Date Point: 16y8m1w1d AV
Wi Kao city, Planet Gao
Yulna
The painkillers weren’t working so well any longer, and Yulna had taken to wearing several thin layers of loose robes to hide her missing patches of fur. Her natural eye was almost useless thanks to a cataract, and without the replacement she’d had installed after losing the other one in a rogue Corti lab all those years ago she’d probably have been thoroughly blind.
But she was home.
Though, home looked rather like she felt. Wi Kao had been spared, but the Commune–once among the most populous and productive on the planet—was now a memorial. Its shattered walls had been made safe, its garden replanted, and all the dead named among the stones and flowers they’d once called home. Only a small staff of caretakers lived permanently there any longer.
Well. A small staff of caretakers, and now one retired Mother-Supreme.
She’d expected the smell to be wrong, somehow, but to the contrary it was almost too right. She didn’t know how the caretakers had so accurately recreated the fragrance of the commune at the height of its occupancy—the messy symphony of flowers, cut grass, young cubs, cleaning, cooking, nervous male petitioners and the occasional sniff of a female feeling very pleased with herself after a successful contract…
It felt mocking, somehow. Like the life Yulna remembered was just around the corner, if only she knew which corner. Like she could open a door and find Ayma and the others laughing over Talamay and Ta’Shen in the light and warmth, and the last few years would be…
Would be what? A bad dream? Yulna had enough reasons to feel as much, but she hesitated at the thought. She’d always tried to live by the belief that life, however it turned and twisted, was fundamentally a Good Thing. It was why she’d endured two decades of medical indignity and encroaching discomfort, rather than opt for gentle euthanasia when she’d been given her diagnosis.
Since the war, she’d lived to see the Clan of Females secure a place for themselves where they’d never again be so vulnerable as they had been the day the violence broke out. She’d met her cubs’ cubs, done great things, and had plenty of moments to chitter and enjoy life. It hadn’t all been bad. She would never throw away the good to chase an impossible dream of better.
But by the Great Fathers, the story her nose was telling her made her heart ache with nostalgia. So rather than linger in the commune garden, she returned to her quarters and lay down to rest.
Rest, but not sleep. Her mind was too full of today, of far too many painful yesterdays, and far too few tomorrows.
Should she have retired? Perhaps working until her last breath would have spared her this… this Limbo. Still herself, but no longer needed. No longer relevant. Just an old Female still dying too young.
Maybe she should—
There was a hefty scratch on the door. She sniffed, then heaved herself out of her nest-bed with a puzzled groan and opened the door.
“…I thought you were on Rauwryhr,” she said.
“Finished.”
“Did it go well?”
“Better’n I thought it would. Can I come in?”
Yulna’s reply surprised her: She keened softly, touched at his concern and pain, and welcomed him in. Not even a few days ago she would have fallen back on sass and playful confrontation, but the truth was that if she could have picked one living person’s company tonight…
Daar understood. He ducked under and sideways through the doorframe, and by mutual unspoken agreement they curled up together on the nest-bed like the old friends they almost were. And, as she’d done back when they were friends and had even consummated a mating contract together, she chirped in frustration at the state of his fur. It was in that awkward stage between clipped-short and shaggy-long, and just running her claws through it turned up more than a few nascent tangles.
“I know Naydra combs you whenever she can,” she muttered. “How do you manage to do this to yourself?!”
“Skill.”
Despite herself and the way it made her lungs feel dry and scratchy, Yulna chittered. She clawed a tangle apart, then resolved that Naydra could damn well do it herself and settled down to simply bask in some close physical affection. There’d been too little of that in her life for far too long.
“…Here to close the ledger, I suppose?” she asked, after a peaceful minute.
“…No. You deserve better’n a horny Daar.”
“Relax, I know that’s not why you’re here,” Yulna assured him. “I just thought… you like to get your accounts in order. Close off an old relationship properly.”
“I ain’t the kinda ‘Back to think that way. I just felt, uh…it might be nice to visit. An’ say goodbye.”
“…I appreciate it. And I’m sorry, I’m so used to everybody around me being all agendas and calculation. Too many cynics in my orbit.”
“Yeah. I got an advantage that ain’t nobody wanna lie in my presence, but…”
“Want to? Oh, I’m sure they want to!” Yulna chittered again. “They just can’t and don’t want to suffer the consequences of trying!”
“Small blessings, I guess. I s’pose I’d hafta make their first slip-up comical an’ embarassin’ though. Like, I dunno…go all pro wrasslin’ on ‘em?”
“As opposed to the friendly tussling you inflict on all the people you like.”
“Well yeah! I’m careful not ‘ta smush people too hard when I’m bein’ all nice-like!”
She chittered again and nuzzled down to listen to the sound of his industrial-sized lungs at work. And behind them, a steady, healthy, strong heartbeat.
“…You sound like you’re in ridiculously good health,” she commented after listening for a while.
“Yup.” Daar sighed uncomfortably. “Better’n ever, even. I’m in perfect condition, like I was fifteen again. No sign o’ age at all neither ‘cept ‘fer a tiny bit o’ silver, here an’ there.”
“Part of me wonders, you know…” Yulna mused. “I wonder if the treatment that has you in such fine shape came from the same research that put me in such a poor place?”
“Prob’ly. I know I have Julian to thank, in part. But that’s not the end of it. Have you ever done the math on my genes? It ain’t simply that I’m a natural sixth degree, that’s just the start. The odds against a male like me are literally astronomical. It’s awful hard t’ignore that these days, given…y’know. Everything.”
“You mean the way you only count as the same species by dint of the fact that you’ve sired a great many cubs?”
“…Okay.” Daar chittered quietly. “I admit I’m happy as balls ‘bout that bit. But, still. It’s…”
“You worry that you’re just as much of an experiment as I was.”
“There aren’t many possibilities. I am either an experiment, an anomaly beyond words, or I’ve been put here with purpose. An’ I ain’t happy with any o’ those possibilities, yijao?”
“Go with the experiment, I suppose. At least there’s rhyme and reason to it, and not one that will stoke your ego like divine providence would.”
“Yeah. There’s only duty. So where does that end? I’m pretty sure I’m gonna live a very, very long time ‘cuz o’ all this. Longer’n I got any right t’live, prol’ly.”
Yulna’s cough had an excellent sense of timing. It was a hacking, dry, agonizing thing and it entirely stopped her from replying for several breathless seconds before finally it subsided enough to let her croak her sarcastic reply to that.
“…What a curse.”
Daar chitter-sighed and pulled her a little more firmly against his bulk. “Point taken, I guess.”
“Yes. I… honestly, Daar, I’m scared. I’ve known this was coming for a long time, but I’m still… I don’t want to die. I’m not ready.”
“No.” The Great Father snuggled his brutish jaw against her neck and held her awhile.
Yulna found that she dozed. She was too uncomfortable for sleep, and wouldn’t be able to rest properly until she’d taken the strong painkillers, the ones that made her fuzzy and vague. But the moment was peaceful enough to at least put her ache aside like a heavy bag for a while.
She half-slept, half-dreamed, and found herself talking without being properly awake, only just conscious enough to notice the thought she was giving voice to, as though it slipped past while her waking mind had its back turned, like a sneaky cub raiding the pantry.
“…Every heartbeat… so precious. And we all get so few of them…” she murmured. Daar stiffened a little, listening. “If you get more than your fair share… you value it, Daar. Promise me that. Don’t you ever write off what you are as a burden. Too many people died for it… you owe it to them to treasure yourself.”
“I don’t, Yulna, not anymore. Not after Naydi. I promise that. I jus’ worry…am I good enough ‘fer this?”
“There’s nobody else, is there?”
“No.”
“Then whose standard are you measuring against?”
“…I dunno.”
Yulna nodded to herself. “…I hope you figure it out,” she said. “Could you hand me one of the blue injectors from the case over there? I think I’d like to get some sleep now.”
He gently extracted himself from the nest-bed, fetched the device, and watched as she touched it to her own throat. It clicked, there was a faint cold, sharp scratch, and the pain immediately began to subside, as it always did when she took her sleep medication. She sighed in relief, and relaxed into the soft bedding.
“…Can you stay?” she asked.
“‘Fer you, I have all the time in the world.”
“Flatterer…” she yawned as he curled up alongside her again. It was good to have at least one old friend left. And she was glad to be his friend again.
Warm, comfortable, and drifting on the sleepy cloud of medication, she snuggled backwards into him, and fell asleep feeling comfortable and safe.
Date Point: 16y8m3w AV
Planet Akyawentuo, Ten’Gewek Protectorate, Near 3Kpc Arm
Vemik Sky-Thinker
“These are vack-seens?”
Jooyun shook his head no as he inspected the weird things that had come in an even weirder box. Vemik itched to examine that box. It seemed… ‘over-engineered,’ but Jooyun said that Core-tie didn’t do that much.
“No they aren’t, big fella. This is a blood kit. They need your body-words and a small Giving of your blood so they can find the sickness and build a vaccine against it. As for the box, it’s ‘cuz it has to keep your blood-Givings super cold.”
One of the Core-tie was far above in a ship, talking through Jooyun’s fone. Vemik had a problem with Core-tie in that he couldn’t tell them apart. They all had the same narrow faces, the same huge leaf-shaped eyes, no hair…. And weirdest of all, no ‘gonads,’ either! (He liked that word; he’d picked it up from the scientists.)
Jooyun said there were subtle changes from one to another, but a tiny fone screen didn’t carry subtle changes well, so the Core-tie talking to them could have been anyone.
“Freezing the samples is a necessary step in the process,” it explained. “The fresher the better.”
“Why not use stay-sis?” Vemik asked. The subtlest little twitch of emotion crossed the Core-tie’s face, though he couldn’t say which one.
“…An item in stasis cannot be interacted with, which is necessary for proper sample preparation. The container will begin some of the safety preparations automatically. In addition, they would need to be cooled anyway for some of our processes.”
That made sense, Vemik nodded and shrugged, and offered his arm for Jooyun to press the sample-thing to.
“…Other side, buddy. Kinda think the needle won’t go through your hide unless we get a soft bit.”
Reluctantly, Vemik turned his arm over to expose the thinner, softer skin on the inside of his elbow. From what he gathered, this was going to be like a nasty bug bite, and those were always the worst in a soft place. Jooyun just shrugged at him, pulled a slightly sorry face, wiped something cold onto Vemik’s skin with a tiny white cloth and then applied the sampler.
It stuck to his skin strangely, then went click and stung a bit, but Vemik had had much worse over the years. He watched interestedly as a small amount of his blood was drawn up into a clear pod about the size and shape of Jooyun’s smallest fingertip. There was a cold feeling, and then the sampler let go again. Jooyun taped a small wad of white stuff that looked like a tiny cloud over the wound, and told Vemik to hold his fist tight against his shoulder.
Then it was the Singer’s turn. Then little Vemut, who didn’t like it one bit, and Vemik had to hold his arm still so Jooyun could take the sample without hurting him.
The rest of the village followed, some casually happy that if the Singer and Sky-Thinker had done it—and let their child do it—then there was no harm, others nervous but determined, a few swaggering and sneering at the idea they could be scared at all by anything any skinny dickless sky-person could do…
It didn’t matter why. They all Gave, in the end.
Yan was the last to Give, and wanted to deliver the samples—still one of Vemik’s favorite sky-words–in person.
Jooyun meanwhile turned to his fone and raised his eyebrows at it. “Satisfied?”
“The collection process seems to have been conducted competently and to specification.” That was a lot of big words where a simple “yes” would have done. Strange. “Our agent on Cimbrean awaits your timely delivery and the opportunity to take appropriate full scans.”
“He’ll get it,” Jooyun said.
“All is well, then. We will depart the system and return to Directorate space. Starship Thesis Crucible, signing off.”
The bland face on the fone’s screen vanished.
“What happens next?”
“Well, I’m gonna take these back to Folctha, along with you and the Singer for personal scans and stuff.”
Yan grumbled from his spot on a log, “took long enough…”
“Shit happens, big man. You know that. Honestly, I’m kinda fuckin’ impressed that the Corti even have a ‘universal basic vaccine’ to modify. But I suppose if they can figure out things like, uh, what they shaped me and my family into, or Cruezzir and stuff…eh, I’m not smart enough.”
“Shame to see smart-strength like that wasted on body-weakness.”
Jooyun shrugged in what Vemik had learned was a very non-committal sort of way. “I suppose. Still, that smart-strength is a big part of why I can out-wrestle your red-crests—didn’t ask for that, but whatever—and why you’ll be getting vaccines. Don’t underestimate it.”
“Am not. Just saying: they should be both.” Yan stood up with a push of his tail. “…We are.”
“No argument here. I think they know it too. I mean…why else would they be doing this?”
Yan nodded, then grinned in mischief. “Also, Vemik still out-wrestle you any day!”
Vemik trilled at that and bounced happily, while Jooyun chuckled gently. “Eh, we’ll see how long that lasts…there.” He closed the cold-box, then pressed a big shiny button on the side. The box made a hiss, and some fog poured out of a small hole on the side, and then it was still.
He grabbed one handle, Vemik the other, and together they transferred it to the jump platform. It was bulky and surprisingly heavy, but neither of them had any problem moving it.
A thought occurred to Vemik. “Shouldn’t we be doing blood-Givings from everyone?”
“Eventually, yeah. But you don’t map the whole forest in one go, Sky-Thinker. One tree at a time. Also, everyone’s body-words come half from their sire and half from their dam. We can use those family ties to see how body-words change over time, and how they work together.”
“How long to the jump?” the Singer asked.
“…Just before sunset,” Jooyun said after checking his watch.
“Awwgh,” Vemik muttered in frustration. “I want to meet… uh… Hawwisun.”
“Harrison, Vemik. I know it’s a hard name for your big-ass tongue but that’s okay.”
“Sound too much like Awisun anyway…” Vemik grumbled.
Jooyun chuckled in his easy-going, friendly way. “Don’t worry big fella, you’ll get to meet him. Mostly all he wants to do is eat and sleep right now anyway.”
Satisfied, Vemik’s mind turned to the question of how to occupy themselves until sunset. Work out? Eh, not right now. His muscles were still nicely tight after yesterday’s lifting and spear-hunt, so it felt important to rest. Wrassle Jooyun? …Nah. Tussles with Jooyun were always fun, especially since Vemik usually won, or learned neat tricks when he didn’t…but Jooyun was strong these days and Vemik needed to be well-rested to stand against him. So no, not today.
Write letters? Maybe! He still didn’t have a reply from Tis-dale about his last ‘field report’ though. He had to wait until he knew what the Humans were interested in before he went for more samples. Also, he wanted to do that with Jooyun! Doing samples with Tilly was always good fun, but they ended up playing with each other too much instead. Good fun with her, even if they didn’t always fuck…but Tilly-fun wasn’t getting the work done.
Make a knife? His forge wasn’t cold—he never let it get cold if he could help it, because starting it up again cost too much charcoal—but his apprentices were practicing right now and they needed some time at the anvil without him looming over them.
He had to let them ‘tinker’ in peace, no matter how much it hurt. They were doing it all wrong!
He could go and make merry with the other men. The village felt nice and lazy today and so did the neighbors, and days like this always had the taste of mischief about them. It was really fun to wrestle! Or maybe they could band up and go raid Ferd’s old village! They were good people and were just a nicely fun journey away, but they were a bit too proud about their brightest son, who hadn’t even been Given his totem yet! They were practically begging for someone to fight with. They had pretty women, too…it could be a fun day for everyone!
But…
…Well, their village was maybe too far away. Now that he thought about it, if they made a warband right away, then by the time the singing had been done, and the spears had been carefully blunted and colored, so everyone knew they were only at play-war…
And, well, even play-war could be dangerous, especially a completely unexpected raid.
Also, the day’s heat and the heavy wetness of the air was sorta lulling everyone to sleep…
And also…
Vemik looked over at Singer, who was standing just so in the morning light…
Suddenly he had much better ideas floating in his head. He grunted at her, gave her his most suggestive snarl…she grinned, and flicked her tail…
That was all he needed. Vemik long-jumped and pounced, wrapping an arm and tail around and picking her clean up off the ground. She hooted a play-objection, but clung to him rather than struggling. Her hands were gripping nicely at his chest and that just got his blood going faster…
“See you at sunset!”
“Before sunset!” Jooyun corrected him with a smirk.
“Aww!” Vemik snuggled his Singer and bounced his way toward their hut. If there was a life-after and the gods rewarded him for good balance, then surely that reward must have been something like this: loved ones, and all the time in the world to indulge them.
Right now, Vemik didn’t have endless time. He just had the rest of the sunlight. But he had it with Singer, and for now, that was enough.
He laid down with his Singer, gave her every bit of his strength, and made the most of their time.
Date Point: 16y8m3w AV
Coreward Marches, Kwmbwrw Great Houses
Shipmatriarch Wrythwynw
It had been quite some time since the last distress call from a facility out in the Marches. Wrythwynw had foolishly begun to hope that maybe the Hunters would acknowledge that they were beaten, but no. More people were dying.
This time, it was an ice mining operation in a main sequence yellow-white star system quite close to the border. An important target, in fact: lots of outposts, stations and groundside facilities in a large radius around that star depended on the water and volatiles it extracted from an ice dwarf in the system’s outer halo.
The Sword of a Poet was back, this time accompanied by a different capital ship, the Scorching Claw. Wrythwynw was impressed: the Gaoians had lost no sharpness or eagerness while they waited. If anything, they seemed a little bit quicker and more precise.
Sadly, they weren’t the only ones.
Once again, the Hunters bolted when they saw the incoming response fleet. Once again, the Sword launched a megalight probe to chase them down.
This time, the Hunters launched one of their own.
It ate the light-years in an eyeblink, intercepted the Gaoian probe and pinned it back to relativistic spacetime with a gravity spike so fierce that the Gaoian and Kwmbwrw combined fleet felt it as a minor shockwave. The Gaoian probe sent a brief confused squawk of error messages, and disintegrated: apparently its Hunter counterpart was armed.
A new counter-tactic, then. That was deeply inauspicious.
The Gao adapted quickly and fired off a wide spread of interceptor probes, but the Hunters matched them shot-for-shot. Each one was caught, dumped back to sublight, and destroyed
The minutes dragged on, and the Hunters were too fast to catch without the probes. All Wrythwynw could do was watch as the ice station’s abducted crew were carried away into deep space, until the last faint sensor echo, itself barely a ghost on the instruments, vanished entirely. They had failed.
Shipfather Orno was not the pleased, happy, exhilarated Gao he’d been the last time they spoke. When his hail connected, every social context marker Wrythwynw’s screen had told a story of frustration, embarrassment and tightly contained anger.
“…Shipmatriarch, on behalf of the Clans of Gao and my Claw, I apologize to the Kwmbwrw Great Houses,” he began. It was… strange to see him so formal.
“On behalf of the Coreward Marches Fleet and House Wynw-arbryn, your apology is accepted, though unnecessary,” Wrythwynw replied in the same vein.
“You do not understand. I must report my failure to the Great Father.”
“Will he be…angry?”
Orno’s ears flattened dejectedly. “…I’d almost rather he would be. Instead, he will be saddened, understanding, and disappointed.”
“…Surely that’s good?”
“If he got angry, there’d be somethin’ I could work on an’ improve. If he’s understanding… ain’t nothin’ we coulda done different. An’ there ain’t nothin’ worse than bein’ completely useless.”
That was… weirdly logical. And it rather changed Wrythwynw’s perspective on her own report to her superiors. Hopefully they hadn’t grown too used to victory.
…And hopefully Henenwgwyr and her House wouldn’t seize too hard on this failure as a chance to inveigle themselves back into the political mainstream. A naive hope, that.
“So… what do we do now?” she asked instead.
Orno glanced off-screen at something she couldn’t see. Maybe the Gaoians had better sensors, because he watched attentively for a few seconds with his ears up, then sagged, shook his head, and offered her a complex expression that her console interpreted as a medley of resignation and melancholy.
“We make our reports, and see what happens,” he said. “But somehow, I think the Hunters might fight back after this…”
He reached forward to close the conversation, and paused just before his claw reached the button. “…Good luck,” he added, and closed comms.
Wrythwynw returned to her duties in a despondent mood.