Orphan!Verse (Patreon)

You guys created this monster.  :P

Orphan!Verse from the Claimings Universe:

 Raelin requested, "What about the one where a Rownt gets custody of a human orphan?"  I wrote "Hope" featuring an Earth ship who had suffered a radiation leak. 

Madison McCart-Millner asked, "What about when the Rownt discover that orphanages are a thing?" and I came up with "Fear" with an old Grandmother contemplating just how badly they are all screwed.

- - - - 

Liam felt a small measure of pride that a Grandmother would show emotion in front of him, and the eldest of the Calti Grandmothers was certainly showing emotion. Her nostrils were shut tight and she was so pale that her skin matched Liam’s own. Outwardly she looked even more distressed than the Grandmothers from the Desga, but Liam suspected those Grandmothers had more motive to hide their reactions. Not only were they younger, and Liam had learned that with Rownt younger meant touchier about status, but Liam himself was another unknown factor in their world.

He didn’t envy them.  

The temple was uncomfortably silent. Even the two tuk ranked individuals who had chosen to stay decided this was a good time to be elsewhere, leaving only Liam and Ondry to represent the lower ranks.

“Are the younglings physically healthy?” the Grandmother asked.

“They are. The humans on the ship moved all of the children to their most shielded position while they attempted to fix the ship. None of the children are ill,” Liam said. At least the humans on the ship had proven that adults could think rationally from a Rownt perspective. After all the Grandmothers read the information on orphanages, humanity would need a few points in their favor.

She hauled herself to her feet and stood gently rocking for a second, as if she couldn’t find her balance. Then she turned and headed for the stairs. A few of the younger Grandmothers hurried up the stairs ahead of the eldest, but most of them waited for her to pass, following her up into the more private quarters where Grandmother’s debated.

Liam sighed and looked at the Aizen Myo-o secured in his alcove. Several of the Grandmothers considered the art a reminder of the contradictory nature of human logic. That seemed particularly appropriate now. “Ondry, I would like to speak to Zach alone.”

Ondry widened his eyes. Liam would have to explain later, but right now he needed to have an honest conversation with the other human on the ship, and Zach still tried to give answers the Rownt wanted instead of saying what he felt. When Liam glanced over toward Zach, the muscles around Ondry’s eyes relaxed and he left the temple without another word.

Ondry’s willingness to set aside his own curiosity and honor Liam’s request still made Liam tingle inside. He’d had plenty of partners claim to love him, and most of those had then hurt him. Ondry was the first who respected him enough to listen. Now that Liam knew what love felt like, he had trouble believing the lies he’d fallen for as a young man. He was worlds away from the idiot kid who had once believed Mort’s sweet words.

Zach abandoned the bench on the far side of the temple the second Ondry left the room.  “I really regret sending them those details about orphanages,” he said softly. “This is why Colonels or above are supposed to make the hard decisions about what information to provide an alien species.”

Sometimes Liam was still shocked at how Earth-centric Zach was. Despite the fact that he'd been on the Calti for almost a year, he still fell back on military training and thinking. It wasn't that Liam didn't understand the problem. The statistics Zach had dug out of the sociology database from Earth were shocking, and Zach had not attempted to blunt the horror. However, Liam had more faith in the Grandmothers than he did Command and all their colonels combined.  “The Rownt need to know the whole truth. Otherwise, their assumptions could be dangerous.”

Zach’s expression turned stubborn. “Those statistics shocked me. I had no idea so many children were hurt like that. It makes humans look like psychopaths.” Zach grimaced, and Liam curtain almost see the thought bubble over Zach's head. Liam might not have been an orphan, but he had been hurt like that. That was a history Liam wouldn't wish on anyone, but he had also survived it. “The Grandmothers are even more shocked, but can you imagine what would happen if we wrongly told them the children would be safe? If they drop those kids off on the nearest human planet, and then find out the kids were hurt, what will happen?”

“They’d turn on us,” Zach admitted.

Liam had no idea if by “us” Zach was talking about humans or the Rownt on the Calti, but the answer would be the same in either case. “Yes. They would lose their collective Rownt minds.”

Zach leaned closer. “So what are we going to do?”

“The first thing we need to do is reassure the children that they’re safe,” Liam said. This was the part he hadn’t wanted any Rownt to hear. “They’re scared and being surrounded by giants is making it worse.” Liam kept his voice down and prayed no Rownt were eavesdropping. He wasn’t sure how they would react to being the source of a child’s fear. “I’m hoping you'll come over with Duke. The oldest boy was very excited about the idea of seeing an Earth dog.”

“So they're not from Earth?”

“Maybe. He might have been too young to form memories when they left. Then again, there are a lot of generational ships and colonies and bootleg habitats floating around this part of the universe. Space has not been the barrier humans once assumed. So those kids could be from an Earth aligned ship, from one of the colonies, or from Ribelo. They could be from a pirate ship or one of the religious breakaways habitats.”

Zach asked, “Will the Grandmothers care where they’re from?”

For every time Zach's lack of insight surprised Liam, he turned around and surprised Liam with his ability to see through to the heart of the problem. “Not even a little. They're going to want the children somewhere safe, and they are not going to care about the political affiliations of the adults involved.” Earth had declared war on the Anla home planet over the kidnapping of children, but Rownt wouldn't care about that.

“Could they keep them?”

Liam sank down onto one of the benches scattered around the temple. “I don't know. Our Grandmothers are old and cautious. These Grandmothers are young. There's only one that's large enough to stand with our Grandmothers, and they’re upset. They’re trying to hide it, but there are narrowing noses and twitching tales all over the damn ship.” If Liam tried explaining kidnapping and human reactions to the idea of Rownt keeping children, they wouldn’t care.

“Maybe we shouldn't tell Earth.” Zach's expression was stricken as he sank down next to Liam, but at least he was willing to consider the possibility. 

“It might be safest. Part of that is going to depend on whether we can convince them that children need to have a connection with human adults. If we can't, it might be best if Earth just doesn't know about this ship. They're already aware of the fact that Rownt are highly concerned that human children and palteia are at risk and that they’ll do anything to protect either. So it's not like we would be hiding material facts from Command.”

“No, we’d just be helping the Rownt kidnap children,” Zach said. Liam opened his mouth to protest, but Zach raised his hand. “No, I get it. I'm the one who pulled together those statistics on orphanages, so I can't blame the Rownt for not trusting the government to have children's best interest at heart. And with the war, there are just so damn many orphans.”

“I know. When I was fighting, I was so in the middle of the violence that I didn't see the bigger picture,” Liam admitted. He still felt bad about the fact he had never given any thought about the human beings he fired weapons toward. He could only hope he’d never hit one. “All I cared about was surviving one more day of no man's land or of passing one more test to try and get my linguistic certification. Everything outside that was background noise. And now that I've had a chance to step back and look at some of those bigger pieces, I know how limited my morality was. When these Grandmothers look at me for answers, I don't know what to say.”

“Is it strange they would ask you for answers? I've noticed that the Grandmothers do a lot of listening, but not a lot of asking.”

Liam shrugged. “Shows you how upset they are.” He suspected they had their own guilt about not answering that call for help earlier.”

“We should ask my Grandmother to go over.” Zach stood, like he was going to go ask her right now.

Liam caught his arm. “We can't!”

Zach dropped back down onto the bench. “Why not? With children in danger, she would drop everything.”

“Of course she would.” Liam never doubted that. Hell, after meeting Liam, she had changed the Calti's course and postponed all of her trade missions just to make sure that palteia on Earth weren't in need of evacuation. “The problem is that Grandmothers don't enter each other's territory.”

“These are extenuating circumstances.”

“I understand that. And those Grandmothers are bending to allow you to come over. You have the status of your Grandmother, but because you're a palteia and a human, they’re inviting not only you but an unknown alien predator to come onto the ship.” Liam didn’t see Duke that way, but he was fairly sure the Grandmothers on the Desga did. He remembered how Ondry had reacted when he learned the Grandmothers were allowing a dog on the ship.  “They’re bending as far as they can without breaking their own backs. But if your Grandmother goes over there it's going to put far too much strain on everyone.”

“What you mean?”

Liam wasn't even sure where to start. By the time he started a relationship with Ondry, he had read so many storyscrolls that Rownt psychology was all there, waiting for that one keystone that would make all the pieces fit together. But with Zach, he tried to understand Rownt rationally, through explanations. Sometimes Zach suspected that Liam would develop faster if he would stop doing the linguistic work of a Grandmother and lock himself in his room with a stack of storyscrolls. But it wasn't Liam’s place to say that. “I want you to imagine that instead of being two spaceships that we were two towns that stood a short distance from each other, and one town encountered a situation that was so stressful and difficult that they had to ask someone else for help when that is antithetical to anything in Rownt psychology.”

Zach nodded. “So the Rownt in the first town would be under a lot of stress. And the Rownt to the second town could choose to ignore the request, but if kids involved, they won’t.”

“Exactly. The Calti can't fly away knowing that children are in trouble, even if it’s just psychological danger at this point. So Grandmothers feel the need to get involved, but they can't get too involved.”

Zach frowned. “I see a moral coming to the story.”

“I don't of it’s a moral, but it's a potential outcome. There are number of storyscrolls that talk about what happens when a town is under so much stress that even the Grandmothers can't chart an ethical course. That’s a favorite in Rownt literature.”

“And?”

“As tuk and ka-ranked individuals travel to other towns that are more settled and that feel less conflicted, they may choose to just settle there.”

Zach tilted his head, and Liam could practically hear the gears turning. If these were two towns, the situation would be easier to resolve, but probably not any less messy. “Ship-Rownt can't travel that way.”

“No, they can't,” Liam said, “but a shuttle between our two ships is a pathway that they could walk. And if those lower-ranked Rownt saw a large, old, settled Grandmother walking that path—”

“They’d be tempted to follow her,” Zach finished. “If too many of the crew decide to abandon the Degsa, the ship could flounder.”

“And there wouldn't be room for all of them here,” Liam said. In storyscrolls, the chaos of a town collapse often gave the hero a chance to shine; however, that made a good story because most Rownt caught in that sort of social upheaval struggled. Rownt were not built for change. “Most of the Rownt would lose some status. And that's why some of the Rownt, including the Grandmothers, would never come over here.”

A slow horror crossed Zach’s face. “But if there aren't enough people to run the ship, the systems would fail. The ship would die.”

“And some of the Rownt would choose to die with it,” Liam said coldly. He needed Zach to understand this. “If you invite your Grandmother to get involved, she might think she has to go in order to protect the children.”

Zach rubbed his face. “Fuck. If she does, Rownt could die.”

“They will die; I just don’t know how many,” Liam corrected him. “Rownt don't handle change or stress well.”

“No joke. So what are we supposed to do about this?”

That was the problem. Liam still wasn’t sure what they should do. Because he had suffered emotional and sexual abuse, Liam loathed the idea of turning them over to a system where, statistically, at least some would suffer the same. No child should have to endure that sort of trauma. But humans had already declared war over one set of kidnapped children, and Liam doubted anyone back home would appreciate the different motives in this case. So all they could do was focus on the immediate problem. “Comfort the children. Distract them with a pretty dog. Give the Desga Grandmother lots of options so she can make an ethical choice. Beyond that, I don’t know. I'm making this up as I go.”

For a time they say in silence. Liam suspected the Grandmothers in the upper level of the temple were equally at a loss. Rownt children were orphaned. If Ondry hadn’t been so precocious, he might have still be in his mother’s home when she was killed while traveling between towns. However, mass numbers of orphans was less common.

Eventually Zach asked, “Do you think officers who got their promotions the traditional way ever feel this useless?”

“Maybe? I don't know.” Liam thought back to his days on Landing when the sound of weapons’ fire and bombs punctuated his nights. At the time he’d thought the officers were calm, self-assured. Powerful. Now he suspected only one of those three was accurate. Maybe they were just in the same spot Liam was in now—facing a situation with no good outcome and moving forward only because there wasn’t any other choice.