She used her psionic powers to slip past the force field and entered the chamber where Pierce had been held. The sound of her entering caused him to slither backward to the end of the chamber like a frightened caged animal. She felt a sense of empathy toward him, it was likely the first time in two years he was able to see someone face-to-face. The other Undine that questioned him over the last two years used their telepathy to speak with him or forcibly created engram orbs from his memories to study, orbs that had a high failure rate as he wasn’t a psionic. It was because of that form of forced communication Nereid was convinced he didn’t give up the information they wished to gather from him.
It was now her turn to try, her opportunity to impress the Architect, so that it may allow her peoples’ continued existence. Nereid stepped closer to him and left behind a trail of water that dripped away from her soaked body and robe. A body that had never been out of water until this very moment. Pierce trembled as he cowered in the corner. Nereid stopped before him, and extended her hand outward to show she was harmless.
“You are afraid?” she asked, then paused. She had spoken aloud for the first time. Her fingers lightly touched the top of her lips, surprised at how it felt to utilize her vocal cords.
“Tired of having my mind picked apart,” Pierce said. “I told you everything. I’m an explorer to this system.”
“You have learnt a lot about our people since you arrived.”
“Your mind-rape sessions rubbed off bits of your peoples’ memories into my brain.”
“Yet, we know so little about your people.” A lie since she had McDowell’s memories, although most were fuzzy. “I am honestly curious, however. How much about my people do you know?”
“You know the answer to that, why do you care anyways?”
“You are a man of wisdom, one that wants to learn more about the universe. Don’t you wish to know why we visited your kind in the past?”
“You didn’t.”
“We did, and you know it, you deny it out of fear your colleagues would become strangers.” Her mind briefly flashed back to the copies of the engram orbs given to her from the previous interrogators, tiny fragments of Pierce’s past appeared. “You even tried to spread that limited information about my people to your own kind through literature.”
“You’re not the Nommo.”
“Open your mind, please don’t deny it.” She sat next to him as if they were close friends. “Let me tell you a story. A goddess and her husband discovered a planet not far from here. They were interested in it as life on it evolved on its own, unlike here in this system and other worlds in which terraforming was required. That, and the Lyonria species had taken an interest in this particular world and the primitive species that began to walk on its surface, that world was Earth.”
“Right . . .”
“The goddess sent ships to Earth carrying many of my people, the Undine aboard them, they landed at the western edge of a large continent and revealed themselves to the humans living there, I believe you called them—”
“The Dogan.”
She smiled at him, progress was being made. “Don’t you see the connection, Travis? We Undine are the Nommo. We were sent as messengers from the goddess to speak on her behalf. We told them that Sirius was a trinary system, we told them that Saturn had rings, we tried to teach them about what existed beyond the realm of Earth.”
“What became of your goddess?” Pierce grunted.
“She and her husband explored Earth and tried to earn the devotion of your species, while the rest of the Undine made the oceans of Earth our home away from Sirius.” She pointed to herself, still maintaining the charming smile. “The result is what you now see, Human-Undine hybrids, your people called them Sirens. We’re not so different, human blood flows through my body as it does in several others who have a humanlike appearance, though their numbers have swelled over the years. Most of the humanoid Undine you see are actually crossbred from Poniga.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
Nereid faced the ceiling giving it a somber look. “War took our goddess away. There was an uprising and the goddess and her husband had been slain, their ships taken over by their enemies. Humans were forced to accept the enemy of the goddess as their god, some had been taken aboard ships to be used as servants. The Undine on Earth tried to fight back and found a means to enhance the potency of their psionic powers, but it came at a cost, rapid aging, it’s rare for us to live past age seven. With shorter life spans and a war to fight, we needed to reproduce quickly. Humans became the source of that.”
“Legends on Earth told stories of sea nymphs that would lure sailors to their death if they heard their songs.”
“All legends have roots in reality; those stories were true. We mated with them but as you know, males always perish afterward; it’s just the way our species had evolved.”
“By the looks of things, I’d say you didn’t win the war.”
“We had a chance when the first Nereids had been born. But in the end, our enemy had starships that gave them a major advantage. They captured us and imprisoned us on this world, only those that worship him and fully dedicate their lives to them are allowed to leave. Even then, it’s only to carry out their bidding.”
“Fascinating.”
“Now that I’ve told you that. Why not tell me more about you?”
Pierce became distant once again. “I have nothing more to tell you, I’m sorry.”
Her progress toward getting him to open up was crumbling away.
Perhaps a pleasant picture will cheer him up, she thought, and stretched her hand toward him.
She used her psionic powers to create a lifelike projection of a woman with long, blue hair, based on what she learnt from the engrams. “Not even about this woman?”
“Stop . . .” He pushed the projection away. “You have no right to probe my mind like this!”
“She isn’t human, is she? What’s her name?”
“Pernoy . . . there, are you happy?”
“She’s very beautiful. Hashmedai if I’m not mistaken? Where do they come from?” She asked, Pierce snorted. “They attacked your world in the past with a great fleet. How many ships do you think they have in total?”
She saw his head tilt upward suddenly as she leaned in closer. Looking down she saw why. The robe she wore still wasn’t tied up, and her breasts had slipped out due to her movement. She wrapped the robe up against her body better, then began to ask a question her superiors insisted she ask.
“I can’t tell you that.” A reply he typically gave when asked about the location of Earth as well.
“If I gave you a star map, would it help?” Another question her superiors wanted answered, having discovered the existence of other space travelling species beyond Sirius. She continued to press him for answers, including a personal one she had been yearning to have answered since birth. “What was McDowell like?”
Pierce grunted. “Why do you care about him? You people killed him and Kingston.”
“That’s not true.”
“You brainwashed us, we just wanted to go back to our ship!” Nereid tried to console Pierce, he acted quickly by slapping her hand away and got up to his feet. “Don’t cross the human race like this again. We have nukes, we have ships, and we have crazy military brass that wouldn’t hesitate to use them like we did against the Hashmedai!”
She winced, sat up, and took a step backward from him knowing that due to his incarceration and loneliness he was acting abnormally, saying things he wouldn’t usually say. Her vague memories of him were of a peaceful man that loved science. His outburst, however, was interesting. Atomic weapons, warships, aggressive military leaders. It helped her to remember more of McDowell’s past life on Earth, and that humans typically responded to threats with violence. McDowell’s job was to search for threats.