. “Ah, so it is a world! I was wondering. We are fixed to the rift, so I had a little trouble figuring what we were standing on.”

Harmony glanced down and saw the bluish shading of his fingers on the curve of her waist. It was the blue that separated her mocha skin from his, but it was enough of a difference to make her shiver.

“We call it a planet, but there is no way to explore it without being dragged into the rift.”

His fingers slowly caressed the curve of her waist down to her hip.

She sighed and leaned against him. “Changing your mind about the more interesting aspects of my rehabilitation?”

“I am engaged in an innermost debate.”

Harmony snickered. “Let me know who is winning.”

It was half an hour of watching the city and the rip in the sky before he turned her in his arms. “Promise me that you only want me for my body.”

Laughing, she looped her arms around his neck. “I swear. At this moment in time, I only want you for your body.”

He kissed her, pressing her back and almost out the window. She was glad that she had no fear of heights, because they twisted together for quite a while, bodies pressed and mouths battling.

She dragged one leg up and looped it around behind his back, pressing up and against him. The metal covering her sex pressed into her, and she rocked her hips into his rhythmically until a quiver started inside her and spread outward.

Harmony moaned her release into his mouth, and he pulled back sharply. He leaned her against the interior wall while he pulled at his clothing with graceless haste.

She caught her breath as the strange musculature that she had felt was now exposed to her greedy gaze. Even during exercise, he kept himself covered.

She moved toward him and pressed her hand to the wide band of pectoral muscle, feeling it jerk under her touch. Harmony took her time, examining each ridge of his torso and ignoring the sharply tipped column of his cock.

When she had explored from his shoulders to the taut expanse of his lower belly, she reached behind him and stroked her hands up his back, bringing her body into full contact with the skin she had just caressed. “Sorry if the suit is cold.”

He laughed and slid his hand between her thighs. He did something with a quick motion, and the next instant, he was sliding his fingers into her.

“It feels hot enough to me.”

Nero leaned in and pressed his lips against her neck, nibbling up to her ear and then shifting sides.

She shivered and leaned her head to the side to help him find the spots that used to drive her wild. She may have a new body, but her hot spots seemed to be in all the right places.

Harmony didn’t know how but he managed to hit her erogenous zones even with the metal wraps in place. Her body got hotter, and she reached between them to grip his cock, stroking him until he groaned.

“Harmony, please. If you keep doing that, I won’t get inside you and that is really where I want to be.”

She reluctantly released him, but her hand still hummed with the heat of the contact. She didn’t have time to dwell on it; he pressed her up against the wall and lifted her until he could line up their bodies. With one swift move, he set the head of his cock in place and drove into her.

She screamed and clawed at his shoulders. “Son-of-a-bitch!”

Nero froze. “What?”

“Brand new body, I was back to being a virgin. Damn, I forgot how much the first time hurt.”

Her channel throbbed in pain. He wasn’t small and the angle they were at made his entry extremely deep.

“What can I do?” His concern showed on his face.

“Can you stay still for a minute?”

She reached between them and around the metal of her suit. She stroked her clit until her body relaxed and the pain faded.