Expeditions, Estimation, and Other Dangerous Pastimes: Chapter Seven (Patreon)

Ondry watched Liam walk, his legs slightly wider than usual. Ondry wished that Liam did not feel the need to hide his pain, but Ondry understood that Liam wished to spare them embarrassment. And Ondry recognized the irony that Liam’s attempt to protect Ondry only made Ondry feel worse. He deserved to suffer some public shame. 

His palteia hurt and was investing effort into trying to pretend he didn’t—all because Ondry had overindulged in the use of Liam’s body. If Ondry had not focused so much on the pleasure of feeling Liam’s body respond, he would have seen that his palteia was distressed.

Sometimes Ondry questioned the wisdom of the Grandmothers in awarding him the title of tuk. This was the sort of mistake a tuk-ranked individual would not make. They would be more aware of their surroundings.

“Hey, Duke!” Liam called out when they walked into the temple. The dog came running over, his toenails clicking against the floor. Ondry moved closer, but he did not intervene when Liam bent over to wrap his arms around the dog’s head. Ondry understood the symbiotic relationship between primitive humans and early dogs, but he still feared that an individual animal could pose a risk.

Despite Liam’s faith in Duke, Ondry had looked up the statistics on dogs, and a number of animals that lived in close contact with humans attacked those humans with little reason. Ondry had read hundreds of reports where a simple change in routine or family dynamics led a formerly docile animal to attack. Duke had been taken from his planet and brought to a Rownt ship with unfamiliar smells. That seemed like a significant stressor.

However, Liam put faith in the animal’s nature, and Ondry would not disrespect Liam by questioning his judgment. He would, however, worry every time the animal was too near. He worried more now because Liam moved slowly. He would be slow to defend himself, and Ondry bore the guilt of that failure.

“Good feelings to you this morning,” Mora said as he came across the floor. Ondry noticed that Mora always moved to greet them, even when doing so interrupted his work. Even now, he had abandoned his computer on the seat near one of the younger Grandmothers.

“May the sun, whichever sun we’re near, bring opportunities,” Liam said. He gave the dog one final hug and then stood. “How are you settling in?”

Liam’s question made little sense to Ondry since Mora had been on the Calti during the trip to Earth. The dog had not yet seen the Calti since he had lived on the much smaller shuttle, the Li, while Mora visited his genetic relatives, but Mora had already settled on this ship.

“I rejected most the goods my parents encouraged, but I have gratitude to clothing that doesn’t have my name sewn on it,” Mora said with a human smile—teeth showing.

“I don’t miss uniforms,” Liam said in English. Ondry knew the word uniform—it referred to sameness, but he did not understand it in this context. He would look that word up later, especially since Liam tended to revert back to English only when he wished to discuss an idea that had no Rownt equivalent. “But the military did give us the opportunity to explore the universe and meet the Rownt.”

Mora looked over toward the eldest Grandmother. “I am having gratitude for that. I still feel disbelief over the situation. I explore space and keep my dog with me.” He switched to English. “I keep remembering my grandfather telling me that I couldn’t have my cake and eat it too. It’s like the universe gave me the perfect way to do exactly that. The Grandmother says we’ll be in Imshee space in four days, but the ship needs to use sensors or probes to measure something. I’m a pilot, but I am definitely not understanding the Rownt logic behind space flight controls.”

Liam headed for a bench. When he sat, there was a flicker of pain on his face, and guilt pulled at Ondry. “Command trained me to carry a gun and shoot at things. And then they trained me to trade Rownt greetings. I wouldn’t understand flight controls unless they had big arrows with idiot proof explanations,” Liam said.

Mora followed him, sitting so close to Liam that a Rownt might assume they were close allies or parent and child. “So you aren’t holding out with some technical translation manual?”

“Sorry, no,” Liam said with a laugh.

Ondry leaned against the wall and watched the exchange. Liam had expressed shock and amazement at the idea of folded space travel, but he said nothing to Mora. Secrecy would be a rational reaction from a Rownt. After all, information was the most valuable trade good in the universe. However, Ondry had expected Liam to act with a logic less compatible with Rownt ways of seeing the world.

“I’ll figure it out,” Mora said. He appeared to have given up on speaking Rownt. “After we visit Imshee space, the Grandmother says the ship will visit an asteroid where they have shuttles currently mining ore, and we’ll be there for a number of months as they service the mining stations and load metals. She said I can learn to pilot Rownt transports while we’re in-system.”

Ondry would need to find an excuse to meet the miners. It was possible that someone from the Tura Coalition would know one of the Calti miners. They could provide an introduction through remote messaging. After all, the higher Ondry’s status, the more the Tura Coalition stood to profit as Ondry took their goods farther in search of customers. If that failed, Ondry might ask Liam to request a ride from Mora. If Mora piloted transports, he would be working directly with the miners. 

“I could teach you how to pilot,” Mora offered. The statement rocked Ondry, and he saw a number of Grandmothers’ heads swivel around. One normally hid reactions when one listened to others’ conversations, but clearly even the Grandmothers were too shocked to react politely. Mora had offered to give away valuable skills. Were Liam a Rownt, he would have felt horror and anger as Mora spoke to him as one would a child—and a child too young to learn to steal meat for himself. It was unforgiveable. However, Ondry tried to keep his nostrils open and remain calm.  Human reactions were not Rownt, and Ondry could read the pleasure in the tilt of Liam’s body and the curve of his lips.

Liam held up his hands. “Oh no. I like to pretend I have my feet on a planet. I imagine that if I walk out a door I’ll see sunshine, not dark space. Piloting would shatter that illusion.”

Mora laughed. “Lots of people feel that way. I’m the exact opposite. When I found out that my injury was going to keep me from piloting, I felt like I was trapped on the planet. Linguistic studies was my way of trying to get back into space. So, what are these Imshee like?”

Liam looked over at Ondry. When Ondry didn’t say anything, Liam asked, “I’ve never met one, so what are Imshee like?”

Ondry pushed away from the wall and moved over to the humans so he wouldn’t have to raise his voice. He might respect the Grandmothers, but he did not have to provide them with information for free, and that included speaking loudly enough that the Grandmothers could hear the conversation. These wily old women knew they could learn more from Mora and Liam’s interactions than they could from speaking to either individually. Ondry felt no need to make that process easier. “Imshee are like Imshee,” Ondry said.

“That was predictably literal,” Liam said with a smile.

“I phrased my question poorly,” Mora said in heavily accented Rownt. “What traits do Imshee possess?” Mora slid off the bench and to the floor to embrace the dog. The animal flopped over and rested his oversize head on Mora’s thigh before putting two paws on Mora’s chest. Ondry relaxed some to see the dog take a subservient position from which he could not defend himself, but then Mora leaned down rubbed the animal’s stomach, his neck exposed.

Ondry was distracted by the eldest Grandmother who had left her computer to come closer. Her eyes were wide with confusion. Ondry felt sympathy, which was an emotion he had never before associated with Grandmothers. He wished he knew how to explain to the Grandmother why her palteia would turn to a canine for affection or Ondry for information, but he could not. Ondry had never suffered such illogic with Liam. Liam had always turned to Ondry, even in the early days of their relationship when he couldn’t choose a personal pronoun without mangling his sentences.

“I know they're somehow insectoid,” Liam said, his attention still on the Imshee.

Mora gave a shiver.

The Grandmother’s gaze focused on Mora. “Are you unwell?” she asked.

“Our species has an instinctive urge to avoid insectoids," Liam explained, but the Grandmother still moved to a spot close to her palteia.

“Why?” she asked Liam.

Liam looked to Mora for the explanation. In other circumstances, Ondry would have enjoyed some humor by pointing out that humans were so complex that even humans could not explain them. However, with Liam still moving slowly, Ondry found less humor in pointing out the faults of others.

Mora shrugged and answered in English. “It could be because they have spread diseases on our planet.”

“All creatures, including both Rownt and humans, spread disease,” the Grandmother said. While it was a factual statement, Ondry could hear the slight edge of disapproval in her tone.

Liam’s expression turned stubborn. Ondry couldn’t even explain the exact muscle configuration that led him to that conclusion, but when Liam decided to remain firm in a stance even though the facts contradicted his logic, he had a certain countenance.

"Yes, but insects are difficult to control and will attack us without us even seeing them. It is a race trait,” Liam said.

The Grandmother paled slightly and looked at her own palteia. “Do all humans dislike insects?”

Mora shrugged. “The ones who don't risk being seen as weird and socially undesirable."

Liam made a mouth noise that indicated that he found the statement too obvious to bear repeating.

“Is it only the class Hexapoda you find objectionable, or do you dislike all creatures within the phylum of Arthropoda?” The Grandmother asked. Ondry didn’t know either of those terms because he had focused on the psychology of consumption and that of bondage. He had not yet broadened his studies out to Earth biology. He now regretted that oversight.

Liam looked to Mora.

Mora shrugged. "I'm okay with crabs and lobsters, but there are a lot of creatures in that phylum that give me nightmares."

"They cause that much distress?" 

Ondry indulged in a quick fantasy of going to Earth and eliminating these species. Of course doing so would be illogical and would likely unbalance the ecology, but given that the Grandmother had lost a little color, Ondry assumed he was not the only one indulging in some insecticidal fantasies. Given the facial expressions Liam was making, he might not object. As if reading his mind, Liam gave Ondry an amused look.

“I can’t believe I have to defend bugs’ honor,” Liam’s said, “but it’s common among humans to say something causes nightmares because we dislike it. It does not imply that we suffer actual nightmares."

The color returned to the Grandmother's face and hands. “The use of exaggeration is well established by human literature. It crosses many cultures.”

“Yes,” Mora said in Rownt. He paused. Liam continued to look at him, so Mora was putting off some body language to signal he was not yet finished speaking. Ondry just wished he knew the man’s mannerisms well enough to understand what he might be thinking. After several minutes, Mora said in English, “One of the reasons humans have accepted Rownt so easily is because you remind us of local creatures—ones which we associate with positive traits like longevity and persistence.”

“Turtles,” the Grandmother said. Once again, Ondry was at a disadvantage because of his lack of research into what he had thought, up until this moment, an unimportant aspect of human psychology. More and more, Ondry questioned his ability to be tuk-ranked because he failed to anticipate moves that the much older Grandmothers appeared to navigate with little difficulty.

“Yes,” Liam said. “That’s why the humans were so willing to crowd close to Ondry. They see how powerful he is, but they are reminded of a turtle.”

The Grandmother appeared to take a few moments to consider that answer before she asked, “Do all human cultures respect turtles?”

Liam’s eyes got large, and he turned to Mora again. Mora sat up and then braced himself on the bench and pulled himself back onto it where he sat beside Liam. “Many do,” he said. “Some cultures eat turtles, and other nations will often penalize that behavior because turtles have trouble reproducing because their habitat has been developed. A few cultures have negative associations, such as Asian cultures that use them as a symbol for promiscuity and will insult each other by saying they are the child of a turtle.”

The Grandmother whistled. “I believe many humans would describe us as promiscuous because of our lack of pair bonding and serial monogamy. However, I have seen only limited and flawed data to support the idea of humans possessing either. And they appear to use sexual behaviors in far more settings than Rownt.”

“True,” Mora said. “Sex can be for any purpose from reestablishing emotional connection to stress relief to procreation.”

“Or power,” Liam added softly.

The Grandmother shifted subtly closer. “Do your turtles undergo the rotilac?” 

Ondry drew a quick breath, startled by the Grandmother’s question. She had expressed her preference for Ondry to undergo the process, and he had expressed his preference to avoid it. If the Grandmother was asking about the rotilac, the issue was less settled than Ondry would prefer.

“What is rotilac?” Mora asked. He looked from his Grandmother to Liam.

Liam held out his hands. “Don’t ask me. I haven’t heard of it.”

Ondry might have attempted to put the discussion off until another time, one where he would not be put in the position of sharing the color of his nest’s pillows with the entire tuk ranked class standing around the temple. Apparently with the ship in transit, too few Rownt had tasks they could complete elsewhere. However, the Grandmother was too quick to answer.

“When a Rownt progresses faster in rank than age, they hibernate while their bodies undergo transformation that would be painful otherwise.”

“Transformation?” Liam stood and divided his attention between the Grandmother and Ondry.

“Growth,” she said. “A Rownt can choose to accelerate growth to ensure the physical body matches the rank.”

Liam blinked at her as though stunned.

“You can grow up faster?” Mora asked.

The Grandmother’s face grew tight with amusement. “One can never develop wisdom faster unless one makes enough mistakes that one learns to stop making them. However, a Rownt can grow the body. Height is a small task compared with maturity.” With a last look at Ondry, the Grandmother turned and left.

Liam’s body language subtly shifted.

“I should get back to my translation,” Mora said. “If I can’t get a better understanding of the underlying structure of Rownt flight commands, I’m never going to get to pilot my own ship again. Come on, Duke.” Mora headed back to his computer, his canine at his side. Ondry watched Liam.

“Let’s go for a walk,” Liam said. He stood, and Ondry suspected that the stiffness of Liam’s movements went beyond any physical discomfort.

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10