Date Point 10y4m1w1d AV
Saint James’s Palace, London, England, Earth
Major Owen Powell
Admiral Sir Patrick Knight was in his element surrounded by ancient brickwork and the bustle of the working palace, guiding the VIPs and their Protectors into the back of some understated black cars before stepping into one himself. He seemed to fit in at the very heart of Britain’s constitutional monarchy, unlike Powell, who’d spent so many days now involved in the business of the Gaoian diplomatic tour that he was about ready to throw himself at the walls to burn off his excess energy.
Goodness knew how Burgess and Arés were faring – between the fact that their own routines far exceeded his for strenuousness, and the much greater atmospheric oxygen relative to what they were used to in Folctha, he would have expected them to be fizzing by now. That they were holding it together was at once both surprising and encouraging.
“Penny for your thoughts, Powell?”
He jumped slightly as Rylee Jackson, who somehow managed to be quiet even in the hard heels of her Air Force “blues”, stepped up beside him and gave him a gentle touch on the elbow. Any more affectionate gesture than that would have to wait for back in the hotel.
He rubbed at his chin to cover the startle. “Just findin’ it a bit strange that two American lads under my command are off to meet the King, and I’m sat here twiddlin’ me thumbs until they come back.” he mused.
“Jealous?” she asked, teasingly.
Powell watched the motorcade depart and turn towards the Mall. “Yes an’ no.” he decided.
Jackson looked around. “We’ve got half an hour before they’re due back, nothing to do in that time and you’re on edge. I know it’s not much next to your usual regimen, but why don’t we take a stroll, get a look at the place? I’ve always wanted to visit England.”
“Aye, that sounds nice.” Powell agreed. “Bloody nice weather, too.”
“If you say so.” she half-smiled, and picked at the blue pullover sweater she had on over her shirt. “It’s kinda cold for my tastes.”
“Blue sky.” he pointed out.
She rolled her eyes and her smile got a little broader. “Oh, yeah. Break out the beer and hot dogs.”
This got a chuckle out of him. “Arright. Not sure where we can stroll to around here though.”
“That’s fine. let’s just get away from those cameras.”
They did so, heading away from the stable yard and hugging the wall until suddenly they found a secluded spot where nobody could see them. Powell felt a hand on his upper arm and when he turned to check on her she surprised him with a brief, but tender, kiss.
He blinked, and laughed. “That was nice. What was it for?”
“Come on, how often do you get to sneak a kiss in the grounds of a royal palace?” she grinned and, with a tilt of her head, suggested they should start walking again. “I know, I know, we’re on the job, there’s media around, I should be more careful…”
“Oi.” Powell chuckled at her. “I won’t tell if you don’t. I like the thrill of a little danger meself.”
“Fuckin’ A!” she nodded, then put a hand to her mouth guiltily. “Probably shouldn’t swear here.”
“It’s not fookin’ church.” Powell teased.
Their stroll took them back around an internal corner of the stable yard, and back into view of a news crew. “So… what did you mean by ‘yes and no’?” Rylee asked him.
Powell shrugged. “I never met the King, but they have that tradition of service… I remember there was this interview Harry gave, when he was crewin’ Apaches in Afghanistan. Summat came up and he just ripped the mic off and belted for his machine with ‘is mates. I’ve got a lotta respect for ‘em in that regard. You know better’n anyone, it’s gotta be hard bein’ military and bein’ a celebrity at the same time.”
“Tell me about it.” She kept a professionally neutral face as the camera turned to watch them pass. Just two officers going about their business, rather than two… close friends enjoying each others’ company.
“So, yeah on that level I’ve got a lot of respect for His Majesty and the lads. But…” Powell checked they weren’t in earshot of anybody. “I’unno. I’ve always been summat of a republican meself.”
“Isn’t the King your commander-in-chief?”
“Aye. An’, don’t get me wrong, I take that fookin’ seriously. So long as that’s how it works, I’ll go wi’ it. But if there was a referendum tomorrow about becoming… I dunno, the United British Republic or summat like that? I know which way I’d vote. I’d rather have a proper constitution than all…” he waved a hand at the Tudor opulence around them. “-this.”
“Pity.” Rylee mused.
“Don’t tell me you’re a monarchist?” Powell asked her.
“It seems to work for this country. It just wouldn’t be Britain somehow without it, you know?”
“It’s not like all those buildings and stuff would just go away. Hell, it’s not like we’d roll out the fookin’ guillotine, neither.” Powell pointed out.
“Yeah, I know. Just…” she sighed and smiled at the brickwork. “I dunno. Somehow, I think the magic would go out of it.”
“They’re just blokes.” Powell pointed out. “Nice blokes, sure. Probably. But they shit just like the rest of us… and I bet they’re fed the fook up with cameras, too.”
“Hmm. Too bad all of the princes and princesses who’re old enough aren’t single.”
“Now there’s a fookin’ original fantasy nobody’s ever had before…” Powell retorted, knowing full well she was only teasing.
She laughed again. “Yeah, and it’s not like I need the visibility, is it?”
“Money’d be nice.” He suggested.
“Eh. Maybe. Y’know, I don’t know what I’d do with more money?”
“Aye. Me either.”
“So is that why you didn’t go with?” she asked. “I mean, you commanded the mission…”
“Same reason you turned down the Medal of Honor.” Powell told her. Jackson had summarily dismissed any suggestion that she should receive it even though the President had practically jumped at the chance to give her one after her mission-saving stunt during Operation Nova Hound. Current scuttlebutt had it that she’d be getting an Air Force Cross instead. “I don’t need the publicity, I don’t-”
“Powell, I turned down the MOH because the politicians don’t like letting ‘heroes’-” she gave the word a contemptuous flourish that suggested she thought of herself as anything but “-put themselves back in harms’ way. Accepting it would have ended my career. I can handle publicity and fame, even though I bitch about it. But I’ll fight tooth and nail to keep my wings.”
“Wouldn’t know what to do wi’ yourself without them, huh?”
She shook her head. “Would you know what to do with yourself without the SOR?”
Powell bobbled his head, conceding the point. “Guess I wouldn’t… that ain’t gonna end well for either of us though. You know that, right?”
She nodded. “Yup. Either we live long enough that something forces us to retire, or we get our asses KIA.”
She checked to make sure they weren’t overheard, then leaned in conspiratorially. “Don’t tell anyone I said this, but sometimes? I feel like I’d prefer the latter. It scares me less.”
Powell nodded. “To die will be an awfully big adventure.” he quoted.
She nodded. “Peter Pan? That’s us alright. Scared to grow up.”
“Christ, when you put it like that it almost sounds fookin’ cowardly.”
“Peter Pan was a coward.”
“He was a child. Immature. Not the same thing.”
“Great, so either we’re cowards or we’re childish.” She grinned, but there was an uncertain edge to it, and she stopped suddenly. “Do you think that’s true? Either of them?”
Powell shook his head. “I’m walkin’ around wi’ a woman who literally took a fookin’ bullet for me.” he said. “An’ she did it fightin’ cannibal fookin’ monsters from outer space who want the whole human race dead. How much more mature or brave do you want?”
“Don’t-”
“No. Harden up and accept the praise that’s due ye.”
She sighed and waved a conceding hand. “From you? Okay. But only from you.”
Powell smiled with her and they resumed their stroll. “I coulda gone with.” he said, gesturing toward Buckingham Palace. “But, this is a diplomatic thing. Strengthening ties. Best to let Regaari stand out in the clear, aye?”
“What’s he receiving, anyway?”
“The George Medal. For acts of bravery in, or meriting recognition by, the United Kingdom. Though, I hear they’d have preferred to take the time and commission a whole new medal recognising gallantry by ETs, but…”
“Not enough time?”
“If we get through this whole visit wi’out summat goin’ catastrophically wrong, I’ll consider it a bloody miracle.” Powell grumbled. “Five fookin’ days. Five! I’ve run some hasty bodge-job ops in my time, but five days’ notice to babysit a couple of ETs around a planet that’s become a fookin’ byword for deadliness up there…” he jerked his head skyward “Just about wins the prize.”
“Worth it, though.”
Powell scratched the side of his head, thoughtfully. “You think?”
“You said it yourself, Dexter saved the mission.” Rylee pointed out. “And I’ve met Gaoians myself. If you ask me, we want them as allies.”
Powell rubbed his jaw uncertainly. “I reviewed Warhorse’s helmet cam footage. Regaari? He fookin’ deserves what he’s receiving today. It’s the rest of his species I’m not so sure on. An’ to be honest, even a scrappy little gaffer like him… I mean, what would an alliance even look like? If we were to do joint trainin’ and it turns out they wouldn’t wind up slowing our lads down? I’ll eat my fookin’ beret, badge and all. They’re not deathworlders.”
“Wanna bet?”
“Absolutely.” he nodded. “If we ally with the Gaoians, it’ll be nice, but we’ll be the ones doin’ all the hard graft. Bet you.”
“You’re on.” Rylee grinned. “Though, I’ll be kind and have a cake replica made. No sense in wasting a good beret. Fair?”
“Aye? So either I’m right, or I eat a cake. Not exactly a fookin’ lose-lose, is it?”
“Fine, fine.” She laughed. “Loser treats the winner to a nice meal. Somewhere fancy.”
“Oh, aye. Yeah.” Powell rolled his eyes. “A date with you’s way worse than eatin’ cake.”
“That’s my cruellest offer, you sarcastic sadist.” she waved a mock-scolding finger. “Besides, you’ll be paying.”
“Only if I lose.”
“Oh you’ll lose.” She told him. “I promise.”
“Done.” Powell glanced toward Buckingham Palace again. “…An’ I hope to God you’re right.”
The Mall, London, England, Earth
Ava Rìos.
“Is that them? I think that’s them!”
“Sean, for crying out loud…”
“What? It’s kind of a big deal, Ava. Aliens visiting London? And we have front row seats!”
“Yeah, but that’s not them.”
“Oh…”
Sean deflated, and Ava fidgeted with her camera.
They had front row seats all right. They had press seats courtesy of Simon Harvey, who’d figured that alien VIPs in the heart of London was a decent starting point to test his young apprentices before they got on to the real deal.
“Okay. That’s them.” Sean asserted, as a convoy of black cars turned onto the Mall and processed with dignified slowness in their direction. Ava had to agree.
Cameras were being focused all around, and she raised her own, doing her best to stay on top of doing her job, when her mouth was dry and her heart pounding.
Simon put a hand on her upper back, in a reassuring avuncular way. “Nervous?”
“Part of me hopes he’ll see me, part of me hopes he won’t…”
Simon patted her shoulder. “You’re fine. You’ve got this.”
She nodded, and kept her eye to the viewfinder as the cars stopped in a genteel semicircle behind the barriers, under the watchful gaze of Metropolitan Police in their high-vis yellow jackets that reminded her so much of Cimbrean Colonial Security.
To her dismay, Adam stepped out of the car first. A sea of people near the front of the crowd earned Ava’s immediate hatred by going mad for him – she took a picture, framing him versus them as he awkwardly raised a hand to acknowledge the attention before getting back to the job of tending to Regaari as the Gaoian carefully levered himself out of the car.
By the time the VIPs were on their feet, had received the attention of the crowd, and had been escorted into the palace, she’d managed to become totally focused on taking pictures, while beside her Sean, armed with a tablet, did his damnedest to keep up with the flow from her camera, swiping them into a multitude of different folders for immediate upload and sale to whatever news and stock image agencies couldn’t be present to generate the pictures themselves. Within hours, one of Ava’s pictures would be on the front page of a newspaper.
Adam was the last to be ushered into the building, and she finally relaxed as it was closed behind him. He’d never even glanced at the press.
She met Simon’s eye, and he nodded. “Well done.” he told her.
It made her feel much better.
Date Point 10y4m1w1d AV
North Clearwater County, Minnesota, USA, Earth
Kevin Jenkins
Allison Buehler was perched sidesaddle on the front of an elderly pickup, elbows-deep in its engine. She was gracious enough to dignify Kevin’s arrival with turning her head, giving him a cool stare, and then calling for Julian, who emerged from round the back of the house with a knife in one hand and an uncomfortable reminder that meat was dead animal in the other. Not that Kevin had ever not known that or been troubled by it, but a skinned goose carcass was an unsettling sight if you weren’t prepared for it.
Unless you were used to it, it seemed. Even Buehler gave it a slightly uneasy glance as Etsicitty hung it by its feet from a hook under his house’s eaves and rinsed his hands from the garden hose.
“Shoot that yourself?” Kevin asked him, by way of an ice breaker.
“Nope, it was defeated in battle and committed hara-kiri.” Julian told him, and mimed handing him something. “Here’s yer sign.”
”…Huh?”
“Never mind… If you’re here about the contract, we’ll discuss it after dinner.”
”…Don’t suppose I can convince you to discuss it earlier?” Kevin asked. “It’s not even noon yet.”
“Nope.” Etsicitty told him. “You can go an’ come back, make yourself useful or, hell, just take a stroll round the property. But we’ve got a lot to get done while it’s light.”
Kevin considered his options, then decided he may as well ingratiate himself by being useful. “Uh… you need a hand with that pickup, miss Buehler?”
She laughed. “You’re gonna help me do engine maintenance in that suit? You’re a brave man, mister Jenkins.”
Kevin shrugged the jacket off, threw it onto his passenger seat and rolled up his sleeves. “Fuck it. Dry cleaning’s a travel expense.” he declared, declining to mention the two spare suits in the trunk.
Buehler made a could-have-been impressed motion with her head, and waved a hand that was black halfway to the elbow in the general direction of her toolbox. “One and one-eighth.”
Kevin ambled over to it, turned a few socket wrench heads over in his hands until he found the right one, and handed it to her.
“Your enthusiasm’s overwhelming.” she muttered, leaning back into the engine and ratcheting deep inside it. There was a kind of plastic spattering noise from under the truck, which, when Kevin stooped to look, turned out to be murky brown fluid gushing into an ancient yellow bucket.
“What’re we doing?” he asked.
“Complete fluid change. This thing’s not been driven in six years.” Buehler told him. “Water, brakes, transmission, oil…all of it.”
The separator finished draining, and she slipped a hand deep into the engine to close it off again.
“Where’d you learn how to do this?” Kevin asked her.
“Not being a fucking little girl about getting my hands dirty?” She asked. “This isn’t rocket science. These things are made to be maintained…Here.” She popped a filthy air filter out of its housing and shoved it into Kevin’s chest. “Replacement’s in the garage.”
Brushing dirt out of his shirt, Kevin followed instructions and head for the garage. Etsicitty had vanished in there and was cleaning and sharpening his knife.
“She doesn’t like me much, I think.” Kevin ventured, setting down the old filter and collecting the new one.
“She doesn’t hate you either.” Julian replied calmly. “You’d know.”
“Any advice?”
“Don’t try and be her friend, ‘cause you ain’t. She values honesty, Jenkins. You’re not here to be our buddy, you’re here to hire us. So, be real about that if you wanna be on her good side.”
“And you?”
Etsicitty tested the edge of his knife by effortlessly slicing a strip off a sheet of paper. Apparently this was satisfactory, because the blade then vanished into the leather sheath on his pocket in an easy, practiced motion. “I like everybody if they don’t give me a reason not to.” he said.
”…Right.”
Allison was waiting impatiently for the new filter when he ducked under the ceiling canoe and stepped outside again. He tossed it to her. “How about alien tech?” he asked.
Allison turned back around and easily installed the filter, closing the housing with two firm snaps. “Why?”
“I AM here to get you on the payroll. Be useful to know what you can do.”
She snorted. “It’s idiot-proof. What more is there to say? No user-serviceable parts, just pull the faulty module, order a replacement from the nanofactory, plug it in. God knows what you’re supposed to do if it it’s the nanofac that’s busted, but…” She jumped down and wiped two greasy hand-prints onto her jeans. “You’re welcome to bow out of the oil change while that nice shirt’s still kinda clean.”
“What, and play Triumvirate Online in the car for eight hours on company time?” Kevin grunted. “Tempting, but no.”
He caught the half-smirk that she covered by turning and digging under the car for the bucket. “Suit yourself.”
To Kevin’s surprise, the work turned out to be enjoyable. Messy, yes, but despite her frosty attitude Buehler did the bulk of the dirty work herself and relegated Kevin to fetching wrench heads and buckets, storing nuts and parts safely, and fetching the fresh fluids from the garage.
She even loosened up enough to give him a high-five when the truck grunted into life around about noon. “Thanks. That goes a lot faster with two.” she told him, turning a cloth rag grey as she wiped the worst of the grime off her palms onto it.
“I actually kinda enjoyed it.” Kevin admitted.
“Feels good to work with your hands, yeah.” She patted the truck affectionately.
“What’s next?”
“Next, I’m gonna clean up then take this thing for a drive, make sure it’s working okay.” She replied. “Gotta get rid of the old oil and stuff properly, pick up groceries, stuff like that.”
“Ah.” Kevin looked around. “Uh…”
“Julian’s up in the back woods. Said something about making sure the beavers don’t flood us out.”
“Think he needs a hand?”
She grabbed a bottle of bright orange hand cleanser. “Look. You’re trying to get in good with us, I get that. Hell, maybe you’re a great guy to have for a friend, I don’t know, but your relationship with us is pure business and I’d prefer to keep it that way.”
“I’m just trying to establish a rapport.” Kevin defended himself.
“And there’s your problem.” she said. “Don’t. I ain’t interested in a rapport. I’m interested in getting the fuck offa this planet and you’re the man with the spaceship. So let’s focus on that and maybe I might decide to like you.”
Kevin shook his head and sat on the hood of his car. “You have a completely different attitude to most folks I’ve met.” he observed.
She rinsed her hands off into yet another bucket, and the orange slime she’d spread all over them took most of the filth and grease with it. She started slathering on a second dose. “Yeah? Y’know, I saw that footage of you telling Kirk and Vedreg about religion. I thought you were a straight talker. What happened to that guy?”
“You an atheist?”
“That’s none of your damn business, and don’t change the subject.”
Kevin shrugged. “That was fifteen years ago.” he pointed out. “That’s a long time. People change. I learned stuff about how the world works.”
“And how does the world work according to Kevin Jenkins?” she asked, rinsing her hands off again. They were almost perfectly clean now, so she shook the water off them and wiped them dry on her backside.
Kevin rolled his jaw thoughtfully. “Way I see it, if you’ve found somebody who isn’t trying to manipulate or use you, you’ve found true love.” he said. “And, uh, no disrespect, but I don’t love you.”
She gave him a flatly skeptical stare. “A guy like you believes in true love?”
“Nope.” Kevin stood up. “Do you?”
“By your definition?” She looked thoughtfully in the direction of the woods for a moment, and then nodded with a half-smile. “Absolutely. Look, make yourself comfortable indoors. We’ve got a big TV and satellite. Hell, we’ve got an old Sega if you want, whatever. I’m gonna be gone a few hours, and so’s Julian.
“Sure?”
“Don’t get motor oil on the couch.”
“Right.” Kevin fetched a change of clothes from the trunk as she headed indoors. The screen door did its banshee impersonation behind him as Allison vanished into a bedroom.
Things had tidied up nicely inside even in the two days since he’d last visited, and he took a quick tour. Kevin didn’t believe in Feng Shui, but rearranging the furniture had done a lot for opening the place up and making it feel brighter, now that the big glass doors out onto the deck weren’t half-blocked by the television and the antediluvian floral-print heavy curtains had been taken down. There were dark patches on the walls where some of the infinite decorations had hung for decades, protecting the pigment. The incandescent bulbs were gone, replaced with modern smart LED bulbs. Already the place looked less… kitschy.
“Hey, look, I said we’d win this thing for you…” he called out “But I wouldn’t get too premature on the decorating if I was y’all. You haven’t even signed up yet!”
“We’ve not!” she called back through the door. “Just took some things down and moved some other things.”
“Beats the crap out of paperwork I guess.” Kevin admitted.
“Julian needed the break. Too many fancy legal ten-dollar words, you know?”
“You get used to them, with time.”
“You can get used to anything with time.” she commented and opened the door, having changed into a plaid shirt and clean jeans. “But, he’s happier doing physical stuff. Me too, for that matter.”
She fished down the back of the couch and producedfor him a remote control. “Knock yourself out.”
“This ain’t exactly how I’d planned on spending company time.” Kevin objected.
“You want us on that spaceship?” she asked.
“Yeah!”
“Then sit your ass down and watch TV and we’ll talk it over with dinner.”
Kevin took the remote off her and did as he was told, and Allison grabbed her coat and bag. She glanced wistfully at the back room where the gun locker was, muttered a reminder to herself about needing a license, and vanished with a screech of badly-maintained screen door. Some seconds later, the truck they’d spent all morning servicing grumbled awake and pulled out.
Kevin turned the TV on, browsed the planner for a few minutes, and settled on watching the NCAA highlights.
This became the Pro Drone Racing highlights. Then the golf highlights. Then the Indycar highlights. Boredom was inspiring him to idle contemplation of the merits of suicide when movement out the back window caught his attention, which turned out to be Etsicitty picking his way between the trees with a rifle on his back and three dead beaver in his hand.
There was a shed next to the log pile that Etsicitty vanished into. Kevin sat waiting for him to emerge, but the wait took long enough that he eventually gave up and found a movie to watch in the form of Star Wars Episode VIII.
It was firmly in the late afternoon by the time Etsicitty emerged from the shed with red hands and some gory remains, with which he vanished back into the woods. He returned empty-handed just as the credits rolled, and entered through the utility room, the door on which was mercifully silent. There was the sound of running water and, at length, he padded through into the kitchen and grabbed a water bottle from the fridge. His prosthetic foot sounded strange on the linoleum.
“Good couch, ain’t it?” he asked.
“Damn good.” Kevin admitted. “I’ve been sat here for hours, and I’m not gettin’ antsy.”
“Drink? We got Pepsi, iced tea, water or milk.”
“Pepsi’d be good, thank you.”
Julian closed the fridge stepped around the couch and sat down next to him, handing him a drink can. “Star Wars?”
“Yup… Hey, uh…”
“Yeah?”
“What’s with the beavers?”
Julian chuckled. “Good eatin’ on them.” he said. “Hell, beaver tail’s a delicacy.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“Nuh-uh. You gotta hang it a day or two, but you cook ‘em right and they taste kinda like smoky pork. Pelt’s useful, too, but it can get kinda cut up in the spring when they fight.”
“So you hunt them for food?” Kevin asked.
“Trap ‘em. They need it, too. Stupid furry fuckers are rodents, and they breed like rodents too. And round here there’s nothing eating them.”
“There ain’t?”
“Nope. All that farmland’s buffering them and keeping them safe.” Julian scratched at the back of his neck. “Right now the population’s getting just big enough to eat more than the land can give ‘em, so I’ve either gotta cull them right back, or they’ll starve anyway. We may as well get a meal out of it, right?”
“Bet you make a lot of friends in PETA with that attitude.”
Julian produced a silent beat of humorless laughter that was over as soon as it had started. “I love animals.” he said. “But this isn’t a natural landscape, and if it’s gonna remain healthy it needs a human hand on the tiller, and a lot of the time that’s going to mean trapping and shooting. Sucks for the beaver, but you’ve gotta look at the big picture. Either I can snare three beavers and kill them quick and humane, or dozens of them can slowly starve to death because they ate everything. I know which sounds less cruel to me.”
”…I hear what you’re saying,” Kevin conceded “but that still… I dunno, it seems cruel.”
Julian shrugged. “Deathworld.”
He took a swig of his water and set it down on the coffee table. “And believe me, I know better than most just how much of a deathworld Earth really is. We’ve tamed her, a fuck of a lot. But she’s still an ornery old mare at heart and she’ll kick you down and stamp on your head if she gets the chance. Most people don’t realise that because they don’t need to.”
“How does she stack up to Nightmare?”
Julian shrugged. “By and large? Earth is nastier.”
“Nightmare’s a thirteen, though. We’re ‘just’ a twelve.”
“Yeah, but the Corti created the planetary classification system, or at least they refined the algorithm, and I guess it inherited some of their prejudices.” Julian said. “The big-headed little fucks don’t like eccentric orbits or whatever, and they didn’t really see that when you’ve got a predictable deep freeze cycle with a short summer, that’s going to put limits on what kind of life forms you get.”
“Sure, in the summer…” He patted his hatchet. “Mangrabber vines and bombfruit and murderpigs and minizillas and don’t even get me fucking started on the Go-to-hell tree. THAT thing was a nasty surprise.”
“Go-to-hell tree?”
“Spreads its seeds by spontaneous combustion right at the peak of the summer season, and the timber can self-ignite even when it’s been dead and drying out all winter. Good thing I didn’t build my hut out of the stuff, or I’d have lost everything.”
He grinned. “And if you think that sounds outlandish? We’ve got plants right here on Earth that do something similar. An’ there’s the thing. We’ve GOT exploding fruit, and carnivorous plants, and big smelly dangerous critters here on Earth, and here they’re awake for two thirds of the year if they go to sleep at all. Everything hibernates on Nightmare.”
“Come on, a Venus Flytrap couldn’t even hurt a Corti.” Kevin said.
“Nope, and that’s what made the Corti decide Nightmare deserves a thirteen and Mother Earth only got a twelve. But what makes her way nastier is the diseases.” Julian nodded. “Cut yourself on Earth, and you’d better sterilize that wound in case you get a staph infection or something. Sometimes, you can sterilize it and get an infection anyway. You gotta boil the water, cook the meat, keep yourself wrapped up warm…”
He took another sip of water, and a thought seemed to occur to him as he was swallowing. “Hell, do you know how much disease avoidance and control is built into EVERYONE’s daily lives? Like, we don’t even notice it! Fuck, there’s a whole aisle in the supermarkets for soap, and another one for scrubbing the bacteria out of your mouth that’d eat your teeth otherwise. Then there’s the one for household cleaning products, bleach, mold killer, the fact that every single food item in that store has an expiry date, the soap and sinks for people to wash their hands in the bathroom, the tissues for covering your mouth and blowing your nose, bug spray and zappers because insects are a disease vector…Hell, there’s a whole industry and market sector in scented soaps because we have to scrub ourselves everyday or else stink of bacterial action in our skin, so we may as well put some perfume in there so we can wind up smelling pretty afterwards…”
“Don’t forget the pharmacy.” Kevin pointed out.
“You’re right. And all those antibiotics are on a time limit anyway.”
“Meanwhile, you just spent the morning trapping a knee-high critter that’ll chew through a tree and dam a whole river.”
“Right.”
Julian scratched at his hair a bit. “Most folks live in cities now.” he pointed out. He didn’t have any particular style, Kevin noticed – it was just dark, shaggy, and ignored, presumably right up until it got in the way. He wondered if Julian was in the habit of just taking his knife to it every so often rather than finding the services of a barber. “They’re not in touch with what Earth is really like, or what humans are really like as a species: We’re fuckin’ predators. There’s nothing on this whole planet we can’t, won’t and haven’t killed and eaten at some point.”
“Some folks’d argue we don’t have to.”
Julian shrugged. “I’ve got no beef with vegetarians or vegans.” he said, amicably. “Their diet’s none of my business. But even if we stopped farming livestock tomorrow, we’d still have to cull the beavers. May as well do it humanely and eat ‘em afterwards.”
Kevin chuckled. “You’re a talkative guy when you open up.”
Julian laughed with him. “I nearly went full Tom Hanks on Nightmare. Didn’t paint a face on a volleyball, but I sure as hell talked to myself a lot.”
“The nice thing about talking to yourself is nobody interrupts you.”
Julian chuckled some more. “Heh. Yeah, you’re all right.” He declared.
“Glad one of the three of you thinks so.”
“Well, provoking Xiù into punching you in the face didn’t exactly endear you to us…” Julian stretched.
“I really didn’t mean to.”
“I get that. Hell, first thing she ever did to me was brandish a knife at me.” He grinned at Kevin’s concerned frown. “My fault for sneaking up on her.”
“So she brandished a knife at you for sneaking up on her, broke my nose for saying the wrong things… Shit, what does she do to a man who actually hurts her?”
“Breaks his ribs, knocks him out and then throws him out an airlock.” Julian replied promptly. Seeing Kevin’s expression he raised a reassuring hand. “-into a river. She’s not a murderer, he lived. And in fairness to her, it was Kirk who cut the bastard’s arm off.”
“Kirk wh-? My Kirk?”
“He’s his Kirk, but yeah. Remember that prosthetic of his? There’s a fusion blade hidden in there. And, uh, Zane had it fuckin’ coming. It’s a long story.”
“Damn… Kirk went up against a human and won.”
“Dude, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to go up against Kirk myself. Sure, he’s an ET, but there’s a sharp-ass brain in there that thinks like twenty steps ahead of – oh, they’re back!”
“They?” Kevin asked, as Julian kicked his legs out and stood up eagerly. There was a snapping noise and he cursed, sitting back down and examining his prosthetic foot. “Y’okay?”
“Fucking first metatarsal’s gone again.” Julian made a resigned noise through his nose and started unhooking and peeling back layers of synthetic myomere. If the composite “bones” of his foot hadn’t been carbon black wrapped in obviously artificial white “muscles” and “tendons” then the view of his foot flayed open would have been an obscene one. He dug around inside it with one of his smaller knives to scrape out the dried adhesive from a previous repair, and dug a small tube of superglue out of this pocket.
“Simple fix.” Kevin noted.
“I’ve had a lot of practice.” Julian grumbled.
“Can’t you get a better one?”
“Not one that feels and behaves just like a real foot and weighs the same… there we go.” Julian sat back and rested his ankle on the opposite knee.
The door squeaked loudly, and Xiù Chang stepped through it, with a large bag over her shoulder and Allison behind her wearing a mischievous grin.
”…Ah.” Kevin cleared his throat and stood up. “Miss Chang.”
”…Mister Jenkins.” She put the bag down, warily. “How’s the nose?”
“Healing.”
“Good. That’s… good.”
Kevin became acutely aware that Allison and Julian were sharing an increasingly amused expression as he and Xiù both stood there in awkward silence.
He manned up.
“Look, for what it’s worth-”
She spoke at the exact same time. “I feel like maybe I-”
“You fir- I mean-”
“No, after- um, if you’re-?”
“Well if-”
“Um…”
Allison shook her head and rubbed her eyebrows. There was a smile pushing at her cheekbones. “Mister Jenkins first.” she instructed.
Kevin sighed. “…I went about this whole thing wrong.” he said. “I shoulda just been professional with you instead of tryin’ to sympathize and diggin’ up painful stuff. I’m sorry.”
Xiù nodded. “And I should have kept my cool and not punched you.” she replied. “I’m sorry too.”
“Apologies accepted?” Allison asked. Behind Kevin, Julian started reattaching the synthetic muscles of his foot to their frame. Both Kevin and Xiù nodded, and shook hands. “Friends?”
”…Not yet.” Kevin decided. “I came here to do business, and you’re right: We should keep it that way.”
“I think us abductees and friends of Kirk should stick together.” Julian suggested.
“Sure. But… best for everybody right now if I just be the dude in the suit.” Kevin nodded.
“Yup.” Allison agreed. She gestured to the table. “We brought pizza. Sit down and…”
She smiled. “Let’s talk business.”