Date Point: 15y5m4d AV Alien Quarter, Folctha, Cimbrean, the Far Reaches
Nofl
It was always a delight when one of Nofl’s old patients visited, and Chief Arés had been a particularly gratifying success. Repairing an old neural injury like that—and Human nerves were so fascinatingly delicate in a high-strung, extreme performance way—without any scarring? It was some of Nofl’s finest work, at least when it came to Humans, and it had made him phenomenally wealthy in very short order.
His lab nowadays was… one of the students had called it a “Mecca” for neuroscientists, and it had taken some polite inquiries before Nofl had learned that the word was actually the proper name of a city of tremendous spiritual importance to a subset of Humanity.
He liked the sound of that.
Right now, though, there were more important things on Nofl’s mind than his own ego, a hitherto almost unheard-of eventuality.
There were things that the Humans needed to know, and Arés was his best point of contact. That opportunity came with his final check-up.
And of course, Arés really wasn’t interested in his own health so much. He nodded and made distracted noises as Nofl recounted all the fascinating ways in which his treatment had seamlessly spliced new fascicles, perineurium and endoneurium into the damaged segment cultured from Arés’ own tissue… but in reality he seemed bored. He looked around a lot, examined some of the other projects on the walls.
“…Why do you have a dog up on that display?” he asked, then leaned forward to peer at it. He insisted on not wearing his vision correction, the prideful idiot. “Wait. Is that Bozo?”
Nofl glanced at it. “Hm? Oh. Ah, yes. Getting him to stand still for the scanner was a bit of a challenge. I had to resort to raw turkey.” Just recounting that made him wipe his fingers primly on his apron.
“Why do you have a scan of Bozo?”
Nofl gave him his best innocent blink. “Why not?” he asked. “Anyway, seeing as you obviously find this all so incredibly dull despite my sparkling personality…”
Arés laughed. “Sorry. It’s just that all the technical stuff goes over my head.”
“Rest assured, I probably suffer from the same affliction when it comes to the intricacies of your work,” Nofl said. He hopped down off his stool and skipped over to his work terminal. It was Human-made, but he found he liked the chunky, mechanical simplicity of its styling. The electronics within weren’t at all inferior, either.
“And you’re certain there shouldn’t be any long-term effects?”
“No. It’s all your own tissue, dear. You know this!”
“I know, I know. It’s just…is my son healthy?” Arés asked.
Nofl flapped a hand distractedly. “He is categorically the healthiest human alive. Beyond that, I can’t say. Apparently I have an obligation to medical confidentiality, and my lawyer is very specific about that sort of thing…Anyway. A little gift for you.”
Arés immediately got wary. “…Nofl?”
“Not a bribe! Tchuh!” Nofl employed his best approximation of a Human tut. “No no no, this is something you might actually find interesting.”
“You thought I’d find that epineuro…thing interesting,” Arés pointed out, but he accepted the tablet that Nofl handed him.
“…Project ALTERNATIVE EXPERIMENT?”
“It’s a…. What’s that fascinating word? Dorky. It’s a dorky name, isn’t it?” Nofl commented. “I keep telling them they should call it something exciting and macho, but I think Lor is ignoring that.”
Arés aimed a sardonic eyebrow at him. “…You don’t say?”
“Yes, yes, I know what my species is like. Macho isn’t really our style, darling. Anyway, read!”
“Who’s Lor?”
“Read!” Nofl pressed him, and resorted to the kind of bribery that Arés did accept. “I’ll make coffee.”
Arés was engrossed in his reading when the drink arrived a minute or two later. “…You make surprisingly good coffee,” he said while finally digging in. “Isn’t caffeine an almost instantly fatal poison for a Corti?”
“Yes, but coffee is fiendishly difficult to do properly, darling! A boy needs a hobby, and what better hobby than chemistry?”
“Really?”
“Oh yes! The acid balance, the phenols, the acetaldehyde, trigonelline, furaneol… I could write a song! Something modelled after Gilbert and Sullivan perhaps…”
Arés shook his head but he was trying not to grin. “You always seem to save your extra scandalous days for when I visit.”
Nofl gave him his Innocent Blink again. “Read up!”
Arés did so. In fact, he read the report twice while he drank the coffee.
“So?” Nofl asked him when he finally put the tablet down and finished the cup. “What do you think?”
Arés dragged a thumb through his stubble as he thought. “It’s good. Fruity, with a hint of caramel. It’s definitely decaf though, I can tell.”
“I meant the report, you troglodyte! Don’t you sass me!”
“I can sass with the best of them, Nofl.” Arés grinned. “But it really does lose something without the caffeine…”
Nofl sighed. “Fine, fine, I’ll try that supercritical CO2 process I’ve heard about. Now if you’re kindly done trying to scandalize me…”
Arés chuckled and considered the report. “Very interesting indeed. I can’t imagine a Human government doing anything like it. It’s very…”
“Logical? Sensible? Expedient?” Nofl suggested.
“Utterly amoral.”
“Darling, this is our survival we’re talking about.”
“I didn’t say immoral, I said *a*moral. They aren’t the same meaning.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” Nofl huffed. He gathered up the empty coffee cup and returned it to the cluttered counter where the cleaning service could deal with it for him later. “My point stands. Even if my people hadn’t spent a hundred generations methodically breeding ourselves toward that point of view, now is not the time for sentiment. Not after what happened to the Gao, and especially the Guvnurag.”
“No, it isn’t. But my question to you is this: how far are you willing to go?”
“Me personally? Or my people?”
“Yes.”
“Very Zen, dear.” Nofl thought about it. “Personally…So long as there are Corti around afterwards, who remember how to read Banners and relish the rush and push of the great ladder of opportunity…”
“Well, if you’re talking about proper survival, you need to be able to ditch advanced technology. That means bearing offspring. The first commandment of any living thing is to be fruitful and multiply.”
“From Zen to Biblical! You’re in a spiritual mood today, Chief.”
“Nah. I’m just gonna be a grandpa soon. Like, any day now.”
“Mm. Sadly, your daughter-in-law was not willing to submit to a scan. Not even for raw turkey.”
“Ha!” Arés shook his head. “Try jalapeño cheese poppers next time. That’s what she’s been going crazy for during the pregnancy. I mean, she normally likes them well enough but right now she’s an addict.”
“Ah yes, the famous craving food. Curious phenomenon.”
“For my ex-wife, when she was carrying Adam, it was dill pickles. Which he will eat by the jarful if you let him.”
“More coffee?”
“…You know what, sure.” Arés read the report a third time. Nofl couldn’t blame him at all—despite his best efforts at translating it, the Directorate preferred an extremely upper-caste and formal form of Cortan that was simply impossible to dumb down or simplify. The report made for exceptionally dry reading, despite the subject matter.
“…As for a return to, ah… organic reproduction,” Nofl, as a scientist, found the process fascinating rather than repulsive, but he still retained some old habits of discretion, “that probably won’t fall within the purview of this project, at least not at first.”
“You couldn’t… engineer yourself backwards?” Arés asked.
“Darling, take an assembly line that turns out thousands of modern vehicles and then ask it to build a wooden cart.”
“That’s not really an apt analogy, Nofl.”
“Is it not? Progress is iterative, both ways. The infrastructure upon which an entire civilization rests doesn’t just downgrade overnight, and certainly not when the infrastructure in question is genetic.” Nofl summoned a set of notes he’d been compiling on that subject. “We are capable of extremely efficient genetic engineering, it’s true, but that doesn’t mean we can just, ah, control-Z centuries of development.”
“That still leaves you a species dependent on a high-technology civilization to exist.”
“Yes. Hence why we’re doing this. That criticism goes for your kind as well. Your son for example requires a vast supply of daily calories simply to maintain his metabolism! If Warhorse were subjected to a prolonged survival situation he would quickly starve to death. Or look at Folctha itself! How quickly would this town collapse if we somehow became cut off from Earth?”
“…True. That’s one of the things that worries me about Adam. But he’s not the norm, he’s exceptional. Every single member of your species is incapable of reproduction, Nofl.”
“Yes, dear. Which is why you are holding a document informing us of the first step in our plan to fix that problem.” He gave Arés the most penetrating glare he could manage. “My people are many things, and I have argued for a long time that one of those things is foolish. But one thing we absolutely are not is stupid. When we think about something, we think about it.”
Arés nodded, and Nofl handed him his coffee.
“…I’m glad you’re doing something,” he said as he took it.
“Oh, Chief. No sentimental words? No warm fuzzies? No ‘the galaxy would be poorer without your people’ or anything like that?”
Arés snorted. “Don’t push your luck.”
“Yes, yes…” Nofl returned to his files. “It would be, though. And I don’t just mean financially, though my goodness can you imagine if the Origin Bank collapsed?! The whole Dominion economy would go with it!” He thought about that for a second. “…I really should remind Lor to consider that.”
“Yes, this Lor,” Arés waved the report. “He’s… the Dean of a college?”
“Yes. It’s not quite the same thing. The Colleges certainly aren’t quite what a Human would think of when they hear the word.”
“They’re not centers of learning?”
“Oh, they are! They’re also… political parties, think-tanks, advisory groups, regulatory councils… They are centers of study, and of the application of the fruits of their study, if you follow me.”
“Isn’t that inefficient?”
“As opposed to the splendidly streamlined process of Democracy?” Nofl waved a hand at the wall, indicating the city and colony around them. “It’s no worse, at least.”
“Folctha isn’t a democracy, we’re a constitutional republican monarchy.”
“Ah yes. The roots of tradition, extending all the way back to some muddy Human in metal armor who conquered a rainy little island in the freezing north of one of the colder continents and then taxed the crap out of his new subjects.”
“Hey, don’t look at me! I’m an American, we ditched all that nonsense hundreds of years ago.”
“Oh, but I approve!” Nofl exclaimed. “It’s a system grounded in deep history, with deep roots, and that means stability. Not like the lone teetering, fragile pillar of your vaunted Constitution.”
Arés scowled. “Hey come *on*—!”
Nofl barrelled on through his objection. “You don’t think things like the Castes, the Colleges and the Banners arose out of pure practicality, do you? But in a way they did! Tradition tells people who they are and where they came from. The wider the roots and the deeper they go, the stronger the edifice. The Banners once rallied armies, you know.”
“…I gotta say, I’m having an awful hard time imagining a Corti warrior-king.”
“On horseback, covered in mud, blood and steel? Yes, quite. But there are other forms of warfare, dear.” Nofl gave him a smile. “Shall we return to the subject at hand?”
Arés gave him a slow stare, then shrugged and waggled the report at him. “…So what do you intend for us to do with this information?”
“We were hoping you would share some insights. Offer some advice, help us perhaps find an unclaimed low-Class planet that’s not on the Dominion charts… Really, it’s not about what we intend, it’s about what we hope you will do.”
“I am…very much the wrong person to ask about this. Shouldn’t you talk to an Ambassador? Or the Foreign Secretary or something?”
Nofl shrugged his skinny shoulders. “To them, I’m a Corti. To you, I’m Nofl.”
“I guess, but—”
“To me, you are my favorite patient…to them you are the chief of colonial security,” Nofl added.
Arés hesitated, looked down at the tablet in his hand, looked back at Nofl, then seemed to… relax, somehow. At least, he let out a long breath like he was relaxing. Even after years of living among Humans, there were some times when Nofl couldn’t read their body language at all. “…I’ll take it to the Foreign Secretary,” he said.
“Thank you, dear. How was the coffee?”
“…I’ll be honest, it’s the best decaf I’ve ever had,” Arés admitted. He stood up and, like always, unconsciously touched his hand to his formerly-bad hip as though he still couldn’t quite believe it worked properly again. “So this is our last checkup?”
“I’m afraid so, dear. Though if picking up that baby gives you lumbar back pain, you know where to find me…”
Arés snorted. “I’ve been getting physio from Adam to prevent that. Honestly, you both behave like I’m seventy…”
“…When you’re actually in the best shape of your life,” Nofl chorused with him. “Yes, yes. Well, don’t be a stranger regardless. I find our little chats stimulating!”
“Yeah.” Arés waggled the tablet. “I’ll return this, shall I?”
“There’ll be coffee waiting!” Nofl promised. He waited until Arés had gone then rubbed his hands happily together and opened the next object on his to-do list.
“Hmm… hmm hmm… …♪take of these elements all that is fusible, melt them all down in a pipkin or crucible, set them to simmer and take off the scum, and a cup of coffee is the residuum♫…Yes, that works…”
Now. On to the conundrum of that dog…
Date Point: 15y5m4d AV Peake Lowlands, Northwest of Folctha, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
Yan Given-Man
‘Cimbrean’ was a place-under-another-sky very different to Yan’s home. The tastes were all different. Not unknowable different, just…like Yan had ventured very far from his hunting grounds. Which was true, now that he thought about it. There were lots of plants and flowers on the air, and lots of small prey moving about, but there were hardly any large beasts to be tasted.
And there were almost no trees, which felt wrong somewhere deep in Yan’s mighty chest. Trees were a sign the land was strong. This land…was not strong. No trees, no Ten’Gewek, no Brown Ones to keep the grasslands healthy, may their name be known only to the gods.
The land was weak. It was so weak it couldn’t attract strong prey and the ground hardly pulled at them at all. Yan had found himself able to jump high enough to peer over small hills.
That didn’t mean it was easy, though. The sun was a different color, and colder too. The gods summoned forth rains every day so predictably that Yan could plan his day around them, much like how the tribes watched the moons to count the seasons. Yan hated the cold rain. He couldn’t escape from it and the chill went right to his bones, which meant both he and Vemik found themselves always wanting to move about so they could keep warm.
He hated the tiny prey, too; there was a lot of them and they made for almost laughably easy meals, but they were bland and uninteresting to eat, their skins fell apart, their bones were so weak they were almost chewy, and not in a hand of lives could either Yan or Vemik string together enough of their tiny hides to make a nice warm pelt.
At least their bellies were nice and full.
Vemik had tried shooting one with his bow once. It had ‘exploded’ as Jooyun would say. Some of the prey was gods-damned hard to catch and very tasty, though; those were animals which had come from ‘Earth,’ Jooyun’s place-under-another-sky. They were a nice challenge to hunt! Anything to break up the tedium of their ‘mission.’
The sooner they made it to the lone tree on the mountain on the far horizon, the sooner Yan could taste this ‘ham’ roast he had been promised.
The problem was that they had to get there unnoticed in order to win their prize. Unnoticed! In a grassland so open and clean that just standing up straight would have raised Yan’s crest above the brush and bushes. They were being chased by ‘drones’ so they had to remain out of sight from above. But even worse, they were also being tracked by Gaoians. That ‘nose’ of theirs could taste the air so well, Daar had been able to tell what Yan had eaten two days before!
That meant they had to pay attention to the wind all the time, rain or not, day or night. They were also slathered head to tail-tip in mud to keep their bright crests from being seen by the Humans. That wasn’t a problem against the Gaoians, which was something they learned from Daar: another confusing thing that rubbed together the sky-thoughts of whether Daar was a beast or a man. More importantly, Yan also knew mud could hide a man’s taste, so he hoped that would help them against that sky-magical ‘nose’ of theirs.
Maybe it could also help against the ‘drones.’ The Skithral-things could see their crests, Jooyun had said. They could see better than any man, too. They could even see if a thing was warm!
Maybe that meant it was good Yan felt so cold. He looked back at Vemik, who was smearing the last of the mud under his eyes. He was shivering and grumbling quietly to himself…
But Vemik was a man of the People. Nothing could hide the shine in his eyes or the joy in his breath. They were hunting, and they were being hunted, and the prize would be the honor and strength of the People against Sky-Tribes that may as well be gods.
…And ham.
“Ready,” Vemik declared.
“Good. We shouldn’t waste the day.”
Vemik nodded, picked up his spear and stepped aside. “I’m behind you, Yan.”
They resumed their trek. They had a long way to go if they were to get there first.
Date Point 15y5m4d AV Peake Lowlands, Northwest of Folctha, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
Master Sergeant Derek “Boss” Coombes
“Okay, I knew Yan and Vemik were good, but Etsicitty? How’s a guy that big just vanish?”
Hoeff unscrewed his spit bottle to deposit a load of filthy brown juice before answering. In the tight confines of their van, he was being extra careful about his personal habits. “Nightmare. Shit, maybe we should do some training over there sometime.”
“We probably will, once our cavemonkeys have their head around the task.” Coombes returned to the drone footage. They had four Flycatchers up to watch the training area, but now that the two Ten’gewek had found some cold mud to cover their infrared signature they weren’t tracking shit. Not bad for a couple of guys who were still new to the idea of metal.
Etsicitty was a different matter. He’d covered his body heat first and that was about the last they’d seen of him. Coombes had combed over every inch of the ground around his starting position and there wasn’t a thing out of place. Yan and Vemik left hardly any trail themselves, but Playboy left none that Coombes could detect.
The three of them together made up Blue Team, and they were proving to be difficult quarry.
Then there was Red Team. Wilde and his buddies were one of the two pursuit units, the other being a half-dozen Gaoians from the Grand Army who’d been picked out for special training under the supervision of the HEAT’s own Faarek and Shim. The JETS members were easily the most visible things in the area, which wasn’t entirely their fault. They were fully loaded, each carrying a forty-kilo pack to go with their weapon, armor and all the other shit.
They weren’t out there to be stealthy, they were out there for conditioning. Stealth would come later. A JETS team had to be able to hump their gear over miles of terrain and do it quietly, and Coombes was satisfied that the human contingent of Red Team were doing alright on that score. There was room for improvement, but nothing was actually unsatisfactory.
All told, it was a hell of a training scenario. Three species with some very different natural aptitudes and skillsets, all with different victory conditions and tactics. Coombes genuinely had no idea what he expected would happen.
Then again, he had no idea what exactly was going on here and now. Clearly he was going to be relying on Etsicitty to be his eyes and ears because the drones weren’t worth shit.
He popped the seal on his thermal flask of coffee and poured some out.
Something told him he was in for a long wait.
Date Point: 15y5m4d AV Folctha, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
Xiù Chang
There were unfamiliar suitcases just inside the front door and takeaway debris all over the kitchen counters when Xiù got home, neither of which were remotely as prominent as the air of crackling hostility that made her skin itch the second she entered. Two almost identical young blond-haired boys were sitting at the table in the kitchen looking pale, silent and tense despite being surrounded by burgers and snacks: one of them hastily flailed at his brother to get his attention when he looked up and saw Xiù enter.
The centerpiece, however, was definitely the standoff over the breakfast bar. Allison looked like she was one wrong word away from an aneurysm, and the target of her hostility was…
Well, she was a glimpse into Allison’s future. The same bone structure, the same eyes. Her hair was unquestionably dyed to judge by the silver roots but she’d done a decent job of fighting back against the effects of age on her skin.
Xiù hung up her coat and hesitated. “Um… hello?”
Allison gave her a complicated look that said ‘I’m beyond glad to see you but I’m busy being really fucking angry at my mother right now.’ Out loud, and with forced brittle lightness, she said “Hey babe. Look who showed up!”
Mrs. Buehler’s handshake was polite, but about as firm as a soufflé. “It’s, uh… nice to meet you, Miss Chang.”
“My parents are getting divorced!” Allison explained, brightly. She was pissed, way more so than Xiù had seen her in a long long time. “And Mother here—” Mrs. Buehler winced “—decided that was the perfect excuse to catch up. Oh, and she’s brought my little brothers with her which means the whole custody thing’s gonna land on our doorstep soon too!”
“Allison, please, we’re not—” Mrs Buehler paused and changed tack from argumentative to pleading. “He kicked me out! I had nowhere else to go and you’re the only family we have!”
Allison rounded on her. “No! I’m the only family they have, which is why I even let you in.” Her finger jabbed toward the boys, then lanced at her mother’s face. “You don’t get to call me family!”
Ohhh boy.
Rather than allow the argument to continue, Xiù decided to gently interject. “Um… look, Mrs… um, I’m sorry, I don’t actually remember your first name…”
“Amanda,” Allison said before Amanda had the chance.
“Amanda,” Xiù repeated. “Can I borrow her for a second? Sorry, we’ll be right back…”
She steered Allison out of the room before either of them could protest and into the garage. The door closed behind them and a shaved second later Allison grabbed her and hugged like she was a life preserver.
She was shaking.
“…Bǎobèi? Are you okay?”
Allison shook her head, not letting go. “No. No I’m really not. I want her gone.”
“And… the boys?”
Allison sighed and peeled herself away slightly. “Yeah, that’s the tricky part. They never did anything wrong. God, Babe, I don’t know. I just… I wasn’t prepared for this.”
“What happened exactly?”
“She had her temple recommend taken away—”
“Her what?”
“I’ll explain later. Anyway, my father got wicked mad, there was an epic fight which ended up with her out in the street…and everything’s in his name.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. She spent all of her money to get here. She doesn’t have a job. Hell, she says the only reason she had any money is because some of her neighbors helped her out. And she used it to come here!”
“Well… you are her daughter…” Xiù pointed out.
Allison heaved an enormous sigh and leaned against a workbench. “Babe, I love how you always look for the best in people? But that woman out there made me get rid of her own grandson to protect her reputation. She’s a gold-digger and a snake and she’s only playing the family card because she thinks she can get something out of it.”
“…Okay. Well… Why don’t you get to know your little brothers, and I’ll talk with Amanda?” Xiù suggested.
“…That… sounds like a good idea. I don’t think I can…” Allison trailed off, then rallied. “Just, don’t give her an inch. She’ll take a mile.”
Xiù kissed her. “Let me worry about her.”
“…Right.”
They hugged briefly for a little extra strength, then Xiù led the way back into the kitchen. Amanda had sat down and was fussing over the boys, who had the lost, scared looks of kids navigating a social minefield they didn’t have the map for. Allison looked at them for a second then sighed and softened.
“…Come on, guys. You wanna see the house?”
They looked at their mother, who hesitated and then waved a hand. “Go on.”
That left Xiù and Amanda alone. Xiù gave her a hospitable smile. “Can I get you anything? Coffee?”
Amanda gave her a cold look. “…No, thank you.”
“Tea?”
“No. Thank you.”
Wow. Amanda was about as entertainable as a brick wall. “Okay…You don’t mind if I have one, do you?”
Amanda sighed. “…It’s your house.”
Grateful for a minute to think as she brewed, Xiù stood up and headed for the drinks cupboard.
“Can I at least get you a glass of water?” she offered.
“Yes please.”
Finally, a breakthrough. Amanda fidgeted awkwardly with her rings while the drinks were being made, and accepted her water without a thank you when it was given.
“I suppose you just got an earful about what I’m like…”
“I did,” Xiù agreed.
“…She really hates me, doesn’t she?”
Xiù inhaled her coffee’s scent for a second then set the cup down. “…Maybe. But she’s not a hateful person. The Allison I know is big-hearted, caring and full of love.”
“So you’re saying you think she must have a reason…”
Well, Amanda was definitely living up to everything negative Allison had ever said about her. Xiù gave the older woman a careful look and then decided to go with Allison-like forthrightness.
“You have to expect I’ll take her side,” she pointed out. “I have every reason to trust her, and I know her very, very well. So yes, absolutely. If she hates you, you can take it from me that you must absolutely have earned it.”
Amanda blinked, which was an opening that Xiù was more than happy to use. “But I’m not the inquisition, and Allison isn’t a villain. She’s already given you a chance, even if only because of the boys. So tell me what you want. Why come here?”
“…I…I really didn’t have anywhere else to go,” Amanda said. “I don’t have many friends, my parents passed away years ago, I don’t have… Allison is the only family I have… I have no money, no job… I’m homeless!”
“And the boys? You brought your sons with you? Out on the streets with nowhere to go?”
“I couldn’t leave them with Jacob!”
“Why not?”
Amanda looked appalled. “He can’t look after them! He’s— boys need their mother!”
“They need their father, too,” Xiù retorted. “But more importantly, they need stability. They need a roof over their heads too, they need their school friends…” She glanced down the hall toward the living room. Allison was bonding with her little brothers by showing off some of the gadgetry she’d filled the house with to their apparent enthrallment. She actually had a smile on her face.
“It’s not right,” Amanda asserted with the desperate conviction of somebody who didn’t have an argument but would never admit to it.
“For who? For them? I happen to know an amazing man who was raised by his father!” Xiù was getting angry, but she really didn’t care. “But of course, a homeless woman with kids has more to bargain with than just a homeless woman by herself… Oh, that’s another question. Why come here? Why not a homeless shelter or something? You could have fed and looked after the boys for a couple of months on what it must have cost you to travel to Folctha.”
“I—”
“Whatever you’re about to say, look me in the eye to say it,” Xiù told her.
Amanda didn’t at first. She lapsed into silence for a few seconds, then tucked some stray hair behind her ear, took a deep breath and finally looked up.
“…Well, we’re here now,” she said.
“Yes. Congratulations, you’ve forced our hand.” Xiù stood up. “I think I can speak for Allison and Julian, we’re not going to kick your children out into the cold. But if you’ll excuse me, I need to call the police and tell them to get in touch with the Salt Lake City PD.”
She turned to go retrieve her phone from her coat pocket.
“She was always… passionate,” Amanda said quietly. “And independent. Strong. I never understood how she could just… just not care what others thought. If people talked behind her back she just ignored them… And she’s so clever…”
Nonplussed, Xiù just stared at her and wondered where the hell that non-sequitur had come from. After a second, Amanda wiped away a tear and sighed. “…I always envied her for that. For her talents.”
Xiù shook her head. “Allison earned everything she has” she said, and retrieved her phone. “Now. If you’ll excuse me…”
She retreated into the living room where Ramsey and Tristan were coming out of their shells a bit while selecting a movie to watch. Allison was watching them with a complicated look on her face, which turned to a slight smile when Xiù entered.
“Hey. So. What do you think?”
“I think…” Xiù glanced at the twins and decided to be at least a little discreet. Fortunately, Allison understood enough Mandarin for what she wanted to say. “Tā shì huàidàn …But she’s here now, and so are the boys. We can’t just abandon them…”
“No.” Allison sighed. “That’s why she brought them. She knew I’d just slam the door in her face if it was just her…”
“Well, she was right. Look, I’d better call CCS and let them know about this. I bet their dad’s going crazy right now.”
A medley of mixed emotions wrote themselves across Allison’s face. “I guess. Not sure how I feel about him showing up on our door though…”
“Mmm, I’m thinking maybe you do know how you feel about that, dummy.”
That got a small laugh. “Don’t you ‘dummy’ me, you butt… You’d better call Clara too. She and Dane were gonna come over tonight…”
“No, they can still come! Why cancel?”
Allison glanced through to the kitchen. “…Y’know what? I guess if they still want to then I’d love to see them. But call them anyway.”
“Fair enough…Wǒ ài nǐ.”
“Wo ye ai ni.” Allison smiled more fully this time. “I’ll call Julian and… I guess I’ll keep these two entertained…” She nodded at her brothers.
“Are they staying here, or a hotel?”
Allison shrugged. “…I dunno. I don’t exactly wanna give Mom any money, but I don’t really want her in the house either…Better make it a hotel. If the men come back tonight as well it could get really weird in here.”
“Bǎobèi, it’s weird enough already.”
“Exactly. And you know, this day started out almost normal?”
Xiù giggled, kissed her, then let herself out through the French doors into the yard, where she finally got her phone out to make the promised phone calls.
Somehow, she doubted things were going to get less interesting…
Date Point: 15y5m4d AV Hunter livestock barge, Unknown location
Gorg Odvrak-Bull
Gorg had failed in every possible way.
A Bull, first and foremost, was there to protect his herd from other herds. Whether those herds were fellow Vgork, alien nations like the Dominion species, or interstellar monsters like the Hunters didn’t matter a bit—the Bull stood at the front and served with his life if need be.
That was the ancient contract: He who accepts the responsibilities and the risks, gets the rewards. Any Vgork male could take the easy way out and live for himself, but he’d never have a herd, or he’d find that whatever lackluster herd he did attract would soon drift away to find somebody more capable, devoted and selfless.
Gorg had always prided himself on living up to the ideal. He really ought to be dead.
But the Hunters hadn’t let him have even that when they hit his herd’s water tanker, the Floral Musk. They’d subdued him, bound him, made him watch as they feasted on a few of the children. It was like they knew how Vgork thought and had done everything in their power to make him suffer.
What kind of species was driven by sadism like that?
That had been… weeks ago? Maybe? He’d lost track of time. There had just been cramped spaces, fear, shame, occasionally falling asleep out of sheer exhaustion. Once, the doors on their claustrophobic pen had been opened and they’d been goaded out into a larger pen, already half-full of other captives. Vzk’tk and Rrrtktktkp’ch, Kwmbwrw, Celzi… There had been a Rauwryhr family, a Locayl mining crew, a cadre of broken Chehnash security specialists and even a lone, withdrawn Ruibal.
That pen had been filled and days of flight had followed. Then they’d been ushered from it into an even bigger pen full of even more captives, some from species that Gorg had never seen before or even heard of…And from there into the echoing belly of a truly cavernous ship devoted to one purpose: the mass transport of enormous numbers of meat slaves.
The Hunters never entered the pen. Even they knew that an angry mob of their captives could smash them individually. But they patrolled the outside with fusion scythes and pulse rifles and other, stranger weapons that Gorg’s oldest son Yurk thought looked Human.
And always, the threat was there of just being spaced, should the cargo rise up and fight back.
They had no idea where they were going. They had no knowledge of how long the journey would take. They had no clue what would happen when they arrived, and they had no way of saving themselves. They had no hope at all.
Gorg had failed utterly.
He only hoped that when it came time to face his death, he could fight hard enough to make it quick and deny the enemy their cruelties. And maybe, just maybe, earn the right to call himself a Bull again.
Until then, there was only the waiting.
He turned his face to the wall and slept without resting.
Date Point 15y5m4d AV Peake Lowlands, Northwest of Folctha, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
Master Sergeant Derek “Boss” Coombes
“Whose phone is that?” Coombes looked around the van at the unexpected ringtone.
“Etsicitty’s. Must be important.”
“Answer it, then.”
Hoeff grumbled and picked up the phone, which he answered on speaker. “Playboy’s secretary, how may I direct your call?”
“It’s Allison. And you can start by not being an ass.” Fortunately, after a few months of hanging out with her in the jungle Coombes and Hoeff knew Allison well enough to spot that she was joking… but that she still had bad news.
“Sorry ma’am, Julian’s out on the range. How important is this?”
“Family drama. When’s he likely to be done?”
Hoeff checked on his Blue Force Tracker display. Everyone was wearing transponders for safety’s sake, and being as Hoeff was the designated lead for white cell he was allowed to see where everyone was at all times.
“Well…maybe a few hours? Julian’s mostly here as a teacher and our cavemonkeys are learning pretty fast.”
“I’m glad, but… honestly, a fucking tidal wave of bullshit just landed on us.”
“Look, be completely honest with me, Al. Does this involve life, limb, eyesight, or anything on that order of serious?”
She sighed in the half-hearted way of somebody resigning themselves to tolerating a necessary inconvenience. “Not really, just teeth-grinding frustration. I’ll let you get back to it. You’ll let him know I called?”
“Will do. You’re gonna hafta wait, sorry, but I’ll cut out some of the extra motivational delights we had planned, okay?”
“You’re an undercover angel, Chimp.”
“Handsome, too.”
“Not next to Coombes you ain’t. Anyway. Thanks. See you later.” She hung up.
Hoeff had his crude grin on his face for a moment, then sobered up quickly. “Right. I’m gonna call this evolution short, then. Once blue team reaches their primary objective, the Rangemaster will terminate and arrange transportation. Any objections, Boss?”
“Nope. What exactly are our gorillabros up to?”
Hoeff looked down at his display…and that grin of his returned. “They’re awfully close to that dairy farm…”
“Oh, hell. How much do cattle cost?”
Hoeff shrugged. “On this planet? I’unno, but the two just moved too fast for their tracking pendants to follow, so I’m betting we’re about to find out…”
“…Greeeaat.”
Date Point 15y5m4d AV Peake Lowlands, Northwest of Folctha, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
Vemik Sky-Thinker
Meat.
It had been almost two whole days since Vemik had a proper meal. The little not-bibtaw things were everywhere and roots were easy to dig, but somehow, none of that really satisfied all that much. He dreamed of burgers.
*Cheese*burgers. Words ending with “-er” in English were words that meant tools most times, so a burger was a tool for burging, which meant that a man could burg. Was that right? It seemed right. Vemik really wanted to burg.
There were no burgers over there beyond those stone walls… but there was meat. Lots of it.
Jooyun was trailing along to teach them how to survive on this strange planet and he mostly stayed back, well away so he didn’t give away where they were sneaking. There had been a few times the Gaoians had almost found them, and once they had got so close Vemik could have thrown his spear right through the nearest one.
But they were friends. People shouldn’t spear their friends, at least not too hard. And the Gaoians had ‘rifles’ too, supposedly with ‘dummy boolets’ in them, which weren’t supposed to kill? But Jooyun had said getting shot by them would really hurt, and they weren’t wearing the weird face-glass thing anyway to keep their eyes safe, so maybe it was better not to risk it.
A cheeseburger would be nice right now. Three of them!
“Do we chance it?”
Yan made a pained, hungry sound. He was a lot bigger and needed to eat much more, so he was probably suffering even more than Vemik. He’d probably burg five or six times when they got home. After he had devoured this ‘ham’ thing he kept obsessing over.
“…A man doesn’t eat, that man gets weak,” he said eventually. “A weak man can’t fight. We may have to play-fight the Gaoians for the flag and they have rifles.’’
“We’ll get… two.” Vemik decided. “The smaller ones. They’re young, maybe?”
Yan nodded. “Kill quick, and quiet. Also, we need to go around this strange thin metal…thing. Without breaking it.”
“It’s called a fence.”
“How does something so thin keep beasts inside?”
“This one bites with sky-magic.” Vemik pointed out a sign. “That shape like lightning? It means ‘ee-lec-triss-ee-tee.’ Don’t touch. It really hurts.”
“How do you know?”
Vemik gave him an innocent look. “I touched it while you were shitting behind the tree yesterday. It bit and knocked me flat on my back! Jooyun laughed at me and helped me up, then he taught me what their warning signs mean. Red and white signs mean very bad things. And yellow and black signs mean bad things too.”
“Meat, Vemik. Focus.”
Yes. Meat.
“Well, touch the fence for yourself if you don’t believe me. I don’t want to touch it again.”
“I’m happy to learn from your mistakes,” Yan said with a smirk, and beckoned him to follow. “Come on, I’m hungry. We’ll just jump over it, it’s only one man tall.”
In the weak ’gravity’, that was nothing. They bounced clean over the wire without really having to try, and charged across the open ground to the stone walls as quickly as they could go.
The walls weren’t really stone, Vemik realized. They were grey like a stone, but smooth and made out of identical square concrete blocks. It looked like a sensible way to make something solid quickly. There was thorny wire along the top, but again the walls were far too low to keep a man of the People out. Especially when Yan held out his hands to give Vemik a boost.
Thus launched, Vemik shot upwards like a thrown spear, twisted tail-over-top and landed gracefully on the far side in a stinky mix of mud, dried grass, and shit.
A very big one of these strange prey turned its attention to him and scraped its cleft hoof on the ground. Well, so much for getting the little ones.
Vemik didn’t bother with his spear, he was too close in to get any power in a thrust. Instead he sprang forward, grabbed the animal by its horns and twisted sharply. It made a surprised bellowing noise, staggered, and fell on its si de thrashing so angrily that he needed both his hands and one of his feet on its windpipe to hold it down. He took advantage of his position and tore his foot’s grip deep into the prey’s throat, burrowing down through the hard meat and bleeding it as much as he could.
After a few breaths he found something hard in its neck, gripped it with his foot, and squeezed as hard as he could. Another breath and he felt it crack and break apart, which instantly made the animal stop flailing and instead kick as hard as it could. Even pinned and broken it was a strong prey which could gore Vemik at any moment. He took no chances and grabbed his knife with his other foot, then cut the big blood lines running in the prey’s neck so it would die faster. Awkward, since he had to balance on his tail, but he managed.
The beast seemed to know it was doomed but it that only made it fight harder. Vemik was pleased, this was a strong prey! He got his legs and tail around its neck and squeezed down with all his strength to control it, dug his other foot in like the first, and wrenched its head up so hard that its horns snapped off in his grip, anything to keep it quiet and kill it faster.
It spilled its bright red blood all over Vemik and tried to cough around his grip on its throat, and fought his killer for a long while with every breath of its being. It was a gods-praised struggle and Vemik didn’t want it to suffer too much, so he grit his teeth and bore down so hard, his entire body trembled with effort. He kept it up until a few breaths later there was another muffled crack, his legs slammed together, and the prey stopped moving. Satisfied that it was defeated, he unwrapped himself from the pin, sat down next to it in its final moments, and rested a hand on its mighty head. Nobody should die alone, after all. The prey lowed a pathetic, mournful warble as the last of its lifeblood drained out of its flattened neck.
Vemik stood up, panted for a bit, and inspected a small scratch on his arm from where the point of its horn had gouged at him. A good kill, and a worthy prey! He anointed himself with its blood and let the gods know to treat this one kindly.
It was big though. Vemik picked it up and thought for a moment. He had carried bigger Werne on long hunting trips and on this weak ‘planet’ doing that would be even easier, but he wasn’t quite sure if he could jump over the wall with his prize while avoiding the thorny wire at the top. Toss it? Probably, but it might get stuck in the wire just the same, though. Yan could definitely clear the wire with room to spare. Vemik was about to call for him when he leaped clear over the wall, thumped down beside him and took a keen look around. The rest of the prey were crowding away from them and making a terrible racket. They needed to get moving.
“Strong kill!” the Given-Man said. “I thought we wanted small ones?”
“It attacked me.”
“Good enough for me. We will Give what we can’t eat to the gods.”
“We should go before—” Vemik began.
Several confused minutes followed, but they started with shouting. Swearing, mostly. There were Humans and Gaoians, but not the ones taking part in the training. These ones probably kept the animals and weren’t very happy about what had just happened to their bull.
It wasn’t the first time Yan and Vemik had raided another tribe’s hunting-grounds of course. Yan grabbed the bull and tossed it over the wall, both of them sprang after it, and they fled for the safety of the bush with their prey, trilling gloriously at the thrill of being caught and still getting away with the prize.
How did the sky-tribes resolve a play-fight like that? The Ten’Gewek would have the Given-Men wrestle, and the winning tribe would fuck the other tribe’s maidens senseless while the defeated men hunted for a feast…and when they got back the real fun began. Would that work here?
…Probably not. Human women were attractive enough in their weird skinny way, but Gaoians? Yurrgh.
The proper way to respect such a magnificent bull would be to smoke all its meat and waste absolutely no part of it, but they didn’t have that kind of time sadly. They would have to snatch the best parts, cook them quickly, and divide the animal apart so it could be Given back to the gods quickly and cleanly.
It was excellent meat, though. Rich, full-flavored and strong, especially the heart. Strange texture, but Vemik liked it. It reminded him of burgers!
Yan liked it too, judging from how he sighed happily and slapped his belly. “We should move, I think maybe all the noise will be noticed by our hunters.”
Vemik nodded. Between them, reducing the carcass to proper fragments didn’t take long, and with one last prayer for their meal’s soul they were gone.
It had been a good hunt.