Kwaide (The Ammonite Galaxy Series, Book 2)

Chapter One

Chapter 1

"WHY DO WE call Arcan 'he'?" asked Diva

Six looked at her, "What do you mean?" he said. "Of course Arcan is a 'he'. What else could he be?"

"A girl?"

Six's jaw dropped open. "A girl?" he echoed, "of course he isn't a girl. He can do all sorts of things. As if a girl could transport us all instantaneously from one planet to another!"

"Why not?" Diva put her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes.

"Well, I mean! Arcan is mega-intelligent, and ancient, and alien, and well ...!" He was outraged at the suggestion.

"And that means he has to be masculine, I take it?"

"Yes," Six was relieved she had understood. "Of course." Sometimes he found it hard to figure out just how Diva's thought processes worked. Girls!

"It hasn't occurred to that Kwaidian mini-brain of yours that he might be an 'it' or a 'she'?"

"No!"

Diva nodded. "Just to get this straight, you associate intelligence with being male?"

"Err ... not exactly ... no." He looked at her sideways.

"How exactly then?"

"Girls can be bright too." Six offered unconvincingly.

"Thank you. So kind." Diva swiveled quickly on one heel and brought the blunt dagger she had been practicing with up against his throat. "Take it back, nomus!"

"Hey!" Six protested, and then shrugged, "all right - girls can't be bright then."

The dagger pressed more insistently against his neck. "That," she said through gritted teeth, "is not what I meant."

"Well, really, Diva! You should say what you mean. How am I supposed to guess what you are going on about all the time? And we were just practicing. It isn't fair to jump me like that."

"Now what are you two fighting about?" They were interrupted by a deep voice, which came out of nowhere.

"Arcan, tell Diva you are male, please."

"Arcan, this Kwaidian seems to think you couldn't be female."

They heard a long sigh. "Well, I don't reproduce like you have to. Individual cells live and die and divide, and that is how I procreate. So I suppose I am neither female nor male."

"An 'it' then!" said Diva, pleased.

"No." Arcan was definite. "I do not like the impersonal tone of 'it'. I prefer to be thought of as 'he'."

"See, Diva? I told you!"

"Fine!" snapped Diva, withdrawing the copy of her Coriolan dagger and slipping it deftly into the scabbard she wore around her waist. "Just fine!" She glared around her at the walls of the 21st floor of the 256th skyrise and then marched out.

"Did I say something wrong Six?" asked Arcan.

"Nah. Girls are just like that. Don't worry about it."

"Then I am happy not to be a girl."

"Well you would be, wouldn't you? I mean ... stands to reason," Six shook his head. "Females!"

"Now how do you think you are going to practice?" Cimma's voice cut in, reminding Six that he was supposed to be in a class of self-defense. He looked down at the floor and shuffled his feet. "And it is no good pretending that none of it was your fault. I was here, listening to every word."