"I knew," Poley said matter-of-factly.
"Then why didn't you say something, tin pants?" RJ asked harshly.
"You didn't ask," Poley said shrugging.
RJ sighed and popped herself in the head with the palm of her hand.
"Why do you do that?" Poley asked curiously.
"Because it feels so good when I quit," RJ explained with a grin.
"Hum. . . disposable plastic wrapping on all the beds," RJ said under her breath. "Probably no chance of getting any decent samples in here."
"I can hardly hear you," Poley said. "Why are you whispering?"
"I'm not whispering, and I'm not talking to you," RJ snapped back. She usually had more patience with Poley. She didn't know why she felt so edgy. It was true she didn't like to be surprised, and she sure as hell didn't like changing her plans at the last minute, but it wasn't like she wasn't used to having odd pieces thrown in where they didn't belong. On the contrary, if everything had gone perfectly according to plans then she would have been
really
worried.
She started looking under mattresses to see if perhaps something had been missed in the cleaning.
"Who are you talking to then?" Poley asked as he followed her looking under the bottom mattresses as she looked under the top.
"Huh?" RJ asked.
"If you aren't talking to me, then who are you talking to?" Poley asked again.
RJ sighed knowing what her answer would do to his circuits. "I was talking to myself, Poley."
"That doesn't make any sense, RJ. Talking to your self is a sign of mental instability," he said with as much concern as he was able to convey.
"I never claimed to be mentally stable, Poley. In fact I've taken being crazy to its highest possible level!" RJ shrieked coming to the end of her patience.
"Oh," Poley said simply.
"What is that supposed to mean?" RJ snapped at him.
"Nothing," Poley said quickly.
"Don't you nothing me, metal head. What did you mean by, 'Oh?'"
"You're acting irrationally, you're irritated and nervous, obviously you're cycling," Poley said.
"Poley
. . .
" RJ laughed, stopped what she was doing and moved to put an arm across his shoulders. "Poley I don't have periods, you know that."
"You don't bleed from your sexual organs that's true, but you do have hormonal cycles. I've noted them; would you like to see a chart?" Poley asked helpfully.
RJ pulled away from him stiffening. "So basically what you're saying is that while Stewart made me incapable of reproducing, he didn't do away with my PMS. Now isn't that just fucking beautiful? Doesn't that just figure in?"
She stomped out of the bunkroom, and Poley followed. "Do you
want
to have babies, RJ?" Poley asked curiously.
"It doesn't really matter what I want," RJ hissed. "Just like everything else, it was decided for me before I was born, from the way I look to what I'd do. There was never any chance that I'd be anything but a soldier; it was built into my biological make up. I'd have PMS, but I wouldn't have any babies. I'd be damn near indestructible. I'd out live everyone
. . .
"
"Except me," Poley said with a smile.
"Talking to myself or talking to a robot – what's the difference!" she screamed at him.
He stopped in his tracks and looked down at his feet looking genuinely rejected.
"I'm
. . .
I'm sorry, Poley. God, I don't know what's gotten into me today." She moved to hug him.
"It's just the PMS," Poley said. He even patted her on the back.
"I think it has a lot to do with leaving Earth. It makes it all seem so final." She shrugged and moved away from him.
"We will miss Mickey," Poley said.
"Yes," RJ said. "We will miss Mickey. And as stupid as it may sound I think I am going to miss staring out at what used to be Alsterase and remembering all that I have lost."
"Maybe remembering what you have lost reminds you of what you had, and what you had was good," Poley said.
RJ realized that he was right and felt doubly guilty for having screamed at him. In many ways he often acted more human than she did.
Janad awoke to the sound of movement in the mess hall. She looked out the crack in the door and saw a white headed woman and a stiff, dark headed man removing the bodies. They left and then came back for another load. Janad took a long look at the female; she was not like any being Janad had ever seen before. Not like them and not like the Reliance people, and neither was the male. She remembered talk of the other aliens the ones the Reliance fought with and deduced that these must be those aliens. Except that they spoke the Reliance tongue, and that didn't seem to make any sense. Besides the others had looked like Reliance. In fact this man
looked
Reliance, it was the way he moved that was all wrong. He was quick but stiff, and strong but his muscles didn't expand or contract with movement. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but there was something peculiar about him.
The woman turned then, and Janad was sure that the woman had found her. She was a beautiful creature, tall and well muscled. Obviously she was no stranger to combat. She moved with the grace of an animal stalking prey. Her hair was as white as anything Janad had ever seen, her eyes as blue, and her skin was a beautiful bronze. She wore a sleeveless black jump suit and black boots. There was a chain wrapped around her waist, and in the coils of the chain was a weapon similar to what the Reliance men carried – only much bigger.
The male was still moving, and the woman put a hand on his chest. "Listen," she ordered, and he stopped.
"There is someone in the room with us," he said matter-of-factly.
Janad froze. How could they know? She hadn't moved a muscle, hadn't made a sound except for her breath and the beating of her heart. She held her breath and watched through the crack as they moved closer. They knew right where she was. She had to take action, and it had to be quick.
When they were almost to the locker she kicked the door open and jumped, springing like a cat from her perch on the locker floor. She started to jump at two feet above the deck and sailed through the air and over their heads. She landed clean and took off running. They followed.
"Boys we've got company, and she's heading your way. Catch her alive," RJ ordered over her wrist communicator.
"I'm trying to pilot a ship here, RJ!" Levits replied angrily.
"Then I wasn't talking to you, was I," RJ spat back. "She's heading for the hold. You can cut her off if you move now."
Janad would have made a jump for the tiles and the relative safety of the service grid, but the woman was right behind her and gaining ground fast. She rounded a corner, and an older man grabbed her. She elbowed him in the ribs and escaped, but the second man was younger and stronger, and he grabbed hold of her wounded arm. She slung her fist into his face.
"You fucking little bitch!" he screamed doubling over with pain as the blood poured from his nose.
The woman was almost upon her; she jumped up and through one of the tiles, heading for the safety of the service grid. But before she had time to know what was happening the woman was in the small space with her. She jumped on Janad, and they both went crashing through the ceiling onto the floor. The blond woman landed on the bottom, and Janad expected the woman's grip on her shoulders to at least relax a little, but it didn't. When she looked into the face of her opponent, the woman was smiling as if she had won some great victory. If she was hurt at all in the fall she wasn't showing it. These two things together really made Janad angry, and while she knew there was no escape she kicked the woman in the shins hard anyway.
To Janad's added frustration and astonishment the woman just laughed at her, then in one motion, she jumped to her feet hauling Janad with her.
Even this show of strength didn't stop Janad from fighting to get free. She kicked at her opponent and squirmed in her arms.
"It's a GSH!" David screamed pulling his weapon.
"It's not a GSH," RJ laughed. "Put your weapon away." She looked the girl over. Her hair was short and curly. She was well muscled, and her brown skin shone with the sweat from her exertion. She was only five-six, obviously wounded and probably sick, yet she was still stronger than any of the men RJ had with her. She wore a simple loin-cloth made of red cotton fabric and a short vest made of reptile skin that was laced up the front with a piece of leather thong. There were three strings of large glass beads around her throat. Her hands were callused, her vision quick and challenging, and her stance that of a battle veteran. RJ was sure that the girl had seen combat or had at the very least been combat trained.
"She's an attractive creature," RJ said conversationally.
"What the hell is she?" David asked wiping the blood from his nose and face.
"She's a Beta 4 humanoid," Poley said. He put one hand on David's forehead, grabbed his nose with his other hand and gave a sharp tug putting David's nose back where it belonged.
"God damn it, Poley!" David hollered, taking the handkerchief Poley offered and holding it to his nose.
"It was busted," Poley defended.
"You might have said something before you did it," David whined. His vision was still blurred, and he felt like the bleeding would never stop. He leaned his head back. "She's an alien then?"
"Yes," RJ said matter-of-factly.
Topaz was still doubled over trying to catch his breath. He glanced up at the girl and took a double take. "That's no alien," Topaz said forcing himself to straighten. His cracked ribs were already starting to heal. "That, boys and girls, is a black woman."
"Well, duh," David said. "We can tell that she's female and that she's black."
"She's brown," Poley corrected.
"I know what you mean," RJ said looking at Topaz curiously. "Like those people in some of the old pictures that Marge showed us. You said there used to be lots of them."
"That's right," Topaz said. "Among their many faults The Reliance are also white supremacists. They were white, and so they wanted an all-white race. They gave fewer breeding permits to the blacks, Orientals, and Hispanics. Then they very carefully crossbred everyone so that we eventually wound up being basically the same color. If they have their way, in another hundred years everyone will basically be the color of our good friend Levits."
"But Topaz
. . .
how would a black human wind up on Beta 4?" RJ asked. Not even seeming to notice the squirming girl in her arms.
"I'm sure I don't know. Perhaps like you, RJ, she is a hybrid, taking all her external makeup from the one race." Topaz drew nearer and looked at the girl closely. "I'm telling you, RJ, I'm sure that this creature is no more alien than you are. Maybe a hybrid, but at least part of her heritage is human."
"She is hurt," Poley said as he moved forward and touched the wound taking a good look. The girl howled in pain.
"See? She doesn't like it any better than I did," David said glaring at Poley.
"It's infected," Poley informed.
Topaz looked at the wound and nodded. "We may have to sedate her happy ass in order to take care of it."
"Topaz, if she isn't human – and you can't be sure that she is – something that might sedate us might very well kill her," RJ said.
"That is correct," Poley agreed.
"Like the Pronuses you take," David said showing his understanding.
"I ran a quick scan on the tissue sample I found in the hold. Their DNA is different than human DNA," Poley said.
"Every living creature's DNA is different, tin pants," Topaz said. "A black human's DNA is going to be different than the homogenized DNA of Reliance-bred humans, but we're all still human. Except you."
Janad listened to them talk. She couldn't understand everything they said. They talked faster than the Reliance people had, and they used what she assumed were slang words, but she did understand that they wanted to take care of her wounded arm. Obviously at least for the moment they meant her no harm. She quit squirming.
"Finally give up, huh?" the woman said with a laugh.
"Yes. You are stronger than I am."
They all stared at her.
"She speaks Reliance," the older man said, sounding more than a little shocked.
"If they've been trading with the Reliance it makes sense that some of them would," the woman said thoughtfully. "So. girl, why did you run?"
"Why wouldn't I?" Janad answered. "I no longer know who the enemy is."
The woman released her. "As long as you don't try anything we aren't your enemy. Try anything stupid, and we'll kill you on the spot. Topaz, Poley, take our little friend down to the sickbay and see what you can do to fix her arm, and
. . .
"