El and Onine by K. P. Ambroziak Read Free Book Online Page B

they’d chosen to mate with the likes of Bendo, we’d be dust.”
    “But how?”
    “Why is the question,” he said. “Sapients are reliable
breeders but the Kyprian aren’t and so the goddess prepared the Venusian for it—the
contact—and she expected the best possible outcome.”
    “Did the sapient survive?”
    “They both did.”
    “And what happened? Was there a youngling?”
    “No,” he said. “That’s why they’re trying again.”
    “How do you know this?”
    He looked at me with such serious eyes I became
distracted for a moment. “Minosh told me.”
    “How could she know?”
    “She saw it in the water.”
    “Her visions aren’t always—”
    “No,” he said. “But this one was real.”
    “Did she know the sapient?” He shrugged his
shoulders. “It’s possible, isn’t it?” He stared at me blankly. “Why would Minosh
tell you this?” I didn’t mean to sound accusatory.
    He brushed the hair from his eyes, as though
deflecting my suspicion. “She wanted me to protect you.”
    “From what?”
    My question disappointed him—I could see it on
his face.
    “Minosh knew—”
    “I’d be selected.”
    “Yes,” he said. “She came to see me before she left
and begged me to watch over you, to keep you from them. She told me to take you
away if I had to. That’s when she told me everything.”
    “It sounds extreme for my creator to ask such of you.”
I thought of all the times Minosh had told me I was special—she must have
meant something else altogether. She didn’t want me to become a specimen for Venusian
experiments, but an outlier? An exile from the only home I’d ever known? Was I
to follow Tal to the outer sands? Could she have wanted that?
    “Why didn’t she tell me herself?” I asked Minosh the
question but Tal thought it was for him.
    “She thought you’d be frightened by the prospect of
being with a Kyprian and she was worried it would delay your—well, she
said it was important for you to reach full sapience before taking you away.”
    “I’m staying here,” I said.
    He looked at me knowingly. “I assume you’ve had the
change—”
    “I won’t discuss this with you.”
    He kicked the dirt at his
feet. “I want to help you, El.” He said my name as though he’d never said it
before and it was strange to hear it aloud in such an intimate setting. It
almost sounded unnatural—alien.
    “Where’s she now?” I said.
    “Who?”
    “The sapient.”
    Tal put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. He didn’t
know and couldn’t say if the story was true. I could see it in his wicked eyes.
    “So she may be a myth too—a rumor to put fear
in us,” I said. “What about the Venusian?”
    He shook his head.
    “How is it you don’t know,” I said. “You seem to
know so much. I mean, how could none of us know what’s happening here? It’s our
planet—it was ours before they came and it should be ours after—”
    “Terra belongs to no creature.” The word was
strange. I’d never heard anyone name our planet, our home. Terra was unfamiliar
and yet I knew the name. I’d dreamed of it.
    “If their first attempt was successful,” I said, “why’d
they wait so long to try again?”
    Tal shrugged.
    “Why’d they risk contact?”
    “I know as much as you,” he said.
    “Hardly.” I crossed my arms in front of my frock. A
chilly air rolled in and Tal moved closer to put his hands on my shoulders.
    “They’re confident they’ll get what they want from
the second attempt.”
    “What do they want?” I asked defiantly, fearing the
answer.
    “An offspring.”
    I’d wanted a youngling, but not a mix breed of Venusian
fire and sapient clay. “Our treasure,” I said.
    “Our what?”
    “The cultivator’s womb—that’s what allows us
to reproduce—that’s what they want, what Kypria’s come to take—but—but
what can they possibly give us in return?”
    Tal squeezed me with his embrace. “They won’t take
you,” he said. “I won’t let