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On my back. I understand now what she means by this, and it is a knife to my stomach.
I expect the elder to be furious that my Brooks is seeking to defy her orders. I do not think that elders in the human tribes are very wise or considerate, but she surprises me by sighing, her features softening.
“Are you aberrant, Brooks? Is that the issue here?”
“Aberrant?” I say.
The memory pauses as my Brooks turns to me. “She means do I only find women attractive. I’m not aberrant.”
There is something almost pleading in her tone, as if she fears I will not believe her.
“I know, linasha, you would not be in the dreamspace with me if you did not at least find males as fine as you do females.”
“I don’t like women that way at all.”
I do not immediately understand the sharpness in her tone, but then the implications of the word ‘aberrant’ settle over me.
“Humans think this is a bad thing?”
My confusion must ring in my voice because the defensiveness leaves my linasha’s body immediately.
“Raskarrans don’t?”
Now it is her confusion that echoes round the dreamspace.
This is a distraction from her memories, but I feel it is an important one.
“Lina decides,” I say. “She chooses our mates in who we meet in the dreamspace. If Lina chose two males, or two females together, then it is because she sees in them qualities that will make them very happy together. If two people are very happy together, then how can it be a bad thing?”
Once more, I see her thoughts warring in her eyes. What she has been told by Mercenia fighting against the simple logic of my words. The human females have learned many wrong things from their old tribe, and unlearning them has been a battle they have all gone through. But my Brooks is clever. It does not take her long.
“It can’t be,” she says.
I do not know if it is this realisation, or something deeper, that makes her rock on her feet. She drops to the floor, sitting down before she can fall, the memory remaining frozen around us. I go to her, sitting beside her, but refrain from touching her, no matter how my heartspace aches to crush her to my chest. I sense that she needs a moment, needs space.
“I’m realising that so much of what Mercenia did, what they believed was so messed up,” she says. “I thought - I always thought - that they were right about everything. Working for them, fighting for them, was to protect the way of life of the people who lived under them, and I thought that was good and right. I thought it was an honour.”
“Because you have a warrior’s heartspace. You want to protect those in your tribe who cannot protect themselves.”
She looks at me, almost panicked in her eyes. “But what was I protecting them from?”
I have no good answer to this question. “I imagine you fought to protect them from whatever your elders told you to.”
“Like a good little soldier.” Her tone is bitter. “They told me to protect them from you. That was my mission. Protect the research team. Protect them from the alien threat.”
“And you hit me round the head to incapacitate me when we met.” I cannot help but grin at the memory, even as I recall the throbbing pain of it. “You did not kill me though, my Brooks.”
“I probably should have. My superior officers would have wanted me to.”
“And yet, you did not. Why?”
“Because…” She frowns, then the scene around us changes, and I am faced with a memory of myself and my Brooks in the Mercenia hut. That first time of coming upon her in the waking world. From this new perspective, I can see how wide my eyes grew when I saw her - surprise, yes, but delight also. I see better how my linasha is caught off guard by my presence. She has her weapon in hand, but she has waited patiently, I think, hiding until we are all asleep so she does not have to use it. Fear and determination fill her in equal measure. She is a clever warrior. Knows to pick her battles, but is prepared to fight unexpected ones all the same. Admiration for her surges afresh in my chest. Magnificent. That is what I thought her at the time, and I find her only more so now.
In the memory, I raise a hand towards her, overcome by my surging desire and admiration. The memory freezes just short of me touching her. Just short of her hitting me.
“Gentle,” my Brooks said. “You were so gentle. I saw it. Even without consciously recognising it. I made all those decisions in a moment. To take you out, but not to finish the job. To run for the trees. And when I thought back on it, the idea of killing you felt wrong.”
Because her heartspace recognised me in some way, I do not doubt. Lina spoke to her through my actions and through her observations, whispering to her spirit to stay her hand.
