Page 126 of Stripped By the Alien

"Captain Nora Ellis of Space Force and Earth," the Queen says, and hearing my full name and rank in that ancient, creaking voice sends an odd shiver through me.

"You fought a battle for your friend that any Harrower in this room would recognize as worthy. You held your ground before me, twice, when creatures three times your size would have groveled. And you gave my Chief Harrower a war he wasn't ordered to fight, and he came back from it better for having fought it. I name you Junior Harrower of this Brood, with all the standing, if not yet all the seniority, that title carries."

Morr'ak dips two fingers into the dark vessel and, with obvious care not to press too hard, marks a symbol against the back of my hand. It's cool, faintly stinging, and gone in a moment, but leaving behind a mark that doesn't wash away, dark and precise against my skin.

"Wear that where any of my Brood can see it," the Queen says, "and you will be given the deference due your rank, wherever you go in my Nest, or beyond."

I stare down at the mark, throat too tight to answer properly. "Thank you, Your Majesty," I finally manage.

"Don't thank me yet," she says, not unkindly. "There is one more matter."

Her gaze settles on me, and something in her voice changes toward formal proclamation, the same register she used to name my rank.

"The Beast's calf," she says, "was grown in secret, in defiance of custom, by a Chief Harrower who has apparently made a habit of defying custom whenever it suited him. It does not belong to the Brood. It does not belong to the Beast, not any longer, however much love passes between mother and calf. And it certainly doesn't belong to me." Her clouded eye holds on my face. "It belongs, I think, to the one who piloted it through open space and brought it safely home again. A ship should belong to the one it chose to carry, Nora of Earth."

I think of the calf back in its stall beside the Beast, trembling with that same restless, eager energy, waiting for someone to come find it, and my throat goes tight before I can stop it.

"I accept," I manage. "Thank you, Your Majesty. Truly."

"Yes, yes." The Queen waves a vast, weary limb, some of her earlier delight already fading back into the tired formality she seems to carry constantly now. "Go and be married properly, away from this chamber and all its smells and its ancient, tiresome creatures. I find I've enjoyed you both more than I expected to, and I am old enough now to know how rarely that happens. Go and see your ship, and your new one, and let an old Queen rest."

We bow, and turn to go, and I'm almost to the chamber's threshold when her voice stops us both.

"In fact, one thing more."

I turn back. Something in her tone has changed and cooled, hardened, the warmth of the last hour folding away like a door closing.

"Don't mistake my fondness for policy," the Queen says. "I have given you a rank, and a ship, and my blessing on a marriage no one asked my leave for in the first place. I have given you nothing at all regarding your world. Earth remains exactly what it has always been to this Brood — a rumor, unconfirmed, unlocated, and undecided. That will remain true only as long as it remains useful to me, or to whoever sits where I sit once I am gone. I would not have you leave this chamber believing otherwise."

The warmth drains out of the room all at once.

"I understand, Your Majesty," I say softly.

"Good." She settles back into her cushions, already turning her attention elsewhere, already, it seems, half done with us. "Go. Be happy, while you can. I find I've grown fond of watching that, in my old age. But don't ask me to promise you it will last, because I am old, Nora of Earth, and I have never once found that promises do."

41

- Nora -

The membrane closes behind us, and for the first time in what feels like years, there's nothing left to do.

No audience to survive. No station to tear apart. No message to record with shaking hands before I lose my nerve. Just the quiet, living hum of the Beast around us, and Krix'vorr's chamber, and my own hand, which I keep turning over to look at. The mark sits dark and precise against my skin, cool to the touch even now, hours later. I trace the shape of it with one finger.

"Does it hurt?" Krix'vorr asks, watching me.

"It just feels strange. Like it's mine and not mine at the same time." I look up at him. "I'm a Junior Harrower. I keep waiting for that to feel less insane."

"Give it time," he says. "I've been a Chief Harrower for longcycles and some mornings it still surprises me."

I laugh, and it comes out looser than I expect. Some final knot in my chest has finally let go. "I have to see Lucius."

He's in the small alcove off the command chamber where the crew set him after we boarded. Resting, if that's the right word for a drone, atop a cushion of something soft the Beast apparently grew for him without being asked. The two of them have been on very friendly terms since he gently examined her memories with a great deal of respect and awe.

His casing is scorched along one whole side, and when his single working light flickers up to acknowledge us, it's dimmer than I remember it being even a few days ago.

"Captain. Chief Harrower." His voice is thin, strained at the edges, but unmistakably still his own. "I understand congratulations are in order. Twice, in fact. The marriage, and the rank. I don't know which to address first."

"The marriage." I kneel down beside him, careful, the way you'd approach something fragile even when it insists it isn't. "The other thing is more for their own convenience. How are you? Really?"