Title: Dali
Author: E.M. Hamill
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: 8/7/17
Pairing: Male/Male
Length: 85200
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Synopsis
Dalí Tamareia has everything—a young family and a promising career as an Ambassador in the Sol Fed Diplomatic Corps. Dalí’s path as a peacemaker seems clear, but when their loved ones are killed in a terrorist attack, grief sends the genderfluid changeling into a spiral of self-destruction.
Fragile Sol Fed balances on the brink of war with a plundering alien race. Their skills with galactic relations are desperately needed to broker a protective alliance, but in mourning, Dalí no longer cares, seeking oblivion at the bottom of a bottle, in the arms of a faceless lover, or at the end of a knife.
The New Puritan Movement is rising to power within the government, preaching strict genetic counseling and galactic isolation to ensure survival of the endangered human race. Third gender citizens like Dalí don’t fit the mold of this perfect plan, and the NPM will stop at nothing to make their vision become reality. When Dalí stumbles into a plot threatening changelings like them, a shadow organization called the Penumbra recruits them for a rescue mission full of danger, sex, and intrigue, giving Dalí purpose again.
Risky liaisons with a sexy, charismatic pirate lord could be Dalí’s undoing—and the only way to prevent another deadly act of domestic terrorism.
Deleted Scene
This is the original first chapter/prologue. I ultimately cut it and sprinkled that information through the rest of the book, but it was a really difficult thing to do. This was the only time we saw Dalí, Gresh, and Rasida together, and their relationship as a married trio who loved each other fiercely. Cutting this dumped us right into the action and Batterson’s attempt to bait Dalí into a bar fight, introducing us to the broken person Dalí is at the start of the story.
The Zereid have a proverb: It isn’t the sklas beast in plain sight presenting the danger. It’s the one lurking behind, under the surface of the water. Until its tentacles are wrapped about your throat and pulling you under, you don’t know it’s there.
I kissed them goodbye in a private lounge of the crowded space terminal above Luna. I encircled Gresh in one arm, the stubble of his cheek rough beneath my forehead. I turned my face to Rasida. Her mouth met mine in a brush of silken lips, the cinnamon-clove scent of her hair sweet and heady.
Any time apart is far too long after only eighteen months of marriage. We’d fought about this appointment, wept over it. Consensus made it inevitable. They each had their careers, and I, mine. By the time I returned from my appointment to negotiate membership in the Remoliad Alliance, the child in ‘Sida’s rounded belly would be over a year old: our first child, a genetic blend of the three of us. We stood wrapped in each other’s arms until my new secretary cleared his throat in polite interruption.
“Ambassador Tamareia? The shuttle is prepped and ready to leave. Are you certain you don’t want to address the media bots?”
“I’m certain, Lieutenant. I’ll be there in a minute.”
As we said our final goodbyes, he moved away and instructed the bots to disperse. One of them remained in stubborn, mechanical insistence and buzzed against the privacy barrier. I despised them already.
“Take care of each other. I love you.”
“I love you more,” Gresh said, his voice uneven. He kissed me one last time. Impending separation endowed the kiss with rough urgency, and left my breath and pulse uneven. My empathic nets snared a hint of his own arousal, his smug assuredness of his effect on me. Damn, but I was going to miss him. Miss them both.
“We’re so proud of you, Dalí.” ‘Sida beamed at me and dashed a tear away, her other hand on her belly. Gresh placed his hand over hers, and they held each other as I turned away with a blown kiss. I hefted my bag over my shoulder. I couldn’t look back, the risk of tears thick in my throat. I refused to provide sensational press for the buzzing media bots, or encouragement for a large group of New Puritans protesting the treaty negotiations in noisy, righteous indignation.
“Sol Fed doesn’t need alliance with the galactics!”
“A real human being should represent us, not a freak!”
Yeah, the appointment of a genetic abomination as chief Sol Fed Ambassador to the Remoliad caused an uproar. I resisted flipping them an eloquent middle finger when I went through the gate. Not very ambassadorial.
But I wish I had looked back.
The shuttle took off. I spotted them in the terminal window which overlooked my waiting starliner: Rasida’s blue dress a jewel set in grey steel and glass, Gresh’s red hair a beacon. ‘Sida placed her hand on the pane, and I pressed the palm of my hand against the window of the shuttle. The insistent media-bot maneuvered into the window beside her.
Everything erupted into a white-hot nova of flame and shattered glass.
Three more blossoms of hellfire blazed and died as combustion seared away the oxygen. Everyone inside the arm of the terminal who wasn’t incinerated by the blasts suffocated, exhaled into the void above the argent sphere of Luna by a rush of evacuating air.
In my nightmares, I see Rasida’s blue gown and Gresh’s red hair as they float side-by-side, motionless in space.
In reality, I saw nothing but the explosions. Spots filled my vision with blank, white blobs. The shuttle rolled over, pounded by the force of the blast. By the time the pilot regained control of the craft, nothing remained but a cloud of debris. The amputated limb of the space terminal hung by twisted girders.
Hurried into the waiting starliner, I collapsed. Medics moved to care for me. They drew back in unease when my body shifted between genders, changeling hormones overloading my system in the stress of shock as I mourned the loss of my lovers, my best friends. My child.
I cursed the terrorists who missed their target by eight minutes as incompetent bastards. When I decided not to address the media droids and chose instead to hold a private farewell with my family, I put myself ahead of schedule. I should have died with them.
No manifesto or claim of responsibility emerged. If they aimed to delay membership negotiations between Sol Fed and the Remoliad Alliance, it succeeded. Even though they failed to kill me, they destroyed me.
The first attack in our sovereign space came a week later. Threats of war with the Nos Conglomerate loomed on an imminent horizon.
I didn’t care anymore.
Dalí
E.M. Hamill © 2017
All Rights Reserved
Chapter One
Human beings are assholes. I should know. I’d become one in the last few months.
You’d think the near extinction of our entire species after the pandemics and global poisoning our last world war inflicted might let us all pull together. Even with galactic war breathing down our necks, when almost everyone realized the human race constituted less of a threat to each other than some of the other things out there, we continued to be dicks.
Those attitudes started problems—in particular, Europan attitudes, of the New Puritan variety. I no longer possessed the self-control or sufficient fucks to avoid adding fuel to their fire.
His voice floated over the excited din of the crowd and the pregame show on the holographic screens above the bar.
“Abomination.”
I sighed and turned my head. The Team Europa-jacketed hulk next to me exuded a cloud of loathing against my empathic nets. I raised one eyebrow at him.
“Really? You can’t come up with anything more original after fifteen minutes of shit-talking?” The conversation behind me started as a diatribe against the rally for third-gender rights, held outside the arena and glimpsed on the main holo screen. I didn’t pay attention to either until the comments got louder and were meant for my ears.
“Faggot.”
“How very twentieth century of you.” I downed another of the six shots the robotic bartender dispensed in front of me. I wasn’t looking for trouble, only anesthetic. Outside, a cluster of media bots interviewing star athletes had driven me into the bar to hide. The presence of mechanized paparazzi still unsettled me. I didn’t want them in my face.
The annual Sol Series tournament games between Mars and Europa bordered on legendary for their savagery. No one took rugby as seriously as a gritty Martian colonist or a repressed New Puritan, and the bar overflowed with both, waiting for the station’s arena to open. Spectators gathered around us in the bar, drawn by the promise of a fight, glittering eyes fixed on us. My empathic senses drowned in their excitement and fear, even with the numbing effects of synthetic alcohol.
He invaded my personal space and leaned closer, face centimeters from mine. His breath carried a trace of mint and steroid vapors. Great. A huffer, his molecules all hyped-up on testosterone. He stood over a head taller than me, about twenty-five kilos heavier. His fists would do damage. His minions stood at either side, more meat than smarts. Neither spoke. Their mouths hung open while he harassed me, and I expected shuttle flies to crawl out at any time.
“You’re nothing but an A-sex freak.”
“Better. Still lacks originality.” I threw back the last shot. “How about androgynous freak? Hermaphrodite? No, those words are probably too big for you.”
The titter of laughter from the crowd only pissed him off. “Go fuck yourself.”
“Technically, I can’t. But I can fuck anybody else in this room. Can you?”
Shocked laughter rose from the circle of spectators. The guy clenched his fists and flexed his muscles. I continued, “Do I scare you?” I swiveled on the stool to face him and changed posture, crossing my legs in demure modesty. My voice rose into a husky, suggestive alto as I leaned one elbow on the bar. “Or do you want to find out what’s under my kilt?”
I hit a nerve. His eyes went blank, black, and his rage flooded over my senses. The crowd gasped and took a step back. Minion One caught his rising fist and spoke. “Jon, don’t you know who…”
Jon’s lip curled. “It’s an atrocity. It should have been killed at birth.”
“I prefer the term changeling.” I stood, and the circle around us got wider. The potent mix of hormones surged through my bloodstream as they altered my chemical makeup and bulked strategic upper body muscles. I let a cold smile form on my lips and dropped into a Zereid martial arts stance. Jon took half a step back as I became more definitively male in ways he recognized. “Oh, go ahead and hit me, by all means. A good fight is almost as good as sex.”
“Break it up.”
The crowd parted into nervous brackets with security’s arrival. Caniberi lumbered into the midst of the circle with the boneless roll space-born started to get after generations in orbit. He cast a sour eye in my direction.
“Dalí, why is it always you?”
“Just lucky, I guess.”
The constable growled at me. He turned to Jon. “You can’t play in the tournament if I throw you in the brig for violence. Move out.”
Jon stared at me a minute longer. The threat of not getting to beat the hell out of some hedonistic Martians made him reconsider. He and the minions moved away, but he threw one more sentence in my face like a javelin.
“You’ll be alone, changeling.”
The truth in his words knifed through me all the way to my gut and cut me deeper than any microsteel blade. “I’ll be waiting.”
Caniberi squinted at me as the crowd began to disperse. “Dalí, do I need to talk with the Captain?”
“No, sir. Leave my father out of this.” He’d dealt with enough from me already. My mother was now away on the diplomatic mission I’d been suspiciously—but rightly—deemed unfit to assume. Without Mom there to buffer the uncomfortable presence of my grief between us, Dad was lost.
“One of these days you’re going to push the wrong buttons and end up hurt, or worse. Some things the medical officer can’t fix.” His gaze softened. “Drinking and getting the shit beaten out of you won’t bring them back.”
“I’m well aware of that, sir.” My voice came out sharper than I intended. One of the best officers on the station, Caniberi had known me a little over a decade, and he never hesitated to kick my ass if I deserved it, no matter what gender I chose at the moment. This time, he just stared at me with an odd expression. His pity broke in tepid surges against my senses.
“Get out of here. I don’t want to arrest you again.”
I turned and left the bar. With the bots still hovering outside, I ducked my head to foil their facial recognition apps and fought my way upstream from the arena.
The shakes hit me in the aftermath of the hormone flood. The synthetic alcohol in my system warred with my normalizing chem levels and sour nausea threatened. I grabbed one of the rails lining the corridor and took several shuddering breaths as my muscles cramped, rearranged, and settled back into the lean, sexless frame where I am most at home.
The crowd jostled around me and headed toward the game. My empathic nets buzzed dully with their anticipation and excitement, but the sense of being watched pushed at the back of my mind. A familiar presence tripped a memory and an emotion.
The watcher knew me.
I turned my head. The Zereid made his way toward me, head and shoulders above everyone else, long, muscular limbs wading with passive grace through a river of human bodies as the crowd shifted for him. An eddy of cautious glances swirled and vanished downstream.
Oily quicksilver eyes without lids narrowed, their shape signifying the equivalent of a smile. His resonant voice buzzed in my ears. “He is the size of a cargo bot, you know. Even the arts we learned can’t change gravity. He might kill you.”
“I won’t let it go that far.” I shrugged. I actually hoped I’d bitten off more than I could swallow this time.
But the presence of my childhood friend undid me. A lump rose in my throat, pressure in my head, and I closed the distance between us. He gathered me in against cool flesh. I was locked in arms capable of crushing a human like a piece of foil but which held me with careful tenderness. Against his enormous chest, I felt like a small child, even though in developmental terms, Gor and I are the same age. His concern brushed my mind with affectionate familiarity.
“I see you, Dalí,” he murmured. “I mourn with you.”
I breathed in the scent of Zereid. Gor smelled of his homeworld—rain and earth and copper clung to his leathery turquoise skin and short, downy fur even in absentia. Homesickness washed over me.
I’d lived on Zereid most of my life. My mother, Marina Urquhart, served as ambassador for fifteen years. Dad’s career required he return to Sol Fed, and rather than separate our family, Mom resigned her appointment. My differences were clear, even to my third-gender mother, but there, we were aliens. I wondered what it would be like to have more friends who blinked.
When we got back to our own kind, I found out I was still an alien.
Gor pulled away. In the tarnished silver of his eyes, like antique mirrors, my unkempt reflection stared back at me. His dismay at my mental and physical state, impossible to miss, sighed against my mind.
“How did you hear?” I said.
“Your mother. “
“Of course.”
His head cocked. “I tried to come sooner, but the travel permissions into the colonies are daunting.”
“No, I understand.” I wanted to sit and talk with Gor. I eyed the bar, but couldn’t go back in there yet. “Come on. We can go to Dad’s quarters. He’ll be on the bridge.” My own cramped space wouldn’t accommodate Gor’s height or his bulk.
We squeezed into the private lift and rode up to the command deck. My thumbprint opened the door to the Captain’s suite, and Gor made a sound of wonder as he ducked through the port.
Three levels of transparent alloy shielding overlooked the U-curve of Rosetta Station. Shuttles buzzed in and out of bays like honeybees in the hydroponics domes, ferrying passengers to huge starliners docked on the outer limbs.
“An inspiring view.” Gor gazed out the window.
Ochre planet-shine from Jupiter’s face illuminated the room, the swirling storms in the gas giant’s atmosphere familiar to me now. I never found them beautiful, only an echo of the chaos in my head. I dropped into one of the chairs facing the viewport.
Gor eased himself into the seat opposite me. “You’re in crisis, Dalí.”
I couldn’t hide anything from him. Even if I wanted to, he was a telepath; his empathic senses much more attuned than my own modest abilities. Our friendship spanned far too many years, our trust well established. Lying to him would betray our oath of crechemates, a Zereid custom similar to old Earth tradition of blood brothers.
“Today would be the second anniversary of our wedding.” I stared at my hands. I still wore a ring on each of them, the ones Gresh and Rasida gave me.
“I remember. The love between you and your mates deserves celebration.”
Triad marriages with two members of the same sex and one of the opposite were common. The female population had not rebounded as fast as the male. But mine was the first triad marriage to include a changeling spouse under the new laws we helped to bring about. The legislation was both praised and vilified by hundreds of other citizens while we exchanged vows beneath the domes of the lunar capitol. My parents, Gresh’s mother, and Gor celebrated with us. Rasida’s mother refused to attend the wedding of her only daughter.
The three of us had been inseparable, invincible. Without them, I staggered, incomplete.
Our child would have been three months old now.
“Don’t say it.”
Gor’s eyes elongated in confusion. “What?”
“That they wouldn’t want me to be like this.”
“I did not come here to admonish you for grieving.”
I gave a short laugh. “What did you come here to scold me for?”
“For ceasing to live. Abandoning the larger destiny for which you trained.”
“Ambassador?” I dug a vape out of the pocket of my coat and thumbed the switch, inhaling illegal chemicals deep into my lungs. His gentle reproach against my empathic nets rebuked me without a word.
“You were sure of your calling as a peacemaker six months ago.” Zereid reverence toward conciliation is, ironically, unforgiving and unbending.
“I was certain of a lot of things then.” I exhaled a cloud of spicy mist. If any of the scent remained, I’d catch hell later for vaping in Dad’s quarters.
“There are always those who work against peace, even in their own hearts. As you are doing now.”
“I don’t know if I believe in peace anymore.”
“Because you do not possess it.”
“Stop feeding me platitudes, brother.”
He spread six-fingered hands wide. “What would you have me do? Tell me. Your pain is mine to share, beloved friend. Allow me to help you. Your rage is fearsome but undirected. You point it at yourself.”
“I was supposed to die, not them.” I cursed the terrorists who missed their target by eight minutes. When I decided not to address the media bots and chose instead to hold a private farewell with my family, I put myself ahead of schedule. I should have died with them. Even though the bastards failed to kill me, they destroyed me.
“Come home.” Gor waited for me to answer. I didn’t. He continued. “Madam Ambassador thinks Zereid would be a place of healing for you. You can study at the temple with me again, be teacher and student. This year’s crop of younglings is a challenge.” His vocal pipes fluted in laughter. “As we were.”
“That isn’t much of an incentive.” A grin tried to tug at the corners of my mouth, stiff and out of practice with the expression. “I’ll think about it.”
“Will you?” His doubt hovered between us.
The port slid open again and my father thundered in—Captain Paul Tamareia—“The Captain” to everyone on the station, even me at times. I stood at automatic attention, swaying a little. Gor rose too.
“What the hell were you thinking?” he demanded. “And turn that goddamned vape off.”
I complied. “A misunderstanding, sir.”
“Misunderstanding, my ass. Six shots of the synthetic piss that passes for whiskey says it wasn’t.” He turned to Gor and bowed. “Welcome aboard Rosetta Station, honored friend. Forgive me for not greeting you first.”
“Captain Tamareia.” Gor bowed back.
“How long will you be staying? I insist you use my quarters as your own. Stop by the constable’s office and he will register you for my door. I’m afraid most of the cabins are small, and we’re overcrowded with the tournament.”
“My thanks, sir. My travel clearance is good for the next two weeks, and then I must return.” Gor nodded at us. “I should collect my belongings now. I will go to your constable on the way back.”
“It’s good to see you, Gor.”
“You as well, Captain.” He put one enormous hand on my shoulder. “Dalí, please think about what I said.”
Gor let himself out. Dad and I both understood he made a graceful exit so we could shout at each other in peace. Zereids don’t carry a whole lot of baggage. They don’t wear clothes.
“Did you need to pick a fight with the number eight of the bloody Europan rugby team?” He tossed his personal data device on the table. “Do you even know who he is?”
“Other than a prick, no.”
“Jon Batterson. Does the name ring a bell at all?”
“Batterson.” I blinked through mental processes made sluggish by the vape. “As in President Batterson?”
“Light dawns. The heir apparent to his self-righteous little robotics empire.” He ran both hands through his hair. I inherited my dark-brown waves from him, but Dad’s customary high-and-tight showed little hint of curl. Mine now fell to my shoulders in a shaggy, tangled mane. “Do you realize the mess I would have had to clean up if you really let loose on him? Even if he is built like the ass end of a freighter, you could put him on the injured list.”
“It wasn’t my intent.”
“From what Caniberi told me, you were about to unleash hell on him. You sure stirred up some crap. The president is coming to the game tonight. The constable didn’t know who he was either, or he might have thrown you in the brig to prove a point.” He sat down with a thud on the steel bench and sighed. “Dalí. Come here.”
I sat next to him and braced myself.
“It’s been six months. Your leave from the diplomatic corps is finished, and if you don’t return, you’ll be dismissed. This has to stop. When you go back to your life, you’re going to encounter people like Batterson on a daily basis. Your reputation and your career are at stake. You can’t do this anymore.”
“That life’s over.”
“Don’t throw it away. You did so much in so short a time. You have a gift for understanding, and you will be a formidable ambassador. Sol Fed needs you in the negotiation chamber at the Remoliad. Luna is a better place because of your work.”
“Because of Gresh’s work. Because of Sida and our child. They were my reasons for everything. I’m not sure I feel as strongly for the rest of the human race.”
“Then you need to find another way to deal with their deaths. I won’t watch you destroy your future. You worked too hard for it.”
“Tell me how, sir.” My fury rose. “Tell me how I can deal with it because I’m looking for an exit.”
He stiffened. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing.” I rose and stalked away. He started to call after me, but the communication tones went off.
“Captain Tamareia, report to the bridge. The president’s shuttle is incoming.”
“On my way. Dalí!”
I ignored him and ducked through the port.
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E.M. Hamill is a nurse by day, sci fi and fantasy novelist by night. She lives in eastern Kansas with her family, where they fend off flying monkey attacks and prep for the zombie apocalypse. She also writes young adult material under the name Elisabeth Hamill. Her first novel, SONG MAGICK, won first place for YA fantasy in the 2014 Dante Rossetti Awards for Young Adult Fiction.
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