“No idea. From everything I’ve been taught, we evolved from early humans and at some point, became our own people.” Dekker smirked. “What? You think we just appeared one day? Landed on a spaceship and decided to mingle?”
“Did you?”
Dekker huffed. “Honestly? I can’t even be sure we didn’t.”
Nox wouldn’t have been surprised if they had. Because the ichor wasn’t made of anything from the world he existed in.
“The Varu say the competition between us and humans started early, and while we were stronger, they were more—”
“Aggressive?”
“More like ingenious.”
“You’re saying they’re smarter?” Nox had a feeling that hadn’t set well with some Varu or Mah.
“They were ahead of us, I guess you can say. We were survivors, had the cunning, the strength, and the wolf. They figured out how to build tools and weapons.”
“What do the Mah say about where you came from?”
“I doubt many of us even think about it.”
“I bet your father does.” There was no way a man who had this much knowledge about a people who were practically extinct hadn’t formed his own theories.
“He thinks our origins are connected to where the wolves are from and for some reason, we’re here, and they’re not.”
“Like another planet?”
Dekker chuckled. “The wolves don’t arrive here on spaceships. They cross over from somewhere else. My father also thinks that’s where the ichor is from.” His expression turned serious. “Whether we evolved or whether we came from somewhere else, it doesn’t matter. We’re not human, we never will be, and that means there are things people like Dr. Dante shouldn’t have to endure.”
“But he’s not human.”
“No, but he’s lived his life as one. And if half of what I’ve read about running an Urja is true, then I don’t think he’s strong enough to survive it.”
“I think you underestimate him.” Dr. Dante was exceedingly strong. He’d survived the mental torture of the Utah Facility, how they’d broken his life afterward, and a bite that should have killed him.
“And you sound like you want this to happen to him.”
“Seung said he didn’t have a choice.”
“She’s basing that off their history. She’s never seen it for herself. The Urja were long gone before she was born.” Dekker spoke with the tone of a desperate man.
“What if she’s right?”
“Like I said she—”
“Whatif she’s right?”
Dekker pressed his lips together. “I’m going to get him as far away from us as—”
“That’s not what I asked, Dekker.”
Dekker ground his jaw. “Then any beta within ten miles will run him. Any beta within a hundred will go looking for him.”
“Just Mah?”
“Varu and Mah who aren’t tied with a permanent bond will be affected. And even those who are bonded will react, but they’ll take their needs out on the ones they’re committed to. And the Varu don’t have their wolves, so Dr. Dante won’t be able to call them.”
“Why not?”