The Space Spoon novel Chapter 34

An hour later, a human male crawled to the shore and slouched onto the leafy grass on the riverbank. His ears caught the thud of two sets of steps approaching. Two women came into his line of sight. One had furry ears and the other had a shiny object around her neck. But she didn’t need trinkets to sparkle. The luster of her dark hair and her cunning green gaze captivated him.

As he realized who he was, a sensation of calm flowed over him. Tejeda Hajar wore the same body as before the Spreah cave event. This DNA belonged to an officer who volunteered for this following his little encounter with the admirals.

“Let’s go grab you a uniform,” Shayla said, gesturing for him to rise.

“You see me naked. I feel fully clothed.” He sprang up. “This skin is my costume. Don’t be fooled by it. My exterior can have a pinky, soft skin, or green scales, or a flurry mane. I am always fully clothed.”

Tejeda turned around and went ahead upstream. His hunched, naked figure tottered down the path along the river.

Shayla trailed after him and gestured to Cato to remain there.

“But” was the only word the Ferali managed to mutter.

The grunting groan of the second in command cut it short. "Stay here or go back to the ship. This is an order."

When Shayla found Tejeda, he lay on the grass again with a device cupped in his hands.

"The neurological connections aren't always in the appropriate location when I change my appearance." He felt compelled to clarify certain things in order to answer the unsaid inquiries in her gaze. "They need something to kickstart my awareness for the real me to take over the new brain; else, the primitive impulses take hold."

“That’s what happened on Uthion?” She perched down next to him with her legs squatted beneath her.

"Yeah. In the smaller dome, I'd slaughtered everyone." His eyes glistened in the beams of the sun. "There were, unfortunately, members of the Universal Consensus. Their hive mind allowed the others to witness the horrors of my actions, and they connected the dots, recognizing who I truly am. It was by accident that I obtained the Oculus Grandi and found my way to the main dome. Or perhaps it was a lingering conscious idea. Only after I spotted you did I feel like me again."

Tejeda gulped as he heard his own words. He dropped his sight from her eyes to her neck, where he discovered Carmen dangling. "Carmen. I was talking to Carmen."

Shayla graced him with a mocking glare. “Of course. I figured that out.” She took out the chain from her neck and gave it to him. “You dropped her in the cave.”

“Yeah.” He straightened his voice, assured that he covered his blunder. “She is my centering mechanism every time my mind goes astray.”

“I figured that out too. My question is: why?”