Date Point: 16y2m AV
Alien Quarter, Folctha, Cimbrean, the Far Reaches
Nofl
Leemu had become unresponsive.
Nofl’s quarantine facility had alerted him after the patient had been anomalously still for twenty minutes, and the reason why became obvious upon a quick inspection of the cell: Leemu was sprawled on his back, staring blissfully up at the ceiling as though it was the most transcendentally fascinating thing in existence.
Seeing as there was nobody around to play up for, Nofl didn’t bother with the usual clucking ‘dear, oh dear,’ he’d have usually produced. He settled instead for something a good deal more robust.
“…Well, fuck.”
He’d been afraid of this. The droud function was, in his view, perhaps the most horrifying aspect of Arutech and it had rendered the OmoAru themselves all but extinct. Only a hardy handful of particularly resilient souls remained on their homeworld, and even they spent more time smiling at clouds than actually looking after themselves.
Even if stripping the tech out of their cells was a possibility—and despite his musings to Arés and Powell about a complete cellular rebuild, Nofl suspected that was basically just a fantasy—the OmoAru were dead. Even if they could somehow be cured, they were all so hopelessly addicted to the droud now that freeing them would involve plunging them into the worst, deepest and blackest depression a sapient mind could experience.
In Leemu’s case, it took interrogation off the table. There was no point in trying to bore, cajole or manipulate information out of somebody who could be endlessly entertained by watching dry paint.
It also took away much hope for any possible recovery, which left Nofl with one choice. He pressed a button, and stasis-bubbled the quarantine room.
His other patients weren’t doing so well either, but for entirely different reasons. For example, Bozo was becoming manically hyperactive as he searched to do something other than run around in circles, which was driving Narl into an exhausted fugue.
Preed was sitting despondently on his bed and staring at his feet. There’d been an awkward conversation with staff from the Thai consulate, who’d eventually left with a grim promise about their citizen’s rights and the Folctha government’s responsibilities… it certainly hadn’t done Preed’s mood any good. Nofl hadn’t been able to extract so much as a word from him since, and although he suspected that Preed’s arm must be throbbing and sore from fighting off the Arutech infection, the glass of water and the painkillers he’d left the old man sat neglected where Nofl had left them.
Gorku, at least, was asleep. He’d found Nofl’s gauntlet of tests, questions and scans thoroughly draining, and had ultimately insisted on being allowed to rest. Nofl was pretty sure he might have a solution to the big Gaoian’s linguistic troubles before long, but he had to admit: in this instance, cybernetics were the sensible solution.
And therein lay something to truly hate the Hierarchy for. A whole field of medicine was now tainted, permanently. Cybernetics had promised not only to repair and enhance the abilities of organic life forms, but indeed to expand what a living being could do! The possibilities had been theoretically endless!
As much as there was no sense in crying over spilled milk, Nofl did feel a touch of something like mourning for the field of neurocybernetic implantation. It was, if nothing else, a depressing waste of potential.
His sullen funk was interrupted by his phone. It was a human model that he’d programmed some very personal apps for, and he’d rigged up a small drone to relay calls through it. The drone kit was actually a brightly colored children’s toy, which Nofl approved of on several levels. Naturally, he’d extensively expanded the technology and programming for an adult Corti’s needs, but it really was rather delightful to think that there were human younglings running around building drones out of little plastic bricks.
He turned to face it as it swooped toward him, chirping merrily. “Yes?”
“Nofl, this is Third Director Tran aboard the Empirical Razor. We just entered Cimbrean orbit.”
Oh. Well. Apparently Nofl’s word counted for a lot with the Directorate, then. And thank goodness for well-integrated planetary communications with universal telecommunications gateways, where a Third Director could simply arrive in orbit and phone Nofl’s office as though it were a trivial matter of routine rather than a miracle of standardization.
“Ah, welcome Director. Thank you for such a swift response.”
“Your message specifically mentioned Arutech in a non-OmoAru subject. The First Director was gravely concerned.”
“Rightly so!” Nofl agreed. “Should I prepare to transfer my patients up to you, or will you come to me?”
“We will come to you first,” Tran declared. “I am sure the Human governments will prefer it that way.”
“Oh good. That gives me time to clean up the dirty laundry.”
Nofl never tired of irking his so-called betters, but Tran was becoming unfortunately well-adapted to his proclivities. His reply to the joke was level-headed: he ignored it. “Please do. I will see you shortly.”
Nofl sighed at the beep as the call ended and looked around. At least they were taking this seriously. Maybe there was hope for Leemu yet.
That thought made him chuckle. Realistically it was a stupid and irrational hope. But somehow he couldn’t let go of it.
“…Ever the optimist, Nofl…” he muttered to himself, and fetched his gravity harness.
There was a tacit assumption among Humankind that the Corti were cowardly and unadventurous. That was, perhaps, a bit unfair. The cowardly bit was dead on, of course. But science was nothing but an adventure! How could exploring the very mechanisms of infinity be unadventurous? Ridiculous. No other species had probed the unknown so relentlessly.
Relentlessly, but not recklessly. Hence Nofl’s personal gravity harness.
He rarely used it nowadays, not even when visiting those parts of the city that were kept at Earth gravity: Stunted and deprived though it was, the Corti body could still gain strength and endurance, at least to the point where spending time in Human gravity environments was tolerable. Not comfortable or easy, but tolerable.
The harness, however, just made things certain. A lot of the gyms in Folctha experimented with supergravity training, but none more so than the Dog House. It was the hardest of the hardcore gyms, and had become a bit of a destination for adventurous, like-minded athletes from Earth (and increasingly, Gao) who wanted to test themselves against the very best to ever live.
On that thought, Nofl satisfied himself that it would be difficult indeed to deride him as “unadventurous” as he rented a car across town to venture into the Dog House’s infamous basement “dungeon.”
He checked his personal gravity harness one last time before braving the stairs. Some of the most terrifyingly strong examples of Deathworlder physiology alive would be busy straining their bodies down there, pushing themselves against limits so far beyond any Corti that it was difficult to imagine.
It certainly sounded liked distilled aggression down there. Loud, incredibly violent music was made barely tolerable by the muffling effect of walls, and charging through what was surely a sonic blitzkrieg came the sound of a man’s voice in full force.
“Fuck yeah!! You’re gonna fuckin’ smash your PR!”
The words were certainly positive. The tone of voice, on the other h and, was an incitement to murder.
Another voice added his own thunderous note to the battle cry. “You got it!”
“Yeah!”
“You fuckin’ got it!!”
“Fuck yeah!”
“Get under that fuckin’ bar!!”
Nofl reached the bottom of the steps in time to get a good look at the thick steel bar in question. It was loaded with solid metal plates all the way to its edges and was bending alarmingly under the strain. The mass alone was…astounding. He made note of the blue warning light at the threshold and blanched when he saw what the gravity inside the room was set to. The resulting weight under that heavy a force…
Julian was in the process of inserting himself underneath it and taking that incredible weight across his broad, heavy shoulders. Where normally he had an open and friendly face, right then he was wild-eyed and uncaged as though something had just made the mistake of becoming his mortal enemy.
The two vastly larger Deathworlders with him looked even wilder. Clearly, the shouting had been their doing.
What followed was legitimately terrifying. Spurred by yet more roars of encouragement, Julian took the full weight as he lifted the bar off the rack, then bent at the knees and hips while keeping his back straight. The bar went down, his rear came alarmingly close to the floor. He made a guttural, red-faced grunt, and the corded muscles in his thick neck bulged from the immense forces at play. More yelling, a look of agony and then, with a defiant bellow, the bar went back up. Down, up, down again…shaking with tremendous effort, back up for a third time.
Not content with that feat, his companions quickly whipped a plate off each side of the bar and dropped them to the matting with a calamitous thud. The feat was repeated, each time until Julian could lift no more, then another plate was pulled off…and so on. When there were only a few plates left on each side and Julian stalled, Warhorse ambled behind him and provided the barest assisting nudge against the bar, bellowing right next to his ear and “encouraging” him to force out another dozen repetitions. Down to two plates, even more reps, than one plate, the bare bar, and finally just his own bodyweight. By then Julian could hardly move but Adam was merciless, and didn’t let him stop until he could barely rise on his own. It took a shockingly long time to reach that point, and Etsicitty spent it with an expression like he was in profound pain.
Despite the apparently excruciating ordeal, when he finally freed himself of his torment and collapsed onto a nearby bench, gasping for air and wobbling as if he could barely sit upright, he did so with an expression of almost psychedelic delight. Fascinating.
Warhorse was no less pleased.
“Fuck yeah, man!! That’s the best fuckin’ set you’ve ever done!”
Julian’s expression was one of pure savagery, though when he eventually caught his breath his voice was quiet and growly enough that Nofl could hardly hear him. “Fuck yeah. Put it in the book.”
“Dude,” Adam enthused. “There ain’t nobody on Earth that could squat like that! Literally!”
Curiously, Julian laughed at that compliment. “Ha! I hear how you qualified that shit!”
“Well,” Adam grinned sheepishly. “Didn’t wanna embarrass ‘ya too hard, y’know.”
“Yeah, yeah…” Julian grinned and reached down to the floor beside him and mopped the copious moisture off his face with a towel. He also took an enormous swig of water from a bottle as big as Nofl’s torso. “Don’t worry big fella, I know my place.”
“Bah, don’t let ‘em git away with it, Playboy! Ain’t nobody outside o’ HEAT could beat you! Balls, a buncha’ them couldn’t, neither!”
“Well…” Julian grinned again and took another swig of water. “Gotta admit that feels pretty good! Too bad huge muscles don’t make me much good at TIG welding. Al’s been teaching me!”
“Yeah? How ‘ya doin’ at it?”
“Terrible!” Julian laughed, “So far my beads look like crap!”
“Ha! You’ll git good, don’t worry. Just practice! ‘Ya shoulda seen my first beads! Damn near lit myself on fire a buncha times when I was little…”
Despite the friendly banter, all three of them looked as if they’d come through a terrible ordeal. Julian was ruddy, plainly exhausted, and dripping with sweat. ‘Horse was glowing with both pride and perspiration, and looking thoroughly pleased with himself…
The Great Father of the Gao was also soaked from head to toe, his huge tongue lolling out the side of his mouth in a delighted, exhausted fugue.
Nofl hadn’t foreseen his presence at all. Oh dear.
“Fuck, I’ve needed ‘ta lift like this ‘fer a coupl’a weeks! Our turn now!” the Great Father roared. “Let’s show our little guy here what a real lift looks like!”
The two much larger males set up their lift at a nearby station, and those weights utterly dwarfed the incredible feat Julian had just accomplished. The equipment was clearly custom: a longer, much thicker and heavier bar, bigger and (according to the numbers) vastly more massive plates. The entire aggressive ritual was repeated, first by Daar and then by Adam, Julian cheering along just as violently as the other two had for him. Nofl watched with no small sense of intimidation. It took considerably longer for both males to finish their task as there were many more plates and many more repetitions at each step. The ground shook underfoot as each plate hit the floor, which Julian helped tidy up behind them with a subtle grimace of effort.
The two titans struggled mightily under the absurd load. Nofl didn’t know which of them was “better” at it, but at that level of performance, the answer seemed more academic than anything.
He waited at the doorway until they had reached a comparatively quiescent phase in their exercise. All three were now toying with relatively “smaller” handheld weights and engaging in some form of aggressively jocular banter while they trained. The two bigger males suddenly grew much louder and decided it was time to wrestle. They tackled each other with a loud, solid whump of enormous masses slamming together, and tumbled across the floor in what must have been some form of Deathworlder play. There didn’t seem to be any harm intended…
Julian, for his part, shook his head quietly and continued what Nofl decided must be bicep curls. Even in that simple seeming, one-armed exercise, Julian was casually curling many times Nofl’s mass under gravity that would crush him to goo, and his weight was considerably less massive than what the other two had been using. The sheer physical capability the three displayed was intimidating, deep in instincts a Corti sometimes forgot they still had.
For a moment, the ongoing fight and general display of Deathworlder danger prompted Nofl to consider creeping back upstairs and simply calling them instead… but his pride won out. He’d be damned if he would prove the cowardly Corti stereotype right today.
He straightened his own posture and knocked. The two combatants paused and looked up from the floor at Julian, then the trio collectively glanced in Nofl’s direction. A collection of firmly predatory grins lit their faces.
Predatory…yet, friendly. Daar in particular yipped happily, “Nofl! ‘Ya plannin’ on joinin’ us?”
Nofl had met Daar before, of course. Before he’d been raised to a peerless degree of both authority and responsibility. Back, in fact, when he’d still merely been Champion Daar, as opposed to the most powerful individual in the galaxy.
That grin was a sight he’d never expected to see again. And Nofl could think very, very quickly indeed sometimes. Especially when it came to speaking to people who were a long way up the ladder from his perspective.
“Oh… dear, this is embarrassing. Caught playing voyeur!”
Plumping for flippant sass might have been a risky move if he’d been dealing with anybody else, but Nofl had memorized the Directorate Intelligence College’s psychological dossier on Daar. The Corti knew a great deal about what made him tick, which was why Daar’s reaction was a pleased basso profundo chitter.
“I could smell ‘yer fungus-chompin’ tail the second ‘ya entered the buildin’, Nofl,” he rumbled.
“You caught my delicate bouquet over the stink of this place? Your nose really is legendary…”
“Man’s gotta have a talent,” the Great Father rumbled drily.
“…Right. May I come in please? You’ll have to turn the gravity down, I’m afraid.”
‘Horse detangled himself from the Great Father, grabbed his phone and tapped at it a few times. After a moment a faint infrasonic noise that Nofl hadn’t really registered faded to nothing, and the warning light over the door shut off. 1G: Earth standard. He then thumped over and opened the door for Nofl. Apparently as an extra safety measure it locked from the inside. Sensible.
“Is this how Deathworlders train?” Nofl asked as he ventured over the threshold.
“Naw,” boomed Daar, who was thrashing back and forth against the floor, presumably to reach some frustrating itch. “‘Least not all of us! ‘Ya gotta be a special kind o’ insane t’train like we do. Don’t’cha fellas?!” There was a lusty chorus of acclaim from the other two. “Ain’t no Corti can handle this, that’s for sure.”
“Not yet, at least,” Nofl said. “Who knows, in a few generations…”
“Man,” Adam laughed and wrapped a gigantic and uncomfortably hot, moist arm around Nofl’s shoulders in what was probably a friendly gesture. “There’s a thought…anyway, que pasa?”
Corti weren’t known for their sense of smell. For which, in this instance, Nofl was quite glad. He didn’t particularly want to know exactly what pure testosterone smelled like.
“Have you spoken with your father today?” Nofl asked him.
“Nah, not yet. Why?”
“Or Colonel Powell?”
“Nope.”
“Something important came up.”
Daar heaved a sigh. “Look, little guy, I ain’t had a real good lift in ages an’ I been lookin’ forward ‘ta this all week, so unless you got somethin’ fuckin’ planet-shatteringly important—”
“…Yes, I think I rather do,” Nofl decided. “Perhaps even literally. A laughing man is no laughing matter, after all…”
That instantly drained all the mirth out of the room, as expected. Both Daar and ‘Horse sobered like Nofl had dumped cold water over them.
The shift in mood definitely wasn’t lost on Julian either, who glanced at the pair of them. “…Did I miss a briefing?” he asked.
“Yes. We gotta go. Now. You…”
“I have business with him, in fact,” Nofl said and gestured at Julian, who looked nonplussed.
“What kind of business?”
“Well, there’s a ship full of high-ranking Directorate brass orbiting above, and they want to talk with you about your cavemonkey friends.”
“Wait. Right now?”
“Yes. Right now.”
“Uh…Wow. Okay.”
Daar sighed, and looked almost wistfully at the weights and bars. “Ain’t no rest ‘fer a Great Father after all…”
“At least we got a good session in,” Warhorse commented helpfully. “Maybe we can lift again tonight?”
“See, that’s the ridiculous thing ‘bout you Humans,” Daar chittered tiredly. “You in particular. We just spent hours liftin’ like maniacs an’ ‘yer already thinkin’ ‘bout liftin’ again!”
“Yeah, well…look at you, though! Today you matched me pound for pound on every lift. You and Yan are the only guys who can! Hell, I bet if my equipment could take the weight, you’d straight beat me on the leg press, too!”
“Yeah! Gotta be strong t’be fast! I’ll take ‘ya up on ‘yer challenge, ‘Horse! You get a better press, an’ I’ll come over nice an’ rested up, an’ we’ll see just who’s got the stronger legs!”
“Deal!”
Julian, who by rare fortune was easily the smallest Deathworlder in the room, gave Nofl a tired, amused Look that communicated much about the foibles of his two thunderous friends.
“You two are ridiculous,” Julian commented, then began performing a series of calisthenics.
“But…” Daar growled low to himself, “while I ‘preciate ‘yer esteem, let’s be honest. I still ain’t conditioned quite as good as you, and ‘yer always a bit over-optimistic ‘bout these things, too.”
“Eh…I think my friends maybe tend to underestimate themselves and their limits too easily…”
“Mebbe,” Daar chittered. “But I don’t wanna delude m’self. I may be ‘yer match ‘fer strength, ‘specially on a fantastic day like today, but I’ll never match up wit’ your endurance, neither. An’ anyways, I think we better get movin’ ‘cuz ‘yer gonna git recalled any minute, I bet.”
“Well,” Adam again grinned sheepishly. “Okay yeah, I get a bit over-enthusiastic sometimes. But don’t underestimate yourself, man! You’re awfully damn—Goddamnit.”
Sometimes, coincidences were enough to make even the most rational Corti wonder. No sooner had Daar uttered those words than Adam’s phone sprang into life with what Nofl recognized as the theme song from a cartoon he’d briefly studied out of anthropological fascination. The plot had been paper-thin and had mostly consisted of extremely large and muscular men screaming a lot while their hair inexplicably changed color…
Which made it oddly apt for ‘Horse, actually.
The sheer…geekiness of that ringtone contrasted sharply against the pair of blood-dripping, shattered Hunter skulls that plastered themselves gruesomely across his chest. Clearly his e-tattoo was programmed to respond to his phone.
“…Yup, that’s a recall,” he said ruefully, and answered it. “Yes? …Understood. I’ll be there in ten.”
Julian chuckled low to himself and ran a hand through the mop of his hair. “Sounds like you jinxed it, Tiggs.”
“Jinxing is what tiggers do best,” the Great Father grumbled mirthlessly. “Right. Imma go hose off upstairs. I’ll…see ‘ya later. And tell Tiny he’s a wimp ‘fer not showin’ up today!” With a round of guffaws and a nod to the other two, Daar turned and slinked silently up the stairs.
Adam looked at Julian and grinned. “He didn’t wanna be outlifted by you again, I bet.”
Another quiet chuckle. “Well…he keeps dodging us, he’ll be living up to that nickname soon enough. Anyway…” He gave Adam a meaningful look. “Get going, I’ll take care of this.”
“Right. See ‘ya.”
Nofl found himself alone with Julian, who sighed, flopped to the floor and began to stretch. How a being as heavily built as he was could contort himself like that was beyond Nofl’s comprehension. Eventually he grumbled to himself, then glanced at Nofl and sighed again.
“So, uh…fill me in.”
Date Point: 16y2m AV
Planet Rvzrk, Domain Space
Grandfather Garl of Stoneback, Warleader of the Grand Army
The last Hunters on the planet died in the same psychotic frenzy of teeth and claws as the very first.
That was the problem with Hunters. Breakin’ their spirit just didn’t happen. The fuckin’ things were soulless, an’ they didn’t negotiate, they didn’t surrender, they didn’t seem ‘ta fear death…
…Did make ‘em awful fun to murder, though. But it meant tearin’ up the rulebook on war, a bit. Shock and awe tactics? No point! Hunters couldn’t be shocked and awed. Psy-ops? Shit, half the time the fact the Hunters just didn’t give a fart meant the Gaoian troops got unnerved instead. Fighting between males was as much about intimidation as anything else, after all.
There just weren’t no way to intimidate a Hunter. There was only slaughter.
That fact cost a lotta lives. Not too many, but a lot. Especially in the early days of the cleansing, when the Hunters still had ammo for those crazy oversized bullet-throwers of theirs. When they ran out and fell back on kinetic pulse weaponry, the casualty rate dropped. Even an armored silverfur with proper shielding could handle KP, once they’d been fed up. Sure, they couldn’t wade through it like a Human, but they could get back up again.
The final Hunter holdout was a lumber plantation in a valley. They hid among the trees, dug a warren amid the roots and held out there even after the Firefangs dropped all kindsa crap on that forest. Repeated firestrikes burned the whole plantation down to ash, black earth, and jagged charcoal stumps, but they just emerged from the smoke and embers. Seismic tunnel-crushers shoulda buried the fuckers where they lived, but they just scuttled straight back up from under the ground.
Which was why the Clan’s engineer corps was busy diverting a nearby river to flood them out.
Champion Fiin was a smart one, and he left Garl to do his job without lookin’ over the older male’s shoulder. Garl approved of that: Good leaders knew the art of delegation, and Fiin was a good leader. In some ways—never say it out loud—for this moment in Stoneback’s history, he was maybe even a slightly better leader than Daar, who’d played the game of Champions extremely well but definitely was happiest when he was bein’ the Clan’s stud-prime.
Well…hard to blame ‘em, really.
Fiin had a little more… humility. If that was the right word. He’d come up the hard way. Daar, for all his hard work and determination, had life handed to him on a polished wooden platter. Fiin wasn’t naturally the most bestest at everything, but he’d made himself into what the Clan needed, and taken some hard lessons to heart along the way. Right now, while they rebuilt the Gao…maybe an authentic Champion was a bit better than a living Keeda.
One of Fiin’s lessons had been in accepting when other people knew better’n him. He knew he was still young, and he knew he didn’t know everything. Garl could really respect that.
Yeah. Garl felt good about leavin’ the Clan in Fiin’s paws. That was a load off, for sure. With luck, it’d be the last big worry off of Garl’s back.
“Why divert a river?” Fiin asked as he reviewed the map alongside Garl. “Why not, say, a thermobaric weapon?”
“Couple’a reasons,” Garl said. “We already bombed ‘em to shit an’ those tunnels are still there, so they’re prol’ly shielded an’ stuff. Firestrikes didn’t work neither, so they’re well-designed to keep out heat, pressure, flame… But I bet they don’t have SCUBA gear. We turn that valley into a new reservoir, an’ I’ll be happy to just leave ‘em ‘ta drown in their holes.”
“And it’s not as destructive, I guess…” Fiin duck-nodded as he ran a claw along the river’s course.
“Yeah. After all the nukes the Humans dropped, I don’t wanna go an’ ruin good land.”
“I can see why they set up there,” Fiin said. “That little bit of high ground in the middle of a depression. It’d be a good spot, if they controlled the area.”
“An’ it let us trap ‘em, and now we’re gonna drown ‘em jus’ like vermin,” Garl growled happily.
“When?”
“Late tonight. Lotta explosives ‘ta lay.”
“Can your field staff manage it without you?”
“…Yeah. But I’ll be honest, I really wanted ‘ta be there an’ see it happen.”
Fiin chittered. “Me too…I think we’ll have time.”
“You didn’t come here for the fireworks though,” Garl guessed.
“Yeah, they’re more like a happy bonus…” Fiin chittered briefly. “…I need you to muster forces for another mission, to begin re-deployment as soon as can be had.”
“This ‘fer the thing Fourth Fang’s doin’?”
“Uh-huh. They’ve done their recon and emplacement. Now we need to burn the Hierarchy’s shit to the ground.”
Garl chittered again. “…I ever tell you how I like the way you think, my Champion?”
Fiin flicked an ear, looking pleased. “I thought you’d approve. How quickly can you muster?”
“Two days. I’m thinkin’ I should leave this ‘ta Matso. And…uh, I have a request, my Champion.”
Fiin caught the sudden change in tone immediately and cocked his head. “Name it.”
“…There’s a, uh… well, a reason I wanna see that valley flood. It’s gonna be one’a the last things I can see clearly.”
Fiin paused, sniffed at him for a second, then keened softly. “…I see.”
“Oh, don’t go keenin’ at me like a weaning cub,” Garl grumbled. “I’m eighty-eight, it was gonna happen sooner or later. An’ I’m too old an’ horrible for the Crue-G ‘ta work.”
“Does the Great Father know?”
“Yeah. He sniffed it on me the mornin’ I first noticed my sight was startin’ to go. Figure I’ve got half a year, maybe. Gonna be blind as a rock in half that time, though… Can’t lead an army when I can’t see shit.”
“No, I ‘spose not. Uh…is Matso ready?”
Garl chittered. “Balls no! But neither was I… An’ neither were you, my Champion. He’s got what it takes, though… You know who he is?”
“I’ve heard the name. Story a lot like mine, too.”
“Yup. Whole lotta hidden treasures in the Clanless, if ‘yer smart enough ‘ta find ‘em.”
“Right, well…stay, then. Get this handed over. I’d still like you to pay a visit to Stinkworld, though. This is gonna need the touch of experience.”
“Aright, my Champion. Now git, I got work ‘ta do.”
Fiin nodded and sniffed noses with him, rested a brotherly paw on his shoulder, then turned back to his business. A Champion never rested.
Nor did a Grandfather, really. Not until the very end. Strange, he’d imagined he’d be worked up about the inevitable but really…he wasn’t. He’d had a good life, sired many cubs… shit, sired a Great Father!
Briefly, he wondered what Fyu’s own sire had been like. Maybe if there was an afterlife, he’d sniff the ol’ pelt out and they’d raise some Talamay together, or do whatever it was the Unseen did. If they did. Whatever.
Garl shook his pelt out. Balls, gettin’ close to nava mulch was makin’ him all sorts of sentimental! He should spread the cheer, and he knew just the victim to pounce on. He limbered up and ran like the wind over to Matso’s little encampment. He was definitely Daar’s sire and he wouldn’t get to enjoy his body for much longer…
…He did manage to restrain himself from flattening the much smaller silverfur with a tackle, though.
“Hey, Matso! I’ve got ‘ya a challenge I bet ‘yer gonna just love the shit outta…”