Chapter Thirty

Dinner that evening was a very pleasant experience, it usually was, Fauve spoke about her enthusiasm for her new internship, the work she was doing involved, much to her delight, a lot of coffee. As she put it, “Coffee is fuel for creative engines. They’re always on the go, there. Teresa mostly has me just following her around and minding her schedule, but the weird thing is, she has me taking a lot of notes.”

This had my interest, “Notes? What kind of notes?” I could see that I just barely beat William and Rebecca in asking the question, as both leaned forward with interest. The high investment of humans with their young necessitates a lot of communication, and I had to think of these two as experts at it, oddly enough, human communication involves a lot of listening.

“Her routine, how she orders her day, and at the end of the day she asks me why I think she was doing what she was doing when she was doing it.” Fauve scratched her head and briefly ran her fingers through the long strands of thin brown hair, “She was homeschooled a lot, and this was how her grandfather and her tutors taught her.” Fauve cleared her throat and did what was in my view, a passable Teresa impression, ‘Not just the what and how, but the why. When you know the why, you can figure out the rest.’ Sometimes she corrects me, but she says I’ve got good instincts.” Fauve was beaming with obvious pride.

Humans can be such a proud species, and their pride is the thing they’re the very worst at hiding. In my view, all of them could use a little dose of dlamisan humility, but strangely enough their sense of pride is a double edged sword. It compels them to do their best, or it convinces the worst of them that they’re better than they are and inhibits their improvement.

“That’s fantastic, Fauve, but remember, you do still have your other schoolwork to do.” William reminded her, and Fauve looked briefly both crestfallen and annoyed.

“Yeah, yeah, dad, I know.” She replied and looked over to her mother for aid.

Divide and conquer seems a common strategy among children, and though Fauve didn’t expressly ask for her mother to intervene, it seemed their silent communication was flawless. Human eyes provide an interesting form of communication that I have not seen elsewhere in the galaxy. Dlamisa like me do use some silent communication, our body language, our tails, even our eyes can show some expression.

But a single look can convey volumes of understanding between humans who have a long association with one another. I have theorized that this is linked to their empathetic method of learning and socialization. Combined with long association with one another, they learn each other’s thought patterns and gain an understanding of intent without having to actually speak.

Fauve’s mother was evidently fluent in this silent language of expression, as she paused from feeding the wiggling Michael and said, “Don’t even think it, young lady. You’re fourteen. You’ve got a lot on your plate, but if you need to quit something, it won’t be school, you can quit your job at the mall.”

Fauve pouted a little, “But it’s so easy that it’s dull.”

“Then do it faster and get it over with, if you finish by the time you’re sixteen then you won’t have to worry about it anymore.” William remarked offhandedly, and Byron chuckled from his seat beside me, trading a look with Boatswain.

“Smart girl. Wish I could have done that. Or… nah, I had too much fun playing football, wouldn’t trade it for anything. But a little more smarts would have been good for reducing worry about tests.” He shrugged his own commentary off and cut into the center of his steak.

Boatswain’s tail wagged beside him as the behemoth of a human security officer started regaling the table with stories of his football days.

I added nothing to the conversation for a while, instead, I was writing, the Walkers let me work on my datapad in between bites of food, understanding thankfully, the need for me to continue my observations. I cannot emphasize enough how lucky I was that I ended up with such a scientifically minded household.

An engineer and a biologist, both readily understood the need for a careful study of data and that my work in this respect was a constant for me. I wasn’t sure how Fauve felt about being a bit of an experiment in her own right, but if she did mind, she never said it. If I asked, I think she would say, ‘Of course you want to study me, I’m fascinating.’ She could be very proud, after all. Though it might have been at least somewhat tongue in cheek, and I could already imagine the playful smile on her face in saying it.

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Normally my notes would have been different, but this evening I was busy laying out plans for supplies, writing down things to send off as communications later, and drafting a request to the University of Louisville to let me use their football stadium for my study.

I was in the middle of doing this when a message popped up from Professor Sxlith. ‘Funding has been approved for all necessary supplies, approval dispatched already. Proceed as planned and create a formal writeup when time permits.’

I couldn’t resist.

“I figured out my experiment.” I said, my tail giving away my obvious enthusiasm, “And I just got approval.” I added and the table fell silent, I rarely ‘jumped in’ to conversations, so this in and of itself was unusual.

I could see from their brief quiet expressions that they were processing what I’d said, and from the relief on their faces and heavy sighs as if they’d been holding their breath for some time, they were happy about it.

I didn’t write down all their questions, but suffice it to say they wanted to know what I’d come up with.

After I explained, Byron rubbed his jaw, “You might not get much help from the local military office, gotta be honest with you there, not that they wouldn’t want to, but offices like that aren’t exactly known for their competitive athleticism. Besides, if you want some real play that’ll keep the government interested, my guys’d be happy to jump on board. Since we’re still tied to the federal government and we’re technically a branch of service, it meets your needs. We would have to hold off on the alcohol component though.” He pointed out, and I admit I was less than pleased about that.

“Give me the thing, the whatever, contact for the ship coming in.” Boatswain said, “Every dlamisan embassy security officer has fleet time, I’ll write up a testimonial about the value of the exercise to duty performance. Anything that increases efficiency is a win in their eyes, plus they need something to fill the time in port during repairs I’ll bet. I can’t believe they did a slingshot maneuver…” His fur bristled a little at the very idea, but I had little real understanding of why this mattered.

Fauve spared us all the question. “Is that bad?” She asked.

“If by ‘bad’ you mean a choice between a silent scream in the eternal void, your corpse floating along for millions of years until you are swallowed by a star or a planet…” he tapped one finger on the table, “or your ship burns up so that you are incinerated alive in one blinding moment of agony after a miscalculation…” he tapped his next finger on the table, “or if you consider the possibility of flying into the path of a blackhole with no chance of avoiding it,” he tapped his third finger on the table, “or if you find it unpleasant to crash into an asteroid you couldn’t see coming…” He gave a hard derisive sneeze.

“Well then yes, it is bad.”

“It’s that dangerous?” Fauve asked, mouth open and eyes wide.

“It has some advantages,” Boatswain explained, “shorter travel means less exposure to danger, plus it would carry them through Zenti routes faster than any Zenti could travel, they may be quiet now but you never know when you’ll encounter a rogue somewhere. But yes, it’s extremely dangerous.”

“I thought your species was supposed to be very cautious.” Fauve said and looked at me with mock accusing eyes. “Then again…” She broke into a teasing little grin and when I leaned forward, she scratched right behind my ears.

Boatswain huffed, “Most of us are. But military dlamisans and ship captains are some of our outliers, you don’t leap into the void if you aren’t a little reckless.”

He wasn’t wrong, I knew of a dozen races that though they developed advanced civilizations capable of space flight, absolutely refused unless they were in cryosleep while they were still on their world and transported like cargo to some other place. And they only did that because there was always the possibility that their world might undergo a disaster and they’d need a new home ready for themselves.

“Whoever the captain is, they must be an outlier among outliers to do something that wild.” Given the way his tail wagged, it was obvious that Boatswain was thoroughly enthusiastic about a chance at meeting a wild dlamisan ship captain.

I was less enthusiastic. But I couldn’t turn down his help.

“I’ll send you everything you need.” I promised, “And if you’ll participate too, I think I can help.”

He figured out what I meant when my tail smacked against his, and though he didn’t say anything in terms of thanks, I believe he was thinking it.