She tucked a fallen strand of gray hair behind her ear, took a deep breath, and passed her hand over the console controlling the tanks. The biometric scanner underneath her hand confirmed her identity. She programmed the workstation to flood the pods with a lethal dose of sedative in order to buy time. And walked away.
In the adjoining lab she opened up the safe with the fertilized ova, setting the tubes marked “female” into a specimen container. Twenty tubes marked “male” went into a second container. Small enough for her to carry easily, the containers would keep the ova from deteriorating for years if necessary. All she had to do was get them away from this place, far beyond the reaches of the council.
* * *
—
Andret was a name that NT527’s Tante had given him. It was a name he was going to miss. He knew that once he left the creche, NT527 was going to become his “name.” He was packed to go, eager almost, his body ready and primed, instincts pushing him into quick and easy aggression. Sometimes those instincts got away from him, snaking through him like lightning, and the training at the creche was no longer enough to contain it.
He was down to needing only a couple of hours of sleep, and no amount of exercise or drills were enough to tire him out. Soon he would not need sleep at all. Even now, he could easily slip in and out of the donai rest-state that replaced sleep.
Andret was ready. Ready to fight, to defend. He was ready for more. He wanted to test himself, to push his limits.
As the oldest donai at the creche, he was bigger, faster, and stronger than his brothers. They no longer posed a challenge, and he’d squeezed too hard, punched too hard more than once. Even the human trainers in their armor no longer wanted to spar with him.
He turned, restless in the small, dark room. Even in the darkness, he could see as clearly as if it were day. Motes of dust floated by. Heat flowed along conduits inside the walls. He could even hear the breathing of the younger donai sleeping in the next room.
Human footsteps echoed down the corridor. He could tell it was Tante Calyce from the rhythm of her gait.
She stopped in front of his door, and he heard her take a deep breath. Fear tainted her scent.
He sat up as the door slid open. The lights came on. His eyes adjusted almost without delay, the leaves of layered, engineered irises falling into place to shield him. The patterns of heat over her body indicated stress. In each hand, she carried a specimen container.
“I need a pilot,” Tante Calyce said. The stress in her voice was like a scream, even though she’d whispered her words. Small for a human, gray hair pulled back at the nape of her neck, she had bright blue eyes surrounded by fine lines that matched the ones around her mouth. A red tunic topped matching trousers and black, polished shoes.
He stood up. “Yes, Tante. Where would you like to go?”
“Away from here, Andret. As far away, as fast as you can.”
The look on her face forbade any questions, any argument.
He pulled on a shirt, trousers, and boots as impatience tightened the set of Tante’s shoulders. He followed her out, slowing to match her pace as she walked toward the launch bay. To the other humans in the creche, she would look like she was going on about her day, casually walking down the hall with him as escort, perhaps toward some task that needed donai strength. But they didn’t have his senses, and his senses told him that she’d rather be running.
The launch bay lit up as they entered. Ships, large and small, fast and slow, gleamed in their berths, waiting. In less than an hour, human instructors and donai students would be flying them over the training range.
“This way, Tante,” he said as he headed for a small fighter. He’d planned on taking the ship up later, prepping and arming it before he’d gone back to his room to “rest.”