Page 35 of A World Enough

Camber turned over on her side to give Brogan her privacy. She heard Brogan dispense with her clothes, then heard a whine and the sound of paws on the metal floor.

Camber couldn’t sleep because she couldn’t relax for that long with another person around her. It was a defensive mechanism that had been drilled into her as far back as she could remember, because it could save her life. But if she pretended to sleep, it would let Brogan relax enough to pad around without feeling inhibited.

Camber did feel tired, and the soft whines coming from Brogan’s wolf were soothing in a strange kind of way. Her mind floated into nothingness.

Ninti could almost feel the tension around her laboratory as Davor made his way to her. Her younger scientists stood at attention at their stations.

She smiled as Davor entered.

“My dear Madam Ninti.” Davor took her hand and kissed it. “My dear. I hope I haven’t made your scientists too worried.”

Ninti leaned in to him and smiled, “Perhaps a little.”

She wasn’t expecting him today, and that made her a little worried.

“Would you mind if we had a quick meeting, my dear?”

“Of course, Davor.” She led the way to her office. “Perhaps I could offer you some Durian brandy?” Ninti said.

“That would be delightful, madam.”

“Please, sit down.” Ninti pointed to the soft but elegant couch.

“Thank you.”

Ninti took an elaborate twisted red bottle from her drinks tray. Durian brandy was so expensive and rare, only very few people had seen a bottle, far less tasted it. The bottle opened with a pop, and she poured out the drink into two miniature red crystal Durian flutes.

Ninti took the glasses over and handed one to Davor. He accepted his glass and said, “This is an excellent thousand year old bottle. You spoil me, madam.”

Davor held up his glass. “To the empire.”

Ninti mirrored his toast, while mentally she felt guilt and uneasiness. “The empire.”

Davor took his first sip and hummed in pleasure. “This is exemplary. Such a shame we were left with no choice but to destroy the Durians. Now all we have left is a small stock of this wonderful drink.”

Ninti mentally shivered. The choice was to give over their planet and their people, and worship them, or be destroyed. The Durians chose to die on their feet rather than serve the Abnobians on their knees.

A noble path, and one of the contributing factors to turning Ninti against her own people, and so she always kept a bottle of Durian brandy on her drinks table, to remind her of the noble stand the Durians made.

“What can I do for you, Davor?”

“I want an update on how your tests are going.”

“The genome tests are going slowly but in the right direction,” Ninti said.

He sighed. “Is there any resource that what help with your work?”

“Just time, I’m sorry to say. The resistance took great care to destroy every bit of research we had and corrupt the DNA fragments we had stored.”

The Abnobian warrior class had been their greatest achievement. They’d manipulated the DNA of their own kind so they were the strongest warriors, masters in every weapon. But there had been one warrior greater than all the rest, but she’d gone wrong and helped bring the empire down to its lowest ebb. They had been rebuilding for generations.

Davor leaned forward. “You know what I want. The greatest warrior we ever produced, Commander Redu.”

“Kartog is on a mission right now to find some fragments of her DNA,” Ninti lied.

Finding the Map Keeper and keeping her safe was the thing that mattered at the moment. The commander’s time would come, but not now.

“When we have all the fragments, she can be reborn, eventually.”