---The Grandmother---
“I’m… not… angry…” I lie.
“Yes, you are.” The voice behind me states, simply.
“I’m… not… angry!” I say with the Thief’s own honesty.
“Cap, you’re clearly…”
“Alright, FINE!!! I’m not angry, I’m [furious]! I’m [livid]! [Irate]! [Incensed]!”
Taylor's language has so many words for different shades of anger, from ‘miffed’ to ‘apoplectic’. It’s worth embarrassing myself with the way my beak mangles them, to get the point across.
I take a deep inhale of the oxygen rich atmosphere, maintained in this Dorm for Terran comfort, and watch the stars slowly parallax past eachother out of the window.
“Cap, I really didn’t know! When I picked her up… she was wild. I thought she was gainin’ weight because she had access to all the food she wanted… I tried havin’ her do more exercise… I thought about puttin’ her on a diet! I’m glad I’m such a weak will when it comes to those sad eyes… it prob’ly would have been bad for them if I’d put my foot down.”
I wheel around, my face screwed up in rage. The five Humans, Don and Sahas all turn down their faces in shame.
“I’m not angry that you brought an a’Teksian mirkbeast onto my ship with a litter in her belly, Taylor! I’m not angry that you misread the signals of pregnancy! I’m not even angry that you got yourself injured by her!... Whatever I used to think and however it may sometimes seem to me, I’ve seen enough of your stupid decisions and blindspots to know that Humans aren’t clairvoyant! I’m at peace with that! Taylor!…” I move toward the man, with his right arm bruised and slashed, now attempting to convey my hurt with every gesture of myself “…I’m angry that you kept it secret! You didn’t trust me with this! Ten diurnals!? What did you think would happen? You thought you could smuggle them off the ship somewhere, without anyone noticing? Then what?!”
Suitably ashamed he answers “…Cap… I’m sorry!… We… I didn’t know… what to do! We talked about it a lot! Eight of them’s a breedin’ population and that’s a crime, doesn’t matter that they're siblings! We decided it was better if you had plausible deniability! I really didn’t do this because I didn’t trust you!”
I sigh and flick my crown plumes “…So?... Why are you compromising my [plausible deniability], now?! And what made her injure you?!”
“…well, to the second… she seems to have undergone… behaviour changes… we haven’t been able to do the Cuddle Puddle since she delivered, she growls at us when we go in that room…” he looks around at the rest of the Triple Ms “…we wanted to know what was up so… these guys convinced me to get her a translator and ask. She was snarlin’ at me as I approached… I only just got it on her before she gashed me. To the first… it’s what she said…” he trails off here.
I chit and ask “Damn it, Taylor! Don’t make me drag it out of you! What did she say?!”
Still hesitating, he answers “…I think she said she’ll only talk… to you…”
I close my eyes to process that. It takes some time.
Eventually, I ask “Where is the uncertainty? What exactly did she say?”
Victor gives a mirthless smile and says “…Weeeeell, she asked for the ‘feather Grandmother’… I can’t think of many contenders(!)”
Massaging my temples with my wingclaws, I try to work out… anything!
Eventually, I settle on asking “I don’t suppose she gave any indication of… what she wanted to speak to this ‘feather grandmother’ about…did she?”
He closes his eyes and shakes his head “No… she definitely wasn’t in the mood to talk so… I left and commed you.”
I consider, then respond “So… do you have any ideas for questions you want me to ask her?”
Taylor indicates to Zunberi, who starts “We’d like to know if she knows how long the mirkpups…”
He’s cut off by MacLeod “Or mirkittens! Or mirklets! Consensus not yet reached!”
He continues “Yes, thank you Mouse. Anyway, we'd like you to ask if she knows how long they need to suckle before they can be weaned and if she understands what has caused her behaviour change and how long that will last. We’d also like to know if she forms a pack unit with them after that or if mirkbeasts are solitary. The literature seems to suggest solitary behaviour but… it’s difficult to be certain, given how impossible it was to study them up close, until recently. Finally, we’d like to know what she wants… to do…”
Confused I ask “What do you mean: ‘What she wants to do’? What might she do?”
Zunberi looks at Taylor, who’s face is a mask of anguish, before turning back to me and responding “GU law forbids breedable populations of deathworld predators being removed from their planet of origin together. One mirkbeast is legal as a study sample… or pet, but… if we keep her young… we’d be breaking the law… so, realistically, she has two options, or actually, I suppose, two decisions to make… where does she want us to take them and…” another glance at Taylor and his watery green eyes “…does… she… want… to leave with them.”
I look at Taylor, my anger melting away.
“Victor…”
“It’s fine… Cap…” he lies “…I love her… lots… but if she wants to go, I won’t force her to stay! I won’t ask her to choose me over her babies…” he clears his throat, I’m guessing as an attempt to keep his voice from cracking “…Mage’s sister’s got some contacts in… *erm*… what was it?...”
“Deathworld Faunal Taming and Domestication Research… or we return them and possibly her to a’Teksia 3… Those are the options… if we give them to my sister’s colleagues then they will be given to volunteers to see how they take to life as pets… these would be people who will have been thoroughly, personally vetted to make sure they would be loving providers… if they take to domestication as well as Fluffy did… until recently… then their genes can be sampled, recombinated and variated to be able to produce new domestic mirkbeasts that can then legally be distributed to those licensed to have them. Or we release them onto their cradleworld… or, I suppose, you could get an eyepatch and a pegleg and we all become pirates(!)”
That joke catches me off guard and I laugh.
After thinking a moment, I resolve myself and say “Taylor, get yourself to the medical room, get that wound seen to!”
“Wha…? Cap, it ain’t that bad! Gato’s going to try and convince me to get my scars regenned! He always does!”
“That is an order, Taylor! I will not have Terran wounds festering with Terran germs on my ship no matter how many decontamination fields are permanently active to keep you walking plague pits from infecting us! Also, to be frank, I agree with Dr. Gato… I know you think of your scars as, sort of, ‘trophies’ but…?”
He shakes his head “Not ‘trophies’, Cap, lessons!”
I resign myself to never fully understanding Terrans, for the five millionth time.
“Be that as it may, you are to have that wound treated and I don’t care how much you have to argue with Dr. Gato about the merits of retaining scartissue. Maybe you’ll get one of the Shings… I’m sure they’d be delighted to hear your philosophy on scars as ‘lessons’! I have a furred granddaughter to council, apparently, so I shan’t be accompanying you. Zunberi, could you go with Taylor? Make sure he doesn’t faint on the way?”
Zunberi doesn’t get to answer as Taylor says “Wait? You’re going now!?”
I nod “Now is the moment! If I have to turn this ship around and start heading back to a’Teksia 3, I’d prefer to know sooner than later!”
“Then I should go with you!” he says, insistently.
“No… you shouldn’t! She’s made it quite clear that she doesn’t want to see you right now!” I gesture at his wound “And I’m quite sure that even you wouldn’t be able to do anything in the [0.2 seconds] it would take her to squash me flat, if she wanted to. Whatever these behavioural changes are, I’ve seen enough of her to know that she wouldn’t ask for me to do me harm! I’ll go in alone.” I state with more confidence than I feel.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
He’s still unconvinced so I concede “Arran and Tuun can wait outside the door… if I need help, they can be in there as fast as lightning… do you trust them to keep me as safe as you could?”
Taylor looks at his subordinates before saying “I trust them completely… I guess I’ll see myself to the medical room… or Mage will see me to the medical room. Is that alright Mage?”
Zunberi smiles “Of course, my friend!” and, after only a moment’s more hesitation, the two men leave side by side.
My hearts sink slightly at the task before me.
Turning to my SO and ASO, I say “Shall we?”
Dhawan and Hasiakh stand as well… Well Hasiakh less stands and more raises her upper portion from her coiled tail to put her head at about the height of Dhawan. They take eachother’s hands.
“We’ll come too, I know I’m a cook and she’s a prison guard but if Fluffy needs to be held back it might take more than two!” says Dhawan, his partner nodding at his side. Interesting how much faster than most she’s picked up Terran mannerisms. Is that because she’s sharing their living space or because she’s a roughworlder?
With a mirthful exhale, I say “If you two want a raise next Subcycle… I might be amenable(!)”
They laugh.
We head out of the Commonroom and down the hall to where Sam stands guard outside Taylor’s door.
“He’ll want to smell you, Captain.” says Arran “He’s been smelling all of us when we take our turn on guard. He’s checking that we are ourselves and that we don’t smell like hostility.”
My mind boggles at the facts that Terran canines have the ability to detect the odour of hostility, the intelligence/ wariness to use that ability on trusted friends and the fact that Terrans ever domesticated an animal like that.
“Why exactly did you take up guard shifts outside the room of an aggressive mirkbeast mother? Isn’t she her own guard?”
Arran chuckles “We weren’t really guarding her we were guarding anyone, who might be stupid enough to blunder into Triple M and start opening doors, from her!”
That deathworld caution!
As I approach, Sam splays his front legs in a posture of readiness. I’m reminded that, as much as he is a loving, friendly, sweet creature, he’s every bit as much of a deathworld predator as the one in the room he’s guarding.
I extend my wing to his nose and he sniffs it.
“Happy smelling!” he proclaims, satisfied and incorrect. I’m definitely not happy but I’m guessing that was him giving the all clear.
“Thank you, Sam.” I say, before turning to the door and gesturing for it to open.
I walk into the halflit room and see a giant mass of infrared, curled into a crescent, with eight much smaller masses nestled into it.
Rendered into R’qali, a husky voice addresses me
“Not changing [horizon]!”
My translator is not able to give me a clarification on the word that it has flagged as being inexact. I have to think…
Of course… she’s from an eyeball world. She lived her entire life in the narrow band between deathly cold night and scorching hot day, before being adopted. Venturing in the direction of one horizon would increase the brightness, the other would decrease it. She’s asking me not to change the lighting!
“I won’t… Fluffy… I’m told you asked for me?” I say cautiously approaching her head.
“Yes… Not danger being… but respecting… safe talking both…”
Confused, I ask “Both?”
She clarifies “You not danger. Can’t harming babies, even if wanting. You not danger being… not [overcome] being me. Safe being both.”
Another unclarified inexactitude!
I think…
Instinct? Some sort of instinct of parental protectiveness?
“Fluffy… can you control yourself when you are ‘overcome’?”
She chuffs in seeming irritation “No! That what ‘[overcome]’ meaning!”
I did not expect to receive a semantics lesson from a semisapient when I woke up this morning!
“You said you respected me? Taylor… your daddy tells me you called me ‘grandmother’?”
“Yes. Feather Grandmother so [weak-strong]!” I’m going to get a headache with all the discernment I’m being forced to do.
Weak-strong?
“You mean my body is weak… but you think I’m strong… in other ways?” is this another example of a deathworlder perceiving me to have the ‘spirit of a deathworlder’?
She shakes her head, Terran mannerisms are so mimetic that they even spread to semisapients!
“Not thinking! Knowing! Seeing!!! Brave being! Only [weak] seeing since living in [star cave]! Excepting [weak-cute] for licking.”
I laugh “You know you really scared Hamtonio? He thought you were sampling him… He was certain that the last thing he would ever see was the inside of your mouth!”
She gives a deep laughing purr-growl “Sorry being. Too cute! Needing licking. [Overcome]!”
I step forward an cautiously place my wingclaws on either side of her nose… at this distance there will be nothing the Triple Ms can do… I really hope my trust is well placed.
“Fluffy… I know you think I’m a grandmother but… the truth is… I’m not even a mother yet… though, I will be soon… if you’re looking for advice on motherhood, I can’t give you the benefit of any experience…”
She shakes her head, again, and the raw power of her body is made evident through my wings. I’m almost pulled off my feet.
“Not true! Daddy’s Mother being! Also aunties’ and uncles’ Mother being! Them not knowing long… already trusting you! Already loving you! You wanting happy for them! You getting angry when we stupid being! Kinchild not having… but Mother being… and Grandmother to me and smol cousin! My kin lonely being! Not understanding loving and kind until Daddy, and Grandmother, meeting!”
Another thing I didn’t expect to be told today.
I’m touched.
“Alright… Fluffy… we have a lot to talk about… why don’t we start with your questions for me, then, your daddy, aunties and uncles have some that they want me to ask you…?”
---later---
I walk through the door to the medical room.
Dr. Gato is sat at his desk, seemingly perusing medical files of the crew.
“If you’re looking for the ‘scarred wonder’ with his latest addition, he’s in the last bed, the Shings are seeing to him… I’m certain he’ll be more scar than man by the time he’s a couple of centuries old… if he survives that long!” he says without looking up.
“Thank you, Gato.” I say, warmly. It might not sound like it but that was about as cordial an address as he ever usually gives. For him, that was the equivalent of a friendly greeting. It used to bother me… it doesn’t anymore, for some reason.
I round the corner and see the line of empty ward beds, the one designed for Terrans is occupied.
Beside it stands Zunberi and, next to him, Drs. Shing, Nahn and Nou; The Terran Specialists I hired the last time we stopped for repairs. It was Zunberi who located them… I wonder if his recruitment method was similar to what I now know Dhawan’s to have been, for Hasiakh… he has been visiting their private living quarters in their offtime for ‘scans’ and ‘interviews’ a lot!... Wait stop! That’s not my business unless they choose to tell me. I can’t be filling my head with speculation about potential gossip… no matter how [juicy] that gossip would be!
I draw closer and can see that Taylor is shirtless, his wound is healed and he is animatedly explaining the origin of his many scars that he is keeping as mementos of, seemingly, the times he failed…
The [1.4m] Fulgensians are listening with rapt attention, their furry red and white tails twitching in reaction to the story. It’s so fortunate that we managed to find two doctors with such an expertise on and passion for Terrans so far from Terran Space.
I draw close and say “…Excuse me, Drs. Shing?” a little above my normal volume, to catch their attention.
They both jump, Zunberi turns his head in surprise but gives no indication that he feels at all disconcerted, Taylor smiles and says “Hey, Cap!” of course he noticed me approach but managed to keep from making that apparent!
“Captain. It’s a pleasure to see you, what can we do for you?” asks Nou, in her throaty voice.
It’s so nice to barely have to look up in order to address Fulgensians! I think I may have a mild repetitive strain injury from spending so much time conversing with nonR’qali who tower over me!
“I was wondering if you might excuse us… I have some things I need to discuss with my CSS…?”
Drs. Shing look at eachother before Nahn responds “Of course, Captain.” in his high, comely voice.
“Zunberi, you can stay if you want or you can have it from Taylor later and go back to Triple M or with Drs. Shing for one of your… sessions?”
He smiles and says “I’m sure Cuddles will fill me in… I’ll go with Nahn and Nou… thank you, Captain.”
I watch as the three of them walk away.
Zunberi puts an arm around a shoulder of each Shing and pulls their shoulders to rest against his hips… gossip confirmed… not that I’ll bring it up.
Once the three of them are gone, I turn to Taylor.
“So… what did she say… Cap…?” he asks with quiet, pleading desperation.
I respond “Well… bearing in mind that… she’s only got about as much articulation as Sam… and I don’t have a Terran’s praeternatural ability to almost always produce the correct inference(!)…”
He chuckles.
“I think she told me that she’s extremely sorry for hurting you… it seems that motherhood has induced an uncontrollable protective instinct in her and… she can’t control herself from lashing out at beings she perceives could harm her young… she asked for me because… evidently… her subconscious doesn’t perceive me as a potential threat...”
I pause here but he doesn’t interrupt. Just keeps fixing those baleful green eyes on me, begging me to continue.
“…she doesn’t know how long she needs to suckle them or how long her instincts will be in overdrive… she doesn’t really have the same concept of time as you or I do… with no day and night cycle on her cradleworld, she had nothing to measure it by… She seems to have developed a time measuring system based on ‘Daddy sleeps’ since coming aboard the ‘star cave’ but she’s also a first time mother… and she confirmed that her species is solitary. She has no inclination on how many Daddy sleeps it would be, as she has no memory of her own mother nor familiarity of other mirkbeasts’ postnatal experience…”
“And… Cap…? What did… she say… about…?” his eyes now overflow and tears stream down his cheeks.
“…She has agreed… to give them to Zunberi’s sister… she says that her instincts tell her that they won’t be able to cohabit for long, with eachother, and that them being given loving homes… like you’ve given her would make her the happiest… I’m on my way to plot a course to Zanzibar Mpya after this.”
He closes his eyes and smiles through his, still streaming, tears, leaning his head back against his pillow.
“Thank you… Cap! And… fuck… I’m sorry… that’ll take us weeks out of our way! I’m really edging you closer and closer to the red aren’t I!?”
“Actually Victor… I might need to return the ship to Terran space anyway, this might just be… ‘killing two birds with one stone’ as you Terrans so brutally put it(!)”
I laugh as he winces apologetically for the unfortunate phrasing of the idiom from his language. Interesting that he’s apologetic, given the bird here was the one who said it!
He frowns and opens his eyes “Why would we have to go to Terran space? I heard nothin’ about this…”
“Ah… well that would be because I was already on my way down to Triple M to tell you about it, and ask why I had barely seen any of you for the last ten diurnals, when I got your com!”
He winces “Sorry again.”
“There’s someone we might need to pick up for a contract the GU has just offered us… I’ll tell you about it in the morning… get some rest, either here or in Triple M, you look [haggard]!”
Terrans are the only species, to my knowledge, who are capable of stressing to the extent that it visibly affects their health!
“Alright, Cap… me and Tuun’ll just have to speculate all night about the nature o’ this contract(!)” he says, getting up.
He begins walking off and I call out “Victor… there was one more thing Fluffy wanted me to let you know…”
He stops and turns back to face me, his eyebrows raised.
“She wanted me to tell you… that she loves you… and… to thank you for sharing your home with her…”
His tears return.