The Betwixt Book One (29 page)

But try as I might, I couldn't stop looking at the Commander
out of the corner of my eye – flashing a glance his way every time
I was sure he was too busy glaring at the Hantaris. It always
happened like this with me, I would go along in a hazy little
dream, until I realized with absolute gut-clarity that I had fallen
for someone.

I wasn't a romantic at heart, I was a halfy – and I often fell
for beings, human or alien, that wouldn't want a shade of me. I
didn't have Claudia's charm, or confidence. I had impossible white
hair and an almost human face.

But none of that mattered right now. The second I'd brushed up
against the Commander, come pounding into his chest like a heart
ripping away in some ribcage – I'd turned to mush. There hadn't
been anything between us in that moment – neither physical
distance, nor my over active mind.

And if there's nothing betwixt, then things are as close as
they can get.

I put a flat hand on my stomach and tried not to let my
imagination overcome me as the elevator hurtled upwards. After the
first couple of floors the back of the elevator, which was
completely clear tech-glass, gave a sudden view of the planet
below. It was startling, breathtaking – or at least it would be if
I'd had any breath any to spare. Still, it was a sight to
see.

The planet below was heading to dusk – the long orange light
spreading over some massive city till it glinted off the tech-glass
and metal – sparkling like a handful of Old Earth glitter. The
buildings were tall and sleek – standing up like little branch-less
trees, reaching so tall it looked like night between them. I could
see the hover cars whizzing about them too, in their straight
ordered lines of traffic. The sun just glittered off everything –
just lit it up till my eyes couldn't take it all in.

It was beautiful, just beautiful. The kind of view that made
me want to adventure around the galaxy, to see what she had to
offer. But just as soon as our glimpse of the planet below became
visible, the elevator took a turn that directed us back into the
middle of the terminal – back to a view of a standard metal
elevator tube.

I blinked slowly, still staring at the tech-glass.

The Hantaris soon hopped off the elevator, almost hitting me
in the face as one of them swung some long package around. The
Commander put up a hand to stop it, and gave a grim, only nearly
polite smile to the alien as he stepped out the doors.

That just left the two of us again. I uncontrollably took a
gulp of air, as if I were readying myself for some deep
dive.

‘
Olin.’ The Commander said, out of the blue.

‘
Sorry?’ I squeaked.

‘
It's the name of the city below, and the planet.’

‘
Oh . . . it was . . . it's
beautiful.’

‘
Yeah, it is.’

We descended into silence. This time a far sharper, far more
acute silence than I had ever shared with the Commander. He could
tell, I realized with another gulp, he could tell I was standing
barely a meter from him, crushing like a schoolgirl. How pathetic
he must think I was, how naive. The strong, handsome Commander and
the awkward, accidental-hero waitress.

‘
Here we are,’ the Commander stepped forward just as the
elevator drew to a halt, the doors snapping open
silently.

I set my mouth into the only smile I could manage, and
followed him at a distance. Oh lordy lord – why did I have to be
this ditsy? I was really . . . not behaving like
myself . . . 

‘
It should be a short walk to the right docking bay.’ The
Commander strode on ahead.

I felt as torn as I had when my non-human side had taken over
me to fight the Twixt at the dig site. But it was a different type
of torn – it wasn't active, aggressive – pulling against me like it
was trying to draw and quarter me. It was . . .
calmer. My human mind felt like a whirl of pink and love hearts,
while my other side sat back with a warm smile on her
lips.

I was confused, that was all there was to it – just
confused.

‘
Like I said before, let me do all the talking. And I should
warn you – Rain Men are . . . . just be
diplomatic, don't stare at him, and don't touch his books.’ Jason
kept striding on ahead.

Ah! I had to snap out of it. There was a job to do. So what if
I wanted to scamper off to some quiet place and squeak and jump up
and down like an excited chipmunk. I was being a silly, silly girl.
People were relying on me, hell, the galaxy was relying on me. Now
was not the time for anything, save a cool head and a collected
disposition. I was about to meet the only being who had any real
chance of helping me survive the Twixts . . . and
yet I was still thinking about Jason.

I chewed so ferociously on my lips as we walked that it was a
wonder I didn't eat them right off. But all too soon the Commander
turned down a far smaller corridor, and stopped in front of a big
airlock that read 'A45' in scratched optic-paint.

‘
Here we go,’ he straightened up, brushing some non-existent
dirt off his armor. ‘I can't believe I'm actually doing this,’ he
added under his breath.

No, nor could I believe my own state of mind. In the middle of
a mission to save the galaxy, I was falling head-over-heels for a
GAM Commander, for no better reason than I'd stumbled accidentally
into his arms. It was so outrageously . . . so
ridiculously . . . so impossibly foolish. This stuff
didn't happen outside of crappy holomovies and human romance
fiction. In the real galaxy, feelings developed over time – mutual
attraction, and so forth.

Oh, who was I kidding? I'd liked the Commander from the moment
I'd met him, now I was just exquisitely aware of that fact. And why
shouldn't I be? I was moments from possibly finding out my true
destiny – my mind was reeling, overwhelmed. It was looking for some
strong arms to hold it in place, and apparently I'd just found
them.

I tried to keep my eyes off him as we entered the airlock. I
was finally about to meet the Rain Man, after all.

‘
Ready?’ The Commander walked through the airlock doors as they
sunk back into the wall with a mechanical whirl.

He didn't wait for my reply.

Chapter 16

So this was it, this was actually it. Everything over the last
several weeks had been building to this point. I was about to
finally find some answers to my impossible number of questions. And
the feeling of anticipation was building in me like a corked and
shaken champagne bottle. I couldn't decide whether I wanted to just
run in through the airlock, find the Rain Man, and blurt my heart
out in one continuous, adrenaline rushed snap; or whether I wanted
to take things slowly and ever so carefully, maybe even reach out
to catch the Commander's hand, and face this together.

My nerves were making me skittish, making my gait uneven and
uncoordinated as we walked through a massive corridor. The hall
before me was wide enough to park a small cruiser in, and
sufficiently long that I couldn't see what lay in store for me at
the other end. I was glad the Commander was several steps ahead, I
didn't want him to see me lumbering about like I'd just been
drugged. He already had enough reason to find me less engaging and
capable than a scoop of space dust.

The corridor, fortunately, had its distractions though. It was
lined with . . . with art. With actual framed
paintings, photos, and holophotos. They were of the most vivid,
intricate, and alien landscapes I could imagine. A two-meter-long
painting of a double moonscape over the water planet Isis almost
had me draw to a halt to contemplate its amazing color. The blues
and grays. made me feel as if I were standing in front of an
active, billowing cloud. Then there was a holophoto of the great
ravines and canyons of Acaria – a bare, rocky planet famed for its
over mining and deadly cliffs. I felt like I was falling into some
dark chasm just by walking past.

There was even a photo of Earth in there – an actual 2D, Old
Earth standard photo from some time way distant. It was in black
and white and showed the sunrise over some pyramids in a desert
somewhere. I'd never seen anything like it, and if it weren't for
the two humans standing in the foreground of the photo, I would not
even have been able to place its origin.

But still, even as I walked, and every piece of art seemed to
engage my senses like a blast of rain-soaked air, I still felt the
nerves coalesce and climb within me. In fact, if anything, they
only mounted far faster as I saw the sheer extent of the Rain Man's
ability to collect. If he had photos from Old Earth, what
information might he have on my people? Could I hope for the same?
Might he have a picture, a book, an object – even a
holomovie?

I felt the anticipation in my face most of all – in the
fullness of my nostrils as I sucked in each breath, in the tingling
heat of my cheeks, in the stretch of my eyes as they opened to
full.

Finally, we came to the end of the corridor. It opened up
before us into a great circular room - with a massive, domed
ceiling. Even though the room was amazing - this great orb, with
curved walls packed completely with books of all shapes and sizes,
data files, and holodiscs - my eyes skipped straight to the
ceiling. It was a star chart. Except it wasn't at the same time. It
wasn't some lifeless 2D painting of the stellar map of the Milky
Way. Nor was it some cheap rendering of a huge holoimage plastered
across the entire dome above. No, it was . . .
alive. It shifted and moved, pulsed and throbbed like it were the
belly of some great creature that was made out of the very stars
themselves.

I couldn't quite describe it, couldn't quite understand what
it was or where it came from. But it was engaging, enthralling -
like standing outside in space, seeing all its wonder, all the
stars, constellations, gaseous nebulas - all at once. The colors
were sharp, vivid, like I could taste them on my tongue, roll them
around until their sweet tang left me wanting no other food ever
again.

My head had dropped back, my face, my eyes completely locked
on the ceiling above. But I couldn't help it, this was
amazing!

That's when I felt the Commander's flexible, armor-covered
hand gently drop onto the back of my head and push tenderly until
my face came back to the vertical.

He looked amused, I noted with a reflexive dimple of my chin,
possibly at the fact I must have looked like an idiot gawking up
like that. Who knows, my jaw had probably dropped open and I'd
started drooling on the ground.

‘
It's just a 5th Generation Star Gazer. It's a sped-up version
of the galaxy – shows the evolution of stars and nebulas from
collated telescopic images from various races, various points of
the Milky Way.’ He pointed up to a little device just visible under
the heavy blanket of stars. ‘It's expensive stuff, but nothing that
fancy. We use the same technology in our Cartography room. It was
developed by the Hantari, and it's pretty cool technology, it
allows us to have real-time estimates of the—’

I looked sideways at him, lips only a little dropped, but the
fact he'd lost me still as obvious as a forty-foot sign painted in
neon green. ‘Oh, that's—’

His chin wavered, and for a second I thought he'd break into
one of his unnatural half-smiles again. But he chuckled instead,
shifted his tongue around his mouth, and shrugged. ‘But I guess you
don't actually care about that. It still looks amazing,
right?’

‘
Right,’ I confirmed emphatically.

‘
That being said, you might want to look sharp, because our
host is in this room.’ Jason returned his face to neutral, clasped
his hands before him, and stood up till he looked the perfect
picture of a capable GAM Commander.

While all I could do was I press my lips in and let the flush
take to my face like a soldering laser to a hull breach. I had just
been gawking at the ceiling in front of the Rain Man – one of the
most mysterious and knowledgeable races in the Galaxy. But that
being said, where was he?

I carefully pivoted my neck, peered this way and that, while
trying to maintain a ramrod position. Honestly, where was this guy?
I couldn't see a massive, tentacled alien cataloging the books, or
some tall, scant apparition wafting up amongst the stars. Was the
Commander just having me on?

I went to step forward, to turn, to get a better look around
me, but the Commander had a hand on my arm quicker than I could
blink. And it was firm enough to lock me in place.

‘
Don't move,’ he hissed quickly, ‘you have to watch were you
are putting your feet.’

I looked at him in complete confusion and shock, then only
looked towards my feet once he pointed a black-clad finger
down.

There was . . . a bug. No, more like an ant. It
was blue and looked slightly larger than your average ant, with an
opalescent exoskeleton that caught the light in a very pretty way.
But it was still an ant. Granted, this ant appeared to be staring
up at me, but he was still an ant.

I flicked my eyes back to the Commander who was still holding
my arm just a tad too tight. ‘What—’ I began.

‘
Rain Man,’ he mouthed. Then very carefully let go of my arm,
and, checking behind him with a sharp sweep of his head, stepped
backwards. ‘Thank you for agreeing to my request,’ he said, voice
booming.