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“You have guest quarters assigned to you. Would you care to see them first?”

Deniir watched her carefully as she disembarked from the shuttle.

“Yes, please. I can drop my bag and wash my face and centre myself. It should only take three minutes or so.”

She smiled hopefully.

“Of course. This way.”

Deniir bowed slightly and gestured for her to accompany him.

They walked through the halls, and several men bowed as they passed. Deniir inclined his head but didn’t stop to talk.

She asked, “You have a rank here?”

“I am a master engineer, second only to my father, Darthuun. You will meet him when we go to the research and development department.”

“I am guessing that you have a rank beyond that.”

He grinned and shrugged. “The ranks of my people do not matter here. That is not how our hierarchy works.”

She registered what he had said. “You work with your father?”

“Yes. It is not always easy, but I enjoy it. He is an excellent engineer.”

She sighed. “You are very lucky.”

They passed a couple, and she blinked. “Is she a tree?”

“One of the Forest Folk, yes. Like the ambassador on Gaia.”

“I haven’t actually met Daphne’s husband. I haven’t seen any of the Nine either. This is all quite interesting, but please, tell me if I am staring.”

“You are doing very well so far.”

He chuckled.

A man with fluttering Fairy wings was coming toward them, and as he passed, he drifted in close to Ula.

Deniir moved so swiftly, she only heard the snap of his wings as he flared them, flicking the other man away from her before she could even shift her weight.

“Back off.”

The Fairy held up his hands and stayed back.

Deniir waited, with the man pinned to the wall by his wingtip. When he received some signal that Ula couldn’t see, he released the other man and snapped his wings together behind his back. He didn’t flatten them but left them raised and the arches framed his head on either side.

As they started to move again, she asked, “What was that?”

“There are far more men than women on board. You are a new female and therefore worth trying to claim. The women of Gaia are prized mates here.”

He smiled slightly.

“I see. What was his species?”

“The People of the Air. They are generally harmless unless they are in a thwarted bond.”

“How does that work?”

“Well, I will have the instruction manual for dealing with the Nine forwarded to your quarters.”

He smiled, “Your planet-mate, Ziggy, is the Potential of Gaia, and she has created a species-by-species information sheet for any of your kind on the mother ship.”

“That was thoughtful of her.”

Of course, Ula had heard of Ziggy and her ensconcement on the mother ship. While she didn’t let her friends visit, she did communicate via com system. She knew who had married what; she simply had no images of the species that her friends were now sleeping with.

“It is. Apparently, our etiquette is a little hard to master.”

Ula snorted. Gaians were fairly tactile, and being told not to make skin-to-skin contact was awkward for them. Having the members of the Nine bond to them without contact was even more bizarre, but there was nothing to do about the pheromones. Matches were made on the chemical plane, and there was little that would deter a determined member of the Nine.

“Yes, sure. You could say that.”

They headed to a rail that ran into the wall, and at his guidance, she stood on the platform. A small pod came along, and he gestured for her to precede him.

Ula settled in the pod, and he tightened his wings again to fit in next to her. With quick motions, he entered something into the pod’s computer, and the next moment, they were off.

“I have just programmed the path to the VIP quarters where you will be housed for the duration of your stay. This pod will take us to the nearest station, and we will walk from there.”

“Sounds fine.”

The rest of the trip consisted of Deniir being curiously tense and Ula staring out the window as the interior of the ship whizzed past.

The pod glided to a halt, and Deniir got to his feet, waiting for her to join him.

She stepped out with her bag still slung over her shoulder. The feel of the ship had gone from port to residential neighbourhood.

She walked with him past two guards at the side of a corridor with strange markings over the archway. Deniir identified himself and introduced her then led her into the hall, to the quarters set aside for her.

Ula stepped into the rooms cautiously. The entryway was large, echoing and opening into a larger communal dining and living room. It was larger than anything she had seen in her life.

“How is it that there is so much space allocated to one person?”

“Well, these are my quarters. Your room is this way.”

She blinked rapidly. “I beg your pardon?”

“As you will be working exclusively with the engineers, it behooves us to keep you safe. Nothing is safer than these quarters.”

He walked with her to the wall. “This room is my father’s, the next room is mine, the third room is yours.”

“You live with your parent?”

“We do. We learn from our gender parent. My sisters remained with my mother to learn civic engineering and politics.”

“When do you leave your gender parent?”

“When we form a family of our own. Many mates remain together, but my father wanted to leave on the mother ship, so I went with him as a matter of tradition.”

Deniir cocked his head. “Do you not have a relationship with your parents?”

She swallowed and shook her head. “They were lost in the first Tokkel raids.”

“I am sorry for your loss.”

“Well, that loss triggered my talent, so it isn’t all bad.”

She tried not to be maudlin, but she missed them and the families of her friends were salt in the wound. She loved them, but it hurt to be with them.

“This is your room. You may come and go as you please, but it would be better if you waited for one of us to accompany you. We do not wish you to run afoul of any of the Nine males on the hunt for a mate.”

She nodded tersely. “Please get me that information sheet. I want to know what I am dealing with.”

She opened the door and quickly did what she had to do. She figured out how to use the en suite and scrubbed the grit from her features, quickly putting down and then binding up the red hair that she had been given courtesy of her mother’s genes.

When she was ready, she left her room and nodded to Deniir. “Okay, we can go now.”

He nodded. “Your data station has the list and descriptions of the species of the Nine as well as a list of the subspecies that are emerging.”

“Good. Now, take me to your engineers.”

It wasn’t the historical take me to your leader, but she supposed it would have to do.