Alien Barbarian’s Little Human

17. Magog

CHAPTER 17

MAGOG

“ H ush your mouth!”

Nerita grabs my arm and drags me around the corner into a darkened chamber. She pulls a metal blast door shut behind us.

“Do you want to give these people false hope? Don’t say things like that.”

Her reaction puzzles me.

“I do not intend to give anyone false hope. I intend to give real hope. I do have a way to get us off the planet?”

“How? Do you have a spaceship tucked into your loincloth?”

“No. That would be impossible, even given advances in micronization technology.”

Her eyes close as she lets out an exasperated moan.

“Stop being dense. You can’t tell me you have advanced medical knowledge implanted in your brain, yet the concept of sarcasm escapes you.”

I consult my database.

“Ah, yes, sarcasm. When the sentiment expressed is at odds with the words spoken. A related concept to, but entirely separate from, literary irony.”

I can sense her frustration rising.

“But that’s not relevant to the conversation we are having, Nerita. My apologies. I am proposing we steal a ship from the Ataxians or the Alliance.”

Her eyes widen and fill with shock.

“Are you insane? Not only does that plan sound like suicide, it wouldn’t work. There's a planet wide embargo, this whole system is on lockdown. No ship is getting in or out without going through a gauntlet of artillery from either side. Or both.”

“I have a plan to deal with that as well, but I cannot fully articulate it until we steal one of the respective vessels. Trust me, my love. I will get us off this planet and to safety.”

“Did he just say my love?” Jessica asks.

“Jesica, sweetie, adults are talking,” Nerita says, patting Jessica on the head. “Why don't you see if Vel needs any help?”

Jessica pouts, but dashes off to do as she’s told. Nerita watches her go for a moment longer then turns an icy glare my way.

“Okay, you need to stop with this destined love business. We only just met, and it’s not like we have time for anything like that, anyway. Horus IV has gone to Hell in a handbasket, and it’s only going to get worse before it gets better. If we’re going along with this crazy plan of yours to steal a ship, then we need to focus on that, don’t you think?”

Her voice holds a note of desperation. It hurts me that she won’t even consider that my words about our past lives are true. But logically, I understand why she feels this way. From her perspective, we only met a few hours ago.

If my memories came back to me, perhaps hers can as well?

“Your patients are stable, for now. Is there a place we could speak with more privacy?”

She heaves a long sigh, then nods.

“Yes. I didn’t ask for it, but the others insisted I have the best quarters available. Such as they are.”

She leads me through a hallway whose collapse has created a pronounced leftwards slant. Her hands brace against the walls to keep her balance. I am able to compensate without the need for such.

We come out of the hallway into a tattered lobby for one of the ruined hotels Horus Iv had been known for. One of the padded sofas has been turned into her bedding. A pitcher of clean water sits on a table near the makeshift bed. She pours herself a cup and drains it in one breath.

Nerita sinks wearily onto the edge of the sofa and leans her forearms on her thighs. Then she fixes me with a pointed gaze.

“You wanted to talk? So, talk.”

I sit down beside her. I don’t think she expects this, because she shrinks away slightly.

“Nerita, I have been pushing both my machine and organic brains to find a way of convincing you that I’m speaking the truth.”

Her brows climb high on her face.

“You ean, about us knowing each other in a past life?”

I nod, and her lips purse tightly.

“I’m sorry, Magog,” she says, brow heavily furrowed “I’m j ust not sure that’s possible. What you’re talking about is one of the great debates of the galaxy: Are souls real? And what happens to them when we die? I know that a lot of people, Vautan in particular, think the answer is open and shut. Souls live on, and are sometimes reincarnated into a new body, as dictated by the will of the precursors.”

“There are many things in this galaxy which cannot be quantified in strict scientific terms. I can chart the physiological changes occurring inside of me when I look at you, Nerita. I can sense the faster heart rate, the increased respiration, the flow of blood to particular extremities--”

“Um, are you building up to a point here, Magog?”

A chuckle escapes my lips.

“Always with the rapier wit. Yes, I have a point. I can quantify these physiological changes, but not the particular feeling of warmth in my chest whenever I see you, or even just think of you. I cannot put parameters onto love.”

Nerita swallows heavily and turns her face away from my own. Color comes to her cheeks as she studies the steepled hands in her lap.

“How can you love me? Even if…and that’s a big if…I can entertain the idea of past lives, and that you knew me in one of them, I still don’t understand why you could possibly love me.”

A frown crosses my face. I dare to place my hand on her knee.

“I don’t see how it’s so hard to understand.”

“Are you kidding me? I’m the youngest of nine kids, my parents didn’t evne bother teaching me how to write my name. They figured the school would take care of it. I rub everyone the wrong way, sooner or later, and I’m picky and temperamental and…why do you think I had to come al the way out here to Horus IV? None of the other planets will have me.”

She looks up at me suddenly, her blue eyes questing, as if to see if her tirade has made me change my mind about loving her.

“So I don’t know what I was like in the other lives, if they’re for rea. In this one I’m a huge spain in the butt who nobody likes.”

“You sell yourself grievously short, Nerita. You could have abandoned all of the injured. Your prospects for survival increase exponentially if you do so. Yet, you have made sure to care for them as if they were your own blood. That is nothing short of noble.”

Her cheeks turn red and a nervous laugh flutters out of her lips.

“Oh, stop it. Now you’re just buttering me up.”

I search for the human phrase and discover its meaning.

“Yes, I suppose I am buttering you up indeed. Is it working?”

“What?” She sputters with laughter. “You can’t just come out and ask how effectual…you’re something else, big guy. I don’t know why you’re slumming it with me.”

“If you do not stop engaging in self-denigrating speech, I will silence you.”

She scoffs.

“How are you going to do that?”

“Like this.”

My lips brush against her own. The sublime softness lights up my nerves with pleasure. Just a brief kiss, quickly done. Or so I intend.

But as if in sudden relief, she clasps against me. Our kiss deepens. Memories meld with new sensations. Kissing Micah, kissing Chloe, and kissing Nerita is all the same, yet wholly different. The body is not the same, but the soul and the heart are.

As our limbs and hearts entwine, so do our souls. Our thoughts. I can feel her prickling about in my mind, and I likewise touch her own. Nerita’s struggles have been subtle, yet profoundly despairing in this life.

Her parents truly don’t seem to have much affection for her. Most of her siblings are either incarcerated or on the run. Nerita’s life has been hard. I will not let it end in tragedy. Not this time.

Nerita suddenly pulls away from me, her chest heaving with heavy pants. She licks her lips several times as she struggles to speak.

“Oh my god, Magog…I remember! Not everything, not yet, but I remember being Micah. Oh god, I always thought those were just crazy dreams…”

“Dreams, and yet not dreams.”

“Am I going to go crazy? Is there room in my head for three lifetimes of memories?”

I kiss her again, more tenderly.

“My love, if you take two candles and hold the flames together, they become one. Such it is with your past lives. Nothing is diminished or lost, simply unified.”

“You always did have a poet’s tongue, Varona…Gog. Magog. Shit, this is confusing.”

Her eyes snap open, and she stiffens up as a piece of timber.

“Wat’s wrong?”

“Oh my god, I just remembered…Svarz. The nanotech entity. He killed us the first time.”

“And the second.”

She grabs the bandolier on my chest and pulls in close, her expression and tone filled with urgency.

“Magog! I’ve seen him!”

“In your memories, my love?”

“No.” She vehemently shakes her head. “No, I’ve seen him here. I’m trying to tell you, Svarz is here on Horus IV.”