When the guy shuffled back in, pallid and sweaty, Top continued.
“Physical attributes of the Baelese. At one time they were much like humans, but over time their bodies evolved to be more efficient. Most of them are born with three or four arms.” Yes! The woman who’d witnessed the landing said this! First Sergeant surged forward, ignoring our gasps and whispers. “That is why we checked each of you when you arrived. Apparently the Baelese who infiltrated human ranks surgically removed their extra arms, though the scarring is so minimal it’s barely noticeable. Moving on. Their hair is thick and wiry. By wiry I mean you can literally shape it in your hands, smooth it down, curl it around your finger. It’s weird as hell.”
Remy and I shot each other shocked looks. No wonder all of the DRI women’s hair always looked immaculate!
“Their skin is stronger and thicker than ours. At the cellular level, they have a type of cell wall, similar to plants here on Earth, and it makes them less susceptible to infection or minor injuries.”
The medical enthusiast in me was fascinated and wished for a microscopic slideshow.
“On a cultural level, they are a matriarchal society. Their females are highly logical and driven for survival. They’re the masterminds and the males are the muscle, not to mention the sperm donors. And this is where it gets really interesting.”
When Linette smirked I knew we were in for something weird.
“Baelese woman are born with only five to fifteen eggs, total. Unlike the rest of their biological makeup, their eggs donothave cell walls. They are extremely fragile in comparison to human eggs. For this reason, the Bael people are not able to perform any sort of ‘test tube’ conceptions, surrogacies, or in-vitro procedures. Also unlike humans, they cannot conceive at any given time of year. Their women are fertile only once every eighteen months. During that time, their society basically shuts down normal operation in a desperate attempt to continue the race. As far as we can tell, it is their one true downfall. And it gets better.”
Remy and I leaned forward.
“They only, and I meanonly, perform reproductive acts during this mating season.” A few of the men scoffed, and First Sergeant nodded, continuing. “Because for the Baelese men, the hormones that are excreted in their bodies during this time, have a drug-like effect on them, and it is addictive.”
Linette bounced her eyebrows up and down once without smiling or otherwise moving. Outright chuckles of disbelief filled the air now, and I found myself smiling at the outlandish ridiculousness of it. But Top remained dead-serious.
“I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it for myself,” he said.
Um . . . what? Remy sent me anEw!glance. Rylen leaned back, arms crossed. He’d heard all of this already, I realized. His shell-shocked expression this morning and lack of shock now made perfect sense.
Top gave Linette a nod and she pushed another button. Dear God, what were they about to show? I braced myself.
A video began of a man with DRI appearance tied to a chair in a nondescript, dimmed room. Remy gasped and grabbed my hand. I looked closer and I could make out a third hand pinned to his side, then a fourth. A shiver raked my spine as I watched four hands wiggle to find comfort in their restraints.
“This is the Baelese man we apprehended soon after his vessel landed in Nevada. We questioned him for two weeks and he wouldn’t say a word. At first we believed he couldn’t understand us.”
I sucked in a breath when the video showed a hand striking out against the man’s face, then the other side of his head. They were beating him. He let his head swing from one side to the other, blood dripping from his mouth, but he never spoke. As the video time-lapsed I squinted at the violence, and Remy turned her head to the side, looking away. Even as our enemy, it was hard to watch.
“So we decided to try another tactic.”
The sound, which had been off before, came on with a crackle, and Linette entered the video. I went very still as I watched her stalk around him. He looked nearly dead. Honestly, if he weren’t being held upright with ropes he would have been a puddle on the ground. His head hung down.
“All right now,” Linette’s sultry voice was a soothing purr on the video. “It’s just you and I. I’m not going to hurt you.” She walked behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder, trailing it across his upper back as she slowly paced, and then up into his hair. When she brought her hand up, his hair spiked straight up like it was wet.
I leaned forward more in my chair, mesmerized in a morbid way. Linette pulled a chair in front of him and ran her hand through his hair again, making a soothing sound. She was careful of his cuts and the places where blood had congealed on his head and face.
“Maybe you don’t understand my words, but you understand my touch, right?”
She ran her hands slowly across his shoulders and down the outsides of his top arms, over the ropes that pressed deep into his skin. Heat crept up my neck and into my face. Remy started biting her thumbnail as she stared. It was quiet in the room, and uncomfortably intimate.
The video showed the man eventually raise his face enough to make eye contact. She gave him a grateful smile and encouraged him to relax. Still he said nothing. Her hands made it down to his wrists and she moved back, resting her palms on the tops of his strong knees. His breathing hitched as he watched her.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” she told him again. And her hands moved up to his thighs. Up. Bingo. He jolted and she murmured, “Tell me your name.”
In a choked voice, he said, “Marmot.”
“Oh, my gosh,” Remy whispered.
The video cut off and everyone stirred. The prisoner could totally understand her.
Top eyed us. “Turns out, he was fluent in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Russian, and German, though his dialects were a bit rusty and old-fashioned from studying intel received in the late eighteen hundreds. With a little help from First Lieutenant Thompson,” he motioned to Linette, “he spilled his guts.”
In my peripheral vision I could see Remy gawking with her mouth in a little round “O.” Tater put a knuckle to his lips.
