Chapter Nineteen

When I did, the football coach showed me how to pack up, where the old cups were thrown into a wooden crate, he pounded down the top all of the cups were dumped into place, his fist was fairly large despite his age and I could tell that he still had some of his old strength left. The wooden top scraped against the sides as it was knocked into place, and he explained it all to me, “Smack this down like so, that way all the garbage can be tossed together and recycled,” he pointed to the entrance where the locker room door was, “there’s a storage area in there, take the hovercart and load the crate on it. Dump the water and ice in the grass, load the coolers on the cart, put it all back there along with any unused cups. Questions?” He asked, and I thought it over, scratching under my chin as I ran through all the ways things could go wrong.

“Sir, what if we run out of water during the games?” I asked the obvious question, and the old man replied…

“First off, I work for a living, don’t call me Sir. It’s just Paul, or Coach Wills if you feel really fancy. Second, if you run out… you go get more. There’s a hose inside the storage area. Fill’er up and get back as fast as you can get here. Just keep the cups full.”

I will admit, humans are a ‘mostly’ fastidious lot, they have elaborate self care and cleanliness rituals and to stink is a profound social gaffe. It is from my observation, the clearest sign of having ‘given up’ on functioning in society.

So to hear ‘Coach Wills’ say to fill up the containers with a hose? I tilted my head at him and asked him, “Are you joking, Coach Wills?”

He crossed his arms in front of his chest and looked down at me for a long quiet moment and said, “Listen’ere, these boys get sweaty, muddy, an thirsty enough to lick sweat out of your fur after the first hour or two, a little hose water won’t hurt’em.” He spat into the mud, “Didn’t expect squeamishness from an alien that took a bite out of a perv.”

I scratched under my jaw and said quite truthfully, “Coach Wills, I can still taste a piece of him in the back of my throat, and it is awful.”

It was the right thing to say, the salty old man threw back his head and laughed hard enough that he drew Boatswain’s attention from speaking with one of the other players.

After Paul explained what I’d said, another round of laughter was picked up, one of the players removed their helmet, and groaned, “I can hear the ‘eat me’ jokes already.”

The player in question had a light hearted tone and I didn’t take it seriously, nor did it seem that the others had either as they laughed it off, and in an attempt at joining in their laughter I said in as deadpan a voice as I could manage…

“Humans. Taste. Awful.”

I will not burden the academy with the litany of jokes that followed, as most of them involved some form of reproductive reference that will not make sense to most species… Some forms of human humor don't translate very well, though it serves others well to learn its structure enough to imitate it. But I will point out that helmetless human who smelled a lot like sweat and was still flushed in the face, bore a striking resemblance to Coach Wills. It was their positioning, really, the way they stood with one hand on the hip and the helmet under one arm, much the way he now held his datapad. They were laughing somewhat less than the others, perhaps because while the others were joking and laughing, socializing like very young dlamisa before separation, the helmetless human took an interest in the old man’s work.

The football shirt uniforms I should point out, had numbers on the front, and names on the back, and I was pleased to see the last name ‘Wills’, largely because I was now fairly sure I was right. ‘Son, grandson, or nephew I suppose.’ The disinterest in the team and the interest in the old man’s work reminded me of the way Percival guided Teresa. There is a word for this which is almost totally unique to humans.

‘Nepotism’. Essentially it is the promotion of family members into positions of authority in private or public enterprises, without regard for whether or not the person being put into that position, actually has talent. I had to caution myself to make my notes somewhat tentative as I couldn’t be certain I was right, not without asking, and I didn’t want to risk an insult on my first day.

But I will say that in my study of human history, nepotism is the singular most common form of government and commerce. Children were raised in their family businesses, the ruler was chosen from among the children of the existing ruler. Wealth, land, goods, all would pass through generations of the same hands. I will pause to point out that this often worked surprisingly well, a child grows up learning specialized skills and then steps into the ‘family business’ having spent their life preparing for it.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Unfortunately there were those inevitable lapses of talent… accident… war… or worse, and inevitably most of the time it would fail. It was and still is frowned upon, but as evidenced by Percival, Teresa, and now at a glance, the ‘Wills’ family, it lives on.

I turned two of my ears toward their conversation and set myself to my own job, walking slowly to catch as much as possible about what was being said behind me. “...It’s fine, but if you don’t change up the line you’ll be stuck when one of them gets hurt, and mind that the damn meatheads don’t forget that they’re student athletes…”

Then I lost track of the conversation as I went inside to get the hovercart.

Cleanup proved easy, I set out the various plastic bottles of their multicolored, flavored drinks which the cheerleaders and players all paused to take. I got the feeling this was a regular thing for them, that it was how they ended every game. Humans need a lot of water to survive, and some specialized drinks provide not just water, but vital salts and electrolytes to replenish them faster. As I loaded the cart unassisted, a rare occasion when I would be given no help from those around me, I took note that the Wills pair and the cheerleading coach were standing aside and watching both groups. Making sure that everybody finished the entire bottle.

Nobody wandered away, and they all drank so fast and so deeply that I could hear their various gulps. I realized I was seeing another rule at play. It reminded me very much of the way William and Rebecca minded Fauve and ordered their household. Human leadership appears to be essentially parental. Setting examples that subordinates are to follow. Only after the others drank, did the young Wills approach and snatch up the last bottle for himself.

I finished throwing everything together and hauled it away, the steel gray cart hummed contentedly ahead of me, the little blue lights pulsing underneath, the work proved surprisingly easy. My only trouble was really with banging the crate top down for the cups.

Physical work… it was not, is not, and never will be what I am best at.

But I managed, I was just storing things away when I smelled Boatswain and Lisa behind me.

“You got everything, you good to go?” She asked as I straightened up, I put my hands on my hips and arched my back.

“Yes.” I answered, I was still a little sore from my earlier ‘run in’ with Boatswain, and he lowered his tail and bowed his head as a second apology.

“I had no intent to break discipline that way.” He repeated, and again I waved it away.

“There was a ball involved. It was inevitable.” I answered, “We might have to make exceptions to the usual rules for that kind of thing.” I added, and this incidentally, became the foundation of ‘Ballylaw’ after the sport spread, that injuries sustained or caused by the pursuit of a ball either by natural means or by incidental collisions shall not be subject to punishment or discipline unless the ball was put into play with the intent of creating those injuries.

“So, Lisa, what’s next?” I asked, content to give Boatswain some space while he processed my dismissal.

“Next, I shower, change, and head back. Make sure you check your schedule, download any books you need, and then I guess that’s that? Are you going to do the classes in person or remote?” She asked, and my answer was quick.

“In person.” I said, “I need to… to get used to human crowds, a small one is best, maybe I can get something to suppress my sense of smell to make it easier. But whether I can or not, I have to do it this way. My career depends on it.”

“You take that mighty seriously.” She said when we left the storage room.

“Of course. A dlamisa has his work and not much else. We go to work, we go to sleep. We eat. We speak a little. But we work. And work. And work. To be the very best in my profession, nobody has ever studied humans to this extent except my professor. If I’m successful, I’ll be immortalized in my field for generations. To get there, I have to do everything in my power, even if it means taking a few lumps along the way.” I tapped my finger to the spot above my eye she’d taken care of earlier.

Boatswain was looking at me with a new respect, his tail wagging and his head nodding with approval. Military dlamisa are a rare breed, and they tend to be somewhat contemptuous of the cowardice of others, or what they see as cowardice. I suppose because of my natural timidity and my obvious fears, he hadn’t thought much of me before that moment. But even if I am not the bravest of my race, I am and always have been ambitious to make my mark on my people’s history, to rise to the top where I could say I mattered. It mattered that I was there in the time that I lived.

And it was really the only way one of us was ever really known at all.

In the years since, I was sometimes asked if I regretted the things I did that put so much at risk, that nearly cost me everything and reset my life to zero.

I look back on the memory of Fauve standing between me and the security people, the memory of that first thrown ball, the memory of Michael chasing after me, of William and Rebecca’s tight embrace…

And I wished I could laugh like a human, because if I could I would always add in that laughter when I say, ‘Even if it cost me everything, I would have done it all again, without any regrets. It was worth it. Because they and all they and so many more I have yet to even mention, were worth it.’