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“We’re clones?” one female sobs, as if the idea horrifies her.
Is it a surprise to the females, then? I have always known I am a clone. All splices are grown in labs and implanted with combat rules and regulations. I have distant memories of an older “Skarr” that won many battles, hence I have been created from his genetic material.
It makes sense to clone the best, after all.
As my gaze skims over the females, mentally, I dismiss them as combatants. They are not fighters. Even now they huddle and look soft and useless. Prizes, then. Or distractions. If they are surprised they are clones, they have not been implanted with battle memories and rules. They will not know how to play.
I eye the other splices nearby. The one nearest to me watches the females with glazed eyes. Praxiian dominant, if I don’t miss my guess. There’s a full-blooded praxiian as well, and what looks like a moden splice. And there’s even a soft-looking human male, his form hunched over with his arms crossed over his chest.
I size up his build. Another prize, I decide. That one won’t be winning any sort of combat trials.
All right. There are three other gladiators that look problematic and one mesakkah wearing furs and tending to the fire. I don’t know if he’s a combatant but he looks strong enough. This many females for so few males is puzzling, though. Do we win them through bouts? I’m not sure I want to win multiple prizes.
One female will be plenty.
I shift on my feet, sliding my tail closer to the fire. No clothes, no weapons. All right. I’ll have to rely on my teeth and my strength. I don’t have claws like the praxiians do, or horns like the mesakkah and one of the splices, but my scales are good armor. It’ll even the odds.
Kef, it’s cold. I’m not going to have to play up being sluggish. Everything in me aches. Truly, whoever is running this particular battle scenario could not have come up with a worse one for me. I move a little closer to the warmth yet again and cast another look at the gladiators. The other males have slitted eyes, assessing one another and I don’t want them to catch me doing the same. I focus my attention on the females instead.
If they’re to be prizes, I should pick out the one I want. A tall one, I decide. Perhaps the one with the bright yellow hair. She’s sharing a blanket with a smaller, softer-looking female who is terrified. Our eyes meet and she hunches down, quickly glancing away. She moves closer to the yellow-hair and I plan how to separate them and steal the one I want. Females tend to kick and scratch and flail, but a quickly snapped neck might do the trick. She won’t be more than a temporary problem. As I watch, she taps the message on her bracelet again, playing it once more.
“Okay, guys, listen up.”
A fur-clad female with golden skin and glowing blue eyes moves to the center of our huddled group, her hands raised to her shoulders. “Put your bracelets away. They probably all say the same thing. We don’t know if that’s the truth or not, and whoever dumped you here isn’t around to tell us. So here’s what we’re going to do. You’re all safe here with us. You’re probably tired and confused. You’re not going to think straight coming straight out of one of those pods. Trust me, I know. We’ll rest here overnight and then we’re going to get you khuis.”
Safe.
Khuis.
I narrow my gaze, watching the other males. They seem just as on-edge as me. No one is buying this “safe” nonsense. If they know what a “khuis” is, they’re not saying. They’re like me, ready to spring into action once the alarm sounds, or the bell rings, or whatever indication we have that things are beginning.
We’re waiting for the rules of the game.
The fur-wearing female isn’t aware of this, though. She continues to smile at all of us, turning to look at both females and males alike. “This planet requires that you have a symbiont to take care of you. With the symbiont, you’ll heal faster, and you won’t be so cold. You won’t feel it inside you, either, so don’t worry about that. Some of our friends are headed this way, and then we’re going to help you go back to our village on the beach. We’ll get you set up and comfortable. I just want you to know that you’re safe with us, and there are no alien overlords or slave owners or anything.”
That makes me pause. It sounds like no one is in charge of the game?
Perhaps there’s no game after all. Perhaps we’ve been cast out for being defective. My gut clenches. I don’t care what the bracelet or the woman in the image says. I know one thing and one thing only—how to battle. It doesn’t make sense for me to be here if there’s not a fight.
But the female must notice my skeptical look. “We have friends that used to be fighters and are now living peacefully with us.”
Peacefully…? I doubt that very much. Likely they are playing a long game and this foolish creature has mistaken it for peace.
I decide to test that theory. The cold makes my jaw clench, makes it difficult to spit words out. “What if…we…don’t want…to stay?”
She has an answer for this, too. “We’ll get you set up on your feet and give you enough food and clothing, and then you can go. No one’s keeping anyone captive. You’re free to do as you like. But we hope you stay and become part of our people. Our family.”
Family?
Fools. I am on a planet of fools.
Rubbing my hands near the warmth of the fire, I’m trying to keep from laughing aloud at the female speaking to the group. She thinks this place is friendly and kind?
Clearly she has no idea what is going on. Then again, neither do I. Is that part of this particular game, then? Are we to locate some sort of data pad with rules? Is that the first piece of the puzzle? I consider this.
The female with the glowing eyes continues to talk to the prizes—the soft ones that are clearly not here to fight—and reassures them. She tells them how she woke up here confused but the blue male with the horns helped her out. I eye the two of them together, and it is clear she is his prize.
So that is his method. He has tricked the female into coming to him. Clever. Very clever. I shall have to watch that one closely, see if I can learn his tricks.
