The first thing Qaritas learned about Veyrathi hospitality—
was that apparently kidnapping came before introductions.
The second—
was that Xheavend understood them.
He discovered this approximately six minutes after being
brought before their chief.
The chamber was enormous.
Not because the Veyrathi required enormous rooms.
Because they apparently considered floors optional.
Platforms occupied different heights.
Cables crossed open space.
Walkways spiraled around the living black ribs of the
vessel.
Water traveled through transparent channels in the walls.
Silver-blue plants grew between sections of dark metal.
Nothing rattled.
Nothing scraped.
Nothing made a sound it didn't absolutely need to make.
Qaritas hated how much he liked it.
The Veyrathi who had escorted them entered first.
Four hands moved.
Weapons were removed.
Not discarded.
Placed into recessed sections of wall that immediately
closed around them.
Then the hunters stepped aside.
Someone waited beyond them.
Male.
Qaritas thought.
He was getting better at that.
Three sensory fins along either side of the skull.
The uppermost swept backward considerably farther than those
of several females Qaritas had seen during the journey.
His skin was deep storm-gray.
Silver-blue lines branched from his sternum across a broad
upper ribcage.
Unlike the hunters, he wore considerably less armor.
Which Qaritas had learned generally meant one of two things.
Unimportant.
Or important enough that everyone else was the armor.
Considering every Veyrathi in the chamber subtly changed
posture when he moved—
Qaritas suspected the second.
The male looked at Xheavend.
His secondary pupils narrowed.
Everyone stopped.
Again.
Qaritas sighed.
"We really need to work on your first
impressions."
Xheavend didn't look away from the chief.
"I haven't done anything."
"That's apparently the problem."
The chief's lower right hand moved.
Two fingers toward Xheavend.
Then Qaritas.
His throat illuminated.
A low resonant voice followed.
"**Varakai seyeth na varu. Ngarai keloth ara.**"
Qaritas stared.
The chief stared back.
Qaritas glanced at Xheavend.
"Excellent."
Her eyebrows lifted.
"What?"
"I understood absolutely none of that."
Xheavend looked at him.
Then back at the chief.
Then—
very slowly—
back at Qaritas.
"You can't understand him?"
Qaritas blinked.
"No."
A pause.
Xheavend's expression changed.
"What?"
"Not a word."
"Q."
"What?"
"I can."
Silence.
Qaritas stared at her.
"What did he say?"
Xheavend looked back toward the chief.
Her body was female at the moment.
Stable for nearly an hour.
"He asked whether we're injured."
Qaritas paused.
"Oh."
Another pause.
"That's considerably nicer than I expected."
Xheavend's mouth twitched.
The chief spoke again.
Different sounds.
Different rhythm.
Still complete nonsense to Qaritas.
Xheavend listened.
Then answered.
In the same language.
Qaritas's head snapped toward her.
That—
was somehow worse.
The sounds coming from Xheavend's mouth were fluid.
Natural.
Clicks formed somewhere farther back in the throat than
human speech normally required.
Resonant vowels rolled beneath them.
Her pronunciation wasn't perfect.
Qaritas could tell that much because several Veyrathi
reacted.
One hunter's fins angled forward.
Another's throat markings pulsed.
But they understood her.
The chief definitely did.
He answered.
Xheavend responded.
Qaritas looked between them.
Back.
Forth.
Back.
Forth.
Finally:
"I hate this."
Xheavend held up one finger without looking at him.
Qaritas stared at it.
"Did you just tell me to wait?"
"Yes."
"In a language I don't understand?"
"In every language."
The chief's throat light pulsed.
Once.
Qaritas narrowed his eyes.
"Was that a laugh?"
Xheavend's mouth twitched.
"Yes."
"Wonderful. I'm funny
internationally."
The chief touched one upper hand to his chest.
"Warakai."
Xheavend nodded.
"Xheavend."
Then pointed toward Qaritas.
"Qaritas."
Warakai's four eyes settled on him.
"Karitas."
Qaritas frowned.
"Qaritas."
"Karitas."
"There's a Q."
Xheavend looked at him.
"He can't pronounce it."
"He has four arms."
"What does that have to do with his mouth?"
"Nothing. I'm asking you to cope."
Warakai said something.
Xheavend immediately laughed.
Qaritas's eyes narrowed.
"What did he say?"
"Nothing."
"Translate."
"No."
"Xheavend."
She looked considerably too pleased.
"He said perhaps your name is defective."
Qaritas stared at Warakai.
Warakai stared back.
Then the silver-blue line along the chief's throat pulsed
once.
Qaritas pointed.
"I saw that."
Warakai listened while Xheavend explained.
Not everything.
Definitely not everything.
Yzer did not need to become part of first-contact diplomacy.
Neither did End.
And Qaritas strongly suspected:
**We arrived inside a semi-living corpse piloted through a
nervous-system interface by an Ascendant who did not understand the controls**
would harm negotiations.
So Xheavend kept it simple.
Their vessel was badly damaged.
It could heal much of its biological structure.
But not everything.
They required metal.
Crystal.
Water.
Fuel.
And materials capable of repairing its damaged gravity
system.
Warakai listened without interruption.
When she finished—
he asked a question.
Xheavend answered.
Another.
She answered that too.
Qaritas stood beside her understanding none of it.
It was infuriating.
Eventually Xheavend turned toward him.
"They can help."
Qaritas brightened.
"Excellent."
"They won't do it for free."
"Less excellent."
"They can provide somewhere for us to stay while the
ship is repaired."
"Excellent again."
"They want something from us."
"There it is."
Xheavend folded her arms.
"Labor."
Qaritas blinked.
"What?"
"Labor."
"We're Ascendants."
"Congratulations."
"I feel that should qualify us for something above
manual labor."
"It qualifies you for carrying heavier things."
Qaritas considered that.
"...I walked directly into that."
"Yes."
Warakai said something.
Xheavend listened.
Her expression changed.
"What?"
She didn't answer immediately.
"X?"
"They're willing to help us produce what we need for
the ship."
Qaritas looked toward Warakai.
"In exchange?"
Xheavend looked at him.
"We work."
"Doing what?"
"Whatever we can actually do without getting ourselves
or someone else killed."
"Restrictive."
"And we teach."
That caught him.
"Teach what?"
Xheavend turned back toward Warakai.
Another exchange.
Longer this time.
Then:
"Whatever knowledge we're willing to exchange that they
consider useful."
Qaritas's expression sharpened.
That was different.
Not charity.
Not imprisonment.
Not debt without an end.
Exchange.
Materials.
Knowledge.
Labor.
Hospitality.
Both sides receiving something.
"How long?"
Xheavend asked.
Warakai answered.
She negotiated.
Qaritas couldn't understand the words—
but he understood negotiation when he saw it.
Warakai's fins moved forward.
Xheavend shook her head.
Warakai held up two hands.
Xheavend countered with one.
His throat markings brightened.
She crossed her arms.
Qaritas leaned toward her.
"Are you arguing?"
"Yes."
"Are we winning?"
"Stop helping."
"Understood."
Eventually—
Warakai extended one lower hand.
Xheavend stared at it.
Then at him.
She didn't immediately touch.
Smart.
Warakai noticed.
Slowly—
he turned the hand palm-up.
Invitation.
Not demand.
Xheavend placed her hand against his.
Warakai's fingers closed lightly.
Once.
Released.
Agreement.
Qaritas raised his eyebrows.
"What did we just agree to?"
Xheavend turned toward him.
"We work with them."
"How long?"
"Until they've provided the materials necessary to repair
the ship and manufacture enough fuel for us to leave."
"And we teach them?"
"What we're willing to teach."
"And they give us somewhere to stay?"
"Yes."
"Food?"
Xheavend looked toward Warakai.
Asked.
He answered.
She looked back.
"Food."
Qaritas nodded solemnly.
"I accept."
"You weren't part of the negotiation."
"I've become part now that food is involved."
The meal arrived approximately twenty minutes later.
Qaritas had expected something unpleasant.
This was prejudice.
Reasonable prejudice.
Hstrarkit had already introduced him to lung-eating
mushrooms, invisible spatial predators, voice-stealing tree monsters and a
mountain that had turned out to contain a geological mouth.
He had earned suspicion toward soup.
Instead—
the food smelled incredible.
Black slices of something roasted until the edges had
caramelized.
Silver finger-shaped roots.
A thick golden mash.
Dark meat.
Tiny white berries split open to reveal brilliant crimson
interiors.
And translucent lavender fruit with silver liquid visible
beneath the skin.
Qaritas stared.
Xheavend sat opposite him.
"You're afraid of dinner."
"I'm evaluating it."
"You fought an Utrumamja."
"It didn't pretend to be a vegetable."
A nearby Veyrathi said something.
Xheavend answered.
Qaritas pointed toward the plate.
"What is this?"
She translated the question.
Warakai answered.
"Veluun," Xheavend said. "The toasted
one."
Qaritas picked it up.
Bit.
Stopped.
Xheavend watched him.
"Well?"
He chewed.
"...That's annoyingly good."
Warakai's throat light pulsed.
Qaritas looked at him.
"He's laughing again, isn't he?"
"Yes."
"I'll win him over."
"You've known him forty minutes."
"Plenty of time."
The chief watched both of them.
One of his sensory fins angled forward.
Curiosity.
Qaritas pointed at Xheavend.
"You understand him?"
"Yes."
"Since when?"
"I don't know."
"That's not concerning at all."
"I didn't say it wasn't concerning."
Qaritas stared at her.
Something about the answer bothered him.
Not the language.
Something else.
He looked at her more carefully.
Female.
Stable for nearly an hour now.
Then remembered the forest.
Male.
Female.
Between.
Her panic.
**Make it stop.**
The way she'd looked at her own hands as though her body had
betrayed her.
Qaritas's expression slowly changed.
"Xheavend."
She knew that tone.
"What?"
"Yesterday."
Her face became still.
"The changing."
Nothing.
Qaritas watched her.
"You acted like you didn't know what was
happening."
"I didn't."
"But you've changed before."
Silence.
That was an answer.
Qaritas straightened.
"Xheavend."
She looked away.
Warakai watched them with all four eyes.
Several nearby Veyrathi did the same.
Xheavend exhaled through her nose.
Then—
"Since I was twelve."
Qaritas stared.
"What?"
"I've been able to switch since I was twelve."
Silence.
Complete.
Absolute.
Qaritas blinked once.
Then again.
"You're twenty."
"Yes."
"Eight years."
"Yes."
"You've been able to do that for **eight years**?"
"Yes."
"And you didn't tell me?"
"No."
Qaritas opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
"Goro knew."
Xheavend's expression gave her away before she answered.
Qaritas pointed accusingly at absolutely nothing.
"Of course Goro knew."
"He wanted me to keep it secret."
"Of course he did."
"He had reasons."
"He always has reasons. They're usually very irritating
reasons."
Xheavend's mouth twitched.
Qaritas wasn't finished.
"The entire time I knew you?"
"Yes."
"During training?"
"Yes."
"During missions?"
"Yes."
"While I was living with the two of you?"
"Yes."
Qaritas stared at her.
"You people are exhausting."
That almost earned a smile.
Almost.
Then Xheavend looked down at her hands.
The humor disappeared.
"What happened yesterday was different."
Qaritas went quiet.
"I can change," she said. "I've been able to
for years."
Her fingers curled.
"But I choose."
There it was.
The important part.
"I decide when."
Her voice lowered.
"I decide how long."
She swallowed.
"I decide which body is mine at that moment."
Qaritas said nothing.
"Yesterday I couldn't."
Her thumb rubbed slowly across her palm.
"I wasn't scared because being male was new."
She looked at him.
"I was scared because I couldn't make myself stop
changing."
That landed differently.
Qaritas remembered holding her while bone shifted beneath
his arms.
Male.
Female.
Neither.
Both.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Not transformation.
Loss of control.
Choice being stripped away.
Of course that had terrified her.
After Yzer—
of course it had.
Qaritas's jaw tightened.
"Why did Goro want it hidden?"
Xheavend hesitated.
Then:
"Because people use what they know about you."
Qaritas couldn't argue with that.
Not after Yzer.
Not after the Labyrinth.
Not after everything they'd survived.
"He taught me to fight with both."
Qaritas frowned.
"Both?"
"My bodies."
She raised one hand.
"When I was female, he trained me to understand how
people would fight me differently. What they'd assume I couldn't do. Where
they'd expect me to be weaker."
Her body shifted.
Not violently.
Not accidentally.
Deliberately.
Shoulders broadened.
Jaw changed.
Height increased.
Her voice settled naturally into its lower register.
Male.
Several Veyrathi upper eyes narrowed.
Warakai's fins angled sharply forward.
Xheavend ignored them.
"And like this—"
She flexed one hand.
"Different reach."
She shifted her stance.
"Different center of balance."
Another adjustment.
"Different strength distribution."
Qaritas watched.
This was nothing like yesterday.
No panic.
No bones desperately rewriting themselves.
No horror.
Every change was controlled.
Practiced.
**Hers.**
"Goro made me relearn everything," Xheavend
continued. "Footwork. Weapons. Grappling. Distance. How armor sits. How
people approach you. How they underestimate you."
She shifted female again.
Smoothly.
"And then he'd make me switch halfway through."
Qaritas stared.
"During a fight?"
"Usually."
"That sounds exactly like something Goro would
do."
"He broke my nose the first time."
"That also sounds exactly like something Goro would
do."
Xheavend smiled faintly.
"He said if I was going to have both sides of myself, I
needed to understand both."
Qaritas's expression softened.
Xheavend looked down.
"It wasn't only fighting."
That caught him.
"What do you mean?"
"Missions."
She leaned back against the dark wall.
"I learned how differently people treated me."
A pause.
"What they expected from a woman."
Another.
"What they expected from a man."
Her expression became distant.
"Who people were afraid of."
"Who they trusted."
"Who they talked over."
"Who they challenged."
"Who they expected to protect them."
"Who they assumed needed protecting."
Qaritas said nothing.
"I learned the struggles of both."
She looked at her hands again.
"And the advantages."
Her mouth twisted faintly.
"Neither side was easier."
Qaritas nodded once.
"No."
"My family understood that."
That word carried weight.
Family.
Not Yzer.
Never Yzer.
"My family taught me there wasn't one way I had to
exist."
She paused.
"And Goro taught me there wasn't one way to be
strong."
Qaritas went very still.
Xheavend continued more quietly.
"Strength doesn't look the same in every body."
A beat.
"It doesn't have to."
Something about that sounded so much like Goro that Qaritas
could practically hear the bastard saying it.
He rubbed his face.
"I hate when he's wise."
Xheavend smiled.
"He'd hate that you called him wise."
"Good."
Then her smile disappeared.
There were four other beings who knew.
Qaritas lowered his hand.
Something in her voice warned him.
"Who?"
Xheavend looked away.
For several seconds—
she didn't answer.
Then:
"There were four other beings who knew."
Qaritas lowered his hand.
Something in her voice warned him.
"Who?"
Xheavend looked away.
For several seconds—
she didn't answer.
Then:
"One was the Betrayer."
Qaritas froze.
"One?"
"Yes."
"Xheavend."
"Not now."
Qaritas stared at her.
"The Betrayer knew?"
"Before they died."
A cold line traveled through him.
Yzer's voice returned from Yeitshoja.
**When you're ready... I'll tell you what the Betrayer said
just before they died.**
Qaritas's face changed.
Xheavend saw it.
"You remembered."
"Yes."
She folded her arms.
"I don't know what they told him."
"Or if they told him anything."
"No."
"But they knew."
"Yes."
Qaritas looked at her.
Then at the Veyrathi chamber.
Then back.
A language Xheavend shouldn't understand.
A body she'd been able to alter for eight years.
A Betrayer who had known the truth.
Three others she wouldn't name.
Yzer promising information about that Betrayer's final words.
Too many pieces.
Not enough edges.
Three others she wouldn't name.
Qaritas hated puzzles that involved people he cared about.
"So yesterday—"
Xheavend interrupted.
"Wasn't the ability."
Qaritas nodded.
"It was losing control of it."
"Yes."
"Do you have control now?"
Xheavend considered the question rather than answering
automatically.
Then she shifted.
Male.
Waited.
Female.
Waited.
Somewhere between.
Then female again.
Every transition deliberate.
Her breathing remained steady.
"Mostly."
Qaritas accepted that answer.
Mostly was honest.
Mostly was enough for now.
He nodded.
Then narrowed his eyes.
"But we're returning to the part where Goro kept this
from me."
Xheavend sighed.
"Q."
"Eight years."
"Q."
"Eight."
Warakai said something.
Xheavend listened.
Then covered her mouth.
Qaritas's eyes narrowed.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Translate."
"No."
"Xheavend."
She was already laughing.
Qaritas pointed at Warakai.
"What did he say?"
Xheavend finally looked at him.
"He asked whether you always complain this much."
Qaritas stared at the Veyrathi chief.
Warakai's throat light pulsed.
Once.
Qaritas pointed.
"I liked you better before we could communicate."
Warakai said something else.
Xheavend laughed harder.
"What did he say?"
"He said he understands why Goro kept secrets from you."
Qaritas stared at Warakai.
Warakai's throat light pulsed.
Once.
"You don't even know Goro."
Xheavend translated.
Warakai answered.
She laughed harder.
Qaritas's eyes narrowed.
"What?"
"He said he's beginning to understand him."
Qaritas's face fell.
"Oh, fuck both of you."
Qaritas ate another piece.
Then some of the meat.
Then one of the silver roots.
Crunch.
Sweet.
Sharp.
Pickled.
He reached for another.
Around them—
conversation continued.
Meaningless sounds.
Clicks.
Resonance.
Soft consonants.
Then—
"...ship..."
Qaritas stopped chewing.
Looked up.
Warakai was speaking to another Veyrathi.
Qaritas frowned.
Xheavend hadn't translated.
Warakai continued.
Gibberish.
Then—
"...damaged..."
Qaritas slowly lowered the food.
"What?"
Xheavend looked at him.
"What?"
"Did you say something?"
"No."
Warakai continued speaking.
Qaritas listened.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Then:
**"...fuel..."**
His eyes widened.
Xheavend noticed.
"Q?"
He held up one finger.
Warakai stopped.
Qaritas stared at him.
"Say that again."
Warakai stared back.
Qaritas looked at Xheavend.
"Ask him to repeat the last sentence."
She did.
Warakai repeated it.
Qaritas heard—
gibberish.
Gibberish.
A word.
Another.
Then—
**"...your vessel requires fuel before it can
leave."**
Qaritas went completely still.
Xheavend hadn't translated.
He looked at her.
"You didn't say that."
"No."
"I understood him."
Now **she** went still.
Warakai's upper eyes narrowed.
Qaritas slowly looked down.
At the half-eaten food in his hand.
Then at the other dishes.
Then at Warakai.
Then back at Xheavend.
"...I ate something."
Xheavend stared at him.
"Obviously."
"No."
Qaritas pointed at the plate.
"I **ate something**."
Silence.
Xheavend looked down at the food.
Then back at him.
Warakai said something.
Qaritas understood only the final two words.
**"...what happened?"**
His face emptied.
"Oh, that's deeply concerning."
Xheavend leaned forward.
"What did he say?"
Qaritas looked at her.
"I don't know."
Pause.
"Most of it."
Another pause.
"But I'm starting to."