Chapter Forty-Six

I admit, my inner coward quailed. ‘Are you insane? Asking a question like that?!’ Even asking it was almost the same as an accusation in enkanti, in our language, you seldom asked a question without a strong doubt about your belief being wrong. And from our perspective, that is how it is, if you are sure you’re right, why are you asking?

If I had been human, I would have been sweating.

We don’t have a means to laugh as humans do, but her tail went into a wild wagging mode that was so vigorous that her behind wiggled with it, her entire body shivered as if she were deeply delighted, and her tongue lolled out when she cocked her head at me. “I heard you were a coward. But that was a bold question. Yes, I told the truth. The ship is out there lazily making its way here and unless their Captain is spooked by some unmapped mote of space debris and gives it a wide berth, they will be here in a matter of weeks.”

I tried not to be rude by inhaling deeply, but I have always had a good nose, and I doubted she’d be able to hide any guilty pheromones from me, not this close at least.

I detected none. ‘Either she’s a killer colder than the void, or she’s telling the truth.’ I concluded and sighed, “Fine.” I acknowledged, “I will speak to the embassy for you… I take it they’re rather cross right now?” I asked and she nodded.

“For some reason they are miffed that I arrived here in place of a ship of the home world’s official trade expedition.” She said it as if she hadn’t violated every kind of decency and protocol of our homeland. But I was sure she was only pretending to be ignorant. Ignoring her as soon as possible was likely the way the ambassador was expressing his displeasure. Though I doubted he knew she had some less than silver reputation crewmembers, otherwise he would be more cautious.

“I’ll take care of it. Just promise that everybody participates in my studies and that I can get a full report on the outside experiences with their guides. All the interviews I ask for, and that nobody will do anything to sabotage my efforts… and no starting trouble!” I insisted, and if anything, far from being troubled or intimidated, Captain Bonny seemed almost impressed or even pleased.

“You drive a hard bargain, researcher. But I will meet your demands. Just keep that tidbit about my crew under your tail and sit on it.” She replied, and I had to ask…

“Why say at all, aren’t you worried I might speak up?” I asked, though my tail wagged hard enough that it was obvious I wasn’t angry, my curiosity was piqued, that was after all, quite a bit to give away.

She shrugged, “It made sense. You must be at least something of an outlier yourself, the only dlamisa to taste human blood. I learned a little about you, you’re an outlier.”

Before now I might have bristled, ‘outlier’ was something of an insult among us, but as things were? ‘Can I deny it? After everything? Do I even want to deny it?’ The truth was, I didn’t. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.

When I didn’t, she went on, “I look after that motley lot, but this is new, I would need an ally here, someone I could trust. And when you live in the void between stars, you learn that sometimes finding people to trust requires you to take a chance. And star leapers like us are used to the occasional blind chance.”

“I’ll do what I can.” It was the best I could do, and Bonny Red only nodded once, whirled around in what I can only describe as a pirouette with panache, and sauntered away like she was standing on a stage with the whole world… no… two worlds as the audience.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

I wasn’t sure if she knew about the thirty-fourth rule of human art, but I was sure she’d learn about it soon enough.

As to how she’d feel about it?

I never did have the courage to find out quite how she responded to that. Truth is, I did not want to know.

But with Captain Bonny gone, the rest was just wrap-up, clearing away debris, scheduling interviews with the different players, and getting schedules so more could play in the time ahead.

William and Rebecca arrived without Michael, and were roundly congratulating me on an unexpected kind of success, chattering away and promising, “We had no idea that is what she was up to.”

Meanwhile, Fauve had set herself off to one side with that same ‘cat who swallowed the canary’ expression on her face that absolutely guaranteed that her parents were telling the truth.

William, ever the worrier, asked, “Is there any chance that this has made things harder for you… anything we need to do…?”

I shook my head and pointed down toward my wagging tail, “No, this may make for some interesting variables, but I can always arrange for smaller private games without all the fanfare as an additional control. I can’t see how this would pose a serious problem.” While I said that, I had made another mental note to add the soldier class dlamisans from the night at the park, and their human counterparts, to closer study. Boatswain and Byron’s bond might be far more common than I thought, and I couldn’t help but think, ‘I have so much more to learn…’

I was right, of course, at least as far as the experiment went. And most of the problems it did eventually cause, weren’t my problems, or problems for my humans, so I was able to sleep soundly while they went on later.

Boatswain and Byron I did not need to schedule interviews with, I lived with them, more or less, so it was doable at my leisure, but even so, neither was willing to put off telling me how much fun they had.

“I haven’t had a game like that since high school.” Byron enthused, his big squared off head was smothered in green grass stains and a dark bruise was forming on his cheek. I made a mental note to add helmets as part of the game.

He was breathing hard still, he and Boatswain did what they could to hold each other up, “And I’ve never had a workout like that. The giant dlamisan security officer enthused, “The last time I had fun… like that?” His tongue lolled out, “Alcohol was involved and it was while we were doing this!”

“I’m glad you both had fun.” I said sincerely, “But please keep in mind that this is about more than fun, at least for me.”

They bowed their heads in a show of deference that surprised me. Up till then, I honestly wasn’t too sure whether they actually liked me or not, foolish as that sounds, after all we hadn’t done anything truly ‘social’ together outside of the limited familial or work related interactions.

But I suppose they did, which… felt pretty good I must say. Humans have a saying, “Tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are.” There is a great deal of truth to that. Looking back on [Wolfbeard], I recalled the nasty, hateful, violent fantasy loving figures that dominated his life and called him ‘friend’, and he was not so different. Looking at William and Rebecca, Latunde was a good man with his own business, and their friends, those few I knew, would put themselves out for him, such as Lisa.

Looking at Fauve, who despite having ‘few’ friends, those she did were people who wanted to build, not destroy.

So realizing that those two had a favorable opinion of me, well, their character said something to me of how they saw my own.

It was something I knew I’d have to live up to.

“So, what now?” Boatswain asked.

I looked at my humans and said, “After we’re done here? Home.”

That is, after all, where I really wanted to be.