Endosymbiosis

45. Fury

"I have an even better mission for you, sapiens." The vorrampe said, raising my eyebrow. "I need one of my stars back, which the Aulics stole."

"You mean that the Aulics 'recovered'?" I provoked.

"You humans get too lost in details that don't matter."

"Just us, humans?" Kadi spoke up. "Because, as far as I know, cleaning the revolution's stables isn't all that essential right now."

Korrok laughed. And Judin cringed away from the goo on Kadi.

"Sometimes a vorrampe needs fun, Phaga."

"And now you have a new human to torture." Kadi hissed and wrapped his arm around Judin, covering him with goo.

"You really should hate him, Arkadi." Lupan said, when the effect of the toxin began to wear off. "He's competition for Donec-"

And I shut him up again with the toxin.

"A man has to have some quality to be 'competition'." I replied. "Just having whatever makes him a man isn't enough."

"Why Arkadi, then?" Deinos scoffed and I shrugged.

"Sometimes humans make exceptions."

Then Kadi threw the orange goo in my direction, eliciting a squeak from me... Because, at that moment, that was my only concern.

• • • ֍ • • •

That night, after we returned from Korrok's mission, most of the beings of Venerna were already sleeping in their quarters. Some nocturnal species, however, continued to roam the corridors, so the city would be always alive.

I sat back down at one of the cafeteria tables and watched the stars twinkle beyond the crack in the window. Was my mother there, lost in one of them, begging me to get to the core soon? Or would she have other plans for me if she knew where I was? Maybe Gaxy would hate me if she knew who I was helping... Or maybe she was just dead, and her opinion no longer mattered.

Kadi sat beside me and touched my shoulder with his, drawing my attention away from those thoughts. We were silent for a small eternity, just watching those distant stars.

"I wasn't expecting him to die..." I whispered. "The soldier I tried to heal..."

Kadi sent me a sidelong look.

"You couldn't have known, Doxy."

"But I should have been more careful..." And I shouldn't have trusted my mother and the 'gift' she had given me. She herself told me not to trust anyone.

I watched Kadi, lost in the stars with the pains he wouldn't let himself reveal, because all that escaped his lips was:

"We could all be more careful..."

And maybe so much could have been saved.

"You told me at the top of the Venerna's slope that the Aulics took your life..." I spoke softly, not knowing if it was a good idea to try to unravel the mysteries of his past. "What happened?"

Kadi shrugged, as if the destruction of his life wasn't something I should be worried about.

"I just let it all slip through my fingers... And I needed someone to blame besides myself." He muttered, distracted by the stars. "I spent every moment of my life trying to bring it all back... But that quest never made me happy, when happiness was all I was trying to have." Kadi turned to me. "Now I know I need to escape this dream, before never reaching it destroys me."

I blinked, processing his words.

"Does that mean you're not leaving anymore?"

"I think it would only bring me more pain... And I've already collected enough of it." A smile slowly spread across my face and I lowered my eyes, trying to hide how much I enjoyed hearing that. He cleared his throat and, changing the subject, let a strategist seriousness take his tone: "In the next attack on the Aulics we could-"