There was nothing remarkable about his posture. He was sitting still, cross-legged, staring at the far wall. He didn’t seem distressed or uncomfortable. Literally the only noteworthy thing about it was that he was behaving differently from the other dimari. But in a system as regimented as dimari training, I’dlearned that any variation from their standard baseline was cause for concern.
“What do you make of this?” I asked Kade, tilting the image towards him.
He stared at it, his face darkening into a deep frown. “That is most certainly not normal,” he said. “Did the doctor check all the dimari? Was she certain there were no injuries?”
I hastily pulled up the report Henderson had sent me earlier in the afternoon. “Nothing out of the ordinary reported. The harnesses in the crate kept them in their seats until the crate was safely retrieved, and none of them mentioned any pain or injuries when questioned. Major Toth says she specifically told them she wanted to make sure they were in good health to be presented to their masters – which is the driving force for an unbonded dimari – so if there were any problems, she’s confident they would have told her. Would you disagree with that?”
“No, that’s exactly what I would have done,” Kade confirmed. “They won’t go to sleep until you turn the lights out, so even if Jai was tired, he should still be maintaining normal protocols. It’s very odd," he concluded, with no further suggestions as to what the problem might be.”
I thought about what to do for a moment, while I shovelled forkfuls of pasta into my mouth. Perhaps I was overreacting – sitting on a mattress was hardly a punishable offence, after all – but if I’d learned nothing else over the past year, it was that dimari did not stray from their training without a good reason.
“I’m going to ask Major Toth to go and give Jai another check over,” I said, pulling up Toth’s contact in my comm. “Just to make sure nothing’s physically wrong.” I was almost hoping that shewouldfind something wrong with the dimari – a strained muscle, perhaps, or a bruise he hadn’t mentioned earlier? Because if there was nothing physically wrong withhim, then it almost certainly indicated that there was something psychologically wrong. And without a bonded master able to take responsibility for Jai’s mental state, I had absolutely no idea what to do about that.
CHAPTER FIVE
AIDEN
By the time half past eight rolled around the following morning, I was an absolute mess of nerves. Doctor Kyle Scrim had arrived just half an hour ago – the doctor who was adopting the dimari nurse – and we were currently in a meeting room across the hall from the conference rooms, wrapping up my final briefing to Kyle as to what to expect when he met his dimari. Kyle was a Solof, with dark, plum-coloured skin and I had a hunch that he was more nervous about this than he wanted to admit, given the way he kept fiddling with the end of his long, violet braid. At the far end of the table, Soka and Colonel Henderson were waiting quietly, trying not to interrupt the conversation.
“Give Nik as much detail as you can about his new life,” Kade was explaining, while Kyle listened intently. “Dimari are sent out with not only no idea who their new master will be, but no idea which part of the galaxy they’re being sent to. Tell him which sector we’re in, and what planet, and where on that planet we are. Explain what your job is and how his skills will fit in with your duties. It’s also likely that he may not recognisewhat species you are. Since Alliance species don’t buy dimari, we aren’t trained to know anything about you. And then explain that you’re going to take him back to your house, and that you’ll give him more information about his duties once you get there.”
“It’s also important to ask him if he has any questions,” I added, when Kade came to the end of his instructions. “In the early stages of a relationship, some dimari won’t ask questions unless they’re specifically invited to. As he gets more comfortable with you, he’ll likely open up a bit.”
Kyle nodded, though he didn’t ease up on his attempts to strangle his own braid. “I just have this fear that he’s going to know straight away that I don’t have a clue what I’m doing,” he admitted.
“He won’t,” Kade said, with far more confidence than I was feeling. “You know his name, you know his profession and so long as you look pleased to see him, he won’t think twice about the rest of it.”
Even after a year and a half, I still felt a flush of embarrassment at Kade’s words. At the point that I’d met Kade, I hadn’t known his name, nor his training specialty, and I hadn’t looked even remotely glad to see him. It was both fascinating and disappointing to know how badly I’d screwed up that initial meeting. But the fact that we were now many months down the track and thoroughly comfortable with each other was proof that even the rockiest of starts could be overcome.
“Any other questions?” I asked Kyle, doing my best not to rush him. Kade and I still had a mountain of work to get through today, as well as two dimari we still didn’t have even tentative masters for, and as patient as I was trying to be, there was a part of me that wanted to bustle Kyle into the room with his new dimari and be done with it.
“No, I think I’m all set,” Kyle said, straightening his shoulders and pursing his lips. “Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?”
From her seat at the end of the table, Soka stood up. “I’ll go and get him ready to be activated,” she said, giving Kyle a reassuring smile. She headed out the door and Henderson brought up the link to the conference room camera on his comm, projecting the image onto the rear wall of the room.
As we watched, Soka stepped into the conference room and loudly announced, “Nik? Your master has arrived. Please come with me.”
All the dimari were once again standing at ease at the ends of their beds – Jai included this time – and a dimari with pale blue scales stepped away from the mattress at the far end of one of the rows and moved towards Soka. She led him out of the room, and Henderson hastily switched over to the camera in the room next door. It was an almost identical conference room, with a row of tables down the centre. Soka led Nik to the far side of the room. “Stand with your back to the wall,” she instructed him. Then, just to make absolutely sure we had the right dimari, she asked, “What is your name?”
“My name is Nik,” the dimari replied stiffly.
“What is your training specialty?”
“I was trained as a nurse,” he said, just as robotically.
“Wait here,” she instructed him. “Your master will arrive shortly.”
She left the room and we watched the door close. She’d been instructed to lock it, then to let us know that everything was ready to go. A moment later, the door to the meeting room opened. “All set,” Soka reported, coming back in and closing the door. “Over to you.”
The next bit was Henderson’s part in the process. He activated the intercom function on his comm, accessing one of the speakers in the room. Then he read Nik’s activation sequence, in a slow, clear voice. Initially, I’d been concerned that we might accidentally activate more than one dimari, if therewas any way for those in the other room to overhear, but Kade had assured us that was impossible. “Each dimari has a unique activation code. Even if another dimari hears it, they won’t be activated by it,” he’d said.
“Your name is Nik,” Henderson began. “Activation sequence Alva Tervus Delic Rontolan. Be awakened. Be bonded. Your reason for drawing breath will walk through the door, and your soul will know them as Master.”
Holy fuck, I felt like we’d jointly just condemned an innocent man to hell. I clenched my jaw and blinked back tears. There was no other path forward for the dimari. Leaving them masterless was a death sentence. But even knowing that, I still felt like I’d just sent a man to the gallows. With a few simple sentences, we’d stripped him of his free will and placed him at the mercy of another person for the rest of his life.
But regardless of my guilt, on the screen in front of us, the change in the dimari was both immediate and fascinating. His shoulders relaxed and he looked around the room in a series of nervous movements, as if waking up from a dream. Then his gaze landed on the door. He stood up straight as he focused on it, then he gave a little bounce. As we watched, he made a visible effort to calm himself, then resumed his at-ease stance. But it was clear he was having a hard time staying still. Every few seconds, he would fidget, adjusting his clothes, smoothing over his hair. I glanced sideways at Kade, curious as to what he would make of the behaviour.
“He wants to make the best possible first impression on his master,” Kade said, giving me a coy smile. “It’s a very emotionally fraught time. Once a dimari is activated, they are desperately keen to meet their master, and it’s very difficult to control that excitement.”
